Cryers Hill Read online

  Sean wondered why the murderer had not killed Ann. Perhaps she unnerved him, perhaps he intended to, or perhaps he had fallen in love with her. It occurred to Sean he might be seen as a rival. The thought stopped him dead in his tracks.

  'I'm not coming.'

  'Good. I'll go on my own then p'sof.'

  Sean watched her stamping away on her long rod legs. He saw the smudge of dirt across her flower-print bottom where she'd sat on the ground and her dark hair in rat's tails that swung over her back. He wondered if he would ever see her again.

  Whatif this was the last time?

  'Ann.'

  'What?' He waited until she turned. She was irritated. This was the wrong time. I love you I love you I love you.

  'Nothing.'

  She closed her eyes with the exasperation of it all.

  'Spaz,' she whispered, and Sean thought he could detect some tenderness in the way she said it, softly like that.

  Off she went on her rod legs. Stilt woman, off to meet her murderer in the woods.

  Sean thinks the plants in Mrs Roys' garden look better since he watered them. He is pleased about that. They don't have plants on the estate. Instead of grass they have rocks and stones in the gardens. Inside Sean's house it smells of paint and cigarette smoke, but here it smells of coal and carpet and cooking. What is she cooking?

  Her embroidery lies on the chair; the old lady is sewing a picture. Sean didn't know you could sew pictures. He bends down to study it. The picture is of fairies and flowers. Fairies! A bit crip. Ann would say so. Ann would like it here, though she would pretend not to. Sean sits on the settee for a rest. It's lovely and soft and spattered with flowers. It makes you sigh to sit on it. A dismayed photograph watches him from the table, while Mrs Roys' newspaper swoons to the floor.

  She is upstairs; she seemed quite pleased to see him. He stood on the doorstep in a blast of fiery sunlight. He told her he had forgotten his leaflets, and in he came to the dust-blurred hallway. She said she had something for him. A ball she said. A ball? Sean wonders if it is a trick and really she is up to something else. Like what? He couldn't think. It had once belonged to her son, she said. It had not entered Sean's head that Mrs Roys might be a mother. Maybe her son was among the photograph faces. He wondered what he was called, this son, but did not ask in case she said something like Oswald.

  Now Sean wonders if he ought to find out more about the son. He did not wish to upset Mrs Roys but it is important to leave no stone unturned. And where was this son now? This Oswald. Strolling about in dense woodland on the off chance he may come across an unsuspecting child? Sprinting across Widmer field, stark naked except for shoes?

  A church bell chimes somewhere. Sean allows it to lull him and soon all the froth in his head settles.

  'Sorry to have kept you. Here it is!'

  Mrs Roys is offering Sean a large lumpy-looking egg. He is speechless. He takes it. It is brown and dimpled and fantastically heavy. Sean has never seen anything like it before. He wonders if she went upstairs and laid it herself. He doesn't know what it is, but it is not a ball. He hasn't the heart to tell her. He says, thank you very much, instead. She seems pleased. He notices then that she is wearing her coat and hat.

  'I won't be long. Just to the shop. You can play with the ball in the garden if you like. You could water the pots for me.'

  And off she goes, the goose that laid the big brown egg. Sean stands there holding the thing, like a boy in a fairy tale. Someone at school said that women have eggs inside them, loads, and Sean was horrified. He knows it is not true, but still.

  Every time it bounces the egg goes off at an unexpected angle, and when you kick it it curves madly like a boomerang. It dives into the shrub pots and jackknifes under the hedge. It is like chasing a small escaped pig. More than this it has laces on one side, like a shoe. Sean feels sorry for it. He leaves it hiding beneath a wire chair and goes indoors.

  Inside Mrs Roys' house is not like the inside of other houses. Her furniture is old, from another time, and everywhere there are things made of enamel, silver, crystal and gold that ting and ping and alter in the light. At home all they have are three smoked-glass cats on the mantelpiece. Here there are things from dreams and stories and faraway places. Sean holds up oddments to examine in the sunlight. He finds a large waxy cone with a tassel that is decorated with picture mountains; he pops it on his head. There are chests and tables and drawers made of wood that smell a hundred years old. Cautiously, then carelessly, Sean begins to open the drawers and bureaus. Mostly they are full of things that do not interest him: fabric and cloth wrapped in tissue, placemats, keys, maps, leather-bound notebooks. But sometimes there is something interesting like coins, or silver pencils in a decorative box, or more photographs of the sort of strangers you are not supposed to talk to. After a while Sean begins to lose the will to continue. He is tired, mildly dizzy. He notices a pebble lying inside an opened bureau. The bureau is narrow and upright and orderly, like a little man in uniform, and smells of sand and something metal. The pebble is smooth and dark and beautiful. It is laced around with white lines, like threads. He reminds himself that he must leave no stone unturned, that Ann will blink and throw her arms around him when he solves the murder, that he will no longer be spaz. Sean puts it in his pocket and continues. There are little drawers within the bureau, a row of them. It is his solemn duty to open them, to find out the truth. Inside each drawer are bundles of paper, tied with ribbon. Sean is unsure what they are, except that they appear almost identical and are numerous and fill all the drawers and are therefore perhaps important in some way. Eeny meeny miney mo. The chosen drawer gives up its bundle. Sean closes the remaining drawers and lids and replaces the doilies and ornaments that he has moved. Clutching the bundle, he stands for a moment, to think. He has forgotten he has a cone on his head. Thunderbirds are go, you spaz. He thinks it is possible things have taken a turn for the better. He thinks he does not want to see Mrs Roys when she returns. He thinks he will go. He thinks it is possible he is almost solving a crime. Wur.

  The wood is dim at this time of day, murky brown as the lake. The hills begin to drag the sun behind them until they brood darkly over the valley. Once upon a time Lady Godiva rode here.

  Sean scans for movement beyond the purplish trees. He skirts around the edge of the wood, listening to the sounds it makes. Chink and tac tac tac and the mysterious call of a flute. There is a bird which sings like a flute but Sean can't remember its name. The sun lies low, orange hot, turning the air copper-coloured. Sean runs, trailing a stem of willow grass in his mouth. He stops every now and then to listen. In his game he is a warrior astride his horse, a dagger in his teeth. From any other perspective an observer would have seen a disorganised bird in short trousers, building a nest at the wrong time of year.

  Sean runs on. Showers were becoming popular these days, he thinks. Showers were the modern alternative to a bath. His mother wanted a shower. In response Gor had asked her a question. The question was: Do you think I am made of money? Sean had reckoned the answer was: No. But his mother said nothing at all. She just walked away clockwork-fast to begin a silence that lasted three days.

  You have to stand still in a shower. When Sean stands still all the whatifs come. He wonders whether this is something you just grow out of, or whether the adults too find themselves standing around in their lives thinking whatif whatif whatif.

  Sean places the paper bundles from Mrs Roys' house under two house bricks inside their garage. The loops of writing are still visible, poking out. Sean adds another brick and then another. He steps back to admire it. He has constructed a mini brick mountain: he is pleased. No one will ever guess that real alphabet words are hiding under bricks, that he is nearly solving a crime, or that he has a secret friend who is as old as the hills and lives in a wonky house.

  Sean runs to the tip. Behind him trail all his thoughts; too slow to catch him, they drift and float away. Sean loves the way his body runs. He loves the way his plim
solls land, the way they do it on their own. He bends over as far as he can to watch his legs going round.

  By the overgrown stile Sean checks over his shoulder to see whether he is being followed. He must keep his eye on the ball. Then it occurs to him that maybe he is the ball. That maybe someone has their eye on him. He is amazed he has not thought of this before.

  The tip is supposed to be a load of old rubbish, but the truth is it is brimful of excellent things. Things you would never find all in one shop. In any case you can sit on top of the tip when there is no one else around, evenings especially, and apart from a bit of a view you have warmth too. The tip is always warm, it gives off its own heat. Sean feels chatty at the tip. It is being around all those things, it makes you talkative. He can be master and commander of the conversation and the tip never disagrees, though he suspects it listens, so that is all right.

  You never know what you will find. Sean has discovered theatre seats (whole rows), staircases, surgical waste (including syringes and examination tables), baths (including taps) and a wheelchair. There are wigs, guitars, stuffed animals, an enormous distorting mirror, artificial limbs and, of course, lots of rubbish. He had a go in the wheelchair and it was quite good. Once you got the hang of it you could do laps around the tip, you could turn and reverse and zigzag. If you were tired after that, you could nod off in it. If you put a wig on no one would know it was you.

  It wasn't just Sean at the tip, the seagulls liked it too. Sean wonders why they are not at the sea. They fall screaming from the sky on to the rubbish, where they strut stiffly about, pugnacious and self-important, inspecting the rubbish sideways with their flat fishy eyes. The birds hang about all day, wheeling circles with the sun on their backs. You get used to the noise, it's no good minding it. Their shrieking becomes the sound of the tip, as if it were the same thing. Sean closes his eyes and the gulls turn into babies, wailing as they tumble out of their prams.

  'No wheels on my wagon, but I'm still rolling along. Bloody stink in here. Holy cow. Is it you?'

  'No.' A pointless lie. Even Sean can smell himself. He meant to wash when he came in; he'd forgotten. He sniffs his hands. They smell leafy at first and then you get the bird shit, metal and waste that make your eyes water. Gordon wrinkles his nose. 'You bloody pong, you do.' And he swings out to report it.

  'He pongs.'

  'What?'

  'He pongs! He pongs! He pongs!'

  Sean moves to the sink to rinse his hands. His dad reacted badly to certain smells, which was why they couldn't have a dog. He liked nice smells, aftershave, cologne, soap. He would sniff himself and, if he thought he required it, apply more Tai Winds for Men.

  The water flashes in the light and Sean thinks about the saints and the way they always look so worn out, and also how there was never a speck of dirt to be seen on any of them. Maybe there was a connection. Saint or sinner, you couldn't leave your washing out around here. His mother had stopped saying that, he realised. She used to say it every day. They had used to say prayers. They had used to be Catholic, but now they couldn't be bothered. It was his mother who had taken them to church. 'At least there are some believers left in this house,' she said. She spoke it piously, but you could still hear the anger poking through. His dad just laughed. His pointed his index finger at Sean and sang, 'I'm a believer, I couldn't leave her if I tried! Cath wasn't in a mood for singing. She fought him with silence instead. She always won.

  The training for Avon representatives was brief but intense. Cath had decided this was the answer to all her prayers. Door-to-door selling. It was popular, easy, glamorous, well paid. It would get her out of the house and into other people's houses. Doreen would teach her how. Doreen could turn hours into minutes with her smooth creamy Avon-lipped persuasion. She had a face made out of candy colours, pretty as a sweetshop, and she'd cooed and coaxed Cath out of four pounds six shillings, and stirred her tea for her in return. While Doreen counted out the money (including the coins) to check it was the correct amount, Cath noted that her hair had been piled on top of her head in an enviably laborious construction, like a giant honeycomb. Carefully selected strands had been teased out and curled to make helter-skelter rides for ants. She was beautiful, Cath thought. Everything would be lovely if she could become more like Doreen. Cath thought she would very much like to have a sweetshop face and Avon talk and helter-skelter hair.

  Each night Cath opened her Avon boxes. She liked to touch the products, though she didn't intend using them. She couldn't imagine ringing the doorbells; she didn't trust people to let her in. Perhaps she would ring the bell and run away, she thought, like a child. How could she ask for money? She was too shy. She would give the stuff away for free. She'd go to prison. She wouldn't be able to sell it in prison either. She was quite unsuited to it. No one would buy anything. Ding-dong. The chimes rang in her head, sweet bells to the devoted. Ding-dong, the sound of freedom, the promise of escape, a siren call. She would practise and rehearse and prepare, as Doreen had shown her. She knew the products and the prices and the free gifts and the special offers. She knew to smile and cock her head and sit with her knees to the side, never crossed. She knew to hold the product up in the air as it was being discussed, like a third party, a VIP guest. She knew to place her other hand under the product, as though offering it a little chair, as a sale drew closer. And she knew to say: You are the woman we have designed this season's range for. If she practised then maybe one day the bells would ring for her.

  Nineteen

  WALTER DID NOT dare to take his poems too seriously. That all changed one harvest festival when Ginny Hall read out a poem called 'Abundance'. Walter had been astonished to hear the vicar announce that she had written it herself. He hadn't realised any old nobody could write poetry and then read it out, just like that, in front of people, and at harvest festival, and in church. He had supposed there would be guidelines, strict controls, rules drawn up by the universities or societies or something. But here was Ginny delivering, in her best Sunday vowels, words she had dredged up herself, blowing them over the marrows and radishes, shrilling them up at the stained-glass figures with their staffs and shields, until their colours burst and lit the air above their heads. Everyone in their pew below felt her words on them, just as if they were from the Holy Book itself. Walter recalled only snatches of Ginny's dramatic composition now, but its disquieting sense of threat goosebumped him still. He had forgotten the start but remembered:

  thy bounty grown to fulsome ripeness,

  ballast gainst a fearful winter storm . . .

  And

  winter, aye, that cometh to tear asunder,

  winter's wrath: our enemy forsworn . . .

  And

  that we with tender care, not flights of fancy,

  may gather in the yield to stay our want.

  He regarded Ginny quite differently after that. She had previously offered no clues to suggest her poetic leanings, though she was clearly, beneath cardigan and raincoat, a first-rate poet. Walter had to admit he had passed her over on almost every count. Now he was forced to reconsider. Now he dropped his glance when she approached and waited, in the hope he might become infected, if it were at all contagious, by her cunning way with words.

  *

  'In the crimson blush of morning, In the glitter of the noon,

  In the midnight's gloomy darkness, Or the gleaming of the

  moon,

  In the stillness of the twilight, As it shimmers in the sky,

  We are watching, we are waiting, For the end that draweth

  nigh.'

  Sankey enjoyed the sound of his singing voice. He thought it a curious thing the way music behaved beside water. Take that bit just now. Water, he suspected, was a transmitter of sorts, a mover of sound. His voice became the clanger and the dewpond the bell.

  There was a magician who said he could do a trick where he appeared to walk on water. Sankey thought little of that sort of skylarking, but he wouldn't have minded a glimpse to see
if the fellow could or not. There were tricks and there were miracles. This life was an extravagant trick, but coming along just in time was a genuine miracle. Sankey knew it, he could taste it behind his teeth.

  Sankey was a Methodist. He knew God's love lived in a man's heart and sprang from his throat in worshipful song. He knew the road to salvation was a rocky one, and he knew that beyond the swelling flood the gates of Heaven glittered brightly, golden as the King's own ceremonial carriage.

  Sankey had many favourite hymns; he found it impossible to choose between them. He reckoned that to write a hymn a man must be as clever as a politician, as pure as a bishop, and musical as sin. He marvelled at the words in the hymnal, how they arranged themselves in line beside a tune. How did they do that? Why didn't they drift apart from the musical notes? Or run on, or run out, or go bad? Who could answer? Sankey explained it to himself. Sacred words will find their way around a venerable tune. A chill blew under his skin at the sanctity of that remark. Where did it come from? Wise words. What were they doing inside his head? He must be patient. He must not excite himself. The still small voice of calm. J am the light. The still small voice. I am the Door. A voice. Choose you this day whom ye will serve. Pay attention. Attend. Be still and know that I am God. Sankey's hands reached to cover his mouth, one after the other, as if they did not trust it to speak. He shivered as he knelt. He tried to stop the sudden gasp of tears. He must compose himself. Simmer down. 'Help me, Father. My heart is pure. Lord God, Heavenly Father of all mankind. Creator of the universe. All things are ready – come.'

  It occurred to Walter that if Miss Hall could manage original verse fit for public consumption, then so could he. Why not? Walter thought if he were to be inspired then he had better get out and let nature rouse him. All the best poets dealt with nature, it couldn't be avoided.

  He found himself torn between woodland and water and so opted for a bit of both, taking the path by Millfield Wood, which led to the pond. The day was bright, occasionally darkened by fast-moving cloud, which he thought good for mood. He crept diligently along North Road, where the hay carts had left scatterings of straw, hands clasped at his back, head high, alert for any sudden displays of nature or other notable manifestations besides the twitterings of birds and water-gurgles of ditches. He paused at the drinking trough; he and Cecil Harvey used to walk under the plough horses' bellies without ducking their heads. He came upon the Tisdale woman, bucket in hand, at the corner house before she knew he was there. Her shriek startled them both, launching all the songbirds out of the trees. 'I beg your pardon, Mrs Tisdale.' But she was already gone and the door slapped shut. The birds wheeled round and resettled on their perches. A solitary bark sounded. Some guard dog, that.