House of Silence (16 page)

‘Who?’

‘Gwyneth.’

‘
Gwen
.’

‘I meant Gwen. She’s clever. I could tell.
She asked me questions.’

‘What about?’

‘Alfie.’

Vivien set the tray down again. ‘Did
she?

‘Yes, but I told her I couldn’t remember.
Well, I can’t, can I? Don’t remember anything. Mind like a
sieve!’

‘I’m sure Gwen understood, Ma.’

‘
Exactly
. That’s what I’m saying!
She’s a clever girl. So we must be careful.’

‘Careful?’

‘Careful when we speak about Tom.’

‘
Alfie
,’ Viv replied wearily.

‘Yes, of course. Alfie. Is he
left-handed?’

Viv blinked at the random question. ‘Alfie?
No, you’re thinking of Freddie. Or perhaps Hattie.’

Rae wasn’t listening. ‘She’s clever.’

‘
Hattie
?’

‘No, of course not! Alfie’s girl...
Gwen.’

‘There’s no point getting anxious, Ma,’ said
Viv, picking up the tray again. ‘Let me make you some more camomile
tea. It will help you sleep.’

‘No, leave me alone now. I’m tired. I need
to think. That girl has
confused
me,’ Rae muttered as she
rearranged her pillows, then lay down on her side.

‘Shall I turn out your light?’

‘No, leave it on. I’m thinking. Thinking
about Tom... Where’s my notebook?’

‘In the bedside drawer. With your pencils
and pens.’

‘I need the light on in case a new idea
comes to me. I might need to write something down.’

‘Yes, of course. That would be exciting,
wouldn’t it?’ said Viv without much enthusiasm. ‘Well, I’ll say
goodnight now. Hope you sleep well.’

‘Thank you. Goodnight.’

Viv was balancing the tray on her hip and
reaching for the door handle when Rae called out. ‘Vivien?’

Viv turned round, her arms aching now with
the weight of the tray. ‘What
is
it, Ma?’

‘We must be careful.’

‘I’m always careful, Ma. Goodnight.’

Gwen

I slept badly and woke early. It was still dark
outside and the air in my attic room seemed very cold. I remembered
a fan heater that I’d seen on the floor, plugged in and pointed
thoughtfully towards the bed. I turned on the bedside light,
switched on the heater, got back into bed again and waited. Alfie
had exaggerated about the temperature at Creake Hall but I’d been
glad of what he referred to as my passion-killer fleece pyjamas.
I’d also been glad of the weight of Hattie’s quilt, insulating me
against the night air. I stroked the hexagons absently, then
remembered she’d said there were other quilts. But where?... In the
trunk at the end of the bed?

I got out of bed again, pulled on my
dressing gown and slippers, directed the fan at the trunk and
kneeled facing the Siroccan blast of dust and warm air. The trunk
was made of battered leather and fastened with buckles. I undid
these and lifted the lid with a sense of anticipation.

There were several folded quilts inside the
trunk. I removed them reverently, one at a time. On top was a Log
Cabin quilt made of light and dark strips of fabric, arranged in a
pattern of concentric squares known as
Barn Raising
. The
reds were very faded. Red dyes were unstable and faded soonest, so
I assumed this quilt must be antique. I re-folded it carefully and
set it aside. The next was a
Dresden Plate
design, dating
from the thirties to judge from its pretty pastel fabrics. Segments
of patterned fabric were arranged like slices of pie, to form
circles or “plates”. It was a popular design for using up big
scraps. This quilt was in such good condition, I doubted it had
ever been used.

At the bottom of the trunk were quilt tops
that had never been finished, including one made of hundreds of
equilateral triangles, a design I knew as
A Thousand
Pyramids
. There was no rhyme or reason to the colour scheme
and, as I examined it, it dawned on me that it was a Charm quilt -
every single patch was cut from a different fabric. Making such a
quilt required a huge and varied collection of fabric scraps, so I
wasn’t surprised this one was unfinished. Hattie had probably run
out of fabrics.

The quilt top was heavy because it still
contained all its paper templates - triangles cut from what
appeared to be letters and calendars. Some templates were
pictorial, others had numbers and days of the week, but others
seemed to be cut from letters written on old-fashioned notepaper. I
didn’t pause to examine any but caught sight of “Dear Rae” on one
of them and wondered whether she’d made the quilt. But its chaotic
nature suggested Hattie’s handiwork to me.

As I spread out the Charm quilt on the bed,
the papers crackled. I loved the motley collection of fabrics, some
of which appeared to be quite old. There was a dress cotton
depicting cowboys chasing Indians, which dated the fabric to the
politically incorrect 1950s. There were some Laura Ashley prints in
shades of purple and chocolate brown from the unfathomable
seventies. Much more appealing were some eye-popping Op-Art fabrics
from the sixties. All these were interspersed with a host of
Liberty prints, but the gems of the collection to my mind were some
coarse and colourful patches that I suspected were cut from
American feed sacks, the fabric bags used for packaging dry goods,
which thrifty housewives recycled during the Depression to make
clothes, quilts and household goods.

I thought of the Christmas present I’d
brought for Hattie and wondered if it would enable her to finish
off the charm quilt. I decided I would offer to help. If we removed
the paper templates, the quilt would be much lighter to handle and
we could recycle them to make new patches. Working as a team, the
quilt top would be finished in no time.

I folded the Charm quilt carefully and
replaced it in the trunk. I felt excited about the project,
impatient for Hattie to wake, so I could talk to her about it, but
it was still dark outside and there was no sound of anyone up yet.
I dressed and went down to the kitchen which, thanks to the Aga,
was warm and welcoming. There was no sign of Harris or Lewis, so I
assumed they were allowed to sleep with Viv or Hattie. While the
kettle came to the boil, I stepped outside into the garden. There
was a rosy glow in the east now and the heavily frosted garden
looked magical, like something out of a child’s story book.
Silhouetted against the sky was Marek’s mill and I thought I could
see a light at a window. Another early riser. I was getting cold,
so I went back indoors to make tea and toast and stood at the
window watching dawn creep through the garden.

As I finished my tea there was still no sign
of life upstairs so I decided to go for a walk. I fancied some
fresh air and a bit of exercise. A restless night had left me full
of aches and pains.

I put my coat on, borrowed a pair of
Wellingtons and set off down the drive, towards the road.

The country lane was narrow and winding,
with no pavement. Without reflective clothing I was probably taking
a risk as a pedestrian, but it was so quiet, I could hear the odd
vehicle as it approached, so I could withdraw prudently into the
hedgerow. After a few hundred yards I came to a crossroads. I
studied the fingerpost but already knew I would turn towards
Marek’s mill, visible above the rooftops, where I could see light
from a first floor window. I crossed the road and headed for the
mill.

It was black. Tarred brick, I supposed, and
not at all picturesque. Aloft there was a gallery, serving as a
sort of balcony, with plants in pots. Ivy was twining round the
handrail and the door, for all the world as if this was some
chocolate box cottage. The mill had no sails and, as a building, it
looked ugly and forbidding, an ominous one-eyed giant looming over
the flat landscape.

As I approached the mill, I could see the
front door and a cornucopia of tubs and pots arranged on and around
the steps leading up to it. Some tubs contained evergreens, some
had dead-looking plants in them, but larger pots held shrubs, even
a few brave flowers: some battered chrysanthemums, winter jasmine,
the odd crystalline rose, frosted in bud. I looked at the array of
containers and wondered how long Marek spent watering them all in a
parched Norfolk summer. It would be a labour of love, I supposed,
and a pleasant task on a summer’s evening.

I raised my eyes to the first floor window
and saw Marek standing there, silhouetted against the light from
the interior. I presumed he’d seen me standing at the foot of the
steps leading up to his front door. I looked around and saw that he
had no immediate neighbours, just outbuildings and fields, so I
lifted my head, took a deep breath and sang:

‘
It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold.’

I hadn’t even got to the end of the first
verse before the window opened and Marek’s white head appeared. His
face was swarthy with black stubble, his expression grim. My heart
sank to the bottom of my Wellington boots. He leaned out of the
window and said, ‘If I made you a cup of coffee, would you stop
singing?’ Then, with a piratical flash of white teeth, he
grinned.

~~~

‘So you weren’t impressed with my “glorious song of
old”, then?’

‘My objections were more ideological than
musical. I’m an atheist. How do you like your coffee?’

Marek, barefoot and clad in pale grey jersey
pyjamas, closed the door behind Gwen. She removed her Wellingtons
and followed him up a staircase, passing through a
utility-come-lumber room on the ground floor, his bedroom on the
first, where he grabbed a dressing gown and shrugged it on, then on
up to the kitchen level, where he filled a kettle and turned to
Gwen, who by now was feeling breathless.

‘Sit down. The sitting room is on the floor
above. For the views. We’ll go up when I’ve made coffee. Have you
had breakfast?’

‘I had a piece of toast before coming out.
There was something soaking on the Aga that looked suspiciously
like
papier mâché
but Alfie had already warned me about
Hattie’s porridge, so I thought I’d play safe with toast.’

‘It’s not that bad. Just very...
solid
. And she likes to salt it, but that doesn’t bother me.
I grew up on salted porridge.’

Gwen wondered when Hattie would have been
making Marek breakfast and remembered Alfie’s speculations of the
night before.

‘Did you grow up in Scotland?’

‘Until I was ten. Then we moved to England
where I quickly got rid of my accent. It was bad enough being
called Zbydniewski. But I was good at sport, so they left me alone
in the end.’ He lifted the kettle and poured water into two mugs.
‘Milk? Sugar?’

‘Milk, no sugar, thanks. The windows face in
different directions, don’t they?’

‘Yes.’

‘What a good idea.’

‘And a practical one. If the windows lined
up it would create a line of weakness in the structure, so they go
round in a spiral.’

Gwen surveyed the whitewashed brick walls of
the kitchen. ‘It’s so strange being in a room with curved
walls!’

‘It’s less obvious in here because of the
kitchen units. This room feels more like a hexagon than a circle.
You’re more aware of the round walls upstairs. Follow me.’ Marek
picked up their coffee and led the way, up another staircase, into
the sitting room. ‘This window faces north. Bad for light, good for
sea views.’

Gwen walked over to the window and, beneath
a vast grey sky, saw a distant expanse of pewter sea, scalloped
with white. She turned back to face Marek who was putting a log in
a wood-burning stove. ‘Isn’t it rather dark living in a mill?’ She
surveyed the curved brick walls, pock-marked with age, their red
expanse broken up here and there with pictures and ethnic
wall-hangings.

‘The dark doesn’t bother me. I spend most of
my working day outdoors. In the summer I’m quite glad to come home
to somewhere cool and dark. Norfolk summers can be very hot.’ He
sat down in an armchair and Gwen sank onto the sofa, near the
stove.

‘Was this a flour mill?’

‘Yes. It was built in 1826 and was a working
mill for about a hundred years. Then it fell into disrepair, then
dereliction. A Holbrook ancestor was into preserving the local
heritage and poured money into its restoration, but he died and so
did his millwright. They’re a scarce breed, scarcer even than
thatchers. So the Holbrooks cut their losses and converted it into
a dwelling. Creake Hall staff have always lived here. It’s not
pretty enough to let as a holiday home and it’s of little historic
interest because there’s no working machinery. It’s just a shell.
But solid. And quaint. I like it. And it suits me. What I
particularly like is the lack of garden. I can come home to a
guilt-free zone. No weeding. No lawns to mow.’

‘Just a lot of watering.’

‘You noticed all the tubs? There’s no
outside tap, so running up and down stairs with cans keeps me
fit.’

Unbidden, a memory of Marek standing at the
front door in his pyjamas swam into Gwen’s mind. Recalling how the
pale grey jersey had clung to the curves of his chest, arms and
thighs, she was in no doubt as to his levels of fitness and
strength. Feeling suddenly rather warm, she acknowledged that this
was nothing to do with either the coffee or the heat from the
stove.

‘What are you doing out so early?’ Marek
asked.

‘No one else was up, so I thought I’d go for
a walk. It was nice to have a bit of time to myself actually. And
it’s so beautifully quiet compared to Brighton. Brighton never
sleeps. I love the buzz, but I do sometimes long for a bit of peace
and quiet.’

‘Do you live with Alfie?’

‘No, I share a flat with two other girls.
Alfie has a flat in London. I think it belonged to Rae
originally.’