Sweetheart, Sweetheart

by Bernard Taylor

  When my drink was finished I poured myself another one. I seemed to be going through the scotch at an alarming rate; but I preferred not to think about that. Before me on the carpet the large tray still held the unfinished jigsaw puzzle. I scooped up the pieces and dropped them back into the box. I’d never finish it now. I replaced the lid and knelt there for a moment looking at the idiotic delight on the woman’s face as she sat on her swing, cavorting, and then I got up, went upstairs and put the box back in the cupboard where I had found it.

  On the shelf next to it were several fairly large leatherbound volumes. I took them down. They appeared much used, the covers thumbed and ink-stained. Helen’s sketch-books. Each one was crammed with sketches; ideas in pencil, ink, colour and tone; drawings of faces; figure studies. I flicked through the pages; the books seemed to go back years, beyond her days as an art student.

  Raising my eyes I saw before me again her paintings on the walls. I felt myself drawn closer. There seemed to be something different about them. But was it possible . . . ?

  The painting of the back garden looked somehow changed, strange. Those roses that grew against the white-washed wall—surely, before, they had all been only in bud . . . No, no, it couldn’t be; here, now, some of the flowers were open.

  I stared at the picture, seeing clearly, but not taking it in. I was sane, I was relatively sober—and yet one or two of the roses painted there were open, open . . .

  And there was something else. That shadow cast by the birch-tree. It was not a shadow at all. How had I ever taken it to be one? Clearly it was a figure. The figure of a woman.

  But I must be wrong about that . . . I could so readily recall the purple shadow of the birch. I was certain I’d never before seen this woman, mysterious, indistinct, as she leaned over the flower border, a bunch of flowers in her arms . . . A woman in a purple dress, holding roses, where once there had been only the shadow of a tree . . .

  I forced myself to look away; it was madness to give in to the tricks my mind was playing on my eyes . . . I looked at the next picture.

  This was the one where I had seen the romanticised figures of Colin and Helen. And they looked the same. And yet, perhaps . . . yes, surely, the colours of the flowers were different; they had been pinks and blues before; I recalled examining the little touches of pigment, awed by Helen’s talent. Why, then, were some of the flowers now white? And why, where once they had appeared to be quite unspecific, did they now seem to be, quite clearly, roses?

  And now my eye was drawn back to the girl in the picture, with the bird flying over her head—the bluebird, mythical bird, symbol of happiness. And here again it seemed I had been mistaken . . . The bird that now hovered over the girl’s hair was black and white. A magpie? Yes, a magpie. The magpie, too, was surely a symbol of something, wasn’t it? And then I realised just what it symbolised—and gave an involuntary shudder. The magpie was a symbol of doom.

  My hand trembling, I reached out, touched the paint on the magpie’s wing. The paint was still wet.

  I stared at the girl with her bright smile. Her hair was not black. It had been, before. Not now. Now, beneath the open wings of the bird her hair flew copper-coloured.

  It wasn’t Helen.

  It was She­lagh.

  The chill was inside me. It wasn’t in the house. The chill was inside me; and all the scotch I drank did nothing to bring back the warmth. I thought about it. There was no sudden coldness, no feeling of antipathy in the house. Where I sat in the living-room, the scotch-bottle at my side, I felt only that accustomed welcome and comfort surrounding me. The coldness, the chill was inside me.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, but it was a long time. When at last I got up I misjudged the distance to the table and my empty glass ended up on the floor. Too much alcohol, and the co-ordination was one of the first things to go.

  I was aware of Girlie weaving seductively around my ankles, and I stooped and stroked her soft fur for a moment. Then I went upstairs.

  I was dead-tired. It had been a day beyond imagining and my brain, inadequate to cope with it all, felt numbed—from the happenings, the drink and from the frantic clutching for answers.

  I flicked off the landing light, went in and lay wearily on the bed. As I sank back my mind told me that everything would be as usual in the morning . . . And then my cheek brushed against something on the pillow and in the same instant the perfume of a rose came to my nostrils.

  I jumped as if I’d been stung. Reaching out for the bedside lamp I found it to be in a slightly different position, and when I turned it on I saw that it was a different lamp. I was in Colin and Helen’s room. Why, how had I come in here . . . ?

  I lifted my head and looked again at the painting immediately above me. Of course the girl in the picture was She­lagh, there was no possible doubt—just as there was no doubt that the bird was a magpie. Not only could I see that, very clearly, but to my dazzled eyes it looked as if the bird was a little closer to the top of her head.

  Beneath my taut body Helen’s patchwork quilt was a kaleidoscope of blues and browns. The rose had slipped down from the pillow and now stood out sharply against the muted tones, a soft, creamy white, just tinged with the faintest blush of pink. I moved my head away from the sweet, sweet smell—and Helen’s sketch-books fell to the floor.

  Leaning over the edge of the bed, head hanging down, I glanced at the books where they lay in an untidy heap on the carpet. The top one had fallen open, showing the flyleaf with Helen’s name written on it. Helen’s full name.

  Rose Helen Cartwright.

  Rose Helen . . .

  Rose . . .

  I hadn’t known her first name before.

  I felt, once again, and so strongly now, that familiar embracing warmth; it was as if there was another presence in the room, someone who was there watching me, someone who had been there in the cottage since the moment of my arrival. And that presence was so strong that I felt I need only stretch out my hands in order to make contact . . .

  Helen’s first name was Rose . . . I saw again the rose lying on the quilt, saw the roses in the paintings.

  Roses, roses, roses . . .

  One part of my mind kept insisting that such things couldn’t happen, didn’t happen; I knew they didn’t. And the other part of my mind watched as the pieces, like those in the jigsaw, slotted into place.

  Roses, roses, roses . . .

  It seemed to me as if the whole house was hushed. I heard only silence. Felt it. There was no sound of any breeze from the open window, no leaves tapped against the pane. I was enveloped in a great stillness that was drenched in the scent of roses; a stillness so complete that it seemed almost tangible.

  “All right,” I said into that stillness. “All right, Rose . . . Helen . . . I know you’re there . . .”

  And then it seemed I heard a sigh, gentle, plaintive, that whispered in the room for a moment and was gone.

  PART THREE

  They say the dead die not, but remain

  Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.

  “Clouds”—Rupert Brooke

  22

  That presence I had sensed was even stronger now, and with the realisation came the surprising knowledge that I was no longer afraid. I had been, I could see, but now no longer. I was afraid for She­lagh, oh, yes—but at the moment she was safe and could come to no harm—but for myself I was not afraid; that sensation of warmth and welcome that enveloped me was totally benevolent.

  I heard myself laugh softly into the seductive silence and thought vaguely that I must be more than slightly drunk. I saw the rose in my hand; it was giving up that scent that I had come to know so well. I held it to my cheek, happily, feeling the softness of the petals like a caress, while all the while the warmth drew closer, came closer, embracing me, and it seemed for a moment as if the whole room spun—a whirl of roses, so that I drifted in rose-petals, wallowed in the scent of them.

  The cat was there on the bed. She nudg
ed gently at me and I took her onto my lap where she purred and gazed at me with soft adoring eyes. I sank back once more on Rose Helen’s patchwork quilt, my arm across my chest, the rose still in my hand.

  Everything was changed now. I had been amazed before at the strange happenings, but they were as nothing compared with what I now knew to be the truth. I had, of course, been looking for natural explanations that would account for the bewildering incidents. Anything beyond my knowledge of what was accepted and known had never for a moment entered my mind. There was only one thing I now knew for an absolute certainty—and that was just how little we knew of what went on outside the limits of our own lives.

  Certain things I was sure of, though, even in my ignorance. One being that I had so wrongly accused Jean Timpson. She had not been responsible for the odd things that had happened. It had been Helen. Helen it was who had put the glass in the ice-cream, my razor blades in the hand-cream jar, who had made She­lagh’s horse take flight in terror. She it was who had left the roses on my pillow, who had touched up the paintings. Yet how, I asked myself, could a ghost do such positively physical things? I had read of poltergeists, spirits who had the power to throw objects about and generally kick up a racket, but, as far as I recalled, they were reckoned to be relatively harmless agencies. So how did Helen’s malevolent, physical powers fit in with the powers of those phantoms? But in asking such a question I was making the mistake I had made before—looking for answers within the boundaries of my own knowledge; I was trying to take those supernatural events I had witnessed and fit them into understandable, man-made, earth-made rules, when by their very nature they defied such categorisation. They were not natural. They were supernatural—and as such could not be explained by our everyday laws and logic. Once explanations—understandable explanations could be found, then they would no longer be supernatural but natural. No, there was nothing I could do but accept. I would accept. I must.

  Soon, I slept . . .

  With the morning sun bright upon me I lay for some moments trying to orientate myself, and wondering how I had come to sleep in Colin and Helen’s room, and fully dressed, too. I felt scratchy, dirty and uncomfortable, my head heavy. Gradually the strange events of the night before came back to me, piercing the armour of my half-sleeping state and bringing me fully awake, leaving me stranded again in the realms of reality. And reality now was different from anything I had dreamed of before . . . I was afraid to look at the pictures on the wall. I knew, though, that I hadn’t been dreaming. I didn’t even need to look at the pictures for confirmation. No. I had only to turn my head a little on the pillow and see if the rose was still there.

  It was. Not just one rose, though. Not now. Now there were three.

  I got no answer to my persistent knocking on the Timpsons’ front door so I got back in the car and drove down to the village. It was just after nine o’clock. Reese, when I arrived on his doorstep, didn’t appear actually overjoyed to see me. I asked if he knew where Jean Timpson was.

  “She’s still here,” he said after a moment. “She’s going home this morning.”

  “I’d like to see her,” I said, then added quickly, seeing his frown, “I haven’t come to upset her. Please believe me.”

  He gestured for me to come in. When I was inside he said softly: “She’s just finishing breakfast. I was about to drive her back.”

  “How is she?”

  “None the worse, now.” He gave me an anxious look. “And I’d like it to stay that way.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “She’s still under a bit of shock, but that’s understandable.” He gave me a grave smile. “She’ll be all right.”

  “I thought she’d be back home by now. I just called at her house. When I couldn’t find anyone in I began to get a bit anxious.”

  We stood in silence. I realised he’d be happier if I just left.

  “I’d like to see her,” I said. “I would.”

  He hesitated, nodded doubtfully, then showed me into the waiting-room where I stood nervously beside the table with the same old magazines on it. When he came back a few minutes later he shook his head and said apologetically:

  “She doesn’t want to see you.”

  “I must talk to her.”

  “She doesn’t want to see you. She says she can’t.”

  “Look,” I said, “certain things—have been happening. I can’t explain any of it now, but—well, after what I’d been told about her, I thought . . .” I was floundering . . . “Those half-stories you warned me against. You said they could destroy. You were right. They almost did . . .”

  He nodded, silent, giving nothing away.

  “And then,” I went on, “when Bill Carmichael told me she’d been in a mental home——”

  “She was a voluntary patient.” Reese said. “She had a breakdown. And I’m not in the least surprised that she did. She really loved that little boy she was caring for. And she blamed herself for his death. Though it wasn’t her fault—that became quite clear afterwards. It was just one of those tragic accidents that sometimes happen. He got out of her sight for only a few minutes and—well, it doesn’t take long.” He paused. “She went to pieces, and even now she’s never forgiven herself. I doubt that she ever will.”

  “And after her own baby died,” I said. “I can imagine how she must have felt.”

  “Can you?”

  For a second longer I stood here, only a second, and then I determinedly stepped past him through the hall and opened the door into the room beyond. Apart from a little half-hearted gesture of protest he made no attempt to stop me. I found myself in a large, sunny kitchen where the doctor’s wife and Jean Timpson looked up at me in surprise from their places at the breakfast-table.

  The words I had all ready to speak somehow refused to come to the surface and I just stood there, dumb, looking stupidly from one to the other. At my shoulder, after a moment, came Reese’s voice:

  “Mr. Warwick insists on seeing you, Jean . . .”

  I watched while she shook her head distractedly and gripped the tablecloth. She turned away. Mrs. Reese got up, looked anxiously at the woman beside her, then at me, and then moved across the room, going by me to the door. An instant later the click of the latch told me that Jean Timpson and I were alone together.

  There was a long silence. Jean Timpson sat there, her face still averted. I could hear the sound of her breathing. I didn’t know where to begin. At last I said:

  “How are you, Jean . . . ?”

  She didn’t answer; just gave a little half-nod.

  “Jean . . . I’ve come to ask you to forgive me.”

  She briefly turned towards me then, though avoiding my gaze, and in her eyes I caught the glisten of unshed tears. She looked away again.

  “I made a mistake,” I said. “A terrible, terrible mistake. And I’m sorry.”

  I waited. Still she said nothing. She looked numb, out of her depth. All in a rush I went on:

  “I accused you of dreadful, unthinkable things. And I was so wrong. I’ve caused you so much misery. I’m sorry. Please—please, forgive me.”

  Still no word from her.

  “Believe me,” I said, “if I had known what I know now . . . Anyway, perhaps one day I can explain it all, but for now . . .” I took a step towards her. “Can you forgive me . . . ?”

  Her downcast eyes were unreadable.

  “Please . . .”

  Then she nodded. “Of course . . .”

  Of course. She was so trusting, so desperate for trust, for love. I felt wretched and even more ashamed.

  “I’d—we’d like you to come back,” I said, “if you will. Shelagh and I will be returning to the States soon, but till then—well, we’d both be glad if you’d come back and—and help out—like before . . .”

  Her moist eyes flicked briefly up to mine and then down again to make a study of her bitten fingernails.

  “She­lagh’ll need somebody around,” I said. “She won’t feel up to do
ing very much . . .” I paused, hopefully waiting. “Will you?”

  A tentative nod of her head, then another. She said, “. . . Ah . . . I’d be glad to—if you really want me.”

  “We do.”

  “. . . Thank you.”

  Her thanks after what I had done made me cringe. “Don’t—don’t thank me,” I said. “Just . . . come back.”

  She smiled then. The tears clearly in her eyes. But they were, I knew, tears of relief.

  “Doctor Reese says you’re going home soon,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Would you like to go now?”

  A shrug. “All right . . .”

  “Come on then. Let me drive you.”

  When I followed her into the house her father was there. He smiled at me, but there was a definite wariness behind the smile and I said quickly, making an effort to sound off-hand and cheerful:

  “I was wrong. I’m afraid we can’t let Jean go after all.” I loathed myself so much it made me want to throw up.

  His wary look went, though. He asked her how the job had been looking after the doctor’s children and she replied, “Oh, fine, fine,” without looking at him. He seemed pleased and satisfied with that and, turning to me, asked me how She­lagh was going on. I told him she was okay and that I was just on my way to visit her. When he had gone I said to Jean:

  “She­lagh and I are going to be married soon. We think it’ll be on Saturday . . .”

  “Oh, that’s nice,” she said, smiling. “I’m glad. Really glad.”

  “We’d like you to be there, too, if you will.”

  The smile she gave then was the warmest I had ever seen on her face. Her eyes shone. “Oh, ah,” she said, “I’d like that. I’d like that fine.”

  I went away from her feeling so much relief. At least her part in the story of horror was over . . .