Echoes of Darkness

by SIMS, MAYNARD

  With a hello she parked herself next to me on the fallen tree but declined the sandwich I offered her. "You remind me very much of my late husband," she said. "He was always taking himself off on his own, walking in the woods or across fields, though he was never much one for the beach. Eric was a very solitary man for the most part. Would you describe yourself as the solitary type?" I said not, and that I had always considered myself to be fairly gregarious.

  "You don't come across like that at all," she said bluntly.

  I smiled and apologised. I felt slightly guilty that during our conversation yesterday we had talked about me, about my relationship with Sophie, and the ramifications of the relationship on the election. About her I knew next to nothing. I asked her to tell me about herself.

  "Oh, you don't want to hear about me," she said, but I could tell from the slight colouring of her cheeks that she was secretly delighted I'd asked, and she certainly showed no reticence as she launched into her life story.

  She was born in India to quite wealthy parents who seemed to treat her birth as a major inconvenience to their colonial lifestyle. Her father was a diplomat, well regarded and highly paid. Hester described her mother as a social butterfly, a silly flighty woman. "Always in love, and never with Daddy."

  The family came back to England on her father's retirement from the foreign office, and settled in a house on the edge of the New Forest, but her mother pined for India. This was compounded by the damp climate that disagreed with her health, and sent her from sanatorium to sanatorium until she died from pneumonia, a bitter and resentful woman. Hester's father died a year later, a broken man.

  It was during this period that she met Eric Brice, later to be her husband.

  She talked for hours and by the end of it I felt as if I had known her for years. Eventually we made our way back through the woods and into the lane that led me home. I invited her in for a cup of tea and for a moment I thought she was going to accept. She even walked to the front door with me, but then she hesitated and looked back at Benson who was sitting in the lane beyond the front gate. The dog was growling, the hackles risen on its back.

  "Is he all right?" I asked.

  "Benson is a sensitive soul," she said. "He's very aware of atmospheres. Perhaps I'll come to tea another day, when Benson's a little less fraught. I'll be down on the beach on Wednesday morning. Come along. There's something I'd like to show you."

  She then turned smartly and strode back down the path, sketching a wave as she passed through the front gate and back down the lane.

  I found myself cursing the dog and its contrary behaviour. I let myself into the house and listened to the silence. For the first time since my arrival here I feel unaccountably lonely.

  I hope I sleep tonight!

  Tuesday.

  Didn't sleep.

  I now know why Bill keeps the cellar door locked, and I'm deeply hurt by the lack of trust shown by my friend.

  A letter arrived from him this morning.

  Dear Tom,

  I hope your few days away have helped the disappointment of defeat. I had expected you to call to let me know if you had settled in all right (there's a telephone at the post office in the village, in case you haven't discovered it yet) but I suppose you've had your reasons for not doing so.

  As expected your father in law is after your head on a plate. He contacted everyone first thing Friday morning and called a meeting that was held this evening, and a fairly uproarious affair it was. Your absence was taken by a few as a sign of cowardice (your father in law among them), and by some as an act of contempt. I did my best to explain why you weren't here but the majority of the members want you out of the party. I managed to sweet talk a few and for a while I thought I'd swung them our way, but Louise was at her father's side throughout, and she helped him whip up a tidal wave of vitriol against you. She dripped in the poison like Lucretia Borgia. Let's face it, boy, you don't stand a chance against those two.

  By the end of the evening I was like a lone voice crying in the wilderness, so I don't fancy your chances much.

  There's to be another meeting on Wednesday when the final decision about

  your future will be made. You are expected to attend!

  Ring me!

  Bill.

  P.S. Sophie called me this morning and badgered me into telling her where you are. Expect a visit!

  I'm not going back for the meeting. Louise and her father can rot in hell. Let them do their worst. Besides I've arranged to meet Hester on the beach in the morning. I wonder what it is she wants to show me.

  The lock on the cellar door was impossible to pick and in the end I gave up trying and instead gathered up every key in the house and tried them. After a bit of a struggle I found one that turned the lock.

  Four cases of wine, two red, two white, a case of scotch, a bottle each of brandy, sherry, port and vodka, two crates of brown ale (a nod to Bill's working class roots I expect). That is the contents of the cellar. Nothing else, just the bottles, stuck in the corner of a dark and dusty room. Hidden and locked away so as not to tempt me to slip from the wagon I have been travelling on for the past ten years.

  That is the curse of having a friend who knows so much about you. Not only does a friend like that encourage your strengths, he is also aware of your weaknesses and over-compensates for them. Damn him! It would have been easier if he had left the booze on open display instead of piquing my curiosity by hiding it behind a locked door.

  I have brought a bottle of red wine up from the cellar and set it upon the dining room table. It will be a test of my will power and resolve. An alcoholic is never cured, he just decides not to have the next drink. And he makes that decision every day, and every hour of every day and, when things are really bad, every minute of every hour of every day!

  Tuesday (evening).

  Sophie's arrived. I noticed the lights on when I got home from my afternoon walk, and there's a smell of cooking in the house, but I just can't face her at the moment. I need more time. This house has become something of a retreat for me. This house and this journal. It's my private world and I don't feel

  ready for any intrusions. She's coming up the stairs...

  Letter from Sophie Westall to her sister.

  Dear Paula,

  Just a line to let you know I arrived safely, although the train journey seemed to last forever, stopping at nearly every station, and the taxi driver charged me an exorbitant price to bring me from Weymouth to here.

  To cap it all Tom was out when I arrived and I had to walk half a mile to a neighbour's house to pick up a spare key. The neighbour is a man called Hooper and he reminded me of a malevolent squirrel, all furtive looks and verbal innuendoes. I think he was trying to make me feel as uncomfortable as possible, and he nearly succeeded. He also told me he'd made sure the cellar door was locked as Bill had requested, and winked at me theatrically, but I didn't have a clue what he was talking about so just smiled and nodded. I got away from him as quickly as I could.

  I think Tom's pleased to see me, but he looks so tired and worn out. He says he hasn't been sleeping too well.

  I'll be in touch,

  Love, Sophie

  Sophie's Diary (Tuesday evening).

  Wrote to Paula to tell her I arrived safely. What I didn't tell her was what a strange mood Tom was in. I really thought he'd be pleased to see me.

  I cooked a meal from the contents of the larder, pasta in tomato and onion sauce. There wasn't that much food in the house at all (has he been eating properly?). There was a bottle of wine on the table in the dining room so I opened it and poured two glasses and waited for him to arrive home.

  It was dark when I finally heard the key in the door. I'd switched on the lights so he must have realised there was someone in the house, but he just went straight upstairs. I thought he might be bursting for the loo, so I gave him a couple of minutes, but when I didn't hear the flush and he didn't come down, I went up to find him.

  He was
in the front bedroom, sitting on the bed, still wearing his overcoat and shoes, mud all over the bedspread, and he was writing in a large red covered book.

  He looked up when I walked into the room, but there was no welcome in his smile. Hell, there wasn't even a smile. Eventually he reacted. He got up from the bed, put the book away in the drawer of the bedside cabinet and locked it. Then he pecked me on the cheek and said, "Hello, this is a surprise."

  He seemed totally under whelmed.

  We went downstairs to eat but the strangest thing happened as he sat to the table. He picked up the glass of wine in front of him and just stared at it, for a long, long time.

  I made a joke. "It's not poison, you know," and he gave a sort of chuckle in the back of his throat and said, "Ah, but it is," and then drank it down in one gulp. And then he poured another glassful and laughed. Between us we polished off two bottles and by the time we came up to bed he was almost back to normal.

  But I'm sure this place is not doing him any favours. It's too isolated, too lonely. And there is a horrible, oppressive atmosphere about the place. You feel almost as if you're being watched and listened to all the time, as if nothing is private. No, that's just fancy. I'm drunk and starting to imagine things. I'd better finish. I can hear the bath water draining away and soon Tom will be here. I might just make him realise what he's been missing while he's been closeted away down here!

  Wednesday 4am.

  Well, I would have had a complete night's sleep had Sophie not awakened me an hour ago by crying out and sitting bolt upright in bed. A nightmare, she said. Something about a figure by the bed, and a knife. I comforted her until she drifted off to sleep again, but by that time I was far too awake and alert, so I got up and came down here. It's peaceful here in the sitting room. The embers of the fire I lit are still hot, and I could sit here for hours just watching the shifting shapes in the glowing coals.

  Sophie's arrival was not welcome. These days apart from her have given me a fresh perspective on our relationship. I have to ask myself if it was worth sacrificing a career and a steady, if dull, marriage for such an immature and naive child. How she sulked tonight when I said I was too tired to make love to her.

  The meal she cooked was pleasant enough, although the wine was inappropriate. I have never told Sophie of my past so she wasn't to know, and although I felt terribly guilty as I took the first couple of mouthfuls I soon relaxed enough to enjoy the wine, and by the time I opened the second bottle I realised the drink was no danger to me now. The Tom Rydell who did everything to excess is long gone. In his place is a more temperate, self-controlled man, who can monitor his behaviour and adjust any aberration.

  My conversations with Hester Brice have made me appreciate the value of maturity, the experience gained in the passage of time. Talking with her has taught me so much. The art of self-reliance, the beauty of simplicity. She really is an astonishing woman, and I really want to get to know her better. I'm looking forward to our meeting later.

  Compared to Hester, Sophie seems callow and gauche, so new to life and its trials and wonders. An exciting and vibrant time for her, perhaps, but what can she offer a man in the autumn of his life?

  I shall try to persuade her to leave as soon as possible.

  Sophie's Diary Wednesday 6pm

  There's something very wrong here. Tom went out this morning without telling me where he was going, without even a goodbye. It's six o'clock and he still hasn't returned. All right, I know he's a free agent, a grown man who can do whatever he pleases, and my arrival here was uninvited, so he may already have had plans for today, but to just get up and go?

  It was a terrible night. I'm convinced the nightmare I told Tom about was no nightmare. I wasn't even asleep. When he came to bed I tried to seduce him. Not very subtle, I know, but then I've never been known for my subtlety. See it, want it, get it, that's always been my motto. I can handle rejection and I'm not so arrogant as to believe I can't be rebuffed once in a while, but it was the way he rejected me. Condescending, cold even, putting me in my place like a naughty child. "Go to sleep, there's a good girl." Then turned over and went to sleep himself, leaving me frustrated and, yes, embarrassed. Nobody has ever made me feel like that about myself before. This is not the same man I fell in love with.

  I was still lying there awake, crying (I can't believe I cried. What's happening to me?) when I became aware of something different in the room. And this is the part I find difficult to describe.

  There is no light pollution down here. No street lights to filter through the curtains, no bands of light from passing car headlamps to sweep across the ceiling. When the lights go out it's dark, pitch black dark! Gradually your eyes become used to it and you start to make out the occasional shape in the room. The dressing table against the wall, the chair next to it. No details, just a more solid blackness to give the furniture some definition. I could hear Tom breathing deeply. I was using the regular rhythm to try and lull me to sleep when suddenly I was aware of someone else breathing in the room. Oh, that looks ridiculous written down, but I swear that's what it sounded like. Another person breathing, slightly out of synch with Tom. I even held my breath so I could hear it better.

  Then came the smell. A smell so awful I nearly gagged. Dank and rotten, like the stench of meat gone bad. I opened my eyes and stared hard into the room, and finally saw something. Over by the door was a dark shape, and like the pieces of furniture, it was blacker than the blackness around it. I tried to get a mental picture of the room, to reassure myself that it was just something normal, a dressing gown hung on the door, something like that. But we both slept naked, no night-clothes, and my robe I'd left in the bathroom. As I ran the picture through my mind I knew there was nothing normal in the space the shape was occupying. I should have turned on the light then, but I was too damned petrified to move. The shape started to move though, coming slowly across the room towards me, and gradually it became more defined, though whether it was male or female I couldn't say. It came up on my side of the bed and stopped, pressed close beside me as I huddled beneath the duvet. It raised its arm, and at that moment the moon broke from behind a cloud, and a shaft of light found a gap in the curtains and reflected on what I swear was a knife gripped in a hand that was nothing but skin and bone.

  I screamed out and sat up, reached desperately for the bedside lamp, and only succeeded in knocking it to the floor. At the sound of my scream Tom woke and switched on his lamp. And of course we were alone in the room and I began to feel incredibly stupid.

  But at last I got some warmth from Tom. He held me until I fell asleep, although I wouldn't let him turn the light off.

  It's this house, I know. I'm sure what I saw last night was some kind of echo of whatever took place here in the past. I know one thing for sure, I'm not looking forward to bedtime.

  Tom's here at last. I heard his key in the lock. It's now seven o'clock. Where the hell has he been?

  Wednesday evening

  I took a bottle of wine with me when I went to meet Hester today. She had brought a picnic and we sat on the beach watching the waves roll in, talking like two old village gossips. It was a glorious autumnal day, almost an Indian summer, brilliant sunshine and just a light breeze to stir the sand. Hester said this is her favourite time of year. "The light is perfect," she said. "Have you noticed how it gives the world a fresh, well-scrubbed look? The perfect antidote to the sticky grime of summer." Benson played in the surf, chasing wisps of seaweed and playing tag with the waves, his white underbelly turning grey with dampness, while we ate sandwiches and drank wine.

  After the picnic Hester took my arm and led me along the beach to what she called her, "secret place".

  It was a cave set in the limestone cliff, obscured from view by a fall of large rocks, completely invisible unless you knew it was there. "That's why I like this beach," she said. "Completely unspoiled by commerciality. No facilities for parents with their noisy offspring. It's little used." I clambered over the rocks
and had to squeeze myself through a very narrow gap to gain entry to the cave. Hester had no trouble at all, seeming to melt through the rocks; years of practice I suspect.

  Inside, the cave was surprisingly light and airy, though where the light source was coming from I had no idea. The floor was sand and boulder strewn, some no more than pebbles, some as big as large cushions, but each worn smooth by a million tides. As were the walls, their surfaces like freshly trowelled plaster. The cave was about the size of a suburban living room, about twelve feet by ten but with the corners rounded off, and it was high, tapering up into the rock to a height of about twenty feet. Here the walls were scarred and pitted, and Hester said she sometimes shared the place with a family of bats. "I don't bother them, so they don't bother me," she said in her matter-of-fact way.

  I asked her what she did when she came here. "I come here to think," she said. "Sometimes it's the only place in the world where I can get true peace and quiet. Listen, can you hear the sound of the sea?"

  I sat next to her on a large boulder and let the sound of the lapping waves wash over me. The effect was like being enclosed inside a huge seashell, a soft purring rush of sound, ebbing and flowing, almost hypnotic in its effect. "You hear it better if you lie down and shut your eyes."

  I didn't take much prompting. We had only been in the cave a matter of minutes and already I was beginning to feel the relaxing, almost soporific effect of the place. I laid back in the sand and closed my eyes. "I could sleep," I said. "It's so peaceful here."

  "Don't let me stop you. I often have a little nap when I'm here."

  "It would be awfully rude of me."

  "Nonsense." She started to stroke my brow, the palm of her hand soft as crumpled silk. I yawned, long and deeply. "You're a very troubled man," she said. "It's good that you sleep." Her fingers ran through my hair, soft and sensuous, almost arousing. "She's no good for you, you know."