Hush (17 page)

‘Excuse me. Hey. Excuse me.’

It was a few moments before the voice penetrated Richard’s consciousness, and he realised that it was speaking to him.

‘Sorry, fella. You look like you were having some pretty deep thoughts there.’

‘Deep? No, not really.’ Richard laughed uncomfortably, caught off-guard. He’d been leaning against the low stone wall of the churchyard in the centre of the village, looking at the headstones within its perimeter. Mostly tilted at angles, crumbling limestone with once elegantly chiselled lettering, now faded to illegibility. A few were better cared for, brighter white, upright: recent. Some even had flowers. But most were memorials which commemorated nothing but the very presence of absence in the world.

The man was probably thirty years older than Richard, and dressed casually, in farmer’s clothes: sturdy boots, worn jeans, oiled jacket for keeping out the elements. He had a whiskery beard, and dark eyes which gave little away. His smile seemed genuine enough, though, as he stepped off the path and came to stand beside Richard.

‘Well, seems to me that if you’re standing outside a churchyard you’re going to be thinking about either death or religion. Both of which qualify as deep, in my book.’

‘Hmm. I suppose I was thinking about death, in an abstract way. Nothing serious.’

He laughed, then stopped when the man didn’t laugh along with him. ‘Flippancy doesn’t do you any good in the long run, you know.’

‘Nor does dwelling too much on things you can’t control.’

‘Absolutely right.’ The man clapped him on the shoulder, abruptly approving. ‘My name’s Ed.’

‘Richard. Nice to meet you.’ They shook hands, vigorously.

‘You’ve just moved into the Emmetts’ old place, right?’

‘Yeah. Well. Still the Emmetts’ place, technically. My girlfriend Lily grew up there.’

‘Really? When was the last time she was there?’

‘Oh, years ago. I’m not too clear on the dates. Did you know her mother?’

‘No, not really. Just heard rumours about the family, you know how it is.’

‘Yup.’ Richard grinned.

‘So what are you two doing here, then? Just fancied a change of scenery?’

‘Well, actually, I lost my job,’ Richard admitted. ‘And Lily’s taking some leave from her work, because of her mother dying, so… I suppose we thought a change would do us some good. Well. I thought that, anyway.’

‘And it’s not working out?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Richard hedged, not wanting to divulge too much to a total stranger. ‘Too early to tell, really.’

‘I hear that house is full of memories, you know. Ghosts.’

Richard looked at him curiously. ‘Yeah, well, I thought if Lily could face them…’

‘Not just hers.’ Ed’s voice was rough, forceful. Like a dog’s bark: a warning. He reverted to syrupy softness so quickly that Richard wasn’t sure if he’d imagined it. ‘So are you looking for work?’

‘Yeah. I’m not sure what I want to do, though. I was an aspiring journalist, but it didn’t really work out…’ He trailed
off, shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose there are many jobs in a small village like this. I could drive into town, but I haven’t wanted to leave Lily alone too much.’

‘You care about her a lot.’ The tone was approving, but there was something else unidentifiable.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Glad to hear it. Hey, here’s an idea. Have you ever tried bar work?’

‘Sure, back when I was a student.’ Nonplussed.

‘Well, a good friend of mine runs the pub in the centre of the village. He could use a hand in the evenings. It’s not the kind of pay you’re used to, I imagine, but it’ll provide you with some spending money while you’re looking for something more permanent.’

‘I don’t know. It’s been a long time,’ Richard hedged, politely. Tiptoeing around the words
please God no.

‘Oh, you never forget. It’s a good way to meet people, you know. Integrate into the community.’

Richard laughed. ‘You make it sound like I’ve just got out of prison.’

‘Heh. Well. This place can be a bit like that. We’re not so good with outsiders, you know?’

‘People seem friendly enough.’ Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. It had been almost a week and no one had spoken to them. Their neighbours might not have been next door in the sense of being attached to the side of their house, but they were still close enough that a visit to say hello wouldn’t have been out of the question.

‘Come on. Give it a go. What have you got to lose?’

Richard’s most hated of all trite phrases: the rhetorical question with a million different answers. Everyone, always, had something to lose.

And yet, the asking of the question had the same effect, every time.

He shrugged his shoulders, laughed uneasily, shrugged again. ‘Sure. Why not?’

There was a soap bubble in the sky. Lily stood, nose pressed against the glass of the patio doors, following its drifting progress. It lurched suddenly higher, and glinted, rainbow-bright in the sunlight, before popping soundlessly into a shower of drizzly fragments. Stillness inside the house, and out. The years-distant echo of childish voices in the air.

– Can we play in the garden Mama please everyone else is outside and Billy’s got a water gun –

The voices receded, along with the hazy summery quality of the light, and Lily stared at the garden through her adult’s eyes. Visibly withering into winter. She could see it all at once. The faded yellowy patches on the grass, worn threadbare by the sun’s relentless attention. The crystals of frost that had clung to the blades of grass that morning, making them simultaneously fierce and astoundingly beautiful. And as it was now: dull, fading into early dusk, and utterly dead.

The force of her parents’ absence hit her, abruptly, as it sometimes did, making her dizzy. She lowered herself to the floor. Took deep, shuddering breaths. Looked around the kitchen in its fading half-light, feeling the cavernous space of the empty house around her.

An eleven-year-old Connie, a smudge of white in the doorway, peered down at her, childishly. As if she was trying on her condescension for size, feeling her way into it. Lily remembered that look so well.

Eight-year-old Lily, just behind. Running to catch up.

– Connie won’t you play with me Mama won’t let us outside and I want someone to shut up shithead I’m going outside and you’re not coming –

At the kitchen counter, Connie perched on one of the red bar stools. Lily below, scrambled to get up, but she couldn’t reach. Always three steps behind.

Connie scattered breadcrumbs on the kitchen floor. An offering, the carelessly discarded remains of something she only kept out of spite. A trail, perhaps, for Lily to pick up behind her, when she followed her into the woods.

The first day back after the Christmas holidays, rain fell from the sky in thick sheets. The bus was more crowded than usual, crammed with teenagers who would ordinarily have cycled, and Lily got on first and had pushed her way to the back before realising that there was no space for Connie to follow. She turned around, about to head back, but Connie waved her away and took a seat halfway up the bus, in the midst of a group of girls from her year. She sat down and stared straight ahead, and Lily, left with no choice but to do the same, sank into her own seat among people she didn’t recognise.

The moment the bus pulled away, Lily saw one of the girls lean in to say something to Connie. The words were lost in the howl of the bus’s engines, but the laughter of the group carried up the aisle. Connie gave no indication that she’d heard anything, but Lily thought she saw her grip tighten on the bars of the headrest in front of her.

The bus bounced its way through the countryside as Lily watched her sister. The girl who had spoken had now leaned back to her friends, and was talking loudly while watching Connie for a reaction. The girl was tall, with long, curly hair and dark, narrow eyes. She wore a lot of make-up, and Lily realised where she had seen her before, loitering in the aisles of the Drayfield branch of Boots on Saturday mornings, trying out testers and pouting at herself in the mirrors.

Lily watched as the girl leaned in towards Connie and pinched her arm, viciously. Connie flinched but still she
didn’t look around, keeping her eyes on the road ahead. Lily thought she looked well practised at pretending nothing was happening.

The bus pulled to a stop outside the school. ‘Minster Street,’ the driver called over the loudspeaker, and there was a general murmur as people started to move towards the front of the bus.

Lily moved forward too quickly, thinking only of getting to her sister, and found herself face to face with the girl who had been tormenting Connie. ‘Don’t think we won’t get you as well,’ the girl hissed, and she jabbed an elbow deep into Lily’s ribs, before turning and sweeping away.

For some reason Lily couldn’t fathom, they rarely seemed to actually touch her. She thought maybe the silence disconcerted them. Convinced them she really was a killer. Connie was just an easy target, someone to pick on when life got tedious. Lily, they weren’t so sure about.

Maybe she actually deserved it.

She heard the whispers, but, like so much other background noise, she filtered them out without too much difficulty. It wasn’t that she didn’t care. She’d just grown so used to the idea of being alone that she couldn’t see any other way forward. It was a form of resigned acceptance.

They had other ways of getting to her, though. Even if they didn’t dare physically touch her, they would crowd around her. Trap her in corners when no one was looking. Hiss insults and half-truths at her, viciously; glancing blows which left invisible puncture wounds beneath the skin.

If she couldn’t see an escape route then it was harder to shut out the words.

She still counted floor tiles between classes. It had a calming effect. The black and white grid stretched out before
her, endless, timeless, hundreds of footsteps click-clacking their way over it without ever pausing to think how it all fitted together.

Lockers lined the walls here and there. Not used as often as she’d expected from American TV programmes. Fewer classes per day, fewer textbooks;
ergo
, no real need to continually stop at one’s locker to empty and refill one’s bag. It was disappointing, in a way she couldn’t identify. The ideals of television, brushing up against the way things really were. Condensed into something much more humdrum.

Still, the clanging sound of the lockers echoed pleasingly, from time to time, in the way she felt they should. Bouncing from wall to wall as they disappeared up the corridor.

She slipped into her classroom behind another student, wraith-like. There was no dip in the general level of noise to indicate anyone had noticed her entrance. She headed for the usual table at the back, slipped into her seat. Caught the eye of the boy opposite but didn’t smile. It had been nearly five months, and she still hadn’t learnt more than a handful of names.

She had been moved into the year above for maths classes. Her fellow students were largely indifferent to her presence, beyond resenting her slightly for being a younger student who invaded their classes and often performed better than they did.

‘Right, come on. Books out, bags away.’ The voice of Ms Beecham – loud, nasal, authoritative – cut through the general hum of conversation and silenced the room instantly. Lily was fascinated by the woman’s power to call people to order. It made her think of the nurses in the institute, and how they’d always failed to get even one child to obey them.

‘Today we’re going to be making a start on probability. You’re going to be doing your coursework on this, so I recommend you pay attention.’

There was a moment of shuffling as everyone opened their exercise books, found their pencils, shoved their bags under their desks.

‘Probability is one of the more practical areas of maths, in the sense that all of you should be able to name some of the ways in which it is used in our society. Does anyone want to suggest any ways?’

Several hands went up. Lily listed the answers silently in her head, her eyes on the window straight ahead of her.
Genetics. Finance. Artificial intelligence. Gambling.

She tuned out the discussion. She had no interest in
talking
about maths; she just wanted to get on with it. Outside the window she could see another class doing PE. The girls were playing hockey, looking strangely timeless in their pleated skirts and long socks. The boys were presumably inside doing something more manly. It was Connie’s class, Lily realised, recognising some of the girls. Minus Connie, who had found her at lunchtime to tell her she was going home. A headache, she’d said. Lily had wanted to offer to go with her, but she hadn’t dared.

It had been raining solidly for the past three days. Even now the grey clouds hung low in the sky, threatening to merge seamlessly into the darkness of night. The playing fields were almost entirely mud, and within minutes the girls were covered with dark splatters, the bare patches of skin on their thighs covered in a protective dark coating. It looked like an intense game; Lily could see, even from this distance, the ferocity on the girls’ faces. One after another they fell, sliding in the mud, rising almost immediately to continue. Sky darkening blue-black around them. A distant rumble of thunder.

Lily recognised the girl from the bus. She didn’t know her name, but she was unmistakable in the way she held herself: head high, dark hair flying out around her face, that expression of self-assured authority. She was directing the other girls around the field, a blur of constant movement, waving her arms this way and that. Team captain, officially or not, it didn’t matter. No one was going to question her.

Watching her, Lily felt the sudden, crushing weight of what Connie was up against. How she must feel, faced with that, every day. The girls in Lily’s year were mean: they taunted her, avoided her, laughed behind her back. But they had no leader, no one to mobilise them. They were just reacting to rumours, none of them wanting to be the first to admit that they didn’t really care about what they had heard.

Connie was up against someone who was really willing to fight to bring her down.

Lily watched, captivated, as the girl charged up and down the field, her voice, silent but easily imaginable, carrying across the school grounds. There was no teacher in sight; this girl was the only authority they had. And, when one of the girl’s team members made a mistake, there was no one around to stop her from raising her hockey stick and giving her a thwack which seemed to resonate in Lily’s own cheekbone.

Silently, she turned her head away from the window. Back to the brightly lit classroom, not quite bright enough to chase away the shadows from outside. While the rest of the class worked, Lily calculated the probability that, had she been there, the girl on the receiving end of that thwack would have been Connie.