Water Shall Refuse Them

by Lucie McKnight Hardy

  ‘Good evening,’ said my dad. His earlier jollity seemed to have left him, and now his voice faltered.

  The man who stood up and stepped forward seemed to assume the role of leader and as he moved into the light I could see that he was the man I’d seen outside the chapel, the little beetle of a man. The one who had helped the minister. He was short, barely taller than me, and his chin receded so much it disappeared into his neck. He leaned past my dad and spoke softly into another room, a room that was behind where we stood and that I hadn’t noticed when we’d walked in. I couldn’t work out what he was saying, but thought I heard him say ‘Tracy’ and I craned my neck to see. The girl from the plague cross came out, wiping her hands on an apron.

  She looked at us; there was something confrontational in her expression. I saw again how her features were all too close together, like someone had taken her face and pushed it together, and when she looked me up and down, I noticed that she was very slightly cross-eyed. Her greasy yellow hair was tied up in a ponytail at the top of her head and a line of pimples dotted her hairline.

  When the beetle man spoke to my dad his voice was quiet, but the room was so still there was no need for him to raise it.

  ‘Tracy here will help you. If you don’t mind, we’re in the middle of a meeting and would welcome some privacy. Perhaps you would care to sit in the other room.’ It was less a question than a statement, and his words, while being fluent, were slightly too formal, too strained.

  Tracy stepped forward. ‘Wha’ d’you wan’?’ She had her arms crossed over breasts that were straining to escape from a grubby white vest. Her apron did little to cover her thighs which poked, mottled and meaty, from the bottom of a denim mini skirt. ‘My mam’s not ’ere so I can only do you beer or pop.’

  ‘I’ll have beer please.’ My dad looked at my mother and for a moment I thought she might smile, but she simply shrugged and said, ‘Pop.’

  ‘A beer and three pops, then,’ my dad said to Tracy. ‘How much is that?’

  ‘Settle up at the end. That’s ’ow we do it ’ere.’ She turned around and, manoeuvring her hefty thighs around a battered table that seemed to do service as a bar, slid into the little room.

  The beetle man was still standing, still looking at my dad with a little pinched smile attached to his face. His lower lip was bulbous and wet, and as I watched, his tongue popped out, pointed and surprisingly pink, and darted around the edges of his mouth. The minute gesture his hand made towards the doorway we’d come in through seemed to dismiss us. In the shadows behind him, one of the men shifted in his chair and in the meagre light I recognised him as the man I’d seen outside the chapel. The minister.

  He was sitting hunched into his chair, as if his tall frame made him too large for the room. Again, I noticed that the skin of his face was pale and pulled taut over his features as though it had been stretched, like a canvas on a frame. His black hair was still Brylcreemed back over his high forehead. He turned towards me, and that was when I saw his eyes.

  They were milky white. He was blind.

  The beetle man moved his hand again in the direction of the door and my dad must have taken the hint this time, because he ushered us back into the strip-lit glare of the front room. We took our place on the long settle, all four of us in a row.

  When Tracy came back in she had a pint of stagnant-looking brown liquid and three bottles of violently-pink fizz. All three bottles had straws jammed in the tops. She glared at each of us as she handed them out, and when it was my turn there was a flicker of puzzlement there as well, as though she recognised me but couldn’t quite place me. I thought of her giving me the finger as we drove into the village and felt a quiet surge of satisfaction at knowing she didn’t remember me.

  The card players carried on with their game, and the silence lay heavy.

  I was reminded of what Mally had told me about there being three different sorts of people in the village. There were us, the outsiders, ranked along the settle. There were the villagers, keeping themselves to themselves as they played their card game, not attempting to socialise, but not antagonistic either. And then there were the chapel-goers, who had hidden themselves away in the back room, engrossed in their meeting and concocting whatever rituals they performed that Mally had told me about and some of which I’d witnessed with my own eyes.

  Lorry started babbling, making noises that sounded like they could be words but weren’t, and my dad shushed him and frowned. My mother lit a cigarette and took deep drags, alternating between the fag and the straw that stuck up out of her bottle of pop. Even in the glare of the strip lights, the lines around her mouth seemed shallower, somehow, smoother. Her eyes were brighter and I could tell that she’d washed her hair because it was glossy rather than greasy, and sat in waves on her shoulders. It was as though her belief that Petra had come back—had forgiven her—had somehow reversed the ageing process and started making her young again.

  We sat like that in silence for a few long minutes. It wasn’t easy to make conversation, even if we’d wanted to, sitting as we were in one long line. Lorry finished his drink and blew through the straw, sending little drops of spittle sailing into the air. My mother looked around for somewhere to put out her cigarette, and my dad took it from her, cradling his hand under the tower of ash. He carried it over to the fireplace and squeezed himself past the bench to lean in and throw in the fag butt.

  When the front door opened, there was a bit of a creak but the air didn’t even move. The woman who stood in the doorway was wearing a red dress, nipped in at the waist and cut low at the front, the colour a shriek in the harshness of the strip lights. She had on stilettoes and stockings. It was the woman I’d seen my dad talking to, the woman who lived in the cottage opposite ours. Mally’s mum.

  As she stepped over the threshold, she must have caught one of her heels, because she lurched to the side. My dad lunged forward and caught her by the elbow.

  ‘Janet!’ His voice rang out in the silent room, and I think even he was surprised at how loud it was.

  The woman looked up at him, her head moving slowly backwards and forwards, her eyes trying to focus. Finally, they must have managed it, because she put her arms around his neck and pulled him into an awkward embrace.

  ‘Hello Clive,’ she said when she’d let him go. ‘Out for a couple of drinks?’ She looked amused, but the smile kept sliding around on her face, as though she wasn’t in control of it. Her eyes too slipped in and out of focus, and when she walked towards us she staggered slightly, before correcting herself.

  ‘Is this the family, then?’ She leant down and peered at Lorry, then at me and then at my mother, who looked back with raised eyebrows and a downturned mouth. The woman clutched at my dad’s arm and drew herself up to a standing position. She waved a hand at my mother.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss, my dear.’ The woman slurred the words and they came out in one convoluted string, but their meaning was clear. My mother’s face drained of blood.

  My dad was starting to say something when the door to the other room opened and Tracy darted in, surprisingly agile for someone of her build. She smirked at the woman, and looked her up and down, like she had done to me.

  ‘I’m not servin’ you, Janet White,’ Tracy said, the smugness in her voice palpable. She had her hands on her hips, one foot crossed over the other. Her tiny eyes looked like raisins pushed into dough.

  ‘Ah, go on Tracy. Just a half bottle of Scotch to take out. Won’t kill you, will it?’

  The card players had abandoned their game and were watching this exchange with interest.

  Tracy crossed her arms over her chest, her cleavage reaching up to her double chin in the process. She shook her head.

  ‘Absolutely not. You still owe my mam for that bottle last week. She said not to let you ’ave nothing more on tick till you’ve paid for that.’

  The woman started rummaging in her handbag, a silver glittery thing that was wildly incongruous in the front roo
m of the pub. She pulled out a couple of grubby pound notes and thrust them at Tracy.

  ‘Go on then, take it. Take my last couple of quid and give me a half bottle of Scotch. That’s all I’ve got until Thursday when the family allowance gets paid, but you have it.’

  Tracy took the notes and held them up to the light, as if checking that they were real. Then she looked slyly at the woman, her little pig eyes glinting with menace.

  ‘That pays your debt, all right, but it won’t get you anything else tonight. Reckon you’d be best going home and sleeping that lot off.’ Tracy looked pleased with herself.

  The door to the back room opened and the beetle man walked in and stopped in front of Janet.

  ‘Miss White,’ he said, and his lip was drawn back over his teeth as he formed the sibilant whisper that revealed Janet’s unmarried status. ‘Don’t you think behaviour like this should be carried out in the privacy of one’s own home?’ He sounded superior and pleased with himself, and I felt a bit sorry for Janet as she looked at him, her head swaying as she tried to focus on those sharp eyes.

  ‘I suggest you do as Tracy says and go home and sleep it off. Perhaps this gentleman would care to escort you?’ He looked at my dad, who raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. I could tell that we had cemented our position in the village as outsiders, as far as the beetle man was concerned. ‘I’ll settle up for you with Tracy,’ he said, and there was a finality in his voice that made my dad nod.

  It was dark when we left the pub, but it was a clear night and there was a bright moon. The lane shone grey. Janet had one arm around my dad’s neck and she stumbled all the way, occasionally tripping and causing him to pull her up again by the elbow. I was carrying Lorry and we walked behind in silence. My mother hadn’t said anything at all, and she walked a few feet behind us, her hands crossed over her chest and clutching her shoulders, glaring at the ground. Her mouth was pulled into a pout, like a cat’s bumhole. She looked old again.

  When we got to Janet’s house, my dad managed to push the gate open with his hip and we all trooped up the path. My dad leant Janet up against the wall at the side of the front door and took her bag off her and rummaged around for a key. Before he could find it, a light came on and then the door opened. I tried to hide in the shadows.

  ‘Mally. Y’re a good boy.’ Janet’s voice was still slurred but now it was fogged with sleepiness as well.

  ‘Hi, Mum.’ Mally’s voice sounded fresh and clear in the still heaviness of the night. ‘Hi, Mr Allen. Find her in the pub, did you?’

  I was shocked that Mally knew my dad. When had they met? I shrank further back into the shadows, glad that Lorry had fallen asleep.

  ‘That’s right, Mally. She’s in a bit of a state I’m afraid. Can you get her up to bed, or do you need a hand?’ I heard my mother let out a sharp breath behind me.

  ‘That’s fine, thank you, Mr Allen. It’s not like I haven’t done this before.’ In one move he hoisted the semi-conscious woman over his shoulder and patted her backside.

  ‘C’mon Mum. Let’s get you up to bed.’

  My dad raised a hand to Mally and turned to go.

  ‘Thanks Mr Allen. For getting her home, I mean.’

  I blew out a silent breath of relief that he hadn’t seen me.

  ‘Bye, Nif. See you soon.’

  We walked across the lane to our own cottage. Even though it was fully dark now, there was no respite from the sun. It was as though the long afternoon had just been a preparation for night-time, accumulating and reinforcing the fingers of heat that penetrated the darkness and settled on my shoulders.

  I left my mother and my dad arguing in the kitchen. I put Lorry to bed and went to my room in the attic. From the window, I could see the moon reflected in the windows of the chapel, white orbs held in black. The smell of the honeysuckle was invasive and found its way into my bedroom where it stayed, cloying and somnolent. The smell was more aggressive at night, as though the darkness concentrated the scent—it became sweeter and more pungent, and muskier, like the incense in church.

  On Saturday mornings, when Father Declan was holding confession, the smell of the incense would be at its height, as if it could somehow help to seek out sin. All morning at home my mother would be twitchy and alert, and I knew she had been rehearsing her confession, plucking from her conscience the sins she had committed during the week since her last performance. I would sit on the back pew to wait for her, right at the end, next to the statue that was tucked into an alcove in the wall. It depicted the Virgin Mary, blue robes flowing and an expression of unremitting piety on her face as she clutched the Sacred Heart, a single tear falling onto her cheek. The church would be mostly empty at that time, and it was usually just the flower arrangers who would be there, preparing the church for Mass the next morning, and the odd sinner, awaiting their penance from Father Declan.

  Mr McPherson was the only one of the teachers who went to Our Lady of Holy Saviour; all the others went to St Francis on the other side of town. He’d quite often be there on Saturday mornings to take confession, and would nod to me as he went past and then take a seat and wait for the confessional box to be free. He wasn’t bad looking, Mr McPherson. He had lots of dark brown hair that curled around his forehead, and a moustache that Burt Reynolds would envy. Usually my mother would hasten out of the box, her face a study in humility, and she would sit next to me and take out her rosary and start muttering, counting off on her fingers the required numbers of Hail Marys the priest had demanded of her. After a few minutes, Father Declan would appear, and beckon Mr McPherson into the confessional box, but not before he’d cast a worried look in my mother’s direction.

  All this time, I’d sit watching the Virgin Mary, willing her to move, like she did in those villages in Ireland and France. My mother’s fingers would be tapping and fidgeting, twisting the beads. Long minutes later, Mr McPherson would come out of the confessional box and walk down the aisle towards the door—he was always in a hurry, scurrying, trying to get away from the dank interior of the church and back out into the sunlight. He’d invariably cast a glance at my mother, and I’d feel her tense as he walked past, but she’d never look at him, never open her eyes. She would just carry on muttering her prayers, her fingers twisting and writhing in her lap, and all the time the lusty smell of incense would pervade the church.

  On the other side of the lane, Mally’s house sat in darkness, except for a light on the second floor. I picked up the crow’s skull from the altar and ran my fingers over the shiny-domed mound. I didn’t feel anything different, anything peculiar from it. I placed my fingers into the hollows of the eye sockets, and I thought of Mally. As I knew it would, a shape appeared at his bedroom window, a dark head silhouetted against the pale light.

  Eleven.

  Wednesday 4th August 1976

  ‘Tell me a secret, Nif.’

  We were lying on the bank by the stream. Lorry was sitting with his legs in the water, giggling as the shallows lapped at his thighs. He’d been in a foul mood all morning, scratching away at his legs then crying when the blood started showing through his bandages, but he’d perked up when Mally appeared at the window after lunch. Now he was content, and the water was soothing the sores on his legs.

  It had taken quite a bit to persuade me to go to the stream, but Lorry had begged, had clutched at Mally’s hand, and he’d seemed so happy that I gave in.

  ‘Tell me a secret, Nif.’ Mally was lying flat on his back, his arms behind his head, eyes closed. I sat with my legs crossed under me, facing the stream, feeling gangly and awkward. With the sun in my eyes I was squinting, but I could still see Mally. He looked fuzzy through my eyelashes.

  He’d taken his shirt off as soon as we got to the river bank, and the skin on his chest was smooth and hairless. He was pale and wiry and his chest was slightly concave. Pigeon chested, my dad would have said. Three small moles were strung in a line across his stomach, like Orion’s Belt. His jeans were tattered and ripped at t
he knees, and the frayed hems were cloaked in dust.

  I bit my lip and tried to think of a secret to tell him. I thought of the girls at school and how they’d all wanted to befriend me after Petra died, how they wanted an association with death that would perhaps bring it closer to them while also keeping it at bay. Not yet. It was too soon to tell him about Petra.

  He sat up, propping himself up on his arms. Light danced from the ripples that Lorry was making in the water.

  ‘You do have secrets, don’t you, Nif? I mean, everyone has secrets.’

  ‘I suppose so. What about you? What’s your secret?’ I focused on my hand, the fingers pinching at the dried grass, pulling it up in tiny bundles.

  He laughed softly. ‘I already told you my secret.’

  The skulls appeared in my mind, lined up on the shelves of Mally’s cupboard, gleaming in the sunlight. I carried on pulling at the grass, clearing a little patch of dusty earth. Lorry was still standing in the stream, splashing and giggling to himself. I could sense that Mally was lying down and I risked a glance. He had his forearm resting over his eyes, shielding them from the sun, and that half-smile had formed on his lips.

  ‘What kind of a name is Nif, anyway?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s rich, coming from someone called Mally.’

  He snorted out a laugh. ‘It’s short for Malcolm,’ he said. ‘I know. It’s a shit name, isn’t it?’