Her Living Image

by Jane Rogers

  The house was an awful place, Carolyn thought. It was huge and bare and dirty, and smelt of damp plaster and old food. They all stood around staring at her and smiling awkwardly, as if she was embarrassing. She asked Clare if she could go to her room. It was at the top of the house, and very big. At first she thought it was like a watch-tower, because the roof sloped down to the tops of the two windows, making them the most important things. If she looked down she could see the wilderness that was this house’s garden. There was a high brick wall around it. It backed on to a big grey building like an overgrown garden shed, with no windows. A factory, she supposed. To the right was a road which she couldn’t see because of the height of the wall, but she could see the tops of buses and lorries, travelling along it. Over the road were roofs – endless rows of them. Above them, like low cloud, she could see far away, an outline of hills. She could see for miles.

  In the room each bit of furniture seemed to be too far away from the others, as if they had been dropped there as markers, but the space was eroding them. The bed, tucked in under the corner where the roof sloped down, looked small and safe. But there was a huge old-fashioned wardrobe marooned against the back wall, and an old armchair with square arms and greyish padding showing through the brown cloth, in the exact middle of the floor. That was all, except for a little box by the bed covered with a beautiful silky blue and green scarf with long black fringes. Carolyn sat on the bed, which she noticed was low and very soft, and fingered the silk. The room made her think of the children’s game where the floor is the sea and full of sharks, and you are only safe on the furniture. In her Mum and Dad’s house you were so safe there wasn’t much point in playing – there were so many bits of furniture crammed into the room. Here the game would be terrifying. The carpet itself, old and threadbare with strange geometric patterns on it (like the flying carpet in one of her childhood story books) floated like an uneven raft on the knobbly floorboards, which it was too small to cover. The rough boards and window-frames were painted dark blue, and the long walls were clean and white and empty.

  It took away her breath, a little. But the windows were the main thing. She sat in the armchair and looked out of the window. She didn’t know what. But it was all right sitting here. She wanted to sit here, and stare at this view, which was much better than hospital. She was pleased not to have to do anything. She didn’t have anything to do. At home – her mother would –

  She concentrated on the clouds, which moved quickly and smoothly as a train across the top of the hills. She wanted to sit here all day. She didn’t want Clare or those others to come in. She wanted to be left alone.

  As it got dark in the evening she became scared. There was something by the shady side of the wardrobe that made a noise. As darkness intensified it seemed to grow. It leaned forward to try to reach her. She had to stay on the chair, to be safe. If she sat very very still, it would forget she was there, and recede. But if she got pins and needles and had to move, it woke with a jump and crept forwards again. There were other things in the room too. Something under the bed moved softly, rustling like a woman walking past in long skirts – or a soft breeze in high trees. It wasn’t unfriendly. But it was better not to anger it by sleeping on the bed. And a more frantic presence was trapped behind the skirting board. Suddenly in the silence of the small hours its patience would break and she listened rigidly to its scrabbling attempts to break out. It had claws like an eagle – talons; she could hear them shredding and splintering the wood. The only defence was to sit very still, to be invisible; to fade right into the shadow between the arms of the big square armchair.

  As the dawn came she was weak with exhaustion and relief, watching and willing the first barely perceptible lightening of the sky.

  But then a different kind of terror came in daytime, starting on the second day. It was worse. She could not glare at it or protect herself by clutching at the chair’s arms. She could not hold in a corner of her mind the rational knowledge that this was purely childish. It was a terror that started in herself, instead of attacking from outside. It was as if, somehow, she became a telescope. At first she was closed, then gradually she was pulled open, extended to a great length, leaving an awful hollow giddy sensation in her stomach. Once extended her own eye was pressed to the lens of the telescope that was herself (was it her own eye’s lens she was looking through the wrong way?) and she saw herself at the other end. But not only did she see herself, small, sitting there; she also saw through herself (because the telescope, with its hollow inside, was her) and she saw that she was hollow. She was terrified by her own existence.

  In a way she saw quite objectively, a person sitting on a chair, afraid of shadows – someone who was probably mental. “Get on, get up! Stop moping! Get on with something!” cried the Meg in her. But it was equally obvious, to the impartial eye at the lens, that there was nothing else to do. What shall I do? Here I am, replied the person she could see in the chair. There she was. What was she to do?

  She was scared. When it happened, when she was pulled out like this, she felt sick, giddy and unbalanced. She might even fall into the telescope lens and go crashing down upon herself. What would happen then? She tried to think of things to do. She didn’t know what. She didn’t want to meet any of those people. Wait till they’re out. Go and make a cup of tea. Look in the paper for a job. Wash some knickers. But it didn’t seem as if doing any of these things would help.

  Clare thought Caro didn’t look fit to come out of hospital. She was pale and unsteady, and moved maddeningly slowly. Clare got her back to the house, and introduced her to Bryony, Sue, and the kids. They made her a cup of coffee.

  “Sit down, make yourself at home.” But Caro stood by the table and didn’t move. She seemed terrified.

  “How do you feel? It’s good to get out, isn’t it?”

  “Yes –” Carolyn’s frozen face became animated. “It all looks so brilliant – so – like everything’s deadened, in there. Muffled. It’s really – I really –”

  “Yup,” said Clare. “Brave new world. It’s funny how quickly you forget what it’s like out here.”

  Carolyn nodded but she seemed to have lost interest already.

  “How d’you feel?”

  “OK,” she said quickly.

  “Do you –” [img_p63]They both stopped.

  “Can I –” [img_p63]

  Clare smiled. “Go on.”

  “Can I see my room please?”

  “Yes – yes, OK. Now?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Clare got up and went to the door. She noticed that Caro’s coffee was untouched. “Don’t you want that? It’ll warm you up.”

  Carolyn picked it up unsteadily, slopping a pool of coffee across the table.

  “Oh, sorry,” she said, and put the mug down. Clare waited, but Carolyn did not pick it up again.

  She seemed pleased with the room. As Clare went out Carolyn quickly and unexpectedly closed the door behind her and said “Thank you,” as if she’d been shown her hotel room by a maid.

  And there she stayed. When they asked her down for meals she didn’t come. Clare took snacks up to her – poached eggs, milky drinks – thinking she was probably exhausted by the change, and needed a couple of days in bed to recover. She looked shocking: absolutely white, with huge purple bags under her eyes. She said nothing, and replied to questions monosyllabically or not at all. It was impossible to find any pretext for remaining in her company. She very obviously wanted to be left alone.

  But after a few days Clare began to worry. Carolyn looked no better. Sue (who was at home most of the day) confirmed her suspicion that Carolyn never came out of her room. She was hardly eating anything. Bryony attacked on the third night.

  “What are you going to do about her?”

  “Caro?”

  “This is a communal house. It’s ridiculous, we can’t have someone like that here. No wonder you didn’t bother to ask us, you know what we’d have said. We have to live with
her as well as you. She’s hopeless – she doesn’t do anything. She doesn’t speak to anyone. She can’t take a share in child-care. She’s a nervous wreck. Didn’t you ask her anything before she came? Didn’t you tell her it was a shared house?”

  Bryony, on occasions like this, was always self-righteous: the problem and answers were obvious, why hadn’t she been consulted?

  “For God’s sake, the girl’s ill. She’s just come out of hospital.”

  “Well it’s deeply wonderful of you to offer this as a convalescent home – but you’ve got no right to do it without consulting me and Sue. You’re not the only person who lives here. Have you considered the kids? Has it occurred to you that she might disturb or upset them? She doesn’t even bring her dirty cups down. Does she think it’s a hotel? Why doesn’t she go home to her Mum?”

  Clare did think it odd that Carolyn’s Mum hadn’t been. Ironic that that was originally the reason she’d hesitated to invite Carolyn: fear of her Mum hovering round the house all the time. She went up and knocked on Caro’s door. There was no reply. She looked at her watch, it was nearly ten o’clock. Would she be asleep already? Clare opened the door quietly and looked in. Carolyn was sitting in the dark looking out the window.

  “Shall I put the light on?”

  She didn’t reply. Clare switched it on. The room looked uninhabited.

  “You all right?”

  Carolyn nodded.

  “Why don’t you unpack? D’you want some help?”

  Carolyn shook her head.

  “Caro, does your Mum know where you are?”

  “No.”

  Despite herself, Clare was shocked. “Where does she think you are?”

  “I told her I was coming here. But I didn’t know the address.”

  Instinctively, Clare glanced out of the window. It was amazing they hadn’t been invaded by detectives and policemen already. Carolyn’s Mum wouldn’t leave a stone unturned. “Look, shall I tell her? Shall I ring her up for you?”

  “No.” The voice was the same tight voice that had told Clare the hospital ceiling was coming down.

  “Can I – why don’t –” Clare stopped. “She’ll be terribly worried – frantic.”

  Carolyn continued to stare rigidly through the window.

  “I think we should tell your Mum where you are,” said Clare firmly.

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’ll come and get me.”

  Clare thought this was probably true. She also quite hoped it would happen. She had thought Carolyn needed a space in which to pull herself together, not to crack up. Jesus Christ, she told herself angrily, the hospital’s discharged her. There can’t be that much wrong with her. “Look, Caro, if you want to stay here, you’ve got to make a bit of an effort to fit in. The others aren’t very happy about you.”

  “Why? What have I done?” For the first time, Carolyn looked away from the window and at Clare, an expression of anxiety on her white face.

  “Nothing. It’s just – well, it’s a shared house, we all do things like cooking and cleaning, you know – and usually we eat together. They just think it’s a bit odd because you hide in your room all the time.” She hesitated. “I mean, there’s no need for you to bother with cooking or anything, yet. But I don’t think it’s doing you any good, sitting up here on your own. I just think you’ll get depressed. I think you should come down for meals.”

  There was a silence.

  “OK,” said Carolyn.

  Clare waited to see if she would say anything else. She felt clumsy and awkward; but irritated too. Carolyn was ignoring her like a sulky child. She’s so young, that’s the trouble, Clare told herself. Basically, this is a teenage crisis. Well, I’m not her mother.

  Carolyn came down to tea next day. She grimaced a smile at each of them, and nodded hurriedly at any remark directed at her. She radiated tension and embarrassment, so that after the meal Clare went immediately to watch TV in the sitting room, Sue took the children to bed and Bryony went out to a meeting. Carolyn cleared the table, washed up, dried up, took everything out of the cutlery drawer and cleaned and tidied it, cleaned the cooker and swept the floor. She was about to start washing the floor at five to ten when Clare went back into the kitchen to get her cigarettes.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  “Just cleaning up.”

  “Well look – that’s splendid – there’s no need to go mad. Stop, for heaven’s sake. D’you fancy a quick drink?”

  Carolyn shook her head and continued to squeeze and soak the dried, shrivelled mop.

  “Caro, when I said about helping – I didn’t mean –” Carolyn ignored her. Clare shrugged and left the kitchen. She felt very angry. She had tried to help Carolyn, and now the bloody girl was acting as if Clare was a bossy teacher. Damn her.

  Next day, a white-faced Carolyn with horrible silent determination dusted and vacuumed the landings, stairs and hallway, washed down the woodwork in the kitchen, and cleaned out the fridge and food cupboards. Bryony and Sue were appalled.

  “Can’t you stop her?” Sue asked Clare when she got home. “She’ll have to go. It’s impossible to live in the house.”

  “D’you want me to tell her to go?” asked Bryony. “Why don’t we phone her Mum?”

  Reluctantly, after supper, Clare mounted the extra six stairs to Carolyn’s room. She knocked and there was no reply. So she opened the door cautiously. It was dark. She made out the shape of Caro squatting in the armchair, rigidly still.

  “Caro?”

  The figure didn’t move.

  “You all right?”

  Carolyn appeared to be staring at something horrible in the corner.

  “What is it?” Clare stepped into the room, and some of Carolyn’s terror communicated itself to her. Quickly she stepped back and switched on the light. She couldn’t see anything in the corner.

  Carolyn shifted abruptly on her seat, turning her head away.

  “What is it? What did you see?” Clare ran round the chair to face her.

  Carolyn lifted her head sightlessly, tears and snot streaming down her face.

  Much later that night, Clare lay in her bed staring at the ceiling. They should never have let Carolyn out of hospital like that. She was settled for the night; Clare had put her to bed and given her a mug of warm milk and two sleeping tablets. But tomorrow? She wasn’t in a fit state to be on her own.

  Before she finally fell asleep, Clare decided to contact the mother. It wasn’t fair not to. They couldn’t handle a nervous breakdown.

  After she had swallowed the sleeping tablets, Carolyn slept for fourteen hours. Her sleep was black and absolute, as if she had been dropped into a bottomless pit. Waking meant rising, as a diver surfaces from deep water, to a lightening of colours, navy blue, aqua blue, turquoise, pale blue, clear light – day light! with a shocked gasp at the change. It was the first time she had escaped consciousness properly for days.

  She lay relaxed and dizzy on the bed, with the lingering sense of floating on top of the depths she had plumbed in her sleep. Her white room was full of light. Through the open window came a breeze which separated and fluttered the curtains, which in turn made moving watery patterns of light and shadow on the white ceiling. She felt peaceful. She remembered . . . different feelings and flavours. Memory was a great open channel she could float down. Had it been blocked before this morning? Had she forgotten it? She remembered going to the seaside. They had gone once with school. She remembered the coach ride, and having no one to sit next to because Mandy was ill. They went to a strange place, with no piers or fun-fairs or candy floss. By the sea the empty beach was wide, and the dunes were dotted with bristly little bushes. Then the sand dunes flattened out and there were pine trees. They were quite far apart, it was light but still felt enclosed: you could look up and see the high tops of the pines swaying in a wind that you couldn’t feel down on the ground. The air smelt sweet and sticky, and there were those big wide-open pi
ne cones lying on the sand, with their little woody layers peeled back like petticoats. Mr Marshall told them you could forecast the weather with pine cones. After lunch they all trooped back down to the beach with plastic bags and jars for specimens, and Carolyn lagged behind. Following the tidy path through the pines, past a picnic site with slatted wooden tables and large litter bins, she was soon out of sight of any other people. There was the sound of the sea, at a distance, like regular quiet breathing. There was the secretive rustling of the wind in the tops of the pines. There were sudden sharp sounds, a fir cone dropping to the ground, a seagull. Mainly there was silence, in still greenish light, as if she were at the bottom of a pool. She sat and held her breath, and felt that she could hear the trees growing around her and that she was part of the same quiet measured progress, in a world devoid of people.

  Carolyn began to get better. Although Clare had decided to call in Meg, she didn’t; at first because in the morning things weren’t so pressing as they had been at night, and then because she was too busy at the Refuge, and then because it really didn’t seem fair. She could see that Caro was trying very hard.

  Gradually these impressions, and the passing of time, merged with her observation of Caro’s improvement to wipe all thought of Meg from her mind.

  Chapter 8

  As Carolyn got better, she stopped hearing her other story. She no longer needed it; didn’t have time for it.

  The story, once started, continued though, as stories will – quite unknown to Carolyn. It featured a Carolyn no less real than herself: her double, her living image, separated from her only by a second’s timing in a rainsoaked dash across Leap Lane. A Carolyn who led another life, with no more than the ghost of a thought that things could have been different.