‘Is this Blackwater?’ I ask belatedly.
He says, ‘What do you want?’
‘I’m looking for my parents, Isolde and Liam Elliott.’
He crosses his arms and stares at me once more. ‘You sound like her – that’s why I… when I heard you swearing. You’ve the look of her, not so much of him. Well. What do you want?’
‘I want to see my parents.’ As soon I say it I think what a fool I am. He’ll turn me out again. But he just keeps staring, eyes narrowing, widening, narrowing, widening as if his process of consideration requires this physical display.
He laughs at last, says just under his breath, ‘Won’t you put a cat among the pigeons?’ And he laughs again, hesitates one more moment and tells me, ‘Off you go, missy, I’m sure your uncle will be pleased to see you.’
Uncle?
But I don’t ask him any more, don’t want him curious as to how little I know about my family – although surely he’s wondering already. If he thinks any longer, perhaps he’ll start to question why he’s never heard of me. Or has he? Again, it’s a not a question to ask quite yet. I put a foot into the stirrup and swing up into the saddle.
The man points to the path. ‘Follow that for a quarter of a mile and it’ll split into four. Take the one second from the left to get to the big house. The farthest right goes to the smelter; the one farthest left to the village. The second right is the mine. Off you go, you can’t miss the house.’
‘Who are you?’ I ask and can’t help but put a little bit of Aoife’s imperiousness into my tone.
‘ Lazarus Gannel. You’ll see me again.’ He laughs like it’s a favourite joke.
I thank him. If I can be polite to the ghosts of gallowscrows, to wolves that walk sometimes on four legs others on two, to man-eating kelpies, even to Aidan Fitzpatrick when required, then I can be polite to the gatekeeper. Indeed, it seems more than wise.
* * *
From ‘gate’ to mansion it’s not more than half an hour. I take my time so I can look at the surroundings, drink them in. Also, to give myself some time to think.
As soon as the gatehouse is out of sight, we enter orchards that seem to go on forever. I tell the apple trees from the cherry trees, the apricot from the peach – all look healthy enough but are bereft of fruit. Perhaps there’s just been a harvest, yet it seems a little early. There are trellises for grapes, too, quite a lot, a large private concern or a small commercial vineyard, I cannot quite tell – but again, the vines though hale are bare. Further over are fields where wheat and barley should be waving; they empty. I might think them lying fallow, but it’s not the time. I pass on, and soon find where the trail divides and I take the way Lazarus advised.
More trees – oak and yew and ash – more fields empty of crops. Then almost suddenly a vista of groomed grounds opens up before us – although I can see patches where there’s neglect and things grow more wildly than they should – like Hob’s Hallow once had when an army of gardeners could be marshalled into action. An enormous house is set in the middle like an ornament. There are pruned topiaries and hedges, garden beds that are shaped like flowers themselves, trees trained into archways with rosebushes climbing them. As we draw closer to the mansion, I can see some blossoms, random riots of colour, as if here: the house is the heart. Birdfeeders hang from branches but I notice there are no birds to peck at the small mounds of seed. There’s a contrast between the lack I’ve seen elsewhere and the seeming fertility near this home. Yet the place is not entirely pristine; there’s an air of neglect, I can sense it, see it even from this distance. It seems as if all should be humming, growing, buzzing, yet there is only this weight of… waiting, of suspension. It is… strange.
There are no labourers in the garden, no one rushing from the sturdy grey stone and wood stables to take my horse. There are no sounds to be heard. There’s not even a breath of wind to cool the sweat the sun’s broken on my brow. I stroke the kelpiehorse’s neck and he shivers beneath my touch.
Blackwater.
When we mount a small rise, I can see the rolling gardens give way to an expanse of green lawn, which is then swallowed by a lake, long and wide and dark. The black water of the place’s name. No great originality there, but perhaps the sound of it reminded Isolde of “Breakwater”. The surface is still as glass, like polished obsidian; no birds glide across it, neither swans, nor common ducks or even commoner grebes. Are there fish in there? Or it is too inert for any life to be supported therein?
The mansion is bigger than Hob’s Hallow, and its component parts constructed at the same time. Not for this abode the wings tacked onto the ancient tower, like an ill-made bird. The stone is the same grey-red stone as the gatehouse, the white-painted front door and window frames appear a little grubby. Four storeys to the main building (including an attic and a semi-basement); a two-storey wing to each side. Those wings continue on the same line
