The Glass Guardian

by Linda Gillard

  ‘We’re the same age, so I couldn’t possibly comment.’

  He opened the back door, then suddenly turned round and said, ‘By the way, whatever happened to Heckie?’

  ‘Heckie? Who was Heckie?’

  Tom looked at me, surprised. ‘You’ve forgotten Heckie? Poor sod... You women - you’re so damn fickle!’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  ‘Heckie was your friend. Went with you everywhere. Shared our games. And our meals. For all I know, he shared your bed.’

  My hand flew to my mouth. ‘Oh my God...’

  ‘It’s coming back to you now?’

  ‘Heckie!’

  ‘Your imaginary friend. Except you swore blind he wasn’t imaginary, it was just that I couldn’t see him. You even used to set a place for him at meal-times. You were one weird kid, Ruthie. Sometimes you even had me believing in him.’

  ‘I’d completely forgotten! When did I stop all that?’

  ‘I don’t remember. You used to talk about him all the time when we were young. Then I think you started keeping him to yourself. You no longer shared him with me, but I knew you were still thinking about him. Seeing him. I think I got a bit jealous. Round about the time I was ten or eleven. Hormones, I suppose. They must have started to kick in then. I dismissed you as a crazy girl who imagined things. But that was why your games were so good. You made it all real. Because for you, it was.’

  ‘You killed him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You killed Heckie. Well, you said you did. We had a terrible fight - I can’t remember what it was about - and you said you’d killed him. You said you’d stolen a knife from the kitchen and stabbed him.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes. I was beside myself. Completely hysterical. I said I hated you and never wanted to play with you ever again.’

  ‘You really believed me?’

  ‘Of course I did! Heckie was real to me, so why shouldn’t he be dead?’

  ‘But... didn’t you see him again after that?’

  ‘No. It was as if he really had died. God, I can’t believe I’d forgotten all that! At the time, it was as if I’d lost my mother all over again.’

  ‘Jesus, I’d no idea. Well, for what it’s worth, I’m really sorry. I was just jealous, I suppose. You had so much that I didn’t. You even had invisible friends.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be sorry! We were just kids with overactive imaginations.’

  ‘Maybe. But it must have been bad for you if you blotted it all out afterwards.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Poor old Heckie,’ Tom said, thoughtfully. ‘Was that short for Hector?’

  ‘I don’t know... He never said,’ I added solemnly.

  Tom looked at me, open-mouthed, then burst out laughing. ‘OK, you had me there for a minute! Look, I’d better be on my way. If you have any problems or need help of any kind, just give me a call. If I can’t sort it out, I’ll know someone who can.’

  ‘Thanks. That’s very kind of you.’

  We stood facing each other and I could tell he was thinking whether to kiss me goodbye. I saw his body lean in toward me for a moment, then he seemed to change his mind. Standing in the doorway, he turned toward the garden and said with a contented sigh, ‘You know, I really love this place. If it was mine, I could never bear to part with it.’ He turned his head and said over his shoulder, ‘It is yours, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes. Janet said she’d leave everything to me apart from some small bequests to friends. She had no other family. Her brother died of scarlet fever when he was a child and her sister, Kathleen - that was my mother - died in 1976. I think it must have been quite a lonely old age.’

  ‘Unless, of course, I’m right about my mother. Let’s hope so, for both their sakes.’ He looked down at me, then bent his head and kissed me on the cheek. ‘Bye, Ruth. It’s been great to catch up. I’ll see you Monday.’

  ‘Bye. It’s been good to see you again.’

  It was one of those beautiful October days with a cloudless Mediterranean blue sky, the kind you rarely see in the Highlands, even in summer. As I watched Tom stride along the path, covering the ground quickly with his long legs, the autumn sun burnished his hair so it glowed like old gold. Beyond him, the limes, yellows and russets of the turning leaves formed a glorious patchwork backcloth. As I watched him go, feeling an odd mix of pleasure and pain, I saw something move quickly in a thicket of shrubs and trees. A reddish-brown shape that almost blended with the decaying foliage, but which moved through it easily, as if branch and trunk offered no impediment. A red squirrel? Of course. What else was that distinctive auburn colour?

  Tom turned the corner, which took him out of sight, so I closed the back door and turned the key.

  As I was putting the coffee mugs into the dishwasher, it suddenly occurred to me that there are no red squirrels on Skye, only grey. Whatever it was I’d seen moving through the shrubbery - at about head height, now I came to think about it - it wasn’t a squirrel.

  Chapter Three

  After Tom had gone, I went upstairs, threw myself on the bed and indulged in a shameful bout of self-pity, during which I got through half a box of tissues. I hadn’t really cried since Janet’s funeral, so it was perhaps overdue, but I wasn’t crying for Janet. Well, not just Janet. I was crying because I missed them all terribly. Janet, David, the father who’d never really wanted to know me and the mother I could hardly remember. And now I’d remembered him, I missed Tommy, my childhood friend. That scruffy, skinny kid who - until puberty distorted his judgement - thought all my ideas were good ones and who hung on my every word.

  Maybe it wasn’t Tommy I missed. Maybe it was Heckie. Or just my childhood self, the self who could forget loss and loneliness collecting the fluffy heads of bog myrtle to stuff dolls’ pillows; who thought sunflower seeds were magic because something taller than a man lived inside, waiting to spring to life. Just add water. The water of life... Uisge beathe...

  That’s what I needed. Whisky.

  I peeled myself off the bed, filled the waste paper bin with sodden tissues and headed downstairs in search of a bottle of Janet’s Talisker. It was something of an acquired taste, but I was bent on acquiring it. The only whisky distilled on Skye wasn’t cheap and my aunt - optimistic soul - had died with five bottles in stock. I hoped Tom liked Talisker. I didn’t propose to get through it all on my own.

  I went down to the sitting room and poured myself a dram, registering that this was my second strong drink of the day and it wasn’t yet four o’ clock. Island-itis was getting to me already. But the circumstances were exceptional: a possible intruder and an unexpected reunion with a cherished childhood companion. This wasn’t just any old Thursday.

  I switched on my laptop and made myself comfortable in an armchair by the French windows. The light was starting to fade now, but I surveyed the garden, hoping to spot my mystery bird or mammal (a pine marten?), but nothing moved apart from the wind and the dying leaves as they abandoned their struggle to cling to life and fluttered, vividly, to the ground.

  I turned my gaze back to my laptop and studied my Inbox. Athelstan again. The guy didn’t give up easily, I’ll say that for him.

  Dr Athelstan Blake was a musicologist at Toronto University. He was writing to tell me he’d had second thoughts about his proposed book on female composers. He said the interest occasioned by my aunt’s demise had made him realise Janet Gillespie merited a book to herself, in which gender issues in music could be raised without undermining her standing as an important composer, not just a female composer.

  ‘Now you’re talking, Athelstan,’ I said, raising my glass to the newly enlightened Canadian.

  The rest of his email consisted of the same old request: could he come (at my convenience) and sift through Janet’s manuscripts, letters, cuttings, photos, etc? I emailed back, with possibly more enthusiasm than prudence. (All I’d consumed since breakfast was brandy, coffee, then whisky, so I was feeling a
bit light-headed.) I informed Dr Blake that I felt sure Janet would have approved of his planned study and that I would - eventually - do my best to co-operate, but it was still far too soon for me to make the archive available to him, so I would be in touch at a later date. That seemed a tad discouraging, so to make the old boy’s day, I added a PS saying, if he’d like to give me some indication of his interests, I would be happy to enter into preliminary email correspondence.

  Well, I thought that was handsome. If he sent me a list of questions or research topics, it would motivate me to make a start on clearing out the music room and then the house. Once that was done I could go back to London and resume my life. What was left of it.

  Gloom threatened to descend again, so I went to the kitchen and threw together a cheese omelette. As I ate, I stared at the chair Tom had sat in and thought how nice it would be not to have to eat alone... Maybe I should invite him for dinner. No, supper. That sounded more casual. Because it was casual. I might be lonely, but I wasn’t desperate. It would just be nice to spend an evening in a man’s company, chatting. And there was a lot we could chat about, apart from our childhood. The garden, of course, and what to do about the house. As a local, Tom’s advice would be invaluable.

  So that settled it. I would invite him to supper.

  After I’d tidied the kitchen, I sat slumped in front of the TV, conscious I wasn’t taking in a word. Eventually it dawned on me, this was because the programme was in Gaelic. I couldn’t even summon the energy to change channels, so I decided it was time for bed.

  I dreamed of sex and death. I woke in the early hours, more exhausted than when I’d turned in. Nightmares were normal for me. I’d witnessed the passing of three loved ones in the last nine months. I coped pretty well during the day, keeping negative thoughts on a tight leash, but when I slept, my subconscious took its revenge and I often woke feeling wrecked.

  I’d woken in a sweat, with my heart thumping, but this time I was pretty sure my racing pulse had little to do with fear. As I surfaced, I tried to analyse the confused elements of my dream. Tom Howard’s face was the first to be identified. So was his body. Flushed with embarrassment, I sat up in bed and turned on the light. The alarm said 04.10. I reached for the glass of water on my bedside table and gulped it down. Feeling slightly calmer and cooler, I turned off the light and lay down again.

  I know I didn’t dream it because there wasn’t time to fall asleep. In fact when I first heard the noise, I assumed I was making it, fidgeting about in the creaky double bed. But after I’d been lying still for a minute or two, willing myself to go back to sleep, I heard the noise again. A dragging sound. As if furniture was being moved. Slowly.

  I switched the light on again, sat up and listened.

  It’s at times like these that you wish for noisy neighbours. Someone to blame. This wasn’t mice. Or rats. Or bats. It wasn’t an owl in the roof. The noise was coming from outside my room.

  Burglars? Well, if it was, they’d been extremely clever getting in through locked doors and windows, which I’d double-checked before going to bed. And if they’d broken in through the back door, they’d somehow avoided triggering my improvised alarm, which consisted of a pile of baking trays and cake tins piled on top of each other in a cunning Leaning Tower of Pisa construction, designed to collapse noisily if the door opened.

  Would burglars who’d managed to sidestep a DIY alarm system drag furniture about? Was I being burgled by Pickfords? And what could they be looking for? Janet’s valuables were helpfully in all the obvious places: her desk and jewellery box and the silver was still in the sideboard.

  I’d like to pretend I was brave; that, like Jane Eyre, I threw a shawl around my shoulders and ventured out into the corridor, ready to do battle with a madwoman, but the truth was, I needed to pee. I’d had too much excitement for one night, both at the conscious and the subconscious levels and I needed the loo. So, as I got out of bed and pushed my feet into my slippers, I told myself I was just suffering from stress. Or tinnitus. Or hallucinations. And if I didn’t get a move on, I’d soon be suffering from incontinence.

  As I emerged from my bedroom into the hall, I saw a pale figure standing at the end of the corridor. I let out a scream guaranteed to drive any burglars from the premises, not to mention owls, rats and bats. I clutched at the door handle for support. As I did so, the ghost copied my movements exactly.

  I was staring at my own reflection in the huge mirrored wardrobe at the end of the corridor.

  My subsequent laughter was a touch hysterical. By now any self-respecting burglar must have assumed there was a maniac on the loose and scarpered, so I dived into the loo opposite my bedroom and luxuriated in an all-pervading sense of relief.

  I was back in bed, assuring myself the strange noise had been caused by Tigh-na-Linne’s ancient plumbing, when it started up again. Something heavy was being moved an inch at a time. At least that’s what it sounded like.

  I switched the light on again and my eye fell on my mobile. I could ring Tom. Then what? Ask him to come round in the middle of the night? Just because I could hear a peculiar noise? And supposing he got the wrong idea? I remembered my dream and blushed.

  I decided I had to cope alone. Again, this wasn’t bravery. I just wasn’t prepared to let Tom see me in my shapeless fleece pyjamas. Nor was I prepared to change into something more flattering. And just how terrified could I be if I was considering this sartorial point? Mad, possibly; terrified, definitely not. Misery makes you reckless, but it can also make you brave. I’d lost my lover, my father and my beloved aunt. Two out of three had expired in my arms. As long as something living was making that damn noise, I didn’t care what it was.

  I threw back the bedclothes and got out of bed again. It had to be a rat. Or a squirrel. Or a pine marten. I didn’t care if it was the Hound of the bloody Baskervilles, I needed to get some sleep. I strode over to the bedroom door, flung it open, stepped in to the hall and switched on the light.

  The wardrobe had moved.

  I knew it had moved because I wasn’t in the same position. I mean, my reflection wasn’t in the same position. The mirror had moved. It had moved because the wardrobe had moved.

  I don’t remember deciding to walk along the corridor. It was as if I was being drawn. My feet seemed to have a will of their own and they took me toward the wardrobe. I stood in front of my own reflection, white-faced and open-mouthed. The wardrobe was a massive Victorian double-fronted affair and it would have taken several men to move it, but it was now no longer parallel to the wall. It had been pulled out a few inches on one side, away from the wall. I couldn’t see what, if anything, was behind because the wardrobe filled the short wall, being as wide as the passageway itself.

  Then I noticed the smell. A garden smell, not unpleasant. Damp earth... Rotting vegetation... Then something else. Not a garden smell. Not an outdoor smell at all. And not pleasant.

  Something made me look down. At this end of the corridor the light was dim, but I could see there were marks on the polished wooden floorboards. I knelt to examine them and found a patch of what appeared to be mud. Beside it were drops of something dark and liquid, a spillage of some kind. I stood up and reached for the switch on a table lamp nearby. Blinking in the light, I turned back to the marks on the floor.

  There’s nothing else that looks like blood, is there? Claret doesn’t, nor does Ribena. And red ink is too bright. The only thing that looks like blood, is blood.

  This was blood.

  I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out.

  And then I fainted.

  I woke up in bed, with a pounding head, as if I had a hangover. (Talisker was heady stuff, but one little glass?) It was beginning to get light and I lay there, trying to remember The Awful Thing that had happened last night. There had been an awful thing, hadn’t there? Or was it just one of my nightmares?

  So far, I couldn’t remember any details, but I had that sickening sense of dread I used to have as a child,
the fear that something not very nice was lurking outside the bedroom door and might try to come in. Heckie had been good for that. Obliging chap, he’d spend the night on duty at my door, like a guard dog, making sure I came to no harm. As details began to emerge from the foggy depths of my memory (dragging noises... mud... blood... Oh my god, blood?), it struck me, I could do with Heckie now.

  Obviously, I told myself, as I struggled out of bed, it had all been a very bad dream and I should avoid the cheese/Talisker combo in future. The bedclothes were proving intractable for some reason and I had to kick at them to free my legs, so I could get out of bed. I groped with my toes for my slippers but couldn’t locate them, so I stood up and bent to look for them.

  They were the wrong way round. My slippers were placed, side-by-side, with military precision, well under the bed. I had no idea how they could have got there. I always let my slippers fall off my feet as I sit on the bed and I leave them there, ready for me to slide my feet into in the morning with minimal effort. I can do it with my eyes closed and frequently do. I would never put my slippers neatly side by side, the wrong way round. That’s what other people do when they tidy up after you.

  I wasn’t liking this train of thought.

  Somewhat agitated now, I looked round the room. I didn’t see anything suspicious until I looked back at the bed. Uncomfortable with the constriction of Janet’s cotton sheets and blankets, I always slept with them loose, like a duvet, but now the bedclothes were tucked in. Tucked in all the way round, except where I’d got out of bed.

  I backed away from the bed and sank onto a chair. What exactly had happened last night?... The last thing I remembered was seeing drops of something that looked like blood and then everything going black. But if someone had picked me up, carried me back to bed, tucked me in, then tidied my slippers away under the bed, this would be the result.

  The other, much simpler explanation was, I was losing my mind.

  The truth of the matter was easily ascertained by venturing into the corridor now and examining the floorboards in question. So I put on my dressing gown, doing up all the buttons and the belt as a delaying tactic, then I flung the bedroom door wide and sallied forth. I might possibly have been humming.