by Ruth Wade
‘It’s a good job you’re so used to being the one doing all the talking then. Are you going now? I’m tired and would like to go for a lie down.’
‘Of course. Don’t forget the picture.’
‘I’m not a child. I can remember a straightforward request when I’m given one.’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I’ll see you tomorrow at the usual time.’
‘Leave the door open, will you? The space seems to have become cluttered with so many people in it.’
He looked as though he was about to say something but settled for packing away his papers, smiling in an overly cheery manner, and leaving her alone at last.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
She’d just had her lunch up at the Hall of soup, bread, stew and mashed potatoes, and still she was hungry. Helen had been too busy to make any of her false overtures, and Edith had managed to avoid Arnold’s attentions by sitting at the end of the long table frequented by the men who usually had it to themselves because they spat more food than they consumed. Although her stomach felt empty, her mind was very full. Like a cupboard with one too many things crammed on its shelves – if the door flew open they would all come tumbling out. Best turn the lock and pocket the key then.
Back in her cottage, the smell had returned. Not fried onions this time but the cloying sweetness of honey. Perhaps Wilfred Drayton’s bees had flown over from Fletching and had taken up residence in the roof space. It was thoughtful of them to keep her company. Edith prised the lid off the tin of coloured pencils. They were the sort you could dip in water to make the pigment soft and smudgy. She went to the bathroom and returned with her tooth-glass half full. But she drank it before she remembered what it was for. She refilled it, placing her hand over the top to stop herself from making the same mistake twice.
When was it she’d last sat down to draw a picture? When she was a child, obviously, it was a far too arty unscientific thing for her to ever contemplate doing as an adult. Except she had liked to reproduce circuit diagrams for her telegraphic equipment. Variable condensers, transformers, valves, tuning inducers; yellow-orange for the copper wire. She drew one out now. Her hands were a bit shaky so the lines weren’t as straight as she’d like but it was pleasingly symmetrical none the less. She wondered if that was what the inside of her head looked like – with a few snapped connections perhaps. She thought she remembered perching at the dining room table and drawing a picture of a house. Her chubby fingers had curled around the stick of chalk – or had it been a paintbrush? No, it couldn’t have been because she’d never have been allowed anywhere near the rosewood furniture with that. Had she had more than one colour to choose from? Had Father brought them back from the hospital after making one of his madmen do the same as Dr Maynard had requested of her? They only came to the house occasionally in those early days. Not many of them, and never the same faces twice – she’d got very good at spying from behind the living room curtains. Father would meet them at the front door himself, and from the top of the stairs she’d watch him usher them into his study with a hand on their backs as if he were propelling them.
A propeller. She turned over to a clean sheet and outlined an aeroplane. Two wings on either side, and a jaunty rudder on the tail. The perspective was all wrong but it was a long time since she’d seen one. She turned to the last sheet on the pad. Did he really expect her to fill it? Her imagination would be a desiccated husk by then. She selected the bright red pencil, dipped the tip into the water until it glowed like Christmas, and made a dot in the bottom right-hand corner of the page. Then she flipped over the preceding one and circled a bigger blob. Seized by compulsion, she drew random shapes on every one of the pages – never more than half an inch in size and always the same distance from the edges. Sometimes she over-wetted the pencil and had to wait for the strokes to dry before she moved onto the page in front. She tried blowing on the damp paper once or twice resulting in any unabsorbed red fanning out unpredictably. She didn’t like that much but these imperfections would no doubt become lost in the greater scheme of things. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had any design in mind.
Finally she got to the ruined sheets with the wonky aeroplane and aesthetically pleasing, but scientifically inaccurate, circuit diagram. These she ripped from the pad, screwed into tight balls, and stuffed into her skirt pocket. Her fingers were cramped, the fringes of her lips sore where she’d been sticking her tongue out and licking them. Had she developed the habit of doing that to aid concentration when at the Ministry? If so it was no wonder they’d always looked at her as if she were a little odd. She got up and went to the lavatory. Putting off the moment of revelation rekindled the exquisite anticipation she’d felt when about to see moving pictures for the first time. The painted slides had depicted a horse jumping over a fence. Or had it been a fairground scene with a carousel? That would’ve had horses, too, albeit carved wooden ones. It was interesting how her memory could recall elements or patterns but be wavery on the specific details. Hadn’t Dr Maynard said something of that sort? He might’ve done but she hadn’t really been listening.
She scrubbed at her fingers with the nailbrush. The laundry soap started as a thick yellow mucus on the bristles but burst into a creamy lather under the friction. The principles of physics in action: first the inertia, then the application of energy – she could feel the heat from the movement on her skin – lastly the impelling force of momentum so she couldn’t have stopped even if she’d wanted to. Not that she did. She wanted her fingers so clean that the pages would remain unmarked, apart from the strokes of red. It was important. Perhaps she should pop upstairs and fetch the cotton gloves. She’d put them somewhere. In a drawer maybe? Or under her pillow? But if she did that then would the moment be held in abeyance just that little bit too long and consequently tip over into apathy, boredom, or indifference? She thought she did have a habit of doing that.
Deciding against hunting for the gloves, Edith walked back into the front room. The sun had burned off the last vestiges of the fog and was shining weakly through the window. The streaks were still on the glass but she’d have to leave them for now; using the newspaper and vinegar again would only necessitate more hand scrubbing. And if too much time passed then the shadows of the trees would reach her before she’d finished and she’d lose the opportunity to create the effect she’d wanted when the fancy had originally taken hold.
Turning her back to the light, she gathered up all but the final sheet of the pad in her left hand. Steadying the cardboard back cover with her other, she flicked over to the next page. The red dot grew into a blob. She allowed the corner of the next sheet to spring loose. Now, a red halo. Next, a furry line. She continued the process slowly and methodically, going back over the points where two or more of the pages stuck together. It was gratifying the way she’d managed to keep the red marks in exactly the same places so that the preceding one was immediately replaced as if by a conjurer’s sleight of hand. But there was no movement. And it failed to induce a sense of wonder; it was all too obviously a mechanical process.
She sat back down at the table. Maybe she’d been too ambitious. Maybe the sunlight was an extravagant touch too far. The red marks were still distinct with the pad laid flat. If she positioned her forearm across it on the diagonal, she could pull the remaining triangle back with her other hand creating a tension that would cause the stiffish paper to spring free from her fingers. She tried the first few pages. The dot grew like a sponge expanding in water. She closed her eyes so as not to spoil the surprise and practised flicking through them all in a fluid, even way. Once more for luck.
Her fingertips now had the measure of the paper thickness and she knew that this next time would be as perfect as she could ever get. After this, the muscles in her hand would grow clumsy with tiredness and all her efforts would end in a damp squib. She let the pad sit quietly for a moment as she pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and concertinaed the sleeves of her cardigan to her el
bows.
The movement was slick. The moving pictures transparent in meaning. A red fire burned in the hearth of the page corners. Flames leapt, fizzled, and leapt again. Random strokes of heat threatened to envelop her. The skin on her fingertips shrunk back as if singed. She could smell herself roasting. Taste the smoke. Her throat closed. Her lungs fought to expand.
But as she relived the nightmare of her torment, another story broke free. Played out in reverse. She saw leaking blood. Severed gobs of her flesh. Cauterised wounds. Back, back, back to the beginning. The red dot of a gaping hole. Birth.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Edith had been lying on her bed for what seemed like hours when her nostrils prickled with the scent of something spicy. She got up and stuffed her feet into the too-small slippers – the other pair unaccountably absent. The stairs felt steep but manageable. At the bottom, she thought perhaps the fog had started to seep in under the door until she realised it was smoke; blue veins of it curling up from the armchair. She could see the back of his head and the pipe slanting out to the side. There was no need to wonder who it was; after all, she’d been dreaming about him all last night, and having been controlled by the vagaries of her mind for so long she had no doubts about its power to bring about wish-fulfilment.
‘Oh, Edward, you’re back.’
‘The truth of the matter is that I never actually left. I’ve been keeping an eye on you – looking after our best interests, you might say – and I felt the time was right to put in an appearance in the flesh.’
Edith dragged one of the hard-backed chairs around to where Dr Maynard usually positioned it. As soon as she sat, she could appreciate why he always chose this spot; the light from the window was directly on Edward’s face, pulling out his features and making it as easy to read as an illustrated book. If she had her glasses. If she hadn’t left them upstairs. That was why she’d been mistaken about the fog.
‘Are you here to pay me a visit or have you come to take me away?’
‘We both know I’m never going to be doing the latter, Edith. Only now even here doesn’t seem a safe place for you to be. I had assumed you’d be able to keep yourself to yourself tucked away in this godforsaken place. But it seems I couldn’t trust you after all.’
‘Why do you say that?
‘I was willing to let the first betrayal ride – seeing as nothing came of it – but two becomes the beginning of a pattern I can’t possibly ignore.’
‘I haven’t. I didn’t. I never would. Why are you being like this?’
‘Life in the real world isn’t like it is in your head; us normal people can’t go conveniently forgetting the facts of what has taken place quite so easily.’ Edward puffed at his pipe. ‘I watched you in Uckfield from my hotel window. I was taking a break from staring at the four walls when I espied my erstwhile co-conspirator outside the portals of the local constabulary. I rubbed my eyes – really I did – in case my mind was proving to be as defective as yours turned out to be, after which you’d vanished. Edward, my boy, I thought to myself, you’re manufacturing problems for yourself where none exist. Only much later there you were again, staggering your way to the bus stop as if you’d undergone a most bruising encounter. Did your friends in blue believe you, Edith? Did they write down every word you said in their little notebooks? Did you volunteer to meet them at the scene of the crime? You’ll have to enlighten me on that portion of the narrative because, by then, I’d removed myself from any place of possible detection.’
‘But I’d gone to find you. That’s why I was in town in the first place. The hotel said you’d never been registered.’
‘I suspect they did so to get rid of you; there’s a wild air of instability about those who’ve just confessed to the police.’
‘I hadn’t. And I was fine ... Or maybe not ... I can’t remember ... It was a long time ago ... I’ve been ill.’
‘Only you’ve been making a remarkable recovery. Well enough to renew your acquaintance with your favourite policeman over a cosy cuppa. What did you tell him, Edith? What poisoned secrets did you spill into his shell-like?’
Edward was sitting back smiling in his lopsided way at her. The pipe had gone out and he was cradling the bowl in his hand as he let his arm flop down beside the chair. Edith was so full of emotion that she couldn’t separate one feeling from another long enough to be able to put a name to them all. She thought there might be love there somewhere; obligation; excitement; and something so dark and dirty it could’ve been guilt. But not surprise.
‘He talked to me. About the village. About a dead boy they found. I dreamed about him afterwards.’
‘The policeman?’
‘Alfie Thresher.’
The name had crept into her head from nowhere.
‘And, pray, just what was it your somnambulant mind threw up? Justifications? A wholly fantastical version of the truth?’
‘That he wasn’t found in the quarry at all but in the graveyard. That you were there, we both were ...’
The fog was back again, so thick she couldn’t perceive anything, and could barely breathe. It was filling her lungs and squeezing her heart ... Then it cleared to reveal everything that had previously been hidden. She knew. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, she knew what Edward was talking about. Why he’d come. Why he was sitting in her chair regarding her with an expression of bleak disappointment.
‘It wasn’t a dream, was it? That is exactly what happened.’
‘Ah, but how can you know that when your recall is so unreliable? The memory is a funny old thing – I’m sure you and your head-shrink jabber about that incessantly. In-between you telling him things that you really would have been better off keeping to yourself.’
‘He’s the one. I don’t say anything.’
‘Now, now, that is a blatant untruth, my dear Ede, and unworthy of your brand of subtle trickery. You read my messages, I assume?’
She was confused for a moment until he indicated the table behind him with a waft of his hand.
‘The automatic writing? I thought I did that. He told me I did.’
‘Surely you’ve worked out by now that the good doctor only finds that which he is intent on seeking. The man’s one walking, talking, self-fulfilling prophecy. Whereas his patient is wilfully blind to the truth. Because I’ve never importuned you to do one single thing for me, Edith. Never. The tartan slipper – and those are a particularly ugly example of the breed, most unbecoming – has always been on the other foot. The nasty web of deceit we find ourselves flailing around in now is solely the result of me putting myself out for you.’
‘To protect me. To stop the boy stealing the journal, I know.’
‘Whatever else we may disagree on, can we at least establish that there is only one person in this room in possession of faultless recollection? Yes? Good. So you have no choice but to believe me when I tell you that at no time on that particular evening did I refer to a book.’
‘You said you dropped it when you ran after him ...’
‘I mentioned he had something of yours, nothing else. How could you know the particulars unless it was you who caught him at it?’
‘I found it on the study floor. Afterwards.’
‘And if you saw him, caught him, chased him ... Then the inevitable conclusion is that it was also you who put the child to death.’
‘It was an accident ... he fell and hit his head. It was an accident.’
‘Almost the exact same words, only this time said with much more emotion behind them. I was amazed at how cold and calm you were that night; at your rational best explaining things away, working out a plan of how to dispose of the body and cover your tracks. I didn’t know you had it in you, Edith. It was chilling to witness.’
But none of that could be right; he was twisting the things that hadn’t been back with her long enough for her own mind to have distorted. Except could she really truly swear – on a stack of Bibles if need be – that she hadn’t?
‘You like i
t here, Edith, don’t you? Making friends, settling down, feeling unburdened. And you’d like that to continue. I’d like that to continue for you. There’s no earthly reason why it shouldn’t if you behave yourself. Keep quiet. Don’t say any more. Let on to nobody that the black heart of a murderess beats in your breast. You’ll need to be especially careful if he hypnotises you; Dr Myers tried that on me once or twice but I was on to his game of winning trust to winkle out secrets. It’s possible to resist, but you have to really want to. And I’ll help you do that, Edith. I’ll give you something to fill every portion of your consciousness so that your thoughts will be mere static in the ether; never quite making sense, the threads breaking apart under the pressure of forced connections. Would you like me to tell you what it is? Would you like me to help you one last time, my dear Ede?’
Her legs were itching so much it felt like the flames were licking at the marrow of her bones again. The fog had filled the room from floor to ceiling, her visitor a patch of still darkness in swirling grey.
‘Yes, please, Edward.’
The shape shifted. And then he was right in front of her face, his straight arms on either side of her ears as he leaned on the back of the chair. She felt her body tilt until her feet were hanging. His breath smelt of rotting leaves.
‘Then it’s this ... you let slip one more fact about that night – real or imagined – and I will make you fucking regret the day you were born.’
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
She had been awake all night. Pacing, pacing, pacing. Edith’s legs hurt and her head felt dizzy but she couldn’t stop. At some time she’d shattered her glasses by treading on them wearing outdoor shoes. There was nothing wrong with her eyes anyway; she could see everything she needed to, the rest was just noise.
Now she was on her knees in the front flowerbed. It had been taking too long with the small fork, so she’d started pulling up the plants and deepening the resulting hole with her fingers. Their tips were sore, one nail bleeding where she’d caught it on a shard of flint but she’d almost finished. Only three more sheets to go. She tore the one with the smudgy red halo into dozens of irregular pieces and planted them where the sun would never shine.