Voices, voices, my head is full of voices.

One of the bits that's most fun for me is working on the voices of the characters. I'm obsessed by accents and the natural poetry that most ordinary people can come up with whenever they're not trying to sound like someone they've seen on TV. Well, perhaps that's not-so-ordinary people who just like to talk and play with the words. Anyway, in this extract, Abigail and Thomas are west country, Bridie is Irish and Jack is from the North-east (he's the hero, so where else?). He's from somewhere in Northumberland, though I'm honestly not sure where. He's moved around a lot and says, in another part, that nowhere feels like home, so his accent isn't strong.

Abigail knocked lightly on the door. Getting no answer, she put her head around it and, seeing Jack asleep, tip-toed in. Well, he wouldn't be coming down for the night, she reckoned. He must be knackered with the sickness and all the travelling. Good looker, though, she thought, and nice. Not stuck up like the usual guests here and not looking at her like Mr. Quentin used to. Porker that he was.

 Jack was quiet, sort of, but didn't look scared, or shy, just the sort her mum called a listener.  He'd asked her name all confident and such and looked her in the eyes when he'd talked to her. Hadn't done that Quentin trick of taking all her clothes off with his mind and then leering at his imaginings. That bugger probably couldn't remember her face, though he'd know her arse from a thousand foot away. Bridie reckoned Eleonora's family must have been strapped for cash and put her up to marrying money for her to be hitched to the likes of him. Toffs.

Hard to believe he was Lord Percival's brother. His Lordship was a proper gent, really polite and very generous with all the staff. Even Lady Charlotte was alright, for a toff. Abby would feel a bit guilty to leave them and head off to the armaments factory like her sister, but a girl had to think of herself in times like this. The money there was heaps better than here and she'd be in the town. Better class of boys there, her sister said, well, some of 'em anyway. Pick yourself out something as'd make a better husband than some of these village sheep, said their Bertha, and go to shows and everything.

Course, Bertha was going out with a union man and reading in the public library and supporting the Suffragettes and protesting about the war and all sorts of stuff she'd never thought about when she worked here. Ar, getting out was what she'd have to do, thought Abby. Couldn't give notice yet, though, not till Bertha moved into her new place and there was room for her, so couldn't be before the end of next month. She wondered how long it would be before this one got better from his scarlet fever. Might be a chance of some fun there before she got off. You never knew. She'd already done that trick of taking off his clothes with her mind and licked a lip at her imaginings. Lovely little bum he'd got. Nice strong shoulders, too. She lit his oil lamp and left, closing the door carefully behind her.

***

He awoke later to the feeling that someone had been at his door. He looked over his toes at it, slightly ajar, but couldn't remember if he'd fastened it on coming to the room or not. What time was it?

No sun outside his window, sky almost dark and his alarm clock showed… after nine. Oh, goody, he thought, time for bed. Well, that wouldn't work, he simply wasn't tired enough to sleep after so much rest. He pulled Pride and Prejudice from his bag and was going to lie down on the bed again to read it when his eye caught an odd movement through the window. Difficult to see in the shadows, but there seemed to be figures moving out by the edge of the trees. Wearing white clothes? They seemed to be moving awkwardly, lurching almost. He pressed his nose against the glass, but the light was too poor and the figures too far away.

In his bag he had a pair of binoculars. Bird watching for the use of, came his voice. He got the bag out and found the Ross prismatics. No use. By the time he got back to the window, the figures had gone. He left the binoculars on the windowsill just in case and then settled down with the book. Jane Austin was wickedly good fun, he decided, after only a few pages. She'd have been a lark at parties. Her writing almost took his mind off the figures outside. Almost.

He read for a while until tired enough for sleep. There was still no sign of anything near the trees when he blew out the oil lamp and settled into the sheets.

***

"What are they?"

"Necessary. But don't worry. He will need to confront them, but I will hold them back until he is ready."

"Confront them? Do you mean fight them."

"I mean kill them. They are his own demons; his mind's knowledge of the true nature of his malady. He is not strong enough for them yet, but when he is, he will need to deal with them. While they haunt him, he cannot heal. As I said, do not worry. I will hold them back."

The woman worried. With a past like Jack's, the demons might be difficult to contain and worse to confront. And Jack's past was something Jack could not be allowed to remember.

***

The next morning, Jack woke feeling someone had aired the morning well before letting him dress in it. The sun was high. He must have been left to sleep his fill. He rose, washed, brushed his teeth and examined himself in the mirror.

Not a picture of health yet, but at least the eyes didn't look like something you'd play marbles with this morning. The beef tea and fresh air had put a trace of colour into his cheeks. He was mending. He was also very hungry. Breakfast. He dressed and went down in search of life.

***

Bridie was working at the table on a stew when the boy came in. He gave her an 'I'm-pleased –to-see-you' smile that she decided won him an extra sausage and told him she'd start on his breakfast. Seeing she was busy he insisted he'd fry up for himself. She wasn't going to hear of it and started to tell him so when he stopped her with a raised finger and a grin like a fox's.

"I know that look," he said. "That's the look aunts give you when you suggest boiling an egg might be something a male is capable of without setting fire to the kitchen and causing a biblical plague. I learned to do an English breakfast from army cooks. They're men who can fry the tea, the porridge, the chocolate bar in your ration pack and the horse that carried it up to you. Eggs? Bacon? Sausages? We laugh at sausage, bacon and eggs, we do. Bacon that can give you shrapnel wounds, sausages ready to explode and eggs softer than a nursing mother's breasts. A thing of beauty, a joy till it gives you stomach ache. I can prove it. Just show me the frying pan."

Bridie laughed and furnished enough food for a hurling team. She watched him start, prepared for disaster, but already thinking she'd not see it. Sure of himself more than cocky, the boyo was, and knew how to move in a kitchen with another person and not need elbowing out the way. He'd a way of doing the breakfast she'd never seen before, cooking everything in the one pan and using eggs to stick the lot into a plate-sized circle.

"See," he said, "Good food, well burned."

He'd made fried bread to clean the pan, set himself a place out of her way and started to tuck in like a lad who enjoyed his eating. Bridie'd met few men who wouldn't eat a hedgehog raw rather than cook. Might that husband of hers come back from the army not so useless a bugger? She asked Jack how he was feeling.

"Well, what I saw in the mirror this morning the cat wouldn't drag in, but I'm much better than yesterday. I think your beef tea has magic as one of the ingredients, Bridie. Sorry, do you mind if I call you that? Would you prefer Mrs Maguire?"

She allowed that Bridie was her name and she'd no objection to him using it, while being pleased at the manners that had asked permission. You didn't get that with all the visitors here. Not even with all the family.

While he was eating, they heard bicycle tyres on the gravel outside.

"That'll be the post," said Bridie, wiping her hands and setting out a mug of tea.

"Morning Thomas," she fairly bawled.  "And how are you this fine day?"

"Well, I wokes this mornin', found meself not dead an' thought, thanks be. Some mornings, it's oh bugger. So I thinks I has to say I'm well, Bridie my lover. An' how be you? Oh, this be your visitor, eh? An' how be you, young sir?

Jack got up, shook hands with Thomas, introduced himself and said his nice to meet you. Thomas looked surprised. Aye, thought Bridie, you might be Methuselah's older brother, but you'll never've had that before in this house. Not even from Lord Percival. Well,  'cepting Christmas when the hand always had a half-crown in it.

Jack settled back to his mountain of food and Bridie and Thomas settled to gossip. Which of the local men was left and who'd returned and in what state was most of it. Thomas made suggestive remarks the while. She enjoyed the bit craic, telling him how slim his chances of surviving a roll in the hay were, him being the oldest man she knew as wasn't a statue in a church. Eventually, Thomas's cup was empty. He passed Bridie a handful of letters and she gave him back three with the coppers for stamps. He peered myopically at them. "Aha. Her Ladyship, Miss Brampton and the Eytie. First two to their men in the army, last one to her family. Small wonder there, eh?"

As he was leaving, Thomas turned to Jack.

"Now, don't 'ee go wasting this chance now, young sir. All these lonely women about and you a big strong lad. You should be making the best of it while you can. Me, I got a bike an' a county like a nunnery for all the men that's in it, an' I can't do nothin' on account o' being ancient. Leaves me fair prostrate with dismal, it do. You make sure you gets yourself about a bit, see. Make hay while the sun shines, eh?"

Jack waved him off laughing. Bridie looked at him. One of them lonely women wants to see how you take Thomas's advice, she thought, while he kept his eyes on Thomas's retreating back.

"Story from back home," he said, "Seems Geordie had a small shop in a village. Got away down south somewhere on holiday and saw a sign in a posh place. It said," he put on a southern accent, "'Please refrain from asking for credit, as a refusal often offends.' Someone has to translate it for Geordie, 'cos he thinks refrain means sing a song, but when he's got it, he likes it and decides he's going to put one up in his shop. Show a bit of class, y'see. But he has to change the words of course, so people can understand. So out comes his chalkboard and up goes his sign. Diven't ask for nowt on the tab, 'cos a slap round the gob often offends."

He looked at Bridie sideways.

"From out the mouths of babes and Northumbrian shopkeepers, comes perfect wisdom."

She laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. Sure and you'd need to be up early to catch this one out. Maguire'd had the silver tongue like that when she'd first met him. Ignorant of the world, she'd married him for it, before finding out he'd nothing to him besides. She'd gained wisdom understanding he'd never change and could thank him only for getting her out of Moneygall. There was naught but the one thing she missed him for and Thomas had brought it to her mind now, damn him.

There was already talk around the village about this one and that one who'd found a way of staying warm at nights with no husband to help. They'd need to be careful, or the‎y'd find those same husbands could count to nine with their boots on and it wouldn't go well for them. Of course, the same talk was all of the whores who were making an excellent living off of all those men in barracks. She didn't even need to ask herself if Maguire would. Hadn't she caught him once trying to fumble her own sister? The men were always the same. This young one too, for a guess, though she was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt. More cop on than most, she thought.

She asked him what his plans for the morning were and, when he admitted to having none, suggested he might climb the hill to see the standing stones on its top. It was a local attraction and he looked to be up to the climb today.