The Resurrectionists

by Kim Wilkins

  “Of course I’m serious.”

  “Sybill read cards. She used to charge forty quid a turn. You’ll need to memorise all the meanings.” He looked around. “Where does Sybill keep her cards?”

  “In the chest at the end of the bed.”

  He went off in that direction, and she watched him go, admiring his long legs and feeling the demented lust spinning inside her again. She would kiss him. That was it, it was decided. A kiss wouldn’t hurt anyone, wouldn’t necessarily lead anywhere. Tonight, after dinner, after a few glasses of wine, just one kiss and then it would be out of her system. She turned back to the book and realised her hands were shaking. Leafed through a few pages without taking anything in. She mapped out the conversation in her head: I’m really attracted to you. No, how about, if I wasn’t practically a married woman. It was useless, there were no good lines left. They’d all been overused, and none of them conveyed as much meaning as that glance that had just passed between them. In a few minutes he was back.

  “I think Sybill would have been happy for you to have these,” he said, handing her a deck of cards wrapped in black cloth.

  “Do you think I can do this?”

  “Sure. It might take time. But your Gift is growing stronger every day.”

  She nodded, opened the cloth and slowly thumbed through the cards. Sacha still hadn’t sat down. He stood in front of the fire, his hands on the mantelpiece.

  “Where were the last two sections of the diary?” he asked.

  “One was in the floorboards in the back room. The other was in the ceiling above it.”

  “I wonder…” he started.

  “What?”

  “Well, she probably found them while the place was being renovated.”

  “That’s what I figured. And?”

  “So we have to work out what else she’s had done since the floor and the ceiling. The last thing she put in was the dryer. Down the back in the laundry.”

  Maisie considered. “And she always returned them to their original location.”

  “Shall we check?”

  “It can’t hurt.” She stood and followed him down to the laundry. The dryer was mounted on brackets screwed to the wall.

  “Do you have a screwdriver?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s entirely possible, but good luck finding it.”

  Sacha bent to the cupboard underneath the laundry tub and began to rummage about. Maisie had turned to look in the kitchen when he called out, “Here’s one.”

  He backed out of the cupboard and stood, brandishing a screwdriver.

  “Is it the right size?” she asked.

  “Not quite. But we’ll manage.” He fitted the screwdriver into the first screw and got to work, swearing and bumping his knuckles every now and again. Maisie watched as, one by one, the screws came out. Sacha had her prop up the dryer as the last one was freed, and then he heaved it off the wall and balanced it on top of the washing machine. He felt along the wall. Immediately, it was apparent that one of the planks was not nailed as tightly as the others. He easily picked out the nails with his fingers and the plank came loose. He plunged his hand behind it.

  “What have we here?” he said as, with a dramatic flourish, he produced a small wad of paper.

  “Let me see,” she said reaching for it. Yes, it was Georgette’s writing, but this section had clearly been water damaged. The first few lines were legible, but then pages and pages were nothing more than blurred black ink: Virgil is much improved. His colour is returning and it shall be less than a week I am sure before he is ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

  “Damn,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” Sacha was peering over her shoulder.

  “It’s in very bad condition. I don’t know how much of it is readable.” She flicked forward through swollen pages. “I guess I won’t know until I start.”

  “Where’s the rest of the diary?”

  “Back in the lounge room. Do you want to read it?”

  “Spending an afternoon reading by the fire sounds like a good idea,” he said. “Can we fix the dryer up later?”

  “Sure. Come on,” she said as they walked up the hallway. “Do you want another cup of tea? A glass of wine?”

  “Yes to the latter. Though I suppose lunchtime is a little early to get started.”

  “Doesn’t matter. It’ll be dark in a few hours.” She handed him the iron box with the first two sections of the diary in it. “The handwriting’s a bit difficult at first but you get used to it quickly.”

  She left him in the lounge room, uncorked a bottle of wine and brought it back with two glasses.

  “Cheers,” he said, as she handed him a glass.

  “You too.” She watched him settle in his chair and start to read, spent a few moments in anticipation about the coming evening, then forgot everything as she was lost once more in Georgette’s world.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Sunday, 20th April 1794

  Virgil is much improved. His colour is returning and it shall be less than a week I am sure before he is ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

  ******* would not meet my eye. He says it requires more than physical stamina: that it requires emotional and mental stamina also, and those strengths are not yet returned to him. I can only imagine how somebody like my father would respond to such a remark, for we are nearly starving. I’ve eaten nothing but ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

  ******* today sold the rest of our plate but for the barest of necessities. That means we have now sold virtually everything that we owned when we came here. The house is so empty and I despise looking around and feeling that I am a pauper. I suspect that Virgil feels the same way, yet he is always ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ****

  ******* for it is not so cold now and we need no fires at night. Summer will be upon us within a fortnight and while everything blooms outside I do not feel so desperate. We do not make love any more, Diary. Virgil has lost all interest in that. But we are still lovers of the soul. There is no-one but him for me. I’m sure that some women look forward to the birth of their first child with less anxiety than I, but no other woman has Virgil for a husband. No other woman will be able to look at her babe and see the traces of Virgil’s gentle dignity in its face and hands. For that I am grateful. I do still love him very much.

  Virgil is out of bed every day now, and often walks along the cliff-top. I will ask him once more to return to work before the baby is born. We simply cannot manage without it. I’m sure that it is not good for me to be so thin when the child is scarce six weeks away.

  Friday 30th May, 1794

  From where have I learned this quiet acceptance of horror? Is this how poor people understand the world? That it is a cruel and brutal place from which they may expect nothing but sorrow?

  Diary, one week ago I was made an orphan and I knew it not. For a week, I went about my business, I scrubbed and cooked and cleaned and bathed and ate and drank and held my husband’s hand, and I knew not that my parents were dead.

  This morning, I received a letter with Hattie’s seal on it. It is the first I have had of her in a very long time. I took it into the parlour and relished the opening of it, for I anticipated some money, or some news of her imminent return to England. I am – I was so very aware of her as the only bridge between myself and my family. And yet, the letter expressed something so very different from what I had hoped. It wasn’t written by Hattie at all, but by her new husband Baron Thorsten Verhaiden:

  Dear Mrs Marley

  It is with the deepest regret and sympathy that I must impart to you some very unwelcome news. Your Aunt Harriet has this morning received word of the death of her sister, your mother, and her husband at Lyon. As you know, your father was an idealistic man who believed in the highest principles of liberty
and justice. He and your mother were harbouring some peasants who had deserted the army. These deserters were old and infirm, and unfit to fight. An informant to Robespierre discovered them, and all were soon dispatched by guillotine, your parents among them.

  Harriet extends her love to you and apologises for not writing in person, but she is inconsolable. We now do not intend to return to England at any stage, as the house on St James Square holds too many memories of your mother for Hattie’s endurance. It is to be sold forthwith.

  With regret, T. VERHAIDEN

  My hands shook as I put the letter aside. All through the past week, my mother and father were already cold in their graves and I knew it not. Surely impossible, yet it has happened. This is how things are now in France. Even the lowest classes, who were supposedly the beneficiaries of change, now must do as Robespierre orders or face the guillotine for being enemies of the Revolution. And now all my father’s property belongs to France and not to me, and nor will it ever.

  I am crushed below my grief, and cannot see a path beyond it. Writing, as always, helps a little. But it seems I cannot erase a certain scene from the Eye of my Mind, a scene which I, in fact, never witnessed. The scene does not involve Papa. My father, I am sure, would have been defiant until the last moment as he died for what he believed in. I rather wish he had believed so vehemently in me, but his support of the lower classes did not extend to marrying his daughter among them.

  Rather, it is my mother I see, her hair shorn close to her head, in prison garb rather than one of her fine frocks. She is forced upon the bloody block, and I see in her eyes the kind of desperate fear we know from the eyes of hunted animals. Mama was afraid. She must have been afraid, for she knew she was to die. How am I to stop seeing her terrified eyes? For I know if I could stop, my pain would begin to ease.

  I have not told Virgil, and perhaps I will not for some time. I fear any kind of shock or emotional strain may retard the progress of his Recovery. So I must keep this pain inside me, accept it, allow it to disperse along my limbs and settle in the bones of my fingers.

  Of course, now that my parents are dead, it means I have no escape from poverty. I can not ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****

  ******* said he could do it if I were there. I am Horrified in anticipation of such an event, but I must agree. For if Virgil does not return to work soon, I fear that he will never return. So, in two days, I shall accompany Virgil as he fulfils Flood’s request for specimens, and somehow I shall survive it.

  Saturday 14th June, 1794

  Daylight is such a miracle, such a welcome balm. Nothing seems so very bad in daylight. Virgil has gone walking. I offered to join him but he preferred some time alone and so I sit here, instead, to recount last night’s dreadful details.

  Once I had agreed to accompany Virgil about his work, he cheered immensely and said he was sure he could manage with me there. The burden of returning to his employment seemed vastly lifted and in the afternoon I saw him pick up his crystal canister of laudanum, and then very deliberately place it back beside the bed, as though to show me he was making an effort to stay in the real world.

  Night fell around nine – he can only work in the darker hours – and he packed up a blanket for me and asked me once more if I was certain I wanted to come.

  “Of course I am certain. If coming with you eases your burden, of course I shall come.”

  “But, Gette,” here his voice dropped to a whisper, “you must promise me you will not look upon the product of my labour.”

  “I shall not. I shall sit quietly under a tree and listen to the sea.”

  He reached out and touched my great belly, his long fingers twitching nervously. “I must be a madman forcing you to accompany me.”

  “You are not a madman. You have been very ill and it’s merely a matter of prudence that you have somebody nearby. It will be no strain upon myself or upon my body to wait for you.”

  So we left the house. It was a fresh, clear night, and soft moonlight lit our way to the abbey.

  “I must see the Doctor, first,” Virgil said, hesitating near the entrance.

  “Are you well enough?” I asked.

  “Yes. Yes, I am well enough.” He was clearly distracted. “Wait exactly here. I shall not be more than a few moments.”

  “As you wish.” I moved into the shelter of the corner of the abbey. It was a mild night, but I worry about the infant, especially as I seem to have so little fat upon me to keep the poor child warm. Virgil disappeared through the hatch and into the dark stairs. Only a few minutes passed before he returned with a lantern. He took my hand and led me around to the other side of the abbey. There we found a two-wheeled cart.

  “The tools of my trade,” he said dourly, picking up the cart and pulling it behind us. In it were a mattock, a spade, rope and hooks, and some rolls of canvas. Upon viewing these tools I began to feel fully the enormity of our activity. It hardly seemed possible that such an atrocity as this should be so important a part of our lives. We eat only on condition that Virgil pulls bodies from their graves. It is as simple and as horrifying as that.

  Still, we must eat. And the folk disinterred are already dead and their souls long since gone to whichever hereafter they have earned.

  “How do you know which…?” I could not voice the entire question.

  “Flood instructs me. If I am lucky it is very fresh or very old.”

  “Why?”

  He mumbled something I couldn’t quite understand. Perhaps he said, “They are cleaner.” But perhaps, too, I did not want to know all the details, so I did not ask him to repeat himself.

  We walked through the graveyard. Away from the shelter of the abbey, the sea breeze was fresh. The warmer summer weather had coaxed an awful stench from the poor’s hole, the open pit where those who could not afford a proper burial were cast. The fresh breeze carried the smell away from us a little, but I was glad when it seemed we were moving no closer to that side of the graveyard. We approached a certain grave – the ground was not yet overgrown with grass and so I deduced it must be quite fresh – and Virgil dropped the cart and reached for the blanket.

  “Here, Gette, stay warm.”

  I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders and leaned nearer to the gravestone, trying to read the name engraved upon it.

  “No!” Virgil exclaimed, stepping in front of me to block my view. “Do not seek to know who this is, Gette. Identity will work upon your conscience.” He took my hand and led me ten or twelve paces away from the grave, behind the shelter of a large tree. “I can give you a canvas sheet to sit upon if the grass is wet,” he said.

  I eased myself to the ground, tested the grass with my fingers. “It is quite dry.”

  “Turn the other way, Gette. Do not watch.”

  I did as he said, turning my back to the grave and watching instead over the expanse of the cemetery, and out to sea. He knelt in front of me, touched my cheek with his left hand. “I am so sorry, my love.”

  “I will be perfectly safe and happy sitting here,” I said, though I knew it was not necessarily true.

  “I am sorry for more than this evening,” he added quietly. “This is not the life I wanted for you.”

  “Virgil, as long as we are together, nothing else is terribly serious.” I thought about my parents – it has been two weeks and still I have not told him – and I felt the awful tug in my heart, but said nothing.

  He kissed me gently on the cheek and then went to his work.

  I moved so that my back leaned against the rough bark of the tree trunk, then sat gazing over the shadows of headstones and out to sea for a long time. Behind me, I could hear the sounds of Virgil’s labour – the mattock to break up the soil, the spade to remove it. Perhaps a few hours passed, and perhaps I drowsed a little. But after a time I felt restless, curious, and I shifted my angle so that I could see from a distance what Virgil was doing.

  His work was illuminated by the la
ntern, which he had perched on top of the headstone. Around the grave he had laid the canvas sheets to catch the soil, which he threw from heaped spades. Virgil was only visible from his waist up, as he stood in the grave digging vigorously. He had stripped off his shirt, and it hung carelessly over the edge of the cart. I watched the muscles in his arms and back working, could see the gleam of sweat upon his skin and the dirt that stuck to him in sticky streaks. How unfair that he, of all people, should be employed in such a manner. Virgil is formed for finer things – for clean, warm places, for books and ink and quiet libraries. For a moment, watching him, it seemed so entirely out of possibility that he should have ended in such a task, that I almost laughed out loud. But Fate takes liberties with us in small steps: to go from writing poetry to unearthing graves happens quite easily by way of poverty, addiction, approaching parenthood. Circumstance and Opportunity are all that are required, and then any man can find himself a million miles from his heart’s desire, though it seems he walked but a few feet to get there.

  I turned back to the sea and tried not to think about my parents. But Virgil’s task kept pulling my reflections back to that very topic. I did not know where they were buried, or even if they were buried. Such atrocities are daily committed in France, so it would not surprise me to learn they had received no honours for the passage of their souls at all. Perhaps one day I might return to France and try to find them, and I shall plant roses upon their graves. It cheers me a little to think of that, to imagine beautiful flowers springing from their bones. And this I was considering when Virgil appeared next to me, streaked with dirt.

  “Gette, you are not too tired, are you?”

  “No, Virgil. I slept an hour or two I think. Are you nearly finished?”

  “I have dug down to the coffin. Do you know they favour shallower burials in Solgreve than anywhere in England?”