She washed and dressed, and then she waited. It seemed for hours but there was no way of telling; her watch had stopped days ago, the little gold watch Timothy had given her, which had kept time ever since. It must be late morning, to judge by the light through the curtains. A few specks of dust caught fire in the beam of sunlight that slipped through the crack between, the curtains, and she felt as if everything were as slow as the dust was moving.
She waited. The bar of sunlight thinned, went out. All at once her room seemed much darker and colder. They were going to leave her up here, they weren’t going to take her to Joyce. This was certainly not first thing in the morning. Sage must have deduced her plan after all.
She went to the curtains in case she was wrong about the time of day. Perhaps the sun had only gone behind a cloud. She peered through the crack, then she turned away, shaking. She couldn’t even see the sky now, the walls and their ranks of cramped windows had grown so high.
She mustn’t think that. She was making the walls more real—that was a vital insight. The sun had been shining into her room, after all; she must believe it had, believe the walls weren’t real enough to block it out. She could believe that when she kept her back to the window, though the effort of believing made her shake.
Perhaps it was her fear of the multiplying floors that made them real, too. None of this might have made sense to her if she had thought about it, but her mind was so tired that it did. Couldn’t she go down if she suppressed her fear, hurry down to the front door and out of the house? She was growing sure that nobody would come to take her down.
She snatched her overcoat from the hanger in the wardrobe and stuffed her fists into the sleeves as she hurried to the stairwell. She closed her eyes while she told herself that there would be no more flights than there ought to be, and then she looked. There didn’t seem to be as many as last night, there mustn’t be. She started down at once.
The smell of newness came to meet her, and so did the silence. Now she was descending a flight that oughtn’t to exist, and her footsteps might have been the only sound in the world. Though they and their echoes were intensely clear, they seemed tiny as a small child’s, and as halting. How could she not believe in the stairs on which she was walking? She heard her footsteps echoing through all that silence, losing’ themselves among the empty rooms, and now she dared not look into the stairwell. She could walk forever, she would never get out of the house by herself. “Doreen,” she cried, and fled upstairs while her legs could still carry her.
She heard her voice dwindling through the floors as she called again from the landing outside her room. Could Doreen hear her all the way up here? Suppose someone else could, someone nearer? Suppose not all the new rooms were still empty? She listened to the silence down there, then slammed her door and held it shut. It was a long time before she felt able to move away and sit on the chair by the bed.
She was praying that her heartbeat would slow down and let her hear if anyone was on the stairs, when Doreen came in. “Put on the fire for heaven’s sake, Freddy,” she cried when she saw Freda in her overcoat. “Did you think we’d forgotten you?”
Freda heaved herself to her feet. “I didn’t know what to think.”
“You poor thing, have you been sitting up here all by yourself worrying about your friend Joyce? Well, you can stop worrying. Come on, I’ll take you down.”
They meant to let her go after all. She’d had too much time to brood, to invent reasons to be suspicious and fearful. She took Doreen’s arm as they made for the stairs. “You won’t need your coat,” Doreen said.
Surely the weather hadn’t changed that much. “I’ll keep it on for now.”
“Are you sure you feel up to this, Freddy?”
“I’m fine. Just a bit exhausted.” Freda was suddenly afraid that Doreen’s concern would rob her of her last chance to escape. She hurried them both to the stairs, went down blindly, clinging to Doreen’s arm, and they seemed to be downstairs far sooner than she feared. She made to wait by the front door as Doreen headed for the parlor, until Doreen turned back to her. “Come on, Freddy,” she said.
Freda wished she could stay by the front door, but she mustn’t behave suspiciously now. Doreen must want to tell Sage they were going to Joyce’s, and Freda had only to say good-bye innocently to him. She followed Doreen into the hot, cluttered, stuffy room.
At least, she followed as far as the doorway, where she found that she couldn’t go in. Sage and Rosie were in there, but so was someone else; she could see a hand resting on the arm of the chair that stood with its back to her. The thought of seeing one of Sage’s creatures accepted as just another guest was more than she could bear She backed away but her legs were so shaky that Doreen caught her before she had taken two steps. “Lean on me Freddy, you’ll be all right,” Doreen promised, and the woman in the chair stood up and turned round. It was Joyce.
She looked nervous but determined to keep smiling “Freda, how are you? I’m sorry I was so curt on the phone. I couldn’t talk to anyone just then, you understand But thank you for changing my mind. Thank you for sending—” She glanced at Sage, a little uneasily. “Thank you for sending this gentleman to me.”
So that was what Sage had meant by a visit. He’d known all along what Freda planned. She tried to struggle free of Doreen’s ushering, but Doreen went on leading her to a chair and sitting her down—seemed not even to notice her reluctance. “What did he tell you, Joyce?” Freda said desperately.
“He didn’t tell me, he showed me.” Joyce’s eyes brightened, too intensely. “The morgue say they’ve got Geoffrey but they can’t show me. I know which I believe.”
Sage and Doreen and Rosie were watching, and Freda felt as if they were stealing her breath. “I want to talk to Joyce by herself.”
“Of course.” Sage beckoned the women out with him “Now she is here you may talk to her all you wish.”
As soon as the door closed, she leaned forward to whisper. “Joyce, what do you think is going on here?”
Joyce was unbuttoning her cardigan and mopping her forehead. “Really, Freda, I think you should know more about that than I do.”
“You’re right. I’ve seen how it works. I started out feeling as you must be feeling now, but I’ve seen too much of it. It isn’t real, Joyce. I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t real.”
“Oh, Freda, don’t say that. They told me you were depressed. I know you must have doubts sometimes, we all do, but try and buck up. Just think of Doreen and her friend. You brought their loved ones back when they thought they had lost them forever. If that isn’t real, you tell me what is.”
So Doreen and Rosie were openly discussing their companions now. “Have you seen them?”
“Not yet.” She gave Freda a long pleading look. “You know who I want to see.”
Freda couldn’t break through her faith. “Are you too hot, Joyce?” she said with sudden desperate cunning, and prayed that the idea hadn’t occurred to her too late. “Let’s go for a walk. Just down to the canal. That’ll cheer me up if anything does.”
“Better not just now, dear. They said you need to rest.”
“I need to go out. I haven’t been out for days.” Freda struggled to keep her voice neutral. “I know what I need, Joyce—fresh air. Come on and then we can talk.”
“All right.” Joyce lifted her coat from the back of a chair. “I don’t suppose a short walk can hurt. I’ll just tell him we’re going.”
“No, don’t do that, don’t disturb him.” Freda swallowed her panic. “Good heavens, Joyce, I don’t have to ask permission to go for a walk.”
“Of course you don’t.” But she laid her coat over the chair. “I’d just feel easier if they know where we are, just in case you’re taken ill. I won’t be a moment.”
“Wait, Joyce, listen to me,” Freda whispered. “Never mind the walk. We wouldn’t have got far, they wouldn’t have let me. Do something for me, I’m begging you. They can’t stop you, they won’t dare. Go straight
to the police and tell them I’m being kept here against my will. They’ll have to come. Do it for me, for pity’s sake.”
Joyce gazed at her until Freda’s head began to swim with the breath she was holding. Joyce was biting her lip and looked near to tears. At last she said, “Oh, you poor thing, you do need rest. Never mind me. I can wait until you’re fit again.”
Freda let out her breath, which sounded more like a scream. Joyce was making for the hall, and Freda’s cry sent her running. Freda listened to her murmuring to the others, murmuring with a concern that was more stifling than the room, then suddenly she was on her feet and tiptoeing quickly to the door. Her legs were trembling, but if she didn’t do it now, she never would.
Sage and the women were by the stairs talking about her. With all the force of her painfully held breath, she willed them not to turn as she dodged stealthily into the hall and ran toward the front door. But Harry and another man were in her way, their faces too pink, their eyes and wide smiles unnaturally bright and fixed. They would have looked unreal as window dummies, except that they stretched out their hands to her. She staggered, making a sound too outraged to be a scream.
The women gathered around her at once, murmuring, “Come on, dear, come and sit down,” while Sage looked patient and untroubled. All of them seemed to take the presence of the men for granted. Freda wrenched herself out of the women’s hands and stumbled up the stairs. “I won’t do it!” she cried. “You won’t make me, now or ever. I’ll die first. I’ll starve myself.” With that she dragged herself upstairs.
They let her go. She staggered onto the first floor, which Rosie shared with Sage now, and clung to the banisters as she heaved herself up and up. She could barely see the floors or the stairs; her exertion was blinding her, her brain had no energy to spare for seeing. It seemed hours before she reached her landing.
She tottered the few steps to her door and then to the bed. She slumped onto Doreen’s patchwork quilt and drew into herself, shivering from head to foot, trying to catch her breath. Then Sage and the women came into the room.
When Doreen stooped and tried to touch her comfortingly, Freda writhed away to the far side of the bed. “Freddy, I’m sorry,” Doreen said. The worst of it was her expression, that look of knowing how Freda felt.
Joyce and Rosie were carrying in chairs from the other rooms on the floor. Freda wanted to demand what they thought they were doing, but Doreen was speaking. “I blame myself for being so selfish. You’ve done so much for me and Rosie and yet we’ve never tried to help you in return. Just close your eyes now. Sage says it’ll be all right. Close your eyes.”
They were drawing the chairs close to the bed, so close that two of them could grab her if she tried to slip away. They were bringing the séance into her room. She threw herself toward the foot of the bed. Sage watched.
Perhaps he knew he needn’t take hold of her, that it was his gaze that had drained her of so much strength that she collapsed head first over the end of the bed, her forehead thumping the floor. Rosie and Doreen helped her up, ignoring her attempts to struggle, and laid her gently on the quilt. “It’s all right, I’m here,” Doreen murmured.
Freda lay on the bed and glared fiercely at the faces that surrounded her. The women’s eyes were comforting, encouraging, almost prayerful; Sage’s were unreadably calm. She could still fight them, prevent the séance from happening. “No, no, no,” she began to scream.
“It’s all right.” Not only Doreen but all the women were murmuring now, a kind of litany of concern, unbearably monotonous, almost hypnotic. Freda tried to scream louder; she closed her eyes as if that might help, but her voice seemed to be receding. Each scream felt as if it would have to be the last, they exhausted her so much. Soon her throat felt as distant as her voice, and then she was asleep.
She dreamed she was running away from the house, running between two buildings whose walls would never end, whose ranks of identical windows climbed until they were lost in the clouds. She couldn’t bear that, she had to see light somehow. At once the identical windows were the identical leaves of the forest through which she was running. She hadn’t escaped the dream; by manipulating it she had made it more real. Suddenly she knew that was part of the answer: by coming true for people the dream gained strength, and Joyce had made it stronger. She must have gasped aloud, for the sound woke her.
She had to tell Joyce now, before the insight faded like a dream. Joyce would know what she meant, and help her think it out. She blinked and opened her eyes wide, but the séance was over, and she was alone. Sage must have given up. She’d beaten him.
She must conserve her strength to talk to Joyce. She must lie still and hold on to what she’d realized about the dream. She blinked at the dark one last time and raised her head to make sure the door was shut; and then she stared, though her neck began to ache. There was something in the chair at the foot of the bed.
Perhaps it was clothes. She must have left her suit there last night, it must be the buttons of the jacket that looked like eyes, glinting at her from the dark—and then she realized she was wearing her suit. She’d put it on when she had thought she was going to visit Joyce.
She grabbed the dark in search of the light cord, praying desperately there would be nothing to fear because she couldn’t imagine what she would be able to do, all the way up here, if there were. She had the cord now and pulled.
The sudden light made her close her eyes and fear kept them closed, fear that would paralyze her if she didn’t look. She forced them open and raised her head on its throbbing neck, and then she shrank back against the wall under the crucifix, a sound filling her throat until she thought it would choke her. Something was watching her from the chair.
It looked unfinished. Its clothes and its flesh seemed to be composed of the same substance, for they were of the same indeterminate color. The hands and face looked not so much plump as puffy. Yet there was no mistaking the face, the high forehead, the jutting chin, above all the deep brown eyes, gentle but strong. They were watching her from a face that looked as if it were in the process of being shaped from putty: Timothy’s face.
She couldn’t move until the figure nodded toward her on the chair, until the mouth began to smile uncertainly as if the lips were stuck together, hadn’t yet been separated, and then she lurched off the bed and stumbled choking toward the door. Before she reached it she lost her balance, plunged forward with nothing to hold on to, smashed her forehead against the door. Then there was only dark. . She came out of the dark and wished she could go back. Someone was stroking her forehead, so gently that the touch of the hand soothed the bruise. At last she opened her eyes a slit. Timothy was sitting beside her, stroking her forehead.
It couldn’t be Timothy. She knew that much, though trying to remember why made her head throb horribly. She wished it were, as she had never wished for anything. She lay on the bed and would have been happy for this dream never to end, this dream of his loving touch, and then he gazed into her eyes and smiled his smile that was like no other, a smile that recalled everything they had done together, everything they had been to each other. The flood of emotion was so great she thought it would shake her to pieces. “Oh, Timothy,” she cried in a pale voice she hardly recognized, “it is you.”
“Of course it is, old girl. Who were you expecting? Friend Adolf? That’s all done with. There’s nothing to keep us apart now.” He sat back, almost imperceptibly but she felt as if he were suddenly miles away. “That is,” he said shyly, “if you still want me.”
“Oh, Timothy, if you only knew how much …” She reached out her shaky arms to him, and all at once he picked her up, even more effortlessly than he had used to. She’d loved to be held over streams, even once over the edge of a cliff; she’d loved the girlish excitement, the security of knowing he would never let her fall. She wanted him to kiss her, she raised her face to his as best she could, and it was a long time before their faces parted. His lips were so soft, it was like a dream.
He carried her onto the landing as if she weighed nothing at all. “I’ll take you down,” he said. “He’ll see to your head.” As they descended she felt she was flying. It no longer mattered that there were so many floors, not when she was in Timothy’s arms. She was flying like an angel, and if this wasn’t heaven, she was glad there was no such place.
53
BY THE TIME the train left Norwich, night was falling. Bare trees cracked the sunset, pools and streams glowed like lava among the fields; on both sides of the line there was nothing higher than a hedge between the train and the horizon. Stuart gazed out until his reflection was clearer than the landscape and was tempted to make faces at himself to while the dawdling journey away.
He hadn’t been able to get through to the hospital from Norwich to arrange to meet Guilda somewhere away from where she worked. He hoped he wouldn’t have to encounter any of her patients. Insanity dismayed him; just the thought of that loss of mental control did. He could only admire Guilda and anyone else who tried to help.
The train was emptying. By the time-Stuart got out at his stop, there was only the ticket collector on the platform. “How do I get to the hospital?” Stuart said.
“Afraid you haven’t much choice. You walk.” The ticket collector frowned at the swaying metal shades of the lamps as they clattered with the first large drops of rain. “Wait though, he’s going that way.” He went to the fence between the platform and the car park. “Can you drop our friend here at the hospital?”
“Why not,” a man said cheerfully. “Jump in before you get wet,” he told Stuart as the fields began to hiss.
It was only when he realized the country house that glimmered through the rain was in fact the hospital that he deduced the last few hundred tree-lined yards must have been an avenue leading into the grounds. “Thank you very much,” he shouted as he dodged under the wide stone porch, but the car was already speeding away.
Dripping urns and stone lions stood among the frantic trees and bushes. Soon a balding young male nurse opened the oak doors. “I’d like to speak to Guilda Kent,” Stuart said.
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