The Things You Didn't See(75)
Dad leaves the car without a word, striding off to the pig field where I can see Ash is working, a dark solitary shape in the distance.
I’m about to go inside the farmhouse when something stops me – a memory I can barely grasp forces my feet towards the barn.
Pushing open the black wooden door, I see the chickens are roaming free, pecking in hard earth or roosting in triangle houses of mesh and wood. It’s true what Ash told the police: we did play here when we were kids, hiding in stacked straw bales, pretending it was a den or another world. The earth dips where it’s been trodden down by Dad’s heavy boots.
Last time I was in the barn was that terrible Friday, around six, with the shooting party. That evening, the floor lay littered with a pile of dead birds, the spoils of their sport; now only a rusty bloodstain remains. I notice a left-over wine glass, half-hidden behind a bale of straw. Next to it are Dad’s black rubber gloves, the ones he uses to finish off any birds only half-dead.
One of the gloves moves on the straw, fingers flapping in the wind like crows’ wings. I kneel down closer to look at them. What do I expect to see? Blood? But the stains aren’t red, they’re black, the colour of oil or fertiliser. The glove is large and open-mouthed, long-necked and waiting to swallow a hand, an arm, whole. I touch it, and the rough slipperiness curls between my fingers. I slide my hand inside the loose rubber. It swallows my forearm, but still the glove almost fits. My fingers find the grooves worn by his; the moulded shape of regular use as comfortable to me as my own. Could he have pulled the trigger, like he says he did, without the glove to strengthen his right hand?
No, I don’t think so.
I enter the farmhouse, needing to be away from that place of death. But here, the atmosphere is even darker because you aren’t here in the kitchen, nursing a cup of green tea, talking to Janet as she stands at the sink, hands wet with soap. I can see her apron strings in a knot behind her, flat shoes solid on the brick floor. I can hear your voice, Mum, low and confident as you tell her about something you read in the paper that morning; you always had an opinion on everything, didn’t you? The scene is so real I can smell the Harrods soap you asked for each Christmas, the scent of winter walks and fresh snow, as if you were here with me.
I hear something, noises overhead. I stand and listen.
It’s a scraping sound – mice? No, too big for that. Rats? Could be. I gingerly go to the bottom of the stairs: I hate rats. Outside, in the distance, the rumble of the tractor tells me I’m the only one who’s going to fix this. I climb the backstairs, and reach the landing, your study to the left, your bedroom to the right. The scratching is coming from your room.
Mum?
Your bedroom door creaks on its weary hinge, just enough to let me in. The bedspread is pulled tight over the pillows, coral-pink washed to blush, the scent of winter faded here but lingering still. It draws me in, to you, a place I could never normally go. I perch on the edge of the bed, run a hand over the place you last lay. Tiredness falls over me like a blanket, weighs down my back and shoulders. I can’t fight it, I have to lie down. I breathe the familiar scents and imagine you’re in a better place. I close my eyes.
Scratching wakes me, claws on wood. I jump up, braced to see a rat run over my leg, across the pink sea of covers. The sound comes again, louder, from inside the wardrobe. Walnut wood, handles smooth with wear. I open the door, careful and slow, even as the scratching becomes moaning and I smell pine trees, thick like a forest.
Mum, are you here?
I step inside, knowing it’s no rat, not any more.
Then I see you, curled like a dormouse at the bottom of the wardrobe. The only perfect thing is your red silk nightdress, but your face – oh, Mum, your poor face! The bruises, the blood broken in the whites of your eyes . . . I scream and try to shut the door, but it won’t budge because of your body. I push, and you push back to be free, you look at me with your intense brown eyes and say my name, ‘Cassandra!’
Someone is shaking me, touching me, and I’m so frightened I put my hands to my face and scream.
‘Cassandra!’
35
Holly
Holly arrived at the house in Greater Kenley to find the only person home was Victoria, who answered the door with earphones in her ears, wired to her phone.
‘Mum and Grandad have gone to the farm,’ she said, lifting just one pod from her ear so Holly could hear the thudding bass of music. ‘They left an hour ago.’
It was a short drive to the farm, and Holly found Hector in the barn, mucking out the old straw as the chickens pecked at his feet. ‘Morning, Hector. I wanted to drop by to see how you’re getting on.’
Hector was pulling a straw bale apart with his pitchfork, his right hand serving as a wedge to stop the bale from slipping. ‘I’ve got work to do.’
‘Are you sure you should be exerting yourself so much?’
‘I may as well work. I can’t see much point in anything else.’ He spat on the ground.
The chickens scrabbled around Holly’s feet and she stepped back into something wet. Her trousers gathered dirt at the hems. ‘You’re on strong sedatives and you’re grieving. Be kind to yourself.’
‘Work’s the best cure for grief.’
Hector turned his attention to raking the mucky straw into a steaming pile and Holly noticed how he was avoiding her gaze, just as he had always avoided her questions.