Forgotten Dark, page 17
Keep calm.
The sound of the storm is humbling – a presence not just outside but moving inside, too; the wind finds its way into the house by curling under the gap beneath the door, and rattling the glass. The doorbell keeps ringing. Both men are wearing black latex gloves.
She opens the front door to the storm.
‘Mrs Lansdale?’
Outside, dark clouds have swallowed the blue sky, bite by bite. Fat globs of rain spit into the hall, onto her shoes. ‘Yes.’
‘We need to come in.’ The larger of the two puts his hand on the door, pushing it wider. She can’t take her eyes off the black latex gloves. ‘It shouldn’t take long. Bad storm.’
‘Exc–’
‘It’s gonna get worse,’ Beanie man says, and his mate laughs. It’s a strange sound, like laughter at a funeral. Or the ringing of a mobile phone, during a performance of Swan Lake.
‘Anyone else at home?’
They march into the kitchen and Sally scurries after them; the front door is left wide open. ‘How dare you? This is my house!’
‘Very nice, too. Sit down,’ he orders, and the large man pushes her down into a kitchen chair, assertively touching her shoulders. The sudden movement winds her, and she quivers at the feel of those black latex gloves on her body.
If only Jeremy were here. Oh, Melanie!
The three of them sitting at the kitchen table makes an odd tableau, as they size her and the room up. Sally’s breathing is ragged. Looking through the window, she focuses on snatches of rain, to try to control her growing fear; the drops fall so heavily it is like they are made of lead. It is angry rain – the kind that likes to make noise. Makes you remember. Yes, the kind to leave its mark.
They’re going to hurt me.
She has thought about moments of vulnerability like these, as she lay in bed at night, trying to piece together the jigsaw of family secrets. In some ways, it is not a surprise that this is happening. Jeremy is dead – dead long before the life support machine was switched off – and Albert got involved with crooks. She and Jeremy were mixed up with the aggressive Guys.
‘One word: debt.’
‘Unpaid,’ Beanie adds, like a bad comedy act.
‘How? The White House has gone through. And the barn. I know the funds have cleared; I checked.’
The first one scratches his beard. ‘You’re not listening. We aren’t here about the house.’ He has a penetrating gaze, like an arrow aimed straight at Sally’s pupil. ‘Your father-in-law, then your mother-in-law, have left you with outstanding debt: a pendant. A very valuable pendant. It clears the slate, you see?’
‘You’ve got it!’ Sally shrieks.
An image of Melanie’s ruby pendant locket encrusted with diamonds springs to mind, so vividly that they might see it. Then the door of the Aga ajar – empty.
‘You’ve already taken it!’
She sees Melanie’s corpse dangling from the beam, sans the pendant. The letter.
It was meant to be in the Aga. But it wasn’t.
Her temperature starts to rise, as she recalls the events that day.
Beanie-man slowly shakes his head. ‘No, lady, we don’t.’
‘I don’t have her jewellery,’ Sally says, pleadingly. ‘I really don’t.’
Beanie-man thumps the table so firmly that the sound is like a physical blow.
‘I don’t have it!’
‘Again!’ he shouts, and thumps the table again, even harder than before, making her jump in the seat.
She fleetingly closes her eyes, to pray that Adam doesn’t unlock the bathroom door.
The other bloke rummages in the kitchen cupboards and drawers, fingering handles in those gloves, then returns to the table with the item he was looking for: a kitchen knife – one which the family have used countless times to prepare vegetables for dinner. Perfect for dicing and slicing.
‘Really?’ his mate questions. ‘He didn’t say anything about that.’
His mate shrugs. ‘He wants the pendant or we don’t get paid. End of.’
‘Yeah, but–’
‘Leave it!’ Then, to her: ‘Are you gonna hand it over or not?’
‘Please! I really don’t have it,’ she cries, her voice thick with quivering; it is barely recognisable to her.
Their wet, male smell fills the kitchen. It has stolen the aromas of toast and crumpets.
‘Oh, God!’ she wails.
Her arms are held tight, and one hand splayed wide on the table. The bearded bloke lifts his arm, and the knife, and brings them down in one swift movement, slicing off the end of a middle finger. The sound of a knife cutting flesh is grizzly, but the amount of blood is terrifying.
Sally’s mouth opens wide to scream.
Then, he quickly lifts the knife again, repeating the action on the little finger. Blood splatters the table.
Has the world stopped and exhaled?
A searing pain – hot, then wet. A smell, then blood is pouring from her hand, between her fingers, leaking onto the kitchen floor. The tips of her fingers sit on the table beside her hand, like pieces of cocktail sausage.
‘Unfinished business always catches up with you in the end.’
‘That’s enough,’ he says. ‘She’s hurting.’
‘I don’t see any fucking pendant, do you?’
No longer does the sound of torrential rain dominate inside the house; Sally’s sobs are winning that battle, and that battle alone. Her neck and upper body have lost their stuffing; her head flops forward and she is silent. Beanie-man pulls her up by the hair and presses his arm against her windpipe, until the blood beats in her brain like a drum. Roughly, he lets go.
She starts to cry again, then wails, her eyes tightly shut. Lost in her personal darkness. Quivering with fear. ‘But I don’t have it! No, please, not again!’
Sally closes her eyes. She is pushing Iris in a pram, and her baby is pursing her lips, making shapes, babbling nonsense. It is a warm day, and–
There is extra momentum this time. The knife slices again, a third finger, and the blood shoots across the table, splattering Sally’s top with it.
‘She says she hasn’t got it!’
Someone is holding her up, stopping her from flopping forward – where her head wants to be; where she might sleep or die – she isn’t sure which. Sick, so vile and putrid it must have lived in her stomach for decades, spews up into her mouth and dribbles out of the sides, down her chin and neck. There is so much noise and movement, inside and outside, it’s like the wind is ripping up their home.
Is this home?
Pain like fire; being scorched. It hurts! How it hurts.
More precise cutting. Dicing. Slicing.
‘Where is it?’ A man’s voice. It sounds far away. He smells of a wet dog. ‘Come on, just tell me,’ he says, softly.
Snatches of words. Flesh cut away. Like a vicious dog with the bone of her fingers.
The two men exchange looks, then the one with the knife gets into position again. He inspects the knife, as though he hasn’t seen it before. Sally screams and wriggles, but to no avail.
The sound of footsteps running down the stairs only adds to her terror, then the sound of gravel is a tonic. She prays Adam’s shoelace doesn’t trip him up, that he won’t stop until he gets to his friend’s house. But then she opens her eyes to see Iris standing there, with the pendant outstretched in her hand.
‘You’re not meant to be here,’ the bloke says, then looks at his mate, who shrugs in reply.
‘Well, I’m glad to see you, even if he’s not.’
Iris’s eyes have never looked so wide. Her cheeks are red, too: a rosy glow she used to get in the cold air. Has she been outside?
Red. There is so much red on me. On the table.
Iris’s face; a ravenous mouth moving. Her finger moving to the heart-shaped ruby pendant locket, touching it like a scar. ‘Is this what you came for?’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ the bloke says, ‘she’s a chip off the old block!’
‘Iris!’ Sally shrieks.
Iris’s black eyeliner has smudged down her cheeks. Sally traces the shape of the locket with her eyes, round and round it, unable to comprehend what she sees. ‘Iris,’ she mumbles.
‘I took it!’ she says, and the pendant wobbles in her hand. ‘I’m… I’m sorry.’ She gingerly steps toward the bearded man: one step, then another – it seems so far. The men don’t move. They enjoy the scene – their moment – and make it last as long as possible.
‘Well, well.’ Beanie smacks his lips and sneers. ‘Daddy’s little girl arrives with the goods.’
The bearded man takes Iris roughly by the hair, crumpling her face like paper. The other laughs; the sound is like trapped thunder.
‘Aren’t we the naughty girl? Bad blood, that’s what it is,’ he says, laughing.
‘Yeah, bad blood.’
The rain thuds outside. It is as persistent as their horrible gaze on Melanie’s pendant. Such looks are grubby hands.
‘Bet it’s worth a mint.’
Then it is shoved into a pocket: a terrible magic trick.
‘That concludes our business, then. Unless,’ he says, gesturing to Sally’s disfigured hand, ‘you are unhappy about the deal we struck today?’
‘I won’t say anything,’ Sally says, her voice faint from pain and exhaustion.
‘Stick the finger ends in the freezer; get them sewn back on if you want,’ the bloke says. ‘I’m real sorry.’
As soon as the engine of their car sounds, Sally slumps in the chair. Bump. Bang. Her bones aren’t strong enough to hold her up. The table collides with her face and both lips explode.
‘Mum! Should I call an ambulance?’
‘No. Find Adam,’ she replies, weakly. ‘Try Tom’s house or the skatepark.’
‘What do you need? What should I do?’
‘Freezer… Adam.’
The front door slams. Gravel.
Adam will be wet from the rain. His gorgeous fair hair will be tussled in the howling wind. That untied shoelace of his will have swept the wet pavements.
…Sally drifts in and out of consciousness…
Then the front door opens, and Sally’s stomach immediately somersaults.
‘Mum!’ Adam screams, as he scrapes a chair over beside her. ‘Oh my God!’ he screams again, loud as graffiti on a church. The hysteria is a swarming mass of biting insects on her face and ears, crawling up her nose and throat, bringing her round.
Sally slowly lifts her head and, with her good hand, gently touches Adam’s face. ‘I’m gonna be… okay,’ she says, though her voice doesn’t sound like her own. ‘It looks worse than it is.’
All the while, Iris remains standing in the middle of the kitchen, staring at Sally in terror, seemingly too scared to move a finger, a lip or an eyelid. Seconds pass, but her silence says everything. Sally closes her eyes, because she can’t bear to look at her face anymore.
My daughter. I never knew how much silence can hurt.
Iris’s mouth is moving. Her face is blurring.
What is she saying?
Iris puts a hand to her mouth. ‘I’m so sorry, Mum.’ She runs over to the table and gets down on her knees. ‘Will you forgive me? I should never have taken the pendant. I–’
‘Help me into the car: A&E.’
Iris helps Sally up out of the chair.
‘Adam, get the fingertips out of the freezer. Wrap them in something very cold.’
‘Get the frozen peas!’ Iris exclaims, rushing to help.
Sally’s head starts to spin. She has to get a story ready to explain her injuries to the A&E medics.
Feeling faint, Iris eases her into the back seat of the car, just in time.
The sound of the engine. Of tyres on wet roads. Adam sobbing and the onslaught of wind and rain. It is so hot all of a sudden.
Is Iris crying? How much are my fingers worth to her? As much as the pendant? Her insistent voice, pounding like the rain. And his sobs.
She tunes in and out, again and again, then there is only a drone of nothingness.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sally’s left arm is hanging off the side of the mattress as if trying to hide the sight of her injured hand, and so push the bad memories away.
She comes out of the dream with a start, to the sound of a voice. She is breathless. Her chest heaves beneath the twisted duvet, her heart skittering at an alarming rate.
The sound lingers in her mind, like an echo from a cave. Not louder or quieter.
She doesn’t think the dream was about the men in black latex gloves, or the wielded knife and the sensation of blood trickling between her fingers. Nor even Melanie’s sad death, and the floating particles of dust caught in rays of sunlight.
Nothing so recent.
The curtains are familiar. They are drawn, but it is daylight beyond.
She lets go of the edge of the duvet she was clutching and her breathing slows. In the delicate in-between world of dreaming and waking, she reaches for the pen and notebook on the bedside table, to record what she can remember.
Running home. Not from…
Dad’s shoe.
A big Russian doll – mummy doll – looking serene. Round eyes of glee, happily holding her children captive. Duplicates in miniature, one after the other. No mouths. No arms.
Whose voice? Adult or child?
Fragments of the dream recur, in tattered pieces which Sally chases, carefully reaching and piecing together jagged memories. She has slept for that long she feels hung-over. On the side table there are empty mugs and side plates, crumbs and an empty box of tissues. It could be a Wednesday morning, but she isn’t sure. At least she is home. There isn’t anywhere else she can bear to be right now.
When Adam climbed into bed with her, in the middle of the night, she stayed awake just to listen to the sound of his breathing, content in the knowledge that he was safe. The murmurs in his sleep were like the tail ends of happy dreams. It was the best kind of quiet, temporarily banishing the silence in the house, so loud that it could fill two cathedrals.
She pushes herself up on the cushions on the bed and smooths down the cover with her good hand. Her memory is a rebel, a shy creature, a snow angel; she must lure it out, make firm shapes, make it breathe.
Ruth visited her – was it yesterday? She brought a box of milk chocolates, knowing Sally doesn’t like the smell of flowers. If there were flowers without a scent, she might like those. She said painful reminders of our mortality can cause us to reappraise relationships and divisions. It was so true. There was her relationship with Melanie, and no matter how much pain Iris has caused Sally, she still loves her.
Sally had to insist to Ruth that they continue with the process, explaining that knowing her history is now more important to her than ever, after enduring such a terrifying experience. Who knows how long she has on this earth?
As long as Sally doesn’t dwell on what happened to her fingertips, or why it happened, it’s bearable. The thought of how much worse it could have been is enough to stop self-pity and rumination in their tracks. Whatever niggling doubts about Iris’s integrity come to mind, she pushes them right away. There is no desire to talk about it, not even to Ruth, because her silent acceptance is the only way she can protect Iris. Jeremy would do the same.
Wouldn’t any parent?
A moth is bombarding the window, until it is so fatigued it collapses onto the windowsill, beside the remains of another moth, now a powdery memory of wings. Sally gingerly gets out of bed to open the window, and it eventually flies away.
She remembers the doll in the dream like it’s a place-pin; a string around the lost time of dreams. The rest… Dark syrup, seeping, sucking… She was moving quickly; running – from what? Breathless… Yes.
Back in bed, Sally grabs the pen and writes:
Man’s voice.
Running.
A compass points home.
There’s a soft knock on the door, then Iris walks in carrying an envelope and a mug of tea. Her feet are bare and her rolled-up jeans show off a silver ankle bracelet. She shuffles around the bedroom, full of nervous energy; she never stops moving: flicking her hair and adjusting the position of the mug of hot tea on the bedside table. ‘Would you like some breakfast?’
‘I’ll come down in a bit and make it myself. I fancy a yoghurt. Maybe some fruit if we’ve still got some. Are you warm enough?’ Sally asks, looking at Iris’s cropped top and exposed midriff.
Iris ignores the question. ‘What are you writing?’ she asks, nosing at the open notebook.
Sally turns the notebook upside down. ‘Just thoughts.’
‘The postman’s delivered this: registered post.’
‘You open it.’
Iris sets to work on opening it, slicing the envelope with her long, pointed thumbnail.
Sally wipes her brow with her good hand, conscious of needing a shower and a hair wash, but reluctant to ask Iris to help her with such a simple, humiliating task. She decides a bath will be more manageable if she wraps her hand in a plastic bag.
‘Where’s Adam?’
‘At Tom’s house; he’s having tea there. I said I’d pick him up at seven.’
Iris’s eyes swim with tears once the envelope is open. Inside are a small key and a handwritten letter. The key feels cold and small in the palm of her hand; the size you might find in an antique wardrobe, Sally thinks, and shivers like someone has walked over her grave.
Dear Sally,
This is a key for you to open a safety deposit box at Lloyds Bank in Chester. Within it, there are items for you and Adam. There is an antique mirror for you, Sally, that I used to have on my dressing table. I want you to like who you are, to see someone good and kind in the looking glass. There is an antique book for Adam, more for its value than the story itself.
For Iris, she has my car, and I leave an envelope of money for insurance, petrol and such like. I hope she will drive carefully.
The small matter of my funeral is taken care of, owing to the private mausoleum my parents bought and paid for. Thankfully, they made provision for a cremation, and for my ashes to be interred in the columbarium.
