The Grieving Stones (5 page)

By now the pale sun was surprisingly warm. It caressed her face, making her feel as if she were approaching somewhere comforting, a calming place where she could put aside any thoughts of pain. She caught herself smiling. It was something she hadn’t been aware of doing in months. The muscles in her face felt peculiar as they shifted to accommodate the expression.

Alice caught up with the others. They hadn’t gone in yet. They were waiting for her on the threshold, as if it were important that they all see inside the house for the first time together, as a group. Doubtless this little touch was Clive’s doing.

“Welcome to Grief House,” he said, turning and opening the front door with a little flourish.

Alice held her breath. She didn’t know why.

Why do I already feel at home here?

The thought skipped away, rushing into the house on nimble feet ahead of her as she peered deep into the cool interior gloom. She hung back and let the others enter first, not wanting to rush, allowing the ambience of the house to reach out for her and draw her slowly inside.

When she finally stepped into Grief House, the first thing she saw was a row of stuffed and mounted animal heads on the wall directly opposite the front door. They were positioned across the top of a wide, double-doorway, their baleful glassy eyes seeming to inspect her as she looked up at them. The animal heads were shabby. Patches of fur had come away from many of them; some of them had a hole in a cheek, or a temple, or a forehead. There was a long-faced stag, a scowling bull, a ram crowned by the tatty remnants of a black fleece, and a stoic fox baring its small, sharp teeth. Alice wasn’t distressed by this sight. The heads didn’t disturb or offend her. For some reason she felt a kinship with them, as if she, too, might one day have her head removed and placed alongside them.

“Who’s the interior decorator, Stephen King?”

Alice glanced at Jake. He was standing a couple of feet away from her, looking up at the heads, smiling, with his squat body resembling an ugly piece of furniture. “I like them,” she said, and wondered why on earth she might have said such a thing.

The room they’d entered was large and filled with all kinds of abandoned items. It was obvious that the tenant-free house had been used as storage for whatever unwanted goods someone was unable to get rid of. Over the years, mostly uninhabited, it had become a depositary for broken furniture, old television sets, fence posts, and other random
bric-a-brac
. Only a little light bled through the small windows so Alice couldn’t make out every detail regarding her surroundings. The curtains over the big bay were closed. Clive moved towards them, and as he leaned forward to open the curtains, Alice almost called out for him to stop. There was something comforting about the layers of dusk trapped inside the house; they were like unseen blankets. She felt… hidden, protected, kept just out of view of the outside world.

“Let’s shed some light on the situation,” he said, drawing open the curtains. Dust motes swirled in the air, caught and held by the weak sunlight, and for a moment Alice felt as if she were underwater, or suspended in some strange sticky fluid that was perhaps amniotic in nature. Exactly what that fluid might aid in the birth of, she wasn’t sure. Nor was she certain that she wanted to find out.

“It’s a bit pokey, isn’t it?” Steve was standing with his hands on his hips, looking as out-of-place as a catalogue model stuck in this squalid setting. The light caught one side of his chiselled face, making him look even better than usual. “Where do we sleep?”

“I’m in here,” said Clive, stepping into the centre of the room. “That sofa over there looks big enough for me.” He smiled.

“What about the rest of us?” Steve didn’t look happy. Alice assumed he’d been expecting something a little more…salubrious than this rundown mess.

“I hope nobody minds sharing rooms.”

“Depends who with,” said Jake, grinning.

“Well, you two boys can have the ground floor bedroom. It’s a big room. I believe there’s a decent sized bed, and also a small day-bed if you fellows don’t fancy the idea of top-and-tailing it.” He walked towards the double doors with the animal heads above them, pushing them open with both hands to reveal another room. Amid the chaos that seemed characteristic of the house, Alice could indeed make out a low double bed without any blankets and a smaller, narrower bed pushed against one wall. “I did say to bring along your sleeping bags…” Clive made an expansive gesture with his hands, offering up the room.

“What about us?” Moira shuffled forward. She seemed diminished inside the house, as if it had taken something away from her.

“You ladies can share the attic room.” Clive moved past them, back out into the main room, and headed for a small door further along the same wall. “I’ll show you the kitchen first.”

The kitchen was surprisingly clean. The detritus from the rest of the house had not yet reached this room. It seemed well-stocked, with a variety of pots hanging from hooks in the ceiling and an old but well-scrubbed cooker.

“I had my friend make sure the facilities were at least presentable.” Clive walked the length of the narrow galley kitchen and opened a door at the far end. “The bathroom,” he said. “It’s pretty basic, I’m afraid. An add-on…the original toilet was outside, this one was built in the Seventies, I think. There’s a bath but no shower. I’m sure we can all make do for a few nights.”

“Jesus,” said Steve. “I know you said we’d be roughing it, but isn’t this a bit…well, primitive?”

“All part of the counselling,” said Jake, smiling, as usual. “Isn’t that right, Clive?” He winked. It made him look seedy, like someone’s dirty old uncle.

“Can we see the attic now?” Alice backed out of the kitchen and turned, looking for another door.

“Certainly.” Clive followed her out of the kitchen and pointed vaguely to his right. “The stairs are this way.”

Alice followed him, with Moira coming up quietly behind. Clive opened a door and stepped into a narrow space, then turned right and vanished. Alice went in after him. She was standing in a very tight hallway that ran parallel to the main room, with a set of rickety-looking wooden stairs at the far end. Clive was already climbing the stairs, the bottom of his legs disappearing into the ceiling. There was a light on up there, the illumination seeming to swallow him.

“I’m not sure if I like this,” said Moira.

Oh, shut the fuck up,
Alice thought. “It’ll be fine. Don’t worry,” she said.

The walls were bare, untreated timber, unlike the papered walls in the main room and the bedroom the men would be using. She looked behind her, to see if they’d followed, but only Moira was back there. She could hear them talking beyond the wall; their voices were low, conspiratorial. One of them laughed softly.

She reached the stairs, glanced upwards, and then started to climb. They were steep, and the handrail was loose, but it wasn’t as bad as it looked. It was a short flight; her head rose into the ceiling space as soon as her foot hit the third or fourth tread.

“What do you think?” Clive was standing above her, facing the main dormer, which was flanked by a couple of smaller skylight windows that lay flush with the angle of the roof, one on each side.

She stepped up into the attic room. Like the main room and bedroom, it was filled with a jumble of cast-off goods, like a hoarder’s den. Items had been pushed back against the walls and the bottom edge of the sloping roof to provide some space in the centre, but there was still a lot of stuff in there.

There were two single beds, one at each end of the large room. Alice earmarked the one furthest from the access hatch and got ready to make a move for it before Moira could state a preference.

“You weren’t kidding when you said this place needed tidying up, were you?”

He turned to face her and shook his head. “If anything, I played it down. It’s a tip in here.”

“Good God…” Moira’s head had appeared above the floor line. “It doesn’t get any better, this place, does it?”

Alice dropped into a squat and held out her hand; Moira clasped it in one of her own as she clambered the rest of the way up the short flight of stairs. “I’m sure I’ll get used to it,” she said, and a half-hearted smile fluttered across her face.

“I’m sure you will,” said Alice, turning to face Clive. “We all will.”

“How about I leave you two to settle in and we all meet downstairs in half an hour?” Clive made his way to the stairs and started down them. “I’ll break out the booze.” He smiled. Oddly, he kept smiling as his head moved slowly downwards and out of sight.

“Well,” said Alice.

Moira was standing near the window, her hands clutched under her chin.

“Are you okay?”

She lowered her hands. The light flickered. Moira glanced left and then right. “I don’t like it up here.”

“You’ll be fine. Sure, it’s a little creepy, but all old houses are creepy. Some new ones, too.” Alice smiled and took a few steps forward, reaching out her hands. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here with you.”

Moira relaxed. Her shoulders slumped, her posture became less rigid. “I’m just being silly.”

Alice didn’t deny the statement. She just smiled and squeezed Moira’s hand in both of hers, then let go and slid past her, making her way to the bed she’d already chosen as her own. She lifted her bag and let it drop onto the firm mattress. “We’ll sleep fine in here.” She turned and something caught her eye. At first she thought it was a stunted figure, standing silently in the corner and watching them, but when she focused on it she realised that it was not a figure at all.

“What is it?” Moira took a couple of steps towards Alice, as if seeking comfort from proximity.

“I have no idea.” She walked over to the corner, moved aside a couple of large sealed cardboard boxes, and inspected the thing. “Ah… I think I know what this is. I’ve seen one before, on television.”

“And?”

She smiled. “I think they call them punch dummies. Martial artists use them for training. You know…they hit them.” She made a fist and threw a weak punch at the dummy’s torso. It wobbled on its stand. “Yes, it’s a punch dummy.” She stared at the dummy. It had no face, just a crude featureless head atop a sturdy torso, which ended in a wide stand. At the bottom of the stand, almost obscured by a lot of stuff she couldn’t be bothered to move, was a broad, heavy base that stopped the dummy from falling over on impact.

“What on earth is it doing here?” Moira sounded better; more confident, less afraid.

“You could say that about most of the stuff that’s littered around. What’s any of it doing here? I mean, what kind of crap has been left here over the years? This house is a dumping ground.” She slapped the dummy across the face and backed away, watching it nod gently on its base in silent agreement. “Whoever owns this house doesn’t deserve it. They should treat such an old building with more respect.”

Moira didn’t respond. She had turned away and was unpacking her bag on the other bed.

Alice finished emptying her own bag and stored her belongings neatly, in the top drawer of an old dresser by the side of the bed. To make room, she had to remove a dusty stack of blank A4 printing paper, two old biscuit tins, and the shell of a mobile phone so huge and unwieldy that it must have been from the early 1990s.

When she was done, she kicked off her shoes and lay down on the bed. For a second, she thought the punch dummy was still nodding slightly, but then she realised that it was a trick of the light. It couldn’t have been moving this long after she’d hit it. That was stupid. She stared at its blank face, convinced that it was looking at her despite the fact that it did not possess any eyes.

“Do you think this was a good idea?”

She dragged her attention away from the dummy and looked over at Moira, who was sitting on the edge of her bed, flexing her nylon-stocking-clad feet a few inches off the wooden floor. “I mean coming here… was it a good idea? It feels… different away from the rest of the group. I’m not sure if I’m going to like it.”

Moaning again. She was always complaining, this one, seeking attention or affirmation that her grief was just as valid as that of everyone else. She was weak, a brittle shell behind which lay nothing of any consequence.

“I’m sure we’ve all done the right thing. We might get some benefit from being away from our usual routines. I’m no expert, but I’m sure Clive has some interesting therapy work in mind. From what I’ve heard, he often runs courses like this, and swears by the results he gets.” She paused, glanced at the motionless dummy, and then back again at Moira.

“It probably helps to think of yourself as special, or at least privileged. Not everyone is invited to these things. He must see something in you – in all of us – that he thinks might respond to what we’re going to do here.” She smiled, but it felt like a mask.

Moira smiled back, but hers was genuine – at least it looked that way. It was such an open smile, so desperate and pleading.

Needy. That was the word that came to mind.

But what is it that you need?
Alice wondered.
Whatever it is, it’s all you have; that need. There’s nothing beyond it.

She was ashamed of her thoughts, but that didn’t make them any less insightful. Being here, in this old and neglected house, seemed to be opening her mind in a way that she had not experienced for decades It was like being a child again, set free from the chains of adult thinking. She could look at someone and see right through the façade, pick out the parts of them that were usually hidden behind a lifetime of learned mannerisms and reactions. She felt elevated, as if her mind were able to lift free of her body and take a peek into all the dark corners of the human psyche.

“I think you and I are going to become real friends,” said Moira, smiling coyly. She was almost flirting.

Do you, now?
thought Alice. “I’m sure,” she said
. Not if I can fucking help it.

PART TWO