The Stopped Heart (8 page)

She pegs the washing out quickly—his socks, his pants, a couple of shirts and a worn and faded T-shirt with holes under the arms and some French ski resort advertised on it. Two of her bras. The jeans that used to be tight but hang so stupidly loose on her now.

Once she's finished, she makes sure not to glance at the line—one half of a family blowing there—but turns away quickly, bending for the basket and calling the dog, ready to head off back across the wavy, sunlit grass.

And the very moment she straightens up, there he is.

I
DIDN
'T
THINK
J
AMES
D
IX WOULD BE MUCH OF A WORKER.
I
thought he would kick up a rough if he had to do half of what my father managed each day. But I was wrong. He got on with it. He did everything he was told to do and more.

He helped with the hay harvest and he raked up the cuttings and he lifted and turned the compost and helped to get the piglets away from the sow for weaning. He watched my mother as she soaped the gooseberries to keep the sawfly off, and all by himself he earthed up the potatoes we'd put in at Easter.

My father showed him how to go on the common and tell which cows were ours so as to bring them in for milking. He made Frank take him into the fields and teach him to use a weedhook and how to recognize sorrel and megbeg and field vetch and hensfoot and all the other sly and creeping weeds the crops didn't get on with.

You could tell he wasn't from the country. He had to be shown just about everything. He didn't know the first thing about grazing, or where a cow's teat was or which part to pull so the milk came down. He didn't know a thing about growing or corn
or what was in the earth or what animals could understand or do for themselves. He didn't know which tools were for what or when you should plant things or how you kept the crows off or why you had to take notice of the rain and the wind or the sun and moon or do things in a certain order according to the seasons.

But he didn't shirk. He put in the hours. And he was handy when he wanted to be. At his own suggestion, he patched up the chicken coop with some planks he found in the apple shed, and my father—who'd been grumbling for months that it was a job that needed doing—was very happy indeed with it. And after Frank had showed him how to go over the dry earth between the corn rows with a daisy rake, he prepared the ground as good as anyone could have, and then organized hours of stone picking in the turnip fields with the little ones.

My mother, who was growing stronger with every day that passed, stopped pounding the washing and looked up from the tub to watch.

Look at that, she said, wiping her raw, sudsy hands on her apron so she could shield her eyes against the sun. Whatever is he up to with all those kiddies?

I looked. The little ones were staggering up and down over the brown earth behind him with their buckets and baskets. Even Lottie, who could never usually be made to do anything halfway helpful or useful, was managing perfectly well with a small basket all her own.

He's got a way with him, hasn't he? my mother said. He can get anyone to do anything, that one can.

And I looked at her and I saw that there was a flush of brightness on her cheeks for the first time since Isaac Roper died.

“T
HE DOG DIDN
'
T EVEN GROWL,”
M
ARY TELLS
G
RAHAM LATER
when trying to describe what exactly she saw. A slender red-
haired man, crouching at the bottom of the orchard and looking at something in the long grass.

“Looking at what?”

“I don't know. I couldn't see. And then the next moment, I don't know what happened but he just wasn't there at all.”

“Well, you must have looked away for a second.”

“And what?”

“And he ran off.”

“But I didn't. I didn't look away. I was so shocked.”

Graham smiles.

“OK. So he dissolved.”

Mary says nothing. Already in her mind the moment is less certain, more indistinct. She remembers some things. The sun hot on her shoulders, the creaky lightness of the empty basket in her arms. She remembers the dog idly sniffing at a clump of lemon balm. A bee floating past. The sudden shock of understanding she was not alone.

“Maybe I imagined it,” she says.

Graham's face tightens.

“Either he was there or he wasn't.”

“He was. It's just—well, it only felt like a split second.”

He takes a breath.

“Do you think it was the same man Ruby saw?”

“What?”

“You know. Red hair. In the lane.”

Ruby. The man in the lane. Mary realizes she'd forgotten all about that night. She looks at him.

“I thought you weren't sure that was true?”

“I didn't say that exactly.”

Mary hesitates.

“There was smoke,” she says, remembering all of a sudden the thin wisp of white she saw, rising up from the long grass.

“Smoke?”

“Didn't Ruby say the man she saw standing there and looking at the house was smoking? Well, so was this man. I'm sure he was smoking.”

“A lot of people smoke.”

“But the hair as well.”

Graham looks at the dog, who is sniffing at his shoe.

“Ah, well, we probably need to have a look at the fence, don't we?” he says.

“What fence?”

“At the bottom of the orchard. There's almost nothing left of it. At the moment anyone's free to wander straight in from the fields.”

Mary stares at him.

“Does it matter?”

“Well, it clearly does, doesn't it? Don't worry; I knew we needed to do something about it. It's just not been high on my list, that's all.” He bends to the dog, pulls at her ears. “Rotten bloody guard dog you turned out to be,” he says.

F
RANK WANTED TO KNOW IF
I
THOUGHT
J
AMES
D
IX WAS A GOOD
sort. He went on and on about it as if it was the most important question in the whole world.

I don't know, I said. I don't know what I think. Why do you want to know?

He scrunched up his nose.

Well, you see, sometimes I think he is and sometimes I think he isn't.

I kept my eyes on Frank and tried to stay steady.

And why ever would you think he wasn't?

Now he looked uncomfortable.

Well, I do like him a lot—

But?

But what?

That's what I'm asking, you idiot. What don't you like about him?

I do like him!

I thought you said that sometimes you think he isn't such a good sort.

Now Frank looked quite troubled. He licked his lips. Then his face brightened.

I like how he lets us punch him in the stomach and he's brazen and not afraid of anything and he shows us how to fight—

Fight? You think fighting is good?

Frank looked at me, his eyes uncertain.

Well, I don't know, but he says he's going to teach me to ride a bicycle—

You haven't got a bicycle.

He says he can get one, and anyway, I like his snake tattoo and—

I laughed and I saw that his ears were turning red. Frank could never hide his feelings. He looked away quickly.

I hate his tattoo, I said.

Why?

I shrugged.

It's a snake, isn't it? Who would want a snake on them? Snakes are wicked and slimy things.

Frank looked at me as if he was thinking hard.

Why don't you like him, Eliza?

I never said I didn't like him. I said I didn't like his tattoo. And anyway, you're blushing. Why are you blushing?

I'm not blushing.

Oh, Frankie. Your ears. They're on fire, look at them—you'll die from the heat.

Even though he was only seven, Frank was my favorite brother. My only brother, really, because Charlie was more like a girl and the new baby didn't count. I decided to stop tormenting him.

Why do you think I don't like him, anyway? I said.

He blinked at me.

Lottie told me.

Told you what?

She told me that you didn't like him.

This made me catch my breath. Lottie could be the limit sometimes.

But how ever does Lottie know?

Frank shrugged.

Well, I think James told her. He tells her everything. Him and Lottie are always talking. They're very thick together, you know.

Even though I hadn't really thought about it, I realized I did know this.

Lottie's just a baby, I said at last. I wouldn't worry about what Lottie says.

And anyway, I do think he likes boys as well, Frank said at last.

As well as what?

As well as little girls.

M
ARY GOES TO THE FARM SHOP TO GET BREAD AND MILK AND TO
see if they have any minced beef or lamb. Most of the meat there is frozen, but at least it's local and she can't be bothered to drive to the nearest proper butcher's, which is a good five miles away at Hinton.

She picks up a couple of pints of milk, a loaf, some cheddar cheese and decides in the end to get chicken breasts instead of mince. She also picks up two bunches of local asparagus, their fat stalks held together with blue rubber bands. She goes to the counter to pay.

The woman—she's spoken to her once or twice and thinks her name might be Rose—is on the phone, but she hangs up quickly when she sees Mary waiting. Starting to ring up the items on the big, old-fashioned till. She smiles at her.

“Seen your daughter recently, then?”

Mary freezes, her whole body suddenly rigid.

“What?” She chokes it out, barely even a whisper.

The woman doesn't look at her. Pulling a white plastic bag from under the counter, shaking it open.

“Didn't she come and stay the other week? My other half says he saw your husband at the station, getting her off the London train.”

“Oh.” Mary can hardly speak, relief like warm water flooding through her. “Yes. That's Ruby. My stepdaughter.”

The woman, Rose, puts the things in the bag. Shaking her head, gold hoop earrings catching the light.

“Ha, that's funny. Reg only mentioned it because he said how she was the spitting image of you. All that lovely dark hair. Mind you, proper handfuls, teenagers, aren't they? Bet you're glad you've only got the one.”

Mary manages to say that she is glad. She asks Rose then if she has kids. Rose throws her head back and laughs, fiddling with one of her earrings.

“Six! At the last count anyway. Four boys and two girls. And do you know, the last two were complete bloody accidents. Welcome accidents, but all the same. I guess you never know what life is going to dish up, do you?”

S
HE WALKS HOME THROUGH THE LANES WITH HER WHITE
plastic bag. The hedgerows are scented, humming with smells and sounds. She passes the dried-out, zigzag skin of a snake flattened into the asphalt and stops for a moment to look at it.
She sees no one except a youngish, dirty-faced boy on an odd, old-fashioned bike, fair hair lifting as he pedals past.

She gets back to find Graham in the little room that, partly as a joke and partly not as a joke, they call the snug. A dark space off the kitchen with one small window, it contains most of the boxes that they could not bring themselves to leave in storage but have not been able to face unpacking either. He is hunched in the collapsing old armchair, piles of photographs spread out before him on the low coffee table.

She gasps.

The sudden sight of those pictures—the precise, agonizing colors of her old life's happiness—almost knocks the breath out of her. Standing there in the doorway, fingers gripping onto the frame, her voice seems to slide away from her.

“What are you doing?”

He glances at her, his face alert, different, feral almost. She sees that the dog is curled at his feet.

“Nothing. Having a bit of a sort out, that's all.”

She stares at him: a prickle of something like fear creeping over her.

“Why?”

He turns to look at her again.

“Because this room is a mess. Because we've been here almost two months and it still feels like some kind of a dumping ground. Because—”

Because. Mary's eyes dare not go to the other things that may or may not rest in the darker shadows of the room. She has not yet given herself permission to remember what they stored, what they brought. Decisions made with her eyes, heart, and mind half-closed. There is a photograph in Graham's hand. She is not able to let her eyes go to it.

He is silent and she swallows, waiting. He takes a handker
chief from his pocket, one of his great big white cotton handkerchiefs. He does not do anything with it, just holds it. She watches and as she does so, she feels her heart leave that small dark room and fly back out to the lanes, to the recent bright hedgerow, the dizzying smells, the boy on his bicycle. She thinks of the snake, sliding along smoothly on its belly one moment, stopped and flattened by the car tires the next.

Graham looks at her. So does the dog, lifting her head briefly from sleep.

“Because I don't want not to be able to,” he says.

H
OW OLD IS THIS GIRL OF YOURS?
J
AMES ASKED MY MOTHER EVEN
though I was sat right there in front of him, mending Lottie's petticoat.

My mother's hands were covered in flour. She rubbed her nose with her wrist and blew some hair out of her face.

Eliza? She's thirteen.

Thirteen and a half, I said.

She's fourteen in November, my mother said.

James didn't look at me. He kept his eyes on my mother.

I didn't know she was that old. You must have been quite a child yourself when you had her.

My mother laughed, but I could see that she was pleased.

Not far off, she said. Seventeen.

James looked at my mother. I didn't know what he was thinking. I saw that there was sweat on his face and his eyes were unsteady, darting all around.