Frances Fyfield - Trial by Fire

Too close to home and all the familiar spectres of failure.

William was sitting in the corner of the kitchen hoping that the subject of the summerhouse would drop into silence, relieved and grateful when it did and other topics, brightly introduced by his mother, took the place of a dangerous pause. He had slowly learned the value of silence, knew he had them in thrall with the tantrums they dared not question. He had only to begin kicking his legs against the stool on which he sat with his usual dull but insistent rhythm to reduce them to either sullen fear or resentment; either worked as well, but on this occasion there was no need, and he was grateful.

William's mental development remained at the age of that of a cunning ten-year-old, untapped by the local schools who had abandoned him one after the other or the child psychiatrist whom he had abandoned, while his manual dexterity and physical strength overreached his years. The combination was frightening. Bernadette treasured his rare smiles, treated him with distant loyalty and affection, while Harold patted his black head occasionally and otherwise ignored him.

Bernadette knew that in William's life the summerhouse had more than the significance of memory, but did not know why. She guarded her wilful ignorance on his behalf, aware that the abandoned structure was a lair to him. She suspected Harold knew, but they did not discuss the subject.

`What will you do this afternoon?' She scolded with questions she knew he would not answer, gentle interrogatives. 'Get out, son. The weather's gorgeous; we'll not keep you.' He surprised her with half a grin, half a grunt, slid off his stool clumsily, made for the open kitchen door. Fine if he was ordered out. He would have preferred to sidle away unobserved, but either way he was gone with a blessing, and no one could call him back.

The garden into which he strolled had been planned with an informality quite unsuitable to such a large and impressive house. A cracked and weed-filled path of slippery stones led down the shady side of it flanked by shrubs for the whole length of the fifty yards that led to the summerhouse. A line of small trees marked the end of the garden, perhaps intended to be magnificent but now a scrubby demarcation zone surrounded by thicket. The lawn was punctuated with more overgrown shrubs in islands, designed to be discreet, but now well developed into quarrelling bushes of enormous size, roots obscured by long grass that would have done credit to a hayfield.

Cornflowers and cockles from the last year's barley in the field beyond had seeded among the grass, and a dead tree lay rotting across the path. William clambered over it, too old now for the fascination with termites that had once kept him for hours, and quickened his step until he yanked open the summerhouse door.

Inside, the floor was swept, not recently or well, but swept. Most but not all of the jars of kerosene were covered with cobwebs, as were the windows where a fly buzzed insistently.

William picked up one of the dusters from the floor and killed the fly instantly. The last broken pieces of chair were piled in one corner along with sacking and newspaper, and through the aperture behind the bar, a hole in the floor normally closed with half a door mounted on a clumsy hinge, he could see a light. Leading into the cavern below was a household stepladder, also broken but still usable.

He began a short but dexterous descent of the ladder, which had only three intact steps.

`William? Is that you?'

`Course it's me. Who else would it be, silly?'

`Don't call me silly.'

He clambered down the steps, face wreathed in the smile the world so rarely saw, stood in the light of the butane lamp, and surveyed their domain. There were mattresses beneath a covering of blankets, a chair, boxes doubling for tables and containers, a locked cupboard, makeshift shelves from wood and bricks, a camping cooker that had been another of Harold's bargains, a blackened pan, and a few tins of food. The floor was covered with an old remnant of carpet, dirty but swept, and on the mattresses sat Evelyn Blundell, paste earrings sparkling in the light, wearing her jeans and nothing else, her white pubescent chest catching the glow of the lamp.

`You're late, William. I told you four o'clock. I've got to go soon. I thought…' For once the confident voice faltered. 'I thought you'd gone and told them all.'

The edge of fear in her tone sharpened into reproof, a terrible threat implicit in it, and he hurried, tripping over his feet and his words to reassure her. Evie, Evie, I wouldn't do that.

Couldn't do that, Evie, I promise, not ever.' The sharpness of her face had carried tears into his eyes. He knelt beside the mattress as she sat up, hair tumbling to her shoulders.

`Promise?' she asked, her voice as sharp as a blade.

`Course I promise.'

It's our secret place. Hide everything when I've gone. Promise. Cross your heart and hope to die in boiling oil if you don't.'

I promise.' He was looking at her, his eyes filled with rapture, suffused with complete adoration as he sat beside her, fingered the earrings, laughed in loud relief at the softening of her features. Evie could look so terrifying, especially in this light, her tiny figure as threatening as a whip, eyes blazing with scorn, reducing him to one of those crawling beetles they sometimes saw on the floor, blinkered things, looking desperately for light as William sought relief.

Not today. Today he could tell she was relieved to see him, had made him a cup of weak sugary tea, which he loved, even without the milk he was supposed to have provided if the kitchen had not been so wary. 'Couldn't bring any,' he explained, gesturing to the cup she handed him, never taking his eyes off her face.

`S'all right,' she said, her favourite phrase. 'Doesn't matter.'

Silence fell. He drained the lukewarm tea in one gulp, set the mug on a box, shuffled closer to her, smiling his beatific, hopeful smile, tentatively reaching a hand toward her, questioning with his pale and vacant eyes.

`S'all right,' she repeated. 'You can. Only today, mind.'

Then she lay back on the mattress, small nipples pointing toward the dusty ceiling, her eyes closed. William lay beside her awkwardly, stroking her slender torso with one disproportionately large hand that could have spanned her waist. She was so small, so neat, her skin seemingly stretched over bone and the taut and miniature muscles that held the flesh to this graceful skeleton. He placed his mouth around one of the nipples and sucked like a child at breast.

Ow. That hurts.' But William was panting by now, one hand below the waistband of her jeans, button undone as she had left it undone. She always hoped he might change his mind, but gradually learned that there was as much chance of that as of her baby nephew refusing a feed; she considered both pastimes – that witnessed, this undergone – equally inexplicable and unnecessary, but she was prepared for foolishness all the same. The zipper of her jeans fell away at his touch. He felt lucky today: he had been so good, so very good; he did not know precisely why she should be so pleased with him, but she was. 'Can I?' he whispered. 'Can I really, please?'

Oh, all right,' she was murmuring, eyes still firmly shut, 'but only if you take it out, you know, before. Only if you take it out.' Then she sat up abruptly, pulled the jeans off her legs while he pulled down his loose canvas trousers. 'Oh, God,' she said in the tone of a bored sophisticate, looking at him with a distaste he did not recognize. 'Hurry up, will you, before it grows any more, but touch me, so it won't hurt.'

He touched, a rough and peremptory stroking, with his breath arriving in clumsy gasps while she lay supine, legs splayed, faint traces of Vaseline on her inner thighs, her arms loose by her sides in an attitude of resigned waiting. 'A little bit more,' she commanded, and he obeyed in an agony of impatience, then stopped, rolled on top of her, and thrust himself inside, pumping against her unresisting thinness, remembering her order in his final abandon, whimpering as he released his sticky souvenirs on to her stomach and the blanket. Then he rolled to one side, clutching her hand, and was almost instantly asleep, the smile transfixed on his flushed face.