Dead Letters Anthology (16 page)

‘There’s another island off to the left in the painting in your mum’s living room,’ she said, ‘but it isn’t there.’

He shrugged, his mouth full. She needed a dictionary for his shrugs.

As they continued on the thin earth path she tried to keep hold of his hand. There was a deep quiet between the sounds of sea and the wind. She no longer tried to fill it with words, but collected images; bluebells unexpected on the high cliffs, blackened thorns with feathers caught in them, a sleek hare that crossed their path in an instant.

His gaze kept falling not on the path, or out to sea, but inwards towards the fields and a row of small whitewashed houses.

‘What is it?’ she said.

‘I… someone I knew lived there.’

‘Do they still?’

‘No.’

He looked lost. She reached up and smoothed his hair that was rucked up by the wind. ‘I love you,’ she said. The words felt heavier once they’d left her mouth. She wasn’t even sure if she did yet, or if she’d said it to test what was between them, to call it into being.

He turned back to the path and led the way on.

* * *

Light seeped through the loose brown weave of the curtains. He wasn’t beside her in bed. She pulled a cardigan over her pyjamas and crept downstairs. The package remained unopened on the dresser. She’d almost pointed it out to him before they went to bed, but suspected that would mean he wouldn’t open it. Perhaps he’d opened it when she’d been out of the room, replaced the contents and resealed it. She checked the kitchen, and peered out of the windows at the front and back of the house. There was no sign of him. The house was in a row tucked between narrow lanes. No one passed by. A lot of the houses were holiday lets. She hadn’t seen anyone else on the street since they’d arrived.

The padded envelope looked as if it had been reused many times. The paper was worn thin in places, battered and crumpled, but as the postman had said, there was no address on it. How had the postman known it was for Gareth? There was no sound of movement upstairs. His mum must still be asleep. The weight and solidity of the parcel, the straight edges, told her she was holding a book with hard covers. As she turned it over music started playing, a tinny, lilting tune she didn’t recognise. She dropped the parcel on the dresser and stood holding her breath. There was no movement upstairs; the sound mustn’t have carried. She picked it up again. The flap lifted easily – so he had checked the contents, or his mum had. She eased the book out. It was a baby’s board book of nursery rhymes. There was a panel with three shapes to press for different tunes – ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, ‘Mary had a Little Lamb’, ‘Three Blind Mice’ – but the tune she’d heard hadn’t belonged to one of those. She turned the stiff pages. There were letters that had been blacked out of words here and there. Footsteps on the landing forced her to slip the book carefully back into the envelope. She rushed across the room and picked up the magazine she’d read cover to cover the day before.

His mum just nodded at her as she came down the stairs and then crossed into the kitchen. She could see where he got his communication skills.

He didn’t return until mid-afternoon. She flicked through the magazine again and again and again, and drank the weak tea his mum kept placing on the coffee table for her. ‘Gareth had to nip out to sort something out. He’ll be back soon,’ was all she’d say about his whereabouts, and then she sat in silence working on her crochet.

Feeling the day slipping away, she considered going out, but with her phone not working he wouldn’t be able to contact her. She kept thinking about the baby book. Why had someone sent it to Gareth? The postman must have been wrong. It was meant for someone else. It had to be, but why were the letters blacked out?

She waited until his mum was making the lunch and then eased the book from the envelope again, taking care not to touch the buttons. She looked for a pattern in the letters that were missing, and tried to make them into words: w…e…w… a…n…t…t…o. The kettle had boiled. Plates clinked against a work surface. She put the book back and sat down just in time.

‘Did you do the paintings?’ she asked as they both ate their salmon spread sandwiches.

‘I was taken away after I had Gareth. It wasn’t unpleasant where they took me, but I wanted to come home.’ His mum clung to the tiny cross at her neck as she spoke.

Unsure how to respond, she nodded and pushed more of the sandwich into her mouth. It must have been some kind of art therapy. Gareth hadn’t mentioned his mum had ever been unwell like that, but then there was more she didn’t know about him than she did.

‘Gareth’s father took so long about sorting it out I thought he was going to leave me there for good.’

‘They’re nice paintings,’ she said. ‘Very vivid.’

‘Have you ever held a changeling? They have a cry that could scour the heart from your chest.’

Wishing she’d never mentioned the paintings, she looked down at the magazine as though concentrating on an article about the island’s kipper industry.

His mum collected their plates and left the room, but her voice came through from the kitchen, ‘Just because a thing’s happened once, folk think you’ll be safe from it happening again, but life isn’t like that. There are old patterns to follow.’ She returned with more tea. ‘Kaye’s such a lovely woman. She knew what she had to do.’ Cold, milky water sloshed from the cup as she set it on the table, her hand shaking. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not supposed to speak to you. He’s a good boy, though, my Gareth, I won’t have you thinking otherwise.’

‘What if we booked into a hotel as a treat for our last night?’ His mum was in the kitchen, but she wasn’t trying to keep her voice down.

‘What about Mum? She would be devastated.’

‘I’m sorry, it’s just… this is our first time away together. We’ve hardly done anything. I’ve spent most of it in your mum’s living room…’

‘I told you I’m sorry, the errands took longer than I expected. And you know what, Mum’s done everything she can to make you feel welcome.’

‘There are photographs of you with your ex all over the place.’

He lowered his voice at the sound of pans clattering in the kitchen. ‘You know I was married. I’ve never hidden that from you.’

‘Kaye’s your ex. Your mum talks like she’s… and where is she anyway? Does she live on the island?’

‘She’s away.’

‘Were you seeing her today? Is that what you were doing?’

‘No.’ He headed for the kitchen and his mum, forcing her into silence.

* * *

He was asleep with his back to her, or feigning sleep. The light through the curtains woke her at dawn. She waited as it brightened a little in intensity and then slipped out of bed. She dressed in yesterday’s clothes without washing for fear she’d wake either him or his mum. Taking an apple from the bowl in the kitchen for breakfast she crept out into the empty lane. Giddy with the sudden sense of freedom she half-ran down the street into the next. He would wake and find her gone, just like she had with him the day before. He’d realise how out of order he’d been. He’d try to make it up to her. He’d explain what on earth was going on with his mum. She’d stay out just long enough to make him worry, but return in time for them to spend the afternoon together before the ferry home.

In the window of a grimy-looking cottage a
crosh cuirn
leaned against the glass. There were leaves caught in the old wool that had been used to tie it. She passed an antique shop and a pretty little café, but both were closed. The thick dust on the vases in the antique shop window made her wonder when it had last been open. She wandered the long lanes until the early morning damp started to make her bones ache. Another café she passed was closed, but the door to a quaint-looking bookshop stood ajar.

Inside, the shelves were dense with browning books. An elderly man was half-hidden behind piles of books on the counter. He didn’t seem to notice her come in. The titles on the spines of many of the books were too faded to read. She picked out a slim book that was the blue of the sea,
Fairy Tales of Mann.

‘Have you a special interest in…’ the man looked up and nodded at her, ‘because if so I’ve a number of titles you might like.’

‘Do you mean fairy stories? No thanks, I’m just looking.’ She flicked through the volume and stopped halfway. There was a story with blacked-out letters:
he wh-stled a soft tune, and touched her shoulder, so that she would look round -t him, but she knew if she did that he would have powe-over her ever after.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen another book with letters blacked out like this. Is it some kind of traditional thing?’

‘No, I’ve only seen it twice before.’ He held out his hand to take the book. ‘It’s a story about a
lhiannan shee too
, apt choice…’ Her expression must have shown her ignorance because he went on as if telling a story to a child. ‘If you so much as glance at one of Themselves you’re under their spell for good. They’ll have you dancing off into their fine halls under the hill.’ He looked up at her as if considering whether to carry on or not. ‘From time to time some of their things turn up. I think they let them slip through for mischief. They look just like our books, our paintings, our records even, but there’s always an extra story, or a curve in the hill that you’d swear isn’t actually there, or a tune you’ve never heard before – something not quite as it should be.’ He shut the book and put it beside the till. ‘I’ve gone on too much. Forgive me, they’re old tales, and I’m an old man who spends far too much time shut up with only books for company. Are you with us on holiday?’

‘My partner’s from the island. It’s the first time I’ve visited.’

‘And have we treated you well?’

‘Yes, thanks.’ She pulled her coat around herself, readying to go.

‘Have you been to see the Laxey Wheel?’

‘No. I’ve not seen as much as I’d wanted to and we leave this evening.’

‘Well we’ll see you again, I’m sure.’ He picked up the book. ‘Would you like this wrapping?’

* * *

There was no sign of Gareth back at the house. His mum was in the kitchen baking. The parcel remained in place on the dresser. She pulled the book out and worked her way through the pages: w…e…w…a…n…t…t…o…c…o…m…e…h… o…m…e. She shoved the book back into the envelope and dropped it on the dresser, setting off the tune for ‘Three Blind Mice’. It had to be some weird trick his wife was playing. And that’s where he kept sneaking off to: he was seeing her. She headed upstairs to pack. She pulled open the top drawer. Her clothes had gone. Her bag wasn’t under the bed. Her washbag wasn’t on the windowsill. His stuff was all still there. His rucksack was in the wardrobe. Had he packed for her?

She ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. ‘Where’s Gareth?’

His mum didn’t look up from her mixing. ‘He’s just nipped out to finish sorting something.’ She stirred faster and faster. The bowl was full of broken eggshells.

Out in the lane there was no sign of him. She didn’t know where to begin looking. At the end of the street, just as she was about to turn into the next, she heard whistling behind her. She’d never heard Gareth whistle. It was the same lilting tune she’d heard from the book the first time she’d opened the parcel. She turned, furious, ready to yell at him, but everything within her stopped. The stranger held her there with his gaze. She took his outstretched hand and let him lead her away.

Claire Dean’s short stories have been widely published and are included in
The Best British Short Stories
(Salt, 2014 & 2011),
Spindles
(Comma Press),
Beta-Life
(Comma Press),
Murmurations: An Anthology of Uncanny Stories About Birds
(Two Ravens Press) and
New Fairy Tales: Essays and Stories
(Unlocking Press).
Marionettes
and
Into the Penny Arcade
are published as chapbooks by Nightjar Press. Claire lives in the north of England with her two sons.

“I still have the book Conrad sent me for this project. It’s in its envelope in a box under my bed. I think I made it more unsettling for myself when I wrote about it, so I don’t want to see it but I can’t get rid of it either…”

Even before the letter arrived I’d been interested in strange place names, lost villages and ambiguous locations. The letter just gave me an excuse to give in to that interest. Looking back, perhaps I should have just stuck to reading about these places and not tried to visit them.

I remember picking the letter up from the mat by the door and looking at it, puzzled. The envelope was covered with greasy stains, but it looked like my address on the front:

The handwriting was blocky and old-fashioned, and there was no postcode, no county listed. The stamps were American and the postmark appeared to be ‘Dunwich’, or perhaps ‘Dulwich’. The red ink had been blurred by one of the greasy stains and I couldn’t be sure.

I turned the letter over. There was no return address on the back.

A smell wafted upwards from the envelope as I handled it: a strange, slightly fishy odour, like a freshly opened packet of smoked salmon. Not unpleasant, but not quite what you expect from a letter on your doormat. Fortunately I don’t have cats, otherwise they would have been all over it.