Mrs Millsop was uncharacteristically anxious, didn’t know what had been going on and didn’t want to, because there was sod all she could do about it. The best thing she could do was make sure nobody went hungry. Laura was close on her heels. She was anxious too, in fact so much out of her depth, she was doubtful she’d ever find solid ground again. Unlike Mrs Millsop, she hadn’t picked up on the atmosphere, had assumed these strange friends of mine, who she really wasn’t sure about at all, behaved oddly all the time. Problem was, whilst naturally thrilled to bits about the baby, she hadn’t expected to be dealing so early in their acquaintance with such basics as nappy changing. In the event, thrust into unexpected and seemingly unavoidable action she’d panicked; forgotten how to fold the terry square, been traumatised at the lethally large safety pins and was convinced she’d break the baby in the struggle to get her into waterproof plastic pants. You had to feel for the woman, and understand the relief with which she placed Sara in David’s arms and beat a hasty retreat. The two dogs had sneaked in along with the sandwiches, adopting laughably similar ‘just pretend we’re not here’ expressions and had quietly positioned themselves either side of the fireplace like a pair of mismatched bookends, but a bit of normality wasn’t a bad thing.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Despite, or maybe because of recent events, the sandwiches were as welcome as was the pause while we tucked in. Everyone was quiet - nobody was even thinking hard, although David spent a moment looking from one to the other of us, convinced there was frenzied conversation going on below the surface. I murmured that we wouldn’t be that rude and he raised a sceptical eyebrow. Sara meanwhile gave the three small coughs, which we’d already established preceded her becoming vocal, and under cover of my track suit top, I popped her on for a feed before she could take-off. David seized the moment to get some input from the assembled experts. Was she or wasn’t she? It was a question important to all of us but one by one heads shook, nobody could hear anything. David did his best to hide his reaction, he wasn’t successful but I certainly didn’t blame him; roles reversed; I’d have been hugely relieved too.
Fortified by refreshment and patting the side of her mouth to ensure no lingering egg and cress, Ruth continued.
“It was you Stella, who fascinated him, he found you because you found Jamie and then I turned up on the scene and he realised our relationship. But you were a problem.”
“And not for the first time,” Glory said under her breath. I ignored her.
“Why?”
She shrugged, “For some reason he couldn’t seem to get to you in the way he had with the others, myself included. He always went in with stealth,” she looked at Alison who confirmed with a nod. “Most didn’t feel him, only knew he was there when it was too late, but you Stella dear, he pursued you for a long time.” I shivered involuntarily and Ruth, with a look acknowledged this was hard to hear, “He tracked you and I tracked him. Something about you kept him out. Even with Alison’s power behind him, he could only touch the surface of your mind. When you became pregnant,” she looked at Glory, “I know you tried to keep it from me, you didn’t succeed my dear, you should know me better than that, and if I hadn’t learnt it from you I would have from him.”
I stood abruptly; luckily Sara had finished, burped and dropped off in David’s arms. I needed to walk around, couldn’t sit still. I felt sick, angry, revolted – a load of emotions, none of them good because I now knew what it was I’d been feeling – not apprehension about Ruth, apprehension because of Ruth, because of her connection to the sickness that was trying to invade me. And he had, he had got in – the masks, the chant.
“I’m sorry,” I said, nausea was rising, I made it to the loo just in time. When I emerged, Rachael was waiting for me.
She eyed my green complexion. “Better out than in.” She brushed a strand of hair away from my eye, then unexpectedly pulled me close, arms tight around me. As I put my arms around her too, she sent something through my head. I tried to analyse it later, the best I could come up with was a disinfectant wash. Sharp, pepperminty, cleansing, it made me feel a whole lot better. I smiled in gratitude.
“Come on then, can’t stand here all day.” she said. “That husband of yours will fuss.”
David had handed Sara to Glory and was on his way out, so we met in the doorway. “You OK?” he said, Rachael said to give you a minute.” He frowned slightly.
She waved a dismissive hand, “You’d have only mollycoddled her and we have no time for that.”
I sat down again, “I’m fine, sorry, just…”
“We know,” Glory had Sara sleeping on her shoulder and was patting her back although whose comfort that was for, was a moot question. Over my years of involvement with the Peacock gang, we’d had many a serious discussion, but I couldn’t remember anything that had this much weight to it.
Ruth put thought into words, “This has hit us all a little harder than usual, but now there are only loose strings…”
“…ends,” said David. She chuckled. This was a woman who knew how to work her audience and I was relieved beyond measure to hear the shakiness going from her voice. Even in the short time that had elapsed, colour was coming back to her cheeks and her eyes were again those I knew so well.
“Loose ends, indeed. He wanted the baby, you know.”
“Yup, he told me,” I said, “back at the house.” This was all news to David, but far better, I felt, that he should know after the fact rather than during.
“Getting you to the house was his big final move.” Ruth said, “But you coped.”
“I wouldn’t have done if Alison hadn’t chipped in.” I pointed out and with that, suddenly realised I’d given no thought to what was to become of her now.
“Sorted,” said Rachael, “she’s staying here for the time being. We’re putting her to work.”
“I’m going to be helping this gentleman,” Alison smiled across at Boris. “I don’t want to; honestly I want nothing more to do with the inside of anybody’s head anymore.” She shifted her position in the armchair Ed had helped her into, Laura’s turbaned scarf still colourfully perky on her head, “But when all’s said and done, I have a responsibility, he could never have done what he did to Ruth and all the others, without me.”
“Under duress,” Boris added.
She nodded, “But I will do everything I can to put things right.”
Boris added, “Alison doesn’t want to go back to the house.”
“Certainly not,” Alison agreed, her mouth downturned, “it holds only dreadful memories.”
Boris continued smoothly, “We’ll help with all the practicalities of selling and after Christmas, Mrs Millsop’s organised a physiotherapist, Sam thinks muscle atrophy in her legs can be reversed.” I frowned, I had reservations, this was a woman who’d lived for years under the dreadful control of someone else. Whilst all this subsequent stuff was well-intentioned, was her independence again being taken away? She heard, shook her head and smiled.
“Trust me,” she said, “Alison Olivia, knows her own mind,” and that put mine at rest, although David’s was still churning with unanswered queries.
“How did he get out of where you were keeping him? You said there wasn’t a chance.”
“There wasn’t,” Ruth answered him. “That was me,” she rested her head between her two hands for a moment, “it’s all so convoluted,” unexpectedly she snorted a laugh without mirth and over her bowed head glances were exchanged, had the whole thing been just too much? “You see, he thought he had me under control. He didn’t know I knew he thought that. He told me to knock out Glory, then Rachael and Bella.”
Rachael on the opposite sofa frowned. “You didn’t have to though.”
“Don’t be silly, of course I did,” said Ruth and the sisters glared at each other for a moment, one determined jaw and expression echoing the other, before she continued. “There was so little time, he was determined to have the baby.” She ignored a combined indrawn br
eath from the baby’s parents, “To do that, he knew I had to put you Boris, and Sam out of action, and of course young Devlin too.” she shrugged at their expressions, “I had no choice, I had to make him believe in me until the very last second. He’d hi-jacked Alison and was draining Stella as well as me. He had, in those moments, more power than he’d ever dreamt possible; he was superhuman, euphoric!” She coughed, throat dried by talking and Ed sent a glass of water over. She drained it, smiled at him and continued. “I had to be genuine; Stella had to believe she was in fear of her life.”
“I was,” I said slowly. “Convinced, I mean.”
“I took a dreadful gamble,” said Ruth, I gambled everybody’s lives on just two things; my ability to act within seconds, and my assessment of Alison.”
We all looked at Alison whose colourful turban had now slipped to a slightly rakish angle. She closed her eyes briefly, recalling. “All l knew was he was back, despite all your assurances and promises. I trusted you all, yet he was back in my head. I wasn’t sure what was happening but I kept getting flashes and as far as I could see, Ruth was on a rampage. And the pain in my head - the worst it had ever been.
Ruth nodded in agreement, “Dreadful pain plus the shrieking of other victims. I had to use all of that as a kind of distraction in the hopes it was enough to obscure my individual thought and Alison’s reaction,” she paused again, whether for dramatic effect, which I wouldn’t put past her, or simply for breath, “I knew I might not be strong enough to do what had to be done, so I used some of the precious few seconds I had and screamed at Alison – Help Me! She understood, reacted instantly and...” Ruth looked across and left the grand finale to the damaged woman in the armchair who kept it pragmatic.
“We took him by surprise!” said Alison with quiet satisfaction.
* * * *
After the drama and angst, everything else was a little anticlimactic, but had to be gone through just the same. We had a brief break during which the marvellous Mrs Millsop supplied fresh tea and coffee, and then Sam took over up-dating,
“I’ll be quick, we’re all tired. First and foremost, we couldn’t find any trace of Phillip in your mind Stella, not a whisper, we can only assume, he was able to reach you but unable to get any further.” I hadn’t realised quite how relieved I’d be as I took that in.
Sam went on, “But, we do know what it was you left in Devlin,” I realised from the look David gave me, this might be another something he wasn’t abreast of, goodness the surprises were coming thick and fast, I only hoped he’d still be talking to me by the time we left.
“Do you see here?” Sam projected a slowly revolving brain over the centre of the table and opened it up like a halved piece of fruit, “Devlin’s brain, see where there’s scarring? It’s as if it’s been burnt, but look just above that point,” we all obligingly craned forward but I could tell, as could Sam, we weren’t much the wiser. “It’s not easy to make out, but where connections have been broken, new ones have developed, similar but not identical to the originals. That’s the change Stella made to Devlin, that’s why he found he could do what he did.”
Boris put in “This is not something any of us had come across before but then we were never looking. However, the knowledge is invaluable - we think this is how Ruth and all the others were affected. The difference is that Stella made changes accidentally. Philip,” Boris’s normally impassive expression altered only fractionally but spoke volumes, “crawled in, and stayed. But we know what we’re looking for now, we’re confident we can eliminate any trace of him.”
“Hang on,” David had been following with fascination, “How will you find them, these other victims?”
“We think we can take memories from Ruth and Alison.” said Sam, and grinned, triumphant at the discovery. It made him look like the boy he was.
“And Devlin?” I asked.
Rachael chimed in, “We will do the same for him and when Ed drops him back to his Mother, all Devlin will remember is doing some tests; shapes, colours, the usual sort of thing, but we’ll be able to say with complete truthfulness that he’s showing no sign of anything untoward.
“No!” said Ed. We looked at him, Ed didn’t talk unless he had something to say.
“What?” Glory said.
“Philip created victims, he was about aggression and control, right? But Stella caused a change in Devlin by saving his life.”
Boris had popped in another aniseed ball, so was a little muffled, “Correct, but when Devlin used it, he created chaos.”
“He didn’t know what he was doing,” Ed said, “well he did, but not enough to factor in consequences. What Stella did was well intentioned, even if unintentional, but maybe there was something in him in the first place that allowed it to happen. Do we have the right to take that away? Look at Sam, look at what he’s achieving.”
“Sam was born that way,” Rachael pointed out.
“But isn’t it possible Devlin was too, Stella might just have kick-started what was there. Do we have a right to change that back? He doesn’t need changing, he needs teaching.”
Ruth, Rachael and Boris exchanged a flash of thoughts, so fast I couldn’t catch them.
Boris looked around the room, “Anyone? Stella?” I hesitated I could see pros and cons. Devlin had family, how was that going to go – ‘Your son has extra sensory abilities he caught from Stella. How about letting him come and stay with a group of strangers so he can learn how to handle it?’ The others followed my train of thought.
Rachael said thoughtfully, “Devlin’s Mother didn’t need a lot of persuasion to let him come here. He’s been expelled from two schools in the last two years, his parents are running out of options. We run a school for children who’ve had problems in mainstream education. Ed may have a point.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
As I’d found so often in the past, the more traumatic the event, the more banal and down to earth everything is that follows. Not a bad thing, you couldn’t live at that level of fear and tension for too long without going a little bit batty.
Despite the original dire weather warnings, further snow seemed to have held off for a while and David was keen to start for home before it got too dark and possibly started again. He wasn’t getting any argument from Laura, who’d had way too much mucking in and was keen to revert to her more normal state of exhausted. As always, I felt the familiar wrench at leaving. I was also uncomfortably aware that a major momentous event, the birth of our baby had been shifted from centre stage for quite a while. I knew parenthood came with its share of guilt; I just hadn’t expected it so soon.
Getting ready to go didn’t take long because I hadn’t arrived with much, other than Katerina and David’s sadly mistreated overcoat. Mrs Millsop had helpfully washed everything of Laura’s but it was still damp, so Glory insisted she keep the borrowed silk trousers and matching tunic. Perhaps, Glory suggested with a straight face, she might enjoy wearing them in the future and we had to avoid each other’s eye as Laura smiled and thanked her profusely whilst thinking, “like that’s going to happen!’ For my part, I was relieved that David had, in all the panic, remembered to bring my hospital bag which meant I was going home in a track suit that was mine. It was a point that would forever count in his favour.
When we left, only Rachael, Ruth and Glory were there to wave us off. That didn’t matter, bonds with Ed and Sam were unshakeably and unbreakably permanent. Boris? Well, perhaps Boris and I would always maintain a warm if wary distance, maybe in time we’d meet in the middle with affection but for now, mutual respect was fine.
It seemed Rachael had used up her cuddle quotient, “Oh, please,” she said, “with all this fissy-fussing, you’ll still be here next week. Never could make a quick exit, could you Stella?” and she smiled; not her usual, mustn’t-scare-the-people smile, but the rarer one that lit her face with all the warmth, humour and affection she didn’t show to many. That said it all, I didn’t need more.
I turned to Ruth, wh
o for warmth had pulled on an additional orange and green jumper vivid enough to be spotted from space. She held out her arms. I hesitated fractionally before I moved forward, only fractionally but of course she knew I was as afraid of what I might feel as she was; logic can lay out the facts, it can’t always make you certain, but as soon as I hugged her I knew; only rich, deep purple lavender Ruthness; nothing more, nothing less.
“You’re sure?” she murmured in my ear.
“Never surer.”
Glory had been holding Sara until the last possible moment, she planted a kiss which Sara accepted with equanimity, handed her over to David and turned to give me a swift, fierce hug.
“Do me a favour?” she said, “Try and steer clear of trouble, just for a little while. And take care of that baby, poor kid does not know what she’s been landed with.” We turned at a shout from inside; Mrs Millsop was bowling down the corridor at speed, with the wheelchair and Alison and only narrowly avoided hitting the doorstep and sending chair and passenger flying.
“Here,” she thrust a paper bag into my hand, “for the journey,” she looked me up and down, “hmm, too much running around,” then to David, “you make sure she puts her feet up when you get home.” He assured her he would and gave her a bear hug.
“You, Mrs Millsop,” he said, “are absobloodylutely wonderful, we couldn’t have done it without you.” She shoved him away laughing.
“Get away with you. Now do what I say, you hear? And make sure you eat and drink on the drive. I’ve not made those sandwiches just to fill in the time.” I hugged and thanked her too, then bent to Alison in the chair. She rested the back of her hand on my cheek for just a moment.
“You’ve saved my life Stella, in every possible way. Thank you isn’t enough, but it’ll have to do for now.” Beneath the colours of Laura’s donated scarf, her eyes were bright and even in these last fraught hours, freedom had fleshed her face.
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