Hiding From the Light

by Barbara Erskine

  It was dark when he went inside and closed the French doors behind him. He wandered into the kitchen, wondering what would cheer her up. Tea. Cocoa. Soup. A stiff whisky. ‘Em?’ he called. The sound of bath water running away had finished ages before. ‘Em? What would you like to drink?’

  The bedroom was in darkness. ‘Emma? Are you awake?’ He turned on the lamp in the corner. Emma was lying across the bed, her face buried in the pillow. She was wearing grey silk pyjamas. ‘Em?’ he whispered. He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Are you asleep?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Would you like me to bring you something?’ He waited for several seconds, then with a sigh he turned off the light and crept out of the room.

  On the bed Emma stirred. Hugging the pillow she turned over, her dark hair fanned out across the sheets and, in her sleep, she began once more to cry.

  She was late into the office and within seconds of sitting down at her desk, she stood up again. Her hands were shaking and she had the worst headache she could remember.

  Emma!

  The voice was in her head again.

  Emma! Buy it! You’ve got to, Emma. You have to come back, Emma!

  She had awoken late, drenched in perspiration, her bedclothes tied in knots, but her dreams, if she had had any, were gone beyond recall. Piers had already left, after presumably sleeping on the sofa.

  ‘You OK, Emma?’ A colleague passing her desk stopped, concerned. ‘You look as though you tied one on last night with a vengeance!’ He laughed.

  She glared at him and turned back to her desk, rifling through a drawer for some paracetamol. Then she picked up the phone. ‘Mr Fortingale? It’s Emma Dickson. Are you better?’ She only remembered just in time to ask. ‘I wondered if you had heard back from the Simpsons yet about my offer?’ Grasping the receiver with both hands, she stared unseeing at the computer monitor on her desk as she listened to the muffled voice the other end. She nodded slowly. ‘Good. Thank you. No, I told you, I don’t need a survey. I am instructing my solicitors this morning and as I said, I have nothing to sell. It’s a cash transaction and as the house is empty, hopefully it can all go through very fast indeed.’ She stood for a long time, listening to the whine on the phone after he had hung up, then gently she tipped the receiver back onto its base.

  David Spencer looked up from the report he was studying as Emma appeared in the doorway of his office. She had tapped on the open door then hovered, staring in without seeming to see him.

  ‘Emma?’ He rose to his feet. ‘Is there a problem?’

  She frowned, visibly trying to pull herself together and came in, closing the door behind her. ‘I’m giving in my notice, David.’ She stood in front of his desk, not meeting his eye. ‘I’m leaving London.’

  ‘You are joking!’ David ran his hand through thin, greying hair so that the carefully arranged strands rose in disarray around his head. ‘You can’t – what’s happened? For God’s sake, sit down. You don’t mean it.’

  She obeyed him, pulling up a chair, and leaned forward, elbows on his desk, her head in her hands. ‘I do mean it, David. I’m sorry. I’ll work out my notice, of course.’

  ‘But why?’ He resumed his own seat opposite her. His voice was suddenly gentle. ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Mad, perhaps.’ She gave a small, helpless laugh. ‘I’m buying a house in the country and I’m going to work there. I need a break from the City.’

  You have to come back, Emma!

  The words echoed in her mind for a moment. What was she saying? What was she doing? She was throwing away her career, her relationship, her home, her life. She looked up at David and he noted her pale face and red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘Is this something to do with Piers? Have you two split up?’

  ‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, yes, I suppose we have. We will. He thinks I’m mad.’

  ‘You are. Look,’ he stood up again, ‘don’t say any more, Emma. Go home. You don’t look at all well, if I may say so. Think about this. Take a few days off. Don’t do anything you might regret. Please.’ He leaned forward across the desk and put his hands over hers. ‘You’re good at your job, Emma. Don’t throw it away.’

  He watched her go back to her desk through the glass wall of his office. She picked up her bag and her briefcase, stood for a moment staring down at her desk, then left without a word to either of her colleagues, both of whom looked up and spoke to her as she passed. He frowned. There was something very wrong. He stood for several seconds staring down at his phone, then he picked up the receiver and dialled Piers’s direct line.

  16

  Tuesday afternoon

  ‘Emma?’ Piers pushed open the front door and pocketing his keys walked through the small white-painted hall into the living room. ‘Are you back?’

  The French doors were open and he headed towards them, spotting her at once. She was lying on the swing seat, eyes closed, Max curled in the crook of her arm.

  ‘Hi, old thing. What are you doing home?’ He sat down on the edge of a chair near her, incongruous in his city suit and smart black shoes, noting that she too was still dressed in her office clothes.

  ‘I wasn’t feeling too good.’ She opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘What are you doing here yourself?’

  ‘I had a whole lot of reports to check and I kept thinking of this roof garden and a glass of white wine and how awful it was to be stuck in a glass palace in this heat and I thought, I’m going to play hooky!’ He smiled and climbed to his feet with a groan. ‘I’m going to have a shower and change into something more comfortable. Is there anything I can get you?’

  Shaking her head, she closed her eyes again and he watched her for a moment, frowning.

  When he came out again some time later she was asleep. Good as his word, he settled down to study the reports, glancing every now and then in her direction as the sun moved round towards the west and the shadow under the canopy where she lay deepened. It was still very hot. He finished a stack of papers, returned them to his briefcase and withdrew another pile. Somewhere below in the busy street he heard the wailing note of a police siren. It sounded for several seconds very close, then rapidly it faded into the distance as the car sped away towards the Cromwell Road.

  In her dream Emma stood in the doorway of the cottage, looking round. She was dressed in a black cloak but under it her gown was silk, embroidered with flowers. ‘Liza?’ Her voice was her own, but the words came out strangely, with a soft country burr and unaccustomed words. ‘Liza, where be ye? I’ve brought ye some butter and some posset.’

  She moved forward into the kitchen she knew so well. This small dower house on her father’s estate had been given to Liza in her old age as a reward for her care of this wayward young woman and her brother after their mother’s death. The fire was lit and a pot of water was hanging over it. She glanced in. It had nearly boiled dry. No herbs. No vegetables. Taking a thick cloth to pad her hands she lifted it off the hook and setting it down at the edge of the hearth she looked round for Liza’s cats. There were two, adored and spoiled, which the old woman had reared from kittens over twenty years before while she still lived up at the hall. If she was not careful they would steal the butter before Liza had set eyes on it. There was no sign of them.

  The table behind her was strewn with flower heads. Two small boxes of dried herbs stood nearby, both open, both spilled. A knife lay on the floor, the small pestle and mortar beside it. Sarah frowned, a frightened chill suddenly settling over her, cold as the mist that drifted in the lane outside and shrouded the church. ‘Liza? Where are you?’ The whisper was scarcely audible. She moved to the foot of the stairs and stared up, her foot on the bottom step. For a moment she couldn’t force herself to move, then as she put her foot forward the door opened behind her.

  ‘I’m here, my duck.’ Liza was standing there, wrapped in a warm woollen cloak against the mist. She stepped into the room and glanced round, smiling as she saw the gifts lying
on the table. ‘That’s kind. I’ll enjoy that.’

  ‘Where were you, Liza?’ Sarah frowned, still uncomfortable. ‘The water was nearly boiled dry and everything is spilled.’

  Liza shook her head. ‘I ran outside. There was somebody in the lane.’ She shrugged. ‘Somebody I didn’t want to see.’

  Behind her a cat appeared in the doorway. It mewed and walked up to her, jumped on the table, asking to be petted. She stroked it absently. ‘Sarie, my dear, if anything happened to me, you’d look out for the cats, wouldn’t you? See they was fed and had a home?’

  ‘Of course I would.’ Sarah caught her hand. ‘What is it, Liza? What’s wrong? Why are you talking like this?’

  Liza shrugged. ‘There’s folk out there mean mischief, Sarie. Hopkins’s men. Someone has been bad-mouthing me to him.’

  Sarah let out a little cry of anguish. ‘Oh, no! No, Liza. I’d never let that happen. Never. Besides, they would never come for you. Too many people love you.’

  Liza gave a toothless grimace. ‘Well, that’s as maybe.’ She put her head on one side. ‘You remember all I’ve taught you, don’t you, Sarie? Never forget it. Never.’ She shrugged. ‘I’ll be all right. I’ll keep out of their way. But,’ she laughed hoarsely, patting the cat again, ‘I worry about these two. They were my babies, just like you.’

  ‘Don’t, Liza. Don’t talk like that!’ Sarah clung to her hand. ‘No one would hurt you. Or the cats. No one …’

  ‘No one would hurt the cats! No one!’ Emma woke to find she was shouting the words out loud. Piers was bending over her. ‘Emma! Emma, it’s OK. You’ve been dreaming!’ He was holding her hand.

  ‘The cats!’ She sat up staring round. ‘Where are the cats?’ Suddenly she was crying.

  ‘The cats are fine.’ Piers stepped back as she swung her legs to the ground.

  ‘Where? Where are they?’

  ‘Inside. Max was cuddled up with you. Then you began to shout and he was frightened. They’re both inside somewhere. Em –?’ He watched as she ran across the terrace. She had kicked off her shoes before she lay down and her feet were bare; her hair was dishevelled.

  In the living room she stared round. ‘Max?’ She spotted the cat sitting under the coffee table, his tail swishing from side to side. ‘Oh, Max!’ She dived on him, trying to scoop him up into her arms, but he turned towards her, hissing. Lashing out at her in a panic he scratched her viciously across her wrist and the back of her hand before diving out of reach into the kitchen.

  ‘Leave him, Em. He’s thoroughly frightened. And so are you.’ Piers’s voice changed suddenly as she threw herself down on the sofa, sobbing. ‘What is it, darling? What’s the matter?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know! It was the dream. I was so worried something awful was going to happen to them.’

  Piers sat down beside her and put his arm round her. ‘They are both fine. Just leave him for a moment. You frightened him when you started to shout. Here, I’ll get something to put on that scratch. It’s bleeding everywhere.’

  By the time he had dabbed her wrist with antiseptic and put a sticking plaster over the worst of the laceration, Emma was calm again.

  ‘So, what was the dream about, can you tell me?’

  She shrugged. Leaning back against the sofa cushions she closed her eyes. ‘That’s the silly thing. It’s gone.’

  Piers paused, watching her. ‘Em? Aren’t you feeling well? I wondered why you had come home.’

  She frowned and put her head forward into her hands for a moment. Then she shrugged. ‘My head is spinning. I think I’ll go and take a shower, Piers.’

  ‘Perhaps I’d better remind you,’ he said quietly, ‘or are you just not planning to tell me? You gave in your notice this morning.’

  She looked up slowly. ‘I hadn’t forgotten. How do you know?’

  ‘David rang me. He was really worried. He thinks you’re ill. That was why I came home.’

  ‘Well, I’m not ill.’

  ‘Then perhaps, just perhaps, you’re off your head.’ His voice had become hard.

  She stood up, looking curiously vulnerable in her navy suit skirt and silk shirt with her hair dishevelled and her feet bare. ‘Perhaps I am.’

  The atmosphere was suddenly electric. They were on the brink of shouting at one another, saying things they didn’t mean, things that could never be unsaid, and as if sensing it, neither spoke. It was Piers who broke the silence at last. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Em.’

  ‘No.’ She said it so quietly he barely heard her.

  ‘You can’t really want to give up your career. All you’ve worked for.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You love that job.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then why? Why, Em?’

  She shrugged her shoulders, sniffing. ‘I don’t know why.’

  ‘What are you planning to do?’

  ‘Run it as a herb nursery.’

  Piers stared at her. ‘You mean we are still talking about this darn cottage? I don’t believe it. You were even having nightmares about it just now. That is what you were shouting about, Emma. You were shouting “Liza” when you scared Max. Please, Emma, you can’t do this!’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘You are prepared to throw everything up, everything! To go and live there?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Then you are mad. Totally, completely and utterly off your head.’

  She gave a watery smile. ‘On that at least, we agree. I don’t want it to be the end of us, Piers. I really don’t.’

  ‘How can it not be? I’m a City person, Emma. My life, my job, my friends are all in the City. I can’t … I won’t commute. And I don’t want to spend my weekends somewhere miles out in the country.’

  ‘People do commute from there. It’s only –’

  ‘I don’t care how long it takes, or how far it is. I don’t want to do it. I won’t do it.’

  ‘Then it is the end for us.’ Her tears had dried and her face was white. ‘It has to be. I’m moving down there as soon as the paperwork is done. I’m sorry. I really am. But I have to do it. I have to. It’s mine. It’s where I belong.’

  ‘You belong here!’ Suddenly he was crying.

  ‘No. No, I don’t. I don’t, Piers. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ Tears were pouring down her face, too. Pushing past him she ran towards the door, leaving him staring after her, sobbing like a child.

  It was as she was sitting on the bed, cradling her pillow in her arms, having slammed the door on Piers and run to the bedroom, that she realised both the cats were in there already. Pressed tightly together in the five-inch space under the chest of drawers they were staring at her with huge, terrified eyes.

  ‘You’re scared,’ she murmured at them miserably. ‘And I’m scared. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t understand anything any more. I don’t understand anything at all.’

  17

  Wednesday morning

  Flora Gordon was waiting for Emma at Planet Organic. She was already drinking an orange juice. Her wildly frizzy blonde hair was if anything more dishevelled than usual, and she had a pile of shopping bags around her feet as she sat on the high stool at the counter.

  ‘Em?’ She slipped down and gave Emma a hug. ‘What on earth is the matter? You sounded like hell when you rang me. Why aren’t you in the office?’ Flora was one of Emma’s oldest friends. They had been at school together but after that their paths had diverged, Emma to university and City job, Flora to a career in alternative medicine which had led her to study all over the world before she returned to set up a practice in London.

  Emma was fighting back tears, again. ‘I’ve resigned. It looks as though Piers and I are splitting up. I’m moving to the country.’

  Flora stared at her for a brief moment, shocked into silence. Then she smiled. ‘So? Why on earth are you crying? That’s the best news I’ve heard in years.’ She hoisted herself back onto her stool. ‘Sweetheart, I know Piers is a dis
h and I know you thought it was forever, but you and he could never have hit it off for long. You’re too different. He’s a corporate man; if we are being honest here, a teeny bit stick-in-the-mud; even boring!’ She grabbed Emma’s hands and hauled her bodily up onto the stool next to her own. ‘I know he is sweet and kind and he worships you, but he is stifling you, Em. There’s a wonderful free woman in there,’ she prodded Emma’s chest, ‘just screaming to be released.’ She leaned forward. ‘Where are you going? I hope I can still come and see you often.’

  Emma began to smile in spite of herself. She ordered a coffee from the girl behind the counter, then she looked back at Flora and shrugged. ‘You’re the first person who hasn’t told me I’m mad.’

  ‘Of course you’re not mad.’ Flora put her head to one side and scrutinised Emma’s face. ‘You’ve got a lot of friends, Em, people who really love you, but they are on the whole terribly conventional. At least the ones I’ve met are.’ She grimaced. ‘None of those colleagues of yours and Piers’s see the real you. I was beginning to be frightened that Piers had secretly murdered you and replaced you with a Stepford financial partner!’

  Emma laughed out loud. ‘I needed to hear that. I’ve been so torn, Flora. I’ve been having awful nightmares about the whole thing. I can’t tell you how scared I’ve been. It’s such a big step. I’m not really sure why I’m doing it.’

  ‘Because you saw the cage closing?’

  Emma stared at her thoughtfully. ‘Do you think that was it? I thought it was because I’ve fallen in love with a cottage up on the north Essex coast where I spent my childhood holidays.’

  Flora shook her head. ‘We all fall in love with things and do nothing about it.’ She giggled. ‘Just as well, or Sean Bean would be in my cupboard at home right now, awaiting my pleasure! Em,’ she took a deep thoughtful sigh, ‘you’ve actually acted on this impulse of yours, so it must be important. Do you remember, when we were children, we had dreams? We played with the idea of who we would be one day. Everyone does. But when we grow up we forget those dreams. They are still there, but they seem unobtainable. Unrealistic. Best forgotten. You’ve remembered.’ She leaned forward and put her hand over Emma’s. ‘You’ve gone back to the scene of your childhood, a childhood when you were wildly happy, and you’ve been given another chance. There must be a reason for that. Don’t throw it away. Don’t look back. Go for it!’