Too Near the Dead

by Helen Grant

  Softly, softly, I move down the hallway, towards the back of the house. The kitchen is here. I wait for a moment behind the door, listening, and when I am sure there really is no-one inside, I push it open and go in.

  It is warm in here, even though it is nighttime. The servants have banked up the range. In the light of the candle flame I can see rows of gleaming copper pans hanging on the walls. In the centre of the room is a scrubbed deal table with things set out for the morning: a teapot, cups and saucers. There is a set of scales, and a row of earthenware pots. In the silence, the ticking of the kitchen clock is very loud.

  I look at the pots and pans. These are not what I am looking for. The kitchen is strange territory to me; the mistress of a house rarely has cause to come here. I open a cupboard and find myself looking at stacks of plates. No. I slide open a drawer, very carefully, not wishing to make a sound, and find rows of dinner knives and forks and spoons. I touch one of the knives, thoughtfully. Then I slide the drawer closed and move on.

  The next drawer that I try is a little stiff. I pull gently, then a little harder, and it slides open with a small clash of the contents that makes me freeze and listen. The house is still and silent. I look into the drawer and see knives: long, gleaming, wickedly sharp. I put the candle down on the table and take out one of the knives. I heft it in my hand, testing the weight, the feel of the handle. It feels good. This is a knife that can wreak vengeance. A knife that can stab to the heart.

  I do not bother to close the drawer. I take up the candle again, and creep to the door, knife in hand. I open it carefully; there is nobody outside. I make my way silently down the passage. When I get to the bottom of the stairs, I stand for a few moments and listen again. Then I put my foot on the bottom tread and shift my weight gently onto it. I have walked up and down these stairs for many years, and I know every one of them – their creaks, their groans. I mount slowly, very slowly, knowing that I cannot eliminate sound altogether, but I can prevent it from being rhythmic. I step cautiously, and wait, and then move up again. At the turn of the stairs I pause, but everything is absolutely silent.

  At last I reach the top of the flight, and the hall stretches out in front of me. I know exactly which door I want. There is no light coming from inside, although it stands slightly ajar. The occupant is deeply asleep. I stand there for a moment, savouring what is to come. Then I set down the candlestick on the floor, and slip inside, the knife in my fist.

  A four-poster bed stands in the middle of the room. It is mounded up with pillows and covered with layers of blankets, the top one a brocade. Amongst the pillows, Charles Robertson lies on his back, snoring like a hog. Hate and fury blast through me like a hurricane. The knife twitches in my hand, longing to sheath itself in his flesh.

  I tiptoe to the side of the bed and look down at him. It is dark in the room, but the flickering light of the candle I set down by the door, and the glowing embers of the fire, show me enough. This is a face I used to love. It has grown older and fatter and coarser, and the whiskers are streaked with grey, but I would have known him anywhere. I am so angry I think I must explode with it. I lift the knife, high above my head, poising it to strike him to the heart.

  And then a voice says: Fen.

  I pause.

  Wake up, Fen, it says. Wake up.

  I know this voice. I look at Charles sprawled out in front of me, defenceless in sleep. The knife trembles in my hand.

  Wake up, Fen.

  It is the voice of someone I know. It is the voice of my brother, Stephen. But Stephen–

  Wake up, the voice tells me, and I do.

  I open my eyes and I am standing by the bed in our own room in Barr Dubh House. I am wearing my nightdress; my feet are bare. The lights are all out, but moonlight seeps through the gap in the curtains. It is enough for me to see. I am so close to the bed that my knees are touching it. In the bed, James is sleeping deeply, his breathing slow and regular. He lies on his back, confidently, exposing his chest to the world. My right hand is raised above my head, and grasped in my fist there is the longest, sharpest knife from the kitchen block.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  I have the presence of mind not to drop the knife. That is all. I back away from the bed, one step at a time. I am overwhelmed with the terror that I might somehow carry through the action I have started, the raising of the arm to strike – that the blade might slice down and into James’s unprotected flesh. One step, two, three. I lower the knife, my whole arm and hand trembling. The shaking is a contagion; soon my entire body is flinching from what I so very nearly did. I keep backing up, until my shoulder blades touch the bedroom wall. My chest is rising and falling and my mouth opens and closes, but no sound comes out.

  I cannot stay here. If I fall asleep again, what will happen? I close my eyes for an instant. The terror of it is too awful. I nearly stabbed James. I nearly killed him. If I fall asleep again, if Euphemia possesses me again... She’ll put ye on like a suit of clothes. Then I know what will happen. I won’t wake up in time. I – she – will kill him.

  I open my eyes again and force myself to move. The door stands ajar, so I walk slowly to it, like a very old woman, a woman of a hundred years. I go outside, into the corridor, and pull the door closed behind me. Then I lean on the wall. The knife is still in my hand. I don’t know what else to do with it.

  After a while I get moving again. I have to. I go down the stairs, holding tight to the bannister with my free hand and wincing at every tiny sound. Then I go into the kitchen, put on the light and carefully re-insert the knife into the block. It takes me a couple of attempts; my hands are still trembling like crazy, and the point of the knife dances all over the slot. At last, though, it slides home.

  There is a drying rack in the corner of the kitchen, and I help myself to clean things from that, because there is no way I am going back into the bedroom tonight. A bra and pants, a t-shirt, a pair of jeans. There are no socks but I don’t care. I put the things on and leave the nightdress lying on the floor. The t-shirt is still slightly damp but I don’t care about that, either. All I can think about is putting as much space as possible between myself and the thing that nearly happened.

  My phone is sitting on the work surface, so I slip it into my handbag, alongside my wallet.

  Keys, I think. Those are probably on the table in the hallway. I go through, and yes, that’s where they are. I put on a jacket from the row of pegs in the hall, and a pair of boots. The boots feel strange without socks. Too bad. I have to go. I have to go now.

  I go out of the front door and close it carefully behind me. The light from the hallway is abruptly cut off, but there is a moon tonight. I can see enough to get into the car. I start the engine. It sounds appallingly loud in the cold quiet night air. I move slowly down the driveway and turn out onto the lane that leads away from the house. I start driving towards the town, but after about five minutes I have to pull over because I am crying so hard that I cannot see where I am going. I sit in a muddy layby and sob my heart out.

  I nearly killed James.

  I keep thinking about it, about the knife raised in my fist, about James sleeping so quietly and trustingly. If I hadn’t woken up, right then...

  After a while I stop crying and start driving again. It is shortly after midnight and there is nobody else on the roads. When I get to the town, I see McBryde’s, the front window still illuminated to show off a simple satin gown. I pause for a moment, but it is no use trying to knock on Seonaid’s door. I don’t even know if she lives in the flat over the shop. Instead, I turn onto the road that leads out of the town.

  I drive out of the town, into the countryside, and keep going until the road eventually meets a dual carriageway and then a motorway. I am heading south, with no other thought in my head than to put as much space as possible between myself and Barr Dubh House. What else can I do? I can’t imagine waking James and telling him what
I almost did. I can’t imagine going back to sleep in that house, not for one last night, not for one single moment.

  Shortly after three in the morning, I pull into a motorway services. I don’t know where I am; somewhere in the north of England, I suppose. Tiredness is rolling over me in waves; if I keep going I will fall asleep at the wheel. I lock all the doors, wrap my jacket around me and lean my head against the window.

  For a while, the darkness enfolds me completely. It’s utterly dreamless. Now that I am far away from Barr Dubh House, nothing can get at me. I can’t sleep for long, though. An unheated car in December is not a comfortable place. Even with the jacket pulled close around me, I wake up shivering. So I get out of the car and stagger into the services in search of caffeine.

  With a very large cup of tea in my hands, I start to feel more human. Outside, it is still dark. It won’t get light for at least another four hours. I am miles from anyone I know. James is three hours behind me; Belle is many hours ahead. I sip the tea and try to think logically about what to do.

  Barr Dubh House is dangerous to me: that’s clear. Every moment I spend under its roof is a risk. But what is James going to think, when he wakes up and finds I’m not there beside him? I consider that. He will probably think, at first, that I have gone downstairs. When he goes down himself and discovers that I’m not there, he’ll be surprised, and then alarmed. At some point he will look outside and find that my car has gone. What will he think then?

  I should phone him. But I don’t know what I will say. I woke up and I was standing over you with a carving knife, and that’s why I left? I rub at my temple, trying to organise my thoughts. Can I tell him what I nearly did? How can I explain why I left, if I don’t? Round and round go the thoughts, and I’m exhausted and don’t know what to do.

  I have to call him, though. Now that the first panic is over, now that I have put so many miles between me and Barr Dubh House, I have started to wonder whether my leaving was enough. Whether Euphemia’s vengeful ghost will be satisfied with my flight. I do not think she will. She wants James dead, the same way she wanted Charles dead. Do I really think she has nothing left to try? Am I prepared to take the risk?

  At last I think: Just call him. Tell him something. Tell him whatever comes into your head.

  I haul out my phone. 1% charge. Damn. It dies in my hands while I’m looking at it. No problem. There’s a payphone across the corridor from where I’m sitting. I put down my empty tea cup and go over to call James on that. I’m pretty sure his phone was on the nightstand, next to the bed. I dial, shivering a bit. The phone rings three times and then James answers it.

  “Hello?” he says, his voice slurred with sleep. It’s a little after 4.30 a.m., after all.

  “James, it’s me.”

  There is a long pause. “What do you mean, me?” he says.

  The question throws me for an instant, but of course he’s just been woken up. He’s still groggy, half-asleep.

  “It’s me, Fen.”

  “Fen?”

  “Yes–”

  “Is this some kind of joke?” he says. “Because it’s not funny, whoever you are. It’s four thirty in the bloody morning.”

  “No, really, James. It’s me, Fenella.”

  “The hell it is.”

  “James, listen. Please. I’m at a service station somewhere. I don’t even know exactly where–”

  “This is bullshit,” he says, and I can tell he’s about to hang up. “It’s four thirty a.m. and you are one hundred per cent not Fenella.”

  “But–” I gape at the phone, before rallying. “Why not?” I say.

  “Because Fenella is right here, next to me.”

  For a moment I am struck dumb by the horror of it. In my mind’s eye I can see James, roused from sleep, half-sitting up on his side of the bed, the phone in his hand. What is lying next to him?

  “James,” I whisper hoarsely, “That’s not me, it’s not Fenella.”

  “Of course it is. Who is this? This isn’t–”

  “Look at her, James,” I say. “Look at her properly.”

  There is a pause. He doesn’t reply to me, but down the phone line I hear him say something indistinct, rousing the thing that is lying next to him. Perhaps it turns over; perhaps it sits up in the bed, and then – then he sees it for what it really is. I cannot see what happens, only hear it. I hear a cry – a terrible, choking cry – and then the phone goes dead.

  I stare at the receiver in my hand. Then I call the number again, my fingers shaking. The phone goes straight to the automated answering service. I put the receiver back on the hook and run out to the car.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  I am fully awake now. It doesn’t matter that I’ve only had a few hours, broken fragments of sleep. There’s a charger in the car – stupid, I should have thought of it before – so I plug my phone into that. As soon as it gets enough charge, I’ll call again.

  I have to force myself not to drive like a maniac. The important thing is to get there in one piece, I remind myself as I floor the accelerator. The car screams out of the services’ parking area, along a service road and back onto the northbound carriageway. My heart is thudding.

  Fenella is right here, next to me.

  I know what was next to him, and it wasn’t me. My knuckles are white on the wheel. I think of the knife-point, poised over James’s heart. I think of something sitting up in bed next to him, something which has revealed itself for what it really is. I drive faster, pushing the car as hard as I dare to.

  The motorway seems interminable. I stop briefly at another services for fuel and now I have enough charge, so I try calling James again, but I still can’t get through. I want to scream, to cry, but I dare not waste any time. I drive on through the darkness, my face grim.

  At last the motorway becomes a dual carriageaway and that becomes an A road, and I am swinging around the bends as fast as I can, haring towards Barr Dubh. It is closer to morning now and I pass a few cars going the other way, their headlights looming up out of the darkness. I get to the town and there are actually one or two people about, trudging through the wintry morning air with their heads down. They look up as I go past, driving too fast for a town centre.

  The road to Barr Dubh is winding. I take the curves on the wrong side of the road and pray I won’t meet anything coming the other way. It must be nearly three hours now since I spoke to James on the phone. Every second counts.

  At the turning, I have to slow down a bit; the track is so full of potholes that the car would be shaken to pieces otherwise. But I keep moving, as fast as I safely can. I turn in at the gate and drive up to the gravelled area outside the house, stones flying up under my tyres. Then I kill the engine and get out of the car.

  In half an hour, the sun will be up, and already it is dimly light enough for me to see the whole silent bulk of Barr Dubh House. The house is entirely dark. I left some of the downstairs lights on – I know I did. Now they are all off. For one moment, I stare at the house, my heart failing me. But I must go inside. I must know what has happened.

  I unlock the door and the sound of the keys jangling is very loud in the silence.

  “James?” I call out, as I step over the threshold. “James?”

  There is no reply. I reach for the light switch and press it, but nothing happens. No power. The house feels cold, too. I put down the keys and my bag on the hall table.

  “James!” I shout it as loudly as I can, in case he is still asleep upstairs, praying he is still asleep upstairs. Then I listen, but there is absolute silence. I walk down the hallway and my footsteps sound unnaturally loud. I get to the foot of the stairs.

  He is lying there, at the bottom of the flight, face down. He has a t-shirt and shorts on, sleepwear for cold nights. He must have leapt out of bed like that and run blindly in the dark. Panicking, disoriented. Desperate t
o get away. The top of the staircase a black pit, invisible in the dark. A precipitous fall down the whole flight. He is dreadfully, horribly still.

  “James,” I say, and as I go over to him and kneel on the floor, “James, James.”

  There is no reply. His face is turned away from me, but I can see the small pool of blood that has run from his head and congealed on the parquet floor. I am crying now and my hands are hovering over him, as though I don’t know where to put them.

  “Please wake up, James. Please, please.”

  I put my hands on his bare arm, and he is cold.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  I gaze at the newly-turned earth where all my hopes lie buried. The soil is dark and heavy and wet. No grass will grow here until the spring. I want to fall on the grave, screaming, crying, trying to claw my way down to James. But it is no use. However hard I scream, he cannot hear me. I turn away, my heart dead.

  Back at the house, it is absolutely silent. Even the clock whose ticking normally pervades the hallway has stopped: a battery has run down, a mechanism has broken. Motes of dust hang on the air. I walk through my house, alone, grieving. But of all the things I have feared, and do fear, the return of Euphemia Alexander is not one of them. She has got what she wanted. She has taken James. He is hers.

  It will be dark soon. The days are so short at this time of year. I go into the big empty kitchen and think about making food but I do nothing. I’m not hungry. I don’t care if I starve. I drink some water, but even that tastes of dust and ashes.

  Eventually I go upstairs, to the room James and I shared. His things are scattered around the room. I pick up a t-shirt from the floor and sit with it in my hands for a while. I think about what I did wrong.

  When I woke up and found that I was standing over James with a knife, I shouldn’t have run. I should have woken him too. I should have said: Barr Dubh House is trying to kill you. We need to leave, now. I should have overruled all his objections, about sleeping until morning and then thinking about it again. I should have made him get up and leave with me. We could have made it to that motorway services together and sat there, cradling a hot drink each, while the sun came up. The whole thing would have seemed insane when we were far away from Barr Dubh. Perhaps – evil thought – we could have persuaded ourselves that it was a mental aberration. We could have put the house back on the market and walked away, like Craig and Susan Loughty undoubtedly did.