Liminal

by Bee Lewis

  Still not fully awake, she sat on the edge of the bed, looking pensive as she drank her tea, remembering the image of Dan and Mike entwined. What did it mean? Was she reading too much into it? Her heart thudded against her ribcage. Shouldn’t she be feeling concerned? He’d come into their lives and was monopolising her husband and they knew so little about him.

  Dan misunderstood her silence. ‘Remember, on Saturday night he lent us the generator? I was up at his place. He’s got a good set-up going there and we may as well pass some of the work his way.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. Good idea. How will we get in touch with him though?’

  The bedroom door creaked open and Esther’s stomach lurched. Major Tom jumped up onto the bed, snuggling into Esther’s side and settled, purring, while fixing Dan with a baleful stare.

  ‘Mikey won’t be too far away. That one has a sixth sense.’ Dan could barely contain his irritation with the cat and raised his hand to sweep it away. ‘Bloody thing.’

  ‘Oh he’s fine – leave him be. It’s nice having him about the place, even if we don’t know who he belongs to. Anyway, I thought you don’t believe in things like the sixth sense?’

  ‘It’s all relative,’ he said and grinned. His mobile bleeped and he pulled it out of his back pocket, scrolling down the screen.

  She watched him carefully as his expression changed. The edge of his mouth turned upwards. The flicker of his eyes as he scanned the words on the screen.

  ‘Is that a text? Who’s it from?’

  ‘No, just a low battery warning. Still no signal. I think we have to face it, until this fog lifts, we aren’t going anywhere. Do you want to crack on with some of the admin stuff?’

  ‘What, because I’m a woman and women do admin?’ She was only half teasing.

  ‘No. Because you are far more organised than I am. I’m a hindrance. A giant, horny hindrance and I’m coming for you.’ He threw the covers back, scattering the cat to the floor and lunged at her. Esther squealed with surprise and allowed herself to be caught.

  Esther could hear Dan humming to himself as he swept out the storeroom next door to the waiting room. She could picture exactly how he’d approach the task, dipping his broom into a mop bucket to dampen the dust and prevent it clouding the air, a tip he’d learned from his gran. He’d passed the same tip onto her when they were renovating their first house together.

  She liked listening to the noise of him working. It was comforting. For the first time since they’d arrived, she felt as though they were pulling together. She tried to think back to the last time he’d made the first move on her and realised with a spark of sadness that it had been months. In fact, it was the night she’d conceived; the night she’d finally decided she would join him in Scotland after all. Sex between them had always been a minefield of misunderstandings and missed chances. Esther blamed her physical condition, and their lack of experience didn’t help. Dan was her first lover and she suspected she was his, though he wouldn’t be drawn on the subject. She’d spent her teenage years mooning after boys who weren’t interested in her, and just as many subsequent years fending off the weirdos that got off on dating an amputee.

  ‘Stump fiends.’ Sophie whispered in her ear, as clear as if she’d been standing there.

  Esther, unthinking, replied out loud with her standard response, ‘Stump suckers.’

  ‘Did you say something?’ Dan stood in the doorway, holding a broom.

  ‘No – sorry, was just thinking out loud.’

  He gave her a quizzical look then went back into the storeroom.

  Esther smiled at the memory. Sophie had a range of names for the guys who were fascinated more by Esther’s accident than by Esther herself. They were the detail hunters, collecting gory stories to wear like badges of honour, and Sophie despised them. Over the years, both girls had learned to spot them before they’d even opened their mouths.

  Dan was different. She’d met him through a dating website and from the start he was interested in her opinions and dreams. He was different to the others. But even so, before they met, she’d told him about her disability, so he’d had time to arrange his features into a neutral expression when he saw her for the first time.

  In the early days he’d been curious, asking lots of questions about the mechanics of the prosthetic. He never asked her for the details of the accident, but she sometimes felt like she was the subject of an experiment, particularly when he started making suggestions about small improvements to her leg. Sophie had asked her which was worse: the gore tourists, or Dan who wanted to make things easier for her.

  Most importantly, Dan accepted that her disability was just part of who she was. After years of feeling self-conscious about her body, Esther recognised that acceptance might be as good as it was going to get for her and she latched onto it. His attitude hadn’t changed in all the time she’d known him. When her skin was rubbed raw from the suction collar, it was Dan who helped her, tending to it with antiseptic cream and bandages. Her lover was forced to be her carer, and although he told her over and over that he didn’t mind, it wasn’t the point. She minded.

  Unless he was dressing her skin, he avoided touching her legs at all. She’d asked him about it once, but he’d replied that he didn’t touch her elbows or her thumbs either. She couldn’t make him see that he only ever complimented her appearance when she wore jeans or trousers; the metal pylon hidden beneath dark blue denim. She’d bought several synthetic skins to cover the pylon – one of them even had a tattoo of a butterfly on the inside of the ankle. They’d made her feel like a Barbie doll, with rubberised legs and flexible knees that would only lock in two positions. The blancmange-pink limb sticking out from under her dress or skirt looked absurd in her eyes, so she rarely bothered with it.

  She rubbed her hand over her stomach. Since she announced she was pregnant, it was almost like Dan had given up on their sex life completely, like his job was done. She put her hand to her neck, tracing the path his mouth had taken, and shivered with the remembered pleasure. He’d been so tender, so caring, not the perfunctory performance she was used to. Perhaps there was something in the air.

  Even the persistent fog couldn’t dampen her mood. She looked around the waiting room. She’d ask Dan to cut back the vine that had broken through the quarter pane. Maybe he could also board the windows up and clean them too, as she didn’t want to risk standing on a step ladder. She’d ended up in a heap on the floor the last time. After all those years without her leg, she still sometimes just forgot and would step off with Peggy leading the way. Her and Dan had both laughed at the time, but now with Bump to consider, she had to be more careful. At a push, the windows could wait until the kitchen had been fitted. No sense making it spotless for the builders.

  She eyed the closed cupboard door. It stared back. Running her fingers over the panel, it swung free with no trouble, the inside now empty. She’d had boxed up all the timetables and papers, putting them aside to sort them out once she got too big to move around so much and the days yawned before her.

  Putting her hand on her belly, she wondered how long it would be before she felt the baby move. The books said any time from seventeen weeks, but she’d read online that it could be much earlier. She was coming into her twelfth week now. She sat as still as she could, focusing all her attention on her stomach. She still couldn’t feel anything different and the old, familiar panic took hold, creeping along her veins, snaking around her heart.

  Despite knowing the answer already, Esther hauled herself up the stairs to the bathroom and ripped open a new pregnancy test – the one she kept in her wash bag as a backup. Fingers fumbling with the wrapper, she nearly dropped it on the floor. She squatted over the toilet, but when she got herself into position, she could hardly squeeze out any urine.

  Esther washed her hands and sat on the edge of the bath, staring at the plastic wand. The black and white wall tiles closed
in around her and a draught from the small window made her shiver. The wait was interminable. She’d never understood the women on the TV shows who looked away for the whole of the two minutes whilst the test developed. On one level, she knew it was to heighten the drama, but she didn’t think it could be any more dramatic than it already was, or that any woman would behave in such a way. She wanted to note every second, how quickly the line appeared, whether it was dark or faint, and then spend hours online comparing notes with other mums-to-be.

  Time hung like the fog while she willed the line to appear. She closed her eyes and threw her head back in a silent prayer of thanks when it winked at her through the little window after no more than thirty seconds, solid and reassuring. After the last time, she wasn’t taking any chances. She wrapped the stick in toilet paper and threw it in the waste bin, then thought better of it and retrieved it, throwing away just the tissue. She took it into the bedroom and put it with the other test, at the bottom of her jewellery box, so that when the next bout of anxiety erupted, she would be sure.

  Her eye caught something nestling underneath all the tangled necklaces. She pushed everything else aside to see it better. Shit! The amber brooch from her dreams stared back at her. What the fuck is going on? Where did this brooch come from? There was a subtle shift inside her, a ratchet clicking into place, but the puzzle wasn’t quite complete enough for her to make sense of it. She was starting to believe that there was some other force at work, that someone or something was sending her a message. Or maybe Dan was right after all and she just had an overactive imagination. As she reached out to pick up the brooch, Dan shouted up the stairs.

  ‘Esther, come and see this!’

  She snapped the lid of the jewellery box shut and carefully took the stairs, tutting to herself as she realised she still hadn’t sorted the keys out for the internal doors. The fog seemed to be thinning and she could see a bit further than before. Major Tom trotted along beside her, seeming to know not to wind round her ankles, and she bent down to tickle the top of his head.

  ‘Es? Where are you?’

  ‘Coming,’ she replied and opened the storeroom door.

  ‘Look at this, it seems the wildlife want to share the Halt with us.’ He pointed to the floor.

  ‘What am I looking at?’ She squinted, scrunching up her nose and mouth at the same time.

  ‘These, look. Paw prints.’ He crouched down next to them.

  ‘Major Tom is outside. They’ll be his, surely?’

  ‘No, Es. Look again. These aren’t cat prints. A rabbit or maybe a hare made these, see the longer marks at the back?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ Esther raised an eyebrow. ‘I wonder how they got there?’

  ‘Cheeky little sods, they are. You wait, once the fog lifts, it’ll be like something out of Snow White with all the wildlife for miles popping in.’

  ‘So long as the bluebirds help with the washing up, I won’t mind,’ she laughed. ‘Do you think the fog is beginning to lift? It doesn’t seem to be as thick as before.’

  ‘Let’s hope so, eh? If it does, I’ll take the car out later and see if I can find a shop. I could do with getting to a phone to find out what’s going on with the builders and the bridge.’

  She left him to it and wandered back to the cottage. Major Tom followed her, tail in the air.

  Later that morning, Esther sat at the kitchen table, making lists in her plain, round handwriting. Spread out on the table before her was a list of menu ideas for when the centre opened and a list of things to buy for each bedroom. She got up and started rooting through the boxes in the sitting room, passing over items or nudging them out of the way. She couldn’t find the diary she’d made her haphazard notes in. It should have been in her handbag, but at the last minute she’d put it in another box. Now she couldn’t find it, or remember what the box looked like.

  For a few seconds she doubted herself. Had she packed it away after all? She’d tucked the photograph of her parents on their wedding day between its pages, along with the remaining links to her father – a note of his prison number and the address he was released to. It wasn’t much and the information was at least fifteen years old, but at least she had somewhere to start.

  She looked around at all the unopened boxes, trying to remember which one it was. What if it was a box that went to storage? She drummed her fingers on the windowsill, trying to quell the sick feeling that threatened to engulf her as she realised she may have lost the diary. Think! Where was it?

  The idea of rummaging through the boxes wasn’t very appealing. Dan had organised the move and done most of the packing. She wouldn’t know where to begin and he’d have already decided which order to unpack in. Her fingers brushed the laptop on the windowsill, where Dan had left it charging. That’s it! She opened it up and searched through the recently-opened Excel files and spotted one called ‘House Move.’ Her hunch was right, Dan had not only numbered the boxes from his study, but had listed the contents on the spreadsheet. There were times his pernickety ways proved to be useful. She scanned through the list quickly, but couldn’t see an entry for her diary. As she looked around the room again, she spotted a blue shoe box that she didn’t remember packing, sealed with several lengths of parcel tape. It didn’t seem to be numbered, so it was unlikely to be Dan’s. She started hunting for the scissors.

  Dan interrupted her rummaging.

  ‘Did you make a list?’

  ‘I made several.’ She grinned. ‘I’m beginning to get a feel now for how this place might work. Have you seen my diary anywhere?’

  He kissed the top of her head. ‘Nope, sorry. I’m glad you seem more settled. I know it was a leap of faith, but trust me, this place was too good to pass up.’ He paused, and when he spoke again there was a slight catch in his voice. ‘Using the redundancy money this way makes me feel like I have a contribution to make.’

  Esther wanted to hug him. It was the first time she’d heard him be anything other than negative about his redundancy. It was another land mine in the path of their happiness. She knew however they still had a long way to go. He’d never told her exactly how he’d spent his days after he’d lost his job; the days where he pretended to go to work. The shock that he could deceive her, combined with the depth and extent of it, made her question how well she knew her husband, even now. More than that, she felt sadness that he didn’t trust her enough to open up to her, that he felt he had to pretend everything was normal. That realisation was the real weakness in their marriage and she didn’t see any way of making it better.

  ‘Dan?’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘Do you think there is something strange about this place?’

  ‘Strange?’

  ‘Yes. Think about it, have you ever known fog to last this long? It’s so silent here during the day and there was that phone call from Sophie . . .’

  Just voicing her concerns to Dan made her realise how bizarre they sounded. Even so, she knew better than to mention the daydream about the radio to him. And she’d never get him to understand the feeling the carving had given her.

  ‘All of these things have a rational explanation. Are you feeling okay? You’ve been a bit distracted lately, like you’re in a trance.’

  ‘Don’t you feel cut off? Anything could have happened. The rest of Scotland could have been annihilated in a nuclear attack. Aliens could have landed. Zombies might be roaming the streets of Inverness. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so remote before.’

  ‘Are you regretting coming here?’ Dan looked down, avoiding eye contact with her.

  She thought for a moment before answering. ‘No, of course not. I think I had a romantic view of what it would be like, just you and me but with a bit less civilisation and convenience than we were used to.’

  ‘You hate it here, don’t you?’

  Esther paused and sighed. ‘Dan. You have to stop doubting, it’s cau
stic. It’s just not what I pictured. Can’t you just accept that we are here, together?’

  He hesitated before speaking. ‘I wake up every day and think how lucky I am. You could have left me, Es. I wouldn’t have blamed you.’

  She chewed the inside of her cheek, thinking how to respond. ‘I thought about it, Dan. You must know that. It was hard enough losing the baby. I couldn’t face losing everything else too.’

  ‘I know. I’m glad you stayed.’ He placed a hand on her shoulder.

  A streak of pain coursed through her leg and she winced.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Phantom leg pains.’ She didn’t look at him, didn’t want to see the momentary irritation flicker across his eyes. She knew he didn’t believe her about the pains, but they were very real. Sometimes in bed at night she wanted to scratch her skin off to make the burning sensation stop, but of course, there was nothing for her to scratch.

  ‘Can I do anything?’ His question was a reflex.

  Esther shook her head. Another reflex.

  ‘Right, I’m going to see if I can find a shop. Have you seen my keys?’ He patted his coat pockets.

  ‘They’re on the side in the kitchen.’

  ‘You don’t want to come?’ He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Explore the area a bit?’

  She was torn. The chance to get out of the cottage appealed, but it would mean getting into the car and she couldn’t face it. Not so soon after their arduous journey up here.

  ‘No, I’m tired. I’ll light the fire and read for a bit. Be careful, it’s still really foggy out there.’

  He nodded and she felt the change in temperature as he went out onto the platform, letting cold air in. A few moments later, she heard the car pull away up the lane. She busied herself setting the fire by twisting up sheets of newspaper, then piling kindling on top. The fire caught first time and she sat by the stove, feeding logs into the iron maw, feeling something approaching contentment.