The house was quiet. Rachel’s aunt had gone to bed. Her uncle was still out rabbiting. Picking up the enamel candleholder, Rachel tiptoed along the polished floorboards of the landing and up the stairs to the attic. The moonlight shone in through the skylight. Under the eaves she could see the black form of the trunk, her treasure trunk. She put her fingertips on the edge of the lid and tried to lift it. It didn’t move. She placed the candleholder on the floor and used both hands to tug at the lid. Still it would not open. She picked up the candle. A padlock had been secured around the latch.
She sat down on the floor, pulled her knees up to her chest and shivered, rocking gently back and forth. What was she to do? Her head said one thing, her heart another. For the necklace, she would go to meet her uncle in the barn, let him ‘service her’, as he called it. But it was not only for the necklace. She wanted again to feel the sensations she’d felt that afternoon, to see if the feelings became stronger, more intense; an unbearable electric current feeding through every nerve end.
Rachel put her hands inside her nightdress and held her breasts in the same way her uncle had. They were surprisingly heavy, the flesh yielding to the shape of her hand. All these years, and she never once thought, until now at nineteen, to hold them that way. She moved her hands down and pressed hard with her knuckles into her belly, rocking back and forth. Opening her legs, she fondled for the first time in her life what her mother called her ‘secret place’. She tugged at the slippery flesh, trying to ease away the strange, aching sensation.
Rachel took an old paisley dressing gown from the hook at the back of her bedroom door and blowing out her candle went quietly down the uncarpeted stairs. The slate of the kitchen floor was cold on her feet. The mother cat lay asleep on her aunt’s chair by the Rayburn. The moonlight caught the cutlery laid out on the table for breakfast. At the back door, she slipped her feet into her aunt’s Wellington boots. As she walked across the yard, the rims scratched against her bare calves.
‘You came, then.’ He didn’t lift his head. He was bent over a kerosene lamp, his dog sitting patiently by his feet.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
He held up a limp rabbit. Rachel watched as he laid it on the bench, its white belly slashed from head to toe. He peeled back the fur, paring with his sharp knife. The flesh was a pale pink, little blood, mostly just flesh sculpted around delicate bones.
‘Why no blood?’ she enquired.
‘I hang ‘em up to drain first. It’s just the carcass left now.’
He picked up an old rag, wiped his hands and turned, catching at her hand as he did so. He nodded towards the straw in the corner. The collie bitch whimpered.
‘My! You’re a fine sight in your wellies and night-dress.’
‘Uncle?’
‘Shush, sit down.’
He pulled off her Wellington boots, first one and then the other.
Rachel’s aunt put her head round the bedroom door, ‘Come on Rachel, get up, what a sleepyhead you are this morning.’
Rachel awoke with a start. ‘Coming,’ she mumbled.
She stretched, clawing her toes round the metal bedstead. She placed her feet on the pink linoleum, stood up and lifted her nightdress over her head, stretching full length as she did so. She caught sight of her small, slightly rounded belly in the dressing table mirror and, breathing in, pressed her hands hard against it. She bent over and peeled herself apart; looked over her shoulder, staring, fascinated, for the first time at her raw pink flesh. The hair around it was encrusted with blood.
‘Rachel!’ Her aunt shouted from the bottom of the stairs.
Her uncle was seated at the breakfast table; half a fried egg lifted to his lips.
He put it into his mouth and nodded.
‘Morning, Uncle.’
Her aunt was placing a bowl in the Rayburn. ‘Rachel, you are a slow coach this morning. Have you forgotten it’s washday? Now hurry up. I want you to set up the mangle.’
‘Let the girl eat her breakfast in peace, for God’s sake.’
‘There’s a letter for you,’ said her aunt, fishing into her apron pocket. ‘Think it’s from your mother.’
Rachel used her clean knife to slit the pale blue envelope
23 Green Mount St,
Leeds,
May 27th 1943
Dear Rachel,
Just a short note to say that we expect you home on Friday the 3rd. Catch the 10 o’clock train. I want you to help spring clean before you go back to work on the Monday. Your father is very busy making outfits in time for Whitsuntide.
I hope you have been a good girl and helping your aunt, and not had your nose buried in a book at every opportunity.
Give my best wishes to your aunt and uncle. I hope they are in good health.
Love,
Mother
Rachel waited for the train. The brightly coloured posters in the waiting room showed happy smiling families off to the coast, the children with bucket and spade. The colours were so bright they gave the scenes a strangely nostalgic feel. Like a mid-day August sun that gives little shadow.
The door opened. It was her uncle. He took off his cap. ‘Here lass, I’ve brought you these. Take good care of them now and keep them from your mother’s prying eyes.’
Rachel removed her hat and shook out her black hair. She took the pouch from her uncle’s hands and pulled open the drawstring neck.
Inside, coiled like a snake, were the pewter pearls.
He winked, and was gone.