House of Silence (5 page)

A was an Apple Pie, B bit it, C cut
it
...

Bramleys of course, nothing better. We have
blackberry and apple pie at Christmas because it’s Alfie’s
favourite. Christmas Pie!

He put in a thumb and pulled out a
plum
-

No, that’s not right...
Blackberries
.
We have blackberries. I must remind Vivien. She must tell him, tell
Tyler, to pick all the blackberries before the birds get them.

Blackbird Pie!
That’s
what Alfie used
to call it!

Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a
pie. When the pie was opened
-

Why is my drawer open? Did
I
open it?
Was I looking for something? I must have been. Something
important... It was to do with Alfie coming home. He’ll be home
soon. At Christmas. We’ll all be together again. The family. All of
us. All the girls and little Alfie. I must ask Viv to get him a
present... A new jersey. He’ll have grown. Boys are always growing.
Always eating and always growing! He’ll need a new jersey, a warm
one, for the winter. And it’s nearly winter now. The apples are
ripe and the leaves are turning. Tyler will burn all the dead
leaves. If I open the window I’ll smell the smoke and I’ll know
it’s November, almost December. And then it will be Christmas and
Alfie will be home. We’ll have Blackbird Pie and Viv and Hattie
will decorate the house with holly and ivy and there’ll be a big
log fire...

When?

When will that be? Say the bells of
Stepney
...

When is Alfie coming home?

I’m sure I don’t know, says the great bell
of Bow...

At Christmas. That’s soon... Where’s my
diary? Vivien always leaves it where I can find it. She crosses out
the days so I know where I am. And how long it will be till he
comes, till Alfie comes home. He’s very good, he comes every year.
At Christmas. It’s more than we could expect. Under the
circumstances. The boy is very busy, Vivien says. He’s an actor.
But he always makes the effort to come and see us. At
Christmas.

Ah,
here
it is! My diary. Viv has
marked it for me. Today is September 19
^th
. A Friday. It
says here - where are my glasses? I put them down somewhere. I can
never find my - ah
,
here they are! It says here - she’s
written it down for me - that it’s ninety-six days to go.
Ninety-six days till Alfie comes home. Less than a hundred! Not
long now. The time soon goes...

Tyler is cutting some dahlias. I don’t want
any in here. I don’t like them. Horrid vulgar flowers. Freddie grew
them. They were his favourites. He liked big blowsy flowers. What
happened to the asters, I wonder? They used to look like a purple
cloud at the back of the border. We used to have asters, I’m sure,
when Alfie was a boy...

Ninety-six.

Why did that number just come into my head?
Is it 1996? That was a long time ago, surely? Alfie would have been
- let me see now - seventeen. Seventeen! Oh, no, there I go
again... It’s silly to cry! Why, after all these years?...

Ninety-six.

I know that number is important, but I can’t
remember why. It’s exasperating! Vivien has no idea... But she’s
very good, she marks my diary for me and tidies my desk and leaves
it so I can find everything. If I should want to write, everything
is here, ready for me. A place for everything and everything in its
place. Always the same. That’s how I know where I am. Every day.
Every year. Every Christmas, it’s the same. We have Coxes and
Newton Wonders with the Stilton and the port. Alfie likes port. It
won’t be long now. It says so here, in my diary. Ninety-six days
till Christmas.

Ninety-six!
That was the number! I
knew
it was important! Ninety-six days till Alfie comes
home! Not long now. Not really...

I shouldn’t have cried, I know I shouldn’t,
but I get so confused! And I don’t remember
why
I cry!
Vivien says, it’s because I’m old. I don’t remember how old. But I
think I must be old... I look old. But I don’t
feel
old. The
time just goes...

Where does it go? When we’ve finished with
it? Where does time go? I give the old diaries and calendars to
Hattie to cut up for her patchwork, but where does the
time
go?...

I’ll ask Vivien. She’ll know. And if she
doesn’t, she’ll find out for me. Where time goes. I know it bothers
her too. She says so. She says, ‘Where
does
the time go?’
That’s what she says. She says, ‘I must be getting old, Rae. Where
does
the time go?’

I don’t know. Vivien doesn’t know
either.

But I know you can’t get it back. That’s
what Alfie said. When he came home for Christmas - was it last
year? Or was it in 1996? We played
Charades
. And
Monopoly
. It was such fun! And Alfie said - what was it he
said now? I try very hard to remember the things he says. Sometimes
I ask Vivien to write them down for me so I can remember them.
Alfie said... ah, yes, he said he was
making up for
lost
time
.

The time
is
lost. Lost to me...

So are the stories now. Even Alfie’s. I’ve
forgotten it.

I’ve forgotten now what it is that I don’t
remember... What I
mustn’t
remember... It’s all for the
best, Viv says. But I don’t remember why...

I wish Vivien would come. I’m so tired.

I wish Alfie would come... He’ll be home
soon. For Christmas. As usual...

Where
does
the time go?

~~~

Vivien sat at the kitchen table, her legs extended
towards the Aga, warming her frozen toes. To hell with chilblains.
She’d come in from the garden an hour ago but still didn’t feel
warm enough to remove her coat. And it was only October. The cold
would get worse.

She hadn’t minded so much when she was
young. Perhaps it wasn’t so cold then? It must have been. The
planet was warming up, they said. Though not this particular corner
of north Norfolk, with nothing between the coast and the Arctic to
deflect bitter north winds. How had they managed all those years
without central heating? Admittedly fires were always lit then and
there were more bodies to warm the place up, children running about
and dogs that could be trained to sit on your toes.

Vivien looked down at the pair of West
Highland terriers dozing in front of the Aga, side by side, one
old, one young. Harris and Lewis. In perpetuity. Rae believed them
to be the same dogs, after all these years. When the original
Harris had died, Rae (who still had her wits about her in those
days but was too distressed to think of a new name) called the
replacement pup Harris. By the time Lewis died, Rae didn’t know
what year it was, let alone the age of the dogs, so it was agreed
that while she was alive, there should always be two dogs. Two
Westies: one called Harris and the other, Lewis. It made everything
simpler and it reduced the number of awkward questions Vivien had
to answer.

She gazed fondly at the dogs, spread out in
front of the Aga like a grubby sheepskin rug. Harris made a
high-pitched whimpering noise and let out a shuddering sigh. Doggy
dream-time, she supposed. Picking up a pen, Vivien pulled a
spiral-bound notebook towards her. She kept one in every room, even
the loo. It was the only way to keep on top of things, keep track
of her ideas, of all that needed to be done, especially at this
time of year.

She opened the notebook and looked down at a
list headed
TO DO.

.

Chiropodist (Rae)

Collect prescription

Make Xmas puddings

Make mincemeat?

.

Turning her mind back to the garden, she
added to the list.

.

Store/check apples & pears (Tyler)

Clear gutters (T)

Lift dahlias. (
Scrap
yellow
)

Asters?? (Ask T)

Plant bulbs in orchard. (More crocus?)

Order seed

.

Where
were
the seed catalogues? She
was getting as bad as Rae. She’d put them somewhere safe so they
wouldn’t be turfed out with the junk mail. She could order online
of course but she liked to sit by the fire with her feet up and a
cup of tea, studying the catalogues. She loved them. The promise of
spring. A new start. Renewal. Regeneration. All those big, hopeful
words. Colour and bounty were crammed into the gaudy pages of those
little booklets and she still got excited when, every autumn, they
landed on the doormat. After all these years...

She remembered Deborah playing with Harriet
on a wet winter’s day when Rae was pregnant for the last time and
couldn’t be bothered with her six year-old daughter. Deborah, by
then a student teacher, was helping Hattie cut out pictures of
flowers from old seed catalogues, showing her how to stick them
down and make a picture of a summer garden, a picture for Rae, who
never showed the slightest interest, in that or anything Harriet
made, then or since. Rae cared for nothing apart from the birth of
the baby she knew by then would be a son. But Deborah was patient
and loving. She mothered Harriet. And Vivien mothered Rae. Everyone
had rallied round. Even Frances.

Vivien turned over a new page in her
notebook, headed it
TDH
, then wrote:

.

Update website - cover (& blurb?)
for
TDH & the Crystalline Cave

Type up synopsis & draft chapters
of
TDH & the Fortress of Fear

.

She looked up from the page. Was that a good
title? It was rather similar to
TDH and the Tower of Terror
.
But that was ten years old. There was a different generation of
readers now. For some reason the publishers insisted on
alliterative titles and it was becoming increasingly difficult to
come up with new ones.
Fortress of Fear
would have to do for
now. She would try to discuss it with Rae, ask if she had any
strong feelings on the matter.

Vivien shivered. The sun had set and the
temperature had dropped perceptibly. Turning back to her TO DO
list, she peered at it in the fading light, then glanced up at the
calendar hanging on the wall. With a sigh, she wrote

.

Buy Xmas presents

Order cards to be printed (100?)

.

Thank God for self-adhesive stamps. Hattie
would do the honours. She liked stamps and, impervious to their
vulgarity, she especially liked the Christmas issues. Would this
Christmas see Hattie’s
magnum opus
, the Postage Stamp quilt
- now ten years in the making - finished at last? And who would be
the lucky recipient? Rae? Possibly. More probably Alfie, poor
chap.

Vivien studied her list again and wrote

.

Confirm Xmas arrangements with A

.

She knew Alfie could be relied upon. He
hadn’t let them down in ten years. Nevertheless, she took her pen
and drew a heavy line underneath the last item on her list. It was
best to be on the safe side. Christmas was always something of a
nightmare with Alfie, but it would be even more of a nightmare
without him.

As Deborah wrapped the twenty-fifth copy of
Tom Dickon Harry and the Puzzling Pyramid
she reflected, as
she did every Christmas, that although her pupils would undoubtedly
rather have had sweets, giving them a book as an end-of-term gift
at least ensured there was some chance they might read over the
holidays. Her conscience gave her a pang as she thought of the
pupils who would find the text challenging and the few who wouldn’t
be able to read it at all, but they’d all enjoy the quirky line
drawings and a sense of belonging to the pack.

In any case, it all depended what you meant
by
reading
. One creatively illiterate girl often asked to
“read” to Deborah and always chose a book so linguistically
demanding, it remained effectively closed to her. But seated at
Deborah’s side, Stacey would improvise fluently and without pause
on a theme suggested to her by the book’s illustrations plus the
few words she could recognise. She even managed to recite in the
same sing-song voice adopted by struggling readers. It was a
tour de force.
Deborah never failed to remark that she’d
enjoyed hearing Stacey “read” to her, which was quite true. The
poor girl couldn’t read but, my goodness, she could tell a story!
Stacey would certainly enjoy reading her copy of
Tom Dickon
Harry and the Puzzling Pyramid
. She might even improve on the
original.

Christmas just wasn’t Christmas without
books, Deborah told herself, then thought of the incongruity of
books in a Bethlehem stable. With a smile she visualised a board
book for the infant Jesus (
Where Did I Come From, Mummy?
),
then as He grew older and developed reading stamina, a graphic
novel (
Herod: Slayer of Innocents
). Before she knew it, the
words
Tom Dickon Harry and the Mighty Messiah
had popped
into her head.

She was tired. It had been a long and
difficult term and she needed to rest. Instead there was the family
Christmas at Creake Hall. She hoped Fanny wouldn’t bring that man.
Rae would find it very unsettling. You couldn’t expect Rae to keep
up with Fan’s frequent changes of personnel. It was bad enough with
Rae asking every year where
Bryan
was. Deborah’s husband had
been gone five years now, so she assumed her mother would never
adjust to the split. The thing about Christmas - Christmas at
Creake Hall anyway - was that it should always be the same.
Predictable. No-one wanted any surprises unless they came
gift-wrapped. Deborah decided she’d have a quiet word with Fanny,
who could be perfectly reasonable if she put her mind to it. It was
a question of catching her at the right moment. Before she downed
the third martini.

Blessed are the peacemakers
...