In Her Shadow

by Douglas, Louise

  ‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ she said to Jago. ‘I’m going to kill you!’ And she raised the gun to her shoulder and fired – and the bang was so loud it woke me, but not before I had felt, in my dream, Jago’s blood raining down on me.

  I was weeping in my sleep. I got out of bed, went into the living room, pulled out a chair, stood on it and felt for the emergency stash of sleeping pills I kept on top of the bookcase. I had no dreams with the pills but had to ration them carefully because the doctors did not like prescribing them, and I was too afraid of poisoning myself to order extra supplies from the internet. Lily padded around the apartment shadowing me, miaowing at me to stroke her. I picked her up and held her to me like a baby. I soaked up every morsel of the comfort she gave.

  I normally only took half a pill, but because it was already gone 2 a.m. and I was desperate, I swallowed one whole with a gulp of water. I went back to bed and felt the delicious waves of drug-induced calmness creep through my body inch by inch until I drifted into blissful oblivion.

  I slept, of course, but I missed the alarm a few hours later or, more likely, switched it off in my sleep.

  It was after 9 a.m. when I woke with a headache and a narcotic hangover. I was flustered and my mind was woolly. I checked my diary as I dressed. A school party was due at the museum for a tour starting at 9.15 a.m. I called Misty who said she’d stand in until I arrived. In a hurry, I washed, dressed and put on a little make-up. I went out without eating or drinking anything, not so much as a glass of tapwater.

  I waited, hopefully, at the bus stop on Ashley Road for ten minutes, and when no bus came decided to walk, only to be overtaken by a number 13 two minutes later. Worse, I happened upon a road-traffic accident at the Jamaica Street traffic-lights. A white-faced woman was pacing forwards and backwards on the pavement while the young man she had knocked off his motorbike was tended by paramedics. He was wearing leathers but they had been ripped to shreds. There was blood on the tarmac; blood on the broken glass that was scattered around the junction, blood on the shards of glass embedded in the motorcyclist’s grazed skin. Both the front of the car and the Yamaha were mangled.

  ‘I didn’t see him,’ the woman kept saying. ‘He came from nowhere. I didn’t see him.’

  People were ignoring her. They were taking diversions to avoid her.

  I remembered Ellen then. I remembered the dazed expression on her face the day I found her on the bench at the back of the church, and I was filled with a rush of shame. She was little more than a child and she was almost certainly in shock that afternoon after she’d watched her father destroy her mother’s garden. Why hadn’t I acted? Why didn’t I at least tell my parents what was going on? I’d convinced myself that things were not as bad as Ellen made out. I told other people that too. But I’d seen Mr Brecht’s handiwork with my own eyes. I knew. I knew even then and still I did nothing – no, worse than nothing, I sympathized with him. I had dreams of a future with him. I thought I loved him.

  At work, things went from bad to worse. Misty asked me to call the Educational Services customer-care team. Normally, messages like this denoted imminent good news: a booking from a partner organization, or perhaps the BBC’s Natural History team were requesting access to an exhibit. I returned the call straight away and was told, gently and sympathetically, but nonetheless officially, that the parent of one of the children on a recent Life on Earth tour had complained about the scientific explanation of evolution being given greater prominence than the creationist version.

  ‘The thing is,’ the woman said, ‘the child’s mother is a city councillor. She’s always banging on about the erosion of good old-fashioned religious morals. This is bound to generate sympathy and media interest.’

  ‘What should I do?’ I asked.

  ‘Be careful who you talk to. If anyone identifies themselves to you as a journalist, they have a right to reproduce what you say, so don’t say anything. The PR Department is working on an official statement.’

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Then: ‘Try not to worry,’ the woman finished lamely. ‘We get this kind of thing all the time.’

  I tried to swallow my humiliation but it was a bitter pill. Already, I felt as if I were being publicly criticized. I wondered if journalists were prying into my background. What if they found out about my breakdown? What if they found out about Ellen? What if they did an exposé on me, plastered me across the front pages?

  My heart was racing with fear, and by mid-morning I was light-headed and spacey with too much adrenaline in my system.

  I didn’t stop for lunch in order to make up the time for being late that morning. Instead, I moved a collection of Thecodontosaurus fossils back down into the archive. As I wrote down the description and location of the bones, I was almost certain I was being watched in that underground space, crowded with objects. I sensed movement in the shadows; something seemed to flit between the racks, hiding from me, but observing me. A shadow fluttered in a way that reminded me of bats’ wings and, distantly, I heard a noise. It sounded like Ellen’s sobbing. I peered around the racks and gazed at the ranks of death masks. I made myself look at them, to convince myself that they weren’t moving, and as I did so there was a crash as something fell from one of the shelves behind me.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I called. ‘Who is it?’

  But there was no answer, and I could find nothing broken or damaged on the floor.

  Shakily, I returned upstairs to the office with fifteen minutes to spare until the afternoon’s Women’s Institute tour. I’d seen the group assembling in the foyer as I came up from the archive. There were about forty women of all ages in summer suits and cardigans, chattering animatedly, waiting for me. They had been oddly oblivious to the Tyrannosaurus Rex, too involved in their conversations to pay it proper heed. Perhaps they’d all been to the museum before. Perhaps a 42-foot-long monster with teeth the size of carving knives was nothing to these women.

  In the office, Misty was standing by the photocopier studiously stapling fact-sheets together. I sat down on a plastic chair by the table. The WI were connected to the Church. Were they expecting me to give equal weight to both versions of evolution? What if the complainant was amongst them? What if she’d come along to take notes? Once the thought was in my mind, it began to expand, twisting and turning, inveigling its way to the front of my brain. I closed my eyes and I saw Ellen’s face. It zoomed towards me, and then receded to a pinprick. I was having trouble breathing. I didn’t feel right. Thoughts careered through my mind. There was a buzzing in my brain and the floor began to tilt and I realized, too late, what was happening.

  ‘Misty!’ I called as I slipped from the chair, tipping it and falling awkwardly against the table leg. I lay with my cheek pressed against the rough material of the carpet, conscious but frozen by paralysis. This had happened before, once or twice in the bad old days preceding the breakdown. I just had to remember to breathe slowly, to control the panic, to breathe in and hold it and …

  Misty’s face appeared in front of mine, her eyes wide open with shock. She shook me, gently, by the shoulders.

  ‘Hannah? Hannah! What is it? What’s wrong? Oh my God! Rina! Help! It’s Hannah – I think she’s dead!’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  I WAITED FOR Mr Brecht to inflict some punishment on Ellen, or to come round to our house to complain to my parents about Jago kissing her at the harbour, but he did nothing.

  The longer that nothing happened, the more anxious I became. Mr Brecht would have his revenge, his pound of flesh, I was sure of it. He would make Jago and Ellen suffer for their deceit, but I did not know how, or when, and every day I became a little more afraid. I wondered if I should warn Jago – but how could I without admitting what I had done?

  So I did nothing either. I waited.

  The first time in the new year when Jago slipped out at night to be with Ellen, I could not sleep until he returned because I was convinced Mr Brecht would have been lying i
n wait for him … but Jago came home, as normal, went back to bed for an hour or so and was his customary semi-comatose self when Mum took in a cup of tea to wake him for work at seven.

  After a couple of weeks had elapsed, with no dramas and no repercussions, I began to let down my guard – just a little.

  I shouldn’t have. Mr Brecht was clever. He was biding his time and waiting for the right moment to get his own back.

  One day, early in March, when I was at Thornfield House after school, Mrs Todd came up to Ellen’s bedroom with drinks for us and a plate of sandwiches. As she closed the door quietly behind her, she said, ‘Ellen, your father thinks somebody has been inside the house. An intruder.’

  Ellen immediately blushed. She dropped her head so that her hair fell forward to hide her face. I felt empathetically hot and guilty too.

  ‘Why does he think that?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s found footsteps in the flowerbeds by the front windows. And somebody has been disturbing things inside the house.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s just his imagination, Mrs Todd. You know what he can be like.’

  ‘Your mother’s things,’ Mrs Todd said. ‘He thinks somebody has been going through your mother’s things.’ She stood beside Ellen, reached out her hand, and touched her cheek gently. ‘If it was you, or if you know who it was, tell me now.’

  ‘It wasn’t me,’ Ellen said. ‘And I don’t know anything about anybody searching Mama’s things. Really I don’t.’

  As I left to return home, she whispered to me to warn Jago to stay away. I told her, sharply, that I was no fool. I understood the danger.

  Jago blanched when I related the evening’s events to him.

  ‘They were your footprints in the flowerbeds,’ I said. ‘You should have been more careful. You could have been blamed for everything.’

  ‘It wasn’t me inside the house,’ said Jago. ‘I haven’t been through Mrs Brecht’s things. I only ever go to Ellen’s bedroom.’

  ‘I know – but if Mr Brecht finds you lurking outside his house in the middle of the night, he’ll think it was you, you idiot, especially when your shoes match the footprints in the flowerbeds.’

  ‘Fuck,’ Jago said under his breath.

  ‘You can’t go round there again, Jago. Not until this is sorted.’

  ‘But how will I see Ellen?’

  ‘You can’t. Not for now. Wait and see what happens.’

  It wasn’t much of a strategy, but it was all we had.

  Dad came in the next night, washed his hands under the tap in the kitchen and said, ‘Funny peculiar thing happened in the Smuggler’s Rest.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Mum, who was stirring onion gravy at the cooker.

  ‘I was having a quiet pint with Bill Haworth when Mr Brecht came in.’

  ‘There’s no law against it.’

  ‘No, but I’ve not seen him in the Smuggler’s before. He reckoned somebody’s been snooping round their house.’

  ‘How terrible,’ said Mum. ‘Did you know about this, Hannah?’

  I was sitting at the table doing my homework. I nodded.

  ‘Anyway,’ Dad continued, ‘he wants to know where he can buy a shotgun.’

  I knocked over my mug. Tea spilled all over the old exam papers I’d spread out. I grabbed a kitchen towel and dabbed at the liquid.

  Mum looked at me.

  ‘Well, it’s fair enough. A man has a right to defend his property,’ said Dad.

  Most people in Trethene would have agreed with that sentiment, but nobody was prepared for what happened next.

  The first we heard of it was when there was a knocking on the door at our house. Mum answered. It was the woman from the village shop with a message for her. Mrs Todd had phoned, apparently ‘sounding flustered’, and asked Mum to go round to Thornfield House urgently. Mum didn’t know what the problem was, but she picked up her coat and left straight away. I wanted to go with her, but she told me to stay put and finish my essay. She went out and returned, several hours later, ashen-faced, and immediately poured herself an Advocaat. I knew something was wrong then because I’d only ever seen my mother drink alcohol at Christmas and funerals. She didn’t even like the taste of it. Dad came in from the garden, took one look at Mum, put his hand on the small of her back and steered her into the living room. He shut the door. I crept up to it and listened. Mum was not crying – she never cried – but there was a tremble in her voice.

  ‘You should have seen the blood, Malcolm,’ she said. ‘I scrubbed the floorboards, poured bleach on them, but the stain wouldn’t lift. It’s soaked in too deep. It’ll be there for ever.’

  ‘What about Tremlett?’ Dad asked in a low voice. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘In hospital. They say he’s going to lose an eye.’

  I put my hand over my mouth.

  ‘Ellen saw it all,’ Mum said tremulously. ‘Mr Brecht found Tremlett inside the house going through Mrs Brecht’s jewellery and hit him on the back of the head with the fire poker. Mrs Todd said he’d have killed him if Ellen hadn’t got between the two of them.’

  ‘Good God.’

  ‘The poor girl was covered in Adam’s blood, Malcolm. Imagine!’

  My mother’s voice dropped to a whisper. I picked out the odd word: broken, smashed, mirror, shattered, upturned, ripped. Then I heard the click of the back-door latch, and Jago called, ‘Hello!’

  I stood up and went into the kitchen. He had his back to me and was looking inside the fridge. He turned round with a bottle of milk in one hand and a plate of ham with the mustard pot balanced on its rim in the other.

  ‘Hannah?’ he asked. ‘What is it?’

  I shook my head. I could not speak. I did not know how to begin to tell him.

  ‘Is it Ellen?’ he asked.

  I nodded yes.

  ‘Christ, what’s happened now? What’s the Psycho done?’

  ‘It wasn’t his fault! He came in and caught Adam Tremlett robbing the place!’

  Jago put the bottle and plate down and took a step towards me.

  ‘What about Ellen?’

  I stamped my foot in distress. Trixie whimpered and hid as far as she could under the kitchen table.

  ‘Is she all right?’ cried Jago. ‘Is Ellen OK? Oh fucking hell, what’s happened?’

  He opened the back door. I grabbed onto his arm, held onto him. ‘No! No, Jago!’ I screamed. ‘Don’t go there, stay here!’ But he shook me off and went back out into the night.

  My father, hearing the commotion and finding me crying in the kitchen, went off after him. They returned soon enough, both of them. Thornfield House was already empty. Mrs Todd, Ellen and her father were gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  AT THE MUSEUM, Rina helped me back up on to the chair.

  ‘Take your time,’ she said. ‘Take it easy.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right. No harm done. I bet you didn’t eat any lunch.’

  ‘There wasn’t time …’

  ‘So you fainted. Is low blood sugar the only problem?’

  I shook my head. ‘I had a sleeping tablet last night. I think it must still be in my system.’

  ‘Was this prescribed medication?’

  I felt ashamed of myself. Worse, I felt dreadfully sick. ‘No, it was an old pill from when I had a bad patch before.’

  ‘Oh Hannah!’ Rina said. ‘What’s got into you? You’re worrying me.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said again.

  She pushed a packet of biscuits towards me and I took them, unwound the packaging and nibbled at the edge of a digestive. My mouth was dry, but the sugar helped with the nausea.

  ‘What happened before?’ Rina asked.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You said the sleeping pill was from a bad patch before.’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Stress.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  I nodded.

  ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of,’ said Rina. ‘Do you know, I’m almost rel
ieved to find out that you’re not perfect, Hannah. You seem to sail so smoothly through life.’

  I almost laughed. Rina, you do not know the half of it, I thought.

  Rina clasped both of my hands in hers and rubbed them. After a few moments, she took a deep breath – which was a signal that she was about to embark on a speech she had prepared earlier.

  ‘I think, Hannah, you should get away from here. Not just a night with your parents – I mean proper getting away. Out of the country.’

  ‘I know. I think you’re right.’

  ‘And,’ Rina said, her voice rising to denote that this was positive news, ‘as luck would have it, an opportunity has arisen which would be absolutely perfect.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘John is going to Berlin for the Trans-European curatorial conference on Wednesday. I was going to go with him but I’ve so much on my plate at the moment that I’ve been looking for a way out. And you’re it!’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. You could take my place. It would be perfect for all three of us. I can get on with my research. You’d be in a different place, away from all this. You’d meet people from the international museum community, and you need to network, Hannah, if you’re going to further your career. John will be in his element. You know what he’s like, he’ll get carried away with enthusiasm for various projects we can’t afford and he’ll need someone there to point out the impracticalities, the financial implications, the impossibility of staging anything progressive in our poor old building. Dear Hannah, if I can’t be there, Bristol needs you to go with him and be the big black cloud of rationality raining on his parade.’

  She didn’t say it but I knew she was also thinking that a foreign excursion would conveniently keep me out of the way while the councillor’s complaint was investigated too.