The Unquiet House (31 page)

*

Later, they sat at the table. Her mother put food down in front of them and Aggie knew that no one wanted to eat but they did anyway. The meat was dry but they swallowed it down and nobody spoke. The quiet spread between them, filling the empty spaces. Aggie could feel it: a solid, choking thing. At last she stood and started to gather the plates. The clatter couldn’t mask the silence beneath it. Then she realised there was another sound after all, a muted gasping, and she looked around and saw
it was coming from her father. His eyes were scrunched tight and his cheeks were wet; his shoulders shook, the dry, pained gasps of someone who never cried.

Aggie stood there with the dirty plates in her hands and she couldn’t look away. She knew that her mother was watching too. Her mother wasn’t crying; she was beyond that, she had already cried until there was nothing left inside. Aggie’s hands started to shake and she set the plates back down on the table. It took a long time for her father to steady himself and then he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and his nose with his sleeve and he blinked as if he’d just woken up.

‘We shall have to bear it,’ he said. His voice was small, a cracked and broken thing. ‘We shall have to. An’ he – he’s only gone on afore,’ he added. ‘We’ll all—’ He took a deep breath and stared down at the table. ‘We all go into silence in the end.’

Aggie couldn’t move. She couldn’t accept his words because in her mind there
wasn’t
silence: she could hear it all, the shouts of men and the report of guns, shells exploding and the earth being displaced, limbs ripped apart, men’s screams and women’s tears and the
cry
, the cry of triumph and despair and defiance: the cry of all the forsaken. And her brother was there, she could hear him too, his lips were moving, crying out from the ground.

She felt her own scream building inside, all of the words she wanted to say, and she opened her eyes and she saw her father’s face and she pressed her lips together and said nothing at all.

Emma Dean opened her eyes and waited for the pain to begin. She could feel where the stairway had struck her, the place on the side of her thigh, the back of her knee, her spine – and yet everything was numb, her body and her mind. All that she could see was white, like a faded photograph. Slowly she realised that someone was standing over her and she flinched. The shape didn’t move. Her vision flooded back and at first she didn’t know this stranger and her eyes narrowed, and then something flickered into place and her vision righted itself. It was only Charlie, his face full of concern, leaning over her. He reached out a hand and kept it there when she didn’t move.

‘Are you all right?’

She raised her own hand, though not to take his; she raised it as if to fend him off.

He drew back, his expression changing to one of hurt. ‘I think you must have slipped,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you hear me? You looked as if you were sleepwalking. I told you not to get too near to the edge.’

Get out
, she thought. That was what she’d heard.

‘I tried to reach you but it was too late. You slipped – I tried to catch you.’ He leaned in closer and concern was all she saw in his eyes. She let out a long breath. The pain still hadn’t come.

‘You looked as if you were watching something – were you, Emma? What did you see?’ His tone had changed. She
did
remember, that was the problem. What had she seen? The ghost of an old man? She’d heard the sound of his voice.

It struck her that perhaps Charlie was right, perhaps she had been asleep. Perhaps that ghostly figure had only ever been a dream. And yet Charlie had showed her things too, hadn’t he? The children’s footprints in the hall – she couldn’t have dreamed them. Besides, she hadn’t just
seen
the ghost: she’d touched the old man’s clothes, smelled his pipe. Was it possible to touch or smell things in dreams?

She braced her hands against the floor, dimly feeling the tiles against her fingers. The things she had touched in her dream had felt more vivid than this. She closed her eyes, wondering how badly she was hurt. Her head swam when she pushed herself up.

‘Let me help you, Emma.’

His voice sounded deeper, more resonant, and she shook her head to clear it. Her thoughts felt cloudy.
It was better when I was lying down
.

‘Careful. Come into the drawing room. You need to lie down.’

Her gaze snapped to his once more. Was he reading her thoughts? But of course that was ridiculous. It had been a natural thing to say; it was her own thinking that was disordered. Even the memory of what had happened was slipping away. When she closed her eyes she could remember the blow on each stair as she fell, and yet it felt distant, as if it had happened to someone else. And the hand in the middle of her back – had she really felt that? She was no longer sure. She thought she had, but then he
said he’d been reaching for her, to try and catch her – perhaps that was all it had been.

He slipped a hand under her elbow and helped her up and she didn’t pull away. She still didn’t hurt but her legs felt weak and she leaned against him. He took her weight, helping her into the drawing room, but when she reached it she didn’t want to lie down after all. She felt stronger. Light flooded in at the windows, the odd, lurid kind that precedes a storm. She drew away and straightened. ‘It’s fine, Charlie. I can stand.’

‘Is it, Emma? Are you sure?’

She didn’t know what to say. For a moment he hadn’t sounded like the old Charlie but someone more serious. She rubbed a hand across her eyes. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You had a nasty fall. You don’t want to push yourself too far.’

‘I’m all right. I’m not an invalid.’

‘You should let me take care of you.’

Now she did pull away. ‘I have things to do, Charlie.’

‘I’m trying to—’

‘I know you’re only trying to help, but I’m fine. This place … needs me.’

‘Does it?’

‘I mean, I need to get on with the work.’ She took a couple of steps, pausing when white spots speckled her vision. She forced herself to walk away, half expecting to feel a hand on her back, but he didn’t touch her again and he didn’t say anything else.

The hall was dark but as soon as she started to spread the fresh paint, it glowed. The air had a sickly yellow taint, as if at any moment the humidity would turn to rain. She hoped it would; a storm would clear her mind; it would wash everything clean. Her head ached and she rubbed her temple with the back of her hand. It was swollen, but the pain still hadn’t set in. Everything felt numb. She didn’t want to think about that hand on her back – she wasn’t sure what it implied about the state of her thoughts.

She couldn’t focus on anything, but as she worked she began to feel better. It was making the place feel more like hers. Soon Charlie would be gone and she would be here alone, and that was all right, now; she found she was looking forward to it.

She frowned, remembering there was a smaller room still to paint; she’d been putting it off. ‘Room’ was probably too grand a name for the cupboard in her bedroom. She didn’t want to admit to herself that she didn’t like it; that would be like giving in to some childish fear. Soon she would go in there and throw open the door and banish its ghosts. She would paint over that too, making it all new.

Time passed and the sickly light tracked its way across the tiles. Emma kept on going. She didn’t feel hungry. She listened
for Charlie and heard nothing at all: nothing moving in the house, no birdsong outside, nothing passing on the road. It was completely and entirely silent. Even the ghosts had quietened.

*

Later, the rain came down in a tumult, as if the world was raging, beating at the house, trying to tear it apart. There was thunder, but it was distant, drowned out by the pounding of the rain which assaulted brick and slate and tile. Emma walked through the house, hearing the tone of it change as she passed from room to room. It hissed against the walls and scurried through the gravel, rapping like knuckles on the windows and bleeding down the glass. She could not even hear her own footsteps.

When she entered the drawing room, the sound swelled like music and for a moment she thought she heard the strains of an old-fashioned dance tune. Then it was subsumed. She looked out of the window. Darkness had closed in, although the day wasn’t over. The bare twigs of the shrubbery outside bowed and sprung back as the droplets tore down. Beyond that were black skeletal trees against a charcoal sky, their branches clawing at the world.

She had always loved storms but now she was grateful for the barrier of the glass. Everything outside moved constantly, blurring and fluid. The sky had turned to water. For a second the only motionless thing was the dark shape of the distant yew tree, so blackened it looked like a hole in the world.

When she turned, Charlie was watching her. She hadn’t realised he was in the room but she did not feel startled; his eyes were soft and questioning. She gave a half-smile and he smiled back. It was his old look, open and guileless. He held out a hand and she felt a wave of disorientation; it was as if he was asking
her to dance and for a moment she could hear that music again, drifting around the space. She had a sudden image of smart ladies filling the room, all wearing their finest dresses, whirling around to the music that carried them along.

‘We should have something,’ he said. ‘We can drink wine and watch the rain.’

She nodded. She still wasn’t hungry, but she was tired and a little light-headed. He was right, she should rest; she should have listened to him. He had only wanted to help. She couldn’t look into his clear eyes and doubt it any longer. Now she was grateful as he took her arm, leading her where she needed to go.

Emma stood in the drawing room, clutching something to her. It was smooth and cool under her fingers and at first she thought of the old man’s pipe; then she realised it was the telephone.

The room was dark and full of shadows and had a faintly metallic, faintly musty smell. It was cold too, making the hairs prickle along her arms.

She must have been sleepwalking. Charlie
had
been right after all. She had no recollection of getting out of bed; the only thing she could dredge from her memory was the need to speak to someone. She had wanted to ask them about Charlie. She had felt a sudden urge to know if he was really as he appeared or if he was something else after all, someone who
wanted
something else; and so she must have come down here and picked up the phone, to call – whom?

She listened for the ring tone, but there was nothing, just the dead sound of a dead line. She knew that she had no one to call, no one she could speak to. There was only Charlie and he was sleeping somewhere above her in the dark house.

She replaced the phone on its cradle and regarded it. She had brought it from her flat but she’d never even had it connected. The silence was everywhere, thick around her face, gathering until she felt she was choking in it.

Emma awoke to half-light and for a moment she didn’t know if it was dawn or nightfall; then she remembered the strange experience of the night before, waking in the dark room downstairs, and she frowned. Now she wasn’t sure if she’d really sleepwalked or if the whole thing had been another dream.

She could hear Charlie moving around somewhere below her. It was a nice sound. It was good to know that someone was there, close by, someone she could talk to. Then she remembered the ghostly steps in the hall. For a moment, she was no longer certain that the sounds she could hear downstairs were real, but it didn’t matter. She closed her eyes. The world could wait a little longer. She would burrow in deep, wrapped in the walls of Mire House, and let its boundaries close around her. It made her feel safe.

Now the footsteps were coming up the stairs and it
sounded
like Charlie. His movements were familiar to her now. There came a light knock on the door. She hadn’t closed it properly and it swung inwards and there he was, his hair flattened against the side of his head so that she knew which way he had been lying as he slept.

‘I brought you tea. Plenty of sugar. I thought you might need it.’ He smiled.

‘Thanks, Charlie.’

‘I thought today, perhaps we could do with a break. I thought we might go for a walk.’

She reached out for the mug and thought at once of the river.

‘We could go and see the mire,’ he said, and once again she had the impression he was reading her mind. He knew her so well. ‘It would do you good, I think. Both of us.’

He was right again – she’d been cooped up in here far too long. And yet she felt a twinge at the thought of leaving the house.

*

Ten minutes later she was standing in the hall. There were no muddy footprints on the tiles this time; the place didn’t even look lived in. At least, when they came back, they could leave their own prints there.

She looked around at the work she’d done, the places where she’d tried to paint over the past. It was no use; she could still sense it, the layers upon layers soaked into the walls.

‘Ready?’ Charlie opened the door and it filled with the washed-out light of a pale morning. The day was beautiful. She smiled and walked into it.

The path was so close to the house she wondered why she had never followed it until now. It sloped up a gentle incline before dipping once more towards the lower ground. It was overgrown, almost closed in by long grass, and there was a hedgerow formed of dead bushes interspersed with small leafless trees. It didn’t look like an easy path, but Charlie went ahead anyway, finding a stick in the undergrowth and swiping at the fading greenery. The foliage was wet with dew and each strike
sent shining droplets flying into the air. It must have been a long time since anyone came this way. The whole place felt as empty as the house; there was not even a bird in the sky, which was clear and pale and a little cold.

When Emma glanced back, the grey stone of Mire House looked faded. Beyond it was the churchyard, everything softened by a faint haze. Only the yew tree’s branches looked heavy and dense, as if they were still darkened with rain. For a brief moment she thought she saw someone standing beneath it, but no: it was an illusion born of the twisting branches. It had probably always been an illusion. For a moment she closed her eyes, imagining clawing hands reaching for her; then it was gone.