The Lingering

by SJI Holliday

  ‘Do you mind if we just go back to our room after this,’ she asks. Jack grins through a mouthful of aubergine stew. He has adapted to the semi-vegetarian diet here a lot quicker than she has. OK, so they do have rabbit now and again, but she doesn’t like having to pick the shot out of the damn stuff.

  ‘Whatever you want, love. I’m quite tired actually. It was a pretty full-on day, in the end.’

  They both decide against dessert, Ali because she is still struggling with the food and some of the strange ingredients, and Jack, she assumes, because the couscous has continued to expand in his stomach and he physically can’t fit anything else in. Having made their excuses, they walk back along the corridors instead of joining the others in the sitting room for tea and games. Jack takes her hand. Her first instinct is always to pull away. But maybe it would make more sense to appease him right now; she needs to keep him on an even keel, for what she’s about to say. She’s not fully convinced by his mental normality, despite the way he appears.

  It’s like he’s read her mind. ‘I feel like a new person here, Ali,’ he says. ‘I never thought I would. But this life, away from it all … I feel so different. All that stuff that happened before…’ He pauses. She can’t look at him. ‘All that stuff, that I did … I just don’t feel like that person anymore. I feel like it all happened to someone else, another Jack.’

  She says nothing.

  Back in the room, she locks the door and leaves the key in the keyhole. Jack, as always, immediately goes and lies on the bed, throws his hands behind his head. Gets himself comfortable. She pushes back another burst of anger. Or is it frustration? She wonders if she will always feel this way. It feels so unfair. Why is it that he thinks that he can just move on, acting like nothing ever happened? He can’t have forgotten all of it. She is sure of that. And yet she still has to live with it every day. She has to accept what he did, and keep it locked up inside her, where it festers. Driving her further and further away from the person she wants to be. She is suspicious and paranoid, and this was never who she was meant to be. If she was doing what she was meant to, she would be writing all of this down. These would be her follow-up findings, after the initial experiment – the project that she was working on. But it’s abandoned, now. It’s not as if she could publish it anyway. Not under her real name, at least. Not with any mention of her relationship to the subject – but then what would be the point? Her relationship to the subject was the whole point.

  ‘I’m getting worried about Angela,’ she says. ‘She’s too nosey. She keeps telling me stuff, and I have no idea if any of it’s true. But…’ She pauses.

  ‘What?’ Jack says. ‘She’s a nice kid. She’s been nothing but welcoming. Her offers of stories, tours … She’s excitable, excited. She clearly likes having some new people here. If she’s a bit exuberant, is that not a good thing? You don’t have to be so negative all the time, Ali,’ he says.

  Ali balls her hands into fists. ‘Jesus, they’ve got their hooks into you, haven’t they? All this positivity bullshit? Embrace the light, eh?’

  Jack sighs. ‘I really can’t be arsed with an argument tonight, Ali. I meant it when I said I was exhausted. And you’re getting yourself stressed when there’s nothing to be stressed about. Isn’t that why we’ve come here? All it’s been since we got here is silences and arguments…’

  ‘You can’t just run away from your past, Jack. We moved away, but that’s a physical thing. It’s going to take a lot longer to change things mentally, for me at least. Have you genuinely forgotten what you did? Have you forgotten how much I’ve helped you get over it all? As for your precious Angela, she’s no bloody angel. Fairy Fucking Angela. You know she was snooping in here don’t you? You know she’s found your box of fucking shit?’

  Jack sits bolt upright; his eyes widen in surprise. ‘My box?’

  Ali stomps over to the bookcase, pulls out the grey box and upends it on the bed, spilling out the contents. ‘Yes. Your box. She’s found the clippings. The clippings I told you not to bring. Why the hell didn’t you get rid of them all when I told you to? Why would you keep a damn record?’

  Jack stares at the papers. Picks them up and starts to rip them into pieces. Then he starts to laugh. A horrible cackling laugh that she hasn’t heard for a very long time. It gives her an instant chill. He shakes his head, still smiling, and throws the ripped fragments into the air.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Ali, they’re just clippings. To be honest I had completely forgotten they were in there. I thought that box was full of bank statements.’ He climbs out of bed and walks across to the wardrobe, opens it wide. At the back, in one corner, there is a stack of shoeboxes. He lifts a couple of them up, slides out one from nearer the bottom and brings it back over to the bed. Ali is trembling now. She recognises this box. She didn’t know that it was in there. She thought they’d got rid of it, that day when they went to the landfill site and buried so many things.

  ‘So … she didn’t find this box,’ Jack says. He takes off the lid and tips the contents onto the middle of the bed. It’s full of small Ziploc bags, each one labelled with a sticker. The name – if they knew it, the date, the road where they picked them up. Ali looks away. She can’t look at the stuff. She doesn’t need to look at it, to know what’s in there. A belt. A necklace. A notebook. A wallet. Trinkets, from people who were too desperate, too trusting.

  ‘Why have you still got these?’ Ali says, quietly. She feels tears pricking at her eyes. They can never escape this, can they? He might be able to pretend that it’s all in the past, but she can’t. Their faces come to her, every night as she’s on the brink of sleep. Purple and bloated. Their eyes popping. The fear and shock. Then nothing, as their lights are snuffed out. And every time, she replays it, she says never again – but it is a sickness … his sickness – and all she can do is try to treat him as best she can.

  ‘I couldn’t bury all this. It was never going to be safe anywhere, except with me. Besides, you say I’m trying to forget about what I did? I won’t let myself. I know you’ve tried to help me forget, but I don’t want that. I need to remember. Every day, I feel like memories are coming back to me. And you know what? I’m not scared. I am repulsed. But keeping this stuff reminds me what I’m capable of. Keeping this stuff makes me feel strong. It keeps me on track. To make sure I never do it again.’

  A tear runs down Ali’s cheek and she wipes it angrily away. Is that right? She thinks. You’re never going to do it again? The steely resolve that she’d felt before comes back to her like a hard slap to the face. Are you sure about that, Jack?

  22

  Angela

  Rustling and scratching sounds wake me first, before I realise that the screen on my phone has lit up. Something has activated the camera in Ali and Jack’s bedroom. I sit up in bed, and peer at the screen. I sigh, and watch. It’s only Ali. She’s out of bed, pulling on a coat over her pyjamas. What is she doing? The sound isn’t great through the phone, hence the rustling and scratching. But I’m curious to find out what she’s up to. I pull on some clothes myself, and a pair of boots.

  I tiptoe out of my room, trying not to make any of the floorboards creak. There is one particular board in between my room and Fergus’s, which always has to be avoided when sneaking around late at night. I’m still watching the screen, and see that Ali is no longer in the bedroom. The time on the screen says 1:25 a.m.

  I need to know what she’s doing.

  As I turn the corner and walk towards the front of the house, I hear the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. I stop, startled for a moment, and then I understand. I walk faster, dropping the phone into my pocket. There’s no point watching her room now. Then I stop, trying to force my ears to hear something, to hear her creeping around.

  I move on. I’m in her corridor now. I pass the room next to hers and pause again briefly, listening. But there is no noise. I take the staircase up to the next floor, and tiptoe into the room above Ali’s. The window here is similar to the one
in her room, facing to the front. I position myself at the edge of the window so that I can see out as best as I can, without anyone being able to see me – and then I wait.

  After a moment, I see what wakened Ali. It’s exactly what I thought it would be. Their flat-bed truck is parked in the driveway. In the moonlight, I can just make out their silhouettes. One of them is sitting on the back of the truck, something in his hand. It’s not switched on, but I know that this is his torch. The lampers are here. I don’t know why they’ve come up to the house like this. Usually shining the lamp at Smeaton’s bedroom window is all they need to do. They’re just making him aware that they’re out there. A courtesy that they have always offered. Although we are all used to them by now, and they rarely wake me up.

  I can’t hear what’s happening outside, but I see the light go on at the front door, and I know that Ali is going to appear there. I slide the sash window up a couple of inches. I’ve had to unstick this window before. It sometimes gets jammed, and it can often get very hot in here, and sometimes very cold. It’s one of the places where I have tested things. I’ve checked the floors, running a marble across the room to measure the incline, and I’ve checked the temperature often and found it to be extremely variable. I crouch down and put my face to the gap, breathing in the cool, still air. I catch a faint whiff of gun smoke, which might be real or might just be my imagination; either way the smell exists for me.

  Ali is standing with her arms crossed. She shouts first. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? It’s the middle of the bloody night!’

  ‘Sorry to disturb you,’ the man holding the big torch jumps off the back of the van and walks towards Ali. ‘Didn’t expect any of you to be awake this time of night.’ His face is clearly lit now by the heavy, hanging moon, and I recognise him: he’s a friend of Mary’s son, Chris. I’m pretty sure his name is Robert. The other three men climb out of the truck, and walk around to join him. One of them is chewing gum, snapping it in his mouth. I swear that I can smell the mint – that it’s spearmint, not peppermint.

  Robert takes a couple more steps towards Ali. The man to his right, who is holding a shotgun and whose name I don’t know, joins him. I glance back at Ali. Her arms are no longer crossed, and I see that she’s holding something. I’m not sure what is. A long piece of wood? I squint, and as she moves forwards I work out what it is. It’s a cricket bat. The one that hangs on the wall inside the foyer. Some famous cricketer donated it. It’s an ornament, and I’m shocked to see Ali wielding it like that. I don’t think Smeaton will be pleased if he finds out that she is brandishing this antique like a weapon.

  I can feel a prickle of electricity in the air now; excitement and fear radiating from the men standing by the truck. Adrenaline pulsing from Ali, as she tries to defend herself against what she perceives to be a threat. I should call out. I should tell her that it’s nothing to worry about. That the lampers come here every so often, shooting foxes. Getting rid of the vermin. They attack their sheep and chickens, and never just take one to satisfy their hunger. Foxes are the serial killers of the animal world. They kill for sport, as much as food. It’s hardly surprising that the farmers and their helpers do the same to them. I’m not sure I agree with it, but it’s nothing to do with me. They shine their bright torches into the foxes’ faces, and it stuns them. The animals don’t see the light as a threat. It’s to do with their eyes – with them being nocturnal. While the foxes stare, the men get an easy shot. The agreement with Smeaton is that when they drive by the house, they come a little way up the driveway and shine their light towards the house, just to let us know that they’re here. So that we don’t panic when we hear the gunshots.

  This is the countryside … gunshots are not unusual. But when it’s the middle of the night, it’s a simple courtesy. We don’t have much to do with the villagers, but we do coexist on the land.

  Ali holds the bat out in front of herself as if she is waiting for someone to bowl. ‘Yeah, well you did scare me, as it happens. I don’t sleep well. I heard the guns, then I heard your truck. Saw the light shining inside – I’ve come from the city, where this kind of shit in the middle of the night usually involves a robbery.’

  The men laugh.

  ‘Last thing we’d be doing around here is trying to rob the place,’ Robert says.

  Ali snorts. ‘You trying to tell me there’s nothing here of interest, are you?’

  I can almost feel her bristling. Despite all that she’s experienced in the city, she’s not used to this kind of behaviour. These country boys, playing with her. They have no malicious intent, but she doesn’t know that. She is seeing what she wants to see. What she expects to see. I hold my breath. I know I should call out. I should call on Robert, tell him to stop. To back off. He’ll recognise me. He’ll listen. Or I could run downstairs to Ali, go out and join her. Put this to an end. But something stops me. Call it a morbid fascination, but I want to see what she’s going to do next.

  I want to see what they are going to do next.

  Robert and the man with the shotgun take a few more steps towards Ali and she stretches out her hand, waving the bat at them menacingly. ‘You need to go now … go back to your beds, little boys. You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Oh, the newcomer is a bit of a feisty one, is she? Seems like she might’ve fitted in here, back in the day – with all the other mad bitches. Or is that witches?’ Robert glances around towards the others and they all laugh again. ‘Maybe you just don’t know what us country boys are like, eh? Maybe you just need to get to know us better.’

  A shiver runs through me. It’s not like Robert to be so nasty, especially mentioning the witches like that. The family accused of bewitching the Throckmortons were pardoned. The villagers are usually much more respectful about the past. Ali has riled him, that’s for sure.

  Robert takes one more step towards her. He is almost close enough to touch the bat, now. He’s still holding the torch. ‘How about we take you for a little ride and show you around the place properly? I think you’d like that, darlin’, wouldn’t you?’ He glances around at his boys again. ‘I know that we’d like it. We’d all like it very much.’ Laughter again, but it sounds different now and I’m not sure that I like it.

  In fact, I don’t like what’s happening here at all. I’m pretty sure that the boys are just winding her up, but I’ve never seen them do this before. I think they’re sensing something off her, just as I have. They don’t trust her. They don’t like her. Do I like her? I don’t know yet. But this … this is all quite disturbing. I can see her face, teeth bared. Eyes shining. She looks like she wants to hurt someone. Is this how women have to live in the cities now – in a constant state of fear from a man’s words?

  ‘Get the fuck away from me,’ Ali hisses. ‘I’ll scream. I’ll get the others down here, because that’s the right thing to do. But I’m not scared to deal with you myself, you little bastards.’

  The other men walk forwards until they are all in line with Robert. They are all staring at Ali, and their expressions are confused. Robert drops his torch and holds up his hands in surrender. ‘We’re only messing with you, missus. We’ll be off now, OK?’ he smirks, and then he bends down to pick up the torch. Before I can make the decision to shout something out of the window, he flicks the switch and directs the beam straight into Ali’s face, dazzling her. She stumbles backwards, bat still in her hand.

  She’s screeching now: ‘You little fucker…’ She regains her stance, but the men have moved back towards the truck. They’re laughing, pointing at her, ridiculing her. One of them makes a circling gesture with his hand, pointing at his head. ‘Madwoman,’ he mouths, silently. Robert turns to say something to one of the others and just at that moment, Ali swings the bat.

  It connects with the side of his face, making a horrible cracking sound against his cheekbone.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Robert drops the torch again and clutches his face. I think he is OK. I don’t think that Ali swung as hard a
s she could’ve … Luckily she was dazzled by the light, and Robert wasn’t as close to her as he was before. But still – she has attacked him. The men retreat. As I had thought right in the beginning, they are not here to fight.

  She’s the only one who’s fighting.

  They climb back into the truck, all except Robert, who is still holding his face. ‘You’re crazy, missus,’ he says. ‘Crazy. You know what they used to do to crazy bitches round here…’ He shakes his head, before jumping onto the back of the truck.

  They used to dunk them in ice cold baths, amongst other things, I think. That’s what they used to do to the ‘crazy bitches’ round here.

  I watch as they drive away, too fast. Robert sitting on the flat-bed with his back to the cab, watching the house the whole time. Holding his cheek with one hand, swinging the torch beam at Ali with the other. Back to the village. Where they will no doubt pass on the story to everyone who will listen.

  That will not be the end of this.

  23

  Ali

  ‘Jack, are you awake?’ She pushes his shoulder, shakes him. He doesn’t stir. How can he be asleep, with all that racket outside? The window is open. How can he not have heard the noise, the gunshots, the shouting? The truck, almost outside the window. She pushes him further and he flops onto his back, and for a moment she is alarmed. Wonders if he might be dead. Has she given him too much this time? She leans her head close to his chest, then to his face, feels the breath against her cheek. He’s alive, but he’s in a deep sleep. Ali sighs. She remembers, now, what it was like before. Afterwards, when she had to calm him down.