Hidden Hours

by Sara Foster

  She exits the room, carefully pulling the door closed, forcing herself to slow down to bring it quietly onto the latch.

  When she turns, ready to flee up the stairs, Naeve is standing barely two paces away from her.

  ‘What are you doing, Eleanor?’

  Eleanor is lost for words. She tries to read the expression on her young cousin’s face, because although she was expecting disgust, what she sees is more like intrigue – she might almost say respect.

  25

  heatwave

  February–March 2005

  School is spiky grass and jostling for rusting play equipment and kids who already have friends and don’t need any more. Eleanor is quiet in class, and on the bus, and in the shed. No one notices. Everyone is too busy.

  Week after week, the temperature in the shed keeps on rising. A quartet of fans now whirr through the night. Nevertheless, the nape of Eleanor’s neck is clammy each morning, the back of her head soaked in a cooling, sticky sweat. By the end of February, there is also a padlock on the inside of the shed door. Her father’s last act each night is to click the shackle into place.

  Everyone goes to bed at the same time – Dad and Aiden on the top bunks, Eleanor and her mother at the bottom. Occasionally Eleanor feels her bunk shake, as though Aiden is nervously tapping the wood, but for the most part he is a sound sleeper. Her mother straps on a head torch and reads for a long time each night. Eleanor is always grateful for that little light, its beacon of comfort breaking through the unremitting darkness. Her father sometimes mumbles things in his sleep, grunting and shifting around, disturbing them all. In a way, she is glad they are so close together in this strange environment, which doesn’t feel any more like home than the first time she set eyes on it. At least it staves off the physical dimension of her loneliness. Yet at other times she has never felt further apart from them all. It’s like they are lost in transit – as though they’ve been sleeping in an airport or railway station for a few months, waiting for their transport to arrive and whisk them away, back to their real lives.

  One Saturday morning early in March, Eleanor wakes up last. The rest of the family sit at the camp table. Aiden and her father are shovelling scrambled eggs into their mouths, while her mother pushes her food around her plate, lost in thought. Eleanor sits up slowly, aware of the tight stretch of her bladder, trying to put off the moment she has to go outside to use the hot, stinking portable toilet. Her mother looks over. ‘How did you sleep?’

  Everyone stops eating. The energy in the room swells, pressing against Eleanor. ‘Fine.’

  ‘You don’t remember?’ Aiden looks suspicious.

  ‘Remember what?’

  ‘You’re a good faker, I’ll give you that.’ He laughs.

  Eleanor hates the sneer in his tone. She wants to cry. ‘What?’

  Her mother comes over, sits on the bed and puts an arm around her. ‘It’s nothing, you gave us a scare, that’s all. You got up in the night and found the padlock key in Dad’s trouser pocket. Managed to unlock the door and were on your way out – thank god the door makes a noise when it opens.’

  Eleanor frowns. ‘I don’t remember that. Are you sure?’

  Her father leans back in his chair. ‘You went sleepwalking a few times when you were little, back in Tippington Road. We didn’t think of it happening here – it’s been a while. Don’t worry, honey, I’ll hide the key somewhere different each night – you won’t be able to get out so easily then.’

  ‘You were like a zombie, shrimp!’ Aiden jumps up and holds his arms out and staggers elaborately over to Eleanor. When he gets close his hands go around her neck and he pretends to strangle her. She knows he’s only joking but he does it too hard, and she grabs his fingers roughly and throws him off.

  ‘Don’t, Aiden, it’s not funny.’

  ‘Sorry, shrimp.’ He ruffles her hair in a way that makes her instantly love him again. Aiden as her protector is the side of him she craves the most, yet she so rarely sees it at the moment. He squats down so their faces are level. ‘Are you sure you’re not faking?’ He winks.

  She pushes him, but she’s laughing now. Her mother pulls her close, kisses her head. When she comes back from the toilet everyone seems a bit happier as they eat their breakfast.

  It’s strange to have other people tell her what she has been up to, and not being able to remember. But she’s glad of the sleepwalking now, because it has brought some lightness back into her family at last. As she scoffs her eggs she tries to think what she can do to hold on to this moment.

  ‘Dad?’ she asks tentatively.

  ‘Yep.’ He is looking down at the architectural drawings on the table, making little marks with a stubby pencil.

  ‘Can you have a day off? We could go to the national park or something – there’s meant to be a waterfall you can swim in. Pleeeeaaaase.’

  He catches her eye, and shakes his head. ‘We can’t, I have to go and get some more bricks today – I’ve got the plasterer coming on Monday, so I need to finish the front outer walls this weekend.’

  She turns in her seat. ‘Mum, can you take us? Please?’

  ‘No can do,’ her dad interrupts. ‘I need all hands on deck, Eleanor.’

  Aiden gets up and grabs his T-shirt, heading out without a word, letting the shed door clang closed behind him.

  ‘Well, can I help you both, then?’ she asks.

  ‘Not with this bit, honey,’ her dad says, reaching across to put his hand on hers. His fingers feel as dry as wood bark. She stares at them. There are little cuts all over his hands and his nails are black and grimy. ‘It’s a bit complex, and we’re under so much pressure right now,’ he says. ‘It’s a race against time to get as much done as we can before the full mortgage kicks in.’

  Eleanor can barely hear these words through her rage, let alone absorb them. ‘Fine.’ She pushes her hands against the table, meaning to move her chair back, but the force upends the wobbly structure, and her father’s papers slide to the floor.

  ‘For god’s sake, Eleanor,’ he cries, scrabbling to pick them up again, ‘what the hell—’

  Eleanor is heading for the door.

  ‘Hey!’ her dad shouts angrily, making her jump. ‘Get back here.’

  ‘Leave her,’ she hears her mother hiss at him, and she takes that as permission to keep going. Behind her their voices continue to rise over the top of one another. She’s only asking for one day/You know what we’re up against with the bank/So how long do we have to ignore our kids for?/We’re building them a fucking house, for Christ’s sake.

  Outside, there’s nowhere to go. Eleanor does the best she can to get away from them, running down the gentle hill towards the remains of the cubby. Her head is a mass of confusion, her face a mess of snot and tears. How long until she gets her family back? Her parents don’t have time for her anymore; while Aiden’s teasing this morning has only made her realise how rarely he talks to her nowadays, and how much she misses him.

  In her distress she runs right down beyond the dismantled cubby, until she gets to the fence line, which is set into a small valley between the two properties. Beyond is a paddock that trails away uphill. In the distance she can see rusting farming equipment, a burned-out car, a shed with a broken window. She stalks along the fence until she finds a weak point and scales it, then sets off slowly towards these strange obstacles, her heart racing in rebellion, heading towards the line of trees at the top of the hill.

  As she reaches the top, she comes to an abrupt halt. Beyond the trees, not far in front of her, is a small weatherboard house. It had been hidden by the incline, so she suddenly finds herself standing much closer to it than is comfortable. And the sight of it – the little terrace of flowers at the front, the ute parked alongside, a cat lazily licking its paw as it lies stretched on the windowsill – is so homely and unexpected that all she can do is stare. For a moment she wonders if she is lost in another waking dream.

  Then there’s a bark. And another. The noi
se jolts her into action; she shouldn’t be here, whoever lives here will think she is spying. She barely has time to see the curtain twitch at the window before she takes off at a run, haring back down the hill, half-expecting to hear a panting mutt at her heels – or, worse, feel razor-sharp teeth sink into her flesh. But she doesn’t dare turn around to look. Jagged edges of fencing wire scrape the insides of her legs as she scales it quickly and races back up the hill towards her family, not slowing until the shed is back in sight.

  26

  the visitor

  Gillian hasn’t slept properly for days. There’s no point putting this off any longer. She puts on her reading glasses and sits down in front of the computer. It doesn’t take long to find articles about Arabella online. Her horror begins to mount as she reads one after another, trying to clarify the events in her mind. Oh Eleanor, she thinks, one hand clapped over her mouth, unable to tear her eyes from the screen, to stop herself from clicking on the next link. Eleanor, sweetheart, what have you got yourself caught up in now?

  Eleanor lies on her bed, watching the night nudging out the daylight, unable to sleep, not wanting to go downstairs. Her first foray into investigating her uncle had resulted in a mumbled apology to Naeve. She had stammered out a few words before running away from her cousin like a coward, without explaining why she’d been trespassing. She can’t imagine why Naeve would keep this transgression to herself, and she keeps jumping up and pacing her room, half-expecting her uncle to knock at her door and ask what the hell she was doing in his office. She is trying but failing to think of a reasonable explanation. However, as the hours drift away, and no one appears, she begins to rethink her fears. She remembers the shrewd expression on Naeve’s face, and wonders if her cousin might have her own reasons for keeping this a secret.

  During the evening, the rest of the household are too far away for her to make out what they are doing. Unwilling to join them, she snacks on chocolate and nuts, and drinks water from the en-suite tap. No one comes to find her when she doesn’t come down for dinner. From her turreted position at the top of the house, snatches of conversation drift towards her, fading away again as soon as she strains to hear them. Gradually the house settles into its nocturnal tempo. No more voices, just one or two short sounds as doors are closed, and a few muffled footsteps falling on the first floor landing. She tries to rest, drawing the curtains against the black night, but although she is bone-tired, her thoughts take a long time to slow down. Eventually, Eleanor drifts off to sleep.

  When she wakes she is standing in the darkness, in a room too large to be her own. Disorientated and unsteady, she grabs at the wall, just visible thanks to the soft glow of streetlights coming through the curtains. She tries to subdue the panic, to set her tumbling mind back in order.

  There is someone in bed in front of her, unmoving. When she trusts herself to stand properly, she tiptoes a few steps forward to peer at the sleeping face.

  It’s Naeve.

  Why Eleanor is here she has no idea. There are no rules or logic to sleepwalking. Slowly, carefully, she backs towards the door, checking her footing before taking each step, desperate not to wake her cousin by making a sudden noise.

  Thankfully the door is ajar, and she doesn’t touch it once she’s in the corridor, just pads as fast as she can back to her room. Too nervous to even attempt sleep again, she sits on her bed, shaking out the numbness that is crawling up her fingers. Twice in forty-eight hours – this hasn’t happened since she was a teenager. Why would her subconscious want to pull her back into the past, when it knows how hard she has tried to escape?

  Because you don’t want to admit why you’re so angry with yourself, a little voice says, trespassing through the traps in her mind. You vowed you would never, ever take drugs. And yet when someone cajoled you, you didn’t even hesitate. You could have given that drink back. You didn’t have to down it.

  I had no idea what it was, she reminds herself. I was just trying to relax and fit in. I didn’t know what was going to happen.

  You didn’t think about the consequences, the snide voice persists. That’s why you’re in this mess. Should you really be here on your own? Perhaps you should seriously consider booking your flight home.

  She throws herself down, face against the pillows, and gives a muffled cry. No matter how much her fears taunt her, she will not go home. She will stay, not because the police have instructed her to stick around, but because if she runs now she will never dare to strike for independence again. She is twenty-one years old; she cannot hide for the rest of her life.

  She props herself up on her elbows, staring at the wall. So, what now? She has to sleep at some point. Perhaps she will have to barricade herself in her room to be sure she doesn’t disturb the rest of the family. Last time she had bitten her uncle, so thank god Naeve had stayed asleep. Does she really have to protect them all from herself?

  As she sits up she remembers what she said to Will. I’m going to do everything I can to find out what happened to Arabella. She picks up her phone, knowing that sleep is unlikely to come now.

  An hour or so later, her eyes are blurry from staring at her phone, and her wrist is sore from taking notes. She doesn’t have access to a larger screen or a printer, so this old-fashioned scribing will have to do, but it turns out there is quite a lot of information on the internet about Arabella and Nathan Lane – and about Susan and Ian Mortimer too. She has found business deals and new job announcements for them all. She has perused pictures of a younger Arabella supporting her father on parliamentary campaigns and on election night. Arabella is also mentioned on various socialite blog sites, and on a few occasions there are photographs of her with Nathan’s arm around her, eyes shining brightly for the camera – too brightly, it seems now, but that could just be the advantage of hindsight. Eleanor stares at Nathan. He looks proud, and confident, but is this also the face of a man who could kill his wife?

  Next, she searches for online news items and carefully reads what has been reported so far on Arabella’s death. Most of the journalists make it sound suspicious rather than an accident. A few mention witnesses near the river. One piece features a grainy shot of Arabella from above, walking by the low wall of Victoria Embankment, the camera too high up to capture her expression, her hair already flattened by the rain. She is the only person in the picture who doesn’t have an umbrella, and so she stands out, jacketless in the middle of winter, her arms wrapped across her chest as though trying to warm – or protect – herself.

  Eleanor stares at the photo as she tries to piece together what little information she has. The picture was taken at twenty-five minutes past midnight – the party had been officially over by then, so this must have been the second time Arabella left The Atlantic. But why was she back down on the Embankment? Why hadn’t she headed home? In the picture Arabella looks a lot steadier on her feet than Eleanor had been, considering they had the same drug in their system. Perhaps that’s because Arabella was a regular user; she could handle it better. Still, how could no one have seen what happened to her in the end?

  In the early hours she begins to drift in and out of a doze, occasionally waking up sweating, her body on fire, only her face attuned to the London winter. Thankfully each time it’s to find herself still in her own bed.

  By morning she is exhausted. She listens to the others getting up, doors opening and closing again, footsteps heading downstairs, Ian calling to the girls that they are ‘leaving in five, or we’ll be late’. She goes to her narrow window. She can’t watch the garage from here but she does see the car head off down the road.

  No one has been to check on her or say good morning. She’s like an unwanted ghost, banished to the top of the house. No one has asked if she is going to the memorial, or offered to take her with them. But perhaps that’s a good thing – she’ll be able to sit at the back, unnoticed.

  The gnawing pain in her stomach tells her she really needs to eat. She goes down to the kitchen and makes herself a strong
cup of coffee, then sits at the bench, sipping it, thinking of all she discovered overnight. She gazes absentmindedly at the beautiful stained-glass mural that frames the large bay window, and marvels again at the pure lines of chrome in the kitchen, the gleaming equipment, wondering if Susan has ever put an apron on in here and settled in to bake. She almost chokes on her coffee at the thought of it – but there must be another side to Susan, surely she cannot always treat her home like a hotel and her family like her work colleagues?

  Just as she is beginning to relax, the doorbell rings loudly into the silence. Eleanor pauses, unsure what to do, then decides to pretend there is no one in. Her hands grip her mug tightly as she waits, hoping whoever it is goes away.

  After a moment, when silence has returned, she creeps towards the kitchen entrance, from where she can see the front door across the expansive hallway.

  A shadow loiters beyond the frosted panes of glass. And then the letterbox opens, and a woman’s voice says, ‘Hello? Is anyone home? Susan? Ian? Is that you?’

  Eleanor stops still, but there’s no doubt she’s been spotted. She doesn’t recognise the voice. There’s a lilt in the accent – Welsh, possibly, although she’s not great at distinguishing these things. At least it isn’t Nathan. ‘Hang on,’ she calls, and goes over to the door. When she pulls it open there is a woman with long, dark hair waiting on the doorstep, wearing a tan trench coat, watching the slow-falling rain.