by Julia Blake
Ferdie undressed me as if I was a child, tenderly, gently. Put me in the shower where I scrubbed until I was raw, desperate to wash away the blood staining my skin. He bundled me into a thick robe and combed my hair, crooning nonsense the whole time until I began to shake and the reality of the situation hit home. Then held me as my teeth chattered and I shivered in delayed shock, tutted his concern at my extreme distress; not realising the depths of my torture.
It was all spoilt. My beautiful innocent love affair which had barely had a chance to begin was over, washed away in a tide of Mimi’s blood. I was selfish enough to despise her for it, shuddered with self-loathing at the thought. I felt dirty, unclean. We’d held and touched each other and the whole time, mere inches away, Mimi’s life had been slowly ebbing from her body. We’d been oblivious, desperate for each other, caught up in the newness of our affair.
Eventually, he put me to bed, force fed me a sleeping tablet, rocking me until the dark waves closed over my head and dragged me under.
Unused to taking them, I slept until late the following afternoon, waking with a thick muzzy head and a dry sour mouth. Disorientated, struggling to comprehend where I was and what had happened, I struggled up in bed, blinked in the gloom, reached out to snap on the bedside lamp. There was movement from the sofa and Scott stood, his expression relieved when he saw me sitting up, rubbing at my eyes crusted with sleep.
‘Eve,’ he breathed. ‘I was beginning to think you’d sleep forever...’
‘Mimi?’ I interrupted urgently, and he nodded.
‘She’s going to be alright, they had to give her a blood transfusion, obviously, and she needed surgery on her wrists, but she’s going to be ok,’ he paused, pulled a wry expression. ‘Well, as ok as you can ever be after something like this.’
I let my head drop to my chest, relieved, disconcerted by his presence. He crossed to the bed and sat beside me, reached for my hand. I pulled away, couldn’t let him touch me, could hardly bring myself to look at him. I saw wariness enter his eyes.
‘Eve?’ he began, cautiously. ‘Is everything ok?’
‘Well,” I mumbled, voice croaky and dry, ‘You said Mimi’s going to be alright, so I guess everything’s ok.’
‘No, I mean with us?’
‘There is no us,’ I stated flatly, and his eyes narrowed in disbelief.
‘How can you say that?’ he demanded. ‘After last night I thought...’
‘If Mimi hadn’t nearly bled to death all over us, there might have been an us,’ I cried. ‘If she’d done it at any other time and in any other place, then, maybe, perhaps, we might have had a chance. But not now...’
‘Don’t say that,’ he ordered, I heard panic under his words. Frantically he grabbed at my shoulders, tried to pull me into his arms. I remained stiff and unyielding, bile rising in my throat at the memories his touch invoked.
‘I’m sorry, Scott,’ I whispered into his shoulder, felt his instinctive clutch of denial, ‘I can’t do this. Every time you touch me I see her, I think about her blood on us and it makes me feel sick and unclean. It’s ruined everything.’
‘You’ll feel differently,’ he insisted hotly. ‘In time, you’ll get over this and we can be together,’ he pulled back, cupped my face in his hands. I shrivelled inside, imagined her blood there again, staining and tainting. ‘Eve, please...’
I said nothing, merely stared at him in numb misery, adamant in my rejection. Looking back, I believe if he’d persisted, refused to take no for an answer, told me he loved me, maybe he could have broken through to me and things would have been different.
Such behaviour was totally alien to Scott, was completely beyond his capability. Slowly he moved from me. I saw the barriers which had tentatively begun to lower for me, slam back up and knew it was over. Without saying another word, he rose and left the room and I wept until I had no more tears to shed.
Christmas was a subdued and mournful experience that year, with no Andrew and no Essie and Mimi still incarcerated in the hospital. Annaliese’s headaches grew worse, exacerbated, I believed, by the stress of the situation, the constant, ongoing concern she had for Mimi. Caro too, vented her worry for Mimi by snapping and snarling at anyone and everyone who got in her way. The rest of us were silent and withdrawn.
I was aware I’d hurt Scott beyond measure, knew it was apparent to everyone how much he’d retreated within himself. Barely talking to anyone, he began staying later and later at work, using Andrew’s absence as a feasible excuse, but I knew it was because he was avoiding me.
I both longed for his presence and recoiled from it. Confused and alone, I too began spending more time away from home, visiting my parents, accepting work which necessitated me travelling and staying away for days, sometimes even weeks, on end.
Time limped on. Eventually, Mimi came home, a pale silent shadow of her former feisty vibrant self, and the whole Hall tiptoed around her fragile hold on sanity. I found it hard to look at her, wondered how much she remembered of that evening; wondered if she’d heard us. If she had, she made no mention of it, in fact, she rarely spoke at all. I knew Annaliese was beginning to despair of ever pulling her through the dark forest and out into the sunlight on the other side.
One evening I couldn’t sleep and slipped downstairs to fetch a book from the library. The room was empty, a green shaded lamp casting warming shadows over the room. I’d pulled out a copy of Bleak House, when I heard the door handle creak and instinctively ducked down into a high backed winged chair.
I didn’t know who I was hiding from, only knew I wasn’t in the mood to deal with Mimi’s dead eyed sorrow or Scott’s curtly dismissive manner so curled into the chair, hoping whoever it was would leave quickly so I could escape back to my room.
‘Mimi?’ I heard Annaliese call from the hall outside; and then came Mimi’s low answer so I knew she was in the room, over by the desk, mere feet away from me. ‘Darling,’ Annaliese said softly. ‘What are you doing in here all alone?’
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Mimi replied, her voice vague and uncaring.
‘Would you like me to make you some hot chocolate?’ offered Annaliese, and I almost heard Mimi’s indifferent shrug.
‘If you like...’
‘No, if you’d like,’ replied Annaliese patiently, yet I fancied for the first time I heard a ring of impatience in her voice.
‘I don’t really care,’ said Mimi. There was a silence, which stretched on for so long I wondered if they’d quietly left the room.
‘Mimi,’ said Annaliese suddenly, her voice crisp and firm. ‘This has to stop you know, it can’t go on forever.’
‘What can’t?’
‘This self-indulgent mourning.’
‘What?’ Mimi sounded shocked at Annaliese’s words.
‘I know you didn’t really mean to die, I understand it was a cry for help...’
‘A cry for help? I slashed my wrists!’ exclaimed Mimi hotly, her voice sounding animated for the first time since the death of her family.
‘Not very effectively though,’ retorted Annaliese. ‘You and I both know, Mimi, if you’d really meant it, if you’d really intended to die, then you’d have gone somewhere alone and done a much better job of it.’
‘How can you say such a thing?’ cried Mimi in outrage.
‘Because you cut across your wrists,’ replied Annaliese calmly. ‘And we both know the wrists have to be cut upwards to the elbow to really get the job done. Also, you knew you wouldn’t be left alone for very long, that someone would find you.’
‘I wanted to die!’ insisted Mimi. ‘I wanted to be with my husband and daughter!’
‘I know,’ replied Annaliese gently. ‘But this isn’t the way to go about it. Even if you’d succeeded Mimi, you still wouldn’t have been with them.’
‘Why not?’ cried Mimi, a sob catc
hing at her throat.
‘Because there’s a natural order to things,’ answered Annaliese firmly. ‘And suicides upset that natural order. You’d have gone to a different place Mimi and never have seen them again. You have to wait, until it’s your turn.’
‘But I miss them so much,’ sobbed Mimi. ‘I want them back, I want to be with them. You have no idea what it’s like to lose someone you love, to lose a child.’
‘Sometimes our children are taken from us and we have no idea why,’ Annaliese replied softly, and I frowned at her words, wondering what she meant. ‘It’s all part of God’s plan,’ she finished, and Mimi cried out at her words, rounding on her in full blown anger.
‘I care nothing for your God,’ she screamed. ‘How can I believe in something that would take my little girl away from me, my Andrew?’
‘Because he’s the one who gave them to you in the first place,’ Annaliese stated firmly. ‘Because you had Andrew for twelve happy and healthy years, you watched your daughter grow into a beautiful and strong eight year old. That’s so much more than some get, believe me.’
‘It wasn’t enough!’ Mimi gasped. ‘I wanted them forever. Andrew... I expected us to grow old together, and Essie... no one should have to bury their own child! You speak of natural order, is it natural order she died before me? It should have been me who died, not her, it should have been me!’ Her sobs became wild and reckless. ‘Why wasn’t it me?’ she demanded brokenly, and I heard Annaliese soothing her.
‘Maybe God has other plans for you,’ she murmured. Peeping round the corner of my chair, I saw her rocking Mimi in her arms, holding her until her sobs had abated and she gasped for air, struggled to breath through a blocked up nose. Annaliese pulled tissues from the box on the desk, gently wiped her eyes.
‘Is everything alright?’ Caro’s gruff tones demanded from the doorway. I froze in my hiding place, unwilling to face her censure if I was discovered eavesdropping.
‘Caro, darling,’ said Annaliese. ‘Could you possibly take Mimi to the kitchen and make her a big mug of your wonderful hot chocolate.’
‘Of course,’ agreed Caro readily, her voice surprisingly gentle. ‘Come on, lovey,’ she coaxed, ‘I think I can even find some extra cream and marshmallows, just how you like it.’
‘That... would be... nice,’ Mimi agreed haltingly.
‘Annaliese, shall I make one for you?’
‘Yes, please,’ agreed Annaliese. ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’ She waited until the door closed behind them, before... ‘It’s alright, they’ve gone, you can come out now, Eve.’
I popped my head up from behind the chair. ‘How did you know I was here?’ I demanded.
‘Jean Paul Gautier?’ she laughed, lifted my wrist and sniffed, as my eyes went wide with surprised agreement. ‘I could smell it, was surprised Mimi didn’t notice it, but then, she did have her mind on other things.’
‘Will she be alright?’ I asked, worried. Annaliese’s smile slipped slightly and she squeezed into the chair’s broad expanse next to me, placed an arm about my shoulders and pulled me close.
‘I think she will be now,’ she replied, slowly ‘I hated having to be so harsh with her, but sometimes the people we love cannot see that what they need is a good hard jolt of reality.’
I didn’t reply, but dropped my head onto her shoulder, enjoying the moment of closeness, the physical intimacy. ‘Annaliese?’
‘Yes?’
‘Have you ever lost someone you loved?’ There was a long silence. Annaliese absently traced her finger around the embossed letter B on the cover of my book. Round and round, and I wondered if she was going to answer, then she sighed, rested her cheek on the top of my head.
‘Yes, I have,’ she replied quietly.
‘Who was it?’ I asked curiously.
‘Oh, someone,’ she said vaguely. ‘It was a very long time ago and it doesn’t matter now,’ she slipped out of my embrace, ‘I’d better go and check on Mimi,’ she continued, I had the feeling she was escaping from the question. She paused, took my head in her hands and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. ‘Sleep well, my dear little Eve,’ she murmured, and was gone.
To say Mimi improved from that moment would be over simplifying things, rather it seemed she made up her mind at that point to get better. Gradually, slowly, day by day and week by week, we began to see tiny yet telling improvements.
The day she allowed Robert and Annaliese to take her for a drive in the country, the day she popped into the shop to see how her frighteningly efficient yet over stretched manageress was coping, the day Scott took her to the coast, the day she came out to lunch with me, the evening Miles took her to the theatre and the day she smiled, for the first time in months, at one of Ferdie’s jokes. These were all monumental milestones for Mimi. We noted and silently applauded her upon achieving each and every one.
The weather grew warmer, the seasons once again turned and the fresh days of April were upon us. It had been four months since that frenzied passionate encounter in Scott’s apartment. In all that time, he had not exchanged more than a dozen words with me, words so impartial and casual, they could have been mere small talk uttered at random by a passing stranger.
I deeply mourned the loss, not only of my lover, but also of my friend, reflecting bitterly if I’d known there would be such a heavy trade off for the ecstasy I’d found in his arms I never would have taken that fateful step. Instead, I would have stayed his friend forever. Wistful, maybe; regretting what might have been, possibly, but still his beloved little Eve, his friend, to be looked at in amusement and with affection, not someone to be dismissed, turned away from, as though of no importance, no regard.
It was my fault, I knew that, could see no way to rectify it. I’d had my chance and pushed him away. Maybe it was because at the time I’d been reeling with the shock of Mimi’s attempted suicide, for Scott there would be no acceptable excuses. He’d opened himself up to me once, only to be rejected. I knew he wouldn’t take that chance again.
I came upon him once, huddled in a corner, talking in urgent hushed whispers with Annaliese, hand grasping her arm, mouth close to her face, his expression anguished. At my entrance they’d sprung apart guiltily. I’d quickly murmured my apologies and left, heart pounding at what I’d seen, convinced they’d been discussing me, and yet... thinking about it, remembering the looks on their faces when they’d seen me, wasn’t so sure.
More time passed, summer burst upon us. The anniversary of Andrew and Essie’s deaths came and went. Mimi visited their graves to lay flowers, wept at their memory, yet her blank eyed days of mourning were over and it was a healthy sorrow, her tears cleansing and renewing.
The summer passed, as summers do. Then, into this house of still reflection and sombre thoughts came a stranger, someone who would change everything, would act as a catalyst for the explosion which had been quietly building. It wasn’t his fault, not really, what happened. Instead, it was a combination of my unhappiness and loneliness, of Scott’s mistrust and of old and festering secrets finally forcing their way to the surface after being buried too long underground.
His name was Luke, and he was Caro’s son.
The first I heard of his visit was when I came across Annaliese following Mrs Briggs into one of the spare rooms, a heap of bedding and towels in her arms. ‘Company?’ I asked, and she turned to face me, her expression animated.
‘Yes, isn’t it exciting? Caro’s son Luke is coming to pay her a visit, so I’m checking everything’s ok for him.’
‘Oh?’ I replied, feeling a spark of interest. ‘When’s he coming?’
‘Tomorrow, Robert’s picking him up from Heathrow on his way back from London.’
Over the next twenty four hours, I found myself thinking often of the stranger who would soon be staying amongst us. I wondered what he was like, tried to imag
ine how I would feel to have a grown up son of twenty five coming to see me for the first time since he was a child and observed Caro closely, yet if she was apprehensive at his impending visit she gave no sign of it, going about her normal business with her usual air of efficiency, scowling at me when she noticed me watching her.
At last, the moment arrived. When Robert’s car pulled up outside the Hall, I was lurking at an upstairs window curious to catch a glimpse of him. Was surprised to see Scott climb from the car, then realised with a jolt, it was a stranger, yet so alike Scott from behind it was uncanny. As tall as Scott and almost as dark, his tanned lean body looked dangerously masculine in chinos and casual shirt. He stretched, looked around in interest, eyes suddenly flicking upwards and meeting mine. Embarrassed, I ducked back, but not before I’d seen his keen blue eyes crinkle with amusement, his hand half rise in a salute of greeting.
Quickly, I ran downstairs to join the others, nonchalantly assuming a casual position on the sofa next to Annaliese, as if I’d been there all the time. But it didn’t fool him for a moment. When he entered the room behind Robert, his eyes twinkled in my direction, and then he was being greeted by Caro, sweeping her up in a hug which left her flustered and groping for words.
I liked him, at least, I thought I did. He was very American, very confident and slightly brash, so sure of himself and his place in the world and ruggedly handsome. Dark hair framed a strong tanned face, in which blue eyes sparkled with humour. His shirt showcased a well-muscled torso and there was an air of toughness about him. I knew his work often took him to dangerous regions of the world, and he certainly appeared a man who could take care of himself.
He shook hands with the men, was courtly to the women and downright flirtatious with me. As Caro grudgingly introduced us, his hand held on for slightly longer than necessary and his eyes locked onto mine, registering his interest. It was a shock, to be looked at with desire and admiration, after eight months of Scott’s stony disapproval. I’d forgotten the head rush it could cause, to be looked at that way by an attractive man.
