Whispers in the Graveyard Read online

  ‘Yes, that’s apparent.’ The professor takes a small eyeglass from his pocket. He indicates the west wall. ‘Some of those pieces of masonry are Pictish symbol stones which have been broken up and used as coping. It’s unbelievable how some local authorities allow a national heritage to be destroyed.’

  ‘Exactly so,’ said the other man pompously. ‘We won’t be allowing that to happen here. That’s why we’ve called you in for expert opinion. The council is building a new bridge across the river and we have to change the road alignment and divert the course of the water. All of the graves will have to be relocated. At first we thought we’d just collect all the headstones together and pile them up somewhere.’ He waved his arm around vaguely.

  ‘Did you?’ asked the professor quietly.

  ‘But of course this council likes to do things properly,’ the official went on hurriedly. ‘We recognise the historic value of these . . . er . . . things. So if you can undertake the special study required as soon as possible, and advise us of the best ways to preserve our cultural heritage, we’ll get on with moving the bodies.’

  The two men are moving along the path as they speak. The professor stops at the cairn and, picking up one or two of the stones, he examines them carefully with his magnifier.

  ‘How long do you think it will take you?’ asks the official.

  ‘A few weeks anyway,’ says the professor slowly. He keeps one of the stones in his hand as he walks all the way round the monument.

  ‘Good. Good. That’s what we envisaged. We’ll start clearing the vegetation immediately and then we can start work on the exhumations.’

  ‘Mr Frame,’ says Professor Miller, ‘have you had a good look at this particular memorial?’

  ‘Not especially, no.’

  ‘Then I suggest you do. I’m afraid you may have a serious problem to contend with.’ Professor Miller replaces the stone in its original position. ‘Have you heard the expression “Cholera Ground” used in connection with old burial places?’ he asks.

  ‘Cholera Ground?’ Mr Frame laughs. ‘Cholera is a foreign disease. You don’t get cholera in Scotland.’

  ‘Not any more perhaps,’ says the professor, ‘because now we have a clean water supply. But in the early part of the nineteenth century it killed thousands of people. However the “Cholera Ground” in churchyards wasn’t used exclusively for victims of that disease. It was known as such because that was the most common disease from which people died. In actual fact it was a general name given to a special area set aside in kirkyards for the victims of any epidemic. Due to the lack of medical facilities, when pestilence struck, whole communities could be wiped out in a matter of days. Most corpses were laid to rest uncoffined. There wasn’t the money or indeed the time to do anything else. And these areas were known as the “Cholera Ground”.’

  The professor breathes on his eyeglass, then polishes it carefully.

  ‘Many parishes held annual inspections of the turf over the ground used to ensure it remained undisturbed,’ he went on. ‘They feared the virus would escape. Sometimes they used a cairn of stones as a memorial, hoping to seal the ground and prevent further outbreaks.’

  ‘That’s very interesting, but as you said, cholera was caught by drinking bad water. It’s not infectious,’ said Mr Frame.

  ‘Cholera isn’t, that’s true,’ replied the professor. ‘But there was another far more deadly epidemic in Scotland. This pestilence visited the country until the late 1880s. A highly contagious virus in which the infection is carried on the skin in tiny pustules or blisters which form into scabs. The virus can survive in these dried-up scabs for many years.’

  He puts his eyeglass back in his jacket pocket and then points to the large cairn of stones directly in front of them.

  ‘I suggest that you check the burial records for this kirkyard. When you do, I think you’ll find that lying under that mound is a mass grave for the victims of smallpox.’

  CHAPTER IV

  ‘What?’ Mr Frame steps back sharply. ‘You’re not serious.’

  ‘I’m very serious,’ says Professor Miller, ‘and in the light of what else I’ve noticed here, I would advise you to take extreme caution before you begin uncovering any graves.’

  ‘Why? What’s wrong?’ The council official’s head jerks as he looks quickly around him.

  ‘There are rules and regulations covering interments, and I think that they have not been adhered to in this burial ground. For example, graves or lairs had to be at least one and a half feet from a wall. Look,’ the professor indicates a row of headstones, ‘those are clearly not.’ He kicks his foot gently against the long side of a mounded oblong of grass.

  ‘Coffins are also supposed to be three or four feet down from the surface. I don’t think these are.’

  ‘Why aren’t they?’ Mr Frame’s voice is worried. ‘Surely there were inspectors to ensure things were done properly?’

  The professor shrugs. ‘Not always. This appears to have been a smaller church group, away from the main town. They probably did everything themselves, from laying out bodies to digging the actual grave.’

  He walks further along the wall to where the earth was bare. ‘What is also worrying me is this part here. You say the cemetery was closed due to overcrowding?’

  Mr Frame nods.

  ‘Well,’ says Professor Miller, ‘if they weren’t observing the Home Office rules for spacing out coffins, it may be that, in the attempt to bury relatives beside each other, they were doing something which I’ve come across in other small country kirkyards.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Breaking up older buried coffins and tipping the contents into the opened trench to make more room. See this bluish-black colour of the earth all around here? That denotes the presence of decaying corpses.’

  Mr Frame takes a handkerchief from his pocket and covers his mouth. ‘I suppose if we consult the Record of Burials, it would tell us what they’ve actually done.’

  The professor laughs. ‘I doubt if they’ve kept an accurate note. Our ancestors weren’t as bureaucracy-ridden as we’ve become.’

  ‘You said “our ancestors”,’ Mr Frame enquires. ‘Do you have relatives here?’

  ‘Yes, from a long long time ago,’ says the professor. ‘It’s one of the reasons I accepted this commission. My wife and daughter always wanted to visit Scotland.’

  They are approaching my end of the kirkyard. I breathe quiet and shallow among the stones.

  ‘Sorbus aucuparia.’ The professor reaches out to touch a leaf of my tree and then withdraws his hand.

  ‘Mountain ash,’ says Mr Frame.

  Professor Miller puts his head on one side. ‘Do you notice it is the only living thing at this end?’

  ‘Plenty of dead, though,’ jokes Mr Frame.

  ‘Actually no . . .’ The professor is thoughtful. ‘Not even the dead rest here.’

  He frowns and turns slowly to face the sun. ‘At first I thought it was to do with the custom of burying people on an east–west line. Scotland used to be a very God-fearing country, so in many cases the headstone was placed at the west end of the plot.’ He gives a small smile. ‘It was believed that the Lord’s Second Coming would be as the sun rises, from the east, so you would wish to be laid facing Him in preparation for your resurrection. The church itself was usually built at the northern end, not in the centre, so that no one could be shamed by being buried in the shadows of the northern side. If there was such an area it would be kept for suicides, criminals and vagrants. These people wouldn’t have tombstones and that’s why, usually, the north side of an old graveyard will have no memorials.’

  ‘So that is why there is nothing here?’

  ‘Except . . .’ said Professor Miller. ‘The church remains are in the right-hand corner. Which means that this isn’t the north side . . . and . . . this part is not just bare, it’s devoid of anything . . . of everything. Of life . . . and . . . death.’

  Mr Frame laughs nervously.<
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  And again, suddenly, the realisation is in my mind. Nothing flourishes here. The rowan is the only single thing that exists. Living or dead. And even the tree is strangely still. Now it is springtime and no bird has made its nest among its branches. In the autumn no bird came to eat the red rowan berries. I remember quite clearly last year, when they cascaded onto the ground, small and round and ripe, no ant or insect ate them. They lay until, rotting, they returned to the soil.

  The two men move away down towards the gate. I hear Mr Frame say, ‘I think I’ll notify our environmental health department and get them down here immediately. They can decide what to do.’ He paused for a minute.

  ‘We’ll have to wait for their clearance. Although there may be some work the squad can get on with meantime. Removing that tree for example.’

  He calls to the foreman and they have a brief discussion. The workies take their tools and clamber back inside the van.

  They are gone.

  Silence.

  But for how long?

  I stand high on the wall. I touch my face; salt tears are there. They are going to destroy my place. I will have no refuge now. Even the criminals and beggars got a place of rest. Not me. I lean far out over the wall and grab a branch of the tree to swing myself down.

  An edge cuts into me and tears the surface of my skin as I land at the base of the tree. The rope-thick roots rush up against my body and I roll over onto the soft earth. I see a gash in the sleeve of my jacket. Liquid red squeezes through. A few drops of my blood spill and are quickly swallowed up into the dark soil. I stand up shakily and suddenly, impulsively, I wrap my arms around its solid trunk.

  The recoil sends me staggering backwards, dazed and stupefied. As though it had leapt to life beneath my grasp, had become a writhing throbbing snake, slithering against my body.

  I dab at my arm. Blood makes me faint and dizzy. That’s it. That explains my feeling of strange revulsion.

  I stagger to my feet. I must get away. I take, though I do not know this, what will be my last look at its pearl-white skin and grey-green leaves. My doomed mountain ash.

  Later, but it was really too late then. Far, far too late, I found out that rowan trees were planted to ward off evil.

  CHAPTER V

  ‘You’ve hidden it. Where is it?’

  He’s rummaging through the bottom kitchen cupboards as I come in the back door. Fancy dishes, cake plates, water jugs and a decorated fruit bowl are strewn around him on the floor. Emblems of our former family life.

  ‘Dunno what you mean.’ I drop my rucksack on the floor and edge past him, picking my way among the debris. Cloth napkins, a flower vase. Things we’ve not used in months. Not since she left.

  I slink into the hall and through to the living room. Close the door softly. Switch the telly on and squat down.

  Game show. Soap. Cartoons. Talk show. News.

  I flick back to the cartoons. I can watch them with the sound down.

  Bright colours like my comics. Fills my head. There’s light and dark and noise, movement and colour, quick and fast. It blots everything else out. Except . . .

  It’s better when you do it for yourself. Like . . . inside your head. You know. Make the story happen yourself. The way you want it to be. They spoil it on the telly sometimes, people don’t look right, make stupid remarks that don’t fit in. But words, words are different. I heard someone reading poetry on the radio once. The phrases stayed inside me for weeks, exploding in my head, thrusting and twisting in my gut.

  The noise from the kitchen is getting louder. Things are being thrown. I put my head in my hands. He is getting worse. Definitely. The weekend firecracker has usually fizzled out by Monday afternoon.

  There is an almighty bang from against the wall. I stretch over and turn the volume on the TV up a bit. I’m hoping the noise will cover me to get safely upstairs. I turn the door handle silently. Walking on the sides of my feet softly down the hall. Almost at the stairs now.

  The kitchen door crashes open.

  ‘You know where it is, don’t you?’ he demands thickly. His body fills the doorway.

  I breathe slowly. Once. Twice. My sludge-coloured day is streaked with blood-orange.

  ‘There’s none left. You finished it all.’

  I’m watching him carefully. My eyes on his hands. The trick is in the timing.

  Get ready.

  Knowing when to move is as important as knowing which way to go.

  ‘You’d better tell me.’ He points his finger in my face. His bulk has blotted out any light in the passageway.

  I shake my head slowly and move backwards. He comes at me then, arms swinging. I duck.

  Red alert.

  Sometimes being wee and skinny is a bonus. I’m round behind him and into the kitchen before he knows it. I grab my rucksack and scramble out the back door. A crashing noise behind me. Shattered glass showers the path.

  I make the lane and I don’t look back.

  Have to stay out for a few hours at least. I’ll go to Peter’s house for a bit. His mum will be at work.

  His two younger sisters are squabbling in the living room. We go into his kitchen to make sandwiches.

  ‘Where’d you end up today?’ he asks me. ‘I searched about for you at lunch time.’

  ‘Here and there.’ I’m offhand. No one knows my secret place. ‘How was your day with WW?’

  ‘The usual. He had Melly blubbing away ten minutes after you left.’ Peter pulls some slices of bread from the plastic-wrapped loaf on the work top. He stops, with his hand half out of the bag. ‘You know, copying my work, Sol . . . I don’t mind, but . . . you’ll never learn anything that way.’

  I take out two mugs, spoon in sugar and add milk. ‘Don’t care,’ I say quickly. ‘Was Watkins bothered that I didn’t come back?’

  ‘Na.’ Peter is smearing jam and peanut butter on the bread. He waves the knife at me. ‘I’ve told you before. He’s not supposed to send you out of class like that. He would get into trouble if he was found out. You should get your dad to report him.’

  His eyes meet mine. He must know. We only live a few streets apart. He hands me my piece, not looking at me now.

  His mum comes in lugging a supermarket bag full of shopping.

  ‘What a mess!’ she says, picking up our mugs and the jar of peanut butter from the kitchen table. ‘Come on, Pete, lend a hand.’ She gives him the potato peeler and a bag of potatoes.

  He mumps and moans a bit, but you can see that they’re used to working together. She clears the rest of the table and begins to set out plates and dishes. She takes the wrapping off a packet of cold meat and starts to put a couple of slices on each plate. Suddenly she stops and looks at me.

  ‘Oh,’ she says, hesitating. She reaches for another plate from the cupboard. ‘Want to stay for dinner?’ she asks.

  ‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘I can’t. My dad’s got something ready.’

  She shrugs. ‘Sure?’ she says. The plate is already back in its place.

  I nod.

  Bright smile, her. Bright smile, me.

  Her eyes meet Peter’s. They both look away.

  I leave Peter’s house and take the main road. There are still some crisps and biscuits in my bundle of stuff at the graveyard. I nip in through the main gate and along the edge of the wall.

  Evening is closing in. That kind of grey-blue slow gloaming that you get in Scotland at this time of year. Late spring melting into summer. In the kirkyard everything is settling down for the night. The midges in a dancing swarm beneath the old monkey-puzzle. The birds singing, warbling and fussing about. The leaves of the older evergreens are dark and leathery. Thistle and briar choke the little thickets clustered at the foot of the trees.

  The workmen have been back. Some of the horizontal slabs have been moved and stacked at one end. They are marked and labelled. I walk over to look at them.

  My footsteps scrape the gravel.

  I stop.

  I hear something.


  A soft movement behind me.

  CHAPTER VI

  A skitter of stones in the half dark. Shadows move towards me.

  God! What?

  Stupid. Stupid. Nothing.

  I hear the stumbling conversations of a group of teenagers. I glide quietly off the path.

  ‘Open a can, for f ’s sake.’

  I slide, cunning and sure of my own territory, behind an upright slab. Whatever they’re drinking or sniffing makes them cocksure. Confident but uneasy at the same time.

  ‘Can’t come here again. They’ve padlocked the gate.’

  They stop to light up. Right beside me. Gathered at my altar.

  ‘Nothing a pair of pliers can’t solve.’ The lit end of a cigarette arcs in the darkness.

  ‘Dunno. Probably be a night-watch.’

  ‘I don’t like this place any more.’ A girl’s voice. ‘Something creepy about it.’

  The hand leaning on the top of my tombstone moves down as its owner changes position.

  I remain rock-like. A stone image frozen for ever. But, very slowly, I reach out my tongue . . . A cold lizard. A snake. Coiling round the outstretched fingers.

  The shriek is absolutely satisfying. The best thing I’ve felt for ages.

  ‘What? What is it?’ someone yells. But nobody is answering as they all scatter and are away.

  Now the place is mine again. But nothing is as it was. There is mess and desecration everywhere. Turf has been marked out and cut, sods lifted. There are ropes looped round some of the upright statues. Other gravestones have been loosened at the edges. The branches of the cherry tree have been lopped.

  Unease and disquiet vibrate in my head.

  The earth near my part of the wall is churned up.

  I see why.

  The air I breathe into my lungs seems thick and cold. There is a length of chain around the rowan tree, cutting into its flesh. They have tried to pull it out with the van, or perhaps a tractor, but it has held fast.

  Not all of it though.

  It is half out of the earth. But the roots reach back. Roots that haven’t seen the light of day for many, many years. Thick as a man’s arm, they twist back down into the bowels of the earth, pale as a slug under a stone. The soil is a strange colour. Whitish, like drifting sand, or ash. It’s dry and dusty and blowing about a bit now in the wind. I turn my head. I hadn’t felt any breeze. There is none. I look again. It’s as though the ground is moving, shifting and restless like the sea.