On the Edge of Darkness

by Barbara Erskine

  All his fears but one.

  He saw Brid again one Thursday at the beginning of the new university year on South Bridge, and this time he was sure it was her.

  Leaving Liza on the tram with a quick wave he had just jumped off with three fellow medics, a pile of books in his arms, his white coat slung across his shoulder, on his way to a physics lecture. The young men were laughing and talking loudly, dodging between the trams and cars, ducking their heads against cold relentless sheets of rain. Shaking his wet hair out of his eyes he looked up and saw her staring at him across the street.

  ‘A-dam –’ He saw her mouth frame the word, but as before the traffic was heavy and the street was crowded and when he looked again she had gone.

  He was not proud of what he did next. Instead of crossing the road to look for her he dived after his friends into the Old Quad and forged ahead, leaving the spot where he had seen her far behind.

  Handing in his card to the servitor in his top hat, Adam edged into his seat in the lecture hall and found that his hands were shaking. He stared down at them, fiercely willing them into fists. What was the matter with him? Why was he so afraid? Was it that she brought memories of the manse, things he wanted to forget? Or was it guilt, that he had abandoned her so easily and put her out of his mind? Whatever it was he did not want to see her again. After all, it was a coincidence almost too big to be possible that she should be in Edinburgh. It was probably his imagination. Comforted, he sat back and gave his attention to the professor in front of him.

  Liza stood back from the canvas and chewed the end of her paint brush. She glanced at her watch and smiled. A good time to stop.

  The knock on the door came at exactly the right moment. She and Adam were planning to bike over to the Royal Botanical Gardens for a picnic in the warm autumnal sunshine. The bicycles were a new idea, borrowed from friends of hers who had graduated to a three-wheeled Morgan. ‘Come in. It’s not locked!’ She was rinsing the brush in a jar of turps and did not turn round. ‘I’ll be with you in two seconds, Adam. I’ve done a lot of work this morning. What do you think?’ She turned, gesturing at the canvas and stopped short. Standing in the doorway was a strange young woman with long dark hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ Liza frowned, puzzled. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

  ‘You thought I was A-dam.’ The girl stepped into the studio and closed the door behind her. She was dressed in an ankle-length, russet dress with a soft woollen coat over it which came to her feet. On her shoulder hung a loosely woven bag. Her eyes were as hard as flint.

  ‘Who are you?’ Liza put down her brush and rag. The skin on the back of her neck had begun to prickle. There was something about this strange young woman which made her very uncomfortable. She moved surreptitiously a little nearer to the table and groped behind her for the knife with which she had been scraping her palette.

  ‘It does not matter who I am.’ The voice was strangely monotone.

  ‘I think it does. You are in my home. I would like to know what you want.’

  ‘You are A-dam’s girlfriend.’ The voice, though still flat, held venom.

  Liza’s questing fingers found what she was looking for and she quietly picked up the palette knife. She stepped back again, putting the table between her and her visitor, praying that Adam would appear. Her nerves were beginning to scream. ‘I am his friend, certainly,’ she said cautiously. ‘If you are looking for him, he’ll be here soon.’

  The young woman did not look round. Her eyes were fixed on Liza’s face. ‘I do not need you,’ she said calmly. ‘A-dam does not need you.’ She was reaching into her bag as she spoke.

  Liza gasped. She saw a blade flash as the woman raised her arm and had barely registered the knife when without thinking she threw herself down behind the table at the same moment as she heard Adam’s cheerful shout from the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Adam!’ she screamed. ‘Adam, be careful!’

  He found her sobbing on her knees, the palette knife still clutched in her hand, her fingers covered in thick yellow paint.

  ‘Liza! Liza, what is it? What’s wrong?’ He was down beside her on his knees. ‘Tell me. What happened?’

  ‘Where is she?’ Shaking, Liza managed to stand up. ‘For God’s sake, Adam, who was she?’ She was staring round wildly. The studio was empty.

  ‘Who? What? What happened?’

  ‘That woman! That girl! You must have seen her?’ Unaware of the paint on her hand she pushed her hair back off her face, leaving a smear of yellow across her forehead. ‘She tried to kill me!’

  Adam closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. Why had he thought immediately of Brid?

  ‘Describe her,’ he said. He led her to the bed and sat her down gently. Then he walked over to the door and stared down the stairs. As he had climbed them in the dark, glad to be out of the cutting wind, he had been halfway up when a cat had fled past him. He had time only to register the dark shape, the fierce green eyes, the wild fury of the claws on the worn steps, and it was gone. ‘There’s no other way out of here is there?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’

  ‘Then she must still be here.’ He walked slowly round the studio searching every corner, every cupboard, every shadow. There was no one there.

  ‘She was small, dark hair. Long dark-red clothes. She spoke with a funny foreign accent.’

  Brid.

  ‘What do you mean, she tried to kill you?’ Adam sat down beside her.

  ‘She pulled out a knife and threw it at me.’

  ‘Are you sure, Liza?’ His voice was gentle. ‘Where is it? Where is she? I don’t see how anyone could have been here. I would have seen her.’ He found himself picturing the cat’s eyes as it raced past him down the stairs.

  ‘Are you telling me I’m making it up?’ Liza stared at him furiously. ‘Adam, for God’s sake, I know if someone tried to kill me or not!’

  ‘Then we should call the police.’ His hands were shaking. He pushed them firmly into his pockets.

  ‘Of course we should call the police. There’s a potential murderer running round here. Look over there. The knife must be somewhere. I saw her hurl it at me as I threw myself on the floor. She couldn’t have gone to look for it. There was no time.’

  But there was no knife. They looked for half an hour, combing every inch of the studio.

  ‘So. Who is she?’ Liza had cleaned off the paint and was feeling calmer.

  Adam shrugged. For a moment he wondered if he should deny his suspicions, but Liza knew him too well. She had already read the dawning horror in his eyes. He sat down on her divan and felt in his pocket for his cigarettes. The pendant he had given Liza, Brid’s pendant, was lying where Liza had left it, on the side table under the lamp. He could see the soft gleam of silver from where he sat.

  ‘It sounds like Brid. She’s someone I saw quite a bit of at home,’ he said at last. He refused to meet her eye. ‘We used to explore the hills in the holidays. Her brother was – is – a stone mason. He carves brilliantly. I think,’ he hesitated, ‘I think the family have rather exotic roots. They’re very excitable.’ He made it sound something unpleasant. ‘Brid has a very short temper. She’s attacked me before now.’ He gave a small, uncomfortable laugh.

  ‘And what is she doing in Edinburgh?’

  ‘She must have followed me.’ He shook his head. ‘I told her it was all over. We were kids together, that was all. She was going to college up north and I was coming here. There was no future for us. None at all.’ He paused for a moment, then he went on. ‘But she didn’t like it. She wanted to come with me. I told her no. I never expected her to follow me.’

  ‘Had you seen her here before?’

  He shook his head, but she saw the troubled look in his eyes.

  ‘Adam?’

  He shook his head again. ‘I wondered if I had seen her the other day, in the distance. But then she wasn’t there.’ He shrugged helplessly.

  ‘She’s obviously good at disappearing acts.’


  ‘Yes.’ He shivered. ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘And is she capable of trying to kill someone?’

  Miserably he stared at the floor. ‘I think perhaps she might be,’ he said at last.

  They did not tell the police in the end. There seemed no point.

  Susan Craig was sitting in the corner of the tea room, her back to the wall.

  Adam had seen her only once since their first encounter. ‘I’m sorry, I haven’t much time.’ He sat down opposite her. ‘We’ve a lot of studying to do at the moment.’

  ‘Of course, dear. I’m so proud of you.’ She had already ordered the tea. Pouring it into two cups, she pushed one towards him. ‘Adam, there is something I must tell you.’ She was perched uncomfortably on the edge of her chair. ‘I’ve … we’ve, that is, my friend and I have decided to go away.’ She spoke in a rush, not looking at him. ‘To America.’

  Adam stared at her.

  She blushed uncomfortably. ‘No one will know us there. We can make a new start, and with the war coming and everything …’ Her voice trailed away again and she stared down into her cup.

  Adam was silent for a minute. Different emotions whirled round his head: anger, loss, contempt – what kind of man ran away from his country when it was about to go to war?

  ‘Adam?’ She was staring at him anxiously.

  He forced himself to smile. ‘I hope you’ll both be happy, Mother.’ What else was there to say?

  Two days later, Chamberlain announced that Hitler had not responded to his ultimatum and that therefore Britain was at war. Some weeks after that Robbie, already in the VR, was called up. Whether it was his decision or that of His Majesty’s government Adam was not sure, but his friend’s excitement at giving up the study of Latin and Greek civilisation for the patrolling of the clouds as part of the City of Edinburgh Fighter Auxiliary Squadron seemed totally unfeigned. To celebrate, he arranged a trip out to Cramond Inn for himself and his new girlfriend Jane. Adam and Liza went too.

  Jane Smith-Newland had been a Classics student in Robbie’s tutorial. He was besotted by her. She was tall and slim with huge brown eyes and thick soft honey-coloured hair, tied in a schoolgirl plait. Her family were English, her father already high in the ranks of the army, her mother living in the south in their big house in the Home Counties. Adam, meeting her for the first time after growing used to Robbie’s usual flighty girlfriends, was fascinated by her accent, her background, her combination of reticence and the confidence which money brought her. She had beautiful clothes, a car of her own – an old Wolsey Hornet – bought for her by her parents, an almost unimagined extravagance to a penniless medical student. Lovely jewellery, and in complete contrast to all that, a genuine, deep fascination with Latin, Greek and the history of ancient civilisations, which had brought her to university instead of, as her mother and father had intended, being launched into London society. She was like no one Adam had ever met before. He could not keep his eyes off her.

  As they crept with shaded headlights down the narrow roads on the way to Cramond Liza groped for Adam’s hand on the back seat. ‘At least she can’t follow us out here,’ she whispered above the sound of the engine. She was convinced Brid was still shadowing her. Adam was not so sure. He had seen no sign of her, and it made no sense for her to be following Liza. If she wanted to see Adam why did she not find his rooms and confront him personally? Presumably if she had been following them, she knew where he lived too. At first that thought had filled him with apprehension, but soon, very soon, the worry had passed and he had convinced himself that Liza had imagined the whole episode.

  ‘At least who can’t follow you?’ Jane glanced in the driving mirror and caught Adam’s eye in the darkness. Her hearing was obviously very acute.

  ‘Just an old girlfriend of Adam’s,’ Liza put in. ‘She seems reluctant to let him go.’

  ‘Popular man, our Adam.’ Robbie chuckled. ‘He’s always had to fight off the ladies!’

  ‘That’s rubbish, Rob.’ Adam could feel his face growing pink. He glanced at Liza and shook his head. He did not want to talk about Brid. And he did not want Robbie to know that she might have followed him to Edinburgh.

  It was Jane who wouldn’t let the subject drop. ‘Who would have thought the strong, silent Adam Craig had a string of ladyfriends! You’ll have to watch out Liza, or you’ll lose him.’

  The words hung in the silence for a moment as Jane changed gear and turned down Cramond Road. It was Robbie who leaped in to the rescue. Handsome in his uniform, he sat sideways on his seat, his arm behind her, fondling Jane’s neck. ‘I trust you’re not looking to be one of those ladies, Janie. I’d hate that. I know these doctor fellows can be irresistible, but not half as irresistible as an RAF chap, surely.’

  ‘Of course not!’ She laughed lightly. ‘As long as I don’t hear you’ve been tempted by some of those gorgeous WAAFs.’

  On the back seat Liza’s hand tightened a little round Adam’s fingers. They looked at each other in the dark. ‘Robbie, be tempted by a WAAF!’ Adam put in lightly. ‘How could you ever imagine such a thing.’ He leaned forward and punched his friend gently on the shoulder. ‘Our Robbie’s no time for such frivolity. After all, he’s going to win the war single-handed, aren’t you, old boy!’

  In the front seat Robbie smiled. He looked sideways at Jane and gave a modest shrug.

  On the sixteenth of October German bombers flew low over the Forth and 602 and 603 Squadrons were scrambled. Robbie’s war had begun.

  Brid had not expected it to be like this.

  Her journey to Edinburgh had been easy. Prompted by the sixth sense inside her head she had found Liza when she first arrived with comparative ease. Then, inexplicably, she had lost her again. Her mind grew dizzy and clouded. She wandered, lost, around the city, vacant-eyed, afraid, not knowing where to go or what to do. Sometimes, asleep in a doorway or hidden in some secret place she would make the leap inside her head which would take her home to the hillside where Gartnait’s cross marked the transition point into her world. But always Broichan was lurking near and, afraid, she would come back to the place where her poor cold body was huddled out of sight. There were many places in this great city where she roamed, where the veils of time were thin. Slipping into the ruins of the Abbey of the Holy Rood she had felt the coldness of the mist and known it was one of them. In the great cathedral up the High Street where she slept unnoticed in the shadows, she felt it too. Deep beneath the foundations of the church there was a sacred place, a place where the goddess would be waiting if she looked for her. But she had not been prepared for the pain and the dislocation which overwhelmed her. Time was a concept which in the silence of her dreams had not existed; she had been born to transcend it – a genetic imprint from her mother’s womb – and her first teachers had been good. Quick to spot her natural ability they had taught her without caution and without initiation. They had not seen that ability without years of study might be dangerous. They did not think that this woman’s mind might fly beyond the natural confines of the philosopher’s cave and seek the stars. They did not remember that the longing of young eager flesh might prove stronger than the yearning for the alchemists’ stone of all knowledge or the threat of retribution when the absolute laws were broken. By the time Broichan had seen the danger and recognised her power it was too late and Brid, not knowing that having broken the bounds of time there are long black distances of nothingness between the suns, was lost. She did not know that the air she breathed in the twentieth century was not the same air; she did not know that the body that carried her spirit was subject to strains and pains she had not dreamed of. Curling down into the agony of adjustment, in the comparative security of the enclosed garden of an Edinburgh square, she escaped at last into sleep.

  When she woke there was only one thought in her head, and that was to find Adam – and find him quickly. She would use her ancient arts again and locate him through the woman who she knew was in possession of the pendant.

/>   ‘No!’

  Liza lashed out in her sleep, fighting the clinging blankets. Overhead she could hear the drone of engines. Sometimes the Luftwaffe came to reconnoitre the Royal Navy units at Rosyth, sometimes the bombers were on their way to Glasgow again. They were having a lousy time. She took a deep breath and, as she groped with a shaking hand on her side table for her cigarettes and a box of matches, thanked God that so far Edinburgh had been spared. Only when she was sitting up in bed, the ashtray on her knees, did she pause to wonder what had awoken her.

  She rubbed her eyes and yawned deeply. There was something unpleasant there in the back of her mind and it had no connection with the throb of aircraft propellers and the thought of the deadly load the planes were about to drop into the blackness of the Scottish night. She lay back on her pillows, drawing the smoke deeply into her lungs.

  A-dam!

  The word in her head was spoken with a strange foreign accent. An accent she remembered vividly. Her eyes flew open and she stared into the dark shadows of the studio. With the blackouts drawn and no light save the small glow from her cigarette end the room was completely dark. The sound had been in her own mind, and yet, somehow it seemed to come from outside her. Hastily stubbing out the cigarette she swung her feet to the floor and sat still, listening. The drumming of the engines had faded into silence now. She could hear nothing but the soft murmur of the wind in the chimney of the stove.

  Every sense was alert.

  She could feel it more clearly now, probing in her mind like a finger inching its way over the surface of her cerebellum.

  A-dam?