That Still andWhispering Place

by Kathy Shuker

  ‘Did you see that advert?’ Zoe said, eyes fixed on the screen.

  ‘What advert?’

  ‘The one about that girl who went missing?’

  Adam bent his head down to look at her, frowning. ‘I haven’t seen any advert. What girl? Where?’

  ‘In the paper. I didn’t see it either but everyone’s talking about it. You know that kid who disappeared from Bohenna a few years ago - what was her name…?’

  ‘Gilly Pennyman.’

  ‘That’s the one. Her mother’s back here isn’t she and apparently she’s put some advert in the local rag asking for information about a hair slide. Everyone seems to think she’s lost it, poor thing.’ Zoe snuggled down more deeply against him. ‘Not surprising is it? I think I’d lose my marbles if some sick freak stole my kid away. Maybe we should think about having ours tagged.’ She laughed, drowsy with alcohol. ‘Do you think you’re allowed to do that?’

  *

  It was nearly eleven on the following Wednesday morning when Julia found Neil in the office, sitting at the computer, adding appointments to the calendar. Tim was there too, flicking through a clipboard pinned with lists of people who had registered for his tours that afternoon.

  ‘Good turnout we’re getting at the moment,’ Tim remarked as Julia walked up to join them. ‘Hey, Julia, check this out.’ He picked up a small teddy bear wearing a navy blue sweater with Bohenna Wines embroidered on the front in gold and rocked it side to side in front of her. ‘What do you think? I thought we’d try some at the fête later this month with a view to stocking them in the gift shop.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’ said Julia.

  ‘Of course I’m serious.’ Tim looked offended but he’d always had an infantile streak. ‘These little toys sell. I’ve been looking into it. And, come on, everywhere you go you see cuddly toys with some marketing name on them. People lap them up. They’ll sell to the tourists, especially the ones with children.’

  ‘You can’t Tim; you’ll cheapen the whole product if you go down that route,’ Julia protested. ‘We’re a serious wine business.’

  ‘But we agreed on the gift shop,’ said Tim. He glanced towards Neil for support though his brother looked preoccupied. ‘What did you think we were going to fill it with? Manuals on grape varieties? Bags of compost for the home-grown vine? Neil, what do you think?’

  ‘He’s right, Julia,’ said Neil impatiently, coming out of the calendar and putting the computer to sleep. ‘The gift shop has to be just that. It won’t affect anyone’s perception of the wine. You worry too much.’

  ‘Fine, fine. I can see I’m outnumbered as usual.’

  Neil stood up and walked to the door. She followed him and reached him as he opened it.

  ‘Neil? Wait. Have you spoken to her yet?’

  ‘Do you mean Claire? No.’

  ‘Why not? You’ve been home for days.’

  ‘Because I can’t think of anything to say that I haven’t said before, that’s why not. So what’s the point?’

  ‘I thought you’d want to ask her about the hair slide,’ said Julia.

  ‘She’s throwing straws in the wind, Julia. It has no significance.’

  His eyes flashed with suppressed anger and he banged out of the room.

  Julia stared at the door which had bounced slightly and now stood ajar.

  She turned to Tim. ‘I thought he’d want to know what she was talking about. They’ve been together so much lately, I was surprised he didn’t know what she was going to do.’

  Tim put the clipboard down and laid his arm across her bony shoulder. ‘Perhaps he does know what she was talking about.’

  ‘What do you mean? Has he told you that?’

  ‘He doesn’t tell me everything, you know,’ he said, brows raised archly. ‘He can be a bit deep sometimes, can’t he? But it’s a shame about Claire, isn’t it? She’ll regret it. All those idiots who chased them last time… Seems like she’s putting herself out there for it again, doesn’t it?’ His expression became serious and his eyes rolled over Julia’s face. ‘And making life harder again for all of us too. I guess Neil doesn’t have as much control over her as he thinks he does.’

  Tim raised his eyebrows again and left the office.

  Control, thought Julia. She was surprised at his choice of word but, yes, that was the only good thing she had foreseen coming out of Neil’s renewed relationship with Claire: she had thought he’d control her. And for the first time she wondered if controlling Claire had been what courting her again had been about all along.

  *

  Another batch of responses to Claire’s advertisement arrived in the post at intervals through the week. They were as pointless, illogical and vindictive as ever. Since it was only a regional paper there was nothing like the number of crank letters they’d received when Gilly disappeared, but they were no less distressing for that. And there were no constructive leads about the hair slide. She had received another couple of silent phone calls too, late at night when, even on these summer evenings, it was dark outside and the rustling, shifting woods seemed to move with the stealth of shadowy unknown footsteps.

  In the village, Claire felt as if she had moved back in time to those dark days some weeks after Gilly had gone when, once the first sympathetic pulse of helpful words and activity died down, people had quickly started to take sides. So it was again. Despite the many who offered encouraging words of support, it was the others she remembered: the people who looked at her accusingly when she walked into the shop then purposely looked away, or the ones who whispered to their companions when they saw her in the street and shook their heads. A reporter from the newspaper turned up asking questions around Bohenna and Claire was blamed. People felt the intrusion, the barely-concealed insinuation in a question. He tried to speak to Claire too but she refused, guessing that it was only going to make the situation worse but risking, she knew, a fabricated explanation for her silence. It had been stupid to think a box number would give her any anonymity. Of course everyone knew who had placed the advert. Who else could it have been?

  Even Eddie was aware of the gunpowder she had thrown into the fire but she should not have been surprised because he regularly bought Cornwall Now - she had seen old sheets of it taped against his greenhouse windows to temper the high summer sun. And he mightn’t mix much but he was the sort of silent ghost of a person - shuffling round the village, drinking a quiet pint, ignored - who heard all sorts of local gossip. She was outside, a couple of steps from the back door, throwing scraps out for the birds when he came round with a box of eggs, taking the trouble to walk right round the house to find her. He thrust the box into her hands then stood, not moving.

  ‘Find anything out?’ he shouted in his strange, cracked-bell voice.

  She frowned, shaking her head. ‘No. Nothing.’

  He nodded and shuffled away. Ironically, it was the closest they had come to a personal conversation since she’d lived there.

  Claire’s mood swung up and down. She argued with herself, angry and frustrated at having got nowhere and yet blaming herself too. Had she really thought the advert would bring any answer? Neil had exhorted her to let it go but she always had to know better. He had once accused her of being self-indulgent in her grief and desperation, as if she thought she was the only one who was suffering. Was he right? She’d thought it was all about Gilly. Maybe not. Maybe she had allowed herself to become obsessed. And yet no, for who else was bothering about the fate of her little girl? She was her mother, after all.

  The silence from Neil was deafening. He must have seen the advert by now, or at least heard about it because everyone else had, and he hadn’t been in touch since he went away. She had tried ringing him to no avail; he wouldn’t answer. She had left messages, asking if they could talk, but he didn’t reply.

  On the Thursday evening, she got out the art things Adam had given her. There were three large heavyweight sheets of watercolour paper, a plywood board, some tubes of paint and a va
riety of brushes. She taped a sheet of paper to the board, filled a glass jar with water and found a couple of white plates to mix colours on, then stood and looked down suspiciously at the pristine white surface. Let the emotion drive it. Was that what Adam had said? Daub paint on. Put it on the paper so it doesn’t mess with your head. Easier to say than to do. She had never worked like that; her illustrations had been small and finely detailed.

  The phone rang. As if he had known she was thinking about him, Adam wanted to know if he could come round. Half an hour later he was standing in her kitchen while she made them coffee.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to call for days.’ He glanced at the table. ‘I see you’re going to do some painting.’

  ‘Maybe.’ She handed him a mug. ‘So you’re back with Zoe. I’m glad.’

  ‘Yes. It’s good.’

  They stood around awkwardly.

  ‘I had a reporter come to see me,’ he said. ‘About your advert.’

  She sighed. ‘I am sorry, Adam. What did you tell him?’

  ‘Nothing. Someone had told him we’d been dating so he was fishing for what I knew. I said I knew nothing about it. I said we weren’t together any more.’

  ‘I suppose he’ll have gone to see Neil too then. Oh God, what a mess.’ She walked away restlessly. ‘Come on, let’s sit.’

  In the living room, she sat down heavily in the armchair while Adam took a seat on the sofa.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he said. ‘You look…tired.’

  ‘I haven’t been sleeping well.’

  ‘Why did you do it, Claire? It was crazy.’

  ‘The advert? It was desperation. A last try. I had to give it one more shot.’

  ‘I don’t suppose anything’s come of it?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing useful anyway. Lots of cranks. Stupid messages, threats even. I still don’t know where the slide came from.’

  ‘Threats? I don't like that. You should definitely tell the police about those.’

  ‘They’re just nonsense. Anyway they’d never track them down. This stuff happens all the time.’ She tried not to sound as if she cared but all the negativity had left her feeling wrung out. She couldn’t face contacting the police again though - all those questions and recriminations.

  Adam was frowning. ‘It’s interesting that no-one has admitted to donating the slide now there’s all this publicity out there. So maybe the person who donated it is indeed the guilty one.’

  ‘Or maybe it’s because no-one wants to have anything to do with the crazy woman, or risk being accused of something they haven’t done.’

  ‘You’re not crazy.’ He grinned. ‘You just do some crazy things sometimes.’ He shrugged. ‘Everyone does, Claire.’

  ‘Really? What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done? It’s all right, you don’t have to answer that.’

  They both fell silent and sipped their coffee.

  ‘So…’ she said. ‘What now for you and Zoe? Are you going to stay here or move on?’

  ‘We’re house-hunting. Zoe thinks we should bite the bullet and buy. She’s probably right. We figure we can just about manage a mortgage between us.’

  ‘And children?’

  ‘Oh yes, I gave in.’ He smiled again. ‘But, hey, I think I’ll enjoy it.’ He stared into his coffee, studying it as if he were doing a scientific experiment. ‘And you and Neil? I saw you together at the party. You seemed to be having a good time. How’s that going?’

  ‘It was going well. Then I shot the albatross and put the advert in the paper.’

  ‘He didn’t know?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Ah.’

  Again they drank, carefully not looking at each other.

  ‘Please tell the police if you’re being threatened,’ he said, glancing up. ‘If it’s someone local they’d probably find the bastard.’

  ‘I’m not sure it is just one person. Anyway, it’ll stop soon. Bringing the police in would only make it worse. It makes it important, makes me more of a target.’ She put her mug down. ‘Look Adam, would you mind if we changed the subject? There must be so many more interesting things we could talk about.’

  ‘Sure. I understand.’ He hesitated. ‘It’s just that I can’t stop myself thinking about Gilly, and I wondered if maybe she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see…’ He paused, searching for a way to explain himself, and she cut across him.

  ‘Please don’t. I’m so grateful for all your help but I’ve decided not to pursue it. I can’t do it any more. I’m sorry.’ She was surprised at herself, unaware that she had actually made that decision. It was a relief to say it out loud. ‘I’ve caused nothing but heartache and trouble with my desperation to find Gilly. And the truth is I’ll never know what happened and I’ve got to accept it and move on. It’s time. That’s why I know the stalking’ll stop. If I do nothing, they’ll lose interest. Everyone’ll lose interest.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure... But if it doesn’t settle, promise me you’ll go to the police.’

  ‘I promise.’

  He finished his coffee and got up to go. She showed him out, automatically glancing down to check there was nothing on the step waiting for her. Adam leaned forward and gave her a brief hug.

  ‘Good luck, Claire. I hope everything works out for you. You take care.’

  She hugged him back, fiercely. ‘You too. Have some beautiful children and love them loads.’

  Back in the kitchen, she rinsed out the mugs and returned to the table, trying to focus her thoughts on the paper. Let the emotion drive it. Impulsively, she grabbed a large brush, dipped it in the water and washed it over the paper, letting it slowly sink in. Then she mixed a bright buttery yellow and added it extravagantly over the damp paper in great swirling circles of colour and watched the water in the pulpy surface pull and feather it softly.

  ‘That’s you Gilly,’ she murmured. ‘Sunshine.’

  She mixed a little burnt sienna into the yellow on her palette and dropped it on one side of the paper and saw it spread and mingle with the butter.

  ‘That’s your creativity.’

  She was getting into this now. She mixed a bright red and dropped a little of that in on the border between the two previous colours. Though a tiny area, the red was bold and strong and fought to dominate the softer colours.

  ‘That’s your stubbornness and your love of life.’

  Tears had started to fall but she was unaware of them and she was smiling as she mixed a bright green and added it on the other side of the paper.

  ‘That’s the beautiful natural world out there that you loved so much. It was your real passion, wasn’t it, so I’ll put some more in.’

  She loaded the brush again and touched it in. The paper was a mass of colours now which shifted, melding into each other as the water seeped this way and that. The tears became so profuse that she could hardly see and she roughly rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes to clear them. She picked up the ultramarine and squeezed a thick worm of colour onto the palette, added burnt sienna to it and mixed them together. Pausing, she stared at the cheery bright colours on the paper.

  ‘But you’re not coming back, are you darling?’ she breathed, so quietly she could hardly hear herself speak. ‘You’re…’ She baulked at saying the word though she had known for a long time - if she’d had the courage to admit it - that she hadn’t been looking for a girl any more, only a grave.

  She dipped the brush back in the dark paint and scrubbed it into the yellow, then the red, then the green, dropping in more and more of the dirty blackness.

  ‘And that’s you, whoever you are, you bastard,’ she spat. ‘You destroyed her; you’ve destroyed us all.’

  She threw the brush down and leaned forward onto the table, racked with silent sobs.

  ‘What a stupid, stupid idea,’ she gulped. ‘Paint it out of your system…How can you? Why did I listen to such a bloody stupid idea?’

  She turned and walked out of the kitchen into the si
tting room, lifted the pouch out of the drawer of the sideboard and tipped the slide onto her hand. If she hadn’t found this hiding in the bottom of the box that day, by now she might have managed to put it all behind her. She might even have got back together with Neil - for a moment there they had been so close – but it was never going to happen now.

  At last, she could see the slide for what it was: a worthless piece of plastic. Of course it had never been Gilly’s. A confused cocktail of emotions washed through her: embarrassment and anger, frustration and utter desolation. They pressed in on her, crushing her, sucking the air out of her lungs, and she ran to the back door, pulled it open wide and flung the slide as far out into the darkness as she could.

  She had no idea where it landed. She heard nothing and she didn’t care. Maybe now she would be able to breathe again.

  Chapter 20

  Claire made an effort to throw herself into work and tried to get some energy flowing, jogging with furious zeal, working up a sweat on the dusty paths by the river. She kept herself busy at home: baking, cleaning and gardening, and reading till all hours. Even so, she felt rudderless and numb, oddly removed from the world around her. All round the village people were gearing up for the fête on the twenty-seventh of June, an event always followed by a dance which, over these recent years, was held in the vineyard restaurant with its patio doors thrown open to the summer night. In the small community, it was one of the major events of the summer. It passed Claire by. If it surfaced in her mind at all she quickly pushed it away, for the fête only reminded her of the hair slide and she was determined to put that out of her mind for good.

  As she started to find her feet again, she kept thinking of Neil, and increasingly it bore down on her that she owed him an apology. She should have told him about the slide and explained what she had been trying to do. Gilly was his daughter too. She couldn’t blame him for being cross when she had intentionally cut him out of the loop. Regularly she got her phone out but didn’t call him. In the end she decided to see him in person and she walked across to the vineyard one day during her lunch break and poked her head in at the office. Julia was the only one there, speaking on the phone, and Claire silently withdrew. Tim was standing behind her and made her jump.