The Fire Child Page 3

  The first is the basement and the cellars.

  David showed me this bewildering labyrinth the day we arrived, and I have not revisited. Because the basement is a depressing place: a network of dismal corridors, grimed with dust, where rusted bells dangle below coiled springs, never to be heard again.

  There are many stairs down to the basement. I take the first set, outside the kitchen. Flicking on unreliable lights at the top of the steps, I pick my way down the creaking wooden stairs, and look around.

  Ancient signs hang from peeling doors: Brushing Room, Butler’s Pantry, Footman’s Room, receding into shadows and grey. At the end of the dingy corridor ahead of me I can make out the tall, arched stone threshold of the wine cellar. David and Cassie visit the cellars a lot: it is the one part of Carnhallow’s vast basement that gets used. Apparently there are lancet windows in the cellar, blinded and bricked, showing the monastic origin of Carnhallow, one thousand years ago. One day I will sit myself down in that cellar and blow dust off old French labels, teach myself about wine the way I am slowly teaching myself about everything else, but today I need to get an overall grasp.

  Turning down an opposite corridor I find more signs: Bake House, Cleaning Room, Dairy. The piles of debris littering and sometimes obstructing the corridors are stupefying. An antique sewing machine. Half of a vintage motorcycle, taken to pieces then left here. Broken clay pipes from maybe two hundred years before. A mouldy Victorian wardrobe. Some kind of light fitting, made possibly from swan feathers. An enormous wheel from a horse-carriage. It is like the Kerthens, as they slowly died out, or dispersed, or decayed, couldn’t bear to part with anything, as it painfully symbolized their decline. So it all got hidden away down here. Entombed.

  Phone in hand, I pause. The air is motionless and cold. Two huge antique fridges lurk, for no obvious reason, in a corner. I have a sudden image of being imprisoned within one of them. Hammering on the door, trapped in its reeking smallness, stuck down a basement corridor that no one will ever use. Dying over days in a cuboid coffin.

  A shudder runs through me. Moving on, turning left, I find an even older doorway. The stonework of the doorjamb looks medieval, and the painted wooden sign hanging from a nail says STILL.

  Still?

  Still what? Still here? Be still? Please be still? The sign agitates.

  STILL.

  Repressing my anxieties, I push the door. The hinges are stiff with rust: I have to lay my shoulder on the door and shunt hard, and at last the door springs open, with a bang. Like I have broken something. I sense the house glaring at me with disapproval.

  It is very dark in this room. There is no apparent switch and the only light comes from the corridor behind me. My eyes slowly adjust to the gloom. In the middle of this small room is a battered wooden table. It could be hundreds of years old, or it could have just had a hard time. Various bottles, greyed with dust, sit on shelves. Some have tiny labels on them, hung on exquisite metal chains, like little necklaces for tiny slave girls. Going close I see the handwritten names, scratchily penned – quilled – with ancient ink.

  Feverfew. Wormwood. Comfrey. Mullein.

  Still.

  STILL.

  I think I understand it now, maybe. This is a place for distilling. Making herbal remedies, tinctures. A still room.

  Turning to go, I see something totally unexpected. Three or four large cardboard boxes in the corner of the room, partly concealed by a case of ancient glassware. The boxes have the name Nina vigorously scrawled on them.

  So this is her stuff? The dead woman, the dead mother, the dead wife. Clothes, or books, maybe. Not ready to be thrown out.

  Now I feel really improper, like a trespasser. I’ve done nothing wrong, I am the new wife, a keeper of Carnhallow, and David wants me to explore so that I can restore this maze of dust: but the act of almost-breaking-in to this room, and happening upon these sad boxes, makes me blush.

  Trying not to run, I retrace my steps, and I climb the stairs with a definite sense of relief. Taking deep breaths. Then a glance at my watch reminds me. I have to collect Jamie, soon, which means I have enough time for my final task.

  There is one more interior space I want to see: the entirely untouched West Wing. And at its heart, the Old Hall. David has told me it is impressive.

  But I’ve not once set foot inside this space yet. Only seen the gaunt exterior. Taking the corridor beyond the grand stairs, I cross from east to west, and from now to then.

  This must be it. A large but unpainted and very heavy wooden door. The handle is a twisted, cast-iron ring. It takes an effort to turn, but then the door swings smoothly open. I step, for the first time, into the Old Hall.

  The tall arched windows are Gothic, and leaded. Obviously from the monastery. The vaulted stone chamber is cold; it is also totally uncarpeted and unfurnished. David says that centuries ago they used to pay the miners in this hall. I can see them now. The humble men, stoically queuing, summoned by their surnames. The mine captains looking on with crossed and burly arms.

  The room is imposing, but also oppressive. I shiver like a child in here. I think the atmosphere must be something to do with the size of the room. Here in the frigid empty heart of the house, I realize the scale of Carnhallow. Vast and engulfing. This is where I truly comprehend that I am in a house with space for fifty people. For three dozen servants, and a large extended family.

  Today, just four people live here. And one, David, will be spending most of his time in London.

  Three o’clock. Time to pick up my stepson. Heading outside, jumping in the Mini, I gun the engine – then slowly navigate the narrow drive, up through the sunlit woodlands. It’s a difficult road, but lovely, too. Inspiring. One day maybe my kids will play here. They will grow up in the magnificence of Carnhallow – surrounded by space and beauty, beaches and trees. They will see bluebells in spring, and pick mushrooms in October. And there will be dogs. Happy, galloping dogs, fetching mossy sticks: in the glades of Ladies Wood.

  At last I hit the main road – and I drive west, threading between the green and stony moors to my left and the rioting ocean on the right. This mazy B road takes in most of the little ex-mining villages in West Penwith.

  Botallack, Geevor, Pendeen. Morvah.

  After Morvah, the road splits: I take the left turn, heading over the barrens of higher moorland to Jamie’s school in Sennen, a private prep school.

  Two left turns, another mile of moor and the landscape has subtly changed. Down here on the southern coast sunlight dapples calmer seas. When I park the car near the school gates and swing the door open the air is slightly but noticeably softer.

  Jamie Kerthen is already here, waiting. He walks towards me. He is in his school uniform, despite it being a Saturday. This is because Sennen is a pretty formal school that demands uniforms whenever the kids are on the grounds. I like that. I want that for my kids, as well. Formality and discipline. More things I didn’t have.

  I climb out of the car, smiling at my stepson. I have to resist the urge to run and hug him, close and tight. It’s too soon for this. But my protective feelings are real. I want to protect him for ever.

  Jamie half-smiles in response – but then he stops and stands there, rooted to the pavement, and gives me a long, strange, concentrated stare. As if he cannot work out who I am or why I am here. Even though we have now been living together for weeks.

  I try not to be unnerved. His behaviour is peculiar – but I know he is still grieving for his mother.

  To make it worse, another mother is coming out now, guiding her son, passing us on the pavement. I don’t know who she is. I don’t know anyone in Cornwall. But my isolation won’t be helped if people think I am weird, that I don’t fit in. So I give her a wide smile and say, all too loudly, ‘Hello, I’m Rachel! I’m Jamie’s stepmother!’

  The woman looks my way, then at Jamie. Who still stands there, motionless, his eyes fixed on mine.

  ‘Um, yes … hello.’ She blushes faintly. She ha
s a round, pretty face and a posh, clear voice and she looks embarrassed by this strange, loud woman and her wary stepson. And why not? ‘I’m sure we’ll meet again. But – ah – really must be going,’ she says.

  The woman hurries away with her boy, then looks back at me, a puzzled frown on her face. She probably feels sorry for this frightened boy with this idiot for a stepmother. So I turn my fixed smile on to my own stepson.

  ‘Hey, Jamie! Everything OK? How was the football?’

  Can he stand there in rooted silence for much longer? I cannot bear it. The weirdness is prolonged for several painful seconds. Then he relents. ‘Two nil. We won.’

  ‘Great, well, great, that’s fantastic!’

  ‘Rollo scored a penalty and then a header.’

  ‘That’s totally brilliant! You can tell me more on the drive home. Do you want to get in?’

  He nods. ‘OK.’

  Chucking his sports bag in the back seat, he slides in, clunks his safety belt in its socket, then as I start the car, he plucks up a book from his bag and starts reading. Ignoring me again.

  I change gear, taking a tight corner, trying to focus on these tiny roads, but I am nagged by worries. Now I think about it, this isn’t the first time Jamie has acted oddly, as if suspicious of me, in the last few weeks: but it is the most noticeable occasion.

  Why is he changing? When I met my stepson in London he was nothing but laughter and chatter: the initial day we met we got on brilliantly. That day was, in fact, the first day I felt real love for his father. The way man and boy interacted, their love and understanding, their joking and mutual respect, united in grief yet not showing it – this moved and impressed me. It was so unlike me and my dad. And again I wanted some of this paternal affection for my own child. I wanted the father of my children to be exactly like David. I wanted it to be David.

  The sex and desire and friendship were already in place – David had already charmed me – but it was Jamie who crystallized these feelings into love for his father.

  And yet, ever since I actually moved in to Carnhallow, Jamie has, I now realize, become more withdrawn. Distant, or watchful. As if he is assessing me. As if he kind of senses that there’s something awry. Something wrong with me.

  My stepson is quietly looking my way in the mirror, right now. His eyes are large, and the palest violet-blue. He really is a very beautiful boy: exceptionally striking.

  Does this make me shallow – that Jamie Kerthen’s beauty makes it easier for me to love him? If so, there’s not much I can do; I can’t help it. A beautiful child is a powerful thing, not easily resisted. And I also know that his boyish beauty disguises serious grief, which makes me feel the force of love, even more. I will never replace his lost mother, but surely I can assuage his loneliness.

  A lock of black hair has fallen across his white forehead. If he were my son, I’d stroke it back in to place. At last he talks.

  ‘When is Daddy going away again?’

  I answer, in a rush. ‘Monday morning, as usual, day after tomorrow. But he’ll only be gone a few days. He’s flying back into Newquay at the end of the week. Not so long, not long at all.’

  ‘Oh, OK. Thank you, Rachel.’ He sighs, passionately. ‘I wish Daddy came home longer. I wish he didn’t go away so much.’

  ‘I know Jamie. I feel the same.’

  I yearn to say something more constructive, but our new life is what it is: David commutes to and from London every Monday morning and Friday evening. He does it by plane, in and out of Newquay airport. When he gets home he burns his silver Mercedes along the A30, then crawls along the last, winding moorland miles, to Carnhallow.

  It is a gruelling schedule, but weekly, long-distance commuting is the only way David can sustain his lucrative career in London law and retain a family life at Carnhallow, which he is utterly determined to do. Because the Kerthens have lived in Carnhallow for a thousand years.

  Jamie is silent. It takes us twenty-five muted minutes to drive the tortuous miles. At last we arrive at sunlit Carnhallow and my stepson drags himself from the Mini, tugging his sports bag. Again I feel the need to talk. Keep trying. Eventually the bond will form. So I babble as I rummage for my keys, Maybe you could tell me about your football match, my team was Millwall – that’s where I grew up, they were never very good – Then I hesitate. Jamie is frowning.

  ‘What’s the matter, Jamie?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he says. ‘Nothing.’

  The key slots, I push the great door open. But Jamie is staring at me in that same bewildered, disbelieving way. As if I am an eerie figure from a picture book, come inexplicably to life.

  ‘Actually, there is something.’

  ‘What, Jamie?’

  ‘I had a really weird dream last night.’

  I nod, and try another smile.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes. It was about you. You were …’

  He tails off. But I mustn’t let this go. Dreams are important, especially childhood dreams. They are subconscious anxieties surfacing. I remember the dreams I had as a child. Dreams of escape, dreams of desperate flight from danger.

  ‘Jamie. What was it, what was in the dream?’

  He shifts his stance, uncomfortably. Like someone caught lying.

  But this clearly isn’t a lie.

  ‘It was horrible. The dream. You were in the dream, and, and,’ he hesitates, then shakes his head, looking down at the flagstones of the doorway. ‘And there was all blood on your hands. Blood. And a hare. There was hare, an animal, and blood, and it was all over you. All of it. Blood. Blood all over there. Shaking and choking.’

  He looks up again. His face is tensed with emotion. But it isn’t tears. It looks more like anger, even hatred. I don’t know what to say. And I don’t have a chance to say it. Without another word he disappears, into the house. And I am left here standing in the great doorway of Carnhallow. Totally perplexed.

  I can hear the brutal sea in the distance, kicking at the rocks beneath Morvellan, slowly knocking down the cliffs and the mines. Like an atrocity that will never stop.

  149 Days Before Christmas

  Lunchtime

  ‘Verdejo, sir?’

  David Kerthen nodded at the waiter. Why not drink? It was Friday lunchtime, and he was already en route home, for once ending work early, instead of at ten in the evening. So today he could drink. By the time the plane landed at Newquay he would have sobered up. There was barely any chance of being caught by the police on the A30 anyway. The Cornish police could often be spectacularly inept.

  The drink might, also, allow him to forget. Last night, for the third night in a row, he’d dreamt of Carnhallow. This time he’d dreamt of Nina wandering the rooms, alone, and naked.

  She used to do that a lot: walk naked about the house. She found it erotic, as he found it erotic: the contrast of her pale skin with the monastic stone or the Azeri rugs.

  Sipping his Verdejo, David remembered the night they came back from their honeymoon. She’d stripped and they’d danced: she was naked and he was in his suit and the champagne was ferociously cold. They’d rolled back the carpets in the New Hall to make the dancing easier, he had put an arm around her slender waist, one hand clasped in another. And then she’d slipped from that grasp, running away from him, shadowed and arousing, disappearing into the darker corridors, a blur of youthful nudity.

  The memories killed him. Their early happiness had been overgenerous. The sex was always too compulsive. It still gave him bad dreams, charged with a tragic desire or a child-like neediness, followed by regret.

  He checked his watch: 1.30. Oliver was late. Their table was half empty, yet the dark, plutocratic Japanese restaurant was conspicuously full.

  Unbuttoning his suit jacket, David looked around, taking the mood of Mayfair, checking the oil of London. The wealth of modern London was gamey: the city was marbled with success. You could smell the opulence, and it wasn’t always nice. But it was heady, and it was necessary. Because David was
a beneficiary of London’s commercial triumph. As a fashionable QC he got a regular table at Nobu, a sleek office in the serene Georgian streets of Marylebone and, best of all, a half-million-pound salary, with which he could restore Carnhallow.

  But they certainly made him work for it. The hours were grim. How long could he keep it up? Ten years? Fifteen?

  Right now he needed more alcohol. So he sipped the Verdejo, alone.

  David didn’t like being alone at lunch. It reminded him of the days after Nina’s fall. The dismal, solitary meals in the old Dining Room, with his mother self-exiled to her granny flat, refusing to talk. David winced internally as he recalled the eagerness with which he had returned to work after the funeral. Leaving his mother and the housekeeper to look after Jamie in the week. He had, in effect, run away. Because he simply couldn’t face the way all the different emotions had combined into a symphony of remorse. London had been his escape.

  Draining the wine glass, David gestured for a refill. As he did, he noticed Oliver, striding to the table.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I had a meeting that dragged. At least we are fashionably late?’

  ‘Yep, a week after they lost their Michelin star.’

  Oliver smiled, pulled out a seat. ‘It doesn’t, ah, seem to have affected business much.’

  ‘Have a glass, you look as if you need it.’

  ‘I do, I do. Sss! Why did I join the civil service? I thought I would be serving the country, but it turns out I am serving a cabal of halfwits. Politicians. Can we have the black cod?’

  The waiter was attending, fingers poised over tablet.

  David knew the menu by heart. ‘Inaniwa pasta with lobster, bluefin tuna tataki. And that cabbage thing, with miso.’