Veil of Darkness

by Gillian White

  How embarrassing that she imagined Rory Coburn fancied her.

  How shameful, how simplistic, to honestly believe he was taking her out with her body in mind.

  This is the way the man does his job, these are the manners his women enjoy. No-one in this restaurant, except some nerd with her own ill-breeding, would interpret his attentions so wrongly.

  It is blow after blow after blow as Bernie is subtly marginalized by these more sophisticated, cleverer women, just as she was back there in the studio. They end up sharing a table with another party of Rory’s friends, demonstrating to the indignant Bernie that she is not considered sufficiently qualified to entertain the great man through dinner. For his foie gras to go down smoothly he needs not just the best wine in the house, but the most scintillating and intellectual people, while she is rather unsavoury fare.

  And she harbours the horrible suspicion that, after he has taken her home, he goes on somewhere else with his friends without inviting her.

  The next morning things get even worse.

  ‘But, my dear, this is quite grotesque.’

  Bernie has postponed the meeting with her editor, Clementine Davaine, for too long. Clementine, her brown wig freshly washed and therefore not perfectly settled, insisted on coming today, and now peers down through her thin bifocals in the small office at the back of the flat where the temporary secretary has been working to print out Kirsty’s scrappy amendments. ‘You haven’t understood what I meant at all.’ She sits back and stares at Bernie as if she is an unsettling apparition. ‘We can’t have this—and what has happened to your style, child? Where has all the eloquence gone?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Of course you know.’ Clementine picks up one piece of rewritten A4 type. ‘Is this a joke? Look at this! Just look at it! I mean, it hardly makes sense any more.’

  ‘I’ll have another go,’ says Bernie tiredly. What the hell is Kirsty doing landing her in the shit like this? Is her jealousy making her deliberately spiteful?

  Clementine removes her spectacles, disturbing the wig as she does so and moving it slightly out of kilter. Her gnarled old hands rest on her lap, clasped together in what looks like defence. ‘No, Bernadette. Let me think for a moment. Unfortunately, you are one of those authors who cannot follow editorial direction. You have tried, I can see that, but all you are likely to do is mess up what was, as it stood, a masterpiece. Perhaps I was wrong to try to make changes, even such minimal ones. But I am going to take this with me and give it to an old friend of mine who might be able to succeed where you failed.’

  This sounds too good to be true. ‘And I won’t have to do any more work on it?’

  ‘No. In future, my dear, I think I can honestly say that I would rather you kept your hands right off this book.’ And she stuffs the manuscript in an old leather holdall which contains a pair of manly bedroom slippers and a double pack of ultra-soft, rose-coloured Andrex. ‘The sooner we can send edited proofs out to reviewers the better,’ says Clementine, slipping an unlikely padlock around the handles of the old shopping bag and locking the thing with a miniature key. ‘We’ve already wasted too much time. We have paid a fortune for this novel and we really must get things cracking.’

  These people think they’re a breed apart. Clementine rises abruptly and leaves while Bernie’s temper flames, fed up of all these insinuations that hers is a stagnant mind. After all, they are parasites every one of them, feeding off authors and artists and bloating themselves like conceited leeches. And the more she frets over the editor’s remarks, sitting alone in the office, the more her wrath is fanned into savagery. Bernadette burns to be loved and admired; this is how this venture had started. Everything was so easy then, back at the Burleston with Candice Love, who thought the sun shone out of her arse. Then along came Dominic to complete her exultation, this London flat and the media attention. She paces the room, silent, sullen and testy.

  Bernie is quite alone now, apart from Joyce Parfait the housekeeper who keeps herself to herself and cooks an assortment of fish in the converted garage. She regrets chucking Dom out now—he was stale and fawning but at least he was company. It will be different when she can spend her own money; she can leave this dreary flat and go back to Liverpool. She misses Mammy and Daddy and Fran, who treat her differently on the phone now they know she’s a literary genius. And all her other abandoned friends. But once she’s got money will they accept her?

  Her troubles stem from the moment she fooled herself into believing that Rory Coburn was up for it. He, not little Dom, is the sort of man she wants to be seen with—it is his world she longs to be part of; she yearns to be accepted as one of them. Will there always be ‘one of them’ for poor Bernie to aspire to? Does the Queen have ‘one of them’ from whom she is excluded? And every time she achieves an ambition why do the goal posts have to move?

  The lonely, dispirited Bernie goes upstairs, showers and throws herself naked on her opulent bed. She picks up her copy of Magdalene; she has studied this book, learned paragraphs by heart, memorized the most insignificant characters in case she was ever questioned, what more could she have done? Nobody can come straight out and deny that she is the author of Magdalene, not even Clementine, with all her suspicious, witchy looks. But at the end of the day what has it gained her? She will be rich, she will be respected by those who have not met her, but she will never be one of the inner circle.

  Throughout her life Bernie has imagined that she is an interesting person.

  What is Rory Coburn doing now?

  Is he in bed with his butler, Bentley? Or is he, more likely, making love to one of the luvvies he seems to attract with the lift of an eyebrow?

  With a reflective smile on her lips Bernie moves her fingers down her perfectly formed naked body, caressing her breasts, her legs, her taut stomach; even her feet are perfect examples of what feet ought to look like. What is the matter with Rory Coburn, and why did he flirt with her in the first place if he finds her so contemptible? He had no right to behave in that manner, assuming she was wise and perceptive. Does he find her ignorance repellent? Is her accent offensive? Are her manners unsatisfactory? Perhaps he considers her vulgar?

  How dare he? How dare he?

  She felt this unhappiness when Dominic hurt her. Dear God, please don’t let Rory obsess her. She suspects that she needs him already, that this is the reason for this new desolation. His power to wound would be greater than Dominic’s.

  Why should she be used and discarded by a slimy little lecher like Coburn? And how can she get even?

  She holds back the tears.

  The answer comes to Bernie in one easy flash, like a sudden reflection in the mirror, but she turns round and sees no-one.

  For one brief moment she feels sick and reaches for the water jug put ready by Joyce Parfait on her bedside table. Gin might have been more thoughtful. But she lights a fag instead, the other hand unconsciously resting on the unpublished novel.

  Malice flows through her veins with the blood.

  Bernadette is a woman scorned.

  The reputation of Coburn and Watts is flying high on the back of their coup to acquire Magdalene. After the book has been fully exploited that agency stands to make millions, and the main beneficiary to it all is that tosser Rory Coburn. How easy it would be to tarnish his name, or even better, for the sake of the revenge Bernie feels is due to her, to dump her burdens on somebody who would find it quite impossible to refuse to share an intolerable load.

  Still naked, she leans across the bed, looks up his number in her diary, and dials.

  In a minute Rory Coburn will hear the worst news of his career.

  Twenty-Five

  AUTUMN COMES TO THE country more subtly than to the town, where leaves build up and gutters fill and the starker trees stand out boldly from the sound of muted traffic like russet decorations.

  At Burleston Cove distant bonfires of dead leaves fill the air with smoky blues, over-ripe
apples mellow in patches of sunlight where rusty leaves replace pink blossoms. The sea rolls into a verdigris green and white lace tacks to the spindrift. At times, white wood smoke from the hotel fires spirals far enough to lie on the water.

  When the first payment was made to her bank, distributed fairly by Bernie, Kirsty gave in her notice. It was more money than she would have earned after a lifetime skivvying at the Burleston.

  ‘It’s happening now! It’s started,’ Avril screamed with acquisitive joy. ‘You must believe in miracles now, you’ve done it, Kirsty! You’ve done it!’

  In a dignified and detached manner, in a nasty mustard-yellow frock which suggested kidney failure, Mrs Stokes enquired about the book’s progress. ‘Because I don’t want you to go and burn all your bridges in some tomfool way, not now you’ve got your children to consider.’

  ‘They have paid one advance into Bernadette’s bank and she has shared it with us already, but pretty soon they’ll dole out the rest and me and my kids will be safe for life.’

  As she said it Kirsty could scarcely believe it.

  ‘And when is this book due to be published?’

  ‘February the sixth. But the edited proofs will be ready by Christmas. We should have a copy by then.’ This is what Kirsty is waiting for: the thought of holding that wonderful work, all heavy and contained in her hands. It feels like a birth, even to her; she did update it, after all, and conceived the whole outrageous idea. And she, so mentally ill, so dull-witted and boring, has not only outwitted Trev, but publishers, agents, journalists and the highest fliers of film and TV.

  ‘I would very much appreciate a copy,’ said Mrs Stokes with uncharacteristic interest and no expression at all on her face.

  ‘Oh? Well, I’m sure we’ll have one to spare,’ said Kirsty on a wave of warm enthusiasm, sympathizing suddenly with this grim-faced old woman who seems to live her life at death’s door, whose only relative seems to be a shadowy child across the Atlantic, whose career has amounted to nothing more than a lifetime of counting sheets, kowtowing to Mr Derek and intimidating staff.

  Whereas Kirsty intends to start again—basic qualifications followed by university and a decent job, a first-class education for the children, a middle-class neighbourhood, a comfortable lifestyle and no man.

  And after handing in her notice the second thing Kirsty did was go with Avril to choose a car. A new one. A neat, bright red little Corsa. Her life is suddenly so very positive, no more beating time to somebody else’s drum. No more backward glances.

  ‘Are you thirsty yet, Trevor?’

  With pleasure she knows he is not just thirsty but rasping and gasping for water. It is four days since he found her and nothing has passed his lips since then. He has probably tried the rank, oily ooze that laps around his feet, but the cat must be putrid by now, contaminating what moisture there is, along with Trevor’s own waste, and causing him extra grief. Has he slept, Kirsty wonders?

  ‘Give me some water.’

  ‘Give me your clothes. This is strip poker, Trevor, remember the rules? We played it in Weston-super-Mare, you seemed to enjoy it then.’ Her eyes are terror-fixed, but Trevor can’t see that. She wants him naked. To be naked is to be much more vulnerable.

  ‘I’ll give you my clothes.’

  No cursing. No threats. No more accusations of madness. Just a hoarse whisper coming from the ground.

  ‘I’m going to lower this rope. Just tie your clothes to the end, your shoes and socks as well, and I’ll haul them up. Then I’ll tie a bottle of water to the rope and let it down to you.’ As she kneels at the side of the hole she warns him casually, ‘If you try to pull the rope, Trevor, if you put any needless pressure on it at all, I will let it drop immediately.’ Kirsty adds truthfully, ‘It’s the only rope I have.’

  There is a silence while Kirsty watches the slow, awkward movements from the figure down below, his limbs must be aching from the damp and cold, from the sudden lack of exercise. Trevor could well be in quite a bit of pain. Trevor could well be ill.

  ‘That’s it,’ says Trevor’s voice, still muffled.

  ‘Don’t forget your crucifix, Trevor.’ To her overwrought mind this broken Christ seems to symbolize so much of her terror.

  Kirsty hauls up the rope and is knocked back by the stench that accompanies the untidy bundle. Faeces and mould and putrefaction.

  She lowers the bottled spring water and that’s followed by scuffling sounds, as if some small animal is trapped down there, but it’s only Trev with his stiff, hurting hands struggling to loosen the knot. Then she can hear him drinking it, the gulping of a parched, painful throat which slows as the bottle is drained, and then there’s a shocking smash as glass hits the walls and the doleful sobbing of a desperate man.

  ‘Don’t kill me, Kirsty,’ he pleads, thirst no longer constricting his throat.

  Above him, she smiles and refrains from answering.

  Let him sweat.

  It would be unkind to let him know her plans.

  This is strip poker played with no dice and the cards are stacked against him.

  ‘Tomorrow I might bring some Jaffa cakes,’ she says as she backs away from the hole. She bundles his clothes on a high shelf before leaving the cottage, careful to lock the door behind her, swinging a barrier into place between her and another world.

  Kirsty drives away from the Burleston, all the pleasure of her new car flooding her with satisfaction as she heads, once more, towards Pengellis Rock. This time she leaves her car in the pull-in—she has no intention of muddying the wheels—climbs the gate and jumps down into the field. A solitary sheep lifts its head to watch her go by while she follows the grey stone walls, unwilling to be seen. Somebody has removed Trev’s car, so they must be searching for him already. When she reaches the edge of the sheer cliff she cautiously scrambles across the thin bridge of stone that attaches the dark, precipitous rock to the mainland, turning it into a craggy purgatory for souls already dead—only the body left to follow into the void of terror.

  It is an eerie spectacle.

  The hostile monolith frowns down on her, as old as the world, warning her about dark forces too powerful for man. The wind assaults her face. It is blowing in from the sea and funnelling its way up through twists in the crags. The crumbling edge she stands on, heavy with moss and lichen, drops sheer to a sea of grim desolation. Gulls scream out in turmoil as they rise and dive and swoop over the churning black water.

  How easy it would be to hurl oneself down, and how weirdly tempting these places can be, fascinating and frightening. She unclenches her hand and, instead of herself, Kirsty throws down Trevor’s cross, that malign crucifix that was present and compliant during every moment of her suffering. She licks her hand, the thing must have burnt it, and her palm throbs where she gripped it on the short journey. Fighting back like a living pulse? It seems to know that its future lies at the bottom of the world’s shifting oceans, that all it is going to be part of now is the ghostly floatings of jelly fish, the flashings of scales, the processions of lobsters. And the heathen thing, corrupt and defiled, flies into the wind and briefly heads for the sky with the gulls before dropping down to the leaden sea.

  She cannot weep for Trevor.

  The burn on her arm, which is too deep to heal and will leave a permanent scar like the ugly memory of a Nazi hell, is all Kirsty needs to see to keep her nailed to her awful commitment. Trev used to accuse her of hurting herself, cutting herself with broken glass, bruising herself by deliberately falling downstairs, burning herself on the gas ring, and all for some spurious attention. If she moved during these moments of torture Trev would punish her by doubling the pain. So she had to lie still and endure, willing herself not to scream out loud and so prolong her agony. When she first escaped from his clutches she was puzzled by her initial behaviour—some nights she deliberately inflicted pain on her body, like a nun striving to drive out the devils; her identity somehow depended on pain, pain was such a large part of her life. She
scrubbed at her hands till they bled, and stayed awake, shivering, by refusing to pull up her blankets. She felt safe with Mrs Stokes’s firm method of cold control, feeling that without such discipline, self-inflicted or otherwise, she might be extinguished completely like other useless human wastage.

  Since then, to Kirsty’s great relief, this disturbing behaviour has stopped. This fog cleared from her mind one slow patch at a time. She never came closer to insanity than when she tormented herself like this, because where did these shameful needs come from? Perhaps Trev had been right. She began thinking along these lines, not able to understand the motives behind her madness. Magdalene, she feels sure, was behind her recovery. Through all her worst, most painful sufferings she heard her heroine’s soothing voice. It came like a glorious reprieve. Because that dark and sinister nun with so much revenge in her heart used such simple and obvious devices to cleanse these sicknesses from her spirit. Kirsty could feel the force invade each separate part of her body—she was a cripple but now she could dance.

  ‘Sin is the deepest and coldest shadow ever to fall on man,’ goes Magdalene’s speech to the drunk after she tore out his tongue. ‘Sin tracked the Roman in his conquests, the prophet of Mecca in his religion, the apostles of Judea in their teaching of Christ. It pressed its road into the vestal cells of my convent, it throws its chilly mist around the deathbed of the saint and alights upon the baby head of the darling in the nursery.

  ‘It is our holy duty to celebrate sin…’

  And it isn’t only her mental state with which Kirsty feels so much happier, already she looks like a younger, more radiant person, as if this last summer has ordained her with its bounty and left a particular freshness that has been missing from her for too long. Her skin is clearer, her eyes are brighter, even her teeth seem whiter, and her hair has a new and burnished sheen which she last noticed in childhood.

  So she did understand how Avril felt when she set forth to spend her first £5,000 on a complete change of image. Avril is almost unrecognizable as the glum, shy, chubby girl who arrived in that minibus at the Burleston Hotel back in early June. These last few weeks have seen the transformation of Avril, since the day Ed showed his true colours when he met her mother at Happy Stay, when he sided with her mother against her, when he showed not a jot of sensitivity to Avril’s ongoing filial hell, and since Graham was charged with murder. Avril is totally unperturbed about the double-murder charges. Oddly, she accepts the press, seems to regard them as part of the norm and is happy to give interviews. ‘I am the sister of the killer from hell.’