by Lorna Gray
He said, “Come on, my dear. One of them? Which ‘them’ do you mean exactly?” He paused long enough to sweep some crumbs from the tabletop, though he didn’t move away. “You told me yourself that your imagination runs wild. Don’t you think that you’re carrying it a bit far? If you must know, Dr Alderton joined Jim in suspecting that the combination of Rhys’s death and your recent concussion was affecting your sense of proportion. They both were keen that I should invite you to come back here. The idea was to give you some time to adjust and recover. It certainly wasn’t a trick. And our decision to interfere was quite possibly just in the nick of time too, judging by the scene I found on the end of that jetty.”
As he said it, the truth seemed to hit home to him just how serious all this was. A person suffering from the sort of desperation he was describing couldn’t exactly be cured by one hard lecture over his dining table. It was, I think, a shock to his feelings. It was a shock to mine too. I had to admit that all this time he really had been angry and hurt because my actions had implied that compared to the loss of Rhys, the man before me could never be that important. Now I saw that it had dawned on him that for his own sake and his child’s peace I mustn’t be allowed to matter to him.
He added in an altogether more subdued voice, “I really had no idea. I honestly thought you’d just been over-doing things and needed a little time to rest and come to terms with the shock of his death, that’s all. I fully intended to leave you to it today after our latest nasty little disagreement, only I saw you wavering on the street behind the promenade when you were supposed to be on a train and had a fit of conscience just as I neared Devil’s Bridge so I turned back. If I hadn’t … well, it just doesn’t bear thinking about.”
I think he was hoping for thanks here, or at least some words of apology that might show things weren’t quite as bad as he feared. But I just sat there and stared at the raised grain of the wooden tabletop in numbed disbelief. My regained faith in his innocence was nothing to the discovery that just like all the other people I had mixed with recently, nothing I did now would stop him from ultimately concluding that I belonged in a specialist hospital. Even if he didn’t want to be the one to put me there.
He was speaking again, earnestly and warmly. “We’ll get you some help. You might not believe it now, but you will get better.” He was suddenly speaking very gently indeed. He gave me a brief flash of a reassuring smile before adding in a bright, jovial tone, “And the first step is probably a good night’s sleep.”
He straightened and took my cup to set it in the sink. Then he turned back with that same carefully constructed mask that told me he had finally understood that he was facing a woman on the brink and should avoid aggravating her further. Tomorrow he would be calling the nearest doctor. I felt the sickness rise up at the horror of it.
“I’m not mad,” I said, possibly more to reassure myself than to inform him.
He gave another appeasing smile that was utterly repulsive. “Of course not. Just a little overwrought, that’s all. Come on, let’s get you to bed.”
He put out his hand but I just stared at it as if it were something alien and horrible and fixed mine tightly in my lap. The cheery smile slowly faded as his hand dropped to his side and I realised he was wondering what he could do to coax me from the room. It was that old mistake of the charitable person. He’d picked up a needy vagrant from the street and now this wild, dirty mad thing had taken anchorage in his kitchen and he had absolutely no idea how to shift her.
It was a moment before I noticed I was speaking.
Chapter 22
This frail stranger’s voice began by going over the same story that had been told to other men countless times before and just the same I knew exactly what he would be thinking. So I didn’t look at him. Instead I kept my attention on my hands and recounted with bitter honesty the memory of the bus and the hospital and my agonisingly unsteady flight from that place via a different ward because I knew they would be watching for me. I told him about packing my things and leaving a note for my holidaying mother, just in case, and that terrible journey south on the train for the grim purpose of retracing a dead man’s last steps. I even told Adam of the fear that had coloured my encounter with him on the lonely hilltop that first morning. I told him about Jim and his disguises and the incident on the pier and the one in my bedroom where Jim had stolen the photograph, and all the time he listened in silence from his station by the sideboard.
It grew harder when I had to tell him about this morning. “I heard them on the stairs when I came out of my room; talking to you, I thought.” Here I looked up and wished that I hadn’t. His expression was truly awful. I dropped my gaze to the hands in my lap again. “I understand now I was wrong about that. But I wasn’t wrong to be afraid that Jim had broken my hiding place and to know it wouldn’t be long before they were bundling me into their car again.”
Here he made some involuntary noise and I lifted my head once more and felt my mouth form a sympathetic smile. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking – you’re thinking that I could have done a better job of disappearing these past few days. But tell me just how many times you actually saw me begin a conversation with the other guests? How many times did I find myself at the centre of things voluntarily?”
His stony stare made me drop my eyes but still I said bravely, “You of all people know what it is like when you’re craving a little anonymity. It just seems to galvanise everyone into pointing at you more.”
He conceded that with a dry little inclination of his head.
Then he said coolly, “Actually, it just so happens I wasn’t thinking about your social habits. I was thinking about Jim and that perhaps it would be helpful if you showed me this packet of photographs, since they’re apparently considered so vital that he would steal one.”
I said limply, “I can’t. I had to give them back.”
His silence said everything.
I told him of my flight from the hotel and my leap from the train to leave Jim trapped as it sped away inland. I spoke of the endless hunt around the streets, the funicular on Constitution Hill, the cupboard, and my eventual exhaustion as I struggled away from the station for the final time and knew at last that my efforts to get away were at an end. And all the while he just stood there staring, without moving.
Finally he spoke. “Why haven’t you been to the police?”
I lifted my gaze. “I have. Twice. First at the hospital and again today. But they don’t believe me.”
He only stared back at me, eyes devoid of expression, and I sat in silence for a minute longer, gathering my own thoughts before finally adding, “I knew I was finished when I reached the harbour. It was a dead end and I hadn’t got the strength left to turn back. I was just watching the waves and waiting there for them to do whatever they intended to do. It wasn’t about Rhys or missing him at all.”
“You said his name.” Adam’s voice was very quiet. “You were staring at the water and you said his name.”
I kept my gaze fixed on the spread fingers in my lap. “It is true, I was thinking of him. But not in the way you mean.” My hands were icy and I slowly rubbed one against the other as if it would make any difference. “I was thinking about what he had done – ending it like that – and was wondering how he had managed it. I couldn’t do it, even when it meant surrendering to those two men. I wanted to live too much. When I heard footsteps I thought they’d come.”
I looked up at him then, unavoidably, and added with a kind of fearful disbelief, “But you were there. You’d come.”
There was a peculiar silence and I went back to massaging the life back into my hands. Adam stood like a statue and didn’t move for a full five minutes. Finally he pushed himself away from the sideboard and set about putting some cutlery away. When at last I heard him speak it was directed to the open drawer. “That’s quite a story.”
I closed my eyes and felt the roughness of a graze beneath a finger. “You don’t believe me.” I s
poke perfectly calmly. It was more a confirmation than a levelling of any kind of blame.
He turned back. “You’ve spent all week accusing me, accusing Jim, in fact accusing any man you’ve met of some heinous crime. You told me yourself that ever since your accident you’ve become paranoid, why should I believe this is any different?” A hand lifted to silence my protest. “No. I can see that something has frightened you terribly. And somehow I think it must matter to you that I do believe you when you say this wasn’t all for the memory of Rhys.”
A quick hesitation that seemed designed to convey something deeper before it was swept aside and he went on to add almost reluctantly, “But I never saw those men on the stairs, or heard Jim say anything about you that was anything other than friendly interest. The very idea of two men no one else has seen, who want something you’ve never heard of, and want to bring you to the one place that holds painful memories for you … It just seems unlikely, that’s all. I do think that after you’ve had a rest for a few days, you’ll feel quite differently about it.”
I looked up at him, feeling sad and lonely again. His eyes were a very kind and gentle shade, and this time the expression seemed genuine. He moved to the doorway and turned there, waiting for me. He must have read my sadness. He said, “You do know, don’t you, that at the very least I have to look into these people. And you know too, that although neither of us remotely expects me to find anything, the fact I’d try has to count for something, doesn’t it?”
He gave me room to absorb his words, then he added, “With that in mind I’d like you to give me just one more piece of honesty, and it happens that for now it is the most important piece of all.”
He indicated that it was time I followed him. Feeling wrung utterly dry of all emotion, I climbed stiffly to my feet and joined him on the threshold. He looked down at me and his mouth formed a very small lopsided smile. “Will you promise that you won’t try to disappear again? At least not without telling me first?”
I looked up at him, feeling suddenly very emotional indeed. I don’t quite know what I’d been fearing he would ask of me but whatever it was, this wasn’t it. This was something softer that spoke, unexpectedly, of comfort.
Finally, I managed a nod. The expression in his eyes flickered for an instant but then he simply turned and quietly led the way out of the room. I followed him into his darkened house.
Chapter 23
It was the first time in weeks that I slept without fear of waking.
The ascent of the stairs last night had been a slow climb past more closed doors. There must have been something of a tour because I knew that the first floor contained the blackened thresholds of the bathroom and tiny modern toilet, his bedroom and the faintly lighter shade of his daughter’s. But all I can really remember is that first glimpse of the room which was to be mine, nestling into the eaves of the high street-front gable. Adam had whispered an apology for its cluttered state, then I was suddenly alone with nothing but the warming prospect of a thick eiderdown and an inviting bed.
That had been many hours ago. Now the instant of opening my eyes once more was like a continuation of the dream. Not that dream, but a new one. Instead of the sickening lurch of dread, I was only met by a comforting blur of greens and blues which, when I next blinked a few hours or more later, solidified into the fading pattern of a much used floral curtain.
Sometime during the afternoon, the mottled light cast from the window ran from the sloping ceiling by my feet onto the floor towards the door. At its limit stood a girl. The change in the quality of the stillness in this room must have been what had woken me. I’m not sure if I recognised her at that point or if I just accepted her presence as naturally as I took in the sight of my abandoned clothes strewn carelessly over a chair. Whichever way it was, I only watched mutely as she first examined me from behind the shield of the newly opened door and then abruptly came to a decision and approached the bed.
She set a glass of water down on the table that was by my head. Then she whirled away and crashed out of the open door and down the stairs. I heard the distant clump and the burst of lively chattering as she jumped off the last step.
I stared at the water, wondering if I could muster the energy to drink it, and as I did so slumber must have stolen up on me again because when I next woke, the door had been closed and the glass replaced with a teacup and another steaming bowl of that nourishing soup. This time I was quick enough to consume some of it before sinking once more.
It was well into evening when I next climbed sluggishly out of the dark into the dim gleam of a distant street light. It drew me back to full consciousness for long enough to scrabble at the switch for the nearby lamp and peer at my watch. It said two o’clock but when I looked again a few minutes later it was still showing the same time. It was more than a little odd to have this silent reminder of its damage on the hillside. Adam’s words had been so reasonable and so convincing that I half expected to find that with this awakening I really would be ready to believe it had all just been a terrible delusion.
It wasn’t. Blearily, I propped myself up against the pillows. By the laden chair were my two bags, the mess of my roughly discarded shoes and stockings; and the unpleasant debris of a quantity of foliage, grit and a few unlucky insects. It was a disgusting sight. On the back of the door, however, was the altogether more appealing vision of a large yellow bath towel.
Getting to it proved a little bit more of a challenge. My limbs had been turned to stiffened wood and yesterday’s blow to my ankle – was it only yesterday? – from the hand-cart had resulted in quite an impressive bruise. I made it, however, and clutching the towel, my folded nightdress and that faithful housecoat to cover my current unfortunate choice of brassiere and under things, I quietly eased open the door.
Opposite was another door. It was shut and I presumed it belonged to the woman. She wasn’t a second wife because she was too old and too cross. She didn’t really act like his mother…
The stairwell was well lit and deserted, and no one stepped out to accost me as I slunk gingerly step by aching step downwards to the bathroom. As I slipped inside the door and locked it, I heard the quiet murmur of a man’s voice from the child’s room. They were reading a bedtime story.
Safe inside the little sanctuary of his modern and immaculate bathroom, I occupied myself with the hunt for something nice to add to the torrent of steam that issued from the tap. It felt a little criminal to be going through their private things and it felt all the more so when my search was interrupted by a light rap at the door. I tiptoed a little closer.
“Hello? Kate, is that you?”
Adam. I tried my voice and it worked. “I was going to have a bath,” I whispered to the door, and then added quickly, “Is that all right? I’m not disturbing you, am I?”
“No.” His hushed return was calm. “But if you’re looking for fragrant whatnots I’m afraid Nanny keeps hers locked away in her room upstairs. I can go and ask her for something? Or I think there might be an ancient pot of bath salts in the cupboard above the sink …”
I padded silently back across the cold linoleum. Inside the cupboard was an assortment of shaving brushes, razor and spare toothpaste safely stored out of reach of a child’s wandering fingers, and also an unopened jar of faded lavender-scented bath salts. “Perfect,” I told them as I lifted them out.
“Got it?” Adam’s whisper recalled me to the door.
“Yes,” I said softly to its bare white panels, “thank you. And Adam?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. And sorry … For everything.”
I didn’t hear his reply. I had just found the bruise above my elbow where Clarke had gripped me. And was wondering if I had left a similar mark on Adam’s cheek.
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My next awakening was harder. It was harder to ignore reality. The soft aroma of a hot oven was wafting up the stairs. It was a confusing sort of rousing; it felt safe, secure like being part of a family and it reminded
me of the truth of my visit here. Somewhere below there was the distant ringing of a telephone.
It took a little longer to get out of bed this time. The stiffness that had marked my climb downstairs yesterday had only been a little forerunner to today’s. It took me about half an hour to dress, with several sit downs in order to catch my breath. Also, someone – Nanny presumably – had whisked away my worn clothes; dirtied frocks, housecoat and all. That left me with a choice between something quiet and something subdued. I opted for the plain grey frock on account of it being warmer. The old tastes and habits of Mrs Kate Williams were back in force. Only she’d never looked this drawn.
I managed to descend the stairs without doing anything stupid. I even managed to make myself release my fierce grip on the banister rail and take that last step down into the hallway. I did it by taking hold of the doorframe into the noisy kitchen instead. Unfortunately, having got here, it became clear that whatever nervous introductions had been running rehearsals in my mind, they were entirely unnecessary.
“Adam’s not here,” I said lamely, as if it wasn’t obvious.
The girl was staring owlishly at me from her place at the table while the older woman turned away to clatter impatiently with the stove. It was, I realised now, giving off enough heat to warm the whole house.
Nanny had a smart brown housecoat over her clothes and her short grey hair was set into impressively tight curls. There was also a kitten clinging to the back of her skirt. I wondered if she knew.
“Good morning.” It was a touchingly formal greeting from Adam’s daughter. She was indeed about nine years old. She was in fact old enough that she probably should have been at school. Perhaps she’d been for the morning and was home for lunch.
“Good morning,” I replied kindly. “May, isn’t it?”