by S. B. Hayes
‘You’re so beautiful,’ he breathed.
I hadn’t looked in a mirror since I arrived at the gatehouse, but the odd thing was that I suddenly believed him; instead of being gawky and awkward I was beautiful. And my body was no longer clumsy and uncoordinated, it was strong and graceful. This was the most confident I’d felt and I was determined to persuade James to abandon his principles. My arms clasped his neck, my hands pointed upwards. I was certain that James wasn’t faking his feelings; his eyes were tightly shut, his breathing rapid and his body taut with desire. But as if he sensed my thoughts he pulled away from me, which felt doubly brutal.
We faced each other, still panting slightly. I looked down at the water and up again, my eyes shifting uncomfortably. Eventually I stuttered, ‘J-just because I … haven’t before … doesn’t mean I … don’t want to now.’
I could see James’s muscles stiffen and his face was as stubborn as it had been last night. ‘It wouldn’t be fair.’
‘Why?’ I asked petulantly.
‘Because you know I can’t stay, no matter how much I want to.’
‘Life’s not fair,’ I said. ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you?’
James bit his lips until they turned white and his hands clenched by his sides. ‘I didn’t realize how unjust things were until I met you. It’s like being given a glimpse of heaven only to have it snatched away again.’
‘If we really want to be with each other,’ I said desperately, ‘it can’t be impossible. Ten thousand miles isn’t that far.’
James smiled sadly and hung his head. I didn’t doubt his feelings for me any more, but he seemed reluctant to give me hope that we had any sort of future together. More than ever I didn’t want to spoil the time we had left. I moved closer again, my eyes pleading with him. ‘I’m here right now. This moment is all that matters.’
I could see that he was trying to swallow and couldn’t. This was agony. I wanted to cling to him until we both drew our last breath, but he seemed set on keeping this distance between us.
‘I’ll fetch a towel,’ he finally muttered.
I stared at James’s back as he walked away from me again. I was still frustrated with him, although I understood his reservations better. He wanted to protect me from something I didn’t want to be protected from. I was just about to get out of the water when something bubbled under the surface. I was puzzled but a little triumphant; when I’d told James about the strange noise he’d dismissed it out of hand. The sound grew louder, until many gurgling pockets of air were all around me like tiny whirlpools.
I hurried towards the bank, spooked. My foot slipped and my head went under the water for the first time. It was a densely blackish green except for the grainy silt floating in front of my eyes. I stood up, gasping, and felt my legs go from under me. I went down again before I could even take a breath. This time I couldn’t get up. It felt as if there were shackles around my ankles, and no matter how hard I tried to move they held me fast. The water was little more than a metre deep but I was lying on the pond floor twisting and writhing, trying to grab hold of anything to help me. I was choking as water filled my lungs.
Out of the darkness came a light, but it was only in my consciousness. Dad was bending over me blowing air into my mouth, screaming at me to breathe. But his face was floating further away. With my last ounce of strength I managed to raise my head slightly and lift one hand out of the water. It was clasped by an iron grip that dragged me from the watery tomb. James turned me on my side and I spluttered water like a gargoyle.
‘What happened?’ he asked, nuzzling my hair and gently wiping my face with the towel.
‘I slipped and must have caught my foot in some weeds,’ I gasped.
He screwed his face in disbelief. ‘Talk about a freak accident. It seems impossible in such shallow water.’
He must have realized how shaken I was because he patted my skin all over like a baby. This was my closest ever brush with death. I felt certain that if he hadn’t returned I would have drowned. My throat was still raw and my chest hurt like hell. I scrambled to my feet.
‘I have to get away from here.’
James supported me and I leaned against him as we walked. He seemed unnaturally quiet. I flopped down under the shade of an oak tree and lay on my back looking up at the daubed sky.
‘Are you going to tell me what really went on back there?’ he asked.
‘Your guess is as good as mine.’
‘There’s something you’re holding back from me … isn’t there?’
I kept gulping in air as if I’d forgotten how to breathe. It was a while before I could speak. ‘Remember the time I conjured up the swarm of dragonflies? Well … other things have bothered me here. Things I’ve seen or felt that aren’t … can’t be real, including what just happened in the pool.’
James exhaled in a long rush. ‘Have you told anyone else?’
‘Mm … Harry. He thinks I’m stressed.’
‘But you don’t agree?’
I gave a cynical laugh. ‘Maybe it’s me who’s in need of the psychiatric help, not Patrick.’
‘I don’t think so,’ James said firmly. ‘You seem sane to me.’
I sat with my knees under me. ‘You’ve never thought there was anything … unexplained here?’
‘Unexplained?’
‘Like … erm … not of this world?’
‘You mean supernatural?’ He smiled ruefully. ‘The estate’s so old and steeped in history, it can make you conjure things that aren’t real.’
I should have been reassured, but I couldn’t shrug off the feeling of foreboding. My hair had already dried in the sun. I shook it impatiently and tried to clear my dry throat. ‘I have an off-the-wall idea that all this is some kind of weird test – as well as having to work in the house to find Patrick, I have to conquer my obsession with time and … my own terror of death.’
James narrowed his eyes. ‘That sounds deep.’
I shrugged one shoulder. ‘Sister Catherine is so maddening, but she told me to face my demons –’
James’s face immediately fell. I realized what I’d said and reached for his hand. ‘I’m sorry … I know how hard it’s been for you coming back and being forced to confront yours.’
He shook his head. ‘If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met you, Sinead. I was dead inside.’ He gently traced the outline of my face with his fingers. ‘I’d do anything for you … even walk through fire.’
I smiled dubiously. ‘Really?’
‘And I’d sell my soul to Satan,’ he added recklessly, ‘for one more hour with you.’
‘You won’t have to,’ I said, ‘because there’s nothing to keep me here. Wherever you go, I’ll follow.’ I felt the truth of this. There was nobody to really miss me and nowhere that felt like home.
A fleeting look of pain crossed James’s face. ‘There’re some places even you can’t go.’
‘You obviously don’t know me. You’d find it easier to shake off Satan.’
I shuffled closer and massaged his shoulders carefully, kneading my fingers into his tension knots. He continued talking, but it was as if he’d forgotten that I was there. ‘You see, Sinead, once you allow the possibility that your time is finite, even if you run hard and far, nothing can save you – it will devour you like a wild beast. Don’t measure the time you have left.’
He twisted his neck to gaze at me and his eyes met mine with a tortured desperation that I didn’t understand.
Twenty-Nine
I took James at his word. I stopped measuring time: the seconds, the minutes, the hours. If I didn’t count them, then they couldn’t run out for us. I refused to look at my watch or to notice the height of the sun at midday and the lengthening shadows of late afternoon. I didn’t calculate the endless hours I worked in Benedict House or how long I searched the grounds looking for more of Patrick’s clues. And I refused to acknowledge how many nights I fretted alone, wishing James would stay with me. Benedict House possesse
d some kind of power that enabled time to be on our side. It wasn’t logical, but I no longer tried to analyse it. Even if we had only days left, we would make them last a lifetime, and I didn’t know how but we would find a way to be together again.
I couldn’t help feeling a certain sense of triumph. Whatever I had to suffer in this place, and for whatever reason, there was one thing that no one had bargained for: my meeting James. This one factor made everything seem less of an ordeal. I gazed affectionately at Eurydice who seemed to agree with this sentiment. I liked to lie in the warm grass with her watching over me. James hadn’t commented on the fact that she’d moved, which made me more convinced he had done it.
‘Why did you move Eurydice?’ I asked one evening, tickling his face with a blade of grass.
He looked at me askance. ‘I didn’t. Why would I?’
I pinched his arm. ‘To make me think she was trying to reach Orpheus.’
‘It wasn’t me, honest.’
I smiled wryly, still not believing him. ‘Maybe it was Sister Catherine,’ I suggested, laughing.
‘Hardly.’
‘What if … she’s an incurable romantic and wants them back together again?’
‘She’s not allowed to be romantic,’ James pointed out.
‘She’s only human,’ I countered, which was ironic because at first I’d genuinely doubted this. Night was moving in, and sequins of the setting sun shimmered through the trees. I wasn’t even aware that I’d closed my eyes, but I must have drifted off for a few moments. When I opened them my expression was dazed.
‘Sinead?’
‘The most incredible dream,’ I breathed. James shifted but my head still rested on his chest, next to his heart. ‘We got old. I saw us walking among the trees, hand in hand. I was wearing nylon trousers and my face was baggy …’ I prodded James in the ribs but he didn’t even smile. ‘And you were just as handsome with grey and white hair, but you had on old men’s slacks and slip-on shoes.’
I pulled at his T-shirt but he still hadn’t reacted, and I could feel that his whole body had gone rigid. I reached around to kiss him and his cheek was wet. I pretended not to notice. His eyes were hugely sorrowful and he stared at me intently as though to jealously stamp every last inch of my features to memory. He kissed my fingers and examined each in turn as if they were works of art. He smoothed my hair from my face and began kissing my forehead, down to my nose, with its patch of sunburn, to my chin, my neck, even my ear lobes. His lips skimmed my arms, my stomach and my navel, down to my knees and ankles. When he reached my toes I laughed and wriggled my feet away.
‘Shall we stay here and watch the sunset?’ I suggested.
James pulled a face. ‘I prefer the sunrise.’
‘Me too,’ I agreed, reflecting how quiet he was. And yet I was glad, because some things were beyond words. It was another few minutes before he spoke again.
‘So, Sinead – why don’t we?’
‘What?’
‘Watch the sunrise.’
My voice was croakily confused. ‘But … to see the sunrise … you’ll have to stay with me—’
‘For how long?’ he interrupted.
My breath caught in my throat. ‘Until dawn.’
James stood in one swift movement and used both hands to pull me to my feet. ‘I think that can be arranged.’
‘Do you trust yourself?’ I whispered.
I wasn’t sure James had heard, until I caught his resolute reply. ‘Not for a second.’
*
When we got back to the gatehouse James didn’t turn on any of the lights and I was glad. Despite my conviction that this was what I wanted, I was scared because it meant so much to me. My heart had taken on a boom of its own that drowned out every other sound. I led James into the small bedroom and stopped abruptly, causing him to bump against me. I could see by the rise and fall of his chest that he wasn’t relaxed about this either, which made me feel better. We stood by the window watching each other uncertainly, trying to control our breathing. The anticipation was killing me. I took a step towards him and rested my head on his chest. I wanted to savour every second, but my hunger for James wouldn’t allow me to. His arms encircled me and I pulled him down with me on to the bed. I lay on my back staring up at him. His eyes looked even more dazzling from this angle, almost amber, the whites startlingly clear. I knew I would never forget the way he was looking at me now.
*
The heat lingered like a layer of fog. We slept on top of the duvet without even a sheet covering us. The only thing I was conscious of was James lying next to me and the feel of his skin against mine. We lay with our faces touching, but I resented sleep, resented anything that blotted out his features. Fear gripped my heart. It wasn’t possible to love this much. It burned within me, consuming me. I’d always found it hard to trust, yet now I had no defences left; my life was in James’s hands. It was terrifying to be so vulnerable.
James pointed towards the window. We had deliberately left the curtains open and now the swirling steel-grey night clouds parted like a crack in the heavens. I must have dozed, and when I opened my eyes James was still watching me. Now he did smile and forced my lids to close by pressing his lips to them. The next time I woke the sun was streaming in and I was alone. With a luxuriant stretch I looked around, expecting to hear the door open and see James appear, his arms laden with food. I wanted so badly to hold him that my body ached. I was now confident James would stay. He could extend his visa; he had family living here and seemed to have no money worries. Maybe that was what his gran and Sister Catherine had meant when they said he was home for good.
My expectancy reached fever point until I couldn’t wait any longer. After a quick wash I threw on some clothes and went in search of him. He wasn’t on the path to the main house or in the flower garden, although I searched every nook, expecting him to jump out on me. I reached the gravel forecourt and looked up at James’s window, remembering when he’d come out on to the balcony. I heard a noise behind me and my heart leaped. He was trying to surprise me.
I hesitated before turning around, wanting to relish the moment when we came face to face. Slowly I swivelled on one foot, my grin absurdly wide, but my world came crashing down around my ears. Sister Catherine was looking right at me and there was something terrifying in her eyes, something I hadn’t seen before: pity. I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. I tried to swallow, but my dry throat had closed over. My breath was ragged and full of anguish as I ran into the hallway of Benedict House, up the grand staircase and into James’s bedroom. I stopped as the full realization hit me like a sledgehammer – the room was bare, the bed already stripped. James had gone. My eyes darted around wildly, trying to escape from the truth. I took a breath. His scent was here and I wanted to stay and bury my nose in the bedding and howl like an animal. It couldn’t be time for him to leave; I would have known.
You refused to acknowledge the dawn of a new day, and thought that you could cheat time. But it made no difference. No one can beat the ticking of the clock. You’ve simply been deceiving yourself.
Sister Catherine had followed me.
‘Did he leave me a note?’ I panted.
She shook her head. Uncontrollable distress was making me hyperventilate and I sat on the bed and tried to stop wheezing. For once I didn’t care how pathetic I looked. It was my fault. James had taken me at my word. I told him that I wouldn’t watch him leave, that I refused to see him walk away from me. He had gone without saying goodbye and could already be in the sky now. I had no address, no contact number and my only link was his gran, who wasn’t exactly rational.
I stumbled downstairs and ran across the forecourt into the woods. My face was soon scorched by tears and my vision blurred, but I was driven on, compelled to visit every place we’d been together. Every path and every inch of ground assumed new significance because we had trodden them together. Hungry and thirsty, I soon felt weak, but I limped on. In the bare earth by the temple
were the remnants of the daisy chain that James had made. I picked it up and slipped it over my wrist.
This was self-inflicted torture, but there didn’t seem to be any other way to ease my grief. Without direction I ventured into dark pockets of undergrowth, completely shaded and filled with sharp briars that snagged my clothes and cut my flesh. I knew I should leave, but there was no place I belonged. At least here I felt close to James. My feet felt as though they had covered fifty miles. Eventually I had to admit defeat and try to rest. The only way back to the gatehouse was past Eurydice, and for some reason I dreaded seeing her more than anything.
*
My eyes must have been playing tricks on me. I squeezed them tightly shut and opened them again, blinking. There was a figure standing next to her. It felt as if there was a bullet ricocheting off my heart. It couldn’t be. This was another illusion. I wanted to run, but I forced myself to walk slowly, still convinced that this was a manic case of wish-fulfilment, but even when I was only a metre away, the figure hadn’t yet moved. My hands reached out to make sure that it was real.
‘I knew you couldn’t leave,’ I whispered.
‘How could I?’ James said.
‘Where’s your luggage?’ I asked, still terrified he might change his mind.
He gave a careless shrug and I grinned, weak with joy. He wasn’t leaving. There would be no more fear of the hours slipping away from us as now we had all the time in the world. I dragged James into the gatehouse. My eyes never left him, worried he might evaporate.
‘I shouldn’t have gone,’ he said over and over.
There were two bright spots on his cheeks, and his skin was pallid and clammy. I put one hand across his forehead, fearful that he was ill again.
‘James, you must lie down,’ I insisted.
He took hold of my hand and I had to incline my ear to his lips. ‘No, I can’t. Don’t let me sleep, Sinead. I mustn’t sleep.’
I was ecstatic to have him back and brushed aside this strange behaviour. After an hour or so inside he insisted on going out because the heat was still stifling. It was hard to believe it was already evening. I must have been walking for most of the day.
