Starve Acre

by Andrew Michael Hurley

  ‘You get it everywhere, Gordon.’

  ‘Yes, but I think we have a rather inimitable species of cretin in Stythwaite. I’ve not forgotten the way they treated your mother.’

  ‘That was a long time ago.’

  ‘Or what they thought of Ewan.’

  ‘I don’t care about that any more.’

  Gordon saw straight through him – he always could – and changed tack.

  ‘How are things at the house?’ he said. ‘How’s Juliette?’

  ‘Her sister’s arrived.’

  He smiled in his knowing way. ‘You seem put out, Richard,’ he said. ‘I’d have thought an ally would be welcome.’

  ‘Harrie doesn’t understand enough about it.’

  ‘Nonetheless, I’m sure she wants what you want,’ said Gordon.

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘To persuade us not to come.’

  ‘And is that possible?’

  ‘It was Juliette’s decision to start this process,’ said Gordon. ‘It must be her decision to stop it too. You can appreciate that, Richard, I’m sure. You can’t choose for her.’

  ‘Even if she can’t see the harm she’s doing to herself?’ Richard replied.

  Gordon looked genuinely perplexed. ‘What harm would happiness do to her?’

  ‘It’s the disappointment I’m worried about,’ said Richard.

  ‘There won’t be any disappointment. Mrs Forde hasn’t failed anyone yet.’

  ‘Well, that’s what she would say.’

  ‘Richard, I can assure you she’s not a mountebank.’

  ‘Fine, fine,’ said Richard. ‘I’d rather we just got it over and done with.’

  ‘And have the whole farce exposed, eh?’ said Gordon.

  He smiled and put his cup down on the saucer.

  ‘You know, I don’t think you’re entirely cynical, Richard,’ he said. ‘Otherwise you wouldn’t be so upset with me.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well, if you truly believed that there wasn’t anything after all this,’ he said, looking around the room, ‘then it wouldn’t matter what I or Mrs Forde or anyone else said to the contrary, would it?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, don’t be so dismissive, Richard. You might be surprised. An open mind can only help you move forward.’

  ‘I am moving forward.’

  ‘I hope that’s true,’ said Gordon.

  It still chastened Richard that Gordon had seen him at his worst in the days after the burial. He’d watched him get resolutely drunk, astonishingly drunk, in this very room. He’d watched him holding his head as though it might split wide open from the swell of thoughts. The images of Ewan and his laughter and the thousand recollected dialogues were brutally invasive even when he was soused on Gordon’s home-made gin. It was only when he finally fell into the void of sleep that he found peace, although it was a peace that he was not conscious of enjoying and when he woke again the assault immediately resumed.

  ‘Ewan’s dead,’ said Richard. ‘Being open-minded isn’t going to change that.’

  ‘I know he is,’ Gordon replied. ‘I’m not saying that we can bring him back.’

  ‘Well, that’s what Juliette seems to be expecting.’

  ‘It’s not uncommon for people to misunderstand what we do.’

  ‘I just don’t want Juliette hurt by false promises,’ said Richard. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Is that all? Or are you worried that we’ll let something wicked into your house? I told you, Richard,’ said Gordon with a laugh in his voice, ‘it’s not a fucking séance.’

  ‘I know it’s not.’

  ‘Mrs Forde doesn’t make the lampshades rattle.’

  ‘I didn’t think she did.’

  ‘Then what are you so anxious about? The test?’

  ‘Not really. If Juliette passed, shouldn’t I?’

  ‘Richard, I’ve already forewarned you that there’s no guarantee of that.’

  ‘But I’m not letting Juliette go through the sitting on her own.’

  ‘No, no of course,’ said Gordon. ‘Look, drink your tea and then we’ll go into the bathroom. It won’t take long. Russell’s quick. Medical student.’

  ‘I know.’

  Russell’s choice of career was a source of great pride for Gordon and he took every opportunity to mention it.

  Richard drained what was left in his cup and followed him down to the damp, tiled cubby-hole next to the kitchen, where Russell was washing his hands.

  ‘Will you be coming too?’ Richard said, then won-dered if it were improper to ask someone outright if they were a Beacon.

  Gordon answered for him. ‘No, unfortunately Russell didn’t pass,’ he said. ‘Mind you, I wasn’t particularly surprised. You were ruined by a revolting Catholic childhood, weren’t you, sparrow? It’s left him entirely adverse to the concept of a soul, poor lad.’

  Russell patted his skin dry with a towel and glanced at Richard.

  ‘Roll up your sleeve,’ he said.

  From the mirrored cabinet, he took down a plastic box and indicated for Richard to sit on the edge of the bath.

  ‘I’ll keep it in the fridge until Peter comes to collect it in the morning,’ said Gordon. ‘It’s better cold, apparently.’

  ‘Peter?’

  ‘Mrs Forde’s assistant.’

  ‘And what exactly does she look for?’ said Richard, turning back his cuff.

  ‘I really couldn’t tell you. She just knows it when she sees it, I suppose. You’ve not had a drink, have you?’

  ‘Not for a few days, no.’

  ‘Good,’ said Gordon. ‘It can scupper the reading.’

  Russell had been waiting for them to stop talking and when Gordon nodded he peeled off the lid of the box and took out a syringe.

  Snow was falling again when Richard left, his arm throbbing dully under the dressing that Russell had taped to his skin.

  Driving along the street, he found himself behind Father Moston as he cut through the slush on a bicycle. Closer to the church, the priest lifted one leg over the crossbar and balanced on the pedal until he came to a stop by the lych-gate.

  Pale and gangly as an adolescent, he had the plain appearance of a man who was required to shape his face into an assortment of expressions. He did ‘compassion’ and ‘consolation’ well and had made the funeral service more or less endurable on that August afternoon too beautiful for a burial. He’d said all the right things and read from the Gospel of John with what had seemed to be a genuine feeling of hope.

  This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.

  The will of Richard’s father had been to ensure that his son was in no doubt that a church was merely a meeting place for the mentally ill, and that all who gathered there – priest and parishioners – were as fearful and asinine as schizophrenics. There was no God, no devil, no heaven or hell, no posthumous judgement for wickedness or reward for piety; there was no resurrection, no transfiguration, no illimitable bliss, no life everlasting. The sum of human existence was collagen and calcium phosphate. And then nothing.

  For several years now, Richard had initiated his undergraduates with a slideshow of photographs he’d taken on the research trips he’d made before Ewan was born. He gave them no warning of what they were about to see. That was the point. Their reaction was the lesson.

  Here were the bones of St Hyacinth in Fürstenfeld. St Erasmus’s astonished skull in Munich. Here was the crypt in Palermo and the dozens of mummified priests, each still dressed in his robes and biretta, each noseless face dry and mottled like the rind of a strong cheese.

  Look at the Catholic Incorruptibles, he’d say, still sweetly perfumed and pliable after hundreds of years. Imelda Lambertini, Anna Maria Taigi, the beautiful Bernadette Soubirous.

  He’d ask the class if they found themselves fascinated or repulsed as he sent around photographs of the Bolivian ñatitas – the
decorated skulls and infant skeletons that shared houses with the living. Wasn’t it more respectful to do this than consign the dear departed to a box or a bonfire? he’d say. Wouldn’t one wish to have some physical presence after death?

  He played devil’s advocate, but always privately sided with those students who could see the love that rested in these relics.

  Now, since Ewan had gone, he thought that there was a great decency in oblivion.

  There was no point in preserving the boy’s belongings like the artefacts of a museum. Everything – every last toy and every piece of clothing – ought to be thrown into the stream of time to float away. The murals on his walls ought to be whitewashed and the windows cleaned and the room filled with the noise of a new child. Not to forget Ewan, but only to acknowledge that he wasn’t coming back.

  In the small hours, Richard woke to hear Harrie calling for Juliette downstairs. He found her standing at the front door, wrapped in her coat and wearing a hat that she’d taken from the stand in the hallway. In her arms, the dog yipped and shivered.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Richard. ‘Why are you up?’

  ‘She’s out in the bloody field,’ said Harrie and, looking across the lane, Richard saw the ray from a torch spiking over the snow.

  He went out, following the holes that Juliette had made, realising quickly that he had too few clothes on. A sharp wind was coming down the valley, bending the trees that Juliette was prodding with the light.

  ‘Juliette? What are you doing?’ he said and was answered by a bright stare from her torch.

  ‘Have you seen him?’ she said. She was holding one of Ewan’s teddy bears by its neck.

  ‘It’s three in the morning. Come inside.’

  ‘But I heard him,’ said Juliette. ‘And look.’

  She took Richard’s sleeve and pulled him over to a bank of snow near the gate. ‘Those tracks,’ she said.

  ‘A fox,’ said Richard. Probably the vixen that he’d fed a few weeks before.

  But Juliette had already walked away to investigate a different part of the field.

  ‘Surely you heard him too?’ she said. ‘He was laughing so loud he woke me up.’

  ‘You were dreaming then.’

  ‘I wasn’t dreaming. I know the difference,’ Juliette replied, lighting up the house and catching Harrie’s anxious face.

  Something that Richard couldn’t see attracted her attention and she made her way through the thick drifts towards the wood.

  ‘Ewan?’ she called. ‘I’m here.’

  She swung the light through the trunks.

  ‘There. There, didn’t you see him?’

  ‘Come back inside now,’ said Richard. ‘It feels like it’s going to snow.’

  But Juliette tramped further between the trees and shouted for Ewan again, her voice carrying little further than the torch beam before it was swallowed by the night.

  It was only when the wind raised a blizzard that Juliette returned, crying and clay-cold. Harrie took her into the kitchen, where she relit the woodstove and wrapped her in a blanket. The corners of the windows filled up quickly with snow.

  The storm had not been forecast at all and stripped the ash trees of whatever deadwood was still clinging on. It wouldn’t have been a surprise if the power were to suddenly cut out. It often happened in the dale.

  On one such occasion in the November of Ewan’s first term at school – when the lines had been snapped by a fallen tree along the lane – Richard and Juliette woke to the smell of burning. It was coming from outside their room and when they stepped on to the landing, trying the light switches, smoke was seeping out under Ewan’s door.

  Richard went in and found the metal waste bin on fire and Ewan sitting cross-legged in the glow.

  ‘Good God, what are you doing?’ Juliette said and snatched him out of harm’s way as Richard used the beaker of water by the bed to put out the flames. The pile of old colouring books and comics collapsed and ash billowed up into his face.

  As Juliette carried Ewan out of the room, he kicked and screamed and beat his fists against her back until Richard managed to disentangle him.

  ‘Stop it, Ewan,’ he said. ‘You’re hurting Mummy.’

  But the boy seemed not to care and Richard pulled him hard by the wrist into the dark of the master bedroom, causing him to howl and fight even more. So much so that Richard had to hold him in a bear hug for a full minute before he calmed down.

  The lights came back on and Juliette, who’d been standing irresolutely in the doorway, sat Ewan on the bed and cradled him against her.

  Breathless from the effort of restraining the boy, Richard leaned against the dressing table.

  ‘What were you thinking?’ he said. ‘You could have set the whole house on fire.’

  Ewan wouldn’t look at him.

  Juliette tried instead. ‘Why did you do it, love?’ she asked. ‘You must have known it was dangerous.’

  ‘I didn’t like the dark,’ said Ewan.

  ‘The dark’s nothing to be frightened of,’ said Juliette. ‘We’ve told you that.’

  ‘But it was talking to me,’ Ewan said.

  Juliette looked at Richard.

  ‘Where did you get the matches from?’ he said. ‘From the kitchen? From the box by the fireplace? Under the stairs?’

  ‘Didn’t use matches,’ said Ewan.

  ‘What then?’ Juliette asked.

  ‘Daddy’s sparker,’ said Ewan, and mimed with his thumb.

  ‘Did you go into the study?’ Richard said and Ewan dipped his head.

  Juliette looked at Richard reproachfully and then asked Ewan what he’d done with the lighter.

  He took it out of the pocket of his dressing gown and handed it over. Richard was surprised that it had still been there in the drawer of the desk. He hadn’t smoked for years.

  ‘In,’ said Juliette and peeled back the blanket.

  The boy complied and lay there, small and tearful, while Juliette settled herself beside him. She seemed to sense Richard’s resentment at being ousted.

  ‘Well, he can’t stay in his own room tonight, can he?’ she said. ‘You find somewhere else to sleep.’

  The next day they’d taken Ewan to see Dr Ellis in the village. The boy had been coughing all night and Juliette was worried about his lungs. Coming into the world six weeks ahead of time, he’d never been a strong child.

  Ellis looked into Ewan’s mouth and then lifted his sweater and pressed the end of the stethoscope to his back.

  ‘All clear,’ he said. ‘His throat’s a bit sore, but it’ll be better in a day or two, I’m sure. Just give him plenty of water to drink.’

  Ewan slid down off the trolley-bed and Ellis ruffled his hair. He was a tall, broad man, headmasterly but avuncular, and used to the company of children. On his desk was a photograph of his sons and daughters. Four altogether. The amount Richard and Juliette had planned. It had seemed to them the right number. In a trio, there’d always be somebody left out and five felt like one too many. With four, there could be parity.

  ‘Water, all right,’ said Juliette. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Could have been worse,’ said Ellis.

  ‘Yes,’ Juliette replied, helping Ewan put on his coat.

  The look she gave the boy as she tugged hard at the zip suggested that he hadn’t yet been forgiven.

  Ellis caught her expression too and he called for the nurse to take Ewan outside.

  ‘Why don’t you go and choose a lollipop, young man?’ he said. ‘I hear that they’re excellent for sore throats.’

  Ewan went out holding the nurse’s hand and Ellis closed the door.

  ‘I take it the fire wasn’t accidental?’ he said.

  Juliette shook her head and explained what had happened.

  ‘You know,’ said Ellis, once she’d finished, ‘there’s a small part of me that admires his resourcefulness. But as you say, it was somewhat dangerous.’

  ‘He must have known that,’ said Juliet
te. ‘I mean we’ve told him and told him not to play around with fire.’

  ‘In my experience repetition isn’t always a guarantee of obedience,’ said Ellis.

  ‘I know,’ said Juliette. ‘But Ewan’s not stupid. He must have been aware of what might happen.’

  ‘He is only five,’ said Richard.

  ‘Which is why you should have kept the study locked,’ Juliette threw back.

  Ellis sat down and smiled at them both to keep the peace.

  ‘Children experiment,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure there’s much you can do to stop it short of caging them up. In fact, that’s probably the worst thing you can do for a lad like Ewan.’

  ‘Like Ewan?’ said Juliette. ‘What do you mean?’

  Ellis knew that he had chosen his words badly and apologised by lifting his hands off the desk.

  ‘Someone who clearly enjoys being outdoors was what I meant,’ he said.

  Juliette sat forward. ‘So we shouldn’t be worried about him?’

  ‘Are you?’ said Ellis.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Juliette. ‘He just seems so different now he’s at school.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you say that was inevitable?’ said Ellis, looking from her to Richard. ‘It would be more unusual if he’d stayed the same.’

  ‘Of course,’ Richard replied.

  ‘But to be so changed?’ said Juliette. ‘To be this vindictive.’

  ‘Vindictive?’ Ellis said.

  ‘Come on, I can’t imagine that you haven’t heard about what happened with Susan Drewitt by now,’ said Juliette. ‘It must have been you who strapped up her fingers.’

  Caught out, Ellis said, ‘You’re certain that Ewan meant to do it?’

  ‘He said so,’ Richard replied.

  ‘You don’t think he’s . . .?’ said Juliette, trying to find and avoid the word at the same time.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Ellis. ‘He’s a perfectly normal, healthy boy. And you both know that too.’