Merrick
I stuffed it back into the envelope, readdressed it to India House, tied it up with string and dropped it in the spare plant pot to take out later.
A crow bumped into the glass in front of me. It fell on to the grass but hopped up again, ruffling its feathers. I tapped on the window to see if it was all right. It looked, bright-eyed and alert still. Another fluttered down next to it, and another shot overhead. There were dozens of them, everywhere, and most were fluttering in a great funnel above the graves. Some were far up in the sky, circling as though they were looking for something. I thought it was carrion at first. I went out.
‘Anyone got my keys?’ I called, then stopped walking, because I had almost come to what they were interested in. It was a broken amphora, the one that usually rested against the statue, but whoever had moved the statue had forgotten about it. It had spilled a spray of glass shells and tiny vials across the leafy moss. I frowned, because I hadn’t known it had anything in it at all. The shells were bright and winking even in the drizzly sun. I went down on my good knee to pick one up. It came attached by a dead weed to three or four others, which plinked together and trickled old sand over my knuckles. Caught in the glass were burned imperfections and bursts of odd colour where scraps of iron or copper had been mixed up in it. There were dead sea things in two of them.
The vials were sealed shut. I broke the wax on one. Inside was something fine and white. I leaned down to it. Salt.
Not liking my being there, the crows wheeled away, towards the house and their nests in the big tree.
When I went back to the greenhouse, the crows had traded some glass shells for the pennies, but there was still no sign of my keys. Gulliver whined and nudged at me as I sat down. I stroked her ears. It made me jump when she barked. In the little space it was loud.
‘Ow. What?’
She whined again and hid under the old couch. A couch is an odd thing to have in a greenhouse, but it had always been there. It was Regency, all twirling mahogany scrollwork and sun-faded upholstery. I couldn’t tell what colour it had been, and some patches were so worn out that the calico lining showed through. I’d never sat on it – I couldn’t lean back if I was sitting down now – but there was an impression of a person on the left side that must have been my father or his, which I liked.
I couldn’t lean down from sitting either, so I had to take my feet off the ground and ease down on my hands to see underneath.
‘Come on, girl.’
St Bernards have human mannerisms. They sigh a lot when they’re fed up, and Gulliver, at least, always put her paw over her eyes when she was unhappy. I laughed, but then stopped when I saw what was by my hand. It was the watermark of a bootprint. The sole was a different pattern to mine, no pattern at all, and much bigger.
It shouldn’t have worried me as much as it did, but I’d been skittish since I’d hurt my leg. I got up and took Gulliver twice round the greenhouse, then into the trees a little way in four directions, but we didn’t find anyone or any sign of anyone. The only human shape was the statue, which kept catching my eye. In the end I gave up and tried to get on with things in the greenhouse, but the crawling feeling of being watched was heavy on the back of my neck and it wouldn’t go away. I couldn’t concentrate and when Gulliver nosed me, restless too, I took her out again and started back up the hill, thinking vaguely that we might both feel better for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Gulliver generally had the biscuit.
As we walked towards the house, I smelled something burning. It was so clear that I turned round twice, looking for smoke, but I couldn’t trace where the smell was coming from and after a few seconds, in the way you lose sight of a star if you stare at it too long, I couldn’t catch it at all any more.
It was only once we were on the driveway that it came back. Something bright half-blinded me and I looked up, worried there was a fire in the house, but the light wasn’t coming from that way. It was in the tree. There were starry points all through the canopy. The glass shells were in the crows’ nests, winking where the sun came down through the loose edges. Where one of them made a dot of brightness on the ground beside me, the pine needles were starting to smoke. They went up with an odd blue flame while I was watching. Gulliver squeaked and hid behind me. Points on the branches and the trunk were smoking too. Through the grey haze, more fires burned thin and chemical-looking. The gardeners weren’t there; they were sitting on the kitchen steps with the tea that Sarah always provided at ten on the dot, unbeknownst to Charles.
‘Tree’s on fire,’ I called.
The head gardener twisted back. I had a feeling his name was something brilliant, like Sisyphus, but although he had worked here since we were both children I wasn’t confident enough to say it and we had never had a proper conversation. I’d been away too much. ‘What?’
I pointed with my cane.
‘Jesus!’ There was a clatter as teacups clanked down on the steps. Men ran past me and I stood still so that I wouldn’t get in anyone’s way. ‘How in God’s name is it on fire?’ Sisyphus demanded of the world more than of me. ‘It pissed down in the night.’ Then he flushed. ‘Sorry, sir.’
I shook my head, although Charles had trained them too strictly not to swear for me to convince anyone I didn’t mind. ‘The crows have been collecting these, look.’ I found the one I’d had in my pocket and showed him. The glass was thick enough that the spiral of the shell winked and lensed the light. The little spotlight it made on my palm felt warm. Sisyphus took it and moved it to and fro over a handful of pine needles, then gasped and dropped them when they caught alight with a hissing crackle. Gulliver nudged me further away from it.
Sisyphus was still embarrassed and when he spoke, the gorse and the ferns in his voice withered until there was almost no Cornwall left in it at all. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t well spoken. Charles was and, as far as the gardeners were concerned, I was only a taller, blonder extension of him. I’d never had the energy to sit them all down and explain I didn’t go through their faults with him nightly over dinner. ‘But that ought not be hot enough to – should it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘The tree’s from the Amazon. God knows what it should and shouldn’t do.’
In the end there wasn’t much they could do but put out what fell to the ground and hope nothing really got going. The fires only hissed damply, and after about ten minutes a misty rain started and we all stood just shy of the canopy, watching. Some of the smoking patches were on the rotten branch. Close to, the angle at which it hung above the house was mad. It was held on by nothing but one last string of wood and a pretty fungus.