Hearts in the Hard Ground

Begin Reading
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Thank you for buying this
Tom Doherty Associates ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup


The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce, or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.
Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.


I bought a slim Edwardian terrace with the money Mum left me. It declared itself a house of dead things right away. Old houses can’t help doing that. The years accumulate inside them, dense as tree rings. On move-in day, I found a stain darkening the floorboards of the master bedroom — grim expulsions that had soaked through the carpet and underlay — while, downstairs, the handyman extracted a rotting seagull from the flue.
I buried the sad little creature in the frozen soil of my garden. I even made a cross out of two bits of cardboard and marked the date: the second of November.
It rose from the grave a day later, flying through the guest bedroom window and landing smack on the floor. I tried driving the gull out but you forget how big those fuckers are. In the end, I slammed the window shut and locked the door to trap it inside.
A few uneasy days passed. I drank a cup of tea in the garden and wondered if I had the heart to bash my first houseguest over the head with a poker. Wrapped in one of Mum’s lumpy cardigans, I toed the shallow grave I’d dug between the snowdrops. My thumb still bore blisters from the trowel’s handle, the earth had been so solid.
A stray tabby watched from the roof of my shed. I cluck-clucked my tongue — hello, puss-puss — and stretched my fingers, and he deigned to extend his chin for a scratch. The warmth of another living thing: how long since I’d felt that?
Since Mum. Months ago.
Have you ever lived on your own, after living almost forty years with someone else? It’s eerie. It’s like sitting alone in your own head for the first time. The free hours stretch on forever when you don’t have someone else to worry over, and you wonder what you could possibly fill them with. What are your interests, your hobbies? You hardly know yourself. I brought someone back to the house one night — a man, because I didn’t dare deviate from the familiar — and when he asked how to make me come, I couldn’t say. I’d forgotten what I liked.
Who was I?
After he’d let himself out, I sat on the dishevelled bed and didn’t move for hours. I couldn’t comprehend this body as me, mine. It had always been a thing, a vehicle to get from one chore to another, one neurologist appointment to the next. I pinched the flab of my thigh but it barely hurt. Lifeless meat.
In the garden, the tabby had had enough. He mooched off, taking his warmth with him. I finished my tea and watched the gull throw itself repeatedly against the upstairs window. Its feathers left oily impressions on the inside of the glass.
Bash, bash, crunch.
Why did I have to pick a fossil to live in? I bit my lip, knowing why: a new build wouldn’t suit. Too pristine, too impersonal. I’d craved a broken house.
My new neighbours unlocked their patio door. The guy tutted, said something about hammering, hammering for days on end. He was talking about that bloody bird. I darted inside before he collared me, setting my mug on the counter and grabbing a pair of old rubber gloves. I took the stairs at a run before I lost my nerve.
Bash, bash, crunch.
I turned the lovely cast-iron key in the lock and stepped into the guest bedroom. The gull was tottering about on the floor, one wing set at a sickening angle. Soil smeared the walls. Spreading my hands, I tried to herd the creature into a corner. The webbing of its feet had rotted away, leaving spiny toes that snagged easily in the floorboards. Silent and pathetic, it stumbled. I seized the chance to scoop up its bony little body.
All right, shh, you’re all right.
I was grateful for the rubber gloves. Up close I saw and smelt the unmistakable signs of decay. Joints held together by skin. Eyeless. Tongueless. So fragile it might crumble to dust in my hands. A dead thing, indeed.
Its legs paddled uselessly, exhausted yet too scared to stop.
I did that. I caused that fear.
Okay, I whispered, keeping hold of it. Shh, you’re all right. My vision swam with guilty tears. I thought I felt its heart going like the clappers but it was just the pulse in my own fingers.
You think you’re a kind person, you know? You grow up hearing people, strangers, say aren’t you a nice girl? You drop your change into collection boxes for RICE, say hello to the homeless; you hold doors open for the elderly. It’s kindness at arm’s length, but still, you tell yourself you are kind. Slowly, time and circumstance erode your conviction: you hope you are kind. You’re impatient with your mum when her mind starts to go. She fumbles with buttons, eating utensils, her knitting, and it’s irritating because you know she’s better than this — she was whip-smart not five years earlier, beating you at Countdown. And it’s unfair, too, because you’ve only just started to catch glimpses of what your relationship could become. Lines have been crossed, such as the first