Hokey Pokey, page 12
Miss Lowrie was muttering again. Few clear words, to Nora’s practised ear. Then:
“Baby,” Miss Lowrie said distinctly.
“What baby?” Nora prompted.
Miss Lowrie didn’t answer. She was suddenly very still, ceasing even those small shivering twitches of the past few minutes, but Nora could still feel warmth when she placed a hand before Miss Lowrie’s mouth. She was still alive. For now, Nora kept dabbing with the dock leaf. Her death should be as comfortable as possible, at least.
She might have remained there till the end, except she heard approaching footfall, and the bright whistling of a man coming closer through the trees. “Come into the Garden, Maud”, he was whistling. Nora dropped the dock leaf and sped from the song as quickly as she could while making minimal noise herself. Whoever the man was he would ask questions of her that she didn’t want to answer, couldn’t answer, unless she was to implicate her mother. It occurred to her, as the cottage loomed finally in her view, that the whistling man would want to fetch a doctor. She wondered if her father had already left the surgery for the day, or if he might still be there if the whistling man ran to get him. It was possible. If her father were called by a third party, and he arrived to help Miss Lowrie, she might yet be saved without any need for Nora to betray her mother’s deed. And if Miss Lowrie should name Valery, why, that was Valery’s own fault. But Nora couldn’t be blamed for it. This thought was very consoling; until Nora saw her father approaching the cottage on a parallel path to her own, and knew that even if the whistling man should run to the surgery at maximum speed, no help would be waiting for him there.
4
“Dinner smells good, doesn’t it, Nora?” Jaroslav was jovial in greeting. And the smell was appetising, if you didn’t know its provenance. Valery rarely cooked, letting the girl from the village prepare their evening meals to general indifference, but she possessed a talent for it. Nora supposed the girl had been dismissed for the day. Jaroslav would wonder what the special occasion was.
She left her father in the living room and sought out her mother in the kitchen, where she was sipping at the stew she had made, her face flushed with heat from the stove.
“You said it was to be a cure,” Nora reminded her mother. “You were going to cure Miss Lowrie of her sickness.”
“I did cure her,” Valery said with satisfaction.
“You killed her, Mother.”
“It is the same thing.”
“And will you do the same to Father?”
Valery laughed. “What makes you ask that?”
“You said he had the same sickness.”
“I can’t do the same to your father.” Despite the laughter, Valery’s resentment on this point was evident. “He stole my tooth, Nora, there is no biting him.”
“But why does—”
“I don’t know how he came by the knowledge. But he saw what I was the day he arrived in the woods and he knew how to trap me. Now hush. I can punish him in other ways. Jaroslav will learn what we’ve done soon enough.”
“We?”
“You brought her here, didn’t you?” Valery said indulgently.
Yes, Nora saw, she was at fault too. Not only by bringing Miss Lowrie to her death, but by setting this strange episode in motion. She had listened in on Miss Lowrie’s pain. She had repeated it to her mother. She had lied that her father was present, and though Nora did not fully know why, she saw this detail had angered her mother more than any other.
“Why do you mean to make us eat her, Mother?”
Valery smiled cruelly. “That is your father’s punishment for humiliating me.”
“But why must I eat her too?”
“You?” Valery said. “You are like me. You will enjoy the taste.”
*
The trio sat at their dining table. Jaroslav was in good spirits; Valery was in good spirits. Only Nora was afflicted with terror and revulsion. She stared at the bowl before her. The stew was stained deeply red. Paprika, and blood, with a sheen of fat glinting on the hot liquid.
Jaroslav spooned the mixture into his mouth with enthusiasm. “There is nothing like guláš to keep you in good health.”
Nora contemplated telling him the truth. Mother put Miss Lowrie in a stew. She would be believed, because the evidence was on the forest floor; the body would be silent, but still corroborate Nora’s version of events. But the moment to do so had passed, because she watched the tendrils of meat worm their way round her father’s teeth. If she told him now, he would know she’d let him eat Miss Lowrie’s flesh.
She looked trepidatiously at her own cooling bowl. Jaroslav pointed a knife at her dinner. “Eat,” he ordered.
“I’m not hungry,” she muttered.
“Eat,” he said again.
“Remember Augustus, who wouldn’t eat his soup,” Valery said warningly.
“Eat or be thrashed,” her father added, because he disapproved of waste in any form, and disobedience was scarcely more tolerable to him.
Valery rose from her seat, and knelt before Nora’s own. She gripped Nora’s face with one hand and turned it towards her.
“Do you ever wonder why your mimicry is so exact, so indistinguishable from the real thing?”
Nora couldn’t speak, because Valery’s hold was too tight. Her mother continued anyway.
“You’re not human, Nora. You’re a hyring. That is why you can copy people so well; hyrings imitate. So you can eat your prey then take their place. Now feed.”
Valery released her, and Nora saw that she was pretending to be a person, just pretending, nothing more. Nora glanced at her father. He was still, gazing out the cottage window; oblivious to Valery’s voice because he was frozen for those few moments in a different reality from theirs. He sighed as the two worlds rejoined.
Nora dipped her spoon into the grease and spice of Miss Lowrie’s remains. It was Nora’s imagination that made her see a tattoo on the bobbing square of meat. It had gone, when her tears cleared. Raising the spoon to her mouth filled Nora’s nostrils with the pungent odour of Miss Lowrie’s marinated skin. It passed over her lips, slippery and peppery on her tongue, the meat perceptibly grained, and skidding between her teeth as she ground her jaw on it. She chewed till Miss Lowrie was pulp in her mouth, to postpone the point she must swallow. Eventually she closed her eyes as Miss Lowrie would have done before speaking, before death, and gulped, taking the morsel inside herself. And this was the most terrifying realisation of all: to swallow felt right. Nora had always suspected there was something wrong with her. Now her monstrousness was confirmed, and it was almost relieving to give in. Would she take on Miss Lowrie’s qualities too with this irreversible deed? She certainly felt more faint, as Miss Lowrie had been in her final hours. She stood up, her head swimming.
“Is something wrong, Nora?” her father asked.
“Not a bit of it,” Nora said in Miss Lowrie’s voice. “I’m merely light-headed.”
She was unconscious before she hit the floor.
5
Nora lay in bed for a week. For much of that time she was unconscious. Periodically Valery roused her to force junket between her clamped lips. When Valery finally succeeded, Nora vomited. And she did so again the next time Valery insisted on feeding her. Reluctantly Valery then limited Nora’s diet to water and wine, administered by the spoonful. These episodes were hazy and so unreal to Nora that she wondered if she were finally experiencing what other people called nightmares. Maybe she had dreamt the whole thing: Miss Lowrie bleeding among hokey pokey, the cooked limb, and Valery forcing them to eat her. Sometimes Valery seemed to change shape before Nora’s eyes: her teeth lengthened and sharpened, a snout protruded from her face. Sometimes the beast would speak to her: you ate of me once, in my belly and at my breast, and that is why you are like me. She would explain the habits of hyrings, their tendencies and weaknesses. Nora’s vision would blur. When it returned Valery looked to be her usual self.
Eventually, during an episode of such transformation, Nora dared to ask a question, her voice croaking: “Was your mother a hyring too?”
“No. When I was eighteen I met an English Lord. He told me the word hyring, and what he was, and said I was too pretty to eat. It entertained him to feed me from his wrist.”
“How often did you kill?”
“Six or seven or twelve times,” Valery said dismissively.
“And you imitated all of them afterwards?”
“Only to make my initial escape. I always returned to the face I was born with… and Valery is the name from my baptism.” She sighed with disgust, her sharp teeth glistening. “And now I see no one to imitate. Only the rats, who I run with between the gate and the river. When your father realised, he poisoned them all from spite. The smell of their corpses mocked me.”
Valery grew rat-like now, then was her human self once more. The questions were over.
Every time Valery left the bedroom with the empty wine bowl and a silver spoon and a soiled bedpan, Nora lapsed immediately into dead sleep, until she was shaken again. Eventually she woke of her own accord – her mouth was dry and her head pounded, but her sight was crisp and clear, instead of blurrily double-edged. She watched dawn breaking through her window, and when daylight filled her bedroom, she saw that her father was sitting in the corner. He wore his coat and held his hat, in readiness for work.
“What day is it?” she asked, her throat burning with disuse.
“Wednesday,” he replied.
“I should wash and dress for school.”
“There is no school,” he said. “Miss Lowrie is dead, and no decent teacher wishes to replace her.”
His voice restored reality after her long sleep, and Nora wished she had remained unconscious.
“Will Mother go to jail?” she whispered.
“What nonsense are you talking?”
“For killing Miss Lowrie.”
“Edward Markham killed Miss Lowrie. He has already been apprehended.”
The development shocked her. “But Father… It was Mother did it. She cooked her and served her and we ate her.”
“Stop saying that!” the doctor roared. “You’ll be thrashed if you persist. It’s wicked to slander your mother, and a poor reflection on your character to play at such games.”
Nora nodded, cowed, yet was inwardly incensed. Her father was staring at the curved brim of his hat. Finally, he said: “I have an aunt in Zurich. Her name is Františka. She can take you, and you will receive tuition there.”
“In Zurich?”
“Yes, she married a Swiss man, she has been widowed a long time and will welcome the company. The sooner you’re gone the better. An incident like this, Nora – it leaves a taint on the community entire. The girls especially. Your prospects could be damaged by association. Every father in the village will be making arrangements for his daughter.”
“When will you come to Zurich?”
“We won’t.”
Nora did not consider protesting. The prospect of escaping Valery was a relief.
“You must eat,” Jaroslav instructed Nora. “I won’t stand for you refusing food any more. It is essential you are fit to travel. You will leave by the end of this week, no later.”
He stood abruptly and left the room. A few minutes later, she heard the cottage door bang with his departure.
*
For a while, Nora felt too weak to raise her head from the pillow. The yew trees on the far side of her window were still too, as if they were waiting. No breeze outside today, and no birds to stir the branches. The rats had all been burned.
Unsteadily, Nora got out of bed. Some water remained in the wash stand. She cleaned herself and dressed in a white high-necked blouse and dark skirt. Her father was right; she was wasting from not eating, and felt small in her clothes. Could she bring herself to have breakfast? She thought she could, and hated herself for it. You’re a hyring, Valery had told her. As a test, Nora pictured the spice-stained flesh, to see if she still wished to eat. To her disgust her stomach growled again with hunger. It was as though her body had betrayed her. She thrust away the thought of the stew.
She clutched the handrail with both hands when she walked downstairs. Valery’s chair was empty. Yet the cushion was indented still. Nora sat down there herself. With the fire tongs, she sifted through the ash in the hearth. Yes, there was a single large charred bone, and several smaller ones. They must be fingers.
For now Nora left the remains where they were. She went to the kitchen, and cut herself some bread; there was precious little else in the larder. She ate the bread dry, chewing slowly. Through the window she could see her mother gathering gooseberries. Valery had a crime to answer to. Nora had aided its concealment, because she was terrified of how Valery would react to disloyalty; but could Nora’s conscience withstand an innocent man accused? The answer was no. Nora would wrap up the bones and take them to PC McEwan’s house on the other side of the woods. They would be the evidence that Valery had killed Miss Lowrie. Nora was not a fool; she knew that monsters were not the business of the police, and yet, in her childish way, the policeman remained the most obvious upholder of justice and the law. Who else could ensure punishment? She reasoned that Valery would be easily cornered, rooted as she was to her lair, and that her weakness and discomfort at being separated from it would limit the damage she could inflict on people from a jail cell. Nora must gather her courage and admit her own part in the crime – the luring of her teacher, and the eating of her. It would be shameful. But afterwards Nora would take comfort from telling the truth.
She wrapped the bones in a small muslin tablecloth, making a bindle of them. She put on her tweed coat and tam o’shanter then carried the bindle by the neck as she left the cottage. The day was bright, though as quiet as she’d observed from the window. Her pace was slow because dry bread for breakfast could only fuel her so far. Every branch and pebble she stepped on was loud in the breezeless air. Nora knew nothing of how arrests proceeded. She assumed she would be incarcerated as soon as she made her confession, and maybe even put to death thereafter. This might be her last chance to walk freely through the world, and believing so made everything uncanny. The comforts of nature – the ordinary benevolence of trees budding, and moss spreading, and ants crawling beneath the rocks – were replaced with a sense that every living substance observed and judged her.
Eventually she came to the glade where Miss Lowrie had died. The hokey pokey was felled in the outline of her body, the stems crushed and criss-crossing each other over the earth. Her blood still stained the leaves. Nora stood there a while, uncertain whether she was imagining a pattern in the red and green. When she looked up, she startled, for she was being watched. James Markham, his back against a tree, was staring at her. His hair was uncombed. He had no coat, and his shirtsleeves were pushed up to the elbows, so that she could see the brown skin of his forearms. She wondered if he was being properly looked after – given that his mother, like hers, was prone to long spells of languor, and his father had been arrested. The sight of James both fed her guilt, and her self-congratulation that she was on her way to report Valery’s murderous act. Nora was doing the right thing. She was inhuman; but she need not be immoral.
Nora said, quite boldly, and with the intent to reassure: “I can prove your father is innocent.”
“He’s as guilty as the devil.” James was unequivocal.
Set on explaining, Nora persisted. “My mother killed Miss Lowrie.”
“This isn’t a woman’s crime.”
“She isn’t ordinary that way,” Nora said. “She says she’s a monster – called a hyring – who can transform her shape and eat human meat and make me of her kind. My mother cooked Miss Lowrie. Part of her. She put her arm in the pot.”
The revelation made an impact on James. His mouth fell ajar; she wondered if shock had winded him. Then he laughed, hard and loud.
“The cooking pot! Like something from Grimms’ Fairy Tales! What a child you are.”
Nora knew her claims were fantastic, and she would need proof to overcome scepticism. But she had expected James to seize on the chance to save his father, not to insist on condemning him. Her hands shook as she untied the knot in the bindle and let the bones spill to the ground. “This is what’s left. My mother threw the remains in the fire.”
He glanced at the black fragments. “Beef bones.”
“They’re not. Do you want to see your father die for something that isn’t his fault?”
At this James’s eyes turned flinty. “Unlike your mother, my father has a motive. Miss Lowrie was going to have his child.”
“A child?” Nora was too old to believe in storks – yet she didn’t have an alternative theory for the arrival of babies. Nor did she understand how Mr Markham was the child’s father; for surely that role would be fulfilled by Miss Lowrie’s husband, if she only had one. “How could Miss Lowrie have his child?”
James sniffed. He picked up the largest bone and with the broken tip rapidly drew a series of diagrams in the loose soil, giving brusque statements of explanation as he went. With each line Nora, reddening, felt the world fall into place, her understanding of many disparate things knitting together. Now she knew the meaning of opaque conversations in her father’s office. Now she knew the meaning of Miss Lowrie’s nakedness in the loft. Now she knew why her mother was so angry when Nora said her father, not Mr Markham, told Miss Lowrie to be quiet.
“My mother did have a motive,” Nora said. “She thought the child was my father’s.”
“That would do it,” James conceded, gathering the rest of the bones into his pockets.
“But she was wrong.”
“I know. Miss Lowrie told her sister earlier in the month who was responsible. That’s why the police came for him.” He met her eye, and asked: “Did your mother really eat Miss Lowrie’s arm?”
“We all did.” Nora coloured with shame.
