The Unseen (5 page)

Ryan chewed for a long time before answering. ‘That wasn’t the only letter, in our soldier’s tin. There was another one.’

‘Really? Why didn’t you bring it? What does it say?’

‘It’s a lot shorter than the one I’ve shown you. And obviously written earlier – fairly soon after whatever it was happened, would be my guess. It’s a bit confused,’ he explained.

‘Well, where is it?’ Leah asked, dipping her little finger in the hot sauce and sucking it clean. Only with Ryan would she have done something so childish. It was treacherously easy to fall back into old habits of being, old habits of feeling.

‘It’s in my room,’ Ryan said, quietly.

The Rectory
,

Cold Ash Holt

Dear sir
,

The child is due any day now, and I am full of fear. How can I do this? You know of what I speak – I am sure you do. I might as well be alone in this house, surrounded only by ghosts. Do you see what you have done? Half of me wishes I had never known you. More than half of me, some of the time. I find myself trying to picture you now, trying to picture what you might look like without your usual clothes, without your books and your smile. All of those little icons that made you up – your ‘divine truth’. What of that now? Is it all abandoned, as I am?

Everything is ruined. I can’t even take pleasure in teaching any more, in the children, because as I stand on the floor before them, I know what lies beneath my feet. I told you what I did, didn’t I? I can scarce remember. I’d thought it would be only temporary, a place where nobody would think to look. Trying to find what I had already found, what I picked up from the library floor that morning. I was going to destroy it all, you see. Every last thing, but then I thought perhaps you might one day have need of it to offer proof, to offer mitigation. So there it stays, beneath the floor. I can scarce think of it without such a storm of dread arising in my heart that it leaves me weak, and shivering; let alone dare to move it, to touch it
.

I think this child must be a boy, and a big one. I am quite unrecognisable, I am vast. The creature has taken over my body. He’s too big now to even move around and kick me like he did these last few months. He’s tight packed in, like the air in a balloon. How I wish he would stay there! I don’t know where I will find the strength to raise him with a pure heart, happy and carefree, when I labour under such shadows. Enough now. I am tired. Even writing a letter is enough to tire me out; and especially a letter to you, sir, when I come to know that I shall have no reply. Still I hope for it, and that tires me even more
.

Wishing this letter brings you some comfort, in the cruel place where you are
,

H. Canning

Again, Leah read, and reread. She read the letter a third time, but only because she did not trust herself to look up, to look at Ryan and to speak to him. How did it always come to this? She cursed inwardly. That liquid feeling, hot in the marrow of her bones, as though her resolve was an actual substance that could melt under pressure, rush off into her bloodstream and be quite lost. Ryan was not even that close to her. He was perched on the window sill opposite, and she was sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand holding back her hair as she read. He stood up so suddenly that Leah jumped.

‘More coffee?’ he offered, voice so casual that Leah doubted herself, doubted that he had feelings anything like her own.

‘No thanks.’ She didn’t look up.

‘Sounds like she was in a right pickle, doesn’t it?’ he asked, pouring hot water onto a fresh scattering of instant granules. ‘What do you make of it?’

‘I hardly know. Something dire happened. She was left to deal with the aftermath by herself, our guy buggered off somewhere, and then to the war. She thinks he knows something about what happened,’ Leah said. Now she looked up at him. His back was turned, it was safer. The long, loose shape of his spine, the broad spread of his shoulders beneath his shirt. Just flesh and skin and bone, no more than she; but still magic, somehow.

‘But they weren’t lovers?’ he said.

‘I don’t think so, no. She’d hardly call him “Dear sir” if they were, would she? Not even a hundred years ago. It’s a bit cold and formal.’

‘The content of the letters isn’t though, is it? Cold or formal, I mean,’ Ryan pointed out. He sat down next to her, too close, touching at thigh, hip, elbow. Leah felt a sinking inside, the pulling open of old wounds. It was an odd pain, almost satisfying; like tugging at a loose tooth, pressing a bruise. A bruise that went right the way through. She remembered his treachery, the flying apart of everything she thought she knew.

‘It is and then it isn’t. Very odd. It’s as though she’s trying to be proper about it all, but there’s no way to reconcile what she needs to say with that. And the way she’s so vague – it’s almost like she half expected someone else to get hold of the letters and read them, and she didn’t want to give too much away …’ Leah trailed off. Ryan had tucked her hair behind her ear for her, left his fingers to brush her cheek with a touch softer than snowflakes. Mutely, she met his eye.

‘So you’ll look into it then? Try to find out who he was?’ Ryan said. Leah nodded. ‘It’s like old times, watching you get stuck into a mystery. An … unexpected bonus.’

‘What do you mean? Didn’t you think I’d do it?’

‘No, I thought you’d deliberately avoid doing it just because I’d asked you to.’ He smiled.

‘I did think of that,’ she admitted. ‘I … part of the reason I came out here was for the chance to say no to you. To refuse you
something.’ Tears blurred into her eyes and she wiped them away angrily.

‘You fell at the first hurdle,’ he said, softly. ‘You came out here in the first place. When I asked you to.’

‘I know. Not very good at this, am I?’

‘I don’t know. You’ve made me wait five months to see you. You made me come to Belgium to try to forget you.’

‘That’s a lie. You always wanted to come and work with the War Graves Commission,’ she said, struggling to find a toehold, something to grasp as she slipped further and further over the cliff edge.

‘Leah, I’ve missed you so much,’ Ryan whispered, his lips in her hair, words touching her skin like butterflies. In silence, Leah gave in.

When she woke it was to the sound of more rain, flecked with hail, tapping at the window pane. The little room was dark and gloomy, the bed crowded. Ryan was turned to the wall, his back to her, deeply asleep. Without moving a muscle, Leah scanned the room, made note of each item of her clothing, cast off the night before. For a second, she tried to find a way to undo what she’d done, knowing it was utterly futile. She shut her eyes and let despair wash through her. It was like being underground, being smothered, seeing no way out.
I will never be free
.

But then, scribbled across the red-black of her eyelids, came the words of the Canning woman’s letters.
Everything is ruined. I was going to destroy it all … there it stays, beneath the floor; I labour under such shadows!
There was something there to be discovered, some hidden story, some truth. Not just the identity of the dead soldier, but whatever it was that had caused this woman such anguish, such nightmares. And why it was that the man she wrote to never wrote back to her; and why it was that he kept only these two of her letters; and why it was that she thought he might one day have had something to prove, to mitigate, as she put it.

Like a lifeline, something to cling to, the loose threads of the story wound their way down to her. She could just about reach them, concentrating hard, bending all her will to it. The first thing she had to do was leave. Not even wake Ryan, or speak to him, or tell him goodbye; never mind that the smell of him was in her hair and on her fingers and in her mouth, like traces of some pernicious drug that fed her as it wasted her. On soft feet she rose, dressed, picked up the copies of the letters from the floor and folded them into her bag. She did not look at the bed; she did not leave a note. As she left the room she thought she saw a gleam with the corner of her eye, a shard of light reflected from the dark form tangled up in the pillows and sheets. As if Ryan’s eyes were open as she slipped from the room.

1911

In the mornings, the house is cool and quiet, full of bright sunshine that glints on every speck of dust swirling in the still air, settling slowly onto the furniture. As Cat sweeps the hearths and rugs, clouds of it billow around her, resettle all around to be wiped off minutes later, back into the air, on to the floor. She is glad Hester is never up in time to see how futile trying to be rid of it is. People are made of dust. Houses are made of it. Cat brushes her fingers on her apron, again and again, not liking the thought of it clinging to her skin. She cleans the downstairs rooms and lays the table for breakfast before Hester comes down. Sometimes, she is called upstairs to help Hester dress. Then, when the vicar is back from his morning jaunt, he and Hester eat breakfast while Cat goes upstairs, gathers the dirty laundry and mending, makes the bed, cleans the bedroom and bathroom, the upstairs corridor. She airs guest rooms that she has yet to see any guests use; opens shutters in rooms nobody will enter all day, shuts them again when the sun begins to set. She persecutes flies endlessly, swatting at them; watching those that fly too high, out of reach, waiting for them to tire and die.

All the time, the quiet resounds in her ears. In London there was the steady hum of the city, even on exclusive Broughton Street. As each set of shutters was opened, a low sound of lives being lived would greet the ears. Cab horses would clatter by, steel feet striking sparks at the end of gaunt, sinewy legs; and motor cars, their engines throbbing like panting dogs. Boys on bicycles, delivery wagons, the ponderous clop of the dray’s hooves.
Pedestrians too, mingling voices. The servants could grab a look at passers-by, could keep tabs on the fashions of the day. Now when she opens the shutters Cat is greeted by swathes of green – a landscape, on three sides of the house, unbroken by any sign of human endeavour. The sky is wide and high and the sound is of birdsong, almost exclusively. Now and then a cart passing; now and then a dog barking. It’s unnerving but she can’t resist it, and finds herself hung, pausing at the windows she is meant to be cleaning, her gaze softening, reaching out into this new, quiet distance. And her body needs these rests, like it never has before. She has worked since she was twelve, her muscles made hard by it. But Holloway has made her weak, has made her legs tremble by the time she has climbed from the cellar to the attic.

At breakfast, she sits with Mrs Bell at the wooden table in the kitchen. The cook’s chair creaks ominously underneath her, all but obscured by her bulk. Only spindly wooden legs are visible, chafing against the flagstones and wobbling with the strain. One day they will snap, Cat thinks. She will not be able to keep from laughing when it happens. She runs the scene in her mind – Mrs Bell, flailing on the floor like a beetle on its back, unable to rise.

‘What are you smirking at?’ Mrs Bell asks suspiciously.

‘I was picturing you rolling on the floor if your chair broke,’ Cat replies, quite honestly.

‘Why, you cheeky minx!’ Mrs Bell gasps, staring, her eyes stretched wide for once; but she can’t seem to find any other riposte, so Cat goes back to eating her porridge. She has to concentrate on eating, in an odd way. She has to concentrate on
not
noticing she is doing it. If she notices it too much, the flavour of it, the texture, the brief choking sensation of swallowing … then panic rises and makes it impossible.

‘I’d been wondering what they locked you up for,’ Mrs Bell manages at last, ‘but like as not it was for impertinence when you should’ve held your tongue! Who was it you gave back-chat to?’
she asks, trying to sound angry but unable to hide the curiosity in her voice.

But Cat can’t answer. At the mention of prison her throat has closed, her mouthful of porridge has nowhere to go. She can feel it clogging her up, sticking to the back of her throat. She rushes to the sink, coughs and gags it all out.

‘Saints preserve us! What is the matter with you?’ Mrs Bell exclaims, blood mottling her cheeks. ‘No wonder you’re such a sparrow! The mistress will hear of this.’

‘It can only be good economy for her, if I don’t eat,’ Cat gasps, wiping her chin with the back of her hand. Mrs Bell grunts dismissively as Cat returns to the table and pushes the bowl of porridge away.

‘Well don’t waste it! Hand it to me,’ Mrs Bell says, and dips her spoon into the bowl. She flicks her eyes at Cat again. ‘What’s that badge you wear?’ She points a finger at the little silver and enamel portcullis pinned to Cat’s collar.

‘My Holloway medal. Given to me by my friends, to show that I have been to gaol for the cause,’ Cat says, her fingers drifting up to touch it.

‘I hardly think it’s something to be proud of,’ the housekeeper says scathingly.

‘You’re wrong.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t be wearing it on show like that. Under your clothes if you must, but I don’t want to see it again,’ Mrs Bell tells her, with a curt nod of her chin. Cat glowers, but does as she is told.

Cat is called into the drawing room after lunch, when she had been on her way to her room, to rest for a while. Her hands are red and puckered from the washing-up suds, the nails that grew long in the week before she arrived have all snapped off again. The vicar’s wife is dressed in white muslin, with frills at her collar and cuffs and hem. Her corsets cinch her in at the middle, but she is still broad,
soft looking. Her breasts pile up above the whalebone, pushing outwards slightly, into her armpits. Her face looks like this too – broad, soft, accommodating. By contrast her hands are small and fine, the fingers tapering to shiny pink nails. Her feet are tiny. In high-heeled shoes, she half resembles a spinning top.

‘Ah, Cat.’ Hester smiles. ‘I wonder if you would be so good as to take this along to the post office and send it for me? Thank you, child. And perhaps a few madeleines for tea? There is an excellent baker on The Broadway. Mrs Bell won’t like it, but until she can raise a light sponge, she leaves me no choice!’ Hester laughs a little as she says this. Cat takes the letter, and the coins Hester proffers, hating to be called
child
by a woman only a few years older than herself.