by SJI Holliday
‘Please, boys. We need to stay calm. What do you want me to do? She’s a grown woman. If I go to the police they’ll laugh me away. She left a note—’
‘Anyone could’ve written that,’ Chris says. ‘And with what’s been going on here, we’d have thought you might be a bit more concerned.’
‘What do you mean?’ Smeaton says.
‘She’s told my mum plenty,’ Chris says, ‘’bout your new guests. Suspicious of them, she was. She told you too, right?’
Smeaton turns away, his eyes boring right into me. But there is no indication that he senses me there. ‘I don’t know what you think you’ve heard—’
‘Don’t give us that crap, Mr Dunsmore,’ another of the young men says. I don’t know his name. ‘You know about this house … about all the bad stuff—’
‘Hang on,’ Smeaton interrupts him with a wave of his hand. ‘I know nothing of the sort. All these stories getting spread around – they aren’t helpful, you know. We are a happy, peaceful community. To suggest otherwise…’
‘No one is suggesting anything, Smeaton,’ Robert says. ‘This is not myth and rumour. We’re from this place, remember? Our families are from here. We’re not like you and your blow-ins. You were warned when you came here that this place was abandoned for a reason…’
‘Enough,’ Smeaton says. He is angry. He is so rarely angry, but I know that he hates all the old stories about the house. Refuses to believe them. Mary has been here many times, trying to teach him about the past, tell him about the people, about what happened here – but he refuses to accept any connection. It’s just an old building, I’ve heard him insist, many times.
But after seeing that secret room, and knowing there’s so much in there that he hasn’t shared with the rest of the community, the file that he was reading as he walked out … I’m just not sure that I believe him anymore.
Maybe I never did.
36
Smeaton
Smeaton lets out a long slow breath. He raises his hands, palms facing outwards into the crowd.
‘Let’s all take a minute here, shall we?’ he says. ‘We are all on the same page. We all love Angela, and wish that she had spoken to us before she left. But you must remember – Angela is a free spirit, as you all are.’
‘Free?’ says Chris. ‘Is that what you think we are? Some of us have jobs to do, families to look after, we can’t just up and leave when it suits us. Angela had a responsibility—’
Smeaton shakes his head. ‘I’m afraid she did not, Chris. I know that you and Mary are very fond of her, having known her longer than even I have…’
‘She’s like a sister to me. I didn’t want her to come to this place, you know. Mum took her in when she turned up in the village, and we thought she was happy. We couldn’t understand why she wanted to give up her nice life with us to come and live in this…’ he looks up at the building, gestures at the crumbling façade, ‘…this draughty old ruin. With you bunch of—’
‘Bunch of what?’ Smeaton says, smiling. He is not intimidated. He is used to Our Family being called any number of imaginable names. Hippies, freaks, weirdos, nutters, loonies … He’s not stupid. He knows how the outer world sees him, and Our Family. He learned from a young age that people outside tend to distrust what they don’t understand. He’d like to tell these people that other people might have a list of names to call them, too. Simpletons, inbreds, culchies, rednecks. But Chris wouldn’t see the irony, and this is not the time for a lecture about how society views closed communities.
Someone in the crowd says something under their breath and Chris lowers his head. ‘Sorry,’ he mumbles. ‘I’m just a bit upset.’
‘We all are,’ Smeaton says. ‘Now listen – why don’t you all go back home for now, and I’ll do a bit of investigating back here. I’ll ask everyone again if Angela mentioned anything about going away. I’ll have a look in her room to see if there’s anything that might help. She must’ve got the idea from somewhere. Chris, maybe you can ask Mary again; was she perhaps looking at any travel magazines or anything like that? You know, she might drop us a line soon, from wherever she is. I’m sure she’s no idea that she’s caused all this fuss.’
There is more mumbling from the crowd, but eventually they seem to be placated. Chris’s friend Robert says, ‘OK … but if you could let us know if you hear anything?’
Smeaton nods. ‘Likewise,’ he says. ‘Now you all go and enjoy your evenings.’ There are a few muttered ‘goodbyes’ and a few raised hands. As they trail off down the driveway, Smeaton calls behind them, ‘Embrace the light!’ and one of them turns around, shakes his head.
‘Oh well,’ Smeaton says, turning to Cyril, who has joined him on the front step. ‘Can’t expect them to believe in what we do, just like that.’
‘Right enough,’ Cyril says. ‘I’ll put the kettle on, shall I? I think I need a sit down.’
Smeaton waits until Cyril has gone inside before he looks up at the window above. He saw movement there a moment ago. Felt that someone was watching. Ali or Jack? He wasn’t sure which one. He hasn’t seen Jack for a while. He’s not sure the man is adjusting as well as he’d originally hoped. He’s been sick for quite a few days now and, although Ali has assured him that it’s all in hand, perhaps there’s more to it, and a doctor should be called.
But he can’t worry about that right now. He needs to think about Angela. He hasn’t told anyone yet about going into her room – about finding that all her stuff is still there; at least he thinks it is, she may just have taken a small bag and only the things she really needs. But it makes no sense that she would abandon her investigations just like that, does it? All her equipment is still set up. Her log books are still there.
He doesn’t want to admit it yet, but he has a very bad feeling about it all. Something has happened to her. It must have. He needs to check her room once more, properly this time. He needs as much information as he can before he goes to the police. They’ll never take him seriously, otherwise.
‘Oh, Angela,’ he whispers, staring up at the darkening sky. ‘Where on earth are you?’
37
Ali
Back in their bedroom, Ali steps back from the window. She knows that Smeaton has seen her. She could hear what was going on down there. He’s going to come and question her again, she’s sure. He’s not just going to accept that Angela has gone. He’s going to want to check on Jack, too – if he doesn’t resurface soon. It’d been a mission to get him back from the north wing, but she’d managed it – half guiding, half dragging him along the corridors, trying to make sure that they weren’t seen.
Jack has been in the bath for half an hour. She’s checked on him, more than once – partly to make sure he hasn’t fallen asleep and drowned himself, although perhaps that might not be the worst thing … It would be a good way out of this mess. She could say he confessed to killing Angela, told her where he’d left her body then killed himself. She could lead them to Angela, act out her best distraught wife act, and end up the hero of this game after all. But so far he hasn’t drowned, and there has been no indication that anyone – anything – has tried to drown him. The more she thinks about it, the more she knows that she must’ve imagined the strange feeling of being pushed underwater. That the footprints she’s seen disappearing were just a trick of the light. There’s been no ghostly boy in the kitchen, and the pond drained itself just as it has every other time since they’ve tried to fill it. They were doing something wrong, or else the ground just isn’t suitable.
Perhaps she should drown Jack. Would it be so hard to hold him under the water, for just the right amount of time? He is so weak, since she’s been administering the drugs again, and he’s quickly lost most of the strength he’d started to build since he came here. She has him under control again. He’s not going to do anything stupid. And yet she has a strong urge to get rid of him. She can tell everyone about what he’s done, have the police investigate the dead hitchhikers. And she will be
free to start afresh. Alone.
Not here though. That was clearly a mistake. She’s tried, she really has. She thought she could change her attitudes, thought she could succumb to the principles and guidance of the place – let herself be led by the guru. But, despite Smeaton’s gentle approach towards teaching enlightenment, she now knows it was never going to bed in for her. She’s just not that sort of person. Spirituality and self-help, finding the path to enlightenment, has never been her thing, not even as vague interest. As someone told her once, when she started her research into the mind – no one can make you change, no one can brainwash you into things you don’t want in your life; no matter what you might be told, you are always the one in control of your own mind. No one can change you unless you want to be changed. And she did not want to be changed. She came here to get away from her past, to hide somewhere that no one would ever think to look.
Coming here made her feel less guilty about Jack too. About the things she has made him do. Because when it comes down to it, she hasn’t made him do anything – he’s chosen the path of a follower – he wanted to do what she told him to. He hasn’t even take a lot of convincing, most of the time. Something inside him was made that way, and it was just unfortunate that he met someone like her, someone keen to exploit his nature and use him as her personal guinea pig.
Poor, weak, Jack.
The drugs helped, of course. It was sheer luck that the drugs trial for Hycosamex, which she’d been working on at her hospital, had gone wrong – it was discovered that the drug was causing people to lose control of their actions, causing a lack of inhibition and leading them to take unnecessary risks. The drug, of course would be more thoroughly tested now, to find new uses for it – just like back in the sixties when they experimented with LSD on the military, or the discovery that Viagra was a lot more than a heart drug. Hycosamex had started off as a drug for motion sickness and when they found out it could also reduce seizures, it was rolled out into a global trial for people with epilepsy.
But then there were the side-effects – acute depression and mania, complete amnesia, people climbing up tall buildings and throwing themselves off…
The trial was halted immediately, for a serious safety review. The drugs were recalled – supposed to be returned to the manufacturer to be accounted for. But it was easy to misunderstand, amidst the underlying panic; to say that she had destroyed them in the mortuary crematorium instead. They had raked through the ashes and found no trace, but that’s because the place was thoroughly cleaned after every burning. So they had to accept it. The main thing was, none of the patients had the drugs in their possession anymore. She returned the blister packs and the boxes. She made sure that she had accounted for every single box that had left her clinic. No one knew that she’d walked out of the hospital with the entire stock of Hycosamex tablets in a canvas shopping bag, hidden beneath several packets of crisps and bars of chocolate from the hospital vending machine.
No. She will not kill him like this. There are other things that she could do – keeping him at just the right dose of medication will do until she finally runs out.
And she needs him for a little bit longer.
38
Angela
It’s a beautiful morning, and I’ve been sitting on the bench by the flower garden, admiring Julie’s roses. We had plans to make perfumes and soaps. Not just from the roses, the other flowers too, and the herbs. I’d ordered a couple of books on it all; they’re probably sitting there in Mary’s shop now, waiting for me to collect them. Eventually, Mary will open the packages and send them back … when it becomes clear that I’m not going to need them anymore. I wonder if it will help things along – maybe it might be something she can take to the police, once Smeaton has discovered the rest.
I know that he will.
I’m not angry with him for not going to the police straightaway, or for trying to put Mary and the others off. It’s not because he doesn’t care. It’s not because he’s not worried about me. But if Smeaton went to the police about every disappearing waif and stray he’s come across in his life, he’d never be off the phone to them.
He liked to tell me stories about them all, sometimes, when it was just me and him. Sitting in his office with tea and homemade shortbread. He told me about the people who were around when he was a child, how they would disappear and reappear whenever the mood took them, and how no one ever looked for them because, as his father had told him one day – after his mother had run away, he later found out, with his father’s best friend – ‘Everyone is free; no one is joined to another; if someone is meant to be in your life, they will be in it, and if they are not then you should never spend a sleepless night, but accept that they are where they want to be.’ His mother had returned, of course, but the best friend had not. Smeaton had asked his father about him many times, but no one seemed interested in his whereabouts. It wasn’t until years later – when Smeaton had left his home and travelled to other communities around the world, seeing how they worked, making plans, honing his own spiritual beliefs – that he had found out that the man had died of a drug overdose many years earlier … and that was why his mother had come back. It had rocked him, for a while. Shaken his beliefs in what his father had taught him. Would his mother have returned if her lover had stayed alive? Were people really so free that you shouldn’t even look for them when they disappeared?
I know he must be in turmoil right now, wondering about me. Wanting to believe that I left because I wanted to, trying to convince himself that he was right to accept this, to take my ‘note’ at face value. But he knows I wouldn’t leave like that, without saying goodbye. He knows, and he will accept that soon – and then he will go to the police.
In the meantime, all I can do is hang around, watching the others living their lives. Trying to find a way to let someone know that I am still here, and that I’ll remain here until they find my body and let my spirit truly be free. That’s what I’m hoping, at least.
I wish I could smell the roses. I wish I could touch their velvety petals. Just one more time. I climb off the bench and walk over to the rose bushes. There are many different colours, from the palest pink to the brightest yellow, peaches and cream, and one that is just off scarlet. They have exotic French names like Belle Epoque and Avec Amour and old-fashioned ladies’ names, like Beryl Joyce. Perhaps someone will create a new breed and name it after me. Fairy Angela. It would be a lurid pink with pale-yellow edging, and an almost iridescent sparkle, as if it had been sprinkled with glitter.
There’s movement out of the corner of my eye. A figure appears from one of the side doors. Dressed in black, hood up. Carrying something. A box. Intrigued, I move closer. I’m using my feet as normal, but as always, now, I can’t seem to feel the ground.
It’s Ali.
She’s moving fast, away from the house, towards the trees. She glances around furtively; her expression is set hard. She doesn’t want to encounter anyone right now. I move faster, so I am side by side with her. She glances back once more. Her breath comes out in short, ragged pants and she walks faster towards the woods. Now I can see that she is carrying two boxes, not one. I recognise one. I spotted it on her bookshelf, back when they first arrived. The one full of newspaper clippings, which she wasn’t able to fully explain. The other one, I haven’t seen before. But I suspect it is also full of something that she would rather not explain.
The woods are silent. I can’t feel anything, but I would be able to tell if there was a breeze. The beeches have only just got all their green leaves – and they would be swaying now, if there was anything to sway them. Ali slows as she passes the hollow oak. Glances down to the dark, bare hole where she and Jack left me.
Do you feel me now, Ali? I wonder. She glances around again. Stumbles on a root. Swears under her breath. She’s nervous. Skittish. In front of her now, the tyre swing hangs from the thick branch above.
Swing, I will it. Swing. But it remains immobile.
Al
i keeps going.
I follow her to the dense copse at the far end of the wood. She crouches down, takes something from her pocket. A glint of metal shines, caught by the light of the fading sun. There’s a shearing sound as she slices the trowel into the mulchy earth and starts to dig. I move closer, listen to her rasping breath. She’s using the other hand to pull more earth out of the hole. She wipes a hand across her forehead. Then she stops.
‘Hello?’ she says. ‘Is anyone there?’
She turns around, and I am crouched there, her face inches from me. I blow out a breath, slow, gentle. I wonder of it smells of my death. Of decay, and beetles and crushed twigs from where my face lay. Cold and alone, until they came back for me.
She mutters something, then turns back to her task. I can’t touch her, I can’t reveal myself to her, and yet somehow it comforts me that she is spooked. I think on some level, she knows that I am here.
She opens the boxes and tips the contents into the hole. Pieces of paper flutter down into the shadows. Other things, too. A scarf, a necklace. A wallet.
What are these things? Who do they belong to? I move closer, trying to make out the names on the clippings, trying to see what other items she has thrown in. She moves, blocking my view. Reaches into her pocket again.
There’s the spark of a match. The crackle of the first flame. She fans it with her hands and it takes, easily. The paper dry and brittle, just the right amount of air. I want to push her over the hole, stop the flames, stop her from getting rid of this stuff. But I can’t.
I shrink back, powerless, as the flames whirl and dance, lighting her face in reds and yellows. Her small smile, her expression saying, ‘I’ve got away with it.’
