The Burying Ground Read online

  ‘They’re Pike’s …’ she said, vaguely.

  ‘And that’s what’s stopping you, is it? The fact they’re Pike’s?’

  ‘I’m sorry I spoke,’ she said, and her face was flushed.

  I was angry at her. Angry at everybody. I could see fragments of a picture coming together, finding one another like droplets of spilled mercury, but there was so much I didn’t understand. Who did I think I was? We were two people with no business poking about in another person’s grief and perhaps we were causing a greater injustice by doing so. I was horribly aware of the absurd picture I was about to present: a stranger in this place, knocking on my neighbour’s door and demanding answers about their knowledge of a dead man.

  ‘Should we go?’ asked Felicity. ‘Really? Should we just go?’

  She was standing between the high brick gateposts at the edge of the Parker Farm. She looked like a goalkeeper, all hunched and agitated. Behind her the farmhouse was a sullen, brooding mass. There was only one light on: a solitary red and yellow blur. I knew from my walks how the house looked in daylight. The front door and the windowsills were painted dark green and the driveway was made of large paving slabs with weeds growing between the cracks. Spiky bushes lined the drive as it curved around towards the front door. One part of the house was three storeys high but the shorter part – the foot of the boot – was only two storeys and was topped with a tall chimney, higher than a man. To the rear were outbuildings and the bower where the cattle were milked. On days when the wind blew towards my house there was no amount of burning paper could disguise that scent. Right then I found myself listening to the sounds of the night. The only sound was of the rustling of the leaves all around us.

  ‘Cordelia?’ she asked, again.

  ‘You can go if you like,’ I said, and knew as I said it that I would have been devastated if she had taken me up on the offer of a way out. ‘I’m just going to ask some questions. The worst that happens is they tell us to get out and I don’t think I like them anyways.’

  She lowered her head but seemed to accept my decision. I slipped my elbow through hers and we walked up the driveway to the front door. I didn’t remark upon the car that was parked a little way off, down towards the barn. My mind was too busy.

  ‘Shall I?’ she asked, and we climbed the three steps to the door.

  In the end, neither of us knocked on the door. As we waited, a light flicked on. A line of yellow light appeared around the edge of the door. A man’s voice, muffled like the words on the recording, told us to hang on. There was the sound of keys in the lock. It struck me as odd. Who locked their doors? In all my time in the area I had never known anybody go to the trouble of locking up and yet it sounded as if deadbolts and at least two locks were being manhandled. Then the door slowly swung open.

  It was Mr Parker. He was two steps above us but he still only seemed to be my height. With the yellow light of the hallway turning him into something more like a silhouette than an actual being of flesh and bone, I had a sudden vision of a creature from a fairy tale. He was Rumpelstiltskin. He was a gnome of a man. He had the appearance of a jockey turned to drink. His skinny legs disappeared into big workboots and the shabby coat he wore on top of his overalls had patches at the elbows. His collar was held shut with a tie knotted so tightly that it looked like it had been used to restrain an angry bull. His face was all creases and folds and his huge nose made me think of a bird’s beak. His blue eyes were set deep into his head – holes in snow. His wig was not the same colour as his eyelashes. They were fair but the mop of hair atop his round head was dark. It looked like he had ripped somebody else’s hair from their scalp and elected to wear it as a hat.

  ‘Mrs Hemlock,’ he said, and the ‘s’ sounded like a ‘z’. He cocked his head, quizzically. Looked at me for a moment more than he needed to and then did the same to Felicity. Wheels were turning in his head. ‘Mrs Goose. Is all well?’

  The silence stretched out for a time. I was chewing my lip. I wanted there to be a sudden moment of clarity; a coming together of half-formed thoughts into one perfect sensation of comprehension. But as I looked at Mr Parker I saw only the same funny little man who had tried to be kind to me after Stefan had died.

  ‘Could we possibly have a moment with you, Mr Parker?’ asked Felicity, and I was amazed to hear her speak first. ‘It’s a silly thing but it’s about Fairfax.’

  ‘Fairfax?’ he asked, straightening up a little. ‘A tragedy. But please, please, do come in.’

  I paused for a moment, gathering myself, and then I did as instructed. Mr Parker stood with his arm out, pointing down the hallway, and I went in the direction he instructed. Felicity came behind. As I passed him I smelled nothing that I would not associate with a middle-aged farmer. Just cows and sweat, fresh air and cold.

  The hallway was a pleasing space. Wide, with wooden dressers all along one side, stocked with porcelain ornaments and animal sculptures. The other wall was hung with oil paintings in gaudy frames. Rural scenes. Hay wagons and sunset harvests. There was no carpet on the floor but two threadbare rugs had been trodden into the wooden boards.

  ‘Second on the left,’ he said, and I turned the handle of the white-painted door.

  I found myself in a large, comfortable parlour. If the house were mine I would have called it the red room. That’s how it struck me as I stood in the doorway. Three of the walls were papered in a pillar-box shade and the curtains that covered the windows on the far wall were a rich crimson. The three-piece suite was cherry coloured, enlivened with cream swirls. Even the sideboards that stood against the wall to my left seemed to have been varnished with a red-tinged polish. It felt as if I had climbed inside somebody.

  Mrs Parker was sitting in the high-backed chair beside the fire. The coals glowed scarlet, melding with the pinkish light that emanated from a lamp by her elbow, veiled with a ruby shade.

  ‘Mrs Hemlock,’ she said, turning, and she let the surprise show in her expression. She glanced at the carriage clock on the tile mantelpiece as if confirming her suspicions that this was not a civilized hour for visitors. Her face showed displeasure, which became more pronounced as Flick followed me into the room. ‘And Mrs Goose. Good heavens, are we under attack?’

  Had I said it, I’d have made it sound sarcastic. But Mrs Parker did not seem to be joking. Her face was horribly serious. I suddenly felt as though I had been called to see the Mother Superior for a lesson in wickedness.

  ‘We’re so sorry to intrude,’ said Felicity, looking around her. She moved to stand beside me and I felt her fingers brush the back of my hand.

  ‘And what’s this about?’ asked Mrs Parker, beginning to stand. She was wearing a cream cardigan over a blue dress. She clashed with the room.

  ‘It’s a silly thing really,’ said Flick, nervously. She wasn’t used to such places. In her life, people greeted visitors with tea and cake and warm towels. We felt like intruders about to be told off for our thoughtlessness.

  Suddenly Mrs Parker’s face softened. It was an incredible transformation. One moment she had been stern and brittle and the next she seemed to unstiffen at the edges. Her face became rounder, plumper as she smiled and then she was crossing the room and extending her hands to me as if we were friends.

  ‘I’ve been thinking of you,’ she said and I found she had taken my hands in hers. She spoke into my eyes, intense and deliberate. ‘Has it been terrible? I so wanted to come and call but you seemed so insistent on being left alone to grieve and we never once saw your curtains open. I’m so pleased you have found a friend. But truly, there’s no need to thank us for being there at the end. We did all we could.’

  For a moment my face showed incomprehension and then that was burned away by the open furnace of my anger. Did she think that’s why we were here? To say an overdue thank you for her presence at Stefan’s bedside when the fever took him? I hadn’t even wanted them there. They were ghouls, hanging around in the corridor outside Stefan’s room and disturbing the air
with their low words. They wanted to bring me things. Kept asking if we needed water or blankets or extra pillows. They wanted to be in the room with me and I was too overcome by my emotions to keep them out. They had been standing against the bedroom wall as his heart finally stopped. They were breathing in the air into which his soul departed. It had always seemed they had taken something of him away with them.

  ‘That’s not why we’re here,’ I said, and my voice was barely more than a growl. I turned to Flick, eyes blazing.

  ‘What’s the matter, then?’ asked Mrs Parker, dropping my hands. She turned to Felicity. ‘Is it your Brian? Really, there’s no need to pay us back. He’s not had much.’

  ‘Much of what?’ asked Flick.

  ‘He’s been siphoning the tractor,’ said Mr Parker, behind her. ‘Don’t know where he’s selling it but it’s next to nothing to be honest and I don’t mind a bit of ingenuity. He’s a bright boy.’

  I heard the accent in Parker’s words. Forced myself to take control.

  ‘It’s Fairfax,’ I said, flatly. ‘There are some things we’d like to know.’

  ‘About Fairfax?’ asked Mrs Parker. ‘I don’t see as I would be able to tell you much. And Mrs Goose was closer to him than me. But I’ll help how I can.’

  She pointed to the sofa and Flick and I sat down, shoulder to shoulder. Mrs Parker resumed her seat and her husband took the other chair. We listened to the ticking of the clock and the sound of the settling coals.

  ‘We’ve been going through his things,’ I said, talking to Mrs Parker instead of her husband. She seemed to be the dominant force in the room so it seemed right I address her. ‘Some of his writings.’

  ‘Well, he was always a one for his scribblings,’ said Mrs Parker with a faint smile.

  ‘We found a story among his things. Not one of his local history bits or bobs. This was like a real memoir.’

  ‘Yes?’ she asked brightly.

  ‘It was about something that happened during the war. Something that occurred in France.’

  She kept looking at me. I didn’t find it remarkable at the time. Whatever she knew or didn’t know, surely she would have glanced at her husband.

  ‘It wouldn’t have seemed so important if it wasn’t for something else that we stumbled upon,’ I said, holding her gaze. I didn’t want to tell her about the body. Not yet. ‘We heard a story about a man who came to see Fairfax. A Frenchman. He said he was here to record local birdsong. And we have it on pretty good authority he went to see Fairfax to ask questions about somebody he used to know …’

  Felicity butted in, sitting forward on her chair.

  ‘Our Brian said he asked you to translate a letter in French when you came to his school and that got me thinking about last winter when you were at Fairfax’s all the time …’

  Mrs Parker shook her head and her face hardened again. ‘All the time? What are you implying?’

  ‘No, no, nothing like that,’ protested Flick, colouring.

  I turned to Mr Parker. He was staring at his wife. He caught me looking at him and gave a sad little smile.

  ‘I don’t think I want this conversation to continue,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘I think it’s a bit rich you coming here and upsetting us when all we’ve done is try and help you.’

  That tore a hole in my veneer. I rounded on her, furious.

  ‘Help me? You’ve only been to my door twice. Once to try and take advantage of the fact I didn’t know what my land was worth and the second time to watch my boy die!’

  ‘How dare you,’ she snapped, as angry as I was.

  I turned back to Mr Parker. ‘Are you really Swiss?’ I demanded. ‘Or are you a Frenchman from a little place in Corrèze? Did Fairfax find something out about you?’

  ‘Don’t tell her anything,’ said Mrs Parker, throwing him a hard look. ‘You don’t have to. She’s mad. Mad with grief …’

  ‘Are you?’ I asked again. ‘Your accent doesn’t give anything away. It’s foreign but it could be from anywhere. You arrived here after the war, yes? Was it Ireland where you met? Fresh start, was it? I can’t blame you. What you saw …’

  Mrs Parker hauled herself out of the chair and came to stand above me. I thought she was going to slap my face but instead she stood with her hands on her hips, bristling with rage.

  ‘Ask yourself what you’re doing,’ she hissed. ‘Just think about it!’

  I felt Flick’s hand on my shoulder and for a moment I took a step out of myself and realized just what I was attempting to do. I was bullying this small, fragile man into reliving something that must have been beyond endurance. If I was correct in my suspicions, he had witnessed true horrors. And I needed him to face them afresh.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and when I spoke again my voice was more calm.

  ‘There was a body in the Kinmont mausoleum,’ I said. ‘A man in a blue suit. He left a little present for Fairfax after they spoke.’

  ‘Please …’ said Mrs Parker, despairingly. ‘Please stop.’

  ‘Did you kill him?’ I asked, staring at the small, shrivelled husk of Mr Parker. ‘Was he Jean Favre? Did he see the man you used to be? A Resistance fighter named Abel? Did you kill him and ask Fairfax to cover it up …?’ I was pulling at my hair, desperate for answers. ‘I need to know!’

  I felt a chill on my neck as the door to the room opened. I spun, unable to help myself.

  ‘Do you?’ asked the man in the doorway. ‘Do you really need to know?’

  Beside me, Felicity’s hand flew to her mouth.

  I looked hard at the face of the newcomer and suddenly understood who I was staring at.

  I was looking into the face of a dead man.

  FELICITY

  Transcript 0010, recorded October 31, 2010

  The last time I’d seen Fairfax’s son he’d been eighteen years old and heading off to war. His dad hadn’t wanted him to go. Christopher was never a strong lad and he had poor eyes and a weak chest but he’d been dead set on doing his bit. He’d made his dad proud, even if Fairfax would have given his right arm and both legs to stop him from signing up. Christopher nearly got safely through it. We’d already stormed Normandy and were closing in on victory when the bomb fell on the radio post where he was working as a wireless operator.

  It was Leslie, the young girl from the post office, who hand-delivered the telegram to Fairfax’s house. The way she told the story, Fairfax had turned whiter than milk before she’d even knocked on his door. Saw her through the window and knew his world was about to fall apart. Knew, with some horrible cold certainty, that his boy was dead.

  ‘Christopher,’ I gasped, looking at the man in the doorway, and if I’d been a Catholic I would have started crossing myself and never stopped.

  He’d changed a lot in the years since he went off to war. Looked more like Fairfax than he used to. There was a paleness to him, as if he was too used to an indoor life. He had a greyness to him, and it wasn’t just the suit and overcoat that hung on his thin shoulders like it would on a hanger. He had the same long, rectangular face I remembered and the hair at the front of his head still flopped forward like it would on a pony. He had a scar on his chin now and there was a lot of silver at his temples. He wasn’t smoking and yet he still seemed to be wreathed in a fug of fumes.

  ‘Christopher,’ said Mrs Parker, moving towards him, hands out like she was greeting the Pope. ‘It’s fine, you don’t need to …’

  Mrs Parker stopped talking as Christopher shot her a look. I noticed how wiry his eyebrows were. He didn’t seem to have any lips – his mouth just a gill in his face.

  ‘Don’t let me stop you,’ said Christopher to the room in general. ‘I was enjoying the masterly speculations.’

  Cordelia’s hand was in mine. We were both twisted, staring at the figure by the wall. He gave me a quick glance.

  ‘It’s nice to see you Felicity,’ he said, polite as you like. ‘All grown-up, I see. Two children and just the one husband. I was sorry to hear about you
r mother. Brian and James, your boys, am I right? Youngest one’s got spirit.’

  I was finding it hard to breathe. How did he know about my life? Where had he been? Why had he let us all grieve for him?

  ‘You’re Christopher,’ said Cordelia beside me. ‘I’d heard you were dead.’

  He flashed a quick smile, showing perfect white teeth. I glimpsed the metal points of the bridgework. They were dentures.

  ‘You’re Mrs Hemlock,’ he said. ‘Quite the character.’

  ‘Yes?’ she asked, and through the fear I felt a thrill at her defiance.

  ‘Shall I share your story?’ he asked. ‘Would you mind awfully?’

  ‘I’ve never hidden any of it,’ she said, and she even found the strength to give a little laugh. ‘I’ve only one friend in Gilsland and there’s nothing I wouldn’t tell her so if you think you can shut me up with threats you’re much mistaken.’

  I looked from her to Christopher, who had taken out a silver case and was lighting himself a long white cigarette.

  ‘And your husband?’ he asked, breathing out more grey.

  ‘He can fight his own battles.’

  Christopher considered her, chewing at the skin below his mouth.

  ‘It’s worth it, is it?’ he asked her, and barely sounded interested in the question, let alone her answer. ‘Nowhere to live. No more money. Without him you’d have nothing.’

  She laughed properly at that. ‘What have I got?’ she asked, looking like she was ready to fight. ‘Somebody else’s house. Somebody else’s life. I did what I did for Stefan and the world took him from me, so to be honest, I don’t give a damn about your threats. I want to know why there was a body in the Kinmont tomb.’

  There was silence in the room as Christopher smoked his cigarette. At length he jerked his head at Mrs Parker and she returned to her seat, meek as a scalded dog. I looked at her husband. He had shrunken into his chair. He was playing with something in his hands, moving his fingers like he was washing up. I glimpsed something yellow and a black beady eye. He was holding a dead bird in his hands, thumbing its feathers and staring into his cupped palms.