Chapter One
The air hung invisibly heavy, dragging downwards from the sky, its weight almost humming with the tension of approaching breaking point. There was a storm brewing, the kind that hadn’t come to this sleepy part of Somerset for years, or so it seemed to Mary as she wheeled the last barrowful of mowed grass to the compost heap, compost mountain as she liked to call it, glad that at sixty she was still able to do these things for herself without a twinge or an ache. She smiled. Well, maybe just one or two nagging cramps that set in a little later, but never too painful to dull her warm glow of satisfaction, and in a weird way, maybe heightening it slightly.
Despite the claustrophobic way sweat clung to her like a second skin unwilling to be shed, Mary’s spirits were high. After getting Paul’s party decorations up, Alexandra would be making them both a cool Gin and Tonic, waiting for her aunt to come in and be amazed at what could be done with a few streamers and balloons if you had that special creative touch, and maybe her smile would light up a little like it used to in the days before Ian left. Twenty-seven was too young to be carrying that much pain around with you like lead on your back, and Mary feared the strain was beginning to show. Her niece had lost weight over the last few months, and it seemed at times that Alex had become a reserved shadow of her former self, all that beauty and brightness bound up inside, afraid to be released. Maybe Paul coming would do her some good; maybe she’d open up to him.
Pushing the low hanging leafy branches aside, Mary wheeled the barrow forward into the hidden space that Paul had called ‘Pooh Corner’ when he’d been little, a long time ago now, her bouncing boy was forty today, preparing her shoulders and thighs for the sudden push up the side of the heap of fresh grass to dump her load over the back.
Out of the corner of her eye, in that space where on clear winter mornings the light came pushing through the far side of the trees like one of those crazy laser shows, she could make out the worn shapes of the headstones in the graveyard on the other side of her land. Sometimes the peaceful sight of them would make her stop and think about the nature of time, and how it sped past so quickly, the questions bubbling in her brain. Where had those years gone between when Paul was ten and now, and would he bury her there amongst family and strangers when her race came to its inevitable end?
Yes, sometimes it would make her stop and think. But not this time. This time her eyes froze like the rest of her, confused for a moment, vision fixed on the pile of grass. No, not the grass at all, but what was on top of it, what hadn’t been there ten minutes ago when she’d emptied the lawnmower last, and what couldn’t, shouldn’t possibly be there. Her shaking arms released the metal barrow that banged heavily into her knee as it dropped, and deep in her mind she knew there’d be a nasty black bruise blooming there by tomorrow, but right then, right in that silent moment of stopped time she couldn’t feel a thing as the past raced forward to meet the silent, twisted present.
The small, red t-bar sandal sat on the bed of sweet-smelling cuttings, polished and shining, untarnished by mud or blades of murdered grass as if deposited from above, a gift from the angels. Staring at the shoe that had been out of fashion for thirty years, Mary felt her breath catch in her throat. So time was moving, not stopped at all, but pouring out slowly like glue, savouring itself, allowing Mary the possibility of seeing everything, every colour in the trees, the leaves and the thousands of different shades in the leather. Who could have put it here? Who would have? No one. Not after all this time. Needing to touch it, needing to feel its reality, its dead flesh next to her skin, she reached slowly forward, her hand stretching out shakily into the tunnel of her vision.
The giggle slashed the silence and Mary spun round, a whimper escaping her. Branches rustled, first to her left, and then moving back behind her, back to the other side of the compost heap, where the long, tired limbs of the trees almost touched the ground of graveyard, no hedge required to define the boundary. Slowly turning, her feet shuffling over the dead wood, Mary’s eyes widened. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be. At the bottom of the crippled tree in front of her, in the gap between branches and the hallowed ground, she could see the lower half of a small girl, dressed in a perfectly pleated neat green kilt, the upper torso hidden from view.
The scalpel of memory sliced into her brain, sharp and painful. The giggle came again as Mary’s eyes dragged themselves down, past the pink skin of young almost-chubby knees, to the white high socks, and then downwards, knowing what she was going to see, one foot shoeless; the other strapped up in a perfectly polished red sandal. Standing and staring at this surreal snapshot, something stirred inside Mary, a coiled snake waiting to strike, and if her frozen face could have moved, she would have frowned. The terrible familiarity of the clothes and the shoes itched inside Mary and she could almost taste the child’s name in her mouth before she whispered it.
“Melanie Parr.”
The giggle came again from somewhere out of sight, and Mary moved to take a step backwards, to get help, help for or from what she didn’t know. The voice that came through the branches lilted childishly.
“I lost my shoe, Mary. Have you got it? Have you got my shoe? I’m cold without it. You’ve made me cold, Mary.” The reproach in the voice was clear, the sentiment jarring with the young giggle.
Shrieking, Mary stumbled over a branch behind her and fell forcefully to the dry ground, the shudder that spread through her bones making her bite down on her tongue, her mouth filling with the taste of metal as she bled.
“I’ve come back, can’t you see?” The quiet voice barely carried in the heavy air, but Mary flinched as she listened. “I’ve come back home. The Catcher Man brought me home.”
As the giggles got louder and harsher, too harsh for a ten year old, a forty year old ten year old, Mary knew that if she didn’t get away now she never would, she’d go crazy, really never come back down crazy, and squeezing her eyes shut, she dragged herself backwards until she was out of the wall of branches and in the fresh air of her garden, pulling herself to her numbed, heavy feet and running like she hadn’t in years, letting the scream trapped inside her out, giving it free rein in the humid air, knowing that no matter how hard she yelled, it would never be able to take all of the madness with it.
Copyright: Sarah Pinborough 2007
