A Half Forgotten Song (49 page)

“You are right, Mitzy. I have another daughter. And I have Charles. And my life is not over, though part of me might wish it was. Yet I remain. I will remain.” Her words were a slamming door, and Dimity’s crowding thoughts, her chaotic feelings, made her stupid and slow. “Perhaps you would prefer me dead, and that is the warning I feel when I look at you. But soon it will be all the same. I will not stay here. This place is like an open grave.” She stood over Dimity but did not seem to see her. She cupped her hands, raised them to her face, and inhaled; an odd, alien gesture.
“Je veux l’air de désert, où le soleil peut allumer n’importe quelle ombre,”
she said, so softly that the words were almost lost on the breeze, and only one was clearly heard.
Desert.
Dimity did not rise for a long time, and when she did, Celeste was already halfway back to the house, a thin, upright, lonely figure, walking onwards without her help.

Celeste was as good as her word. Two days later, Dimity was walking through the village when Charles came bursting from the shop and ran right into her. He gripped her by her upper arms and shook her before he’d even spoken.

“Have you seen her?”

“What? Who?”

“Celeste, of course, you foolish girl!” He gave her another little shake and she could not understand his expression, or his tone. Anger, fear, frustration, scorn. He was muddled, overcrowded.

“No, not since Monday! I swear it!” she cried. Abruptly, he dropped her and pushed his hands through his hair. It was a gesture he made frequently now, when she’d never seen it before that summer. “Has she gone away?” she said.

“I don’t know . . . I don’t know where she’s gone. She was so strange on Monday . . . when I got back from town she was so strange. She said she had to leave right away. I said we had to wait for a few days, until she’s a bit stronger . . . she said she couldn’t wait. I said . . . I said she had to. And now she’s gone and I don’t know where and I can’t find her anywhere! Did she say anything to you? Anything about where she wanted to go?” Dimity thought about Celeste at the edge of the cliff, arms outstretched, hair swirling around her; ready to take flight, ready to fall. She shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
This place is an open grave.
“Mitzy! Are you listening to me?”

“This place is an open grave.” It was true. Blacknowle was a place to die. Her home was a place in which to die.

“What?”

“That’s what she said. She said . . . ‘This place is an open grave.’ ” Charles went still.

“But . . . but she can’t go back to London on her own! Where will she stay? How would she even get to the station? She’s too weak . . . anything could happen to her . . . She’s not well enough yet.” His lips were dry and cracked; shreds of skin clung to them and Dimity wanted to brush them off with her fingers, and gently kiss his questions away. She pictured Celeste walking away from the cliff without her, slow but resolute. She was strong enough to travel alone. Celeste was strong enough for anything. “And you’re sure she didn’t say anything else? No clue as to where she would go—did she mention any names, friends in London, anybody?” Dimity shook her head again. There was the one word she had understood. Charles would think of it, eventually. But she would not prompt him. She would give Celeste a head start, a chance to disappear.
Desert.
A quiet word, full of longing.
Desert.
Let her go;
she sent the thought silently to Charles.
Let her go.

Charles was quiet for a long time, as they walked slowly back to Littlecombe. “She’s right, isn’t she?” he said at last. “This place is full of death. I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” He trailed off as a sob clenched his throat. “This place . . . it’s so different now,” he muttered, almost to himself. “Can’t you feel it? It’s like everything good and right went with her, and only the bad, the corrupt, was left behind. Such a heavy, lonely feeling. Do you feel it, too?”

“Every time you leave,” she said, but Charles didn’t seem to hear.

“I think . . . I will never come back here, after today. I think there are too many terrible memories . . .”

“Then we’ll go away! Anywhere you want to . . . I’ll go wherever you want to go, and we can start our new life. A fresh life, with no ghosts, no death . . .” Dimity stepped closer to him, took his hand, and placed it on her heart; she gazed up at him intently, but Charles snatched his hand away. His eyes went wide and stormy.

“What are you talking about?” He laughed suddenly, an ugly, barking sound. “Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t you see? Everything is ruined! I am ruined. I can’t draw; I can’t sleep or think since . . . since Élodie died. Only dark, horrible thoughts.” He shook his head abruptly, and his face collapsed into itself. “I miss her. I miss her so much. And now I’ve lost Celeste as well. My Celeste.”

“But . . . you love me! In Fez you . . . you saved me. You kissed me. I know you love me, as I love you! I
know
you do!” Dimity cried.

“Enough! I do not love you, Mitzy! Perhaps as a friend, almost as a daughter, at one time . . . but that was then, and this is now. And I should never have kissed you. I am sorry for that, but you have to forget about it now. Do you hear me?”

When Dimity spoke, her voice was little more than a whisper, because the sting of his words, the cruelty of them, took her breath away.

“What are you saying?” She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“For pity’s sake, girl, have you quite lost your mind? Don’t keep on with this nonsense! Can you think of nobody but yourself, Mitzy?”

“I only think of you,” she said numbly. There was only him in the world, she realized. He was the only solid thing, and behind and around him the world dissolved into shadow. “Just you.” She grasped the front of his shirt in her fists. She had to keep hold of him, in case she became nothing but shadow, too.

“I won’t stay here another second. I have to find Celeste. The world’s rotten, Mitzy. Rotten and foul. I can’t bear it! If you see Celeste . . . if she comes here after I’ve gone, be kind to her, please. Tell her I love her and . . . tell her to wait here until I come for her. She can always telephone me, or send a letter . . . please. Will you do that for me, Mitzy? Promise to look after her, if she comes here?”

“Please, don’t go. Please don’t leave me,” Dimity begged.

“Don’t leave you? What are you talking about? None of this has anything to do with you.”

“But . . . I love you.”

Charles looked at her strangely then, with an expression Dimity had never seen before. It looked like anger, like disgust. But it could not be, so she did not recognize it. He turned away from her and strode over to the car. She followed him, kept close behind him. Had hold of the handle of the passenger-side door when the car lurched forwards with a violent jerk that bent her fingers back, and broke all the nails. Blood seeped out from under them. When the car vanished from sight, she looked down at her body, checking it here and there, wondering if she were bleeding, because it felt as though the life was draining out of her and into the stony ground.

A
week after Charles went up to London in search of Celeste, war was declared and travel curtailed. Word of it swept over the country, even to Blacknowle, like the first cold wind of winter. But that wind died down; nothing much seemed to happen. If anything was happening, people said, then it was happening a long way away. Domed concrete lookouts appeared along the coast; strange, bristling ships passed up and down the Channel. Some of the farming lads answered the call of duty; went to Dorchester and signed their lives away. Dimity was scarcely aware of any of it. She had room in her head only for thoughts of Charles, and of how, when he came back, she would heal all his sorrows with her love for him; fill him up with it, and make him see that it was better that Celeste had gone. She was a constant reminder of terrible things. He would love her back and finally, finally, the nightmare would be over and they would be united. Together, as man and wife, with no more whispers about her, or about them. No more rumors or scandal; they would be wed and there was nothing to stop it now. Élodie, Delphine, Celeste; all had gone. The autumn was cold and this thought alone kept her warm. He would come back and be with her. He would come back.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Z
ach was still standing in the little room upstairs at The Watch, staring all around, when Hannah came up to stand beside him. Squinting in the light, she put her hand on his arm, and he felt her fingers clench tightly. She drew breath as if to speak, but stayed silent.

“Are these . . . what I think they are?” he said at last. Dimity had been climbing the stairs behind them, but when she saw that the door was open, she froze, and a low wail rose from her throat; a startling lament of pure grief. Rozafa rushed to the old woman as she crumpled down onto the stairs, asking questions in her own language and glancing up at Zach in fright. Dimity stared at the open door, weeping, and Ilir joined Rozafa, weaving their lyrical, incomprehensible language around the old woman as if to comfort her. Hannah exhaled a long, steady breath.

“Aubrey pictures. Yes.”

“There must be . . . thousands of them.”

“Well, not thousands, perhaps, but a good few.” Zach tore his eyes from the contents of the room to give Hannah an astonished look.

“You knew about this?” he said. Hannah pursed her lips and nodded. She looked away uncomfortably, but there was no trace of guilt on her face.

“Why did you come in here?” she asked.

“It was a mistake. Dimity said to go to the left but . . . Rozafa didn’t understand.” Zach looked around the little room again, letting his eyes sweep slowly over everything. He couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. Hannah followed his gaze, and he felt a shudder pass through her. She clasped her arms tightly across her chest, but Zach was too distracted to ask what troubled her.

There was the little window in the far wall, opposite the door, with the broken pane of glass and the pale, shifting curtains. To the right of that a narrow bed sat against the wall, covered with grayish, rumpled sheets and blankets, and with a scooped indentation in the pillow as though somebody had only just risen from it. To the left of the window was a long wooden table with a simple, hard chair pulled up to it. The table was covered with papers and books, jars of pencils and brushes. The floorboards were dusty and bare save for a small, faded rag rug by the bed. Odd sheets of paper also lay scattered about the floor, and in a draft from the window, one shifted suddenly. Lifted itself up and scudded a few inches towards Zach. He jumped at the movement, nerves jangling. And all over the walls, pinned up and leaning against it, on almost every available bit of space, were pictures. Predominantly drawings, but some paintings, too. Beautifully, unmistakably, the work of Charles Aubrey.

“This is not possible,” said Zach, to nobody in particular.

“Well, that’s all right then. We’ve got nothing to worry about,” said Hannah with deadpan humor.

“Do you have any idea . . .” he said, but stopped. Awe had stolen the words he needed to finish the sentence. He walked slowly to the southern wall of the room, where most of the larger pieces were leaning, lifted the top ones, and looked at those behind. There were lots of Dennis. Both the Dennis he knew, the tantalizingly ambiguous young man whose portrait had recently sold several times over, and of other Dennises. Dennises who were wholly different—different face, different clothes, different stature. A wide variety of young men, all bearing the same name. Zach frowned, and tried to think what it could mean. Behind him he heard Dimity suddenly shout.

“Is he there? Is he in there?” There was a kind of wild hope in the question, and Zach looked over his shoulder as she appeared in the doorway with Hannah trying to hold her, to contain her.

“There’s nobody here, Dimity,” he said. The old woman’s face sagged into dismay. Her eyes scanned the room, as though not wanting to believe him. And then she knelt down on the floor and hugged her arms tightly around herself.

“Gone, then,” she said softly. “Truly gone, and forever.” There was such sorrow in the words that Zach felt it cool his excitement; felt it slow and sadden him.

“Who’s gone, Dimity?” Zach asked. He crouched down beside her and put one hand on her arm. Her face was wet with tears, and her eyes roamed the room as if still searching for someone.

“Charles, of course! My Charles.”

“So . . . he was here in this room? Charles Aubrey was here? When was that, Dimity?”

“When? When?” She seemed bewildered by the question. “Always. He was always here with me.” Zach looked at Hannah in confusion, and saw the way she kept her mouth firmly closed when she clearly had things to say. He turned back to the old woman.

“Charles went off to fight in the Second World War, Dimity. He went off to fight, and was killed near Dunkirk. That’s right, isn’t it? You remember?” Dimity looked at him with a slightly scathing expression, and when she spoke there was a trace of pride, and of defiance.

“He went off to war, but he didn’t die. He came back to me, and he stayed with me for the rest of his life.”

“That’s just not possible,” Zach heard himself say, but even as he did so his eyes were drawn up to Hannah’s, and she nodded.

“It’s true,” she said quietly. “He died six years ago. Here. He died here.”

“You mean . . .” Zach’s mind whirled, fighting to keep up, to understand the implications of what he was being told. “You mean . . . you saw him? You
met
Charles Aubrey?” He almost laughed, it sounded so outlandish to his own ears. But Hannah didn’t laugh.

“I saw him, yes. But we didn’t meet. He was . . . he was already dead, the only time I saw him.”

“Dead,” Dimity whispered, and her face sank again, her body seeming to fold in on itself, limp and boneless. Zach stared at her and then at Hannah, and then at the little narrow bed with the stained sheets and the head-shaped hollow in the pillow.