Shadows

by Thorne Moore

  ‘Hello! Hannah, isn’t it? What a nice surprise.’ Sylvia was the only person who could say that and not sound witheringly sarcastic.

  I could hear Ronnie’s voice, out of breath, approaching at breakneck speed. ‘Ah, Mrs Callister, yes, er, Miss Quigley here has—ah.’

  Hannah stood on the wide step, Ronnie hurrying up behind her, like an anxious circus master chasing a loose tiger.

  ‘You’re not going to stop me! I don’t care!’ Hannah was aquiver, finely poised between tears and rage.

  ‘Come in.’ Sylvia ushered them both through. ‘How are things going at the dig? So exciting, isn’t it? And you’ve been so lucky with the weather. Hardly any rain. Come in, Ronnie.’

  Embarrassed, the professor followed his student into the hall. Michael had come forward to join Sylvia, but Al and I remained in the kitchen doorway, as standby reinforcements. Hannah’s whinging was normally dreary and sour, like a constant hum of irritation to be swatted away, but everything about her tonight spoke of Apocalypse. She was dishevelled, as if she had fought free to get to us. Her cheeks were flushed crimson and even Sylvia’s benign soothing might not be enough to calm those flared nostrils.

  ‘I want to make a complaint.’ Hannah rushed on as if she couldn’t hold the words back. ‘It’s disgusting, all of it, what’s been going on. Disgusting. You shouldn’t allow it! I’m going to tell!’

  ‘Really, this is – oh dear.’ The wretched Ronnie writhed apologetically. ‘I’m sure we don’t want to interrupt your evening. If you’ve already retired—’

  ‘Oh no. We were just having a drink. Can I offer—’

  ‘No! You’re not listening!’ Hannah licked her lips and swallowed convulsively, her fists clenched. ‘You should stop it. It’s disgusting!’

  ‘What is the problem, my dear?’ asked Sylvia with motherly concern.

  ‘I hasten to point out that there has been no actual proof,’ floundered Ronnie.

  ‘Him,’ said Hannah, swelling. ‘He’s a beast! I’ve seen him. I know what he’s doing. Drugs. Yes! I’ve seen him. No! Leave me be! I’ve seen him at it, giving them to people. I’ve seen him!’

  ‘Seen who?’ asked Sylvia, tensing.

  ‘Him!’ Hannah, like an avenging angel, pointed at the drawing room doorway, where Christian lounged, grinning broadly.

  ‘Oh, surely not.’ Sylvia was aflutter now.

  ‘I’m going to tell. No one will do anything. It’s not good enough. I’m going to report him to the police.’

  ‘No!’ cried Sylvia. I felt Al’s grip tighten on my shoulder.

  ‘Ah, now, Miss Quigley, I hardly think—’ Ronnie was flapping.

  ‘Are you saying that Mr Callister offered you drugs?’ asked Michael calmly.

  ‘No! Not me! Of course not me. How dare you! Don’t you look at me! I wouldn’t touch filthy stuff like that! Filthy!’

  ‘Sorry darling, feeling left out?’ sneered Christian. ‘Come and see me in the morning. I’ll find you a diazepam.’

  Watching Hannah work herself up like a whistling kettle coming to the boil, it had crossed my mind that a couple of spliffs might do her the world of good.

  ‘I’m not taking anything! It’s filthy! You’re filthy! You’re not coming near me!’ Hannah screamed, her hysteria out of control.

  ‘Calm down. Here, take a chair.’ Michael drew one up for her.

  Sylvia pulled herself together and stepped forward to encourage Hannah to sit before she collapsed. But Hannah raised her arms to fend them off as if they were attackers.

  Instinctively, everyone stepped back and she stood there panting, like an animal cornered.

  ‘Water?’ Sylvia mouthed at me.

  I filled a glass and brought it forwards, but Hannah snarled at the offering.

  Michael shook his head at me. Keep it calm, don’t set her off. ‘Don’t upset yourself, Miss Quigley. No one’s going to do anything to you.’

  ‘No! No one does anything. It’s not right! You just – you just let him!’

  ‘All right, let’s deal with this.’ Michael folded his arms. ‘You saw Christian selling drugs?’ It should be the proof positive that would justify him kicking Christian out, without another moment’s delay, but Hannah, in her present state, was not a persuasive witness.

  His reasonable tone quietened her. For a moment she was back to her officious, prim self. ‘Oh yes, I saw him, all right. I know exactly what he’s up to, and I’m going to tell the police.’

  ‘Oh, but can you be absolutely certain?’ Sylvia just had to say.

  It was enough to set Hannah off again. ‘I know what I saw! Why will nobody ever listen to me?’

  ‘‘Cos you’re a stupid cow?’ suggested Christian.

  ‘He’s filthy! Disgusting!’ Her cheeks were flushing again. ‘He touched me!’

  ‘I wouldn’t touch you with a fucking barge pole,’ jeered Christian, while the rest of us hastily adjusted to this new allegation.

  ‘He touched me! I’ve seen him. Lurking, watching me!’

  ‘Stupid fucking—’

  ‘Hold your tongue.’ Michael pushed Christian firmly back into the drawing room. ‘Please accept my apologies for his language, Miss Quigley. He’ll be gone from here soon. Very soon, believe me.’

  But Hannah was beyond calming now. ‘I’ve seen them all! All of them, at it all the time. I’ve seen them!’ She was pointing at Al and me now. ‘Rutting like animals! Filthy! Filthy!’ Christian laughed, and her attention snapped back to him. ‘I know what he wants! He follows me! But he’s not touching me! I’m not letting him! I’m going to the police.’

  ‘Oh please, my dear, there’s no need for that,’ pleaded Sylvia.

  ‘Come now,’ said Ronnie. ‘Let’s not—’

  ‘And them.’ Hannah was looking at Al again. ‘Those disgusting gypsies. They’re all in it together. All of them!’

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Tamsin, drifting down the stairs, pulling earphones loose.

  I waved her silent, but she’d detected an insult to Al, so she came to stand stoutly by his side.

  Al merely sighed, with a droll smile.

  ‘You must stop flinging accusations around, Miss Quigley,’ said Michael steadily. ‘Though I’m not sure exactly what your accusations are, now.’

  ‘I saw them! Him.’ She stabbed a finger towards Christian. ‘And that gipsy girl. I saw them, in the trees! Filthy!’

  Al stiffened. ‘You saw what, exactly?’ Another squeal of laughter from Christian.

  ‘You know!’ shrilled Hannah. ‘I saw him giving her things! Filthy stuff! I know what I saw! She laughed. She laughed at me. I’m going to report her too!’

  ‘Hannah, you need to calm down.’ Michael raised a hand to hold Al back.

  ‘You can’t stop me! You’re not going to stop me!’

  ‘Miss Quigley, we can all see you’re very upset and yes, you need to talk to someone, but first you’ve got to calm yourself. I think it would be best—’

  ‘Don’t you talk to me!’ said Hannah. ‘You’re in it with them. You’re disgusting. I’ve seen you spying on us! You should be locked up!’

  ‘Oh!’ said Sylvia. Any sympathy for the girl’s psychotic distress turned to anger. ‘I’m not having you talk to Mike like that.’

  ‘I’ve seen him! Lurking in the woods! Looking at me! Trying to touch me! Dirty! Nobody’s going to touch me! You hear? Nobody’s going to touch me!’ Her emotions, like her accusations, were careering round the room like debris in a hurricane – panic, fear, anger, suspicion, desperation.

  Michael drew Sylvia back. We could all see the girl was far beyond rational argument. ‘Hannah, I think you should go back to the camp now. We’ll discuss this in the morning. Meanwhile, the Professor needs to get you some help.’

  ‘Oh, er, yes,’ said Ronnie. His fingers twitched in readiness to grab the woman, but he was obviously terrified of touching her. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘A doctor,’ suggested Michael.

  ‘Oh �
� indeed. Miss Quigley, please—’

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she squealed, then, without warning, ran out, down the steps and off along the terrace, gravel flying up behind her.

  ‘Don’t forget I’m following you!’ Christian shouted after her. ‘Coming to get you in the night.’

  I stepped forward and pulled the drawing room door shut in his face.

  ‘Ah, I am so sorry.’ Ronnie was wringing his hands. ‘Forgive us, I can only apologise. Miss Quigley is a little – I assure you—’

  ‘She needs help,’ said Michael, pointedly.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ This was a notion beyond the Professor. ‘I shouldn’t have allowed her to speak – if it hadn’t been for some of the other students mentioning your young man and, er, substances…,’

  ‘Oh no,’ whispered Sylvia.

  Michael took a deep breath, his anger welling an inch below the surface. ‘I see. Well, I’m sorry that it’s come to this, of course, and we can discuss it further in the morning if you wish, but you needn’t worry. I shall be dealing with the matter here. It’s over. Now.’

  ‘Yes, of course. It is so very difficult. I do apologise for…,’ Ronnie offered a vague hand in Sylvia’s direction, but she was incapable of responding. Hands clasped over her mouth, she watched him follow Hannah, then she turned to Michael, appalled.

  ‘You don’t think Hannah will go to the police, do you?’

  ‘It’s about time someone did. You’re not seriously questioning the story, are you? Chris has been dealing here.’

  ‘Well, I – he promised. We don’t know for sure—’

  ‘Sylvia! He’s been selling drugs. Accept it, please. We should be encouraging Hannah to take her story to the police.’

  ‘If she does, she’ll start accusing all of us,’ said Al. ‘You heard her. We’re all disgusting.’

  Michael made to brush the objection aside, then frowned. Some of us were clearly more vulnerable to wild allegations than others.

  ‘I know she’s obviously demented,’ I said, ‘but put her in a police station, with a sympathetic officer, and God knows what she’ll dream up. Drugs, gang rape, kiddie porn, terrorist cells. Do we want them swarming over Llys y Garn again?’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ Sylvia groped for the chair Hannah had refused.

  Michael took her hands. ‘All right. Hannah needs to see a doctor, not the police, and most of what she was saying was delusional. But we know there’s a kernel of truth at the heart of her hallucinations, don’t we?’ He waited for Sylvia’s reluctant nod. ‘I’m sorry, darling, but it stops now. He has to go.’

  Michael threw open the drawing room door. We trooped in behind him.

  Christian was standing, all innocence, by the gothic arch of the fireplace. ‘She one crazy bitch or what?’

  ‘You’ve been selling drugs to the students,’ stated Michael. ‘On my property.’

  ‘You’re not going to believe anything that freaked-out cow tells you?’

  ‘Hannah Quigley isn’t the only witness, so don’t waste your breath on any more lies.’ Michael nodded to Al, who caught Christian’s wrist, whirled him round and frisked him, plucking a packet from his denim jacket with casual ease. I’d have admired his graceful dexterity if I hadn’t known that he had done it so many times before that the movement came all too naturally.

  ‘Hey, that’s mine,’ snarled Christian, as Al tossed the packet to Michael.

  ‘You’re leaving,’ said Michael.

  ‘That’s mine,’ insisted Christian. ‘And maybe I shared. I’m generous. Where’s your proof I sold anything?’

  ‘Don’t treat us like idiots, Christian. Your mother has put heart and soul into this place, trying to make it work, and I’m not going to see you jeopardising it all for your pathetic entertainment.’

  ‘Yeah, she’s put everything in, all right, all my father’s money, and what do I get out of it?’

  ‘Oh shut up, Chris,’ said Tamsin.

  ‘You be a good baby,’ sneered Christian, ‘and wait for the old cow to drop dead before you get your hands on any of it. Fuck that. I want my share. Now, okay? You promised me backing. I’ve got commitments. I’ve got people who want paying. You don’t cough up, what do you expect me to do? I have to make money somehow.’

  ‘Oh Chris.’ Sylvia stared at him, hollow-eyed. ‘How could you?’

  ‘How do you fucking think? They want to buy, I sell. That’s business. Real business, not this fucking stupid enterprise, you pissing around in stupid fucking fancy dress. You’re a joke, you make me sick. Look at you. You couldn’t run a business to save your life. All you do is take my father’s money, and pour it into this shit hole. And you give it to this dirty old goat, and that fucking lunatic baby-killer, but you don’t—’

  Christian’s diatribe was brought to a halt by the back of Michael’s hand. For a moment the room was silent. Nothing that Christian had said could equal the shock of Michael, the sane and reasonable Michael, resorting to violence. Even he seemed stunned.

  Sylvia wept, Tamsin’s comforting arms round her. ‘Oh Chris. Oh Mike.’

  ‘You leave now,’ said Michael.

  ‘Not till I get what I came for.’ Christian made a show of wiping non-existent blood from his lip. ‘You promised me cash. Pay me and I’ll go.’

  ‘You’ll go and I will pay you nothing.’

  ‘I want—’

  ‘What you want is none of our business. Get out and don’t come back.’

  ‘You think you can take my father’s money, and chuck it down this fucking drain and I get nothing? Right. Fuck you.’

  Christian moved, faster than any of us had thought him capable. It was Sylvia’s romanticism that gave him his opportunity: the Tiffany oil lamp on the mantelpiece, and the flowing drapes at the windows. He turned, seized, threw, and the next moment the curtains were up in oil-fuelled flames. Tamsin screamed.

  ‘Fuck you!’ He had a candle now, brandishing it at the throw on the sofa beside Sylvia, who was begging him with clasped hands.

  ‘Stop it, please, Christian, stop it!’

  Michael wrestled the candle from him, while Al plucked one of the flaming curtains from its pole. ‘Stamp on it,’ he ordered me, turning to the next. I did my best, overcoming the panic induced by the rush of the flames.

  Christian fought back, although Tamsin, still screaming, came to Michael’s aid, thumping her brother on the back. With a monumental effort he broke free from Michael’s grasp, staggered back, tripped, and collapsed into the folds of the last burning drape.

  Now Sylvia screamed too, rushing to free him from the blazing folds. The flames had got him, licking his arms, singeing his hair. Michael pulled the curtain from him, rolling it deftly into a ball that extinguished the flames, but he made no effort to assist Christian. He was more concerned with the curtains that Al and I were still stamping on. He appeared behind me with a fire extinguisher, and in a moment the last smoulders and sparks were reduced to congealed foam and sodden char.

  Michael threw the windows open, the freshness of the evening air only exaggerating the acrid smell of fire. Al followed him in tossing the blackened curtains out onto the gravel, then they shifted the furniture to ensure that no glowing embers were lurking unseen. We had scorch marks on cushions and rugs, blistering paintwork and blackened streaks of soot trailing up the walls and across the ceiling, but that was all. No splintered glass or burning timbers. Pushing back the panic and the fear, I felt a deep, dull throb of anger, a sickening realisation of what might have happened—what could yet happen if Christian could do this.

  Sylvia was on her knees, tearing scorched clothing from her son. His face registered shock, and there were red burns on his arms and one cheek, but no worse than I’d received occasionally from the cooker and the iron. Let him hurt. For a moment, in the midst of the anger, I felt a surge of resentment that Sylvia had rushed to his aid so quickly. Wouldn’t it have been better for the whole world if we’d just let him burn to a crisp?r />
  No. Of course it wouldn’t. ‘Can I get something?’ I forced myself to ask.

  ‘Cold water.’ Sylvia was trembling, but determined to be practical. ‘And there are bandages in the cupboard by the range.’

  Christian was already recovering from his stunned paralysis. He pushed her off with a snarl, and when she persisted, he spat at her.

  He spat at her.

  I was almost winded by the deathly wrath that nauseating gesture unleashed. It filled the room like black sludge.

  ‘Fuck off. Take your fucking hands off me. I don’t want your fucking mother love. I want what’s mine. Give it me, or next time I’ll burn the lot of you in your fucking beds.’

  I expected Sylvia to weep, beg, cajole, do what Sylvia always did, but instead she sat back on her haunches, stony faced. She wiped the spittle off her cheek then looked up at me. ‘Just cold water and bandages.’

  I fetched them, feeling the darkness creep around me, wings spread to encompass us all. He’d spat at Sylvia while she tried to tend him. He would always spit at her, never letting her free as long as he lived, always there, always waiting in the wings to poison her life, to destroy her dreams and her happiness. As long as he lived.

  I handed Sylvia the bowl and the bandages and stepped back. Michael was no longer in the room. Al stood by the window, Tamsin by the door, both of them watching with disgust. Christian had no one left to manipulate or torment, except his mother. She took his arm and bandaged it as if it had been an inanimate thing, a thing of no concern to her. Christian’s vicious spite evolved, too late, into a calculating appeal. He whimpered when she touched a burn, but she paid no attention. He must have seen in her eyes that he had burned more than the curtains. His whimpers turned to sullen impatience.

  At last, Sylvia was done. She got to her feet and wiped her hands. ‘You’d better see a doctor when you get home, Christian. I don’t think they’re serious, but—’

  ‘I’m not going to piss around in a fucking surgery.’

  ‘Then don’t. You make your own choices, Christian. I don’t care anymore.’