On the Edge of Darkness

by Barbara Erskine

  It was time she went home, she knew that. What was there to stay for? When he was sober Adam was his old charming self, gently humorous, rising above his grief, making the effort to entertain her, showing his affection with the courteous, old-fashioned mannerisms which had always endeared him to her. Then she thought she could talk him round; she thought maybe there was a future for them together if she could take him back with her to Wales and feed him and cajole him and wean him from the drink. They would stroll together in the park, or walk down Fishpool Street, or visit the Abbey, listening sometimes to the choir practising, or the organ as the sound rose and swelled beneath the ancient roof. Then they would go back and he would sit and talk to her while she cooked for him and together they would laugh and remember sometimes the old days in Edinburgh, and she would postpone opening a bottle of wine as long as possible. But he grew irritated if she left it too long, and he would become more and more edgy. Sometimes the wine was enough. Other times it was just the start.

  She knew the moment Brid returned. She had managed to get him upstairs before he passed out and she had levered him onto the bed and taken off his shoes. Covering him with a blanket she turned away and stopped dead. There was a presence in the room, a slight change in the atmosphere, almost too small to detect, but her sixth sense had kicked in at the back of her brain and she felt the small hairs on her arms prickle in warning.

  She looked round. The room was very still. Adam lay slumped, his head on the pillow, his mouth slightly open. He muttered something and, smacking his lips, he half turned over, his arm flying out so that he knocked over the lamp on the bedside table. It fell with a crash and a pop as the bulb exploded, plunging the room into darkness.

  Liza held her breath. She strained her eyes, gradually getting used to the faint leak of light round the door from the landing. Carefully, not turning, she backed towards the door, aware that nearby someone else seemed to be holding their breath as well.

  Reaching the door she dragged it open with relief and stepped outside. She glanced back. Was that a shadow standing by the bed? She wasn’t sure. ‘Be careful, Adam,’ she whispered. ‘God bless,’ and slowly and quietly she pulled the door closed.

  Downstairs, she turned on the TV in the kitchen and put on the kettle, but however much noise she managed to make as she set out a cup and saucer for herself, and started on the washing-up, she knew she was still listening to the silence upstairs.

  That night she slept on the sofa in the sitting room and she kept the light on. At dawn she got up and walked for an hour through the rainwashed streets before coming back to a still-silent house.

  She left it until lunchtime, then she went upstairs. Adam was still asleep and as far as she could tell he was as she had left him. There was no indentation of another head on the pillow, no scent of a woman on the sheets, but even so she wondered who had picked up the spilled blue Michaelmas daisies which had been scattered under the broken lamp and put them back in their little vase. Perhaps it was Adam.

  She rang Beth at teatime. ‘So, how are things in the Wild West?’ She thought she could hear music in the background.

  ‘Fine.’ She could hear the amusement in Beth’s voice. ‘Giles is here and today we drove around taking photos. He wants me to do some pen and ink sketches and there are going to be about sixty major watercolours to illustrate the book, plus they want one of them for the jacket.’ She sounded delirious with happiness. ‘We thought we’d drive over to Brecon for dinner tonight, then tomorrow we might go up into mid-Wales for some really wild scenery.’

  Liza heard a giggle and some off-stage comment from the background. She smiled wistfully. ‘You are being sensible, Beth. Remember, whatever he says about it, he is married,’ she said sternly. ‘I don’t want you to be hurt, darling.’

  ‘Of course I’ll remember! Giles would never hurt me. So, how is Grandfather?’ Beth’s voice changed, becoming slightly prim.

  ‘Not very good I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh, Liza.’ Beth sounded genuinely sad. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t stay here forever, however much you might like me to!’ She laughed at the not very convincing denial the other end. ‘Oh, I will stay another few days, but I don’t think there is any point. He doesn’t seem to want to fight the drink, and he doesn’t want to come back with me, and he doesn’t seem to care about his job. As far as Robert is concerned I think he’d rather Adam never went back to the practice at all. And let’s face it, he’s just about retirement age. To be honest I don’t know what to do. I can’t stay here and nursemaid him.’

  ‘Nor would I want you to.’ The voice in the doorway behind her made Liza jump guiltily. ‘Must go, Beth! Take care, my darling.’ She hung up and swung round. ‘So, you’re up at last.’

  He looked dreadful. ‘I’m so sorry, Liza.’ He rubbed his face wearily. ‘That is the last time, I promise.’ He did not mention Brid.

  The trouble was, as always she believed him.

  For three more days they walked and talked and he ate her meals and his colour began to improve. Once they made love on the sofa downstairs in the sitting room, a gentle, retrospective, dreamy coming together which left them both, strangely, near to tears.

  ‘Adam, I do want you to come back with me.’ Liza lay in his arms, gently stroking his chest, her head cushioned on his shoulder. ‘My darling, we could be happy in Wales.’

  He gave her a quick hug. ‘No we couldn’t. It wouldn’t work, Liza. If we had thought it would work we would have married years ago.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I love you. I think I have always loved you. But you and I are chalk and cheese. And if I came to you, Brid would follow us and Beth would be in danger too. We can’t risk that happening. Ever. Let it rest, my love. Dreams and memories. That must be enough for both of us.’

  That night Adam got drunk again; violently and viciously drunk, and Brid reappeared. Liza was never sure which happened first.

  She was sitting at the small dressing table she had improvised in her bedroom from Calum’s desk and a mirror she had rescued from the attic. It was a long time since she had made love to someone and she was staring at her reflection, wondering if the warm, happy glow that she could feel inside her showed. She felt no disloyalty to Phil. He of all people would have understood.

  Adam’s shout brought her to her feet with a start, her hair brush clattering down onto the table top.

  ‘You bitch! You murdering, vicious bitch! Get out of my house! Do you hear me? Get out!’ There was a loud crash and the sound of breaking glass.

  ‘Adam?’ She hurried to the top of the stairs. ‘Adam, where are you?’ Her heart in her mouth, she ran down and headed for his study. ‘Adam, what’s wrong?’

  Brid was standing near him, holding out her hands. One of them was bleeding. A-dam, I love you. She was looking her most beautiful, her long hair brushed loose about her shoulders, her gown of softly textured checks of moss green and violet and the browns and golds of autumn falling in graceful gathers around her legs, a silver necklet at her throat. A-dam, what is wrong? Her eyes were on his. She did not seem to have noticed Liza in the doorway.

  ‘Get out!’ Adam was swaying slightly. He reached onto his desk and picked up a heavy marble ashtray. ‘If you don’t get out of here I am going to kill you once and for all, you murdering bitch!’

  ‘He means it,’ Liza said from the doorway. ‘You have to go. Can’t you see? Your hold on him is over.’ She stepped into the room, her heart thumping with fear. ‘Do as he says. Leave him alone.’

  Brid turned. She seemed to focus on Liza for the first time. Her eyes narrowed. ‘You!’ She said the one word with such venom that Liza recoiled. ‘I showed you what would happen if you came near my A-dam. Your man died.’

  Liza went cold.

  ‘I kill you too!’ The eyes were hypnotic. Liza found herself unable to look away. ‘I kill you and I kill the child of A-dam’s child. Then A-dam is left for me!’

  Behind her Adam rais
ed the ashtray. ‘Bitch!’ He only seemed capable of saying the one word.

  Brid moved as he struck at her, and the blow caught her sideways across the temple. Reeling back, she spat at him once and then leaped at his throat.

  ‘Adam!’ Liza’s scream was cut short as Adam grabbed at the whisky bottle he had left on the floor beside his desk. He swung it at the spot where Brid had been standing but it met only space before it smashed into a thousand pieces on the marble mantelpiece and fell into the empty hearth.

  Sobbing with shock and fear Liza stared round the room. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Did I kill her?’ Adam staggered back a few paces and propped himself up against the desk. He was panting.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’ Liza’s legs gave way and she sat down abruptly on the sofa by the window. ‘Dear God, where did she come from?’

  ‘Hell, where else?’

  ‘And where has she gone?’ Her eyes were scanning the room fearfully.

  ‘Back there.’ Adam began to laugh. ‘Isn’t she beautiful? Did you see her? With her lovely hair and her huge eyes and her wiles and her temptations!’ Suddenly he was crying. He held his arms out piteously to Liza.

  Standing up shakily she went over to him and cradled his head against her chest. ‘She admitted that she killed Phil,’ she said tonelessly.

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘And Calum and Julie.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she threatened to kill me and the child of your child. She meant Beth, Adam.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Adam, I have to go. You know that, don’t you?’ Liza was holding his hand gently. ‘I don’t think there is any point in me staying here.’

  He nodded. ‘You’re right. You must go. That’s what I want. I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He nodded vigorously. ‘And what is more I never want you to come here again, Liza. This house is finished. I’ll sell up. There’s nothing for me here now, anyway. Don’t think I don’t know what Robert Harding thinks of me. He’d be really glad to have me out of that partnership.’

  ‘Where would you go?’ There was no point in denying anything he had said.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe travel a bit? See the world?’

  She sat without moving for several minutes, watching him miserably. He had subsided, after a final shrug, into a deep reverie of such sadness she found her heart was physically hurting as she stared at him.

  ‘Adam –’ She didn’t know what to say.

  He forced himself to smile. ‘It will be all right. In the end. I’ll come through. I come from tough stock, Liza, remember?’

  ‘I remember. Listen, I have to go back to Beth, but I will come and see you. Often.’

  ‘There’s no point. I won’t be here.’

  ‘You might. You have to be somewhere. I’ll come and see you wherever you are. The more exotic the better. You know me. I love travel. If you settle in Tahiti or Tibet or Tijuana – I’ll be there.’

  He managed to smile. ‘You’re in danger of sounding like a very poor pop song.’

  She smiled back. An hour later, after one tight desperate hug, she left.

  Brid had been in the orchard before and that time someone had shot her.

  She shook her head as the blood dripped into her eyes. That woman, Jane, had died. Now she would remove the others. Two women had dogged A-dam’s life and kept him from her; and now there was a third. The child of A-dam’s child.

  She walked slowly up through the orchard, only half aware how unsteady she was on her feet. It was dark and the grass was wet. She padded lightly, keeping to the shelter of the trees, climbing the gate and crossing the gravel yard with soft silent steps. In the corner a large shiny car was parked beside the old Land-Rover that Beth used as her own. Brid eyed it for a moment and then moved on. She had to find the child and kill her.

  Inside Beth was kneeling before the fire in the living room with a toasting fork. On the plate beside her was a pile of toasted bread – her own home-made – which Giles was spreading with melting yellow butter. They were laughing.

  ‘I’m sure this is plenty. We’re both fat enough as it is!’ She pushed her long hair out of her eyes with the back of her arm. Her face was shiny and hot from the fire and she could feel a trickle of sweat running down between her breasts.

  Giles kept looking at the deep vee in her jumper which revealed Beth’s pronounced cleavage. ‘You’re right. If we eat all this we won’t have any energy left,’ he commented. He laid down his knife. He was a stocky, attractive man of medium height with a square face framed by floppy, golden-blond hair. His bushy blond eyebrows and eyelashes framed eyes of a deep limpid blue.

  ‘Energy for what?’ Her attempt at artful coquetry was spoiled by the dollop of butter on the end of her nose.

  ‘Looking at photos,’ he said firmly. He leaned forward and took the fork out of her hand. ‘Enough, sweetheart.’ He edged closer and licked the end of her nose. ‘Delicious.’

  ‘Giles, what about your wife?’ She said it helplessly, as though knowing there was no point. The words had become like a mantra, something to repeat again and again to distract her from her thoughts, but they no longer worked. Her thoughts were totally and completely taken up with him.

  He grinned. ‘I’ve told you. Idina and I have an open marriage. She doesn’t mind, my darling, as long as I leave her to do her own thing in London.’ He hooked a finger into the top of her jumper and pulled her towards him so that he could kiss her buttery lips. ‘You taste gorgeous.’

  ‘And fat.’

  ‘You are not fat, Beth. You are curvaceous. Which is gorgeous. I have never understood what men saw in Twiggy. I like a woman I can get my hands on.’ He pushed her back onto the hearth rug and kissed her again.

  An ice-cold draught coming under the door suddenly sent the flames shooting up the chimney and stirred the ash in the hearth.

  ‘What on earth is that?’ Beth turned her head to look at the fire. ‘Is there a window open somewhere?’

  ‘If there is I’m not going to look.’ Giles pushed her hair off her face gently and kissed each eyelid. ‘But there is a storm getting up outside. All the more cosy in here. Now, are you going to eat this toast?’ He reached for a piece and held it to her mouth.

  She lunged forward and took a small bite. ‘Bliss.’

  ‘I’m fattening you up for my pleasure!’ He bit the other side of the toast.

  ‘Sounds disgustingly decadent. Don’t tell Liza. She’s a modern woman.’

  ‘And a gorgeous one. You can see it runs in the family. You can be as feminist as you like, my darling, as long as it doesn’t involve slimming or wearing dungarees.’ He pulled away and took another, more man-sized, bite of toast. ‘This is heaven.’

  Beth frowned. Her attention was suddenly on the fire again. ‘There is a terrific draught coming from somewhere. I’d better go and check if a window has come open, I don’t want it tearing off its hinges. Listen to the trees out there.’ She jumped lightly to her feet and smiled down at him. ‘Don’t finish all the toast while I’m gone.’

  Opening the sitting room door she peered out into the dark hall. It was cold out there. She closed the door behind her to preserve the heat in the sitting room before she padded over the flagstones in her socks in the dark.

  The kitchen was freezing. The door into the yard had blown open and was banging back and forth against the wall. Stepping out into the wet she wrestled with it for a moment before she was able to pull it closed and slide the bolt in place. Her feet and her hair were soaked, but the sudden calm in the kitchen was almost shocking after the roar of the wind.

  ‘Beth, are you all right?’ Giles had followed her into the hall. ‘What’s happened?’

  She turned towards him at the very second the cat launched itself at her from the dresser. With a scream she fell back, her hands trying frantically to protect her face from the flailing claws.

  ‘Giles
!’ Her shriek of agony turned into a sob and then to silence as she collapsed onto the floor. Giles kicked out at the cat, missed, and then picking up the nearest thing to hand took a swipe at it with the frying pan which had been left on the table. The cat yowled and fled past him into the darkness of the hall.

  ‘Beth! Beth, my darling, are you all right?’ On his knees beside her Giles pulled her hands gently from her face. ‘Dear God, are your eyes all right? Beth, can you see?’

  She stared up at him in silence, paralysed with shock, then slowly she tried to sit up. ‘I think so. I’m all right. My face …’ She stared at her hands, which were covered in blood.

  ‘I think they’re just scratches. By some miracle you turned away as it jumped. It was going for your face, but it missed. Mostly.’ He pushed her hair gently, a mirror gesture of the one he had made earlier, exposing a long livid gash down her temple and cheek to her jaw line. ‘Can you sit here, on the chair, then I can look properly? Is there a first aid box? Perhaps I should drive you to the hospital?’

  When she was at last settled by the fire, the scratch dressed, at her insistence, with Hypercal, two arnica tablets under her tongue for shock, and her reassurance that she had had all the jabs she needed in her life, thank you very much, Giles went searching for the cat, with the poker.

  He found no trace of it.

  ‘I don’t understand it. I have searched every single nook and cranny.’ He sat down beside her on the sofa and took a deep breath to steady himself. The shock was beginning to kick in. ‘How is it feeling?’

  ‘Okay.’ She grinned shakily. ‘I hope it doesn’t mar my beauty.’ She gave an ironic little laugh. ‘I don’t understand it. Cats usually like me.’

  ‘That wasn’t any ordinary cat. I saw it clearly. It was much bigger. It was a wildcat. The sort they have in Scotland. I didn’t think they had them in Wales.’ He took her hands. ‘And as for your beauty,’ he leaned forward and kissed her nose, ‘nothing could mar that.’ He peered at her closely. ‘I think your homeopathic mumbo-jumbo stuff has done the trick. It’s already healing. A couple of days and you won’t know it was there. Pity really,’ he smiled roguishly, ‘it makes you look rather elegantly rakish.’