The House of Ashes

by Stuart Neville

  Mummy Joy shook her head and looked down at the floor.

  Esther turned to me. Come on, says she, we’ll get help.

  I helt my whisht, stayed down by the stove, on my knees. So did Mummy Noreen, with the scrubbing brush in her hands. The safest place to be is on your knees.

  Esther started to shake, that blade glittering in the air in front of her. She knew she was on her own, no one was going with her. She took a step closer to Daddy Ivan.

  I’m going and you can’t stop me, says she.

  Daddy Ivan sat still, looking at her like she was nothing.

  You’d better go on, then, says he.

  16: Sara

  Sara sat on a stool at the island, her arms wrapped around her middle, her sleeves damp with mud. The same mud blended with the milk on her jeans, the denim pulling at the skin of her thighs and calves. She could smell the earth on her, a deep and ancient scent that reached down inside her.

  Damien stood at the sink, leaning back on it, the dying day’s light making a silhouette of him against the window. She could barely make out his features, but she imagined his face blank like a doll’s, his eyes a channel to the empty space at his centre.

  “So?” he said.

  Sara didn’t answer. Words drifted beyond the reach of her tongue.

  “Am I talking to myself?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Then answer me,” he said, his voice remaining low, like a stalking dog. “What were you doing out there?”

  She found her own voice, small and weak in her throat. “I went for a walk.”

  “Is that what you call it? Look at the state of you.”

  “I fell,” she said. “I wanted to see the river and I slipped.”

  He watched her for a moment, his gaze crawling over her. She hunched her back, curled in on herself. She would not tell him about the girl in the water, the scarlet ribbons she held to her stomach.

  “Are we going to have problems?” he asked. “Like before?”

  “No,” she said, too quickly, too sure.

  She tried not to flinch when he moved from the sink and crossed the dark kitchen to where she sat. She tried, but she failed. He came to her side, turned her to face him. Rolling up her sleeve, he examined her skin. He ran his thumb along the tracks her fingernails had left there.

  “Have you been hurting yourself again?”

  “No,” she said, too quickly, too sure.

  “How did you get these scratches?”

  “When I fell.”

  He rolled the sleeve up further, revealing the mirrored crescents of the teeth marks.

  “Jesus, love,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, the shame of it threatening to topple her from the stool.

  “Look at me.”

  When she didn’t, he placed a finger beneath her chin and tilted her head back.

  “I’m only trying to look after you,” he said, his voice soft now, like his mouth was filled with sugar. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself. I don’t want to come home and find you unconscious on the floor. You promise me you won’t do that again.”

  She dropped her gaze, shook her head.

  “Say it.”

  “I promise,” she said.

  He took her in his arms, and she remembered that she loved him. God help her, she loved him. That needful thought came to her as a forgotten sorrow, a torment long buried and now returned. She still loved him, and it shamed her more than the bite on her arm.

  “Don’t do that to me again,” he said. “This isn’t Bath. It’s not like England. This is such a small place. Everyone knows everything. There’s no secrets. You try that here, the whole country finds out. Think of my family.”

  “I won’t do it again,” she said, unsure if she believed herself. “I promise.”

  He held her tight, his arms strong, pressing hers into her sides, binding, enveloping her until she couldn’t see or hear anything but him, no scent in the world but his.

  “I know you won’t,” he said. “And you’ve no call to go wandering off. I can’t be going to work and worrying about you, can I? All you have to do is stay here.”

  She wanted to tell him something, but she couldn’t. It would wound him. Anger him. But it would fester if she didn’t say it now.

  “I don’t want to live here,” she said.

  “What?”

  His arms loosened enough to allow her to turn her head.

  “I don’t want to live here,” she said again. “Not in this house.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He released her, took a step back. She felt as if she might topple from the stool, and she placed a hand on the island to steady herself.

  “We don’t belong here,” she said. “It’s not our house.”

  “Yes, it is. My father paid a fair price for it. He bought it for us, and it’s ours.”

  “Things happened here.”

  Damien’s shoulders slumped. “Who’ve you been talking to? The spark?”

  Sara wondered who he meant for a moment, then she remembered it was slang for an electrician. He meant Tony.

  “Not him,” she said, searching for a lie. “I saw something online.”

  “It was sixty-odd years ago. You don’t have to worry about it.”

  “But I do. I can’t help it.”

  He took a step back. “All right, this place has a history, all old houses do. But, Jesus, he got it so cheap, and we get to live without a mortgage hanging over us. How many couples our age get to do that? Give me your phone.”

  She could feel his anger, restrained, pulsing in him.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because I don’t want you getting your head turned by some nonsense you found on the internet.”

  “It’s not nonsense,” she said, knowing it was a mistake. “It really happened. People died here.”

  “Give me the phone,” he said, holding his hand out.

  Sara pulled it from her pocket and handed it over. He unlocked the phone, thumbed through a few menus and lists, then tucked it away in his own pocket. Taking her in his arms, he pressed his lips against her temple.

  “I love you,” he said. “I want us to be happy here. I want us to have kids and make a family. Don’t you want that?”

  Sara didn’t answer.

  “You do, don’t you?”

  His arms snaked around her, tighter, constricting.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice so quiet and small it couldn’t possibly have been a lie.

  Damien released her from his embrace and said, “Get yourself cleaned up.”

  He left her alone in the kitchen where she remained until full dark had fallen.

  Sara did not sleep, lying with her gaze fixed on the ceiling as she listened to the house breathe around her. Its creaks and groans seemed like a voice, cracked and brittle from disuse, trying to warn her of something. Telling her to leave while she could. She tried not to think of the girl in the water, the scarlet ribbons she clutched to her belly. A figment, a distortion of light on the water’s surface, twisted through the prism of her cracked mind. But still the girl’s sorrowful eyes stared back at her in the darkness.

  Leave.

  How often that word had floated in her consciousness, useless, like a birthday candle wish. Leave and go where? Home? She had not spoken to her mother since the week after her wedding, had not seen her father since she was six when he had emigrated to New Zealand. Men leave, women stay. Her mother had told her that, a glass in one hand, a cigarette in the other.

  There was only one way Sara could leave. She had tried that, and failed, waking on a hospital bed hours later.

  Amanda had come to her one evening, after five, when Sara left her office building, heading for the bus stop. Waiting for her o
n the corner. Sara had stopped when she saw her, considered turning, walking the other way. But Amanda had called her name, and she couldn’t ignore her.

  They went for coffee. Even though Damien had said she shouldn’t drink coffee after lunchtime, that was why she couldn’t sleep at night. A new place, big leather-upholstered chairs and small, low tables, the kind of place you had to lean in to hear and be heard.

  “We’re worried about you,” Amanda said, her elbows on her knees, her thumbnails clicking against each other. Her blonde hair curled on her shoulders, sharp blue eyes revealing the hardness of her, allowing no place to hide.

  They had been friends since their first year at the University of Bath. Sara and Amanda, Chloe and Tanya too. So many nights spent drinking, talking, crying, laughing. They had been an army of four, laying waste to the city. Sara had never had friends like that before. Not since she’d been a child.

  “Why?” Sara had said, honest in her question.

  “When did we last hang out?” Amanda asked. “Just the four of us. No boyfriends or partners. When?”

  Sara thought about it. “Hallowe’en,” she said. “We went out for Hallowe’en. Remember, that bloke in the Dracula costume wouldn’t stop pestering you.”

  “It’s March,” Amanda said. “Nearly April. Six months. And Tanya wasn’t there. The four of us. When were we last together?”

  “I’ve been busy,” Sara said.

  “We’ve all been busy,” Amanda said. “I texted you just last week. I called. You didn’t answer.”

  “Did you? Sorry, I should have—”

  “Did you know that?” Amanda asked. “Or did Damien delete the messages from your phone?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Last night, we were chatting on WhatsApp.”

  “What? No, we . . .”

  Sara closed her mouth. Kept the words trapped.

  Amanda leaned forward, took Sara’s hand in hers.

  “You and I were chatting on WhatsApp last night,” she said, her voice gentler now. “We were talking about all sorts. Old boyfriends, for the most part. You were asking me questions. Questions you should’ve known the answers to.”

  Sara had gone to bed before ten last night. Damien had sat up. Said he had work to do. She had left her phone in the living room, as Damien insisted she do, because staring at the screen would keep her awake.

  “I’ve been tired lately,” Sara said. “I’ve not been sleeping. There’s so much going on at the office.”

  “It was Damien talking to me last night,” Amanda said. “He was pretending to be you, wasn’t he?”

  “I don’t remember,” Sara said. “Like I said, I was tired. I don’t know what I was talking about.”

  “You don’t remember,” Amanda said, her fingers tightening on Sara’s hand. “Do you remember asking me all about Geoff? That guy you went out with for a month in first year?”

  “No,” Sara said.

  “It’s not right,” Amanda said. “It’s not normal. Him going on WhatsApp, pretending to be you. And what else? Twitter? Facebook? Texts? How can I message you and know it’s really you?”

  “It’s not like that,” Sara said. “I mean, he has my passwords, but it’s just—”

  “Just what? Just nothing. It’s not right. Do you have his passwords?”

  When Sara didn’t answer, Amanda grabbed both her hands, squeezed them hard. As Sara dropped her gaze to her lap, Amanda dipped her head, looked up at her. Gave her no room to get away.

  “And do you know what that means?” Amanda said. “It means I can’t trust you. As a friend, how can I ever send you a text, a message, a DM, how can I ever do any of that knowing it might not be you who’s going to read it?”

  Sara raised her shoulders, dropped them, shook her head.

  “I have nothing to hide from Damien,” she said.

  “But I do,” Amanda said. “If I tell you something, I’m telling you, not him. Jesus, you’re my friend, Sara. You and me. Not you and me and him. Don’t you understand that? And not just me. Tanya and Chloe as well. Tanya hasn’t seen you since the wedding. Christ, you live twenty minutes apart. You haven’t seen her in more than eighteen months, doesn’t that tell you something?”

  Damien had never liked Tanya. He said she talked too much, laughed too hard. And she was a slut, he said, more men in her life than any woman should have. He didn’t want Sara to be around her and all those hungry, reaching, feeling men.

  “Friends drift apart,” Sara said. “It happens.”

  “We’re not drifting away,” Amanda said. “We’re being pushed away. Surely you can see that? He’s isolating you.”

  “No.”

  “Apart from work, do you ever go out without him?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Where?”

  “Places, I don’t know, shops and—”

  “Where?”

  “Don’t badger me like that, it’s not fair.”

  “What about money? Do you have your own or does he keep it?”

  Sara wanted to explain the joint bank account her salary was paid into, the weekly allowance that was transferred to her own account each Friday. To help them budget, Damien had said. And if she ever needed anything more, she could always come to him and ask. He had never refused, had he? Not that she asked often. But it was all too complicated to get into. Not here, not now. And besides, what business was it of Amanda’s? It was a liberty to ask such questions.

  “Damien does the finances,” she said, keeping the irritation from her voice. “He’s better at it, that’s all. I’m not good with money, you know that.”

  “No, I don’t know any such thing. But I do know an abusive relationship when I see one.”

  Those words hit Sara like cold water.

  “He’s never hit me,” she said, the words tumbling out.

  “He doesn’t have to,” Amanda said. “It’s coercive control. He doesn’t have to be violent to be abusive. Look, I deal with this all the time at work. I see so many women trapped like this, always in denial, always fooling themselves that it’ll get better if they stick with it just a few more months.”

  Sara tried to pull her hands away, but Amanda held them tight.

  “It never gets better,” Amanda said. “Never.”

  Sara felt a cruel smile creep onto her lips knowing guilt would follow soon enough. “You can’t stand it, can you?”

  Amanda gave her a warning glare. “Don’t. I know what you’re going to say, but don’t.”

  “You can’t stand seeing me have what you can’t,” Sara said, both shamed and gratified at the hurt on her friend’s face.

  Amanda took a breath and said, “You’re lashing out. It’s a defensive measure, part of the denial, and I won’t—”

  “You’ve never been able to keep a relationship for more than a few weeks, have you? So now you’re trying to destroy mine.”

  “We both know that’s not true,” Amanda said.

  Sara freed her hands from Amanda’s and got to her feet. “Don’t contact me again,” she said.

  She left the coffee shop, sparing only a glance through the window as she passed on her way to the bus stop. Amanda sat where she’d left her, her head bowed, a hand over her eyes, shoulders hitching. She hadn’t seen or spoken to her best friend since.

  That night, Sara lay awake while Damien snored, her mind chasing itself down twisting paths of denial and fear. The feeling of sinking into a deeper and blacker hole, losing herself in it, Amanda’s words echoing there. Liar, she thought. Bloody liar. Jealous and bitter and clawing at my happiness, trying to steal it away.

  And yet, and yet, and yet, Sara knew. All along, she knew.

  The world collapsed in on itself, dragged her down into the pit as Damien dreamed beside her.

  At two in the morning she had ri
sen from their bed and gone to the flat’s open-plan kitchen. She opened the high cupboard in the corner, stood on her toes, her fingers searching through boxes of paracetamol and ibuprofen, cold and flu remedies, bottles of vitamins. There at the back, one pack of sleeping pills, and another, both prescribed by different doctors at different times, neither of them opened.

  She filled a glass with water and sat at the table, spread the pills on the surface, counted them as she swallowed until she couldn’t count any more.

  17: Esther

  Esther stood there, every part of her frozen except her right hand, which trembled in front of her, the blade taking up the whole of her vision. How could a knife be so heavy? She inhaled, a quivering gasp, then exhaled, a low moan coming from inside her. How could a knife weigh so much? Her arm ached from holding it out and the idea occurred to her to simply place it back from where she’d lifted it.

  “Go on, then,” the old man said.

  He had not risen from his place at the table, the ledger open in front of him. Cash sorted into piles, notes and coins.

  “Don’t try to stop me,” Esther said.

  He sat back, his arms out and open, showing her his hands. “Nobody’s stopping you,” he said. “Away you go.”

  Mary still knelt on the floor, her gaze moving between them both. Joy backed into the corner, looking at nothing but the floor. Noreen entirely still, the scrubbing brush in her hands. Esther wanted to scream at them, tell them to come with her, for Christ’s sake, leave this place. They would not move, she knew. Maybe they were right. It didn’t matter now. Esther had made her choice.

  She turned away from Ivan and went to the hall. The front door was locked, wouldn’t even move in its frame. She moved to the living room and tried to raise the lower pane of the nearest sash window, whined as she strained to lift it, but it would not budge. She realised it had been fixed shut, wedges of wood screwed into place to prevent its movement. Through the glass, she could see the driveway, the walls and a glimpse of the narrow lane beyond. Maybe she could break the glass and climb through. But what with?

  There was an easier way.

  She marched back into the kitchen where everyone remained as they had been when she had left moments before. Joy whispered to her as she passed.