by S M Hardy
‘Hello?’ I called. My voice sounded forced and hollow. I made myself take a step inside. Paper crackled beneath my feet. I looked down. How had I not noticed before? Several curled and yellowed flyers and a few envelopes lay on the doormat. ‘Hello?’
I took another couple of steps and the door shut behind me with a solid click, making me glance back in panic. No one was there. I was all alone. I took a shuddery breath.
Dust and several dead flies coated the hallstand where a phone book lay open, a pen resting between the pages. I carried on walking past the staircase until I reached the office-cum-sitting room. The door was ajar. I pushed it open, afraid of what I might find.
The desk had been cleared. All that remained was a blotter and a desk tidy containing an assortment of pens, pencils, a stapler and paperclips. The large, black leather-bound Bible I’d seen before lay at the corner of the desk. Otherwise the room was the same. Logs burnt to ash and charcoal in the fire grate, and an open old-fashioned record player in the corner.
I glanced down at the floor next to the sagging leather couch where I’d sat. No abandoned cup and saucer to confirm my visit, but then he would have picked it up and taken it away, I told myself, though I was increasingly beginning to believe that maybe, just maybe, Jed and Emma were telling me the truth.
I wandered out into the hallway and towards the back of the house. The large kitchen was all that I’d expect there to be in an old rectory: old-fashioned but functional. A once-white butler sink, green-stained from a now-dry dripping tap, solid dark wood cupboards and worktops, a large oak table and chairs in the centre.
An old gas cooker sat against the outside wall between more cupboards and next to the sink was a fairly modern washing machine, which together with a stand-up fridge-freezer in one corner looked incongruous alongside the pre-war decor.
Yellow gingham curtains hung at either side of the one grimy window overlooking the garden and another wilderness of overgrown grass and brambles, the product of at least two summers of neglect.
I ran a finger over the kitchen table; it came away thick with dust. An overwhelming sense of despair flowed over me. How could I go on like this? How could I stand this loneliness? And for a moment a very deep darkness scuttled around the edge of my consciousness and was gone, then I wondered what the hell I was thinking.
What was I thinking? It was like the sudden senseless anger I’d felt the day before; an uncalled-for and unwarranted emotion that had risen up inside me from nowhere. I hurried out of the kitchen and started towards the front door, but as I reached out to open it, I felt a sudden chill on the back of my neck like cold fingers caressing the soft down at the top of my spine.
I hesitated, my hand dropping to my side. A feeling of dread tightened my chest and my stomach gave a little flip. I didn’t want to turn around, but I knew I must. I had to. Although I knew without doubt I was about to see something I didn’t want to see, I knew I had no choice. I turned.
‘Oh, dear God,’ I whispered and swung around to frantically grapple with the door to try and get out.
For a few panicked moments I thought I was trapped. Somehow the latch had clicked down, dead-bolting the door, and it took me a few interminably long seconds to release it. Then I was outside, door slammed shut behind me, bent double with hands on knees, hyperventilating.
‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.’
Gradually my heart stopped its hammering and my breathing slowed to something near normal and I managed to stand upright. I slowly made my way to the gate but had to stop for a moment, not quite sure whether my legs were about to give way beneath me.
I glanced back at the rectory, at the peeling paintwork and dirt-streaked windows, and quickly looked away again. I guessed I was scared I might see Peter Davies pull back the rotting net curtains to give me a farewell wave. Though maybe not now I’d seen what had become of him.
I assumed he must have tied the rope to the banister rail at the top of the stairs as he wasn’t hanging neatly in the middle of the staircase like in the films but sideways on, the toes of his scuffed black leather shoes peeking through the downward posts.
I’d only seen one side of his face and that was bad enough. Dark purple, mottled flesh had swollen to practically engulf the rope around his neck. His wire-framed glasses had slipped off one ear and hung there lopsided across his face. His lips had pulled back into a rigor grin, the tip of his bloated, purple tongue peeping out between yellowing teeth.
And Jed had found him like this. Poor bugger.
By the time I’d reached the cottage my legs were working normally again.
I fumbled around in my pocket searching for my keys and couldn’t find them. I was sure I remembered snagging them off the hallstand as I left. I rammed my hands back in my pockets. No keys. My day was getting better and better.
I leant my shoulder against the front door; it was as though all my strength had drained away leaving me limp and bone-achingly tired.
I forced myself to stand upright. If I had truly either lost or left the keys behind I was going to have to walk back to Emma’s to ask Jed to lend me his set. That’s if he had one. If not, it would probably be a trip to the estate agents in town, and without having my car keys, which were left safely inside the house, that wouldn’t be much fun.
In one last forlorn attempt to find my keys I patted down my jacket pockets, starting at the top, even though I knew they definitely wouldn’t be there, and worked my way down, postponing the inevitable for as long as possible.
Nothing there, nothing there, nothing there or there. Then something hard and lumpy at the bottom of the right-hand side of my jacket. I stuffed my hand back inside. Nothing!
I wasn’t about to give up without one last-ditch attempt. I pulled out a crumpled but clean tissue and ran my fingers along the bottom of the pocket and there, right in the back corner, the stitching had given away. The hole felt tiny, too small for a set of two keys to push through, but somehow they had. Grasping the bottom edge of my jacket, slowly but surely I eased the keys along the lining to the hole until my fingers touched cool metal and wriggled them through, a few extra stitches giving in the process. What the heck – it would need mending anyway.
I was almost there but something had caught in the stitching. I could feel both keys between my fingers, they were through. Maybe the ring they were attached to had caught. I turned it around and around hoping to free it without doing any more damage to the lining, but I was beginning to lose patience. I gave the keys a tug and felt more stitches give, but even so the damn things still wouldn’t come free. I pushed my finger through the hole. There was something else there, something cylindrical. What the hell was that?
‘For Christ’s sake,’ I muttered and gave another more violent tug, and with the sound of ripping material I yanked the keys out of my pocket.
I lifted them up to the lock and stopped. There should be two keys; two keys on a plain ring. Nothing else, only two keys. There were two keys. I recognised them both. One was plain and gold-coloured; it opened the back door. The other was one of those cutesy, patterned keys you could get cut these days. This one was of a red, white and blue Union Jack design. There was also something else, something I had never seen before, a two-inch-long tube. It wasn’t caught up on the keys or the ring – it was attached.
The keys jangled together as I lifted them up with shaking fingers to take a better look at the mysterious interloper. It was a whistle; a silver dog whistle.
I laid one hand against the door to hold myself upright. I couldn’t have not noticed. The estate agent had sent me the keys by post in a Jiffy bag. Two keys, that was all. I tugged on the whistle. It was attached to the ring by a triangular link. Even after a tug the ends of the link stayed firmly closed together. I put the Union Jack key in the lock, secretly hoping it wouldn’t open the door. That these were another set of keys. Someone else’s set of keys. The key turned, I pushed against the door and it swung open.
‘OK, OK, there’s a
n explanation for this. A simple explanation,’ I told myself as I walked into the hallway. ‘This is a spare set. That’s it.’
I went straight to the hallstand. No second set, my set, lying on top. I pulled open the narrow drawer at the front – it was empty. I dropped down on my knees to search the floor. No other set of keys.
This was madness. It was madness and it was me who was going mad. I strode into the kitchen and dropped the keys on the table. I needed a drink. I flicked on the kettle, turned to reach for the coffee and stopped. On the work surface below the cupboard where I kept the jar of coffee was my bottle of malt and next to it a single whisky glass.
I stared at it. I had put it away. I remembered putting it away, putting them away, the bottle and the glass. I had put them away in the cabinet in the living room and locked the door.
I closed my eyes and opened them again. The bottle and glass were still there. I rubbed the back of my hand across my lips. Oh God, I could do with a drink. I could hear the kettle starting to boil, see the steam streaming out of the spout. My eyes were drawn back to the bottle and glass.
Slowly and deliberately I reached up above them, opened the cupboard and took down the coffee jar. I needed coffee. Just coffee. I took the mug and spoon I had used earlier from the drainer and gave them a cursory wipe before spooning coffee into the mug and filling it with water.
My eyes were drawn back to the whisky. Just a small drop in my coffee instead of milk would be OK. I’d had a bad morning. It would be for medicinal purposes. My nerves were shot; whose wouldn’t have been after seeing what I had seen?
The image of Jed, his hand raised, tilting it back and forth when he spoke of the reverend’s little problem sprang into my mind. I made myself open the fridge, take out a carton of milk and slop a large slug into my mug.
I slumped down at the kitchen table, my back to the bottle and glass. Out of sight, out of mind. Not a hope. The coffee didn’t taste right. I gave it a sniff. It didn’t smell right either. I slammed the mug down onto the table, got up and yanked open the fridge door with a force that rattled the contents. I snatched at the milk carton, unscrewed the lid and took a sniff. It didn’t smell off. Putting the lid back on, I peered at the use-by date. By my reckoning it was good for at least another three days. I shoved the milk back in the fridge and slammed the door.
‘It must be the water,’ I muttered to myself. The water company were always messing about with it, filling it with chlorine or fluorine or some other damn chemical that none of us needed or wanted. Hadn’t there been some village in the West Country who had almost been poisoned by an overdose of something the water company had put in their supply? Fucking nanny state.
I stomped the two paces it took to get back to the table and as I pulled out the chair I glanced back over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of the whisky bottle and glass. I licked my lips. It was almost noon; not as though it was ten o’clock in the morning. If I’d been on holiday, lying on a beach somewhere in Spain or the south of France, I wouldn’t think twice about having a beer or rum and Coke. And I was on holiday, after all.
Fuck it, I was a grown man. I could have a drink if I wanted one. I deserved a drink, didn’t I? Why should I care what anyone bloody well thought? Was there anyone left who I cared enough about that I worried what they thought? They’d all left me or forgotten me. She’d left me. She’d bloody well left me.
‘Yeah, fuck her,’ I said, reaching for the bottle, when my mobile began to ring from somewhere within the cottage.
I stopped, stock-still, my fingers hovering a hair’s breadth from the whisky. The phone continued to ring, a familiar jaunty little ditty made famous by Barry White. My eyes began to bubble up and my hand dropped to my side as I looked around the kitchen. Where was my mobile? Where was my fucking mobile? I had to take the call. No one else who rang me had that ringtone. It could only be one person, but she couldn’t possibly ever ring me again.
The phone carried on ringing as I ran out into the hallway, then stopped to listen. It sounded like it was coming from the living room. The door was open, but when I went inside I could hear that the phone wasn’t in there. And still it rang.
I ran back into the hall. When was the last time I’d seen it? In the bedroom? In the bedroom on the bedside table? I pounded up the stairs, the sound of the ringtone getting louder with each step. I ran along the corridor and swung into the bedroom. The phone lying on my pillow filled my vision. I strode across the room, picked it up and the ringing stopped.
‘No,’ I murmured, ‘please, no.’
I tapped in my code. No missed calls. No unlistened-to messages. I keyed in 1471. I recognised the number as the estate agents, who I’d spoken to a day or so ago. I sank down onto the bed. What was happening to me? I’d heard the phone ring. It had rung. It had been Kat’s ringtone. ‘My first, my last, my—’ A small dark patch appeared on the leg of my jeans and then another. I swiped a hand across my face and it came away wet.
‘Oh, Kat,’ I said and flopped back on the bed and closed my eyes. ‘Oh, Kat.’
The light was beginning to fade, and my eyelids felt sore and gritty, my face tight. For a moment I was disorientated, then I realised I was still clutching the phone in my hand. I checked the time and dropped it onto the bedside table with a sigh. She hadn’t phoned me; she couldn’t phone me. It had been a malfunction of some kind, or wishful thinking.
Then I remembered I had somewhere to be. Emma’s get-together and I really, really did not feel like mingling at the moment. I wondered if I didn’t turn up, would she think it incredibly rude? Then an awful thought occurred to me – what if she’d arranged it especially so I’d get to meet a few locals? She hadn’t said as much, but judging by the sort of lady she was I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she’d made a few hasty phone calls.
If there was any possibility that this was the case, I’d have to go. Funny, I’d always been the gregarious one while Kat was happier to stay at home. I literally had to coax her to come out sometimes. She had particularly hated work dos, though I couldn’t blame her. Even so I think she would have liked Emma and she certainly would have girded her loins for this event. In fact, she’d have fitted right in here. This is something we should have done together. It would have been right for us.
Money had been my god. Pity it had taken me so long to realise it was a false one.
I guessed Emma’s gathering wouldn’t be a formal kind of event, so after downing a quick sandwich I dressed in slate-grey chinos, teal shirt and grey jacket. I didn’t bother with a tie.
As I opened the front door it occurred to me that I should take something with me as a thank you gift or at least a contribution. I hurried back into the kitchen and opened the fridge, hoping for inspiration or at least a bottle of wine. Then I remembered. I hadn’t bought any white. Why would I? It was Kat who drank the stuff; apart from the occasional lunchtime glass, I almost always drank red.
I pushed the fridge door shut with a sigh, my earlier misery bubbling up inside me again. Feeling sorry for myself was not good, not good at all and achieved nothing. I stalked into the living room to get a bottle of red. I knew I had a couple of those.
I turned the key in the lock of the drinks cabinet and pulled it open, reaching for a bottle of red. My fingers closed around the bottle’s neck and I paused. Six gleaming whisky glasses nestled together in two perfect rows and beside them, right at the back, was the malt; where it should have been, where I was sure I’d left it before it turned up in the kitchen.
I slowly drew out the wine. This was ridiculous. I practically ran back into the kitchen. The work top where the whisky and glass had been was empty. It would be, they were back in the cabinet.
This was crazy. They’d been there – or had they? Common sense told me they couldn’t have been. I’d just seen them in exactly the place they should have been – where I’d put them.
Maybe I had dreamt it? That was it. I was agitated when I’d arrived back home. Maybe I’d gone strai
ght upstairs and fallen asleep and dreamt it. That would explain the phone call from beyond the grave. That would explain my mobile lying on my pillow. That would explain the whisky.
Wine bottle clenched in my right hand I went straight to the front door, checked my pocket for my keys. My keys. I glanced at the hallstand. They weren’t there. They wouldn’t be, I’d dropped them on the kitchen table. So I couldn’t have gone straight upstairs. I’d gone into the kitchen. I’d gone into the kitchen to make myself a coffee while I’d tried to make sense of how suddenly a dog whistle had appeared on my set of keys. Maybe that was a dream as well.
The keys were where I’d left them. The keys and a silver cylindrical tube. I picked them up and shoved them into my pocket.
I’d go to the party, but tomorrow I was leaving and going back to London.
CHAPTER EIGHT
There were a couple of cars parked in Emma’s drive, and the sound of voices and laughter spilt out through the open front door along with a swathe of light from the hallway.
Inside, the house was as impressive as it looked from the drive. A large entrance hall surrounded a massive staircase with rooms going off to its left and right. Small tables, supporting large Japanese vases overflowing with fragrant flowers, flanked each doorway and my feet actually sank into the richly coloured carpet covering the floor as I crossed to the room where all the activity appeared to be going on.
As I entered I was greeted by a young woman who offered me a flute of champagne or glass of orange juice from a silver tray and I began to regret bringing the wine. Before I could find somewhere to discreetly leave it, Emma appeared from within a group of her guests and after kissing me on both cheeks, linked her arm through mine.
‘Um, this is for you,’ I said, holding up the bottle.
‘Oh, you are a darling. Merlot, how did you know it’s a favourite of mine?’ she said, giving me another kiss on the cheek.
