The Dead Woman Who Lived

by Endellion Palmer

  “Drink, Mr Carr? Whisky? Brandy and soda?”

  “Not at the moment, thank you, Mrs Creed. The tea is most welcome. I’ve been driving nearly all day.”

  She looked closely at him, her face closed and pinched. Suddenly she broke into a smile and, reaching up, pushed a stray hair out of her eyes. He noticed as she did so that the rings on the third finger of her hand were slightly loose; they slid around when she moved.

  “Please call me Juliana. I know technically I’ve been married for four years, but I can’t get used to all this Mrs Creed business. Frankly, even Juliana is a bit of a surprise when I’m not expecting it. And I am having a drink. I’ve never needed one more.”

  She moved swiftly towards the side table where the decanters stood. There were several there, all of similar size and shape, but with different-shaped stoppers. She picked up the decanter with an oval stopper like a faceted crystal raindrop and poured out a hefty slug of amber liquid. Carrying it carefully, she came back to the settee and, raising the glass, she drank about half of it in one draught, then set it on the table next to her before sitting back and smiling faintly at her guest.

  “Not my usual behaviour, I promise! But it’s been a dreadful day. I’ve going over things in my mind until I feel like I’ll never get them untangled.”

  She stretched out her hands and looked at them as if surprised that they were steady. Despite being thin, they looked strong, and were simply kept, the nails smooth and unvarnished.

  “Then let’s see what you’ve got,” Alistair said. “Perhaps we can unravel it together.”

  “I hope so,” she replied, suddenly looking tired. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  “Start with last night,” he prompted. “What happened in the hallway between you and Adrien? He said only that it was very sudden. Was there something specific that brought back your memory?”

  She looked at him gravely. In all honesty he could not have described her at that moment as beautiful, but he was aware of a delicate charm and an intelligence deep in her eyes that was most attractive.

  “There was, but I think there have been a number of things that paved the way,” she replied. “There were moments with Adrien over the past weeks when I felt like I remembered those same things from before. His arm along the back of the car seat. Standing talking to him while he brushed his teeth. Little, commonplace things. Nothing definitive, but I think I started believing that there had been a past. That I didn’t just arrive in the world three years ago. And then there were the trunks.”

  “The trunks?”

  “Adrien had all my personal things packed away, when he thought I was dead. I went through my trunks a couple of days ago. One held letters, photographs, my hairbrush, a bottle of scent. All sorts of odds and ends—the detritus of another life. The smell of the scent… it scared me. I dabbed it on my wrist and for a moment I wasn’t here any more. It was as if my present and past lives were on the opposite sides of a wall, and I was in the wall. If I stretched a little further I could touch the past, step out into it. I felt that my memories were close, but I couldn’t quite find them. It was the oddest sensation.”

  Her forehead creased as she thought.

  “I went through the photographs. Snaps of me at school. Our house on Tongren Lu. The monkey my uncle brought me when I was nine. My eighteenth birthday, and a party my father gave for me. He gave me this brooch that night.”

  She fingered the lotus brooch as she talked, and saw Alistair’s eyes flick to it.

  “A little incongruous, isn’t it?” she asked. “I found this in my jewellery box, and until today I have only really looked at it. I liked seeing it there, on my dressing table, I didn’t find myself able to wear it. It belonged to someone else, not someone who lived over a grocer’s shop in Soho. I used to pick it up and look at it and think how beautiful it was, but I couldn’t pin it on.”

  “But today you felt that you could?”

  “When I got out of bed today, I saw myself in the glass. I looked awful, but felt complete, for the first time in years. I looked at myself and recognised who I was. And so I put the brooch on.”

  She looked away at this point, as if thinking back to what she had just told him. He drank his tea and finished his bun and gave her the time she needed. Then she shook herself, finishing her own cup, thirsty after the sherry, and poured more tea for both of them.

  “I’ve spent a long time looking at all the things that came out of those trunks. I saw the photographs, and although I didn’t remember them being taken, they did not feel totally alien. I read letters that were written to me, and I didn’t remember them, but they were not unfamiliar. I think it’s been coming back since I got back to Cornwall. My memory. And my senses recognised what was happening, before my mind caught up.”

  Alistair nodded. She made sense. “But something really sparked it off? Last night. He said that it was sudden.”

  Juliana shuddered.

  “Adrien’s coat,” she said, looking sick. “Of all things. I grabbed at the front of his overcoat. I could feel the wet wool under my fingers, and all of a sudden I could smell the sea. For a moment everything went dark and it felt as if I was sliding backwards, and I knew that if I did then I would die. I remember hearing someone scream. I know, looking back, it was me.”

  She managed a weak smile.

  “Must have scared everyone silly. Everyone came rushing through. Just in time to see me pushing Adrien away, hard. Begging him not to push me over. All I knew was that I had to get away from him. I couldn’t bear to be near him. I was frantic, and close to fainting.”

  “Adrien must have been extremely worried,” remarked Alistair.

  “He was distraught!” she replied. “He did not come near me until Bob came and gave me something to help me sleep. It knocked me out completely. When I woke up this morning, I knew who I was. I knew where I was. And now, when I think of something in the past, instead of coming up against a wall of fog, I can find a memory. So strange to be able to do that again.”

  Alistair watched her as she talked.

  “Do you feel up to telling me what happened that night? When you vanished?”

  She blew out her cheeks then exhaled quickly.

  “I hate to think where this is going,” she said. “What has Adrien told you?”

  “We have not talked in depth about it, not for a while anyway,” he replied. “From what I remember, he said that he had left the house and returned late, and had not realised that you were missing until the next morning.”

  She nodded. Her look was sombre and he watched her scratch the wool of her skirt absently. He interrupted her before she spoke.

  “Just talk to me, Juliana. Don’t overthink it.”

  “Very well. Adrien and I had quarrelled that night,” she said slowly. “Very badly. That was why he left the house. He stormed out and went off in the car. I thought perhaps he had run to Belinda Mayfield for comfort.”

  Alistair made a note of the name—he saw a twist to her lips as she spoke it but did not enquire any further for fear of stopping the flow of words.

  “I was furious,” she continued. “Both at him, for not talking to me, and with myself, for being so ready to believe all the rumours that I had heard. I think that night, I realised what all the sly talk had done. We were not communicating any more. He got defensive when I asked questions, and instead of asking myself why he would do so, I retaliated. I was so prepared to believe the word of other people over him—I accused him of lying.”

  She flushed here.

  “He was hurt, I was hurting him. And vice versa. We were just going round in circles. And underneath it, I was still dreadfully in love with him. I was scared I’d already lost him.”

  A log crashed in the fireplace and Juliana jumped. Alistair realised that beneath the calm, she was intensely worried.

  “After he left, the house was unnaturally quiet. As if it had run out of steam. Tempers had flared everywhere that day. Fancy and Jamie ha
d had a dreadful argument and Jamie had left in a fury, which was bizarre in itself. He was normally so even-tempered. He had quarrelled with Damaris too. I wondered if he was coming down with something, he was so out of sorts.”

  She smiled, shaking her head over the thought of Jamie in a wax.

  “Anyway, it was all too much for me. Even though the weather was changing for the worse, I wanted to be outside. I didn’t want to stay in the house another moment. I could still hear all the things we had shouted at each other, all the evil thoughts everyone had indulged in, rolling around without cease. So I grabbed my coat and went out.”

  She paused here and took a cigarette from the box on the table. Her eyes were unfocussed; Alistair could almost see the scene unrolling in front of her. Smoking her cigarette slowly, Juliana continued her story.

  “It was dark, but the moon was up, although the clouds were racing and covering it from time to time. I had a tiny pocket torch that Adrien had given me; it was in my coat. But I knew the path so well I didn’t need it. I walked through the gardens. I had to keep moving. Otherwise, I was going to start thinking, and I needed to be in the right place to do that. Before I knew it I was out and walking up to the Roscarrock. That’s it on the map, there.”

  Adrien had left a hand-drawn map on the table earlier. She leaned over and pointed out the way she had taken, her finger shaking. Alistair noted the position on the line of the cliff, seeing the jut of it, out into the sea.

  “I used to go there a lot, to sit and think. That night I just wanted to get my thoughts straight. Everything had gone wrong and I didn’t know how to put it right. I went up to the cliff edge and stood there for a while. It’s the most amazing feeling to stand there, like you are flying out over the water. It calmed me down. I decided that when Adrien got back, we had to sit down and discuss things properly. If he wanted out, then I would leave. Give him a divorce, however awful it would be. Admit defeat. Go home.”

  Her eyes were bright. She blinked sharply several times, to dispel the wetness.

  “I put my hands in my pockets, and there was a letter there. I took it out, but the rain had started and the ink was blurring. I was looking at it when there was a noise behind me. Like someone had stepped on a stone and it had rolled under a foot. It startled me. I wondered if Adrien had come after me; I wanted it to be him, just so we could thrash things out.”

  “You didn’t recognise whoever was there?”

  She shook her head, suddenly tired, as if she had spent the day asking herself the same question.

  “The moon had gone behind a cloud. It was one of those huge spring moons, so big it looked like it was heading straight for us. But the clouds were racing so fast that the moonlight was there one moment, gone the next. It was almost pitch black when it was gone. It was like waking up from a bad dream and seeing a shape beside your bed, a bogeyman that disappears when you wake properly. For a moment I thought I was imagining it, then I realised that it was an actual person. Before I got any further, whoever it was pushed me, hard. They meant me to go over.”

  It didn’t seem possible that she could go paler, but she did, the heat from the fire leaving just a spot of red on each thin cheek. Her voice faltered.

  “I reached out and grabbed at them, but just managed to get a handful of a coat. It was damp from the rain, and I could feel the roughness of it under my fingers. I was right on the edge of the cliff, looking back towards the house. Over the trees you can make out the tower and some of the top floor. There were lights on in some of the rooms and I thought how bizarre it was that life was going on as usual just a short distance away, when I was about to die. I slid over, scrabbling about on the edge as I tried to get a grip.”

  She looked over at him, her eyes round with remembered terror.

  “That’s the image that kept coming back to me, in my dreams. Struggling not to fall. But it was never enough, and I went off the edge.”

  Alistair looked concerned.

  “I’ll take a look at the cliff tomorrow,” he replied, “but from what I remember Adrien saying, the cliffs round here are very high and steep. How did you not fall to the rocks?”

  Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug.

  “Sheer luck, I think. About a quarter of the way down the cliff, there was a sort of step with some furze that grew out, and I managed to catch at it. I just clung there, trying to be as quiet as I could. I held on until I thought that whoever was there had gone. I have no idea how long I was there.”

  Her hands crept up and indicated the side of her head, her left temple. If he looked closely, he would see the thinnest of white lines running through her hair there.

  “I had hit my head as I fell. And it came to me through the pain that although I hadn’t seen a face, I recognised the coat. It was the one I often borrowed to wear outside, an old one of Adrien’s. The thing usually hung with all the outside clothing, in the side passage. And then it came to my mind that it was Adrien who had pushed me. To get rid of me. I nearly went crazy. I took off my rings - my wedding band and the emerald he bought me for our engagement - with my teeth! And I threw them out over the water, although I almost fell as I did so”

  Alistair was not surprised. A system already under stress, a head injury and a terrific shock. It all sounded very possible.

  “What about your coat and shoes? They were found at the bottom of the cliff,” he asked.

  Juliana’s eyes were closed now, as if was she seeing it all anew. There was a film of sweat on her skin, beading around her mouth and on her brow. He watched every movement of her face.

  “The coat was tangling round my legs, and getting in the way. I managed to shake it off. I wished afterwards I had remembered the little torch; it would have been useful. My shoes were slipping on the cliff face, so I kicked them off. And without them I had a little more grip, although it hurt more. I wasn’t thinking straight, really, but I remembered that a little further along, there was a real ledge, a granite shelf. And somehow I managed to get there. I really don’t know how. Every bit of me was bleeding and bruised. From the ledge I scrambled up and I found myself back on the path. By now it was pouring with rain and the wind was whipping up. I set off for the house, but I stopped after a few steps.”

  Alistair poured her another cup of tea and added a spoonful of sugar. Her colour was ghastly. He insisted that she drink it, and after looking at it blankly for a moment, she obeyed. A trace of pink appeared on her cheeks, and she followed the sweetened tea with a bite of the walnut cake he offered. He took some cake himself, pondering her account. He wondered how much was the truth.

  It was entirely possible that it had all happened exactly as she said. Or it could have been hallucination, brought on by the head injury and shock. Or she was lying. He watched her without seeming to. Her reaction last night had been severe. If that was the case, it was less likely that it was an outright lie. She looked over at him.

  “At the back of my mind was the thought that I had to get away. If I went back, he—Adrien—might try again. I wasn’t safe. I was dizzy, not thinking straight at all. So I started walking and got to the road. There was a lorry there. One of the ones that takes flowers up to London. It was full of boxes, and I knew that it would be going east. The driver didn’t see me. He was taking a nap in the cab. I climbed in the back and hid, and then passed out. The next thing I knew it was morning and I was somewhere I’d no idea of. It turned out to be Kent. The driver found me and kicked me out. He was shouting at me about stealing his wretched flowers but I got away from him. I made it to the nearest house and collapsed.”

  “They helped you? The people who lived there?”

  “They did. I was so lucky to have ended up there. The Faulkners were incredibly good to me. I don’t remember any of it, but they called a doctor, and when he said I was too ill to be moved, they kept me there, in their own house, and nursed me back to health. Their own daughter had died of flu just after the War, and I think they did it for her. When they found out that
I had amnesia and didn’t even know my own name, they called me Louise, as it was the feast day of St Louise that they found me. And they gave me their surname, too. Just so I would feel that I wasn’t completely alone.”

  She stopped here, looking down at her hands. There were tears threatening to fill her eyes again. Not fear now, but relief.

  “And that’s it. Here I am back at Trevennen again, three years later.”

  She finished off the wine in her glass and set it down on the table.

  “What do you think, Alistair? Ravings of a madwoman? Hallucination?” She looked closely at him, her head tilted to one side. “You have lovely eyes, quite too lovely for a man, really, but I can’t read them. I suppose that is an advantage, given what you do.”

  He took a moment before replying.

  “I think that you need to go and tell your husband what you have told me,” he said. “You had a great shock last night, and for better or for worse, you can now remember what happened to you that night. He needs to know, to understand why you behaved like that—he was shocked himself. Then comes the hard part. We need to start working out why it happened.”

  She nodded, and they looked hard at each other. Juliana broke the silence first, her voice very flat.

  “And who pushed me.”

  Chapter 12

  Jamie and Damaris arrived at Trevennen later that afternoon. After their talk, Juliana had shown Alistair to his room, then gone straight to Adrien, as promised. They sat together in his study and he listened in a silence that combined interest with horror. When she finally finished her recital, he took her hands and squeezed them.

  “And you thought it was me? That’s why you ran off?” he asked.

  “I had hit my head very badly, I was not thinking straight,” she replied. “After our argument that evening, I think I …”

  “I don’t know what to say, Jules. Except that it was not me on the cliff with you. I have no way to prove it, but I would die myself before I allowed you to be hurt.”