The Fire Child (7 page)

Afternoon

It’s taken me a week to pluck up the courage to come in here. David’s study. Where I will maybe learn more about Jamie. My husband has come and gone from London, the days have come and gone, palpably shortening now, I’ve done the school runs and talked to the gardener and read my books on marquetry, carpentry, and masonry, and I have hesitated maybe twelve times in front of this imposing door.

The house is deserted. Jamie is still at school; Cassie has gone shopping. Juliet is with friends for the day, in St Ives. I have an hour at least. So now I must do it. I know I am, arguably, going behind David’s back, but the grief in this house is too intense for me to keep asking questions, directly. That way is too painful for everyone. So I must be more subtle. Discreet.

A fine but angled autumn sun makes a rich amber patch of light on the polished floorboards. These boards creak as I step forward, and open the door.

I’ve only been in this spacious, cedar-scented room three or four times before, and always in David’s presence. Now I gaze about, in faint but definite awe. There are several ancient portraits on the wood-panelled walls. Clumsy, vernacular portraits of patriarchal Kerthens: portraits of rich men who could only commission very provincial painters.

I know the biggest and darkest of these portraits shows Jago Kerthen, the man who sank the Jerusalem Shaft in the 1720s. He had a reputation, David says, for severity, if not brutality. Damning men to death down risky pits, urging them on through day and night, his troops of willing Cornishmen with their tallow candles glued on to their little hats. Jago Kerthen’s pale blue eyes glint with avarice in the gold-framed portrait: however clumsy the artist, he caught that look well enough. Yet it was Jago Kerthen’s appalling greed that turned the Kerthen thousands into millions in the early eighteenth century.

David has positioned the portrait so that it stares out of the tall sash window, down the last of Carnhallow Valley to the just-visible blackness of Morvellan Mine. And then onwards, to the shimmering wastes of the sea. The greedy and violent Jago Kerthen is staring at the very same mine he sank into the granite.

I’ve no doubt this positioning is deliberate.

The rest of the room is also very David. A couple of fine abstract paintings, possibly even a Mondrian. The floor is softened by some of those Azeri rugs David likes, apparently superior to Turkish or Persian rugs. As I look down, I can hear him airily explaining, as is his wont, ‘Oh, them, yes, the rugs, I bought them in Baku.’

Dominating the room is a large desk, solidly built, and clearly old. I walk closer, swallowing my sense of impropriety, the sense that I shouldn’t be here. Prying.

A brand new Apple laptop, firmly closed, sits right next to military memorabilia, from all the Kerthens who went to England’s wars: there are medals with faded sashes, from the Crimean and Peninsular wars, and beside them a rusty old revolver with mud still visible in its metalwork – probably, I’m guessing, from the First World War. Then a long, gleaming sword with a gilded hilt. Looking close, I see that it is engraved
Harry St John Tresillian Kerthen, Paardeburg, 1900.

On the other side of this big desk there are three photos. Paired together is a tilted photo of me and David – and one of Nina and David. Both photos taken at our respective weddings. I try not to compare them: the swaying beauty of her wedding dress compared to my humble summer frock, the sense of grandeur in Nina’s glamorous nuptials compared to my modest London party. I resist the urge to slap the photo of Nina face down on the desktop.

The third silver-framed photo is of Jamie, aged four or five, laughing unselfconsciously in the sunlit kitchen here at Carnhallow. It is a poignant, lovely image: Jamie is looking at his beloved mother, almost off-camera, who has apparently made him laugh. He looks piercingly happy, in a way I have never witnessed. I have never seen this laughing, happy boy, the untroubled son before his mother’s death.

The sense of loss throbs, in this study, like a reopened wound at the heart of Carnhallow. And I feel like
I
am the shard in the flesh. Renewing the hurt.

And yet I am doing this for the best reason: helping Jamie. So I will carry on. Crossing the room, I examine the bookshelves. I know, from being here before, that one of these shelves is dedicated to Jamie: it holds everything from his school reports to his football rosettes. The last time I was in here with David I saw him take out Jamie’s medical records.

I run my hand along the shelf. A school photo. Some exercise books. Vaccination records. Blood type, A. Birth certificate, 3 March. Gold star for English, Year 2. I pause at an untitled folder, then pull it out, and open it up.

There’s not much in here. A few loose pages with some childish writing
. Yet, as I read on, I am choked with unexpected emotion as I realize that I am holding Jamie’s letters to his dead mother.

Dear mummy

I am riting this because the therappist in the hospittal says it is good if I rite to you now you are dead. I miss you mummy. You were funny wen you put sand on yor nose in France when we went on holliday. Every day I think of you after you fel down

Since you

Lots of things hapend some of them were very sad and daddy went away a lot
like
and he says he misses you to. I have a new pencil case now mummy.

After you fel in the water granny
tolld said
sayed you were on a very long holiday and I askd somewere like France and she says Yes. But daddy sayed you are not comeing back and granny sed a ly and you were dead and not comeing back.

I have a lift the flap book

After you

Today we lernt about dinosaurs ubdcefalus had a bony club on its tail for swinging at enemys.

Today we did litteracy here are my Sentences

can you hear me singing?

Did you ever see me kicking?

I am jumping.

I am starting to jump

I am lifting.

I’m shifting a table.

I’m crying.

I am flying in the air.

The man in the hospittal says I must talk to you mummy in my letters but sometimes it makes me
verry
sad and I remember the hollidays. Do you remember them mummy?

My best day with you and daddy was wen we went to France. Me and daddy went up a lighthouse then we went to the Shops with you and we got some mashmalows and delicous hot choclit. When we got back we toasted them on the fire. then I was going to have dinner but instead We went on a boat to go to another house to stay in. I was so amazed. Evryone was happy.

After you died

Mummy it rained a lot since Cristmas now you are not here. I got some wellys. Then I splashed puddles with daddy then we made lasanya and watched that film you liked again. Daddy cryed a little bit it is the onley time I have seen daddy cry he doesnt cry and he told me it was because I was alone like him. and he said sorry to me and mummy loved me I musnnt dout this
und

Why did you say that about Cristmas

Why did you

Anyway now I must go granny says we are having macarrony and cheese for tea. I hope you have a dog in heaven as you mite be lonely to

I love you mummy. I want you to come back but you cant come back because you are dead daddy says. I miss you every day are you in the ground so deep no one can get you even with a bulldozer

Jamie

The letter trembles in my hand. It has dark spots on it. I think they may be dried tears.

There are two more letters. Shorter. The writing is better in these; this is Jamie a little older, I think. I have to lean close to look at the words – then I realize the room has grown very dim. A glance at the window shows me that rainclouds have raced across the sky, in that startling Cornish way, turning day into darkness. The impatient fingernails of rain tap the windowpane. I reach across and switch on David’s angular brass desk lamp, then read on.

Dear Mummy

Daddy said I must stop riting to you cos it makes me upset. He said this in case you got angry and I was worried you wud came back as a ghost wich wud be very scarry.

Ghost

I dont want to stop riting to you because I can imagin you in my head when I rite. You used to kiss me on the nose to make things better
France

Mummy I remember it was Cristmas and evryone was drinking their drinks and geting louder and louder. Im sorry and daddy said it was your fault and I ran out I cant rite it down I am sorry you died I am sorry if

Saturd

Here are the sentences we did yesterday

I’m liking my book exceptionally

I am not going swimming today it is too boring

I’m hoping I will see my mummy once more

I’m taking a toy robot to school

I’m guessing you haven’t got a dog

Daddy is shaving

Mummy is waving

Mummy some nites I dream of you floting in the water. Someone at school said that bodys come back will you come back? They say that if you drowned in the sea then your body would be washed up on rocks like a starfish why weren’t you washed up at Morvelan like a starfish?

Bleeding

THEY CUT YOUR FINGERTIP OFF

BLOOD IN THE

Fizzy drinks are bad for you and I remember at Critsmas I gave you a fizzy drink and I thought it was my falt you were dead and they buryd your coat but I don’t think this any more.

I listen to the sea it sounds like a big man breathing, a big scarry man and mummy in the darkness and the blackness. I have fritening dreams about you with no fingers to Im sorry. you are smiling

Jamie xxxXXXxxx

One more letter to go. One more is enough. This final letter looks to be the most recent, the handwriting is significantly improved. I can see my name in the first paragraph, this letter must have been written after I entered his life.

Leaning closer to David’s desk lamp, I take up the notepaper, and read.

Dear Mummy

Daddy’s new wife is here now and her name is Rachel Daly but she is now a Kerthen like you and me and Daddy. Are you angry with her for taking
yor
your place? Don’t be she is nice she teaches me photography but she is not my mummy YOU are my mummy.

Sometimes I do not like to look at the mine where you fell down Mummy I know you are alive and alright now but the mines friten me. They look like monsters. Rachel is sad sometimes she laughs a lot but then she looks unhappy.

I remember when you were sad a lot before the
accident
fall. When Daddy and then you said what you said I wont tell anyone?

Today at school Miss Anderson showed us pictures of heaven but I do not think I believe in heaven any more because I used to think you lived in heaven with grandad. But now you arent in heaven you are in the house at night so how does that work? Did you swim in the mine and climb out?

Yesterday we had swimming. I can do front crawl and back crawl but I can’t do butterfly. It is very hard. You swam a long way in France when you went on and on and Daddy was laughing and saying you were swimming to England because you want to get away from us.

Wish you ha

I loved you just as much as daddy, I am sorry

I learned a story about penguins. There are penguins in Antartica that spend all the winter looking after the baby penguins. It is very cold so cold your eyes turn into ice and then you have to wear gogles. The penguins looking after the little penguins are daddy penguins. The wind blows and blows and blows and the daddy penguins keep the baby penguin warm with there fluffy feathers. Then after ages they see the mummy penguins. they thought the mummy penguins were dead but then they see the mummy penguins come back through the wind and the snow and they are happy. The mummy penguins always come back.

We are going to go to a castle this weekend and have a picnic with Daddy and Rachel. But it may be raining so we may stay in but I think it will be sunny. Today it is hot and we went swimming me and Daddy and Rachel at zawn hana and Mummy you were there in my head and then I saw you in the house.

I miss you lots and lots like wisky shots thats what Daddy says and I am going to go to sleep now. Bye bye

Jamie xxx

Carefully, I slip the letters back into the folder, and replace the folder on the shelf. Cassie will surely be back soon with Jamie, and Juliet too. I do not want to be caught in here, even though it is my own house. And I do not want anyone to suspect I was snooping.

Making my way around the study, I straighten anything I might have disturbed. Then I pause at the window and follow Jago Kerthen’s gaze down the darkened, rain-streaked valley to the mines and the cliffs and the sea.