Kite Spirit (13 page)

The windows were so tiny and deepset that hardly any light from the bright day outside filtered through. A small fire burned in a blackened grate at one end of the room despite the heat of the
day. One long ancient oak table, benches on either side, dominated the room. The wood was smooth and indented where generations of bottoms must have worn down the surface. Two grand-looking chairs
were placed at either end of the table, one housing an old man who was dozing. A vase of wild summer flowers sat in the middle. The room smelt of sweet cow parsley, burning wood, ale and herbs.

In the other chair a small, middle-aged Indian-looking man with a jovial round face and wavy black hair turned and smiled at Kite. It made her feel more at home that he looked so comfortably
ensconced here. She had a hunch that he might feel pleased to see her too, and all of this odd logic seemed to be contained in the nod that passed between them.

‘What can I get you?’ a pretty blonde woman with rosy cheeks asked Seth, pulling herself away from a sink full of washing-up. She was wearing a worn old-fashioned apron dotted with
flowers.

Seth ordered a beer, and a cider for Kite.

‘Mind if we join you?’ he asked the Indian man, who smiled in answer and held out his hand to shake as Seth and Kite nudged along the bench.

‘Ajay Sherpa.’ He offered Seth a firm handshake.

‘My name’s Ellie,’ the woman from behind the bar called over.

Seth introduced himself and paused for a moment to see if Kite would follow his lead. But she stayed silent, and so he introduced her too. Seth had always been able to put people at their ease
and slip into a conversation. In fact Kite and Seth were usually a bit of a double act. Since the Falling Day, though, Kite had become almost silent in company. And as soon as Kite discovered that
Ajay Sherpa was the local doctor, she decided that she would not say a word. She could see it all panning out. The next thing, she knew, Seth would be trying to make an appointment for her.

As Seth chatted away Kite peered at the old man dozing at the head of the table. The lines on his face were deeply scored. Kite had never really looked at such an ancient face before. Compared
to this man, Grandma Grace looked youthful, with her big swirl of grey hair and smooth, oiled skin. The old man’s mouth drooped slightly and saliva trickled down his chin as he wheezed in his
sleep.

‘Jack used to run this pub. Ellie over there’s his granddaughter,’ explained Dr Sherpa. ‘He pretty much brought her up. He’ll be getting his letter from the Queen
soon – not that he’s waiting for that!’ he joked in a soft sing-song mixture of Indian and Northern accents that Kite had never heard before.

Kite couldn’t help staring at the old man. As he slept, he began to resemble the oak beams that surrounded him, she thought, as she tuned in and out of Dr Sherpa’s stories of growing
up in Nepal.

‘No better place for a mountain goat like me,’ he was saying now. ‘You know, I can’t believe it was twenty-five years ago that I came here. Nobody else wanted the job of
travelling between the villages and farms in all weathers. So I moved here with my family and we converted our barn. You must come and eat with us!’ Dr Sherpa turned to Kite, who was
struggling to keep her eyes open. ‘Sorry to say that we’re a bit of an ageing population around here – apart from you summer visitors. I hope we don’t bore you to
death!’

Kite shook her head politely. There was the ‘death’ word again. How many births and deaths had Dr Sherpa attended? If it was an old population, it was probably more deaths than
births. He seemed like such a contented person, she couldn’t imagine that he had ever had to face something as traumatic as a young girl taking her own life. For the first time Kite thought
about all the people who might have touched Dawn’s body after she died, examining her, prodding her, dressing her, finding out the cause of death, the time of death. She had always been such
a private person; it made Kite want to heave.

Ellie brought Dr Sherpa a fresh cup of tea and sat down on the opposite side of the bench. Kite looked up at Seth, who was still smiling and laughing. It must be a relief for him to be among
this welcoming collection of strangers, away from her sadness and silence.

‘I’ll be happy to come and play a gig, if you’ll have me!’ he was saying to Ellie.

‘Not exactly the O2, but you’d be surprised how many folk we can cram in! Once the younger folk get to hear of it, we get the campers and the kids from the outward-bound school up
the road; some of them even come in from town on a Saturday night,’ Ellie chatted on.

After a while Seth took Agnes Landseer’s cryptic notes from his pocket. At the sight of them, Ellie and Dr Sherpa exchanged a knowing glance. According to the doctor, Agnes was a bit of a
recluse, but Kite had the impression that he was holding back. She supposed he was not allowed to talk about his patients.

‘You probably don’t know this, but she’s your landlady – even though the place is let through an agency. No one really understands what happened to Agnes. She fought so
hard to get Mirror Falls built; you would have thought her life depended on it. It was supposed to be her dream home. She’s a famous architect, got buildings all over Europe,’ Dr Sherpa
explained.

Kite tried to square the picture of the strange old woman they’d met on the road with this description.

‘We’re talking about Craggy Aggie, Grandad! She’s been unsettling the visitors again – sending her addled notes,’ Ellie shouted over to Jack. With his right hand he
wiped his mouth, adjusted something in his ear and snorted, sending a spray of saliva across the table. Kite noticed that his left hand lay flat and lifeless by his side. She thought how strange it
must feel to have only one side of yourself that you could control. Ellie let out a little embarrassed laugh, then gently wiped away his spittle with a cloth. Jack’s old eyes opened again and
settled on Seth, who shifted slightly on the bench.

‘In the end, Grandad fought against that building going up. He got that het up about it, we all think it was the cause of his stroke,’ Ellie spoke this quietly, turning away from
Jack, and then back to him, raising her voice once more. ‘You’re no great fan of Craggy Aggie, are you, Grandad? Shame you had to sell her the land in the first place.’

The old man banged his good hand on the table, as if ordering Ellie to stop talking. It was surprising how much strength was still held in his ancient body.

‘Don’t get yourself all worked up about it again. I suppose we’ll never know now what went on.’

The old man nodded, closing his eyes tight.

Dr Sherpa poured tea into his saucer and took a great slurp. ‘I don’t know why, but somehow it always tastes better like this!’ He smiled. ‘We all have our odd ways. I
suppose Agnes is to birds what I am to humans!’ Dr Sherpa let out a hearty laugh as if he’d said something funny. ‘She calls on me from time to time on her way to the vet’s,
and of course I go over there to check on her. It must be a lonely life,’ he confided. ‘Birds, her garden, her dog and her grandson are pretty much all she cares about. If you saw the
way she looks out for the injured owls she picks up here and there, you’d know she means no harm.’

A vision of Agnes carrying her hessian sack entered Kite’s mind. Maybe she’d been hunting around under Mirror Falls and picked up the Dawn owl too.

‘We had an owl fly into our window last night. It left a perfect print.’ Seth said to Dr Sherpa, glancing tentatively at Kite as if he was afraid of upsetting her.

‘Aggie explained to me once how they make their mark,’ Dr Sherpa mused. ‘Something about the oil and the powder on the feathers sticking to the glass like a
fingerprint.’

‘You know what they say when a great bird like that flies at you!’ Ellie spread her plump arms out in a mock scary pose.

Seth stood up abruptly. ‘I’ll have another beer!’ he interjected, walking over to the bar. Kite could tell by his hushed whisper that he was filling Ellie in on what had
happened to Dawn.

‘Of course it’s all a lot of folklore and ghosting tales!’ Ellie muttered as she returned to wipe the table.

‘What
do
they say?’ asked Kite.

‘No, nothing. I told you, it’s a lot of nonsense I was talking. I’m so sorry about your friend,’ Ellie said softly. ‘I lost my parents in an accident years ago, so
sadness is no stranger at my door.’

Kite raised her hand to her scar and pulled her hair down over it. She wanted to stand up right now and run as far away from these people as it was possible to get. What business had Seth to
tell these strangers about Dawn? They couldn’t know anything about how she was feeling. Dr Sherpa shot a questioning look from Seth to Kite. She felt as if he was examining her.

‘Can we go now?’ Kite whispered.

‘When we’ve been introduced.’ Seth nodded towards Jack, who was staring at Seth as if he was trying to remember where he’d seen him before.

‘Have you joined us, Jack? This is Seth and Kite,’ said Dr Sherpa. ‘Your hearing aid working all right now, Jack?’ he asked, tapping his own ear.

A smile spread over Jack’s face as he looked at Kite. He lifted his stick and pointed to a faded sepia photo among the gallery on the wall behind him. Ellie reached up, took the photo off
the wall and placed it in Jack’s hands. The image was of a group of mud-smeared young men in long shorts, with bare feet and chests, rain lashing their faces. One of them, running ahead of
the others, was flying a kite.

‘Grandad was a fell runner in his time. “King of the Fells” they named him. The winner always gets to fly the Carrec kite – isn’t that so, Grandad?’

Kite stared into the image and back to Jack, whose smile was still recognizable. She thought she could trace something in the fine paper-thin lines of his face that was still, after all this
time, strong and full of energy.

Jack swallowed hard as if he was desperate to speak.

‘Kite’s a keen runner too.’

‘Not really!’ Kite mumbled. She wished Seth would stop trying to draw her into the conversation. Now the doctor was definitely shooting her inquisitive glances
.

‘No doubt Grandad would have given you a run for your money!’ Ellie joked, but the old man had pushed the photo aside now.

‘Seth’s been telling me his mam’s family were from around here,’ Dr Sherpa said loudly and clearly.

Suddenly Jack propped himself up in his chair, his back bolt upright, holding his right hand in the air like a claw and twisting it this way and that.

‘That’s a question,’ explained Dr Sherpa.

Jack patted his chest.

‘Now you’ve got him following a scent!’ Ellie said. ‘Grandad’s helped folk who’ve turned up from all over the spot coming here to find their roots. I always
said he should have written a book.’

Jack tapped Ellie’s hand.

‘What was your mam’s name?’

‘Jackson,’ Seth answered automatically.

The old man scrunched his brow and shook his head from side to side.

‘Sorry, I mean Storey . . . my mum’s name was Storey. She grew up in a children’s home in Sheffield, but I think her parents came from around here.’

On hearing the name Storey, the old man shuffled back in his chair and attempted to stand. Dr Sherpa walked around the table to help him and Jack placed an arm over his shoulder. Then he took a
step towards Seth and held out his hand. Seth shook it gently. People are meant to grow old, thought Kite, staring at Jack’s hands; a map of blue veins and jutting bones. How many concerts
would Dawn have played if she’d lived until she was as old as Jack?

‘Storey’s a local name all right,’ said Ellie. ‘If he or any of his friends knows anything, he’ll find a way of telling you. Even though he can’t write or
talk, he makes himself understood. The photos help.’

Seth nodded and walked over to the gallery. Here was Jack, standing in a boat with a fly-fishing rod, proudly holding up his catch; a gathering of men, sleeves rolled up, a pile of sheep fleeces
in front of them as they each raised a glass to the camera; a waterfall; a smiling, moustached Jack wearing khaki uniform, his arms wrapped around a pretty girl; a whole series of pictures charting
the building of an enormous wall.

‘Those are of the construction of the Haweswater Dam,’ she explained. ‘Somewhere under all that water is the farm where Grandad grew up. Lots of these families around here did.
Maybe yours too,’ Ellie told Seth. ‘You should take a walk down there, see what you make of it. Folk are saying the last time it dried right out like this was a good twenty-five years
back.’

Kite’s attention was caught by a row of tiny black-and-white photographs of Indian women carrying pots on their heads; a turbaned man having a shave on a street pavement; a naked bald man
holding his copper begging bowl; and a sleeping brown-eared dog under the shade of a tree. Dr Sherpa followed Kite’s gaze.

‘These are from Jack’s service in India. He shared so many stories of his time there with me, before he lost his speech. You should look after these, Ellie; they must be quite a rare
collection.’

Kite felt that she had been wrong to assume that these people belonged to an inward-looking world. Whatever was happening to her, she knew one thing for sure – that she had come here to
learn. Perhaps it was the place and its people that had drawn Dawn’s spirit here too.

At a certain point the photographs moved into colour, but even these seemed to be faded now. There were pictures of Jack proudly holding a baby; of children running wild on the fells carrying
baskets full of giant mushrooms and sitting on walls like gatherings of birds waiting to fly. Jack raised his arm and ran his hand along the row of children as if he was trying to remember who was
who. He bashed the side of his head in frustration.

‘If only he could write things down, but his good hand is so riddled with arthritis he can’t hold a pen,’ explained Ellie, taking the photo off the wall and laying it on the
table.

Jack shook his head as if he was lost somewhere in the past. That’s how it was supposed to be, thought Kite; you should get so old that you can look back across time and only vaguely
remember what happened in different parts of your life. As far as she knew, the last photo of the two of them together was taken on Dawn’s birthday. Kite wondered if Hazel and Jimmy would be
able to bring themselves to line the walls of their new flat with all those captured moments of Dawn’s life. For her part Kite couldn’t stand to look at any photos of the two of them
now. She’d brought none with her.