The Haunting of Harriet (32 page)

H
arriet and Jenny met a week later. Harriet was leaning on the hand rail of the walkway around the boathouse as Jenny approached. They had not arranged to meet but their unfailing telepathy drew them together. For a while they stood in silence, the older woman resting her elbows against the rail while the other held it tightly and swung on it with her feet planted firmly on the decking. The
Olly Ro
was still floating free, unaware of the trauma surrounding her.

“Don’t do that. It makes me feel giddy.”

Jenny stood up and pulled her jeans up, yanking her T-shirt down at the same time.

“I can’t sing yet. My lungs still hurt.”

“I know. It goes in time.”

“How long did it affect your voice?”

“You know what happened to my brother, don’t you?”

Jenny had forgotten Harriet never answered a question directly. “I do. I’ll tell you if you feel you are ready.”

“I think – no, I
know
I am.”

Hand-in-hand the two of them walked slowly across the bridge and round to the other side of the lake until they reached the willow. There they sat on the bench and Jenny began to tell the story that Harriet had been afraid to face for sixty-five years. She told it as though reading from a book and the old woman sat riveted, not passing any comment until Jenny reached the end.

It was Christmas Eve and everyone had gone to church except for Harriet and David. They had decided to hold a conference to try and find a solution to the horrible problems they were facing. They climbed aboard the
Jolly Roger
and Harriet rowed to the centre of the lake so that no one could overhear them. She pulled the heavy oars on board. They drifted and bobbed as David read and re-read the letters Harriet had brought with her.

“I think what it means when you cut out all the gibberish, is that Father is to go into a nursing home. Maybe that would be good for him?” David screwed up his eyes as he spoke and his pale face scrutinized the wind-tanned one opposite him.

“Good for him, my foot. They’ll just stick him in a corner and forget about him.” Harriet was angry. This was all her disgusting mother’s fault. “I hate them. I hate the fucking bastards. How dare they interfere? We’d be fine if only they’d leave us alone. You know what they’ll do next, don’t you? They’ll split us up; put us in separate homes or farm us out to horrid, boring old families so we’d never see each other again.” Hot tears of fear and anger poured.

“They can’t split us up and send us away, can they? Not if we refuse. Can they?” David’s voice revealed his sudden realization of the awful reality they faced. “What about Mummy?”

“Mother will be taken to the nut house where all the drunks go.” Harriet spoke the words angrily and without thinking of the consequences.

David jumped up, screaming now: “No! No! Don’t let them, Harriet. Stop them! Please. Please stop them!” He was throwing himself around in a blind fit of panic, causing the
Jolly Roger
to lurch and roll, taking in water as she did.

“Sit down, Davy.” Harriet grabbed the oars to try to steady the craft, but her brother’s fear was fast becoming hysteria and he could not hear her. “Watch it, you’ll have us over.”

David was thrashing about in the bow. He climbed over to the seat and lunged at his sister. For a split second Harriet let go of the oars and watched as they slid into the water. She grabbed and missed. “Now what am I supposed to do? This was a stupid bloody idea of yours!” David lost his temper and pushed hard at Harriet, forcing her to fall backwards into the bow. Her legs shot up and her head hit the deck. When she came to, she turned to face the bow. It was empty. Her brother was not there. She clambered to the front and peered over the side. The winter sun was setting and bounced off the water’s surface, leaving it dark and impenetrable. She called out, knowing it would prove futile. Then, she jumped over the side, upended and dived like a duck. It was frighteningly dark and silent and cold, so very cold. Fronds of weeds waved as she thrashed about searching for David. Strong fingers tore at her, wrapping themselves in fiendish knots around her limbs. Then in a thick clump of blackness she caught a glimpse of blue and yellow. It was his Fair Isle pullover. Instinctively her hand reached out to him, but her lungs needed air. She forced her body upwards until her head broke the surface. She kept her eyes closed against the light as she gulped air into her body, then turning a somersault she kicked her sandalled feet high in the air and plunged in again, fixing her eyes to where David lay trapped.

Her determined arms could not free him from the persistent reeds. With each attempt the vicious plants closed in behind her like bars on a slippery, living cage, as determined as she was to hold on to their victim. She needed a pole, something to act as a lever. She looked for the oars but could see nothing except the upright supports of the boathouse. She swam to them and pulled her body heavy with waterlogged clothes onto the walkway. As she ran she wrenched off her sandals, her skirt and sweater, her coat was already lost in the water. An image of her mother and
the bastard
flashed across her brain. Swearing loudly she dismissed them and entered the boathouse. It was leaning against the wall, the boat hook that Tom had made for them. She grabbed it in both hands. Seeing with relief that the boat had drifted towards her she leapt on board. Using the pole, she manoeuvred the boat to where she had last seen David. She shivered with cold as she braced herself to jump in once more. It was pitch-black now as she pushed the hook under and dived in. She could see nothing. The mud was churning up and the water turning to thick sludge. Her ears were bursting and her lungs ached to be filled; their emptiness pressed at her until she could think of nothing but her pain. The water was rank and fetid. If she swallowed or breathed it in she could stay down here with her brother; the fearful future would be over before it had a chance to hurt them. She saw David’s quizzical expression. The distorted screwed-up face he unwittingly adopted when thinking hard was pleading with her. She knew what she had to do. She thrust the boat hook down and swam down, following its lead. David was facing her, his eyes staring, glassy and expressionless, challenging her; his familiar face a strange ghastly white, asking why? His arms which he had wrapped around his body were bound firmly in place by the reeds. Only his hair moved as it followed the motion of the undercurrent pursuing some macabre dance. Skilfully she guided the hook into the folds of David’s duffel coat. Then she pulled it with all the strength she could muster.

She was much too close. It was impossible to get any leverage. Hating to leave him, she rose to the surface again. She hauled herself into the boat, filling her tired lungs with the freezing air. Standing tall with the boat hook firmly in both hands she heaved at it with all her might. Nothing happened. She tried twisting the pole, fighting the weight of it, turning it desperately to wrench the boy free of the weed. Then, swirling up through the thick brown water it came, a thin mist of dark rust, reddening as it spread, and billowed until the surface of the water was crimson with blood, her brothers’ blood.

The smell of death permeated the dankness of the night. Harriet sat back in the boat. She had killed her brother. She had meant to save him but she had killed him. A sharp pain rose up from somewhere deep inside her and it carried her soul with it as it emanated from her body, taking the form of a long thin howl. The agonized sound filled the garden, encircling the lake and floating across the lawns, entering the house until it reached her father’s room, piercing his wretched body with its unnatural pitch. His daughter was calling him. He had to reach her if it was the last thing he did. Using his wasted arms, the weight of his sparse body working against him, he inched his wheelchair through the door and into the hall. At the kitchen doorstep the chair pitched forward, hurling the invalid onto the terrace, his body spread-eagled on the flagstones. Crawling forward, he pulled himself upright holding on to the balustrade until he stood for the first time in months. Then walking, crawling, he dragged his useless limbs over the grass towards the cry.

From nowhere a policeman was running across the lawn, his whistle cutting the silence in regular high ear-splitting blasts. He hit the water in a running dive from the jetty and climbed aboard the little boat where the girl was still leaning over the bow, her arms stretched beneath the water towards her brother. Manoeuvring the boat to the jetty he handed the child to her father and dived in to where she was still pointing. Harriet sat with her father’s arms around her, reddened eyes never leaving the exact spot where David was. The young policeman dived in again, rising through the surface like a seal to shake his head and gulp in a deep breath. Down and down the policeman went until he emerged at last with his quarry. Harriet’s wide amber eyes were glazed and fixed, staring in disbelief as the limp little body was placed on the jetty. Her tears poured out, cold, silent tears filled with horror and shame, and the guilt hit her throat like a tidal wave attempting to drown her too.

David looked as if he was asleep; his white skin shone with the translucent quality of an angel. The large purple wound in his chest did not seem to bother him. His face was peaceful and he smiled quietly as if his final question had been answered satisfactorily. People appeared from nowhere. Old Tom had called the police and they had sent for the ambulance. Bells were ringing, whistles were blowing and men were running, carrying stretchers and blankets, shouting orders to one another. Suddenly Harriet was sitting in the kitchen with her father, holding mugs of hot, sweet tea in their hands and cold, bitter tears in their hearts. From somewhere in the garden came the long, low howling of a dog.

When Jenny had finished, she slid closer to Harriet and put her arms round her. Harriet was crying the bitter, salty tears of childhood.

“You didn’t kill him. He was already dead. You did everything you could to save him and he knows that. I was lucky, my brother lived. Yours died. But you didn’t kill him. I know how awful it must be for you. When I thought James was dead I wanted to die with him. I would willingly have died for him. David wanted you to live, to live for him. Now he wants you to be together again. He loves you.”

Harriet stood up and patted her hair down where the wind had lifted it. Then she took out a large white handkerchief and blew her nose loudly. Straightening her cloak she turned, her face radiant and smiling as she looked at Jenny. The telling of the story, the truth about the accident had not brought it back to her; it had instead taken it away from her. It had erased the guilt. Every day, for each one of those painful years, she had lived with the belief that she killed her brother. She was sure she had speared him with the boat hook, and had remained unpunished for her crime. She had lived in fear of the retribution of the law, that one day they would come for her and she would be hanged as a murderer. Worse, she had lived with the retribution of the Furies. Now, thanks to this child’s love, she could face her past and accept it. She knew her brother had forgiven her and was at peace. Now she needed to forgive herself. Hope and redemption, wasn’t that what Jenny said were in the last two cups?

Jenny expected to feel tired after such a taxing ordeal. Instead she was revitalized and full of energy. “Let’s go for a walk and you can tell me what Beckmans was like when you were my age. I want to see it through your eyes, Harriet. I want to hear about your father and your brother, your time in hospital…. And that dog we heard, what was its name? “

Harriet held up her hand. “Whoa. Steady on. I’m not as young as you, my little one. I need to rest now. It must be five o’clock. Time for my nap! The barking dog was Tess, old Tom’s Labrador. She was black as the ace of spades, a shiny rascal. We thought Tom used spit and polish on her because she gleamed like his Sunday shoes. Speaking of which, where’s that errant hound of yours? He keeps me company while I snooze.”

The Pote appeared as if by magic and the two of them took themselves off to the Fourth Room for forty winks, leaving Jenny alone by the willow.