Ferney (34 page)

‘What happened to you?’ Gally said softly, thinking this felt all new to her as though he’d never told her the full story before.

‘Two men came and took me away back to the houses, where they made me eat. I crept out later for another look but there was no sign of her – just cut ropes with a mark or two of
blood on them. The next morning I went away. It was the first time I’d ever left the area round the stones and there wasn’t a clear thought in my head, just all the usual jumble of
nonsense words and pictures. I headed off east to start with, I think. Then as soon as I got an hour or two away, something seemed to clear just a little in my head. Whatever it was, it started
calling me north. I was lucky. I had a ride from a carter, I remember, and I slept under his cart that night and shared his food. He didn’t seem to mind my ways. When I woke up my head was
full of words, as usual, words that had never made any sense, but now I was starting to know what they meant.’

‘You realized you were English?’

‘It wasn’t like that at all. I didn’t know what they were then, but I saw you. Not your face, you know how it is, but
you
. I could feel you like a magnet, away to the
north. I knew I could find you if I went there and I started asking what was to the north. Brest, Morlaix, people would say, Saint-Pol de Léon, places like that – but they didn’t
mean anything to me.’ He pronounced the place names as a Frenchman would.

‘How did you get here?’

‘I just walked. I didn’t have any food, but even then, when there’d been so much to fear, the country people would share with you if they saw you were harmless, particularly if
you were simple. I walked for three more days. I didn’t have to work out my way, I shut my eyes when I wasn’t sure and I could see glimpses of you and the hill with the village on it,
like following a compass. All the memories started pouring back, properly this time, making sense. It was too much to take in to start with, so I was walking like I was in a dream. I suppose it
could have been more than a young boy could bear but the
me
part came back too, the older part, confident and strong, so that I was in charge of it and in fact all my fears and worries
started easing away. I could feel myself getting stronger and stronger and knowing more and more. The further north I got, the clearer it was. I couldn’t sort out where I was, though. I knew
I’d never been in this place before, but I didn’t seem to have the right knowledge to make sense of it – then one evening I came over a hill and there in front of me was the sea.
Oh, that was a shock. You were still pulling me that way and there was nothing but the grey waves. Then for the first time, I really understood how it was and that undid me for a bit.’

‘You thought you’d find me and instead you found the sea?’

‘I suppose I knew, really, but if I’d let myself believe that, I might never have started. There was a watch on the coast. Soldiers everywhere, boats patrolling, all the harbours
controlled. I asked everyone about England and they all said the same – bloodthirsty pirates, who’d skin you as soon as look at you.’

‘But you got here?’

‘I had to find a boat that wasn’t guarded. I remember I just walked and walked along the coast. I found a place, east of Saint-Pol, where there were mussels everywhere on the rocks
so I stopped there and gorged on them for a day or two. Oh, it was a strange place, that – the seashore was slate, all up on edge, slanting, and in the middle of it there was a great lump,
heaved up like a cathedral. I was standing there staring out to sea. I even wondered about swimming, I was a good swimmer – had to be at Carnac with the boats – but I didn’t know
how far I’d have to go and it was just as well I didn’t try. The second night there I had a bit of luck. A small warship sailed into the bay and dropped anchor. It lowered a boat and
sent an officer ashore and I watched when it sailed back again. They didn’t hoist it back on board – just set it riding on a line from the stern, so when it was dark I swam out and
climbed in. I had to be very quiet because I was pretty sure there’d be a watch up on deck so I slipped the line and let it drift off on the tide until I judged I was a good long way away
before I dared risk trying to get the sails sorted out.’

‘How did you know where to go?’

‘Simple. Easiest sailing I ever did. The wind was behind me all the way and I just headed for you. The nearer I got, the more the English came back to me. ’Course I didn’t dare
land, not in the boat – not with all that was going on – so I chose a bit of a beach with no houses and I jumped off and swam in.’

‘Do you know where it was?’

‘You couldn’t mistake it. Never been there again, but I’ve heard it described and I’ve seen all the maps and the photographs now. It was the Chesil Beach by Portland Bill
and I know I walked through Dorchester not daring to talk to a soul in case they spotted I was French. They would have strung me up in no time.’

‘And we met here?’

‘We did. Right here.’

‘There’s a bit of me that doesn’t like this place but it’s not all bad, not like Kenny Wilkins’ Castle.’

‘Does Kenny Wilkins’ Castle still feel bad?’

‘No,’ she said in surprise. ‘Not since we talked it through.’

‘Nor will this place when you know what happened here. Anyway, it has joy in it too. We were together every day from then and I had nothing to fear because you told everyone I was from
Wales and they’d never heard a Welshman’s voice. In any case in only a few weeks I was speaking just like you. We married as soon as we could, you know – as soon as we were old
enough – and we put it all behind us.’

‘And the lesson of all that is?’ She asked because she knew there was a purpose to it.

‘That we have to be careful not to risk anything like that again.’

‘How? It’s outside our control.’

‘That’s what I mean, about the cars and everything. We have to be much more deliberate than we used to.’

A stranger appeared out of the wood opposite, a stranger who took the path towards them, a stranger who turned into Mike but remained disconcertingly a stranger. He wasn’t looking in their
direction and Ferney pulled himself up to his feet. ‘I’ll be off. I’d better not intrude.’

She didn’t try to stop him, needing time to readjust. When Mike reached the far side of the meadow and stood for a moment, undecided which way to go, she got to her feet as well and waved.
He walked up to her, stared at her and spoke softly.

‘I’ve seen something very odd,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what’s going on but I’m frightened for you . . . for us. I think something terrible could be
coming.’

‘No,’ she said with certainty, but in that she was wrong and he was almost right.

‘He dug up something.’

‘What sort of something?’

‘It looked like a box – wrapped in some sort of thick cloth. He took it away.’

‘Where were you then?’

Mike looked uncomfortable. ‘I happened to see him so I watched.’

‘And he didn’t see you?’

‘No.’

‘So you were hiding.’

‘Look, I saw him doing something funny and I just stood and watched, that’s all. It would have been very embarrassing if he’d seen me, wouldn’t it? I didn’t go out
of my way to advertise myself.’

‘Okay, so he dug up a box. What does that prove?’

They had been walking, but the argument had taken over even the automatic movements so they were now standing in the pathway, facing each other.

‘Well, don’t
you
think it’s a bit odd? It can’t be anything above-board – not if he’s sneaking about in the woods like that.’

‘Sneaking? How can you say that? You were sneaking too, weren’t you?’

‘For Christ’s sake, Gally, listen to me. They’ve been talking to him about a murder down at the road and now he’s up here digging where he thought no one could see him.
Don’t go for me like that. Use your brain. It’s not normal behaviour, is it?’

He was using his hands in agitation and she reached out abruptly, caught him by one wrist and stared at his fingers. Earth was lined darkly into the creases of their joints and under his nails.
‘What have you been doing? You’ve been digging with your hands, haven’t you?’

‘I had to find out what was going on.’

‘After he’d gone?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you said he took the box away.’

‘You sound like a policeman. Lighten up. I’m on your side, remember?’

‘I’m not sure what that means. Why were you digging, Mike?’

Mike looked up and down the track and sighed. ‘He buried something, too. I had to find out what it was. Don’t look at me like that. I really need to sort out what’s going on
here.’

‘Well? What was it?’

‘Just a plastic box. That’s all.’

‘Come on. You didn’t go to all that trouble then not open it.’

‘No, of course I opened it.’

‘And?’

‘There wasn’t much in it.’ She just stared at him until he was forced to go uncomfortably on. ‘Just some . . . some crazy stuff.’

‘What exactly?’

He looked a little uncomfortable. ‘All kinds of things.’

‘Such as?’

‘Well . . . not the sort of things a normal person would bury, a whole lot of old phonecards and stamps and stuff like that.’

Like a waking dreamer, Gally had the form and feeling of an idea but not its substance. ‘Was that all?’

‘No that wasn’t all.’ Mike would sometimes lean his bony form forwards when he was getting cross, as if to inspect his opponent more closely. Gally had seen him do it to
others, but this was the first time he’d ever done it to her. It was a shock, not just because it revealed the depth of his disquiet but also because it showed her how little she had been
aware of him physically in recent weeks – as if, until this moment, he had been little more than a name and an idea.

‘If you must know there were also a couple of toy cars, about a dozen plastic carrier bags, a whole lot of china ornaments and a small carriage clock.’

Gally couldn’t help laughing and it only reinforced his discomfort.

‘Well, Sherlock,’ she said, ‘not exactly a revolver or a bottle of cyanide, is it?’

It had come, in her relief, as humour but, already feeling misunderstood and unfairly treated, he took it for sarcasm and flushed. In her suddenly heightened perception of him she noticed how
tight the skin was over his cheeks so that the cheekbones made white crescents across the pink.

‘Look, Gally. It’s a sign that the man’s deranged. No one who was right in the head would go around burying stuff like that.’

‘People bury time capsules all the time.’

‘Schoolchildren bury time capsules. Schoolchildren and lady mayoresses laying foundations, and they put in notes saying “this is a letter from the past” or some crap like that.
This was not a time capsule.’ He considered. ‘There’s something else. Something I didn’t say earlier.’

‘What?’

‘John – the builder – he told me something else.’

‘Well?’

‘We’re not supposed to know this.’

‘Okay, don’t tell me then.’

There was a short silence.

‘I think I’d better,’ Mike said.

Gally said nothing.

‘John’s dad told him when they got out the old files about Ferney’s wife. You know, after they found the bones?’

Still silence.

‘They found a bit more. A query later on. Some time in the fifties there was another killing. A blacksmith. Ferney blamed him for his wife’s death, then someone killed the
blacksmith, some local simpleton. They thought maybe Ferney had put him up to it.’

She’d been looking away. Now she snapped round, glaring.

‘What the
hell
gives you the right to start poking into things like that?’

‘Everything, I’d say. I’m trying to look after you and you’re not helping.’ His voice was rising. ‘You may be the founder member of the Ferney fan club but I
think he’s got some big problems and I don’t want him polluting you with all his mad ideas.’

‘All because of some ancient gossip?’

‘It’s more than gossip,’ he said defensively, ‘it matters.’

‘Does it? Have they done anything about it?’

‘There wasn’t any proof.’

‘So it was just rumour, right?’

‘Who knows?’

‘Well, you don’t for one.’

They walked on then in a renewed and noisy silence of teeming minds until they came to a crossroads that was both mental and physical. Ahead lay the lane back towards the cottage. To the right
was the way to Ferney’s house. There was a decision waiting there for Gally. Her nature was always to tackle grievances, to get them out into the open air before they began to fester. One
way, the way home, led to compromise, to papering it over. The other way led to something much less safe. It was a way that she knew Ferney would not want her to take at this moment, with this man,
in this mood, but she couldn’t help it.

‘All right, Mike, come with me. We’ll go and sort it out now. Let’s go and see him.’

‘Oh, what? How can I do that? You want me to breeze in and say I saw him in the wood?’

‘More or less. I certainly can’t go on like this.’ She began to walk away.

‘Just stop a minute,’ he said and when she showed no sign of listening he caught her by the arm. It brought her up short, jerked her shoulder painfully. It was the only time he had
ever treated her roughly and the shock of it took her breath away, but, perhaps in the need to justify his force, it gave Mike the chance to say what was in his mind. Usually he was succinct,
clipped. Now the words tumbled out.

‘You can bloody well listen to me first,’ he said, forgetting to look round to see if they were alone. ‘We came down here because
I
wanted to make
you
happy.
I know how hard it was to lose the baby. I lost it too, you know. I’ve gone along with it all the way you wanted. I never thought you’d bury yourself down here. Do you think I’m
going to like being up in London by myself? We were going to do all this together. If you think for a moment I’m going to let some crazy old bugger take you away from me and fill your head
with complete crap, you can think again. I’ve had it up to here and it’s time it stopped, right now.’