The Memory of Midnight

by Pamela Hartshorne

  Tess bent to kiss Oscar goodbye and ruffled his hair. ‘I’ve had one of those twenty-four-hour bugs,’ she said as she straightened to watch him run into the playground. ‘I’m still feeling a bit yuck.’

  ‘You should have said. I’d have come and got Oscar for you.’

  ‘I’m okay now. It’s good to get out.’

  It was. Somehow Tess had got through the routine of bath, book, bed with Oscar. Fortunately, Ashrafar reappeared when she was reading a story and curled up on Oscar’s bed. Tess had reached out a tentative hand to stroke the cat, half-expecting her to take off once more with a yowl of fright, but Ashrafar only stretched and purred, which reassured her. It meant Nell had gone . . . but for how long?

  Unable to settle, Tess had tried to watch television, but the pictures on the screen were of a reality she couldn’t connect to any more. She flicked through the channels, but every programme seemed to involve flashing lights or complicated computer graphics. The images changed so fast, her brain couldn’t keep up, and she began to feel dizzy and nauseous. It was as if she were wired to a different world now and she gazed uncomprehendingly at adverts for cars and broadband, for yoghurts and dating agencies, and none of it made sense.

  She watched a happy family eating cereal together, smiling brightly, and shuddered as she fingered her bruises. The father looked a bit like Ralph. Behind that handsome, smiling face, was there another vicious brute? How could you tell? When she had looked at Martin, she had seen an attractive, charming, caring man, the sort of man she expected to end up having jolly family breakfasts with. There had been no way of knowing that before the cereal could be poured in a precise amount, the bowls had to be spotlessly clean, that the spoons had to be kept carefully aligned in the cutlery drawer.

  Tess switched off the television. In spite of the wretchedness churning in her belly, she craved human company, but there was no one she could call. Vanessa would be with her husband, her mother didn’t like to be disturbed after nine, and Luke . . . She could hardly call Luke and ask him to come over, could she?

  She had wandered over to the window instead and looked down into the street where at least there were ordinary people, out enjoying the soft summer evening. Even at this time of night, Stonegate had its share of tourists admiring the old houses and the view of the illuminated Minster at the end of the street.

  But as she watched, the world wavered and she was looking into a narrower, more cluttered street. It was early evening, and her neighbours were taking in goods from their stalls, closing up their shutters, and sweeping the debris of the day from their doors into their gutters. John Bean’s apprentice was labouring in and out with scuttles full of refuse which he was piling up ready for the scavengers the next morning.

  ‘You’re too early!’ Goodwife Carter shook her broom at him. ‘Not till seven of the clock! Your master knows that well enough!’

  She leant further out of the window. There was Elizabeth, maid to the Bowes, setting down the heavy pails she was carrying and flexing her fingers before stooping to pick them up once more and trudge on up the mid causey towards the Minster. There was John Harper, leaning against his door. She saw him exchange a lascivious look with Margery Dixon, and she raised her brows. Margery’s husband must be away again.

  With a wistful sigh, she turned away from the window, only to be brought up short at the sight of strange, softly cushioned chairs and an uncannily gleaming black box where the great bed should be standing.

  A blink, a jolt, and Tess remembered who she was. Her pulse pounded and she had to breathe deeply in and out before the roaring would subside. Her limbs felt strange, weightless, as if she might float away, and she held onto the table to anchor herself.

  So this was where Ralph Maskewe had raped his wife. Why hadn’t she realized that before? Tess wondered. She should have guessed from the configuration of rooms with the hall that was now part of the house next door. She had already worked out that her bedroom had been the closet. Of course this had been the great chamber.

  Down in the street she could hear voices, laughter. From the present or from the past? Steeling herself, Tess turned back to the window and looked down. John Harper had gone but in his place stood another man, looking straight up at her in the window.

  It was Martin.

  The instinctive dart of panic had her jerking back out of sight, a hand to the hammering pulse at the base of her throat. She had been so shocked by her experience at Ralph’s hands that she had forgotten about Martin.

  Why was he just standing there? What did he want?

  Heart thudding, Tess edged forward, very cautiously, until she could peer into the street without being seen. Martin was walking away, looking casually around him.

  She bit her lip. He didn’t look so familiar from behind. Perhaps it hadn’t been Martin at all? It was difficult to tell now. She had been so sure it was him, but how could she be sure about anything at the moment?

  And Martin wouldn’t be hanging around in the street, she tried to reassure herself. He would have rung the bell, surely? Demanded that she pack her things. Waited inexorably until she did as she was told.

  She must have imagined it.

  Still, Tess had lain awake into the small hours, afraid to fall asleep and find herself back in that great bed with Ralph. It reminded her of the nights she had lain rigidly next to Martin, afraid to fidget in case she irritated him. But Martin had never beaten her the way Ralph had beaten Nell. He hadn’t wanted her to cry out in pain. Martin liked her to lie still and silent. He had a horror of spontaneity and the mess of sex disgusted him. They had never had sex anywhere but in bed, where Martin liked her to wear the long silk nightdresses he bought for her.

  ‘I like a woman to look like a woman,’ he was fond of saying. He insisted that Tess kept her hair long, that she wore skirts and pretty dresses, lacy bras and high heels, and she, God help her, had gone along with it – at first because she was so desperate to please him and then because it was easier to put on stockings and a suspender belt than to make a scene.

  In the early days of their marriage, Tess tried to initiate love-making. Hoping to excite him, she surreptitiously read a book on how to spice up a sex life, but Martin was appalled when she suggested some new positions they could try. He took it as a slur on his virility, and punished her with silence for a week.

  Compared to Ralph, was that so bad?

  Eventually she had slept, though, exhausted by her ordeal, and it was a huge relief to wake to a bright morning. Only the rawness inside and the bruises on her flesh remained to convince her the whole thing hadn’t been a terrible nightmare.

  Now she shifted as Vanessa studied her, evidently taking in her drawn features and the bruised look around her eyes. ‘You really don’t look well, Tess. Why don’t you come back with me and have a coffee?’

  ‘I thought you were going straight to the gym?’

  ‘I can go a bit later. Come on. I’ll even find you some biscuits!’

  Tess hesitated. She longed for someone to talk to, but she knew how her friend would react if she pulled up her sleeves and showed her the bruises on her arms. Vanessa would take charge immediately. Even if she believed that Tess hadn’t made the marks herself, which was doubtful, she would insist on driving her straight to a doctor. Then there would be probing questions and an examination, and who knew where it would end? Tess could just imagine the reaction if she told the doctor what was happening to her. There would be whispered consultation with Vanessa, talk of stress and breakdowns and whether she should be in charge of a child . . . No, Tess wasn’t having that. She had to stay strong and well for Oscar.

  She managed a strained smile. ‘Actually, I think I’ll go back, Van. Thanks anyway. I’ve got to catch up on the records. I didn’t get much done yesterday.’

  ‘All right. If you’re sure. Why don’t I pick Oscar up tonight, and he can come and play with Sam and Rosie? That would give you a bit of a break.’

  It would be churlish to ref
use. ‘That would be great. Thanks, Van. You’re a good friend.’

  She watched Vanessa stretch her legs and then set off for the gym at a brisk jog, her ponytail swinging from side to side with self-satisfaction. The bottoms of her trainers were bright pink, and they flashed up and down against the grey pavement. Tess couldn’t imagine having enough energy to lift her feet that high. It was all she could do to stand upright today.

  Perhaps she should have taken Vanessa up on her offer? She couldn’t deal with this by herself, that was for sure, and what if next time she was out for longer than a few seconds? And there would be a next time, Tess was sure. Nell would not let her go that easily. She wasn’t going to rest until Tess knew her story, of that Tess was certain.

  There was her mother, of course, but Tess couldn’t imagine trying to explain her experience to her. Her mother would simply tell her that she needed to go back to Martin and stop being so silly.

  The church? Tess turned the idea over in her mind. She had never been a churchgoer, finding more wonder in evidence than blind faith, but weren’t priests always called in to exorcise the Devil in horror movies? Nell wasn’t the Devil, but she was dead and somehow she was using Tess to live again. Tess faced the idea squarely at last. She could no longer pretend that Nell was just a trick of the imagination, some forgotten memory embellished into a dream, not after Ralph’s rape. Not with the bruises livid on her flesh and the raw ache inside her. It had been real. It had happened, and she needed to make sure that it didn’t happen again. It wasn’t safe for Oscar or for her.

  Chapter Eleven

  Tess’s eyes rested on the great central tower of the Minster thrusting over the rooftops in the distance. If she could find a priest, a vicar, someone who believed in life after death, and talk about what was happening to her, surely they would help? They could perform some sort of ceremony and make Ralph leave her alone.

  Make Nell leave her alone, Tess corrected herself.

  She needed help. She couldn’t go on drifting in and out of time in the middle of the day. Once the vividness of the experience had been intriguing, but she was frightened now. Nell’s hold on her was becoming too strong, and her pain too real.

  The Minster was right there, but the thought of its soaring glory was intimidating. Its power was unmistakable, but Tess couldn’t imagine shuffling in with all the tourists and demanding to be exorcised. She needed an ordinary workaday church and a vicar who wouldn’t send her straight to her GP.

  An elderly woman walking a wheezy pug gave her directions to a church which she said wasn’t far from the school. Screwing up her eyes against the jagged light, Tess wished that she had thought to bring some sunglasses. Vanessa had been right about it being a beautiful day, but the sun was peculiarly intense, turning the Victorian terraces into blocks of raw and unfamiliar angles.

  Another headache thudded behind her eyes, and she averted her gaze from the passers-by, all of whom seemed garishly dressed or half-naked, somehow menacing with their uncovered heads and hair shamefully cropped as if for the pillory, until she stopped and shook herself back to the present with an effort.

  Her hands were throbbing again.

  Tess set her teeth and walked on.

  St Chad’s turned out to be an uninspiring brick building set back from a suburban street. And it was shut. Wincing at the jab of pain in her fingers, Tess tried the handle, and was shaken by the jumble of relief and despair when she found the door locked.

  Well, what had she expected? That the vicar would hang around by the altar just in case someone dropped in wanting a ghost exorcised?

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Tess turned to see an attractive woman of forty or so watching her. She had a helmet of dark, glossy hair and was wearing a black suit that made Tess feel crumpled and scruffy in her cotton skirt and T-shirt and battered pumps.

  She hugged her thin cardigan around her in an unconsciously defensive gesture. ‘I was looking for the vicar.’

  ‘You’ve found her.’ The woman smiled. ‘I’m Pat French.’

  Tess’s jaw sagged. ‘You’re the vicar?’ Too late she heard the incredulity in her own voice and she blushed furiously. ‘I mean, I’m not surprised to find that the vicar is a woman,’ she tried to explain. ‘It’s just I hadn’t expected someone quite so glamorous.’

  Pat’s laugh held genuine amusement. ‘That’s very kind of you. I used to be an investment banker, so I still have my old wardrobe, but you’re right: this isn’t normally a glamorous profession.’ She paused and looked more closely at Tess.

  ‘Did you want to see inside the church?’

  ‘No . . . no.’ Tess hesitated. Her knowledge about regression or reincarnation or possession was gleaned from magazine articles and the occasional horror film; from half-remembered stories told in the pub or on sleepovers when she was a girl.

  Ghosts felt uncomfortable in a church, right? Or was she thinking of vampires? Tess chewed her lip. She couldn’t ask Pat French. She seemed too sensible, too practical, too in control. Now that she was here, she couldn’t imagine telling her about Nell.

  But if Nell was a ghost, perhaps she would be able to tell if she went into a church.

  Pain pulsed warningly in her hands, and she flexed her fingers.

  ‘Actually, I would like to go in, if it’s not too much trouble,’ she said to Pat, abruptly changing her mind. Doing something felt better than just standing there not knowing what to do. She should feel something in a church, surely?

  But when Pat unlocked the door and let her inside, there was nothing but the smell of musty hymn books and the charged silence so peculiar to churches.

  ‘Do you have a connection with St Chad’s?’ Pat asked after a moment.

  Tess shook her head. ‘No, not really.’ Deliberately, she walked towards the altar, testing Nell to react in some way. ‘When was the church built?’

  ‘Oh, not until the late nineteenth century. Until then, there were very few people living out here. This was York’s market garden area.’

  It was on the tip of Tess’s tongue to say ‘I know’, but she swallowed the words. She didn’t want to get into a discussion with Pat French about what she knew of York’s history, or how she knew it.

  ‘You seem troubled,’ said Pat after a moment. ‘Would you like to talk?’

  No! The voice rang so loudly in Tess’s mind that she actually took a step back. So Nell was there after all.

  Her mouth was dry and it was an effort to swallow. The sensation of Nell in her head was so strong that she had to fight to remember where she was, and all at once the pain in her hands was agonizing.

  ‘I’m . . .’ She stopped. Inside her head Nell was shouting No! No! No! And she was right, Tess realized. This felt all wrong.

  ‘That’s kind of you, but I’m fine. Really,’ she added when Pat looked unconvinced. She made a show of looking at her watch. ‘I should be going. I . . . I need to get to work.’ She couldn’t wait to get away from the church and from Pat French’s shrewd gaze.

  ‘All right,’ said Pat slowly. She dug in her pocket and pulled out a business card. ‘Call me at any time if you change your mind. You’re always welcome here.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Tess managed over the noise of Nell chanting No! No! No! in her brain. Gritting her teeth against it, she took the card and resisted Nell’s impulse to throw it away. She stuffed it in her bag instead as she backed away towards the door. ‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘I’d . . . better go.’

  It felt like an escape and she practically ran down the street. Only when she had turned the corner did Nell loosen the grip on her mind and fade away as suddenly and completely as she had arrived. Tess sagged against a wall, so drained that her legs wouldn’t support her. The pain in her hands had gone.

  Now what was she going to do?

  The Minster shimmered in the distance, challenging her. Perhaps it had been a mistake to try a little church, Tess thought, still shaken by how completely Nell had seized control of her
. Perhaps she would only be matched by the power of a great cathedral.

  Or perhaps she should leave well alone.

  Was that her thinking or Nell? Tess was no longer sure. She began walking again, heading slowly back into the city through Monk Bar. It was a route she had walked so often she barely noticed her surroundings most of the time, but today the buildings roared at her with their unfamiliarity and the tarmac pavements felt strange beneath her feet. The light hurt her eyes and the air seemed to scrape against her tender flesh. It was as if an outer layer of her had been ripped off, leaving her raw and vulnerable.

  The drilling ache in her fingertips started up again as Tess hesitated outside the Minster. Tourists milled around and she stood with them, comforted by the babble of voices, by the ordinariness of cameras pointed and smiling poses. Nobody else seemed overpowered by the sheer size of the cathedral looming above them, a threatening mass of stone and glass that made Tess’s head spin as she looked up. It commanded and repelled her at the same time, pinioning her with dread and startled awe.

  Had the Minster always been that enormous? Had it always been that powerful? Tess wanted to go in, but she didn’t dare move. She felt tiny, precariously situated in time and space, and the world around her was wavering. The slightest ripple in the air might pitch her back to the sixteenth century. Back to Ralph. Every muscle tensed to keep her in place.

  ‘Hey, Tess . . . Tess!’

  It took Tess a moment to realize that it was her name being called. Very cautiously she turned her head without moving the rest of her body.

  ‘Oh . . . Luke,’ she said, letting out a ragged breath as she saw him lower his camera. He was lean and dark and unshaven, wearing a battered leather jacket, but the sight of him was unaccountably steadying.

  ‘You were in another world,’ he said, hoisting the camera bag on his shoulder and coming over to her.

  Tess smiled weakly. You have no idea.

  ‘I got some good shots of you dreaming in front of the Minster.’ He scrolled through the pictures on the camera screen, frowning slightly. ‘That one, I think.’ He showed it to Tess. ‘Like it?’