The Fire Child: The 2017 gripping psychological thriller from the bestselling author of The Ice Twins. S.K. Tremayne
In some places, he says, one miner in five died violently. Sometimes they died at each other’s hands: from drunken brawling. The boozy violence of the ‘wild men of the stannaries’ was legendary. In the mid nineteenth century it was said that, in West Cornwall, wherever three houses met together, two would be alehouses.
Yet the author also saw a vivid beauty: how boats would sail up the night-time coast then anchor to gaze in astonishment at the sight of Pendeen and Botallack and Morvellan blazing away on the cliffs without cease, the rising and falling beams of the fire whims, the winding drums of the horse engines, the cries of the landers, the glare from boiler house doors, the crashing of the stamps. And the lights glowing in the windows of the great three-storeyed engine houses, halfway up the cliffs. And then, most magnificent of all, the mighty fires of the smelting houses lit by fountains of molten metal, springing up fifteen feet into the air, then splashing back into the basin, like majestic geysers of quicksilver.
And now, incredibly, it is all gone. After four thousand years. The men no longer work half-naked in the terrible heat at the end of undersea tunnels; they no longer climb a mile down ropes, like monkeys, deep into the reek of sulphur; and boys of eight are no longer sent down the pit to produce half the world’s tin and copper and many millions in profit. All that is left is those ruins by the sea, those ruins on the moors, and in the woods. Scorrier, South Crofty, Wheal Rose, Treskerby, Hallenbeagle, Wheal Busy, Wheal Seymour, Creegbrawse, Hallamanning, Poldise, Ding Dong, Godolphin, and Providence.
Gone.
I look up from the book, hoping to see a face, swap just a smile with the bargirl. But now I realize the pub is deserted. The drinker has gone, even the bargirl has disappeared. I am totally alone. It’s like no one else exists.
Afternoon
The house is quiet when I get back. The house is always quiet. The great front door opens and I am greeted by perfect stillness, the scent of beeswax, and the long and lofty New Hall.
Something brushes between my legs and makes me start. It’s Genevieve. Nina’s slender grey cat. Winding between my ankles.
When Nina died David gave her to Juliet to look after in her granny flat, because David doesn’t like cats. But sometimes she leaves Juliet’s apartment and stalks the house.
Bending down, I tickle the cat behind the ear, feeling the bone of her skull. Her fur is the colour of wintry sea mist.
‘Hey, Genevieve. Go catch a mouse, we need the help.’
The cat purrs and gives me a sly, green-eyed glance. Then abruptly Genevieve stalks away, towards the Old Hall.
The silence returns.
Where is everyone?
Juliet is presumably in her flat. But where is Jamie? Heading right, I make for the kitchen, where I find rare human life. It’s Cassie, busy unloading the dishwasher, listening to K-Pop on her iPod. Cassie is young, amiable, Thai, thirty-two. She’s been with the family ten years. She and I don’t interact very much. Partly because her English is still hazy, and partly because I don’t know how to act with her – I don’t know how to deal with ‘servants’. I am of the serving classes. I feel awkward. Better to leave her to it.
But I feel like I need interaction right now.
Cassie is oblivious to me. She has her earphones in as she works and she is cheerfully humming along.
Stepping forward, I touch her gently on the shoulder. ‘Cassie.’
At once she flinches, startled, nearly dropping the mug in her hands. ‘Oh,’ she says, ripping the earphones out. ‘I am sorry, Miss Rachel.’
‘No, please, it was my fault. I made you jump.’
Her smile is soft, and sincere. I smile in return.
‘I was wondering. Do you fancy a cup of tea?’
She looks at me in a friendly, puzzled way. ‘Tea. You want me make you cup of tea?’
‘No. I thought …’ I am shrugging. ‘Well, I thought you and I could chat and, er, y’know. Have a cuppa and a conversation. Girl to girl. Get to know each other a bit better. This house is so big! You can get pretty lost.’
‘Cup … pa?’ Her puzzlement is plain now and tinged with concern. ‘There is problem, you must tell me?’
‘No, I—’
‘I collect Jamie OK. He is in the Drawing Room. But – is a problem? I have done something—’
‘No, no no. It’s nothing. I just, I just, I thought we might …’
This is hopeless. Perhaps I should tell her the truth. Sit her down with the teapot and spill it all out. Confess it all. Confess that I am finding it difficult to find my role. That David’s friends are nice but they’re his friends, older, richer, different. That Juliet is lovely but she is frail and reclusive and I can’t keep intruding on her. That there is generally no one else to talk to, no adult in my days – I have to wait for David to come home to have interesting conversations face to face, or ring up Jessica in London and beg for scraps of gossip about my old life. I could tell Cassie the facts. Tell her that the isolation is starting to gnaw.
But I can’t say any of this: she would find it bizarre. So instead I give her a big fat smile and say, ‘Well, that’s great, Cassie. Everything is totally good. I wanted to make sure you’re OK, that’s all.’
‘Oh yes!’ She laughs, lifting up her earphones. ‘I am fine, I happy, I OK, I have a new song, I love Awoo, you know? Lim Kim!’ She laughs again, and then she warbles a couple of lines, ‘Mamaligosha, Mamaligotcha … alway Mamaligosha! Help me work. Miss Nina she used to say I sing too much, but I think she make a joke me. Miss Nina was very funny.’
Her earphones are replaced, she smiles again, but her smile is a little sad now, and maybe sharper at the edges. As if I am something of a disappointment after Nina, though she is far too nice to say this.
Again, the awkwardness returns. Cassie is waiting for me to go, so she can finish her chores. I return her fading smile, and then – defeated – I leave the kitchen.
There isn’t much else for me to do. The house looks at me in derision. Why don’t you do some restoring? Buy a carpet. Make yourself useful. I stand like a frightened interloper in the hall. I must go and see Jamie, check on my stepson.
I find him soon enough, in the Yellow Drawing Room, sitting on the sofa. He does not respond as I open the door, does not move a millimetre. He is still in his school uniform, and he is intently reading a book. It looks serious for his age. A lock of dark hair falls across his forehead, a single dark feather on snow. The beauty of the boy is saddening, sometimes. I’m not sure why.
‘Hello, how was school?’
At first he barely moves, then he turns my way, and frowns for a second, as if he has heard something rather puzzling about me, but hasn’t entirely worked it out. Yet.
‘Jamie?’
The frown persists, but he responds. ‘It was OK. Thank you.’
Then he goes back to the book, ignoring me completely. I open my mouth to say something but realize I have nothing to say to my stepchild, either. I am flailing here. I don’t know how to reach out, to find common ground, to form the vital bond: with anyone. I don’t know how to talk to Cassie and I don’t know what to say to Jamie. I might as well talk to myself.
Lingering by the bookshelves, I strain to think of a subject that might engage my stepson, but before I do, Jamie speaks.
‘Why?’
But he isn’t speaking to me. He is staring at the large painting on the wall opposite the sofa. It is a huge abstract, a column of horizontal slabs, of hazy, throbbing colour, blue over black over green.
I don’t especially like this