Miss Appleby's Academy (11 page)

The station was deserted. She could not stand here any longer. It was growing colder and the light had already faded from the day. She picked up her bags and began walking in what she thought was the direction of town. The street was flat where she stood and the railway crossing was at the bottom of it. On either side the street rose sharply into hills and there were houses snaking up it and public houses, lit up. She thought she should go and enquire about a room, but men hung around the outside of most of these establishments in spite of the weather as though they did not get to spend much time outside, and she dared not approach them.

She thought about how her window at home looked out at the street and the trees and the white wooden houses. Here tiny terraced houses ran for as far as she could see down the main street and around the corner, away out of the small town. The other way the houses stretched off down a hill. The afternoon was turning into evening and little rooms were dimly lit. Net curtains were drawn across the windows and other curtains on top to keep out the draughts no doubt, she thought.

She began to walk up the main street and along it. It wasn’t busy. Most sensible people were inside and she was so chilled that she longed to join them. George was beginning to falter beside her. She must find some place for
them to stay and soon, yet she continued to walk. Finally she came to where the road turned and there on the corner was a big well-lit building. The sign read The Black Diamond.

Emma gathered what courage she had left, took George’s hand for comfort and ventured inside. The smell was the first thing that hit her, the smoke of cigarettes and a fire, stale beer fumes sour-sweet and unwashed bodies. The second thing was that it was busy, full of men. They lined the place like wallpaper; they stood, lounged, took their ease, yet few of them were sitting. They wore grimy caps and their faces were creased and either pale or dirty. They smoked and they had big glasses in their work-worn hands.

They were intent on the conversation and at first they ignored her. She moved beyond the hallway and into the room on the right. Men sat at small round tables playing dominoes and a fire beckoned, though she could see it only beyond their legs. The air was grey-blue with smoke, almost orange with tobacco fumes, and the smell of beer was thick enough to choke you. As she left the doorway and moved nearer to the bar the conversation became less of a hum and more of a broken rhythm.

The men were not like those she knew. Their upper bodies were well developed, their lower bodies less so; they were mainly short in stature. They wore old suits, the material tired and in some cases mended or in holes.

A well-built oldish man standing behind the bar was staring at her.

‘You cannot come in here, love,’ he said in a low, almost embarrassed, voice.

Emma took a deep breath amid the silence. ‘Do you have rooms?’

He went on looking at her, but perplexed now. ‘Nay, lass,’ he said.

Somebody laughed.

‘Aw, give the lass a room, Ed,’ some wit ventured. ‘We could take turns.’

Emma understood the implication immediately and her face burned, but nobody laughed. What a strange code they had. It wasn’t polite to say such things in front of a woman, he had gone too far. The barman didn’t look at her and all the noise died. Even the fire was silenced. And then somebody said, ‘Shite, Bill, bugger off,’ and the tension was released.

‘I will pay,’ she said.

He shook his head and went back to polishing glasses as he had been doing when she first came in. Emma looked helplessly around her.

‘You can come home with me, pet,’ somebody said, and they all laughed.

Then somebody else said, ‘Why lad, she’s old enough to be thee mother. Leave the woman alone.’

‘Isn’t this a hotel?’ she said loudly to gain the barman’s attention.

‘It’s a public house,’ Ed said.

George’s fingers tightened. He was very tired.

‘Are you the owner?’ she said.

‘I’m just the bar keep.’

‘I’d like to see the owner. Is he here?’

Ed looked at her and there was bitter humour in his eyes and the way that his mouth straightened. ‘Mr Castle doesn’t see people, love.’

‘Tell him I would like to see him. Now,’ she said.

‘He—’

‘Now,’ Emma insisted.

The man didn’t look up. He disappeared into the back and conversation started around her again. She could hear the clack of dominoes, even the fire burning. The men turned their backs as though she was not there, as though they had been at some kind of concert and the entertainment was over.

It was a short while, though it seemed longer, until Ed came back and then he beckoned her beyond the bar and out of the room and down a dark hall and finally into the light, into a room where a good fire burned. He went out and shut the door behind him and Emma felt trapped for a few seconds. Then she put down the bags that she was still carrying, that she had carried for so very long, and she eased her fingers against the pressure that was gone, and suddenly she was grateful for George, who was standing as tall as he could.

*

It was a very small room and there was not much in it but a desk, a chair, a fire and lights and a man sitting behind the desk. That was all. Emma had never seen such a bare room. It was very odd. It was so obviously an office.
There was a large bureau, but there was not even another chair, as though he never had visitors or as though nobody was ever asked to sit down. How odd, she thought. A pool of lamplight covered the desk and he was writing, though he looked up after Ed had gone, after the door was closed.

He sat back in his chair, the pen still in his hand as though it were a permanent fixture. He was not old because his skin, beneath several days’ dark growth of beard, was smooth, his hair was thick and black and fell forward, but his eyes were dulled and half closed as though she had suddenly lit too many lamps, almost colourless and certainly lacking in expression.

It was strange, but somehow he looked timeless, as if he had lived a great deal and cared for little of it. He was very thin and his shabby clothes hung off him as if he were poor or simply didn’t consider food or dress important. She thought he might be tall, but it was difficult to tell when he was sitting and she was standing. She couldn’t help but think little of his terrible manners, that he didn’t get up or offer her a seat, but then why should she expect such things in a backwater such as this? Normal rules did not apply. He didn’t look at her as one or two of the men had. There was nothing lascivious about it, he just considered her.

‘What are you doing here?’ he said, with the emphasis on the ‘you’, as though he could not understand her presence. For the first time Emma remembered the way that her mother and father had spoken. There was a lilt to his accent that she had missed all her life since losing them.
His voice was the voice of the fells, the sound of her childhood; it was the wind in the trees and the smell of the heather and the song of the moors, something indefinable, something sweet.

You’re tired, she told herself.

‘I need somewhere to stay.’

He sat back in his chair and the light hit his face, and Emma thought she had rarely seen such a closed expression. Then she noticed the cigarette burning in the ashtray and the whisky in the glass and a bottle, half empty, nearby on the desk.

When he didn’t say anything Emma, trying to be brisk, said, ‘It’s a very big place, you must have rooms.’ Even she could hear the desperation in her voice.

He shook his head.

She wished she could have cleared her throat. This man didn’t know how bad things were, that she had very little money and could go no further. She couldn’t let him turn her away. ‘Anything would do. Please.’

‘We don’t let rooms. There’s nothing suitable upstairs, it’s all a mess. You’ll find somewhere but there’s nowt here. It’s a tip, and as for the rest of it … Nobody could stay here, it isn’t fitting.’

‘It’s a blizzard out there, so I don’t have much choice, Mr-?’

‘Castle. You are?’

‘Emma Appleby. I need a room. George is very tired and so am I.’

‘You can’t stay here.’

‘I will not go on.’

He sat back in his chair. ‘What on earth are you doing here? Are you American? You sound it.’

‘I come from New England. I want to find my family.’

‘You’re a very long way from home.’

‘This is my home, Mr Castle.’

He smiled and it reminded her of Laurence, it was such a cynical grimace. ‘Nobody wants to call this place home. It’s the kind of place people live when they have no alternative.’

‘And what makes you think I have an alternative?’

‘You need to find one. I’m sorry but we don’t have rooms to let. It’s just a pub and I have a lot of work to do as you can see. Goodnight, Mrs Appleby. I wish you luck.’

‘It’s Miss,’ Emma said, but he didn’t seem to hear.

He had dismissed her. He went back to writing. She could see that the barman had been correct, this man was not interested, he did not care what happened to her as long as he didn’t have to deal with it.

She turned around and dragged George out and then as she reached the hall she stopped. There was a narrow passage which led out the back way or the bigger hall which led to the front. She could hear the men laughing and talking. She did not know what they were saying, she didn’t understand and she didn’t care.

There was the back door beyond that she could leave by, or she could go out the front. In the passageway there was no light, but she knew what it was outside – heavy snow. She looked up and saw a big staircase, straight, none
of that fancy turning which she had seen in some houses, and there was something about it which appealed to her. The way that it led up into the darkness did not put her off or frighten her; it was the way ahead. Beside her George’s body sagged. She stood for a moment and then she looked about her.

She made as if to go towards the stairs, but George tugged at her arm. ‘What are you doing?’ he whispered. ‘We can’t go up there. They’ll find us.’

She heard a faint growling, a low noise, and when she turned in the shadows she saw movement and then through what light there was from the bar, a big black dog emerging from where the owner had sat. The dog’s claws must be short, he must get lots of walks on hard ground, she surmised, for there was only a faint clip-clopping of them upon the bare floorboards.

She hadn’t noticed the dog, he had not moved or made any sound when they were in the office; he must have been under the desk. How discerning that he knew she was not a threat or perhaps he was sure that his owner would take care of it.

He was a very big dog even for a Labrador, Emma thought, slightly worried: a square head, a thick neck, solid shoulders, substantial legs and body and enormous paws. Lots of people would have backed off at that point, and she thought the dog was waiting to see whether she would back off, or whether he would have to threaten her further. It was his job to do so. The dog held her gaze steadily while he considered, and she watched his white
even teeth. But she wasn’t afraid; she thought it was only bluff.

Her first instinct was to run, but that was stupid, she knew. Nothing made a dog run after you like taking to your heels, and in such a place she was bound to fall and after that she wasn’t sure what might happen: it would depend on the dog and a dog that size could make a terrible mess of one smallish person and a child.

She took a deep breath. The dog stood, watching her. She gestured to George to stay still and keep silent, though she didn’t think she needed to. She waited for the man to appear, but perhaps he was not aware of the dog, perhaps he was so used to the low growl from the animal’s stomach that he took no notice.

She stopped, shrank back, waited, but nothing happened. The dog was crouched low as if he would spring; she could see the raised hair on the ridge of his back. Then she remembered her father’s dogs from her childhood, how they had been just like this, and she got down very slowly, all the time keeping her gaze on the dog, easing her body to the floor. She was looking straight at the dog now; she watched its ears which had been laid back come forward in curiosity, but still cautious, and she said, in a voice barely audible except to the animal: ‘Silly old thing, it’s only us,’ and then she beckoned, both hands outstretched but confidently.

She could see the dog relax because she was on his level. His tail began to wag. And remembering her father, her eyes filled with tears. The animal came to her and she said
into its ear, ‘We’re going upstairs now, but you mustn’t tell anybody,’ and then she kissed him on the forehead. He tasted so beautifully of dog, all pheasant and partridge and autumn and bounding through the heather and swimming in ponds and coming back with a duck in his mouth. He smelled of warmth and vitality and she could not help hugging him. The dog accepted the embrace, was patient, and when she let go she was only afraid for how boldly and noisily he thumped his tail on the floor. Nothing might bring the man sooner, and yet she could not be sorry.

She picked up the bags and slowly she made her way to the bottom of the stairs. She need not have feared. The dog, sitting down now, watched her, making sure that she was safe, while his tail swept the floor in big arcs. She and George tiptoed up the stairs and the dog stood up at the bottom; his tail had gradually ceased to wag, but that was just because he was waiting until she reached the top of the stairs. Then he turned and disappeared into the darkness at the back of the pub.

She opened the door of the first room she came to. George, only half awake, stared and Emma followed his gaze by what light there was through the huge window which dominated the room.

The night was clearing and she could see her breath, it was that cold. It was a big room and must have been lovely once. There was even the vestige of some flowered wallpaper. The curtains, when she tried to close them, wouldn’t move and as she pulled harder one of them came down with a crash and she moved just in time as, together
with whatever had been holding it up, it plummeted to the floor. A big carpet covered the middle of the room, but it was uncomfortable under her feet: plaster had fallen from the ceiling and it crunched as she moved.