The Tallow Image

by J. T. Brindle

  Behind him, the lights went on in Joseph’s cottage. They had been woken by the screams, screams of terror that chilled their hearts. They too were running, towards the house, towards the carnage there. But he did not see them. Like a man possessed, he sped away, the blood from his bare feet spraying the hard uneven road, and all kinds of devils at his heels. He was a man lost, a man whose only sin was his link with the past, with an unforgiving, unrelenting evil.

  On and on he went, across the fields, through the woods, not knowing where he was heading, not caring. When he came to the canal, he paused a moment, his scarred eyes searching the fathoms, anticipating the cool waters lapping over his head. The experience would not be new, for he had endured it many times in his worst nightmares. No… this was his worst nightmare. He looked at the sky. The stars were twinkling. Like Cathy’s eyes, he thought with a spear of pain. Like Cathy’s eyes! He swayed forward, a strange elation as he fell through emptiness, tearing his body on the hard branches that lay like knotted boulders beneath the cold aqueous surface. He closed his eyes in the spearing pain and gave himself to the depths. When the waters closed over his dark head she was beside him, her black impenitent heart urging him on.

  In the eerie silence of the depths he had not heard the shout, nor the running feet. When they dragged him on to the towpath, he did not know how desperately they fought to save him. Without Cathy, he would prefer not to live.

  Barely conscious, aware of a peculiar floating sensation, Matt knew he was not drowned. There were voices all around. Instinctively he moved. The pain burned inside him, firing his lungs, splitting his head.

  ‘Easy there, matey.’ A roughened hand reached out to steady him. Smells assailed his nostrils… human smells, of sweat and hair, and stale tobacco. He struggled to sit up, but it was like holding back an avalanche; exhausted he fell back against the coarse blankets. ‘Yer a lucky man.’ The voice was rich, vibrant. It had a smile in it. ‘I only just caught a glimpse of yer in the coming light. Good God, man! Life can’t be so bad that yer want to end it.’ The smile had gone. Only shock remained.

  ‘Leave him be, Josh.’ Another voice intervened, feminine, kind. ‘Let him rest.’

  ‘Aye, yer right. There’ll be time enough fer talk. Time enough to persuade him that things can’t be so bad.’

  ‘We mustn’t wait too long, though. The authorities are already impatient to see us on our way.’

  ‘True! It might be dangerous to linger in these parts.’

  ‘What’s the plan?’

  A long pause, then, ‘We can’t just leave him here. By rights, the feller needs to be in hospital.’

  ‘No need for that, Josh. We can look after him. We should move on, though, before daylight.’

  ‘Happen we oughta take him to a hospital… leave him in more capable hands.’

  In the dark confusion of Matt’s scattered thoughts, the voices droned on. His senses were failing fast. There was a dulling sensation of horror in him, such abject horror that he wanted only to die. The voices spoke of taking him to ‘a hospital’… of ‘danger’ and ‘authorities’. The words swam in his head; meaningless words. Only one word stood bold and consistent… Cathy. His heart was broken. He had done something that made life unlivable. What had he done? Dear God above, what had he done!

  ‘He’s trying to say something, Josh.’ The feminine voice was very near; the smells were different now… heather, and the dry musty tang of newly plaited wicker. ‘What’s that?’ The smells enveloped him, the long strands of her hair brushing his bruised skin. When he murmured now, it was not in a voice he recognised, though he knew it must be his voice, harsh and croaked, issuing through stiff sore lips.

  ‘What’s he saying?’

  ‘I’m not sure… Cathy, that’s what it sounds like… Cathy.’ The voice turned away. ‘There’ll be questions if we take him to a hospital… forms, and time-wasting… mebbe even the authorities. After all, we did fish him out o’ the canal. I don’t want no more trouble with the authorities, Josh!’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘Put a distance between ourselves and this place. We’ll take him with us. God knows we’ve been glad of a helping hand ourselves, many a time.’

  ‘Fair enough. That’s what we’ll do.’ A pause, then, ‘D’yer reckon he’s running from the law?’

  ‘Who knows? Strange, though, Josh… what was he doing in the early hours, wandering about with hardly any clothes and no shoes to his feet?’

  There was a small gruff laugh. ‘Happen he weren’t running from the law. Happen he were getting clear of an incensed husband!’

  ‘No.’ The woman turned to regard the broken figure of the man whose life they had saved. ‘No. I don’t think so, Josh. Look at him. The gashes on his neck and hands. Think of the awful expression in his eyes when he first opened them. There was something tragic there, Josh. Something that don’t bear dwelling on. I’m thinking that when he’s fully recovered…’

  ‘If he’s fully recovered!’

  ‘All the same, I don’t believe he’ll thank us for fishing him out of the river. Whatever he was running from, it must be a devilish thing… when a man chooses to die because of it!’

  Matt felt the warm broth being forced between his lips, into his throat. He couldn’t swallow. Turning his head away, he was beset by all manner of emotion. Quick tears fell down his face, salty on his mouth. ‘Cathy… Cathy.’ The coarse blanket was gently pushed beneath his chin, the hand stroked his forehead and the fever raged in him. Her voice filtered through the bedlam. ‘A devilish thing’… ‘a devilish thing.’ He was swaying, floating from side to side. The low rhythmic vibrations were oddly soothing. A sense of movement – gliding – and soon all was dark again; he was at peace. But peace was not a lasting thing. It was only the lull before the storm.

  ‘I weren’t sure whether to call you or not, Mr Barrington.’ Joseph’s face revealed the depth of his anxiety as he stared at Cathy’s father, his eyes big and round, flicking nervously from the other man’s face to the bedroom and back again. ‘Me and Edna, well, we didn’t know what else to do. I was all for calling the police, but Edna said no… “Get Cathy’s father here,” she said, “he’ll know what to do.” ’

  ‘You did right, Joseph.’ Bill Barrington had been stunned by the night’s events. He was stunned now. ‘And there’s been no sign of Matt? You didn’t see him when you came to the cottage?’

  Joseph shook his head. ‘No, we didn’t see nobody. The door was swinging open, but there was no one in sight, not outside, nor inside… only Cathy writhing in agony, but, well, there weren’t no harm come to her, nor were there any signs of a fight or anything like that.’ He closed his eyes and dropped his head to his chest, shaking it from side to side, as though to wrestle out the memory. ‘I’ll never forget them screams, Mr Barrington. Awful, unearthly, they were, I don’t mind telling you, they put the fear of God into me and Edna!’

  At first, when he heard them, the screams put him in mind of somebody being tortured… the same terrifying noises that filled the air in the prisoner-of-war camp where he himself was incarcerated during the Second World War. That had been one nightmare. This was another. Such unspeakable things happened these days; murder, rape, all manner of violence. A body was never safe, not day or night. He recalled with a shudder the news of a local priest being found dead in his own house… hanged, they said. Such terrible, wicked things! He peeped at the other man from beneath frowning eyebrows.

  ‘Like I said, it was hard to tell whether the screams were those of a man, or of a woman.’ Or neither, he thought.

  ‘You’re a good man, Joseph,’ Bill Barrington told him, ‘a good neighbour.’ When the footsteps were heard descending the stairs, both men looked towards the door. Almost immediately the doctor entered the room. ‘Thank you for coming out so quickly,’ Cathy’s father told him. ‘How is she now?’ The doctor had been with Cathy for what seemed an age. ‘She will be all right, won’t she?’ His voice betra
yed the deep anxiety in him.

  The doctor nodded, his bland expression giving nothing away. He glanced at Joseph. ‘Would you mind leaving us?’ he asked with a small stiff smile.

  At once Joseph hurried from the room. The doctor’s attitude worried him. He knew Edna had not been far away from Cathy. She would know. Edna would know. He meant to find her and reassure himself that Cathy would be all right.

  ‘I’ve seen it coming a long while,’ Edna told him. He had found her sitting forlornly by Cathy’s bedside, holding her hand and talking to her as though she was a small child. ‘You mustn’t worry, darling,’ she was murmuring, the tears bright in her friendly eyes. ‘You’ll be all right, I promise. Trust me… trust your Edna.’ Gently, he had persuaded her away. Downstairs in the kitchen her emotions broke and she sobbed pitifully. He let her cry, busying himself with making a pot of tea that might refresh them all.

  From beyond the hallway, Edna could hear the soft murmur of voices, then that of Cathy’s father, raised in disbelief and anger. A sound like the slamming of a fist against the table, then a brief spell of silence before the urgent murmuring took up again. She knew what was transpiring there, in that room where Cathy and Matt had chatted and dreamed, laughed and loved, delighting in each other’s company, young and carefree, and filled with hope for the future. She knew, and her old heart went out to that innocent pair. Yet there was nothing she could do. Nothing anyone could do. Except maybe God almighty!

  Night was driven away, the dawn rose like a sceptre. Dancing shafts of iridescent hues marbled the sky as the day silently spread into the darkest corners. The sun was already warm on Cathy’s pale stricken face when they brought her from the cottage. Gentle hands helped her into the waiting vehicle, and when her father sat beside her, his arm around her, his tearful face buried in her hair, she clung to him, drawing on his strength. So many voices pounded her head that they became one. ‘What happened?’ they wanted to know, and she could not tell them. ‘Was it a nightmare? Was it you who screamed?’ She had no answers, but still they asked, ‘Was Matt here? Do you know where he is?’

  Why didn’t they leave her alone? She told them about the badness, though! But they didn’t believe her, didn’t want to believe her! Because it was too awful. She was not Cathy any more. The badness was in her. It was there again, another wicked nightmare, evil, predatory, killing her, killing Matt. Matt! Where are you? Help me, please help me! The hands were tight around her throat, squeezing the badness, but not hurting it. Never hurting it. Not killing it, because it could not die. She told them everything – how the badness lived inside her. How it loathed her… loathed Matt… wanted her to kill him! Oh no, no. How could she kill him? Stay away, Matt. ‘I don’t want to hurt him.’ Her voice trembled with fear. She clung to her father now, digging her nails into his skin. It was there, always there, burning with fury, blaming her. ‘I don’t want to hurt him!’ She was frantic, struggling, long shivering sobs raking through her.

  ‘All right, sweetheart… you won’t hurt him. It’s all right.’ Bill spoke calmly, soothingly, though inside he was breaking up. He held her close, oblivious to the angry red scars on his neck where she had fought so desperately to free herself. He couldn’t cope. He had to cope! For Cathy’s sake, he had to cope.

  He also had fought, resisted the doctor’s diagnosis, that, in his opinion, Cathy was ‘psychotic… a danger to herself.’ It would tear him in two, to see her shut away, but he could see now that the doctor was right. There was something very wrong with his Cathy, his lovely gentle Cathy, who seemed to have lost all touch with reality. She spoke of being choked to death, yet there had been no mark on her. She talked about the ‘badness’ in her. Then, when she saw they could not believe her, she grew frantic, wild and aggressive. And the laughter! It haunted him still.

  He would see that Cathy had the very best of care. But where was Matt? He had been home, because the four-track was there and the car beside it. Yet Cathy denied seeing him! But then, she was not lucid, not making any sense at all. Had he been home and gone straight out again? If so, where? And how? Had he gone away on foot? Did he call a taxi? Did someone give him a lift? Where in God’s name was he?

  Bill Barrington knew that Cathy had the answer somewhere in that tortured closed mind. He prayed for Matt to return soon. Maybe then the truth would emerge. The truth! What was the truth?

  12

  Emily had been watching from the window. Bill had phoned earlier to say he was delivering in Bedford that Saturday morning. He had sounded incredibly weary. Already she had the kettle on and a freshly baked apple cake cooling on the side. He had brought new meaning to her life and now it was as though she had known him for ever.

  When, suddenly, the knock came on the door she slewed round, astonished. She had relaxed her vigil only once, and that was when she went to put the kettle on. Surely he couldn’t have parked his car and crossed to the house in so few minutes? Rushing to answer the door, she paused to peruse herself in the hallway mirror. Her face was flushed with excitement. ‘You silly old fool, Emily!’ she chided with a twinkling smile, astonished all the same at how much she had changed since meeting Bill. There was a new confidence about the way she dressed, more attractive somehow, like now, in the straight dark skirt and soft blue open-necked blouse; no more the flat uninteresting shoes, but stylish, and with a small heel. There was a glow of happiness about her, and the short smartly bobbed brown hair made a perfect cameo for her small, pretty face; her ready smile and bright sparkling eyes that drew attention from the long misshapen facial blemish which, over these past weeks, seemed to have faded into insignificance beneath her blossoming love for Cathy’s father.

  Quickly now, with that oddly dipping motion characterised by her slight limp, Emily hurried along the hallway. On opening the door, however, her face fell in disappointment. It was not Bill. The short wiry-framed man took off his neb-cap, and looking at her through beady blue eyes, he explained, ‘You did say Saturday morning, didn’t you?… On account of how I wasn’t able to make it in the week.’ He had seen her disappointment and was taken aback.

  ‘Oh, yes! The gardener.’ At once Emily recalled the arrangement. ‘Come through, Mr Wilson.’ She opened the door wider, gesturing for him to enter the hallway. Nodding, he wiped his feet on the coconut matting and brushed past her, waiting patiently until she had closed the door and was leading the way towards the back sitting room and beyond, out on to the terrace. ‘You haven’t chosen an ideal day,’ she told him, glancing up at the overcast sky. ‘It looks like rain.’

  Mr Wilson chuckled, fitting his neb-cap over his pale thinning hair and taking out a small sketchbook and pencil from his jacket pocket. ‘Can’t pick and choose the weather, I’m afraid,’ he said, ‘but you’re right, it does look like rain, so the sooner I get started, the better.’ When he stepped on to the lawn, Emily followed. There was a brief span of silence during which they each made mental calculations of how the redesigned garden might look. Emily was the first to speak. ‘As I explained before, Mr Wilson, my companion is due to come out of hospital shortly. Certainly within the next two weeks. After that she’ll spend another two weeks in the convalescence home. The work must be finished by the first week in October. It’s to be a welcome-home surprise for her.’

  ‘Hmm… early October, you say?’ He scratched his chin. ‘Short notice isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you think you can do it in the time?’

  Without giving an answer, he scrutinised the old spacious gardens. He knew they had been well tended and much loved by his predecessor; he knew also that the old lady had kept a strict rein on the gardener, never allowing him full licence. The gardener himself had confided that much. ‘Oh, I’m sure we can have it finished in time,’ he assured Emily, ‘providing, of course, you agree with my initial landscape designs.’ He scribbled a few notes into his book, together with a sketch of the three lawns, the corner where the shed and greenhouse were sited, and the position of shrubs and trees. ‘That wil
l have to go,’ he remarked, pointing at the wizened apple tree. ‘I can’t imagine why it hasn’t been dug up before now.’ He stared hard at Emily. ‘Am I to be given a free hand?’ he asked pointedly.

  For the first time during discussions with regard to the replanning of the garden, Emily hesitated. She knew how obstinate Maria had been where that tree was concerned. Emily had always believed it was because the old lady had planted the apple tree herself, and was stubbornly willing it to flourish. Over the years, though, it had been slowly dying, until now it was an ugly thing. ‘I don’t want you to make too much change. Maria wouldn’t like that. But you’re right. The tree is long dead and an eyesore. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you dug it up. Then, if you could put a couple of benches at strategic points in the garden… and broader paths for the wheelchair.’

  When Mr Wilson suggested he could replant the whole area she was horrified. ‘Maria is too old for drastic change,’ she said.

  ‘Very well… take the tree up… two benches, and broader paths.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, then, Mr Wilson,’ she told him before returning to her vigil at the front window.

  ‘Don’t you worry, m’dear. Day after tomorrow I’ll be back to make a start. How does that suit you?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Good. Then, if you’ll excuse me, I’d best get started before the skies open!’ He inclined his head, touched the neb of his cap in a polite gesture, and ambled down the garden, pausing now and then to make a careful entry in his book.

  Content that he would do a good job – yet still disturbed by what Maria might say when she saw the apple tree uprooted – Emily returned to the front room, from where she kept watch for Bill. It was an hour since he telephoned, she reminded herself. He should have been here by now.