Eloise (12 page)

I walked down there and sat at the little picnic table by the pond. It was perfect; an idyll so beautiful and profound that I thought I could die there, peacefully, and be completely absorbed into this lovely land. And have my ashes scattered around the pretty willow trees that lean around our little stretch of water. Although I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be buried or cremated. The only thing I knew was that whatever was left of my body had to lie in the garden of my beloved Cornwall.

The bottom line now was that I was on my own. Chris had had more than enough of my ghostly suspicions. It was clear to me that beneath the anger and harsh words he desperately wanted us to be as we had been before. Which was close, happy and completely wrapped up in each other.

I had been blessed in my marriage. Why in God’s name would I want to destroy such a good strong bond, because I felt compelled to look into the death, the perfectly legal,
expected death of a friend who had been suffering from terminal cancer?

The answer crept into my mind with the sinister slither of a snake. It was the voice of my doctor, calm, soothing, slightly patronizing. ‘Because, of course, Cathy, you are not well,’ it whispered. ‘You’re on anti-depressants. A lot of the time you are miles away from reality, locked into a paranoid world. Somehow your mind has hijacked Eloise’s death, her perfectly natural though tragically sad death, and turned it into a dark Gothic fantasy. Linked somehow in your brain with motherhood, and your own guilt about how you have neglected your children because of your mental incapacity. This is all a pathetic fairy tale, and you’ve invented it to divert attention from your own madness. There; now acknowledge it. And be done with it.’

And then I looked up.

And I saw her.

Strongly present, in her red skirt and long silk scarf. At first she was up on the horizon, silhouetted against the outline of the church. But then, in an instant, she was down, this wraith, standing by the jetty on our pond, her ethereal beauty streaming gorgeously toward me, bathing me in her irresistible light, her tragic need for love and redemption. The sight of her almost stopped my heart with awe and terror.

Would she speak to me? Would she tell me what had gone on between her and her husband?

‘Eloise,’ I said, my voice trembling. ‘I can see you properly now. Will you talk to me, please? Just let me know, gently I beg you, because your visitations terrify me, what it is you need and want me to do?’

‘I’m sorry I frighten you, Cathy.’ Oh, to hear that voice again, as soft as ever, but infused with an urgency and determination I had rarely heard during her lifetime. ‘I’m afraid I have no choice. Where I am you are given appalling … ’ She hesitated. ‘Insights. You can see the consequences of your past actions. And, because you are no longer alive, there is nothing you can do about it. Unless you can reach a friend, someone like you, who cares enough to help. The bottom line is that I need you to sort out a terrible mess I made, one which I died too soon to sort out myself.’

‘I don’t understand what you mean. God, Ellie, I never understand you in my dreams either. Can’t you stop talking in riddles?’

What was I doing, trying to hold a conversation with a ghost? My mind reeled in disbelief. If Chris had found me now, he would have proof positive that I was losing my mind.

‘I can’t tell you everything, because I don’t have the strength. I only know that you, and you alone, can help me.

I’ve seen it, Cathy. I’ve seen what will happen if he isn’t stopped. It’s up to you.’

‘This is madness. I’m not hearing you. You’re just an illusion. I can’t bear it much longer. I thought you were fading, too weak to carry on meeting me. How come you’ve suddenly rallied enough to be here, in our paddock, talking sense – or nonsense. I just don’t know any more. Ellie, am I just imagining that you’re here? Am I having another breakdown? For God’s sake don’t mess about with my mind.’

She didn’t flinch.

‘I
am
real to you, Cath. That is, this is me, what’s left of me. It’s true I’m very weak, but I have been given a lifeline. Short lived, but I’ve found enough adrenalin in it to sustain me for a while longer. But you need to know everything. Only you can help.’

‘Then tell me. What should I do? No more hints, Eloise, no more dramatic threats. What do you want me to do?’

I thought even as I said this that it was rubbish. My communication with Eloise had been so fragmented, so essentially meaningless, that I thought she could do nothing but hand out dire predictions of death and dread.

But then she surprised me.

‘You don’t know it, but you have already seen Arthur. He is the thread of life still left to me. You must go back to Roseland and talk to my mother. She knows almost everything.’

‘
Almost
everything? Christ,
you
know all there is to know. Why all this secrecy? You’re here, right now. Just tell me everything – tell me what this is all about. Stop playing games, for God’s sake. This isn’t a
fairy tale
. Or is it? Or worse still, are you some terrible figment of my warped imagination? Is all this just another symptom? Another indication that I’m going mad?’

Eloise had now drifted far away. Of course she had, God rot her; I’d become too close, asked too many questions. Or, I thought, I’d let my frail mind get too close to her. Maybe the few wisps of self-protection left inside my choppy brain had pulled me back, distanced me from her insistent ego?

And then I remembered what she had said about Arthur. I had seen him. Yes, I thought. The beautiful boy in the graveyard. The same boy I’d seen with Chris in the lane. The one who seemed familiar. I knew that. I was just terribly unhappy at the prospect of finding out more.

Eloise had gone. I looked up at the church, its strong reassuring outline on the crest of the hill. My lovely Talland. How could this life-enhancing little hamlet, this place of spiritual serenity, play a part in a drama, which was poisoning my mind?

And then the sky darkened. Purple thunderheads rolled in from the sea, waves crashed and boiled on the beach. She was back. I couldn’t see her, but her voice was insistent in my
head. ‘You see, Cathy, I shouldn’t be here. At least not yet. I was terminally ill but my passing was … premature. And it shouldn’t have happened; it was a sin that I died when I did; I was trying to make amends for the mess I left behind, but I didn’t get the time. I made terrible mistakes but God, I paid for them. Now I need someone –
you
– to put it all right. My mother will help you. Please Cathy, please.’ The waves hurled furiously over the rocks, the wind screamed over the war memorial up on the cliff, the air was beaten up with crashing tension. The sky was indigo and black, swollen with huge clouds pregnant with doom.

I fainted. I was still lying on the grass, beside the picnic table, when Eve and Tom careered down the orchard slope and found me comatose beside our little spring. Eve immediately rushed up through the paddock shouting ‘Dad! DAD! Mum’s collapsed. Come back here.’

Tom, however, just cradled me in his arms and kissed my forehead. I was already coming round and deeply grateful for his uncomplicated affection. Chris pulled me to my feet. He looked upset, but I wondered if he was still angry with me. I murmured that I’d fainted, no idea why, and he roughly said that I was far too emotionally upset and that I needed to go to bed.

‘And I’m going to give you a tranquilliser. You must calm down.’

I protested. I really didn’t want that stuff in my system any more. I was still taking Prozac and surely that was enough. He gently walked me up to the house and said I had to rest.

‘Trust me, Cathy. I’m only doing what’s right for you.’

And Eloise’s voice echoed, soft and distant in my head.

‘Don’t trust anything he says.’

I had taken the sleeping pill that Chris insisted I needed and I woke late next morning. As I gradually surfaced, I became aware of deep male voices in the kitchen below. For a while, I surfed on the cadence of those low, strong waves, finding them reassuring without understanding anything they said. I snoozed, groggy from the tablet, until I suddenly heard Chris’s voice.

‘Look, she’s very vulnerable right now. Not thinking straight. I just want her to rest, but that’s difficult while she’s got this bee in her bonnet about Eloise.’

‘Chris, I’m sorry I blurted all that about our marriage the other day. I know it upset Cathy.’

I stiffened. Ted was downstairs talking to Chris about me.

‘The fact is I’ve been under the most horrible strain for so long now. Eloise and I were very unhappy, but it was all masked by her cancer. Of course I had to do my best to help her, but to be honest, if she hadn’t been ill, we would have been divorced by now.’

‘Could you tell me why?’ Chris asked gently. There was a long pause.

‘Look, Chris. There’s a lot I’d like to tell you about Ellie and me. But now’s not the time. Especially when Cathy has so clearly taken against me.’

Chris sighed. ‘I think she needs to sleep for a day or two. She’s still quite fragile, and she keeps jumping at all sorts of daft ideas.’

‘About me, do you mean?’

‘No more than anyone else, Ted. Look, I’ll talk to you later. Perhaps meet for lunch at Sam’s? The kids will do their own thing.’

‘And Cathy?’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll give her something to make her sleep.’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Chris was manufacturing some kind of plot to keep me comatose so he could go and talk to Ted. Meaning that he thought I was so
unstable that I had to be kept out of the picture. I heard him coming up the stairs and decided to pretend I was still asleep. When he came into the room he paused, then sat down gently on the bed. He touched my shoulder. ‘Cathy?’ he asked gently. ‘Are you awake, darling?’

I groaned, turning into my pillow. Chris’s voice was conciliatory. He acted as if his furious outburst after church yesterday had never happened. ‘Sweetheart, I have to go out. Tom and Evie are fine, they’re down at the beach. I’ll be back soon, but now just take this, will you, darling? Sit up.’ I struggled up, pretending to be only semi-awake. Chris opened my hand and put two tablets on my palm. He brought a glass of water to my lips, and said ‘It’s OK, sweetie. You just need to sleep. You’ll feel so much better when you wake up.’

I brought my hand up to my mouth, accepted the water he gave me. Then I put my hand down and let go of the pills, shoving them underneath my pillow. Chris beamed. ‘There you are, honey. Sleep tight. I’ll see you soon and make supper for us all. Or we could just get fish and chips from the stall at Wayland Farm.’

He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. I feigned semi-oblivion and turned over. He quietly bustled about the bedroom, picking up things he thought he needed, then gently closed the door behind him. A minute later, I heard the kitchen door close decisively as he and Ted left, and then
the sound of two cars revving up and departing down our drive.

I sat up, stunned. This was like the plot of a Victorian drama. My husband had tried to drug me so he could talk privately to the man I was increasingly sure was contributing to my friend’s fears for her children. I felt completely betrayed. Until today if there had been anyone in my cloudy orbit of depression, anyone at all I could have trusted absolutely to defend me, have faith in me, it was Chris. Now he’d changed sides. He was having secret conversations with Ted. The man of whom Eloise had told me not to trust a word.

I dressed, fumbling with my clothes. I felt sick with shock and sadness. If I couldn’t rely on Chris to be my unquestioned ally, who was left? My children of course, but I couldn’t possibly burden them with my concerns – which were strange, even to me. And really, if they had to choose between their mother’s weird imaginings, and their father’s resolute common sense, which one of us would they believe? They had seen me almost catatonic with depression, sleeping for days, unable to take part in their precious lives. But their dad was always there, always dependable. He was their rock when their mum was sealed away, locked inside a chamber as impenetrable as a dungeon in a fairy tale, cursed by a malevolent witch.

So no, I could not turn to them. Or to Chris.

Which left? Only one person.

I was in my little car, my cream Beetle, keys in the ignition, heart in my mouth. I set off down the drive, turned right up the lane. I was heading for Roseland, rushing to Juliana, hoping that her warmth, her motherly arms, would hold me and keep me from my encroaching crash into a dark, lonely abyss.

I can barely remember the journey. It was like one of those horrible dreams when you find yourself in charge of a car, but unable properly to reach either the clutch or brakes. Somehow I travelled along country lanes and scary dual carriageways. I was scarcely conscious, and have no idea how I managed to find my way to Juliana’s farmhouse. I can’t even remember crossing to Fowey on the Bodinnick ferry.

But, miraculously, I got there, and slewed the car to a halt outside the farmhouse’s front door. Which was open; not unusual in this blissfully quiet part of England. No threat, you see. Everything perfect, safe, snug as a bug in a rug. I breathed a sigh of relief, surged out of the Beetle and rushed through the inviting open door.