The Greasy Stew

In the autumn of 1970, my third daughter, Clara, had just learned to hold her head up on her own. We were living in a bleak, two-bedroom miner’s cottage on the edge of Crammond, a coal town that had seen better days. The house was a relic from the 1930s: red brick walls that wept damp in the rain, a tin roof that rattled in the wind, and a smell of coal dust and old grease that clung to everything. My husband, Arthur, had lost his job at the railway, and we had been forced to leave our bright flat near the station for this place, which the council had rented from the mining company. I cried into a tea towel the first time I saw the peeling paint and the stained linoleum floors.

Arthur worked long shifts at the foundry, leaving before dawn and returning after dusk. He was tired, and we were both on edge. The baby cried constantly, and our two older girls, Margaret and June, bickered over the single, rusted doll pram we had. I tried to keep the house clean, scrubbing the floors until my knees ached, but the grime seemed to seep from the walls. The previous tenants had left their mark: a dark, greasy patch on the kitchen wall beside the stove, shaped vaguely like a woman’s silhouette. I tried to wash it off, but it remained, as if it had soaked into the plaster.

One cold October afternoon, I was standing at the stove, stirring a pot of stew for dinner. The baby was asleep in her cot in the corner, and the older girls were playing outside, their voices muffled by the wind. I felt a draft, and then a faint, sour smell, like wet fur. I looked down and saw a large dog at my feet, sniffing the worn linoleum. It was reddish-brown, with patches of bare skin showing through, and its ribs were visible through its mangy coat. My heart lurched. I had shut the back door hours ago, and the front door was locked. I had no idea how it had gotten in.

I screamed and backed away, but the dog did not react. It just kept sniffing, moving in a slow circle around my feet. Then it paused, looking up at me. Its eyes were not a dog’s eyes – they were yellowish, and they held a knowing, accusing light. It opened its mouth, and I saw that it had no teeth, just black gums. It made a sound, a low, gurgling whine that seemed to come from somewhere else, and then it walked calmly through the kitchen door, which was closed, and disappeared.

I stood there, shaking, staring at the closed door. The stew bubbled and boiled over, hissing on the stove. I did not stir it. I did not move until Margaret and June came in, complaining about the cold. They did not see the dog. They looked at me with concern, and I forced a smile, wiping the sweat from my forehead. That night, I told Arthur, but he dismissed it, saying it was just a stray that had slipped in when I wasn’t looking. He was too tired to argue, and I let it go.

But the dog returned. Three days later, I was in the living room, sewing a button on a dress, when I felt a cold breath on my ankle. I looked down, and there it was, the same mangy creature, sitting beside my chair, staring at me. It did not make a sound, but its presence filled the room with a faint musty odor, like old bones. I froze, my needle suspended in midair. Slowly, the dog turned its head toward the hallway, and then back at me, as if beckoning. I followed, my legs trembling. It led me to the children’s bedroom, where the girls were asleep in their bunks. The dog sat at the foot of the bed, gazing at me, then looked at the corner of the room. I saw nothing there, but I felt a chill, and instinctively, I rushed to the window and shut it, though it was already closed. When I turned around, the dog was gone.

I began to see other things. A woman in a long, tattered dress standing at the end of the hallway, with her back to me, weeping. The sound came through the walls at night – soft sobs that might have been the wind, but I knew they weren’t. The greasy patch on the kitchen wall grew larger, taking on the shape of a face, its mouth open in a silent scream. I tried to scrub it with bleach, but it only seemed to darken, and I could smell that sour, wet fur scent whenever I stood near it.

One evening, when Arthur was working late, I was in the kitchen, feeding Clara. The dog appeared again, this time sitting in the open doorway that led to the pantry. It looked at me, then at the pantry, and whined. I put the baby down in her crib, grabbed a flashlight, and opened the pantry door. The dog trotted inside, past the shelves of canned goods, and stopped at a low, wooden door set into the back wall. I had never noticed it before. It was old, with a rusty handle. The dog sat in front of it, looking back at me expectantly.

I knelt down and, with trembling fingers, turned the handle. The door swung open, revealing a dark, cramped space beneath the floor. The dog slipped inside, and I could hear it moving in the darkness, sniffing. I shone the flashlight in, and saw a small, boarded-up area, about three feet deep. There was a dirt floor, and in the center, a small, rusted tin box. The dog nuzzled it, then looked at me again. I reached in and picked up the box. It was heavy, and when I opened it, I found a child’s bracelet, a lock of dark hair, and a photograph of a young girl, no more than eight, with a sullen face, standing in front of a mine. On the back, in faded pencil, were the words: ‘She will not speak.’

I dropped the box as if it were burned. The dog whined, and then it lay down on the dirt floor, its head on its paws, and did not move. I scrambled out, slammed the door, and ran to the living room, clutching the baby. I did not sleep that night. I kept thinking of the girl in the photograph, and the greasy patch on the wall, and the way the dog looked at me, as if it knew I would find what it wanted me to find.

The next day, I asked a neighbor about the house. She was an old woman, and she said, ‘Ah, you’ve met the ghost of the mine dog, have you? They say a little girl lived here in the ’30s, daughter of a miner. She saw something she shouldn’t have – maybe the collapse that killed her father – and she never spoke again. They found her dead in a well out back, a year later. Some say her dog starved to death in the house, waiting for her to come back.’

I didn’t sleep that night either. And the dog has not left me since. It appears every few days, always leading me to some forgotten corner of the house, always with that same expectant gaze. I have tried to ignore it, but the greasy patch on the kitchen wall is now unmistakable, and sometimes I see the silhouette of a small, thin figure standing beside it, watching me. Last night, I heard the sobbing again, coming from the children’s room, and when I rushed in, the girls were sleeping as if nothing was wrong. But the air was cold, and I saw a small footprint in the dust near the dresser, a footprint that wasn’t there before.

I am afraid. Not of the dog, but of what it wants. It wants me to remember, to acknowledge what happened in this house. And I fear that if I do not, the silence that claimed the little girl will claim me and my daughters. I have told Arthur, but he just tells me to stop worrying, to see a doctor. He doesn’t see the greasy patch spreading, or hear the faint, tapping sounds from inside the walls at night. But I hear them. And I know the dog will keep coming, leading me closer and closer to the truth, until I can no longer look away. And when I do finally look, I am terrified of what I might see looking back at me.