‘The beating truth. It’s upstairs you know. Or are you too scared to face it?’
I glanced down at the glass I was holding between my shaking hands and felt Raphael’s gaze edge towards me like a dark veil, its feelers probing softly at my skin. My eyes shut for a moment as they lapped against me like soft kisses.
‘It’s alright, you don’t have to go there. Come to me,’ came his voice.
My muscles began to give way. I felt my feet stumble. He opened out his arms.
‘Come to me.’
The black waves washed over my body, drawing my head in last of all. I saw Seb in the distance; his beautiful eyes blinked back at me with tears and the drum beats stormed in my head. The image of the woman came to me again. Her lips this time, blood red. I heard her moan with pleasure and I cried back, mutely.
And then somewhere, somewhere within the pounding and the horror, came the softest, most meagre flicker; a white shadow, not bright enough for a flame. I reached towards it and its whiteness merged into a limp little bell of petals in my hand.
‘Look inside the flower,’ came my mother’s voice. ‘Look inside...’
I lifted its small head and from within the humble petals a dazzling light shone out at me, so bright that the force of it threw my head back and sent fire through my limbs. And as I lurched away from Raphael I crushed the palms of my hands together as tightly and irrevocably as I could.
The fragments of the wine glass chimed as they met the floor.
I felt my face go white and waited for the pain. But nothing came; nothing other than cool serenity. My hands were clean. Not a drop of blood in sight.
‘Look,’ I whispered, raising my hands to Raphael. ‘Nothing.’
He seemed to recoil, fear etched in his face and I began to move away, suddenly breaking into a run.
‘No!’ he screamed through tearing lips.
‘I’m stronger than you!’ I cried back at him, ‘and I’m not scared anymore!’
I raced through the hallway and up the stairs, the haze diminishing before me at every footfall. The beats grew stronger the further up I went and now the visions of her came to me thick and fast: her fine white skin, her haunted face and his lips slowly moving up her neck. My throat choked with sobs but I had to go on. I had to see the truth.
Their heartbeats pulsed as one now, drawing me to the final corridor upstairs. And yet I could see them in my mind before I’d even found the room. His arms drawn tightly round her waist, their bodies perfectly and exquisitely in tune.
‘Seb!’
Two pairs of frightened eyes darted towards me as I stood shivering and crying in the doorway, hugging myself with lonely arms.
‘Seb,’ I moaned again.
Eva uncoiled herself from him, her half naked body horribly gaunt. Seb stepped towards me but I cringed back and he halted, hurt searing through his face.
‘Why?’ I sobbed. Their betrayal ached like a gushing wound.
He drew his fingers back through his hair, trembling as if he was barely able to speak. ‘You didn’t want me anymore,’ he finally uttered.
‘That’s not true. Be honest, you’ve been with her all this time, haven’t you?’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘Not until now.’
‘Really? Well what about before then?’
Eva leapt forwards. ‘Don’t you ever stop?’ she snarled as Seb grabbed her arm to hold her back. ‘Always searching, probing, digging up what isn’t yours to find. I warned you to keep away. I warned you to leave!’
‘So that you could have him.’
‘No!’ she screamed. ‘To protect you. To save you from this!’
Seb hung his head down low. A tear glided down the angle of his cheek and I felt myself crumble.
‘I don’t understand,’ I whimpered.
‘Yes you do,’ she snapped back through gritted teeth. ‘Just face it. We don’t have to tell you anything, it’s there already. You tell us. Go on! Who is this man you are in love with? What is he?’
My arms fell limply by my sides as he raised his head up again; his blue eyes were the colour of agony.
‘A ghost,’ I answered.
‘And who is Beth’s father?’ came her voice again. ‘Who made my fragile little girl who should never have existed, never been born?’
He looked ready to fall apart and I ached to hold him, more than ever before. ‘You Seb, you.’
‘And what do you have to do now?’ she demanded.
Her face suddenly came between us, poised like a bullet ready to aim. She was barely breathing.
‘I have to leave.’
I can’t remember exactly how I got back to my old room: running, stumbling, clutching my aching stomach up the final flight of stairs and across the balcony to my barren bed. I’m not sure how long I lay there, torn apart by misery, knowing that there would be no Seb to greet me that night, no eyes to lap me up, no eager hands to rid me of my clothes.
At some point my eyelids flickered closed and I drifted into dreams: my mother in the garden, patting down the soil, her back always turned away. And the reflection of my young face in the bus window; a smiling ghost looking back at me from the motorway beyond.
‘Serena,’ came a voice; the same voice that was still ringing in my ears from earlier. ‘Serena.’
Cool slim fingers were interlocking themselves with mine. A body was curling up against me, its white face gazing down.
‘Eva!’ I plunged upwards through my sleep, up and out into the air again. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Sshh. Don’t be afraid. I’m... I’m not going to yell at you anymore.’
‘Where’s Seb?’
‘Still next door. Lost and drowning in his misery.’ Her mouth looked nearly purple in the moonlight. ‘I just heard what you did... to Sasha. Robert told me about how he got that cross for you and then Sasha rang my mother from the police station, fuming with rage about some meeting he’d missed with you. She told him never to come back here again. At last! You tried to protect us from him, didn’t you? You tried to protect me, and Beth!’
‘Yes.’
Her face trembled. All the anger and pain of our last meeting seemed to have sapped everything from her. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’
I sank my head back into the pillow. ‘It’s alright. At least no one will believe anything he says anymore. I think he got off lightly though, he wanted me to take him to the house.’
‘Oh God!’
‘His grand plans for Beth were hideous. She’s delicate enough as it is...’ I swallowed hard. ‘What will become of her?’
Eva’s eyes were wide and sad. ‘We honestly don’t know, only time will tell. She isn’t a normal little girl. We never thought that such a thing as Beth was possible, when we fell in love.’
‘Eva?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why did he come to me when he’s always been in love with you?’
She laughed deeply, toying with my fingers in her hands.
‘Because I’ve tried my best to reject him, over and over again.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ she paused. ‘Because I have a life! Seb is someone who’s always inspired love. It makes it all the more tragic. Miranda, the woman who brought him up, loved him more than anyone ever could. But it wasn’t enough to keep him safe. I have loved that man from childhood. He’s my very first memory and I know that he’ll be my very last.’
‘What happened to him when he came back to London from Druid Manor?’
The moonlight drained away and her face fell into the shadows. Her fingers unthreaded themselves from mine. ‘The country wasn’t enough for a young man like that,’ she said eventually. ‘He wanted to know where he really came from and once he was old enough to find out for himself then no one could stop him. Lord Hartreve sent his assistant and Miranda a faithful cook as his guardians, who both swore to protect him and to bring him home safe and sound when he’d seen enough. But once Tristan got his son back he was never going to l
et him go again. He trapped him there, forever.’
It was so dark I couldn’t see her at all now, although I could hear the soft sound of her breathing.
‘Why is it that I was able to see into your world, right from the start?’ I asked.
‘We’ve never come across anyone else like you before. Raphael was fascinated, mesmerized by you. My brother was an obsessive person... such a sad, dark soul.’
She stopped and swallowed hard, fighting back the tears. ‘It took my own mother years and years to find out what really existed around her. That’s when she stopped being happy. You saw it all straightaway. You seem to have something special... I think that only Seb can explain that to you. He truly loves you, you know that? You have to go, but say goodbye to him first.’
I shrugged. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow. I can’t stay here any longer. But I would like to say goodbye to Beth, properly. Do you think I can?’
‘She’ll be waiting for you in the morning... and one more thing, before I leave.’
‘Yes?’
I felt something heavy land in my lap. My fingers fell on rough paper.
‘Your drawings,’ she said. ‘I took them from your room when you left for Druid Manor before me at Christmas. They’re so beautiful. I sent them to a friend of mine in Paris, an illustrator. He wants to meet you. His address is on that parcel.’
I felt my throat choke up. ‘Thank you,’ I stammered. ‘I... I wish that we could have been friends.’
‘I know. We can, in a funny sort of way. Just promise that you’ll live your life, for both of us, and I’ll always be watching from a distance. Do you promise?’
‘I promise.’
And a gentle parting kiss brushed against my lips.
1911
‘My boy! Take me to my boy!’
The icy pavement crunched beneath her feet as she fell into Gladys Hubbard’s arms.
‘I can’t. That’s why I summoned you to London – thank goodness you came! He’s been gone for days now. He’s somewhere in there,’ and Gladys nodded back at the house behind her. ‘... We just can’t see it to let ourselves in!’
The air was dense with freezing fog. The cold had crawled right through Miranda’s fur coat during the journey and then deeper and deeper into her flesh. And now that she was here, in the presence of that house once more, it felt as if even her bones had turned to ice and nothing would ever make her warm again.
Was it really still standing there after all these years? The place she’d hoped and prayed never to see again? The brass numbers, 34, gleamed down at her.
‘God help me.’
The world smeared into whiteness and her knees seemed to dissolve beneath her. But before she could tumble into the ice, two firm hands clutched at her elbows from behind. They scooped her up again, cradling her with their loving strength.
‘Oh Walter! Wasn’t it enough for him just to live in his mother’s house, spend his time with his cousins? Did he really have to wander into the darkness? Why didn’t you stop him? You promised, both of you, to protect him.’
Walter had become so gaunt that his skin was now translucent; the angular bones in his face threatening to sever right through.
‘We did as much as we could,’ he murmured. ‘We tried to keep him away, but we are not that powerful my darling. He saw the house right from the start and fate seemed to draw him inside.’
‘Then I will draw him back out again. I’ll drag him out of that repugnant hell-hole if I have to! Just follow me.’
The icy pathway shattered like glass as she scrambled to the door and hurled it open. The grey cloud within reared up at the sight of her but she waded on into it, squinting through the haze with stinging eyes at something lying on the floor ahead: the body of a young man.
‘Oh my boy!’
Walter rushed ahead, collapsing to his knees. He brushed the frost from the man’s lips and pressed his ear against them.
‘It’s no good. He’s gone.’
‘My darling son, my baby. He’s taken you away from us. Tristan’s got you now, hasn’t he?’
A shadow passed between them, slipping over the banisters and up into the house beyond.
‘Oh, is he gone? What have I done? Is our Seb really dead? Is he?’ yelped Gladys, staggering towards them with her hand clutching at her chest.
‘Yes he is,’ whispered Miranda. ‘It’s not your fault. It was his fate, just like Walter said.’
She cradled his head up onto her lap. His skin was as smooth and faultless as it had ever been. His eyes, which were still open, were as blue as the sky on a bright spring day. Even in death he was beautiful.
‘Oh my chest, I can’t breathe!’ Gladys gasped. She crumbled down, wheezing and spluttering onto the cold floor.
‘Oh, help her!’ Miranda yelled.
Walter snatched a small bottle from around his neck and tried to force it into the struggling woman’s mouth, but with one final wheeze her body suddenly slumped down in stillness, her eyes gazing unblinkingly up at them.
‘No!’
The walls echoed her shrill cry straight back at her.
‘There’s nothing left for you now Miranda White,’ they whispered.
‘Nothing left. I have nothing left.’
‘Yes you do.’
A pair of arms gathered her closely in, pressing her ear against a chest filled with a warm and beating heart. Walter.
‘You still have me,’ he said.
SERENA’S STORY
‘I want to give you something.’
‘What is it? Oh, your peony brooch!’
Beth’s eyes glinted up at me.
‘There you go. It looks just lovely on you.’
She patted it contentedly against her chest but then suddenly wrinkled up her forehead.
‘That means you’re leaving, doesn’t it? That’s why you’ve brought me to the park, to our favourite place.’
I huddled up next to her on the blanket. Above us the great tree wove a mesh against the sky with its branches. No leaves yet, just the merest buds like emeralds glinting down at us.
‘Yes. I’m so sorry.’
Her chin wobbled slightly. ‘Is it because I’m different from other children?’
‘Oh God no. No! Beth you’re wonderful, don’t ever change. It’s nothing to do with you at all.’
She nuzzled her cheek against my arm and I squeezed her close, blinking back the tears.
‘Will I see you again?’
‘Of course darling. I’ll write to you and you can visit me when you get older.’
‘But you won’t come back to the house?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll miss you.’
‘Me too. Come on let me take you home.’
We grasped hands and pulled each other up.
‘You’re freezing!’ I cried. ‘Where are your gloves?’
‘I don’t like gloves.’
‘Then I’ll have to warm you up.’
And I rubbed her hands between my palms as we made patterns along the dewy grass, back towards Marguerite Avenue for the last time.
Gladys was vehemently polishing in the hallway when we got in and the mournful notes of Robert at the piano stroked the air from the room next door.
‘Look at my brooch,’ said Beth to Gladys. ‘Is there anything to eat? I’m hungry.’
‘You’ll find fresh bread in the kitchen.’
My heart turned a somersault as she scuttled away. I was back at the beginning again: standing here with the smell of wood polish and baking in my nostrils, the sound of the piano drifting by.
‘I’m leaving,’ I said.
‘Yes I realized that,’ Gladys replied; her voice already seemed far away. ‘I’m surprised you stayed so long.’
‘You’ll take care of Beth, won’t you?’
‘I’ll love her as my own. Just like I’ve always done. Good luck dear,’ she squeezed my arm. ‘You’re right to leave. Go and live your life to the full, you’re wasting it here...
’
She looked away, brushing her wrist across her eyes.
‘Thank you for everything. I think I’m very lucky to have known you.’
But she was already hurrying off, half way back to the kitchen, her apron tied firmly in a knot in the middle of her back.
‘Edward and Arabella are in the drawing room if you want to see them,’ she called behind her.
The drawing room door was half open. I cleared my throat to speak; a few well-rehearsed words ready on my tongue. But when I peeped in at Edward and Arabella sitting there, gazing silently across each other’s heads like two empty husks, I backed quietly away.
My hand slid smoothly up the wooden banister for the last time. Up in the cornice Lucinda’s moulded face watched me leave. The sound of Robert’s playing fell behind me and I nodded a farewell to the painting of Walter Balanchine as I passed by.
Up in my room the parcel with all my drawings in it lay sitting on my bed. I tore off the French address, put it in my pocket and wrote For Eva in its place.
Just as I was turning to leave there was a small click behind me, followed by the familiar sound of the balcony door swinging open. I smiled to myself as if I was already looking back at a vision in my memory.
Seb barely moved. His hair was a mess. He wore tatty jeans and an old crumpled shirt hugged his slim body. But the graceful angles of his face, his blue eyes and those lips were as delicious and beautiful as ever.
‘You’ve got his eyes you know,’ I said quietly. ‘Tristan’s. Just like in that painting of him. But your face is much kinder than his.’
‘I am nothing like that man,’ Seb replied.
‘And yet you’re trapped with him now, aren’t you? Because you couldn’t keep away.’
‘I was so young; his loneliness appalled me, terrified me! And he dug his claws further and further in until it became impossible for me to leave. I stopped eating, stopped breathing...’
‘You lied to me about Eva.’
‘I lied to you about everything, I had to!’ he came towards me cringing, hands outstretched, shoulders slumped; pain scarring every gesture. ‘What else was I supposed to do? Scare you away with the truth when you’d only just walked into our lives?’
The Room Beyond Page 31