Nonesuch

  ‘John, she’s barely a year old. How would she do that? Why?’

  John took Anna by the shoulders. ‘Just please stay,’ he begged, ‘in case she comes back.’

  This was a persuasive idea and raised her hopes Even so she didn’t intend to wait in the bedroom biting her knuckles and trying not to cry. She followed him out into the passage, but as soon as they got out there she became profoundly depressed. The temporary lighting cable hung in loops. Something about these loops – the blackness, the rubberiness, of the cable – made her feel a little sick. As before, the builders’ ladders projected long expressionist shadows on the walls. It was hot. It was empty. Nothing good could ever happen there. Anna went back in and sat on the bed.

  ‘You go,’ she said after a moment, though he already had.

  After five minutes in which nothing happened she went to the door. The lights had gone out, though there was a faint glow at one end of the passage where it turned abruptly to the left, as if you were looking into a kitchen lit only by a partly open refrigerator door. ‘John?’ she called. She couldn’t see anything.

  Then her eyes seemed to adjust, or perhaps it was her brain that adjusted. Lurching towards her, silhouetted against the dim slur of light, she saw a little figure. She knew that gait, she had seen it a thousand times: it was the gait of a toddler, some child no longer in the first flush of learning to walk but not yet blasé about the process. Naked except for a pair of pull-ups, rocking a little to keep her balance, on came Eleanor Dawe. The doll’s head was clutched tightly in her hand. As soon as she noticed her mother, she sat down and babbled in the middle of the floor. Behind her came her doting father, who called, ‘Anna! Look! She’s learned to walk!’

  Anna stared for a moment, her heart more puzzled than lightened, then swept her daughter up. ‘Ellie! Oh Eleanor, Eleanor, you bad girl!’

  She burst into tears. Eleanor gave her a speculative look, then she burst into tears too.

  John put his arms round both of them. ‘Shush, shush,’ he told the child.

  Anna sniffed and said, ‘We could have lost her.’

  ‘Come on, Anna. You should be pleased. There’s no harm done. She’s taken her first steps!’

  Anna stared at him. ‘Come down to the kitchen,’ she said.

  ‘But—’

  ‘We’ll never sleep now. Come down to the kitchen. I want to show you something.’

  They sat by the Aga until it got light. Anna made cups of tea, emptied the shoebox on to the table and showed him, item by item, what she had found, while John leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, trying to look alert. But he was only puzzled and, if she wasn’t careful to occupy his attention, he fell asleep where he sat. His face was slack, black with stubble. I don’t suppose I look any better, thought Anna. She touched his arm. She felt sorry for him, but she felt sorry for herself too. More than that. She felt frightened.

  ‘Don’t you find it a bit upsetting,’ she asked, ‘after everything that’s happened to us? Something from the past just turning up like this? Aren’t you worried about Eleanor?’

  ‘She’s just an ordinary little girl.’

  Anna took his cup away from him and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Look at me,’ she encouraged him. Something else had occurred to her. ‘John, she kept it from us.’

  He laughed. ‘She’s barely a year old,’ he said. ‘You said that yourself.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t believe that for a moment.’

  ‘What else would you call it?’

  ‘She’s just a little girl who’s learned to walk on her own.’ He smiled over at Eleanor who, enjoying the novelty of being awake in the middle of the night, was sitting in her high chair looking interestedly around the kitchen. ‘She’s just a clever little girl,’ he told her. To Anna he said, ‘You’re tired and you’re letting things get out of proportion.’

  This was more than Anna could bear. ‘Oh, don’t be fatuous, John. It’s the third time this has happened! And look at her. Look at the way she walks.’ She shook her head, trying to think of a way to convince him. ‘For God’s sake, she’s been walking around the house night after night while we were asleep, with this bloody thing that belonged to Stella Herringe in her hand.’

  John acknowledged this reluctantly. ‘I admit it’s a bit odd, but all that is over, Anna. We’ve finished with Stella for ever. She’s down in Ashmore churchyard and she can’t affect us from there.’ He took Anna’s hand. ‘I love you,’ he said, ‘and I love Ellie, and I love this family we make. I want to go forward now. I don’t want the three of us to be tied to something that happened in the past. I’d rather just forget about it.’

  ‘You’d rather be in denial,’ Anna accused. ‘We’ve lived before, John, God knows how many times. It was you who made me see that. Our lives aren’t our own. They belong in some way to the past. And that’s where this disgusting thing has come from.’

  John looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s only an old doll’s head,’ he pointed out.’ “Disgusting” seems rather a strong word. And anyway, she doesn’t even seem to have it now.’

  ‘Eleanor?’ asked Anna.

  John said, ‘Where’s your baby, Eleanor?’

  They looked all over the kitchen for it, but it had gone.

  Eleanor watched them with delight. ‘Izzie,’ she said.

  4

  Spending time with the Besom always made me feel more complete, more calm; as if I went to her all ragged with worry and she licked me back into shape, both inside and out, just the same way the Great Cat did with her child, the world.

  I trotted back to Nonesuch that afternoon at double my usual pace, a new sense of purpose propelling me along like a following wind. Not only, I promised myself, am I going to pay better attention to everyone’s dreams; but I am going to confront Lydia once and for all about what happened to her. It’s not right that the kittens should be disturbed by her nightmares.

  But if I had been entirely honest with myself I would be forced to admit that it was not solely for the sake of the girls’ quiet rest that I was determined to hear Liddy’s confession. I thought that perhaps when she had finally shared her ordeal with me, the experience of talking about her pain might bring us closer together. She had been so distant with me. It was breaking my heart.

  When I got back to the manor house, however, Lydia was nowhere to be seen. Nor was Millie. I looked in all of Liddy’s favourite sleeping places: underneath the marjoram, on top of the car, under the car, in the linen basket on the first floor of the house, on the bed in Anna’s room, under the table in the kitchen. But I could find neither scent nor fur of her. I ran in and out of the house, getting under everyone’s feet, till I got myself into a state and completely wasted the Besom’s calming effect.

  Eventually, I found the girls – all three of them together, as usual – jumping in and out of the low hedges of the knot garden at the rear of the house. Lydia and Millefleur were curled up in a pool of sunshine at the foot of the old orchard wall, watching them lazily. I hated this area and I’d thought Millie did, too, since she had been present when I had fought the worst dream of my life there. But she just looked up at me, her eyes narrow in the sun, then laid her head once more on Liddy’s snoring shoulder and went back to sleep. I felt faintly let down, disappointed by the lack of greeting.

  The intricately planted foliage of the knot garden had become overgrown, the formal patterns blurred and indistinct. It seemed I was not the only member of the household who avoided this place, for the rest of the garden was tended by Anna with meticulous care. I shuddered. The last time I had set foot in this horrible, artificial, woman-made place my world had been dark and savage. If I closed my eyes, I could still see the dream – its fiery corona, its cruel, snaking tentacles, the hair and teeth – for it was here I had run it to ground after it had killed my grandfather and wreaked irrevocable damage on the wild roads of Ashmore. It was here, in this knot garden, that it had finally given up its ghost and seeped away into the chalky red dust?
??

  ‘Uncle O, what’s the matter? You look funny.’

  I came back to myself with a thud as if dropped from a great height. Letty stood in front of me, regarding me with concern. ‘Were you having one of your turns. Uncle O?’ she said sternly, in a tone an older cat would reserve for admonishing an errant child or a wayward, infirm and ancient relative.

  I gave her a hard stare and addressed myself to Caterina and Arabella: ‘You two! Squash! Beetle! Out of there, now!’

  The two sisters stopped in mid-leap and turned to consider me, their faces blank with disapproval, as if to say ‘You can’t tell us what, and what not to do; you’re not even really our uncle, let alone our father’. In that instant, I felt myself wither inside, but the moment didn’t last.

  ‘It’s Uncle Orlando!’ Cat shrieked, stating the obvious, and came scuttling through the maze without once touching the sides, like a lizard on a mission.

  ‘It’s fun in here, Uncle O,’ called Arabella, not to be left out, ‘You can hide and jump out.’

  Oh yes, I thought hollowly. I know all about hiding and jumping out here.

  ‘You shouldn’t play in there,’ I said weakly. ‘It’s dangerous.’

  Belly rolled her eyes. Then all three sisters exchanged a glance, a glance that shared between them a single, unspoken message: It’s all right, it’s only Uncle Orlando being a bit mad again. Take no notice. Humour him.

  Letty tutted. ‘Oh, come along, Uncle O. It’s only plants and stuff.’

  It was. What could I say? There was no place in their lives for the bygone mysteries of Nonesuch. ‘Well, it is,’ was the best I could do. ‘Take my word for it.’

  Caterina came over to me, all long legs and flirty eyes. ‘Where’ve you been then, Uncle O? Mum was looking for you earlier. She was cross you weren’t here and Millie wouldn’t tell her. It seemed like some big secret. Is it? Will you tell me?’ she wheedled. She leaned in close to me, as intimate as a calling queen. Then she recoiled. ‘You smell a bit weird.’

  ‘I’ve been to see a friend of mine,’ I said and left it at that. Let her make of it what she would. Perhaps if she thought I’d been off gallivanting with one of the local girls she’d tell their mother. Perhaps Lydia would even be jealous. I found myself wishing the Besom smelled better.

  But Cat was not to be put off so easily. She stuck her nose rudely into my ruff and took a deep breath. ‘Pooh!’ She sneezed. ‘It smells like old stuff – all musty and dusty.’

  Old stuff. I couldn’t imagine Ma Tregenna would be thrilled by that description. I pushed Cat’s inquisitive young face away with a firm paw. ‘Mind your manners, young lady. Anyway, where I’ve been is no business of yours.’

  ‘Shan’t tell you my secret, then,’ she returned with a sniff, all hoity-toity. She did so remind me of Lydia, sometimes, and not always when she was behaving at her best.

  ‘Don’t, then,’ I said, feigning unconcern, knowing this was more likely to infuriate her into confession.

  She did, in fact, look highly miffed. Her sisters, meanwhile, bored by our exchange, had started a new game in and out of Liddy’s and Millie’s paws. I saw something scurry through the grass between them: it seemed they were about to surprise their mother and Millefleur with a large beetle. I saw Cat watching them, evidently torn between her anxiety at being left out of any fun that might be going and her need to show off to me by unburdening herself of her ‘secret’. Eventually pride won out. ‘Come with me, Uncle O,’ she said, shouldering me towards the knot garden. And with that she was off, leaping over the straggling box hedge border, to disappear into the greenery.

  I reared up on my hind legs, but that dull blue-grey was remarkable effective camouflage amid the dark-green shadows. With a muttered curse, I jumped in after her, returning to the place I had sworn never again to set foot in. The moment my feet touched the ground on the other side of the border I knew I was somewhere I should not be. At first I was enveloped by the strong smell of the herbs planted there: germander and hyssop and rue, pungent and peppery in the evening sunlight. It had always puzzled me why humans would set such strong-smelling plants in such close proximity. Their noses must be weak indeed, not to be overcome by them as I was: my head felt as though it would burst from the sensation. But as I went further into the heart of the knot garden, on Cat’s trail, the aroma map changed. Even with the recent scents of the girls floating above the ground and among the leaves their cheek glands had brushed as they ran, I could smell the witch there. It was a smell I could never forget: rank and fetid with the stink of canker and rot and terror, and that foul ointment, sickly sweet, over it all.

  I gritted my teeth, held my head as far off the ground as I could and still see where I was going, and went resolutely after Caterina, cursing her ‘secret’ with every step. She had taken a convoluted path to a point just east of the centre of the maze. It was here I found her sitting, grooming herself unconcernedly – clearly unfazed by the violent histories this place held.

  ‘You took your time,’ she said accusingly, as if I had deliberately made her wait. ‘I thought you’d gone off to play with the others.’ Her eyes glowed green in the shadows.

  She knew instinctively that she was my favourite of the three, but even that assumption didn’t always hold jealousy at bay.

  ‘As if I’d do that, Squash,’ I replied, forcing myself to sound more jocular than I felt. ‘What have you got to show me?’

  In response, she turned her back on me, dipped her head and began to scrabble furiously among the roots of the box that formed the wall of the pattern where it had forced us into the closed end of a loop. Little puffs of chalky dust swirled up into the air as she worked. I watched the muscles rippling in her hindquarters with what was not entirely parental approval. She was a handsome little beast, just like her mother. And, like her mother, she knew it.

  A moment or two later, she sat up, triumphant. ‘Look.’

  I came to stand at her shoulder. At first, in that gloomy, lightless spot, I could make out nothing but what appeared to be a large lump of flint, pale and calcified, lighter than its surroundings, solid and deeply unexciting. But when Cat stepped back to give me a better view I saw what she had unearthed.

  It was Ellie’s doll’s head.

  I leapt away as if scalded.

  Caterina laughed. Adults were so stupid sometimes. ‘It’s only the baby’s toy,’ she chided, pushing past me again. She got some of the thing’s hair in her teeth and hauled it out into the light, where it rolled about disconsolately. Its horrible mechanical eyelids rattled back and forth over those unnerving blue eyes as if it were winking at us.

  I could smell the age and decay on the thing: worse now than when Ellie had come after me with it on those many occasions on which she had loved to torment me. I recalled the way she would make a beeline for me, the head outthrust in her chubby fist, nonsense pouring from her mouth and her green eyes flashing with unholy glee. Choking, I struggled for breath, trapped in the signature of that smell. Then the world had tilted again and I was somewhere else: in Nonesuch, I thought, running down endless darkened corridors whose perspectives kept canting and shifting as if trying to shake me into a corner and trap me there. All the time the walls closed in on me. There was glittery stuff in the air and it was cold – as cold as any wild road – and I could hear voices…

  The cat, Izzie, the cat, take him by the tail!

  A child was laughing.

  Then I felt something on my face, something hot and firm. Something was holding my head tight. I opened my mouth to howl—

  A tongue was licking furiously at my eyes and muzzle. Sharp little claws dug into the skin of my cheeks to hold me still. ‘Uncle Orlando,’ a voice kept saying as if from a great distance. ‘Wake up, wake up!’

  A flicker… a blur of blue. Caterina sat back, coming suddenly into focus for me. Her eyes were round with panic. ‘What’s the matter? You were moaning so terribly.’

  ‘The doll’s head,’ I said weakly,
as if that explained it all. I pushed her aside thoughtlessly. Repulsion made me efficient. Holding the offensive thing at arm’s length, I pushed it back into the roots of the knot garden and batted earth over it in a paroxysm of disgust. Even so, filaments of its pale hair continued to stick defiantly out of the dust. Turning my back on the doll’s head, I dug energetically with my hind feet till my muscles burned. When I turned back, it was gone from view.

  I sat back, exhausted in body and spirit.

  Caterina was regarding me with bewilderment. ‘But it was my secret…’ she began.

  ‘It’s our secret now and it must stay where it is,’ I said sternly. There was no explanation I could offer her for what must seem my mad behaviour. ‘And you must never play here again, nor let Arabella or Letitia do so. It’s a bad place.’ I shuddered.

  Instead of railing against this apparent unfairness. Cat looked inexplicably sympathetic. ‘Is that why you had a bad dream?’ she asked innocently.

  I stared at her. ‘Bad dream?’ I echoed stupidly.

  ‘I watched it,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘It was like being in your head. You were running down the Long Corridor in the house and some tall white people were after you. One was a man and the other a woman, though they were both wearing long dress things. The man had a lot of hair and that was white, too. The woman was called Izzie and she had nasty eyes, and you were more scared of her than you were of him. The air was all shiny—’

  ‘Caterina!’ My voice was more severe than I’d meant it to be. She stopped abruptly. ‘You could see my dream?’

  She nodded, puzzled. ‘Of course. I can see everyone’s dreams. It’s fun.’

  I groaned. Did I never learn anything? I thought savagely. The Besom had all but told me exactly this, with her rambling tales of the refined old chap whose son became dreamcatcher of Drychester, the scandal surrounding his son, the one with fur as blue as Caterina’s, and Letty’s and Belly’s. Poor Lydia, I thought then, as the pieces fell into place. Mated to a witch’s familiar. Poor Squash: inheriting a burden like my own. It always skips a generation, the Besom had said. Dreamcatching: it gets passed from grandparent to grandchild, oblivious to gender or convenience.