by Gwyn GB
It was just a simple walk, but the fresh air and exercise have been exhilarating and when Rachel returns to her house it looms at her, stark and sullied. It’s no longer the refuge it once was and although she’s keen to get in and see the rabbits, she’s almost apprehensive about going inside. A caged bird returning to its roost for the night.
As she opens the front door, it scrapes over a white envelope on the floor. Rachel’s stomach lurches and she instantly feels nauseous. Her fears realised. She steps into the house, making a point of kicking the envelope out the way with her foot so that if they’re watching they’ll think she doesn’t care.
When she closes the door she pauses before going and checking on the rabbits first. They’re both asleep, Reg stretched out and relaxed, Amber huddled into the corner.
The envelope screams at her from the hallway, but the longer she ignores it the better it makes her feel - and the more she can hang on to some control of her life and feelings. She walks from room to room of her house, checking nothing is disturbed, that everything is how she left it. Finally, she returns to the hall and stares at the white envelope.
Such a supposedly innocuous object, but the red angry capital letters on its outside, spelling out her name, tell of what lies within.
Carefully she picks it up, avoiding touching the surface as much as possible, and holding it by the corner in case she contaminates any evidence. DI Falle has told her to keep a journal of anything that happens and so she carries the letter into the kitchen and places it on the table next to the notebook she has started entitled, ‘Stalker Diary’. She gets another freezer bag out of the drawer ready and puts on a pair of the disposable latex gloves she uses for cleaning out the rabbits. A part of her wonders if she should just bag it and leave it for the police to open, but she wants to know what it says. It’s to her, it’s about her, she needs to know what they want.
Carefully she opens the envelope and takes out its contents.
It’s another sheet of A4 paper, only this time the stalker has said more
‘I am watching you.
I see who you are seeing.
I go where you are going.’
A shiver runs right through her and she only just manages to control the urge to hurl it across the room. She catches her breath and instead carefully places both envelope and letter into the bag and seals it. Then she takes off the gloves and goes to the sink to wash her hands - twice - even though she hasn’t touched it.
Does that mean they were following her on Wimbledon Common? Could it have been the man with the flat cap, or the guy in the Barbour coat? She has no idea who it might be, what they look like and what threat they pose.
Rachel sits for a moment and in the silence she can feel her heart pounding in her chest. It feels like it’s twice its usual size, banging against her rib cage. Its effect travels to her head where she feels the pressure mounting and an ache starting to develop in her skull.
Why?
Who is this person making her life a misery?
What has she done to deserve this? All she’s ever tried is to live her life helping people.
Why are they watching her?
It feels like someone is creeping up on her all the time. The hairs on her neck tingling with a constant flow of adrenaline. This must be how a rabbit feels, eating in the open, knowing that out there somewhere could be a hawk or a fox that might pounce at any moment if they don’t stay forever vigilant. This time she is the prey and she can’t see what’s approaching.
She can’t think of anything else. She tries to read a book, to lose herself in someone else’s story - but that doesn’t work. Each tick of the water pipes, bang of a car door outside, every breath that she takes, finds her listening. Ears straining. Heart banging.
She could put some music on, or the radio, listen to another human voice - but then she might not hear if someone tries to get in.
For the rest of the afternoon, images of faces she saw on her walk flash through her mind. She feels almost too frightened to peer out into the garden for fear one of them will lurch at her from the gathering dusk. Is this going to be her experience every time she ventures outside the house?
How can she live like this? She has to carry on working, has to leave the house without fear. Perhaps it’s time to move on, find herself a new sanctuary and escape these prison walls which are closing in on her.
She doesn’t feel like eating, but she forces down a piece of toast and a cup of tea. Then at just before eight o'clock is the first phone call.
Rachel doesn’t have a house phone and even her mobile is a basic handset. In the past she’s not even been bothered about keeping it with her, but lately she’s taken to carrying it everywhere. It could be used to gather evidence in the form of photos and videos but most importantly it’s a potential lifeline in case she needs to call the police. Now, it’s ringing and she doesn’t recognise the number.
Perhaps it’s DI Falle or another police officer checking she’s OK or warning her about something. She answers.
‘Hello,’ she says, but her voice is a little shaky with lack of use and tight with the fear which washes through her incessantly.
Nothing.
She can hear that there’s someone on the other end. There’s breathing and the sound of cars driving past in the background. Whoever it is they are outside somewhere.
‘Hello,’ she says again, but even before she’s said it she realises it’s in vain.
The person on the other end of the phone just listens.
Quickly she cancels the call and almost throws the phone down on the table as though it’s just burnt her. She stares at it angrily. It has to be them. How have they got her phone number?
She toys with turning her phone off so they can’t call back but that would leave her without any life line - maybe that’s what they want. Maybe they want her to turn off her phone and that’s when they’ll strike.
As she stands in the kitchen staring at her phone, it lights up again and starts ringing. Same number. She ignores it. It rings and rings screeching into her nerves until she grabs it and shuts off the sound. Then it sits on the table vibrating and lit up, a flashing warning that she shouldn’t trust it.
When it falls silent she closes her eyes with relief, but it’s short lived. It soon starts up again, buzzing and buzzing and buzzing. She walks to the back door and peers out into the night garden. Where are they? Can they see her now?
Then, down the end, she sees a small light. A mobile phone screen. It goes dark and her phone stops ringing. One minute passes, two and then the light at the end appears again and the phone behind her begins its bright vibrating dance.
Anger forges through her. She runs out into the garden and shouts at the shadow, ‘Who are you? What do you want?’
There’s no answer, just a light flicking on in the house next door and the sound of a twig snapping, but Rachel could have sworn she heard a laugh.
29
Rachel, May 1994
Grief for Rachel is like being trapped in a jam jar. It’s suffocating. She’s separated from life by the slippery glass walls around her. She feels vulnerable, exposed. She doesn’t want people prying into her cocoon of glass, peering in on her emotional nakedness. She looks out at the rest of the world, muffled and distorted. Outside of her jam jar life carries on as though nothing has happened, and that is too painful to contemplate. Inside the jar, everything has changed. She can shout and scream but all she hears is her own voice coming back at her.
Some days it hurts so bad that it just stops hurting at all.
The school term continues, the bullies eventually get bored of tormenting her on a daily basis and they slope off to find new victims. Rachel learns a new skill, of being able to meld into the shadows and not be seen. If she keeps quiet and stays out of their way, they usually just ignore her.
She sits alone at lunchtime, slowly chewing on whatever she has managed to scrape together for a packed lunch. Most of the time she preten
ds to be writing something, an exercise book propped up so no one can see the sad faces she doodles on the page. Other times she’ll be reading a book but she won’t be taking in the words, she’s peering over the top of the pages at the other girls with their neatly styled hair and clean ironed clothes. She looks on enviously as they take out specially designed lunch boxes with soft full sandwiches, yogurts, snacks and drinks. Rachel tries to hide the after-thought of a sandwich her father has made, or the hastily grabbed snack because he got up late again.
Their talk is foreign to her. Their lunch boxes carry images of animal characters from the Lion King and they talk about Byker Grove and Forrest Gump. They whisper about boys and arrange to go shopping in Norwich or have sleepovers at the weekends. She hears names of songs and bands like Take That and East 17, but she never hears their music. Her dad sold their TV just before her mum died and now all they have is the old record player and Elvis.
Sometimes her space is invaded by a group of boys. She’s invisible to them as they jostle and joke with each other, or talk dramatically about someone called Ayrton Senna, who Rachel learns has died in a car crash. She wonders how his death can be so public, so mourned, and yet her mother’s is barely acknowledged - as though she was never of any significance to anyone at all.
Instead of going out into the playground at lunchtime, Rachel chooses the library where she can sit in solitary calm, at peace with her own company. She reads classic novels and books on grief, hiding their covers should anyone venture in her direction. She tries to make sense of what she is feeling and how her father is dealing with her mum’s death. She doesn’t ask for help because she knows social services will get involved. Besides, she and her dad will manage. The books tell her that there are different stages of grief and so she just needs to be patient and wait for him to learn to ‘accept their loss’.
Each day Rachel rushes home to her father. To begin with, it’s just a relief to see him there. Every time she puts her hand on the back door handle and steps into the kitchen she relives that day when she came back and her mother was gone. As the weeks turn into months that memory is slowly replaced by another worry - what state will she find her father in? Usually, he is already half way through a bottle of whisky by the time she gets home. On more than one occasion lately she’s got back to find him talking heatedly with Reg and George. She’s never seen them argue before. They always put on their own unique brand of fake cheerfulness when they see her, but even she can feel that things are slipping into decline. There are new tensions in the air, things that don’t get discussed in front of a child.
Last night she had her own row with her dad, their first since her mother’s death.
‘Dad, you promised to take me to mum’s grave,’ she’d said to him. They were eating the tinned mince, carrots and potatoes she’d found in the cupboard. Both of them were pushing their food around their plates a little, but hunger kept them eating and the prospect of cold tinned mince, carrots and potatoes, was even less appealing.
Her dad didn’t reply straight away but seemed to be thinking.
‘What’s the point? It’s just a grave,’ he’d eventually said back to her. ‘I can’t afford a headstone right now. She’s gone, it’s not your mother there you know.’
Her dad became blurry as tears welled in Rachel’s eyes. The thought of her mother lying cold and abandoned in a dark, unmarked grave was so cruel.
‘We should visit her,’ she croaked out.
Her dad looks up at her, hearing the emotion in her voice, but quickly looks away again.
‘OK, one day soon yeah? I promise.’
Rachel looks at him now, there’s anger rising in her, he’s made lots of promises in the last few months that he’s not kept. She’s angry that he’s preventing her from going to see her mum. She feels powerless, with no control over the situation. She glares at her dinner, mouth pursed, trying to form some sentences from the angry emotional melee in her head.
Her dad lets out a big sigh, ‘I can’t eat this.’ He pushes his plate away, food only half eaten, and goes outside.
From the kitchen window, she sees him wandering the farm, back bent, a lost soul hoping that each time he returns to the house he might find home again.
The next day Rachel is sitting alone on the school bus, heading home and staring out the window, when the spire of St Andrew’s church catches her eye. This could be where her mother is. She doesn’t need her dad to come with her, she’ll go and find her herself and get a later bus back. She’ll even walk home if she has to, her dad won’t notice if she’s a bit late.
She jumps up from her seat and presses the bell for the next stop, pushing past the other kids on the bus, oblivious to their cruel snipes.
‘You sure you want to get off here love?’ the driver asks her as she gets to the front. He knows this isn’t her stop.
‘Yes thank you. I’m meeting my mum,’ Rachel answers and hops down. The hiss and thump of the hydraulic doors soon shut behind her, leaving her alone in the town.
Surely this is where her mum will be? It’s their nearest church and her mum used to love Holt. They would wander round the shops and once they even went into Byfords for cake and a drink. That was when her aunt and her friend were visiting, their treat they said.
Rachel hurries up Station Road towards the war monument, passing Gresham’s Pre-Prep. Then she turns up Church Street and right in front of her is the church. She almost runs up the road to the wooden gate leading into the churchyard. This should be simple, all she has to do is walk around looking for the new graves, her mum’s will be the one without a headstone.
At first, it’s all old graves, grey stones with green and brown lichen and the names of the dead almost weathered away: Harrison, Beck… 1879, 1851… She sees some newer gravestones, black marble and clean smooth stones that remain sharply engraved, and she eagerly heads towards them. When she sees flowers lain in memory of the dead it reminds her she has come empty handed and she feels guilty. Her mother hasn’t had any flowers or visitors, nothing. If only she can find her, then she can come and visit her regularly, bring flowers and look after her grave. Show her she is loved.
To the left of the entrance path are some new headstones, but no graves with wooden crosses, these all belong to other families. Round the side of the church and down the back she hunts, seeking freshly disturbed earth. Nothing.
She starts again, even more systematic this time after her excited first look. Scanning every grave. Everywhere she goes the ground is grassed over and the graves decorated with headstones.
There’s nothing. Rachel feels like crying, like falling onto the ground and sobbing. She’d gotten her hopes up, thought maybe she would be able to find her mother at last.
She sits on a low wall near to the church entrance and takes her school bag off her shoulders. If her mother isn’t here then she must be in one of the other local churches. She can look on the map in the school library, work out where she could be and go and visit every one of them until she finds her. It’s not that hard. Or she could put more pressure on her dad. Either way, she has to find her mum. She can’t bear to think of her lying alone without any visitors. It might even help her father, the books in the library say something about closure and how it can help.
Rachel sits for a while until the cold begins to penetrate her coat and she starts to shiver. She looks at the time and realises she needs to find out when the next bus is and get home to her dad. She’s never left him this long alone before. When she reaches the bus stop it’s not good news. The next one going in her direction isn’t for an hour and a half, she’ll be quicker walking. She estimates that from the bus stop to home it will be a little under an hour.
Her heart is heavy as she walks. If it wasn’t for her worry about her dad she would just sit down and not bother moving. The cars swoosh by her, gusts of automobile speed stirring her hair which catches on her lips and irritates her eyes. She plods on, a knot of hunger developing in her stomach givin
g her a new lease of energy.
By the time she reaches the bottom of their drive her little toes and the joint on her big toes are rubbed and sore. Despite her disappointment, her mother is there waiting for her and they walk together along the track to home. The heavy scent of the cowslips which line the drive fill her nostrils and the static fluttering of a kestrel about to swoop on its prey catches her eye.
As she walks, she’s getting increasingly worried about her dad. Is he stressing about where she is and gone looking for her? Has he had an accident because he is drunk? She knows how long the track is but still she wills it shorter, urging on the sight of the big farmhouse and its outbuildings.
When finally she reaches home, the house looks dark. Although the May evening is still light enough to see outside, it’s fading and anyone inside the house would need the help of electricity to see. Is her father out? Has he gone looking for her? Is he alone and upset in the darkness? She rushes inside, ready to apologise, to explain why she is late and to hug him.
Like a homing pigeon, she heads to his chair in the sitting room. His predictability is her habit. In the fading light she sees him, head tipped back, mouth open. He’s asleep, his whisky bottle companion by his side. Rachel stands for a moment looking at him. The relief that he isn’t angry or out searching for her is only brief, it’s soon replaced by the realisation that she hasn’t even been missed.
Over dinner, once she has finally woken him, she broaches the subject again.
