Too Near the Dead

by Helen Grant

  I clamber my way towards it. There is a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach, the first murky stirrings of unease. I want to get this over with. I can’t imagine wanting to hold a wedding ceremony in a gloomy dank spot like this. Life and love and happiness don’t belong here. Scanning the ground, I see the shattered remains of a stone cross: a grave marker. This place has belonged to the dead for a very long time.

  When I am standing at the end of the section of wall, I can see the layout of the chapel very well, in spite of its ruinous state. It was a plain rectangular building, of which both gable ends are still standing. The walls between them have kept their original height in places, but elsewhere they are tumbledown, perhaps where door and window frames have collapsed. Young trees thrust up through the floor, which is covered in pieces of broken stone and slate tiles from the vanished roof. I kick idly at a flat chunk of slate. Even for someone utterly oblivious to the lowering atmosphere, the chapel wouldn’t be the place to hold an event; in the first place, you’d need chainsaws to get rid of the trees. And a bulldozer to make a path through the woods, I think.

  Even if I had those things, I wouldn’t do it. It doesn’t feel right here. I find myself fidgeting, shuffling my feet, fighting the temptation to glance over my shoulder. Something is snagging my sense of spatial awareness. I can hear nothing, and I’m fairly sure that if I turned around I wouldn’t see anything either, but there it is, pulsing away at me like an emergency beacon: the absolute conviction that someone is standing behind me, a stone’s throw away, and a little to the left. The feeling is as clear as a blip on a radar.

  Don’t be stupid. You’re just creeping yourself out, like a little kid.

  But I lived in London too long to ignore my own instincts. Walking around after dark, you listen for footsteps that are too close, or a little too fast. In interactions with strangers you watch for warning signs: unpredictability, overfamiliarity. You keep your hand in your pocket, clutching your keys. Now it occurs to me that if there is anyone there – a real person, and not a phantasm – they are between me and the fence. If this is the case, it is better to know. I turn around, sharply enough to catch someone unawares. There is nobody there. I scan the spaces between the damp black tree trunks. Nothing.

  I want to go back to Barr Dubh House now. I don’t want to spend another moment here. But James is bound to ask me what I’ve found. Reluctantly, I fumble for the phone in my pocket. Perhaps photographs will be enough, and I won’t have to bring him back here with me to look. I take off my gloves and stuff them in my pockets, and start taking pictures, snapping away recklessly at everything. I steel myself and step through a gap in the crumbling wall, so that I can take some more pictures inside. I am determined to be as thorough as possible. After that, I don’t care if I never come back.

  Slates crunch and clink under my boots. I capture a crumbling window frame, an empty niche in the stone, the desiccated remains of ivy clinging to a wall. All the time, I still have that sensation, that strong awareness of someone behind and to the left of me. My movements become exaggerated, a pantomime to convince anyone who might be watching that I am simply taking photographs, working as quickly as possible in order to be gone. There is a cold slithering feeling in the pit of my stomach. Once, under the pretence of seeking the right angle for a photograph, I turn around again, but there is still nothing to see. There is no movement anywhere except for the swaying of naked branches in the breeze.

  Clustered around the ruined chapel, there are memorials to the dead. A stone cross lies on the ground in several pieces. On a mossy headstone, the words Requiescat in pace are still just about legible, although the rest of the inscription is obscure. And when I glance down, I see that I am actually standing on a stone slab, although it is almost covered with broken slates and tiny fragments of masonry and the curling tendrils of dead plants. I step back quickly. Then I squat by the slab and brush the debris away as best I can with a gloved hand. There are letters carved into it, worn and weathered but still clear enough. It reads:

  Euphemia Alexander

  Died 14th February, 1872

  Aged 60 years

  RESURGAM

  Euphemia, I think. What a crazy name. I brush dust off the lettering. That’s really what it says. As for RESURGAM, I have no idea what that means.

  There is something else at the head of the slab: a sad mess of crushed wire and broken glass, the remains of a grave ornament. Under the milky shards something white is visible. I pick up a stick and poke at the glass, trying to move the pieces aside so I can see what the white thing is.

  It’s flowers. White porcelain flowers. The crevices between the petals are stained black and green with mould or dust, but it’s still perfectly obvious what the thing is: a decorative arrangement of white flowers, like the one currently sitting in the sideboard in our dining room. And not merely like it, but exactly like it, except the one in Barr Dubh House is pristine and this one is old and dirty.

  I keep squatting there, looking at those flowers. What does this mean? It must mean something. When I found the china flowers in the house, I didn’t recognise them, but it seemed logical that they came from my parents’ house. There was nowhere else they could have come from: everything else is stuff James and I owned before, or which we have bought. It’s possible, I suppose, that my parents might have owned something like this, perhaps not realising what it was – a grave ornament. But an identical one? How is that possible?

  There is something here that I am not grasping. A feeling of something being very wrong.

  What am I not seeing?

  That conviction that someone is there behind me is even stronger than before; it makes the back of my neck tingle. I hold my breath, waiting for a telltale sound – the snap of a twig, or the rustle of dead leaves. Nothing. The breeze dies.

  Then I hear it: a rush of air, almost a sigh, like the sound of a long indrawn breath before a scream that never comes. It seethes and shivers amongst the trees, as though the whole wood is breathing.

  I rise to my feet, my heart pounding, and turn my head this way and that, scanning the woods for the source of the sound. Nothing. Naked branches sway gently with the moving air, but there is no sign of any living creature. Not so much as a squirrel running up a tree trunk.

  I know there is somebody or something there, though. Every instinct is screaming this at me. A prickling at the back of my neck tells me the hairs are standing up.

  There is a rustling in the dead remains of the summer undergrowth, as though something is sweeping swiftly and invisibly through them. I can’t even identify a direction; the sound seems to be everywhere at once. But I am sure of one thing – it is closing in on me. I don’t know what will happen if I am still standing here, by the grave of Euphemia Alexander, died 14th February, 1872, when it reaches me, but I think it will be something very bad indeed.

  Panic. I launch myself into flight, stumbling, running for the fence as hard as I can. The ground is treacherous, an obstacle course of slippery slates, mossy stones and fallen branches. My boots skid in mud, on wet leaves. I fall, landing on one knee, and feel the cold damp seep through the fabric of my jeans. Then I’m up again, breathing hard, running for the sunlight visible on the other side of the trees. Surely the chapel wasn’t this far in? I dare not look behind me. All I can think about is getting out, away.

  The sun is still low enough in the sky to be dazzling when I come to the edge of the trees, and I run straight into the fence. I struggle for a moment before I realise what has happened, and then I duck and try to force my way through the gap between the wires. For several seconds I stick fast, like a fly in a cobweb. Then I hear a ripping sound as the back of my jacket pulls away from the wire, and I’m through. I stagger away from the fence, panting. I think – though there’s no logical reason for it – that I’m safe on this side. I listen, trying to control my breathing, but I can’t hear anything in there – no rustl
ing of dead leaves, no whisper of moving air.

  Safe on my side of the fence, I stand there and gaze into the gloom under the trees. It is bright out here, the cold clear brightness of autumn, and it is hard to pick out anything amongst the shadows. At first I see nothing but the black bars of the tree trunks and the dark mass of undergrowth. Then, far, far back, between the trees, I see something very briefly – a mere flicker of light colour, as swift as the snapping of a pennant on the breeze. Lavender.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  When I stumble back into the house, it is ten to ten; I can see that from the clock at the end of the hallway. James will still be on the phone to Laura; those conversations are never brief. I close the door quietly and then I lean against the wall and close my eyes for a few moments.

  What just happened?

  I ask myself that, and I think James would ask me some version of that if he walked out of his study right now and saw me standing here with mud on my jeans and a big rip in the back of my jacket. There is no sensible answer to the question, no answer that won’t make it look as though I’ve completely lost touch with reality.

  I open my eyes and force myself to get moving. I unzip my boots and leave them on the doormat. Then I take off my jacket, and examine the damage. It’s a pretty bad rip. There are little downy feathers leaking out of it. There is a row of pegs in the hall with outdoor coats hanging on them, so I take one of them off the hook, put the ripped jacket in its place, and then put the other coat back on top of it. It’s the best solution I can think of for now. Then I make my way down the hall and upstairs to the bedroom to peel off my muddy jeans. I let these small practical tasks fill my mind.

  When the jeans are safely stuffed down to the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper and I’m dressed in warm dry things, I go back downstairs to the kitchen and make myself another cup of tea. With a warm mug cradled in my fingers and the sunshine streaming in through the kitchen windows I feel more like myself. I feel practical and sensible. I am able to go back to that question.

  What just happened?

  I try to go over it methodically. The conviction that someone was standing behind me, and to the left. A sound like a sigh. A rustling amongst the undergrowth. There’s nothing there that wouldn’t be explained away quite confidently by a sceptic. The ruined chapel was lonely, decayed and creepy – anyone would start imagining weird presences, or feel like they were being watched if they spent too long somewhere like that. The sighing and rustling? Random gusts of wind. There’s nothing peculiar about those in Scotland in the autumn.

  I shiver. I don’t think I was imagining the person standing behind me. I know there was someone there. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t see anyone when I turned. The feeling was so strong that I think there was something more than I can remember – something subliminal, like a sound almost out of the range of my hearing, or the merest hint of a scent.

  I did see something, I remind myself. That patch of lavender.

  But that’s all I saw: a flash of colour, a billow that was probably fabric of some kind. I rub my eye with the heel of my hand. It doesn’t make sense. If someone was lurking around in the woods, they chose a strange colour to wear. Lavender doesn’t exactly blend into all that green and brown.

  Perhaps, I think, they wanted to be seen. It’s not the first time, after all. I’ve seen that flash of lavender before.

  Then my mind jumps back to that night when James came home so late from Spain and I saw someone – or perhaps something – against one of the tree trunks as the car came up the drive. It was very dark, and the headlights bleached everything they touched, so I can’t say whether the fabric I thought I saw then was lavender or any other colour.

  Little prickles of disquiet run through me. A figment of my imagination, born of bad sleep and loneliness – that’s what I told myself at the time. If it had only happened that once, I could believe that, too. The mind plays tricks, and I know that better than anyone, me with my dreams that look and sound and feel so real that I wake up screaming. But I’ve seen those fluttering draperies too many times now for it to be pure imagination.

  Say that someone is hanging around the house – a real, solid person, and not some trick of the eye. I can’t think who that might be. Some local eccentric, who likes to walk around the countryside in an ankle-length gown? I frown. I could imagine that in the daytime – just about – but not late at night. A neighbour then, with a bone to pick? Someone who wanted to buy Barr Dubh House and saw it snatched from under their nose by the out-of-towners?

  No, I think. That doesn’t make sense either. Nobody else even bid for it.

  I sip the tea, relishing the comforting, ordinary taste. These things are real, definite: the warmth in my hands, the sunshine, James in the other room, phoning London. Then I think about white porcelain flowers. I remember unpacking them myself and asking Belle to stow them in the sideboard. I had them in my hands; I felt the cool smooth surface of the petals. The ones I just saw at the ruined chapel, grimy but otherwise identical – those were just as real.

  I put the mug down on the worktop and head through to the dining room. The room is cool and the dark green walls make me think of forests, of quiet pine-smelling places where the shadows shift and blend. The highly polished oval of the dining table is a still pool. I think to myself that the white porcelain flower arrangement is a tangible thing; it can be compared with the one I saw at the chapel. Perhaps, after all, it will turn out that the two are not exactly alike, simply very similar examples of a particular convention. Perhaps they have no meaning other than coincidence. I squat in front of the sideboard and open the doors. The porcelain flowers are not there.

  I push the doors right back on their hinges and duck my head so I can peer right to the back. I see the stack of gilt-edged plates and some glasses and decanters, and that hideous funereal inkstand. But there are no white porcelain flowers. There is a silver plated tray, an ugly thing with feet that would probably leave scratches on the table. I remember Belle putting the flower arrangement on top of that when she put it away. There’s nothing on its tarnished surface now except a fine covering of dust.

  I take the tray out of the sideboard and put it on the floor. I take the inkstand out too, though I still feel that odd reluctance to handle it. Then I take out a decanter and a couple of glasses. Even while I’m doing this, I know it’s impossible that the flower arrangement is somehow being hidden by these things. I put a hand in and feel behind the stack of plates, in case the flowers have somehow been broken and the porcelain shards have fallen down the back of them. Nothing; my fingers touch bare wood.

  I sit back on my heels and think about it for a moment. Has James been in here? I don’t think he has. But why would he move the flowers anyway? I start to unpack the rest of the things from the sideboard. It takes quite a long time, because there are a lot of things and many of them are fragile. Soon I am surrounded by plates and bottles and ornaments and a host of glittering glasses. If I tried to move from the spot, it would have catastrophic effects, like the legendary bull in a china shop. At last the sideboard is completely emptied. I have handled each item. There is definitely no porcelain flower arrangement.

  While I am sitting and staring at the back of the empty sideboard, I hear footsteps outside, and then James comes into the room.

  “Fen? You are in here. Laura says–” He pauses. “What are you up to?”

  “I was... looking for something.”

  “Did you find it?”

  “No,” I say. I start putting things back into the sideboard, starting with a stack of plates. I have to move them a few at a time, because the whole stack is too heavy.

  “Do you want a hand?”

  But he can’t get near me, because of all the glasses arranged haphazardly on the floor.

  I slide the silver plated tray back into the sideboard, and put the inkstand on top of that, silently v
owing to get rid of both of them as soon as I can. I don’t know why I put the decision off. It’s not that hard to make.

  “I didn’t even hear you come back into the house,” James says. “Did you find the chapel?”

  I pause and look up at him, an empty glass in each hand. “Yes, I did. That old guy wasn’t kidding when he said it was ‘the remains’ of a chapel. It’s a complete ruin.”

  James leans against the wall, arms comfortably folded for a conversation. “Picturesque Instagram ruined or hopelessly ruined?”

  “Hopelessly. And there’s no path or anything. You’d need to get bulldozers in. And anyway...” My voice trails off.

  “And anyway...?” James prompts me.

  “I didn’t really like it,” I say carefully. “It’s full of...” I stop again. If I say it’s full of gravestones, James will want to see it for certain. “...rubbish,” I finish. “It’s not a lovely romantic ruin. It’s depressing.”

  “Shame.”

  “Yes. James, the thing I was looking for was a kind of decoration, made of white china flowers. Belle put it in here for me, when we were unpacking stuff, but now it’s not there. You didn’t move it, did you?”

  James shakes his head. “Not guilty. I haven’t even opened that cupboard since she was here.”

  I look at him for a moment. “I haven’t taken it out either.”

  James shrugs. “Well, maybe it was some other cupboard you remember her putting it into.”

  “No, it was definitely this one.”

  “Perhaps Belle moved it,” he suggests. “What did you say it was? China flowers? What did you want them for?”

  “I just wanted to take another look at them,” I say, as casually as I can. I look down, at the things spread out around me on the floor. “I mean, I should clear some of these things out. When are we ever going to use sherry glasses, or a gravy boat?”