Tess Dawson had spent the warmest part of the winter’s day in the garden, pulling out the few remaining weeds in her borders, sweeping up leaves sodden with all the recent rain and packing them into a black polythene bag which she stabbed with the garden fork and stowed by the side of the shed. She felt suddenly stiff and chilled as the sun weakened and dipped beneath the hedge line. As she had been working in the garden over the past two days she had thought continually about the decision she had made. She was still tired from her long car journey and from the things that had happened, important, frightening things, whilst she had been away. They had all but overwhelmed her and left her feeling hollowed-out, stripped of the resources that normally allowed her to cope with her life. And now she found that the burdensome secret she had lived with for seven years was no longer bearable. Something inside her had changed. On that journey back as she drove through the brilliant countryside lit by a winter sun, she had found herself dwelling on it and sensing a growing feeling that she must let go. She knew that if she went ahead with her decision everything would change, but that was what she wanted. In her heart she wanted everything to change.
Her mind made up, she rubbed off the drying soil from her cold hands and locked the shed door. She noticed the green wood preserver was wearing thin in the places where the weather caught the old wood and made a mental note to touch up the worn bits when she could summon up the energy for a mundane task. Entering the cottage by the back door, a warm wave of heat bathed her face. She closed the door on the winter cold and reached for the kettle to fill it from the tap. Tea made and clasped in her defrosting hand she surveyed the disarray of the kitchen surfaces and for once made no effort to tidy and wipe. She stood as if transfixed by the cellar door and stared at it with an intense and sad look. With her still unwashed hand she reached for the latch set high on the door and clicked it open, held it there for a few seconds and pulled the door open gently, its bottom edge brushing vaguely on the tiled floor.
At the top of the cellar stairs she stopped and paused then swept her hand down the wall in the darkness, feeling for the light switch. It was an action she could do even with her eyes closed. The fluorescent clicked and flickered and threw its light onto the narrow stairs. She could see into the low cellar. There were a few boxes, an old bicycle, some planks of wood leaning against the wall at the bottom of the steps partially blocking her route into the room. She thought yet again that she should move them. She took several deep breaths of the heavy air that hung there and began her descent. At the bottom of the stairs she edged past the leaning planks, dislodging the outer one, which fell with a bump, scrape and clatter onto the concrete floor in front of her. Stepping over it, she moved along the wall adjacent to the steps and stopped by some bricks placed carefully into an old fireplace recess. She had always been puzzled by the presence of a fireplace in a cellar.
In the minute it took her to walk from the door, down the cellar steps and to the bricked recess she had thought only of the task in hand. As she looked at the tightly wedged bricks she tried to imagine what lay behind them. She had lived in the rooms above this cellar, always aware of the presence of it below her, always haunted by painful memories. Now she felt strangely calm but her hands were shaking and her mouth was dry and she knew that really she was afraid. She began to pull at the bricks, working them loose where they were tightly packed together. There was no mortar, just the close-fitting resistance of wedged, rough, baked clay butted against baked clay. She pulled and pushed and jiggled the first of the bricks with focused effort and concentration, her hands working intently and her eyes trained on the diminishing wall.
Tess thought to herself, How could I have tried to forget what I’ve done? How could I have tried to pretend that everything was OK and normal? The feeling of amazement that had begun as she first stood by the fireplace reached a crescendo and she worked on, pushing aside rising sensations of grief and loss. Her legs felt like jelly, shaking from the strong adrenaline rush that came from her sense of purpose and from her fear. As she worked the bricks free she piled them in an orderly tower on the floor. What had been a brick panel became a gap and then a hole in the wall. The old fireplace, its identity stripped away by the absence of mantelpiece or hearthstone or grate, was revealed. At the base of the firebox, bundled in a dirty blanket was a small object. She reached in and carefully lifted it out. Tess felt the lightness of the bundle, smelt the soot and dirt from the blanket and the fireplace. There were some feathers, some dried bird droppings, the pervasive odour of the earth. She let out a deep sob.She stood for a while holding her meagre bundle, amazed at the weightlessness of it and wondering where its substance had gone. She could not bring herself to open the blanket to look at its contents. She made her way up the cellar steps, slowly and carefully. As she came to the top of the steps and stood on the warm threshold of the kitchen she transferred the blanket to her left arm and cradled the bundle against her heart, feeling for the first time the hardness of bones against her own soft body. For a moment she felt overwhelmed by her emotions as tears rolled down her face. Righting herself as if recovering from capsize, she collected her bag from where it dangled on the back of a kitchen chair and hung it from her right shoulder. As if on autopilot, she walked to the back door and turned the key in the lock. She turned, cradling the bundle with the utmost care, and walked up the passage to the front door, coatless, unhooking her car keys where they always hung as she passed the dresser. Outside, the sun was already dropping into the far horizon of trees. She opened her car door and placed the bundle carefully on the front passenger seat. She shivered and started the car, moving off slowly down the lane, trying to avoid the potholes, trying to give Rachel a smooth ride.