The Night Visitor

by Lucy Atkins

  ‘I really am sorry if I sound harsh, I don’t mean to be harsh, I really don’t. I do feel for you, I know you don’t have much else in your life. You’ve given me invaluable help, but it’s been quite an ordeal to manage you.’

  ‘Manage me?’ I felt a sort of thunder in my chest, a shuddering sensation, something breaking open.

  ‘Please! It’s really not funny,’ she said. ‘Not to me anyway.’ She looked over her shoulder; other customers in the cafe were staring. ‘Stop laughing, Vivian.’

  ‘Well!’ I bellowed. ‘Well, well! I didn’t know I needed to be “managed”!’

  ‘Really? Well, yes … You did. In so far as it’s possible to manage someone like you.’

  ‘Actually, Olivia.’ My laughter vanished as fast as it had risen and I adopted a more formal tone. ‘It’s me who has had to manage you. I trawled through record offices and archives, I chased down each and every one of Annabel’s dull and obstructive descendants, I presented every reference, fact, quote and source to you in simple, usable, narrative-friendly form. I managed you. I gave you the data exactly when you were ready for it, in the order you needed it. I maximized your productivity to a very tight schedule. Do you really think you could have done the book in that amount of time if I hadn’t? I made you stick to it, even when you were having your own little crises, with that wastrel son and your TV vanity work.’

  I was, I suppose, angry, but that last comment was cruel. I wished that I could unsay it.

  ‘My what?’ Two scarlet spots appeared on her cheeks.

  ‘Let’s just be very clear,’ I said. ‘I managed you. If I hadn’t, this fanciful tale would not exist.’

  She blew out as if extinguishing a big church candle. ‘OK. You know what? I can’t do this. Think what you like, Vivian, but you have absolutely no idea what it takes to write a readable book.’

  ‘I made sure you wrote a readable book.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ She was shouting suddenly. ‘Look, I get it, I really do. You’re lonely, you’re bored, you badly need something to occupy your mind. A person like you should definitely not be a housekeeper—’

  ‘I’m not a—’

  She waved her hand. ‘I don’t care, OK? Just think about this, just for a moment. Why on earth would you want to do another book with me? This can’t have been a fun year for you. Surely. Can it?’

  ‘I have loved our work on Annabel,’ I said, with dignity.

  ‘Seriously?’

  I thought about this for a second. ‘Except for losing Bertie,’ I said. ‘That was a very dark time indeed. In fact, it still is very difficult.’

  ‘Oh my God, Vivian, please, not the dog again.’

  Very slowly, I reached for my wine glass and drained the last drops. ‘If anyone has the right to be aggrieved about Bertie’ – I did look her in the eye, then – ‘it’s me.’

  ‘But you have to get over it! It was six months ago.’ She threw up her hands and sat back. ‘I’ve done everything I can, I really have. I’ve taken endless care of you over that dog.’

  ‘It was only five and a half months ago. He wasn’t well. You were supposed to—’

  ‘OK. No. Please. I really can’t do this now. You have to get past this. He was just a dog! A neurotic bloody mongrel!’

  I felt the anger zip through my veins, tiny, cold ball bearings that shot around my body and rattled behind my eyes.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that, Vivian. You see, this is exactly what I mean. This! I’ve lost hours and hours over your dog. I’ve driven down to Sussex in the middle of the night to comfort you. I’ve sent you chocolates and bunches of flowers, I’ve cooked you suppers, I’ve talked to you about him endlessly, we’ve gone over and over it. I know you loved Bertie, but he wasn’t your child, Vivian, he was just a dog!’

  I stared at a red wine stain on the tablecloth. ‘He was everything to me,’ I said, quietly.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know. I know, I know he was, I’m sorry. But bad things happen, Vivian. Dogs drown. People drown. I mean, think of all the refugees stuffed into tiny boats, drowning in the sea, toddlers washed up on beaches. Now that’s a tragedy.’

  ‘What did you just say?’ I looked at her very closely.

  ‘The refugee situation is a tragedy!’ she cried. Conversations in the Café de Paris stopped abruptly. Then I saw her eyes flicker as she realized what she had just said.

  The colour drained from her cheeks.

  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

  She brushed imaginary crumbs from her Coccinella dress. ‘I should go.’

  I leaned forwards. ‘Bertie drowned?’

  ‘What?’ She blinked and leaned away from me, but I tilted my torso further over the table. ‘Bertie,’ I said. ‘Where did he drown, Olivia?’

  ‘OK. Oh my God. OK. OK.’ She pressed her fingers into her eyeballs. Her make-up smudged into moth’s wings beneath her eyes. ‘Fine. Fine. I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you the truth because I thought it would upset you even more, but clearly you’re never going to get past this if I don’t. Bertie fell in the well, at Ileford. I’m so sorry, I’m really so sorry, Vivian. I feel absolutely awful that it happened, believe me, I feel absolutely dreadful about it. It was horrendous.’

  ‘The well? In the courtyard? Violet’s well?’

  ‘Violet’s well, yes. It was just a horrible, terrible accident. I got the cover off – I wanted to see if I could see Violet’s face in there, remember? I knew you’d never let me, so … Anyway, I managed to push the cover half off and Bertie just sort of jumped up onto it, yapping – you know what he was like. He was hysterical, turning circles. It all happened so fast, I couldn’t get him to come down. One minute he was there, on the cover, next he was just … His hind legs kind of slipped … and he was gone.’

  I closed my eyes and heard a crackling sound, as if the feet of a thousand Devil’s coach horse beetles were marching through the undergrowth in my brain, tails raised, spraying poison over everything.

  ‘See?’ She sounded desperate. ‘See? I knew it would only be worse for you to know. I just didn’t want that image in your head. Vivian? Are you OK?’

  I opened my eyes. I looked right at her then. She is, objectively, a very beautiful woman. Her Danish ancestry is visible in the bone structure, those extraordinary eyes. But at that moment I had never seen anything so foul. I saw the shape of her skull beneath her black hair and I saw her laid in the earth with her flesh eaten off her bones by blowfly maggots, rove, hister, carcass and carrion beetles. ‘You left Bertie to drown in the well?’

  ‘Of course I didn’t leave him! I’m not a monster. I tried to get him out – I tried absolutely everything – but it’s very deep. It must be thirty, forty feet down. Have you ever looked down there? It’s miles down to the water. It was just awful. I ran around the courtyard looking for something to get him out, but there was nothing to use. I tried the extendable dog lead, I thought I might be able to hook his collar somehow, but it wasn’t anywhere near … I really tried to save him, Vivian, I really did.’ Her voice caught. ‘But in the end I just couldn’t.’

  ‘You let him drown?’

  ‘Please, Vivian. Please! Just think about it. What could I possibly have done? I was about to call the fire brigade, but then I realized he’d gone. He really didn’t last very long, I think maybe he was weak from his illness, or maybe he hurt himself on the way down, I just don’t know – but it wasn’t protracted, he only splashed for a really short time before he went quiet.’

  I could not speak. I could barely breathe.

  ‘Please don’t look at me like that.’ She looked hollow-eyed. ‘It was just an accident. It was just an awful, unfortunate accident.’

  ‘Unfortunate?’

  For five and a half months Olivia had lied to me. She had allowed me to search for him, to go out night after night, calling for him. The night he vanished we even searched for him together – it was all a masquerade. We must have passed the well numerous times that night, a
nd each time she pretended that she did not know he was down there.

  Then I realized something. Bertie is still down there. I have passed him day after day for five and a half months. Every time I stand at the sink waiting for the kettle to boil for my breakfast tea, every time I wash up my plate after lunch or afternoon tea, or clear my dinner things, I am looking at Bertie’s grave. I cannot even think what five and a half months in well water would do to the body of a small dog.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she was saying. ‘I was trying to protect you. I wasn’t sure you’d cope with knowing how he died and I just didn’t want to plant that awful image in your head. I didn’t think you’d be able to take it, to be honest, I thought you’d fall apart.’

  And there we have the nub of it. She couldn’t have that. She couldn’t have me falling apart. She needed me sharp and loyal and fully functioning, shovelling research her way in regular, reliable quantities.

  ‘It was probably wrong of me, in retrospect. I should have told you the truth.’ Her voice is shaky. ‘I just …’

  I raised a hand and pointed at her. ‘Mimicking species.’

  ‘OK.’ She pushed back her chair and got up, knocking her hip against the table. ‘I’m not sure what that means, but I think we’re done.’

  ‘Liar,’ I croaked. ‘Pretender.’

  ‘You see.’ She picked up her floppy bag. ‘This is what I’m talking about. I’m sorry, I really am, but I can’t do this any more. I couldn’t – even if I wanted to – fill this void in your life, Vivian. I can’t rescue you from whatever demons are plaguing you. I’m fond of you, but I can’t be that person. I’m going to go back now, up to the house, to my children who need me, to my husband and my friends. They have to be my priority now. I’m sorry, Vivian.’

  ‘Yes, Olivia.’ I pressed my thumb on the bloody wine stain. ‘That’s right. You go. You belong up there with your lying husband. You deserve each other.’

  She stared down at me. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Don’t ask me, ask him. Ask him why he and your blonde friend were parked at the viewing point for two hours yesterday.’

  ‘Oh my God, have you been spying on us?’ she gasped. ‘Have you been watching us?’

  ‘I have better things to watch. But the view from the hillside is quite comprehensive.’

  She shook her head as if I was something to be dislodged and then, without another word, turned and strode away through the tables.

  I watched her go, in her red dress and her Greek goddess sandals – other people swivelled to look at her too. Olivia lives in a world that turns its head when she passes, a world that watches her every move with interest and admiration.

  Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home, your house is on fire, your children are gone. The childish rhyme played in my head as her seven-seater car reversed out of its spot, accelerated past the pink-fronted hôtel de ville, around the shady square, past my table and off, down the village street – away – to climb the hills, up to her holiday house with its azure pool, its tasteful vine-clad terrace and its ancient tower with all the waiting loved ones inside.

  For a second, the image of Bertie scrabbling in the darkness overcame me. Most of the cafe customers had gone back to their conversations. I wanted to go, but my legs were so weak that I could not stand.

  People are all the same, really. The one thing you can rely on is that they will behave exactly as you feared they might.

  Olivia

  South of France, Day Six

  Olivia felt sure that the village police weren’t taking this seriously enough. Perhaps it was her inadequate French, or perhaps a child’s shorn hair just didn’t seem like the most important crime, but as the officer took their statements and filled out apparently endless forms, there was something about his body language that suggested scepticism. He clearly thought the boys had done it.

  ‘How many boys are in the house?’ he said, in English, shuffling papers.

  ‘Four.’ Olivia counted them off. ‘Our two sons, our friends’ two sons.’

  ‘Ils ont quel âge?’

  ‘How old? Our sons are fifteen and thirteen, Miles is twelve, Ben is eight.’

  The detective looked at her. ‘Il s’agit sans doute d’une mauvaise plaisanterie.’

  ‘What?’ She looked at David.

  ‘A prank.’ He glanced at her, nervously. ‘He says it’s most likely a prank.’

  Olivia felt herself grow hot despite the air conditioning. ‘The boys did not cut Jess’s hair off.’

  David reached out and pressed her knee. Though she could understand most of what was being said, she couldn’t speak as well as him. This year alone he’d been to Paris twice to interview people or give talks. He said, now, in French, ‘One of the children thinks she heard the door closing in the middle of the night as someone left the priest’s tower.’

  ‘Priest’s tower?’ The policeman frowned.

  ‘Isn’t that what it is?’ David said. ‘Across the courtyard, where the priest once lived?’

  ‘There is no priest’s tower,’ the police officer said in a slow, pedantic voice. ‘The cabanon is not a religious building, it’s simply a small lodging, originally built for a peasant – probably the goat or pig keeper.’

  Olivia really wasn’t sure why they were talking about this or indeed where the idea that it was a priest’s tower had come from in the first place. She suspected she’d invented it and they’d all seized on it as poetic, or somehow fitting, given the gravestone doorstep. She leaned forward. ‘C’etait un … un estranger qui a entré le tour dans le nuit. It wasn’t the boys, okay? Il n’y a pas les ciseaux dans le maison. There are no scissors in the house!’

  ‘All houses have scissors.’ The policeman drew out the vowels in ‘ciseaux’ as if it was ludicrous to suggest that a French house might not possess them.

  ‘Not this one,’ David said.

  Olivia threw up her hands. ‘This is …’ She struggled to find the word. ‘Fou. Complètement fou.’

  ‘Kids do crazy things,’ the officer agreed.

  ‘Listen.’ David took a deep breath. She noticed that he’d clenched his fists, though his voice remained even, his French smooth. ‘We have found no scissors and no hair. I’ve even checked the inventory – there were no scissors in the house when we arrived. We don’t think the boys would do this. We’re worried someone broke in and did this to our daughter.’

  The officer raised his eyebrows and nodded. ‘Hair can be sold. It is possible that this was a theft,’ he said in French, ‘but very unlikely.’

  Olivia felt her face grow hotter.

  David was sitting very still. His ability to fabricate calm was impressive. The image of him and Chloe parked at the viewing point popped into her head. They had gone off together to buy food, but what were they doing sitting in the car? What were they talking about? Then again, Vivian might have made the whole thing up.

  She thought of Vivian’s face the evening before, when she realized what had happened to Bertie. It had been so stupid to blurt it out. She felt dizzy. This situation was becoming surreal. She couldn’t think clearly at all. Was Vivian capable of such a deranged act? She could not possibly attempt to discuss, with a French policeman, her row with Vivian; she couldn’t try to explain to him who Vivian was, or why she was here. She couldn’t even clearly articulate her own feelings about Vivian, let alone communicate them effectively to a stranger.

  The police officer looked at Jess, who blinked up at him. With pink-rimmed eyes and her hair jagged at her chin, she looked like a poor Victorian workhouse urchin, so feeble and shaken. Olivia wanted to pick her up and cradle her, like a baby. The policeman became more paternal, suddenly, too. He leaned over and said something to Jess in a sweet voice.

  ‘What?’ Olivia leaned in, too. She looked back at David. ‘What did he say to her?’

  David put a restraining hand on her arm. ‘He said, “It’s OK, your hair will grow back.”’

  Olivia felt a surge o
f outrage. ‘For Christ’s sake! Someone breaks into a tower full of children in the middle of the night, attacks our daughter and all he can say is “It’ll grow back”?’

  ‘Liv, don’t.’ David pressed his fingers harder into her forearm. ‘They’re taking this seriously. Losing it isn’t going to help.’

  They both looked at Jess. Her face was chalky. She was staring at the floor. Olivia reached for her, but David got there first. ‘It’s OK, sweetie.’ He pulled her onto his lap and cuddled her and kissed the top of her head. ‘Mummy’s just upset, that’s all. We’re all a bit upset, aren’t we, babe?’

  When they eventually made it back to the house, it was late afternoon and they’d both given detailed statements. Two police officers were at the house, poking round the tower. Olivia could tell by the way they looked at her with half-closed eyelids that they were wondering what sort of negligent parents would let their children sleep in an unlocked tower, with an open gate, across the courtyard, in a foreign country, in the middle of nowhere. They were fortunate that something far worse had not happened.

  And they were right.

  Could Vivian have done this? She had certainly been distraught, angry and bitter, but this would be a truly unhinged response to finding out about Bertie. Vivian might be odd, but was she totally insane? The image of Vivian standing over Jess with a pair of scissors made Olivia feel suddenly sick.

  It was just so hot, that was the problem. Even in her linen dress she could feel the sweat trickling down her back. Her hair stuck to her skull. She hadn’t eaten either; she felt weak, she needed a shower. And a drink. A big drink. David walked ahead up the stairs to the house, holding Jess’s hand. He leaned down and said something and she heard Jess actually laugh and then slap him on the biceps, making him reach for her, seize her, tickle her. He was actually at his best at times like this: solid and tender, armed with his annoying Dad jokes, a safety net into which Jess could fall and be gathered up, held above her troubles.