TAINTED LOVE

by Anna Chilvers

  I took the second bite just before Christmas. We were at a party. She had been drinking and dancing and she was flushed with sweat and excitement. She flirted with everyone, knowing that I was watching, and there were a few young men hanging around her, hoping she would choose them to take home at the end of the night. I wouldn’t have put it past her. She had brought lovers back before, although she always kicked them out before they got what they wanted.

  Just after midnight she stumbled out laughing onto the balcony where I was enjoying the night air and fell against me. She wasn’t drunk, just tipsy and over-stimulated. She dropped her head forward to look at something going on down in the street and I saw that the wound had vanished. I bit her without warning, grabbing hold of her as I did so, and her body was immediately limp and unresisting.

  She changed after that. She stopped going out. We stayed in together, reading, talking, making love. The days passed quietly. Her blood had changed. She was well on the way to the turn and she no longer carried the heady fresh aroma of youth which had driven me wild. Her blood no longer tempted me, and I could take what I wanted from her without the madness gathering behind my eyes. She was companion and lover and no longer a food source for me.

  For her part she clung to me. We saw very few other people in those weeks, and I realise she must have thought that was how it would be, just the two of us forever. She was so young, nineteen years old, she had no concept of what forever might mean.

  The second wound had nearly healed and our time was close when I asked her about her mother.

  I asked how it was that a young woman from a Yorkshire mill town came to be in Paris. Frances said it was 1940 and wartime. War is a time of many things, many terrible things, but it also brings opportunities to people who would never have had them otherwise. Her mother trained as a nurse and was sent out to France to look after the wounded on the battlefields. And that was where she met Frances’ father.

  He was wearing the uniform of an officer and it was that which turned her head at first. Later, by the time she realised the uniform had been taken from a corpse, it was too late. She was both smitten and bitten. And he was obviously taken with her too, as he had stayed around for the first bite to heal and they were waiting for the skin to close for the second time so she could stay with him forever.

  But war causes great tide changes and she must have been a very strong young woman, because during the nights at the hospital, tending to young men in pain and fear, away from home for the first time and longing for their mothers, something changed in her mind and she decided that she wanted a different kind of longevity. She wanted motherhood: she wanted to see her blood passed on to her children, to look for her features in their faces – and his too, her lover and soulmate. She wanted his child.

  The arguments must have been fierce. The fact that she won shows, I think, that he must have had the weakness of vanity. He wanted to show that he could procreate in the human way as well as our own. It’s never a good idea to mingle our blood with that of the living: disasters usually follow.

  But here next to me was Frances, the result of their union, leaning her head against my shoulder, her legs folded up underneath her and her hair falling forward to cover her face.

  ‘The wound is nearly healed, sweetie,’ I said to her. ‘It will only be a day or two.’

  She didn’t look at me and after a moment I noticed a tear splash on to the skin of her leg.

  I put my arm round her.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  More tears fell before she spoke. ‘Who is Cristo?’

  ‘Cristo?’ I sat up a bit straighter. This wasn’t what I expected. ‘He’s an old friend of mine. He lives in Athens, but he is visiting Paris and catching up with his friends.’

  ‘Did you turn him?’

  ‘Yes…’ I was tentative. ‘A long, long time ago.’

  ‘And he was your lover.’

  ‘Frances, what are you thinking? That is all in the past. Cristo and I, we chat about old times, we share a glass of wine or tea. Soon he will be on his way again. You have no need to worry.’

  ‘There must be many more like him. You’ve had many lovers.’

  I put my hand on hers and squeezed it.

  ‘Sweetie, I’m here with you. The past is that, the past. You are my present.’

  She lifted her head at that and looked into my face, her eyes brimming with tears, her mouth twisted.

  ‘And the future? Is your future filled with many lovers too? Will you discard me when you have had enough?’

  ‘Darling, I never discard anyone.’

  She dropped her head again and mumbled something I didn’t catch.

  ‘What did you say sweetie?’

  ‘I want a child too,’ she said clearly through her hair. ‘Like my mother.’

  ‘Frances…’

  ‘I’m going back. I’m going back to England tomorrow.’

  I tried to argue, but she was resolute. She had already booked her passage home and packed her bags. It seemed she had been planning it for a week or more. I couldn’t let it happen. She was mine, I’d never had a lover like her before and we were nearly there. A few more skin cells to knot together and then the final bite to bind her to me.

  ‘I will come too,’ I said, ‘Paris, Yorkshire, I will follow you wherever you go. We are so close. Our time is here and you belong to me.’

  She stared at me then with eyes as cold as her father’s.

  She said. ‘If I choose to banish you, you can never return.’

  And that is the terrible truth. Although I had power over other creatures of the night, she had power over me. Her mixed blood gave her a human body, a human appetite and lifespan, a human life in all respects except this. Our kind cannot hide from her, she can always detect us, and she has the irrevocable power of banishment. If she so chose, she could close off parts of the planet to me and live in places I could never enter, even after she has gone from this life, as the banishment is permanent. It is a terrible power and the reason that we do not mix our blood. Frances was a rare creature.

  She left. She wrote to me, letters filled with love and sweetness, telling me how she had borne the child she wanted, although she said nothing of the father. She told me they lived alone, her and the child, but they had many friends. The child, a girl called Marianne, grew up, and Frances wrote that she was bewildered by her. She was so different from herself. No trace of the bloodline. No shared interests. Teenage years filled with misunderstandings, disappointments, angry disagreements, and then the girl left home and Frances was alone once more.

  The years in Paris had gone slowly. After she left, everything lost its shine, and although I dallied a little, travelled and visited the past, they were empty years. Richard didn’t need me much in those days: he had his own life and his own friends. So when I suggested a trip to Yorkshire he declined, chose instead to visit the circus in Istanbul, to follow them into Russia, then across the seas to the States and down to Brazil. The circus had long been his passion.

  It was the first time I’d been home for many years. The house was in a bit of a state, and the road up to it was falling into ruin. Driving up there the first night my car got stuck, a wheel sunk deep into a pot hole with the chassis resting on the road itself. When it comes to cars I’m a bit of a helpless woman. I climbed out and surveyed the road for anyone who could help me. It stretched empty and full of stones, winding around the hills and reappearing further down the valley.

  I tried lifting the corner of the car. I am strong, but I hadn’t fed for some days and I couldn’t lift it enough to clear the pothole.

  That was when he appeared, my knight in shining Lycra, running around the bend in his fell shoes, his legs bulging with muscles and bespattered with mud from the hills. His blond hair was wet, his face fresh and glowing from exercise. Andy, my rock, my joy, my true love.
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br />   ‘Do you need some help?’ he asked.

  I smiled at him, hiding my hunger. Life flooded with colour. Here was a reason to come home, a reason to start living again.

  ‘Oh, yes please. I don’t know what to do.’ I calmed my voice. I could hear the pounding of his heart from his run in the hills, his blood like a wild sea on the shore. He smelled of salt and sweat. ‘I’m so glad you came.’

  27. Cassie

  It lasted for two months. We were happy for two months.

  You and Andy were my whole life and it seemed life could not be sweeter. The tiredness and soreness after childbirth seemed a small price to pay, and I was happy to pay it for the life we had. Those first weeks, when Andy was off work and you were tiny and new, were like a tender dream. We woke in the early mornings and you were there, sleeping with your eyelashes resting against the transparent skin of your cheeks. We watched you and held hands, unable to believe our luck. Your little chest was rising and falling under the soft fabric of your babygrow.

  You grew quickly. The more you fed from me the more milk came. It would well up and overflow. I slept with towels underneath me and woke in the night to find them sopping wet. I would look at your sleeping form and be tempted to wake you. But I never did: I let you sleep. And when you woke an hour or two later, hungry, the force of the milk would sometimes choke you. My clothes were constantly sodden. We lived those weeks in a bath of growth and happiness. When you drank from one breast the milk would shoot out of the other, sometimes hitting the wall on the other side of the room. Andy and I would laugh until the tears came.

  Soon you filled your babygrows and Andy had to go back to work. We spent long lazy days together after he’d gone. We would laze in bed in the morning, enjoying the luxury of no responsibilities. Eventually we would rouse ourselves and potter in the kitchen making breakfast, chatting to each other. I knew that reality would kick in at some point, but for the time being I wallowed in the small milk-bound world we lived in.

  Sally came to visit. She wasn’t a baby person. She looked at you and said you looked fat.

  ‘It’s just her cheeks,’ I said. ‘Do you want to hold her?’

  ‘Don’t disturb her,’ she said, moving away from your crib.

  I laughed and put the kettle on. Sally had brought eggs from the farm and homemade biscuits.

  ‘How’s Terry?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s fine. Not too much work recently.’

  ‘Have you been feeding him?’

  She grinned. ‘You know he loves my food.’

  I spooned coffee into the cafetière and was glad my husband was not like Terry. Andy was solidly human and at night he slept.

  Sally rummaged in her bag looking for something. ‘What about Andy?’ she said, into its depths.

  ‘Andy’s ok. Why?’

  ‘No reason,’ she said.

  ‘Sally, don’t do that.’

  She found a packet of tissues and removed one, blew her nose.

  ‘I just heard he was up at Hough Dean a lot recently.’

  ‘Hough Dean?’

  ‘Yes, she’s home at the moment. In residence, so to speak. Andy’s been going up there in the evenings.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘Just thought I’d mention it.’

  ‘Well stop thinking. It doesn’t suit you.’

  I poured the coffee and you started crying, so I picked you up and fed you and Sally tried hard not to look as she dunked her biscuit and talked about the weather. We’ve never been the sort of sisters to have girlie chats. She only stayed for half an hour.

  On the doorstep she said ‘You could visit Frances Greenwood.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘She’s one of them. A half-breed.’

  ‘So I’ve heard.’

  ‘Well, she could banish her. Out of Andy’s way.’

  ‘Sally! I don’t need to. Everything’s fine.’

  She stared at me with her blue eyes and didn’t say anything. Then she walked off and you and I stood on the step watching her go.

  I couldn’t settle. When you went to sleep in your Moses basket I was restless, moving about the house. I washed up the coffee things, dried them and put them away. I trusted Andy. In the three years we’d been together there had never been anyone else for either of us. Now we had you and we were knotted together more tightly than ever.

  I started to rearrange the cups in the front of the cupboard, then I got all the crockery out and put it on the table. I cleaned the shelves with anti-bacterial spray and wiped them dry with a clean cloth. Andy had been out in the evenings a lot recently. He went running. There were meetings at school. He belonged to the gym. He met up with Mr Lion for a pint sometimes. I was busy feeding you, changing and bathing you, singing songs in the hope that you’d go back to sleep. I didn’t always ask Andy where he was going, and he was usually back by nine or ten.

  By the time he got home from school that day I had washed all the crockery and put it back in the cupboards. I’d sorted through the cutlery drawers, cleaned them and lined them with waxed paper. I was looking in the food cupboard, wondering how many half-used packets were past their sell-by date when he opened the front door. The noise woke you and I lifted you out of your basket. We watched Andy walk into the kitchen.

  Meg Crossley wasn’t just anyone. I’d heard the stories.

  He smiled. ‘Hello you two, is everything ok?’

  ‘Sally’s been round.’

  He put his bag down and hung his jacket on the back of a chair. He kissed me on the forehead.

  ‘How’s Sally?’

  ‘Sally’s ok.’

  He must have heard something in my voice. He looked at me sharply, then sighed. ‘Ok, what is it this time? What did she say to upset you?’

  ‘She says you’ve been visiting Hough Dean.’

  He kissed you on one cheek and then the other and you dimpled at him. He met my eyes.

  ‘Cass, you know Sally. She likes to stir things.’

  ‘Is it true?’

  He put his hand on my arm.

  ‘Yes. I’ve been to Hough Dean. I took Meg some lightbulbs she needed and we played chess.’

  ‘Chess?’

  ‘She’s pretty good.’

  ‘Oh.’ I sat down and you nuzzled against me looking for milk. I undid my shirt and you latched on.

  He knelt in front of us and looked in my face. ‘I have you two. I don’t need anything else.’

  We ordered a takeaway that evening and snuggled up on the sofa in front of a film.

  Two weeks went by and neither Andy nor I mentioned Meg. You fed and grew. I found that you loved going out into the garden. You looked at the flowers and the leaves on the trees and made little noises. Your first smile was when I showed you some yellow pansies.

  Andy went out sometimes in the evenings, and now I noticed when he didn’t say where he was going. In the second week I decided to follow him.

  He went on his bike. I hadn’t been out on the bike with you in the sling yet, and I didn’t feel ready to try. I watched out of the window to see which direction Andy was headed and saw he had some pink roses wrapped in paper from the florist. Half an hour later I strapped you into your car seat and drove up to Hough Dean. I parked a little way down the lane, so we wouldn’t be seen or heard. I carried you to where the trees stopped and the house came into sight. Andy’s bike was in the yard leaning against a tree.

  I’d asked him once, early on when we were just getting to know each other, if he played chess.

  ‘Not any more,’ he said. ‘I got bored.’

  ‘I came second one year in the school championship,’ I said. ‘Try and beat me.’

  He laughed and kissed me. ‘How about Monopoly?’ he said.

  At Hough Dean the windows were open at the front but I couldn’t see any
one inside. I drove you home, put you to bed and cleaned the kitchen floor.

  28. Peter

  He couldn’t sleep. He came out of the cave, sat on the ground, and watched the sky. The light from the crescent moon was diffuse, creating white surfaces, separated by deep shadows where anything was possible. He needed to run. He needed to stretch his limbs and burn up the energy spinning round his brain, build some distance. The hills stretched away to the north; Hawden nestled in the valley to the south. He breathed the night air into his lungs, turned his back to the moon and followed the pull of the pole.

  29. Lauren

  I’d been at a party, but it was pretty boring and I left to go and find Peter. He must have gone off somewhere because there was no trace of him. I met Richard on his way to the club and he asked me if I wanted to go with him. Mr Lion was dj-ing that night and I thought why the hell not.

  That was when the girl, Ali, turned up, and we all went up to Hough Dean. It was strange. I mean, where had she been hiding all those weeks? I wanted to tell her about the money, find out if she still had the note with the code on it. But it would have seemed too weird to just come out and ask her when we’d never even met before. So I was glad we were all going to Hough Dean because after we’d all been together for a bit and had a couple of beers it might be ok to ask her.

  But when we got to Richard’s everything got really odd. For a start Richard’s mum and Ali knew each other. And then Ali freaked and left and Richard chased after her, and I was left standing in the hallway with Meg and she was looking at me, up and down, like she was checking me out. I coughed and looked away. She must have been like a teenager or something when she had Richard. She’d got her hair tied up on the back of her head and she was wearing a black top and black trousers and she looked like she was out of a Bond movie – the glamorous spy relaxing at home.