The Woman in the Dark

by Vanessa Savage

  “Let the dead out?”

  “Let the history out. There are no ghosts, just memories. Ian Hooper is locked away and we’re free to make the house whatever we want. We’ll let the sea air blow it all out and fill the house with new memories.”

  “Have you noticed…”

  “Noticed what?”

  “There are cold spots in the house. The heat’s on, but sometimes I’ll walk across a room and it’s like the temperature drops by twenty degrees.”

  “It’s an old house—a lot of drafts.”

  She rolls her eyes at me. “Drafts. Right.”

  I smile and nudge her, refusing to let that ray of hope fade. “Come on, Mia—you’re too old to believe in ghosts. You’re letting your imagination get the better of you. I understand, I’ve been doing it myself, but we have to try.”

  “I suppose it could be all right.” She says it reluctantly, but she says it. It’s a start. “It’s nice to have a bit of peace at least—not have Caroline in and out all the time, like she lives with us.”

  I’m startled. I didn’t know it bothered her—Caroline was always there to step in, especially in the last few months, there to be the parent when I was failing at it. “You used to call her Aunty Caroline.”

  Mia snorts. “Maybe Aunty Caroline isn’t as good a friend as she pretends.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing. Forget it.” Mia glances at me. “It’s nice to see you so…”

  “What?”

  She shrugs. “Positive? It’s not Caroline who’s managed to do that, is it? I guess there’s got to be some hint of a silver lining to all this.”

  Joe’s coming down the stairs as we go back to the house, zipping up his hoodie.

  “Where are you off to?”

  “The fair,” he says, pulling a handful of change out of his pocket. “I’m going to make our fortune in the arcade. Want to come?”

  “I have to get on with the unpacking. Why don’t you two go together?” I get out my purse and give him a ten-pound note. “Go on—blow the lot.”

  He grins. “Come on, little sis,” he says, tugging at Mia’s hair.

  I watch them from my bedroom as they walk down the street, laughing and pushing each other. Seeing Joe smile like that—I can imagine telling him the truth, imagine him understanding and being able to cope with it. That feeling, that good feeling, in the pit of my stomach grows. We’ll be able to make it, I can tell. Patrick was right: it’s a good place. I wonder, for a moment, if Marie Evans felt this way when she moved in, but I push the thought away.

  I hear that wind chime again and open the window wide to see whose house is providing the music. As the sea breeze sweeps in and around the room, it feels like it’s blowing away more than lingering memories of death and murder: it’s blowing away some of the darkness and cobwebs that have taken residence in me. I was like the house, locked up and lost for too many years, slowly sliding into a pit I didn’t see coming.

  A stronger gust pulls the window wider and the vase of daffodils on the sill falls. The flowers get caught up and blown out into the street, landing at the feet of a woman walking past. “Sorry,” I call.

  She looks up, laughing. “Don’t be—it’s the first time anyone has ever scattered flowers at my feet.” She bends down to gather them up. She holds them and I smile at how it must look, her offering a bunch of flowers to me in the window. “Do you want them back?” she asks.

  “Keep them,” I say.

  She buries her nose in the daffodils, looking at the stack of boxes I’ve put outside the front door. “Thank you,” she says. “Have you just moved in? It should be me bringing you flowers to say welcome to the town.”

  “I like to do things differently.”

  “You’ll be very welcome if you greet all your new neighbors like this.” She smiles again. “I’m Anna, by the way.”

  “Sarah.”

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Sarah. Good luck with the unpacking, and I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

  I watch her walk away, my flowers in her hands, and I think I hear her humming. She showed no sign of morbid curiosity and I get that feeling of hope again. I’d never stopped to consider what this move could offer me—a new town, new friends, maybe a new job. It could be an adventure. It could be just the adventure I need. The wind from the sea blows in again and it feels, for a second, like it lifts me off my feet.

  But then I see Lyn Barrett step out of her house and I’m brought down with a thump. What’s she saying to make Anna glance back like that? Does she think I threw out her flowers deliberately? Is she telling her about the house, the murders? Is she telling her about Patrick, more of those needling innuendos? Or is she talking about the pill-popping rude woman who kicked her out? I lean out farther, as if their words might carry on the wind to me. What poisonous things is she saying?

  They’ll be next, the wind whispers. You don’t want to be friends with her. She’ll be dead soon, like Marie Evans, dead, dead, dead, nothing left but blood on the walls.

  I slam the window shut.

  No.

  Stop.

  I should be unpacking the rest of the boxes, but the sun’s shining and I have to get out, away from my thoughts. I’m chasing that feeling of hope again. I’ve walked the length of the promenade into town. There’s something particularly sad and lonely about a seaside town out of season. It’s Easter but half the shops are closed, and the beach is deserted, apart from the odd dog-walker. I’m thinking I might head over to the fair, buy my children that bag of chips. I wander onto a side street, stopping when I pass a gallery. This is the kind of place I imagine myself working. I could go in and ask, couldn’t I? Even a bit of volunteer work would put something on my résumé.

  The window display is taken up with a large seascape. Acres of blue, and in the foreground, a back view of a bench on the coast path, two figures seated, looking out to sea, a small dog curled up at their feet. It’s nice enough but unexceptional; cozy and chocolate-box. The paint is flat on the canvas, no sense of depth or awe in the landscape, despite the size of the painting.

  “What do you think?”

  I gasp and turn from the window to the woman who spoke. She grins at me, a big smile that’s somehow familiar.

  “Sorry, did I make you jump?” She’s laughing and I blush at my too-extreme reaction. It’s Anna, the woman I met earlier, the one who took my flowers home.

  “They survived the fall—the flowers. They really brightened up my apartment and my day. Thank you.”

  We smile at each other.

  “I pass this every day and I still haven’t decided,” she says.

  “Decided what?”

  “Friends or lovers?”

  “What?”

  “The people in the painting.” She nods at the seascape. “I can’t make up my mind if they’re an old married couple out for a walk or two friends stopped for a chat. Or illicit lovers on a secret rendezvous.”

  I look at the painting again. One of the figures is leaning in toward the other as if for a kiss or to whisper in her ear.

  “I think they’re strangers,” Anna says. “They’ve just met, right that minute, on the bench.”

  “They look closer than strangers.”

  “That’s because there’s a spark. Not romantic. That spark you get when you chat to a stranger and you think, we could be friends. Instant connection.”

  I had that with Caroline. We exchanged hellos on the first day of college and I knew instantly we’d be friends. I glance at Anna again. She’s taller than me, my age or a bit older. Short dark hair, sharp cheekbones. She’s wearing jeans, like me, but she has an edge: that thick black eyeliner, the cropped hair. Swap her Converse for DMs, add a few more piercings, and she could be one of the girls I wanted to be in art college.

  She smiles again. “Shit painting, though.”

  I laugh in surprise. I don’t want to admit it, but ever since I saw it, I’ve been thinking, I could do better.
>
  “It’s okay,” I say instead, an answer as insipid as the painting.

  There’s a silence that should be awkward but isn’t. “So, do you paint yourself, or are you just a critic?” I say. Maybe she’s familiar because she is one of the girls from art college I wanted to be, if not from my college, then some other fine arts course.

  “Not really,” she answers. “I wanted to, once. I was good at it at school, but… I don’t think I was ever good enough to do it for real. These days, I look at other people’s paintings, save up to buy some for my walls, and that’s enough for me. How about you?”

  I open my mouth to answer, then close it again. What am I these days? Can I call myself a painter? “I used to,” I say. “I used to paint. But, actually, I’m here trying to pluck up the courage to go in and ask for a job.”

  She makes a face. “Not many jobs around this time of year. Half the shops are seasonal—you might have better luck in the summer.” She steps closer to the window. “This painting always makes me laugh,” she says, and I look for the comedy in the seascape in the window.

  She points to the title card propped up against the canvas. “He’s called it The Heritage Coast but, come on, really? Bright blue? Calm water, not a cloud in the sky? Have you ever seen a view like that around here?”

  I shake my head. “It should be gray,” I say. “Gray and bleak and stormy.”

  She looks at me. “Not always. I know places where there are colors a million times more beautiful than this. Real colors too.”

  “Around here?”

  She nods. “Seriously. Beautiful, beautiful places.”

  I think for a moment she’s going to offer to show me and I stiffen, ready to make polite apologies and sidle away. But she sighs and picks up her shopping bag.

  “Better get back to work,” she says. “Nice to see you again. Maybe I’ll call around—bring you some flowers to say welcome to the town.”

  She turns at the corner. “Listen, I work part-time in the café on Broad Street when I’m not critiquing the town’s artists. Shit coffee but great service. Come in sometime—I’ll tell you where the good beaches are.”

  I should go home, carry on scouring the jobs ads in the local paper, but less than an hour after seeing Anna outside the gallery, I find myself heading for the café on Broad Street, choosing a table in the window and picking up the laminated menu. Anna slides into the seat opposite. “I didn’t think you’d take me up on it,” she says. “I’ll have to confess now—the service is as shit as the coffee.”

  “But aren’t you the service?”

  She laughs. “I’ll get you a coffee in lieu of the flowers I owe you—but don’t say you weren’t warned.”

  After she leaves I get out my sketchbook. I haven’t opened it since we got here. I’ve barely opened it since my mother died. Then the world seemed coated with a layer of gray and I haven’t wanted to draw or paint anything. Perhaps that’s where the distance between me and Joe has come from—we were always closest sketching together. I’m looking at a drawing I did of Joe and Mia, the two of them huddled together on the sofa, laughing, when a shadow appears on the page.

  “God, that’s good. Did you draw it?”

  I glance up, resisting the urge to snatch the book away as she pulls it toward her to look closer.

  “Are these your kids?”

  I nod.

  “They look so alike,” she says with a smile.

  I grimace and she notices. “Sorry, did I… ?”

  “It’s not a very good drawing.” I look closer at the sketch. I’m not doing the false-modesty thing—it’s not the best drawing of them I’ve done, but it’s one I keep coming back to. Anna’s right—despite the difference in their ages, I’ve made them look like twins.

  “Sarah,” she says, “I’ve got something for you.”

  She goes over to the counter and comes back with a leaflet. “We’re meant to be displaying them for the gallery, but I haven’t gotten around to putting one in the window yet. It’s not a job, but it is an opportunity.”

  The leaflet is advertising an open exhibition of local artists.

  “They have them quite often,” she says. “And they’re always looking for new artists to showcase. As you can imagine, the talent’s a bit limited in a town this size. You’d blow them away.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t—I couldn’t. I haven’t painted anything properly for months.”

  She’s flicking through my sketchbook again, pausing on a charcoal drawing of Patrick. I didn’t fix it, so it’s gone soft and blurry, but he’s still there.

  “It doesn’t have to be paintings. Why not frame some of your drawings? Come on, please give me something decent to look at in the gallery window.” She pushes the sketchbook toward me. “Speak to Ben Owens—he runs the place. Show him this book, see what he says.”

  She leans back. “Sorry. I’m freaking you out, aren’t I? I do this all the time. I’ll stop pestering you and leave you to your coffee. But come back in anytime. And if you change your mind about the gallery…” She scribbles her number on the leaflet, tucks it inside my sketchbook, and gets up. “It was nice to meet you again, Sarah.”

  She walks off, bangles jangling, and I think I’ve figured out why she seems familiar. She reminds me of Caroline, of the way we met, when she marched up to me, all two-tone hair, pierced nose, and confidence, on the first bewildering day at college.

  I clutch the leaflet as I walk home, and my heart pounds as I imagine it. I haven’t exhibited since college. I nearly had something lined up once, when Joe and Mia were in nursery part-time, but in the end, there wasn’t room for me. Caroline exhibited there instead and I stopped trying.

  “What’s this?” Patrick says when he gets in from work, picking up the leaflet I left on the table.

  “There’s a gallery in town,” I say. “It has exhibitions of local artists. I was thinking I could take some of my work down there and see if they’d be interested in me for the next one.”

  He doesn’t respond, so I continue: “I think it would be good for me—good for us.” I speak faster, words tumbling out in my rush of excitement. “If I did this, I could go out, start painting something new again. It would give me a purpose. And maybe I might sell a couple and that would help, wouldn’t it? It would help pay for paint and wallpaper at least.” I could help him make this place perfect.

  Patrick is frowning down at the leaflet.

  “What is it?” I say.

  “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well… you did less than two years at art college.” He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “I think you’re an amazing painter, you know that. But everyone else will be a professional, with years of experience. Wouldn’t it be better to start smaller? Something less… public?”

  I can’t help but look toward the hall, where Patrick’s put one of my paintings on the wall. I did it after I agreed to move here, when I got out of the hospital. It was supposed to be this house as Patrick sees it, but it came out wrong, something a bit weird about the angles and colors. I tried to hide it, but Patrick found it and insisted on displaying it. He follows my gaze.

  “I love your paintings, of course I do, because you painted them.” He sighs and pulls me into his arms. “It’s fine as a hobby, but an exhibition? Are you really ready for that?”

  I pull away. “It was just an idea.”

  I’m halfway out of the room when he calls after me, “Hey, don’t worry. If you really need to do this and no one wants your paintings, I’ll come in and pretend to be a stranger and buy one. I won’t let you be the only one with nothing sold.”

  He’s right. I got carried away listening to Anna raving over my drawings. I’m being silly. I pick up my phone and make a call as I go upstairs.

  “Anna? It’s Sarah… Yes, Sarah with the flowers. Listen, I shan’t go for that exhibition. I’m—I’m not a real painter; I don’t want to make a fool of myself. But I was w
ondering… have you got time for a coffee?”

  In my dream, the dream I have about the house that’s just a house and not yet the Murder House, all the rooms on the corridor have doors and all the doors are closed. Whenever I have this dream, the doors are always closed. But. But… I think… one of the doors was open in my dream last night. I woke up and I think I shouted or yelled or something but it was okay: there was no one to hear.

  Did you wake up last night? Did the sound of my screaming carry? Did the sea wind pick it up and carry it through the town, through your walls? Did you wake up to the echo of my voice with the hairs rising on the back of your neck?

  CHAPTER 8

  I make sure I’m up early for Joe and Mia’s first day at school. Joe’s putting drawings into his portfolio and Mia’s pushing toast around a plate, but they both stop to watch as I take my pills out of the cupboard. The whole house hovers on pause until I swallow the pill and the play button is pressed again. I follow Joe and Mia out onto the path to wave them off. Their new school is only a short distance away and I wish they were still young enough to want me to walk them there. But my children are seventeen and fifteen—they’d rather die than have their mother with them. I get a muttered goodbye and I stand on the path, my arms wrapped around myself to ward off the sea breeze, watching them until they reach the end of the road.

  I swallow, force a breath, and walk back toward the house, stopping when I see someone on the coast path, half-hidden in the morning mist. They’re facing away from the sea, looking at me, and in the cold morning light, it’s anger surging, not fear, as I stride over the road onto the path.

  “Hey,” I call to the figure, now walking away. “What is your problem?” But I’m shouting at nothing, shouting into the wind. Whoever it was has disappeared over the hill. I’m halfway up, out of breath and freezing in a thin T-shirt. I walk back down, passing number twenty-eight, where Lyn watches me from an upstairs window. Patrick’s in the doorway of our house, putting on his jacket, and I brush past him on my way back inside.