This Thing of Darkness, page 24
“Don’t bother,” she retorted, a sure sign she was back to her old self. “What are you trying to hide from me this time?”
Hugo blushed with embarrassment. “Your landlord’s thrown you out.”
“What!”
“I’m awfully sorry to say it like this, but you already owed him several months’ rent before you became ill. You’ve no money, and you haven’t been working, so he said you had to leave.”
Evi stared openmouthed. “Don’t be too delicate about it, will you!”
“Well, I’m sorry, but if you will ask these things. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you.”
Evi gave a roar of frustration. “For pity’s sake, I’ve apparently done battle with the Undead, and you still feel the need to patronise me! What happened to my belongings? Did he just throw them out of the windows or something?”
“No, no, it’s all right; your belongings are safely stored away in my shop.”
Evi sank back against the crisp white pillow. No husband, no children, no job, no home. It was as though an invisible blitz had ravaged her life, leaving her cowering in the ruins, possessing only the clothes she wore. “So I’m homeless,” she said calmly.
“There’s something else I need to tell you,” said Hugo, oblivious to the thought that he might need to stop the flow of bad news, at least to allow Evi some breathing space. “I’ve decided to return to England.”
Evi felt something similar to the sensation of being hurled across a room. “But. . . but what about your shop?”
Hugo sighed. “I’m selling up, Evi; there’s no future in it. The fact is, business has been terrible for months. I specialise in horror, and there’s no appetite for horror films any longer.”
Can’t think why, thought Evi dryly, but she could feel her hard-won energy draining away. “And what will you do?”
“I’ve been offered a position at my old school,” said Hugo. “I wrote to a chum who works there, and he said they needed a history master.” For the first time, he noticed the effect he was having on Evi, who had descended into silence in front of him. “Evi, I’m not sure I’m making myself very clear. I want to take you with me.”
Evi glared at him. Confusion and desolation turned into anger, an emotion Evi had not felt for so long that it was like the return of an old friend. “Of course you’re not making yourself clear. I thought you were saying good-bye!”
The two of them were suddenly aware that they were in a public place and were drawing a great deal of attention to themselves. As if by magic, a plump, middle-aged nurse appeared at the bedside. “Is this gentleman bothering you?” she asked Evi.
“No, not at all,” Evi said, floundering. “I’m terribly sorry I raised my voice.”
“I shan’t stay long,” promised Hugo, mortified. “I know she needs to rest. Five more minutes.”
The nurse nodded reluctantly and stepped back without leaving the room. “This isn’t the place to discuss this, Evi, but please consider it,” he said quietly. “I love this country, but I’m a fish out of water here, and so, I think, are you. The priest I spoke to warned me that it would be safer for you to leave Los Angeles after all that’s happened.”
“He said that?”
“Yes. His advice was that we should go somewhere far away and put all of this behind us. Live quietly.”
Live quietly.
No child in the history of mankind had ever longed for a quiet life; the dreams of the innocent always gravitate towards adventure and fame. Every child believes that he will grow up to set the world alight and cherishes that hope until adulthood and the shades of the prison house bring him to his senses. It is the dream of the wise to live in obscurity. When Hugo kissed Evi good-bye, leaving her to think things over, she did not feel wise, but she knew what answer she would give him when he returned.
EPILOGUE
Berkshire, 1971
My life since the events recounted has been as contented as I could have expected. One good man carried me across the Atlantic to a brave new world; another good man carried me home again. I took on a new identity and a new name—not Hugo’s pretentious stage name but the name he left behind when he first left England. We followed the instruction to live quietly and have done just that. Hugo’s old school—like so many boarding schools—is an isolated community of its own, separated from the rest of the world by rolling hills and misty woodlands.
It is a happy-enough hiding place for a weary soul who has stared the devil in the face and lived to tell the tale. As that good priest promised, the nightmares have lessened over the years, but not a day goes by when I do not feel the Darkness at my heels. We have one living son whom we called Christopher and four others lost before birth. After the fourth miscarriage, we resigned ourselves to the realisation that we were not meant to have any more children, and we both hoped our son would forgive us for leaving him alone with only two troubled parents for family. Christopher’s schoolmates are his brothers, but I know it is not the same, and I have hated my damaged body for failing to nurture my own children.
In time, Hugo embraced the faith, though I suspect that had more to do with Christy than with me. He works, and I write. I write to fill the hours and to allow my mind the guilty privilege of wandering back into the past and its dark memories, which I can never entirely escape. I owe it to my husband and my son not to give in to the Darkness again, but the past and all those horrors are a cross I struggle to carry—especially when the shadows lengthen and night falls all around me, so much bleaker and lonelier than I remember from childhood.
Strange to think that my eldest son will soon be the same age Christy was when I first met him, a charmer in an ill-fitting uniform, surrounded by friends he left behind forever on the beaches of Normandy. I retain the hope that the Darkness that devoured my generation, leaving a trail of dead and wounded in every continent of the world, might leave my boy in peace. Neither Hugo nor I have ever spoken to him of the memories that haunt us—the loved ones who perished in the fires of Coventry, the stubborn Irishman murdered behind barbed wire in a faraway land, the demons we fought and who haunt us still.
I have always been tortured by fear, and perhaps it is my mind tormenting me yet again, but I sense something drawing my son away from me. Perhaps he is merely growing up, so nearly a man that he thinks he has no need of me anymore. It is just that I see shadows everywhere. I am afraid. There, I have said it. I am afraid. Afraid of the Darkness returning. This time it will come for my son, not for me. Please let it come for me. I have faced it once; I can face it again. I shall go out from my hiding place and seek it out. Among the shadows and nightmares, I will let it take me, but not my son. If the Darkness calls me, I am ready to fight it once again.
E.
More from Ignatius Press
A Bloody Habit by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
The Rising by Robert Ovies
Providence Blue: A Fantasy Quest by David Pinault
You May Also Be Interested In . . .
Barely a Crime by David Pinault
See No Evil: A Father Gabriel Mystery by Fiorella De Maria
Fiorella De Maria, This Thing of Darkness
Thank you for reading books on Archive.BookFrom.Net
Share this book with friends
Hugo blushed with embarrassment. “Your landlord’s thrown you out.”
“What!”
“I’m awfully sorry to say it like this, but you already owed him several months’ rent before you became ill. You’ve no money, and you haven’t been working, so he said you had to leave.”
Evi stared openmouthed. “Don’t be too delicate about it, will you!”
“Well, I’m sorry, but if you will ask these things. I wasn’t even supposed to tell you.”
Evi gave a roar of frustration. “For pity’s sake, I’ve apparently done battle with the Undead, and you still feel the need to patronise me! What happened to my belongings? Did he just throw them out of the windows or something?”
“No, no, it’s all right; your belongings are safely stored away in my shop.”
Evi sank back against the crisp white pillow. No husband, no children, no job, no home. It was as though an invisible blitz had ravaged her life, leaving her cowering in the ruins, possessing only the clothes she wore. “So I’m homeless,” she said calmly.
“There’s something else I need to tell you,” said Hugo, oblivious to the thought that he might need to stop the flow of bad news, at least to allow Evi some breathing space. “I’ve decided to return to England.”
Evi felt something similar to the sensation of being hurled across a room. “But. . . but what about your shop?”
Hugo sighed. “I’m selling up, Evi; there’s no future in it. The fact is, business has been terrible for months. I specialise in horror, and there’s no appetite for horror films any longer.”
Can’t think why, thought Evi dryly, but she could feel her hard-won energy draining away. “And what will you do?”
“I’ve been offered a position at my old school,” said Hugo. “I wrote to a chum who works there, and he said they needed a history master.” For the first time, he noticed the effect he was having on Evi, who had descended into silence in front of him. “Evi, I’m not sure I’m making myself very clear. I want to take you with me.”
Evi glared at him. Confusion and desolation turned into anger, an emotion Evi had not felt for so long that it was like the return of an old friend. “Of course you’re not making yourself clear. I thought you were saying good-bye!”
The two of them were suddenly aware that they were in a public place and were drawing a great deal of attention to themselves. As if by magic, a plump, middle-aged nurse appeared at the bedside. “Is this gentleman bothering you?” she asked Evi.
“No, not at all,” Evi said, floundering. “I’m terribly sorry I raised my voice.”
“I shan’t stay long,” promised Hugo, mortified. “I know she needs to rest. Five more minutes.”
The nurse nodded reluctantly and stepped back without leaving the room. “This isn’t the place to discuss this, Evi, but please consider it,” he said quietly. “I love this country, but I’m a fish out of water here, and so, I think, are you. The priest I spoke to warned me that it would be safer for you to leave Los Angeles after all that’s happened.”
“He said that?”
“Yes. His advice was that we should go somewhere far away and put all of this behind us. Live quietly.”
Live quietly.
No child in the history of mankind had ever longed for a quiet life; the dreams of the innocent always gravitate towards adventure and fame. Every child believes that he will grow up to set the world alight and cherishes that hope until adulthood and the shades of the prison house bring him to his senses. It is the dream of the wise to live in obscurity. When Hugo kissed Evi good-bye, leaving her to think things over, she did not feel wise, but she knew what answer she would give him when he returned.
EPILOGUE
Berkshire, 1971
My life since the events recounted has been as contented as I could have expected. One good man carried me across the Atlantic to a brave new world; another good man carried me home again. I took on a new identity and a new name—not Hugo’s pretentious stage name but the name he left behind when he first left England. We followed the instruction to live quietly and have done just that. Hugo’s old school—like so many boarding schools—is an isolated community of its own, separated from the rest of the world by rolling hills and misty woodlands.
It is a happy-enough hiding place for a weary soul who has stared the devil in the face and lived to tell the tale. As that good priest promised, the nightmares have lessened over the years, but not a day goes by when I do not feel the Darkness at my heels. We have one living son whom we called Christopher and four others lost before birth. After the fourth miscarriage, we resigned ourselves to the realisation that we were not meant to have any more children, and we both hoped our son would forgive us for leaving him alone with only two troubled parents for family. Christopher’s schoolmates are his brothers, but I know it is not the same, and I have hated my damaged body for failing to nurture my own children.
In time, Hugo embraced the faith, though I suspect that had more to do with Christy than with me. He works, and I write. I write to fill the hours and to allow my mind the guilty privilege of wandering back into the past and its dark memories, which I can never entirely escape. I owe it to my husband and my son not to give in to the Darkness again, but the past and all those horrors are a cross I struggle to carry—especially when the shadows lengthen and night falls all around me, so much bleaker and lonelier than I remember from childhood.
Strange to think that my eldest son will soon be the same age Christy was when I first met him, a charmer in an ill-fitting uniform, surrounded by friends he left behind forever on the beaches of Normandy. I retain the hope that the Darkness that devoured my generation, leaving a trail of dead and wounded in every continent of the world, might leave my boy in peace. Neither Hugo nor I have ever spoken to him of the memories that haunt us—the loved ones who perished in the fires of Coventry, the stubborn Irishman murdered behind barbed wire in a faraway land, the demons we fought and who haunt us still.
I have always been tortured by fear, and perhaps it is my mind tormenting me yet again, but I sense something drawing my son away from me. Perhaps he is merely growing up, so nearly a man that he thinks he has no need of me anymore. It is just that I see shadows everywhere. I am afraid. There, I have said it. I am afraid. Afraid of the Darkness returning. This time it will come for my son, not for me. Please let it come for me. I have faced it once; I can face it again. I shall go out from my hiding place and seek it out. Among the shadows and nightmares, I will let it take me, but not my son. If the Darkness calls me, I am ready to fight it once again.
E.
More from Ignatius Press
A Bloody Habit by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
The Rising by Robert Ovies
Providence Blue: A Fantasy Quest by David Pinault
You May Also Be Interested In . . .
Barely a Crime by David Pinault
See No Evil: A Father Gabriel Mystery by Fiorella De Maria
Fiorella De Maria, This Thing of Darkness
