House of Shadows

by Pamela Hartshorne

  ‘You’re tough,’ he says at last. ‘I think that’s what I noticed most about you at first. You’ve been through a lot. You talked about growing up in Africa. Do you remember that at all?

  ‘Just fragments. A hot night, insects, monkeys in the trees, that kind of thing. I know my parents are still there, but I don’t remember much about them.’

  ‘They work for NGOs, have done for years, and they’re passionate about the need to help people. Good for them,’ Matt says, ‘but from everything you’ve ever told me, they only care about people in the abstract. They’re not interested in individuals, least of all their own daughter. They sent you back to school in the UK because they felt guilty about giving you special attention. Better to pack you off out of sight so they could concentrate on all the starving children who just wanted food, not love.’

  Abruptly, Matt slams the mat onto the table with the flat of his hand, making me jump. ‘Sorry,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘It makes me mad just to think about it.’

  ‘I had an email from them,’ I say, thinking that if I had told him so much about my childhood, we must have been a lot closer than Angie made out. She had made Matt sound like a pseudo-celebrity taking advantage of my vulnerability, someone I had slaked my sexual frustration on rather than a friend I had talked to. ‘They told me to remember how lucky I was to have enough to eat and access to medical attention. Which is true, of course, but not really what I wanted to hear.’

  ‘That sounds right.’ The humorous quirk of his mouth has flattened into a straight line. ‘You put a good face on it,’ he says. ‘You used to spend holidays with your grandmother, and you said being moved around from country to country when you were younger made you very self-sufficient, but being sent away by your parents has to scar a child.’

  I make a face. I don’t like that idea. It’s too close to vulnerable and obsessive and highly strung and all the other things I’ve been led to believe I am. ‘I’m scarred?’

  ‘No, scarred is the wrong word.’ He tips his head from side to side, thinking. ‘Independent is better. You’ve got a certain way of setting your chin, like you know you’re going to have to deal with everything by yourself. It always gets me here,’ he says, thumping his chest lightly with his fist. ‘So yes, tough, independent, a bit combative, maybe. Stubborn as all hell.

  ‘You’re a great person, Kate,’ he says seriously. ‘Funny, generous, loyal, kind, sharp. And brave,’ he adds. ‘When I met you, you’d been badly wounded by Michael’s death. Not broken, but, yeah, wounded deep inside. You said you felt like a bit of you had gone away and for a while you were rudderless without him. But you were coping. You had Felix, so you had to, you said. You kept your chin up, you let yourself laugh at my jokes. You were thinking about moving on.’

  ‘With you?’

  ‘No, not with me,’ he says levelly.

  I take a breath. ‘But we had an affair, didn’t we?’

  Matt’s eyes narrow. He doesn’t answer immediately, but cups his hands around his beer and studies it as if it has the answer to a very difficult question. ‘We were friends,’ he says at last. ‘We still are friends, I hope, or at least can be again.’

  My cheeks are prickling with heat. ‘So we didn’t . . . ?’

  ‘Once.’ He lets out a long breath and rubs a hand furiously over his hair. ‘Yes, once. It was a mistake. It just . . . happened.’

  ‘Oh.’ I chew my lip. It doesn’t sound like the sordid obsession Angie had hinted at, and if it had been a one-night stand, why were the Vavasours so concerned about it?

  ‘Kate, you don’t need to feel bad, I promise you. Yes, we got carried away once, and you felt terrible about it, and I’m sorry about that. I think you felt you’d betrayed Michael, but from everything you told me, Michael was one of the good guys. He’d have understood that you were lonely and needed some comfort.’

  ‘Is that all it was?’ I hear myself ask. I’m looking at his hands and I’m thinking about Edmund’s hands, and there’s a muddled tide of warmth rising inside me.

  ‘For you, yes. I always knew that.’

  ‘And for you?’

  A smile lifts the corner of his mouth. ‘It was different for me.’ He looks up from his beer and the eyes behind his glasses are very steady. ‘I was in love with you and I still am.’

  I open my mouth but I can’t think of anything to say, so I shut it again.

  ‘I know, it must be weird to hear that from a stranger, and I don’t want you to think I’m a crazy stalker guy, but that’s the way it is. It’s kind of ironic,’ Matt goes on after a moment. ‘I was always Mr No Commitment, Mr No Time For All That Crap, but when I met you . . . I could see that you were sad, but trying so hard not to show it, and that was it for me. We just . . . clicked,’ he says.

  ‘We just used to talk,’ he insists, as if I don’t believe him. ‘Felix was with us most of the time. He’s a great kid, and he was part of what we had. There wasn’t any hiding or pretending. We were just friends. We had a connection, sure, but we never acted on it, you because you were still grieving for Michael, and me because . . . well, the same reason, I guess. I knew how you felt about him.’

  ‘But then we did?’ I prompt him when he seems to have stopped again.

  ‘We’d arranged to meet for a drink one night. We only had a few more days’ shooting and then we were all flying back to the States so it was kind of a goodbye. We met in the pub in the village, where everybody else was drinking. It wasn’t a secret. But you were angry that night. Lady Margaret had you all riled up about something, and you were in a funny mood – combative, fiery. And when we left, it was dark outside, and I thought I might never see you again . . .’ He pauses. ‘You let me kiss you in the car park, in the shadows, where no one could see us, and you kissed me back. And when I asked if you’d come back to my room with me, you said yes.’

  He has told this whole story without looking at me, but now he turns and I see that his jaw is tense. ‘It was pretty amazing, Kate. You said so too, but afterwards, I know you felt guilty, as if you’d committed adultery. So I didn’t try to make you stay. I let you go. I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable, and we agreed that it would be better if we forgot it ever happened.’ He slides me a sidelong look. ‘Of course, I didn’t think you’d take it literally,’ he adds drily.

  I can’t help it. I laugh.

  ‘Listen, Kate.’ He puts out a hand as if to touch me, but pulls it back to his glass. ‘I don’t know what you told anyone else, or what anyone else has told you, but there were just two of us in that room that night. Nobody else knows what it was like. It wasn’t a sordid affair. You don’t need to feel guilty or ashamed or anything. You were just taking some comfort from a friend, that’s all. Don’t let anyone tell you any different, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Thanks, Matt.’ I pause. ‘Still, I must have been sad when you left,’ I venture, and he gives me a quizzical look.

  ‘I guess, but you had plans. You were talking about moving to York or Leeds and getting a job. You certainly weren’t ready to commit yourself to a new relationship, especially not with a guy who lived in LA.’

  ‘So you didn’t think I was likely to do anything stupid because you’d gone?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like throw myself off the tower? Didn’t they tell you?’ I ask when he stares at me in horror. ‘How do you think I lost my memory?’

  ‘You . . . the tower . . .’ Matt is stuttering in shock. ‘Jesus Christ, Kate, I thought you had a motor accident. What the hell were you doing up the tower?’

  ‘That’s the thing – I don’t remember. The general consensus seems to be that I jumped off because you’d gone.’

  ‘No way.’ Matt doesn’t hesitate for a second. ‘There is no way you would have done that, Kate. Even if you had felt that way about me, which you didn’t, you would never have left Felix.’

  Ever since I woke up in hospital, the thought that I might have tried to kill myself has been dragging
at me, a terrible weight of guilt and disbelief, but the absolute certainty in Matt’s voice cuts it loose at last. Knowing that he doesn’t believe it either brings such a rush of relief that I can’t help smiling at him, and I lift a hand to my neck to feel the bunched muscles there starting to unknot.

  ‘That’s what I think, too.’

  ‘But how did it happen? I’ve been up on that tower. Half the goddam movie was about characters being thrown off the roof, and there’s no way you could trip accidentally.’

  It is on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I know, that I remember being up there with Edmund, but I stop myself just in time. I picture the stout walls, the crenellations that were built for decoration rather than defence. No archer ever knelt on the broad stone step and fired arrows at an approaching enemy. Those battlements were for show only.

  I remember standing on that step, Edmund behind me. The stones came up to my waist, and I set my hands flat on them so that I could lean out through the gap. I wasn’t afraid of heights, not then.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I can’t remember. The doctors say it’s unlikely that I ever will. Apparently it’s quite common for the brain to wipe out the events immediately before a severe trauma.’

  ‘But if you didn’t jump and you didn’t trip . . . ?’ Matt trails off and I look back at him. He is only voicing the suspicion that has been unfurling slowly in my head and that I can’t now dislodge, incredible as it seems. I am sure that I didn’t jump, that I wouldn’t jump. But if I didn’t, and it wasn’t an accident, then what is left?

  I’m not ready to say the unthinkable out loud, that someone pushed me, but I remember drifting in and out of consciousness at the hospital, that sense of people beside me, leaning over me.

  It would have been better if she’d died.

  You were supposed to die.

  I have assumed it was a dream, a hallucination, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe somebody wanted to kill me.

  Maybe they still do.

  But who would want to? It seems incredible. I know the Vavasours don’t want me to take Felix away, but murder? Surely they wouldn’t go that far? I think about Fiona, always cool, always correct. Jasper with the tic that jumps anxiously under his eye. Joanna, fretful and nervous. Philippa, bored and surly. Shy, stolid, handsome George. I don’t see any of them pushing me. Margaret might be glad to see me gone, but even if she would go as far as murder, she’s not physically capable of it.

  They don’t care for me, but they don’t hate me . . . do they?

  Matt is watching my face. His voice lowers. ‘Jesus, Kate, do you really think someone tried to kill you?’

  It sounds so melodramatic that I shake myself. We’re getting carried away. Matt writes stories for a living. Of course he’s going to think the unthinkable. This is absurd. ‘No,’ I say with a half-laugh, but it isn’t quite as sure as it should have been. ‘No, of course I don’t. There must be another explanation.’

  Matt has rented a car, and he drives me back to the Hall. By tacit agreement, we had another drink and changed the subject. He told me about the script he was writing, and entertained me with stories against himself when he saw he could make me laugh again. Sitting in that tatty pub with a stranger, I was more relaxed that I could remember being since I woke up in the hospital bed.

  But now the Hall squats in the darkness, like an enormous toad, and I can picture a great tongue flickering out to grab me and gobble me up. I am far too fanciful tonight. It’s just a house, but still, I don’t want to get out of the car and go in.

  Matt pulls on the handbrake but leaves the engine idling. In the dim light from the dashboard, I am acutely aware of him, and when he undoes his seat belt and turns towards me, every cell in my body fires up with a mixture of fear and excitement and anticipation while my heart knocks unevenly in my chest.

  ‘Come and see my cottage tomorrow,’ he says. ‘Bring Felix. I’d like to see him again.’

  I don’t even think of hesitating. ‘All right. We’ll come after school. We can have tea. You’re in Yorkshire now,’ I tell him as he tries unsuccessfully to hide his look of dismay. ‘Of course it has to be tea.’

  Matt laughs and gets out so that he can help me from the car and hand me my stick. I don’t really need it now, but I take it just in case. Now I’m glad of something to hold when Matt reaches out and just touches my cheek. His thumb is slightly rough, and I am sure I can feel every line, every tiny dip and nick of it, as it grazes my skin.

  ‘Everything’s shit,’ he says. ‘You’ve had a terrible accident, and you’re hurting and you don’t remember me, and I haven’t written a word since I got here, but I’m happier now than I’ve been all year. I just wish I could have been here for you when you needed me, Kate.’

  I smile at him as he drops his hand. ‘You’re here now,’ I say.

  The dogs greet me, moaning with pleasure, when I let myself in the side door. Molly brings me a shoe, and I thank her, trying to keep my balance as they bump their sturdy bodies against me and their tails whack against my bad leg. Pippin is in her basket. She lifts her head to watch, but when I look her way, she growls a warning, deep in her throat. She isn’t ready to trust me yet.

  It’s not that late and there are still lights on in the private quarters. I can hear the sound of the television as I pass the snug, but I don’t stop and go in. I don’t want to talk to the Vavasours now, not with my ridiculous suspicions curdling my mind, but when I head for the stairs George looms out of the shadows, making me swallow a scream.

  ‘George! You gave me a fright!’ I accuse him, my hand at my throat, where my heart is still battering.

  ‘You’re back then?’ His voice is bleary, and I realize that George, shy, stolid George, has been drinking.

  ‘Of course I’m back,’ I say, irritated. ‘What did you think, that I was going to run off and leave Felix behind?’

  ‘Oh, yes, you’ll always come back for Felix. You’d do anything for him, wouldn’t you?’

  I don’t understand the bitterness in George’s voice and I don’t like it. ‘Yes, I would,’ I say evenly. ‘He’s my child and that’s what mothers do.’

  George makes a sound that is half snort, half sob, so loud that it makes him sway dangerously on his feet. ‘I don’t know what you see in that Yank, anyway,’ he slurs. ‘He’s a Jew, you know.’

  ‘At least he’s not a drunk,’ I say coldly. ‘You’ve got no right to tell me who I can and can’t see, George.’

  ‘What if I want the right?’ To my horror, he stumbles to his knees. ‘Marry me, Kate, you know I love you.’

  ‘Get up, George, for God’s sake!’ I could gladly clout him around the ear with my stick. ‘You’re being ridiculous! There’s no question of me marrying you.’

  George lurches to his feet and bumps back against the wall, dislodging a painting, which tilts alarmingly sideways. It’s hard to tell in the shadows, but I think it is a rather fine landscape by a seventeenth-century Dutch painter. ‘Why not?’ he demands as I push past him and straighten the picture.

  ‘Because I don’t love you, and even if I did, I would make you a terrible wife.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t! You’d be perfect!’ His voice drops enticingly. ‘You could stay at Askerby. I’d look after Felix. A boy needs a father.’

  ‘You didn’t have one,’ I point out, perhaps cruelly, ‘and anyway, Felix has a father. Nobody is going to replace Michael.’ George’s face hardens. ‘You were going to replace him with that Yank before.’

  Before, I might have hesitated, wondering if it were true, but Matt has told me what happened, and I believe him. ‘I wasn’t, and I’m not.’ I take a deep breath. ‘George, I’m not the woman for you. If you thought about it, you’d realize that I am right. You need someone who loves Askerby as much as you do. Someone who belongs here.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ He is swaying on his feet and I bite my lip, realizing I should never have started this. But perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad thing to
put Angie in his mind?

  ‘Forget about me,’ I say. ‘Look around you for someone you can build a real relationship with at Askerby.’

  ‘Like who? There’s only Philippa, and she’s practically my sister, quite apart from batting for the other team.’

  ‘There’s Angie.’

  ‘Angie?’ George cracks an incredulous laugh. Angie’s the help,’ he says, clearly only just stopping himself from calling her a servant.

  ‘Her grandfather was a count,’ I say, and he snorts.

  ‘That horrible old drunk!’ he says, apparently unaware of the irony of his own slurred speech. ‘I doubt it very much! Besides, you never saw her uncle. The guy was a freak,’ says George. ‘Michael was the only one who would talk to him. He practically had two heads. Do you think we want genes like that in this family?’

  I eye him with distaste and lean forward to drill a finger into his chest. I am sorely tempted to tell him my theory that Peter was Ralph Vavasour’s son, but even if I am right, that is not my secret to tell. ‘Don’t you ever, ever say anything like that again,’ I spit at him. ‘Peter Kaczka had a happy nature and a good heart. If you ask me, his are exactly the genes this family needs.’

  Chapter Thirty

  ‘What’s up with George?’ Philippa has wandered into the library to find Joanna and me opening another archive box. It’s an unpleasant, blustery day and the wind is throwing petulant handfuls of rain at the windows. ‘He’s like a bear with a very, very bad headache this morning.’

  ‘I think he had too much to drink last night.’ Joanna’s gaze flickers to me, and Philippa follows her aunt’s glance.

  ‘Oh, so it’s your fault, Kate. Did you give him the push?’

  ‘I don’t want to discuss it.’ I’m in a bad mood. I couldn’t sleep last night. There was too much going round and round in my head: my suspicions about an affair between Dosia and Ralph Vavasour, Matt Chandler, Kit, George, the memory of that malevolent whisper in my ear: You were supposed to die. The images tumbled and span together, bumping into each other and muddling up until I saw Dosia holding Kit, Matt with his mouth pressed to Angie’s throat, George advancing towards me on the tower, and I had to jerk myself out of my exhausted doze. I don’t believe any of the Vavasours caused my accident, of course I don’t. I just can’t think of another explanation yet.