The Unquiet House (24 page)

She quietly closed the window and drew the curtains across the glass, covering the pale reflection of her face. She pulled the blackout curtains right up to the edges and went to see what it was her mother wanted.

She was sitting sewing by the light of an old paraffin lamp. The electricity was off and there was only the lamp and the soft glow from the stove. Everything smelled of oil and Aggie wrinkled her nose. Did her mother think the house must be blacked out inside too? She did not dare to ask. Her mother had her
things to be doing
look on her face. She had snipped open some old socks and was stitching them together
again. She was making little bags, sewing squares of paper to the front.

‘It’s for when they’re in ’ospital,’ she said, ‘so the soldiers ’ave something to put their things in. They can write their names on t’ front, see?’

Aggie did see, and yet she had the feeling she
didn’t
. She hadn’t thought of it before, young men being in hospital after being shot or gassed. She swallowed and thought of Eddie. Her throat felt dry.

‘I need you to go over to that ’ouse.’ Her mother didn’t need to say which house; Aggie knew. ‘Yer dad’s ’aving a lie down and your brother’s gone to see Eddie before he leaves. That woman was there on ’er tod all day. If she’s in that ’ouse she might need an ’and, love. Wi’ t’ blackout, I mean. Just you run along and see if she’s all right.’

Aggie thought of walking alone down the lane in the dark. She knew it almost as well as the farmhouse, but suddenly it was
different
.

‘I’ll not ’ave ’em sayin’ mean things,’ her mother continued. ‘It’s for neighbours to ’elp each other, an’ that’s what we’ll be doing.’

What
I’ll
have to do, Aggie thought, but when her mother lowered her sewing she saw how tired she looked. She couldn’t possibly refuse. She nodded.

‘Good girl.’

Aggie still didn’t move.

‘It’s on’y going to get darker.’

At that Aggie grabbed her coat and waited for her mother to cover the lamp before she slipped out.

The sky looked featureless, yet it still held a certain diffuse light, as if a bright moon was hiding somewhere behind the
clouds. As she crossed the yard a dark shape slipped from the shadow of the house and slid itself against her legs. Her heart leapt until she heard a brief purr. She put out a hand to stroke the cat, but it just as quickly slipped away. She peered across the yard.

Everything was silent. She remembered the sound of the air-raid siren from when they’d tested it out, rising eerily from somewhere beyond the fields, and she shivered. She pulled her collar tighter around her neck. For a moment she felt suspended between going on and going back, and then she reminded herself her mother would be furious if she didn’t do what she was told. If Aggie complained of the dark, she’d only laugh and say she should eat her carrots. Anyway, she had been right: it was getting darker all the time. She went on, picking her way across the cobbles.

The surface of the lane was smoother and she walked straight down the middle. She passed the lych-gate, all thick charcoal lines against the sky, nothing visible beyond it. A part of her was glad; she didn’t wish to think about what she might see there.
Only stones
, she thought. She had been there a thousand times before and she had never been afraid – only once, anyway.

The house was barely visible, just a slightly darker outline against the sky. Her mother needn’t have worried. Of course Mrs Hollingworth would never have stayed there. Aggie couldn’t imagine her even setting foot inside. The house had been abandoned and shrouded in darkness long before the blackout had even come to be. There was no light –
No life
, she thought – and no need to cover its windows.

She turned to leave, and then she paused. She could already hear her mother’s voice in her ear:
So there were no answer at t’ door then?

Of course she would expect her to knock. If she didn’t, what would she say – that she’d walked down the lane and seen that the house was dark and simply gone home again? The house was
supposed
to be dark, everywhere was. Her mother had expected her to check on its occupant. If she didn’t she might even be sent out again a second time and by then the darkness would be absolute. Aggie grimaced. There was no help for it, so she walked up the drive, catching her breath at the sound of deep gravel under her feet. She thought she could see the darker rectangle of the door and she kept her eyes on it, and then her knee hit something and she pitched forward. She put out both hands to break her fall and sprawled across some object, its surface smooth and cold and hard.

She made an odd sound, then smothered it, fighting the way her breathing threatened to run out of control. She ran her hand over the thing, squinting to make out its outline. How hadn’t she seen it? It was a car, nothing more – and why not? The woman must have got here somehow, and she had money; she surely wouldn’t always take the train. And yet it was wildly extravagant, when there was already talk of petrol running short. She knew exactly what her mother would say:
It’s wicked, that’s what it is. A wicked waste
. It was the same thing she’d said about the house, standing empty when it could have sheltered so many, providing a refuge to children and women from the cities.

Aggie knew she was only delaying the thought that was in the back of her mind. She was going to have to knock after all, and the unthinkable might happen: Mrs Hollingworth might answer. She would open the door and smile that cold smile and step back and Aggie would have to go inside.

But it wasn’t any use. Her mother would skin her if she went back now. She bent and rubbed her bruised knee, took in a gulp of the cold and strode up to the door and stepped under its shadow. Her first knock was tentative. She tried again. As she waited, she placed her hand flat against the door. It felt cold as stone, not something that would open, not to her. She let out the breath she had been holding. She didn’t like to turn her back on the house, not now, but she would be home in hardly any time at all, quicker perhaps, since she intended to run all the way.

It was only when she reached the end of the drive that she stopped dead and looked back over her shoulder. The coldness had spread; it had come out of the night and seeped into her. It must have numbed her, stopping her from thinking, because she was stupid; stupid to think this place – that woman – had finished with her so easily.

Mrs Hollingworth wasn’t home,
but the car was still here
.

She turned her head and looked into the dark. She knew exactly where she was going to be. Deep down she had always known.

*

Once she stepped through the lych-gate she could see the graves, indistinct slabs that faded into the dark. Beyond that it looked as if there was nothing but sky, but she could picture the hillside as clearly as if it were daylight. She knew her way to the stone seat with its bitter words and the ancient yew tree standing sentinel over it.

She wondered if Mrs Hollingworth was still staring down towards the house, her eyes unseeing, everything swallowed by the dark, and she shuddered. It occurred to her now that she
could go back home and ask someone to go with her. There would be no shame in that. She could barely see and she had already done her duty; they surely wouldn’t expect her to walk up here, between the graves, alone.

She started to walk anyway, but it felt like she was being drawn along, as if she didn’t have any choice; as if she was supposed to
see
. Perhaps she could help after all, take the woman’s arm and walk with her to the farm and show her that it was better to forgive everything and take refuge in the cheerfulness of her neighbours.

She remembered the way she’d spoken –
never be happy
– and she shook her head.

Her footsteps were silent. Somehow she didn’t feel afraid of the crooked gravestones; she knew there were worse things. It was the well of darkness ahead that she dreaded. She thought the shapes were becoming more defined as she went – the yew trees, the ones her mother said had stood here for centuries, before there was even a church. It was easy to believe now – it would have been harder
not
to believe it. She could hear their whispering, like soft voices talking of things it would perhaps be better not to know. Her mother had told her once that their roots stretched down to the lips of every sleeper in their graves, finding out their secrets; perhaps, now, they were whispering the words of the dead.

Her breath was irregular and she didn’t like to hear it. It was easier to tell herself that she wasn’t afraid without that ragged sound in her ear. She drew a deep draught of cold air and it caught in her throat.

She must be close now. Anyone sitting there in the quiet dark must have heard her approach. They might even be looking
straight at her. She forced herself to call out a soft greeting. Her voice didn’t sound steady, not like the voice of someone who could help, but it was too late to take it back. Anyway, there was no reply. Was the woman sleeping? Exhaustion might have taken her, dragging her under before she could rouse herself to move. Aggie forced herself to take another step. It became darker still as she stood under the spreading branches. The seat was a paler shape against the trunk. Though the words written there were mercifully lost to sight she knew they were there, and that didn’t help.

Now she could see a darker shape against the bench, but she couldn’t bring herself to go nearer.

‘Mrs Hollingworth?’

There was no movement, no sound except the soughing in the branches. She swallowed. There was grit in her throat. She opened her mouth to call out but no sound emerged; her voice was lost to the night air and the silence.

It’ll mek ’er sick
, she thought.

She took another step forward, half-believing she was caught in some awful dream. The war, the woman, all of it – none of it might be real after all. She would wake up to find herself back in the summer, her hands scratched from the harvest, and this time she wouldn’t mind; she wouldn’t shy away from the early rising or the hard work or the sun beaming down on her head. She would welcome it all.

She reached out towards where Mrs Hollingworth’s shoulder should be. She was only half-conscious of doing it. She couldn’t make out any features, hadn’t heard anything at all. Her fingers met something cold and smooth. ‘Ma’am?’ Her voice was a whisper. There was no response; the woman didn’t even move.
She stayed there a moment, her arm outstretched, just touching the silk of her dress. Then, slowly, she edged around her.

She could see the paler shape of her face under the veil. She bent closer. Now she could make out the fine black lace, the shining silk of her dress. She didn’t know how she’d dared touch the fabric. She started, when she saw that the woman’s eyes were open. ‘I’m sorry, I—’

Mrs Hollingworth didn’t move. Aggie stared down, her heart beating so fast that it almost pained her. She could hear her own breath. She could not hear the woman’s.

No
: she must be sleeping, that was all. She forced herself to put out a hand and touch her shoulder once more and very gently shook her. She surely wouldn’t mind – she surely would be grateful to be roused and taken from such a place. She might even be afraid, waking out here on this cold night. She could come back to the farm and her mother would bustle around her, making tea or Horlicks, and everything would be all right.

The woman’s hands slid forwards, her fingers so cold against Aggie’s own as she tried to steady her, and all at once she
knew
. Of course she had known; as soon as she had found the house empty she should have run all the way back to the farm and light and her mother’s hearth.

The woman was dead weight in her arms. If she let go, she would fall. Aggie let out a sob at the cold touch on her skin. She saw that the woman’s eyes were huge and dilated, staring sightlessly into her own, and she thrust her away, not caring now if she fell, and she turned and ran.

The graveyard seemed rougher, the stones appearing suddenly in front of her so that she had to dodge from side to side, and there were mounds everywhere, all of it in tones of silver. There
was no one in the world, no one to help her – then she saw the black sketch of the lych-gate and she rushed through it into the lane. Her throat felt raw. She put her head down and ran harder and that was when she hit something like a high wall where no wall should be, except that it was soft and giving and had arms that closed around her, and she screamed as she heard the answering voices calling her back.

Eventually they had to strike a match and never mind the blackout. For a moment her brother’s face was lurid in the light that flickered in Eddie’s hand and then his friend dropped it and she heard him blow on his fingers. ‘We’d better not light another, Aggie,’ he said, his voice gentle.

She shook her head, then realised they couldn’t see her. She found she didn’t care. Fleetingly, she wished her brother gone, and then everything flooded back. She wanted to cry. She could still feel the touch of the woman’s hands on hers. She didn’t trust herself to speak – and then she heard her brother, soothing her, telling her everything was all right.

Between deep breaths she told them what she had found, expecting them to comfort her, but instead her brother said something about fetching their father and she was left alone with Eddie after all. She was no longer sure it was what she wanted – she wished she had been the one to run up the lane towards her mother’s kitchen. But then Eddie put a hand on her arm – she jumped when he touched her – and he said, ‘Best get to the side, Aggie. If anyone comes …’

He was right: if a car came along in the blackout with its headlights masked, anything could happen. She was lucky it
hadn’t already. She had a sudden image of loose limbs flipping up and into the windscreen and the shrieking of brakes, but she pushed it away.

She stood with Eddie and he didn’t speak but she could feel him there, a warm, living presence at her side. She remembered the way he’d lit a match for her, though he could have been fined ten shillings if anyone had seen. She hugged herself, then wiped her fingers against her coat. That touch was still on them: cold –
dead
. She shivered, and heard Eddie slip off his own coat and place it securely around her shoulders.