by Syd Moore
I stuffed the remnants of the cone into my mouth and tried hard not to cry.
Lottie and Thomas came back to the house to clean up. After tea I opened a bottle of Spanish wine. I shared half of it with Lottie before David arrived to pick up his clan. He had a sheepish air about him, perhaps guessing that Lottie had confided in me. I did my best to be bright and jolly. Then Alfie chucked a hissy fit about Thomas packing up, and demanded his cousin stay for a sleepover. But it was gone seven so once Lottie and co. had beaten a hasty exit I plopped him briefly in the bath then sang him to sleep.
It was still early evening for me, and after the day I’d had, I didn’t want to be alone. I composed a message requesting company then texted Martha, Sharon and Corinne. I added John as an afterthought though the chances of him being allowed out were remote.
Downstairs I threw back the French doors and breathed in jasmine-soaked air. Though the dusky shadow of the house covered most of the back garden, the furthermost part was alight with the amber pink luminosity of high summer. The flower-boat swayed seductively in the soft evening breeze, lifting my spirits a little, which was just as well as at that moment my phone beeped several times: Martha was feeling the same as me but was also stranded in her home with kids and no babysitter. Corinne was in London and Sharon was on an internet date. Nothing from John, but then he didn’t monitor his phone religiously like the rest of us.
I grabbed the wine off the kitchen table and optimistically took two glasses to the hammock. There was something so comforting about its gentle rock that I soon let my eyes close. The worries of the day slipped far away.
About half-past ten I was woken into a moonlit garden by the bleep of the mobile in the pocket of my jeans. One text from a private gym offering me a membership trial. And one missed call: private number.
I dialled my voicemail. ‘You have one new message. Last message left at 12.01 a.m.’
Strange that it had only just notified me of the call almost twenty-two hours later. Although with the cliffs and the beach, the signal in these parts was quite often intermittent.
As I listened, I could hear hissing interference like choppy waves lurching high and low, similar to when someone has accidentally misdialled you and you can hear the sound of the phone jogging around in a jacket or handbag. Then there was a crashing sound and a bang. The roaring sound rose abruptly and then just before it cut out I heard a woman’s voice, muffled against the sibilant white noise.
‘Help me,’ she pleaded.
The tone was desperate, the texture of her voice rough and rasping. I mentally filed through a list of people who could have dialled my number at midnight last night. All my Leigh chicks were accounted for. Who had I left in the pub? Nancy? No, the voice was older. Sue? Pregnant Sue! But why would she phone me?
A thought flashed. Of course – check the call log. And that’s when I saw it. The last missed call at 12.01 yesterday night had been dialled from 01702 785471 – my own landline.
It didn’t make sense. I was home then. I’d got the cab around ten thirty, got rid of Giselle and had passed out by 11.15.
I played it again.
This time the voice was clearer, more disturbing.
‘Help me.’
I shivered.
The garden was in complete darkness now but I must have left a light on in the kitchen because I could see the phone sitting on the wall.
An uncomfortable thought was starting to form at the back of my mind but I managed to contain it and dropped out of the hammock.
I walked up the garden path towards the phone.
A crack on the windowpane stopped me rock still.
I eased my breathing and strained my ears.
Somewhere in the distance a dog barked in warning.
A flutter of panic hit.
I didn’t want to look at the decking by the window. And yet I couldn’t help myself. Something was drawing me to the French doors.
Even though I kind of knew it would be there my eyes widened with shock as they absorbed the small, white, gleaming cockleshell.
I hugged myself, too frightened now to move closer. A strangled whistle sound wheezed in my throat.
The temperature had dropped to cold, almost frosty.
About the French doors the air began to crackle.
Draughts stirred, lifting and billowing the curtains at their sides.
A darkness beside them was thickening and warping. Something was coming, swirling into being – a shape, a dark mass.
Then I saw it clearly – the murky shade of a woman in a long gown, discarnate, shadowed with blacks and greys. I had the impression of dark curls snaking around the palest of faces like seaweed clinging to a corpse, a marbled neck and stained cotton dress. But it was just that – a notion. I didn’t see them with my eyes but with my mind, like my imagination was filling the contours within the depth of blackness.
There was the acrid smell of muddy sulphur and an unbearable feeling of loss.
For a long second it hovered there like a storm cloud.
Then a heartbeat later it was gone.
Chapter Five
My computer screen flicked on. I fingered the scrap of paper in my hand. It read ‘Marie143’ in John’s looping handwriting.
When I drove into St John’s on Monday morning, he had been leaning against the wall, waiting for me. As soon as he spotted my red VW Beetle he nipped over and held the door open for me.
I watched his face wrinkle with concern. ‘I left my phone at the pub. Nancy brought it in this morning. I just got your messages. You sounded weird. What’s going on? You OK?’
Good question. What was going on? Was I OK? Were things happening because of something going wrong in my brain? Or was this stuff external?
I hadn’t been able to come to a conclusion on Sunday. Which was an improvement on Saturday when I had been simply ‘weird’ as John had correctly suggested. The seeming physical nature of whatever had manifested seemed very real and I was certain that something supernatural had turned its gaze on me.
Martha was alarmed, of course. It was all over her face when she arrived late on Saturday night. She came over as soon as her husband, Deano, got home, on the off chance that I was still up for company.
I had left a rather hysterical message on John’s phone and was just calming myself down, trying to get a grip on what I’d just seen, so her timing was perfect.
Martha could be counted on for good solid comfort. Her green fingers tended our social circle’s gardens and house-plants when we went away, while her gentle manner and nurturing aura had us all calling on her for a shoulder to cry on whenever things got tough. There was something indescribably soft about her, without any drippy overtone, that made you feel safe in her company.
Ever practical she sat me down around the large pine kitchen table and made us a cup of tea while I gasped and spluttered through what had happened in the garden, climaxing with the revelation of the phone message.
I know I sounded quite crazy as when I looked up Martha’s face was crossed by heavy lines of strain. Her honey-sweet voice told me that in her opinion I was probably just overdoing things.
‘You know, darling,’ she soothed, ‘you have really been through the wringer these past few years. Life’s not easy and I know being a widow with a young child must seem an awful lot to cope with. Do you not think that perhaps your brain is creating an outlet for you?’
She was being rational and I would have loved to believe her, but there was no denying something peculiar was happening. Something that went beyond psychological stress, even perhaps beyond mental illness or the possibility that my brain was rewiring itself around a blockage.
The quiet lull of her voice, the reason in her argument, the relief of her physical presence served to pacify me a bit. Even her suggestion that I might want to see a counsellor was acceptable although wide of the mark, but then she added, almost as an afterthought: ‘Of course you want to keep the memory of Josh alive, it’s a complet
ely natural impulse, but this way,’ she shrugged limply, ‘just seems so negative, Sarah.’
‘What are you talking about?’ The words exploded out of my mouth without thought or care. ‘How dare you?’
Martha took in my expression and started to backtrack. ‘God, I’m sorry, Sarah. I know it’s a touchy subject.’
But I was on my feet, walking up and down the kitchen, hands gesturing to the ceiling with outrage and exasperation. ‘You think this thing is my husband?’
‘Well, I …’ Martha’s eyebrows knitted together. She shrank into her chair.
‘That’s bloody ridiculous.’
Martha relaxed a little. ‘I’m glad to hear it, Sarah, really I am. I know you’ve not been yourself lately.’
I stopped pacing, rested my knuckles on the table and took a deep breath. ‘This has nothing to do with Josh. Nothing.’ I tried to speak in a controlled voice. ‘This thing, Martha, is female.’
She had her mouth open as if she was going to speak but then closed it. A small sigh escaped her. ‘Really?’
I knew she was trying to help but she sounded so insincere, I realized that it was pointless talking to her, and rather than offend her again with another exasperated tut or sigh I answered her with a small shrug.
She cocked her head to one side and held my gaze. ‘Have you ever read Stephen King?’
OK, I thought, now she’s getting it and replied, ‘Maybe. Yes, when I was a teenager. I’m not reading anything like that now and before you suggest it, Martha, no I’m not letting my imagination run away with me.’
She smiled and stretched her hand to me across the table. ‘Honey, I wouldn’t dream of patronizing you like that. What I was going to say is I once remember reading an interview with him, where he said something that had quite an impact on me.’
‘Go on.’
‘We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.’
Exhaustion fell across me.
She must have seen it because she asked if I wanted to go to bed.
I nodded.
Martha got to her feet pretty damn quickly.
At the front door, she paused and held out a little green pill. ‘Valium. Get some sleep, Sarah. Call me in the morning if you need to talk. You’re not alone.’
‘I know. That’s the problem,’ I said and closed the door.
The next morning I woke up with a sentence going round my head. It was a phrase Sharon had used to describe coming off the anti-depressants she’d taken once when she was younger. It was a hard time and she said she weirded out a bit. ‘Until you get balanced again …’ she told me, ‘… it can be just like a bad trip.’
Having had a few early forays into recreational drugs during my twenties this made sense. Once, in the bath, coming down from something or other, I was convinced I could hear voices in the water pipes begging me to release them from their watery prison. By the time Josh found me I’d scratched the paintwork off the u-bend and was searching for a hammer.
I entertained the idea of a flashback. The incident by the French doors had been, it was fair to say, rather trippy. And with regard to the mobile, there was a possibility that I could have sent the message to myself while I was half asleep or sleepwalking. Though it seemed unlikely.
In the afternoon I summoned the courage to listen to the message again and tried dialling into it but it was gone. I wasn’t sure if I had failed to save it or perhaps Martha may have deleted it in a well-meaning attempt to help. That would be just like her. The possibility rather put me out – I hadn’t given her permission to tamper with my phone. I would certainly speak to her about it when I next saw her. It was frustrating. Now I only had my memory of it to go from and it was becoming hazier the more I tried to concentrate on its recall.
By evening I had a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach and by nightfall I was edgy as hell. I didn’t want to admit it at the time, but I was getting scared. I think part of me knew what was going to happen.
The dreary sameness of Monday morning felt like something of a reprieve. In fact I’d go as far as to say that I was almost pleased to be going into St John’s. The students were gone and we had a week of administrative duties to sort before we were allowed to bugger off on summer leave.
As I turned into the drive and clocked the grey steel girders of the new music block extension with its vaulted see-through roof, the absolute soulnessness of the place suddenly heartened me. There’s a first time for everything. Nothing organic stirred here. Thank God.
A break from restless spirits was required.
I needed to get in and get my head down. Work would absorb me and for a while I could feel almost normal.
The last thing I wanted to do was talk it over again. So when John fired up I told him just that. But the silly sod wouldn’t leave me alone.
‘Sarah? ARE YOU OK?’
I locked the door of the car and picked up my bag and started marching to the entrance. It had rained the previous night and the air was damp and verdant.
‘I’m not really sure if I am OK, to be honest. If I told you what happened, you’d just think I’m mad and to be honest, I’m starting to wonder about that myself.’
He nipped ahead and turned to face me, blocking my path. ‘Hey, slow down. Do you want to talk about it? I’m going to go into the research room and do some marking, if you want somewhere private to chat.’
‘Actually, I don’t, John. I’m sorry about calling you on Saturday night. I had a bit of a fright – a missed call from some woman asking for help. I thought it might be Sue? What with the pregnancy and everything. Is she OK?’
John nodded. ‘I just saw her in the staff room. She’s fine. Everyone’s fine. Are you fine?’
‘Please forget it.’
He was scuttling alongside me. ‘Was it another cockleshell?’
I shook my head and scowled knowing that I would appear either rude or irritable or probably both.
‘Thank God for that. Solitary female hysteria.’ My eyes met his, which crinkled warmly. ‘Joke,’ he added.
But I wasn’t in the mood. ‘I’m going to the staff room.’
‘Well, come and find me if you’re bored. You sure you’re OK? Don’t worry about drinking too much, if that’s what you’re thinking. An early death might save you from the horrors of new education models.’ And he bounced off.
I turned into the staff room and made for the coffee machine. I was being too hard on him I ruminated, now regretful, as I set my load down on the side. He was just trying to help.
I fumbled in my bag for my purse, finally scooping out a handful of coins, which promptly scattered across the ledge that the machine perched on.
I cursed and picked up a twenty-pence piece. It went into the coin slot and straight out of the return. ‘Fuck.’
‘Having one of those days are we?’
McBastard stood beside me. A half smile curled his lips, suggestive of glee at my blinding incompetence.
As there were no students present in school that week, we were permitted to wear jeans. McBastard’s grey chinos had been swapped for dark denim that caught across the hips and tailored down over his long legs, fleshing him out for a change. To my surprise I saw he was wearing a t-shirt with a logo of a cool band that I had once publicized. Was the robot becoming human?
‘Let’s say I’ve had better mornings.’ Struggling with the coin slot, I glanced at him in time to see his volcano eyes fix on me. He looked away immediately, embarrassed to be caught staring. Could he tell something strange was happening to me? Was I dragging around an aura of weirdness?
The coins returned once more. I was starting to feel self-conscious.
McBastard coughed. ‘Here, let me.’ He retrieved the money and this time, his efforts produced a coffee. His fingertips brushed against my palm as he handed over my change.
Without thanking him I scrambled my stuff together hastily and made towards the desks at the far side of the room.
‘Sarah!’ he called a
fter me. I turned and met his stare. The openness of his face had melted away. ‘I need your course review. Tomorrow at the latest, please.’
I answered him with a grunt and sat down, spreading my papers over the wooden top, noting with bewilderment that my hand was tingling where he had touched me.
At lunch John found me in the canteen mauling a stale beef sandwich and trying to put the horrors of the weekend out of my mind.
He wedged his butt along the pine bench next to mine. ‘Have you seen Sue?’ He was trying to make conversation.
I informed him she had an ante-natal appointment at the hospital but didn’t expand. I wasn’t in the mood for conversation.
John poked a dried-up triangle of something pizza-like on his plate. The food, which was below average at the best of times, was virtually inedible once the students, sorry customers, had departed.
He forced himself to bite the cheesy triangle and winced. ‘Good night on Friday, wasn’t it?’ he said, through a mouthful of dried bread.
My mind went straight to the phone call, the haunting watery words, the strangulated tone of the woman. With some effort, I focused on the Red Lion hours.
‘I was quite drunk. Any gossip?’ I did my best to engage.
‘One of Finance got chucked out for doing coke in the loo.’
‘Oh, who?’
‘Tina Worten.’
John took another bite and we munched in silence until he put down his crust and said, ‘You’re a bit pissed off with me, aren’t you? What is it? The hysterical woman reference? I was being silly. I thought we had that kind of relationship. I’m sorry. Is that why you phoned me Saturday night? To be hysterical? I was only concerned because I didn’t realize you were joking.’
I stared at him blankly. I had phoned him when I was upset Saturday night, hoping he might be up. But when the call went to his voicemail I left some garbled message for him to call me. It hadn’t occurred to me that he would assume the call was a prank, although part of me was mighty relieved that he might.