The House of Ashes

by Stuart Neville

“Aye, back to sleep,” Joy said, pulling the blankets up around the child.

  Neither woman spoke again as they readied themselves for bed.

  In the morning, Joy cleared the upstairs fireplaces, sweeping up ash and scooping them into the tin bucket. She was on her knees in George’s room when he entered, looking for the shirt she’d ironed for him earlier. He slipped the braces off his round shoulders, pulled the shirt from the coat hanger on the door and burrowed his arms into the sleeves.

  Joy sat back onto her haunches, her filthy hands in her lap, and waited in silence until his attention was on her.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He paused doing up his buttons. “What for?”

  “For giving Mary the medicine. For saving her life.”

  “Aye, well,” he said, turning away from her, moving towards the door.

  “She’s an awful good child.”

  George hesitated on the threshold.

  “She’s so gentle and loving. So kind. So good-natured. There’s no harm in her at all. Any father would be proud to have her as a daughter.”

  “She doesn’t have a father,” George said.

  “You know that’s not true.”

  “Don’t tell me what I know.”

  He left her there, her knees in the ashes.

  That night, as they settled down for bed, Joy lay with Mary, holding her close. She whispered to her as the child drifted in and out of slumber, told her about the outside, about cars and buses and villages and towns and cities. About dances and picture houses and music and books. She whispered promises to her that some day soon they would walk free of this place.

  Soon, Joy said, very soon.

  As Noreen extinguished the lamp, she caught Joy’s gaze with her own. Joy would not look away until the darkness swallowed them all.

  33: Mary

  I found Esther’s dress hanging in the old wardrobe, the one with no doors, just a rail inside. It was tucked away into the corner, like she’d hidden it there. I looked down, and there was her shoes in the bottom. The dress still had the smell of her on it, that good smell she had, clean like soap and flowers. The damp hadn’t got to it yet. I lifted it down from the hanger and helt the blue fabric up to my face and I breathed her in. Then I cried for her awful hard for she was my sister and I missed her.

  A notion came on me then. The idea seemed a terrible sin, but now it was in my head I knew I’d never be rid of it. I looked up to the top of the stairs and listened. No one was in the kitchen, as far as I could tell. I pulled the dress on over my head, over the top of the nightie I had on me. Esther wasn’t a tall girl, and she was slender, but her dress near drownt me. I could’ve fit into it twice. Even so, I didn’t care. I ran my hands over the material, softer than anything I’d ever had on me. I turned in a circle and let the skirt of it flare out and I wished I had a mirror so I could see myself. But the children could see me. They watched from the corners and the dark places while I spun round and round till I was dizzy.

  The floor was coarse and cold and damp on my bare feet. I went back to the wardrobe and took the shoes and slipped my feet into them. They were far too big for me, but they were awful light, you’d hardly have known they were there at all. They slapped on the floor as I walked circles around the room, letting Esther’s smell rise up from the dress so I could breathe it in.

  What are you doing?

  Mummy Noreen at the top of the stairs. I took a buck lep at the sound of her voice, and I started trimbling, thinking I was in trouble.

  She came down the stairs carrying some of our clothes that she’d washed. Says she, What are you at?

  I’d no answer for her. All I could do was look at the floor.

  Mummy Noreen put her hands on my shoulders. Says she, They must’ve forgot about this. They’d have burned it otherwise.

  I looked up at that. The notion of putting the dress on a fire was a worse sin than me wearing it.

  Take it off, says she, put it back where you got it. You can take it down to look at it now and again, but don’t go wearing it. If Tam catches you with that on you, you know what he’ll do.

  I did know. My whole body went stiff at the notion of it.

  As I took the dress off and hung it up, says Mummy Noreen, If you’re fit to be dancing around down here, you’re fit to do a bit of work up there.

  I was terrible sad to leave the children and go upstairs. They could’ve come with me, surely, I wouldn’t have minded, but they didn’t like the light. They wanted to stay in the dark places, where they could hide.

  When I went up there and got to work, it was the same as before, and it wasn’t the same. I did the jobs I always did, but I was slow, and I got tired awful quick. Every once in a wee while I had to go and sit down, or maybe lie on the floor. Daddy Tam didn’t like it, he said I was nothing other than a lazy wee shite, but Daddy George telt him, The child needs to rest. She shouldn’t be working at all. Daddy Tam didn’t like being telt anything, and not by Daddy George. They argued a lot, them days. They didn’t get to hitting the other, but they weren’t far off it.

  Everyone was quiet around them. Daddy Tam was more cribb’d than ever. And he had a smell about him, a smell that was sour and sweet. Mummy Noreen said he was drinking, that’s what the stink was. She warned me to say nothing to him, to keep out of his way, or he’d beat the tar out of me.

  Things were different downstairs, too. Mummy Joy and Mummy Noreen weren’t getting along so well. They always had their wee rows, always over stupid things, but this was more than that. Mummy Noreen was angry about something, and I didn’t know what. Mummy Joy had done something on her, or said something, or hadn’t done something, or whatever it was, but Mummy Noreen was wild annoyed with her. Even once, I got in her way, and she give me a clip round the ear. Not hard, not like Daddy Tam would hit me, but it hurt all the same. And here, didn’t Mummy Joy lit on her, she had her by the throat. If Daddy Ivan hadn’t come along, I don’t know what would’ve happened.

  One day, the sun was out, and Mummy Joy asked Daddy Ivan if I could peel the spuds out in the yard. The sunshine would do me good, she said, to get the warmth of it into my bones. I said nothing, but I hoped he’d say yes. And here, he did, and he carried a bucket of water and a stool out the back door for me, and I brought a bag of spuds and a knife, and I sat there in the sunshine peeling and singing to myself while the chickens pecked at the scraps.

  After a while, I saw Daddy George come in through the back gate. I suppose he was done with his work for the day. He came slopping across the yard, his boots all mucked. I sat there, still peeling away, while he scraped his boots by the door. I could feel him looking at me. He stood there a lock of minutes, watching me work. A couple of times, he took a breath, like you would before you spake up, like he wanted to tell me something. But he never did. After a wee while, he went on inside.

  I thought about it after. I wondered if he didn’t know what to say, if he didn’t have the words in his head. Then I realised, even if he knew what to say, maybe he just didn’t know how to say it. How does a man like him, reared in a house like that, know how to talk to a child?

  I took my time over them spuds because it was good to be out in the sun. By the time I’d dropped the last one into the bucket, the flesh of it all white and soapy, the sun had gotten low over the house. I dropped the knife into the water with the spuds, picked up the bucket and the stool, and carried them inside. The bucket was awful heavy, but I managed all right.

  Daddy George was taking a cup of tea at the table in the kitchen. Mummy Joy must have made it for him, for she was fussing around the stove and the kettle when I set the bucket down next to her, the water splashing over the sides. I put the stool in the corner and waited a moment for one of them to tell me what to do. Neither of them did, so I went out into the hall, sat on the stairs for a wee while, to see how long I could get away with that
.

  From the kitchen, I heard Mummy Joy’s voice, and it shocked me, for she never would talk free to the Daddies, not even Daddy George.

  Says she, Imagine having a place of your own. With a family.

  Daddy George said nothing.

  Says she, Imagine if you had your own land, your own animals. Imagine if you had a wife of your own, all your own, and a child. Maybe a daughter.

  Whisht now, says Daddy George. Go away on and get them upstairs windows cleaned.

  She walked out into the hall, and she stopped when she seen me on the stairs. I thought maybe she would scold me for idling, but she didn’t. She smiled and stepped around me and went away on upstairs. I got up on my feet and went to the kitchen door. I saw Daddy George in there, still at the table, still at his tea. But he wasn’t drinking it. He was staring away off into some dream or other. He never knew I was there, watching.

  When it was time to go to bed, I asked Mummy Joy if I could sleep in beside her. She lifted up her blanket for me, and I cuddled down into her, my back agin her belly. She wrapped her arm around me, the blanket around us both. I was awful tired and my eyes were hanging on me. I yawned, and I felt her nose and mouth at my neck.

  Says I, Tell me about outside.

  Says she, What do you want to know?

  About the seaside, says I.

  I could feel her smile agin my skin.

  There’s a place called Portrush, says she. We went there on our holidays. There’s two beaches.

  Says I, Two beaches?

  I couldn’t believe it.

  Aye, says she, There’s the East Strand and the West Strand. And in between them, there’s the Arcadia Café. My mummy and daddy went to the tea dances in the upstairs there when we were on holiday. A band would play and a singer would sing, and all the people would dance.

  I closed my eyes and I tried to imagine it, all of them, dancing.

  Says she, If I was good, I was allowed a mineral. Like lemonade or cream soda. I liked orangeade the best. All fizzy on your tongue, and if the bottle was fresh, the bubbles would near burn you. We stayed in a guest house along the front, near the harbour, and in the mornings you’d get breakfast, oh, such a feed. Bacon and sausages and eggs, and potato bread, and soda farls, and fried mushrooms.

  Mummy Noreen spake up from the other bed. Stop it, says she, you’re making me hungry.

  But Mummy Joy didn’t stop, and I don’t think Mummy Noreen really wanted her to.

  We’d go to the beach, says Mummy Joy, and I’d paddle in the water and jump into the waves. Sometimes it was so cold I could hardly stand it, but my mummy near had to drag me out. I’d go climbing over the rocks, find the wee pools, looking for crabs and all sorts.

  I’d heard of crabs. The way Mummy Joy described them to me, I pictured them like big spiders with hands.

  In the evenings, says she, we’d maybe go to the restaurant in the big hotel, what was it called?

  There’s two, says Mummy Noreen, the Northern Counties and the Londonderry.

  Whichever one, says Mummy Joy, we’d go for our tea. But you know what my favourite thing was? Going for fish and chips and sitting at the harbour and eating them out of yesterday’s newspaper. Salt that would dry your mouth out and so much vinegar it’d take the breath from you.

  Stop it, says Mummy Noreen, in a big moan.

  Says I, I want to go there.

  You will, says Mummy Joy. Some day soon, we’ll get out of here, and I’ll take you to Portrush, I promise. And you can go to the beach and get fish and chips, then we can go to Barry’s Amusements and we can go on all the different rides, and then I’ll take you to the dance and you can have all the lemonade you want.

  Says I, Will we go with Daddy George?

  Everything was quiet for a while, then says Mummy Joy, Time to go to sleep.

  34: Sara

  Tony stopped at a Tesco supermarket in Lurgan and bought sandwiches and drinks for them both. They ate in the van, and Sara was grateful for the silence. When they got back to his house, she would switch on her phone and try calling her mother. She still wasn’t sure of her next steps, but she needed to hear her mother’s voice. Knowing she had a home to return to, even if that didn’t happen now, was something to which she could cling.

  Should she call the police, tell them there were potentially bodies buried beneath the house? Mary’s words lingered: what good would it do to disturb them? She knew Damien and his father had a scorching hatred for the police and calling them would hurt her husband and his family. But she would not do it out of spite.

  Tony drained the last of his bottle of Coke and stowed their rubbish into a nearby litter bin before returning to the van and setting off.

  “You know, you’re welcome to stay as long as you want,” he said as they navigated the streets leading to his house.

  “I’m not sure how your mother feels about it,” Sara said.

  “Och, she’s fine. She’d be lost without some drama going on.”

  His smile was infectious, and Sara felt it on her own lips, like recognising an old friend. “You don’t strike me as the type to cause much drama,” she said.

  “Me? Aye, well, I have my moments. Maybe not in your league, but still.”

  She laughed even as she remembered swallowing pills and waking up in an A & E ward. Before she could dwell on the memory any further, Tony cursed, looking at his wing mirror.

  “What’s wrong?” Sara asked.

  He didn’t reply as he turned onto the road that ran parallel to the fenced-off railway track, the cul-de-sac where he lived a hundred yards ahead. She asked again as his gaze shifted from the mirror to the road and back again. When he held his silence, she leaned across until she could see into the passenger wing mirror.

  Francie Keane’s Range Rover, and behind it, Damien’s BMW.

  Tony cursed again. “We can drive to the police station, see if they follow us there,” he said.

  “No,” Sara said, feeling a weight drop low in her stomach. “They’ve seen us. There’s no point in running.”

  As if in answer, Francie’s car accelerated, passed the driver’s side of the van, and pulled across the road, blocking it.

  “Christ,” Tony said, braking hard enough to throw Sara forward, the seat belt gripping her chest.

  She checked the mirror and saw that Damien’s car blocked the way behind.

  “You wait here,” Tony said as he shut off the engine, unbuckled his seat belt, and opened the driver’s door.

  “No,” Sara called after him, but it was too late.

  Tony approached the Range Rover as Francie walked around from the driver’s side. He raised a finger to point at Tony before he could speak.

  “You mind your own business, boy,” Francie said, his voice booming.

  Sara looked around for witnesses, anyone, but the van had stopped at a high wall that bordered the backyards of the houses. She turned in her seat, searching for windows with a view. Those that she saw were empty, no one watching. She looked in one wing mirror, then leaned across to the other, and saw Damien exiting his car, leaving the driver’s door open.

  “Can you not just let her alone for a few days?” Tony said, keeping a few feet between him and Francie, taking a step back when the other man got close. He kept his hands up, palms out, as if surrendering. “Let her get her head together, like. Then see how she feels.”

  Damien came to the van’s passenger door, reached for the handle. Sara searched for a lock but couldn’t find it. Too late, she grabbed the inner handle, used all her weight to hold it closed.

  Tony jogged over, took hold of Damien’s sleeve. Francie followed.

  “Just a few days,” he said. “Come on, just leave her alone for a few—”

  “Get your fucking hand off me,” Damien said, pulling his arm away.

  Tony reach
ed for him once more. “Come on, let her—”

  Francie pushed Tony back and away, against the wall.

  Tony kept his hands up. “Here, there’s no—”

  Francie moved with such speed that Sara did not see him throw the punch, only saw Tony’s head rock with the force of it, the sound, like a hammer on meat, echoing off the gable walls of the houses. He staggered against the wall, his shoulder sliding along it for a few steps, his mouth open, blinking. Francie followed him, swung another fist, an uppercut to the jaw that lifted Tony off the ground. Sara cried out when she heard the crack of his head on the pavement.

  “Stop,” she said, her voice lost in her chest.

  Francie loomed over Tony, swung his boot into his flank. Tony didn’t move, a pool of blood spreading from the back of his head. Francie kicked him again, and a third time.

  “Stop!” Sara screamed.

  The passenger door tore open, and Damien reached inside. She tried to slap his hands away, but one gripped her arm while the other snaked around to undo the seat belt. He pulled her down from the van as she screamed at Francie to stop, leave Tony alone, not to hurt him. She tried to resist as Damien dragged her towards his car, but he was too strong.

  Sara called for help, but the words were lost in her sobs and the sound of Francie’s boot against Tony’s unconscious body. Damien opened the BMW’s passenger door and bundled her inside. She tried to climb out, but he slammed the door, trapping her leg between it and the sill, the metalwork hacking into her shin. A cracked howl erupted from somewhere deep inside her, and he shoved her back inside before shutting the door. He ran around to the driver’s side, climbed in, and started the engine.

  As Damien turned the car, Sara snatched one glance at Tony, motionless on the ground save for a jerk each time Francie Keane’s boot collided with his ribs.

  Sara spent the journey back to their house—Mary’s house—with her face buried in her hands, weeping, the tears slicking her palms. Every few minutes, Damien told her to shut up, quit her yapping, and she tried, but the sound of Tony’s skull meeting the pavement kept ringing in her head.