Hard Rain

by Melissa Vayle

  Straight down the corridor, into the room, top right hand drawer.

  ‘There they are!’ and she gave a sigh of relief. She grabbed them and then looked round. All was still and quiet, all was normal. When she returned to the hallway, Anne was still standing there, awkwardly.

  ‘Got them?’ she asked, with a forced smile as it was plain to see them in Catherine's hand. Catherine gave a ‘Yes’ through clenched teeth and passed her on the way to the door.

  ‘Right then,’ she said, not looking at Anne, ‘I'll be off.’ The air was thick and heavy and she couldn’t breathe a moment longer near that woman.

  ‘OK, see you tomorrow,’ was all that Anne could manage. There was no ‘But you can't possibly go like that, wet through, you must dry out, I insist!’

  ‘Bye,’ said Catherine opening the front door, and then, surveying the torrential downpour, hammering everything in its path, with a cold anger, and a heavy heart, like some forgotten martyr, she stepped out into the deluge and hardly heard the feeble ‘Bye’ in return as the door was shut to behind her.

  The evening's event passed over Catherine as she sat next to Val, staring into blank space. Though outwardly listening, she was inwardly deaf to the orchestral music. Even as the rich cadences of Vaughan Williams' Thomas Tallis - one of her favourite pieces - reached their sumptuous peak, she remained inert, unmoved, as her mind was still trapped in the events at Blackthorne that afternoon. Nothing could pull her back to the present. She was rooted to her seat, flattened by the dead weight of a paralysing feeling.

  The thought of Michael Richmond being involved with that woman in anything as bizarre as what she had inferred from the sight of her like that, was both repellent and unbearable. A hundred times the image of Anne struck her mind no matter how hard she tried to deflect it, and a hundred times its content and message were all too patently clear.

  ‘You all right?’ asked Val in the bar at the interval. ‘You've been quiet all evening. You weren't listening to a word I was saying before the start and you've sat through the first half like a stuffed dummy.’

  ‘It's OK. I'm a little tired tonight, that's all.’

  The look on Val's face told her that her friend did not believe her, and as the seconds ticked away, and Val's look became concerned, Catherine felt a crushing longing to relieve herself of this unbearable secret and share the load.

  ‘What it is, Cathy? Tell me.’

  She hung back, still struggling with the knowledge. Val knew this was serious, and braced herself.

  At last, Catherine began the story, calm and in measured tone. She needed to get it right, as if down on record. She did not look at Val as the events of that afternoon were unfurled for her silent friend. There was no interruption as she described each step which led up to what she witnessed through that window and each step that brought her to the awkward encounter with Anne. Suddenly, she was finished and the silence forced her to look up at Val's face. Her friend stared back at her, almost as if bewitched by the spell of the tale she had just been told.

  ‘And that's the truth,’ she added, as if remembering to put a full-stop at the end of the sentence.

  ‘God!’ said Val, breathing again. ‘I see... no wonder you were...’ but she did not finish nor need to.

  ‘Oh, Val,’ said Catherine, looking on the verge of tears, ’It doesn't make sense!’ knowing full well that Michael was part of the equation.

  ‘What about him?’ said Val, ’Michael. You don't think he was in on it, do you?’

  The loaded question was something Catherine could not bring herself to even attempt to answer.

  ‘God!’ said Val again, shaking her head in disbelief.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Catherine, simply.

  Val did not hesitate.

  ‘What do I think? I think she's kinky, that's what. Bloody kinky, if you ask me,’ and chuckled, then immediately showed concern as Catherine's face dropped.

  ‘Oh, Cathy, maybe he was out at the time. You said yourself, his car was not on the drive where he always leaves it when he's in. Oh, Cathy, come on, Cheer up! She's probably just a perve doing her own thing. When the cat's away, the mice will play,’ and chuckled again, though this time it was forced.

  Catherine thought of the room at the end of the corridor, the locked room, but she did not mention this to her friend.

  ‘Kinky, eh?’ The thought amused Val. ‘Trust you to pick them!’ and laughed. Catherine smiled, but now felt less reassured than ever. ‘Hey! Just you watch out for her, she might be, you know…‘ and she nodded her head to emphasize what she meant. ‘At least you won't have a rival to contend with!’ and with that, she laughed, almost heartily.

  Catherine felt sick, and Val, more sensitive this time, touched her arm gently.

  ‘Sorry, Cathy,’ she said, ‘Maybe it's a one-off,’ adding, ‘It'll be all right, you'll see. It's not her you've got to worry about - it's him!’ and laughed again.

  The bell rang. It was time to go back in for the second half of the concert. Catherine left her drink untouched. Val's words echoed in her, long after the bell's note had died away and they were seated again in the hall.

  The music played on but a different score was rehearsed in Catherine's mind and the more she listened to it, the more discordant the notes were becoming.

  Chapter 6. Unearthly landscape

  ‘I'm just going out for half an hour to do some errands.’

  Catherine hardly looked up from her magazine at Anne who was standing there by the door with her designer bag slung from her shoulder, clutching a bunch of keys.

  ‘OK,’ was all Catherine responded and she read on.

  ‘Must be interesting. What is it?’

  Catherine said nothing but handed the magazine over to her open at the page she was reading. Anne put down the keys and read out the title of the article: ‘How far would you go to please your man?’

  ‘That depends on the man,’ was her laconic reply, ‘and I've got Michael to please by catching the lunchtime post.’ Catherine gave a feigned giggle as Anne handed back the magazine and made for the door. ‘See you later,’ and was gone.

  Catherine mused for a moment, surprised at Anne's response to the piece. Maybe she's not such a cold fish at all, and then the incident with the mac came back to her. Then she noticed. The keys! They were on the desk. She grabbed them at once, got up and went after Anne. As she got out on the corridor the front door slammed. She rushed toward the foyer. Then something made her stop in her tracks. The room. These were the set of house-keys which included the one to the room at the end of the corridor. She dithered on the spot, not knowing what to do. But she knew what she wanted to do. The sound of Anne's car engine starting up sent a sudden thrill through her and, her heart beginning to beat more strongly, she remained there, standing stock-still on the corridor, breathless but not daring to breathe. She waited for the sound of Anne's car to fade into the distance. The empty house stood silent. She could almost hear her beating heart.

  Half an hour. More than enough for a quick look, she thought. But which key opened the door? There were eleven. Trying to suppress increasing excitement mixed with a feeling of guilt, she made her way quickly down the corridor to the locked room. The keys rattled as she fumbled to try one then another in the door-lock. She went through all the keys. None opened the door. But they have to! She recognized this was Anne's personal set. She tried again, this time with mounting desperation. At last! The lock turned and the door slid open smoothly. Without hesitating, in she went.

  Immediate and total was the let-down. There in a small, virtually bare room with boarded-up window but lit by the open door, was nothing but an exercise bike. She felt flat, and cruelly disappointed. She was so sure that there was something secret about what lay behind the door. Why did Anne so assiduously lock the door each time she visited the room? For an exercise bike?! It didn't add up. She stood there, feeling empty and a little peeved at being cheated, and blankly surveyed the nearly bare room.
Then she noticed it. There was something different about the left-hand corner of the wall opposite. For a moment, it eluded her as to what it was that struck her as incongruous about the panelling. She blinked and then she saw it. It was a door in the wall, cut in such a manner that it blended with the surrounding pattern in the panelling. There was no handle but what she had taken for a knot in the dark wood was, in fact, a small keyhole. Her heart leapt. She lunged forward and quickly tried the keys one after the other. Click! The door opened.

  It was pitch-black within. Only the threshold was lightened by the feeble illumination from the corridor coming in at the door of the room where she stood. The seconds passed but no matter how hard she stared into the darkness she could discern nothing. Was this another room or a deep closet? She glanced suddenly over her shoulder. She sensed the massive presence of the house. Something in the corridor hung in the silence which reached to this room where she stood. The door-well to the corridor, however, remained in full light and nothing disturbed the shadows in the room. Crazy. This is crazy, she told herself in sudden unease. She had no business being here. Yet almost at once, something else told her she had to know and she peered once more into the darkness.

  The black interior, like some chasm of the night, beckoned and, for a moment, she hesitated. A surge of excitement went through her and, as she hovered between desire and fear, time raced with each heartbeat and the gaping dark waited. Just one more step. One more step, and then she would know. In she went.

  She stepped into the dark feeling instinctively along the inside wall to the right for a light switch. Almost at once she inadvertently let go of the door which swung to. She was startled by the hefty Clunk! Her eyes were wide open but she was totally blind in the chill blackness which now enshrouded her. Panic seized her. She groped, then frantically, on the wall for the door handle. There was none! Desperately, she palmed every square inch of what she thought was the place of the door. Nothing. Not even a hint of a gap between wall and door edge.

  ‘Help!’ she cried out in mounting alarm.

  Then she felt it: the keyhole. But the keys were on the outside! Her heart was pounding, she gulped, she could not breathe and a wretched, begging cry went out sniffled through tears.

  ‘Please! Please!’ as her fist thumped on the hard surface she could not see. She stopped immediately as the muffled thumps brought home to her that there was no-one now to hear her. Keep calm, she told herself, keep calm. She breathed deeply and felt once more for the keyhole. If she could only lodge her small finger in it, she might gently pull open the door. But no matter how carefully, how systematically she felt along the panel in front of her, she could not find it. Again, she ran her finger tips over the surface, murmuring frantically ‘Please! Please!’ Then she found it. This time she kept her finger on it and felt its shape. It was too narrow to push her small finger into it but she tried to get a purchase on it with the nail of her right index finger. Slowly, agonizingly, the door began to move slightly toward her and the pain from her nail grew acute. She could feel the edge of the door stand proud of the wall slightly and made to get it with her left hand. Just a bit more!

  ‘Arrgh!’

  Her nail snapped and the keyhole was gone. She grabbed her sore finger with her left hand and collapsed, sobbing, against the panel and slid down to the floor in despair. The seriousness of her predicament began to sink in as she closed her eyes to shut out the blackness now burying her. If only... and as self-pity turned to a feeling that she deserved this, a thought struck her that if it was a room she was in, there must be a light-switch somewhere.

  She got to her feet and, resolving to scour systematically the wall, she turned to it and gingerly fumbled her way to the right until she met the adjoining wall. So far so good. She breathed more easily and then moved slowly back along the panelling feeling the wall. An eternity passed and she kept expecting to encounter the other adjoining wall at any moment.

  ‘Yes!’

  The feel of a switch was immediate and unmistakeable. Click! Light! She blinked. A small beam of light pierced the dark, emanating from a small spot-light high up on the wall above a bank of switches by her hand. It cast a circle of light on the floor directly behind her and though it only illuminated a small vacant area, half turning round, she knew she was in a room, and sensed a fairly deep one at that.

  Almost at once she made a second discovery. Turning right round to her left, she saw the outline of the door in the wall along the way she had come, a mere few feet away, and stunned, a door knob plain to see. She blinked and gulped and made for it automatically. Small but very real, one pull and the door opened wide and she stepped out into the ante-room and took a long, deep breath. Then she made straight for the door to the corridor. Standing there in the full light, still inwardly shaken, looking up the corridor, intense relief came over her. The door knob. How could I have missed it? Her systematic search of the panelling had been no such thing, rather more frantic and panicky than she cared to admit. She felt a fool now as her senses came back to her. The room! She had left the light on and knew at once she still had to see what was in it, if anything. After all that she had just been through, she was owed a view at least, so she turned round to go back in.

  The small spotlight was still on. The beam of light shone brilliantly on the parquet floor, almost dazzling the smooth polished wood, and as Catherine gazed upon the illuminated spot and the residual light around it, she could see that the room was not empty.

  Dimly-lit objects brought forth from the dark on the edge of the circle of light came to her perception almost simultaneously without her recognizing for a moment what they were. The side of a large-looking cupboard along the wall to her right; a full-length wall mirror, the glass black and empty; ghostly wall posters bleached in the light, to the right and left; a bench, vaulting-horse or something, through the ray of light, hardly discernible in the darkness beyond the zone of radiance and shadow, directly in front of her.

  She turned round to the right to face the wall poster just beyond the light switches and stepped closer. It was a giant enlargement of a black and white photograph. The image was shocking. For a moment, she could not take it in and had to remind herself that this was Michael's house. Surely some mistake? But the question answered itself at once. This was his house and therefore his room and, as initial shock turned to an all-pervading sense of bewilderment and feeling a tightening in the pit of her stomach, she gazed upon the picture before her.

  It was the photograph of a woman standing with her back to the camera. She was naked except for a pair of high heels and black leather elbow-length gloves. Her stance was rigid for she was bound tightly in fine chains from neck to ankles, terminating in a padlock. The woman was held taut by a chain at the back of her neck which stretched up and away off the top of the photograph. Catherine stood there in disbelief, and for a moment, turned away.

  She turned back to the poster and saw that the woman's wrists were manacled high up behind her back and her arms pinioned to the side leaving her bare buttocks on view. Initially appalled, the more Catherine looked at the picture, the more fascinating it became. There was something, something about it that told her that the woman was not uncomfortable in her discomfiture and she studied the image more. Then she saw why. The woman was not stretched on her toes but was standing squarely and firmly on both feet. The shock subsided as Catherine found she was captivated by this intriguing composition of cold metal on warm flesh, of rigour and ease, of taut lines and soft curves. There was a large cupboard beyond the poster which she ignored as her eyes caught a second poster on the wall now over to her right which adjoined the wall with the door panel. She stepped forward to take in the picture fully.

  Like the other, it too was an almost life-size picture of a woman though this woman was different. This time, the subject was down on her knees, looking not uncomfortable, with her bottom resting on her high heels. She was partially side-on, head bowed, eyes cast down in front of her, with an air o
f subdued acceptance. Her wrists were bound behind her back with cord as were her elbows which were pulled in tight. Catherine was struck by how almost demure she looked, like a picture of innocence. For a moment, she saw in her a reflection of her own vulnerability and, with a slight shudder, of her own corruptibility, for the image this woman presented was contradictory. Her long hair was pulled back and fastened with a ribbon revealing her beauty in full profile and her slender neck accentuated this. She was dressed in a see-through, white lace blouse with a low neckline and nothing underneath. Her nipples were obvious under the flimsy material. Her legs were bare and much on show as she was dressed from narrow waist to mid-thigh in a skin-tight, glossy black skirt. Now Catherine saw not innocence bound but the power of the temptress. Pornography. These pictures are pornographic, she thought, but was surprised to realize she was not repelled by them. Something sexual stirred in her and she turned away, intent to see the room in full. She moved back to the panel of light switches and flicked them all on.

  A set of spotlights, each light strategically placed on the walls and ceiling, revealed a large, deep room, perhaps some seven yards wide or so and twice as long, probably more, though Catherine's sense of size and space was lost in the sight now presented to her.

  Despite the number of lights on, the room was criss-crossed by beams of hazy light and unlit spaces that gave a mosaic of light and dark, of brilliance and shadow, and the overall effect of stark forms, diffuse shapes, dark corners and dazzled objects which now appeared under the various spotlight beams.

  For a moment, she stood confused as an unfamiliar world beckoned, silent, before her. She recognized nothing for a second except the large cupboard to her right which she had already seen and, along the adjoining wall, the poster and full-length mirror and further along, unclear, a wall rack or something decked with things.