The House at Tyneford (43 page)

The woods. Run to Tyneford Great Wood. Reach the woods. Hide among the trees and I am safe. I am Kit, running, running across the hills, as fast as a roe buck. The tree shadow. Closer. Bullets clattering against the flint, strafing the eweleaze.
Bang! bang! bang! goes the farmer’s gun.
A fence falls. Sheep running. I can’t look to see if they’re dead. Something red. Blood on wool. Nearly at the trees. If I reach this hazel, that post, then I’ll be safe. I’ll live.
Run, rabbit, run, run, run! Don’t give the farmer his fun, fun, fun!
I run into the wood. The plane growls above the trees. It’s angry, I can hear it. It’s driven its rabbit into cover. I fall into the leaf litter, warm and damp and smelling of earth and mould. It’s firing into the tree canopy. Bullets and twigs and leaves rain onto the forest floor. I’m on my hands and knees. I’m on my feet again and I’m running, running. The mud and muck flies up around me as the bullets spray, sometimes so close I have to breathe to check that I’m still alive. I am all fear and running. The big tree. I see the big oak tree. It has white arms and it beckons to me out of the green dark. I run to the tree and the arms grab me and pull me down, down into cool dark and quiet.

“You’re safe,” soothed Poppy. “Quite safe.”

I lay in the gloom, listening to the quiet. Nothing moved. The beetles and ants and woodpeckers held their breath. The wind hummed through the ash leaves, and a larch rustled. Then a wood pigeon cooed, a rook cackled and shrieked and the forest crawled to life once again.

“How can you be sure they won’t come back?” I asked.

“’Spect they’re out of ammo, for one thing. Less than ten seconds’ worth of solid gunfire. Not much fuel left either.”

I sat up, picking leaves and moss from my hair, and an enterprising earwig from my cotton brassiere.

“He played with me, Poppy.”

“Here, drink this, you’ll feel better.”

I grabbed the bottle from her and downed a hefty gulp of what turned out to be Scotch.

“You don’t seem very hysterical,” said Poppy, looking rather disappointed as I tipped out stones from my remaining tennis shoe. “I must say, I was looking forward to slapping you. It’s what you do with hysterics. Are you sure you’re not feeling even a little peaky?” she asked with a hopeful smile.

“No.”

I took another swig of Scotch and surveyed my surroundings. We sat in what appeared to be an earthen cave, roots tangled above our heads. A bright hole of daylight led back to the wood, and a torch was slung from a root on a piece of string, angled to illuminate the recesses of the cave. Black guns glinted.

“Best not look,” said Poppy. “Top secret and all that.”

“Bit late now.”

I remembered the guns that I’d seen her hide in the Tilly Whim caves and Mr. Rivers’ revolver. I wondered if Poppy and Mr. Rivers were part of the same resistance group, but, honouring my promise to Mr. Rivers, I did not inquire.

“So, you have these hides all around the coast?” I asked instead.

“Yes. Just in case.”

“I want to help. Whatever you’re doing, I want to be part of it.”

Poppy shifted and wouldn’t meet my eye. “Can’t, I’m afraid. British nationals only. We really are top secret, you know. You’re not supposed to be down here, ’specially not since you’re an enemy alien, but seemed the right thing to do, since otherwise you would have been shot and all.”

I crawled over to the disk of daylight and elbowed my way out into the wood. Dusting off my filthy dress as best I could, I stood up and glared down at her.

“Enemy alien? How could you?”

Poppy flushed. “I’m sorry. It’s beastly. It’s not me, it’s the wretched government.”

“Just be quiet,” I snapped. I kicked at the tree with my shoe and balled my fists. I was so angry I could spit. Without saying good-bye or thank you, I turned and walked away. It was not fair. I wanted to join the fight.

I hobbled along the path, searching for my dropped plimsoll. An evening breeze drifted in from the sea and licked across the valley. The sheep grazed and curlews floated across the sky. I found my shoe and slipped it on. A flotilla of red admiral butterflies flitted around a patch of clover and, at the far end of the valley, the last combs of hay lay in curving lines. A pastoral idyll once again. Something glinted in the grass. I bent and scooped it up between my fingers—a fat bullet, as glossy as a slug. On the hill at a distance from the rest of the flock, one of the sheep lay motionless. I clapped my hands and shouted. It did not move. Squinting, I realised it must be dead. I ought to send a message to the shepherd. The ewe was freshly killed—no use wasting good mutton. I noticed that at the far end of the field there fluttered a row of crimson flags, like a bleeding scratch across the skin of the meadow. I wondered what they signified. I suspected Poppy knew, but she probably wouldn’t tell me even if I asked.

When I reached the house, Mr. Rivers was prowling the terrace.

“Good God,” he said, hastening toward me. “Are you hurt?”

I was too exhausted to receive his concern with any grace. “No. Just in need of a bath.”

He tried to take my arm as I passed. “Alice, I heard gunfire.”

I shook him off. “Please. Leave me be. I’m quite all right. Tell Mr. Stickland one of his sheep is dead.”

I hurried into the house and up the stairs before anyone else could accost me. My terror had subsided. I was angry and exhausted and helpless. They’d shot at me and there was nothing I could do. In a few hours they would be back and the darkness would growl with enemies, metallic and sinister. Soon the horizon would simmer red, as Swanage or Portland or Dorchester burned. I unbuttoned my frock and paced the room in my underwear. I waited for the stillness to be torn apart by an aeroplane’s roar. I didn’t really rest anymore. Not since Kit died. I saw him in my dreams; he was exactly the same as before, but even in my sleep I knew he was dead. In the mornings, when I woke, my grief choked me, thick as smoke. When I was a child, I imagined that if my parents died, or Margot, I would die of grief; I’d cleave in two like an elm tree in a lightning strike. But I didn’t die. I was hollowed out, scraped clean inside. I imagined myself to be like an empty Russian doll, filled with black nothing. Sometimes when I paced beside the sea, the shingles washed as the waves rushed and withdrew, I wondered whether I ought to slip into the tide. I could fill my pockets with pebbles and wade out beyond the black rocks, beyond the peak of Worbarrow Tout, until the salt water trickled down my throat. It seemed a quiet, easeful death. Perhaps Kit waited for me beneath the waves, as he did in my dreams. It was an idle thought, brought on by misery and the sad call of the sea. That afternoon, when the Messerschmitts had chased me, I only wanted to live. I had not thought for a second that I ought to embrace death and join Kit. As I ran, sweating and feral with terror, I discovered that I was greedy for life. My instinct to live was as desperate as that of a bloodied rat caught in a dog’s jaws.

Mr. Rivers and I ate dinner in the kitchen, while Mr. Wrexham waited upon us, resplendent in his white cotton gloves and pristine tails. Behind us, the ancient stove smoked and grumbled. I liked the kitchen; its warmth and the smells of simmering fat and carbolic soap, the clatter and bustle of Mrs. Ellsworth, all reminded me of home. I sipped at my wine and toyed with the mashed potato. Mr. Rivers frowned.

“Alice, what happened this afternoon? Are you all right?”

I recalled Mr. Rivers, mad with rage, firing his gun. Determined not to incense him again, I spoke with studied calm. “There was a Messerschmitt. It let off a few rounds in the valley.”

“Was it shooting at you?”

His voice was low, but contained a coldness that I did not like. I reached across the table for his hand.

“I am fine. Please. If you get cross, then I shall be upset.”

A muscle pulsed in his jaw, but he said nothing more on the topic.

After dinner, Mr. Rivers and I remained in the kitchen by silent consent, reluctant to return to the muffled stillness of the drawing room. The decay had been creeping in, year on year, but in the sunshine of Kit’s presence we had not noticed. We’d revelled in the faded grandeur, like children enjoying the romance of a dust-sheeted castle in a story. Now, in our unhappiness, Mr. Rivers and I winced at the house’s shabbiness, like a husband who realises his bride has grown fat. I imagined the house to be mortified by her present state and spent hours attempting to restore her beauty, but there were not enough maids to keep her properly clean, and even with my help the skirting boards and dado rails were grey with dust, the parquet scratched and unpolished.

Mrs. Ellsworth placed candles on the scrubbed oak table and, after securing the blackouts, vanished into the housekeeper’s room. Mr. Wrexham poured his master’s port and withdrew, leaving us alone listening to the gurgle and tick of the stove. Mr. Rivers had not dressed for dinner, understandable now that we dined in the whitewashed cosiness of the kitchen, but it nonetheless marked a final alteration in the customs of the household. He’d removed his outdoor boots but that was his only concession. He leaned back on the wooden chair, stretching out his legs, workman’s shirt unbuttoned at the throat. His clothes were stained with dirt and he smelled of hay and sweat. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a box of matches and lit a cigar. The incongruity made me laugh.

“Mr. Rivers, you look like you ought to be packing your pipe with ha’penny tobacco, not smoking cigars from Jermyn Street.”

He ignored my teasing and exhaled smoke, which drifted in blue curls up to the rafters. “Why do you call me Mr. Rivers?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” I asked with a smile. “You want to change your name too?”

“No. It’s an old name. One of England’s best,” he said with a touch of the old pride. He reached for a saucer and let the ash fall from his cigar. “Why won’t you call me by my Christian name? Why won’t you call me Christopher?”

I studied the table. “I can’t,” I said, unable to look at him. “Kit was Christopher. I can’t call you by his name.”

He inhaled sharply. “He was named after me. I was Christopher first.” His voice held a note of anger.

I knew I hurt him, but I could not help it. “Not to me.” I met his gaze, unblinking. “I don’t want to think of him when I speak your name.”

He glanced up at the high window where a strand of honeysuckle tap-tapped against the glass, and sighed.

“My second name is Daniel. Can you call me Daniel?”

He strode over to the range, opening the furnace and poking the coals so that crimson sparks flew out into the room. He had not shaved for several days now, and even in the firelight, I could see a thick layer of bristles covering his jaw.

“Daniel, are you intending to grow a beard?” I asked.

He turned around in surprise, running a hand across his chin.

“No. Just haven’t had Wrexham shave me for a day or two.”

“Well, tomorrow you must let him.”

He turned away from me and gave the furnace another vicious prod, so that a nugget fell out of the grate and landed on the flagstone, where it smouldered. He stared at the glowing coal, complaining under his breath about “wretched, bloody women.”

“Yes, well, you should be grateful. It is I who keep you civilised.”

He smiled and sat down. “Do you want a cigar? Kit once told me that you smoked. He was mighty impressed.”

I laughed. “Good. That was why I did it.”

He took the cigar from his mouth and passed it to me. I sucked, trying not to cough. He watched me steadily and did not look away. I noticed his eyes were a remarkably bright shade of blue and that one was darker than the other. No one else knew this. It was the kind of information that only mothers or lovers cherished, and his mother was dead; so was his wife, and his son. So this little detail belonged solely to me.

“You’re thinking of Kit,” said Mr. Rivers, interrupting my reverie.

I flushed. “Yes,” I lied.