The Legacy (7 page)

It’s earthy and damp in here; a fecund smell, in spite of the season. One of my earliest memories of Henry, who would have been eight or nine: on the small lawn when I was five or so; a hot August day during one of those summers that seemed to last for ever; the grass baked blonde, crisping under the onslaught; the terrace stones too hot for bare feet; the dogs too fagged to play; my nose peeling and freckles on Beth’s arms. They set up one of those giant paddling pools for us on the small lawn. So big that there were steps to climb over the side and an expanse of blue plastic sheet inside, so enticing even before the water went in. I can still smell that hot plastic. It was set up, smoothed out; an illicit hosepipe threaded over to it. The water from the hose came straight from the mains and it was icy on our toasted skin. Deliciously numbing. I fidgeted about in my red swimsuit, desperate for it to fill faster.

Henry climbed in straight away, with grass on his feet that floated away. He picked up the hosepipe and waved it at us, now that the grown-ups had retreated. He sprayed us and would not let us come near. I remember being so desperate to get in, to get my feet wet. But on
my
terms. I did not want to be splashed. Feet first, then the rest, gradually. Every time I got near, he sprayed me. The water was at his anklebones, his feet white and rippling. His body was white too, soft looking, nipples pouting slightly, turned down. Then he stopped, and he swore to me—he promised. He swore an oath that I could enter safely, that he had finished spraying. I made him put the hose down before I climbed in carefully. A second of ecstatic cold on my feet then Henry grabbed me, put my head under his arm, pushed the hose right into my face. Water up my nose, in my eyes, freezing, choking; Beth shouting at him from ringside. I coughed and howled until Mum came looking.

I wish Beth would come out of the house. I read somewhere that the great outdoors is just the thing for depression. A bracing walk, a communion with nature. As if depression is like a bout of indigestion, to be worked out of the system. I am not sure if it will work at this time of year, when the wind can blow right through your soul, but it has to be better than haunting that house. On the work bench I find a trug and some secateurs, and I head out toward the woods.

I walk in a loop via the dew pond. I do this most days. I can’t seem to stay away. Standing on the steep edge of it, kicking over chalk and flints. Hints of something return to me when I stand here. Wherever I stand around Storton Manor, hints return to me—little snapshots that go with a view, or a smell, or a room. A ribbon tied behind a bed. Yellow flowers stitched on a pillowcase. Every step is an aide-memoire. Here at the pond there is something I should
remember
, something more than playing, than swimming, than the thrill of the forbidden. I shut my eyes and crouch down, hug my knees. I concentrate on the smell of the water and the ground, on the sound of the trees overhead. I can hear a dog barking, a long way off, in the village perhaps. There is definitely
something
, something I am trying to know. I put blind fingers forward until they touch the surface. The water bites, cold to the bone. I picture it thickening, ice crystals spinning hard threads through it. For one second I feel the old fear of being sucked down into it. For if water could come up from the bottom of it, from nowhere, like magic, then surely things could go the other way as well? A giant plughole. I would think this when I swam, sometimes. A delicious frisson, like swimming in the sea and suddenly thinking of sharks.

At the edge of the downs, where the trees disappear, the ground drops into a steep, round hollow. A giant scooping out of the earth, packed with hawthorn, blackthorn and elder, all bound up with old man’s beard. The frost sets deeper here, lasts longer. I set my sights on a holly bush, right in the center of it all, its bright berries like jewels in the colorless tangle, but I don’t get far. I descend, slipping on the tussocky grass, and when I reach the thicket I can see no way in. The air is still, noticeably colder. My breath steams in front of my face as I make my way around, looking for a way in. No view but the slope up and away, the lip where it meets the sky. One attempt to force a way through and I retreat, badly scratched.

I head back into the woods, nothing in my trug so far but some tendrils of stripy ivy from the garden. These aren’t public woods; they aren’t managed, or criss-crossed with paths. The estate’s pasture land is all leased or sold to local farmers these days, and I wonder if any of them ever come in here—take wood, raise pheasants, snare rabbits. I can see no sign of anything like that. The ground is choked with leaf fall and brambles, splintered logs mouldering into nothing. Unseen things move away from me with small rustling sounds and no other trace. Acorns, beech masts; around one tree a carpet of tiny yellow apples, rotting. I have to watch my feet to keep from stumbling and there are no birds singing above my head. Just a quiet breathing sound, as the wind sneaks through the naked branches.

I’m not watching where I’m going and I nearly step on a crouching person. I yelp in surprise. A young man with long dreadlocks and bright, mismatched clothes.

“Sorry! Hello,” I gasp. He stands up, far taller than me, and I see a large bracket fungus by his feet. Yellow and ugly. He was examining it, his nose virtually touching it. “I . . . I don’t think you can eat those,” I add, smiling briefly. The man faces me and says nothing. He is lean and rangy. His arms just hang by his sides as he stands there, watching me, and I feel the pull of unease towing me away from him. Some instinct, perhaps, or something missing from behind his eyes, tells me that all is not as it should be. I take a step back and turn left. He steps to his right to block me. I turn the other way and he follows. My heart beats harder. His silence is unsettling, he is somehow threatening even though he makes no move to reach out for me. He has a spicy smell about him, slightly sharp. I wonder if he’s stoned. I turn left again and he smiles, a gummy smile that spreads across his face.

“Look, just get out of the bloody way, will you!” I snap, tensely. But he takes a step toward me and I try to step away but my heel catches in a web of brambles and I fall awkwardly, onto my side, feeling thorns punch into the heels of my hands and the air rush out of my lungs. Leaves fly up around me, the rotting smell of them everywhere. I turn my head and the tall man is leaning over me, blocking out the sky. I fight to free my foot from the undergrowth, but my movements are jerky and I make it worse. I think about shouting but the house is far behind me and there’s no way Beth would hear me. She does not know I am out here. Nobody does. Panic makes me shake, makes the air hard to breathe. Then strong, heavy hands close tightly on my arms.

“Let go! Get off me!
Get off!
” I shout out wildly.

I hear a second voice and the hands release me, dropping me unceremoniously back into the mulch.

“Harry’s no bother. You didn’t mean to be a bother, did you, Harry?” the newcomer says, clapping the tall man on the shoulder. I peer up at them from the ground. Harry shakes his head and I see now that he is downcast, troubled; not fierce or lascivious in the slightest. “He was just trying to help you up,” the other man says, with a hint of rebuke. Harry returns to his close scrutiny of the yellow fungus.

“He just . . . I was just . . . looking for greenery. For the house,” I say, still rattled. “I thought . . . Well. Nothing really,” I finish. My heart slows slightly and I feel ridiculous. The stranger puts out a hand, pulls me to my feet. “Thanks,” I mutter. There’s an air rifle angled over his forearm, a dull gleam on the barrel. I kick the brambles back from around my feet and examine my stinging hands. Beads of blood are scattered there. I wipe them on the seat of my jeans and glance at my rescuer with a small, embarrassed smile. I find him watching me with an unsettling intensity, and then he smiles.

“Erica?”

“How did you . . . I’m sorry, do I know you?” I say.

“Don’t you recognize me?” he says. I look again—a dark mess of hair, held back at the nape of his neck, a broad chest, a slight hook in the nose, straight forehead, straight brows, mouth a straight, determined line. Black eyes that shine. And then the world tips slightly, skews; features fall into place, and something stunningly familiar coalesces.

“
Dinny?
Is that you?” I gasp, my ribs squeezing in on themselves.

“Nobody’s called me Dinny in a
long
time. It’s Nathan, these days.” His smile is not quite sure of itself: pleased, as curious as I am to meet a figure from the past, yet guarded, held back. But his eyes never leave my face. Their gaze is like a spotlight on my every move.

“I can’t believe it’s really you! How . . . how are you? What the hell are you
doing
here?” I am amazed. It never occurred to me that Dinny grew up too, that he lived another life, that he would ever come back to Barrow Storton. “You look so
different
!” My cheeks are burning, as if I have been caught out somehow. I can feel my pulse in my fingertips.

“But you look just the same, Erica. I saw a bit in the paper—about Lady Calcott dying. It made me think of . . . this place. We haven’t been back here since my dad died. But suddenly I wanted to come . . .”

“Oh, no . . . I’m so sorry to hear that. About your dad.” Dinny’s father, Mickey. Beth and I loved him. He had a huge grin, huge hands, always gave us a penny or a sweet—pulled it out from behind our ears. Mum met him, once or twice. Checking up, politely, since we spent so much time with them. And Dinny’s mum, Maureen, always called Mo. Mickey and Mo. Our code name, to be used whenever Meredith might hear, was that we were going to visit Mickey Mouse.

“It was eight years ago. He went quickly, and he didn’t see it coming. I suppose that’s the best way to go,” Dinny says calmly.

“I suppose so.”

“What got Lady Calcott in the end?” I notice his tone, a slight bitterness, and that he doesn’t commiserate with me on my loss.

“A stroke. She was ninety-nine—and must have been very disappointed.”

“What do you mean?”

“They were a long line of centenarians, the Calcott women. My great-grandmother lived to be a hundred and two. Meredith was always determined to outlive the queen. Good breeding stock, we are,” I say, and instantly regret it. Any mention of stock, of bloodlines, of breed.

There’s a vibrant silence. I have so much to say to him I can’t think where to start. He breaks off his intent gaze, looks away through the trees toward the house, and a shadow falls over his features.

“Look, I’m sorry I swore. At . . . Harry. He startled me, that’s all,” I say quietly.

“You don’t need to be afraid of him, he’s harmless,” Dinny assures me. We both look down at the motley figure, crouching in the leaf mould. Dinny, standing so close to me that I could touch him. Dinny, real and right here again when he was almost a myth, just minutes ago. I almost don’t believe it.

“Is he . . . is there something wrong with him?” I ask.

“He’s gentle and friendly and he doesn’t like to talk. If that means there’s something wrong with him, then yes.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it. Anything bad.” My voice is too high. I take a deep breath, let it out.

“And you were looking for . . . holly?”

“Yes—or mistletoe. Or some good ivy with berries. To decorate the house.” I smile.

“Come on, Harry. Let’s show Erica the big holly tree,” Dinny says. He pulls Harry up, gently propels him into a languid walk.

“Thanks,” I say again. My breathing is still too fast. Dinny turns ahead of me and I notice a brace of gray squirrels, tied by their tails with string, slung over his back. Their black eyes are half closed, drying out. Dark, matted patches in the fur on their sides.

“What are the squirrels for?” I ask.

“Dinner,” Dinny replies calmly. He looks around, sees the horror fleet across my face and smiles half a smile. “I guess squirrel hasn’t reached the menus of smart London restaurants yet?”

“Well, some of them, perhaps. Not the ones I eat in, though. How did you know I lived in London?” He turns again, glances at my smart boots, dark jeans, soft, voluminous wool coat. The sharp ends of my fringe.

“Wild guess,” he murmurs.

“Don’t you like London?” I ask.

“I’ve only been once,” Dinny remarks, over his shoulder. “But generally, no. I don’t like cities. I like the horizon to be more than ten meters away.”

“Well, I like having things to look at,” I shrug. Dinny doesn’t smile, but falls back to walk beside me, his silence almost companionable. I search for ways to fill it. He is not much taller than me, about the same height as Beth. I can see the tie in his hair, a dark red length of leather bootlace, snapped off, knotted tightly. His jeans are muddied at the hems; he wears a T-shirt and a loose cotton sweater. I see the wind circle his bare neck and I shiver, even though I am bundled beneath layers and he does not seem to notice the cold. We walk up a shallow rise, my steps by far the loudest. Their feet don’t seem to find as many snags as mine.

“Over there,” Dinny says, pointing. I look ahead, see a dark holly tree, twisted and old. Harry has picked up a fallen sprig of it, is pressing the prickles into the pad of his thumb and then wincing, shaking his hand, doing it again.

I set about cutting some branches—those with the spikiest leaves, the fattest sprays of berries. One springs away from me, snagging my face. A thin scratch under my eye that stings. Dinny watches me again, his expression inscrutable.