Himself(80)
Her hand squeezes his. ‘I plan to die like a warrior: fiercely and upright.’
Tears run unannounced onto Mahony’s pillow, for love is just as heartbreaking as pity.
Chapter 44
May 1950
The man laid his fingers on the dog’s snout so that she would understand and stay and be quiet. He took up his sack and his shovel and made to go.
But the dog was wise and she knew that the man had darkness in his mind, more darkness than she’d ever seen before, despite their long years together. So when he walked into the forest she followed him, for she couldn’t leave him, even if he bid her to.
She walked close at heel, waiting for the soft scattered language from above, the clicks and whistles, the half-looks and hand motions.
But the man took hold of her neck and said, ‘Stay. Stay. Stay.’
But she felt the darkness behind the man’s eyes and she could not stay.
She had never defied him and he had never punished her.
She knew nothing but sun and rain, rabbit holes and falling leaves, sea-spray and sheep. And the miles and miles and miles they went together over beaches, bog, field and hill. Her long bright face curving back, always curving back, curving back to him, as he walked behind with his hands in his pockets, throwing his whistle through the air as straight as a stone.
His fingers said stay. Stay. Stay. They lifted her off the ground and pushed her away. Stay.
She knew nothing but coarse rugs and rich bones, warm ranges and gravy-soaked crusts. She slipped under the fence and joined him at heel.
The man put down his rope and his spade and he took off his belt and put it around her neck, looping one end to a fence post.
‘Stay. Damn you.’
But she was canny and fast and she slipped the loop to rejoin him at the edge of the forest. This time she sang out to him. She sang to him with her strong bark; she told him she wouldn’t leave him. She sang out against the darkness.
He broke her hind leg, shearing down her shin with the back of his boot heel to a point halfway. Her bone gave way with an empty sound.
‘Stay. Damn you.’
Now she knew pain – the white pain of the leg she pulled after her – but still she sang out loud against the darkness in his mind.
She tried to sing him back to the world of sky and trees, half-dug holes, warm floorboards and full bowls. She howled with love, not pain.
She made him stop and turn and walk back to her.
‘Be quiet. Damn you.’
She licked the wrist of the strong hand that held her down, as in the work of a moment he splayed her ribs with the backblade of the spade held low hilted.
‘Damn you to hell.’
He dug a blow that tore her face away then he walked on, certain she could neither sing nor follow.
But she tried. Digging forwards with her long front paws, her useless hind legs twisting behind her.
But she tried. Her snout pushing forwards in the dirt and her black and white fur rinsed with the waves of red that smeared a wake on the ground as she moved.
She died at the gatepost, calling soundlessly to him as her eye dimmed in her raw-open head.
Chapter 45
May 1976
The old and the young wives of Mulderrig are rising uneasy this morning, for last night a visitor came uninvited. It blew open their latches and skipped over their thresholds. It patted their cats and climbed their stairs. It whispered in their ears and eased the rings off their fingers. It stretched out on their beds and grinned at their sleeping husbands. The old and the young wives watched behind closed eyes, helpless in their dreams.
They remember now. As they stand waiting for the kettle, or feeding the baby, they look down at their fingers where their wedding bands used to be. They search in soap dishes and along window ledges, in drawers and on dressers. They run outside to ransack the potato peelings. But all the time they know that they never took their rings off – they never would! And their husbands will say, ‘Ah, it’s bound to turn up, along with my shaving mirror and my belt buckle.’
So the village shrugs and goes about its business.
For isn’t it the day of the play?
Who has the time to notice a few missing things?
Who has the time to mark the space left by an old copper kettle or a dusty horse brass? Or a dented christening cup or a tarnished candlestick?
And if anyone does notice, well, they are soon caught up in another drama, which is far more distracting. For the villagers are now discovering that there is not a drop of milk to be had in the whole of Mulderrig. From unopened pints in refrigerators to netted jugs in cool pantries, every drop of milk in Mulderrig is found to be bitter and curdled and clabbered enough to stand a fork upright. What’s more the butter is rancid, the cream has turned and the cheese is entirely rotten.
Mulderrig has gone sour.
Of course, ask Bridget Doosey and she would tell you that milk products are particularly vulnerable to malevolent supernatural forces. Keep the dead away from the dairy, she’d advise. But Bridget Doosey is happily unaware of the plight of the rest of the village, for right now she’s enjoying her fifth cup of tea of the day up at Rathmore House, which has its full complement of shiny objects and the milk pours fine and fresh from the jug on the kitchen table.
Bridget, in her new role as dresser to Mrs Cauley, has curled the wig, pressed the brocade and de-flead the silver fox, Shauna having resigned the position due to hostilities over a scorch mark on Mrs Cauley’s bird of paradise kimono.