The Silence Before Thunder

by Kathy Shuker

  She regarded the photo wistfully. They had shared some fun times. Eleanor was strong-willed and a little eccentric with a taste for eye-catching hats, but she was a no-nonsense sort of person and generous to a fault. Jo turned to look at the photograph on the other end of the mantelpiece: her mother. Candida had never worn a hat, though she did sometimes wear jewellery in her hair. Or flowers. Jo stared at it a moment then turned away. Putting Sidney back on the table, she returned to her computer and tried to work but odd sentences from the phone call kept coming back to her. She had formed the strong impression that her aunt had been waiting for a call from someone else when she rang and that she had been disappointed. That was hardly surprising in the circumstances but there had been something odd about her behaviour nonetheless. Even for Eleanor.

  *

  Lying in bed the next morning, still inhabiting the half-world between sleep and wakefulness, Jo could hear rain drumming against the window. Sidney won’t go out then, she thought dully; he didn’t like rain. Her thoughts drifted to Eleanor again. Was it raining in Devon too? She remembered standing in her aunt’s garden as a child, getting wet, shocked and fascinated at the suddenness of a rain shower that had blown in off the sea. She had been living with her mother then in a flat in Greenwich, East London. The weather there was equable and changed subtly and slowly. It was muggy. She wasn’t used to the freshness, wind and sudden mood swings of the southwest.

  Once more the previous night’s phone conversation played through her head. Maybe her aunt was more cross than she had seemed. It wasn’t like Eleanor not to want her to visit. Jo had stayed over during the writing workshops before and there had never been an issue of accommodation. The tutors all stayed in the yard apartments and Lawrence did most of the day to day organising. But Eleanor hadn’t sounded cross, nor was she one to shy away from confrontation. If she was angry, she told you straight.

  Sidney mewed pitifully outside her bedroom door. Unaccountably ill at ease, Jo gave in and got up.

  It was late morning when the house phone rang and Jo was working at the computer again, Sidney curled up nearby. He opened one eye as she got up to answer it.

  ‘Joselyn? It’s Lawrence. You know, Eleanor’s PA?’

  Lawrence never rang her and her heart skipped a beat.

  ‘Yes. I know. Is something the matter? Is Eleanor all right?’

  ‘I realise you haven’t bothered with your aunt lately but I thought you’d want to know all the same.’

  His tone was offensive. She tried to ignore it.

  ‘Know what? I spoke to Eleanor just last night actually.’

  ‘Really? You’ll forgive me if I sound surprised. How was she?’

  ‘Fine. Why?’ She started to feel clammy. ‘What is it Lawrence? Go on, tell me.’

  ‘Bad news, I’m afraid. Eleanor’s had a fall…in the garden. She’s seriously hurt but she is at least alive.’

  ‘What do you mean: she’s alive? A fall? I don’t understand. What sort of fall?’

  ‘From the cliff steps. You know, the ones down to the private beach? There’s a hell of a drop there. It’s a miracle she didn’t tumble all the way down the cliff. I found her this morning, half way down on a sort of sloping shelf. There’s some greenery there - perhaps you remember?’

  He paused, making her wait.

  ‘Yes, yes, I remember. And?’

  ‘She’d got caught up in a bramble bush. I couldn’t reach her but she was unconscious and in a terrible state when the emergency people finally got to her. It took them ages to bring her up.’

  Jo started pacing up and down, phone rammed to her ear. ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘No-one knows. She was still unconscious when they took her to hospital.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Plymouth. She’s in surgery now. They did say there was a chance she mightn’t make it so I thought you should know.’

  Jo stopped pacing, frozen. Her mouth felt like blotting paper. She tried to lick her lips but had no saliva. This was some kind of horrific nightmare, unreal, and she couldn’t take it in.

  ‘I’ll come,’ she managed to get out. ‘I’ll come, Lawrence. Now. Straight away.’ She looked round wildly, thoughts pell-mell, unable to fix on anything.

  ‘There’s no point rushing Joselyn. You can’t help her at the moment. She’s in the hands of the doctors and they said it could take some time.’

  ‘No, no, of course. I need to plan.’ She glanced at her watch: it was eleven-forty. ‘Damn, I’ve got Sidney to sort out.’

  ‘Who’s Sidney?’

  ‘It’s a long story. I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Can you give me your mobile number? I couldn’t find it.’

  She said it, thoughts dazed.

  ‘Lawrence, how could this have happened? Eleanor isn’t ill is she? She’s never had any problems with the paths or the steps before.’

  ‘I don’t know. They’ll do tests, they said, once they’ve got her stable.’

  She got the impression he was hiding something. And then it came.

  ‘The thing is, Joselyn, it’s been suggested that she might have jumped.’

  ‘No way. Eleanor jump? No.’ She wanted to laugh but couldn’t quite. ‘I don’t believe it.’

  The phone went dead. Jo stared at it, still shaking her head.

  ‘No…no. I don’t believe that.’

  Chapter 2

  Frank and Mari pulled out of the remaining weekend events in Exeter as soon as news of Eleanor’s fall came through, and Frank drove them back to the estate. Imogen had made the phone call but had been unable to supply any meaningful information other than that Eleanor was seriously injured. Their return journey was painful: long tortured silences broken only by wild speculation as to what could have happened. Mari was upset but Frank felt in a strange kind of limbo, numbed, and couldn’t wait to get back, desperate to get more news.

  He parked the car and they made straight for the den. ‘The den’ was a communal living space at the end of one of the blocks around the courtyard, created when the outhouses were converted into apartments. Casually furnished with a couple of sofas and armchairs, a large dining table and a television, it also boasted a run of kitchen units along one wall and some basic cooking equipment.

  ‘Ah, a common room,’ Vincent had remarked in his sonorous voice when he’d first seen it. There had been a disdainful curl of the lip. ‘Ideal. We can play at being students again - but with better meals, obviously.’

  But Frank had christened it ‘the den’ and the name had stuck. Over the years it had seen parties, games and film nights as well as trial readings, meetings and the inevitable rows. It was the place the tutors always converged when anything significant happened and it was where they convened now, late on the Saturday afternoon, still struggling to process the news. As soon as Frank entered, Louisa got up and went to his side, putting her arms round him, seeking solace. He gave her a brief, comforting hug.

  ‘There’s a load of press people hanging round the gates,’ he said irritably to the room in general. ‘That didn’t taken them long, did it? How the hell did they find out?’

  ‘Strange how much more interesting writers are when they’re not writing, isn’t it?’ said Vincent. ‘Books and plays disappear without trace but a good fall generates a lot of publicity. I should try it sometime.’

  Imogen tutted. ‘Don’t be flippant, Vincent.’

  ‘It’s an awful thing,’ said Louisa. ‘What on earth could have happened? I mean, she’s not unsteady or anything is she? And she’s not that old.’

  Frank saw the glances thrown their way and winced inwardly. Louisa was forty-two, more than twelve years younger than anyone else in the room and it wasn’t the first time she had obliquely drawn attention to the fact.

  ‘No, Louisa, she’s not that old,’ said Imogen dryly, wedging the handle of her stick over the back of one of the easy chairs and lowering herself into it. ‘Nor, like me,
does she have a gammy hip.’ She bestowed a withering gaze on Louisa, looking her soft, generous figure up and down. ‘And Eleanor is trim, fit and active and looks after herself. Sadly, we can’t all say the same, can we?’

  ‘What are you…?’

  ‘What do we know exactly?’ interposed Frank, nudging Louisa back towards the sofa again and sitting beside her.

  ‘Not a lot really,’ said Imogen. ‘Lawrence was as tight-lipped as usual. You always have to work so hard to get anything out of him and yet you know he’s just dying to tell you. Eventually he said maybe she’d slipped from the steps down to the beach. There’s no hand-rail on the right at the top as you go down, he said. I can’t remember; it’s been a while since I saw them.’ She looked across at Frank for corroboration. ‘Is that true?’

  Frank felt Louisa stiffen against him. Anything which emphasised his former attachment to Eleanor still seemed to bother her.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘There’s a hand-rail on the left but nothing on the right till four or five steps down, where they get steeper.’

  ‘Well she was lucky not to kill herself,’ Imogen continued. ‘A bramble bush stopped her from going right over, but she’d had some awful knock to her head on the way down apparently.’

  ‘How horrible.’ Mari shuddered. ‘Poor Eleanor.’

  ‘Perhaps it was raining and the steps were wet,’ Vincent suggested from his seat at the table.

  ‘Was it raining last night?’ Mari turned to Frank, frowning. ‘Was it raining in Exeter?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We were inside most of the evening, weren’t we?’

  ‘I don’t know either.’ Louisa spoke defensively, as if someone had pointedly asked her. ‘I was tired and stayed in my room. But it seems a bit strange to go down to the beach in the evening by yourself, especially if it’s raining.’

  ‘Ah but Eleanor doesn’t behave like other mortals.’ Vincent flicked an arch glance from Louisa to her companion. ‘Does she Frank?’

  Frank ignored him. ‘So how is she, Imogen? Did Lawrence say?’

  ‘She’s been taken to hospital and is having surgery. That’s all he’d say. Well…’ She looked from Frank to Louisa and back. ‘…there was something else.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He’d got the feeling that the police thought she might have jumped. They’d found out that she’d just heard about your engagement.’

  A strained silence filled the room. Looks were exchanged.

  ‘Oh really,’ said Louisa. ‘That’s not fair. You can’t all go blaming it on me.’

  ‘I didn’t hear anyone blame you.’ Vincent stretched his legs out and crossed one ankle over the other. ‘In any case, as the Good Book says, no-one is without sin. Though there’s nothing the press would like more than an attempted suicide.’

  ‘Shut up Vincent.’ Frank put his arm round Louisa and squeezed her. ‘Of course it’s not your fault, darling. Lawrence is just being a bastard, spreading gossip. He likes to get in our heads and mess with us. Don’t let him get to you.’

  ‘Well, it’s horrible to think she might have tried to kill herself, whatever the reason,’ said Mari. ‘I hope it’s not true.’ She glanced nervously at the others, not quite managing to include Louisa. ‘After all, she’s not alone, is she? She’s got us. And didn’t you say that Jo was coming down, Immy?’

  ‘Yes. Lawrence rang her. She’s coming today sometime. After what happened to Candida, the poor girl’ll find it all quite difficult I imagine.’

  ‘Candida?’ repeated Louisa, looking around their faces. ‘Who’s Candida and what happened to her?’

  No-one replied but they all looked at Frank.

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ he said.

  *

  Arriving at the main entrance to the estate, Jo registered the cordon of journalists and photographers but resolutely ignored them. There was a policewoman standing there too, saying something to them, gesturing with one hand as she talked. Jo tapped the code Lawrence had given her into the security pad by the gates and waited, eyes fixed ahead of her as they slowly swung back to admit her.

  There had been none of this security when she first used to visit her aunt. Right from the publication of her first political thriller, Eleanor’s books had sold well but she hadn’t had the sudden, meteoric success that her older sister, Candida, had enjoyed. Rather she had stayed largely under the radar, writing, publishing and gradually increasing her readership. It was a new publishing deal and the sale of film rights to a particularly successful title which had enabled her to buy the once tumbledown estate she now lived on. It was only later, when the film had made the book a household name, that Eleanor had become obliged to secure her grounds: too many people came looking for her. Even so, the security seemed half-hearted, a token gesture, insufficient to keep out the keen fanatic. But there had been no recent blockbuster film adaptations to keep her name in the public consciousness. Eleanor had never taken her fame that seriously anyway.

  ‘Meaningless,’ she had said once. ‘Just a great gaping hole waiting for you to fall right into if you’re daft enough.’

  Jo followed the winding drive, passed the car park and barn on her right, and wound round the back of the old yard to draw up on the hardstanding by a run of garages, just shy of the large cream-rendered house. She switched off the engine and turned in her seat to look at the cat carrier in the back. Sidney, who had yowled pathetically for the first half of the journey, had been silent now for a couple of hours. With the killing of the engine, his face appeared at the grill, eyes wide and accusing. She reached an arm back to put her fingers to the mesh to reassure him.

  ‘We’re here Sidney. I’ll let you out soon.’

  The driver’s door opened and she quickly turned back. Lawrence had yanked it open and now stood there, tall and imposing, like a hotel porter - or maybe a palace guard - waiting, silent. He had presumably been watching for her.

  ‘Hello Lawrence.’ She got out, offering a smile.

  ‘Joselyn. I hope you had a good journey.’

  ‘Jo. Please call me Jo. Is there any news? I left my number with the hospital but I’ve heard nothing. I don’t know if my message got through to the right place.’

  ‘I’ve just rung. Apparently Eleanor’s out of surgery and stable.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘She’s on ITU, on a ventilator, I believe.’

  ‘That’s something, I suppose, but it sounds frightening.’ She glanced at her watch: nearly six o’clock. ‘I’d better sort Sidney out and then get over there.’

  ‘Who’s Sidney?’

  She opened the rear door and pulled out the carrier, holding it up so that Lawrence could see. Sidney peered out at him balefully and emitted a pathetic cry.

  ‘Sidney’s my cat.’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ He looked into the carrier with distaste. ‘You brought him here? I’m not fond of cats. In any case, that’s unwise. He’s sure to get lost or run away.’

  ‘I’m not pretending it’s ideal, Lawrence, but I didn’t have a choice. He’s not long out of a cat shelter; I couldn’t take him back. We’ll just have to take care not to let him out of the house until he’s used to the place.’ She grabbed her handbag from inside the car and pushed the door to. ‘I’d better get to the hospital.’

  ‘There’s no rush. You can’t help her and she is stable. Charlotte’s left a salad for you in the fridge. She came up to the house as soon as she heard the news and insisted on preparing it specially.’ He was already moving to the back of the car. ‘I suppose you have other luggage?’

  ‘Yes…thanks. There’s a suitcase in the boot and a bag of things for Sidney. And my laptop and briefcase. Oh, and there’s a litter tray too and a bag of litter but it’s OK, I’ll come back for those.’

  Lawrence lifted the boot lid. Jo turned away, thoughts elsewhere, and carried Sidney into the house.

  It hadn’t changed. Why would it have? A
surge of emotion caught her off guard as a disconcerting mix of memories, both good and bad, assailed her. Distracted, she put Sidney’s carrier down in the hallway and walked into the sitting room. It was one of the rooms she remembered best, a large, rectangular room, awash with the artefacts and mementoes of Eleanor’s life and travels: colourful rugs and throws, paintings, sculpture and wooden carvings from places she had visited; an eclectic pile of books waiting to be read, and a variety of magazines tumbling over the lower shelf of the coffee table. At the further end a small table was set up with a chess board, a chair either side. Nearby stood a huge world globe on a stand and, against a far wall, an upright piano.

  The room should have been oppressive but wasn’t. There was a white stone fireplace in the wall to her left with three small sofas positioned around it, a broad window in the opposite wall facing northwest towards the village below, and, the eye-catching highlight of the room, the wide patio doors which gave onto the garden. Jo walked to stand in front of them. Between and over treetops, there was a bewitching and ever-changing view of the sea. She had spent hours here when she was younger. Eleanor used to make up stories about the people on the boats which passed by, sometimes close in, sometimes miles away: tankers and freighters, yachts big and small. The young Joselyn had been entranced.

  ‘What do you want me to do with these?’

  Jo turned, abruptly brought back to the present. Lawrence was standing in the doorway holding up the litter tray and the bag of litter, both at arm’s length.

  ‘I thought perhaps in the conservatory,’ she replied. ‘The floor’ll be easy to clean in there if he spills any.’

  Lawrence offered a pained expression but said nothing and disappeared. Jo went back out into the hall where he had left her other luggage. She pulled a cloth out of Sidney’s bag and began rubbing it over the door frames all the way along the hallway, then back in the sitting room, over some of the furniture.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Lawrence was watching her again. He was unnerving. For a big man, he moved remarkably silently. She had always suspected that he was on his best behaviour around Eleanor. But Eleanor wasn’t there.