Jean was clearly unimpressed. ‘That’s not good enough, Dr Rhodes.’
Steel entered Jim Rhodes’s voice. ‘It’s all we have, Mrs Hogg.’
Eve was aware that the children had gathered around and were watching the grown-ups argue. She turned to them, smile in place. ‘Come on, children, let’s unpack.’
Tom didn’t move. ‘Can’t we look around?’
Eve’s smile stayed fixed. ‘First we unpack.’
‘But …’
‘Where are all the other children?’ Joyce asked, her voice wobbling with concern.
Eve opened her mouth to reply, but Jean spoke first.
‘Enough.’
They all stopped talking.
‘Eve, have Dr Rhodes show you around. I’ll sort out the children,’ Jean ordered.
‘Yes, Headmistress,’ said Eve, feeling, not for the first time, that she was one of the children and not their teacher. Jean often made her feel like that. It was something that annoyed Eve, but she knew what Jean’s reaction would be if she ever dared complain.
She looked at Jim Rhodes, and together they began their tour of the house.
In the Nursery
‘Through there is the kitchen,’ said Jim Rhodes, gesturing to a doorway off to their left, ‘and the dining room is out the back.’
Eve nodded, taking it all in.
He stopped suddenly and tried to look at her but couldn’t keep his eyes on her face. He sighed. ‘I’m … sorry they didn’t tell you what it was going to be like.’
‘That’s quite all right, Doctor,’ Eve said softly. ‘I realise you’re just the messenger.’
He gave her a small smile, glanced back down the hallway. ‘Thank you. I wish everyone was as understanding.’
‘Mrs Hogg … takes her duties very seriously. She has a responsible position with the children and believes in rolling up her sleeves and getting on with it. She means well.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it.’
‘Is there another way?’
‘Yes. People like Mrs Hogg put all their feelings and emotions away in a box. They tell themselves they’re being rational. That’s what the war does to some people. Their way of coping, I suppose.’
‘And how do you know this?’
Jim Rhodes sighed. ‘I saw it last time. Plenty of fellows had that attitude and not many of them made it home, I’m afraid. They meant well, too.’ He paused. ‘Upstairs?’
Eve looked at the staircase. It was old, heavy and sturdy-looking, but she wondered what state it was actually in.
‘There’s two rooms for yourself and Mrs Hogg,’ he said. ‘We’ll get the rest fixed up when more people arrive.’
He gestured for her to go upstairs. She did so, conscious of him limping behind her, conscious too of the boards creaking and groaning with every step.
‘What are you a doctor of, if you don’t mind me asking?’
By this time the staircase was wide enough for Jim Rhodes to walk alongside her. ‘Medicine,’ he said.
‘But you work for the education board?’
‘I’m also an air warden,’ he pointed out, a little defensively. ‘We do what we can.’
The first floor appeared even less cared for than downstairs. Jim Rhodes took out a torch, switched it on.
‘No lights up here yet, I’m afraid, but there’s plenty of candles and oil lamps.’
His enforced bonhomie was wearing slightly thin, Eve thought. They stopped in front of two doorways, one either side of the hall.
‘These two are your rooms. We’ll keep the other bedrooms locked until the rest arrive.’
Eve looked along the end of the corridor. One door was open.
‘All of them?’ she asked.
Jim Rhodes followed her gaze. Frowned. ‘Oh. I thought I’d locked them all.’
He turned away, dismissing it, but Eve was curious. Something about the doorway seemed to be calling to her, inviting her in. She took the torch and walked down the hallway, Jim Rhodes following slowly behind.
‘I think this used to be a nursery,’ Jim said.
Eve shone the torch on the walls, illuminating several layers of peeling wallpaper, rather like the rings of a tree. She could date the age of the house by the amount of paper on the walls. She stopped moving, feeling something. Something that she couldn’t put her finger on.
She shivered. ‘It’s so … cold in here.’
‘We only had enough heaters for downstairs,’ he said.
She hugged herself, walked to the window, looked out. She could make out a forest in the mist, surrounding the house. The moon above the mist was high and clear in the sky, casting her shadow on the wall behind her.
‘I didn’t mean cold, Dr Rhodes, I didn’t mean that. It feels …’ She took a breath. Closed her eyes. It was like there was a thought, an important thought, just out of reach of her mind. Or a feeling that she couldn’t quite describe. She remembered the empty Underground tunnel she’d sheltered in when she’d been in London. Dark. Hollow. ‘I don’t know. It feels … sad,’ she said, feeling the cherub pendant around her neck.
Jim came and stood next to her by the window. ‘Rooms aren’t sad, Miss Parkins. People are.’
Eve continued to look outside at the misty, frozen world beneath them.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll lock this behind us.’
At his words, Eve took a deep breath and followed him out of the room.
But her shadow stayed exactly where it was.
It turned its head, watched them leave.
The Night
Outside Eel Marsh House, the mist still encased the sky and the sea in a thick grey shroud. Jim shook Eve’s hand.
‘I’ll try and get all the repairs done as soon as I can.’
‘Thank you,’ Eve said, taking in his stooped figure, thinking how much older he appeared suddenly.
Jim Rhodes looked around, at the house, the grounds, the driveway, then back at Eve. Something seemed to be on his mind, something he was unable, or unwilling, to express. ‘It’s a big place,’ he said hesitantly. ‘You’ll … you’ll have to keep a close watch on the children.’
‘Of course,’ she said.
‘Keep them away from the causeway, I mean. The tide can come in very quickly and you’ve seen how those sea frets can—’
Eve placed her hand gently on his arm. ‘Doctor, we’ll be fine.’
Reluctantly, he returned her smile. ‘Yes, of course. Sorry.’ His smile faded as he saw Jean Hogg appear in the doorway.
‘I’d best be off. Get over the causeway while I still can. Good luck, ladies,’ he called as he hurried back to the bus.
Together Jean and Eve watched him walk away.
‘He’s not heard the last from me.’ Jean’s eyes were blazing with righteous anger.
Eve knew what was coming next. She had been on the receiving end of her moral diatribes before. ‘I didn’t know your husband was in the Army,’ she said.
Jean frowned. ‘Why would you?’
Presuming the question was rhetorical, Eve didn’t reply. Back in London, Jean’s private and work life were kept as two distinct and separate entities. Clearly things were going to be the same here, too.
‘Come on,’ Jean said. ‘We’d better start cleaning.’
‘What, now? Shouldn’t we be putting the children to bed?’
‘Nonsense. They can help us.’
Eve must have clearly been surprised because Jean felt the need to elaborate.
‘They’ll be too excited to sleep. And besides, a bit of hard work never killed anyone.’
She walked back into the house, her back ramrod-straight as usual, giving no indication that she had recently undertaken hours of tiring travelling. Eve shook her head and followed her inside.
Prayers
The children were exhausted.
They were kneeling by their beds, dressed in their night clothes, eyes tight shut. Eve and Jean were watching over them.
They ha
d all worked hard. Everyone had been given tasks and they had carried them out with military precision. Eve had sneaked a few glances at Jean as they had been working and the look of pride in her eyes was unmistakable.
Buckets and pans were placed underneath leaks, the floors were swept, the surfaces dusted. For her part, Eve had taken a cloth and tried to scrub off the patches of mould that were growing all over the place, thick and black and as dark as shadows. But it didn’t work. No matter how hard she tried, how much elbow grease she put into it, the mould refused to budge.
Sometimes, it seemed to be growing while she watched. Or, rather, didn’t watch. She would look at the wall, catch the mould from the corners of her eyes, and see it move, expand. The same way she had looked directly up at the night sky and seen whole constellations suddenly reveal themselves in her peripheral vision. Then she would focus on the mould itself and it would be exactly the same as it had been before. Or it seemed to be. She sighed. Maybe just a trick of the light. And the fact that she was very, very tired.
‘There are four corners to my bed …’
The children all spoke with one voice, mouthing the words to the prayer in their usual sing-song fashion.
‘Four angels round my head … One to watch and one to pray …’
All speaking except one, Eve noticed.
‘And two to bear my soul away.’
Edward was kneeling with the rest of them, his hands together, his eyes tight shut. Eve wondered what he was praying for, or whether he was even praying at all. She knew what he was thinking, or, rather, who he was thinking about.
Jean clapped her hands together. ‘Come along, children, everybody into their beds.’
They all did as they were told, and Eve went round tucking them all in, checking that they were all right. She stopped by Edward’s bed, knelt down beside him.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘If you don’t want to speak yet, that’s fine. You take your time.’
Edward, of course, just stared up at her.
Eve leaned forwards, feeling that familiar emptiness inside herself, that painful ache of separation. Knowing how he must feel.
She closed her eyes. Saw the nurse from the train. Remembered her terror.
‘Your mummy will always be with you,’ she said to Edward. ‘The people we lose never leave us completely. Believe me …’
Edward reached out and took her hand. Eve was so surprised she felt tears welling. She had reached him. At last.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘promise me you’re going to sleep well tonight. No bad dreams.’
Edward nodded, his body small and slight under the bedclothes.
‘Do you know what a nightmare is?’ Eve continued. ‘It’s your mind’s way of letting go of all the bad thoughts. Once you’ve dreamed them, they’re gone.’
Edward reached over to his bedside table, found some paper and a piece of charcoal. He wrote something on the paper, handed it over to Eve. She looked at it.
That’s rubbish, it read.
Eve laughed. ‘Oh, is it?’
But Edward was already writing another message. Eve waited patiently for him to finish and pass it over.
Mummy says you fight bad dreams with good thoughts.
‘Well, you try that then, right?’ She smiled once more.
Edward nodded, returned the smile.
Jean had noticed Eve talking to Edward and now came over to check what was happening.
‘We’ll get you talking again tomorrow, won’t we, Edward?’ she said, her back perfectly stiff, her face stern. ‘Can’t have this nonsense going on too long.’
The smile vanished from Edward’s face.
Eve stood up, but Edward had grabbed her arm, not wanting to let her go. Jean bent down and firmly removed Edward’s hand.
‘There’s a good boy,’ she said, with a brittle smile, leading Eve away from him, towards the bedroom doors. ‘He needs to learn.’
Eve thought of what Jim Rhodes had said, how some people put their emotions in a box and closed them off, thinking they were doing the right thing. Was this really the best way to treat children? she wondered. And would this help Edward to come to terms with his loss? Or would it make him feel it even more acutely?
‘Sleep well, everyone,’ Jean said from the doorway.
Turning off the light switch, she plunged the room into darkness.
The Outhouse
Eve had just one last task to do before she could sleep. Jean had said she would be perfectly happy to do it, but Eve could see how tired she looked, despite her protestations. So this was how, shivering in the freezing cold, Eve found herself walking towards the outhouse, a rumbling, pulsing noise in the air, torch in hand.
The grass had been cut back in preparation for their arrival, but the ground was still uneven, roots and stones waiting to catch the unwary, testament to the years of neglect.
She reached the outhouse, went inside. The rumbling, pulsing noise was immediately much louder. The generator was old, battered and oily. It took up most of the room, grinding out electricity for the house. She played the beam of her torch across the front of the machine, found what she was looking for, flicked the switch. The generator began to power down.
Eve straightened up. And froze.
She felt a muscle spasm between her shoulder blades, an unease in her body. She moved her arms trying to relieve it, expel it. No good. She knew it for what it was: the distinct sensation that someone was watching her.
She tried to rationalise it, work out who it could be. One of the children, probably. Couldn’t sleep and followed her out. Edward, perhaps, upset. Or Tom, playing a trick on her. It was just the sort of thing that boy would do.
She turned quickly, hoping to catch them out. No one there. She listened. Nothing but the cooling tick of the motor before her. She looked through the outhouse window, glancing left and right, seeing only mist, the night.
She turned back to the generator. It had stopped completely now. She listened once more. Nothing. Squaring her still-tightened shoulders, determined to be brave, she turned, left the outhouse, walked back to the house.
In the distance a woman stood, her figure silhouetted against the vast misty sky, against the darkness.
Watching.
Waiting.
The Cherub
Once inside, Eve locked the front door behind her and pocketed the key. If there was a child out there now, playing their silly tricks, it would serve them right. Then she told herself off for even thinking such a heartless thing. She opened one of the double doors leading to their quarters and looked in on them. All present and correct. Relieved, she made her way up to bed.
Her room was illuminated only by candles. Eve had unpacked her meagre possessions from her suitcase, hanging what few clothes she had in the wardrobe. A diary, which she placed on the bedside table, and a couple of pieces of inexpensive, but sentimentally valued, jewellery completed her belongings.
She carefully took off the cherub necklace and kissed it, placing it down on the bedside table beside the diary. She gave out a sad-sounding sigh as she looked at it. Her smile was the next thing to be removed. There was no one there she needed to smile for. She stared at herself in a small compact mirror. I look tired, she thought. Tired.
She got into bed and found it to be almost as cold and damp as the rest of the house. She tried not to shiver, to relax, but her eyes wouldn’t close, sleep wouldn’t come. She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. There was a patch of mould above her bed. It looked like an island. She tried to imagine what it would be like. Some distant place with palm trees and sandy beaches stretching as far as the eye could see. The kind of place she had seen only in Hollywood films. As she looked at the damp patch, part of her, the honest part, wished she was there, in the warm sun, not a care in the world. No war, no unhappiness. Somewhere she could relax. Where she could smile because she meant it.
However, sleep still eluded her, so she rolled over on to her side and stared at the window. She cou
ld hear the sea behind the blackout blinds, but knew it wasn’t lapping on her tropical shore. It was cold, harsh, splashing against the causeway. She imagined the eels in the water, slithering and sliding round each other, over each other, curling round the island itself.
Restless, she turned over on to her other side.
And found herself in a different room.
She looked round, eyes wide with shock. Her bed was now one of many, a whole row of them stretching away to a set of double doors. All the other beds were empty. It was a hospital ward. Empty of patients but full of shadows. She could hear faint screams echoing in the distance.
Her heart pounding, her mind reeling, trying desperately to take in what had just happened, she pushed back the covers, put her feet to the floor, got up. She walked past the other beds, searching for the source of the screaming. They were all empty but unmade, the outline of departed patients still visible in each of them.
Her bare feet made slapping echoes on the cold, tiled floor as she walked through the ward. The screaming increased as she reached the double doors. She pushed them open, approached the single doorway beyond. The screams were now agonisingly, painfully loud, almost unbearably so.
She put her hand to the door. Hesitated. No matter how much she wanted to look inside, fear of what she would see stopped her. She stretched out her hand once more. The same thing happened; her hand wouldn’t make the connection. She took a deep breath, another. And, pushing the fear away, opened the door.
Before her was a flurry of doctors and nurses, all surrounding a woman lying on a bed. She was the source of the screaming and there was blood everywhere. She was giving birth.
Eve leaned in, trying to see the woman’s face, but the medical staff were in the way. All she could make out was her hand clutching the metal side of the bed.
Then everything changed. The woman stopped screaming, started panting, as if she had just finished running a marathon. A nurse stepped away from the bed, carrying a bundle of blanket. Eve craned her neck to see as a tiny hand emerged from it, the miniature fingers grasping, flexing.
The Woman in Black Page 4