“You bitch!”
“Not dead yet after all? Bravo.”
“You’re a monster. I can’t bear you near me.” I began to sob. I ran at Phrynne, who seemed to be blocking my path, although she was probably not doing so deliberately. She drew aside, still smiling, and I found myself hurtling down the path—not the path that we had come by but the partially eroded path along the cliff tops. I realised immediately that I had no choice but to keep going. The alternative—turning around and facing her—was too awful.
How could I have believed this banshee, this gorgon, this alien to be my friend? How could she have changed so? I wondered, before realising I was bound to admit that she might not have changed, that it was more likely she had been hiding her true self all along. That the Phrynne I thought I knew was always a lie.
How little we know one another, really. In the midst of my grief and fury and terror I did not think to ask myself how I seemed to her.
I flung myself along the path, doing my best not to trip on the stones and chunks of loose rock that littered the ground. I did not look down. I did not look back. After a breathless ten minutes or so I came to the point where the cliff path began its descent towards the town. As the going became easier and safer my heart rate slowed. I sat down on one of the stone benches that had been placed at intervals for walkers to rest and enjoy the view. I stared out at the sea for some minutes—the tide was coming in, a white triangular sail marked the horizon—and then finally looked back along the path the way I had come.
There was no sign of Phrynne. I told myself she must be returning via the other path—the safer path—but for those moments at least some base part of me did not care much, either way.
I could not face going back to The Bell, at least not yet. I walked along the promenade until I came to The Esplanade hotel. I sat down at one of the tables on the terrace and when one of the waiting staff approached me I informed him that I would like to take lunch.
“Certainly, madam,” he said. “I’ll bring you a menu.”
I ordered the oriental monkfish with herb salad, and a glass of white wine. No doubt you will think it pathetic, but I felt elated. I had never done such a thing before, you see—ordered lunch for myself, on my own, in a restaurant—and it had never occurred to me that it could be that simple, that natural.
It was as if, for the time I sat there, the world was mine.
I walked back up the hill to the pub. It was five o’clock by then, still an hour before The Bell opened for business. I hoped I would be able to get to my room without having to speak to anyone. I did not want to talk about Phrynne, or ask about her, or be forced to invent a plausible reason for her absence.
In fact there was no one about. I went upstairs. Phrynne’s door stood firmly shut, and no sound came from her room. I closed my own door and lay down on the bed. I felt utterly exhausted. I remembered what Phrynne had said about this being the same bed she had shared with Gerald, but the idea seemed to have lost all potency.
So bloody what? I thought. It was as if my life before the present moment had been leached of colour. The past, and all it contained, no longer mattered.
I picked up my book—not the Highsmith this time but the Lehmann biography—but fell asleep before I reached the bottom of the page. When I woke it was gone six, and getting dark. I could hear—very faintly—noises from the saloon bar below. I got up and drew the curtains, then went out on to the landing and knocked softly on Phrynne’s door. I felt certain she must be back by now. When there was no reply I knocked again, this time more boldly, but there was still no answer.
“Phrynne?” I said, putting my eye to the keyhole. “Phrynne?” My insistent utterances of her name were beginning to take on a hopeless, hollow tone. What if she never comes back? I thought. What then?
I put on my shoes and went downstairs. Danuta was behind the bar, serving three youngsters decked out in beach gear. One of them—a young man still in his teens—smiled at me as I entered, his smooth, unworried face beaming with good humour. Such a lovely smile, I thought. For a moment he reminded me of Ian.
“You don’t happen to have seen my friend?” I said to Danuta. “We were supposed to meet back here at five, but she’s not in her room.”
“I’m sorry, no, I haven’t.” A frown briefly creased her forehead and then disappeared. “I wouldn’t worry, though. I’m sure she’s somewhere about. It’s not easy to get yourself lost in a place this small. Have a drink while you wait for her, if you like? It’s on the house.”
“Thank you,” I replied. “I think I’ll just walk down to the harbour first, see if she’s there.”
“See you later, then.” Danuta smiled, looking unconcerned. “We’re doing a lovely chicken curry tonight.”
I walked back down Wrack Lane towards the promenade. I was trying not to dwell on what might have happened—that Phrynne was still out on the headland, that she had fallen and injured herself, that she was alone in the gathering darkness and in need of help. I kept telling myself that such scenarios were far fetched, that Phrynne was most likely in the town somewhere, in another pub, probably. It even occurred to me that she might have returned to The Bell while I was asleep in my room, packed her bags and left—gone off, as Freddy would have said, in high dudgeon.
It would be just like Phrynne to punish me by embarrassing me in front of strangers. If there was one thing I knew about her it was that she could never bear not to have the last word. On anything.
The tide was going out again. A group of children—three boys and a girl—chased each other and threw seaweed along the widening strip of sand between the sea and the shore. The retreating ocean glittered dully. Now that the wind had dropped it lay completely calm. From the interior of the town I could hear church bells ringing. They’re practising, I thought. I could not help thinking of Sudworth’s murals, and remembering what Phrynne had said about the noise the ringing had made when she and Gerald had arrived in the town on the first night of their honeymoon. There was something eerie about it, I thought. So many bell towers in such a small place. It defied all logic.
“Hello.”
The woman’s voice, so close beside me, made me jump. I thought at first it was Phrynne who was speaking to me, because who else did I know in this town? But then I saw that the speaker was not Phrynne at all, but the thin woman from the cottages, the woman with the fair hair we’d seen hanging out washing in one of the long, windswept front gardens that bounded the path that led to St Barnabus’s church.
“Hello,” I replied. I realised she must have come into town via the cliff path. I wondered vaguely who was minding her child.
“The wind’s dropped,” she said. “Your friend not with you?”
“No,” I said. “You don’t happen to have seen her, do you? She said she wanted to explore the path a little further but she’s still not back.”
The woman shook her head. “Not seen her, but I wouldn’t worry, she won’t run off. She can’t keep away from the place.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I remember her from before. She’s not someone you’d forget, is she, your friend? I was just a girl then. Worked for the Pascoes, waiting tables and so on. She was like a spotlight, your friend, like a movie star in one of those magazines my sister used to nick from out the doctor’s. I could hardly believe she was here. I couldn’t understand why anyone who looked like that would ever wind up coming to a place like this. It’s dead, isn’t it, this town? The whole place is dead. Especially in winter.”
“I wouldn’t say that. It feels friendly to me. Peaceful.”
The woman laughed. “A body can get tired of peaceful, sometimes. Have you come far?”
“From London.”
“Oh, London.”
“Have you ever been there?”
Once again she shook her head. “Never will now, I reckon. Can’t say I mind much.”
We stood together in silence, looking out at the water. At one point she turned to me, and to
uched my sleeve, and I had the oddest feeling then, that there was something she wanted to tell me, something she but was holding back, whether for my sake or her own I could not tell.
Is it Phrynne? I wanted to ask. What do you know of her? What happened?
But I said nothing, and she said nothing, and the moment passed.
“Well, I won’t keep you,” she said in the end. She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. The sound was keen and piercing and I was amazed at the strength of it. One of the boys playing down on the sand broke off from the game and came dashing towards us up the beach. He was neatly built and ruddy-cheeked, a normal-seeming, healthy child. His hair was as fair as his mother’s.
“His dad’s away at the moment, working on the oil rigs,” the woman said. “The lad misses him, I reckon. Still, he does well at school.”
She gathered the boy to her, and the two of them went off along the promenade. There seemed a closeness between them that made my heart ache, the more so because I knew it would not be so many years before the boy left, as Ian had left, as Gerald had, the way they all do.
I ran into Phrynne just outside The Bell. I was coming up the hill, she was coming down. Her expensive brogues were covered with mud, but otherwise she looked to be unharmed.
“Sorry to be so late back,” she said. “Only I was visiting with the Colonel. We got talking and I lost track of the time.”
“He’s here in town, then?”
“Yes. Danuta had his address, after all. Didn’t I tell you? He’s quite close by, actually. When the Pascoes sold the pub he took one of the new bungalows close to the station. Would you believe he doesn’t look a day older? Must be all that army discipline, or something. He was sorry to hear about Gerald. Come on, let’s go in. I’m starving.”
It was fully dark by then, and in the dim glow of the streetlights it was difficult to read her expression. Was it possible that she was telling the truth?
I was so relieved to see her that I didn’t give the matter too much thought.
Later, after Phrynne had changed her clothes and we had eaten supper, we went to sit in the saloon bar next to the fire. Phrynne had ordered brandies. She seemed less talkative than the evening before, but I could tell from the way she was behaving—the sidelong glances and tight-lipped smiles, the too-eager laughter—that she was nerving herself up to making an apology.
After half an hour of superficial chatter, it finally came. “I’m sorry about earlier,” she said. “I was awful to you.” She swirled the remains of her brandy around her glass. I remained silent, mainly because I was unsure which part of ‘earlier’ she was referring to.
“I didn’t mean what I said about Gerald,” she continued. “I must have been out of my mind. I think it’s only just starting to dawn on me that he’s really gone.
That still doesn’t mean you loved him, I thought. Get out of that.
As so often, it was as if she read my mind.
“I know I was terribly selfish,” she said. “I could see from the start that you and Gerald were fond of one another. The two of you belonged together, really. But you were never going to do anything about it, that was obvious—not with Freddy being Gerald’s best friend and everything—and so I just couldn’t help myself. After Alec died I really wasn’t myself for a while. And by the time I realised what I’d done it was too late, Gerald and I were already married. And Gerald was always good to me. You must know that better than anyone. Can you forgive me?”
I found I didn’t know how to answer that. But if Phrynne imagined I was taking pleasure in her discomfort she was wrong.
“It must have been hard for you,” I said finally. “Coming back to Holyhaven, I mean.” Why the hell did you do it? I might have added. And why bring me? Was it weakness or compassion that made me hold my tongue? I didn’t know then, and I still don’t.
Freddy always said I was a pushover.
“I wanted to die, you know, that weekend,” Phrynne said. “It wasn’t until we got off the train that it hit me. What I’d done. Here we were, in this dreary cold place, and all I could think of was Alec, and the Italian sun. I don’t know what would have happened with Alec in the long term—I’ve never exactly been a long-term kind of person, have I?—but at least it felt right at the time, it felt real. I lay up in that room the first night and thought about my life going on and on, always the same. I’ve never felt so terrible, before or since. I think that if it hadn’t been for the Colonel I might really have jumped out the window.”
“The Colonel?”
“Mike Shotcroft. He found me wandering around in the dark, out on the street. He said it was no good getting downhearted, that I had to soldier on. That was the phrase he used—soldier on. He sounded so serious, the way he said it, and that struck me as funny and kind all at the same time. I couldn’t help but laugh, and you know what it’s like once you start laughing, the fear goes out of you. He took me back inside and poured me a brandy and we sat in the bar. He told me about his time in India. Everything seemed more bearable after that.”
“What were you doing outside?”
“That’s the strangest thing—I can’t remember. I can’t even remember how I got there. I was in a right state though, I can tell you that. One of my shoes was missing, apparently.” She turned to face me than, and I realised it was the first time she had looked me in the eye since our reunion outside The Bell. “I’ve never stopped being terrified of this town, Iris. It’s been like a shadow hanging over my life, all these years. I thought perhaps that if I came back here that feeling might disappear. Slay the dragon, isn’t that what they say? But I couldn’t have come alone. I needed you to be with me, I want you to know that. You’re the only real friend I’ve ever had.”
“And has it worked? Coming back here?”
She seemed to brighten. “I honestly think it has. I feel like a different person, and all thanks to you.”
She reached out and took my hand, linking her fingers through mine as she sometimes used to do when we were schoolgirls. Maybe I should have felt relief, pride, that old glow of secret happiness I always experienced at her approval, at the thought of me and Phrynne, against the world.
I didn’t, though. I didn’t believe her story, and my mind kept returning to what Freddy used to say about Phrynne using me, about her need for a dull backcloth to shine against.
Something within me had changed, or died. I knew as certainly as I knew my own name that it would never grow back.
I slept badly again. Each time I drifted off I fell into the same dream, that there was someone outside my window, ringing a bell and yelling at me to come down, come down and pick up the milk bottles, but when I woke up the pub and the street outside were quiet as a churchyard. I went down to breakfast feeling headachy and out of sorts. When Phrynne did not immediately appear I felt a measure of relief, glad to sit by myself for a while, enjoying the strong coffee and reading a copy of The Times that either Robbie or Danuta had put out on the bar.
As more time passed and there was still no Phrynne I began to get worried. I finished my breakfast and hurried upstairs. Phrynne’s door was closed, but when I tried the handle I found it was unlocked. I called her name and went inside.
The curtains were drawn neatly back and the bed was made. There was no sign of Phrynne though, and when I opened the wardrobe to look inside I saw it was empty.
I began to feel uncomfortable then, alone in her room, and as I turned to leave I almost tripped over something lying on the floor. When I bent to pick it up I found it was a shoe. Navy blue patent leather, with a tapering, medium-height heel and a neat silver buckle. I remembered that Phrynne had worn a pair just like it, as part of her going away outfit. I had thought the shoes most elegant, but then Phrynne always did know how to pick out clothes. It was one of her many talents.
I slept badly again. Each time I drifted off I fell into the same dream, that there was someone outside my window, ringing a bell and yelling at me to come down, come down and pic
k up the milk bottles, but when I woke up the pub and the street outside were quiet as a churchyard. I went down to breakfast feeling headachy and out of sorts. Phrynne must have slept badly, too—it was impossible not to notice the dark circles under her eyes. She poured herself a cup of coffee and leaned back in her chair.
“God,” she said. “I’ve had it with this place. It’s so dull.” She dumped a large spoonful of sugar into her coffee and stirred it around. “Let’s fly to New York,” she said. She took two sips of her coffee in quick succession, shooting me a mischievous grin over the rim of her cup. “You have to say yes, Iris. It’ll be like old times.”
“You’re not serious?”
“I am completely serious. Name me one thing that’s stopping us. After all,” she said. “You’re a long time dead.”
The Book That Finds You
Lisa Tuttle
There’s something about a book you find by accident, a book no one else seems to have heard of, a book that thrills and then becomes a part of you, when it’s one you so easily might never have read at all—it almost seems like it found you.
For me, it was Until the Stones Weep by J.W. Archibald. The first time I saw that name and title was in cracked white lettering on the battered black spine of a used paperback, sandwiched between a novel by Eric Ambler and another by Evelyn Anthony in the Mysteries/Suspense section of the Southwest Book Exchange, a narrow box of a place with a concrete floor, fluorescent lighting, and the pervasive smell (to me, always sweet) of old paperback books.
I pulled it out. The cover was crassly at odds with the ambiguously eerie title, sporting a hyper-real picture of a leering, warty crone with bloodshot eyes, extending a yellow, claw-like hand in a beckoning gesture. It didn’t look like a crime story, but like something much rarer in those days before Stephen King had sold his first novel. I turned it over and read:
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