Black Sheep (10 page)

Hours passed before the judge spoke, and in those hours, Ted was in a vortex of the past, in school, in the scullery, in his grandparents' house on Paradise, beside Alice who was dying and then dead, on the terraces winding down Mount of Zeal, in the cage inching down to the Devil's pit, on the hill, in the drift of heavy snow and frozen to the gate, and in the bedroom at the farm with the snow blinding white on the white wall. His ears rang.

‘. . . you are sentenced to be taken hence to the prison in which you were last confined and from there to a place of execution where you will be hanged by the neck until dead . . .'

MOUNT OF ZEAL
drew in upon itself, Lower melding with Middle, and Paradise seeming to bend down and embrace them. There were no divisions now and not a paper to put between households in their concern for the Howkers. Evie was watched over and tended to night and day by this woman or that, cleaning done, food prepared and cooked or brought hot on trays under white cloths. Rose worked with whoever came, from morning till night, and in the night, sat at the window looking out, as Ted had always done, her conscience shredded by what was her fault in the end and only hers. She ate little, went from cushion to wishbone in a few weeks, as if the flesh had been scraped away. Evie scarcely spoke but sat all day with her head bent, or stood at the open doorway, staring, staring above Paradise to the green-grey line of the hill. The doctor had given her a draught to help her sleep and it plunged her from full wakefulness into oblivion, and brought her back, like a diver to the surface, with the same ruthlessness.

There was nothing to be said and no one tried. The men went down in the cage every shift and returned with blackened faces and tramped up the terraces to home in silence and even the children were subdued on their straggling way to school, never rattling sticks along the railings, nor jumping with a wild shout off walls. Mount of Zeal waited in the shadow of death.

He was transferred to a prison further away, and on the journey he felt the road unwinding beneath the wheels of the van and this was another ‘last time'. The engine running noisily, waiting for the gates to open. The engine being switched off and the way the van shuddered and went still.

The corridors. One two one two one two, dark blue back of the warder in front, moving fast, one two one two. He lost all sense of where he had been and where he was and where he would be going. Turn this corner, turn that, one two one two.

Stop.

It was different from anywhere he had been in the first prison, where he had a narrow bunk, a narrow cell in which the air itself seemed gravel-grey. This was larger, had a table, two chairs, a low bed. But the blanket was the same gravel-grey and the cupboard against the wall was brown wood, dark, varnished. The high window let in more light, though it was inner light from a courtyard between high buildings, not the true light of day.

He sat down at the table, the energy gone out of him like fast-flowing water down a sluice. The warder came and sat opposite, opened a drawer in the table and took out a pack of playing cards. Ted looked at them, strange objects from some other universe as they seemed to be.

‘Game?'

He was heavy-shouldered, large-nosed, thick-fingered. At first he seemed to speak another language but slowly the meaning came up like lettering on a screen, and Ted understood.

He shook his head.

‘You'll need to do something,' the man said. He spoke kindly. ‘Read. Play a game with me or one of the others. You can ask for a jigsaw. You'll need to take your mind off things.'

But his mind was frozen and could never be freed again.

He had been in his old prison cell alone, with all the time in the world to think, but now he was not left, they changed duties, four of them, and he was never by himself in this world again.

He ate the food they brought, wrote a letter to Evie, one to Rose, one to William. The chaplain came in. The governor. He answered what questions they put to him and asked for nothing.

‘You're entitled to a visitor, anyone of your family.'

His heart jumped, thinking of Rose. Rose would come and he longed to see her, almost as much as he longed for the hands of the clock to move backwards.

But he said, ‘No. Thanks. No one.'

For he would not put her through that. It would be the cruellest thing he could ever do.

Reuben had taken to his bed for good some weeks earlier, and though the black Bible lay on the covers or the chair beside him, he no longer read it. Rose asked if he wanted her to find a passage for him but he shook his head with vehemence. No woman had ever read his Bible aloud to him. No woman ever would.

He started to talk a little, chatting in a soft and amiable voice to Alice, and called Evie or Rose Alice when he caught sight of them. He told Alice she was a good girl, that he had enjoyed his supper, that she baked a good loaf, that he was glad to sit beside her, and though there was never any word of love, hearing him, Rose knew that his words were full of it. Men in Mount of Zeal had never talked in a feeling way.

She ate little. She slept little. She thought only about Ted and had to force her mind round in the opposite direction for fear of letting the terrible imaginings flow in. But what was there left to think about? The past and the dead.

Reuben died one night. Rose found him, cold as stone, when she came down at seven. He had never asked after Ted, as he had never asked after any of the others, seeming to accept each disappearance without the need for comment. She folded his hands and set the black Bible between them.

He had made little noise for months but the house with just Evie and herself was now silent, an emptiness where he had so long been.

Just women in the end, Rose thought. Evie was on the settle, knitting her fingers together. She did not know how much her mother thought about what was happening, whether she had let her mind go blank, and of course no one who came in to them spoke of it. Looks were all they gave.

THAT NIGHT, WILLIAM
Barnes went out onto the hill among the sheep at ten and stayed there, knowing he would not sleep in his bed. He moved among the animals, touching one here and there, went to the top of the slope and sat, walked across to the far side, and sat again. One or two of the sheep ambled nearer so that he could feel the warmth of their breath on the air around him.

He could not think of what was to happen, nor not think of it. He thought of Ted, the day he had arrived up here, of Ted when they had carried him back half-frozen stiff, of Ted rubbing a newborn lamb with a handful of straw to make it cough the mucus from its lungs to breathe.

He had heard the story a dozen times. What had happened had happened, that was plain enough, but that Ted had meant it to happen, had hit out meaning to kill, he could never accept. Anger might have killed, anger or accident. Not intent.

But it had come to this in the end and nothing had made a difference.

He could not make sense of it and for the first time in his adult life, in the darkness, he wept and then sat, simply waiting for the morning.

They had given him food but he had not eaten, and whisky which he had asked for but not drunk. The warder had tried to tempt him with the playing cards again but Ted's hand had been shaking so much he had knocked the pack onto the floor and they had pattered down everywhere, sliding under the table and chairs and slipping into a corner and touching the front of the wooden cupboard. They had got down on their hands and knees to retrieve them but the warder had grabbed most and made Ted get back onto the chair.

His bed was made but he did not lie on it.

The chaplain had been and spoken to him and then read out of the Bible, a passage about mercy which Ted knew by heart, having heard Reuben say it aloud a hundred times or more. His lips had mouthed the words with the priest, who had looked at him intently, before reading on. He had asked if there was anything he had to say, or ask, or tell, and Ted had opened his mouth to cry out in terror and anguish and pleading, but he could make no sound come.

The governor had been and tried his best to give him courage and Ted had felt for him because of the horror his job forced him to endure but the courage did not come. All night, his bowels kept opening until he thought there could surely be no waste left in his body. But still it came.

The doctor came, with brandy, which he was suddenly greedy for and drank down so fast it took his breath and made him choke. He held out the glass and, after hesitating, the man poured more. Ted set it on the table in front of him. When they came for him he would swallow it, at the last minute, before he was taken again down the endless narrow corridors.

There were no corridors. He was almost asleep, and in the claws of a nightmare, sitting at the table with his head in his hands, when he was wakened by the warder's hand on his arm, shaking him hard, and then by the opening of the door. Two men entered, a tall warder behind a man of middle height, slight, with a small moustache. He wore a dark suit with a smart white handkerchief in the top pocket.

Ted did not know where he was or what was happening, until his own warder handed him the brandy he had kept. ‘Drink it up quick,' he said softly. He held it for him while he drank, as if Ted were a baby, because his hand shook too much. This time, though it burned his gullet, it did not choke him.

‘Follow me please.'

The wooden cupboard had been pushed sideways. It slid easily, as if oiled. Ted hesitated, then stepped behind the man into the room beyond.

And it was here. No corridors. No keys. Here. The small room.

Time did not stop or go backwards, time went on in the old steady way, but so little time, seconds, before he was standing where the man told him, the chaplain was making the sign of the cross, there was another man binding his arms, then bending down, and before another second had gone there was a strap tying his legs together. His bowels heaved and opened. He screamed but the scream was muffled by the cloth bag over his head, over his face.

A muffled click and his head cracked open, as if it were hitting stone and the light inside the bag went out.

Black Sheep

The village of Mount of Zeal is built on three levels. Ted Howker, his father and his brothers live in Middle, stuck between Lower Terrace and Paradise. But, to the great shock of his family, Ted is not content to follow in the footsteps of his father.

A Kind Man

Tommy Carr was a kind man; Eve had known that immediately. But after the tragic death of their young daughter, Tommy's personality is eroded by grief. What happens next is entirely unexpected, not least for the kind man ...

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The Prime children grew up in a bleak country farmhouse called The Beacon. Only Frank got away. He left for a career in journalism: the publication of a book about his childhood brings the fame and money he craves – and tears his family apart.

The Boy Who Taught the Beekeeper to Read

A young school boy becomes friends with a beekeeper and begins teaching him to read; a country girl fights against becoming a downtrodden domestic skivvy; a gang of boys plans an unforgivable deed. In this collection of expertly crafted stories, Susan Hill presents us with an utterly captivating panorama of human nature.

The Service of Clouds

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The Service of Clouds
is a profound exploration of love, loyalty, friendship, growing up and growing old.

Mrs De Winter

Rebecca
was Daphne du Maurier's most famous and best-loved novel. Countless readers wondered: what happened next? Out of the fire-wracked ruins of Manderley, would love and renewal rise phoenix-like from the ashes of the embittered past?

The Mist in the Mirror

For twenty years Sir James Monmouth has pursued his fascination with the pioneering traveller Conrad Vane. His quest leads him to the old lady of Kittiscar Hall, and deep into a past that binds him to his hero in ways he never could have imagined

Air and Angels

Thomas Cavendish is a distinguished Cambridge Don, destined to become Master of his college. But his life is changed irrevocably by an apocalyptic vision, a vision that brings with it the beauty and joy of a love never previously imagined.

The Woman in Black

Arthur Kipps, a junior solicitor, is summoned to attend the funeral of Mrs Alice Drablow. When he glimpses a wasted young woman, dressed all in black, a creeping sense of unease takes hold, deepened by the reluctance of the locals to talk of the woman in black – and her terrible purpose.

In the Springtime of the Year

After just a year of marriage, Ruth's beloved husband, Ben, is killed in a tragic accident. Only Ben's young brother Jo is able to reach out beyond his own grief to offer Ruth the compassion which might reclaim her from her own devastating unhappiness.

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Epub ISBN: 9781448190232

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Published by Chatto & Windus 2013

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