Ebb and Flow

by Mary O'Sullivan

  Shock flooded through Ella. Either she and Karen shared the same madness, the same mental disorder or else . . . What if Karen had seen the identical image in Harriet’s portrait? What if she had seen herself all broken and bruised and bleeding? Ella dismissed the thought, afraid that she again was beginning to lose her hold on reality. She looked across at Rob and pity overrode all her other emotions. What would she say to this troubled man? What could she say? Which words could possibly capture the fear invoked by writhing images of dead people? Maybe the truth was the only panacea to all the un-dead hurts.

  “Your wife has become part of my life too. I never spoke to her when she was alive, never shook her hand but yet she somehow lives on inside my head. Always screaming, always pleading with me. I don’t know what she wants. Do you, Rob?”

  “I never knew what Karen really wanted when she was here. I certainly don’t now.”

  The vehemence of Rob’s statement stunned Ella. She had made an assumption that Karen and Rob had been a very contented couple. Why not? They had wealth and privilege and a beautiful son. But then a lot of people probably made the same assumption about herself and Andrew. She waited now for Rob to go on. She saw his inner struggle reflected on his face. His jaw muscles twitched as if trying to trap thoughts which were fighting to escape.

  “Karen changed after she had the baby. She was treated for post-natal depression. But it went on and on. Ian was four at the time of the accident and Karen was still supposedly suffering from the after-effects of giving birth to him.”

  “Supposedly?”

  Rob spread his hands on the table and stared at them as if the answer to the awkward question was written on his well-manicured nails. When he looked up, Ella saw that he had made a decision. A painful one.

  “I don’t know how much longer we could have gone on. Our situation was almost impossible. Karen was withdrawn. Moody. Uncommunicative. She spent hours standing in front of that goddamn portrait of Lady Harriet. She seemed obsessed by her ancestor yet she would never talk about her. I know there was a scandal. Lady Harriet eloped with one of the stable lads. It was the big shame of the Wellsley family. But I don’t know what happened to Harriet after that and I certainly don’t know why Karen became obsessed by her.”

  Ella looked around the kitchen again. It was bright and warm and welcoming. Not the design you would expect from a woman who was as depressed as Rob seemed to imply. He followed Ella’s gaze now around the brightly lit space and nodded in agreement.

  “I know what you’re thinking. Not the work of a manic-depressive. But she was in good form while this work was being carried out. We had agreed to sell Manor House. To move on. To try to save our marriage. I lied when I said we did the kitchen for comfort and convenience. We renovated to make the place more saleable.”

  “So Karen was well at the time she had the accident?”

  Rob got up from the table and went over to the percolator. He busied himself preparing two mugs of coffee, concentrating on the task in silence. Ella took the time to try to make sense of what he was telling her. Karen had been depressed since the little boy Ian had been born. Yet she was happily planning a new kitchen and a house move just before she died. And now it seemed she did not want to be dead at all. Rob brought a tray to the table and laid out sugar, cream and the two coffees. He settled in his chair again, a determined look on his face.

  “The truth is that Karen was totally distraught on the evening she died. After the work on the kitchen was finished we began to plan for the sale of Manor House. That’s when she seemed to change her mind, to get even more withdrawn than she had ever been. The nightmares and sleepwalking, which had been intermittent, became nightly affairs. Even Ian was becoming afraid of his mother. She practically wore a patch bare standing on the hall floor in front of Lady Harriet’s portrait. She wasn’t eating or sleeping much. On the evening she died, I . . . I threatened to leave, and take Ian with me.”

  Ella heard the guilt and regret in his voice. The pain. It seemed as if Karen had taken matters into her own hands.

  “She left, with your son?”

  Rob nodded his bowed head. “I should have tried to stop her. I knew she was irrational. Over the edge. Ian was crying. He didn’t want to go with her and I did nothing to help him.”

  “Where was she going?”

  “I don’t know but I do believe she meant to kill herself. To kill both of them. It was not an accident.”

  Ella released a long breath she had not realised she had been holding. Maybe it was a sigh of relief. This was total exoneration for her and confirmation of the suspicion she had held but had been reluctant to admit. She examined the sequence of the accident as it rolled past her yet again. The jeep thundering around the corner of the narrow road, Karen’s face, opened-mouthed and wide-eyed, her hand reaching back to instinctively protect her child. Squinting her eyes, Ella tried to see if there was any emotion other than fear on Karen’s face. Maybe determination or vengeance. The image faded. She turned her attention again to the distraught man sitting across the table from her.

  “She was driving very fast, Rob. And conditions were bad.”

  “She told me she was going to do it. I didn’t believe her. I suppose I should have told the police. I would have if they had asked directly. That is why I tried so hard to re-assure you as soon as you came out of your coma. I knew it wasn’t your fault. Karen was the architect of her own horrible end. And Ian’s too.”

  They were silent as Ella wondered if it had been pride or insurance considerations which made Rob keep the real reason for his wife’s car crash to himself. There surely would have been financial implications if her death was officially found to be suicide. Ashamed of this mean thought, she reached across the table and touched Rob’s hand.

  “I’m sure it was an accident, Rob. The inquest said so. And if it wasn’t, the situation was out of your control anyway. You must stop blaming yourself.”

  “Karen must stop blaming me.”

  Ella suddenly felt claustrophobic in the large kitchen, as if the walls in the big room had slithered forward to enclose her. She stood and gathered her coat and bag.

  “I must go,” she said. “I’ve a long drive ahead. I’m on my way to Cuanowen on the west coast. I just popped in to let you know there are two offers on Manor House.”

  “I know. Your husband rang me about Maxine Doran’s offer.”

  Ella tried to hide her reaction but knew that Rob had caught the flicker of shock tempered by annoyance which crossed her face. Andrew could have told her he had contacted Rob. Should have. Rob stood and held her coat for her as she put it on. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I spent a lot of time talking about myself. You’ve gone through a lot too. Do you want to talk about it?”

  Buttoning up her coat, Ella smiled at him. “No, Rob. Just knowing that someone else is having . . . is seeing . . .” Her voice trailed off as she struggled and failed to find words to describe the terror with which Karen Trevor filled her. “My psychologist says I’m using Karen as an excuse not to confront the real problems in my life.”

  Rob laughed. “Snap! I seemingly have guilt issues I’m not dealing with.”

  They were both smiling, an exclusive little club of Karen Trevor victims, as they walked into the hall. Ella’s eyes were drawn yet again to the space at the bottom of the stairs where Lady Harriet’s portrait used to be. Rob followed her gaze.

  “Karen has a distant cousin who lives in London. Clarissa. By and large, the Wellsley clan has died out. I brought the Lady Harriet portrait over to Clarissa. I suppose I was hoping to get some information from her about Lady Harriet. A vain hope. Clarissa was as ignorant of the history as I am. The funny thing was, she refused to take the portrait, even though I told her it was valuable.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “For a reason I would never have given any credence to before.”

  Ella watched as Rob seemed to battle with his thoughts. She gauged from his rapid blinking and facia
l tics that his mind was in turmoil. Yet he remained silent, standing in the very spot where his wife had spent so many hours staring at the Lady Harriet portrait.

  “The reason, Trevor? What was it?”

  His eyes came to focus on Ella. She looked deep into them and saw shadows of the confusion and utter terror she herself had endured for the past year.

  “She said the portrait was cursed. That it would bring bad luck to her. In fact, it terrified her.”

  He was staring hard at Ella now, gauging her reaction, waiting for her to scoff, to laugh at this outrageous superstition, to tell him he was insane. But Ella was looking steadily back at him, remembering that she had seen the portrait shimmer and waver before her eyes. She nodded to Rob to continue.

  “Harriet’s father was an authoritarian man, given to violent tantrums. He was enraged when his daughter ran away with the stable lad. Here in this hall, standing in front of the then newly painted portrait, he cursed his daughter. He said she was dead to the Wellsley family but that she would never know the peace of eternal rest. He then took her pet dog, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel out to the courtyard and shot it through the heart. Lady Harriet was never mentioned again after that day.”

  Ella shivered and for a moment superstition was more compelling than logic. No wonder the portrait exuded such sadness and terror. Hatred that intense had power and energy to transcend time. She took a deep breath then. Not my time, she thought. I’m not a Wellsley.

  “Is Clarissa Karen’s only surviving relative?” she asked.

  “There’s another distant Wellsley relation somewhere in South Africa, I believe. No one else. Karen was an only child. I had intended doing some research on Harriet. Archive material, certificates, that kind of thing. I’ve changed my mind now. I need to say goodbye to Lady Harriet and her secrets.”

  Ella looked at the portrait of the man in pantaloons and laughed. “They weren’t all as beautiful as Lady Harriet, were they?”

  “No, but I believe one of the bidders is. Both my housekeeper and Jason Laide remarked on Maxine Doran’s resemblance to Lady Harriet.”

  Ella’s mouth pursed. Maxine Doran. Bitch! She turned to face him. “Rob, you now have two people interested in buying Manor House. Do you have a personal preference or do you just want the property to go to the highest bidder?”

  Rob shifted from one foot to the other, staring down as if fascinated by the movement of his feet. When he looked up, the haunted look was still in his eyes.

  “I think Jason Laide could cope with it. His hide is too thick to feel any of the disturbance, the unhappiness of this house. I want to move out as quickly as possible.”

  Ella knew exactly what he meant. She had wanted to ask him about Karen. What her interests were, her favourite foods, her hopes, her ambitions. She had wanted to know the details of the woman who had turned her life upside down but the cold blast of air which suddenly filled the hall made her need to escape more urgent than her need to know. She pulled her coat closely about her. Goosebumps appeared on Rob’s skin. For one moment Ella thought they would both freeze to death in the vastness of the towering hall.

  “Jason Laide is very anxious to close,” she said.

  The sound of her voice echoed around, bouncing off the vaulted ceilings and breaking whatever icy spell had gripped them.

  “Jason Laide it is then,” Rob said as he moved to open the door for her.

  He stood in the doorway until Ella started her car. She waved to him as she began to slowly turn the car towards the driveway. He was just a dark shadow in the huge doorway, backlit by the glow from the spectacular crystal chandelier. Ella blinked as beside him she saw the outline of Karen Trevor, hands extended in her pleading gesture. She swerved and mounted the lawn. The car tilted. Frantically Ella spun the steering wheel. In an instant she was back on the driveway. She did not look back again. Leaving Rob to his ghosts, she headed towards Cuanowen and peace.

  Chapter 18

  The bells of Salzburg’s magnificent baroque Cathedral rang out, the peals soft and gentle as if even they were muffled in the snow which blanketed the old fortress town. Jason lay on his back, eyes closed, savouring the morning and the warm sensations wafting from his toes to the top of his head. His body was so relaxed that it felt weightless, part of the fabric of the big comfortable bed on which he lay. Not wanting to break the spell by moving he just opened his eyes and turned them towards the woman lying beside him. She was facing him, knees drawn up, arms folded across her chest. Asleep. Her dark hair tumbled around her beautiful face. He examined her features minutely, from the black semicircles of her curling lashes to the soft curve of her mouth. She seemed vulnerable. Soft and warm and very innocent. He reached out his hand and touched a strand of hair. It slid between his fingers, silky and smooth. Just like Sharon herself. So silky, so smooth, yet always slipping away from his grasp. He withdrew his hand and the movement woke her. Her eyelids flickered and opened to reveal violet-blue eyes. Jason felt his breath catch in his throat. No matter what happened between himself and Sharon, no matter what their future held, he would always believe that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever met. Also the most infuriating.

  “Good morning,” she muttered. “Did you sleep well?”

  Jason turned impatiently onto his side to face her. This was so typically Sharon. They had fucked each other’s brains out last night and now she was speaking to him as if he was a stranger. A guest. Which in a way he was. This elegant house on Junkergassse belonged to her. He just paid for the upkeep. Feathered her little Austrian nest.

  “I did. And you?”

  “You wore me out,” she laughed and the smoky voice stirred Jason to the depths of the soul he rarely acknowledged.

  “I suppose you have plans for today. You always have.”

  Sharon sat up and stretched her arms up over her head. Jason watched in fascination as her breasts rose too, becoming even more pert.

  “The choice is yours,” she said. “Shopping, skiing, walking. Maybe sightseeing.”

  “I’m not going on that fucking Sound Of Music trip again. Don’t even think of it.”

  “Nor would I,” she agreed as she slipped out of bed and put on a silk robe.

  The big bed suddenly seemed less comfortable to Jason. He sat up and, punching the pillows into shape, propped them behind his back.

  “We must talk, Sharon.”

  “Sure. What about?”

  Even though her voice still held her whispery, caressing quality, the words had a sharp sting. It was as if she believed that they had nothing to talk about, that if she allowed him have a shag every so often he would continue to unthinkingly support her life of luxury.

  “Manor House. This house. Our life style. Our future.”

  “Okay,” she said disinterestedly as she tied the belt on her silk robe and pushed her feet into high-heeled mules.

  “I want to start a family,” Jason announced and then sat back against his pillows, furious with himself for his lack of finesse. He should not have blurted it out, issued it as a challenge.

  And judging by Sharon’s reaction, that is exactly how she saw it too. She had stood stock still where she was, just staring at him. A clock chimed in the silence. It must be that awful-looking thing on the mantelpiece in the lounge. The one that Sharon said was a valuable antique. A Napoleon clock that had cost a ransom to buy. She said it was a good investment. He had to take her word for that. Just as with so many other things in their lives. He had to believe her when she said her boyfriends were only for amusement, when she said she would eventually settle down, when she said she would one day be a proper wife to him. Eventually was now. No more fucking around. No more using Jason Laide as an ATM machine.

  “You’re pushing on, Shar. I want a son before it’s too late for both of us.”

  Maybe it was the way the early morning sun filtered through the curtains, or maybe it was imagination but Jason thought Sharon paled. She walked slowly over to the bed and sat on
the edge of it, keeping a safe distance away from her husband.

  “You’re not ready to settle down, Jason. To be a father.”

  “Jesus! You’re the one that needs to settle. You’re the one who spends her time globetrotting. And now that we’re on the topic, I’m not happy either for you to continue on the way you are. With your boyfriends.”

  “We agreed. No questions, no jealousy. You have your little dalliances too, Jason. I don’t question you.”

  “That’s different. I’m entitled.”

  “Is that so?”

  The way she looked down along the length of her perfect nose at him angered Jason. Throwing back the duvet, he swung his legs onto the floor. His back was to her now but he still felt the coldness of her disdain. He had not meant to drag the topic up like this but, now that he had, he realised there was no other way. The Jason Laide way was best. He turned his head to look at Sharon and he saw as well as felt her disapproval. There was a touch of fear too in her raised shoulders and the defensive folding of her arms across her chest. Enough!

  “I’m not asking you to do something unreasonable, Shar. I’m investing a lot of money in Manor House. I want it to be our home. I want my children to grow up there. I want to know I am their father – so no more fucking around. Understood?”

  She laughed. The throaty sound stung Jason like a sharp slap. Bitch!

  “And you will give up your girlfriends?” she asked. “Those little trollops you pick up and occasionally beat up?”

  “I never beat anyone up. Not really. Just make them behave themselves. Besides, you’re not going to tell me what to do. I’ll live my life whatever way I want and what I want now is for my wife to stop behaving like a whore.”

  “What about Maxine Doran? Do you still visit her regularly? ”

  “That’s a business arrangement.”

  “Really? I didn’t know that fashion was one of your many enterprises.”

  “Maxine’s useful. Which reminds me, you must open the vault for me. I need to check on some of the material there.”