‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ he shouted. ‘Nor does my gran. Go away!’
‘Not yet we won’t. Now let’s all just go inside—quietly.’
Gran, with a warning shake of her head at Matthew, led the way. The kitchen stretched painfully to fit them. Their loud voices assaulted the sleeping areas of quiet domesticity, the recesses where personal possessions asserted privacy and security.
‘Perhaps we’ll just look around.’
‘On whose authority?’
‘On ours.’
‘My daughter’s asleep. You’ll wake her. A recent bereavement, her husband—you have no respect.’
‘We’ll be as quiet as a mouse,’ said one, and punched the other on the shoulder. ‘Quiet as a mouse hiding from the police.’
They opened the parlour door. It was empty, the door to Father’s room closed as always with papers stuffed under the door and tape sealing the gaps.
‘What’s in there?’
‘My son-in-law died in there. The room is sealed, awaiting fumigation. He died from tuberculosis.’
The men glanced uneasily at each other. They prowled around the parlour, running a finger along the sealing tape, peering behind the settee, opening the window, leaning out, listening. The boxes under the rug lay in the corner. One of them picked up a section of the rug. ‘And these?’
‘Private papers.’
‘Yours?’
‘Yes,’ Gran lied.
Matthew startled, glanced at her. They caught the look.
‘Think we’ll have a peek.’
‘No!’ Matthew yelled. ‘No! They’re Edward’s love letters. Mother said that we mustn’t peek.’
‘Matthew, be silent, please.’
‘All love letters? Three boxes—to your mother?’ And they leered and winked at Matthew.
‘Certainly not.’ Margaret stood in the doorway, chillingly haughty.
‘What is all this? Who are you?’
‘The police, ma’am.’
‘The police at this time of night and in our house? How coarse! Do you usually disturb women in their beds?’
The men looked discomforted. ‘We are looking for Edward Kingsley.’
‘Who?’
‘Edward Kingsley.’
‘Why should he be here?’
‘We were instructed, by our superior.’
‘Then your superior is as coarse as you. Now take yourselves off.’
They hesitated. ‘What’s in that room?’
‘That room!’ Mother’s voice rose hysterically. ‘Ghosts. The ghost of my dead husband, my poor, poor Victor.’ Her head sank sorrowfully. ‘Nothing, nothing but a ghost.’
‘It drips blood,’ Matthew said, ‘and weeps and weeps for things it can’t have.’
‘Is the boy all right?’
‘Quite.’ Gran’s voice was hard.
‘But he did see ghosts, didn’t he? I think we’ll take a look in those boxes first.’
They ripped them open and tipped the contents on the floor. Pamphlets against the war, against conscription, pamphlets with big red print and heavy black letters heaped in a slithering mound. Gran stood very still, holding Matthew’s hand tightly.
‘Great heavens,’ Margaret whispered.
‘Love letters! Well, well, well! OK. Now let’s look in that room.’
‘No,’ Gran said flatly. ‘No.’
‘For God’s sake, Mother, let them look. Then they’ll go.’
‘No,’ Gran said again, and Matthew felt her breathlessness, her fear. If Gran was afraid to open the room there must be something horrible there.
‘No,’ he begged, ‘no, don’t open the door. There’s something in there. People disappear in there into nothing. You’ll let it out.’ He rushed across the room and pulled at the man who wrenched off the tape.
‘No!’ he shrieked. ‘There’s something in there!’
The man pushed him away. ‘That’s what we think, laddie. Something—or someone.’
He dragged the door open. Darkness crouched inside like a blank face which conceals something or nothing. The closed sickly smell of old blood oozed out. The men hesitated at the door, peering inside. ‘Kingsley?’ one said doubtfully, questioningly. ‘Kingsley?’ And as the blank face of darkness took on features he advanced into the room.
‘Kingsley!’ he yelled. Within the room there was a rush of movement. The door to the verandah slammed open. Feet thundered on the path and the two men pounded after.
‘Stop, Kingsley! Police! Stop! Under arrest! Stop! We’ll shoot!’
Gran dropped Matthew’s hand and ran after them. ‘Edward! Wait! Give yourself … Listen. Court case … innocent …’ There was a shot and then another and Gran’s scream, tortured by the wind: ‘No, murderers! No!’
Margaret clutched her hands to her ears and fled to her room.
Matthew rushed into the garden. ‘Gran!’ he shouted, running this way and that. ‘Gran!’
When he found her kneeling on the ground beside Edward he screamed and the dim world of night took flight. Trees wrapped their shadows about themselves and cloaked against the cold lifted up their roots and fled. Clumps of bushes scuttled after them. Stones heaved themselves out of the ground and rolled with frantic rumblings to escape. Flowers rent and torn by his terror whimpered and cringed. The world around him emptied and Edward lay like a mighty statue felled in some desert waste with him, the only living human, to witness his fall.
He screamed again and heard his scream catapult into emptiness. It would go on forever shrieking awake the ghosts of all eternity.
He heard Gran say: ‘I am taking Matthew to see Edward.’
‘You can’t … a body.’ Margaret was shocked. ‘He’s only a little boy. It will be too sad for him.’
But Gran was determined. ‘It’s necessary. He must say goodbye. He must see that Edward is loved, not only by him but by others, that he was worthy of love. He must not go through life associating Edward with incomprehensible evil.’ Margaret opened her mouth to argue but the grief in her mother’s eyes silenced her.
‘Incomprehensible’, the word blundered on Matthew’s tongue, confused, awkward, a mess of stumbling sounds. He was afraid to see Edward. He would prefer to go to his sand house in the dunes. He had gone there the day after Edward’s death.
Mother had snivelled about scandal, holding their heads up, ruin.
‘And Edward?’ Gran sounded desolate. ‘Not even an afterthought for him?’
Margaret flinched, her beautiful face suddenly pinched and white. ‘He brought it on himself, Mother. You know that.’ But Gran ignored her and she retired to her room and drew the blinds. Matthew heard her sobbing.
Men came to the door. Gran spoke to them outside, her voice prickling painfully in the numbness of the house. Edward’s mates sat in the kitchen awkwardly, hats under their chairs. Matthew sat on the settee, a small grey shadow their eyes slid
