“Ever had a falling out with this…Colin?” he says. “A disagreement? A difference of opinion?”
“Oh yes. We’ve had a couple of right old ding dongs.”
“Any violence?”
“No. There’s been shouting and swearing on a few occasions, frank exchanges of views, a few tears, some sulking…but then comes the making up and the hugging. We always try to end on a positive note. Don’t always manage it, but we try, at least I do, because that’s what you told me I should do. Which reminds me, I’d like to keep the book on PTSD a little longer if that’s okay. It’s fascinating reading.”
“Only if you tell me again how you think helping him come to terms with his problems is contributing to your recovery.”
“Because that’s what group therapy is all about isn’t it?” she says. “Working together for mutual benefit? Why should the fact that our particular group numbers only two, three if you want to count yourself, make it any less effective? If it only does one of us good, makes one of us happier, more at ease with themselves, easier in their mind, I’d say that’s a job well done, wouldn’t you?”
Mal takes up a tea towel and wipes a plate with it, nodding pensively. “I can’t argue with any of that. And you think it’s working?”
“Don’t you?”
“Actually, if the changes I see in you are anything to go by, I’d have to say yes.”
Grace wipes her nose, leaving a trail of soap bubbles across her cheek. “How do you mean?”
Mal takes up the next plate and wipes it with the towel. “When you first came to me, you were… a mouse,” he says. “Shy, inhibited, introverted, wouldn’t say boo to a goose, thought everything and anything was your fault. Now… you seem less edgy, more confident, more in control. You’ve dealt with new issues head on instead of deliberately avoiding them. You’ve stood up to challenges and voiced your own opinion. There are some physical changes too. You’ve lost some of the puffiness in your face. You are standing up straighter, dressing nicely, letting your prettiness shine rather than trying to make yourself invisible.”
She stares at him. “Prettiness? You sure you only had the one glass of wine?”
He smiles at her. “Learn to take a compliment will you. You are pretty… even with soap suds on your face.”
“I will admit, I do feel better, more positive,” she says, brushing the bubbles away. “And it’s all thanks to you–”
Mal’s smile broadens into one of pure pleasure and he blushes. “Well… I–”
“But mostly it’s down to Colin. If it hadn’t been for him, I really don’t think there would be any changes to speak of at all.”
Mal’s puff of pride vanishes. “I think you are giving too much credit to the power of your imagination.”
“It may have started off that way,” Grace says. “But now, of the three of us, only you–” She jabs the air in front of him with a fork. “–still believe he was ever made up. I know he’s as real as you or I and that the persona I talk to is merely a projection of himself, if that makes sense?”
“I think we’ve had this discussion before,” Mal says. “Remember when you came to me with those marks on your arm? You claimed back then he was real, but we talked about it and decided he was a figment of your imagination and the bruises were a result of something you did to yourself by accident, the thing you thought was nettle rash an allergic reaction to something.”
“No. You decided that. I didn’t. I knew all the time how I got those marks. I knew they were real, just as I know Colin is real. He’s a wounded soldier with PTSD and he’s in a residential care centre out by Kemnay, and to prove I’m not crazy or making things up … as soon as I can arrange it, I’m going to see him. And that’s not all–”
She grabs Mal’s sleeve, drags him over to the French window and throws back the drapes.
“The house and grounds and cemetery, the ones I thought I made up? Wrong again. They are real enough too, they are–. Oh, you can’t see them now.”
It’s too dark and foggy to see anything beyond the other side of the road, made more difficult by the way the fog catches the sickly orange light from the street lamp and turns it into a diffused glow.
“Grace–”
“They are there,” she says, peering out. “Just beyond the houses, you’ll have to take my word for it. There’s a big stone wall with a set of wrought iron gates, and an old derelict house called The Larches–”
“Grace–”
“I tried to get in, but the gates were locked and I couldn’t climb over the wall, so I did the next best thing, I looked it up at the library. There were some old photographs of the house and the garden and the cemetery, and do you know what–”
“GRACE!”
“What?”
“Stop this.”
“Stop what? I’m telling you about the house and the gardens. Right down to the last window pane they are exactly the same–”
Mal reaches past her, grabs the curtains and pulls them back together, shutting out the night. “That’s enough!”
“I was only showing you–”
“No, Grace.”
“But–”
“I said no.” He stands with his back to the drapes, scrubbing at his brow. “Sit down Grace, we need to talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to–”
“Please, Grace, shut up and sit down!”
She remains standing and their eyes lock on each other’s; Grace’s bright and feverish, Mal’s filled with doubt and disappointment.
“Before you jump to conclusions with your size nines, I am not drunk, nor am I having a manic episode,” she says. “So get both those ideas right out of your head. I’m just excited at being able to tell you the truth about what’s been going on at last. It’s been a bit of a strain hiding things, but now I’ve told you–”
“I think you should take a break,” he says.
“From what?”
“From your therapy. From your … visitations.”
“No.”
“If you don’t, I’ll call a stop to it altogether.”
“What? No! You can’t!”
“I can, and I will. I wanted it to work Grace, I really did, but now … after this … I’m not so sure it’s the right thing for you. I never intended for it to take over your life like this.”
“It hasn’t taken–”
“You need to take a break and we’ll think of something else.”
“I can’t stop. I won’t stop. Colin needs me. I promised him we were on a journey together. I can’t abandon him now.”
Mal’s eyes flicker as they read her face and the earnest sincerity writ large in it. “You really believe he is real, don’t you?”
“I told you he’s an injured soldier with PTSD in a residential care facility.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he told me.”
“And you believe him?”
“Why would I not? Why would he lie?”
“Because Colin McLeod DOES NOT EXIST! You made him up. That was the whole point of the therapy. You’ve simply taken it too far, confusing your own imagination with items you’ve read in the paper and seen on the news about disabled soldiers and the recovery centres. There was a feature on Pelham Chase in the Examiner just last weekend, about the work they do there and advertising a fundraising Fun Run they were holding. You probably saw it and a lot of other bits and pieces, and subconsciously put them all together –”
“I don’t read the –”
“I also noticed when I came in that you have a Help for Heroes catalogue on your side table. Did you know they partly fund Pelham?”
“They help a lot of places. Fisher House, Headley Court, Tedworth … all over the country. And there are lots of other charities helping too, so I don’t see how that–”
Mal puts his hands on her shoulders. “Grace, you need to stop before you do yourself some real harm!”
She shrugs him off, eyes narrowed to determin
ed slits. “This treatment, this therapy was your idea in the first place, your pet project,” she says. “I was just following your instructions. Doing what you wanted me to do–”
“I know, but–”
“And now its working, going better than even you expected, you want me to stop? To walk away–?”
“Yes. I do, because I don’t think it’s doing you any good.”
“Two minutes ago it was the bees knees. I saw you swelling with pride when you thought you’d performed a miracle and I was getting better. Then I confide in you, as I am supposed to do, because you are my therapist and I trust … trusted … you, and you do a complete one eighty and tell me it would do me good to walk away from someone else who is in trouble. Someone who can’t do anything for themselves, who is frightened and lost and needs me.”
“He’s nothing but a product of an overactive imagination, Grace. As is the house, the gardens and the cemetery. All of it.”
“NO THEY ARE NOT!” She’s shouting now. She can’t help herself. “Colin is as real as you or I, and now I know where he is, I intend to go and see him–”
“I really wouldn’t advise–”
“And unless you’re going to invoke the Mental Health Act and have me sectioned and locked up, there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.” She marches to her front door and grabs the handle. “You know what? I don’t care what you advise and–” She wrenches the door open. “I think I would like you to leave now, Doctor Pettit. I can’t talk to you any more.”
“Grace–”
“Please … go.”
He takes his coat from the hook. “When you’ve calmed down and you’re ready to talk, just pick up the phone and call me, eh?”
Grace bites into the inside of her cheek, tasting the sharp coppery tang of blood, trying really, really hard not to tell him to go directly to Hell, and follow it up with a smack in the face.
He pauses at the doorway. “Goodnight, Grace.”
She closes the door on him, falls back against it and slides down onto her haunches. By the time he’s reached his car, she is on the carpet, curled into a shivering ball of sobbing misery.
Chapter 20
Dawn has barely cracked the sky, the sun little more than a red smear above the horizon as Grace throws her little canvas rucksack onto the sofa, grumbling to herself as she checks off each of the items she’s throwing into it. Torch. Spare batteries. Camera. Gloves.
“I’ll show him what’s real and what’s not. Calling me a liar. I’ll get him proof, then we’ll see who’s making things up.” Her fully charged phone goes into the inside pocket of her jacket. “I’ll show him.”
Now she knows where it is, Grace finds her way back to the shackled gate of the Larches with no trouble at all.
A notice is fastened to it with cable ties – rectangular with a white background. A yellow triangle encompasses a black exclamation mark. Above it is a blue circle with a white exclamation point. Next to both are warnings that this is a dangerous building and she should keep out or risk serious injury.
The sign is mud spattered and dented, having been used for target practice with stones and bottles, and quite possibly an air gun.
She takes hold of the chain holding the two gates together and rattles the padlock. All are stained with rust, but are still strong and unyielding. With no idea who would have the key, and sadly lacking a set of bolt cutters, access this way is most definitely denied. Alternatives?
The wall is too high, too well built, with no obvious foot or hand holds. Even if there were, the ivy and brambles would cut her to ribbons before she got halfway up. There is no other choice, she has to clamber over the gate.
It is a struggle for her, being of a delicate build and blessed with no more than average upper body strength.
She puffs and strains and groans her way to the top, eases herself over the pointed finials, taking care not to impale herself, and jumps for it, landing with a jaunty bounce in a pile of dried leaves of many years accumulation.
A bolt of pain shoots up her leg from her ankle, making her wince and hop and swear. It soon fades and she can stand on it. It was just a jolt. She hasn’t broken anything, not even a sprain.
The walk up the mossy leaf strewn path to the house takes no more than a few minutes. The resemblance between this tumbledown pile and the fantasy house is remarkable, same red brick construction, same Georgian style sash windows, same elegant portico with ornate Corinthian columns.
To see whether the inside retains any of its original beauty will have to wait. She has a detour to make first, to find the cemetery she knows is there… somewhere. The Larches’ very own garden of stones.
It doesn’t take her long to find the small cluster of family plots contained within a rectangle of iron railings.
The gate into it is also chained, the links pitted with rust, but nowhere as secure as the main gate. The chain has merely been draped round the uprights, giving the illusion of being fastened. It comes apart easily in her hand. The gate opens with a sickening squeal and she is inside.
The headstones are practically invisible, almost totally overgrown with brambles, honeysuckle and wild roses.
Thorns snatch at her clothes and sticky willies cling to her jeans as she treads carefully between flat slabs, obelisks and upright markers, seeking out names she might recognise.
She finds a couple of likely candidates, pulls on her gloves and wrestles the suffocating foliage away.
“Victoria Alice St John,” she reads. “The same surname as the one in Colin’s garden of stones, but a different Christian name.”
She tears at the greenery around another stone. Same surname, this one a Frances. Soon the stone next to it is laid bare.
“Florence Bertram, née St John.”
And then she finds it, the flat slab marking the final resting place of the St John children.
She pulls out her camera and takes a snap of each of the stones. When she has enough information to both prove their existence to the non-believing Malcolm Pettit, and to begin her own planned background research, she tucks the camera back into her backpack.
She has seen enough here. Time to get to the meat and potatoes of her visit. The house itself.
The sheets of plywood covering the window haven’t fared well. Warped and watermarked, they are turned green and slick with algae.
The front door is hidden behind a rectangle of dulled aluminium, fastened to the surrounding wall via struts and bolts. Lightweight material it might be, but it’s not exactly tin foil and is surprisingly solidly fixed, so little chance of ingress here without the aid of an acetylene cutting torch, or at least a spanner.
She circles the building, arms sticking out at right angles to avoid the nettles, stepping carefully, taking care to avoid the broken slates, bricks and glass littering the surround, giving each of the plywood covers a push in case one is loose. They all seem secure, as does the back door with its own aluminium barrier.
“Maybe I could shin up a drainpipe.”
She steps back from the building, shielding her eyes from the sun, and peers up to the windows on the upper floors. These too are boarded over, and even if they weren’t, unless she can morph into some kind of multi-limbed spider monkey, there is no way she can climb up there and get inside without breaking her neck. She is about to give up when a glint of light winks at her from deep within the Virginia creeper growing wildly over the back wall.
She pulls the vine aside to reveal a square of glass. A tiny window. It hasn’t been covered over because nobody knew it was there. So small and insignificant, it had been easily overlooked.
The frame looks rotten, and she thinks that with a little encouragement it might come open, if it doesn’t give way completely. Either way, she has found her way in. All she has to do now is find something to stand on… and a lever.
Grace creaks open the door from the tiny washroom and steps into a cold damp kitchen, walls and ceiling the colour of a smoker’s lung, sme
lls just as bad, too.
Mould. Moss. Dead spiders. The foosty odour of neglect and abandonment with the underlying stinks of backed up drains and rotting vegetation.
She rummages in her rucksack, bringing out her torch, clicks it on and turns herself around, sweeping an ice white beam around the room like a lighthouse, picking out a table and chairs, worktops, stained sink, rusted cooker. Three doors stand open, each leading off the main kitchen - number one to a utility room, number two to a store room, and number three…?
The beam of her torch vanishes before she can make out more than half the steps down into the cellar, the light swallowed whole by the dark. No chance in hell of her going down there.
The hinges are rusty and stiff and she has to put all her weight against the door to push it closed, wondering as she does whether boogeymen have opposable thumbs and can work door handles. There is a lock, but no key, only a barrel bolt about a foot from the top of the door. On tiptoes she can just reach it with her fingertips and drive it home. Better than nothing.
Through another door and into a short passageway, then out into a panelled hallway, high ceiling above, chipped terrazzo tiles crunching underfoot.
The torch beam leads the way as she explores two reception rooms, a dining room, a study lined with empty bookshelves, and a closet the size of her flat. All are in a desperate state of disrepair with lath slats showing through peeling paper and cracked plaster. The floorboards are bare, and a heavy mouldy bread-like smell hangs in the air.
She shines the torch up the staircase. The beam reaches only as far as the half landing. If she wants to see more, she needs to go up, no matter how dark and forbidding it looks.
The banister rocks when she puts her hand on it and the middle part of the steps feel spongy underfoot.
“Okay, best stick to the edges where there is more support and less chance of me putting my foot through a rotten board, or the whole thing giving way and me tumbling base over apex into a cellar full of rats.”
She manages to reach the half landing without incident, and then picks her way up the right flight. Up here is no better than downstairs. Very little light due to the wooden shutters placed over the windows, and there is that same foosty smell, except up here it is joined by the chalky acid tang of pigeon droppings.
In The Garden Of Stones Page 13