Hold My Hand

by Serena Mackesy

  He’s here. He’s here.

  She reaches into the darkness to turn on the light, clutches only air. Feels the panic grip once again at her throat. It’s gone. It’s gone. The world has gone while I was asleep…

  And then she remembers. You’re not in Streatham any more. You’re in Cornwall. The light is on the other side of the bed.

  She reaches out again, to the left this time, finds the familiar shape of her bedside lamp and presses the button. Breathes again. Collapses against the pillows.

  Suddenly, the room, which felt cavernous as Hades when she couldn't see its boundaries, closes back in again, becomes comforting. She likes this room already. With its tongue-and-groove panelling the sound of the wind tossing the foliage outside, she feels as though she is on a boat, way out to sea, safely distant from London, from Kieran, from fear. This will be our haven. I know it. This will be our sanctuary.

  Bridget begins to relax against the pillows. He cannot find us. We are safe and he can only find me in my dreams, and I am awake and we are safe again.

  She picks up her watch from where it lies on the bedside cabinet – the clock is still buried somewhere, at the bottom of one of the bin liners in the living room – and checks the time. 1.30am. Here I am again, awake, in the small hours. How long will it be before I learn to sleep again? When will I go to bed and close my eyes and stay here, resting, without one ear open for invasion? I’ve got out of the habit. So many nights spent waiting for the bang of the door, the thunder of fists, the bay of his voice.

  It’ll take time, Bridget. It’ll be a long, long time before you sleep the whole night through.

  There’s a packet of valerian tea by the kettle, bought in the health food shop in Wadebridge under the advice of a girl who looked as though she was barely old enough to be reading let alone prescribing to strangers. She throws the covers back, gets out of bed and pads through to the kitchen.

  The wind is very strong tonight. It hadn’t occurred to her that warm, friendly Cornwall, the destination that tens of thousands of British people dream of for its Riviera delights, could be so inhospitable in the Winter. But of course it is, locked between the Bristol Channel and the wild west-English one: on the edge of a wasteland famous for treachery and exposure deaths. These rocky shores have always provided a rich shipwreck harvest. Only an untamed part of the country could have gone on for so long, cutting the throats of floundering sailors and plundering their cast-up cargo to supplement their scratch-farm existence. When she was a kid – before reading became uncool, before the deaths of her parents threw her prematurely into a world of adult cares, before Kieran – she used to devour the books of Daphne de Maurier, swallow with relish those tales of distance and derring-do. Funny, really, that she has only just noticed that she is living in the place where many of those tales were set. They even passed signs for Jamaica Inn on the way down here.

  She fills the kettle, presses the tit and sits at the kitchen table to wait for it to boil. Sitting there, she realises that she is actually, for the first time since the plan to come down here was put into action, hungry. Genuinely hungry. Not just knowing-she-needs-to-feed-herself-to-keep-going hungry, but hungry with a relish and a longing so intense that she barely remembers the last time she felt a feeling so strong.

  Poached eggs on toast, that's what she wants. Her mouth waters at the thought of runny yolks exploding into a warm pool of butter and marmite, the farinaceous comfort of heavy wholemeal bread fresh from the toaster. Extraordinary how the simplest of pleasures can have such intense sensuality at their very core. She goes to the fridge, gets a couple of slices of toast from the bag and pops them under the grill.

  The wind raises its voice, blats against the window like a passing express train. Involuntarily, though the room is warm and she is well wrapped up, she shivers. Then she smiles. Gosh, this is nice. I can't remember when… oh, Yasmin, this will be good. It will be a happy time. Our first good winter: we can do all those British Winter things: toasting crumpets in front of an open fire; snowballing; running through the rain in hats with ear flaps, wind-chapped cheeks and eyes bright with the cold. This is so right. It’s so right…

  The kettle clicks off. She stands once again, starts her tea off brewing and fills a pan with boiling water ready for the eggs.

  It can all be this simple, she thinks. Here, in our haven: we just do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay and enjoy the pleasure of the simple life.

  It is wonderful. Almost heavenly. How did I go this long without realising that a poached egg was proof that there really is a God? The eggs, free range, have yolks bigger and more golden than any she can remember seeing in London. They burst under her knife, trickle in peppered golden perfection across the toast, soak in. Bridget takes a sip of her tea, cuts a corner off, spreads it with yolk and pops it into her mouth. Closes her eyes and suppresses a surprising moan of pleasure. She feels as though she is beginning to wake from a long, long slumber. Suddenly she is noticing things around her – food, colours, heat and cold – against which she feels she had been anaesthetised, possibly forever.

  There is a proverb – Spanish, she thinks – that goes “a life lived in fear is a life half lived”, and she thinks she is beginning to understand the full truth of it. Life with Kieran – the trepidation, the walking on eggshells, the care with words and looks and actions, even with thoughts, lest her expression should betray them – was a life lived in black and white and shades of grey. She never dared to taste the colours, see the heat, feel the music.

  I never had a second to myself, even when he wasn’t there, she thinks. It would have been unthinkable, sitting down like this by myself, enjoying this simple moment, when I knew he might walk back through the door at any time, find me idle, be angry. It was survival, she thinks: it wasn’t life. She cuts off another slice of egg-soaked bread, closes her eyes and savours its salty, fatty goodness.

  “I can’t sleep.”

  Bridget opens her eyes. Yasmin – pink woolly pyjamas and bare feet, manky old monkey clutched against her chest – stands in the doorway, tousled hair and big brown eyes.

  “I’m sorry, baby. Did I wake you up?”

  Yasmin rubs a tired fist across the bridge of her nose. “I don’t know,” she states. “I think I’ve been awake forever. What are you eating?”

  “Eggs. Do you want some?”

  “Eeugh,” says Yasmin, “eggs.” She pulls a face that involves a lot of tongue. “No thank you.”

  “Not eeugh,” she says. “Eggs are lovely. Especially with soldiers.”

  “Yukky,” says Yasmin, unequivocally. Yesterday she ate three bowls of home-made custard without a murmur of disapprobation. The mysteries of children’s ever-changing appetites with always be unfathomable.

  “I’ve nearly finished,” says Bridget, “then I’ll take you back to bed.”

  “Don’t want to,” says Yasmin.

  “Yes, but,” says Bridget, “it’s bedtime. Well after, actually.”

  “Can’t I come in with you?”

  “No, honey. You’ve got your own bedroom now. That’s where you sleep.”

  “Yes, but,” says Yasmin.

  “No, but,” says Bridget. “You’re a big girl now. Surely you want to sleep in your own room? Only babies want to sleep in with the grownups.”

  Yasmin looks torn. Appealing to her sense of her own maturity always works. Up to a point. He pleasure in having a space all of her own is obviously fighting a big battle with the memory of all those fuggy nights in with her mother. Bridget knew it would be an issue, parting company like this. She’s been surprised she’s got away with it for six nights already.

  Yasmin frowns. “Yes, but if I can’t sleep then I’ll be tired in the morning and you won’t like that,” she threatens.

  Bridget scoops the last of her midnight feast into her mouth, does a couple of chews and washes it down with the dregs of the tea. Time to be decisive. If I hang around discussing it with her, she’ll think there
's room for manoeuvre. “Yes,” she says, holds out her hand, “and you know we’ve got the first lot of guests coming tomorrow. Which means we’ve both got to be on good form. Come on. I’ll take you back.”

  And suddenly, there are tears in her daughter’s eyes. “Mummy, please! Please? Can’t I come in and sleep with you? Just for tonight?”

  “Honey, “ says Bridget, “if we do just tonight, then it’ll be just tomorrow night and then just the night after as well. Come on. Be grown up. Do you know how many people long for a bedroom all to themselves?”

  “But its not! It's not!”

  “Not what?”

  “Not all to –” she pauses, looks a bit confused by what she’s been about to say, changes tack. “I just can’t sleep tonight! Please, Mummy! I’ve not been – I’ve not been in with you since we got here, have I?”

  Bridget has to acknowledge that this is true. Sort of. Yasmin has always waited, at least, until she herself was sound asleep before creeping in with her under the covers. “So what’s so different about tonight?”

  “I don’t know,” says Yasmin reluctantly, “I just can’t – I feel like there’s–”

  “It’s just the wind. It’s nothing. It’s just a bit blowy out there tonight.”

  They reach the bedroom door. Yasmin, hand still clutched in Bridget’s, pulls back, hard, attempts to drag her mother back into the corridor. “Please, Mummy!”

  I’ve got to be firm. We can’t carry on sharing a bed ’til she’s a teenager.

  She bends downs and picks her daughter up, hugs her to her side. Yasmin's legs automatically wrap around her hip, pubic bone balancing on the bulge where encroaching age and cheap food have started to expand her flesh. “Please!” she pleads again.

  “I’ll tuck you in,” says Bridget.

  She turns the light on, notices that both of the beds in the room are unmade. The spare bed, the one on the right, looks as though it’s been tossed apart by a fault-finding sergeant-major in a cadets’ dormitory. Pillows, quilt and bottom sheet lie rucked up against the wall. Bridget sighs. “You have been having trouble sleeping. And did you decide which one you want to be yours, in the end?”

  Yasmin looks puzzled. “Well – that one.”

  She points at the one they had originally agreed would be hers, the one under the slope of the eaves. It is piled, as they arranged it, with her soft toys, dolls and books; just a small puddle of body space left in the middle. It certainly looks like the sort of a bed a six-year-old would sleep in. “Of course,” she finishes.

  “Just trying the other one out for size then, were you, baby?”

  Bridget rubs her nose against her daughter’s cheek, inhales the scents of soap and baby shampoo. How I love you, she thinks. How I love you. However much work you are.

  “I didn’t –” says Yasmin.

  “Well, somebody did.” Bridget laughs. “Who was it? The Invisible Man?”

  Her daughter stiffens. “What invisible man?”

  She's good at taking things literally when she thinks she might turn them to her advantage.

  “A joke,” says Bridget. “A joke, Yasmin. There is no invisible man. Not one. It was a joke.”

  “Well, I didn’t do it!” she says. “Someone must’ve, because it wasn’t me!”

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that mirror jumped off the wall all by itself this morning.

  “Stop it, Yasmin! Right now!” she barks. “You’re not getting out of bedtime by playing games. Into bed, now, or you'll – ” she casts about for a punishment “ – you'll be making that bed all by yourself tomorrow.”

  “No, Mummy!” Yasmin clings tighter round her neck, digs her knees into her stomach and back like a cowboy hanging on to a bucking bronco. “Nononoplease, Mummy! I promise I’ll go straight to sleep!”

  “You bet you will,” says Bridget, unpeels the clutching arms. The valerian tea is working and she feels too tired to reason, too tired to do anything but stumble back to her own room and get under the covers. She made eighteen beds today and hoovered the public rooms from top to bottom. Tomorrow she’s got to be friendly and welcoming and hand out eighteen sets of bath linen, show half a dozen adults round wood stores and laundry rooms and car ports. “I don’t have time for this, Yasmin. Go to bed.”

  She's surprised how firm and determined she sounds. “No more nonsense,” she says. “Go on. Get in.”

  Yasmin lets go, flops down onto the mattress. Her eyes are still tearful. “Please don’t leave me,” she says. “Please, Mummy.”

  “Come on,” says Bridget. “Close your eyes and when you wake up it’ll be morning. I’ll leave the passage light on.”

  A single sob. Blackmail, thinks Bridget. She knows she can always get round me by playing for tragedy. All my guilt, my big soft heart: I find it so difficult to say no to her because I feel so bad about the start I gave her. Not fair. I have to be tough. She pulls the quilt up so it covers her daughter’s body, tucks it in around her neck and shoulders while Yasmin continues to sob. “It won’t work,” she says. “Everybody has to go to sleep.”

  She strokes a strand of hair away from Yasmin’s face. “There you go,” she says, forces her voice to lilt soothingly. “Nice and warm. Isn’t that better?”

  “No,” says Yasmin. “I want to come and sleep with you.”

  “Well the whole point of you having you own room is that you actually sleep in it. Come on, baby. Give it a little while. You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

  Yasmin gives her the silent treatment.

  “Now, you just roll over and go to sleep,” she orders.

  Obediently, pointedly, Yasmin turns her back on the room, assumes a position somewhere between foetal and prayer. Bridget leans over her, plants a kiss on her hairline, just in front of her ear. “Nighty-night,” she murmurs. “Sleep tight, darling, and mind the fleas.”

  Yasmin says nothing. Sniffs.

  “Now, don’t sulk,” says Bridget. “I’ll see you in the morning. Remember that I love you.”

  No answer. It’s amazing how early people learn that not responding to words of love is one of the most effective punishments there is.

  Bridget retreats from the room, stands in the doorway and switches off the light. “Night night, sweetheart,” she repeats. Still no answer.

  Her feet feel as though they have been glued to the sisal in the passage. Whatever she thought of the teenager who sold her the tea, it’s clear that she knew what she was talking about. She clomps back to her own room, drops her dressing gown on the floor and falls wearily into bed. The sheets have cooled while she's been in the kitchen. Still clean from their packaging – she couldn't resist buying new, in the market, to mark her new life – they feel crisp and luxurious. She burrows beneath them and listens to the wind. Enjoys the feeling of being warm and dry when the night is cold. It’ll be okay, she thinks. It’ll be okay…

  The door opens. She doesn’t need to look toward the light to know that Yasmin is standing there. Determined little sod, she thinks. Won’t take no for an answer. Must’ve got that from her dad.

  I’ll deal with it tomorrow. I’m too tired now. Tomorrow…

  Small feet pad across the carpet. The bedclothes are drawn back, letting in the cold night air. Bridget moves over, makes room. I can’t do a tantrum tonight. Just tonight…

  Yasmin gets in beside her. Crushes up against her and pulls an arm over herself. “I told you I couldn’t sleep,” she says. Presses her nose into Bridget’s armpit.

  And Lily watches, and waits, as their breath slows, drops, turns to snores.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “So have you seen the ghost yet?”

  Bridget, grateful that her face is hidden by the cupboard door, laughs. Half-laughs. A sharp, nervous titter. Because it's not the sort of question you expect to be asked when you've barely settled in.

  “No. Is there one?”

  “Of course there are. Dozens. You’d hardly expect a house to be four hundred years old and not have a few
, would you?”

  “I suppose not.”

  Dozens I can handle. That’s like having spiders.

  “I thought you said “ghost” not “ghosts.”

  It’s Ms Aykroyd’s turn to titter. “Oh, don’t mind me, darling,” she says. “I'm numerically dyslexic. I’m surprised I didn’t say millions.”

  “Well, no,” says Bridget. “the only thing that’s gone bump in the night since we got here was Yasmin falling out of bed.”

  Ms Aykroyd – CallmeStella as she refers to herself – laughs again. “Well, that’s good. It wouldn’t do to be too psychic around here, I’d’ve thought.”

  Bridget hears the jangle of gold bangles as she leans a hand against the door jamb.

  “I don’t know anything about ghosts,” she says, hears the Old Retainer in her voice as she says.

  “Darling,” says Ms Aykroyd – she’s the type who calls everyone darling because it saves having to learn their names – “that’s the spirit. Didn’t he tell you about them? Tom Gordhavo?”

  Bridget shakes her head. “I can’t say he did.”

  “No, I suppose he wouldn’t have. I should think he’d have a hard enough time finding someone to come and work here as it is, without filling their heads full of notions.”

  “I daresay he did,” says Bridget. “And that was why he got me. Still: take more than a few ghosts to scare me off.”

  Ms Aykroyd laughs again. “Oh, I know,” she says. “I’ve been here every year for the last fifteen years. I do hope you’ll stay, though. it would be nice not to have to get to know a new person every time we come down. More like coming home. Anyway, ghosts just add to the atmosphere, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Bridget glances up. She’s not sure if this last statement was for real or a joke. It’s always hard to tell with these arty types: they’ll tell the story of their granny’s deathbed as though it were a theatrical anecdote. It’s hard to tell which way the Aykroyd party go. They’re Creative, certainly – that’s easy to spot, what with the kaftans and the head-wraps and the oversized junk jewellery hanging from every extremity, and the complicated facial hair that sprouts from the men’s (and one or two of the women’s) chins like topiary. And the fact that it’s hard to distinguish which of the twelve children belongs to which of the six adults. At least two of them, she’s worked out, seem to be related in one way or another to at least three of the grownups, and a couple to only one of them. But whether they’re the sort of artistic that actually believes in horoscopes and phantoms and the power of the ouija board, or sees them as entertainments to be consumed with cocktails, it’s hard to tell.