The Darkest Hour

by Barbara Erskine

  As it turned out they were not destined for the Far East at all. They disembarked at Port Said, the troops heading for the transit railway to Cairo. Tony left the train at the transit camp at Heliopolis from where he was flown to El Ballah, where he was to run a gunnery school in the desert. It was there, sitting in his tent, one hot November morning, that he opened his mail to find yet another cutting forwarded by his mother describing Evelyn Lucas’s latest exhibition and mentioning in the last few lines that Evie, married to the art critic Edward Marston, was expecting her second child. With a cry of misery he screwed up the paper and threw it down on the sand. Was he never going to escape her memory?

  January 1945

  The war was heading uneasily towards its close but for the time being life was no easier for the people of Britain. Evie was still painting the aftermath of the bombing and they had been hearing for months now about the attacks of Hitler’s so-called secret weapon, the V2 rockets. However, the wireless was relentlessly optimistic and it was hard to be sad all the time, especially when the sun shone on the frost-covered fields. Evie’s health was improving now and as it did she went more and more often to her studio where Johnny loved to sit near her at his own little table.

  He was drawing while she was blocking in the background of a new painting. The studio was full of sunlight. Glancing down at her son, Evie smiled. The light was catching his curly blond hair as he leaned forward over his piece of paper, concentrating hard. Quietly she reached over to the table and took up her sketchbook. She caught his expression just as he became aware that he was being watched and looked up. He gave her one of his lovely broad smiles.

  ‘Mummy, have you finished? Can we go and ride Bella?’ He dropped his pencil and pushed back the little stool he had been sitting on. ‘What’s that?’ He came over and leaned against her, staring down at the sketchbook.

  ‘That’s you.’ She smiled at him. ‘Can you see? There’s your hair and your eyes and your jumper.’

  ‘My jumper is blue.’

  ‘And it will be blue here as well, when I paint it.’

  She looked up at the sound of heavy steps on the stairs and eyed the door warily. To her relief, it opened to reveal her father. He was breathing heavily after the climb. ‘So, this is where you both are.’

  ‘We’re drawing, Grandpa.’ Johnny ran to him as Dudley walked across the studio and sat heavily on the chair next to the table, trying to get his breath back. ‘Mummy is going to paint my jumper blue.’

  He smiled indulgently. ‘That seems like a wise decision.’

  Evie put down her pencil. ‘Are you all right, Daddy? You shouldn’t climb up here. We could have come down. We have been wondering if Johnny can have a ride on Bella.’

  ‘Of course he can.’ He smiled fondly at the child. ‘We should start to think about getting him a pony if he likes riding. A farm horse is hardly ideal.’

  ‘She is perfect. She is steady and kind and it’s like riding a sofa.’ Evie laughed. ‘I agree it won’t teach him to have a good seat on a horse, but there’s plenty of time to see if he really enjoys it.’

  Dudley patted Johnny on the head. ‘He’s growing more and more like his father, isn’t he?’ he said.

  Evie stared at him, startled. ‘Eddie is so much darker –’

  ‘He’s not Eddie’s boy.’ Dudley shook his head. ‘I’m not blind, Evie.’

  ‘But –’ She stared at him speechlessly. ‘How long have you known?’ she asked at last. She felt suddenly helpless.

  ‘Since before you were married.’

  ‘So I needn’t have married Eddie!’ Suddenly she was furious. ‘You let me go ahead and tie myself to him for life, knowing Johnny wasn’t his.’

  ‘You had to have a husband, Evie,’ Dudley said calmly. ‘You know you did. Eddie’s made a good father to Johnny.’

  She stared at him in disbelief. ‘And you think he’s made a good husband to me?’ she whispered piteously.

  ‘You could have done a lot worse.’ Dudley stood up with an effort. ‘Enough, in front of the child. Now, you come down and we’ll find out how Bella is feeling about trotting round the paddock with young Johnny here.’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘Your mother is not feeling up to much today. Maybe you and I can find something for lunch, eh? We can’t have our little hero starving to death, can we?’

  ‘Where is Eddie?’ Evie called to him as he preceded her down the stairs.

  ‘Gone to see David Fuller.’

  ‘With some of my pictures?’

  ‘I assume so.’ Dudley stopped in his tracks and turned, looking up at her. ‘He does you very well, Evie, looking after your interests,’ he said firmly. ‘You’ve got a good man there. You should be grateful for the way it turned out.’

  Evie stared down at him speechless. But what could she say? He hits me, Daddy, where you and Mummy can’t see. He hurts me. He threatens to hurt Johnny unless I do as he says. He tells me what to paint and takes the pictures before they’re even dry. He gives me no money – he says I don’t need it as I’m living at home. Why do you think I lost the baby? He hit me and I fell against the corner of the dresser …

  Somehow she summoned a smile. ‘Come on, Johnny. Let’s go for a little ride before lunch. Then you can help me see if there are any eggs and maybe if there are we can have a lovely omelette.’

  Her eyes met her father’s briefly over Johnny’s head and just for a second she saw something there which looked like guilt or perhaps remorse. Whatever it was it was gone in a second.

  Saturday 14th September, morning

  From behind the curtain Hannah had watched the rest of the family go out in the car, pleading her time-of-the-month excuse as a reason not to go shopping with them. To the children’s amazement their parents had agreed that they should delay the return to school until after the funeral and as yet, as far as they knew, no date had been arranged.

  As her father’s car disappeared round the corner of the drive Hannah ran up to her bedroom and retrieved the books from beneath her mattress. Most of them had come from her friend Tab, who was a witch. Or she said she was. They shared a study bedroom at school and Tab, who at first had terrified her, had drawn her in with her spooky stories and confident pronouncements of arcane facts about the afterlife.

  Now that the moment had come Hannah was terrified all over again, but she was determined to go on. She had been waiting for a chance like this for ages and to discover there was a ghost in her own house was a gift to her from the spiritual realms. Wait until she told Tab and the others at school about this!

  She opened one of the books at the carefully marked page and ran her eyes down the close lines of print. For backup she needed holy water, a candle, matches obviously, salt. She had been stymied by the holy water bit, but elsewhere in the book it had said to put some salt in spring water and bless it. That sounded easy enough. She collected the scented candle she had bought specially, matches and her mother’s pack of Maldon salt from the pantry; organic and from the sea, it should be perfect. The bottle of spring water came from Waitrose. If there was to be an exorcism she would be ready. Another of her books, carefully collected over the several months of her increasing interest in the subject, had suggested smudging if the atmosphere in your house was uncomfortable. Smudging consisted of wafting a bunch of smouldering herbs around and directing the sacred smoke into the darkest corners of a room by fanning it with a feather. She had found a pheasant’s tail feather in the garden, and made the bundle of smudging herbs with sage from her mother’s pots of herbs. Sage was what the Native Americans used and they knew a lot about this sort of stuff. Her bundle looked green and moist and she wasn’t sure how she would get it to light, but it was the authentic herb of choice. All this was in case of trouble, but her aim was to summon the spirit, have a chat. In one of the books it said it was possible to do this. Talk to the dead. Treat them as though they were alive. Explain to them what you wanted. Tab did it all the time.

  Piling all her paraphernalia into one
of her mother’s baskets she stood at the bottom of the attic stairs and looked up. Her mouth had gone dry and behind her the house felt extraordinarily empty and quiet. She took a deep breath and put her foot on the bottom step.

  Every step creaked. Her heart was thudding uncomfortably when she reached the top and stopped, looking round the landing. The doors to the two attic rooms were open now, the new pictures gone, only the ones that had been there before and the rest of the family junk left. She put down her basket and held her breath, listening. It was quite dark, the only light from the attic windows, one at the far end of each room, set into the roof gables. They allowed only a small amount of light even though outside the sun was shining. It did not occur to her to turn on the electric lights.

  She glanced down at her basket, realising suddenly that she should have prepared things before she came upstairs. Her holy water was still just salt and water. She had collected a small ceramic bowl from the kitchen dresser for her basket of tools so she had better make that up quickly now. With shaking hands she unscrewed the spring water and poured a little into the bowl then she tipped a little salt in. How much? Did it matter? The book hadn’t said. Should she stir it? She chewed her lip uncomfortably, trying to stem her overwhelming desire to turn round and run back downstairs, dive into her bedroom and hide under her duvet. But she might not get the chance to do this again for a while. It wasn’t often the whole family went out together and her excuse wouldn’t work a second time. She set her chin determinedly as she put the salt packet away in the basket.

  Somewhere in the room on the left she thought she heard something move. She stared in through the doorway.

  ‘Hello?’ Her voice sounded very timid. She glanced round again, forcing herself to stand her ground as she stirred the water with her finger. All she had to do now was bless it. She hadn’t been to church since she was confirmed at school. No one had made her, no one had been much interested, certainly not her parents. She had loved the lessons, loved the glamour of the service, but her enthusiasm had died almost as quickly as it had come, subsumed beneath her interest in the paranormal and Tab’s scorn for the Church in any form. But she remembered the Lord’s Prayer. Everyone knew that. Quietly she put her hand over the water and began to recite it, realising suddenly that she was paying attention to the words with a sincerity she did not remember feeling before. The action comforted her.

  Taking a deep breath she stepped into the room and looked round. ‘Hello,’ she whispered. ‘Are you there?’

  She waited for a reply, the bowl of water in her hand trembling. She looked nervously over her shoulder. Should she try smudging? Or light the candle at this point? But she didn’t want to exorcise him by mistake.

  ‘Hello? Are you there? I know you tried to speak to my father. Can you talk to me?’

  She could sense someone there, she was sure she could. She swallowed hard, her eyes searching every corner of the room, without daring to move.

  ‘Speak to me. I want to help you. Daddy said he saw you up here.’

  Cautiously she began to walk backwards towards the door. All she wanted to do was run but somehow she managed to make herself move slowly.

  And then she saw him; a figure was standing in the light from the window, shadowy, indistinct, by the wall, bending over a stack of her father’s pictures. Slowly he appeared to straighten and he looked directly at her. For several seconds she stood rooted to the spot, aware that she had stopped breathing, then she turned and fled.

  On the landing her basket was lying on its side, the sage shredded, the salt scattered all over the floor. She looked at it in total disbelief for several seconds before dropping the bowl of water which was miraculously still clutched in her hand and running back down the stairs as fast as she could.

  Several steps from the bottom she slipped and missed her footing, half-tumbling down onto the rug. She scrambled to her feet and ran towards her bedroom in a complete panic.

  As she reached the door it slammed in her face.

  27

  Saturday 14th September, early afternoon

  ‘I am so sorry.’ Huw looked at Lucy and then at Juliette. ‘I am a complete klutz. I should know better. All my training and experience and instincts should have screamed at me to watch what I was saying and I jumped in, obliviously, and with both feet. Maggie kicked me, but it was too late.’

  Lucy was sitting on Juliette’s sofa in the Brighton house with her arms wrapped round her knees. She was completely numb. ‘It’s not your fault,’ she said at last. ‘Absolutely it is not your fault. I should have told him ages ago. I’ve had enough opportunities. I had even half convinced myself that he knew, or had guessed.’

  ‘I thought he knew,’ Juliette added. ‘I mentioned it to him, I’m sure I did, but looking back I think he assumed I was talking about it before it was destroyed. It could have been me putting my foot in it as easily as you, Huw.’

  ‘I should have been upfront with him the first time we met,’ Lucy went on as if they hadn’t spoken. ‘I just thought he would get the wrong idea about my motives. And now he has the wrong idea anyway.’ She looked for a moment as though she were near to tears.

  Huw moved over and sat down beside her, putting his arm round her shoulders. ‘It will be all right, Lucy. Somehow I will make it my business to put it right.’

  Lucy buried her face in her knees, trying not to cry. Why did she care so much? It wasn’t just that Mike might withdraw his co-operation and ask for all the papers back, which let’s face it, he had already threatened to do. It was far, far more than that. It was personal. It mattered terribly that he thought well of her, that he trusted her, that he didn’t think that Christopher had been right all along to assume she was a trickster and a cheat and a thief.

  The door opened and Juliette looked up. Her face assumed an expression of utter astonishment. ‘Mike?’

  ‘Sorry, Ma, I let myself in. Something awful has happened –’ He paused as he entered the room and looked round, shocked.

  ‘I’ll go.’ Lucy scrambled to her feet.

  ‘No, wait.’ Huw stood too and tried to catch her arm.

  She wrenched it away from him and grabbed her bag. Without looking at Mike she pushed past him and ran out through the hall and into the street. In seconds she had disappeared round the corner.

  Mike stood still, his face a picture of horrified surprise. At last he turned to Huw. ‘I had no idea you were going to come straight here. What business have you with my mother?’

  ‘We wanted to try and put things right,’ Maggie said softly.

  ‘Right!’ Mike echoed bitterly. ‘What is there to put right? Someone finally told me the truth. I don’t know why I should be angry with you. You were the only people to have been honest with me.’ He threw himself down on the sofa where Lucy had been sitting.

  ‘Shall I go after her?’ Huw asked Maggie.

  She shook her head. ‘Let her go for now. You’ll never find her anyway if she’s wandering round Brighton.’ She turned to Mike. ‘Lucy did not deceive you, Mike. She withheld part of the story until it was the right moment to tell you, that’s all.’

  Saturday 14th September, afternoon

  Hannah had never run so fast in all her life. From the moment she had pushed the door open and peered into the attic room she had, she realised now, been filled with an overwhelming feeling of dread. The emotion had washed over her, followed by blind rage from somewhere outside herself which had hit her like a physical punch to the stomach. Had she really seen a figure there? She wasn’t sure now but at the time she had been clearly aware of the craggy face, the stooped shoulders, the bright, vicious eyes, and the sight had completely freaked her out.

  Backing out of the room she had taken the attic stairs in what had seemed like one jump, landing in a heap somehow without breaking her ankle. Confronted by her closed bedroom door she turned and hurtling on down the main staircase had raced out of the front door, which she left open behind her. She pelted down the drive and o
ut into the lane without looking back, falling at last at the foot of the old oak tree at the corner where the lane joined the road back into Midhurst.

  She was clutching her ribs, trying to get her breath back when a car had drawn up.

  ‘Hannah? Is that you, dear?’

  It was Minna Fairbrother, she saw, one of their neighbours from further up the lane. Somehow she scrambled to her feet, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

  ‘Can you give me a lift? Please.’ At some level she was aware of how odd she must look and she managed to smile, still trying desperately to get her breathing under control. ‘I overslept and I’m supposed to be meeting a friend. If I miss her she will go and think I’ve missed her on purpose.’

  She got into the car, realising at once that she had neither phone nor money on her, intensely aware that nothing on earth would persuade her to go back to the house.

  ‘Where shall I drop you?’ Minna turned to look at her as they slowed at a crossroads. She was well aware of the gossip surrounding the Marston household and the fact that from time to time Frances turned up in the village with heavy make-up and dark glasses in a vain attempt to hide a black eye. So, he had turned on the daughter now. She frowned. ‘I can take you anywhere you want to go, my dear.’

  Hannah was trying to gather her thoughts. ‘I suppose,’ she hesitated. ‘I mean, where were you going?’

  Minna smiled. ‘To the station at Petersfield. I’m on my way to London.’

  ‘Could you take me there, please?’ Hannah was beginning to shiver.

  ‘To London?’

  Hannah managed a smile. ‘No. To Petersfield.’

  ‘But what about your friend?’

  ‘She’ll come and get me.’