The Fire Child Read online

  But Jamie was now looking directly at his father. Expecting an answer.

  Groping for words, David did his best. ‘Jamie, mate, she’s dead. Your mummy is dead. You know that.’

  Jamie was unmoved. The boy shook his head. ‘But, Daddy, aren’t we meant to see things some people don’t see? Because we’re fire people? Aren’t we meant to be more special, the Kerthens? Because of the legend?’

  ‘No, Jamie. No. That’s just a joke, a childish story. Something to amuse people down from London.’

  The irony was complex, and bitter. How many times had David told the story to laughing guests, in Carnhallow House? All too many. Because of his Kerthen pride. Because it was another subtle way of parading his lineage, of saying, This is how noble and ancient we are: we have myths and legends. Now that vainglory had come back to hurt.

  Jamie’s eyes were glistening. ‘I know it sounds like a story, but it’s true, Daddy. True. Sometimes I know she’s close again, near me, talking to me, in my sleep, or in the day, in the rooms. It’s frightening sometimes. But she is here, she’s coming back.’

  ‘Jamie. This is silly. This is nonsense.’

  ‘It’s not. I don’t think so, Daddy. She is still alive. Everyone says she’s dead, but they never found her body, did they? So she must be still here, that’s why I can feel her. That’s why you made me write to her.’

  David closed his eyes, for a second. Quelling his anger. The stupid therapist at Treliske Hospital, with his idiotic questions, his stupid idea of writing letters to a dead mother. What had he done to his son? Letters were disturbing and blurring. Questions were worse.

  ‘Hey.’ David sought his son’s unhappy gaze. ‘Jamie. Mate. Come on. We have to deal with it. Mummy fell down the mine and she isn’t coming back. I know it is very sad and confusing, but just because they didn’t find the body doesn’t mean she can return to life. OK? OK? And the Kerthens aren’t special in any creepy or superstitious sense, we’re just old. An old family. That’s all.’

  Jamie was still, evidently, trying not to cry. David gazed on, helpless. Please let my son be sane. Why had all this fresh confusion emerged now? It came and went, but this was worse than ever. Much worse.

  ‘Jamie. You know I love you. If there’s anything you want to tell me, you know you can do that, you can say anything. But Mummy is gone and you have a new stepmother now. We have a new life, a new chance. We have to move on.’

  Jamie nodded miserably and reached for his drink. David checked the clock again; if he didn’t get to work soon he’d be stuck at the meeting tomorrow. He’d have to deal with this at the weekend, when he went down.

  ‘Jamie, mate, I do have to go. I’m really sorry. But I’ll see you guys at the weekend and we can talk then.’

  ‘Mmnnn.’

  ‘Jamie, say goodbye properly.’

  But the screen died: Jamie had turned it off first, without saying goodbye. Like a reproach. Like a punishment that David deserved. The bad father. The absent father. Most of all, the lying father.

  David picked up his whisky and regarded the depths of tawny liquid, glowing in the glass. Now that he thought about it, now that he focused on the facts, like a good lawyer, Jamie’s distance, his odd behaviour, had distinctly returned since the summer. Specifically since Rachel had moved in.

  Perhaps it was coincidence? Or maybe it was because she had upset the precious equilibrium he had painstakingly established, in the year following Nina’s fall. By asking her questions. Acting all weird. Looking for things in the house.

  From nowhere, David felt, for the very first time, a flux of fierce resentment at his young wife. He’d given her everything, a new life, a new home, a new family, a new start – all the money in the world – and now, maybe, she was beginning to fuck everything up.

  It was possible he had made the most stupid mistake.

  What if Rachel continued her prying, like the damn therapists, investigating the accident at the mineshaft? Asking about Jamie’s involvement? By inviting her into the house, David realized, now and too late, he had taken a grievous risk, and made a potentially fatal error. Perhaps, after all, Rachel wasn’t any kind of replacement for Nina. Beautiful, impulsive, arrogant Nina: willing to do anything for love. No one compared to her.

  David stood up, and walked to the windows, sipping his whisky. The laughing students had disappeared. Only one girl remained, standing at a bus stop, checking her phone, which shone an uplight on her fine young cheekbones. She was helplessly beautiful. Yet her beauty made David sad, the feeling of something faraway and forever receding, but never disappearing.

  He had once thought that the cure for desire was death itself. But now he wondered. Maybe nothing could extinguish the yearning of human love; maybe it travelled on for ever, through the darkness. Like the light from dead stars.

  77 Days Before Christmas

  Evening

  ‘You will have blood on your hands. There will be lights in the Old Hall.’ The phrases revolve in my mind, like objects of great importance spotlit behind glass. Yet exuding a faint menace, as well.

  It is more than three weeks since the flames were found in the Old Hall and we have all reached a halfway satisfying conclusion that Jamie did it, but a penumbra of mystery still surrounds the event, like the circular haze of pain before a migraine. Why did he do it? Perhaps it really was a stunt aimed at me, for replacing his lost mother, the lovely Nina Kerthen. Something designed to frighten me. Or was it aimed at someone else entirely?

  I look up from my thoughts.

  David and I are alone in the Yellow Drawing Room, as the autumn evening dies. He’s got a long weekend off, as his company upgrades the office, and he is clearly relaxing.

  I am not. I can’t stay quiet. One more heave.

  ‘David, about the fire in the Old Hall.’

  He flashes me a hard stare. Irritated perhaps. Oh God, not this subject again.

  ‘Please. Indulge me, one more time, then I promise I will shut the hell up, for ever.’

  He smiles. Sort of. ‘Fine. Go ahead.’

  ‘I accept what you say, that he was doing what his mother did, repeating that thing, that lovely trick she played on his birthday.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I’m still not wholly convinced he did it all by himself. How? How could he have set it all up? He had no time. He was barely back from school.’

  ‘We’ve discussed this, already, Rachel.’ His words are brisk. ‘He could have prepared it in the morning, easily. No one goes in the Old Hall, only Nina went there; she was obsessed with the Old Hall, how one day she might restore it.’ His lawyerly explanation calms me – even as it annoys me. ‘Then when Jamie came back from school, he had time to light them. To do his little ritual, summoning his mother home. It’s not difficult: a can of lighter fuel, squirted from a bottle.’ David sighs, curtly, ‘There’s no risk. Nothing can catch fire in the Hall, there’s nothing but stone and glass. And he probably intended no one to see it. The flames would have burned out in a few minutes, his magic spell would have been completed, in total secret.’

  I shake my head. ‘But, to do it so quickly, to write the words on the floor, without being seen, mightn’t someone have helped him? Cassie? Juliet?’

  ‘Of course not.’ David regards me like a very disappointed teacher looking at an average child who once promised to be bright. ‘His granny was the first person to find them. Jamie clearly hadn’t considered that might happen, so when Juliet acted so scared he went into denial. He knew he’d done something wrong. And that’s why he lied about it then, and ever since.’

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘You understand that’s what happened. You do get this?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ I say. ‘I suppose that does kind of make sense.’

  Reluctantly, I sit back. I also want to mention the incident with the hare, but I still cannot do this. Because doing this implies I do perceive some paranormal and irrational explanation for the events. Therefore I literally cannot spea
k the words, without labelling myself mad. I also want to mention the letters, but I can’t do that either, without revealing that I sneaked into David’s study like a burglar.

  I have to talk about Jamie in a different way. ‘David it’s not just the fire that worries me.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. It’s Jamie’s behaviour, when you are away. He spends hours in his room, crouched over computer games, or his smartphone.’

  ‘He’s eight. That’s what they do.’

  ‘But other times he’s roaming the cliffs and beaches, right up Carnhallow Valley, all the way to the moors. You let him wander at will.’

  This is the cautious, streetwise urban female in me, daughter of the council estates of south London – Imagine what could happen in a coffee shop if you left them for a minute. I do know life in Cornwall is very different. But I genuinely hate it when Jamie roams too far. I fear for him. Because the idea of anything happening to him makes me feel ill.

  Putting down his glowing tablet, David slugs his gin and tonic. ‘Rachel, naturally – I worry, but I want him to be free. After Nina’s death it was tempting to wrap him in cotton wool. Yet I have to give him his freedom, have to let him grow up as normal as possible.’

  ‘But all those dangerous paths? And cliffs? David, he’s out at all hours, wandering. I know I’m not his real mother, only—’

  ‘He needs a mother, Rachel. You got on so well when you met in London. That will return. Give him time.’

  Frustrated, I sit back. That’s what we are all saying: give it time, give it time. But time seems to be making things worse.

  The leaded windows are open, to a soft wind that ferries the salted perfume of the ocean. This smell always makes me a little sad. I think this is because we never had seaside holidays when I was young. We were too poor. I am sad for what I missed.

  My husband watches me. ‘I also want him to know where the Kerthens have lived, over the centuries. All the coves and carns that I loved as a boy.’

  He rises and closes the window. Then he returns to his seat and picks up his tablet, courteously ignoring me. But I look right at him. My husband. His handsome, faintly ruthless face illuminated by the glowing screen.

  There will be blood on your hands. There will be lights in the Old Hall.

  These images. They are so vivid, and so visual. Like Jamie can really see things. Like he has really seen things.

  A rattle of ice makes me jump. David sets his glass, emphatically, on the sidetable. His stare is hard. ‘Open your legs,’ he says.

  I am wearing a shortish patterned dress. And nothing under. That’s what he likes me to wear, when he flies home from London. Nothing underneath. I only dispense with underwear when Jamie is safely in bed and Cassie has retired. But I do it: for my husband. Because I enjoy the way it hypnotizes him.

  ‘But, sir, I ’ave my chores.’

  I gaze back at David, defiant and knowing. He smiles, and frowns, at the same time.

  ‘Then get down on your knees, and clean the floor.’

  ‘I ’spose so, sir, if you must …’

  This is one of our favourite sexual games. Turning the class differences into role-play. It is silly, but oddly erotic. Adults can play games and tricks, too.

  David puts a chair behind the door, so no one can come in. The trick is working. The worries are dispelling. I wonder if he is going to have sex with me on the floor. I want him to do that, hard, without tenderness. We’ve already done it on the kitchen table, in every corner of the New Hall, under the rowans in Ladies Wood. We may have our problems, but the sex is more compulsive than ever.

  The door is secured. David roughly strips the dress up over my shoulders, and then, unexpectedly, pushes me back on to the sofa. His brutality is delicious. He knows instinctively where to bite, where to throttle, where to touch me like that. My head is thrown back. I am gazing, mouth open, beyond his shoulder; the last moths of summer flutter helplessly at the leaded window; I see them dancing, or dying, then I gasp as I come. Yet he pushes harder, unfulfilled.

  Raking my nails, I scratch his muscled back; I breathe deep, and quick. He is forcing me into another orgasm. Then a third, minutes later, and then he comes himself, biting my neck. Animalistic.

  No one else does this to me. No one else has ever done this to me. Not like this.

  When I go to bed that night, I hug David’s muscular body to my face as he sleeps; I inhale his scent. He doesn’t even stir as I squeeze him; he never snores. He is a heavy sleeper. Though sometimes he talks in his dreams about Nina, as if she is here, in bed with us.

  And when he does that, sometimes I lie awake and I imagine her lying on the other side of David, staring at me in silence.

  76 Days Before Christmas

  Morning

  By the time I wake up David has gone to work – flown to London – and I get a fresh if not entirely convincing sense of confidence. Yes. This is it. This is how it works. We can do this. We are a family unit. This is our life now.

  It’s my turn to take Jamie to school, Cassie has chores in the house, then she wants to see some of her Thai friends in Penzance. Chivvying my yawning stepson into the car, we set off for Sennen School, driving along the coastal road.

  A chilly drizzle is being sieved from an oyster-grey sky. Wind buffets the car as we drive. I search for a radio station, but they are hard to find, way out here. All I get is static, stray voices. Do this, do that. How did my stepson predict the death of the hare? It is inexplicable. I cannot understand.

  Out of the silence, Jamie suddenly speaks. ‘What’s your special animal, Rachel? Do you have a favourite?’

  Are we having an actual conversation? It seems so. The way Jamie can go from chatty normality to that strange enchantment is perplexing – but at least, sometimes, I do get chattiness.

  I glance his way, in the mirror. ‘Oh, I don’t know. How about eagles? I like eagles. Eagles and lions.’ I change gear. ‘What about you?’

  I can see him shrugging, not looking my way, staring out of the misted window. ‘I like all the animals, I think. All of them. Even insects. I hate it even when insects die.’

  ‘Yes, that’s sad. But don’t you have any favourite animals? What about leopards? Leopards are cool. And wolves!’

  He is silent for a few seconds. Then he finds my eyes, in the mirror, once more. ‘You know, we’ve got history today. We’re learning about the mines. We’re doing all about the mines this term.’

  ‘OK. That’s nice, that’s good.’

  ‘Ask me something, ask me something about the mines.’

  ‘I will, but hold on, I’ve got to make sure I find the right turning, this fog is getting worse.’

  Slowing the car, I steer left. We are climbing up into the moors. The little fields and shivering farmsteads. Stone circles are glimpsed, then gone, shrouded in this gathering mist. Everything is obscured, and dank. Then I see, barely a yard away, a small white metal road sign, leaning into greenery: Penzance 7¾ miles.

  I’m on the right road. I breathe out, with proper relief. Don’t want Jamie to be late for school. I want to do all of this right. I want to defeat the sadness and fall pregnant by David. I want to fill sad yet beautiful Carnhallow with new life. Siblings for Jamie.

  ‘Rachel?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You said you were going to ask me a question.’

  ‘Oh gosh, yes. Well. What’s the most interesting thing you learned about the mines?’

  ‘That’s easy. We learned about the deads.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Don’t you know what they are? The deads?’

  My mouth is a little dry.

  ‘Uh. No. Not sure. What are they?’

  ‘They’re the rocks that the mine owners didn’t want, the rubbish rocks, without any tin. It’s a funny word though, isn’t it?’ He hesitates, then says it again, quietly, from the back of the car. ‘The deads.’

  His expression is blank, and neutral. He is staring directly at me
, via the mirror.

  ‘And do you know who sorted the deads? Do you know that?’

  ‘No, I don’t. But I’ve a feeling you might tell me.’

  ‘The bal maidens sorted the deads. They were girls from all the villages who would work in bare feet in the mines, sorting the stones. They worked when they were eight years old like me, and they had little hammers to hit the rocks and they stood there with their bare feet in the rain.’ He shrugs, and looks out of the steamed-up window, absently tracing letters in the moisture. ‘Sorting the deads. Sorting the rocks and the deads all through their lives, for ever and ever till they died.’

  I can, of course, surmise where all this comes from: I can imagine what has happened. His school would naturally teach the history of the mines: it is the history of Cornwall, the history that all the kids can see around them every day.

  But the effect of this teaching on Jamie must be unique: when he thinks about the deads and the mines and the bal maidens, he must think about his lost mother. Who is dead, but haunting him: because she is still down there. Underneath us. Floating like a ghost, suspended in the tunnels, her eyes open and her mouth open and her hair trailing, with her splintered fingernails.

  The deads. In the Kerthen mines. The despair enshrouds as thickly as this mist – it feels like we will, very soon, be lost for ever, marooned off Land’s End – and then Cornwall does its familiar but still fascinating trick. The fog parts and, abruptly, we are descending to the wider roads and leafy avenues of the Penzance suburbs. Views of sunlit blue sea between big houses. Jamie’s school is at the end of the road. Briskly, I pull in. ‘All right, Jamie, we’re here now.’

  I unlock the passenger door, and turn to say goodbye, but he is already out: slamming the door shut, running from the car and disappearing through the school gates.

  For a moment I regard the empty car seat in the back. Then I glance at the window where he was writing. The words are still visible, even as they fade.