The Living and the Dead in Winsford (39 page)

‘Well, I’ll be . . .’ Her face lights up and she puts down her paintbrush on a rag. ‘So you must be living in Darne Lodge. It’s my grandma lying there. What an amazing coincidence!’

She smiles broadly. She is a powerfully built woman about forty-five years old, the type my father would no doubt have said was full of go. A mop of red hair, tied up with an even redder ribbon. A paint-stained woollen jumper reaching down to her knees. Lively eyes. She looks every inch a creative artist.

‘Yes, we live there,’ I say. ‘My dog and I. We’ve been there for a few months, but we’ll probably be leaving at the end of January.’

‘It’s a lovely place to live,’ says Jane Barrett, stroking Castor. ‘You couldn’t have found anywhere better. No matter what your work is, I have no doubt that you are . . . well, protected.’

‘Protected?’

‘Yes. For one thing you have my grandma on the other side of the road, and for another she has made sure that the house is disinfected.’

I smile somewhat tentatively. ‘Do you mean that . . . ?’

I simply don’t know what to say next, but it doesn’t matter. Jane Barrett likes talking. ‘Maybe you don’t know what kind of women we are in my family. There must always be a witch on the moor, and nowadays it’s me. My grandma’s grandmother is the most notorious – the witch in Barrett’s bolt-hole . . . Have you heard of her?’

I say that not only have I heard of her, I’ve even visited the bolt-hole.

‘Really?’ exclaims Jane, astonished once again. ‘But they haven’t put the place in the tourist leaflets, have they? Although it wouldn’t surprise me . . .’

‘I went walking around those parts with a friend who was born in Simonsbath,’ I explain. ‘He was the one who knew about her, and explained it all to me.’

She nods and takes a drink of tea from the cup on her table. ‘I’ll tell you one thing: I’m pretty sure my mother was conceived in your house.’

‘Your mother? . . . Elizabeth?’

She laughs. ‘No, Elizabeth is my grandmother. But she’s the one who was responsible for the conception. Half of it, at least. She lived in Darne Lodge with a young man at the end of the thirties, before he was conscripted for service in the Second World War. Grandma was pregnant with my mother, and gave birth in the spring of 1941. And at about the same time the man died somewhere in Africa. Killed by a German bullet. Mother and daughter Barrett continued living in Darne Lodge until they were thrown out by the owner, or whatever it was that happened . . .’

It strikes me that Margaret Allen must have missed out the odd chapter in the history of Darne Lodge, unless I wasn’t listening intently enough.

‘Anyway,’ says Jane, ‘Grandma Elizabeth made sure that the house was properly protected. No dodgy goings-on were going to make it difficult for people to come to Darne Lodge. All right, I know that people have died there and that things have happened, but that’s another story. Have you felt safe, living up there?’

I think that over, then say that yes, I have.

‘What do you do for a living?’

‘I write books. I’m an author.’

She shakes my hand. ‘I thought you were an artist. You can sense things like that – especially if you are a witch.’

She leans back, sticks her thumbs in her armpits and laughs. ‘It runs in the family, and things keep repeating themselves,’ she says slightly mysteriously. ‘We Barretts only give birth to girls. One for each generation. And we keep the name Barrett. But you’ve probably seen that it says Williford on Grandma’s grave.’

I say that I have seen that, and think I know the reason for it.

‘Exactly,’ says Jane. ‘That rich farmer bastard who raped her mother. My great grandmother. And do you know, I also have a daughter . . . she’s only seventeen. As pretty as the dawn, and shortly before Christmas she came home and introduced me to a boyfriend. His name is James Williford . . . The choice here on the moor is a bit limited, you might say. It smells of incest, don’t you think?’

She laughs again. I think for a few seconds, then I tell her about the pheasants.

‘Lucky you,’ she says when I’ve finished. ‘Just as I told you, you can’t hope for better protection than that. Nobody put those birds outside your door. They came there of their own accord when their time was up. They lay down and died there because Death isn’t allowed in. I can tell you that we witches are on unusually good terms with birds. But perhaps that’s an indication that . . . well, it might mean that you need some protection. Is that true, perhaps?’

She looks at me pretending to be serious.

‘Who isn’t in need of protection?’

‘Very true. But where do you come from? Forgive me for saying so, but I can hear that you don’t come from Oxford.’

‘Sweden. And as I said, I’ll probably be going back home at the end of this month. But thank you . . . Thank you for the protection. I think I’d like to buy one of your paintings.’

‘If I can have one of your books, we can make an exchange – but perhaps you don’t write in English?’

‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Never mind. You can have a painting even so. Witches don’t need money.’

I choose a picture with some ponies drinking water out of a beck. It’s not big, maybe twenty by thirty centimetres or thereabouts: I like it very much, and insist on paying her for it.

‘Not on your life!’ says Jane Barrett. ‘An agreement is an agreement. Pass on greetings to Grandma, by the way.’

I promise to do so.

As if I really were an author, I sit at home writing all evening. The whole of the first act and the first scenes of act two. I’d love to insert a witch into the action, but of course that’s not possible. Madame Megal will have to suffice. Work on the script seems to flow with hardly any problems: I know Bergman will be surprised by the result, but when he has read it all he will presumably understand. I remember that I have had time to prepare him for what’s coming, and I feel pleased that things have worked out in the way they have. Before I write acts three and four I must make sure I read Bessie Hyatt’s two novels: she isn’t really the main character in the drama as yet, but once we’ve moved from Samos to Taza she will undoubtedly be that.

While I’m sitting writing, the mobile phone rings several times. Only one person has the number, and so I refrain from answering. Mark Britton is a problem I don’t have time to deal with just now. We’re going to meet tomorrow evening after all, so why does he have to ring now?

On the other hand he probably doesn’t regard a telephone call as a serious event, which I have got round to doing because of the circumstances. Maybe he just wants to know if I like coriander?

But even so, I don’t answer. That thought about the possibility of my coming back here eventually crops up again, however.

Once everything has gone according to plan. In six months or so. Coming to live permanently here on the moor? Protected by witches and all the rest of it. Not in Darne Lodge, of course, but there are plenty of houses around here to rent or buy. Every village has adverts put up by estate agents.

What is the alternative? Ten more years at the Monkeyhouse?

I start wondering how much the house in Nynäshamn might be worth. A couple of million at least . . . Maybe three? I would be able to get by.

Yes indeed, I’d be able to get by.

50

Sunday, the sixth of January. Cloudy, not much wind, a bit colder.

Mark Britton really is a complication, and I don’t need any complications just now. Or maybe that’s exactly what I do need?

For the third time I’ve had dinner and stayed the night in Heathercombe Cottage, and for the third time we’ve made love. When I write ‘complication’ I don’t mean quite the same thing as I did the other day – that I mean too much to him already, and that he isn’t as important as that for me.

I feel that I have to reconsider matters somewhat. I’m fifty-five years old, I’m pretty well preserved – but where on earth would I find a better man? Always assuming that I decide not to live alone once I’ve outlived my dog.

Incidentally that dog shows no sign of growing old: perhaps I should try to find a different yardstick? Reconsider matters in that respect as well. I told Mark last night that I would probably be leaving Darne Lodge at the end of the month, and part of the complication is that I have to put together a plausible story. I’ve tried to do so: I said I would have to step in and take the place of a friend who has gone up the wall in connection with the production of a play. She has simply been working too hard, and I’ve more or less agreed to be assistant director and quite a few other things for six weeks from February onwards.

‘And then what?’

I said I didn’t know. That I really didn’t know – at least that is one truth that I haven’t kept from him.

But it’s not enough, of course. Castor and I are back in Darne Lodge, it’s afternoon and I’m sitting in my usual place at the table and feeling a certain degree of shame. Or shamefacedness, at least.

It’s as if I’m exploiting him. He invites me to one fantastic meal after another, we drink decent wines, we make love in straightforward fashion without any hang-ups, and Jeremy shakes my hand increasingly as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Martin used to have a literary hobby horse when it came to love affairs – I thought for ages that he was referring to other people’s love affairs. Either it is a fantastically good short story, or it’s the promising first chapter of a novel which might keep going at the same high standard, or get out of control. The trick is knowing which it is. Or perhaps it’s a matter of making up your mind which it is.

If I hadn’t kept hearing that ad nauseam I might have agreed with it. And there is something sad about the short story format, is there not? The primitive tale that doesn’t have the strength to grow up.

I put all such questions to one side in order to make progress with my play. Act two: I have decided to let Maurice Megal play a slightly different role from the one he seems to play in Martin’s notes – something of an observer and storyteller, even in the scenes that are set in Greece – and I notice that I am enjoying this work. I really hadn’t thought that I would do. My fictitious role as an author is beginning to get a foothold in the real world.

I really do put act two together in three hours – obviously I shall have to look at it again and rewrite parts, add bits here and there and cut a few things, but that goes with the territory. The important thing is that I can envisage the whole thing inside my head – the whole thing and how to get there – and as it’s now time for Bessie Hyatt to take on the role of tragic heroine, I must start reading
Before I Collapse
. It’s not long before I’m totally absorbed in it, and I don’t understand why I didn’t read the book during the years when the rest of the world did.

Mark Britton rings shortly before eleven to wish me goodnight.

‘I’m missing you already,’ he says, and I say that in fact I’m missing him as well.

‘We must put our relationship on a solid footing,’ he says.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I suppose we must.’

When I’ve closed down the call I remember that I also ought to read that short story by Anna Słupka – ‘Change of Wind’ – although I don’t fancy the prospect.

The very fact that it’s only a short story goes against the grain – isn’t that what I had decided not long ago? A bit like Bessie Hyatt’s life. And my sister’s. I promise myself to turn my attention to fröken Słupka tomorrow. I mustn’t cut corners when it comes to contact with Soblewski.

An e-mail from Eugen Bergman to Martin, dated the seventh of January:

My dear friend, I’m very sorry to hear that you are having problems. But writer’s block is a phenomenon that affects lots of authors, not just you; remember that. Bear in mind also that there are antidotes: which is best depends on the individual of course, but the most important thing is that you mustn’t go around worrying about it. Nobody benefits from sitting and staring at a blank sheet of paper or at a computer screen when the words are hiding away or tying themselves in knots. My dear Martin, give it a rest for a while and try to enjoy something else instead. Go to Casablanca and Marrakesh – simply writing the names of those places gives me goose pimples. Stockholm is sheer hell at this time of year, thank your lucky stars you’re not stuck here.

Say if there’s something you’d like to read and I’ll send you it.

I really hope you can recover your usual good humour eventually, but there’s no rush. Taking things slowly is not to be scoffed at. My best wishes to Maria, and write to me whenever you feel the need. I know that I’m your publisher, but I’m also your friend: don’t forget that.

Eugen

From Gunvald to Martin:

Hello! I’m sitting at the airport outside Sydney, waiting for a delayed flight. I’ve had an absolutely marvellous time down here: both the conference and my free days have been extremely rewarding. I’ve even tried surfing, but that was just a one-off. The Opera House. Manly Beach. Oysters and chardonnay at The Rocks, Blue Mountains . . . You name it. I hope you two are having at least a fraction as much fun in Morocco as I’ve been having here. How long will you be staying there? My very best wishes to Mum. Gunvald

From Synn to me:

Huh. I have to say I find it hard to feel sorry for him. You’ll have to take care of him – after all, you’re the one who’s married to him, not me. I can’t help it if you think I sound cold and indifferent, you know I hate conventions and false outpourings. Anyway, we have had a very successful season over here, and we gather there’s lots of work lined up for the spring so it looks as if it will be some time before I fly over the Atlantic again. In any case, I hope he doesn’t spark off any new scandals: the last one was quite enough to be going on with. Pass on some kind of friendly greeting from me that you can invent. Greetings from a freezing cold Manhattan, small nails are pelting down over the Hudson. Synn

From Violetta di Parma to me:

Dear Maria. Very many thanks for your sympathetic response. I’ve booked a flight for 31 January. I’ll make sure the house is clean and tidy. I’ll be happy to pay a bit more than just the January rent, but perhaps we can reach an agreement on that in due course. It’s cold here around Stockholm, very cold – I assume your weather will be a bit warmer in Morocco. When I get back home to Argentina it will be the middle of summer of course. Many greetings to Martin, please tell him I’ve really enjoyed living in your house and that I’m very sorry to have to leave it like this. Hugs and kisses, Violetta