The House of Ashes

by Stuart Neville

  Amanda noticed. Sara wished she hadn’t. They had been friends since their first year at university. The kind of friend Sara had never had before and would never have again. The kind of friend who doesn’t know the meaning of secrets, who knows your soul, who can fill the cracks in your heart. A friend who will tell you things you don’t want to hear.

  But still, for all her good intentions, Amanda had only made things worse. Some things are better left alone. No good can come from digging under the stones of someone else’s life. None at all. Amanda should have known that.

  Sara closed her eyes and listened to the rattle of the van, let it pull her back to the here and now. Tony didn’t speak much as he drove, and Sara was glad. He had a calm stillness about him that seemed catching, his presence soothing the jangling nerves that had become a constant in her existence. The unending awareness of Damien’s temper, his mood swings, how her smallest transgressions could bring that rage out of him. But here, with this man, the static of fear seemed to fade.

  She had a sense of a haze lifting, a clarity of sight she hadn’t experienced for months, maybe years, and she supposed it should have frightened her. But it didn’t. The very idea of being alone with another man should have terrified her. But it didn’t.

  Sara turned her attention back to the world outside the van as the first homes on the edge of Morganstown came into view. The village was not much more than a main street with a scattering of housing developments branching away from it. It had been named after the owner of the linen mill who had built rows of small homes to house his workers. The mill was long gone, but his name and some of the houses remained. Damien had told her this when he described their new home to her, but he had definitely not mentioned the old woman or her troubled past. She was sure about that, or as sure as she could be. And she desired to know more about that woman and what brought her to the doorstep of the house that had been taken from her.

  As they approached the main street, Tony pulled the van over to the kerb. He nodded to the other side of the road, and the shop on the corner. A table stood outside, laden with potted plants, flowers and herbs. Bags of coal and firewood were stacked underneath.

  “That’s it,” Tony said. “I’ll wait for you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, wondering if he understood how grateful she truly was.

  Sara reached down for the shopping bag at her feet, got out of the van, and crossed the road. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw Tony watching her. He looked away a full second after their eyes met.

  8: Esther

  Esther Mooney shook with nerves as she waited in the Lido Café on Belfast’s Great Victoria Street. He had said ten in the morning. It was now five past and she feared he wouldn’t come, that it had been some sort of strange and cruel joke. She wore her best clothes, the modest dress her mother had bought for her two summers ago, just a week before she died, leaving Esther an orphan. It wasn’t an expensive dress, but it had cost every last penny her mother had. Her father’s passing two years before had left them close to destitute, but her mother insisted she would have a decent dress for going to church on a Sunday. She wouldn’t be looked down upon by the others in the congregation. Her mother couldn’t bear to be pitied, to be seen to have been brought so low by their bad luck.

  So low?

  Her mother had no idea how deep and bottomless low can be. Esther knew. She had found out in the back of a strange man’s car and was paid a pound for the humiliation. If it were possible for a person to die twice, then her mother would have done so at the knowledge of what Esther allowed that man to do to her. As she staggered from the car, the pound note in one hand, her torn underwear in the other, she swore she would never do that again. She would starve first. When the money was spent, she chose a different degradation: she stole a roll of silk from a draper’s shop with the intention of trying to sell it to one of the traders at Smithfield Market. The shop’s owner had caught her halfway through the door, dragged her back in by her wrist, and held her down on the floor while his young assistant called the police. Esther had kicked and screamed and cursed but it did no good.

  She did not go to prison, for which she supposed she should have been glad. Instead she was sent to live at the workhouse, given a bed in a dormitory full of other girls and women. All of them knew what she was as soon as she entered, that she was not from their world, that she had fallen from a greater height than them. She did not sleep those first nights, the thin blanket pulled over her head, hearing the whispers of the others. Posh girl, they called her. Stuck-up bitch.

  As she hid there, nothing but coarse material between her and them, she realised that she didn’t believe in God. No loving God could treat her this way, could take so much away from her, could abandon her here in this place.

  Less than four years ago she had lived in a grand house on Belfast’s Malone Road, a short walk from Methodist College, the school she had been attending since she was eleven. Her father ran a linen brokerage, buying and selling the locally produced material. He was not as rich as those who owned the mills, but he made enough to buy a very presentable home for his wife and only child, and he drove an expensive car. Neither Esther nor her mother had any inkling of his financial worries arising from the decline of the worldwide linen trade. Not, that is, until Esther heard a gunshot as she walked up the drive to her front door on a sunny May afternoon, then heard her mother’s frantic screaming.

  They never ruled it a suicide, but rather a tragic accident caused by carelessness while cleaning his legally owned pistol. As Mrs. Mooney struggled to gather the pieces over the following weeks, she discovered correspondence between Mr. Mooney and the bank that had provided the mortgage for the house. He had been three months in arrears. There was also a notice from another lender that they intended to seize his car.

  Nothing was left. All savings burned up in vain attempts to keep the business alive. Creditors circled, debtors fled. Esther and her mother moved to a small rented house closer to the university. Mrs. Mooney would not go to the council to ask for a house in one of those dreadful streets in the west of the city. She covered the rent with the small funds she had put away, and she fed and clothed them both with the meagre salary she earned in the receptionist’s post she had been forced to accept from a friend of her late husband.

  Esther went back to Methody, but things were not the same. Her school friends looked at her differently. She was no longer one of them. Not only was she marked by bereavement, but by near poverty. When she asked her mother if she could leave that school and go to another, Mrs. Mooney refused. And they would continue to attend the same church. They had lost a husband and father, and she’d be damned if they would also lose their standing in the area. Esther pointed out that their standing was already lost, and her mother slapped her hard across the cheek and sent her to bed. She wailed for an hour while Esther covered her ears.

  They scraped by like that for two years, keeping up the appearance of managing. Then on another sunny May afternoon, Mrs. Mooney told her daughter that she’d been to the doctor. That there had been blood in the toilet for some weeks now, but she had been afraid to seek help. And now it was too late. The cancer had gotten the better of her. She had two, perhaps three, months. She told Esther not to be afraid; she had an aunt and uncle in Canada who had promised to take her in. Once she was gone, they would send a ticket for Esther, and she would have a new life across the ocean. Imagine, getting to grow up in Canada, what a wonderful time she would have.

  Eleven weeks and three days later, Mrs. Mooney was in the ground and the ticket hadn’t arrived. It never did.

  Reverend Clarke invited her to stay with his family, at least for a while, until she found her feet. At fifteen, she was too young to stay on her own. Reverend Clarke had always been kind and had been at her mother’s side when she passed. He and his wife had three young children of their own.

  On the first night, he showed E
sther to her room, which was small but comfortable. Cosy, even. He sat wordlessly on the chair in the corner, waiting as Esther unpacked her things. When she laid her nightdress out on the bed, she paused, and looked at him.

  “Don’t mind me,” he said, his voice soft and slithering.

  Esther turned her back and undressed, hunched over, guarding as much of herself as she could. She climbed in and under the covers, pulled them up to her chin. Reverend Clarke remained in the corner, watching, as if she would forget his presence if he stayed still.

  “I’d like to go to sleep now,” she said.

  Reverend Clarke smiled and said, “Of course.”

  He stood and came to the bedside, reached down, and touched his thumb to her lips.

  “Poor girl,” he said. “Such an awful time you’ve had of it. Just let me know if you need anything. Anything at all.”

  He left her there, turning out the light before closing the door.

  For the next six nights, the ritual continued. Each night he stayed a little longer. Each night, he touched her somewhere else. On the seventh evening, he suggested she take a bath before dinner. Esther gratefully accepted. She had been washing at the handbasin in her room, but her hair felt lank and greasy, and the idea of a good soak seemed the most wonderful thing.

  Reverend Clarke’s wife ran the bath for her, even tossed in a handful of salts. The bathroom filled with steam, and Esther could already feel the hot water on her skin. Mrs. Clarke shut off the taps and left her to it.

  Esther closed the door behind her and reached for the lock. But there was none. She froze, struck with a sudden awareness of hinges and handles, of in here, and out there, and how little stood between the two.

  Foolishness, she told herself. No one in this house means you harm.

  She undressed and stepped over the side of the bath, plunging one foot in, gasping at the heat. Then the other, then lowering herself, inching in, letting the water creep like vines over her body. Slowly, slowly, until she was able to sit and rest her back against the enamel. She inhaled, felt the steam fill her lungs, cleansing her inside and out. The overflow drain gurgled as she sank further down, the water rising.

  Esther lay there, quite still, until she lost track of time. As if she were floating in an exotic ocean on the other side of the world, far away from everything. Her mind drifted on the sea, leaving strange images in its wake. Faces and hands, old friends, playmates, teachers, her father. All of them whispering to her as she drifted, untethered from—

  The knock on the door startled her into a jangling alertness. A soft knock, as if whoever stood on the other side of the door didn’t fully intend it to be heard. The water splashed around her as she sat upright, masking all other sound. She listened hard as the water settled.

  Another knock, as gentle as the first.

  “Yes?” Esther said, her voice wavering.

  “It’s Godfrey,” he said.

  His Christian name sounded strange through the closed door. In her mind, he had always been Reverend Clarke. She had always known his name, of course, but hearing it spoken aloud felt wrong. It felt too intimate.

  “Yes?” she said again.

  “Do you have everything you need? Towels? Soap? Shampoo?”

  “Yes, everything,” she said. “Thank you.”

  “Good,” he said.

  Quiet for a time, and Esther wondered if he had gone. Then he spoke once more.

  “Can I come in?”

  Esther turned her head to see the door with no lock.

  “No,” she said.

  Silence again, then, “I’d like to come in.”

  “I don’t want you to,” she said.

  “Esther,” he said, “this is my house. It’s my bathroom. I don’t think you—”

  His words were lost in the sound of churning water as she hauled herself out of the bath, almost falling over the side. The handle turned as she found her feet, and she threw herself at the door, pushing it back into its frame. The handle turned again, and she felt pressure from the other side. She pushed back, forcing the door closed.

  A shove from the other side, and her bare wet feet slid on the polished wooden floorboards. She put her shoulder against the door, put her weight behind her shoulder, and it slammed closed. Silence from the other side. She pressed her ear to the wood, listened, heard short, cutting breaths.

  “Please go away,” she said.

  He kept his silence.

  “Please,” she said.

  “I just thought a little gratitude wouldn’t be too much to ask,” he said, “after all we’ve done for you.”

  “Please leave me alone,” Esther said, “or I’ll tell Mrs. Clarke.”

  “Tell her what?”

  “That you tried to come in here while I was in the bath.”

  “All I did was knock the door to see if you needed anything. That’s not a crime, is it?”

  “I don’t need anything.”

  “All right, then,” he said. “Dinner on the table in half an hour.”

  She heard his footsteps on the stairs, descending, fading.

  At the table, dried and dressed, Esther closed her eyes and clasped her hands together as Reverend Clarke said grace, emphasising the importance of gratitude for all the blessings of life. The tangy smell of liver rose from Esther’s plate, merging with the low dun odour of boiled things. When he’d finished, she spoke up.

  “I’m going to leave in the morning,” she said. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, but it’s time I moved on.”

  “Where will you go?” Mrs. Clarke asked.

  “Oh, I’ll sort something out,” Esther said, smiling, feigning certainty.

  It was then that she noticed the eldest Clarke child, Jennifer, who was thirteen and small for her age. Her face had drained of colour, her eyes gone distant, and welling, glistening. Something cold touched Esther’s heart, a knowledge that her presence in this house had spared Jennifer something, and her absence would allow it to return.

  The idea of taking it back flashed in her mind, sparing this girl whatever haunted her. But Esther could not do that. She had endured too much to take on someone else’s torment. Instead she ate her food and did not look at the girl.

  Esther did not sleep that night. For the first time since she’d arrived at this house, Reverend Clarke did not show her to her room at bedtime. Even so, she moved the chair from the corner and wedged its back beneath the door handle. She had seen this in a film once, and she doubted if it would do any good, but it gave her a small amount of comfort, nonetheless.

  As the night’s quiet fell all around, she packed her things ready for the morning, then turned out the light and went to bed. She supposed an hour had passed, perhaps two, when she became aware of a presence on the other side of the bedroom door. She did not hear it there, saw no movement of shadow on the sill, but she could feel it. A cold and dark thing whose being drew all light and oxygen and good from the air around it.

  Esther sat up in bed and stared at the door, or rather, beyond it to where the presence stood, staring back. She could feel the hate from here. He wanted her, she knew that, in the way that men want women, but there was no love in his desire. His desire was made of anger and pain, and he hated her for it, she knew this, and he hated himself also. He loathed himself more than anything, she thought, but she did not pity him.

  She drew a breath and commanded, “Go away.”

  Holding the air in her lungs, she heard nothing but her own heart, and one creak as his weight shifted, and then the presence was gone.

  In the morning, Esther waited in her room and listened until she was certain the children had left for school and Reverend Clarke had gone to take morning prayers. She carried her bag downstairs and went to the kitchen where Mrs. Clarke washed the breakfast things in the sink.

  From th
e doorway, Esther said, “Before I go . . .”

  Mrs. Clarke lifted a tea towel from the dish rack and turned to Esther as she dried her hands. “Yes, love?”

  Esther had spent most of the night searching for a way to say what needed to be said and still she had nothing.

  “Your husband, Reverend Clarke. He’s not right. He tried to—”

  “Well, you look after yourself, love,” Mrs. Clarke said, turning back to the sink and the dishes and the greasy water. Not hearing, Esther’s words closed out, ignored.

  “What about Jennifer?” Esther asked. “Your wee girl, she—”

  Mrs. Clarke spun around, a small knife in her hand, pointed it at Esther, the blade an accusation, a warning.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t you dare.”

  Hate in her eyes, sparking and flaring.

  Esther said no more. She lifted her bag from the floor and left the house.

  That was the year before last. Now, nearing four years since her father had torn her world asunder, she had the prospect of a home once more. A bed of her own, a room of her own. A kind man had offered them to her. Those and a small wage. All she had to do was help look after him, his father and his brother. They lived on a farm not quite an hour outside of Belfast. It would be hard work, she realised that, but it would be honest work.

  Esther checked the clock on the wall. Ten past ten. Perhaps he wasn’t coming. Maybe it had been a cruel joke. Give her the hope of a better life then take it away from her.

  “He will come,” she said aloud.

  A chime sounded as the cafe’s door opened. Esther looked in that direction.

  Her heart lifted.

  9: Mary

  I don’t mind how long went by, I suppose it was just a couple of days, but it felt like longer. Just waiting and waiting. Mummy Joy and Mummy Noreen were acting odd. They were upset, always whispering one to the other. Always close. And remembering, always remembering things from the outside. I liked that, hearing about out there, hearing about Belfast and Armagh, and all the people they knew.