by Nina Allan
The notebook had been dated on the front cover and contained the draft outline for what was clearly to have been a new novel. The book was set in London and told the story of a girl named Linney. Linney’s parents were unable to have more children of their own, and so decided to take in a child of the Kindertransport, one of the thousands of Jewish children sent to England by their parents to escape the Nazis. Linney resented the newcomer and did everything to make her life a misery. In the end the Jewish girl went missing during an air raid. The story had been left unfinished, but there was enough for Terri to see that here at last was Allis Bennett’s true autobiography. Far from loving her adopted sister, she had disliked her intensely and wanted to be rid of her. It was only once she was gone that she realised what she had done. It was impossible to know what had really happened the night of the bombing, but it was clear that Allis had blamed herself for the girl’s death and had gone on doing so. She had blamed herself so much she had relinquished her own identity. It had taken her thirty years to confess the truth.
Terri felt she could weep for Allis. The story itself was sad but understandable; most children feel resentful of strangers, at least to begin with. It was Allis’s reaction that was extraordinary. From a private domestic tragedy, she had constructed a whole new universe, a reality from which she had been prepared to exclude even her own daughter. Terri did not like to imagine how lonely she had been.
Still none of this explained the suddenness of her disappearance. Her fantasies had evolved over years and had survived every change in her life up until that time; she would not have abandoned them without a reason. Terri continued to sift through Allis’s desk litter, her phone bills and old library cards, convinced the answer had to be there somewhere but as uncertain as ever as to what she was looking for. When she came upon the airmail letter in its slim blue envelope, she almost discarded it, half-convinced that she had looked at it already. The letter was handwritten, in the angular copperplate script that was familiar to Terri from the letters of a German girl she had had as a pen friend back in secondary school. The envelope was addressed to a Miss A. Clowes. It had been postmarked in Antwerp, just seven days before Allis went missing. Terri thought at first that the letter had been delivered to Allis in error, until she began reading and realised that Clowes had been Allis’s maiden name.
My dear Miss Alice Clowes,
I hope you will forgive me, but I have been to considerable trouble to procure your address! My name is Rosa Steen Ringmark and my sister was Hanne Steen. I believe that Hanne was legally adopted by your parents, Arthur and Marie Clowes, in the summer of the year 1942. Hanne and I were very close as sisters. When we were told that only one of us was to be sent abroad with the transport, we were heartbroken. It was not the idea of war that terrified us but the idea of separation. Indeed it is still this parting from Hanne at the railway station that embodies the terror of war for me, more even than the things that came later.
I did not hear of my sister’s death until some years after the war. Until that moment, I had always cherished the hope that we would be reunited. I found it impossible to accept that we would not be, and in truth, this is why it has taken me so long to go in search of Hanne’s second family. However, as I have grown older, I have come to realise that I will never feel complete until I can hear Hanne spoken of by another, someone who knew her and was close to her during those final years when we were apart. Time is running out for all of us; if it is possible, I would like to make recompense for my delay before it is too late.
It is for this reason that I would like to invite you, as a sister, to spend some time with your second family. I know this letter will come as a shock to you and that it will maybe awaken memories of what must rightly be called the darkest time for all the peoples of Europe. But I can only hope most sincerely that you can find it in your heart to accept. Your acceptance would mean everything to me and might perhaps be useful to you also.
Please write to me soon, if only to assure me that you have received this letter.
With heartfelt greetings,
Rosa Steen Ringmark (Mrs)
Terri knew the letter would have horrified Allis. It was not just her guilt over Hanne, but the thought that the lie she had made of her life might now be exposed. The thing Allis cherished most of all was her privacy, the privacy she needed in order to write. Rosa’s letter spelled the end of everything. She would have felt she had no option but to run.
The only mystery that now remained was where she had gone. Terri had no idea how she could discover this. She still believed Allis must have left clues, but for the moment she was out of ideas. She had already searched the house from top to bottom. She wondered if it was worth looking in the loft again and went downstairs to fetch the ladder, wondering why she was bothering when she knew there was nothing to find.
The attic was as empty as she had known it would be, the dust already settling over the clear patches on the floorboards where the boxes had stood. She replaced the hatch and took the ladder back downstairs. It was then that she realised she had never searched the cupboard under the stairs. She leaned the ladder against the wall and began dragging the cupboard’s contents out into the hall. The cupboard was stuffed with all the junk such cupboards usually contained: a vacuum cleaner, a broom, a mop and bucket, the gargantuan clothes horse. There was a plastic crate packed with tins of shoe polish and furniture wax, a food blender still in its box. Terri thought it highly unlikely that any of these things had belonged to Allis; rather they had amassed themselves organically in the wake of each successive batch of new tenants. In either case, as evidence they were worse than useless.
When the cupboard was finally empty, Terri wedged open the door with a folded scrap of cardboard and went inside. It was a large cupboard, larger than normal. It was difficult to see all the way to the back, even with the aid of a torch. She took a hurried step backwards, convinced for a moment that she had seen something move, but it turned out to be an old skipping rope, twisted about its handles like a dust-grey snake. Even once she had established it was not alive, the skipping rope gave her a peculiar feeling. For some reason she was sure it had belonged to Hanne Steen. She left it where it lay and began backing out into the hallway, feeling her way along the wall with the flat of her hand. A foot or so from the cupboard entrance, she felt a bump in the plasterwork. Terri shone the torch where her hand had been and saw that the paper that had been used to line the cupboard had started to peel away. The surface beneath looked like wood. Terri tore at the paper, which came off easily, peeling away from the wall in an intact mass.
There was a door in the wall, a gloss-painted, panelled door set flush with the frame. Clearly whoever had papered over it had done so on purpose. Terri found the idea fantastic and a little frightening. Why would anyone hide a door, unless it was to stop someone passing through it? Terri remembered that Vronia’s father had done this in the end, with Vronia’s door in Bellony. She saw that the inside handle had been removed. There was a square opening just above the keyhole where the shaft should have fitted. Terri slipped two fingers into the opening and pulled backwards, but the door would not budge. She tried again, bracing herself against the floor and tugging more forcefully, but the door remained immovable and she realised it must be locked. She imagined herself trying to cut out the lock with a hacksaw and wondered what excuses she would make if Alan Cahill had her in court for criminal damage.
Sorry, your worship, only I was trying to saw my way through to another universe.
It was thinking of Alan Cahill that made her remember the keys, the mysterious fourth key on the key ring for which she had yet to find a discernable purpose. Cahill had never explained what the key was for.
She fetched the keys from where she kept them in the kitchen. She tried not to hope too much but she could not help herself. She was already certain the key would fit the lock and she was right. The key turned smoothly and with a satisfying thump. Terri found she could use it as a handle.
She pulled the door open and towards her. Light flooded in, its sudden and unexpected presence stunning her eyes and revealing the blacker depths of the cupboard as a humdrum arrangement of sloping walls and faded wallpaper, a predictable accumulation of cobwebs and dust. Directly in front of her Terri saw the two dustbins and coil of green hosepipe that were in the access passage to the side of the house. The key had been for the disused side door after all. For reasons unknown, it appeared that the door could only be unlocked from the inside.
Old houses were just like that, they had quirks. Terri emerged into the daylight, feeling foolish and covered in dust. The day was hot and bright as the days before it but a cooling breeze was blowing in off the sea and the air was heady with the scents of tamarisk and bergamot. Terri knew she should go back inside and tidy away the junk in the hallway but for the moment she couldn’t be bothered. She’d had enough of trawling through rubbish. She needed a break.
She locked up the house and set off along the promenade. Instead of taking her usual route towards Kingsdown and St Margaret’s she went in the opposite direction, towards Walmer Castle and Deal. She walked along briskly, enjoying the feel of the wind against her face. The tide was a long way out; children dashed about on the exposed sand, playing Frisbee or hunting for shells. The area around the bandstand was packed with tourists, but once she was past the pier, the path quickly became less crowded. The coast beyond the town was completely unpopulated. The cliffs of South Foreland were more dramatic, but to Terri the featureless wilderness to the north of Deal was actually more beautiful. She felt glad to be out in the open. The wide landscape stretching before her made her realise how strangely she had been behaving this past week, as if her own self had been usurped, leaving her mind as a repository for the fantasies of Allis Bennett. The odd episode with the door had been like the breaking of an enchantment. It had literally let in the light. She felt better than she had done in days. Perhaps it had been a mistake to isolate herself so completely. She decided she would call Janet that evening and tell her the whole story. It would be good to have someone she could bounce ideas off, and Janet was someone she trusted more than anyone.
She walked as far as the edge of the golf links and then decided it was time to be heading back. She had eaten nothing since breakfast and she was starting to feel faint from lack of food. The tide was on the turn. A man was approaching along the coast path, walking his dog. The dog was a pot-bellied beagle with a greying muzzle. It moved along with its nose to the ground, stopping every couple of yards to sniff at the grass. The man was elderly and walked using a cane. Terri thought he looked vaguely familiar. She supposed she must have seen him in the town. The man came closer and began to wave to her. Terri waved back, although it felt strange to be greeting someone she did not know.
She came to a standstill as he approached her. The odd feeling of familiarity did not diminish.
“You’re thinking you know me,” the man said. “It’s written all over your face.” He smiled. His face was rubicund, weather beaten. Terri guessed he was a practised walker, in spite of the cane. She laughed, a little uncertainly, though she sensed no threat from the man.
“I don’t know,” she said, and laughed again. “I can’t know you really. I know hardly anyone here.”
“I’m Alan’s father. Alan Cahill? We looked even more alike when we were both in our youth.” He held out his hand for her to shake it and told her his name was Michael. Now that he had revealed his identity she could see the similarities at once. She guessed the father had been very good looking, his features less conventionally handsome than the son’s, but with a ruggedness that lent them extra appeal.
“You’re renting Allis Bennett’s old place, aren’t you? Alan told me. I hear you’re going to write about Allis.”
Terri nodded and confirmed that this was so. She could not remember saying anything to Alan Cahill about her Allis project; indeed, she was sure she had not. She supposed Judy Whitton had told him. She knew that small towns were notorious for their gossip. It came to her that Michael Cahill was the first person she had met who had talked about Allis without being prompted. A week ago she would have been eager to question him, but now suddenly she felt too tired. The questions could wait. There was no reason to suppose that Michael Cahill was planning on running away.
“It was nice to meet you,” she said. She turned to go, but Michael Cahill appeared not to have heard her.
“I remember her when she arrived,” he said. “I was only just married myself then, but I lost my head a little, even so. I thought Allis was very beautiful, but it wasn’t her looks that made me fall for her. She still had a foreign accent then, which I found attractive, but I’d met Polish girls during the war so it wasn’t that, either. She had an atmosphere of tragedy around her. I think I had the idea that she knew more than other girls, that she would understand me better. I used to see her on her walks, and sometimes I would follow her, just so I would get the chance to say hello to her. We would sit together sometimes, out on the headland, and a couple of times we had tea together in St Margaret’s. It was all perfectly harmless, and I knew from the start it would never go anywhere. She liked me, and I think she appreciated my friendship. But she wasn’t interested in me, not in the way I wanted. I suppose I was lucky things never went any further. It would have made a terrible mess for everyone.” He was staring out to sea, shading his eyes with one hand. The beagle snuffled and pawed at the long grass at the edge of the golf course. “It was as if she was really somewhere else. She talked to me about her sister, more than once. I don’t think she ever got over the fact that she had survived the war and her sister had not.”
Terri stared at him blankly. Her mind felt paralysed by shock, a kind of mental concussion. It was as if he was compelling her to believe that the earth was flat.
“You’ve got it wrong,” she said at last. The words spilled out all at once, rebounding off the sallow grass like pellets of gravel.
“Perhaps,” said Michael Cahill. He seemed unaware of the impact his words were having on her. “I didn’t really know her all that well. I don’t think anyone knew her properly, not even her husband. It was tragic that he died so young.”
“What about her daughter? People say they were close?”
“Daughter? There was no daughter.” Michael Cahill’s eyes widened and for the first time he looked surprised. His eyes were larger than his son’s and very bright, the colour of amber. “Allis never had any children. After her husband died she lived alone.”
Terri found herself unable to speak. For a moment it was as if she could sense the world rotating as it spun on its axis. It made her feel nauseous, seasick. Her eyes filled up with tears. She quickly wiped them away with the back of her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to go.”
She strode off along the path, stumbling in her haste to get away. She knew her behaviour must have seemed rude, but it couldn’t be helped. Better for him to think that she was rude than that she was crazy. It was only when she came into sight of the town that she began to feel calmer.
The air was cooler now and the tourists had begun to disperse in search of food. Terri stopped by the seafront supermarket and inserted her debit card into the cash machine there. As it dispensed the ten pound note she had requested, her bank balance flashed up on the screen. She had checked it online that morning and the two amounts tallied to the penny.
Whose world was she in, exactly, and did it matter? What had happened when she stepped through the door? Could it be possible that Vronia’s door in Bellony, like the tin horse and the wooden monkey, had a counterpart in the world Terri chose to call real?
In Allis’s novel, the worlds that Vronia visited seemed just like her own, revealing their difficulties and dangers only with time. Perhaps the same would be true of this one. Or perhaps Allis’s version of her life really had been the truth, all along.
Terri knew the first thing she had to do was get something to eat. Then sh
e would call Janet as planned and talk things over with her. She did not know yet how much she would tell her but that didn’t matter. What mattered most, at least for the moment, was to establish that Janet existed and still remembered her.
© 2010 by Nina Allan.
Originally published in Blind Swimmer.
Reprinted by permission of the author.
Nina Allan’s stories have featured in the anthologies Best Horror of the Year #2, Year’s Best SF #28, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy 2012. Her story cycle The Silver Wind was published in 2011 and was named as one of that year’s Top Ten book choices by the editors of the British Science Fiction Association’s critical journal Vector. Her most recent book of stories, Stardust, will be available in 2013 from PS Publishing. Nina lives and works by the sea in Hastings, East Sussex.
The Red: First Light
Linda Nagata
LINKED COMBAT SQUAD, EPISODE 1:
DARK PATROL
“There needs to be a war going on somewhere, Sergeant Vasquez. It’s a fact of life. Without a conflict of decent size, too many international defense contractors will find themselves out of business. So if no natural war is looming, you can count on the D.C.s to get together to invent one.”
My orientation lecture is not army-standard. I deliver it in the walled yard of Fort Dassari while my LCS—my linked combat squad—preps for our nightly patrol. Since sunset the temperature has dropped to 95-degrees American, for which we are all grateful, but it’s still goddamn hot, with the clinging humidity of the rainy season. Amber lights cast glistening highlights on the smooth, black, sweat-slick cheeks of Sergeant Jayne Vasquez, who arrived by helicopter along with a week’s worth of provisions just four hours ago.
Like the rest of us, Jaynie Vasquez is wearing a combat uniform, body armor, and the gray titanium bones of her exoskeleton. Her finely shaped eyebrows are set in a skeptical arch as she eyes me from beneath the rim of her brown LCS skullcap. I suspect she’s been warned about me—the notorious Lieutenant James Shelley, United States Army—her new commanding officer here at Fort Dassari.
