by Kim Wilkins
Under her skin. This whole business with Sacha had got under her skin. She’d only met him less than three weeks ago, had only seen him in the flesh three times. But as she drifted into sleep at night, in her fantasies they were intimately acquainted, shared everything, knew every inch of each other’s bodies. She simply had to stop thinking about him.
“Are you okay?”
Maisie rejoined the real world. “Yeah, I’m fine.” She had vowed she wouldn’t show Cathy how miserable she was about spending Christmas alone, didn’t want to make her feel guilty.
The Minster filled slowly. There weren’t enough seats and some people had to stand in the nave. Maisie watched them all, in groups and families, laughing, expectant. Tonight they would go to bed with Christmas tree lights left glittering in their lounge rooms, then wake each other up tomorrow to share presents and Christmas lunches and reminiscences and…damn, she was aching with it. Aching for company.
Suddenly the quiet organ music stopped. The chattering voices continued for a moment, and then the organist hit the volume and blasted out The First Noel. The choir filed in: small boys and bearded men in blue and white sang Hark, the Herald Angels. Then the congregation sang, then there was a reading from the Bible. This sequence of events repeated for the next two hours while Maisie sat gazing around her at the ancient stone walls, wondering if ever in the history of the Minster such a miserable person as Maisie Fielding had moped through a Christmas service.
As soon as the service was over, while the pipe organ played quiet departure music, Cathy checked her watch. “I’m going to have to hurry if I’m to catch my train.”
“Well, go now. Before the crowd.”
Cathy pulled her bag up onto her lap. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
Maisie wasn’t at all sure she’d be okay. “Uh-huh.”
“Really?”
No, no, no. Tears were springing to her eyes and she concentrated hard on not letting them spill over. “Go on, you’ll miss your train.”
“You’re crying.”
“No, I’m not.” Dammit, she was crying. “It’s just that the service was very moving.”
Cathy grabbed her in her arms and pressed her close. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry. It was my choice to be here.” Maisie could feel Cathy’s ribs through her coat, there was so little of her to hold on to.
Cathy released her. “I really have to go. Are you coming?”
“No, I’ll sit here a moment longer and listen to the music. Thanks for that info about the Reverend.”
“Any time.”
Maisie cleared her throat, composed herself. “If you could find out anything about their attachment to the cemetery…” Maisie had told her about the curses, about being called a witch after visiting her grandmother’s grave.
“Sure, I’ll ask around at uni.” She looked anxiously towards the door. “I really have to go. I’ll call you soon.”
“Merry Christmas.”
“Merry Christmas.”
Cathy dashed off, red hair swinging. Maisie sighed and sank further into her overcoat. Too cold everywhere. She had booked a room in a B&B close by. Soon it would be too late to check in. She pulled herself to her feet and joined the slow queue shuffling out the front door. Bells rang on the crisp air outside. She walked away from the Minster and found a little supermarket, ducked inside and wandered in the yellow light, looking for ways to treat herself tomorrow. Chocolate, chips, biscuits, soft drink, wine – don’t shop when you’re hungry, Maisie, or desperately miserable. She put some of the things back, was having second thoughts about the wine. All around her people were grabbing bottles of red, laughing among themselves. It’s Christmas, it’s Christmas, hurrah we’re all happy. Maisie felt herself sink lower. Instead of putting the wine back, she grabbed a second bottle. She would spend the day sauced, consign herself to oblivion for that awful twenty-four hours when everyone else in the world was enjoying the festive season.
Dammit.
She checked her watch. In twenty minutes the last bus left for Whitby. Maybe Sacha was home. She left her shopping basket on an empty shelf and took the two bottles of wine up to the counter, and in a few minutes, between the tolls of Christmas bells, she was hurrying towards the bus stop.
Two hours later, Maisie stepped out of the warm bus into the night chill at Whitby. It was after nine o’clock. A few cabs waited at the rank near the bus stop and she wavered, thinking to hop straight into one, amongst warm air and upholstery, and head home to Tabby. Instead, she found a phone box and grabbed the phone directory, looked up Sacha’s address and scribbled it down.
But of course, she had no idea where his street was and Whitby was a big place. She glanced back over her shoulder towards the bus stop. The last taxi on the rank was just being engaged by a well-dressed woman and man who had been on the bus with her. A service station was open a few blocks away so she headed towards it. The burly fellow behind the counter gave her directions and she was on her way.
The streets of Whitby were much quieter than York.
As she headed towards the sea, she found herself mostly alone. The wind whipped past her ears and she pulled her hat down close. Her hair would probably look terrible by the time she got to his place, her eyes would be streaming and her nose running, but it couldn’t be helped. Eventually she approached the seafront road, looked left and right, then on a hunch headed to the left. Ten minutes later she was heading in the other direction. Eventually came to an old building, painted white, clearly a block of flats. She went up to the door, found the doorbell marked Lupus and rang it.
No answer. She tried again. Waited. It took her a few minutes to accept that he simply wasn’t home.
She turned, sagged against the door, the weight of loneliness heavy on her shoulders. Of course he wasn’t home, it was Christmas. She was the only person in the world who was spending it alone. This time she let herself cry, wandering back down the stairs and out onto the street. Fairy lights were strung between power poles, swinging in the breeze. She crossed the road, found a seat on the cliff-top a few metres from a street light, and collapsed into it, watching waves breaking on the shore below. The sea didn’t know it was Christmas. She cried, then wept, then sobbed, tears tracing icy paths down her cheeks. Lights glimmered out at sea – perhaps even fishermen on rimy boats were sharing company in warm, lit cabins. The longing bubbled up inside her, threatened to break her open. Where was Sacha? Damn him. Was it possible to yearn to death?
She gave vent to her tears for as long as she could before admitting it was useless, and made her way back towards the bus stop. Two streets away a taxi approached, and she hailed it and got inside.
“I want to go to Solgreve,” she said, thankfully closing out the aching cold. “Is that too far?”
“It’s a job,” the taxi driver said, setting his meter.
“And can you turn the heat up a bit?”
“Sure.”
Just over half an hour later she paid him and hoisted her bag over her shoulder, looking up the path to her cottage. “Thanks,” she said. “Have a good Christmas.”
“I’m Jewish,” he replied.
“Oh.” She couldn’t remember the name of the Jewish festival, so she just said, “Have a good evening, then.”
“You too. What’s left of it.”
Her watch said eleven o’clock. She let herself inside. No Christmas lights, no Christmas tree. She had left the radiator on in her bedroom for Tabby, and found the cat in there, curled up on the end of the bed.
“Hey, Tabby,” she said.
Tabby looked up, chirped a greeting, stretched her legs. Maisie kicked her boots off, stripped to her underwear and climbed into bed. A feeling of sweet weariness, the kind one only experiences after crying like a baby for a good long time, settled over her. Tabby curled up over her knees for a few minutes, then thought better of it and went off in search of food. Tonight, Maisie promised herself, she would not think of Sacha. She would just go
to sleep.
Imagining his arms were around her.
Something had changed about the girl.
The Reverend knew it the second he laid eyes on her on Christmas morning. God only knew why Sybill’s granddaughter (he always forgot her name) had decided to come to his Christmas service anyway. A generous man might think she was there to worship, but he could not be generous with her, having known her grandmother. He suspected she was here to upset him. The kind of thing Sybill would have done.
“Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord,” he began, reading from his large print Bible. But his eyes kept returning to her dark head, bent over her hands, in the very back pew of the church. Almost as though she didn’t want to be noticed. But how could he not notice her? She had changed, he could sense it. He was a man trained in the ways of the soul, could know things about people just by looking at them. Credulity might call it reading auras, or having a sixth sense, but for him it was merely the atunement of the spirit, as was required for those who represented the Lord.
Something had definitely awakened in her. This morning, more than ever, she reminded him of Sybill. Sybill Hartley, village witch, snoop, amateur detective and, in the end, the holder of too much knowledge, a terrible threat to the community and their ongoing health and happiness.
He kept reading, watching his congregation. From time to time, one or two of them would look up and glance back at her. She was well-known throughout the village now. Most villagers had heard of her, knew who she was, and were a little afraid of her. He had told a number of people not to be afraid, that she was leaving soon, that they had no reason to believe she was anything like Sybill. But today, he didn’t believe that. Today he knew for certain that whatever power Sybill had possessed, this girl possessed it also.
The service drew to a close, his parishioners stood, adjusted clothing, pulled on hats and scarves as he made his way to the front door. He cast the door open, the church organist played O Come All Ye Faithful, and they began to file out past him, shaking his hand, wishing him Merry Christmas, some of them quizzing him with their expressions, did he know why she was here? He answered them with a blank smile, a slight lift of his shoulders.
Every moment he expected her to walk past. But it wasn’t until he had farewelled the last parishioner, Elsa Smith, who gave him a stern glance, that he could check inside to see where she was. She still sat with her head bowed, the only other person in the church.
He stood at the end of her pew, wordlessly. Of course she looked up. She could sense him.
“I’m sorry, Reverend,” she said, standing, pulling on her scarf and gloves. “I wanted to wait until everyone had left. I was hoping they wouldn’t notice me.”
“Why are you here?” he asked, in a much quieter voice than he’d intended to use.
“It’s Christmas. I always go to church Christmas morning.”
“But not on Sundays?”
“Never on Sundays. Christmas and Easter only. I…you know…I believe.”
“Believe?”
“God. Jesus. Or at least, I want very much to believe, which is kind of the same thing.”
She seemed so genuine, almost naive. Perhaps she was telling the truth, perhaps she wasn’t here just to crow about how much she knew. As Sybill had done. He allowed himself to relax. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Merry Christmas,” she said, with a deferential nod of the head. “I’m sorry if I’ve upset anybody by coming here.”
She slid past him, was nearly out the door when he remembered himself. “God bless you,” he said.
She didn’t answer. He watched her move up the path and out onto the street, then closed the door behind her, feeling peculiarly affected by her candidness, her apologetic manner, her loneliness, for she was clearly lonely. He found himself hoping fervently that she would soon return to her family, to her warm home country. And not only because it would be better for Solgreve, but because it would be better for her. And much, much safer.
Yesterday she had been so confident. She had been talking to Adrian, home with his family in Toowoomba, and she had said, “Of course my mother will call me. It’s Christmas Day.” And she had waited and waited, and by bedtime that night, she realised that she and Janet had silently agreed, on opposite sides of the planet, to play a stupid game with each other. Who will give in first and phone on Christmas Day?
They both won. Her mother hadn’t phoned her and, pissed with her, Maisie hadn’t phoned home either.
So now it was Boxing Day and the game was officially over, Maisie called Janet.
Her father answered.
“Dad! It’s me.”
“Maisie! Merry Christmas, sweetheart. We thought you might call yesterday.”
“Likewise.”
“Your mother’s just here,” he said, letting her know that he wasn’t going to enter into a discussion about who should have called whom while Janet was standing by.
“I’ll talk to her in a second. Tell me about you. How was Sydney? Adrian was so excited about working with you.”
And so they chatted for a few minutes, and Maisie was struck for the first time how much her father sounded like Adrian. Not his voice, but his pauses and his deliberate consonants, and even the little blackouts where he answered a question different from the one she had asked just because his mind was elsewhere, roaming around among semibreves and quavers, and he’d misheard her.
“We miss you, sweetheart,” he said before he handed her to Janet. “When will you be home?”
“In a few weeks I guess. I’m a bit lonely. But Adrian will be away until the end of January so there’s not much point in coming back before then.”
“Well, I’ll look forward to seeing you again. We’ll have a family dinner, the four of us. My treat.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Of course he suggested a family outing. She could count on her fingers the number of times she’d been alone with her father. It was as though he was afraid of her. “You’d better put Mum on.”
The phone changed hands, then her mother’s voice came over the line. “Hello?”
“Hi, Mum.”
“Hello, Maisie.”
A short silence. Then her mother said. “How’s your hand?”
Maisie was momentarily dumbstruck…her hand? Then she remembered her alleged injury and felt the terrified relief of someone who had nearly stepped in front of a train. “It’s not too bad. The cold makes it ache a bit, but I’m not really using it to do anything.”
“Well, keep it warm. You don’t want to make it worse.”
“Merry Christmas,” she said.
“You too. What did you do Christmas Day?”
“Nothing. I went to church then I came home and read a book. And ate a lot of chocolate.” And drank an entire bottle of wine by herself, but Janet didn’t need to know that. “It was a bit lonely.”
“It’s your choice to be there.”
“I know.” She leaned back in her armchair. The springs squeaked. “What are you and Dad doing for New Year’s?”
“We’ve got dinner reservations at Sirocco. We should be able to see the fireworks from there. And you?”
“Nothing firm planned yet, but if my friend Cathy gets back from Edinburgh in time I’ll probably spend it with her.”
“Well, don’t drink too much.”
“I never do.”
Another short silence. Unbelievable how her mother could hold a grudge this far across the universe. She could hear Luciano, their canary, chirruping in the background, and a wave of homesickness washed over her. “I should go, Mum. This is costing me a fortune.”
“All right, then. Have a nice New Year, and phone again some time.”
“I will. I love you, Mum.”
“Yes. I know.”
“And?”
“And I love you too. You know that.”
Maisie smiled. “Bye.”
Then her mother was gone and she was alone again. She repla
ced the receiver, unfolded herself from the armchair and headed for the kitchen to make tea. By far the best thing about spending Christmas alone was the absence of Boxing Day deflation. There was no way today was ever going to be worse than yesterday. Halfway to the kitchen she heard the phone ring. She returned to pick it up.
“Hello?”
“Maisie, it’s Sacha.”
Back on the roller-coaster. “Hi, Sacha. How was Christmas?”
“What are you doing New Year’s Eve?” he said, as though he hadn’t heard her.
Nothing, say you’re doing nothing.
What about Cathy? Cathy hurrying home from Edinburgh to comfort her teary friend?
“Nothing,” she said evenly, suddenly becoming aware of the pulse beating in her throat.
“I’m going down to London. Would you like to come?”
“Sure. Of course. That would be –”
“Great. I’ll pick you up Thursday morning.”
“How long will we be staying?”
“Just a few days, maybe a week. Don’t pack too much. And I’ve got a place we can stay for free.”
“Great. Where?”
“It’s really central, you’ll like it. I have to go, I’m late for work.”
“Oh. Okay, then I’ll see you –”
“Thursday. Around eleven. Bye, Maisie.”
“Bye.”
She glanced at the photograph next to the phone, her thumbnail caught between her teeth: Sybill and Sacha. She had gazed at it so many times, especially now she had this interest (go on admit it, it’s an obsession) in Sacha. “Damn it!” she said, flipping the photo face down.
Nothing was going to happen. She was merely enjoying the company of a pleasant man on New Year’s Eve. There was no reason to bring the turmoil inside her head out into the real world. Sacha didn’t know how intimately they were acquainted in her imagination. This was just a friendly social outing. Nothing more.