by Kim Wilkins
Which she did. About her grandmother the witch, the local Reverend coming to visit, the gardener who told her to beware the tight-knit religious community, her new cat, the view out along the cliff-tops and the vast Solgreve cemetery.
“And are you happy,” he asked, “or are you homesick?”
“A bit of both. But I’m not coming home. I’m going to tough it out.”
“I know. You can’t let Janet think she’s won.”
“I’m not just here to piss my mother off, Adrian. I’m not that shallow.”
“Sorry.” He changed ears. “Anyway, there wouldn’t be much point in your coming home just yet. The tour starts next Wednesday, and I’ll be gone until January.”
“You’ll have a wonderful time.”
“I’m sure I will.” There was nothing he loved more than performing in front of an audience, travelling from place to place, being treated like somebody important. Which was the case more and more since the Otello incident.
“I have other news,” he said. “First, the Sydney Morning Herald are interviewing me for the cover of their Good Weekend magazine.”
“Oh, Adrian! That’s fantastic. Make sure you send me a copy.”
“There’s more. Churchwheel’s want me.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Not kidding.” Churchwheel’s was the most prestigious opera company in the country, a privately run organisation which toured throughout Australasia and quite often beyond. “I’m looking over the contracts at the moment. I’ll probably be signing up to start with them in February. Can you believe it?”
“Of course I can believe it,” Maisie said. “You’re the best. God, I wish I was there so I could give you a hug. You’re so far away.”
“Too far.” He sighed and rolled over, looked at the picture of them together at her Bachelor of Music graduation three years ago. Her hair had still been long then, all wild black ringlets. He had almost wept the day she cut it all off. “It’s all a bit flat without you here.”
“If you’re joining Churchwheel’s, we’d better get used to being apart.”
“I suppose. Though I could put in a good word for you. Who knows, the next time they need a cellist…”
“I don’t want to think about that now. Perhaps I’ll have a change of career when I come back.”
“But what would you do?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m here figuring out. I’m supposed to be finding myself.” She yawned. “Though I haven’t the faintest idea where to start looking.”
“I should let you go back to sleep,” he said gently.
“I miss you so much,” she said.
“Me too. Want me to call again tomorrow?”
“Would you? Would you call every day until you go away?”
“Sure,” he said. “I love you, Maisie.”
“I love you too. Bye.”
The phone clicked. He hung up and lay back, looking at the ceiling and daydreaming of crowded concert halls.
“We’re a special community,” Constable Tony Blake was saying to Lester Baines as they leaned against the boot of his car. “We have special needs.”
The Reverend hurried up to them. He had expected to arrive first, but it was taking him longer and longer to get out of bed and dressed at this time of night. It frightened him a little, because it made him aware of how old he grew. He hated being outside in this weather: the black sky, the black icy wind coming off the sea, and the distinctive emptiness of three a.m. lying over the streets.
“Tony,” the Reverend said in what he hoped was a stern voice.
“Reverend,” Tony replied, stepping back from Lester and looking chastened. He was under orders not to get into conversation with the crook. Lester asked so many questions, and the Reverend knew Lester had the kind of mind which could figure things out eventually, given enough snippets of information.
The Reverend turned to Lester. “This is very quick work.”
“I got a call just after I’d seen you. This one’s from Manchester.”
“Well, let’s get him to his final destination, shall we?”
“Her. It’s a lady.”
The Reverend nodded, hoping his distaste wasn’t apparent. A lady. He didn’t like it when the bodies were female. A male body was generic, such a known quantity that he did not think about identity. But a female body was a mystery, full of variables. It made him wonder who she had been.
Lester opened the boot of his car. She was in a bag, but the Reverend could still make out the mounds of her breasts as he peered over the top of the open boot. “You two get her to the door of the abbey. I’ll have to take her the rest of the way.”
Tony and Lester took an end of the corpse each and lifted simultaneously. It was a sight to make a social worker smile, the crook and the police constable working in such happy co-operation. The Reverend followed as his two assistants carried the body to the iron door which was inset into the remains of one of the abbey spires. It led down into the foundations.
He pulled out his keys and unlocked the door, and Tony and Lester took the body in and laid it by the rusty trapdoor. They helped the Reverend to get the trapdoor up, and then turned to observe him expectantly, and, in Lester’s case, curiously.
“Do you put them down there because it’s cold?” Lester asked, even though he’d asked exactly the same question a dozen times before and never got an answer.
The Reverend ignored the question. “Thank you for your help.”
“Can you manage alone?” Tony asked, sizing up the body against the Reverend’s tiny frame. Clearly the Reverend’s conviction that he was growing old was shared by his colleague.
“Yes. I have to. Tony, pay Mr Baines what he’s due.”
Tony reached inside his overcoat and pulled out a roll of money. They were sheltered enough from the wind for him to count it out without it blowing away.
“And you did this with the utmost discretion?” the Reverend couldn’t help asking nervously.
“Of course, Rev,” Lester replied, “and anyway she’s just some junkie or teenage runaway. They probably won’t even notice for a week.”
A young girl. Even worse. The Reverend nodded. “Both of you may go now. The next part I have to do alone.”
Lester blew on his hands and rubbed them together. “I’ll gladly get out of this cold. Give me a call when you need me again, yeah?”
“Yes.” The Reverend watched the crook get into his car and start to back down the laneway.
Tony turned to him. “Are you sure you’re okay with that? I’m certain it wouldn’t matter if I helped you get it down the stairs.”
The Reverend looked at the black girl-shaped bag on the ground. “No. I’m not so infirm that I can’t drag it behind me. She won’t feel a thing now in any case.”
Tony nodded and hurried off towards his police car. The Reverend waited until he heard the car engine start, then locked the trapdoor behind him. He descended the first few steps, then turned to grab the bag around the feet. He felt a twinge of pain in his left shoulder, and wished he could have asked Tony to stay and help. But that couldn’t be. A certain procedure had been set out by a higher intelligence, and all he could do was obey.
Two good reasons to go into the village. First, the hallway was too narrow to store all those old clothes, plates, pots and pans. Second, she had eaten nothing but toast and canned soup since she arrived. Maisie dressed carefully and soberly. If what Sacha said was true and the villagers were religious looneys, she didn’t want to cause offence on her first visit. Third reason to go: she was desperately curious to see if he was right.
She let Tabby into the garden and locked the door behind her. Small patches of pale blue showed between the clouds above her, and she thought she could spy the sun about forty degrees off the horizon. Today she had remembered a scarf and gloves. Her breath made fog in front of her and the air felt slightly damp and salty on her lips. She followed the road from her grandmother’s house and onto th
e main street. She glanced at the cemetery from time to time as she walked alongside it, and at the shadowy old abbey looming beyond it – eerie even in daylight. She passed the bus stop and soon found herself in the heart of the village.
A row of connected brick houses – they looked to be hundreds of years old – lined the cobbled alleys. Crooked drainpipes and wilting windowboxes shivered under mossy tiles. Up ahead were some newer places, shoe-box shaped with red roofs. She passed under an archway and into the village proper. A small, family run grocery store stood next to a locked craft shop and picture-framing business. She knew the store was family run because the sign over the front door declared it proudly. She went in, took a small basket and picked up the essentials: fruit and vegetables, herbs, pasta, rice, some frozen fish fingers. It was a sad business shopping for one, knowing the food was going to be split into such small portions. On impulse she bought some fresh chicken breasts, in case she worked up the courage to invite Sacha over for dinner. At worst she could always freeze them. She took her groceries up to the counter.
“Hi,” she said, “do you deliver?”
The girl behind the counter – perhaps the teenage daughter of the owners – looked up from the magazine she was reading. “Sure. Dad can run them over to you straightaway,” she said in an almost-indecipherable northern accent. “Where are you staying?”
“Up in Sybill Hartley’s house on Saint Mary’s Lane.”
The girl looked surprised. “Have you bought the place?”
“No, I’ve inherited it. She was my grandmother.”
“Really?” The girl keyed in the prices and Maisie packed the groceries in plastic bags as they went through. “Will you be staying long?”
“I don’t know,” Maisie replied.
“You should think about going down to Whitby. Or to York. That’s where I went to school. There’s nothing much on offer here in Solgreve.” The girl fixed her with a direct, almost challenging, gaze. “That’s seventeen pounds and forty.”
Maisie paid her and waited for her change. First the Reverend and now the grocery store girl. Discouraging newcomers must be a local pastime. Was it a religious thing? Did Maisie look like a sinner?
“Is there a second-hand shop around here? Like an Oxfam or something?” Maisie said, tucking her purse away. “I have some old things I’d like to donate.”
“Celia Parker runs a second-hand place on the next corner to raise money for the church.” The girl turned away. “I’ll have Dad run these things over shortly.”
“If I’m not there just leave them at the door.” Maisie went back into the cold. About a block further on, after passing a second-hand bookshop, a bakery, and an off-license (they couldn’t be that fundamentalist if they had an off-license) she came to Celia Parker’s second-hand shop. A bell jingled over the door as she entered. A grey-haired woman was folding woollen clothes behind the counter. She glanced up as Maisie approached.
“Good morning.”
“Hi,” said Maisie. “Do you take donations? I have a whole bunch of clothes and stuff that I’d like to give to charity.”
Celia Parker removed her glasses and smiled warmly. “Oh, you’re Australian, are you? How delightful. I simply adore that accent. You know I watch Neighbours every night. I bet you miss the sunshine.”
“Actually, it’s a nice change to be here.” At last, friendliness. Maisie felt herself relax into a smile. “It gets a bit too hot back home.”
“In answer to your question, yes we do take donations. What we don’t sell here we sell on to a trader, and all the money goes towards the church. Well, most of it. Some of it goes to the upkeep of the shop.”
“And would you be able to come and pick it up? I don’t have a car and I live a little too far to carry it all.”
“You’re living in Solgreve?”
“Yes. For the time being.”
Celia Parker’s smile had dwindled around the corners, but she still affected friendliness. “Well, I can send my son-in-law over to pick the things up this afternoon if you like. You’ll have to give me the address.”
“The cottage on Saint Mary’s Lane at the top of the cliff.”
And then the smile was gone. “Sybill Hartley’s place?”
“She was my grandmother.”
Even the voice was vague now. “I see.”
“So, this afternoon? Somebody will come to collect the things?”
“Yes…ah…we’ll see what we can do.” She had her glasses back on and was inspecting a fluffy protrusion on a red cardigan. “Goodbye.”
Maisie had been dismissed: that back-at-school feeling, when the headmistress had finished cautioning her over chewing-gum or hem-length. It was as bewildering as it was annoying. The words “Sybill Hartley” seemed to trigger a weird, Solgreve-specific malaise. The bell over the door jingled again as she walked out into the street. Two greying women chatting on the corner gave her a curious glance. She had never felt more conspicuous in her life.
As she approached the cottage, she could see her grocery bags at the end of the pathway, outside the garden. Her first thought was that they were too lazy to take the bags all the way to the front door, but then a more disturbing thought occurred to her – perhaps they were too scared. Sybill’s house was, after all, a witch’s cottage. Exasperated, she picked up her bags, let herself into the house and went down to the kitchen to pack away the groceries. What on earth was there to be scared of? Her grandmother could hardly be dangerous, not now that she was dead.
“Ridiculous,” she said, slamming the freezer closed and scrunching an empty plastic bag between her hands. “Ridiculous superstition.”
She made tea and took it back to the lounge room. The bookcase by the fire was stuffed untidily with a variety of volumes. Dust-collecting statuettes and knick-knacks were crammed into corners, and a couple of dusty, antique-looking lanterns were lined up haphazardly on the top. Maisie took down a book about Yorkshire history and placed it on a small table near the fireplace. Following Sacha’s careful instructions, she soon had a fire crackling in the grate. She settled back in a comfortable chair with the book, and waited for the second-hand shop to come by for her grandmother’s things, absently picking at a ragged nail with her teeth.
Of course, they didn’t come. She knew they wouldn’t. At four o’clock, when long night-time shadows already grew along the street, she moved all the junk down to the laundry, stacking it as neatly as she could by the washing machine. Tabby sat there, watching out the window, tail flicking from side to side.
“What are you waiting for?” she asked, giving the cat a rub behind the ears.
Tabby’s eyes didn’t waver. She kept them fixed on the back garden. Maisie felt uneasy but refused to admit the feeling had any foundation. Cats were allowed to do strange things. Humans, on the other hand, had to think and behave consistently. She was returning to the lounge room when she thought she heard a car engine outside. So she had been wrong, they had come. She went to the window and looked out to see a battered blue car parked across the road. The person inside – a man, she thought, though she couldn’t be sure – sat with his face turned towards the cottage. She waited, expecting him to get out and come to the door, but he didn’t.
“Well, are you coming in?” she said under her breath. Perhaps he needed persuading. She went to the door, opened it and stepped out.
“Hey!” she called. The engine started, the car pulled away and sped off. Maisie stood, bewildered, watching its tail-lights disappearing around the corner. What was going on? She looked around. Towards the cliffs, on the grass strip around the cemetery, an elderly woman with a dog had paused to watch her. When Maisie saw her, the woman quickly moved away.
Maisie came back inside and closed the door. Was she a curiosity, the witch’s granddaughter? She could have laughed, only she felt so lonely. All her fantasies of village life – getting to know the locals, downing pints with friendly farmers and milkmaids – were evaporating. They hated her already. Should s
he be frightened? Were they capable of hurting her? Solgreve was so remote, who would she turn to in an emergency?
Reality check: Jesus freaks probably weren’t murderers.
God, she was sick of her own company. If she was lonely after three days, how was she going to make it through three months? She checked her watch and did her calculations: it was nearly three in the morning back home, and Adrian would be asleep. More importantly, she was definitely not going to phone him and wail about how lonely she was. She couldn’t afford it, and he wouldn’t appreciate it.
She would just get used to being on her own.
But before long she found herself scrabbling around on the table near the phone for Cathy Ellis’s phone number. The weekdays were bearable, but the thought of an entire weekend in the muffled silence of her own company was too much to endure.
The phone rang forever before somebody finally answered it. “Hello?”
“Hi, I’m looking for Cathy Ellis.”
“Um…hang on. I’ll go check.”
Student accommodation. She was left waiting for nearly five minutes to muse on the cost of the call before Cathy picked up the phone.
“Hello, Cathy speaking.”
It disturbed Maisie how excited she was to hear another Australian accent. “Cathy, it’s Maisie Fielding. Remember me?”
“Oh my god. Maisie! I’m so glad to hear from you. Sarah said you might call. Where are you? What are you doing?”
“I’m in a little village called Solgreve, about two hours out of York. My grandmother died a few months ago and I’m sorting out her things. But I’m getting pretty lonely and was wondering if you were doing anything this weekend.”
“Lonely is my middle name. You should come down here this weekend. Stay over. I can take one of the mattresses off the bed and you can sleep on the floor. I’ll show you round York, we can go out for breakfast.”
And even though Maisie had never much liked Cathy, she could hear the desperate note of loneliness in her voice and knew her own would sound like that in a few weeks if she didn’t take up the offer. It was time for her to grow up and admit that it wasn’t fair to have a prejudice against someone based on the fact that they wore batik prints.
