The House of Ashes

by Stuart Neville

  Says he, What’re you all dolled up for? Are you away to a dance or something?

  Daddy George’s face went pure red, and says he, I had some messages to do, that’s all.

  Daddy Tam looked at Daddy Ivan and, says he, Is that right? Messages?

  Aye, says Daddy Ivan, that’s what he telt me, anyway.

  Daddy Ivan was like that. His face was always like a whitewashed wall. Nothing there to tell you what was in his head. But his eyes. He was always watching. Always. There was nothing in thon house he didn’t see. Nothing he didn’t know. Mummy Joy should’ve minded that.

  Says Daddy Tam, What messages needed your Sunday best, eh?

  That’s my business, says Daddy George.

  Daddy Tam laughed again, slapping his fat thighs. Daddy George’s face went even redder than it was already.

  Oh, your business, says Daddy Tam, laughing away. Look at you, the big man doing big business. What business were you doing?

  Daddy George pulled his tie off and shoved it in his pocket. Says he, I’ve my own life, you know. There’s more things in the world than this farm.

  That set Daddy Tam off laughing again. I daren’t have looked up from peeling the carrots, but I wondered if Daddy Ivan smirked then, because Daddy George roared at the both of them.

  Aye, says he, go on and laugh at me. Just you go on. But you’ll not keep me locked up here like you do them girls. I’m not your slave. I’m not your cattle.

  His voice sounded like there was tears behind it.

  Calm yourself, says Daddy Ivan. There’s no call to be thran.

  Don’t tell me to calm myself, says Daddy George. From the corner of my eye I saw him point at Daddy Tam. Says he, Tell him to keep his mouth shut. Tell him to stop running me down and laughing at me because I’m sick of it, you hear me? I’m sick of the both of yous treating me like I’m a fool, because I’m not. And if I say I’ve got business to do, then that’s all you need to know about it, right?

  Says Daddy Tam, If I treat you like a fool, it’s because you are a fool. You always was a fool and you always will be.

  And here, didn’t Daddy George let a gulder out of him, and he lifted the pot full of carrot peelings, and he threw it at Daddy Tam’s head. Daddy Tam put his hand up, and that pot clattered off his wrist, and he let a yelp out of him. Carrot peelings everywhere and the pot bouncing and clanging off the floor. Then Daddy Tam runs at Daddy George like a bull, head first. The two of them slammed into the side of the sink and threw me out of the way. I went skittering across the floor, trying to get to the corner, to where it was safe.

  Daddy Ivan got up from his chair then, and I saw the face on him, and I saw him pull his belt from his waist, and I crawled under the table. I heard him lash at the both of them, and the two of them squealing like pigs. I looked out from under the table, between the chair legs, and I saw Mummy Joy come running, stopping in the doorway.

  Then I saw something I never thought I’d see as long as I lived. Even now, dear knows how many years later, I still don’t really believe I saw it.

  Daddy Tam lay cowering on the floor, his arms up around his head, and Daddy George stood with his back to the sink. I saw Daddy Ivan pull his arm back, thon belt of his cracking like a whip, and he swung it at Daddy George, and here, didn’t Daddy George lift his hand up above his head and catch the belt in the air? He did, I saw him. And he grabbed a holt of it, and he turned his hand so the belt wrapped around it, and he yanked it right out of Daddy Ivan’s hand.

  I mind Mummy Joy in the doorway, her gasping, her hand going to her mouth, her eyes all big and wide. Even Daddy Tam, down on the floor, his eyes were near sticking out of his head. He skittered away backwards until he bumped into the wall.

  It went terrible quiet for a while, nobody saying anything, but the men breathing hard. All staring one at the other. Then Daddy George raised his hand, the belt hanging from it, the buckle dangling there. I mind the one thought I had in my head was, if he strikes Daddy Ivan, that’ll be the end of him. That’ll be the end of everything.

  But then something else happened, and it near shocked me more than him taking thon belt. Here, didn’t Mummy Joy spake up?

  Don’t, says she, and she stepped into the room, slow like the kitchen was full of sleeping animals that would ate her if she woke them. And she reached up and she took a holt of the belt, but Daddy George didn’t let it go. So she put her other hand on his shoulder, and she came between him and Daddy Ivan, and she looked Daddy George right in the eye, and spake low and quiet to him.

  Give it back, says she.

  And he let her take it from his hand, and she gave it over to Daddy Ivan, turning her eyes to the floor as he took it off her. He wrapped the buckle end around his fist, and he swung it terrible hard at her. She dropped her arm down to try and save herself, but the belt cut around her wrist and her thigh and to the backs of her legs.

  I mind the way she howled. I could hear the pain. She fell to the floor in a heap, curling around herself. Daddy George stood still and his face, oh, his face, so much hate and anger in him. But he wouldn’t fight. He knew what Mummy Joy had telt him by taking thon belt out of his hand. But I could see the rage on him like it was burning the heart of him.

  As Mummy Joy crawled away, crying, Daddy Ivan spake up.

  Says he, Have yous no work to do? What are yous all lying around for? Do yous think this farm runs itself? Do yous think I’m going to do it all for yous?

  Before I knew what he was doing, he turned and he reached under the table for me, and he dragged me out by my hair, up onto my feet, and I let a squeal out of me as he let me go. He kicked me hard in the backside and I went stumbling to the door and I went over the top of Mummy Joy, the two of us landing there in a heap.

  We gathered each other up, got to our feet, and helped each other across the hall and into the living room. Mummy Joy fell into one of the armchairs, me on top of her, and she helt me awful tight. It was a while before either of us noticed Mummy Noreen was in the corner, a wet rag in her hand, a bucket at her feet.

  Says she, You see what you’re doing? Do you see how this is going to go? For the love of God, can you not see?

  It’s too late, says Mummy Joy, there’s no stopping it now.

  And she was right.

  37: Sara

  Sara stepped through the doorway into the darkness of the kitchen, the stone floor cool on her bare soles. She waited while her vision adjusted to the dimness, the night beginning its surrender to dawn. Her gaze travelled the room, searching for the boy she hadn’t seen. She found him, the impression of him, the layering of shadow, over by the old fireplace where the cooker now stood. His head bowed, he stared at the floor.

  She knew what he stared at.

  Slowly, she crossed the room to him, to the place where the red stains lingered on the stone. She could no longer see him, the shadows dispersed, but she could feel him, watching her as she knelt down. The stone slabs were smooth against her skin as she ran her fingertips across the surface, the grouting rough. She could barely see the stains in the blue dimness, but she could feel the change in texture.

  In the floors, Mary had said.

  Sara placed her hand flat on the stone and closed her eyes. She felt the cold hardness, and the sand and earth beneath, but what else? She opened her eyes, admonishing herself for such foolishness. There had been no boy, simply a trick the darkness played on her exhausted mind. Nothing more.

  A movement snagged her attention, at the other end of the kitchen, the doorway leading to the back hall. She turned her head, saw a child, a small girl, little more than a toddler.

  Shadows and light, that’s all. Nothing there, Sara told herself. Nothing there but shadows and light.

  But the child stared back.

  Sara pushed herself up onto her knees.

  “What do you want?” she said, her voice crack
ing.

  The child stepped back into the darkness, became one with it, but Sara knew she remained there, waiting. Sara got to her feet, used the island for support as she walked to the rear of the kitchen, seeking the child in the dark corners of the back hall. She stepped through, saw the child slip into the extension, keeping to the dim pools as the first hints of light crept through the glass of the patio doors. Following, careful where she placed her feet, she searched the shadows for the girl, found her crouching by a row of cement bags, propped against the wall. On top of them, a large chisel, and a mallet.

  Sara looked at them for a time, one idea chasing another through her mind, until she understood. She went to the bags, lifted the chisel in her left hand, felt the heft of it. This was not the tool of a woodworker, not made for carving and shaping. It was heavy, and its blade was wide and stout. This was made for breaking concrete and splitting stone. A masonry chisel, she thought it was called. She lifted the mallet in her right hand, and it was heavier still.

  A good blow from the chisel would shatter the glass of the patio doors and set her free. And then what? She could walk to the village and get help. Maybe knock on the door of Buchanan’s Grocers, just like Mary had done sixty years or so before.

  She realised then that the small girl, or the shadow of her, no longer crouched by the cement bags. Sara turned in a circle, searching for her. She found the girl in the doorway leading into the back hall, and the kitchen beyond. The shadow-child stared back at her for a moment, then retreated.

  Sara followed, entering the hall, seeing the child merge into the light and shade of the kitchen. And the boy there, over by the fireplace, guarding the stains, waiting for her. She entered the kitchen, its deep blue turning to grey as the birds outside awoke and began their morning songs.

  In the half-light, the stains appeared quite black against the deep grey of the stone. Sara knelt down beside them, let the chisel and mallet drop to the floor. She felt their weight through her knees as they impacted the surface. Her fingers traced the rough grout between the flagstones, her nails scratching at the coarse borders.

  She raised her head, looking for the boy, but he was no longer here beside her. There, in the fuller darkness of the back hall, she saw him and the little girl, the suggestion of them in the shadows. And more, others, their forms less distinct, but present nonetheless. She turned her head to see the door out to the hall, to the foot of the stairs and the front door. The shadows moved, took shape, dissolved, reformed. More children, watching.

  I should fear them, Sara thought. But she did not.

  They’ll find you, Mary had said.

  Sara lifted the chisel in her left hand, the mallet in her right, and placed the cutting edge on the grouting between the flagstones. She lifted the mallet and struck the head of the chisel with all her strength. The sound hit her ears hard, made her wince. She did it again, and again, and the chisel’s blade sank between the stones.

  By the time she had worked her way around the first stone, splitting the grouting, dawn light soaked the kitchen. Her shoulder and back ached, along with her knees, and blisters had begun to form on her palms. She brought the chisel back to the starting point and hammered down between the stones once more. It took less effort than before, and as it deepened, she tilted the chisel away so its blade worked underneath the stone, raising it a fraction. She hammered it in further, lifting the stone a little at a time, until there was just enough room to slip her fingers underneath.

  Sara shuffled around to the other side of the stone, ignoring the shrieking pain from her knees and back. She wedged her fingers under the stone and pulled it up and towards herself. The weight was less than she’d expected, but heavy enough to pull a grunt from deep in her chest. She moved aside and let the stone fall away, cracking as it hit the floor. A square of bare sand now lay exposed, dark and damp to the touch, with a deep red stain to one corner. She explored the sand with her fingers, compacted and dense, then lifted the chisel and mallet once more.

  The next few stones were easier, some smaller than the first, some larger, the grouting giving way with less force. As sunlight crept over the kitchen, she worked, chipping and lifting, until she had cleared perhaps three feet squared of hard-packed sand, flagstones scattered around, some whole, some fractured. The red stain at the centre, brighter now, like a butterfly trapped in the grains.

  Sara leaned back on her heels and stifled a cry at the pain that erupted in her back and shoulders, the burning sting of the blisters on her palms. She looked around, to the doorways to the back and front halls, and saw nothing but the empty spaces there. Part of her better mind tried to tell her there had been nothing there at all, never had been, but she knew now that wasn’t true.

  She returned her attention to the sand and the red stain. Coarse to her touch, gritty beneath her fingernails as she dug at the surface. Too compacted to do more than scratch. She reached for the chisel, gripped the shaft in both stinging hands, and stabbed at the sand, dragged the blade through it, moving it away in clumps and drifts. Perhaps two inches of packed sand and pebbles, broken up by the chisel, then scooped away by her hands. The idea crossed her mind to go to the extension, see if she could find a spade or a shovel, but she knew if she got up off her knees now, she might not be able to get down again, so she kept digging until she found dark, damp earth. She stabbed at the ground, dragged the chisel across it, dislodging earth and stone, dug with her hands, clearing away a shallow crater, piling sand and dirt all around her.

  As Sara’s fingers delved into the earth, they found something smooth and hard. She stopped, breathless, staring down into the small hollow, and she saw yellowy white through the deep brown. Her fingernails scrabbled through the dirt, pulling it aside, exposing more, an inch of it now, and something else, a ridge bordering a rounded hollow. She stopped, staring at what she’d unearthed, knowing what she saw, even as her mind fought against it.

  An eye socket.

  “My God,” she whispered.

  Despite her every instinct not to, she reached down and touched it, the bony ridge, the smooth surface of the brow.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  A shadow fell across the bone, across her outstretched hand.

  “What have you done?” Damien asked.

  38: Joy

  Joy got on with sweeping the floors, despite the pain. Every time she moved, the welts that had been left on her skin by the belt rubbed against the fabric of her clothing. But she had known worse pain, and she could tolerate this now that she had a scrap of hope to cling to. The logical part of her mind knew that Noreen was right, that this would not go the way she planned, but the hopeful part had grown bigger, brighter, louder, until it eclipsed all else. When she looked ahead, all she could see was walking out of this place, Mary’s hand in hers, George taking them away.

  And then what?

  She didn’t know. It didn’t matter. As soon as she was free of this house, she could do anything she wanted. George was too weak to hold her. He wouldn’t know what she’d done to him until it was too late. Another part of her pitied him, knew this would destroy him. But when she thought of all the times she’d had to bathe for him before being taken to his room and the stinking, sweating weight of him on top of her, his clumsy, fumbling hands, the foul breath from his drooping lip, when she remembered that, then the pity washed away to leave only hate.

  Joy avoided him as the day ground on into evening, but she kept Mary close, finding ways the child could help her, giving her menial tasks, like carrying the dustpan outside for emptying or dusting the surfaces. They spoke little, which was not unusual when they were upstairs, but a heavier silence hung over the house today, as if the very walls were ashamed of what had happened.

  Ivan wandered from room to room, watching, watching, watching, his eyes small and dark and quick. She felt them on her when he passed, the welts beneath her dress singing out at his pres
ence.

  Noreen watched too. Several times, she tried to take Joy aside, get her on her own, but Joy resisted. She knew what Noreen would say, and she had no desire to hear it. But as the darkness slipped in from outside, the oil lamps doing little to hold it back, Noreen trapped her on the stairs.

  “I won’t help you,” Noreen whispered. “All right, I can’t stop you, but I’ll not help you.”

  “You do what you want,” Joy said, louder than she should.

  “Aye, I will.” Noreen’s voice rose as she spoke. “I’ll live. You get yourself and thon child killed. But you won’t take me with you.”

  They glared at each other for a moment before Joy pushed past Noreen and down the stairs to the living room. She closed the door behind her and pressed her back against it, her arms folded across her chest. Her curses resonated in the room.

  The sloshing of liquid in a bottle startled her, and she let out a cry, as if she’d been touched by a cold hand. She searched the room for the source of the sound. There, in the far corner, where the light from the fireplace could not quite reach him, Tam sat on the floor with a bottle of whiskey resting on his knee. He brought it to his lips and took a swallow, grunted as it went down. His thick tongue appeared from between his lips and retreated again.

  “What’re you at, girl?” he said, the words lumpen in his mouth. “What’re you sneaking around like a mouse for?”

  He pointed the neck of the bottle at her.

  “I see you,” he said in a sing-song voice through a lopsided smile. “I see you.”

  Down below, when they’d eaten the scraps that Ivan had allowed them and extinguished the lamp, they went to bed. Mary crawled in with Joy, as had become her habit of late. Every night, as she wrapped her arms around her daughter and pulled her in close, she marvelled at how little there was of her. How small and thin. And every night it caused a bell of sadness to ring inside her.