Never Go There Read online

  Maggie remembered Arthur’s voice, not half an hour beforehand, as it whispered into the phone held tight to her ear.

  ‘What other choice do you have?’ Arthur had asked her. He was family; her late husband’s cousin, Emma’s father for God’s sake, but he hadn’t offered any help, he just saw an opportunity for his own gain.

  She’d demanded how he knew, who he’d bribed or back-scratched to get such information, confidential information, about her finances.

  ‘Trust me, Maggie,’ he’d said and she’d blanched, the very thought of such a thing turning her stomach. How could she trust a man who had turfed out his own daughter when the girl was only just fourteen, when she had needed his understanding and support the most? When she was left reeling after the death of her stepmother? Not that Maggie wanted Emma to stay with him, considering what had happened, but she had been horrified by Arthur’s response all the same.

  ‘I want to help you.’ The offer had sounded more like a threat.

  ‘If someone is here to dig something up, with Lois that is, something to do with the past, with the –’ Edward paused and looked up to the bar, made sure Emma wasn’t listening in before he continued – ‘with the fire, then Arthur won’t be happy at all.’ Edward’s mouth drew into a tight, set line.

  Maggie hadn’t thought about that, that Lois could have called someone about the fire in her old house years before, the building next door to the pub. That she could be trying to blame Emma for it, again.

  ‘The fire at Lois’s house was an accident.’ Maggie said sharply, trying to quash the idea before it had a chance to take root, before Emma had a chance to overhear them. ‘Everyone knows that. Why would Arthur be worried about it now?’

  Edward coughed, rubbed his eyes, looked away, his face suddenly showing his years. ‘Forget I said anything.’

  ‘Why would Arthur be worried?’ she tried again, anything to get leverage on the man who had too much of his own, using it to get Maggie’s situation laid out by the bank manager. Where else would he have found that out, knowing Maggie was down on her knees?

  But Edward’s jaw tightened and he looked on, clearly regretting his mistake already.

  Arthur wouldn’t be worried about the fire, Maggie reasoned, or about protecting his daughter. He hadn’t done a thing when malicious gossip pointed the finger at Emma at the time; she doubted he’d intervene further seven years after the fact.

  There was no other reason, as far as Maggie knew.

  ‘You’ve got to ask yourself, why?’ Edward muttered to the glass, the fire throwing shadows on his face. ‘If it’s Lois they’re after, why now? And what the hell are they trying to dig up?’

  Maggie wanted to say, ‘Nothing, you’re drunk, paranoid, that’s all.’ But a change in the light forced her eye to the bar before the words even left her throat.

  Emma was back by the kitchen door, an apple in her hand and her eyes upturned to the ceiling, her face set in a look, a horrible look, that Maggie hadn’t seen in a long, long time.

  ‘What is it,’ Maggie said, ‘that he’s scared they’ll uncover?’

  Nuala

  Saturday, 18th November, 2017

  Nuala woke in the same position she had slept, her arm stiff, mouth dry, questions pin-balling round in her mind. No bleary first moments of ignorance, not for her. Painfully awake, cruelly aware, from the moment she opened her eyes. The misery she felt was absolute: distracting her, blinding her to the squalid conditions of the guest room she had slept in.

  The progression of dawn played out from her window, the light crawling through the trees, creeping over hills, laying bare the dull brown earth.

  Years of fantasy, for this?

  Her thoughts shifted to the Greater London parks back at home, to the deer, the willows, poplars, the man-made ponds. She took a breath. Another. The lush, wood-flanked fields she’d imagined had been revealed as empty plots of ploughed earth, fending off the winter with threadbare coats of frost. Dirt tracks pocked with gravel, tyre marks gouging wounds in the mud. She thought about the letter: the reason she was here. It lay folded on the bedside table. She needn’t look at the words, she knew them by heart. But only two were repeated, over and over, prickling with a horse-fly of a sting: my darling. Loving words, comforting words. A mother’s letter.

  She closed her eyes and pretended the letter was for her. Pretended the mother she was here to see was hers.

  Maybe she wouldn’t have to go back to those parks full of willow trees, the houses, roads, pavements full of strangers. Maybe this place was it. Maybe he’d told her not to come because he knew, if she did, she would never want to leave.

  She waited for signs of life to emerge, for birds or scurrying foxes, but the only evidence was audible: the soft, consistent lowing of cows that rose and fell like bells, echoing from the other side of the combe.

  More sounds, as if the village existed only to be heard: doors closing, engines turning over, a barking dog.

  A knock, at her door.

  Emma stood in the hallway, her skin pink from being scrubbed, hair still damp from the shower. She didn’t smell of soap or shampoo, but rather bleach.

  ‘Breakfast is ready,’ she said.

  Downstairs, the bar seemed changed, smaller even. Dark splashes marked the floor, real ale staining the wood. Nuala looked up, to where she’d been sleeping only hours before, and saw the whitewashed floorboards were stained tar-yellow.

  ‘Different in the daylight, isn’t it?’ Emma spoke from the hatch, a ghost in Nuala’s periphery. ‘We keep the lights low at night, so it looks less like a living room and more like a bar.’

  ‘It’s the only pub here?’ Nuala coughed, hoping the tremor in her voice was disguised.

  Emma tilted her head, lips smiling but blue eyes cold, searching Nuala’s face. ‘Know much about the village?’

  ‘No,’ she said, cheeks hot. ‘I just didn’t see any others when I arrived.’

  ‘It’s the only pub, yes. We’d do quite well too if the locals would pay their bloody tabs. Robbie’s the worst for it. His dad, Edward, too. Know them, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know anyone here.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Emma’s smile returned and she nodded into the room. ‘Breakfast’s over there.’ Turning her back she ducked, out of sight, below the hatch.

  Cold toast with coagulated butter, a mug of milky coffee and an apple shared the end table by a faded damask armchair at the hearth. The chair, as she sat, heaved out a cushion-full of fetid air, stale from cigarettes, sour from spillages. She closed her eyes, pining for the perfume she’d long ago stopped wearing, appetite all but gone.

  ‘That seat’s the favourite.’ Emma’s voice had changed, becoming light, even friendly. It drifted from the serving hatch, nothing more than a hole in the wall between the bar and the pantry behind it. ‘But be warned; you’ll never make it out once you’re comfortable.’

  Nuala followed the sounds of Emma’s movements: the harsh scratch of a scouring pad, a heave of breath. Then there was another, stronger, whiff of bleach. She was cleaning, vigorously, and Nuala realised that she wasn’t damp from washing, but from work.

  Emma continued, voice like a song. ‘The weather’s dry; good for walking, if that’s why you’re here?’ She had stopped scrubbing. ‘We get tourists, sometimes. It’s the remoteness they’re after but they’re always disappointed when they arrive. No internet, no signal, no decent TV. That why you’ve come? A little peace and quiet in the middle of god-knows-where?’

  Nuala blocked out the words and concentrated on the sound of Emma’s voice, the heavy notes, the musical timbre, trying to repress the fear that Emma could see straight through her, that she knew why Nuala was there, who she was there to see.

  Emma popped up from the hatch like a rabbit, a wry smile playing at the corners of her mouth. ‘Will you be staying again tonight?’

  The question, unavoidable, forced Nuala to open her eyes, bringing herself back to the bar and the chair and th
e one-sided conversation.

  And then she saw them: hundreds of faces staring at her from the red brick fireplace.

  ‘What are those?’

  Emma jumped over the sleeper into the room, her hand brushing Nuala’s shoulder in the small space.

  ‘Polaroids. Maggie’s been taking them forever.’ She flicked a picture with her bleach-reddened fingers, the skin along her knuckles scaly. ‘Some have been there so long they’ve melted to the wall.’

  Nuala began working through them, realising they were of locals, all taken in the pub. She scratched the sides of her jeans with her bitten-down fingertips. When she looked to the side she saw Emma was staring at her.

  ‘I thought you didn’t know anyone here?’

  ‘I don’t.’ Nuala’s eyes darted back to the photographs, moving from left to right, left to right, upwards a fraction each time, heart beating like a hummingbird.

  ‘You’re looking for someone.’ Emma stepped back, her own eyes darting from Nuala to the wall, following the other woman’s progress.

  Nuala’s eyes fixed on their prize, her shoulders softened and dropped.

  Halfway up the brickwork on the far right-hand side there he was, staring back with a lopsided grin from a face seven years younger than the one she remembered.

  ‘Who is it you’re looking for?’ Emma spoke carefully, her tone friendly once more.

  He wore the same flat cap she teased him about. A murky-looking pint glass was cradled in one hand whilst the other was raised to his brow in British military salute, soft sandy hair falling into his face, cheekbones high, eyes narrowed in that mocking way of his.

  He took her breath away, all over again.

  She was aware of Emma’s words but had no sense of their meaning. Nuala wanted to dive into the photograph, rest her head on his chest, feel his arms wrap around her. She imagined him sitting next to her, taking her hand and telling her the story behind the photograph Blu Tacked to the wall of this tiny pub in the middle of god-knows-where.

  She heard his voice, clear as glass. Never go there, Nuala.

  She tried to breathe it away but only managed a sharp, raw gasp.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Emma was standing in front of Nuala and blocking her view, breaking the daydream.

  ‘I’m fine, really.’ She met Emma’s eye and forced a smile, willing it to look natural, but couldn’t hold it. Her gaze flitted back to the picture on the wall. ‘I should be getting on. I’ll let you know about the room.’

  ‘Wait!’ Emma blocked her way, her face a ruddy pink. ‘I need your details; your real ones before you go.’

  Nuala stood too quickly. She could feel the colour leaving her face, wondered if the barmaid had noticed too, wondered how the hell Emma had known the name Mrs James was a lie.

  ‘I don’t care that you made it all up. Everyone does it when they go away, don’t they?’

  She was so close that Nuala could see the beginnings of fine lines across her forehead.

  ‘I’ll need your name,’ Emma’s lips flickered into a smile, so brief Nuala almost missed it, ‘if we’re going to keep the room back.’

  Nuala’s chest heated, the blush spreading along her throat.

  ‘Of course.’ Her voice wavered. She pressed her lips together, rubbed her sweating palms along her thighs and told the barmaid her real name. ‘It’s Nuala. Nuala Greene.’

  She waited for a flicker of recognition, the realisation, maybe pleasant surprise. But there was no smile, nothing.

  ‘Greene, was that?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth, waiting for the barmaid to double-take as she wrote the name on the back of her hand. Surely she should recognise the name?

  ‘No Greenes in the village that I know of.’

  ‘No.’ Nuala’s blush paled, mind blanked. She wished she had the letter to hold on to, the fragment of hope it offered, but she’d left it upstairs with her bag.

  ‘Why’d you not tell me the truth yesterday?’ Emma asked, scanning over Nuala’s sweater, jeans, black boots.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know why, I just—’ Nuala trailed off, not knowing where to start, only knowing she couldn’t tell Emma the real reason, not yet. Not until she had spoken to her first, told her.

  Emma shrugged, looked up. ‘It doesn’t matter now. You’re here to visit someone?’ Waiting for the answer as if she was going to write that down too.

  Nuala nodded, mute, whilst inside she screamed, you should know who I am. Why don’t you know who I am?

  ‘But not family?’

  ‘I have to go. I’ll come back, to sort out the room.’ Nuala fled outside, leaving Emma alone in the bar.

  Before she walked away, Nuala looked back through the lead-panelled window, watched as Emma moved towards the fireplace and stared again at the picture on the wall. Carefully, delicately, the barmaid lifted the photo and slipped it into the pocket of her jeans, leaving a paler square of stone in its wake.

  Nuala

  Saturday, 18th November, 2017

  You mustn’t go there, Nuala.

  His hand on her shoulder, tanned, coarse fingers digging in, forcing her to look into his eyes, wide open with urgency.

  Or, perhaps, with guilt.

  Never visit, never contact them. How many times had he warned her?

  Yet here she was, breaking her promise.

  And there was no way he could stop her.

  The streets were empty, the footsteps from her leather boots amplified by the wind as she walked back towards her car. That same wind bit through her cashmere sweater, prickled her spine.

  She had imagined a pretty little place, a quaint Somerset village, but the reality again proved very different. There was no uniformity: each house was made from different stone, those plastered were different colours, thatched roofs beside tiled.

  The place was accessible by a single road stretched out over the hills, the road she’d driven along last night. It arrived, turned around and ran away again, fencing the community in or, possibly, keeping the world out.

  Never go there, Nuala, he had said.

  I’ll tell her about you, I’ll write, but never go there. Please, never go there.

  James’s voice, at its most sardonic, rang in her ears; how pleasant and charming it all was.

  It had been unlike him to show such outright loathing. Normally it was hidden between soft touches and kisses: a critique of the dinner she’d cooked or a sharp look as she parked the car, making her realise, too late, she had done it wrong. And it was unlike him not to keep to his word. He had promised to tell them about her. He refused to visit, to phone, email, but he had promised to write.

  He had lied.

  That girl, Emma, had no idea who Nuala was, no clue as to her significance.

  She could picture him here quite clearly, thanks to the photograph. There he was swinging on branches, running through the rain with his eyes obscured by drenched hair. She saw him stumbling drunk from Maggie’s pub, throwing his arm around his friends.

  She saw him.

  He haunted her, hunted her until the cold air on the back of her neck became James’s dark breath repeating her name, telling her to go, to run.

  Something caught her eye. She stopped dead, front foot suspended mid-air.

  Was that a movement in the cottage beside her? Was someone watching her, a shadow behind the net curtains?

  She passed another house.

  She looked at the terraces across the street, the windows and shadows of the place she had promised to stay away from.

  No one was there. No one watched, looked out at her. It was a memory she could feel, of James’s careful eyes on her back, waiting for her to slip up.

  What was she thinking, acting alone?

  She turned back to the road and walked on.

  She could do this.

  She had to.

  She would get to her car, sit inside and calm down. She would gather herself before knocking on that door, seeing
her, telling her—

  She looked ahead, kept her eyes on the road, felt the slippery slick of sweat on her palms.

  She lunged forward on unsteady feet, boots skidding on the damp, muddy track. The wind bit her face, her cheeks freezing as the weather chilled them faster than her own blood offered warmth. She had no coat, no hat, no scarf. Idiot. She was such an idiot.

  Through eyes blurred with tears, she saw her car, bright and red, a radar. She fumbled for the handle but felt something else: a rough slice, papery metal curled up at the sides.

  She stepped back, blinking her vision clear.

  The door of her car had been mauled: four, five, six scratches hacked into the paint, exposing gunmetal-grey bodywork beneath.

  Nuala traced the first of the slashes with her index finger, a whimper strangling in her throat.

  She stepped closer but her smooth boots slipped on wet leaves, her hand planing the full length of her car door as she stumbled, forcing her fingertip into the sliced metal and paint.

  It cut.

  In an instant her finger was in her mouth, tongue searching for the wound, wanting to seal it with her teeth, and the first retch came.

  Air pushed its way out of her lungs, stomach heaving as she gagged. Bent double at the waist, her free hand holding onto the car for support, she retched.

  She could smell it more strongly now: the urine, the stale smell of someone else’s piss that had stained her car, running across the bodywork in wind-blasted streaks and leaving its smell to linger.

  It covered her hands, her cut finger, her teeth, her lips, her tongue, the taste just as strong as the smell.

  She searched for the door handle, biting her lips to stop sobbing, pulling herself in and locking the doors, forcing her eyes to close.