Too Near the Dead

by Helen Grant

  But I didn’t do that. I simply ran. I left James alone with something infinitely cold and vengeful. I left him to die.

  I put down the t-shirt, and go into the bathroom. There is a ghost in the mirror, thin and haggard. I ignore it as I brush my teeth half-heartedly. When I’ve finished in there, I change into a nightdress. Then I climb into bed, and turn out the light. A little moonlight seeps in between the curtains as I lie there, trying to sleep.

  After a long time, I hear a sound downstairs. A gentle thump. I think: someone at the door. But I do not think there can be anyone there, not at this time of night. Not out here, miles from the nearest town. I must have imagined it, or else it was a bird flying into a door or window. I turn over in bed, putting out a hand before remembering that there is nobody else there.

  Then I hear a very definite click. I know that sound. It is the sound of the front door closing.

  I think: Did I lock it?

  I can’t remember. I think I did, but things escape me in my shell of grief. I roll onto my back again and listen, staring up into the dark.

  For a while there is silence. I start to think that I imagined the sound of the front door closing. Then I hear them: footsteps, slow and deliberate. I ought to spring out of bed, to grab my phone, barricade myself in the bathroom, in case it’s a burglar. Instead, I lie there listening. They have come from the hallway, those footsteps, and now they have started on the slow climb up the stairs. Sometimes they pause and the seconds stretch out until I think that there will be nothing more, until there is another soft impact. The person climbing the stairs may be trying to be quiet, to go undetected. Or perhaps they are slow, lacking co-ordination.

  I could not move now, even if I wanted to. I hear that soft tread on the landing. The person out there is bare-footed. The door is ajar, and for the first time I think I detect a hint of something on the air: a faintly earthy smell, like damp soil. I look towards the door, my eyes straining in the darkness. The light switch is only an arm’s length away but I don’t want to use it. Someone is there, just outside the door – someone slow and silent. There is no sound of breathing. They stand there, unmoving.

  “James?” I say, and my voice is so hoarse, so soft that I cannot believe anyone could hear it.

  Another silence and then the door creaks gently as someone pushes it open. He stands there in the doorway, another shadow in the deep darkness, and the air between us blooms with the scent of corruption. I half sit up. My throat is very dry.

  I know what this means. Euphemia Alexander thought that she could claim him, that she could drag him down into death with herself. But James does not want Euphemia. He wants me. Even now, he wants me.

  His feet move over the floorboards like a whisper. He approaches the bed, and all I can see is his silhouette. In the gloom of night it is impossible to make out his face, his features. I swallow. Then I throw back the covers on his side of the bed.

  The mattress sags under his weight as he climbs in. The cold scent of earth and decay is in my nostrils. I want to say his name, but I cannot force the single word from my lips. He turns to me, slowly, a person without any human reflexes. When he touches me, his fingers, his hands, his arms are cold. So cold. He pulls me into his embrace, leaching the warmth from my live body into his freezing one. He is heavy, so heavy.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  I wake from the dream breathing hard, and realise that the scream was only in my mind. The world slowly coalesces about me. The cold grey light of morning is seeping through the thin curtains. Outside, I can hear traffic – engines running, the occasional irritable honk of a horn – and voices. London is already awake.

  I roll onto my side and look at James sleeping. He still has a visible scar on the side of his forehead. I suppose it might fade with time. I remember finding him at the bottom of the staircase in Barr Dubh House and thinking that he was dead. He was so still and so dreadfully cold. He had been lying there for several hours in nothing but a t-shirt and shorts, while the house, devoid of power, cooled down around him. If I hadn’t come back, or if I’d left it a day or two, I think he might have died of exposure. It was December, after all, and Scotland. Euphemia might have got him in the end.

  But he didn’t die. I called an ambulance, sobbing down the phone as I begged them to come and help us. They came and took us both away. Since that moment, I have never spent a single night under the roof of Barr Dubh House. I have never even been inside it after dark. James has recovered, although he can’t remember much about the accident. He has even started working on his book again – and I have resumed working too, because now we can’t afford not to.

  We had to move back to London, of course. This flat was the best we could get. The windows don’t fit very well. When a heavy vehicle passes, they rattle. Cold air circulates, and warmth bleeds out. It is not very much better than my old place. It’s bigger, that’s true, and there aren’t any maniacal partygoers on the ground floor, but it’s shabby, and noisy, and cold. I expect in the summer it will be too hot. This is something that has to be lived with, until something is done about Barr Dubh House, and at this moment I have no idea what that might be. It might be a safe place for new people to live in. Perhaps whatever game Euphemia Alexander’s ghost was playing has been played out. But somehow I do not think so. I think that our beautiful dream home, with its extensive land and its very own ruined chapel, is as dangerous as a shark pool, or quicksand. The house could be pulled down and the land sold, although a lot of money would be lost if that happened. And then there are all our possessions – far too many things to fit into a tiny London flat. Too many questions – too many decisions to make.

  Although I do not intend to return to Scotland, I have kept in touch with Seonaid. I asked her to do something for me: to go to the library, to look through the yellowing pages of the local newspaper for 1874 and afterwards, and see if she can find out what happened to Mrs. Robertson. I was not surprised by her reply. Clara never recovered from her “prostration with grief”. She died in a lunatic asylum. To the end, she claimed that “the lavender lady” killed her husband. No-one was officially tried for the murder and her words passed into local folklore.

  Stephen has never spoken to me again. Sometimes, in quiet moments, I try to listen for him, but as before, there is always a space. A nothingness, where Stephen should be. I thank him, though, for saving me from something too terrible to think about, and I hope for his rest.

  I think about all these things and I watch James, the way his chest rises and falls as he sleeps, the tiny movements of his lips and eyelids. I feel his warmth, the subtle shifts of his body next to mine. Our plans for the future have been derailed, but we still have each other. I put out a hand, to touch him, to know that he is really there, and then I close my eyes and driftly slowly back to sleep, which, at last, is dreamless.

  Acknowledgements

  This book was inspired by the part of Scotland that I and my family call home.

  I would like to thank Clare Cain and Fledgling Press for publishing Fen’s story, and I would also like to thank Graeme Clarke for the wonderful cover design.

  Thanks are due to Clare Wallace of the Darley Anderson Agency, who represents me.

  In addition, I would like to mention the staff of the A.K.Bell Library in Perth and the Strathearn Community Library in Crieff who pointed me in the right direction when I was researching this book.

  A big thank you to Steve Duffy for suggesting the quotation by Sir Walter Scott which is the title of this book.

  Finally, as ever, thanks to Gordon.

 

 

 
filter: grayscale(100%); -ms-filter: grayscale(100%); filter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share