Tower of Silence (4 page)

The second-floor room was not really much more than a half-attic, with sloping ceilings and casement windows, but Gillian, who presumably knew about these things, had told Selina at the start of this bed-and-breakfast project that it could be made very comfortable. When Selina said there was not really any money to be doing rooms over, Gillian had said, ‘Oh, phooey, all it needs are some new curtains and a new cover on the window seat. Chintz, or something William Morrisy. I’ll splash some paint around while I’m here–that’ll freshen it up no end. And aren’t there some odds and ends of furniture in the junk room? I’ll help you sort a few pieces out and we’ll polish them up and move them in.’

The room, its walls and ceiling newly emulsioned by Gillian, was, Selina had to admit, now rather charming. The glazed chintz for the curtains and chair covers had been bought in Stornforth market–‘for a fraction of the price you’d pay in a shop’, Gillian had pointed out, and Selina had not dared say she had never been to a market stall in her life.

There was a wash hand basin in the corner, and Gillian
had unearthed a porcelain soap dish that matched it, and also a huge blue and white Chinese bowl for the dried lavender that Selina still collected and scattered about the house. In the junk room they had found a small gateleg table, too narrow to use as a dining table, too large for what Aunt Rosa had termed an occasional table, but which Gillian, appealed to for guidance by phone, said would be just right for a laptop.

‘I’ve put it under the windows so that there’s a view over the orchard.’

‘And straight across to the Round Tower,’ said Gillian. And then, because Selina was clearly in a bit of a stew, she said, ‘That’ll be fine. If this Joanna Savile is any kind of writer, she’ll probably see the place as the inspiration for a plot.
Murder in the Tower
, or something.’

‘It’s been done,’ said Selina with one of her rare flashes of dry humour, and Gillian had laughed and said, Nothing new under the sun, and the view from up there was great anyway, because you could not see the ramshackle little road that hardly anyone ever used and Matthew McAvoy had tried to have closed.

And now, here was Joanna Savile looking delightedly around the room, admiring the gateleg table and the little Victorian bookshelf in one corner, and the Victorian patchwork quilt that had been made by Selina’s great-grandmother, and whose colours had faded to gentle muted blues and lilacs. And the view was simply
so
beautiful, said Joanna, standing at the window looking out, and how clever it had been of Miss March to give her a room high up; it meant she would be
able to work up here quietly without disturbing anyone.

Selina, who had decided on a rule of non-involvement with everyone who came to Teind House, and had vowed to keep firmly to serving breakfast only, heard herself saying, ‘Would you like a cup of tea after your long drive? And I don’t suppose you’ve had supper yet?’

Over one of the curious, unfamiliar meals that Emily Frost had prepared and left in the freezer (‘because you don’t know when you might find yourself caught out with a guest wanting an evening meal’) Joanna said, ‘I’ve managed to fix a visit to Moy for tomorrow.’

Selina had been worrying about whether the food was properly thawed and heated. You could not really go by taste because Emily seemed to have added some rather fierce seasoning. Now she hesitated, and then said, ‘For–for research, is it?’

‘Yes. I’ve been in touch with Patrick Irvine–the head of the psychiatric wing. He thinks he can probably arrange for me to talk to some of the inmates.’

‘Won’t that–forgive me, Miss Savile–won’t you find that distressing?’

‘Yes, possibly. But I’ll have to try to switch off afterwards. Listen, do call me Joanna. Actually, to be absolutely correct, it’s Mrs Kent not Miss Savile.’

‘Oh—’

‘It doesn’t matter at all. It’s easier to keep being known as Savile because of the books, and my husband’s working abroad at the moment, so I feel more like “Miss” again
anyway.’ She smiled. Her upper lip creased when she smiled, so that it was as if a mischievous schoolboy invited you to share an amusing secret. She had taken off her travelling things to eat the hastily prepared supper, and she was wearing an ankle-length skirt and what Selina thought was a chenille jacket, the colour of horse chestnuts. The aunts used to have a tablecloth of the exact same material, only in crimson with bobbles round the edges. It seemed odd to see someone wearing the material as a jacket. Joanna said, ‘Krzystof–my husband–is due back in three weeks’ time. If I’m still here it would be all right if he joined me for a night or two, wouldn’t it? We’d eat at the pub, so you wouldn’t be put out at all. And he could share my room.’

Selina was instantly thrown into confusion at the thought of this lovely girl’s husband sharing a room with her after several weeks’ absence. The bed was quite large enough for two to sleep in, but there was the thing. Beds and married people, and a reunion…And she had called him Krzystof, which meant he was foreign–middle-European from the sound of it. Hungarian or Romanian or something.

And they would have sex, of course, there in the second-floor room that used to be the cook’s when the aunts had a live-in cook; there in the bed that had been in the guest room; there between the sheets that went religiously to the Stornforth laundry after each guest. Selina might even find she was lying in her own room, wondering about them–perhaps hearing them…

Joanna said, ‘I did think it might not be possible, of
course. For Krzystof to stay here, I mean. I thought you might have other bookings…’

Other bookings. I’m being given a polite way out, thought Selina. Is she seeing me as a prim old maid who can’t cope with married people in bed together? This was so unpleasant a thought that she said firmly, ‘I don’t believe there are any other bookings that would cause a problem. I’ll need to look in the diary, but I’m sure it will be
quite
all right.’

There was the curved smile again. ‘I’m so glad,’ said Joanna. ‘It would have meant going back to London just for a couple of nights to see him before he sets off again.’ She speared another forkful of Emily’s peculiar dish, whatever it was, and said, ‘He works for the Rosendale Institute in London; he’s one of their translators. They specialise in religious artefacts, so he has a terrific life swanning around the globe, negotiating with archivists and curators while the field workers scrabble around trying to find Tibetan prayer wheels and Russian icons and pagan masks.’

‘How very interesting. Have you been married long?’ She’ll say, oh ages, thought Selina. She’s easily twenty-eight and probably a bit more than that, so they could have been married for quite a few years, and surely that means they aren’t likely to be quite so
passionate
about being reunited—

Joanna said, ‘Eight months. I do miss him.’ And then, as if pushing away an unwanted emotion, ‘This chili con carne is absolutely delicious, Miss March. I’d love a spoonful more if it wouldn’t be greedy.’

‘But of course,’ said Selina, thankful that she had apparently done the thawing and reheating properly, and relieved to find out what Emily’s peculiar concoction was called.

Emily Frost was coming to the conclusion that Selina March–Miss March she preferred to be called, wouldn’t you just know she would?–was a bit of a weirdo.

Emily had not much wanted to come to Inchcape at all, but dad had said it was a good posting for him as well as a promotion. He would be third-in-command: a wing governor in his own right, so it was not to be sneezed at. Still, if Emily absolutely hated it after–well–say three months, they would see about her setting up somewhere on her own. Providing, he said sternly, that she got a job at least for the duration. Stornforth was not very far, and there was a cottage hospital there and a bird sanctuary; she might find something quite interesting. Or there might even be something at Moy itself. Something in one of the offices, maybe.

There had not been anything at Stornforth, but after
they had been at Inchcape for a few weeks Emily had begun helping out at the village school. Two afternoons a week it was, and only helping to supervise the tinies, the five-and six-year-olds, painting and playdough and things, but Lorna Laughlin was pleased with what Emily was doing and the kids were great. Lorna was the schoolmistress. Anywhere else she would have been called head teacher or something, but in Inchcape she was the schoolmistress, as if she was something out of Dickens for heaven’s sake!

But Inchcape itself was like something out of Dickens–Emily had never been to such a backwater in her life. It was a good thing that there were staff cottages, all of them about ten minutes’ walk from the main prison buildings, because otherwise they would never have found anywhere to live, because it did not look as if anyone had moved from Inchcape for about a hundred years.

Selina March did not look as if she had moved for about a hundred years, either. She looked as if she had been born here in Queen Victoria’s time, and had stayed here getting more and more twittery and faded every year. When Emily first went to help at Teind House she had avoided looking in any of the mirrors, because she had a horrid suspicion that, if she did, there would not be a reflection of Selina in any of them.

Patrick Irvine said he would like to study Selina March sometime. He said she sounded like something that had reached the chrysalis stage, died, and become fossilised, like a fly in amber. Emily thought she would not be at all surprised if that were the case because living at Inchcape
was like living inside a time-warp. If she stayed here for any length of time she would probably become fossilised herself.

Teind House was very old indeed. The downstairs rooms had thick oak beams and on warm days there was a dry powdery scent of old timbers and woodsmoke. The furniture shone with age and beeswax but it was dark and gloomy; it seemed to watch you all the time. In the hall was a large grandfather clock with a face that looked as if it disapproved of just about everything. It ticked crossly to itself and just before it was going to strike the hour it wheezed and creaked, like an old man with lung disease clearing his throat before a revolting coughing spasm.

Emily hated the clock, which Miss March reverently said had been Great-uncle Matthew’s. It had to be wound every Saturday night at exactly six o’clock–Emily had not liked to question this practice in case there turned out to be a ghost story attached. Like Great-uncle Matthew rising up from the churchyard and tottering into Teind House in his shroud, and winding the clock with his fleshless fingers, and then stumping sulkily back to his grave. Selina March did not seem the kind of person who would tell a story like that, never mind believe in it, but you never knew. From what Emily could make out, Great-uncle Matthew had been a selfish, finnicky old fart whose ghost would enjoy haunting poor old Selina, and making her feel guilty about forgetting to wind up a creaky old clock for God’s sake!

Miss March clung to the past. Her bedroom had silver-framed photographs of the aunts who had brought her up,
and on a low table were more silver-framed photographs of a man and a woman. They were black-and-white photos and a bit faded, but you could see a resemblance between the woman and Selina March. The man did not especially resemble anyone: he had nice eyes, and crinkly hair, cut the way men used to have their hair cut at least fifty years ago. Next to the photos, neatly folded, was a really beautiful black lace stole–the kind of thing ladies had once worn over evening dresses in the summer. It was cobwebby with age, but when Emily touched it a faint, wistful perfume stirred from its folds.

Alongside the two photographs was a small oblong frame with a cutting from an old newspaper. One day, when Emily had been asked to ‘just run up to my room and fetch my cardigan’, she had rather guiltily read the cutting.

It said,
The deaths, in tragic circumstances, were announced in Alwar, India, of John Mallory March, and his wife, Elspeth March, on 12 September 1948…A Memorial Service was held at the Anglican Church in Alwar
…

Next to it, protected by two small pieces of glass, was an article from an old, yellowing newspaper. It was quite hard to read the newsprint, but Emily made out the heading, which said,
Partition in India stirs up unrest again. Nehru and Mountbatten in talks
…The date was August 1948, and the journalist’s name at the bottom was John Mallory March. Selina’s father? Yes, of course.

On the lower shelf of the little table were several old books, carefully arranged. They had battered covers and the brown age-spots that were called foxing. The titles
were printed in large, easy-to-read letters. Children’s books. Emily picked them up, wary in case they fell apart. They did not fall apart but they were very brittle, and touching them made Emily feel all over again that she was brushing against the past–not a very long-ago past, but certainly a past that had existed before she had been born.

Two of the books were by Enid Blyton, and three were by somebody called Frances Hodgson Burnett. Another was a book about a girl called
Heidi
, written by a Johanna Spyri. Emily had heard of Enid Blyton, but she had never heard of the other two. The
Heidi
book had an inscription in the front: ‘To Selina who loves mountains. On her seventh birthday, with love from daddy’. There was a date–June 1948. And three months later he had been dead, this unknown man who had chosen this book for his small daughter who liked mountains, and had written a message that Selina had kept ever since. The book looked a bit advanced for a seven-year-old, but Emily could see the man with crinkly hair and the woman who had worn the black lace stole reading the book to Selina when she was in bed, a page or two a night. Afterwards Selina would probably not have had anyone to read books to her, because those fearsome great-aunts and dried-up old Great-uncle Matthew would not have done so, that was for sure!

It was doubtless reading the blurred newsprint about that far-away time, and the deaths of Selina’s parents in tragic circumstances, that made Emily shiver. She had a sudden vision of Selina sitting up here on her own,
poring over the sad little mementoes of her dead parents, although as well as being touching it was a bit macabre. It was one thing to mourn for your parents and want to remember them and have photos and stuff, but to do it for fifty years?

Still, it would be dreadful to lose both parents when you were so tiny: you would probably never get completely over it. Emily was still not getting over mum’s dying last year. She wondered if that long-ago Selina had attended the memorial service for her parents, and if she had been tearful, or if she would have been told by somebody that she must be brave, and not cry. Emily had not cried at mum’s funeral, but that was because of knowing that if she cried, dad would cry as well, which was not to be be borne, not in front of everybody. They had held one another’s hands all through the service, as if they were clinging on to the last bit of life left in the world. Later, Emily had found dad crying bitterly over a batch of biscuits mum had baked a week ago, which were still in the airtight biscuit tin. She had not known, until then, that grief got at you through silly, everyday things. Somehow you coped, though, and life went on. But she could not begin to imagine how Selina, at six or seven, had coped.

The photographs and the death notice were sad and somehow rather lonely, and Emily had gone quickly back downstairs with the cardigan. She thought Selina had not realised that she had seen the things or read the newspaper cuttings.

The other thing that Emily hated about Teind was the
old brick tower just beyond the orchard. It was supposed to have been some kind of look-out for a gang of monks in the year dot, and it was about forty feet high and just about the most sinister thing Emily had ever seen. It made Great-uncle Matthew and his clock seem harmless by comparison.

Miss March did not like the Round Tower much, either. She only said it was a rather nasty place, and that Emily must be careful not to go near it because it was dangerous, but her voice sounded different when she said it. False. Like a bad actor in a film.

Of course, said Miss March, still in the same unconvincing voice, the authorities ought really to have pulled the tower down long ago. Great-uncle Matthew had written to various people about it any number of times and various promises had been made, but nothing had ever been done. He had even tried to buy the piece of land surrounding it, so that people did not make use of the little roadway, but the authorities had not been permitted to sell because it was some kind of ancient right of way that had to be kept open. Nobody used the road much, these days, though, just as nobody ever went into the tower. Birds went in there sometimes, said Miss March, and Emily, who had been stirring a pan of rice intended as a base for kedgeree, looked up in surprise.

‘Birds?’

‘From the sanctuary at Stornforth,’ said Selina. ‘They fly up there and perch on the top. I see them quite often. They always look as if they’re waiting. But what are they waiting for, I wonder? That’s the thing, you see.’

After a moment Emily said that the tower probably made a good stopping-off place for the birds.

‘They stand on the rim and keep watch,’ said Selina, and this sounded so peculiar that Emily turned round to look properly at Miss March. She had been chopping hard-boiled eggs to add to the kedgeree, but she seemed to have forgotten what she was doing; Emily thought she almost looked as if she had forgotten where she was as well. She was holding the knife out in front of her, and she was staring at nothing. Emily began to feel uncomfortable.

And then Selina said, in a rather horrid, whispery voice, ‘They’re so very patient, you see. Large birds are very patient. But they’re cunning. They wait and wait, and then just as you think it’s going to be all right they come swooping down.’

There was an awkward silence, because this time Emily had no idea what to say at all. Miss March was still staring straight in front of her, and Emily felt a shiver trickle down her spine.

And then the moment passed, and Miss March said, in a brisk voice, ‘But of course, I believe they do not allow flesh-eating birds at the Stornforth sanctuary,’ and went back to chopping the eggs. In her ordinary, familiar voice, she said, ‘I’m not awfully fond of birds, Emily.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Emily, not seeing at all, wondering if they could have fallen into an old Hitchcock film without her noticing it. She went on with her cooking, but she was left with the strong feeling that for a few moments another person had looked out of Miss March’s eyes–
a person who was quite different from the Miss March that Emily and everyone else knew.

But this was so shivery an idea that she pushed it well down in her mind, and asked whether she should add any more salt to the kedgeree.