In the Spider's House

by Sarah Diamond

  I felt somehow embarrassed to call out, and was standing there wondering what to do when I heard voices coming from the open doorway behind the till. At first they were distant, then closer—then they stayed where they were, muted but still clearly audible.

  ‘Oh, come on, Julie.’ A slightly aggressive young male voice, bullying rather than entreating—I had a clear mental image of its owner’s hand clasped round a female forearm in the narrow hallway. ‘Stay outside with me a bit longer. Won’t do no harm.’

  ‘I can’t. Nan’ll kill me if she finds out.’ The girl’s voice expressed the full helplessness of wanting to please everyone at once, having to make a choice. ‘She’ll be back this afternoon. What if someone says they been in and there wasn’t no one serving?’

  ‘Some chance. Don’t look like your nan has any customers from one month to the next.’ Clear contempt in the male voice, now. ‘Don’t know what you wanted to come and stay the weekend here for. It’s a right boring dump.’

  ‘Didn’t have no choice, did I? Mum made me.’ Irritable, now, increasingly resentful. ‘You didn’t have to come down today, you know.’

  ‘Maybe I wanted to, innit? See if I could spot the famous Rebecca Fisher.’

  ‘I told you. She’s gone.’ A new hushed note, shades of a car-crash rubber-necker. ‘They said they’d kill her if she stayed.’

  The voices started coming closer again, getting louder. ‘For real?’

  ‘For real. My nan heard about it off Uncle Harold. It was dead creepy.’

  On the last word, they appeared in the doorway behind the till—a large, spotty redhead who looked about fifteen and a lanky young man with greasy black hair in a ponytail. He barely reacted to the sight of me, but she did.

  ‘Oh, I’m ever so sorry,’ she said. ‘You been waiting long?’

  ‘No time at all,’ I said, ‘don’t worry about it. Twenty Benson and Hedges, please.’

  Afterwards, passing the village square again, I thought about what they’d said, and wondered what they’d meant by it. I found myself hurrying to a trot, longing to share this new turn of events with Carl.

  When I let myself in, the house was in silence. I went upstairs to find him sitting up sheepishly in bed as I entered our room. ‘I know, I’m a lazy sod—just want to make the most of my last good lie-in for a week,’ he said. ‘Looks like you survived the local shop, then?’

  ‘It seems mostly harmless. A bit spooky, but harmless.’ Sitting down on the bed, I went on quickly. ‘You know, I heard the weirdest thing when I was in there. Some teenage girl and her boyfriend talking—they seemed to think Rebecca Fisher used to live in the village.’

  ‘What, the Rebecca Fisher?’ He looked every bit as startled as I’d felt hearing it from them. ‘That’s insane.’

  ‘Well, it’s what they said, all right. They said someone threatened to kill her if she didn’t leave.’

  He frowned. ‘How did they know who she was?’

  ‘God, I don’t know—I just overheard them talking. I couldn’t exactly ask them for a recap. I felt like a bit of an eavesdropper as it was.’ I could read his carefully neutral, noncommittal look too clearly after almost two years of marriage. ‘You don’t believe a word of it, do you?’

  ‘Sounds like some sort of sick joke to me, Annie. Things like that don’t really happen. Not in a sleepy little place like this, anyway. My guess is, one of them was winding the other up. You know what teenagers are like.’

  In the shadows of Abbots Newton Stores, the revelation had had the power of oracle. Suddenly, however, it seemed ridiculous, transparently false. I felt as if I’d been breathlessly telling him about some spectacular news story—an ice-skating cat, a plant that could cure all known diseases—only to have him amiably point out that it was April the first.

  ‘Anyway, suppose I’d better get up at last,’ he said, swinging his legs out of bed. ‘Let’s go for lunch somewhere later, shall we?’

  I could see him deliberately not acknowledging my sheepish embarrassment, and blessed him for it—if it had just been sheepish embarrassment, his tactful response would have gone some way towards alleviating it. But sitting in the bedroom and hearing him start to brush his teeth, I realised that his down-to-earth scepticism had inspired a sharp rise of regret; I’d wanted to believe Rebecca Fisher had lived in this village, to believe in anything that could distract my mind from the prospect of tomorrow morning.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I WAS SURE to get used to these new surroundings, I told myself determinedly. It would be only a matter of time before everything around me took on the comfortable texture of familiarity. In that second week, while Carl was at work, I tried to bond with number four Ploughman’s Lane as I would have done with any major purchase—an expensive winter coat, a new computer—studying it from all angles in a mirror or poring over an inch-thick manual, trying to reassure myself that I did really like it, I hadn’t made a terrible mistake in a moment of consumer madness.

  When Carl was at home, everything was as pleasant as it had been the previous week; his delight in his new job turned everything comfortable and straightforward, we talked and joked and hugged as we’d done back in Reading. But, when the mornings came, the sound of his engine starting outside changed everything, and the rooms around me became faintly disturbing all over again. Not hostile, or threatening. Just other.

  Perhaps it was only when Carl was at work that I had the time or inclination to analyse its atmosphere. But I thought there was more to it than that. The house seemed to expand and intensify in the strangeness of unaccustomed solitude; it felt too well-attuned to quiet mornings, to chilly sunlight and hours that lasted slightly too long. Inasmuch as I’d noticed the walls at all, I’d thought them pure even-painted white, but when I came to look at them more closely, I saw that they had a slightly mottled look, random, wavery, almost untraceable patterns like the faint reflection of water. It wasn’t just the bathroom, I realised; the whole house had the smell and taste of age, unforgeable as old parchment bound in crumbling leather, the half-recognised understanding that generations had lived here before us.

  For all the thickness of its walls, the house seemed to actively deflect heat. In the mornings, it felt like a lukewarm bath on an equally tepid spring day. No matter how bright the day was outside, its shadows always looked a little too deep. It was a beautiful home in its own right, the country retreat of many urbanites’ dreams; endlessly I reminded myself of the fact, told myself how lucky we’d been to get it at all. Still, as the slow days passed, my misgivings grew worse rather than better, and a horrible feeling of wrongness began to accompany the shrilling of the alarm clock. Homesickness for Reading sank into me with rusty metal teeth, minutiae of my life there taking on the golden shades of nostalgia. This is never going to feel like home, I thought starkly, moving here was a terrible mistake, it’s all wrong…

  Endless quiet, interchangeable days, punctuated by housework. I always shopped at the Asda on the outskirts of Wareham, driving there and back just to get out of the village for an hour or so. I didn’t see any more of Liz next door, and, in my mind, she seemed more like a stranger than when we’d first met—now I knew about the ornaments and daughters and air of self-righteousness, she didn’t feel like someone I could just pop round and visit without remaining constantly on guard. Even in the depths of homesickness, the sight of her little powder-blue Fiat outside didn’t tempt me in the slightest. I desperately missed the company of people my own age, and people at work who hadn’t seemed particularly important at the time. Above everyone else, I missed Petra.

  During the daytime, she became my only real point of contact with the outside world. In Carl’s new job, he wasn’t able to email freely, and even when he had been, caution had edited his replies down to a four-line maximum. Petra had always been cheerfully indifferent to unwritten company rules governing personal correspondence, and I’d received the occasional epic from her in the past. Ironically, however, she seemed far busier than u
sual during those weeks—the long, determinedly cheerful emails composed from the computer in the spare room were always answered by short, apologetic paragraphs littered with strangers’ names, signed off with an extravagance of Xs as if in mitigation. It had always been the worst thing about Petra, if you could call something so integral to her entire character worst—the way her life was like a wildly popular, constantly packed restaurant, leaving you permanently unsure whether you were sitting at the top table or in Siberia.

  It was a ridiculous thing to worry about, the petty possessiveness of a primary school playground, but everything around me seemed to encourage it. I had the radio or CD player on most of the time; but, in a funny sort of way, that only seemed to underline the dead silence pressing in beyond the windows, the absolute absence of other life and movement. An atmosphere where you could feel your mind turning restlessly in on itself, gnawing at its own tail for the sake of something to do.

  While I tried to paper over my deepening misgivings about this place, it was inevitable that Carl would notice them. At first, I responded to his concerned questions evasively: I was just missing Reading a bit, I’d be all right soon. Acknowledging the way I really felt seemed unthinkable. We were here now, the mortgage in place, the phone connected, the carpets laid. It was far too late to sit down with him, confess I’d made a terrible mistake, explain I’d only be happy if we could somehow move back, away.

  Soon, however, the pressure of private anxiety became too much for me to bear. Three weeks after we’d moved in, I knew I’d have to share at least some of it with him.

  ‘Carl,’ I said, when we were sitting in the living room after dinner, ‘I never wanted to say this. But this place—it’s really getting me down.’

  He looked at me, startled. On the shelf behind him, the faux-Tiffany lamp tinted the dark room with rosy, baroque, antique-shop light. I forced myself to continue.

  ‘I just kept hoping it would get better, but it hasn’t done, at all. If anything, it’s getting worse. I’m missing Reading so badly. I feel so isolated, out here.’

  ‘Hey, come on.’ He leant forward, elbows on knees, looking shaken, like a man who’d received shocking news unexpectedly, and was trying very hard to present a calm face to the world. ‘We haven’t been here a month—you can’t judge yet. It’s bound to feel a bit strange, at first.’

  ‘Not this strange. I had no idea what it was going to be like out here, when I was alone all day.’ I felt awkwardly aware that I was describing an insoluble problem and, more than that, making it his problem too. ‘I know there’s nothing you can do about it, I know it’s not your fault—I know we can’t just up sticks again; this is home now. It just really scares me to think it’s always going to be like this. It’s so quiet when you’re not here. There’s nothing to do.’

  ‘Well, that’s it, isn’t it?’ I saw relief dawn rapidly in his eyes, as if a brand new factor had entered the equation, instantly reducing it from postgraduate level to a five-point question on a GCSE paper. ‘You’re just bored, Annie. I’m not at all surprised—I know you’ve been missing work, it must be a real culture shock for you. But that’s all it is. It’s not this place that’s upsetting you; you just need a new interest.’

  I wasn’t a hundred per cent sure that I believed him, but I wanted to so badly, I told myself I did. ‘You really think so?’

  ‘I know so. It’s perfectly natural—you must be desperate for something to do.’ The relief in his face had given way to an expression I recognised from a number of small emergencies—a power cut, a leaking pipe—eyes slightly narrowed, forehead creased, giving practical thought to a practical problem. ‘Why don’t you get to know some of the other people in the village? So far you’ve only really talked to the woman next door. No wonder you’re getting a bit lonely.’

  ‘That’s a good idea.’ I spoke cautiously, but felt anything but cautious—a kind of reckless optimism was beginning to take hold of me; I might not have made a mistake in moving here, this could feel like home after all. ‘Maybe I could get Liz to introduce me to a few people. She’s not really on my wavelength herself, but you never know, she might have some friends who are.’

  ‘And you could spend more time in the village. Go to the local shop instead of Asda. Get involved in whatever it is people do round here. Get your face known.’ He grinned. ‘It’s a lovely face. It’s a shame to hide it away here all day.’

  I smiled, suddenly wishing I’d raised this subject two days or two weeks ago. Vast obstacles began to look petty and ridiculous, my lonely exile in this house entirely self-imposed. ‘I’m going to start thinking positive,’ I said decisively. ‘Christ, I’ve been depressing. I must have been driving you up the wall.’

  ‘You’d never do that,’ he said, then, laughing at my quizzical expression and raised eyebrows, ‘well, maybe a bit…’ And I laughed with him, worries driven away by cheerful togetherness, looking forward to tomorrow for the first time in a fortnight.

  When he’d left for work the following morning, I got up as soon as the front door had closed behind him, ran myself a bath, looking out at the trees extending over the horizon. I was amazed all over again by how different the world seemed, how a single conversation had changed the feel of everything around me. I hadn’t embarked on a prison sentence in this house, but a whole new life; there were new people to meet, events to be part of, things to discover. Overcoming my fear of making first moves seemed a small price to pay in exchange for this new happiness.

  Of course, I was well aware that this fear could never be permanently overcome, but I was more than willing to struggle laboriously past it until strangers’ faces started to look familiar. After I’d washed and dressed, I decided to walk down to Abbots Newton Stores and get a few groceries we needed. Fresh optimism suddenly lent unexpected warmth and vivacity to my mental picture of that odd little shop—made it look like a hive of placid activity and Archers-esque gossip, a place to exchange casual pleasantries with the neighbours.

  My walk there passed quickly, and when I stepped into the shadows under the jangling bell, the overcrowded look of everything was exactly as I remembered it. I expected to see the teenage girl named Julie, but there was no sign of her. The woman behind the till looked about sixty, with a wiry thatch of white hair and a squashed-in, bulldoggish face.

  ‘Morning,’ she said, as I came in. ‘Lovely day, ain’t it?’

  She had a soft, gruff voice, a manner of ardent no-nonsense sociability. If I could talk to anyone in this village, I told myself, I could probably talk to her. ‘Gorgeous,’ I replied, then, steeling myself to continue, ‘the weather’s been lovely ever since I came here. My husband and I moved in a few weeks ago, but we haven’t really met anyone else in the village, yet.’

  ‘Oh, you will. It’s a friendly sort of place, by and large—I should know, I’ve lived here most of my life. Welcome to Abbots Newton, love. I’m Maureen Evans.’

  ‘I’m Anna Howell,’ I said. ‘Pleased to meet you. We live on Ploughman’s Lane now, next door to Liz Grey.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ A shrewd glint to Maureen’s deep-set dark eyes, a new note of confidence in the voice. ‘Suppose you’ll have heard all about her, then.’

  I looked at her, startled. ‘Liz?’

  ‘Oh, not Liz, love. Rebecca Fisher.’

  ‘Well,’ I said confused, ‘I’ve heard a couple of things. But I thought it was probably just…’ I was about to say silly gossip, and cast around for other, less offensive words without success. ‘Well, nothing much.’

  ‘Reckon you were wrong there.’ A brief pause before she spoke again. ‘Nothing much, my eye. Lived here all my life, I have, and I’ve never known anything like it.’

  Her tone had the unmistakable edge of gossip—a ghoulish prurience that stopped just short of malice. ‘Used to call in to buy her bits and pieces, she did. Called herself Geraldine. I thought she was a bit quiet at the time, not one to stay for a natter. But I didn’t think there was anything wrong with her. We
ll, you wouldn’t, would you? Not in a little place like this.’

  In the half-light, there was something fascinating about that voice. I spoke slightly more sharply than I’d meant to, as if to break the spell. ‘How do you know there was something wrong with her?’

  ‘I was just coming to that, dear.’ At first, she sounded slightly irritated, then continued in the same hushed tones. ‘I heard on the grapevine she’d started getting anonymous letters. Nasty ones, too. Didn’t know nothing more than that, at the time. Well, I can imagine she didn’t want word getting out about what they said. Don’t expect she’d have told nobody that, then. Only not long after, when she got home from Wareham, someone’d smashed all her windows in. Every last one. Her next-door neighbour was at work and all, nobody had heard a thing. She was hysterical, got the police round straight away.

  ‘My son-in-law’s with the local constabulary—he didn’t get called out that day but he heard all about it from the ones who did. There were notes tied round the rocks they smashed her windows with, you see, and this time, she showed the police what they said. Suppose she was too scared not to, in case they could help.’

  ‘What did they say? The notes?’

  ‘Ooh, they were frightening. All cut out of newspaper letters, they were, like something off the telly.’ A moment’s pause for effect, an indrawn breath recalling shock. ‘Get out Rebecca Fisher, that was one of them. And one saying, We know what you did. And there was three all said the same thing: This is your last warning.