In the Spider's House

by Sarah Diamond

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Muriel. Why would anyone go to all that trouble, unless they knew for sure?’ Helen’s voice was brisk and impatient. ‘Myself, I’m just glad to know she’s gone. Thank God for small mercies.’

  I racked my brains to find further questions before this subject drifted away. ‘Did any of you have anything much to do with her while she lived here?’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t here for long—no more than two months or so, if that,’ said Liz. I looked at her, startled. ‘It all happened so soon after she moved in, none of us really had a chance to get to know her. I invited her in for a cup of tea one afternoon, come to think of it.’

  I saw Muriel’s little moue of recollected horror from the corner of my eye, but my full attention was focused on Liz, her unexpected key to my central character. ‘What did you think of her?’

  ‘She seemed rather shy. Reserved. Perfectly normal, apart from that. I must say, I didn’t really take to her, although I daresay that’s just hindsight.’ Across the table, Liz looked thoughtful. ‘I don’t think she made any friends around the village, before it all started.’

  ‘What about that vet, Liz?’ Muriel asked timidly. ‘That Mr Wheeler?’

  ‘Goodness, I forgot all about that. She had a little dog, a sort of terrier—I only saw it once or twice; she seemed to keep it inside towards the end. She must have taken it to Mr Wheeler soon after she moved in, and got to know him that way. I saw him coming and going next door quite often. Of course, I recognised him—there’s only one vet’s practice round here, in Wareham. He certainly spent a lot of time next door while she was living here. To be honest, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something going on between them.’

  ‘Of course there was.’ If Liz had spoken with casual acceptance of the idea, Helen had never sounded chillier or more judgemental. ‘I saw them walking together in the village, more than once. A disgrace, I call it—that man hadn’t been divorced for a year, at the time. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she’d had something to do with that. For all we know, they’d been carrying on for months before she arrived here.’

  I’d rarely felt as ill at ease with a stranger as I did with Helen, but sheer surprise overcame that for a second and I spoke as frankly and impulsively as I would have done to Petra or Carl. ‘You can’t know that. It sounds harmless enough to me. What’s so terrible about it?’

  ‘I suppose young people don’t have quite the same moral standards, these days.’ There was no trace of irony in her voice, and her smile was thin, perfunctory, sunless. ‘Even if he hadn’t been so recently divorced, the woman was Rebecca Fisher—what sort of man would want anything to do with someone like that?’

  I didn’t say anything else, forced myself to nod earnestly; we’d never understand each other, I realised. On any given topic, the two of us would be poles apart. It was a relief when Liz spoke again, and I had an excuse to look at her instead. ‘Well, that’s all water under the bridge now, thank goodness. Would anyone like some more tea?’

  It seemed that the vague shape of Rebecca Fisher was disappearing over the horizon. Inevitably, the conversation moved on to other, less controversial people and events in the village but, while I listened and nodded politely, most of my mind was somewhere else, lost deep in thought. Remembering the studded collar in the kitchen cupboard again, I found myself wondering whether Rebecca had liked all animals, or just dogs; if she’d been the sentimental, adoring kind of pet owner, or the brisk, no-nonsense type who behaved more like a practical, responsible, undemonstrative parent. As the three different voices flowed on and on around me, I realised that I didn’t have a clue, felt my mind like an ancient computer overloaded with conflicting data, monitor blinking a random infinity of symbols that meant nothing.

  When I let myself into the house through the back door, it had just gone half-three in the afternoon. A faint hint of stale smoke and ash hung on the still air, and the silence seemed heavier and more ambiguous than it had done earlier. I opened the windows and put the radio on, thinking back to Liz and Helen and Muriel—how they’d told me things, without really telling me anything.

  Extraordinary, I thought, how three completely different women could all be so paralysingly unobservant. They’d seen Rebecca Fisher, lived alongside her, and Liz had even chatted to her over a nice cup of tea. Thinking about that meeting, I found I could visualise it only too clearly. The big, prosperously crowded kitchen and ginger biscuits at the table, small talk about how difficult it was to move house, and what the village was like, and nothing in the world that really mattered. Even knowing what she did now, I didn’t think Liz would look back and kick herself for not asking and noticing more, didn’t think she’d even find herself replaying that mental footage from time to time, alert to small details she might have missed. Rebecca Fisher had been pure evil, and then she’d been perfectly normal, and that was all there was to the situation—straightforward as two plus two equalling four; only an idiot could possibly argue.

  But there was far more to her than that, I thought. There had to be. Everything around me hinted mockingly at the three-dimensional reality of the woman, the too-beautiful child who’d stabbed her best friend to death. It frustrated me beyond words to feel the truth of her life hidden away from me—my new idea was entirely dependent on its central character, and only Rebecca Fisher could breathe life into it. And there was something else there, too, that I barely acknowledged to myself: alone in this house, I found it deeply disturbing not to know what it had contained before, what secret rooms and byways had existed in its previous owner’s mind.

  Abruptly I hurried into the living room, towards the Yellow Pages under the telephone table. As Liz had said, there was only one vet’s practice listed for Wareham. I dialled the number quickly, before I could think better of it. The ringing tone began down the line. My heartbeat quickened.

  ‘Wareham Veterinary Surgery. Can I help you?’

  A female voice, simultaneously kindly and harassed—I could hear another phone ringing faintly in the background. ‘Oh, hello,’ I said, trying very hard to sound confident. ‘Is there any chance I could talk to Mr Wheeler?’

  ‘I’m afraid he’s in surgery at the moment. Can I help you at all?’

  Damn—but I knew it would be the same story tomorrow, or this time next week, and there was nothing I could do but tell the truth. ‘Well, I hope so,’ I said. ‘This might sound like a weird thing to ask, but I’m researching a novel at the moment—I’ve had one published before, called A Deeper Darkness. My name’s Anna Jeffreys.’

  Silence down the line. I pressed on, struggling for the right note of brisk professionalism. ‘I was wondering if I might be able to talk to him. I wouldn’t take up much of his time, just fifteen minutes or so. Any time that’s convenient, of course. I’d be very grateful.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t sound as if it should be much of a problem…’ I couldn’t help being faintly amused by the new note of surprised near awe in her voice, as if I’d rung up from Miramax inviting the vet in for a screen test. ‘If you leave your number, I’ll pass it on to him when he’s free. I’m sure he’d be only too happy to help.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ I said. ‘That’s great.’

  After I’d given her my number, I went back into the kitchen, where I lit another cigarette and unearthed the notes I’d written earlier. Now I could see some clear way into the centre of this novel, I rediscovered the fascination with them that I’d experienced first thing that morning.

  Maybe three-quarters of an hour after I’d sat down, the phone shrilled in the hallway and, putting my pen down, I hurried to answer it.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, is that Anna Jeffreys?’ It was a quiet, level male voice, pleasant and unemotional in equal measure—a voice you could trust to care about your pets in the same low-key way its owner would care about his own.

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘This is Colin Wheeler. I got the message you left at reception earlier, and thou
ght I’d give you a ring. I must say, I was a bit surprised—couldn’t help thinking you must be after a different man.’

  ‘Not at all, I’ve definitely got the right person.’ Despite myself, I was startled by how easy this conversation felt. I’d expected it to be uphill all the way, but it was like talking to an old friend. ‘As I said earlier, I’m researching my second novel, and wondered if you’d mind if I came in and talked to you for ten minutes or so. Whenever it suits you—I understand you must be busy.’

  ‘Well, that’s the life of a local vet for you. I never thought anyone would want to write about it, though. What sort of thing would you like to find out?’

  Actually, I was interested in finding out about Rebecca Fisher and what she was really like—the words were almost out of my mouth before I realised they’d be a mistake. It was too easy to imagine his quick knee-jerk response: Oh, I can tell you that now, she was very nice, much like anyone else—leaving me with no polite option but Thanks very much, bye. He had known her, perhaps even loved her, and I instinctively sensed that I’d be able to find out far more face-to-face.

  ‘Oh, just this and that,’ I said quickly, ‘nothing to worry about. When do you think would be a good time for me to come in?’

  We agreed that I’d visit him on Friday at twelve noon. I thanked him very much and hung up. Back in the kitchen, I made a few more notes before starting on dinner and waiting for Carl to come home.

  CHAPTER NINE

  CARL HAD NEVER really understood how uncomfortable I’d been telling people about my writing—or, perhaps more accurately, he’d never understood why I felt that way. Impossible to explain that it felt too private to easily share with indifferent near-strangers, that I’d only let it be known at work after an overheard phone-call from my agent left me with little choice in the matter; on holiday, meeting new people beside Carl, I’d always say I worked as a PR officer for my local council and leave it at that. And I’d sense his guarded, slightly wary puzzlement throughout the rest of the encounter. I don’t know why you didn’t just tell them, Annie, he’d say later, I really don’t understand you, sometimes. I hated the expression he always wore at those times—as if I was dragging him into an odd and slightly sinister conspiracy he wanted no part of.

  He distrusted secrecy intensely. It was a key element of his personality, in some way seeming to hold the DNA blueprint for everything else about him—the career-minded pragmatism, the love of state-of-the-art technology and doing the right thing. Perhaps it was nurture as much as nature, the result of growing up in a household where everything was absolutely as it should be. Whatever the reason, he was as ill at ease with hidden things in his life as he would have been heading through Customs with a small bag of cocaine in his pocket; it was all-important to his peace of mind that people could look, if they wanted, and find nothing that shouldn’t be there.

  For that exact reason, I was very unwilling to tell him about my conversation with Mr Wheeler and admit that, if I hadn’t actually lied, I had at the very least colluded in a serious misapprehension. I knew only too well how he’d react, and how he’d interpret it. He’d see it as the worst possible thing: secrecy for its own sake, feverishly concealing an entirely inoffensive truth. It would turn his mind back to other things I’d told him about before we’d married, things he’d ended up telling his parents shortly afterwards. The more I thought about it, the more clear-cut the situation became. I couldn’t possibly let him know about the vet.

  It didn’t matter, I told myself; my imminent visit to the Wareham surgery was no more important than dozens of things he did at work every day and I never knew about; his tales from the office generally involved nothing more personal than a joke someone had emailed round or the too-ambitious sales targets Head Office had set for next season. At the same time, though, I was well aware that it was more important and that I was lying to myself. Every evening, I felt it burning in my mind, and tried to pretend it wasn’t there. And I could feel him comfortably attributing my preoccupation to the broad outline of the novel; of course I was thinking about it a lot at the moment, but soon it would lose the urgency of novelty and I’d be able to settle down again.

  During the day, I spent most of my time making notes in the kitchen, at once unnerved by the feeling of solitude here and intrigued by it—a multi-layered sensation that was practically impossible to rationalise. Socks came round occasionally when Liz was at work. His presence never failed to dilute the tension with easy domesticity—nothing could be further removed from the darkness of Rebecca Fisher than an amiable ginger cat in search of milk and companionship. The reassurance of knowing there was something else alive in here, purring in a square of sunlight, lapsing into feline dreams.

  Intense restlessness for Friday, impatience, the time seeming to pass too slowly. My thoughts obsessively circled the place where Rebecca’s character should have been, knowing there was nothing there but empty space, returning every few minutes just to make sure she hadn’t miraculously sprung into fully formed life. And as they came back, they always passed directly over other things; the quiet tensions of the house I’d grown up in, and that endless terrifying autumn somewhere else, and the places I was in most agony never to return to.

  I’d expected the practice on the outskirts of Wareham to be virtually deserted on a weekday lunchtime—from what I’d seen of the town so far, it seemed a safe enough bet. But when I came in at quarter to twelve on Friday, I was surprised by how busy it was. The rows of plastic chairs in reception were crowded with owners bearing animals; I counted three cats, four dogs and something unidentifiable in a cage. A couple of little kids ran around shrieking, drawing irritable glances from everyone but their mother. The phone rang incessantly, even as the harassed-looking receptionist spoke quickly and purposefully into another line.

  ‘So I’ll book you in for Monday the twentieth,’ she was saying. ‘See you then. Bye.’ She looked up as I approached, with the air of an efficient woman trying to do far too many things at once. ‘Can I help you?’

  I’d expected to feel awkward and slightly embarrassed, and I did—I forced myself to speak with a semblance of confidence. ‘I rang up on Tuesday. My name’s Anna Jeffreys. I arranged to talk to Mr Wheeler for ten minutes or so this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh, you’re the writer. He told me about that—it’s not often he gets interviewed.’ The phone’s relentless shrilling had become impossible to ignore. ‘If you take a seat, I’ll call you when he’s free,’ she said, then, ‘hello, Wareham Veterinary Surgery?’

  I sat beside an elderly lady with a Yorkshire terrier on her knee, and waited. The walls were covered with posters, and I scanned them as the minutes passed. PetPlan Insurance. Wareham Cattery. ‘Miss Jeffreys?’ the receptionist called at last. ‘If you’d like to go through.’

  Mr Wheeler turned out to be a tall man in his early forties, with receding brown hair and a kindly, mournful, bloodhoundish face. He was dressed in a white coat, all amiability as I came into the small, functional consulting room. He seemed every bit as approachable as he had done over the phone, and I couldn’t help but wonder what had drawn him to Rebecca Fisher.

  ‘You must be Anna Jeffreys,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  We shook hands, and he gestured for me to take the single plastic chair. ‘It was quite a surprise to hear from you,’ he went on. ‘I had no idea we had any writers in the area.’

  ‘Well, I only moved in recently.’ I had a sudden mental image of word somehow filtering back to Liz, Helen, Muriel and Maureen, the soul-destroying references to my book’s apparent absence from bookshops picking up where they’d left off in Reading. It was the very last thing I wanted, I realised, and I was prepared to sound more than a little eccentric to try and stop that happening. ‘I’d really appreciate it if you kept it to yourself—I haven’t really told anyone else round here.’

  ‘That’s very modest of you.’ It was a habitual misinterpretation, and one I had no real urge to explain furthe
r. He carried on pleasantly. ‘So where are you living now?’

  ‘Abbots Newton. Four Ploughman’s Lane.’ Seeing the recognition and surprise dawning in his eyes, I forced myself to continue. ‘Actually, I’m afraid I might have misled you a bit, about what I wanted to find out. To be honest, I really wanted to discuss Rebecca Fisher—I heard she’d lived in our house, before we moved in. Someone mentioned that you’d known her, and I wondered if you’d be able to tell me a bit about what she was like. I…’

  My words tailed off uneasily—in the space of a few seconds, his face seemed to have changed completely. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, bewildered. ‘Did I say something to upset you?’

  ‘Not at all.’ But his voice was completely different too, cold and taut, trembling just below the surface with something that almost sounded like hatred. ‘I’m very glad that the village ghouls have found a more imaginative way of approaching me at last. You know, they normally just stop me on the street, and ask, Was it really true you knew her? Isn’t it a mercy she’s gone now?’ His voice rose to a savage, pitch-perfect imitation of a gossipy old woman, cracked and quavery. ‘I never knew any of them would have the brains to dream up a story like yours, researching a novel—congratulations, that’s very clever. You know, I honestly believed you, at first.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ My own voice seemed to be coming from a long way off. ‘I don’t know what you—’

  ‘You know, I’d have thought you were all tired of hounding her by now. But obviously it’s not enough, even after she’s been forced out of her own home. Even after her little dog was killed to make her leave. Want to know the full story, do you? If I could sense something evil about her? If I recognised her from the old photograph?’ A kindly bloodhound of a man, I’d thought him—now he faced me, snarling. ‘If you want to see evil in that bloody village, look at your neighbours, who watched that woman reduced to a gibbering wreck without lifting a finger. Or look at yourself, gloating over the details. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’