Borderliners, page 10
‘Hi Linda. Clumsy me, eh?’ I said bending down to push my belongings back into my handbag. ‘I really must clear this bag out.’
Linda seemed to jump back into the land of the living. She stood up and started to get changed into a tracksuit. Puzzled, I followed suit and when I was ready to go, I turned back to the girl, my gaze more deliberate. ‘See you soon,’ I said to her. ‘And take care.’
I strained to catch her words as they disappeared into the background echoing noise of the pool. ‘Is Julia still here?’ she said.
‘She’s in the swimming pool.’
‘Right. Well, I’ll see you soon then.’
With this she shuffled out of the changing room, head bent and eyes forward. As the door swung behind her, I threw on my coat and ran towards the gap she’d left behind, catching the back-swing a split second before it closed. She must have moved swiftly as I could see no sign of her in the health club foyer beyond. Instead my eyes rested on water features and immaculate staff in regulation tracksuits. Driven by a sixth sense, I ran through the reception area leaving a trail of wary glances in my wake.
Outside I paused to look up at a cloudless sky. The health club was in the middle of nowhere and the lack of street light and neighbouring properties made the darkness all the more pressing. It seemed like we were wrapped in a charcoal blanket studded only by the lights of the car park and neatly manicured grounds. The village lay several miles beyond, cut off from where I now stood.
A rush of something to my right caught my attention and I called 'Linda!?' without thinking. The movement stopped and as I looked round, Linda appeared from behind a small, midnight blue car on the other side of the car park. I walked over to her.
‘Yes?’ She had one eye on the spa entrance behind me.
‘What did you mean about Julia back there?’
‘Nothing. I just wondered if she was still there, like I said.’ Her pupils had narrowed to tiny dots.
‘Well yes, but Linda, what’s wrong? Do you want me to drive home behind you? Forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn, but if you're feeling anxious I can help.’
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she replied, but the other-worldly expression I’d glimpsed before had crept back and her voice was faint.
'Well, any time you want to come back to our sessions, you can.'
Her face blanched, and a gust created by the reception door opening and closing behind us hit the back of my neck.
I sensed a third person emerge from the building into the shadows behind me. Linda wrung her hands together and I spun round to find myself almost nose to nose with Julia. I tried to combat the intensity of her stare with some cold hostility of my own, but she seemed to envelope all three of us in darkness. It felt almost like drowning, as we were plunged into the pitch black around.
After a pause, I found my voice to say the first thing I could think of. ‘Did you want a lift?’
Julia shook her head, slowly. ‘Thank you, Elena, but no. And if you'll excuse us, there’s something I forgot to say to Linda earlier.’
I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Turning, I saw that Linda was nodding fervently, knuckles white against the blood red of her gym bag. She was nothing like Martha and yet it was Martha who sprang to mind, the whites of her knuckles on my consulting chair as she told me of her fears, the red of her lipstick against the pallor of her face as she told me she thought her life was in danger.
Chapter 13
Tony
10 October
When Julia talks to people I feel a strange current pass from one to the other. I cannot identify it but it troubles me and sends my mind into a spin. At the same time, she has been so kind, so hospitable. I have been attending the community’s activities with her, and I am glad of this.
I accompanied Julia on her grocery shop today. We had to drive to the nearest large town as there is only a small corner shop in the village. She explained she often had to entertain and needed to bulk buy. It’s an alien concept for me. Furthermore, the money spent on luxuries surprised me. What a lot of money Julia and Iain have. She explained it was from ‘pooled resources’ the community keeps.
On the way home Julia decided to pay a visit to a young girl, Helen Taylor, who lives with her father on the outskirts of the village in a large, rambling farmhouse. I couldn’t discern the details but it seemed her mother had met an untimely end some months ago. Best thing for her, Julia seemed to mutter as she stared straight ahead at the winding road leading up to Helen’s home. I wanted to ask what she had died of but something about the silence which hung between us put me off. In the meantime, the road had narrowed and I noticed it was overgrown on both sides. Julia explained this was the fault of Helen’s father who had fallen into a deep depression after the death of his wife and stopped maintaining his property properly. I thought it looked as it should. Nature is supposed to be wild and untameable, rather like the human mind.
Just before we turned off up a narrow dirt track which led to the Taylor’s farm, I noticed a large, dark building through the trees. And again I was struck by the feeling that Julia could reach into my mind to pluck my thoughts out.
‘You don’t want to be going anywhere near that place,’ she said, one hand on the steering wheel as she thrust the other right across my bows to point in the direction of the dark building we were veering away from. I jumped back and shrugged, but she kept on. In a lowered voice, she muttered, ‘Work of the devil…’ I remained silent but when I didn’t respond, she straightened up and flicked her wavy locks my way. ‘Don’t be tempted to go there, Tony. You’ll be sure to regret it.’
I saw that we had reached the farmhouse, so I merely nodded and made to get out of the car. As I turned I noticed the glint in her eye. I wished I could forget about it, but later, as we sat at the Taylor’s large oak table which spanned the breadth of their sprawling farmhouse kitchen, I was aware of her eyes still on me, still glinting. I didn’t know what it was I’d done wrong, but I was afraid. It seemed Helen and her father - particularly her father - could not see it, as they seemed so taken with her. And who wouldn’t be? As we stepped across their threshold, she took Helen’s hands in hers and whispered a comforting verse or two from the Bible whilst fixing the girl’s father with her most charming smile, and the whole place was immediately filled with her confidence.
When we got back she had something to ask me.
‘It’s something important,’ she said. ‘In order to protect you from the evils of your…illness, the best thing would be for you to join our community, become an official member, perhaps.’
I didn’t reply and she took this as an invitation to elaborate. ‘I’ve noticed how preoccupied you are with death and purgatory. I’m sure you’ll agree this isn’t healthy, especially not for someone with your condition. No, you need something else, something which might enable you to get closer to the true nature of eternal life.’
I thought: maybe this will help me escape the alienation of my studies. The endless analysis and comparisons are so dry, so dead where what I really crave is contact. I hoped she would leave me to think about it, to ponder the idea and take my own sweet time to decide.
But she wasn’t finished. ‘We will need some money from you,’ she said. ‘To keep the community going, you understand. Not many people have enough money to help, but you have your father’s inheritance and he would have wanted it.’
I wasn’t so sure. ‘I think it would be best if I discussed that with my mother.’
She frowned and the intensity of her stare made me take a step back. ‘Now, Tony,’ she began, her voice so low I could barely hear her. ‘You know as well as I do that your mother would be happy for you to live at home all your life, but that’s hardly going to help you get better. No. What you need is connections, people who will stand with you shoulder to shoulder, who will show you the way. Our community can do that for you. We can give you a new lease of life, a new start.’
Since the onset of my illness so many years ago, a fresh start has been my holy grail. I remember it so clearly that sometimes I experience it again, in one of my waking dreams: the lecture theatre at Oxford, the sheen of student heads bobbing up and down in the cascading rows below, the hush as our professor walked in, his pointer raised to signal the silence he required. As I sat there wondering why the notes of my fellow students seemed to jump out from their splayed notebooks on the next bench down it seemed their handwritten letters started to speak. It was a chorus, at first melodic and comprising voices of many different tenors which caressed my ears, but which soon turned into a cacophony which rose not only from the notebooks but seeped from the walls
I thought of my father, his intransigence and stiff upper lip evaporating in the face of my plight. Of all people, he was the one who helped me the most, the one who marched me to the doctor and then to all the experts after that. So many long waits, heavily sedated. I remember it as a blur, a kind of living purgatory. Now, the thought of taking my father’s money to give me a new lease of life seems apt. But somehow I wonder if he would approve. Doubt nags at me.
Still, Julia is difficult to argue with. She is charming and icy, all at once, sending out slivers of something indefinable which threaten to cut me up into little pieces. I am afraid to cross her. I am afraid of my old life. I can still hear those voices, but they are melodious and kind to me, only switching back when I don’t do as she says. If I cross her, they will come back. I know they will.
She is right, now is my time to move on, to take a leap of faith.
Chapter 14
A knock at the door reminded me of my appointment with Julia’s prayer group. The light was already failing outside as I shut my laptop with a snap and went to the hall, sensing a dark shape behind the glass of the front door. The shadow cast into my entrance hall seemed to me to be tall, elegant and aware. It both fascinated and repelled me as I stood watching it for a minute. Through the toughened glass, I could make out a hooded poncho, intense purple in colour and flowing around its owner’s tall, graceful frame. I could just imagine the material hanging down into luxurious dark folds and the hood, so deep and wide it would be large enough to completely hide the face of its owner.
The image entranced me until I’d waited so long, I knew I couldn’t go through with it. Going to a Charismatic prayer group was going one step too far, no matter how good the reason. I decided to take a different course of action.
After a long pause I heard footsteps tap away from the threshold, giving me my cue to slip out through the back. I shoved on a pair of trainers in order to follow her without being heard and after short pause, sneaked out. Seeing the tail of her poncho floating around the corner of our road, I jogged along the side of the pavement nearest the houses, noting how the neighbourhood was covered by falling dusk and the onset of yet more rain, which glinted in the dim light of the miserable afternoon. Silver threads were visible against the roadside lampposts and houses beyond.
The prayer group met in a high-ceilinged room at the back of a local hall which used to belong to the Methodists. I watched from a safe distance as people flowed into the building, and when I was sure nobody else was coming, I slipped in through the entrance and stood in the shadows of the hall for a minute. A few steps opposite was an interior door to the meeting room behind which I could hear the scraping of chairs. Once the noise had died down, I tip-toed to the door and peered in through the gap by its hinges.
Women of all ages were seated around a large oval table with Julia at the centre, directly beneath the apex of the pitched roof. A few early slithers of moonlight strained through the windows to caress the waiting group as they focused on her dark, straight backed form. Obediently, they waited as she looked from one woman to another inviting them to summarise their week: their actions, what they were grateful for and how they had prayed. After one of them described her fight with breast cancer, Julia was the first to speak, stating her intention to lead a prayer of thanksgiving. Face up and eyes closed she linked hands with the women on either side, chanting slowly in her deep, lilting voice which lulled the room into a hypnotic and electric sense of otherworldliness. Their world was governed by gestures, glances, lowered eyelashes and folded or outstretched arms which belied the thoughts of their owners.
A hush surrounded the proceedings, amplifying Julia’s voice so that it touched and joined those who listened.
‘We pray for those who lose their way, that their souls may be saved,’ Julia chanted.
I narrowed my eyes, trying not to breath as the room fell silent. I noticed a few of the women crying. Others seemed quiet and tense whilst others still seemed completely mesmerised by the figure of Julia at the centre. A dangerous atmosphere of communal disclosure followed, and I was gripped by the feeling that I would rather not be there.
Julia’s eyes flickered and she held up her arms once more, interrupting a middle aged woman who was telling the group about a time when she had been abused as a child. ‘Let those who do not follow us be dealt with!’ she cried, opening her eyes to look straight at the door, behind which I was hiding. I flinched but did not move.
For a little while longer women took it in turns to speak up about negative experiences. Then the atmosphere in the room shifted until one by one, everybody fell silent. Julia stood up again, clearly enjoying the new electricity in the air. Taking the hands of those on either side of her she began a chain reaction which saw every woman in the room link to her neighbour on either side.
'Now ladies,' she said. 'It is time for us to start preparing ourselves for our special event.'
My ears pricked up and I peered through the crack at the women’s faces. Most people had re-opened their eyes and were staring intently at their leader. Some appeared apprehensive, even worried, whereas others looked excited. My skin prickled and I felt hot, even though it was a cool evening, and I, too, fixed my eyes on Julia, who continued.
'We all need to look into our hearts to ensure we have not been indulging in forbidden activities.'
A sharp intake of breath hissed around the room.
'I shouldn't need to explain what these are. As part of our special community you all know your responsibilities…'
A woman on the other side of the table put up her hand and spoke. 'Will the usual be happening? The cleansing?'
Julia cut in, flashing a warning look at the other woman before shutting her eyes and sitting in silence for few moments until the collective rustling, which had accompanied the last question, settled down. Then, drawing a breath to speak, she stood up and declared, ‘For those of you who don’t know, we are now going to end our meeting by speaking in tongues. Those of us who are blessed and pure can just let the Spirit run through our bodies.'
I stared as the room filled with incomprehensible babbling. This continued for some minutes before Julia said a closing prayer. Then she stood up, transformed back into her everyday persona, to offer everyone tea, coffee and biscuits.
Sensing I was about to be discovered, I rushed back to the exit. On my way out I noticed a small wicker basket by the front entrance I hadn’t noticed before. Decked in tiny fake flowers, its outer appearance was friendlier than the small taffeta bags inside it which reminded me of dark furry gremlins. I reached into the basket and took one, ignoring a handwritten notice requesting a donation. As I left the building with one of the little bags in my pocket, a rush of air grasped my face and hands, mimicking the cold feeling which squeezed at my insides. Unease sat just below the surface as I considered the power Julia had over the assembled women inside the hall.
Once home, I fished the talisman out of my pocket and turned it over in my hand. It was a small silver sword on a fine chain. Skeletal hands on either side of the sword linked it to the chain. In the bottom of the taffeta bag was a small, folded note in the spidery hand I had encountered before. I unfolded it on my kitchen table and scanned it quickly.
Remember the end is almost upon us. Fight with the sword of our eternal soul and die for us.
I’d not been sitting down long when the phone rang. Still holding the note, I cradled the phone against my ear.
It was the police. ‘Dr Lewis, would you be able to go over your statement again?’
I talked them through the events of the evening of Joan’s death. When I finished there was a brief silence before the officer on the other end of the phone said, ‘Thank you Ma’am. Now do you have another five minutes to spare? DI Brown would like a quick word.’
I agreed, and they put the Detective Inspector on. ‘Good afternoon, Dr Lewis.’ His voice was gruff with a sharp, streetwise undertone. ‘I just wanted to talk to you about your statement, if that’s ok?’
‘That’s fine.’
‘You say the deceased had been on your consulting list. Can you divulge any more about why she was seeing you?’
‘Nothing much more than what I’ve already told your colleagues,’ I replied. ‘She was suffering from mild depression and had been referred to me for some talking therapy, but she wasn’t a suicide risk. That’s why this turn of events took me by surprise. Having said that, this can happen sometimes. People can take a turn for the worse. Something may have changed in a personal relationship, or she may have been suffering from stress – something she hadn’t divulged to me, that kind of thing. I can only make a diagnosis based on what my patients tell me. I am a psychotherapist, not a mind reader.’
‘But in your professional estimation, you didn’t have reason to believe she was likely to commit suicide?’ DI Brown pressed.
‘No, she wasn’t.’
