Blood Bonds: A psychological thriller

by Alex Matthews

  He pointed to a square stone building in the distance, incongruous amidst the featureless, heather-furred landscape. I couldn’t see how this had merited such a trek. Furthermore, I couldn’t see why anyone would be willing to build such a strange thing out in the middle of nowhere. From this distance it reminded me of one of those dour square pillboxes they used during the Second World War and which appeared all over the coast like grey indestructible pimples. Who would want to defend this stretch of coastline? I mused on this as I followed Max. Evidently he found it of great interest, because his steps had quickened. I called to him to explain, but he just waved a hand that bade me follow and I did as I was told, dourly and with little relish.

  As we approached the building, the size of one of those small barns you sometimes see in the Dales, I realised it was far more ornate than I’d first supposed. The material was of the same grey mottled stone as the boulders and rocks of the island, and the same as that which the house was constructed from. Though it had weathered well it was obvious from the lichen that spotted it like splashes of paint that it had been here some considerable time and had had to endure head on the buffeting winds and sea-soaked air. Max led me around to a door, flanked on either side by blocked-in triangular-headed windows and majestically tapered stone columns topped by bell capitals wrapped with stylised oak leaves. The entire building had a medieval church feel to it. Max stood by the door, a heavy oak thing that reminded me of that which fronted the house. From his pocket he took out a key, long and black, which he inserted in the lock. I watched without saying anything. We were sheltered from the wind by the building and the air around us was calm and warm and strangely silent.

  He pushed open the door and the smell of age and damp stone and earth crawled sluggishly to our nostrils. In the centre of the building, lit only by the light from the doorway so that it appeared to stand isolated in a black void, was a huge stone block, and instantly I knew we were in a family mausoleum. Why I hadn’t caught on earlier I can’t imagine. I retreated instinctively, but Max caught my arm and pulled me inside. In spite of the warmth caused by the Sun playing on the building all day, it still felt cold inside.

  “Whose is it?” I asked, in an unconsciously reverential low voice.

  “It’s mother,” he said. “I brought her here.”

  I sucked in a breath. Connie Stone – here?

  “Fitting, huh?” he said. “Like a princess in her own island kingdom. She always deserved that. She always deserved far more than she ever got.”

  * * * *

  I wait and I wait, but there is to be no exercise this week, and I think that perhaps I have my days all wrong. But I am certain I haven’t and I know the time has come. For what, exactly, I can’t be sure. But there is a feel to the air. And Bernard’s head seems to think so, too, because he doesn’t grin any more. I have never seen him so down. I ask him what is wrong, but he ignores me and turns away so that I can’t look into his eyes. Ruby and my uncle have declined to visit me for the last few nights and that is more unnerving than actually having them here, because it is patently obvious they know something is amiss too, like a dog that senses a ghost or something. What is it they sense? My end? At last? Tomorrow, tonight, when? I can’t sleep. “Mr Walton,” I ask, “Do you know what’s going on?” He swings his coconut and shakes his head at me and I can’t make out what on earth it’s supposed to mean. If indeed meaning can be ascribed to it. But there again, meaning can be ascribed to anything, even Sundays…

  * * * *

  That night was the same as before. I could not sleep and looked out of the window towards the sea. I avoided looking into Ruby’s face during the rest of the day and late into the evening, and tried as best as I could to ensure our conversations were limited, because I did not have the courage or resolve to face up to the fact that this woman before me wasn’t the woman I knew and loved. She’d changed, and I swore I could see that change in her features so sharply that at times when I happened to glance at her I was certain it wasn’t her at all, but another similar woman in her place, a kind of doppelganger.

  I was being cruel and unreasonable, I realise that now, and have since reflected on how easily we can become selfish, hardened beasts, even with those we purport to love as no other. I almost hated her that evening. Yes, hated. Unfair, I know. I can only offer in my weak defence that it was the only way I could cope with everything. And what’s more at times I gained a perverted sense of satisfaction in seeing her hurt expression when I avoided her, or treated her like a child with my curt, overly polite replies that spoke more of endurance than understanding and love. I saw the confusion in her liquid-smeared eyes and those same eyes burn with detestation when she looked across at Max.

  Later, Helen, Ruby’s nurse, came into the room, the first occasion I had seen her do so when I had been there, and she spoke softly with Max who nodded and looked at Ruby. With her face draining of colour, and with eyes darting about the room like an animal seeking escape, Ruby rose resignedly and meekly when Helen took her gently by the arm and led her away upstairs. I tried not to let it appear as if the whole affair bothered me, but I was forced to look upon Ruby’s back and as I did so she turned and our eyes met briefly. I desperately wanted not to be affected by her in any way, but it proved impossible, and I felt my entire being take a plunge into icy despondency.

  “Try not to let it worry you,” Max said. “She is in good and capable hands.”

  I smiled. I actually smiled. “I guess so…”

  “Snooker?”

  I looked at the doorway through which Ruby had passed. “I don’t mind,” I said. “Look, Max, it’s been generous of you inviting me over here like this, and I appreciate it; it’s been good seeing you, but it’s Ruby...” I turned away. “I can’t cope with seeing her like this. You do understand? It was bad enough – well, you know – but this is hell, Max. I have to leave.”

  “Yeah, I kinda thought you might…” There was sadness thick in his voice. “It’s been good having you here. We’ve always understood each other, eh? It’s been better for having your support, Collie. I appreciate that. I guess that’s the real reason why I invited you along. Kinda selfish, I know.”

  “No, really, it’s not selfish at all. I understand.” I reached out and touched him on the arm.

  But I still could not sleep that night. And the island couldn’t sleep either. It was tossing in its eternally fitful slumber, rolling and whispering and crying out in anguish at some unknown nightmare. And just the same as the night before Ruby came to my room and caught me in the same position standing by the window.

  “What’s wrong, Philip?” she said quietly, only just audible above the sounds of the elements outside, fear evident in her voice.

  I didn’t know how to reply. Instead I placed my hands on her shoulders, feeling the bones move like fluid beneath my fingers. “Ruby you should be in bed.” I wondered whether Helen had administered some kind of sleeping drug, and reflected on how useless it obviously was, for Ruby’s face was fully awake, every inch seemingly alive and animated. “You need rest.”

  “What has he been telling you?” She shrugged my hands off their perch. “What has he been telling you?” she snapped, louder this time.

  I flinched at the noise. “Max will hear you, he’ll wonder…”

  “Has he shown you her grave yet?”

  “Connie’s?”

  “Has he shown you?”

  “Yes, today. Why?”

  “He’s mad, Collie.”

  She was deadly serious. So serious I couldn’t help but give a feeble laugh, and instantly regretted it.

  “Don’t you believe me?” Desperation was building up in her. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “Calm down, Ruby, please, it’s no good for you. Please don’t get excited…”

  She turned away, her arms flailing. “You stupid bastard!” she growled. “You stupid, stupid bastard! Will you never change? What is it with you?”

  I could see her get
ting more and more worked up, and wondered whether or not to call for Max or Helen. I looked to the door with this desperate thought in mind, but she caught me by the arms and stared me full in the face. “Listen to me, Collie, if I don’t get you off this island you’re dead, understand? Dead. Max will kill you.”

  I backed away, fighting her grip, flashing a glance at the door again, but the next second her face was there, white and bobbing before me like a full Moon. “Ruby, be reasonable, why on earth should – ”

  “Come with me,” she said, cutting me short.

  “I don’t think…”

  “That’s right, you never did. Come with me.”

  She tugged fiercely at my arm and yanked me to the door. Once outside my room I planned to get help. I didn’t like the look of this one bit. I grabbed my dressing gown on the way out and threaded my arms into it as she pulled me onto the landing. All was quiet, and save for the sounds of our breathing and the heavy ticking of an unseen clock the silence and the night lay over everything like a padded quilt. And any notion I harboured of giving the alarm melted away. The feel of her hand. It had been so long. I followed meekly like a lapdog.

  We padded silently down the stairs, her head snapping this way and that, bobbing up and down, searching energetically as we descended. Her fingers tightened, and her nails dug into my hand. “Ruby…” I began.

  She turned suddenly, holding her finger straight and rigid at her lips, her eyes fierce. “He might be anywhere.”

  “Max?”

  “No. You’ve seen him. You know.”

  “The security guard?”

  “He’s as regular as clockwork, shouldn’t come around here until another hour or so. But you never know. They’ve been told to watch out for me.”

  “Oh really! They’re there just to keep an eye out for… ”

  She dug her nails in deeper, and I saw the white ribbon of her teeth lustrous in the gloom. “For what, Philip?” she snarled. “Ram-raiders?” Her eyes rolled in their sockets like two snooker balls.

  At that moment I was convinced she was indeed mad. And I guess I was too; standing there at God only knew what time of night or morning, on the stairs in my dressing gown clutching the hand of my ex-wife in a castle on an island. I nodded to her sheepishly and her grip lessened. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Just keep quiet.”

  We moved on at a pace, all the way to the foot of the grand staircase, through many doors and into many darkened rooms, eventually entering a part of the place that I’d never seen before. Ruby opened a door and a cold draught whipped out from what was obviously a corridor beyond, except that it was a black, fathomless pit; the air carried with it the stench of age and corruption, of damp and mould, and I was reminded of Connie’s mausoleum. She fumbled around in the dark and the next moment flicked on a torch, which lit up an old bedside cabinet that had obviously housed it.

  I supposed we were at the back of the building, once the servants’ quarters, because the torch revealed a corridor that was windowless, lacking entirely in decoration with only coarse wooden boards at our feet. At irregular intervals down the corridor’s length was the discarded junk of generations; packing crates, old leather suitcases, a cast iron bed in pieces, a rocking horse whose enamel eye seemed to blink suspiciously in the passing light of the torch, and a pile of books stacked against a wall and resembling some ancient crumbling tower. And all coated in a uniform grey skin of dust and powdered plaster.

  She closed the door behind us, sealing us in. “We can talk here,” her voice coming out in soft spurts. “They don’t come here often. No one does. It’s been forgotten, like me.”

  I looked down the corridor to where her torch beam stroked a chest of drawers on top of which stood a glass case; an owl stared back at us from its wooden perch, immobile, fixed forever in a triumphant, wide-winged pose, and pinned beneath it’s painted talons was a helpless mouse. I shuddered at the crude taxidermy. “I’m not surprised,” I said. “Who’d want to come here? More to the point, why have we come here?”

  “They think the tablets work,” she said, suddenly excited. “They never did. Not once. I pretended to sleep. They think I’m asleep now. Helpless, docile. Remember how sleeping tablets never used to work for me? Remember that?”

  “What are we doing here?”

  “I want to show you something. Then you’ll believe me.”

  “Of course I believe you!” I said.

  “Don’t do that, Philip. Don’t patronise me. You’re in danger here. He won’t let you leave.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Did he tell you I was mad?”

  I closed my mouth, my straight lips revealing more than I’d care to reveal. “He said you had an illness, yes…”

  “Bastard!” she hissed. And then she was off again, flitting ahead with me trying to keep up, slaloming around obstacles, once or twice crashing my shin against something unseen and letting out strangled gasps of pain. She opened a door at the corridor’s end and we were faced with a flight of stairs that appeared to extend into the blackness of the night sky itself. “Careful of the boards, they’re rotten,” she warned. “Everything here’s rotten.”

  I followed like a moth to the flame of her torch. We spiralled upwards. And as we reached the upper parts of the building the sound of the wind became stronger as if the attic rooms above us housed the wailing beast itself. “Why did you marry him, Ruby?” I asked. She stopped dead. “Did you love him?”

  Her breathing was deep, rhythmical. “Once, yes.”

  “Did you love him as much as you once…”

  “As much as I once loved you?” She put a hand to her temple, rubbing the skin. “No. Never that much.”

  I hesitated and she sensed my agitation, coming back down the stairs to me, her finger touching my cheek. “And when we were together, did you love him then?” My tone was frosty. “Did you regret marrying me, wanting him all along, is that it?”

  “No! Never that!” She sighed, her head shaking. “I married him because he was so much like you, like the Philip I used to know. He seemed to be everything you had been. He fooled me. And I fooled myself. There were things I should have seen, even back then, even when we were nothing but kids, yet my own selfish need to be happy made me blind to them. But we’ve no time for this, Philip,” she groaned, pointing the torch at the top of the stairs and lighting up a grey door that looked as if it hadn’t had a lick of paint for generations. “Later. I’ll tell you later. I have to show you something, and then you can call me mad all you like. Please, Philip! Hurry!”

  She paused at the door, signalling me to be silent, and she pressed her ear to the scarred wood, finally trying the handle and gingerly pushing the door open a fraction. “This is one of the doors through which the servants serviced the upper rooms. There are others, but most of them have been sealed or padlocked. What I want to show you is just along this corridor. I discovered it quite by accident. Max didn’t want me coming into this part of the building at all. In fact he stationed men here occasionally to make sure I kept away. Politely, of course. Said it was dangerous, walls likely to come crashing down, that kind of thing. I believed them all at first, until I stumbled on this back route to the upper chambers. See for yourself, everything looks perfectly sound.”

  And so it did. The torch lit up carpeted boards, bright wallpaper, recently applied paint, and even the odd-picture or two. “So what’s the big deal? Why keep you away?” She clearly knew I was still more than a little sceptical, and something of the old Ruby flashed into her eyes and flagged her frustration of me. I wanted to take her and kiss her, to tell her I still loved her, had never ceased to love her; but the moment sped by and was lost.

  “Max always envied you, do you know that?” she said quietly.

  I shook my head. “Never. It was always the other way around. Max had everything. Correction, Max has got everything, including my wife. It was always the same.”

  “You’ve got it all wro
ng, Philip. Let me show you…” We padded down the corridor, stopping before yet another door, and she reached into her slipper and produced a small key which she’d stuffed into the toe. “Max keeps it locked, but most of the doors up here are opened with just a single key, and this one, along with a bunch of others, I found hanging from a peg on a wall in the old servants’ quarters where it’s probably been for the best part of a century. All the rooms along this stretch are empty except for a few pieces of junk. I know because I’ve tried every one out of curiosity. They’re all empty except for this one. This is Max’s room. Only it’s not his room…”

  “You’re talking in riddles, Ruby…”

  She pushed open the door and held her hand out for me to take the lead. Warily, I glanced at her as I passed. “Take this,” she said, handing me the torch.

  At first I didn’t notice anything unusual. The thin torch beam lit up a neatly made bed, a wardrobe, curtains hanging at a window. Then I was drawn to a pair of slippers at the foot of the bed, and I let the beam linger on them for a while, something disquieting seeping into my brain. “Jesus!” I gasped when it hit me, almost making me drop the torch. I ran the beam across the room again, this way and that, and it became evident, to my horror, that here was my own bedroom.

  The very same room that I’d occupied as a child and as a young adult.

  In fact I might have been at home, and mother might have just finished making the bed, so perfect was the resemblance. Even down to the slippers. My slippers. Placed how I’d always placed them. There was even a Slade poster on the wall, very much like my own. And the wallpaper…

  “Christ!” I said. “What’s going on?” But I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead I went to the wardrobe and tugged at the door. It squeaked open.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  I didn’t answer, but instead I fumbled around in the dark at the bottom of the wardrobe till my fingers rapped against something. I pulled it out slowly, into the beam of the torch that now lay on the carpet.