That One May Smile

by Valerie Keogh

  The struggling fire was too small to warm the room or make indents into years of neglect and the pervading odour was smoky damp with a hint of mouse. Kelly eyed the gloomy corners anxiously, wishing she were wearing boots to tuck her jeans into.

  ‘It’ll warm up soon,’ Simon said heartily, refusing to look at her. He poked another log into the spluttering fire sending sparks shooting into the room. They landed on the damp wooden floors and quickly fizzled out.

  ‘Simon,’ she started and stopped, horrified to hear the pathetic pleading note in her voice.

  He rose from the fire and came to her, ignoring her evident distaste and distress. ‘I’ll show you the bedroom,’ he said and took the holdall from her stiff fingers without further comment. He headed up the stairs, without another word, her bag in one hand and a spluttering candle in the other.

  She followed him, reluctantly, the fear she had managed to dismiss earlier returning with evident relish, squeezing her heart ‘til it thumped. She tried not to touch the walls seeing the many-legged occupants scurrying from the candlelight. Each footstep was accompanied by ominous creaks as the stairway coped with their combined weight.

  Simon led her into a small bedroom and lit a number of other candles from the candle he held, turning to her with a smile. ‘It’s not the Ritz,’ he said, ‘But the bed is comfortable and once you’re under the duvet you’ll be nice and cosy. Don’t forget to blow out the candles before you go to sleep though. These wooden beams,’ he pointed up into the gloom where the outline of beams draped with a lacework of webs could be seen, ‘They’d go up like tinder.’

  ‘Simon,’ she said and this time she persevered, her voice stronger, ‘Simon, what is going on? What are we doing in this…this..,’ she looked around in despair, ‘This awful place?’

  Simon was still holding her bag and he swung it onto the bed now expending more energy than the small overnight bag required, so that the bag bounced and landed on the floor. He left it there and turned to her, annoyance shading his face.

  ‘You’ve had it so soft all your bloody life, Kelly,’ he sneered unattractively. ‘There’s nothing wrong with this place. It’s clean and warm enough if you make some effort. I’ve been here the best part of three months and I’ve survived.’

  He picked up her bag and put it back on the bed, looking at her from the corner of his eye as she registered what he had said.

  It took a moment. ‘You’ve been here the whole time?’ was all Kelly could manage and she leaned against the bed, needing the support. ‘You’ve been here the whole time,’ she repeated her voice rising as she assimilated the fact. ‘While I have been out of my mind with worry, while I have had the guards questioning me and neighbours doubting me, you’ve been here!’

  He came around the bed to her and tried to take her into his arms but she knocked his hands away. ‘Listen, Kelly, I can explain…’

  She interrupted angrily. ‘So you keep saying, Simon. Well, explain, go on. Just how can you justify disappearing for three months. Not a word. Not a phone call. Nothing.’

  He sighed heavily, reached out for her then quickly dropped his hands at her warning look.

  ‘I did leave you a message, Kelly,’ he explained with a shrug. ‘I expected you in the Inn months ago.’

  ‘Message!’ She almost shrieked. ‘You mean that scrap of paper you put in my pocket? I didn’t get it until yesterday.’

  Annoyance flickered again, hardening in his eyes. ‘I did wonder why you hadn’t come. I put it in that jacket you wore all the time, that yellow one; you should have found it after I left.’ His face took on an accusing look, quick to blame her. ‘I waited four weeks at the Inn for you.’

  Wind rattled the windowpane suddenly making them both start. ‘You waited...?’ Kelly cried. ‘You vanished. I haven’t worn that jacket since then. I have just wondered and waited and worried everyday; expecting the guards to knock on my door and tell me they found your body. Why didn’t you ring me when I didn’t come?’

  The shifty look she had seen earlier returned. ‘I can explain,’ he said looking at his watch, ‘But not now, I have to meet someone. It’s important.’

  Kelly glared at him in disbelief. ‘You have to meet someone? You have to be joking, Simon. Nothing,’ she said, rising anger replacing every other emotion, ‘nothing, is more important than explaining to me what is going on.’

  The wind howled again and a draught from the window made the candles flicker causing shadows to chase across the room. For a brief moment a shadow lingered on Simon’s face and, for the first time, Kelly was afraid. Of Simon or for Simon, she wasn’t sure. She just knew she was afraid. Very afraid.

  Simon smiled but his smile held little warmth. ‘Later, I promise. I’ll tell you everything later. I have to meet this man. Then…well, then we should be able to get back to normal. I promise. I’ll have everything sorted. I’ll be able to tell you everything and...well,’ he added hesitantly, ‘I hope you’ll understand.’ He looked beseechingly at her, as if anticipating a difficulty with either the telling or the understanding. ‘I know you’ll understand,’ he said more determinedly. He moved closer to her and put a finger under her chin forcing her to look at him.

  ‘Marrying you was the best thing I ever did, Kelly.’ He smiled and this time there was warmth in the smile. ‘Ever,’ he repeated, and he was once more the Simon she loved. ‘I wanted you from the first moment we met, when you bumped into me and smiled. I knew then you were everything I had always hoped for.’

  ‘Simon...’ she interrupted him, all anger extinguished.

  He put his finger gently on her lips. ‘I have to go. We’ll get through this, I promise and if I have to spend the rest of my life trying to make you understand, trying to make it up to you, I will. Just for now, remember I love you.’ Leaning in, slowly, he kissed her gently on the lips.

  Then he was gone.

  Kelly waited a moment and, then, with a cry ran after him. She couldn’t let him go like that. Not without telling him that she loved him; not without telling him that, of course, she would understand whatever it was he had to tell her, whatever it was he had done. They could sort things out, they could do anything. What was to understand?

  ‘Simon, wait,’ she shouted as she hurried down the stairs but, even as she reached the front door, she heard a car door slam and she opened the door to see her car being driven away at speed causing leaves to swirl wildly, to rise high before floating gently down about her. She stood there, seeing the lights flicker on and off in the gloom like some unknown Morse code as the car negotiated the twists and turns of the Cornish roads.

  The leaves rustled around her feet, blown now by gentle winds that were the precursor of the storm to come and a distant relation to the menacing clouds that hovered with intent over the cottage. She eyed them with rising anxiety suddenly realising that Simon hadn’t mentioned what time he would return. A shiver ran through her causing her skin to prickle with goose bumps and a flicker of fear to ignite deep inside where it lurked patiently.

  Turning back to the cottage she eyed it with disfavour. How incredibly ugly it was! The roof had probably once been thatched but some misguided or uncaring person had replaced it with a corrugated roof that sat on the cottage’s four walls like an ill-fitting toupee. The two windows that she could see were small but strangely set at different heights, as if the builder had put the second window in as an afterthought, not bothering with something as foolish as symmetry. She couldn’t see upstairs windows at all. Were there any? She peered up but between the dying light and the overgrown ivy she was unable to see.

  A drop of rain plopped without invitation on her head making her forget the stupidity of archaic property developers and, inside at least being dry, she chose it as the lesser of two evils. Heading back through the bush encased door to the less than inviting interior she wondered how much worse her day could get.

  TEN

  Kelly had told Sergeant West that her life had turned into an Agatha Christi
e novel, but that was yesterday. Today, she thought as she came back in through the door, it felt more like a Stephen King novel, with the prerequisite isolated cottage, no electricity, a dying fire, huge cobwebs and, she glanced around anxiously, huge spiders. At least there is no dead body here, she thought with a flash of the macabre before realising with a shudder that she hadn’t seen all the rooms yet. Who knew what waited in them.

  ‘Great,’ she said aloud, feeling that flicker of fear flame a little higher as her voice echoed in the near empty room. ‘I’m doing a marvellous job of scaring myself witless.’

  She sat in the only chair in the gloomy room, the chill settling in around her adding to her discomfort as the darkness intensified. She moved the chair closer to the fire, trying to draw some heat and comfort from it as she mulled over her brief time with Simon. She couldn’t believe he had been here all this time, couldn’t even begin to wonder what it was that had happened. I was right about one thing, at least, she decided, the categorization she had discussed with Sergeant West appeared to be correct. Pushaway. Simon had been forced to go missing by some unknown circumstances. She would understand when he told her, they could put all this behind them and get back to their real life. She would understand, she reassured herself, she would. Wouldn’t she? After all, how bad could it be?

  A soft hiss came from the fire and she regarded its death throes with alarm. ‘Don’t do this to me,’ she entreated, her voice echoing around the room. She jumped up and looked frantically around for more fuel. She needed the fire, not for the heat that barely took the chill off the damp room but for the light it threw out, supplementing the candles that flickered erratically. She had seen some logs out front near where she had parked her car, she remembered, and headed to the front door to fetch some in.

  The door opened with a scary-movie screech and Kelly stood looking out in horror. The jaws of death couldn’t be any darker, she thought with a leap of fear, seeing the blackness beyond the doorframe. She closed the door rapidly, turning the key and leaning against it in inexplicable terror. She wasn’t afraid of the dark but normal darkness, not that emptiness outside, that lack of everything as though nothing existed now outside the cottage. Bloody hell, she thought, I’m not going out there.

  Definitely more Stephen King than Agatha Christie she laughed shakily trying to regain some self-control. She should have brought some wood in earlier instead of sitting there like an idiot, she castigated herself bitterly. She shivered as she imagined the wildlife and insects scurrying around in the shadows of the woodpile. She’d prefer the cold. Pulling her jacket tighter, she tucked her hands up the sleeves and sat. She was tired, cold, hungry and, she was beginning to admit, scared. Where the hell had Simon gone, she thought angrily.

  Her mind wandered over the last couple of hours, analysing every word. None of it made sense. She frowned, anger bubbled again. He had been here all the time! Why on earth couldn’t he have rung her? She told him she would understand, but she knew it would take a lot of explaining. She looked around the room and shivered. A hell of a lot of explaining.

  She sighed and the sound echoed eerily. She stood and the floorboards creaked loudly. Gingerly, she made her way across the darkened room to the stairway. Peering up she could see nothing and she hesitated a moment holding her hand out tentatively in front of her. She reached for the wall pulling her hand back in horror and biting her lips to contain the shriek when her fingers felt something soft. Probably just a spider’s web she reassured herself as she retreated hastily and again sat looking at the, now critically ill, fire. She sat unmoving, elbows resting on her knees, hands cupping her face, feeling choking tears forming. Resolutely, she tried to think of something positive or, at least, something different.

  She wondered how long Sergeant West had waited in the dining room before he got suspicious about her absence. It brought a quick wicked smile to her face. I bet he was pissed, she thought. She wondered if she would ever get the chance to explain, if he would even listen. She shrugged and then jumped up suddenly, hearing a car in the distance. She waited expectantly peering through the opaque windows trying to catch a glimpse of...anything would do... but the sound faded and the dark silence enveloped her again. Giving into a moment’s despair she leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window and wondered again what she was supposed to do. She had her mobile with her but, for the second time in as many days, she realised there was nobody to phone. She realised now how foolish she had been to lose touch with friends, resolving to build bridges, mend fences, break down walls, whatever construction term was suitable, to change things in the future. But that’s not going to help me now, she thought with a bitter smile.

  She sat back in the extremely uncomfortable chair and, as she did so, one of the candles that held back the impenetrable darkness spluttered and died. Two more followed in quick succession causing Kelly to jump up in horror. Four candles remained but all, she realised quickly, were in the latter stages of a terminal illness.

  ‘Idiot, idiot, idiot’, she berated herself. Hastily, she blew all but one of the candles out while she frantically searched the meagrely furnished room for more. She quelled the rising panic when she found none but, taking the remaining lit candle, she discovered a door to the rear of the room which, on opening, led into a tiny, cluttered kitchen. She put the candle down on the cooker top, the only free surface available and looked around in distaste. It was not only cluttered and untidy but incredibly dirty; what wasn’t covered in dust was layered in grime. She was beginning to find it increasingly difficult to merge the memories of her glamorous, sophisticated husband Simon with the Simon who would live in such squalor, who would abandon her in such a place.

  Had she a more active imagination, she mused as she searched the kitchen, she could almost have believed he was an imposter, an evil twin or something equally ridiculous. But, she knew beyond doubt, he was her husband, Simon. It was his smile she saw, when she went into the bedroom at The Inn, his arms that held her, his smell, his kiss. She banged a cupboard door shutting away the clutter, shutting away memories.

  She had to find candles.

  Her mind was instantly focused when the candle she had brought into the kitchen began to splutter. She ran back and grabbed one of the other candle ends and quickly lit it from the faltering flame. For a frantic second she thought she had left it too late, the candles seemed reluctant to cooperate. With a soft hiss the first candle died just as the second, petulantly, took up the flame. Kelly gave a quick sigh of relief and then, galvanised by the near calamity, opened and searched cupboards and drawers with gusto giving a longer sigh moments later when she opened a drawer full of candles. Matches too, she noted with relief, putting a box into her pocket immediately.

  Back in the main room she pulled her chair closer again to the fireplace and lit a couple of new candles in an attempt to brighten, if not warm the room. She shivered as she watched the fire splutter and die. She had two choices she calculated, go out and get some firewood or go up to bed and climb under the duvet. She contemplated for a moment or two a third choice of bringing the duvet down and staying in her chair but then she thought of mice and of mice scurrying up and under the duvet from the floor and she shivered.

  The storm clouds she had seen earlier were making themselves felt now and the wind hurled rain against the windows. The cold was beginning to seep into her bones and she knew she had to decide. She was hungry too, she remembered, heading back to the kitchen. She sniffed an open milk bottle drawing back hurriedly at the rancid smell. Undeterred, she opened cupboards again searching, this time, for sustenance. ‘Eureka!’ she said puffing mist into the cold air as she discovered tins of soup. She turned with determination to the cooker. Surely if he had soup he had a way to heat it. She was right and the gas cooker worked at a turn of a knob. With a crow of pleasure she turned on all four rings and searched for a can opener and pot. The gas flames soon made inroads in the chilly air of the kitchen and Kelly tucked into two tins of
hot and tasty soup with relish. She ate it straight from the pot, with a huge serving spoon she had found in a drawer, choosing to ignore the food encrusted bowls and cutlery lying in the sink.

  Feeling warm and full, Kelly decided to head up to the bedroom for the remainder of the night. At least she would be warm, she might get some sleep and, she decided a bit fatalistically, she might need a clear head in the morning. She reluctantly turned off the cooker and putting several candles into a bag she took them and the lit candle back into the main room. She extinguished the remaining candles there, plunging herself into almost complete darkness, and walked, in the small circle of light provided by the candle she held, up the stairs to the room she had been in earlier.

  As she reached the top of the stairs she noticed two other doors. She dropped the bag of candles onto the bed and then, because she knew she couldn’t settle till she had, she explored the other rooms. One door led to a small old fashioned, exceedingly dirty bathroom and the other to a second bedroom strewn with boxes and bags. Kelly laughed as she realised she had been holding her breath. ‘Did you really expect to find a dead body?’ she asked herself with a shake of her head, her voice echoing in the room. Or should I say another dead body, she thought with a ghoulish giggle.

  She used the bathroom facilities, washing her hands and face in the icy water that gurgled with a marked lack of haste from the taps and drying them on the end of her shirt rather than the stiff, exceedingly grubby towel that hung from a nail on the back of the door. Returning to the bedroom she was grateful to see a key in the lock and turned it decisively hearing the click with relief.

  The room was small and untidy, there were no curtains on the one small, dirty window and the floor boards were bare. But the bed, Kelly saw with relief, was relatively new. Or at least not ancient, Kelly amended on closer examination when she had lit a few candles and positioned them around the room. The sheets were grubby and stained but the duvet was a heavy feather one that promised warmth. She hesitated a moment. Even fully clothed she couldn’t bring herself to climb between those sheets although her conscience nudged her to remind her that her own were equally grubby. She ignored the nudge. After all, there was her dirt which was acceptable to her and there was unknown dirt which most certainly wasn’t. Quickly she stripped the beds, flung the sheets and pillowcases into a corner of the room then, removing only her shoes, climbed onto the bed wrapping the duvet around her. The duvet was true to its promise and she was soon snug and cosy listening to the escalating storm swirl rain and wind against the windows and roof. She had left two candles lighting and their flames flickered in numerous draughts causing shadows to dance across the ceiling and walls. With hunger and cold dispelled, and feeling secure behind the locked door, Kelly suddenly realised, in amazement, that she felt more relaxed than she had in a long time.