by Lucy Atkins
It was the stupid story of Violet’s ghostly face in the well that had started it. Even though she knew it was nonsense, she couldn’t resist trying to get the cover off the well to have a look. It wasn’t that hard. She’d just heaved at it a few times and it inched away to reveal the well’s dark mouth. A powerful, stagnant pond smell rose up.
Bertie, a few feet away, became outraged. His high-pitched yaps cracked off the flints of the house. ‘Shhh!’ She’d turned to him and he’d stopped barking, but his eyes bulged and the hairs along his spine stood up, giving him a lurid, cartoonish look. She wondered if he’d sensed a sinister energy in the well. She suddenly felt convinced that if she looked over the rim she really would see Violet’s ghostly face staring back at her.
The mouth of the well was a Venn diagram, one part organic blackness, one part wood. She stepped closer and peered over the edge. Bertie burst to life behind her again, barking madly. As she looked into the stinking cavity she felt something uncanny rise up at her – she jerked her head out and jumped backwards, stumbling over her own feet.
The dog went mad then, howling, raging, turning tight circles, snapping at nothing. ‘Stop it,’ she cried, but he didn’t stop, he just got louder. His demented barks ricocheted off the outbuildings and the flints. She walked away from the well, from the mad dog.
But he did not follow. He was filled with a ferocious, desperate energy. Perhaps he had been storing this up all day as he sat forlorn in his basket by the stove. He was deeply distressed without Vivian, but whenever she had tried to approach him he’d trembled and stared her with mournful, dread-filled eyes. Vivian had told her a bit about his background, the poor dog. She had never seen an animal so attached to its owner. Or vice versa.
His distress had worsened all day until she could not concentrate on the paper she was working on, and she felt as if she would go insane if his whining continued. When she eventually picked up his basket, lead and food tin, he’d raced to the front door, eyes victorious, tail up. They had arrived at Ileford at four. A full hour before Vivian was due back.
Bertie had gone behind the well now. ‘Bertie!’ she called out. ‘Stop this! It’s OK. Stop now.’ But he didn’t stop. She looked up at the blank casement windows above her, the knotted flints stretching towards the muddy sky, and for a second she thought there was a face looking down at her from the attic, but it was just the reflection of the clouds.
Ileford really was an ugly, forbidding place. No wonder Vivian didn’t like it. She had never been allowed up to those big first-floor bedrooms or the gabled servants’ quarters at the very top. She had tried everything – patience, persuasion, pleading, reasoning – but Vivian had been unmovable. She had been allowed once, briefly, up the stairs onto the minstrel’s gallery, where Annabel had pushed Lord Burley to his death on the parquet floor of the great hall, but no further. It was infuriating that Vivian had been so controlling about access. It was almost as if she had something to hide.
Olivia hugged herself and went over to the kitchen window. Standing on tiptoes, she peered in. Everything was orderly, as always, the surfaces bare, the dismal tan kitchen units closed. A lonely pheasant mug sat upside down on the draining board.
Her boots crunched on the gravel as she walked behind the house to the scullery door. Trees edged the lawns behind her and the caws of the rooks high in their scrawny branches echoed off the flints. She tested the door handle but of course it was locked. Bertie had stopped barking now at least. He’d come out from behind the well and was standing halfway across the courtyard, watching her with an expression both hyper alert and loaded with trepidation.
‘It’s locked,’ she called over to him. He fixed his eyes on the scullery door as if willing it to fly open and reunite him with his mistress. ‘She’ll be back soon, OK? Would you stop worrying?’
She walked further along the back of the house and looked through the window of the gunroom. There were no guns any more, thank God. The head of a stag gazed at her with feckless eyes. As she pressed her fingers against the cold windowpane it gave. She pushed again. A fault line ran diagonally across the square of glass. The fissure shifted under her fingers.
She looked back at Bertie. He was on the scullery doorstep now, still watching her, ears in triangles. Vivian would not be back for at least three-quarters of an hour. She remembered there was an old knife in the car that Vivian had given her to cut up Bertie’s food. Her leather gloves were in the car too.
It was surprisingly easy. She pressed on the fault line and then, using the knife, worked at the hardened putty along the top to ease the glass away from the lead. She put pressure on the crack and the top half of the pane began to ease out, like a sharp jigsaw piece. She rested it carefully against the wall, grateful for her leather gloves. All she had to do then was reach in and flip the latch. The lower half of the pane stayed put, like a jagged bottom tooth. Vivian should be more careful about security.
She opened the window and climbed in.
The dog began barking again. She put her head back out. ‘Shhh! Stop that!’ He stopped, but didn’t move. His forelegs were splayed, his tail pointing up, an electrified steel rod. ‘Go on!’ She waved her hands out the window. ‘Go away! Go for a walk!’ He burst back to life, yapping intensely.
She decided she was making him worse. His outraged barks receded as she passed through the gunroom, down the back corridor and past the scullery, which smelled of Vivian’s washing powder. She paused at the kitchen. The chill was numbing. She could feel the empty house stretching above her, all the secret bedrooms, forbidden corridors and shadowy attic rooms within this flinty shell.
Outside, Bertie was distraught now. Maybe it would be better to bring him in too. If Vivian came back early she could use him as her excuse for coming inside. She hurried to the window and looked out at the courtyard. It took her a moment to see him. He was howling and yapping, back over by the well. She leaned over the sink and opened the window.
‘Bertie!’ she shouted. ‘Bertie, come on!’ He paused, tail up, ears pricked, head on one side. ‘Bertie! Come here, boy!’
He spotted her, then, but far from comforting him, the sight of her in the kitchen jerked him into even deeper hysteria. He stood on his hind legs, springing vertically like a circus creature, then dropping down to turn in a circle. And then, suddenly, he leaped sideways and up onto the open well cover. She saw it wobble beneath him.
‘Bertie! Get down!’
He bounced, yapping, turning another circle. The cover wobbled again. His hind legs quivered and slipped – and he was gone.
She slammed the kitchen window, ran down the corridor into the gunroom and scrambled out the window. ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ She dropped onto the gravel and sprinted across the courtyard.
As she got to the mouth of the well she could hear little splashes and awful, panicked yelps. She leaned over – the smell hit her again – stagnant rainwater and wet mulch. It was impossible to see him, the darkness was complete, but his high, tangled sounds rose up at her.
‘Bertie! It’s OK, Bertie! It’s OK!’ His claws scrabbled against the slimy brickwork. ‘It’s OK, Bertie. I’m going to get you out. It’s OK.’
She looked around for something – anything – that she might drop for him to grab with his teeth. The well was narrow – it would be impossible to rest a plank diagonally for him to climb up even if she could find something long enough to reach the bottom. She didn’t know how deep it was but his noises seemed to be coming from a long way down. She needed something to hook his collar – a rope and a torch. She could hear his little rapid gasps, his scraping claws, frantic splashes.
‘Oh shit, Bertie, SHIT shit shit.’ She ran, panicking, around the courtyard in circles, looking for rope, anything, but there was nothing that could hook a small dog out of a deep well.
At her car she wrenched open the boot and dug through wellies, walking boots, children’s fleeces, jump leads, a football. Maybe he’d be able to grab the jump leads. She seize
d them and the lead, tying them together, as she ran back to the well.
‘Bertie! Bertie!’ she called, dangling them over. ‘What’s this, Bertie? Take it, boy, take it.’
He was still splashing, still making rapid, desperate wheezing sounds. It was obvious that the jump leads and the leash together were nowhere near long enough. The metal jaws clacked pointlessly against the mossy bricks. It must be thirty feet down, maybe more.
She threw them aside and ran back across the courtyard to the outhouses. She wrenched open the first door – a woodshed – and ran inside, but no rope, nothing suitable, just a rake and a broom and a towering log pile. She came back out, next to it the garage was locked, as were the stables. She didn’t have time for this. She sprinted back to the well, out of breath now and shaking. A sickening sensation spread through her stomach as she peered over the edge. She could still hear him, but the splashing was much weaker and his breaths were coming in rapid, faint gasps.
‘It’s OK, Bertie!’ she shouted down. ‘I’m going to get you out. I am. It’s OK, it’s OK. Hold on.’ She felt a sense of helplessness. ‘Oh FUCK.’ How long could a weakened terrier keep afloat?
She remembered the retractable dog lead she’d seen hanging on a hook in the kitchen. She could tie that to the leash and the jump leads – together they might be long enough. She sprinted back to the gunroom window, shoved herself through it.
Back at the well, a few minutes later, she knotted the two dog leads together with shaking hands, gasping for breath, and dropped them down. ‘Bertie! It’s OK! Bertie, I’m back!’
But there were no more frantic yelps. The splashing was much slower, more faint, with long pauses where nothing happened, then a gasp, presumably as he resurfaced, and his claws scrabbled at the bricks again, but more feebly each time. She leaned further over the edge, shaking the leads. ‘Bertie! Bertie!’ She called. ‘What’s this, Bertie? Fetch it! Fetch the lead!’
Nothing. Just little, exhausted splashes. ‘Come on, Bertie. Come on! Take it. Take it!’ The words caught in her throat. The leads remained slack.
She thought of the fire brigade, they came for kittens in trees – they’d come for a dog, surely. But she knew that by the time the fire brigade got here it would be too late. Vivian would come home to find Bertie dead and a fire engine in her courtyard. Still, she couldn’t just do nothing and let him drown. She pulled her phone out. Did people just dial 999 in this situation?
‘Bertie!’ she yelled over the edge, punching in her password. ‘It’s OK. It’s OK. I’m getting the fire engine, they’ll get you out. Just hang on.’
But the well, she realized, was silent. There was no splashing any more. No claws. No whimpers. She leaned further over, bracing herself on the edge with both arms. ‘Bertie?’ Her voice echoed back at her. ‘Bertie?’ He was gone.
It was an awful way to go. Vivian’s pain was understandable. As was her fury. A pretty thank you card and a book were not going to make this go away. They needed to talk, face to face. She was going to have to go down to Ileford. She had a feeling this wouldn’t be ideal – Vivian didn’t like surprises – but she had run out of options.
She wrote the card using an apologetic tone, contrite but not overtly guilt-stricken, thanking Vivian again for her invaluable contribution to the book, and asking – with a hint of desperation – for a meeting the day before the launch. She wrote the address on the envelope and licked a stamp. Vivian might not be capable of visiting a child in the middle of the night with scissors, but the book was different. Vivian, she suspected, was more than capable of destroying a book.
Vivian
Ileford Manor
She will not leave me in peace. It must be because it is almost time for the book launch party. First she sent emails, then proof copies, then an embossed invitation to the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons. She left messages on my phone, too, and now she has sent me a finished copy of Annabel.
I can hardly bear to look at it. I have put it on a high shelf in the library where it will not catch my eye.
Since France, I have been troubled almost continually by the knowledge of what she did to Bertie and by the many lies she has told me – not just about that, but about other things too. One undesirable side effect of my distress is that my sleep paralysis has intensified: my night visitor’s face has taken a more clear shape, the wound on her head is open and messy above her blackened eyes, the greenish-grey pallor of her skin and the fishy stench of her breath are more vivid than ever before.
There is complicated brain science to explain why this is happening to me. The human threat-vigilance system is biased to interpret any ambivalent stimuli as a danger, to ensure self-protection, but when this system misfires, as it does in my brain, the effects are overwhelmingly convincing. The feelings are as real to me as if a flesh-and-blood murderer were in the room – more frightening, perhaps, since I am paralysed when she comes and therefore unable to protect myself. There is, what’s more, nothing ambivalent about my visitor’s intentions. She visits in order to do me harm. When she lifts her arms and leans over me with that dead look she is intent on punishment.
It is worse right now because I am in such a shaken state, thanks to Olivia’s confession. The only way for me to cope with what I have learned has been to cut off all contact with her. I did consider replying to one of her earlier emails, after France, with a description of the grisly task that awaited me on my return, but in the end I deleted that message. It was too raw to share.
When I got off the ferry at Newhaven I went straight to see Lady Burley. She had noticed my absence, though was a little uncertain about the exact timeframe. She accepted my explanation that I had been poorly, which was not really a lie. ‘You do look a little peaky, dear, you shouldn’t have come,’ she said, with touching, motherly concern, and I realized I was pleased to see her. I felt the urge to lean over and rest my head on her lap, to close my eyes and let go of everything, just for a moment. But I would not have wanted to distress her, and I couldn’t stay long anyway because I had to go and get Bertie out of the well.
The grim challenge of how to do this involved driving back to Newhaven the next day to purchase a fishing net with an extending handle. I had to customize it using two more poles wired together. When I finally managed to fish him out he did not look like himself. He was bloated, his hair matted, his poor body half decomposed, an organic, messy thing. His eyes were intact, if glassy, and his inflated tongue poked from his swollen lips like a purple sausage. I noticed that his paws were mutilated from scrabbling at the bricks; several of his claws were torn from their sockets. I had to wrap him in plastic sacks because his smell – a mixture of pond life and sweet, rotting flesh – was overwhelming.
Before I carried him to the hollow oak I heaved a slate through the woods. It did my knee no good but I wanted him to have a headstone. I had engraved his name on it with my screwdriver and the words ‘Beloved Friend’.
I lay him, a tight-wrapped package, surprisingly light, in the grave and I covered him with earth. Then I recited the Shakespeare song. My voice wavered over the words ‘Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke …’ but I managed it, until ‘Fear not slander, censure rash’, when I did have to pause to compose myself. He was my one true friend and he was gone.
Grey summer rain leaked through the oak’s branches onto my head. Above me rooks cawed.
I decided not to sully Bertie’s memory by sharing these details with Olivia. I am sticking to my decision that there shall be no more contact between us. I have decided what I shall do and I do not want her bothering me any more – inveigling, smiling, talking and persuading and lying in order to get what she wants out of me.
There shall be no more lies, now, from either of us.
Olivia
Hammersmith, London
‘Are you sitting down?’ It was Carol.
‘Yes.’ Olivia sat back down on the kitchen chair. There was a piece of baguette by her bare foot. Marta had been swe
eping, but had put away the broom and left the room as soon as she entered.
‘Are you there, Olivia? Can you talk?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m here.’
‘So, I’m getting responses to the Barry proposal – big responses.’
‘And?’
‘Brace yourself – we’ve got a bidding war. I’ve got five publishers vying for it right now, they’ve all read Annabel and they’re all very excited about Barry. I’ve just emailed you a breakdown of the current offers.’
Olivia opened her computer and typed in the password. As she opened Carol’s message and stared at the numbers she felt a lightening, a floating sensation. ‘My God, these really are serious.’
‘I think it’s going to go higher. We’re not done yet.’
Carol began talking about the next steps, the process of choosing which deal to accept, and then the book launch party, but all Olivia could think about was the fact that with this, and if Annabel was also a success, the debt would be covered. She’d be liberated from the dread that had been pressing on her since David confessed, and from the obscene interest charges that were mounting up each month. She wouldn’t have to take a sabbatical and dance on prime-time TV, and she wouldn’t have to sell the Farmhouse in order to avoid doing those things.
If Annabel did well, and if these new offers for Barry came to something, then she’d be free to write and research and teach. She realized suddenly that if this worked out, she’d tell the production company that she wasn’t going to do any more TV programmes this year. She’d get Carol to pull out of Pointless Celebrities and she’d say no to any other TV offers. She’d had enough of being in the public eye, the scrutiny and demands – it was all too much. She wanted to simplify her life from now on. She’d go back to doing what she was good at. Barry was an intriguing subject – not quite her period, but that didn’t matter. She’d loved what she’d discovered so far about Barry’s murky and humble beginnings, and his – or her – life of disguise and adventure.