Too Near the Dead

by Helen Grant

  James joins me a moment later, raindrops sparkling in his dark hair. He has the keys in his hand, his knuckles white and shiny wet. I am leaning on the door, trying to shrink back from the water that streams off the top of the porch and splatters onto the gravel.

  “Hurry up.”

  When he opens the door, the pair of us nearly fall into the hallway, scattering a handful of letters that are lying on the floor.

  “Ugh,” I say, shaking my hands so that droplets fly. “I’m soaked.” I push back my hair; even in the short distance from the car to the porch it has got very wet and is clinging unpleasantly to the side of my face. My skirt is sticking to my legs.

  James comes up close and puts his arms around me. “Isn’t this the bit where you have to take off those wet clothes?”

  I push him off, laughing. “That’s the all-time cliché, James. You really should know better. Call yourself a literary writer?”

  “I was thinking about a change of genre,” he says. “Erotic memoir, maybe.”

  “Can’t you pick something useful?” I say. “Like cookery books? I could murder a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea right now.”

  “I have to go where inspiration takes me,” he says, straight-faced.

  This time, when he puts his arms around me, I don’t protest. His lips are grazing mine when the phone rings, echoing shrilly in the long hallway.

  “Ignore it,” says James, kissing the side of my neck.

  And I would, except something occurs to me.

  “Isn’t Laura calling you today?” Laura is James’s agent.

  “Yes, but later.” All the same, James lets go of me with one hand so he can look at his watch. The other is still around my waist. “Shit,” he says. “It’s now.”

  “Go,” I say, but he’s gone already. A door closes and the phone abruptly stops ringing. I’m left standing alone in the hallway, with water dripping off me onto the floor.

  I pick up the letters, which are damp now too, and dump them on the little table that stands there. I’ll look at them later. First I want to get into some dry things and make myself a huge cup of tea.

  My steps make a sound like a series of gavel blows on the wooden treads as I run upstairs. The bedroom is very cool; I must remember to turn the heating up. I unzip my damp skirt, let it drop to the floor, and then drape it over the side of the laundry basket to dry. Something warm and dry is needed instead; I pick a pair of fleecy-lined tracksuit bottoms that I only ever wear for lounging about. Then I wander into the bathroom and rub my hair ineffectually with a towel. The result is unsatisfactory, more scarecrow than sleek. I make a face at myself in the mirror.

  Then I go downstairs again, put the kettle on and open my laptop. I suspect James will be on the phone for ages, so I think I’ll do a little more research. While the kettle boils, I wander over to the window and look out at the distant treeline, tinged now with the coppery shades of autumn. If the old man is right, and this is the place they used to call Barr Buidhe, and the chapel is to the south west, I guess it’s somewhere over there. More or less, in fact, where I saw that person – for I’m pretty sure it was a person, although all I can remember is the billowing of pale fabric – walking that time. Their presence suggests that at the very least there is a path along there, perhaps an interesting walking route. Certainly it must have fine views towards the house and the land behind it. Ruined chapel or not, it is worth investigating.

  Once I’ve made the tea, I slide onto a stool and get to work, the mug steaming gently beside me. Last time I researched the house, I was looking for Barr Dubh. This time I type in Barr Buidhe, and sure enough, a whole lot of completely different stuff comes up.

  I scroll down. Local history sites, database entries, book references. Where to start? I click on images and there it is: a black and white engraving of a country house in the Scottish baronial style, stone built with corbie steps and those little corner turrets. I click on the thumbnail to go to an enlarged image. There is a legend underneath the picture reading: Barr Buidhe House, Perthshire.

  I sit and look at the engraving for a long time. I begin to see little details that I didn’t notice at first glance: a sundial, a heraldic stone shield over the doorway. There are tiny figures, too – a man in a long fitted coat and breeches, and a woman in a dress with a tight bodice and a huge skirt, a curl of hair visible below her bonnet. Long shadows suggest that the view is intended to be an evening one. The windows of the house are dark, with tiny flashes of white to represent reflections.

  Behind the house a hill is visible, and trees. The setting could certainly be Barr Dubh, but it could probably be a dozen other places, too. There’s no handy blasted oak tree or jagged rock face or anything else to distinguish it.

  I go to the website where the image is, but it’s simply an online store selling antique prints. There is no information about the pictured house, other than the name. So I backtrack from images and scroll through some of the other results. Immediately something snags my attention. It’s an entry in a database of historical sites, headed Barr Buidhe House.

  A couple of clicks later and I’m looking at a small gallery of pictures, the first of which is the same engraving I looked at a few minutes ago. There is also an interactive map, with a dot representing the location of the house. I zoom in as much as possible, but there is only ever that dot. There is no plan of the house, because it no longer exists. I zoom out again, and now I know that the location really is our Barr Dubh. I can see the road from the town to the north of it, and I can trace the tracks that connect with it. Zoom out a little further and the town itself is on the map. I zoom in and out a few times, trying to orient myself, but it’s soon clear that the old house was in pretty much the same spot as the new one – our home. In the world of that map, I’m sitting right under that dark dot, at this very minute.

  I click back to the engraving of the old house, with its dark windows and tiny human figures. I stare at it for a few moments. Then I get up, abandoning the laptop, and pace the kitchen, rubbing my hands together. Cold unease drifts through me, sliding queasily through my stomach and raising the tiny hairs on my arms. I have to keep that feeling tamped down, because otherwise it might ignite into real dread, and that’s no good, because I have to think.

  What difference does this make? That’s the question I ask myself. Before, I wondered whether there really was an older house on the site of our home. Now I know for certain that there was one.

  As for how Belle could have dreamed about it – shouldn’t that be more explicable, now that I know it was real? There are images of the house, a database entry, a map – all kinds of evidence that could have been seen at some past time and simply forgotten. There’s nothing mysterious about that.

  I go over all of it, rationalising everything. That feeling Belle said she had, of wrongness, that doesn’t have to mean anything, except perhaps that Belle is worried about me, and Belle is only worried about me because she doesn’t understand my life here. It wouldn’t be good for her, so she doesn’t see how good it is for me.

  So far, so very sensible. But what about my own dreams? That is a box I don’t want to open.

  I go back to my laptop and look at the engraving again. I could call Belle. I could tell her she was right. I could talk this over with her. I could do that.

  Seen and forgotten, I say to myself, firmly. I click out of the site, and close the laptop. My tea is now warm rather than hot; I drink it in several long swallows. Then I go off to collect the post from the table in the hall, before it disintegrates altogether from the wet.

  Chapter Seventeen

  There’s no sign of James emerging from his study. As I pass the door, I can hear the rise and fall of his voice, although I can’t make out the words. I linger for a moment, the memory of his kiss on my lips, but the discussion is clearly in mid-flow; no chance of him coming out any time soon. I sigh a little,
then go down to the end of the hall, where the letters are lying on the table. When I get close to the front door, I can hear the rain outside, still running off the porch and cascading onto the gravel.

  The letters are a sodden heap; I can see that even before I pick them up and feel their wet pulpy texture. One of them – addressed to James – even has a muddy footprint on it. I hold that one by the corner, and as I walk back to the kitchen, it drips rainwater onto the floor. I put the whole lot down on the draining board and look at them.

  I never normally open James’s post, any more than I would read someone else’s diary. But I can’t see any harm in opening everything that’s arrived today and leaving it somewhere to dry, before the whole lot turns into papier maché. The one with the footprint on it looks positively disgusting and I can’t imagine James would want it dropped on his desk in its present state. It’s also so waterlogged that I don’t really need to tear it open at all – the envelope more or less disintegrates in my hands.

  I uncurl the folded sheets inside and spread them out on the work surface, and as I do so I notice two things. Firstly, it’s a card statement. There’s no missing the well-known logo at the top of the page. Now it does feel uncomfortably intrusive to have opened it, so I consciously turn my gaze away, but it’s too late, because the second thing has snagged my attention. The account balance.

  Suddenly I’m hot all over, shocked and guilty at the same time, as though I have been caught looking at something obscene. Seconds slide past as I force myself to keep looking away, my gaze turned towards the window although I can’t take in anything that’s out there. Then I can’t help myself. I have to take another look. I have to know whether I saw what I thought I saw.

  A little over twenty-two thousand pounds.

  James owes twenty-two thousand pounds.

  Now that I’ve looked down at the statement, I can’t look away again. I stare at that horrific total, willing it to be a mistake, but it isn’t a mistake – it’s there in stark black and white.

  It’s not the amount – though that’s bad enough. It’s the fact that until a few seconds ago, I had absolutely no idea that he was in debt at all. Isn’t that the sort of thing people tell each other when they’re getting married?

  Maybe some of it is work expenses, I think, clutching at straws. There was the trip to Spain, amongst other things. There have been other trips too – to book festivals here and abroad. Perhaps he had to pay all that and claim it back from his publisher? It couldn’t come anywhere near to that grisly total, but it might account for a bit of it.

  I’m terribly tempted to turn the statement over and read the list of transactions. It would set my mind at rest if I knew.

  Maybe it won’t, says a sharp little voice at the back of my mind. What if he’s spent it all on–

  –On what? I snap back at myself, angry and dismayed at the same time that I’m even speculating like this. It shouldn’t make any difference, anyway, what James spent the money on. That’s definitely James’s business. We’re both grown-ups, after all, and if I go any further, if I turn over the statement, I’m into snooping territory. No. The issue is whether we are being open with each other, not where the debt came from.

  Still, I find myself thinking of Bluebeard’s wife, who looked into the one room she was forbidden to enter, and saw something she would rather not have seen. Is it better to live in blissful ignorance, or to know the truth, however ugly?

  I turn the paper over. Previous balance from last statement: £21,973.88, it says. The rest is interest.

  I let out a long breath. I could still find out, of course. I could wait until James is out, and go hunting for the previous statements. But that would very definitely be stepping over a line. I am one hundred per cent not going to do that. Where would I stop, once I started with that? I’m pretty sure James has more than one credit card. Would I look at those statements too? No. Opening one letter because it was falling to pieces with wet is fair enough; poking about in someone else’s things absolutely isn’t. Walk away from the locked room; throw the key in the moat if it’s the only way to stop yourself looking.

  Then it occurs to me that I’ve already got a problem. However innocently, I’ve opened James’s private mail and seen something he hasn’t told me about – something he didn’t want me to see. I can hardly claim to have opened the envelope and not noticed the contents. What am I going to say to him?

  I sag against the kitchen cabinets. I try to summon up Imaginary Belle. I’m pretty sure I know what she’d say. “Have it out with him. This is the perfect opportunity to do it.” But I’m not Belle. The happy place I’ve made with James feels like an island I’ve crawled up onto after a shipwreck. I don’t want anything to spoil it. I can’t let anything spoil it.

  I pick up the soggy statement and tear it into pieces. It isn’t difficult, it’s so soft and wet. I open the lid of the kitchen bin. It’s nearly full. I push the torn fragments into the bag, stuffing them down the side of the other refuse so they won’t be obvious to anyone – anyone being James – who opens the bin. It’s not enough, though; I can still imagine pieces being visible through the plastic when the bag is lifted out. In the end I haul the whole sack out, tie the top together, and haul it to the wheelie bin outside the back door. It is still raining heavily and I am pelted by drops as I open the bin. I don’t care. I lift out the topmost bag, stuff the one with the pieces of the statement in it as far down the bin as I can, and then replace the other bag on top of it. The lid drops shut with a hard report. I go back into the house, close the back door and turn the key. It’s hard to shake the feeling that I’ve done something wrong, but the strongest feeling is one of relief.

  James will notice that his card statement seemingly hasn’t arrived – I’m pretty sure of that. He’ll probably think it’s gone astray, or perhaps been sent to his old address. If he doesn’t notice, the company will remind him soon enough if he misses the payment date. Either of these things might prompt him to say something to me, and then it will be out in the open.

  Twenty-two thousand pounds, I think, dismally. A year ago, that would have been a disaster. I could barely cover my rent and living expenses, let alone find the cash for anything else, and James’s income is always unpredictable. Now – well, now we could find the money to pay it off. It would pretty much clean us out, but we could do it. I might be glad that I said yes to copyediting the terrible thriller. But to do anything about it, James has to tell me. He has to trust me.

  I sit thinking about this while the rain beats down, streaming down the kitchen windows until the world outside is a blur, shades of autumn gold and green and grey running into each other. The bright sunshine of this morning has gone; now the clouds are so heavy that it is almost dark indoors.

  Some time later, James comes into the kitchen and switches on the lights. He is smiling; the conversation with Laura has gone well. I feel a twinge of something I can’t quite define. I wonder fleetingly whether she knows about the debt or not – she’s his agent, after all. It’s her job to make him money.

  “Why are you sitting here in the dark?” he says.

  “I... don’t know. I was on my laptop for ages and I didn’t really notice it getting so gloomy.” I make an effort to keep my tone light. “What did Laura say?”

  “She wants to know when she can see the new manuscript. I said: not yet. And–” He pauses for dramatic effect. “She’s had an offer for film and TV rights for The Unrepentant Dead.”

  “Wow.” In spite of my melancholy mood, I’m genuinely impressed. “That’s amazing.”

  “Yes.” James is trying not to show too much excitement, but I can tell that he’s thrilled. He starts telling me what Laura told him, about the company who’ve made the offer, and all the wonderful things they’ve said about the book. He knows – and I know – that the offer isn’t a guarantee of anything; there’s a long way to go before he sees his wor
k on film. But it’s impossible not to pursue the thought of it; it’s like chasing butterflies.

  I sit on the stool at the breakfast bar, with my chin on my hand, listening to James talk. His enthusiasm is infectious; soon I’m smiling too, quite naturally. He probably can’t see anything amiss in my manner – can’t see that I’m waiting. I’m waiting for him to say, If this comes off, there will be money, and I’m glad about that, because there’s something I have to tell you. Something I probably should have told you before.

  I smile at him, and I wait, but he never says it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After James has gone back to work in his study, I can’t settle to anything.

  The die is cast, I remind myself. It was cast the moment I tore up James’s credit card statement and stuffed it down into the bin. I’ve already made the decision not to say anything – not now.

  What about later? That is the question, and I don’t have an answer ready. I’m sick at heart, and the only thing I can think of right now is to push the whole problem away from me. If I can’t keep my feelings out of my face James will see them, and then we’ll end up having the discussion whether I want to or not.

  Calm down, I say to myself. What has really changed? James is still himself: kind, good-looking, talented. You have your dream home in the place you’ve always wanted to live. None of that has changed because you looked at a piece of paper.

  But it has. That’s the trouble. James has kept something from me. There’s another thought too, circling me like a shark, one that I have to keep pushing away. I know James loves me. I know he does. But supposing the money was the deciding factor? Would he have proposed if I hadn’t had any?