Too Near the Dead

by Helen Grant

  Too Near The Dead

  Helen Grant

  © Helen Grant 2021

  The author asserts the moral right to be identified

  as the author of the work in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of

  Fledgling Press Ltd,

  1 Milton Road West, Edinburgh, EH15 1LA

  Published by Fledgling Press, 2021

  Cover Design: Graeme Clarke

  graeme@graemeclarke.co.uk

  Print ISBN 9781912280407

  eBook ISBN 9781912280414

  www.fledglingpress.co.uk

  For my mother, Joan

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter One

  First, sleep so profound that it is like Death: without the smallest spark of consciousness to light the darkness, without the dimmest sense of the passage of time. I am not myself; I am nothing.

  Waking is ponderous and full of resistance, like struggling in a tar pit. I am dredged up from sleep; it wants to suck me back down into itself. My eyelids are heavy – so terribly heavy. I lie there, unmoving, thinking about opening my eyes but not doing it, while the minutes ooze past, slow as syrup.

  The air is warm – perhaps a little too warm. There is a stale taste to it. My mouth is dry. Awareness is beginning to return to me, like bubbles rising to the surface of dark water.

  It’s normal for me to sleep on my back; I’ve always done it, ever since I was a child. But the posture I’ve been sleeping in is a strange one. I’ve been hugging myself, I think. Am I hurt in some way?

  No. I’m not hugging myself, not exactly. My forearms are crossed over my sternum in an oddly formal way. My right hand is draped over the left. My fingers have a muffled feel to them, a lack of sensitivity. It takes me a few moments of rubbing my hands together to realise that I am wearing thin gloves.

  Surprise finally forces my eyes open. I expect dim light. Instead there is blackness, a darkness so absolute that for an instant I think I have been struck blind. I squeeze my eyes shut, and see the tiny sparks produced by my own retinas, but when I open them again there is nothing but black.

  I can feel the first stirrings of alarm. Calm down, I tell myself. It’s just very dark. There are no street lights here.

  There should be something though, shouldn’t there? I open my eyes as wide as I can, straining to see some dim outline of the room, but I can’t pick out a single thing. It’s quiet, too. My own breathing, a little accelerated, is loud in my ears. There’s an oddly resonant quality to it.

  Switch on the bedside lamp. That’s the obvious thing to do. I always sleep on the same side of the bed, and the lamp should be on my left. All I have to do is reach out and feel for the switch on the cord.

  I start to unfold my arm to reach out, but almost immediately my elbow comes into contact with a hard surface. The bedside table and the lamp are not there. I try to make sense of this. Is it possible that I have moved around so much in my sleep that I am actually lying across the bed, pressed up against the wall? I try to stretch out with my right arm to feel the mattress beneath me. When my right elbow hits a hard surface too, I freeze.

  Calm down, calm down. Just think about this.

  Have I somehow rolled right off the bed during the night without waking myself up, so that I am lying jammed between the bed and the bedside cabinet? I try to wriggle in the space, to twist my shoulders, with no effect other than a crisp rustling sound. I turn my head from side to side and there is a crackle of fabric there too.

  My tenuous grip on my own composure is fading fast. I can feel myself sliding towards a black pit of hysteria. Unable to move my upper body, I kick out instead and almost immediately my foot hits something. In spite of the immediate impulse to flail like a trapped animal, at some level it registers that I have shoes on. I’m not barefoot, as I undoubtedly was when I got into bed. I can tell this from the hard little knocking sound my foot makes when it strikes whatever is above it, and from the way the impact travels through my toes without causing them any actual pain.

  I have an image then in my head, of a doll carefully dressed up and wrapped in tissue paper, and placed in a box. I am not a doll, but there is only one other situation I can think of in which a fully-dressed figure could be enclosed in a space like this one, and I don’t want to consider that; I am afraid I will lose all control.

  Information, that is what I need. Assess the situation, like a paramedic at an accident scene. I start with my hands. The gloves are thin, and they are close-fitting. It will be difficult to draw them off in this enclosed space. I try anyway, because it is a relief to concentrate on this one small task. I have enough room to move my wrists, so eventually I manage to pull the glove off my right hand, although it turns completely inside out in the process, as though I’m skinning myself. With my bare fingers I explore the glove on my other hand. It is clearly designed for elegance rather than warmth. I can feel a little frill at the wrist, a froth of fine lace. There is a tiny button too, just to the side of the pulse point.

  My bare hand creeps over my breast, exploring. I am not wearing a nightdress. Whatever I have on is far more structured than that. The fabric has a slight stiffness to it, and a satiny slipperiness, but I can also detect a very fine texture. I think it may be a heavy silk. I can feel rows of tiny pintucks running down the bodice, and over my sternum there is a long line of dainty buttons. Experimentally, I breathe in deeply and expand my chest. I can feel the grip of the dress on my body; I think it is boned. There is very little room to move my legs, but I can feel heavy skirts around them; the fabric whispers with every movement.

  This is not a garment that anyone would wear to sleep in. In fact, it’s not something you would see anyone wearing nowadays except in very specific circumstances. A dress like this might pass in a costume drama, or at a very formal event – depending on the colou
r, perhaps a wedding.

  My fingers pass over the neck of the dress and slide up my throat, snagging on a curl of hair that lies against it. Then they move up to my jaw, and then my ear, where I find a small drop earring fixed: a pearl, I think, judging from the glossy feel of it.

  I can feel a crisp light fabric against the back of my hand. It’s all around my head, as though I have been packed in it.

  A veil, I think. I explore further, to see what is holding it on my head, and find a headpiece made of what feel like wax flowers and berries. There is no further doubt about it. I am dressed as a bride.

  I slide my hand carefully down to my breast again and then I lie perfectly still for a while. I think the thing that has prevented me losing control so far is the sheer improbability of the situation. It has to be a mistake; there has to be something I’m failing to grasp.

  There is one piece of the puzzle that I don’t have yet. Still, I don’t move straight away. If there is something unthinkable to face, I want to have those last few moments of ignorance before it bursts in on me. So I lie there and listen to the sound of my own breathing, and feel the gentle motion of my chest rising and falling. The air still has that stale taste, and it seems to me that it is less refreshing than before; I have to draw in a little harder to get enough of it.

  At last I put up my hand hesitantly, and test the space in front of my face. In all the time I’ve been lying here, it hasn’t got any easier to see. My eyes haven’t adjusted because there is absolutely no light. The darkness above me tells me nothing: it might go on forever, like the vast reaches of outer space.

  It doesn’t, though. My fingertips meet a flat, hard surface. I let them skate over it, testing for edges, finding none. Then I put the palms of both hands against it and push as hard as I can, to no effect.

  I’m breathing really hard now, sucking at what little air is left. I pound on the surface above me.

  “Hey!” I shout as loudly as I can, almost deafening myself in the enclosed space. “Let me out! Let me out!”

  I yell and yell until it isn’t really words any more, nor even vaguely human-sounding: it’s the sound of an animal dying in a trap. I struggle and fight but there isn’t room for anything; I only succeed in bruising my forehead on the hard surface above me.

  The air is running out. I am going to die. I have been buried alive.

  Chapter Two

  I wake hyperventilating and slick with perspiration, my hands clenched into fists and the echo of my own screams ringing in my ears. I gasp and cough and shiver, shaking my dark hair back from my face. Tears ooze from the corners of my eyes. It is a long, long time before I am calm enough to breathe without choking or even recognise where I am. The relief of being out is intense, but all I can think about is the horror of being in. Inside the coffin. Buried.

  At this moment I don’t ever want to close my eyes again. I roll onto my side and fumble for the light switch with clumsy fingers. A click, and the bedroom is illuminated with soft golden light. The room is cool and quiet. I almost wish there was some noise: traffic, music, distant sirens like I used to hear in London. But we’re a long way from the main road here, and it’s not like many cars go past at this time of night anyway.

  My alarm clock shows me that it’s 03:17. I stare at it for a while. In a little over four hours it will ring, but the time between now and then stretches out like an abyss. Weary as I am, I dare not go back to sleep. What just happened didn’t feel like a dream, although I know that’s what it must have been. It felt real. In every other dream I’ve had, I could see and hear things vividly, but I’ve never been able to touch things like that, and feel them under my fingers: the crisp fabric, the polished wood. The thought of it makes me queasy.

  In the end I sit up, throwing back the duvet, and slide out of bed. My robe is lying over the back of a chair. While I am putting the sleeves the right way through and sliding my arms into it and tying the belt I look around me, reassuring myself that I am really here, in my own bedroom. In our own bedroom.

  It’s still too new to me to feel properly familiar. Other times, even when I haven’t had some horrible nightmare that felt too intensely real to be pure imagination, I’ve been disorientated on waking. Part of me still expects to see my old bedroom in the flat come swimming into focus around me. The window there was on my right, so the morning light always came from that side. The building was old, and the window frames didn’t fit very well, so even if there was no wind or rain to rattle them, the vibration of passing cars would do it. And of course the room was a lot smaller than this one, and crowded with shabby furniture.

  This room doesn’t look lived-in, not yet. There are removers’ boxes stacked up against the walls, still sealed with tape. The walls are mirrorless and pictureless. The curtains, transferred from the flat, are too small for the big window: they barely stretch across it, and they are a couple of centimetres too short. With no rug beside the bed (I still haven’t found the box with that inside), I have to put my bare feet straight onto cold floorboards. The quiet here, the absence of city sounds, make the place feel isolated, but the loneliest thing of all is the expanse of smooth, unwrinkled sheet on the other side of the double bed.

  James is in Madrid, being lionised by his Spanish publisher. He’s messaged me with photos of the reception he went to, and the chic restaurant they had dinner in, and his elegant room in the boutique hotel where they’re putting him up. He’s doing his best to make me feel included in everything, but I’m painfully aware of the fact that he’s over there, and I’m here alone. We didn’t plan it like that. A year ago, when the trip to Spain was organised, we didn’t foresee what we’d be doing now, nor where we’d be. Everything has changed since then.

  I pad downstairs to the kitchen, switching on all the lights as I go. The kitchen is cold. It even smells cold. There’s a subtle but pervasive odour of something chemical – fresh paint or cleaning fluid. The expensive stainless steel range cooker has never been used, so there are no lingering smells of warm food and no residual warmth from it. There isn’t even the aroma of freshly-made filter coffee that used to hang over the kitchen of the London flat, because it’s James who is the coffee drinker, and James isn’t here. I’m strictly a tea drinker. I like my tea the colour of teak oil, very sweet, and with hardly any milk. I’d never normally drink it if I woke up in the middle of the night, because it would probably stop me getting to sleep again, but right now sleep is the last thing I want. If I could stay awake forever, I would. So I find a mug and a teabag and stand there hugging myself against the cold air and waiting for the kettle to boil. The hissing sound as the element heats the water is comforting. It’s too quiet here. Sometimes I’ll be working on something during the day and there will be a gap in the birdsong outside and the silence will be so absolute that it makes my ears ring.

  Peace is a good thing, I remind myself. There is too much noise pollution in the city, the same as there’s too much light pollution. In London, I would look up at the night sky and it would be that strange opaque colour, somewhere between grey and yellow, that comes from too much artificial light. Here, you can look up and see hundreds, probably thousands, of stars, set into velvety blackness. It’s beautiful, and if it’s also a little strange, that’s just because I’m not used to it. That’s why it makes me feel a little… unsettled. It would be easier if James was here – if he was moving about the house during the day, and breathing softly beside me during the night.

  The kettle boils and I move to make the tea. I deliberately avoid raising my eyes to the cupboard above the work surface. The whole kitchen is done out in charcoal grey, the doors of the drawers and cupboards finished to a high gloss so that every movement is mirrored in their murky depths. To see my own face, leaden-hued as though dead, looming up at me, is more than my nerves can stand at this moment.

  It was a dream, I say to myself. Just a dream. But my hands are starting to tremble and
the teaspoon rattles against the side of the mug. I can feel it again, the rising panic, the nauseating horror of being tightly closed in on all sides. The impenetrable, terrible dark. The thickness of the air, the tightening in my throat and chest. The need to scream and scream but the knowledge that it will do no good at all, because no-one can hear me.

  The mug slips from my fingers and explodes on the slate floor tiles, spattering my bare legs with hot tea. I shake and shake, until my teeth chatter. I look down at the broken shards of china and the streaks of tea bursting out from the impact point, but I don’t trust myself to try clearing them up. My hands are trembling so much that I will surely cut myself to ribbons.

  Instead, I step back, away from the whole mess, and then I turn my back on it and make my way tremulously across the kitchen, shoulders hunched, my legs feeling weak under me. I’m not even going to try to make more tea. There are a couple of bottles standing on the work surface – some of the first things unpacked from a box I opened at random, and not yet put away. The nearest one is a stubby brown bottle of brandy, which is not something I normally drink: I inherited it, literally. I don’t bother looking for a glass; instead I find a tin mug, which won’t break even if I drop it from a great height, and I pour a generous measure of the brandy into that. With the brandy burning a warm trail down my throat I start to feel a little better.

  I don’t want to go back to bed, nor even into the bedroom. I know that’s something I’ll have to do – it would be ridiculous not to – but I’d rather wait until the sun is up and light is streaming through the window. I go through into the living room, where shrouded furniture is reflected in the plate glass windows that run from floor to ceiling. Beyond their nebulous shapes there is nothing to be seen, because there are no lights out there; there are no other houses within view of this one. In daylight I am proud of this room, of its magnificent size, but now it feels comfortless and exposed. I keep going, out through the other door, and into James’s study.