I looked at myself again. Studying my face. The face of a mad girl. I must be crazy.
A lunatic. A psycho. A danger to myself.
I shivered, wrapping my arms around me.
And then the poster appeared behind me, and the girl in the mirror changed. And there she was again, with her purple-striped hair, her black eyeliner. With her blue eyes locked onto mine.
“Help me…” she said.
I stared at her, the girl I had created in my head.
“You have to loosen it,” she said, beginning to fade away so that I was looking at myself, and I was the one speaking. “Loosen it.”
Loosen it. Those were the words spoken to me by the Spiritualist. About my mother. You have to help her, she’d said. You have to loosen it. Loosen the seatbelt. Set her free.
“Loosen it!” The voice was all around me now, urgent and insistent. A voice of distorted whispers.
I put my hands over my ears to try to block out the sound. But the whispers continued inside my head.
“Loosen it!”
“I can’t,” I shouted. “It’s too late.”
“Loosen it!” The words hissed over and over in my head, ordering, demanding.
And then she was there again, looking back at me from my own reflection, her blue eyes pleading with me.
“Loosen it.”
And as she spoke, everything seemed to vibrate. The bed, the wardrobe, the chair under the door-handle. They all began to tremble. My things on the dressing table began to rattle, a perfume bottle tipping over, its lid coming off, rolling across the surface and falling onto the floor. The wardrobe door squealed open. And the voice continued - “Loosen it!” - until I could stand it no longer.
“Okay!” I shouted. “Okay!”
And everything went still.
<><><>
I sat there in the sudden silence.
I looked at the wardrobe door still hanging open, the perfume bottle still lying on its side, its lid on the floor. That had not been in my imagination. No - it had been real. It had definitely happened.
So that meant that I really was being haunted.
By Billie.
And she wanted something from me. My help. She wanted me to loosen something.
And she’d been asking me ever since I’d come here, hadn’t she. Calling out to me on the wind and in the caves, and through the Spiritualist. Not my mother at all. But Billie.
And if I helped her, if I did as she asked, would that be it? Would all this chaos end? Would my madness stop? I wasn’t sure - but I desperately hoped so.
<><><>
And so I began a frenzied search of my room, trying to twist and turn everything - handles, light-switch, the peg on the back of the door, the lamp. And as I did, the room changed round me. Not only did the Nirvana poster re-appear, but when I began to pull out drawers, tapping the wood, looking for some sort of secret compartment to loosen, the clothes inside those drawers were not my own. Long purple skirts, ripped jeans, striped tights: these were Billie’s clothes. And when I tried feeling round the screws which held the mirror in place, the bottles and jewellery and the black eyeliner pen on the dressing table weren’t mine. They were Billie’s.
But I searched in vain. There was nothing there. Nothing to loosen. Nothing.
<><><>
No one was about as I crept out of my room and along the landing. Using the key which I’d taken earlier, I unlocked the connecting door, entering Luke’s flat on the second floor.
The last thing in the world I wanted was for Luke to find me trespassing, again, searching through his personal belongings. But it was the only thing I could think of doing. After all, he was involved in this somehow. Otherwise, why would Billie have shown me the incident in the bathroom?
But what was that? Was it her actual memory that I had experienced? Had Luke really done that to her? Treated her like that?
No. He wasn’t like that. Surely.
But then I thought about his lightning anger. His sudden rages. And I wasn’t so sure…
Please God, I thought, don’t let him find me here.
First I tiptoed along the landing to the top of Luke’s stairs, looking down them, listening for any sign that he was home. But the coast seemed clear. And so I tried the doors on one side of the corridor - the empty bedrooms I’d seen earlier - thinking they would be quick, with fewer possible things to loosen. But after a few minutes it was obvious that I was searching in the wrong place.
And so I moved on. To Luke’s bedroom.
My stomach lurched as I looked at the bed, remembering his kisses earlier that evening. But those kisses weren’t for me, were they. They were for Billie. And, if the vision was to be believed, look at how he had mistreated her.
I still didn’t understand. If he’d loved her so much, so passionately, how could he ever have hurt her? But then I remembered how he’d behaved when he’d found me sitting here on his bed. He’d been so angry. A total and instant overreaction. Like he was out of control. Just like when I’d mentioned Billie’s name, and when I’d hummed that tune.
He’d come in and seen me sitting there, and he’d been furious. So annoyed that he couldn’t even look at me properly.
As I remembered, I automatically looked over to the corner where Luke’s eyes had repeatedly roamed. Just an empty corner of the room. And then when he’d caught me looking there too he’d been livid.
I wondered…
Creeping over to the corner, I pressed at the floor with my foot. Maybe there was a loose floorboard or something? But there wasn’t. But when I looked more closely at the skirting board, there was a fine, hairline join in it. No - there were two. I prodded the section between the cracks with my foot. It moved very slightly, as if it wasn’t fully attached to the wall behind.
Getting down on my hands and knees I tapped it: it sounded different to the skirting next to it. Hollow.
Race pulsing, I tried to grip the top of the wood, trying to prise it from the wall, but my fingers kept slipping. It was too smooth to get a proper purchase.
Then I remembered all those tools in the cupboard downstairs, arranged so neatly. As quietly as I could, I crept down to the kitchen and started my search, cringing as I moved a box of nails which rattled around, grating against each other. But then I found something suitable: a thin, flat scraper. I put everything else back perfectly and returned to the bedroom.
Carefully placing the flat blade at the top of the skirting, I slowly edged it down behind the wood, gently angling it now and again, trying to prise the section of skirting from the wall. And eventually it started to give and I was able to loosen it.
When it had completely come away, it revealed a space in the wall. A hole.
With every nerve of my body on edge, I reached inside. There was something there.
As carefully as possible, I pulled it out. A book. I looked at the cover and drew a sharp intake of breath: it was a diary. Billie’s diary.
I looked at the year, expecting it to be from about five years ago. But no - it was much older than that: from before I was even born. I thought back to the bathroom scene - to the younger Luke - a man in his early twenties. Of course, their relationship had happened years ago. And yet he still cared.
Putting my hand into the hole once more, I felt around. There was more, right at the back. I pulled out what was left: ten or so pieces of paper, which had clearly been ripped out of the book and then scrunched up. I smoothed them out to make them easier to carry, and then carefully put the skirting board back in place.
Then I crept back out onto the landing, making my way towards the connecting door.
But just as I reached it, I heard a creaking on the stairs.
“Mel? Is that you?”
Luke.
I froze.
“Mel?”
What should I do? If I tried to unlock the door with the key, he was bound to hear me. But if I didn’t, he would find me here in his private space again. And if he realised I
was carrying the diary…
I could hear him coming up the second flight of stairs, so I dived through a door on my left. It was a long, thin study dominated by a big old-fashioned wooden desk, the kind with drawers down to the floor, and on it sat a computer. I looked round for somewhere to hide, eventually moving the chair aside to crawl under the desk, into the space between the two sets of drawers. It was a stupid spot; way too obvious, but it was the best I could do.
Luke had reached the top of the stairs now. I could hear him on the landing.
“Mel?”
Another board creaked. He’d gone into his bedroom.
I held my breath. Waiting... Waiting... Would he notice anything? Would he realise that someone had been in there? That the diary was missing?
But now I could hear footsteps coming along the landing, his voice very close.
“Mel?”
I could hear him looking in the bathroom and the empty bedrooms on the right, trying the connecting door to my landing, but finding it locked. Next he would come in here. I shut my eyes, dreading what would happen.
And then I heard the door open.
“Mel?”
He was standing in the doorway looking in. One more step into the room and he’d be able to see me for sure.
I crouched back, trying to make myself as small as possible.
“Luke?”
It was the other barman, shouting loudly up the stairs.
“Luke? Can you come and help out? I need to change a barrel - and there’s a queue forming!”
I waited, with baited breath, my heart banging against my ribs. Just one more step…
Then Luke swore under his breath, retreating, his footsteps fading as I heard him calling down that he was on his way.
Eventually I allowed myself to take a breath. He had gone.
Crawling out of my hiding place, I pushed the chair back under the desk, trying to leave everything just as it had been. But as I did so, I knocked it against the wood, the vibration stirring the sleeping computer to life. Startled, I looked at the screen.
It was on iTunes, in Luke’s music. And so, although I wanted more than anything to get out of there, I hesitated. I had to know. Scanning down the list of what seemed to be mostly rock music, I came to the ‘N’s. And there it was: Nirvana - Come as you are. The song I’d been humming. The song from my dream.
I thought about the iPod I’d seen by his bed. Is that where he listened to it - alone, at night? Billie’s song.
26
Back in my room, I locked my door, put on the safety chain and angled the chair firmly under the handle.
Having hidden the wallpaper scraper at the back of my wardrobe, I sat on my bed, laying the diary out in front of me. Opening it, a warm, woody perfume rose up from the paper. The scent of Billie.
She was obviously artistic. Her handwriting was very stylised, and she’d decorated many of the pages with doodles - patterns made up of swirls and exotic flowers and paisley designs. But then, on the other hand, there were also areas where words or whole lines had been scored out in an ugly way, the pen scratching at the paper in an attempt to obliterate the words. And some of the pages were missing, ripped out clumsily so that the ragged edges remained. These were the extra bits of paper which I had found with the diary, scribbled over and scrumpled up at the back of the hole.
I glanced at a couple, but most of the text was indecipherable, having been crossed out over and over again.
But now it was time to start from the beginning. To read Billie’s memories. To find out what she wanted to tell me.
<><><>
Aged sixteen, Billie had moved to the area after her parents had separated in what she referred to as ‘a bitter divorce’. Luke’s mum was an old friend of Billie’s mum, and she’d generously offered her the job of waitress at the pub, on a live-in basis.
Billie’s mum had given her daughter the diary as a symbol of their new life. A fresh start. The beginning of better times.
But the first few entries weren’t happy. It was the summer holidays when they arrived, the tourist season, so her mum’s job kept her very busy, and being new to the area, Billie had no friends. She complained of endless, boring, lonely days.
That is, until she got to know Luke.
He lived at the pub with his parents, though he was a little older than Billie, working as a tour guide/expedition leader, mostly in the Devil’s Lair area. At first, he appeared in the diary only now and again. A casual acquaintance. Nothing much. But that changed after Billie’s father showed up, and he and Billie’s mum had a huge row in the bar. Billie ran to her room in tears, distressed, and it was Luke who came to look after her. She described them lying together on her bed, Luke cradling her in his arms, listening to her, comforting her.
I paused for a second, remembering a similar evening in Dad’s room, when Luke had been so sweet to me. I’d thought he was wonderful. So caring. And all the time he’d simply been repeating the past. Reliving his memories through me.
And so Billie found herself falling for him. And for a while, everything was good. The margins of her diary at this point were covered in a myriad of heart patterns, and the entries were full of Luke, describing him as ‘sweet’ and ‘funny’ and ‘romantic’.
She wrote that they liked the same music, and that he’d introduced her to some older bands, including Nirvana, which she loved immediately.
She described the thrill of sitting on the back of his motorbike, speeding across the fells, visiting waterfalls and mountain tarns.
But their favourite pastime was to use Luke’s work-keys to get into Hell’s Mouth after hours. They’d play their favourite songs on a portable player and drink a few beers on the platform overlooking the Hall of Teeth. And there they’d imagine their future life together. And they’d make out, Luke treating her with complete and utter devotion.
But as summer ended, and Billie started at the local college, things changed. She began making friends - building up a social life. And Luke didn’t like that. He’d had her all to himself that summer and didn’t want to share her. He became insecure, paranoid, convinced that she would leave him.
And so he started trying to control her, monopolising her on nights out with her friends, making her leave early so that they could spend time alone. Though outwardly amiable and fun with others, he managed to keep Billie from them as much as possible, isolating her, preventing her from bonding too closely with anyone else.
And once when she did manage to go out without him, he followed her to a club where he found her dancing with other kids from college: male and female. And he certainly didn’t like that. As soon as they were on their own, he accused her of being a disgusting drunk - a slut, throwing herself at other boys.
And so their loving relationship was deteriorating, her diary becoming peppered with unpleasant incidents, many roughly crossed out or torn from the book. I guessed Luke had done that, trying to blot out the bits of their history that he didn’t want to remember. The bad times. Trying to convince himself that it had all been perfect.
At first it wasn’t much - a harsh word, or an uncomfortable silence - but she could soon bring him round. Until one day, when she was telling him a funny story about a boy from her class, he ‘shut’ her ‘careless mouth’ with a slap. In the diary she wrote that he was horrified at having hurt her. And he’d had such sorrow in his eyes that she’d forgiven him, even blaming herself for being thoughtless, for making him jealous. For hurting him.
And the next day he’d bought her a gift, and spoiled and loved her, and he kissed her more sweetly than ever. And everything seemed to be good again.
Until the next time. Until she needed to be ‘taught another lesson’.
As I read, at first I couldn’t understand why Billie hadn’t simply broken up with him. Left him. Nobody should have to put up with that.
But then I thought about myself. I too had experienced his mood-swings, though to a lesser degree. I too had put up with his an
ger in order to receive his affection. I thought back, in disbelief, to how I’d momentarily blamed myself for upsetting him that time he’d heard me humming Nirvana. And at one point I’d even thought he had a right to tell me off for drinking, that I’d deserved his lecture. And the worst time, when he’d been livid at finding me trespassing in his bedroom, I hadn’t rebelled at all, hadn’t told him where to get off. No, I’d simply sat there crying, wishing he’d be nice to me again.
It made no sense to allow someone to exert such power over you. And yet Billie and I had both done so.
But then I remembered how young Luke had behaved in the bathroom episode. Nobody could put up with that, could they?
But then, Billie didn’t have any really close friends, did she. Not that she could confide in. Luke had seen to that. And her mum had her own problems with her Dad. And Luke was the boss’s son. If she caused trouble, they could lose their home.
So, all in all, she was caught. Trapped. Silenced.
And then I came to the part I knew. The bathroom. Billie was at the basin. But she hadn’t locked the door properly. Either that, or Luke had somehow managed to fix it that way. And just as she was reaching for the tap, he walked in on her. And - well, I knew what was to come. I had experienced some of it myself. But I couldn’t read Billie’s version, as most of the incident was illegible, scored out over and over, torn out and scrunched up. Whatever had happened that day, Luke obviously couldn’t face reading about it. It must have been bad.
But now I was startled out of my thoughts by a knock on the door.
“Mel?”
It was him.
I sat there, still and silent.
“Mel?”
I didn’t move.
“Mel. I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t mean it, I swear.”
He was talking about what had happened in his bedroom. When he’d called me Billie. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
“Mel. Open the door.”
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