John Dark had the same itch between her shoulder blades. She didn’t check behind her, but she looked from side to side much more often than normal, and she never put the gun back in the scabbard that hung from the saddle in front of her knees. I think she didn’t look back because she knew Jip and I were bringing up the rear, behind her and the packhorse. It was a kind of trust. The packhorse between us was also getting jittery. And again, it may have been because it was the end of a long day of travel, or it may have been that it could sense something out there stalking us, but the spooked horse made me more aware of the shadows lengthening around us as the light dimmed.
Jip suddenly burst into action, plunging into the undergrowth and barking wildly. We both stopped and swivelled in our saddles, listening for what our eyes couldn’t see. Jip crashed through the undergrowth, still barking, getting further and further away. It was hard to hear if he was chasing something and if so, what it was. And then the faint barking was cut off short and there was no sound of movement that I could hear.
La pan? said John Dark, and mimed rabbit ears over her head.
I shrugged and turned back to listen, peering into the late afternoon dimness, ears straining. Jip suddenly bolting away like that was unsettling, and the barking stopping so abruptly was worse.
I whistled and waited, then whistled some more.
I was just about to turn back when he trotted out of the bushes, head up, tongue out, looking very pleased with himself.
John Dark looked pleased too, but I noticed she quickly tried to hide the smile as soon as I saw it.
Jip, she said, tapping the side of her head, as if testing whether it was cracked. Eel ay foo.
By this time, I had worked out that eel ay is French for “it is”. The other word was clear, in context, given the tapping of the head.
Yes, Jip, I said, shaking my head at him. You are foo.
Jip just kept panting and smiling, tongue lolling redly out of his mouth as he did so. His air of satisfaction, given the fact he was not carrying a new dead rabbit friend, made me think he had chased something off, rather than chased something down. I don’t think Jip could have chased off a lion or a tiger or even a bear, unless it was a very small and unusually timid one, but as we proceeded the itch between my shoulder blades seemed to have gone. And given the fact that neither of us had actually seen anything stalking us, it is possible we had invented the stalker and so brought it along to shadow us only in our minds. We both relaxed a little and pressed on.
The next halt came about half an hour later when John Dark pushed up through a stand of low hazel trees and pulled her horse to a stop. I emerged beside her and followed her gaze.
The Homely House sat in a clearing on the edge of a steep slope, with trees crowded in behind, but an open glade in front of it. The trees weren’t green, but a dark purple, which looked closer to inky black in the failing light. They were, I knew by now, copper beeches. They made the stone with which the house was built look pale in contrast. It was a big two-storeyed house, and would have been old even when you were alive. It was wide rather than tall and felt tucked into the crest of the slope, as if it had been comfortable there for centuries, watching the world change below it. There was a high wall on one side of it, and a couple of lower buildings to the other side, built of the same aged stone.
Bon, said John Dark. E. C.
She rode on, up to the high wall. There was an oak door, grey with age and studded with big nailheads the size of limpets. She dismounted and tried it. It was stiff and the hinges graunched alarmingly as she pulled it towards her, kicking down the grass tussocks which had grown in its way since it was last opened. And then she stepped through the door in the wall and disappeared. I got off my horse and took a moment to stretch and scrabble the hair between Jip’s ears, and then I heard her calling and followed her in.
It was—had been—a walled garden. There was just enough order left to see that once there had been a neat grid of fruit trees at the centre of it, and glass houses had been built against the two walls that caught the sun. One of them had collapsed, but the other was more or less intact, and John Dark was standing in it. Her mouth was smiling and dripping with wetness. She had a half-eaten fruit in her hand. I thought it was an apple, but she beckoned me and pulled another off the tree scaling the wall behind her. The day had been a long and hot one. As I walked over to her, I was engulfed in the thickest, headiest smell I had ever experienced. It was sun and it was warmth and it was clean sweetness—all distilled together. Nothing on the island smelled like that. And the apple? Wasn’t an apple at all. Its skin wasn’t shiny, but matt and furry, and it was yellow and pink, almost red.
John Dark grinned and bit some more out of the one in her hand.
Pesh, she said. Pesh bon, Griz, pesh bon.
I bit into the fruit. It still held the heat of the long day’s sun and was much softer than an apple, though the only apples I have tasted come from the walled garden on Eriskay, and they are small, hard and sour. This tasted big and generous, and sweeter than anything I had ever tried. It didn’t have the sharp bittersweetness of Brand’s marmalade. It had a shape that filled your mouth, a rounded and warm sweetness that immediately made the saliva run and mix with the juices in anticipation of the next bite. It tasted just like the smell around us, but more so. It was like tasting a smile. You’d have thought this fanciful, I expect. Your shops would have been full of pesh and other things even more exotic. You probably wouldn’t even have been able to remember the first pesh you ate, among all the different tastes you were used to. And of all the glories and riches in your gone world, that’s one thing I don’t envy you for. That’s something I have that you didn’t: the glory of that first pesh, taken in the warm sun at the end of a long, tiring day. It was perfect.
Not many first times are perfect. That was.
We turned the horses out to graze, hobbled for the night, and then we faced the house. The windows were narrow and made of stone with diamonds of glass held in place by lead strips, like the house I had left in flames, but this house seemed much older than that one. The memory of having burned it out of spite made me feel a bit bad, but the words painted and still visible across the door of this new place made me feel better.
WELCOME, STRANGER
It was the same kind of once bright spray writing that had been used to put the Bible verse on the church in South Uist, but the hand that had written was firmer and more generous. The original colour of the paint had faded to almost white, but the message was still clear.
John Dark looked at the words and then at me.
Okay, I said.
I stepped past her and tried to open the door. It was also oak, like the gate in the walled garden. I could see from the thick crust of moss that had grown across the bottom gap that it had not been opened in living memory, and I was fully expecting we would have to kick and shove at it, but it didn’t even squeak too loudly as it opened with just the smallest resistance. This was unusual enough for me to look back at John Dark and exchange a look with her. She made a face and shrugged.
Okay, I said. Bon.
Wee, she said. Good.
I walked in. The room was low and broad and had an immediate generous feel to it. The walls were panelled with wood. There was a wide staircase leading to the floors above. There were carpets laid out across the hall, dark rectangles on the lighter floor, with complicated patterns on them. The colours were muted both by age and the layer of dust that covered everything. The only sign of neglect was that layer of dust. The house had been left in good order, and that had been done on purpose, as we were to find out.
Griz, said John Dark.
I turned and found she was standing at the big table that took up the centre of the room. There was a frame, like for a painting, and behind the glass someone had placed a couple of sheets of paper covered in big letters.
WE HAVE GONE.
WE ARE IN THE BATHROOM AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS.
DO NOT WORRY ABOUT MOVING US
WE ARE HAPPY THERE AS WE WERE HAPPY HERE IN LIFE.
PLEASE MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME.
FOOD IN THE WALLED GARDEN.
FIREWOOD IN THE SHED BY THE BACK DOOR.
TAKE WHAT YOU NEED. USE WHAT YOU CAN.
STAY AS YOU PLEASE OR GO AS YOU WISH.
BE WELL. BE HAPPY. BE KIND.
I read it twice, and then I cleared my throat and tried to translate it for John Dark. It made me feel strange, reading something directly meant for me, written to me from the past. I mean, I know it wasn’t written for me, Griz, but it was written for anyone who came into the house and found it and that was me.
When I had made it clear what it said, we headed upstairs without needing to agree to do it. It just felt the right thing to do. Paying our respects.
They had gone neatly, making as little mess as they could, and they had gone together. They were just bones now, tangled together in the giant metal bathtub which had feet like a dog’s which lifted it off the ground. Their skulls leaned together, companionably, one bigger than the other. The water had evaporated over time, leaving a flaking, rusty tidemark that was probably not just rust. There was a knife lying on the floor beneath the bath. Looking round the room it was hard not to imagine their final moments. There were saucers everywhere, full of puddled wax that had once been candles, and where there were no candles there had been vases and buckets full of flowers and branches, of which nothing remained but dry stalks and twigs that crumbled to dust when I touched them. There was a green bottle of wine with a foil around the neck, and there were two glasses lying unbroken among the bones. It looked like the big one had held the smaller one lying against him. I supposed they might be a man and a woman, but I do not know what the difference is in skeletons. They had filled the room with candlelight and flowers, and then they had got in the bath together, and drunk the wine and then I think they had gently cut their wrists perhaps in the warm water and I hope that they had just felt they were going to sleep in each other’s arms. It didn’t feel a sad or a creepy room at all. Bones are just bones. And it didn’t feel haunted. Like I say, there are no such things as ghosts. But it felt like we were intruding.
I think John Dark felt the same.
Eels etay day john four, she said. Tray four.
Then she nodded and walked out of the room. She went downstairs to hunt around, and I walked along the corridor looking into the rooms on either side. They had covered everything with sheets, to keep the dust off I think. They had been there so long that they had caught drifts of dust, and I was coughing because I had just moved the sheet aside to look into a tall cupboard to see if there were any good clothes or boots to vike when I heard a noise that sent an immediate spike of fear down my spine.
It was a high-pitched woman’s scream, long and wavering, and it wasn’t John Dark. And then there were suddenly other voices, more voices than I had ever heard in my life.
The sound almost made me pee in shock.
And then I heard John Dark shouting for me.