Heller's Regret (14 page)

It had taken a while for me to recall all the
details of my relationship with Heller, shy the first time I shared
his bed. But his patience in talking about our life together
reconnected the hazy strands of my memory. Rediscovering his body
again was full of delights and wonderful sensations. He’d been
reluctant to initiate any sexual activity between us, mindful of my
frailty and uncertainty about us. In the end, driven by a sudden
longing for his touch, I’d kissed his lips, pressing myself against
him, my hands roaming his body.

“Matilda,” he groaned. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” I said, already lost in the
moment.

He held me tightly as my pleasure grew to an
almost unbearable volcanic level. My intense release left me
clinging to him, panting wildly, my body slick with our joint
sweat.

Afterwards, when he’d joined me in that happy
post-orgasm state of sated relaxation, I said, “That beats hospital
for getting better any day.”

He smiled. “Maybe I should have climbed into
bed with you there.”

I tickled his hard belly, but he didn’t even
flinch a bit. I would have curled into a ball and begged him, with
little regard for my dignity, to stop if he’d done it to me. “I
don’t think I was ready for some rumpy-pumpy with you at that
point.”

“No, you didn’t even recognise me.” He was
silent for a while. “That was hard to take.”

“I’m sorry. It’s strange how that tea
affected my memory.”

“I’ve done a lot of research on it. The
compound it contained overwrote your mind with the hallucinations
it brought on. But when you stopped ingesting it, its effects faded
and your own memories were able to resurface. I’m explaining it
quite simply, but you get the general idea.”

“I think I’ll stick to coffee from now
on.”

“There’s a synthetic version of that compound
which can be added to any drink.”

“Then I’ll stick to unopened bottles of
water. I couldn’t go through something like that again, Heller. I
just couldn’t.”

“I know, my sweet. It was terribly
traumatic.”

“And you said it would be an easy job.”

“I no longer believe there can ever be such a
thing with you around.”

“Heller?”

“Hmm?”

“I need to return to the Grimsley house. It
feels important to me to do that.”

“I’m not sure that’s wise, Matilda. Not
yet.”

“I honestly believe it will help me come to
terms with the things I haven’t been able to resolve in my mind.
I’ll bring ten men with me if that makes you happy. It feels as
though I have unfinished business in that basement and it’s going
to keep bothering me if I don’t do something about it.”

He thought about it for a long while. “Okay,
if it makes you feel better. But I’m going with you and I’m
bringing a couple of men with us. If you want to keep digging in
the basement, they can do it for you.”

“I don’t mind. That sounds sensible.” I
smiled. “Are you afraid of haunted houses?”

“Not afraid, but supernatural stuff is not to
my taste at all. I don’t understand people’s interest in it.”

“It would be a boring world if we were all
only interested in business and making money.”

“Maybe. But it would be a more profitable
world.”

I snuggled up to him, feathering his smooth
skin with delicate kisses. “Life’s not only about profits.”

“No?”

“No. You have to find some space for love
too.”

“I have this big bed. There’s plenty of space
for love.”

“Heller! I was talking about love, not
sex.”

“Really? So you wouldn’t be interested in
this?” His hand crept under the sheet.

“Ooh! But we just . . .”

“Or this?”

“Oh, God. I couldn’t . . .”

“Or this?”

A moan escaped from me. “It’s not possible to
. . .”

But maybe it was. We didn’t get to sleep for
a while.

The next morning, alone as usual, I thought
I’d better change into some clothes other than my pyjamas. Heller,
dressed in his uniform and probably with a half-day’s work already
done, returned as I stepped from the shower, reaching for my towel.
He took the towel and dried me, watching me as I dressed.

We bickered lightly over his blunt assertion
he would carry me down the stairs to his vehicle, but I flat out
refused. As a result, he was forced to wait for me patiently as I
made my very slow way down the stairs, exhausted by the effort,
something I’d never admit to him. We sat in his vehicle waiting for
the men he’d chosen to join us – Farrell and Bick.

Bick made an off-hand quip about loony bins
on the way over. It was the worst possible thing for anyone to say
to me, especially when I was quietly proud of myself for making
such great progress. I withdrew into silence, sinking down on the
front seat, and hugging myself protectively. Heller and Farrell
glared at him, angry at his thoughtlessness. Quickly realising his
faux pas
, his cheeks and ears blushing with embarrassment,
he struggled to retrieve the situation with a series of
tongue-tied, backpedalling statements that soon petered out to
nothing. Nobody spoke for the rest of the drive, a pall of
awkwardness hanging over all of us.

It mortified me that so many men had seen me
during my psychotic episode. I hadn’t understood before that it
seemed to be widespread knowledge I’d been admitted to a mental
health ward afterwards. It didn’t matter that I’d been drugged. All
the men would remember (and tell each other) was my crazy and wild
appearance and behaviour when they’d discovered me. I worried what
that would mean for me working at
Heller’s
from now on.
Surely it would be difficult to find anyone there who’d want to
work with me.

I was the first out of the vehicle when it
stopped, heading up the path with stubborn determination. I would
not
let myself be dragged down by what had happened to me in
this house, hoping that I could find some resolution there today so
I could move on with my life.

I allowed Heller to knock on the door, my
hands and arms still bandaged. After an age, Miss Grimsley opened
the door, and invited the four of us in with resigned
acceptance.

My skin instantly prickled at the oppressive
heat inside the house, but I noted the elderly lady was wrapped
warmly in a cardigan and long trousers. She took us to the parlour
and offered us some tea, which we all pointedly refused, some of us
with less manners than usual.

“Oh, sorry,” she said sheepishly. “Of course
you don’t want any tea.”

Though incredibly angry with her, I wanted to
remain calm so I could finish what I’d started all those days ago.
Heller sat next to me, his fists clenching and relaxing, his face
betraying his deep anger. It was fortunate for her that she was so
elderly, as I truly believed that might have been the only thing
keeping him from taking revenge on her.

“Perhaps you would care to explain
everything, Miss Grimsley?” I suggested coldly. Her eyes fell on my
bandaged arms and hands, and she softly tutted to herself in
self-reproach.

“I’m so sorry, my dear. I never thought you
would react in such a strong way. No one ever has before. You must
have drunk a lot of the tea.” She paused and glanced at each of our
four stony faces before continuing. “Samuel went missing in 1905,
widely believed in the family to have been murdered by his mother,
my own mother’s aunt.”

“So Samuel was your mother’s cousin?” I
clarified.

“Yes. They grew up together in this house.
Samuel’s mother was an unmarried woman who’d had Samuel out of
wedlock. That was a huge disgrace back then, but the family
shielded her from the world and its moral judgements on unmarried
mothers.”

She poured herself another cup of tea. I
turned my head, repulsed by even the smell of it. “By all accounts,
my mother’s aunt, Rose, became very religious and obsessed with
sin. She began to hate Samuel because, to her, he was a daily
reminder of her own great sin. My mother told me that he was a
lovely boy, very sweet-natured, and a talented musician. But one
day he went missing and no one ever knew what happened to him. Rose
later died by throwing herself from her bedroom window. Some in the
family believed it was done in shame at her filicide. You can see
the portrait of her completed weeks before Samuel’s disappearance.
It hangs in one of the bedrooms upstairs, the one which was hers
and from which she suicided.”

I knew which portrait she meant straight away
– the demonic woman. No wonder Samuel had shown such dislike for
it.

Miss Grimsley continued, sipping on her tea
with every sign of enjoyment. I wondered briefly if she was insane.
“The reason the family generally believed Samuel was murdered was
because not long after he disappeared, certain relatives started
seeing him again in the house. My mother was one of them. He
appeared as he had in life, wearing the same clothes, playing the
piano or with his toys in his bedroom upstairs. Incidentally,
nobody wanted to move into his bedroom because of his frequent
appearances there. It’s remained unoccupied all this time, left
exactly as it had been the day he disappeared.”

She was contemplative for a while, her mind
no longer focussed on us, but inwards, on her own memories of the
past. “I often wonder how it felt for Rose to be confronted by
Samuel’s empty bedroom every day. As far as I know she never
confided to anyone that she saw him afterwards, but the family
speculated on whether that drove her to suicide.”

The ringing of the phone brought her to her
feet, leaving us for a few minutes as she went to answer.

“This isn’t too difficult for you, my sweet?”
asked Heller.

“No, I want to hear what she says,” I
assured.

Bick tried to open one of the windows of the
parlour. “God, it’s so hot in this house. I’m melting. My shirt’s
stuck to my back with sweat.”

“Stop whining,” bit Farrell, wiping his brow
on his shirtsleeve. “We’re all boiling. It’s not just you.”

Miss Grimsley bustled back into the room,
surprisingly spritely for someone fresh out of hospital.

“Now, where was I?” she asked, settling
herself back into the oversized chair she’d chosen, pouring herself
another cup of tea. “Oh, yes. Samuel. Family members reported that
glimpses of him were always accompanied by very cold temperatures
and tremendously sad music that brought whoever heard it to tears.
That led most to believe he was no longer in the physical world.
Seeing him is a little quirk in our family. Other people, but not
many, have been able to see him, but only after drinking a special
tea which certain disreputable relatives imported for its
hallucinatory qualities. We’ve been buying it ever since.” She
turned to me. “That’s how you were able to see him, Miss Chalmers.
By drinking the tea. That’s the only way I can see him too, not
being blessed with the natural ability.

“My mother looked after Samuel until her
death, passing the job to my older sister. When she passed away
about five years ago, I took over his guardianship.” She beseeched
us with her eyes, her voice heartfelt. “He’s just a lonely, lost
boy, and it would be cruel to leave him in this big house alone
with no companionship. I’m very afraid of what will happen when I
die. I’m eighty-six years old. I can’t go on forever. It breaks my
heart to know that he’ll be left here alone because there’s no
family surviving to look after him.”

Daintily wiping away the moisture from her
eyes, she fumbled around at her neck, drawing out a locket on a
heavy gold chain from her blouse.

“Though there are many things in this house,
this is what I treasure most.”

She pulled it over her head and passed it to
me. I opened the locket and gasped in shock. It was a miniature
portrait of the boy I thought I’d been looking after – Samuel.

“That’s him! That’s the boy I spent the week
with,” I insisted, looking again on his sweet face and enormous
black eyes. I handed the locket to the three sceptical men. “How is
it even possible that I would know what he looked like? I’ve never
seen that miniature before.”

“You saw Samuel, Miss Chalmers. Not a
delusion, but a lost spirit.”

I shook my head in denial. Though now forced
to accept there was no living Samuel Grimsley, I wasn’t ready to
handle what she was saying. Essentially, she thought I’d spent a
week with a ghost.

Heller spoke, his voice every bit as hard as
his eyes, “You deceived Matilda, Miss Grimsley. She’s paid dearly
for that.”

“I’m so sorry, dear,” she said to me. “But
would you have stayed had I been completely honest with you?”

“Of course not.” I would have run for the
hills without even stopping to close the front door after me. “Is
that why you were so pleased when I drank the tea and then saw
Samuel for the first time?”

“Yes,” she said, and I detected a hint of
defiance. She wasn’t that sorry at all – Samuel was more important
to her than me. “I had to make sure you were the right person. He’s
never been alone in this house without someone to talk to since he
departed.”

I didn’t think there was much more to say on
the matter. She clearly wasn’t completely contrite, willing to
sacrifice a living woman to protect a dead boy. So instead, I
shifted the conversation to what I’d been doing when Heller’s men
had turned up. Swallowing my anger, I asked politely for permission
to finish the job. She nodded willingly, expressing her hope that
it could be exactly what Samuel needed to find peace.

“He’s over there, right now, listening in,”
she said, pointing to the doorway where I’d first seen him. We all
glanced over in different states of alarm.

“I can’t see him anymore,” I said, a hint of
sadness in my voice.

We trooped down to the basement, and it
appeared as if nothing had been cleaned up, the gun still lying
askew on the ground where it had fallen from my hands.