The Hollow Land by Jane Gardam Page A

said—and very slowly set off back.
    The kitchen had become completely still again but from under the dairy door there trickled a stream of what looked like blood.
    This time he ran out of the door, over the yard past the kennel, past the silos and a good way down the bramble lane.
    Then he stopped again.
    He’d have to go back.
    If there had been anyone about he need not have gone back. If there’d been anybody at home in any of the farms along by the village he could have run into one and told them and left it at that. But everyone would be at the show.
    Maybe he could telephone the police? He could telephone his father and mother packing up at Light Trees. He could reverse the charges since he had no money—or just dial 999.
    Except there wasn’t a telephone box.
    But there was a telephone—back in the kitchen of Blue Barns. The kitchen with blood pouring out under the dairy door.
    Harry walked slowly back, up the lane past the silos, past the kennel, past the pump and into the kitchen where a very old lady in a long frilly white dress was standing eating a slice of bread and drinking blackberry juice out of a jam jar.
    She was very, very small, with a sharp face, the chin turning up to meet the nose that turned down. Her jaw was going round and round in a circle and her eyes were in two round shadowy caves but you could still see they were bright, bright blue. Her hair was white and puffy and thin and all over the place.
    Behind her through the now open dairy door Harry could see a great ocean of blackberry juice flowing all over the dairy floor. Small purple dabs walked out of it up to where the old lady stood. She didn’t look frightening at all. Rather frightened if anything.
    She said in a tiny voice, like a flute down inside her, “It might have been the cat.”
    â€œThere is no cat,” said Harry. “Leastways it’s not about. It’ll be off somewhere. You can’t say it was the cat—and the door left shut no doubt.”
    â€œMaybe,” she said, “it was the gypsies. The gypsies got in.”
    â€œGypsies don’t come spilling juice.”
    â€œGypsies does anything,” said the flute.
    Harry looked in the dairy. The juice flowed from a big broken bowl. Above the bowl, from a hook in the ceiling, was a muslin bag of dry brambles that had been dripping all night. It was a large bag that must have dripped out juice in pints, the pints now flowing free. “I’m not clearing that up,” said Harry. “I’m always clearing things up here.”
    The old woman looked very sad. “She’ll go at me.”
    â€œI don’t wonder.” Harry looked about for a cloth, then he said, “No—I’m not cleaning it all up.”
    Granny Crack took a bite of the bread and a drink from the jar, daintily like a swallow. “You’re Harry,” she said, “Harry Bateman. I’ve seen you before.”
    â€œI’ve not seen you.”
    â€œI’ve seen you through upstairs windows. I’m light-footed.” She looked down at her pale little marbly feet with a purple rim to them and said, “I’ll to my bed.”
    â€œYou’ll leave a trail.”
    â€œI’ll wash my feet.”
    â€œ
Where
will you wash your feet?”
    The old woman looked perplexed.
    â€œI’m not washing your feet here,” said Harry, “not in that sink. You can’t climb on that draining-board. You’ll have to wash them in the trough in the yard.”
    â€œI’ll not go outside. I don’t go outside.”
    â€œOr there’s a tap for her dahlias in the front garden.”
    â€œIt’s outside.”
    â€œI’ll not clear up for you if you don’t wash your feet.”
    â€œOh!” came out of the flute, long and wailing and thin.
    â€œI’m glad my gran’s not like you,” said Harry. He found a cloth and mopped up juice with a very bad grace.