Silent as death, Nora thought. Silent as the grave. And then she stopped herself, but failed to find a simile that did not send a chill down her spine.
She would have to check.
Nora opened the door a crack—nothing—but this time she drifted out further into the hallway. Light from the sitting room spilled out across the bottom of the staircase. It had gone pitch black outside and Nora could still hear the wind clattering at the shutters. The noise it made was nothing so urgent as a howl, but rather a long keening note that went on and on, inhuman in its breathlessness.
She tiptoed down the stairs, all of her muscles tensed as if she might flee back up to the safety of her room at any moment. She forced herself to breathe, gripped and released the handrail. Carefully, she carried herself into the sitting room.
At first she did not see Mrs Moreland, she was sitting so still, almost as if she had been frozen in place, her eyes fixed firmly ahead and unblinking. Then Nora did and she almost gave a little shriek: she looked like a corpse, just sitting there.
Mrs Moreland turned slowly as if there were joints unloosening in every part of her. The movement felt mechanical, awful in its lethargy, and Nora took an instinctive step away when the older woman’s gaze fell on her.
“I’m sorry,” Nora said, “I’ve interrupted.”
Mrs Moreland’s mouth opened, her tongue touched the top of her teeth and lingered there. Then she spoke: “No, dear, of course not. Forgive me.”
“I thought,” Nora started. “Perhaps I would get something to eat? Just a sandwich or something, really.” Yes. That seemed plausible. “I’ll just run out and fetch something.”
“Don’t be silly,” Mrs Moreland said. “No, I’ve got some canned beans in the cupboard. I’ll heat them up for you, shall I? It won’t be any trouble.”
“Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that.”
“Don’t be silly,” she repeated. “Come with me, Miss Higgins.”
#
Nora watched Mrs Moreland open the tin with a large can opener. The kitchen was very cramped. Nora had to stand quite close, close enough that she could smell the powdery lavender of her landlady. She kept her elbows pressed against her side, afraid to touch anything.
“Sean liked beans on toast.”
Nora looked up, startled. She had been watching the old woman work the can opener: a clawed affair that had the look of a medieval torture device. It was amazing the old woman could manage it at all, she had to stab away at the can, her elbow flapping wildly in the air, her frail hands clearly not up to the task.
“He hasn’t been here for some time, but every morning, it was always beans on toast, just how he liked it. I bought so many cans! Too much for one woman to eat, I suppose, but it shan’t go to waste with you here.”
“Sean was your son?”
Mrs Moreland looked at her sharply. But after a moment the gaze wetted and softened.
“I had him late in life. He was very much wished for. A very handsome man.”
Slop went the beans onto the toast.
“You don’t have a husband?” Mrs Moreland asked. Nora shook her head. She had dated a man briefly in her undergraduate days, but they had never gone much beyond the stage of holding hands. He had damp, bony hands—it had been like clutching a lobster! But when she had broken the thing off with him, he had wept and wept. Nora never understood why: she had been startled to learn he had such depth of feeling inside him.
“Sean would have liked you, I think. He liked pretty girls. You’re very pretty, with those blue eyes of yours.”
“Thank you,” Nora said. The sharp edge of a shelf bearing jars of spice pressed into her spine painfully. There was no room for retreat.
“Those were his cousins. Kitty and Rose. Bright girls, and sweet in their own way, but they all expect such a show from me. Such grief, they expect, such showers of tears! But that’s how the young people are, isn’t it? All hysterics, no restraint. They loved him so much, Kitty in particular. She thinks she knows best. She thinks she knows what he would have wanted.”
“Family can be tricky.”
“But we’ll show them, won’t we?” Mrs Moreland chuckled. “I won’t fall apart, no, I won’t fall apart, no, I won’t fall apart.” Nora saw her knuckles whitening around the can opener. The sight sent a strange shudder through her. She pressed herself further into the shelf, but it did no good.
“I could show you pictures of him?”
No, Nora thought, please no. Mrs Moreland handed her the plate. “Listen,” she said, “perhaps I could take this up to my room?”
“Of course,” Mrs Moreland said, “I mean, it’s a bit peculiar, isn’t it? But, yes, I mean I don’t see why not—” and her face began to shine “—like a party then? Like a slumber party? How American! Yes, that could be quite fun!”
“I mean—” The thought was intolerable! Nora retreated from the kitchen hastily. “I’m a bit ill, you see. The flight.”
Mrs Moreland’s face crumpled. “Yes, I see.”
“I suppose, if you wanted?”
“No, better not.” She turned away from Nora and began to clean up the crumbs.
“Goodnight then, Mrs Moreland.”
“Goodnight, dear.”
#
Nora learned to move like a mouse. She crept through the house, kept her door closed, slept with a mask on, woke early and came in late. She spent her days in the Duke Humphrey Reading Room, pouring over sheaves of unprinted correspondences of the eighteenth century elite: there were so many of them, such debris of history to sort through, but she knew that amongst them would be something—something overlooked, missed by her senior colleagues, by Evans and his lot—that would surely do the trick.
Her eyes swam. Her back ached. Her fingers took in a deep chill that stiffened them to dull instruments of wood. But on she pressed. She enjoyed the work for all its physical discomforts, enjoyed the sense of camaraderie in sitting amongst the other researchers, each in their own separate carrel, never speaking, never needing to, but sharing in the same endeavour nonetheless.
Nora managed to avoid Mrs Moreland for three days. The old woman must be busy, she expected. The family had visited several times. Nora could tell by the great mass of teacups and side plates she found in the drying rack.
All was silent until the third night. All was perfect until then, not a worry, not a care, just the worrying at that pile of letters, sorting through, discarding, chasing down signatures. Nothing at all from Mrs Moreland.
But on the third night, Nora woke very suddenly. There had been a noise.
“Where are you, oh, where are you?”
The old woman was hollering on the stairs.
“Where are you, where are you?”
And then: “Miss Higgins!”
Nora got out of bed. She threw a robe around herself and pawed at the light switch until the room was bright. Mrs Moreland was on the stairs. Nora could hear her. Normally Mrs Moreland walked as if she weighed nothing at all, but today her feet were loud as elephants.
“Oh, where?”
Nora came out of the room. “Here,” she said. “Here I am.”
“Miss Higgins! There you are!”
Mrs Moreland’s eyes were glassy and lost. Her silver hair was flung loosely over her shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Miss Higgins, you must have been sleeping.”
“I was,” Nora said. She clutched the robe tighter about herself. The fireplace was letting in a dreadful chill. The wind knocked against the front door.
“I’m sorry, I’m so terribly sorry. I was afraid you were dead!”
Mrs Moreland did not move from the stairs. Her fist clutched along the railing, and she took a step upward.
“But, of course, it isn’t you, is it? No. It’s my Sean. Please. I’m sorry. I must have startled you, but you see I had this terrible dream that you were dead. That you had died in my house. Just expired, it was terrible, you were just cold and lifeless, lying there on the bed.”
“I’m quite all right. Can I—” Nora searched for the protocol “—make you some tea?”
“No, dear, no. I’ll just call Kitty. She said I must call her if there was a worry. I’ll do that, shall I?”
“Of course,” Nora said. She watched the old woman drift off, then turned, shivering terribly, and closed herself in the bedroom.
#
Kitty was waiting for her outside the Bodleian. Nora recognised her immediately—that pert mouth, that scowl—she had something of Mrs Moreland’s features, a faint family resemblance. She was puffing hungrily at a cigarette. The smoke came up in little clouds that hung in the gloom.
“Miss Higgins,” she called. “Over here.”
“Kitty, is it?”
“Look, it isn’t good for Auntie,” she cut in, her voice tight and furious. “I can get you space at my college. I’m sure you’d much prefer that, wouldn’t you?”
Nora felt an immediate distaste for the girl. Kitty was used to getting her way; that was clear. Nora had dealt with many girls like this in her undergraduate classes, girls pretty enough that they could coast by in most of their classes, girls who when they couldn’t flirt, cajoled and threatened. It made Nora angry. She had seen girls like this with her male colleagues. She had seen these simpering, sneering creatures making eyes at the men, placing their slim little hands on their thighs. It was shocking. Absolutely shocking. Not that the girls tried, who could blame them? Nora could understand calculation. Nora could understand how you might make a choice to do something distasteful—it was a choice after all. What she couldn’t understand was that, with most of them, it wasn’t all calculation. There wasn’t enough calculation, not enough thought. Even in their seductions was a certain messiness, a lack of rigour.
“No,” Nora said firmly.
“Be reasonable.”
“Does your aunt want me to go?”
“She doesn’t know her own mind. She’s not well.”
“So she hasn’t said I ought to leave?”
“No,” the dark-haired girl said through gritted teeth. “She likes you.”
“Then.”
Now the girl looked desperate. She sucked away furiously at the cigarette, the red tip glowing, ash flying off in great white flakes.
“Auntie is old, of course she wants someone around. But it shouldn’t be you, that’s what I’m saying. It shouldn’t be you. It should be someone who cares for her and can take care of the arrangements.”
“I’m sure she can take care of them herself.”
“No, listen, it’s too much for an old woman. She’ll be lonely, and—” Kitty let the cigarette fall to the ground, then trampled it with her toe on the cobblestones. She seemed close to tears. Nora had seen that trick too. They always thought they could shame you into seeing them as weak, giving them what she wanted.
“What?”
“You aren’t part of the family! What do you care about her? Tell me that, what do you care about her? Do you care enough, that’s what I want to know? Does she even matter to you?” Kitty clutched dangerously at her arm, and Nora recoiled in shock.
“Don’t you dare touch me! Don’t you dare! I’ll call the police!”
“No,” Kitty said, wiping at her eyes, smearing her mascara. “No, I can see quite clearly how things are. She’s just an old woman to you—and Sean? You didn’t even know him! How could he possibly mean anything to you? But that’s fine, if that’s the way you want it. There’s no need for such bullying. I only wanted to help.”
“Help yourself then,” Nora said, turning away from the girl. “I don’t need it.”
#
When Nora got home, still shaking from the encounter, she felt a strange sense of rage at the presumption of the girl. The feel of her hand on the wrist, fingers tight. It was shocking behaviour, absolutely shocking! Touching as easily as that. She was like one of the disgusting girls from the hostel, ready to make love to whomever she found simply because. Because, because, because. Because it was easy, that’s why! Because they could! Because they liked it!
Nora hated the nerve of the girl.
“Mrs Moreland!” she called, taking off her shoes. “Mrs Moreland! Oh, there you are.”
The old woman had appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Of course, dear, now what’s the matter?”
Nora opened her mouth to speak, but another idea came to her. She abandoned her original course of action. “I thought, perhaps—” she forced a wide smile “—you might like some company?”
“Why, yes, that would be splendid.”
Mrs Moreland stepped quickly down the stairs and disappeared into the kitchen, appearing a moment later with a tray loaded with a teapot, cups and biscuits.
“I’ve just been tending to Sean’s affairs,” she said. “He left quite a lot of them. It haunts me so! He was a messy boy, you know. But I miss him, I really do. I can’t bear to think about him shut up in a box underground.”
“Where did he live?” Nora asked, trying to divert the subject. She smiled again, kept the smile, all curious politeness, fixed and ready.
“Oh, in America. He left to go to school there.”
“Was he a good student?”
“The very best.”
“That’s important, you know,” Nora said. “So many young people neglect their studies. Freedom doesn’t suit them.”
She thought of Kitty with her cigarette. Her haughty air. Her casually fashionable clothing. Her hand on Nora’s wrist.
“He was very thoughtful. Just like you, Miss Higgins. You seem quite thoughtful. Very pretty. He would have liked you, I think. Here’s the tea now, mind you blow on it.”
“Thank you.”
They sat in silence for several minutes. Nora blew on her tea. It was much too sweet.
“I wonder—” Mrs Moreland began. She clutched her cup with both hands.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want to trouble you.”
Nora’s smile widened. She would be entirely solicitous. She would be entirely helpful. She would make this little old granny feel perfectly comfortable, perfectly comforted. That would show the girl, always trying to make trouble. She knew the type. But Nora would show her. She let Mrs Moreland take her hand. She let her clutch at it with those knobbly old fingers of hers even though it half-revolted her to do so.
“It’s just, well, if perhaps you wouldn’t mind coming to my room with me?”
“Of course, Mrs Moreland. Whatever you need.”
The old woman creaked up the stairs. Nora followed after her, past her own room, down the hallway. She had never come this far inside the house before. She had kept to her own little corner. But perhaps that was wrong. Perhaps she should have been more sociable. Perhaps she should have made an effort. Mrs Moreland was sweet. She had clearly taken a liking to Nora. And she must be so sad, so terribly, terribly sad. Nora could imagine that sadness. She felt light-headed just thinking about it.
Positively light-headed.
Nora followed Mrs Moreland into the bedroom. It was much like Nora’s, a narrow single bed, cream carpets, the whole place maintained perfectly, and there sitting in the centre of it: an enormous black coffin.
“Oh my,” said Nora. It had the wet shine of an expensive car recently polished.
“Sean’s come home today. They sent Sean home to me.”
Nora said nothing. She stared. It looked so absurd in the tiny room, like finding a loaded gun amidst the tea cosies.
“But they’ve sealed him up, you see,” Mrs Moreland said.
Nora took a step toward the coffin. She felt the strangest urge to touch it. To see her breath mist up the finely polished surface. To see her fingerprints like little round pebbles on the black.
When had the moving men brought him in? Had it been while she was out? And who would deliver such a thing?
“They’ve sealed him up so very tightly. And I must see his face.”
Nora bumped up against a little wooden
chair. But Mrs Moreland was behind her now, Nora could feel her very close, there was nowhere to go but in. In and in and in.
“Would you help me, Miss Higgins?”
Now Mrs Moreland was pressing something into her hand. Something cold and hard. Nora looked down and she felt like laughing, it was ridiculous, it was a can opener from the kitchen, that giant clawed beast! Nora looked closer at the coffin and she could see a thin strip of something like rubber running along the inner margin of the casket.
“My arthritis, you see,” Mrs Moreland said, and Nora could see, could see where Mrs Moreland had begun the work. Where the teeth of the can opener had bit into the polish and begun to cut through the sealant. Of course the old woman hadn’t been able to make much more of a mark. Nora had seen her with the can of beans. She’d barely been able to punch through a flimsy piece of tin, it was ridiculous!
“I can’t help you,” Nora said faintly. “I can’t. Please.” But Mrs Moreland was close behind her, that powdery lavender smell filling up her nostrils. She was nauseated, drowsy. A giddy numbness was climbing up her spine.
“But you understand, don’t you?” Mrs Moreland said. “I knew that the moment I saw you. You know what loneliness is, don’t you, Miss Higgins? You know what it means to have been alone for a very long time?”
“No,” said Nora.
“You do, I can see it about you. It doesn’t even matter that you aren’t family. Kitty wanted to help, she was so close to him, you see, but she didn’t understand properly. You’re a kindred spirit, aren’t you?”
“No,” said Nora again.
But then she hesitated. Because she did understand, didn’t she? She did understand—better than Kitty, better than anyone, what it was like to feel that lonely. To crave loneliness, and to hate it as well, to want to be touched, to fear to be touched. Nora felt the can opener moving in her hand, as if by accident, as if the motion was automatic. And at first it was automatic, like she had no control at all, but then she was leaning in close to the coffin. She was digging the teeth into the metal.
The Spectral Book of Horror Stories Page 5
