Hush (35 page)

When Lily stepped into the garden, she could see Richard straight ahead in front of her, but nothing beyond: all was darkness and shadow, and she couldn’t make out what he was shouting at. She wanted to say his name, alert him to her presence, but fear stuck her throat and made it impossible. She reached out a hand instead, finding his shoulder in the dark. He spun around instantly.

‘What are you – ?’ He stopped when he saw her, and his voice softened. ‘Sorry, Lils. You scared me. Where have you been?’

‘She was with me,’ Connie said, stepping into the garden behind them. ‘What’s going on? Why are you out here?’

Richard looked momentarily as though he wanted to reprimand her for keeping Lily out without asking permission first, and then he remembered where he was, and spun back around. ‘I saw some –
arsehole
running around out here. Trying to scare me, most likely. Or steal something.’

‘What would they steal? Weeds?’

‘How should I know?’ Richard sounded annoyed. ‘Maybe they were trying to break in. Don’t suppose Nate’s with you?’

‘What, you need manly back-up?’

Richard shrugged. ‘Couldn’t hurt.’

They carried on talking, but Lily tuned them out, staring past Richard into the darkness. Her eyes were adjusting now, and she could see movement; a faint flickering in the trees as shadows skittered past. She shuddered involuntarily, took a
step back. ‘Hey, let’s get you back inside,’ Richard said, putting a hand on her shoulder, but she shook her head. Could feel the pull of the woods, as if something was demanding her attention.

Ghost-Connie, stepping out of the shadows; beckoning her with a hand.

‘Lils.’ Connie’s voice behind her, tentative: and then more forceful. ‘
Lily
.’

Lily, already stepping forward, didn’t hear her.

– You have to be quiet in the house or Mama will hear us –

Lily’s footsteps, sock-slippered, tiptoeing two steps behind Connie’s. Skipping the creaking step by instinct. And Connie’s hair a blur in front of her face: a torch for her to follow in the darkness.

– But it’s dark and I’m scared of the dark and didn’t you say Billy was meeting us –

Connie’s coldwater scorn, scathing even in the pitch black.

Outside was a slap of cold air. Moonlight trickling through blanket fog and Lily’s watch, blue numerals flashing in the dark. Shadows, moving.

And, beyond the shadows, other things.

‘What’s wrong?’

Connie was at her side, hand on her shoulder, but she felt far away and Lily couldn’t tear her eyes away from the woods. The someonethere. In a moment a clear beam of moonlight would illuminate them and then –

And then what?

‘Lils,
please
, can you just say something? You’re scaring me.’

Lily felt fixed, immovable. Couldn’t wrench her eyes from the distance, even though she knew it was important.
Connie’s voice filtered as if through layers of pondwater, years-distant and otherwhere.

That feeling, so familiar: as if her throat was closing up.

The words, if she had ever had them, were not there now.

Trapped in the shadows, perhaps, with whatever else lurked out there.

‘Lily.’

And then: Richard at her side, forcibly unclenching her fist. Slipping his fingers between hers. Speaking in a language she could still use.
Okay?

Yes.

And a face, looming out of the shadows: becoming clearer the longer she looked.

Shadows rippling across the grass. And they had silk-slipped into the woods, plunged into the trees. Branches catching at hair and trailing skeletal fingers across cheekbones and Lily had cringed away, becoming smaller in the darkness.

Connie’s whisper-voice, carrying across the years:

– You need to keep up Billy’s going to be waiting for us at the secret place –

The woods had seemed to go on forever. Crunch of twigs under toes, glimpses of moonlight through the canopy of trees above. Lily’s voice, a hesitant shadow next to Connie’s:

– Do you know where we’re going? Are you sure?

And still they had plunged ahead, forest bed rustling underfoot.

‘Maybe we should get her inside.’ Connie’s voice was low, troubled. ‘This isn’t a good place for her, Richard – you don’t understand –’

Lily’s hand in his, two sharp bursts of pressure.

‘She says no,’ he said, his voice blunt.

‘How do you…?’ Connie looked from her sister to Richard, but both of them stared straight ahead, and they didn’t reply. Connie followed their gaze.

And the shapes in the trees solidified into something recognisable.

‘
You
,’ Connie said, and her voice was barely a whisper: a memory stretching out across her entire life. And at the same moment, Richard, bewildered, stepping forward and dropping Lily’s hand: ‘Ed?’

Darkness had closed in on them. And the silence, blanketing them, shroud-like. So that the snapping of twigs echoed a hundredfold in the night and even the tiniest whisper felt like it echoed through the trees.

– Where are we are we there yet where’s the secret place –

Shhhhh, no words here, just the hiss of whispered footsteps.

Mouth of the den loomed up. Rocks taking the form of teeth in the night, and Connie slipping ahead, to be swallowed by the dark. Lily, unobtrusive ghost-morsel behind her.

There was moaning in the dark.

– What’s that noise there’s something in here I don’t like it shut up stop being such a baby it’s only Billy playing tricks –

A step forward, and then: stop.

One shape in the distance, or maybe two: writhing in the dark.

Not Billy.

‘What are you doing here?’

Richard’s voice sounded half-guarded, half-bewildered. Lily could almost see him grasping for a logical explanation.
Ed stood caged in front of them all, face like a trapped animal. He opened and closed his mouth, but no words came.

‘You know him?’ Connie’s voice, confused, floated out of the darkness from behind Lily.

‘
You
know him?’ Richard, equally confused.

‘Yes, yes, everyone knows me,’ Ed said. The swiftness with which he regained his composure made Lily wonder if she’d imagined the anxiety in his expression a moment before.

‘How? How do you know him?’ Connie stepped forward, into Lily’s line of vision.

‘He was the one who suggested the bar job to me.’ Richard’s voice was hard, unreadable. ‘How do
you
know him?’

Lily could feel Connie’s eyes on her. Felt the suggestion of something in the air: words that she wasn’t going to like. An image of past and present, merging together: familiar face from childhood blurring with a spectre glimpsed through adult eyes.

And the hesitation in Connie’s breath before she spoke.

‘He was having an affair with our mother.’

Shapes unclear, half-seen. Connie stumbled back, too fast, dragging Lily with her before she could see. Only two images, from deep within the den, disconnected and yet not: a flash of blonde hair in the dark, and a low moan nearby.

– Come on we’ve got to get out of here we’ve got to but where’s Billy –

No time for questions.

Running and not running – feet dragging in the dark and stumbling on buried roots – Lily understanding and not understanding – and behind them, those moans, eerie and animal-like, swelling in the darkness.

Connie’s voice a rush of whispered instructions:

– Not far now we’ll be home soon Billy must have already gone home –

And then she vanished, empty air where her voice had been. A fall, a cry: Connie splayed face-first in the dirt, and Lily standing over her.

Only it wasn’t just Connie.

A sudden flash of light as the moon emerged from behind the clouds.

And then a scream, as Connie realised what she’d tripped over.

Connie had left her grandparents’ house after a few days. It had been nice to see them, and to check up on Lily, but there had been no real reason to stay. She couldn’t return to school. She couldn’t live there, sharing a room with Lily, pretending she was still a normal teenager. And she couldn’t stand the reminder of her father’s death which inhabited every moment she spent in that house.

She went to a nearby town and got a job in a café. She told her grandparents where she was going, and she found a room in a shared house, with people not much older than her, mostly university students. Her grandparents helped her with rent until she had built up enough to be able to pay it herself. She was used to living on nothing, and the rent was cheap due to the house being run-down and draughty, so it didn’t take long.

On her first free weekend, about six weeks after she’d moved, she took a trip back to Drayfield to see her mother. It was a four-hour train journey, and she spent most of it staring out of the window. She tried to read, but it was a struggle to concentrate. She felt sick with nerves, and she wasn’t sure why.

She got a taxi from the train station, as she had done the last time she’d been to visit. It was light this time, and there was no rain, but the sky was overcast and the streets were still deserted.

She knocked on the door this time; she didn’t want any surprises.

There was no answer. She waited for five minutes, knocking several times, and then gave up and used her key. The house was silent when she stepped in, and she could feel that no one was home. More than that: there was a different sort of absence. The house felt cold, unheated. Inhabited by stillness.

She went out into the garden. It was overgrown and tangled, a wild haze of lavender springing up between the lawn and the woods. She walked towards the woods, experimentally, but she stopped about two feet away and wouldn’t go any closer. They were just woods, but inside there was darkness and she didn’t want to see it.

She heard a rustling near the neighbour’s fence, and turned; she could see a shape through the gaps in the wood. ‘Hello?’ she called. A face appeared over the top, a young woman she had never seen before.

‘Hi. Are you one of Anna’s daughters?’

‘Yeah. I’m Connie.’ She moved closer, so they wouldn’t have to shout. ‘Where is she, do you know?’

‘She was taken into hospital last night.’ The woman leaned her elbows on the fence. She was head and shoulders above Connie; she must have been standing on something that Connie couldn’t see. ‘I’m Lucy, by the way.’

‘Hi.’ Connie frowned. ‘Hospital?’ she repeated.

‘Yeah. The place – it’s just in the next village. The psychiatric hospital.’

‘Oh.’ She sifted through the possible responses for one that might seem appropriate. ‘What happened?’

‘Not sure. I’ve not lived here long, but her boyfriend popped by, to let us know what was going on.’ Connie flinched at the mention of Ed, but didn’t comment. ‘I think she had some kind of breakdown,’ Lucy added, her words measured, as if she was checking their impact as she said them.

‘Right. Makes sense.’ Connie nodded. ‘I should go and check on her, then.’ She went inside without another word, though she could feel Lucy’s eyes on her all the way up the path.

She remembered the name of the hospital; it had been notorious, back when she was at school, and Eleanor had tormented her with the possibility that she would be sent there. She wanted to get a taxi, but she didn’t have enough money for that, so she locked up the house behind her and walked down to the bus stop.

The buses ran in that direction every twelve minutes, so she didn’t have long to wait. The journey took about half an hour. She spent the time trying not to think about the state she’d find her mother in. She’d seemed odd, before, but Connie had put that down to having to tell her that Dad was dead. Had she had a breakdown? Or was it just normal grief?

The nurses asked her to wait when she arrived at the hospital. They called a doctor, who introduced herself as Dr Ruskin, and took her into a private office. ‘Are your grandparents not with you?’ she asked as they sat down. ‘We spoke to them this morning.’

‘No, it’s just me.’ Connie didn’t offer any further information, and Dr Ruskin looked for a moment as if she was going to ask, then seemed to think better of it. She gave Connie an overview of Anna’s situation, then sat back and looked her in the eye.

‘I’ll be honest with you,’ she said, ‘she’s much better than she was when she arrived, but it’s unlikely she’s going to be well enough to live on her own again, for a while at least. She’s severely depressed, but we also think she may be suffering from schizophrenia. She’s certainly not capable of looking after herself right now.’

‘Do I need to look after her?’

The doctor looked surprised at the bluntness of the question. ‘No. You’re a minor, so we’re not expecting you to take responsibility for her. But we think she’ll probably have to be moved into a long-term care unit.’

‘And who would pay for that?’

‘A lot of it would be covered under the NHS. But your father also had a life insurance policy, so she has money available. It’s unlikely she’d have to sell her house.’

‘Unlikely.’ Connie said the word aloud, digesting it.

‘We’ll have your interests in mind as well as hers. It’s something that will be discussed with you as time goes on. At the moment we would only be looking to move her into a care unit for an initial period of six months.’

Connie nodded. ‘And when are you looking to do this?’

‘Actually, the move is already planned for next week. She’s agreed to it.’

After that Dr Ruskin took her to see her mother. ‘Visitor for you,’ she said, opening the door without knocking and gesturing Connie inside. She closed the door behind her, leaving them alone.

The room was bright and sunny, the window looking down on green, rolling lawns. Anna was propped up in bed, eyes on the TV in the corner of the room. She glanced up as Connie entered, but only seemed half-aware of her presence.

‘Hi,’ Connie said, feeling awkward. She sat on the end of the bed.

‘How did you find me?’ Anna’s voice was drowsy, but she sounded coherent.

‘The neighbour told me where you were.’

‘Ah. Good.’

‘What’s going on, Mama?’

Anna shrugged. ‘Same old, same old.’ Her eyes slid back towards the TV, as if the conversation were now over.

‘You’ve been living with Ed,’ Connie persisted.

‘I didn’t have anyone else.’

There was no apology, no remorse, and Connie felt her fingers tense around the duvet that encased her mother. She wanted to dig her fingernails into her mother’s flesh.

‘How could you do it, though?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice low and reasonable. ‘After everything that’s happened. Dad’s dead, and still you just carry on, having the same affair you always had.’

‘Well, there was no point in hiding it any more, was there?’ Anna laughed bitterly. ‘Your logic seems somewhat skewed, my dear.’

‘Didn’t you feel guilty?’

Anna closed her eyes. There was a long pause, and for a minute Connie thought she had fallen asleep. But then she opened them again, wearily. ‘Of course I felt guilty. But I was also angry with your father.’

‘He tried his best.’

‘So did I.’

‘When? I saw you the night Billy died. And I saw you the night Lily got shut in the cupboard. Did it ever stop? Or were you with him the whole time, all that time Dad was trying to hold our family together?’

‘We stopped for a while.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Anna sighed. ‘No, I didn’t think you would. I doubt you’d believe me if I told you your father wasn’t a saint, and he didn’t always treat me that well, and Ed made me feel a lot of things that he never did. But it’s true. And now it makes no difference, because your father’s dead and I’m in here and Ed isn’t able to look after me, so none of it matters any more.’

‘It matters to me.’

‘You’ll grow out of it.’ Anna shifted on the bed until she was lying down. ‘I need to sleep now.’

‘They’re talking about keeping you in hospital for months. Is this it? Are you just going to lie here and let this be your life?’

‘It’s not a choice that’s mine to make.’

‘It
is
, Mama. All of this has been your choice. You could have chosen to make it work, chosen to try –’

‘And then have it all turn out like this anyway.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘I know more than you do. Please let me sleep now.’

Connie sat there in silence, until her mother’s light snoring filled the room, and then she left. It was a long time before she saw her again.