Walls of Silence: a stunning historical thriller you won't be able to put down

by Ruth Wade

He had to provoke her into releasing some of the tension threatening to consume her. And it was best if the resulting vitriol wasn’t directed at him. It wasn’t just self-protection; if he was going to be able to help her achieve some sort of breakthrough then she had to see him as being on her side. But given her recent antagonism he had a lot of ground to reclaim in that respect. He needed a different approach.

  ‘We can come back to your family later. For now, I want to explore how your subconscious has attempted to compensate for such a crushing blow to your self-esteem. Because we all need to feel good about ourselves, Edith – I don’t mean in a vain or deluded way but so that the very core of our being believes we deserve to take up the space we occupy on this earth.’

  The tremors had travelled to her feet and ankles. He could hear the soft shuffle of her slippers on the floorboards.

  ‘You think you’re so clever, don’t you, with your neat explanations for everything. The only thing I’ve ever regarded myself as is a freak. How are you going to incorporate that into your little theory?’

  Accepting a challenge was not the same as willingly stepping into one of her games. And he had got her to engage her intellect; even a heated argument would be preferable to stubborn resistance.

  ‘Freakishness is nothing more than a deviation from what is culturally considered to be normal. On the slaughter-fields of France the men here wouldn’t have drawn a second glance but in 1927 England they have to take refuge in Beddingham Hall because the environment around them has changed, and they’ve changed too much to be tolerated – both for how they look and the carnage they represent. Normality is relative, Edith. The devastating injuries you sustained in the fire have made it impossible for you to experience an ordinary family life – as a child or adult – and it’s my contention that you are locked in the sadness and anger of acceptance. Of letting go of the dream of the woman you might have been.’

  ‘Do you see me crying? Where are the tears, Doctor?’

  ‘We express our deepest emotions in different ways – sometimes quite bizarrely to people looking in on them – but they’re nonetheless real, and potent, for that. To continue ... for some time you’ve been experiencing the unwelcome side-effects of your subconscious mind’s adoption of a secondary persona. Such a defensive strategy against pain is ultimately ineffective because it exacerbates inner conflict; throws up clashes of wills; brings to the fore the perils of disintegration. The Greek dramatists always had it that the double represents the messenger of death, with the truth that two can never live as peaceably as one; the catharsis for the audience invariably centred on who would triumph in the end, the original or the doppelganger. Modern psychology isn’t so very different in its understanding, we just use different language.’

  ‘With you as my very own Greek god fallen to earth full of pride, arrogance, and stubbornness ...’

  ‘Why are you so determined to undermine everything I say?’

  ‘Because you’re stupid.’

  ‘Okay, let’s agree on that for the moment. But, given your own fierce intellect, doesn’t that make you feel even a little sorry for me?’

  ‘I don’t see why I should. If you raise yourself onto a pedestal where your failings will become glaringly obvious then you are only compounding your inadequacies and I feel no reason to pity you for not being able to recognise your limitations.’

  ‘I don’t know everything about my personality, nobody ever can; but what I do know I, on the whole, like. And there’s a reason for that. It’s not because I think I’m a wonderful and infallible specimen of humanity – far from it – I’ve merely done what everybody does and built up a story to prop up and maintain my image of myself. Our memories make us who we are; not due to the things that happened in themselves, but because we weave them into an elaborate – and self-aggrandising – fiction where we are the hero of a world that revolves around us. Memories are the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our lives. Everybody else’s opinion of us is just a product of how they see themselves. Their judgement doesn’t, in effect, matter so long as our own definition is whole and consistent. That’s not to say that people can’t change – they do, and should, as they blossom and mature – but the fundamental essence of who we are is self-reverential. We create it, Edith. To sustain, encourage, fortify, inspire, enthuse and motivate us to become the best example of ourselves we can possibly be.’

  He’d been watching her carefully as he’d been talking; twice her gaze had been pulled to him as if against her will, but her face had remained impassive throughout.

  ‘I had a dream last night. In colour. And it hasn’t gone away even now ...’

  Stephen wanted to clap his hands with vindication; she’d reacted exactly as he’d hoped and drawn the attention back to herself. It was an act of will, not coercion, and meant that at least a part of her wanted to open up to him. Which part though? The clue would be in whatever fabrication she was about to come out with.

  ‘I was in a room – this one, I think – it was full of spiders and paper. Spiders and paper. They’d built webs, the pieces of white flowing from them like streamers. I was standing at the bottom of the stairs. They were talking to each other; I couldn’t hear them but I knew because they all marched across from web to web and opened the window. Then they all scurried outside. I couldn’t move because if I walked into the threads and one of them touched my eyes then they’d be sealed forever. A gust of wind moaned down the chimney. Fingers of soot were picking their way through the air. They left little black smudges, and before long I could see where every web was and I could walk through without getting trapped.’

  ‘What happened to the pieces of paper?’

  ‘Nothing. They were still hanging. But instead of catching flies, words were sticking to them. Words that had been floating around but were invisible until they touched the paper.’

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘Things about me. Things I wouldn’t have listened to if they’d been spoken but had to look at as I sidled past. I got to the empty centre of the room. It was as if I was woven into a delicate cage. I knew I could sweep the sooty threads away with my arms if I wanted but then the words would stick to me and I’d have to carry them around wherever I went. Then I looked up. A fat spider was dropping from the ceiling. It spun itself to eye-level. It had your face. But covered with hair, so only the eyes and mouth showed. It began to smile, showing rows of tiny pointed teeth. I knew it wanted to bite me. To suck my blood so it could swell to grow as big as the cottage, and then there would be nothing left of me but a pile of skin and bone. I told it to drop a little further so I could put it in my pocket. It began to sway in the breeze from the open window as it twizzled down. A gust caught its bloated body and it released too much silk. It was inches from the floor, and I lifted my foot and stamped on it. Hard. It screamed. I felt it pop and squelch under my shoe. And I was happy. I was alone.’

  She glanced across at him but couldn’t hold the gaze and her eyes flicked towards a space on the floor just beyond her feet. The muscles of her face grew slack. A tremor rippled through her.

  ‘There’s blood on the floor. A pool of it. Even if I close my eyes ...’

  She did so.

  ‘... I can smell it. Like pennies that have been too long in a drawer. Like the change Treadwell gave me. I had to wash the memories off those coins when I got home.’

  Her voice had dropped, the edges frayed with something approximating fear.

  ‘But they never really went away. I could taste them when they were in my purse. Then I’d have to take them one by one and bury them in the garden. Not to grow; to rot and decay. Except I knew they never would. They’d travel through the soil and find their way back to scatter themselves on my bedroom floor or under the sideboard. They knew they belonged to me, you see, and I knew I could never get rid of them.’

  Her distress was genuine. The blood on the floor was real – or she thought it was. Stephen had to exert every ounce of his willpow
er to stop from looking for himself. It occurred to him that maybe the dream had been real, too, and that she’d only invented the final coup de grâce about the spider having his face. The internal confrontation he’d been edging her towards had begun.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  ‘I’m screaming ... Am I screaming? ... I’m screaming ...’

  The terror in her voice startled him. The skin on her face was slick with sweat. She was clawing at her hands as if she wanted to tear them to sinew. He had to intervene – but too soon and he’d miss the chance to expose what it was causing her so much distress.

  ‘I can’t hear anything. There is no sound other than inside your head. But is it you screaming, or is the voice? Because it’s screamed before, hasn’t it? Did you hear it that day in Fletching when the old Gypsy was with you?’

  She moved her head from side to side. ‘Yes ... no ... it’s not the same ... Just a noise ...’

  ‘Give it a name, Edith; personalise it and it will be able to speak for itself.’

  ‘Edward ...’

  ‘Good. Let me talk to Edward, Edith, let me talk to him and he’ll leave you.’

  ‘No, he won’t. He never does.’

  ‘Do you want him to?’

  ‘No, I need him. Without him I’m nothing. He comforts me.’

  ‘Is it really comfort you feel or torment?’

  ‘Both. They are the same thing. He knows they are the same thing.’

  ‘Can you tell me what is going on in your head right now?’

  ‘There’s a sort of whooshing. It stings ...’

  Stephen watched as she turned to stare behind her.

  ‘What is it, Edith? What’s there?’

  ‘Fire.’

  ‘Edith. Face me again. Describe what Edward is showing you.’

  ‘Blues flames turning yellow at the edges. Hungry flames. Licking their lips.’

  Stephen leaned forward to hold her wrists. His papers tumbled to the floor. ‘Look into my eyes, Edith. Do you see the fire reflected there?’

  She did what he asked, but didn’t answer.

  ‘Because, if you don’t, then it’s not real. Can you feel the heat on your back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What you are experiencing is the deep-seated memories you’ve ascribed to Edward so that they don’t have to be yours.’

  Her whole body was convulsing. He could feel the electricity sparking up his arms. Her flesh was scorching. He had the absurd notion that if he didn’t wrench his hands away then they would be burned to a crisp. He closed his fingers tightly around her thin wrists. Her pulse was strong and fast. She was in the throes of flight anxiety. He made a show of breathing loudly and rhythmically. Blowing his cheeks out and releasing the air in slow exhalations.

  ‘Breath with me, Edith ... That’s it ... in and out ... the air in your lungs will be enough to put out the flames ... but you have to take it in deeply, and let it out steadily ... That’s better. Good girl ... that’s a good, brave, girl ...’

  He hadn’t meant to start talking to her as if she were a child but it seemed to be doing the trick. The jerking of her muscles had quelled to soft vibrations like that of a tuning fork, and her features were no longer contorted in panic. He held onto her for a little while longer until he felt thin threads of her attention come back.

  ‘Edward doesn’t want to hurt you, Edith; he’s just trying to express feelings on your behalf. He’s being kind really by wanting to protect you from them. But he doesn’t realise that you can’t shut yourself off from him, as he can from you. If you can remember that then you’ll find him his presence less upsetting.’

  Stephen gently withdrew his hands and sat back in his chair. His stomach was beginning to churn. He wanted to be able to put it down to catching her agitation but he knew that it was really because he had just transgressed a line he shouldn’t even have been nudging his toes against; he had an image of a tightrope walker taking a step into the void. He hadn’t intended to stray into treating Edward as if he actually existed. No psychoanalyst should ever overtly reinforce a patient’s fantasies. Not exorcising a delusion too soon before it could be put to therapeutic use was one thing, but to actively encourage it was a mistake only first-year students made. It was stupidity bordering on incompetence. Professional malpractice, even. He wanted to punch the wall in his fury with himself. How could he now stop from tumbling into a morass of confused reality of his own making – and dragging Edith down with him? Maybe by climbing a little way into it.

  ‘Edith, I want you to imagine Edward as a baby in your lap. He is whimpering and squirming ... You stroke his hair ... He grows calmer ... Quieter ... more still ... You whisper something to him. Words that you know will soothe and heal ... What do you say, Edith?’

  ‘Hush little baby don’t you cry ...’ Her voice was soft, lilting, but she wasn’t quite singing.

  ‘Good, Edith, good. What is he doing now?’

  ‘Smiling.’

  ‘I want you to wait until you see his grin grow as wide as it possibly can, and then I want you to lay your hand gently over his mouth ... I want you to feel his hot breath as he lets go of all the anger he had balled up inside him ...’

  He watched as her right hand moved to hover somewhere in front of her left breast. ‘Now I want you to open your fingers so all the hurt and pain he was feeling can slip between them and melt away.’

  She was responding exactly as she would’ve done in an induced trance; her fingers were splayed, her thighs slightly tense as if she did have a weight resting on them. He wondered if he shouldn’t have tried something like this a little earlier. But he doubted if she’d have been ready for it, ready to externalise Edward so completely she could hallucinate him into her arms. But Stephen wasn’t going to repeat his elementary mistake.

  ‘Edward isn’t really in this room with us. Edward doesn’t exist. But all your terrifying memories do. They are real. And they are what he represents. They are what you are cradling, and soothing, and staring in the face with courage.’

  Edith opened her eyes. Her gaze was steady, clear of challenge. This wasn’t the end by a long way, but he did think they’d turned a corner. He got the impression she did, too. He was so struck by the apparent success of his approach that he had an idea. It was not without risk but he thought it worth a try.

  ‘I’d like to hypnotise you; we’ve done it many times before, remember? But this won’t be very deep; it’ll feel like that moment of complete peace before you drop off to sleep. Nothing more. You’ll be aware of absolutely everything around you at all times. If you feel uncomfortable or out of control at any point then just open your eyes – it’ll be no different to waking up from a nap. All I want to do is to get behind the barrier of your fear of him and help you to comprehend Edward for what he is. Will you agree to letting me do that?’

  ‘If it’ll make him go away and never come back.’

  ‘I would be misleading you if I promised that would happen ... but if you tell me all about him then his power over you will wane until the reasons for his influence are something you are able to understand and manage.’

  ‘I can’t ... he said that if I spoke about any of the things that passed between us ... betrayed him in any way ... then he’ll see to it that I perish along with him.’

  ‘Then I won’t ask you to. Once I get you into a relaxed state, I’ll simply ask about you in relation to him; speak to your rational mind and leave your subconscious well alone. That is one promise I can make with no fear of it ending up broken.’

  She nodded. He gave her a moment to see if she’d reacted without thinking and would think better of it, then he moved his chair to sit beside her. ‘Lean back ... that’s it; let the cushions support you. Close your eyes and breathe deeply. Imagine you are inhaling a sweet scent that carries with it all the promises of summer.’

  In Edith’s willingness to co-operate her muscles relaxed almost immediately; her face lost its hunted look.

  ‘Are you
cold at all? Would you like me to fetch a blanket from your bed?’

  ‘No thank you, Dr Maynard. I’m perfectly fine.’

  A nice even tone of voice without the cadence of suppressed emotions; it was a good start.

  ‘You are strolling through a meadow filled with flowers. The colours are soft dots of pigment, soothing to your sight. There are butterflies; the gentle hum of bees accompanies the swishing of the grass. You let your hand trail through the feathery fronds ...’

  Edith’s fingers were making tiny caressing movements on the chair arms. Even if he gained nothing from this she would feel the benefits of total absorption.

  ‘I’d like you to find a patch of grass that looks so inviting you want to lie down in it ... To feel the sun on your face and the warmth of the earth ooze up into your calves and spine.’

  Her body unwound a degree or so further.

  ‘Now I’m going to begin asking some questions. Do you feel ready? Safe enough to continue ... Edith, do you trust me?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Because you and I both know the consequences if you break your word, and you’d never forgive yourself if that happened.’

  A small smile was playing on her lips. It hadn’t been a threat but proof that she had judged the situation accurately.

  ‘If you want me to stop then just open your eyes. We’re going to have a normal conversation that you’ll remember every detail of, except this way you won’t experience the compulsion to have to fight what you want to say to me. I’ll be taking notes – but not to confront you with as in the past, only for my own records.’

  ‘To compensate for your lousy memory.’

  He laughed. ‘Got it in one. So, tell me, Edith, how did you feel when Edward first came into your life?’

  ‘Surprised ... shocked ... excited. As if I’d always expected him but didn’t dare hope.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘A long time ago. I was young then. But we were parted.’

  ‘And what about more recently when he returned, where were you then?’