‌Visitation

‌Jem Poster

She was on her knees on the damp loam, thinning out the carrots, when the soldiers came. She could hear them half a mile off – the clatter of stones as they crossed the stream-bed, the engine straining on the gradient, a snatch of song carried on the light wind. As the jeep came into view round the bend in the track she rose to her feet and moved unhurriedly down the path, sniffing the scent of the pulled leaves on her fingertips. The vehicle approached to within a few yards of the gate, then swung round in a tight arc, sending up a cloud of dust. The engine shut down and an officer jumped out and sauntered over, closely followed by two fresh-faced subordinates.

Boys, she thought, as they came to a halt in front of the gate, they’re all just boys. There was a momentary stillness – the lapse, it might have been, between one breath and the next – before the officer spoke.

‘Sian?’

‘Mrs Davies,’ she said, irritated as much by his eager familiarity as by his mispronunciation of her name. ‘I’m Mrs Davies. What do you want?’

‘We’re checking out the area. Just routine.’ He leaned over the gate and held out his hand. ‘Lieutenant Maley. These here’ – he indicated the two boys at his back – ‘are soldiers Lomax and Kellerman. We’ll need to search the house and outbuildings.’

‘Do you have a warrant?’

‘We don’t need a warrant.’ He fumbled in the breast pocket of his camouflage jacket and fished out a slim leather wallet. ‘Here’s my ID. Listen, lady, we’re on your side. There’s nothing to worry about.’ He flashed her a wide grin, slipped the catch and pushed back the gate. His men followed him in, their boots scuffing the gravel. ‘Anyone here apart from you?’

She shook her head.

‘Nobody working anywhere else about the property? Out in the fields?’

‘This is all the land I own. Up to the wire fence.’

He glanced up the slope, eyes narrowed against the sun. ‘So the barn’s yours?’

She nodded. ‘I’ve not much use for it now. I keep the car there. My garden tools. Firewood.’

‘Nobody else uses it?’

‘No. At one time I had an idea I’d convert it and rent it out, but I decided against it. I value my privacy.’

He removed his cap and ran his hand over his cropped scalp. ‘I’d say you need someone around,’ he said. ‘To keep an eye on the place. You got no security out here.’

‘I can look after myself.’

‘In peacetime, maybe. But right now, a widow living ten miles from anywhere—’

‘How do you know that?’

‘That you’re a widow? We always check out the files. Make a few notes. Hey’ – he spread both hands palm upward in what he clearly imagined was a gesture of reassurance – ‘it’s not like it’s classified information or anything.’ He was grinning again, but uneasily now, as though unsure of his ground.

‘Why would you need to know anything about me?’

There was a tense pause. Then the lieutenant stiffened and drew back his broad shoulders.

‘Kellerman.’

‘Sir?’ The taller of the two boys stepped forward.

‘The house.’ The lieutenant turned back to her. ‘The roof space,’ he said. ‘Can we get access?’

‘There’s a trapdoor above the landing.’

‘You hear, Lomax? Check it out.’

The boys broke away and moved together up the path towards the front door. She felt her face and neck redden. ‘What’s all this in aid of?’ she asked. ‘What are you looking for?’

He was tucking his cap into a side pocket of his jacket, carefully avoiding her gaze. ‘Necessary precautions,’ he said. ‘It’s nothing personal.’

‘It’s my property. Suppose I don’t want to let your men search it?’

He sighed wearily. It came to her that this scene, or something like it, might have been played out on a thousand farmsteads across the country. ‘None of us want this,’ he said. ‘But we’ve no option.’

‘There are always options.’

He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I need to see the barn.’

‘I can’t stop you, can I? Go ahead.’ She turned away, but he took her by the elbow, gently coercive.

‘I’ll need you to come with me,’ he said. She stiffened against the pressure of his hand but let him guide her between the rows of fruit bushes and up the path to the barn. He eased the bolt from its socket and threw back the doors. A breath of warm air carrying the familiar smells: sawdust, dried meadow grasses, engine oil.

The lieutenant ducked under the lintel and stepped inside, motioning her to follow. ‘The car,’ he said, running the tips of his fingers over the Citroën’s dusty bonnet. ‘Is it locked?’

‘There’s no need round here. Why?’

He was squinting up at the hayloft. ‘Anything up there?’

‘A couple of hay bales from last year.’ And the kittens, she was about to add, thinking of the litter nestled in the narrow gap between the bales, but something in the boy’s face – the glitter of his eyes as he peered into the shadows, the tight set of his jaw – made her hesitate.

‘Hay? You got livestock here?’

‘Two goats – a nanny and a kid. They’re tethered outside, round the back.’

He was moving away from her, examining the shelves along the wall, the tool racks. ‘What’s this?’ he asked, turning back suddenly to face her.

She glanced down at the object in his outstretched hand. ‘It’s a billhook,’ she said.

‘For defence?’

‘Of course not. For keeping the brambles in check. My father used it for hedge-laying.’

‘I’m a city boy. Where I’m from, you see someone carrying something like this, you run.’ He balanced the implement in his hands, tensing and relaxing his fingers around the worn haft, testing the blade with his thumb. ‘We’ll have to take this,’ he said.

‘Take it?’

‘Everything’s logged. You’ll get it back.’

‘When?’ She hadn’t used the billhook in years, but his casual appropriation of it seemed to require some kind of challenge.

‘When things get back to normal. For the moment, nobody’s taking any chances. We have to make sure stuff like this doesn’t wind up in the wrong hands.’

‘The wrong hands?’ She felt the anger rise again, clogging her throat. ‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Protestors, draft-dodgers, saboteurs. The so-called resistance. You’ve heard the bulletins.’

‘I don’t listen to the news any more. I want nothing to do with any of this.’

His expression hardened. ‘Listen, lady, we’re all in it, whether we like it or not. And these guys are putting the whole war effort at risk. What do they want? We got a pack of Arabs out there hollering for blood, and what do these jackasses do? They turn on us like we’re the enemy. Where’s the sense in that?’

He was bouncing the back of the blade against his palm as he spoke – like a fidgety child, she thought, imagining herself prising the implement from his grasp and restoring it to its place on the shelf. ‘Don’t do that,’ she said. ‘Please.’ For an instant his face darkened, and then, with a little dip of his head, he turned away and placed the billhook carefully on the bonnet of the car.

‘I could use a coffee,’ he said.

‘I’ve no coffee. I could make you a cup of tea.’

‘Tea?’ He grimaced. ‘One of the things about England I’ve never gotten used to.’

‘You’re not in England,’ she said stiffly.

‘Wales, wherever.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess I’ll settle for the tea.’ He stepped out into the sunlight again and led the way back down the path. As he reached the house he pushed back the door and held it open, ushering her in as though she were the visitor.

She went through the hallway to the kitchen, hearing the heavy tread of boots on the boards overhead, the murmur of voices. Maley stopped at the foot of the stairs and called out the boys’ names, brusquely authoritative, before following her in.

She set the kettle on the stove to boil. The others were coming down; she heard the dull clump of their boots on the stairs. ‘Tell me straight,’ she said, turning to face the lieutenant. ‘Why are you here? I mean, what are you doing in my house?’

‘Excuse me, ma’am.’ He went to the door and thrust his head out into the hallway. One of the others spoke, low and indistinct. ‘Just the car,’ said Maley. ‘A few tools. A couple of goats out back.’ She heard the front door open and then slam shut. The lieutenant closed the kitchen door and stepped over to the far side of the room, positioning himself between the table and the window.

‘Well?’ she said.

He avoided her gaze. ‘Security. Me, I’d rather be seeing action out East, but there’s work to be done here, and someone’s got to do it.’

She opened the cupboard and reached down the teapot. ‘Why not our own soldiers? It would seem less …’ She hesitated, searching for a form of words which might convey something of her sense of outrage without unduly antagonizing him. ‘More tactful,’ she said at last. ‘I think it would be more tactful.’

‘That’s how it was at first – all done by the British army. It didn’t work out. There were desertions, then a kind of mutiny someplace up north. Nothing of much account, but that’s when they decided this kind of work was better left to us. It makes sense. You got no ties to a place, you do the job with a clearer mind.’

She was only half listening. She could hear the bleating of the goats outside – the high yammering of the kid, the nanny’s deeper tones – and the two boys calling to one another across the field. Her hands busied themselves with the tea things while her thoughts strayed anxiously outward and the lieutenant talked on, insistent, monotonous.

She had lost the thread. ‘It’s a tough call,’ Maley was saying. ‘As tough as they come. But what’s the alternative?’

She looked up in confusion, but the question seemed not to require an answer. ‘The reason we’re out there,’ continued the lieutenant, ‘is we got a duty – a duty to protect our freedoms. Freedom to live as we want. Freedom to buy what we need. If we can’t safeguard supplies—’

‘Oil? I thought the idea was to have your own supplies. To open up your own lands for drilling. Making the wilderness pay its dues – wasn’t that the phrase your president used?’

‘That’s what she said, and that’s what she’s doing. But it won’t be enough – not the way things are going. If we want to stay in the game we’ll need all we can get our hands on.’

‘I’ve no sugar,’ she said. She banged a cup down on the table and poured the tea. ‘Milk’s in the jug.’

‘In this world,’ he said, reaching across the table and drawing the cup towards him, ‘you can’t sit back and let things happen. What you’re not ready to fight for, you don’t get to keep. That’s just the way it is.’ He lifted the jug and sniffed at it, wrinkling his nose. ‘This milk …’

‘Goat’s,’ she said. ‘It’s an acquired taste.’

‘I’ll pass.’ He put the jug back on the table, picked up the cup and sipped without relish.

‘It’s just a matter of what you’re used to,’ she said. ‘Try it – it won’t do you any harm.’

But the lieutenant appeared distracted. He was leaning a little sideways, staring at the group of photographs on the table. As she watched, he leaned over and picked out the nearest of them, lifting it by the corner of its gilt frame.

‘Who’s this?’ he asked, turning it towards her, tapping the glass with the rim of his cup.

Gareth in his late teens, staring defiantly at the camera, his dyed hair gelled in ragged tufts and spikes, his body taut beneath the slashed T-shirt.

‘My son.’

Maley looked up sharply. ‘Where is he?’

‘He lives in Aberdare.’

‘Close by?’ He set down the cup and half turned to the window, tilting the faded image towards the light.

‘Aberdare’s south,’ she said. ‘Quite a way from here.’

‘Looks like a wild kid. Does he give you much trouble?’

She smiled. ‘Gareth’s a teacher. That was taken twenty-five years ago.’

The lieutenant lowered his eyes, visibly embarrassed, pursed his lips and gave a low whistle. ‘Twenty-five years back, I was in diapers.’ He shook his head slowly from side to side and turned the frame over, as though some necessary confirmation of her claim might have been written on the reverse. An awkward pause; then he turned back to her, curious, appraising.

‘I’ll tell you this, ma’am,’ he said. ‘You’re a fine-looking woman for your years.’

She held him with her gaze, hard and steady, watching him blush, finding a little reassurance in his discomfiture. He gave an uneasy laugh. ‘Hell,’ he said, ‘I meant nothing by it. It’s a compliment, that’s all.’

Thinking about it later, she couldn’t be sure whether it was the sound she had noticed first – the roar and crackle as the flames took hold – or the dimming of the air beyond the window, but she knew at once what was happening and made a dash for the door. She saw the lieutenant start forward, heard the shards of glass skittering across the tiles as the picture frame hit the floor, but she was out before he could get to her, banging the front door shut behind her, running for the barn. As she rounded the corner of the house and began to climb the slope she saw Kellerman loping towards her from the far side of the field, but it was Lomax, sprinting up unexpectedly from behind, who reached her first. He hooked his hand beneath her armpit and swung her round.

‘You can’t go up there,’ he said. ‘You’ll get yourself killed.’ He drew her firmly towards him as a lover might. Sweat, tobacco, spearmint; the warmth of his breath on her cheek. She sensed, rather than saw, that the lieutenant had joined them.

‘The animals,’ she shouted, writhing in the boy’s grip. ‘There are animals there.’

‘They’re safe,’ said Lomax. He jutted his chin towards the corner of the field where the two goats stood tethered to a fencepost. ‘We’ve taken care of everything. The car’s down by the gate, and your tools—’

‘The kittens,’ she said. ‘Did you find the kittens?’

‘Kittens?’ He stared stupidly into her face. ‘Nobody said—’

She gave a shrill cry and struck out ineffectually with the flat of her hand. The lieutenant stepped forward. ‘You should have told us,’ he said.

‘Why? How was I to know …’ She gestured helplessly towards the blazing building. ‘Tell him to let me go.’

‘Ma’am—’

‘Tell him.’

Maley nodded. Lomax slackened his hold, allowing her to pull away. And as she stepped back, she looked up and saw the cat.

It must have squeezed through the gap beneath the hayloft door – there was no other way onto the ledge – and now it was padding back and forth in wild agitation, one of the kittens dangling from its jaws. As she watched, it came to a stop and braced its forepaws on the wall a little below the ledge. For a second or two it hung there, peering down through the drifting smoke as if gauging the drop; then it writhed back and resumed its frantic pacing, crying out now, a throaty, staccato yowling that set her teeth on edge.

‘Do something,’ she said. She reached out and grabbed the lieutenant’s arm. ‘Get her down.’

Maley shook his head. ‘There’s nobody going up there. Too risky.’ And, as if on cue, a broad tongue of flame came licking out at the base of the loft door and began to climb the warped boards. She could feel the cat’s terror as it span away from the heat and poised itself once more above the drop, forepaws testing the weathered rendering, feeling for purchase; and then it was clear of the ledge, half falling, half running down the sheer wall. It hit the ground awkwardly, tumbling sideways as its legs buckled, and in the momentary stillness that followed it occurred to her that the impact might have killed it; but as she edged forward she saw it coming towards her across the rough grassland, the kitten still gripped in its jaws and swinging limply from side to side.

‘Tessie,’ she called. ‘Come on.’ The cat approached to within a few feet and laid the kitten down in front of her.

She saw at once that it was dead. It lay on its back, its neck oddly angled and its legs splayed to reveal the pale fur of its chest and belly. She leaned down to pick up the cat but it slipped through her outstretched hands and darted sideways. Kellerman made a clumsy attempt to intercept it, but she screamed at him to let it be, to let it bloody be, and he backed off, arms raised in a theatrical gesture of surrender, while the cat streaked away and was lost to view at the field’s far edge.

‘Haven’t you done enough damage?’ she shouted. Kellerman began to speak, but Maley cut across him. ‘I can see how all this looks to you, ma’am,’ he said, ‘but a little damage now can prevent a whole lot of damage in the future. That’s the principle we’re operating on.’

‘A little damage?’ She turned angrily towards the barn. ‘You call that a little damage?’

The fire had taken hold of the roof timbers; she could see the flames raging under the eaves and flowering through the gaps where slates had slipped or fallen. The lieutenant barely glanced up.

‘You got to take account of the bigger picture,’ he said. ‘Outbuildings like this, miles from anywhere – those crazies are drawn to them like flies to shit, begging your pardon, ma’am. You don’t want to wake up some morning and find the place swarming with rebels. This way you’ll have no trouble.’

She turned aside. ‘Where are my tools?’ she asked.

Maley nodded towards the gate. ‘Nothing’s lost. Like I said—’

‘I need a spade.’ She broke away and moved off down the slope. She wondered whether he might follow her, or even try to stop her, but when she looked back she saw that he was standing where she’d left him, staring after her.

The tools had been dumped in an untidy heap a little to one side of the gateway. She hauled out the spade, strode back to where the kitten lay and began to dig, levering up ragged tussocks, hacking furiously at the compacted soil beneath. The lieutenant watched her for a few moments, then leaned over and gripped the haft. ‘Let me do this,’ he said, but she twisted the spade free and went on working.

Lomax tapped his wristwatch. ‘Time we left,’ he said.

‘I’ll tell you when it’s time.’ Maley crouched beside the kitten and gently touched the blunt muzzle with his forefinger. ‘You forget,’ he said, ‘how small they are. Look at this.’ He lifted one of the forelegs and let it fall again. ‘When I was a kid …’ He glanced up at her, but she averted her eyes, refusing the proffered intimacy, and he rose briskly to his feet. ‘That’ll be deep enough,’ he said.

She had just laid the kitten in the grave when the roof went. She heard the ridge beam crack and looked up to see it folding inward under an avalanche of slates. The air above the building thickened and flared; she felt the heat deepen around her.

‘We better back off a bit,’ said Maley. Lomax and Kellerman had already turned and were walking towards the house, but she made no move to rise. Slowly, deliberately, she took up a handful of loose soil and scattered it over the body. The lieutenant leaned down and tried to raise her, but she pushed his hand away.

‘Let me finish,’ she said. She reached forward and drew the remainder of the soil into the grave with the edges of her palms. Then she replaced the grass-clumps, tamping them down firmly with the handle of the spade.

By the time they rejoined the others the mood had changed. Kellerman was sitting cross-legged beside the vegetable patch, shredding a blade of grass with his thumbnail, while Lomax stood above him, smiling broadly. ‘No,’ Kellerman was saying, ‘they’re all up for it. Find their weak spot and you’re in.’ Lomax gave a high, barking laugh and took a step back, setting his heel among the carrots’ delicate leaves. She wanted to protest, but Maley was speaking to her.

‘What I was going to say back there is I know how you feel. When I was growing up we always had cats about the house. Anything happened to one of them, it was like it happened to family. I remember one summer my sister came back from college and the Siamese was gone – killed crossing the street a week before. I should have been there, she kept saying, though there was no way she could have saved it.’ His voice had softened. Looking up, she saw the other two exchanging glances, Lomax miming the wiping of a tear from the corner of his eye. Maley caught the gesture as he turned.

‘Screw you, Lomax,’ he said, his face contorting with fury. ‘And get your goddamn boots off of the lady’s flower bed.’ He lunged out and hauled the boy roughly forward, hooking a foot around his ankle so that he stumbled and fell sprawling on the path.

Lomax rose at once, beating the dust from his jacket with savage, flapping movements of his big hands. He shot the lieutenant an angry look but said nothing. Maley turned back to her, speaking as coolly as if the interruption had never taken place.

‘You’re not to worry about the flowers, ma’am.’

‘Carrots,’ she said, glancing down at the bruised leaves. ‘They’re carrots.’

‘Whatever. There’ll be compensation. For all of this.’ He looked over his shoulder at the dark smoke rolling away across the fields. ‘It’ll burn itself out now. There’s no danger so long as you stay clear.’

Kellerman had risen to his feet and was standing beside Lomax on the path. Maley jerked his head towards the jeep. ‘You two wait down there,’ he said. He watched them through the gateway before turning back to her.

‘I’m sorry you’ve been troubled.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Truly sorry, ma’am, believe me.’ He tugged his cap from his pocket. ‘You take care now. And keep your door locked, you hear me? These are crazy times.’

Out on the track, the engine coughed into life. Maley was settling his cap on his head but he seemed in no hurry to leave. He wants something from me, she thought: a word, perhaps, of acknowledgement or forgiveness. But she gave him nothing, and after a moment he turned on his heel and strode down to the waiting jeep. The door slammed and then they were away, bumping down the track towards the road.

She walked slowly to the gate and pushed it shut, fastening the catch with exaggerated care. They were already out of sight, but it was easy enough to follow their progress. She stood stiffly, listening as the din receded.

They had reached the end of the track. She heard the engine roar as the jeep swung onto the tarmac and accelerated away, and she strained after the sound, gripping the top bar of the gate with both hands. The wind was veering round now, bringing the smoke with it so that her eyes began to smart and water, but she remained where she was, staring into the distance. Over there, beyond the next line of hills and out towards the border, the green lanes smashed open for the convoys, their trees felled and their verges churned to sludge; and further off, much further, but unignorable now, the olive groves splintered to matchwood beneath lurching tanks, the blazing refineries, the black slick stilling the waters. She felt, with a dull nausea, as if some insult were being visited upon her own body, the flinch and shudder of small lives ending, and thought how it might go on like this until there was nothing left to burn.