Dead Man's Embers (27 page)

‘It was bad for people over there, in the trenches, wasn't it, Non?' Wil says. ‘I think I'd want to forget, not remember.'

‘I suppose your father needs to remember everything that happened before he can make the decision to forget it,' Non says, for who really knows how the human mind and the human memory work. She recalls thinking when she was at the hospital with Angela that doctors of the mind were needed as well as those of the flesh to look after the broken soldiers who returned, and she is surer of that than ever. If only there were doctors who were as clever at treating damaged minds as Seb was at treating damaged
hearts. ‘He'll miss you, Wil. You've spent so much time together in the workshop.'

‘I don't know how he's going to manage, Non. There's something not quite right about that Teddy, but I don't know what it is. He's not used to working with his hands, for sure.' Wil grins. ‘You should have seen him with the plane – he had no idea which end was which.'

‘I hope he's learnt enough from you to be of help, Wil. But it's only temporary, Albert is sure to want someone your father can train properly. And Teddy'll move on soon, I expect. The tramps never stay long in one place, you know.'

‘But he's not a real tramp, is he, Non? He's a bit la-di-da for that.'

‘It's just the way he speaks, Wil. He may be someone who's fallen on hard times. And anyway, your father felt he owed him something for holding on to that letter he wrote for all these years.' But it is strange, there must be something they are missing here. She has no sense of what it is, and after all, what could it possibly be? ‘Your father can look after himself, Wil. He's much better and stronger in spirit since he regained his memory, you know. It's not just jokes in the workshop – he's generally happier.' Non, not superstitious, wants to touch wood, cross her fingers. She still finds it hard to believe that some fate will not snatch Davey away again. Maybe it is this fear that makes her want Davey to let everything be, not to stir up his lost memories.

‘Teddy was trying to be pally with Osian,' Wil says. ‘I told him not to bother – you know what Osh is like. Just stared right through him! And then Teddy got hold of his arm, just being friendly, I suppose, and Osh began that scream. It always makes me think of the banshees in some of those Irish stories you used to tell us – d'you remember? – and Teddy didn't know what to
do. He didn't have the sense to just let go of Osh. Then his face went empty – you know, as if he'd gone somewhere else inside his head. I had to pick his fingers one by one from Osh's arm, and Osh never stopped screaming the whole time.' Wil shivers. ‘D'you remember Bobby Hughes, Non?'

‘Aggie's grandson? The poor boy who hanged himself?'

Wil nods. ‘Teddy looked just like Bobby the night before he did it, Non. Eddie and I were at the Institute that night. We saw him.'

‘What?' Non says. ‘You think Teddy could do the same?'

‘I'm just saying,' Wil says. ‘Something isn't right about him. Osh knows it, too.'

Non does not know what to say to Wil. She will speak to Davey about Teddy in light of what Wil has told her; she will see what Davey thinks now that he has worked with the man for a few days.

‘Will Osh get better, do you think?' Wil has left Teddy behind.

Non wishes she knew what the answer was. ‘You never know, Wil. He's clever in some ways, isn't he? Look at the skills he has – those carvings are absolutely incredible. But he doesn't seem to feel anything, does he? He's never sad or happy, or pleased or cross. I don't know. Sometimes I think the only one of us that causes a little spark of feeling in him is Herman. But just look at how well I am now I've found out I don't need my drops. Maybe something will turn up that will mend Osian.' But she suspects this is how Osian will be all his life.

Wil nods at her. ‘Fingers crossed, hey, Non?' he says. ‘I'll send him a picture postcard with a ship on it, or maybe pictures of birds, and fish, and maybe a mermaid, and he can carve them all.'

Non laughs at him. ‘Wil, you're only going to Belgium on this first trip.'

‘But after that . . .' Wil says.

Non thinks, he is looking into a future where he will sail to all four corners of the world on the
David Morris
, across the seas and the oceans, through storms and into the doldrums, under searing sunshine and starry skies.

Non realises that she is sweltering, as everyone is in this weather, but she is not breathless, she is not aware of the beat of her heart, she is not so tired that she can barely stand up, she is not fearful of falling over because she is faint. And she has not had any hallucinations. Were all those illnesses she saw a result of taking the May Lily? She decides not to dwell on it. She has often enough wished she did not have her gift. Be careful what you wish for, she thinks, an echo of something Branwen used to say to her, although now she cannot think what it was said about.

She pauses in the shade of the trees in the small square park in the main street, and looks back in the direction of the harbour. It is only a short distance away and yet seems to have vanished almost without a trace. Here, there is little to remind anyone that this is a port, and still a busy one, still providing work for the variety of trades and unskilled labour in the town. As well as Wil, she thinks.

When they stepped off the train she had told him that she would walk with him as far as the harbour. Wil said she could come to meet the captain if she liked, although she must not
expect to be asked aboard the schooner – sailors believed it brought bad luck to have a woman on board. It took Non the whole of the walk to the harbour to recover from the nonsensical superstitions of the sailors, and to promise Wil she would not set foot upon the
David Morris
.

The schooner was beautiful. It was larger than she remembered from seeing it in the distance the last time she came to the harbour with Wil. Its gleaming wooden sides were long and sleek and sat low in the water, though its masts reached up for the sky, all three of them. The sails were furled but she could see that when they were all unfurled the
David Morris
would be a magnificent sight – and not at all unlike the ship that had been on the dust jacket of
The Rescue
. Pennants and small flags drooped from the masts and the rigging. She shielded her eyes from the sun to look up at them. Wil told her that the pennant on the central mast bore the ship's name. The
David Morris
was meant to sail from Port the next day. What Non knew of ships and the sea could be written on the head of a pin, but she was sure a breeze that would set the pennants fluttering was necessary to fill the sails before the ship could go anywhere.

Captain Griffiths had not asked her to board, but he had shaken her hand and told her Wil was a fine young man, which made her proud, and that she looked far too young and pretty to be the mother of such a strapping lad, which made her blush.

She had taken a last lingering look at the schooner once Wil had boarded, and thought it suddenly seemed far too fragile a vessel to take her strapping young lad so far away. Then she had turned and walked away without looking back.

She feels refreshed by the cool green shade cast by the trees. She has a sense of déjà vu when she realises that on this second visit to Port with Wil she has two errands of her own to run, as
she did when she accompanied him for his first visit to the
David Morris
. The streets are as dirty and noisy as they were the last time, and she is certain they are the same two dogs circling one another in the dust. Today, she does not need to furl her parasol to use as a walking stick to support her across the street. Today, she does not linger before walking up the steps into the pawn shop.

The proprietor recognises her, she can tell, but lets her present her receipt and explain to him that she has come to retrieve her ring. He tells her that he has a customer who is most interested in buying the ring. She replies that she has no interest in selling it. To redeem her mother's ring costs more than she and Davey had anticipated, but she has extra money with her – Take it, just in case, Davey had said – and she pays what is asked.

She had to learn to manage her money through the years of the War, but she does not care enough about it, she knows. She will need to learn to care. She and Davey have a family to look after and feed and clothe, she has a daughter to educate, and education is not cheap. She has seen what a lack of money can do to people, and how much difference not having a farthing to pay for baking a loaf can make. And here she is, throwing away guineas. She examines the ring, puts it back in its box, and puts the little box safely in her bag. It is no longer her mother's ring, no longer her grandmother's ring, it is hers, given to her by the kindness and thoughtfulness of her husband. And by his love. Her world has changed since she left the ring here.

She leaves the shop and has to pause to get her bearings. She intends to visit Madame Leblanc, but has to work out where it was that Catherine Davies took her and Elsie. She has decided that she will give the ring to Madame to hold and see what she
makes of it. She is curious to find out Madame's methods. And she is curious to find out why Madame and her child are doing their kind of work, why they think it is right to gull people in such a cruel way. Branwen used to say to her, Curiosity killed the cat. She knows its dangers now, but it can serve a purpose. Satisfying her curiosity about Madame and her child is not an end in itself; she wants to prove that Madame is a charlatan.

Davey knows nothing about her interest in Madame Leblanc, and this visit is something else she will have to keep to herself. She fears that the list of things she keeps to herself is overlong, and not something a good wife should have. But here she is, already standing on the uneven pavement outside Number Thirty with her hand raised to knock on the door, hoping she has not allowed her curiosity to triumph over sense once again.

Madame Leblanc herself opens the door. She does not look unduly surprised to see Non, which makes Non a little uncomfortable, especially when Madame stands aside, holding the door open for Non to enter and says, ‘You are expected.' Expected! What nonsense, Non tells herself, the woman is just a good actress.

‘You are expected,' Madame says, once more, ‘and welcome.' She holds her hand out towards the shadows in the corners and around the edges of the parlour and the child, Esmé, comes out from the gloom. What kind of child hides away in such odd places? And then Non thinks of Osian sitting in the coffin.

‘Esmé said you would come,' Madame says. ‘But we do not know the reason for your coming.'

Esmé is not dressed in white today. Instead, she wears slightly old-fashioned clothes, as if she is wearing cast-offs from the generation before hers. Non smiles at the girl, whose face is serious as she stares intently at her.

‘Curiosity,' Non says. ‘That's the reason I've come. I'm curious about you, both of you. About why you do this kind of work.'

Madame Leblanc turns to Esmé and flutters her hands at her. The child nods. Madame says, ‘We have to make a living, you know, like anyone else. Esmé thinks you will understand. She says you, too, have a child who does not speak.'

Non is puzzled, then understands. The girl is deaf, she thinks, and mute, too. Her mother was talking to her with her hands just then. She has heard of this language, but had not realised what she was seeing. But how do they know about Osian?

‘My son can hear,' she says. ‘His affliction is different to Esmé's.'

‘But you understand how necessary it is for us mothers to make provision for them, these children,' Madame says. ‘They will not fare well in the world without our support. It would abandon them to the darkest corners without a thought.'

Non thinks there are plenty of dark corners in this house and cannot see a reason for that. She looks back at Esmé and watches the child sign to her mother, her hands like tiny, fluttering birds, thin and fragile.

‘You take me too literally,' Madame says. ‘Esmé has to have the light dimmed for her powers of clairvoyance to manifest themselves.'

Can the child read minds? Non says, ‘Clairvoyance?'

‘She can see clearly,' Madame Leblanc says, ‘the things that you and I cannot see at all.'

That is also true of Osian, Non realises, in the magical way he makes the wood come alive with the essence of whatever it is he is carving.

‘I took her with me to a séance,' Madame says. ‘She was a tiny child. Her father had been lost in the fighting.' She pauses for a moment to take a long, deep breath. ‘Emile was never found, you
know. He has no grave, no place where we can mourn him. I thought he would come to visit his daughter.'

‘And did he?'

‘No, never. We – she – have had visits from many of those who have passed over, but never from Emile. It was at that first séance we discovered this gift Esmé has of holding an object and taking from it some information or feeling about the person who wears it or owns it.'

The way Osian draws that feeling of being alive from the wood, thinks Non. But this is somehow not so healthy, this delving into the unnatural. She thinks that, on second thoughts, she will not offer the ring to be held. There may be things she would be told that she would prefer not to hear, and then she would never be able to forget them. Not so very curious after all, she tells herself.

Esmé is again signing to her mother. Her hands flutter more quickly. Distressed birds, thinks Non.

‘She asks me to tell you that your own gift is not unlike hers,' Madame says.

‘What?' Non says. ‘What does she mean?'

‘I can see none of this, you realise,' Madame says. She watches the child's hands again. ‘She says, do not deny your gift, do not push it away—'