In Her Shadow (2 page)

There was a time before Ellen, when it was just me, of course. That time is further away and harder to conceive, but it’s possible; I can still go back, in my mind, to my early childhood in all its Hipstamatic brightness. Most of my memories pre-Ellen are a muddle, like snapshots jumbled in a drawer, but there’s one September afternoon when I was eight years old that I recall with perfect clarity. It was the only time I ever spoke to Ellen’s grandmother, and if I hadn’t, there would have been nothing to connect Ellen and me later. Perhaps, if that afternoon had played out another way, we would never have become friends and, that being so, I would have had a different and, most likely, a happier life. Before Ellen, things were easier and less complicated. They were either good or bad, right or wrong, black or white, and I understood the difference. Since Ellen, everything has been coloured in shades of grey.

This is how it was that afternoon. The school bus had dropped off its last passengers – the Williams twins, Jago Cardell who lived in the cottage next door to mine, and me – at the stop in the lay-by on the Goonhilly Road. It was cold; the shadows were lengthening. A promise of fireworks and frost and spiderwebs hung in the air, and swallows sat like small dark sentinels on the telephone wires waiting to go somewhere warmer. The Williams boys ran off down the lane that led to their farm, and Jago and I went across to the stately horse-chestnut tree that overhung the boundary wall of Thornfield House. There were hundreds of conkers up amongst the big papery leaves just out of our reach. Jago dropped his rucksack on the grass, found a stick and jumped up and down, hitting the branches. I watched for a moment, then I had an idea. I picked up the rucksack, swung it by its straps and threw it into the air. It hit a branch and several prickly green cases fell, splitting as they bounced on the lane and releasing their glossy brown nuts. Jago whooped with delight and pounced on them. Made confident, I threw the rucksack again, but this time it fell the wrong way, over the wall and into the garden of Thornfield House, which we had always called ‘Haunted House’.

Jago turned to look at me. ‘Fuckin’ hell, Spanner,’ he said. ‘You’ve been and gone and done it now!’

I remember the feeling of dread in my stomach. It was more than a quarter of a century ago, but I feel it now so clearly. I feel it in my bones. At the time, I was afraid of the old lady, Mrs Withiel, who lived alone in the house. We half-believed she was a witch, and we were scared of getting into trouble, but with hindsight it seems obvious that this premonition was of something far worse than a childhood scolding. I knew something terrible was going to happen inside that house. I knew it even then.

Thornfield House was like no other house in our part of
the world. It sat square at the top of the hill, surrounded by a wall, its upper windows overlooking the fields that led to the coast on one side, and the flat, marshy lands spreading out towards the satellite station at Goonhilly Down on the other. It was not the sort of place where normal people would want to live. It was too big, too severe, not hunkered down, white and wind-worn like most Cornish houses, but standing tall with its big proud windows and grand door, its steeply sloping roof topped by a weathervane shaped like a schooner riding a billowing wave.

That afternoon, I crept along by the wall to the gap where the huge, wrought-iron gates stood ajar, rusting on their hinges. I looked around the edge of the wall and I saw the old lady standing at the door looking out. I was the one who had thrown the rucksack, so it was up to me to go and ask for it back, but I didn’t move. I looked across to Jago. I knew he would help me because he always did. He didn’t hesitate. He stepped forward into the garden, he went right up to the witch, and he talked to her.

Jago was two years older than me, a scruffy, skinny boy. From behind, his ears stuck out and so did the dark flame-coloured hair his aunt hacked with her kitchen scissors. His neck was long and thin with the hair tapering down on one side, his shirt was too small and his trousers were worn and scuffed at the hems. His hands, which seemed too big for his arms, hung at his sides.

I crept forward and stopped a few paces behind him.

The witch, Mrs Withiel, was stooped and trembly. She wore a long grey cardigan over a powder-blue dress with the buttons at the front done up all wrong, and grubby old tennis shoes. Her hair was thin and white.

‘Why do you children always run away from me?’ she asked. ‘Whenever I try to talk to you, you run away.’

Jago looked at his feet. He couldn’t tell the old lady we ran
away because we thought she might put the evil eye on us.

‘I like children. I have a daughter, and a granddaughter,’ said Mrs Withiel. She looked at me. ‘She’d be about the same age as you, dear.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Jago politely. ‘Do they live in Trethene?’

‘Oh no. No, no, no.’ She wrung her hands. ‘They’re long gone. The devil came and took my daughter away. He stole her away from me, her and the child. I don’t know where they are. I don’t get a card at Christmas. Nothing. He’s evil, you know, evil through and through.’

The old lady’s voice rose as she spoke until it was so high and reedy it almost faded away. I felt sick. I thought perhaps Mrs Withiel was soft in the head with her talk of the devil and evil. Or maybe she really was a witch.

Jago glanced at me. I tried to convey, with my eyes, that we needed to get away.

‘That’s a shame you don’t see your family,’ said Jago. He toed the weeds that were growing through the gravel on the drive. Then he asked: ‘Is it OK if I get my rucksack now?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said the old lady. She waved him towards the bag with the back of her hand, then she looked at me. ‘You’ll come back and see me, won’t you?’ she asked me. ‘Come back and talk to me. I’m so fond of children, especially little girls. Next time I’ll have some biscuits ready for you, dear.’

I tried to smile but my face didn’t feel like smiling.

‘Chocolate Bourbon biscuits,’ she said. ‘Those were my daughter’s favourites. Do you like Bourbons, dear?’

I nodded.

‘Don’t forget then. Come back to see me. You will, won’t you? Promise me?’

‘Yes,’ I said in a very quiet voice. Jago was dragging the rucksack through a large patch of dying nettles by one of its straps. When he reached me, we turned together and walked
slowly back to the gates. We waved goodbye to the old lady, and as soon as we were hidden by the wall, we began to run as if our lives depended on it, to the crossroads and then down the hill that led to Cross Hands Lane, where we lived.

Jago and I amused ourselves for some time afterwards, pretending to be the witch.

‘I’m so fond of children,’ Jago used to say in a crackly, creepy voice. ‘Especially …
for breakfast
!’ And he’d reach out his hands which he’d made into claws and pounce on me. He used to make me cry with laughter and fear.

I never did go back to see Mrs Withiel, although I passed Thornfield House almost every day. I was too ashamed to look up to the window to see if she was watching, waiting for me, hoping I would go in and talk to her, and I tried not to think of the biscuits she would have bought specially going stale and soft in their packet.

CHAPTER THREE

I COULDN’T RECOVER
from what I had seen at the museum that afternoon, couldn’t pull myself together, so Rina took me home. Her small car laboured through the city and into Montpelier, pulling up outside the building where I lived. My flat was on the first floor of a house that had been converted for multiple occupancy, squeezed between a trendy flower shop and one that sold second-hand clothes. The pavement to one side was cluttered with clothes-rails hung with brightly coloured dresses and shirts, and on the other with dark green plastic buckets filled with lilies, daffodils and tulips.

Rina helped me out of the car, put her arm around me and bustled me up the steps to the front door of my house, into the untidy communal hallway and up the narrow, carpeted staircase that led to the first-floor flat.

I felt better there. Everything was pale, muted, neutral. It was calming. My little grey cat, Lily, wound herself around my ankles and I picked her up and pressed my face into her soft fur.

‘Go and lie down while I make you a drink,’ Rina said.

‘I’ll be fine now.’

‘Do as I say. Let me look after you for a little while.’

Rina gave me a gentle push towards the bedroom. I drew the curtains, lay on the bed and was immediately overwhelmed
with a fatigue so intense it seemed as if a great weight had been placed on my chest. I pulled the duvet over my body, let my heavy head sink into the pillows, felt the mattress absorb my angles. The cat pawed at the duvet, her little feet patting, tugging. I tried to relax but my mind would not stop spinning. When Rina came into the room some minutes later with a glass of camomile tea, my eyes were still wide open.

‘Were you very close to this friend of yours?’ Rina asked, leaning over me, stroking my forehead as if she were soothing a child with a temperature. I could taste the mintiness of her exhaled breath.

‘We were like sisters. Closer than sisters.’

‘It must have been hard when you lost her.’

‘Yes, it was.’

I turned my head to look towards the window. The top sash was open a foot or so and the cream-coloured curtains lifted softly in the air and then collapsed again, as if they were breathing. Outside were the familiar noises of traffic, children, music, dogs and the clatter of the kitchen being prepared for service in the restaurant down the road.

‘What did you say her name was?’

‘Ellen Brecht.’

‘What happened to her, Hannah?’

‘It was an accident. She drowned.’

‘Oh, how dreadful. Were you with her?’

‘No. I was in Chile. I only found out a long time after.’

Rina smoothed the bedlinen. ‘So you never had a chance to say goodbye?’

‘No.’

Rina gave a sad sigh. I looked up at her. I wanted her to understand.

‘We didn’t part on good terms, Ellen and I,’ I said. ‘The last time I saw her … The last time we spoke …’

‘Yes?’

The memory was like a pain inside me, like a fist clenched around my heart, bleak and cold as winter. I couldn’t put it into words. I couldn’t describe what had happened.

‘It was a misunderstanding,’ I said, although that statement was nowhere near significant enough to describe what had happened between Ellen and me. ‘I thought we’d be able to put things right, I thought there’d be plenty of time – but there wasn’t.’

Rina sighed. ‘These things happen. Young girls can be very passionate.’

The palm of her hand was flat on the bed.

‘Did something happen today to remind you of Ellen?’ she asked.

‘I dreamed of her last night.’

‘There you are then.’

It wasn’t unusual for me to dream of Ellen, though. I dreamed of her, and Thornfield House, most nights. The previous night I’d dreamed the big old house was derelict, burned-out, the roof caved in, the window-glass broken, the curtains grey and torn blowing through the shards, the trees and plants in the garden black and skeletal, cobwebbed, covered in ash. I was inside, searching the empty rooms, withered flowers scattered on bloodstained floorboards, looking for Ellen. I knew she was there somewhere – I could hear her crying in the distance – but in my dream, I couldn’t remember where I was supposed to look. I was walking blood through the house; it was wet on the soles of my bare feet; my hands were covered with it – each time I touched a wall I left behind a red smear. All the time the piano music was playing, winding round me like a mist; it was a requiem. And then the music faded and all that remained was the sound of Ellen crying as if her heart was breaking. ‘
Ellen!
’ I called. ‘
Where are you? Ellen?
’

She did not answer.

Rina said: ‘Hannah, shhh, it’s all right now,’ and I realized I must have cried out.

‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.

Rina looked concerned.

‘Perhaps you should have a break,’ she said. ‘You work so hard, dear, and I don’t remember the last time you had a holiday. Why don’t you take a few days off?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You’re right. Maybe I will.’

‘That’s good,’ Rina said. ‘Think of somewhere nice you can go. The countryside maybe? The coast?’

I lay warm and comfortable in the bed and allowed myself to be calmed by Rina’s presence. I knew I would eventually sleep. Lily crept up onto the pillow beside me, turned several circles and tucked herself up. I watched the gentle billow and lift of the curtain at the window and remembered the first time I saw Ellen, how it had been a bright, sunny day, how it was the day when everything began, and began to end, for both of us.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WAS A
long time ago, but not so far back as before; nearly two years after Jago and I spoke to Mrs Withiel. The memories are clearer now, sharp in my mind, the snapshots organized, if a little faded around the edges. It was the school summer holidays. I was ten and Jago was twelve. Jago still lived next door to me with his uncle and aunt, Caleb and Manda Cardell, and we were still the only children in Trethene village. Mrs Withiel had been dead for some time and Thornfield House had been boarded up and abandoned – left to go to pot, my father said. It had been sliding towards dereliction.

There had been a fight at the Cardells’ the night before. Dad had been out, working a late shift at RNAS Culdrose. Mum and I were at home, stoically trying not to listen to what was going on next door. Perhaps if we had had a phone Mum would have called for help, but none of the local authority-owned cottages in Cross Hands Lane had telephones in those days. It probably wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. People in Trethene didn’t interfere in other people’s business.

When something, or someone, crashed into the wall that divided the Cardells’ cottage from ours with such force that
the pictures on our side had jumped on their hooks and fallen crooked, Mum said, ‘I can’t listen to this any longer,’ and put on her coat with some unspecified plan in mind – but then the shouting had stopped. Mum and I had gone upstairs to look out of my bedroom window and we saw Mrs Cardell in the back yard, all blue and silver in the moonlight, shivering in a thin cardigan and slippers and smoking a cigarette. Mr Cardell had come out and the dog had hidden under the rabbit hutch. Mr Cardell had put both his arms round his skinny wife and held her tight and kissed her frizzy yellow hair. The two of them stood together, rocking. I could see the red light at the end of the cigarette that Mrs Cardell had dropped, winking up at her through the night.