The Thin Place

by C D Major

  We took the non-stop Flying Scotsman to Edinburgh. Hamish told me it was so much better now that it could get all the way there in one go – something about the extra ton of coal capacity – but I couldn’t take anything in, too busy admiring my hand with the new gold band catching the light, the smeared glass and wonderful countryside flashing past. What a big wide world! And I was off to live in it.

  I blushed as Hamish reached across the table and took my hand. The gentleman across the aisle, only just returned from the on-board barber’s shop, was nose-deep in a newspaper but I still felt terribly shy at the strange damp loveliness of Hamish’s flesh on mine. It was so peculiar to be alone with him and I stayed awake as the day darkened and his head lolled to the side, his curls tickling the collar of his coat.

  We were met by car at Edinburgh; Hamish wanted to get back to the estate without stopping over in a hotel. I couldn’t make out anything in the dark and it felt desperately chilly, my thin coat no match for this northern wind. The driveway to the house threw me around horrendously and I fluttered apologies as I woke Hamish from another rest. Once we’d drawn up, with dry mouth and tired limbs, I stumbled out nervously.

  It was enormous, and nothing like the fairy-tale castle I had conjured in my daydreams. In that moment I felt a chill wrap itself around my insides, icy fingers attaching themselves to every organ as I craned my neck backwards.

  For a mad second, I wanted to scream, to step backwards into the automobile, beg the driver to take me away. This house, this place, was all wrong: I wanted to be anywhere – anywhere but here. I imagined my small room in Barnes with its comforting wallpaper and the soft light from the fire. Why had I ever thought to leave it?

  My body wouldn’t move. I stood rooted, unwilling, as Hamish barked impatient words from beneath the looming stone portico.

  I was jolted out of the peculiar moment. It was down to the journey, to the nerves of the first night. This was my home now. I let out a laugh, high and quick – silly.

  I stepped forward and the house, like an enormous black monster, swallowed me whole.

  Inside was barely any warmer and our footsteps resounded in the tiled hallway, as if it was more than just Hamish and I stepping across its surface. The air seemed to stick to us as we moved, the musty smell entering my nostrils, making my nose twitch. Everywhere were closed doors, dark wood, portraits I couldn’t make out in the shadows, but whose eyes I could feel on me, as if they all swivelled to watch us pass. A staircase bannister glinted real silver, freezing even through my gloved hand. The only one of its kind, Hamish told me as I snatched my palm away. I nodded, eyes like saucers, following him up and around. The darkness tripped me up as I stumbled on the top step – the darkness, I told myself firmly.

  Our luggage had come on ahead and a suitcase stood waiting outside my bedroom. I had my own and Hamish’s room was directly opposite. I didn’t glimpse his room as he lit the gas lamp by my bed with a hiss. The wallpaper was busy with ivy that looked as real as if the outside had tangled through the walls.

  ‘I will visit you in a while,’ he said, making my heart leap into my mouth.

  He left with a glance back and I lifted a hand as he closed the door behind him. Standing inert, I looked around, the lamp showing a room four times the size of my bedroom at home, furniture gobbled up by dark corners. A four-poster bed dominated the centre, initials, not ours, carved into the dark wooden headboard, its heavy drapes tied back on the poles. There was a step leading up to it, and I wasn’t sure which side I should lie on when he returned.

  What did one change into, or did one wait for one’s husband to remove their clothes? I wished I knew, feeling utterly wretched that I would be a disappointment.

  I did ask Susan about the expectations of the wedding night. It was all horrifyingly embarrassing, but I simply couldn’t ask Mother and I felt so overcome with fear as to how to prepare. Susan’s answers were brief and rather too focused on pollination to be useful. She didn’t look me in the eye once and we never spoke of it again. A couple of years before, I had watched two foxes copulating in the garden under a full moon. They were circling each other and licking parts. The vixen made the most shocking sounds. But I wasn’t sure humans would be much like foxes, and knew I’d be totally in thrall to Hamish.

  I decided to keep my dress on and waited, perched on the edge of the bed, hands slippery with every distant cough or noise, imagining for a strange second the house inhaling and exhaling as it waited with me. I shifted on the bed, the movement prompting the strong smell of mould. I wondered how long the bedroom had remained empty. Finally, I heard footsteps crossing the hallway outside and he returned holding a candle. I made a tiny noise and then sucked in my breath as he crossed the room towards me.

  He was wearing a nightcap and nightshirt and I couldn’t help staring at his feet and calves, the hair thick and dark and making my heart hammer furiously.

  He looked disappointed. ‘You’re still dressed.’

  I knew I’d already goofed. Dragging my tongue over my lips, I felt my throat constrict, my reply stuck somewhere within me. I didn’t have the first clue how to behave and I so wanted to be a good wife. I followed his instructions to the letter, hoping he was pleased with me.

  ‘There, there,’ he said as I covered my breasts with my arms, the chill in the room making my nipples poke out, my flesh soon covered in goosebumps. I truly believed I might die of the humiliation as he laid me back and examined my body. I was terribly still, because Susan told me that it was shameful when women moved or seemed to enjoy marital relations. Hamish had climbed under the bedclothes, beckoning for me to do the same, and I dived gratefully beneath, alarmed at the sight of him, freckles on his shoulders. Staring at the canopy over the bed and wishing the room was cloaked in darkness, I closed my eyes and I spent my first night with my husband. It hurt horribly and I tried not to cry out.

  Chapter 12

  AVA

  They sat on a bench overlooking the river in Dumbarton, clutching takeaway coffees and not speaking a great deal. Gus was in Ava’s lap, making her much too hot, but guilt meant he stayed there, rewarded with constant rubs of his head and mutterings of ‘Who’s a good boy?’

  She had insisted on heading into Dumbarton. Memories of her mother outside that graveyard had fuelled her curiosity, reminding her why she had just put herself through that ordeal. The town was unremarkable. Once a centre for shipbuilding, it was now a commuter town for Glasgow: non-descript shops, a green, a town hall. She had felt sure she would recognise something. Now that she had shaken off Overtoun, she wished she could be left alone to explore.

  ‘We should ask some locals about the bridge – see if anyone has any first-hand accounts,’ Garry suggested. He threw his coffee cup in a nearby bin from a sitting position. He seemed more awkward with Ava and she felt guilty that he obviously blamed himself for what had almost happened.

  Neil moved to stand at the rail that separated their small patch of grass from the river. Various boats idled in the water on the opposite bank, shifting reflections on their hulls. Orange and white buoys bobbed half-submerged in the water that sparkled silver in the sunshine. Ava hadn’t drunk her coffee; caffeine wasn’t good for babies but, because she wasn’t ready to tell everyone at work she was pregnant, she had let Garry buy her one.

  ‘Let’s go,’ she said. She got up, nudged Gus from her lap and threw her full cup away.

  There weren’t many people about, and most eyed the camera equipment with suspicion as Ava and Garry targeted passers-by. Gus trotted obediently by Ava’s side. Two women approached, one unfathomably holding an umbrella despite the bright July sky and the other wheeling a tartan shopper crammed with groceries.

  ‘Excuse me. Are you local? I wonder if you could help.’ Ava fixed her most winning reporter smile in place.

  ‘We both are. I own the B & B on West Street,’ the lady with the shopper said with a twinkling smile in a lurid pink lipstick. ‘Mary.’

  ‘We’re
reporters. We wanted to ask locals more about Overtoun House?’

  The smile dissolved and Mary seemed to recoil a fraction. Ava felt her skin tingle.

  ‘Everyone knows Overtoun.’ The woman with the umbrella spoke in a slow, careful voice, her eyes flicking quickly to Gus.

  ‘We should get going, Jeanne,’ Mary with the walker said. ‘Overtoun isn’t a news story.’ She gave a firm nod to Ava as if that closed the matter.

  ‘We’re covering a story about the bridge,’ Ava ploughed on.

  Neither woman replied.

  ‘We’ve heard reports that dogs have been known to jump off it, that they’ve died,’ Ava said.

  Mary bit her lip.

  Jeanne said, ‘Superstitious nonsense.’ The words didn’t match her nervous expression as she smoothed her iron-grey bob.

  ‘Is it, though? Five hundred dogs in the last sixty years. Do locals have any thoughts as to why?’

  A shadow crossed Mary’s face. ‘That’s an exaggeration.’

  ‘But some dogs have jumped,’ Ava insisted.

  ‘It’s not news,’ Jeanne huffed, ‘and it’s ghoulish. You should stay away. There’s a sign there now that warns people. Locals know not to go up there.’

  Mary touched her friend’s arm. ‘Come on, Jeanne,’ she repeated.

  ‘Why do people know not to go there? Because of the danger?’ Ava asked.

  ‘There’s no danger.’ Jeanne shuffled her feet and her voice dropped low as if somehow the house and bridge might hear her even from down in the town.

  ‘We just don’t want you sending a load of ghost hunters up here,’ Mary interjected, a bright pink lipstick mark on her front tooth. ‘My mum cleaned there when I was younger. It’s just a house.’

  ‘She cleaned there!’ Ava said, eyes widening. ‘So she went inside. I’d love to ask you more on camera?’ Ava attempted.

  ‘She barely mentioned it. It was a lifetime ago.’ Mary moved her shopper from one hand to the other. ‘Place is a wreck now. Has been for years.’

  Ava could see that Mary was intent on leaving and knew she wouldn’t get anything on camera. ‘Do you think it’s haunted?’

  ‘Some people will believe anything,’ Jeanne said, looking over at her friend.

  ‘I heard that people call the bridge one of the thin places,’ Ava added. ‘A place where the worlds meet.’

  Mary bristled. ‘We really do need to get on.’

  ‘Do you know anyone who has lost a dog up there?’ Ava asked, curious as to why these two women, easily in their seventies, were so obviously afraid. What might they have seen or felt? Why didn’t locals go up there?

  For a second it looked like Jeanne was wavering, as if she might talk more. Ava could feel Neil and Garry waiting behind her.

  And then the moment passed. Jeanne made her excuses, both women moving off. Mary checked over her shoulder to make sure Ava wasn’t following before craning her neck to speak to her friend.

  It only got worse from there. The footage they had would barely add a minute to the segment; the locals they stopped moved on quickly once they realised what they were being asked. The afternoon was disappearing and Garry’s frustration mounted with the twentieth refusal to speak.

  ‘It’s like it’s a bloody cult or something.’

  Neil didn’t respond, shy at the best of times. Ava didn’t reply, remembering her own reaction to the house and bridge, feeling menace in the stones, the ground, lurking in the air. The memory stopped her talking too. Perhaps it was the power of the house itself?

  Garry and Neil left soon after and Ava returned to her car. Gus settled in the back seat. She started the engine, glad to be leaving the place. The more she had heard, the more uncomfortable it made her. The house and bridge seemed to infect the whole town.

  She drove back through the streets towards Glasgow, her mind filled with the day, the town taking on an even gloomier quality now the sun had gone. Trees obscured her view to the left, climbing higher. Somewhere within them she knew Overtoun lurked, and she shivered as she kept one eye on Gus in the rear-view mirror.

  She was about to drive past when she saw it, tucked behind a row of shops, a small car park edged with the low stone wall of her memory, black iron railings enclosing the graveyard and a small lychgate through which she could see a narrow pathway to the church door. She pulled over in a hurry and someone honked at her from behind; she’d been lost in a memory from more than thirty years ago. She was so sure of it that she could almost see her mother’s slim figure, hunched as she gazed through the railings.

  This was the graveyard that had brought her to Dumbarton.

  There was no one around as Ava stepped out of her car and moved, as if sleepwalking, towards the entrance. The tombstones were slanted, some in the shade of small trees, some crumbling, some moss covered, some well tended with the marble polished. She stared at the spot where she remembered a small semi-circle of mourners. Who had they been burying and why had her mother been there that day?

  Her eyes were drawn upwards, something urging her to look. Forming a background to the scene was a thick, dark green line of trees and then the grey stone of Overtoun House, perched above the town, its windows like eyes looking down at it all and the silhouette of the towers pointing into the blue sky as if they were able to touch heaven.

  A sudden series of barks made her whole body jerk. Gus, normally inert, had pushed his head out of the half-open window, barking frenziedly at her.

  ‘I’m coming, boy, I’m sorry . . .’ She turned back to the car. She could still feel the windows of the house watching her. A thin place. She turned on the ignition and, despite the heat in the car, shivered as she took a last look.

  Chapter 13

  AVA

  The drive back to the studios was frustrating. Traffic and queues, wilting drivers leaning on their horns. As someone cut across her, a little too close and a little too fast, she swore out loud, her hands tight on the wheel. She glanced at Gus stretched out on the seat behind her. It had been reckless to bring him, her head filled with images of his compulsive run and his rigid body. Their beloved dog. What had she been thinking?

  She barely stopped at her parents’, dropping Gus back with a quick kiss of her father’s cheek.

  ‘Ava, come in,’ he encouraged. ‘Your mother’s out at the hairdresser’s and we haven’t caught up in a while now.’

  The urge to stay was strong and sudden but she didn’t want to admit where she’d been, that she’d headed to a strange town on the back of a distant memory. ‘Sorry, Dad, I’ve got to turn this edit around quickly.’ Her eyes slid from his face.

  He tried to hide his disappointment and she felt a pang as he turned slowly, a hole showing at the elbow of his chequered jumper, and closed the door.

  The newsroom was an utter contrast to the day she’d had: jaunty bright colours; the blue trim of the plastic tables; the glossy white-toothed photographs on the walls; a modern, bustling workplace full of chatter, the buzz of phones, bubbles from the water machine and fingers clacking on computers. She moved into the editing suite and pulled up the large swivel office chair, still warm from its last occupant.

  Removing the SD card, she uploaded the footage, racing through it, trying to reduce the minutes they had captured into a short segment. Two clueless tourists in Dumbarton who’d never heard of the house or the bridge, their mouths moving at rapid speed, a man who had told them there were fairies in the grounds there, his wife pulling him away. There was Ava with Gus, some exterior shots and then the house. She paused. The Scottish Baronial manor loomed on the screen in front of her, filling it up. She stared at it, before moving to a shot of the bridge. Just a normal bridge, a wide walkway, thick stone walls. She remembered then the strange shimmering quality of the air as she stood on it, as if things were shifting just out of sight. On screen the bridge looked like any other, as if her memory was tricking her.

  She felt unsettled, her recall already unreliable, thin like the air of the place.
And yet when she put on her headphones, the hairs on her arms bristled to attention. Her body reacting to the sound.

  She adjusted the headphones, listening to her introduction, cutting, adding background noise, still shots from the archives. She had been staring at the same twelve-second clip when she saw it behind herself – easily missed: in a third-floor window of the house, movement in the glass. She paused, leaned forward and strained her eyes, feeling her stomach plunge as she made out eyes, a mouth, the indistinct outline of a person. She blinked; the image blurred. Was it leaves reflected in the glass, moving in the breeze? Was it a face?

  She moved to cut the clip and replace it with another shot, her heart thrumming in her chest. When someone tapped on the door of the suite, she pulled off the headphones, her palms sticky. ‘Twenty more minutes!’ she snapped.

  The door opened and Claudia appeared silhouetted in the doorway just as Ava opened her mouth to say more. ‘Hey. All OK?’ Claudia said, her voice light. ‘You look pissed off.’

  Ava’s head was spinning with Claudia’s sudden appearance. ‘Yeah, sorry, just . . .’ For a moment, Ava wanted to ask her to take a look, tell her what she saw. ‘Just on a tight turnaround.’ Ava indicated the screen.

  ‘This is why I only do stuff in the studio now,’ Claudia said.

  ‘Why are you back here anyway?’ Ava asked, her eyes flicking back to the screen.

  ‘Meeting.’ Claudia rolled her eyes. ‘Three-line whip.’

  ‘Oh, right . . .’ Ava’s mind was still on the window.

  ‘All alright?’

  ‘Sorry, just tired.’ She didn’t want Claudia to see how rattled she really was.

  ‘OK, well, let’s catch up soon?’ She lowered her voice. ‘We need to celebrate your news.’

  ‘Hmm?’

  Claudia laughed and motioned to her stomach.

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Ava’s response came a second too late, and Claudia’s smooth brow puckered.