Ghost Wall(26)

Mum and I sat against the hut and watched them pass around the woolly bread and wet ham. I fiddled with the wreath at my side. Have some, Silvie, said Pete, you must be starving. Molly handed me the lemonade, too heavy for one hand. Here, it’s for you, it was cold, I got them to put it in the chiller thing for wine, but it’s probably warmed up now. I glanced up the hill, cocked an ear to the wood for Dad’s footfall, and millimetre by millimetre unscrewed the hissing lid, hearing the pressure fall, feeling the slow release under my fingers. Beside me, Mum leant against the wall and let her eyes fix on nothing. Opposite, in the shade of the oak tree, knees apart like those of a child who doesn’t know anyone cares about her knickers, Molly peeled a square slice of ham and lowered it onto her square of white bread, aligning the corners. Her lips and tongue reached as she took a large bite that left toothmarks in the flesh. She sucked salt from her index finger and then pushed a wisp of honey hair behind her ear. I looked up, saw Pete watching me watch her and blushed, felt the sudden heat in my face like pee in pants.

We heard the voices of Dad and the Prof an hour or so later. The others had gone off to cool down in the stream, the odd pulse of talk and laughter drifting back through the trees. Molly would be naked, I knew, or at best down to bright lace underwear and I couldn’t still a beat of fear for her if Dad saw, although I knew he couldn’t and wouldn’t do anything worse than radiating rage and disgust. I had relit the fire and was feeding it and watching the new flames, ghostly in sunlight. Mum sat up as if her puppet-master had yanked her strings, and then lumbered to her feet. I haven’t got the dinner on, she said, help me, Silvie. Well, I said, they didn’t eat by the clock, did they, but I set the bag of hazelnuts conspicuously beside the log where Dad usually sat, and poured water into the cauldron so we could cook something. Whatever there was. How do you eat dried fish, I asked. In winter, said Mum, it spoilt in the sun, did you not notice, the smell was so bad I buried it, days since. So what is there now, I said. She shrugged. Hazelnuts. Mushrooms. A heel of white bread. Molly’s laughter rang from the stream.

But they weren’t angry. They drank a lot of water and opened and ate the nuts intently, chewing one while stripping the green shell from the next. Mum stood watching. Steam began to rise from the water which there was now no reason to heat.

Right, said the Prof, Silvie, can we have a word with you, about the plan for tonight? It’s something special. Come for a little stroll. I glanced at Mum, who didn’t raise her eyes, and went.

They wanted to kill me at sunset. To march me up onto the moor to the beat of the drums and the bass chanting, to tie my hands and my feet, to put a rope around my neck that could be tightened and loosened for as long as blades and rocks could hold me wavering between life and death. Of course we won’t actually hurt you, the Prof said, I hope you know that, Silvie. It’s just the ritual we want to try, the way it must have looked and sounded, the drums on the moor and the winding of the ropes. I could feel my breathing tight, heat spreading from my chest into my arms. But we don’t know, do we, I said, what it was like, you said there’s no evidence, we know how they died but not why. That’s why we should do this, he said, that’s what we might learn. I promise you’ll come to no harm. She knows that, said Dad, she’s not daft. Are you, Silvie? Why does it have to be me, I said, although I knew the answer. Because I was the person you can hurt. Because I was the scapegoat, the sacrifice, the thing Dad wanted to keep. Well, said the Prof, they were mostly women, women and girls, and I can’t ask Molly, she’s a student and frankly her marks aren’t great and I don’t want her saying she was pressured into anything she didn’t want to do, it could put me in a very difficult position. Your dad said you’d do it. Aye, and she will, said Dad, there’s no call for all this fuss Silvie, it’s just a bit of play-acting for the Professor’s work. It sounds a bit weird, I said, I’m not sure, the ropes. He told you, said Dad, no-one’s going to hurt you, we’ll all be there, of course you’ll do it. Now you go help your mum get a proper meal for everyone, it’s going to be a long night.

The others were back from the stream, sitting damp and clean under a tree well away from the fire. Molly had a bowl of dough beside her and was shaping uneven flatbreads onto a platter where they would stick to it and each other. Mum was cutting up mushrooms with a flint knife. I went and sat by Molly and pulled off a handful of dough. So what was that about, she said, more bone-worship? I shook my head, found crying rising into my mouth and nose. Jesus, Silvie, what is it? I bit my lip, swallowed, bowed my head so the others wouldn’t see. Not that they wouldn’t see me tied up later, paraded in front of them. What, tell me! I squashed the ball of dough between my hands, tried to pat it out. It was too sticky, needed more meal. Molly put down her lump, stood up, rubbed her hands together. Come on, she said, come and talk. Mum needs these, I said, Dad said. Yes, well, she said, I say. Come on. Tell me what they said.

Dad had gone off to the wood, the Professor to write up his day. I finished forming the bread, picked up the wilted wreath from where I’d dropped it by the hut and walked behind Molly towards her tent. Maybe I could give it to her, after all. Moll’s tent was like being inside a blue lampshade. She had an air mattress in there, a striped cotton sleeping-bag liner curled up like a discarded snakeskin, a sponge-bag unzipped and spilling bottles of nail-varnish and deodorant and face creams, a hairbrush webbed with pale hairs and a fruit salad of bobbles wound around its handle, crumpled crisp-packets and sweet wrappers in a pile in the corner, a couple of battered paperback novels. The tent had the apple smell of Molly. We sat in the entrance, as if the tent fabric meant we wouldn’t be heard. Molly, I said, look, I made something for you, it’s silly but I thought you might like it, the smell, here. I blushed again. Hey, she said, you made me a crown, thanks Silvie. She took it and put it on her barley-coloured hair and my hand reached out to stroke. No. I took the hand back. It’s bog myrtle, I said, I like the smell, you can rub it between your fingers, I expect they used it, then, maybe even in the bedding, it smells clean. Like you, I thought, it smells like you, but I didn’t say so. I like it, she said, I’m the midsummer queen, thank you. Now what’s this about, Sil, tell me. So I told her, more or less.