The Tallow Image

by J. T. Brindle

  ‘Where?’ He came forward. She had played these games before, and he did not like them. ‘Where are you, sweetheart?’ There was a strange smell in the room, heady, not unpleasant, but it churned his stomach. Unlike the usual clinical smell of any institution, it intrigued him. He had noticed it here for the first time, on the day they found Matt. It was stronger in the evening, lingering about Cathy like a perfume, and yet like no perfume he had ever encountered before… earthy, it was, and musty, like there was something damp and old hiding in the room. It had an intoxicating effect on him.

  ‘Down here. By the window.’

  Drawn by the sound of her soft laughter, he came towards the bed, to where the moonlight trickled in through the window. He glanced down. She was there, curled into the corner. The bars on the window had split the moonlight, making a weird pattern on her face and body. She was silent now, small and still, the doll cradled in her arms, her grey eyes looking up. In the half-light he could still see the torment in her lovely face. ‘I know why you’re here,’ she whispered, a dark mysterious smile transforming her from within.

  ‘I’m here to see you, sweetheart,’ he said in a choking voice. To witness her like this was more than he could bear. But she was right. He had called at this late hour to explain as gently as he could how Matt had been found. He would not have told her of the circumstances – that it was during a raid by the drugs squad. Matt was barely alive when they took him away, ‘pumped full of barbiturates’, they said, but the others had confessed. Matt was innocent. His original trauma and their subsequent neglect of him was taking his life.

  ‘I know why you’re here,’ she said again, mocking.

  ‘I’m only here to see how you are,’ he lied. He could not talk to her of other things, not yet. ‘Don’t stay there,’ he coaxed, bending down and stretching out his arms to hold her, to raise her. She made a movement, so swift and sudden that he was caught unawares. The pain shot through his fingers. He reeled back, not realising at first that the warm sticky wetness oozing over his skin was his own blood.

  ‘Go away!’ The words hissed into the gloom. Grey eyes peered out, dark with pain. Dark, almost black in the moon’s iridescent glow. He had seen her like this before, and it terrified him. She was laughing now, shrieking with delight, or untold agony.

  Suddenly the door burst open to admit two white-coated nurses. One of them flicked the switch. There was a crackling sound, a blue light zig-zagged down the nurse’s arm, causing her to stagger in pain. The moon hid behind the clouds and the blackness was impenetrable. Only the tiny square of light through the upper door panel showed the fear on their faces. He was shocked. He never realised they were so vulnerable.

  Groping his way towards the door, he threw it open, letting the light from the outer hall flood in. When they wrenched her from the corner she screamed, spitting and fighting like a tigress – like someone possessed, he thought, his sadness like a hard clenched fist inside him. Unable to watch, he went outside, leaning face front to the wall, ashamed, as though in being her father he had created her anguish. He could still hear her screams, awful, unearthly sounds.

  Then, without warning, the screams were ended. In the deathly, ensuing silence he heard the sound of his own blood dripping to the ground… splish… splash… splish… splash. The hand on his shoulder startled him. He slewed round. When he recognised Cathy’s doctor, relief surged through him, and with it came the sobs, heart-rending uncontrollable sobs too long suppressed. Understanding, the doctor led him away. ‘She’s been sedated,’ he said. He spoke in that casual manner of all doctors – kindly, compassionate, yet irritatingly aloof.

  It was almost ten p.m. by the time he returned from Casualty. ‘Lucky not to have lost your finger,’ they said… ‘almost bitten through to the bone.’ While he waited for the injection to numb the tissue, he had phoned Emily. He had never needed her more than he did in that moment. She promised to wait up for him, insisting that he stay the night. He spared her the awful details of what had taken place, but he could not hide his broken spirit.

  ‘She’ll rest now, Mr Barrington.’ The doctor sat at one side of the desk, Bill sat at the other. ‘I’m sorry. I misjudged the situation. I thought she should know about her husband. I did not expect that she would react with such violence.’

  ‘But I didn’t tell her. She looked so frail, so pathetic.’ He stood up, wanting to leave, needing to see Emily. ‘I’m a coward. I couldn’t tell her.’

  ‘Oh?’ He shook his head, intrigued as to what could have triggered off such a violent fit. ‘All the same, she will have to be told, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I know! For God’s sake, don’t you think I know!’ Sometimes he believed all of this wasn’t really happening… that he was caught up in a nightmare. ‘How can I tell my own daughter that her husband is at death’s door? How can I put that burden on her, when her mind is so fragile?’

  ‘Do you want me to tell her?’

  ‘No! I don’t want that.’ He swung round, looking away for a moment, hiding the fear, the pain. Now he was staring at the doctor, slamming his good fist into the desk, venting the feelings that were crippling him. ‘I’ll tell you what I want! I want Cathy back. The lovely, gentle, carefree girl she was. That’s what I want! And Matt… to bring him home, whole and well. Do you know what it’s like to see him lying there in St Andrew’s Hospital, a shell, just an empty shell? Alive but not alive! He doesn’t even know when I’m there.’ He covered his face with his hand and groaned. The next time he looked at the doctor, his sorry eyes told all. ‘I would give all I own to turn back the clock, to see Cathy and Matt the way they were, so young, so much in love, with their whole lives before them.’ He shook his head, his lips twisted in a sneer. ‘Life is a cruel bastard.’

  ‘There is nothing I can say to ease your grief,’ the doctor confessed. ‘All I can promise is that your daughter is being well looked after.’

  ‘But can you cure her? Tell me that.’ He still hoped.

  ‘We can only do our best. The rest is up to Cathy.’

  ‘And the devil!’ Bill added cynically.

  ‘No, Mr Barrington. It’s up to Cathy, and the Good Lord,’ the doctor corrected. Rising from his seat he went across the room. Standing with his hand on the door knob, his expression unyielding, he said, ‘Go home, Mr Barrington.’

  ‘Can I see her before I go?’

  The doctor shook his head. ‘Better not. She’s been heavily sedated.’

  ‘Tomorrow, then?’

  ‘Tomorrow. She’ll be much calmer, I promise.’ He turned the door knob, a benign smile on his face.

  Outside the door, the small figure crept stealthily away, on its face a devious and sinister expression. The voices spoke to her now, stronger than ever, darkly persuasive. ‘You wanted Matt, didn’t you, Cathy? Haven’t you been searching for him?… longing for him? He’s waiting for you, Cathy. You know you can’t live without him. But you can be with him now, Cathy… be with him for all time. Don’t be afraid. Go to him, Cathy, to your Matt, your love. Go now, Cathy! NOW.’ The voice was unbelievably persuasive, powerful; too powerful to resist. As she fled headlong into the night, it went with her, murmuring deep in her mind, ‘Matt… your love. Be with him for all time.’

  In her deepest heart Cathy knew that nothing else mattered. Only Matt. Only that they should be together at last. She had been uneasy in sleep, yet so exhausted, drained of all that made life worth living. She felt the doll warm and comforting in her hand. It gave her the will to go on. It made her strength formidable.

  ‘Cathy did that?’ Emily’s brown eyes widened in disbelief. ‘But why? Why would she do such a thing?’ She stared up at him. He was a saddened figure, shocked, but not broken, not yet broken. He stood with his back to the empty fireplace, his thoughtful gaze reaching down to her. He made no reply, gave no indication that he had heard her. Instead he continued to gaze in a fixed dreamlike expression, as though drawing comfort from her presence but not yet able to wrench his mi
nd from what he had seen in that small unfriendly room where Cathy had torn into him with such malice. He could not come to terms with it. The throbbing pain in his hand was nothing compared to the chaos inside him. Through his deeper thoughts he heard Emily’s voice. ‘Bill, why would Cathy do such a thing?’ She was on her feet now, her loving fingers touching his bandaged hand.

  Snapping the images from his mind, he slid his arm round her shoulders and forced a nervous smile. ‘She didn’t mean it,’ he said, his voice belying the deep-rooted fear for Cathy’s fragile sanity. ‘It was my own fault. I should never have insisted on going to her at such a late hour. I’m sure she sensed that I was there with bad news.’ He paused, recalling the disturbing atmosphere in Cathy’s room. It was menacing, from the moment he came into it.

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. If the doctor agreed that she should be told about Matt, then how are you to know any better?’

  He shook his head, and drew her into him. ‘You’re right, I know you are,’ he murmured, burying his head in her hair.

  ‘You’ll stop punishing yourself, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ he lied, ‘I’ll stop punishing myself.’ He kissed the top of her head and held her at arm’s length. ‘Maria? Is she sleeping?’ When Emily nodded, he asked, ‘And the nurse, is she here?’

  ‘I’ve put her in the small room next to Maria’s.’ She smiled, rolling her eyes up to the ceiling. ‘I heard her in Maria’s room a short while ago. It’s quiet up there now, so I imagine they’re both sleeping. Between the two of us, we will be on hand whenever Maria needs us.’ She looked directly into his face now, knowing somehow what his answer would be, even before she voiced the question. ‘Will you stay the night? I’ve prepared the room across from mine.’

  ‘I want to, Emily, oh, I want to,’ he groaned, ‘but I can’t. You know that, don’t you? I must be with Matt.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘He doesn’t realise I’m there. He’s so quiet and still, he doesn’t realise anything.’ He visibly shook himself, gripping her by the shoulders and smiling widely. ‘If you’ll have me, I’ll stay with you a while longer.’

  ‘I would like that.’

  ‘Good! Then what say I make you a cup of cocoa and we sit here together, talking and reminiscing like an old married couple?’

  She laughed, but it was a small hollow sound. ‘Yes, I would like that too,’ she agreed. When, with a fleeting kiss on her lips, he pushed her gently into the chair and went from the room, Emily leaned back against the soft plump cushions, events of the day pressing on her mind… her own darling Maria upstairs, beyond all help. And Matt, so tragic, so heartbreaking; for him, too, it seemed there was no hope. And Bill’s daughter Cathy, what of her? Maybe she would be saved in the course of time, and with specialist help. Maybe, only maybe. She closed her eyes. There was no sound coming from above, only the distant muffled noises from the kitchen where Bill was preparing a tray for them. A rush of pleasure tempered her grief. ‘Bill… Bill.’ The touch of his name on her lips was warming, comforting, like a flicker of light at the end of a long dark tunnel. If the Lord was taking everything else from her, he was not leaving her destitute. He was taking with one hand and giving with the other. Scales of justice, she thought curiously, but where was the justice in destroying the lives of Cathy and Matt? Hard though it was for her to deal with, Emily had long realised Maria’s great age, yet Cathy and Matt had hardly lived. It was so cruel, so very wicked!

  Deeply stirred, Emily got out of the chair and began pacing the room. She felt unusually agitated, a sense of anger coursing through her. In a moment, and almost without realising it, she had crossed the room and retrieved the tallow doll from the dark interior of the cupboard where she had earlier secreted it. When, a short time later, Bill entered the room carrying a tray, he was astonished to see Emily standing in the halo of light beneath the ceiling lamp, her eyes glazed in admiration as she turned the doll over and over in her fingers. At first, he couldn’t tell what Emily was gazing at, although he saw how it fascinated her. Setting the tray on the coffee table, he came and stood beside her.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked, his sharp eyes picking out the obvious details in the artefact… the long flowing hair black as night, the magnificently etched features, and the stunning hypnotic eyes.

  ‘The gardener dug it up with the old apple tree,’ Emily explained, holding it out to him. ‘It’s very old. I believe it must have belonged to Maria.’ She smiled at him and for a fleeting moment he did not recognise her. ‘It’s lovely, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s very beautiful,’ he agreed, his eyes roving its perfect slender form and noting the details there… the bare feet, the eyes that seemed hollow, yet were not, and the dress, a curiously humble garment for such a proud and captivating creature. For a moment he was puzzled, intrigued but not knowing why.

  Suddenly he knew. ‘Good God… how strange, Emily!’ he whispered. ‘It could almost be a partner to the doll that Cathy brought back from Australia, except the other one is as hideous as this one is beautiful.’ He laughed. ‘Beats me how she could cherish something so downright ugly! It’s the kind of monster that creates nightmares, I reckon.’ A chill foreboding turned his stomach… creates nightmares… monster. No! He was being fanciful, grasping at straws, letting his imagination run riot. Those kind of fantasies belonged in the realms of childhood, when the bogeyman hid round every corner, and the slightest sound from beneath the bed was a long bony hand reaching up to drag you into some black pit seething with every kind of unmentionable creature.

  Wrenching his thoughts back, he found reality far more terrifying. Only one thing applied to both now and the nightmares of childhood, and that was the awful helplessness he felt.

  ‘I was going to surprise her with it, and show her how lovely the garden is now.’ Emily was still hoping that Maria might see the garden, maybe even sit in it awhile, warmly wrapped in a blanket in her wheelchair. It seemed such a simple thing to ask, and yet she felt instinctively that it would never be.

  It was nearing midnight when Bill got ready to leave. Coming into the hallway with Emily, he paused at the foot of the stairs and looked up. ‘Do you think she’s sleeping?’

  Emily nodded, slipping her hands in his. ‘I imagine so,’ she replied, her concerned gaze looking up also. ‘I’ll stay with her tonight. The chair is comfortable enough.’ As the two of them made their way towards the door, Emily glanced at his face. He looked incredibly weary. At the door he clung to her.

  ‘I don’t know how I could have ever come through all of this without you,’ he murmured. She would have reassured him of her love and support, but in that moment the telephone rang out. Visibly startled and afraid that Maria might waken, she grabbed the receiver and gave out her number.

  Curious as to who could be calling at this ungodly hour, Bill waited, silently watching her. When her expression turned from puzzlement to alarm, he stepped closer; already the pit of his stomach was bubbling. When she held out the receiver, saying in a trembling voice, ‘It’s you they want, Bill,’ his mind flew to Matt.

  Taking the receiver he pressed it close to his ear, his heart thumping, his every sense in turmoil. ‘Yes?’ A slight pause, then, ‘This is he.’ His voice was stern, unnaturally calm. As he listened to the man at the other end of the line, he felt the colour drain from his face. ‘Good God!’ He bent forward, huddling over the phone, his shoulders sagging as though a sudden unbearable weight was laid across them. ‘Yes! Yes, right away.’ He listened intently, before saying in a shocked, hushed voice, ‘I understand.’

  After the conversation was ended, he made no immediate attempt to replace the receiver. Instead, for what seemed an age to Emily, he held it over the cradle, his gaze downcast and his head slowly shaking from side to side as though he could not, or would not, believe what he had just been told.

  Emily knew who had called, because the doctor gave his name to her. She came to Bill’s side-now, her anxious eyes seeking his. ‘Wha
t did he want?’ she asked quietly, knowing that the caller would never have contacted Bill here, at this time of night especially, unless it was an emergency; the gist of the conversation had only confirmed her suspicions.

  When he swung round now, it was as though he had been momentarily stunned and Emily’s voice had shocked him back. Dropping the receiver into its cradle he gripped his good hand round her upper arm, his voice incredulous as he gasped, ‘It’s Cathy. She’s run away!’ Before Emily could question him further he tore from her and yanked open the door, his face ashen in the overlight from the porch. ‘I’ve got to hurry,’ he said, rushing down the path, ‘I think I know where she might be heading.’ He hurried into the night, an intermittent streetlamp and the moonlight making him seem insubstantial, only a shadow flitting through the darkness.

  ‘Where?’ Emily called. ‘Where will you find her?’ She prayed with all her heart that Cathy had not harmed herself.

  Back through the night came her answer. ‘With Matt. I think she may have gone to find Matt.’ He had not forgotten his last devastating visit to Cathy, nor would he ever forget that demented look in her eyes when she hissed, ‘I know why you’re here!’ Somehow she already knew about Matt. Maybe she had overheard the conversation between the doctor and himself, when they had talked of Matt being close to death. Nothing was omitted from the conversation – not the dire state of his illness, nor the hospital where he was kept. Cathy had gone to Matt, he was sure of it, yet he hadn’t said anything to the doctor just now, because the police had been informed and he could not take a chance. The last thing he wanted was that Cathy should be frightened, or torn away from Matt.

  As he drove at speed to cover the twenty or so miles that lay between him and Matt – and maybe Cathy – he found himself softly praying that Cathy was safe. He recalled with a murmuring shock how she had leapt at him, like a savage thing; for as long as he lived he would not forget that. It would be ingrained in his mind for all time. Without warning a thought popped into his consciousness; it made him shudder. But that could not be! It was Cathy! Who else could it have been? Dear God, was he losing his mind? All the same, he had a feeling, a strange unsettling feeling. Somewhere in the depths of his mind all was not well. Not normal. Real and intimate, the voice was whispering, tormenting, murmuring beneath the surface, not recognisable, not something he had ever experienced in his whole life before. Made uneasy by his own thoughts, he pressed his foot down on the pedal… eighty-five… ninety.