Eloise (11 page)

‘Ted’s obviously in a really bad state,’ said Chris. ‘I want to help him but first he needs to admit he’s got a problem.’

I swallowed my irritation.

‘He just did. His wife has just died of cancer, and he told us he
wanted
her to die. I mean, he couldn’t have been plainer, could he? Do you really think that’s normal?’

‘Of course it is, Cathy. Bereavement sends people into torments. He’s so angry he doesn’t know what he’s thinking right now.’

Yeah, I thought cynically. Well I had a strong idea. He hates Eloise, and not just because she’s died and left him with two little girls to bring up alone. There was something terribly wrong with Ted and Eloise, and it wasn’t all down to her illness and the strain it had put on their marriage. I wished I could have just shrugged and consigned it to fate – other peoples’ fates; their business, nothing to do with me.

But Eloise had made it my business too, and I knew with a weary spirit that I had been bound by her to find out the truth.

Oddly, I didn’t hear from her that night. It seemed she had acknowledged I had had enough. That I needed some respite from her demands. That I actually just deserved some rest.

What a fool I was. That she, tormented soul, would ever think I needed a break. Really, I was nothing to her other than a means to an end. All that was left to her was a moral imperative; and that concerned her children, no one else. Not her mother, her husband, and certainly not me. She didn’t care about anyone other than those to whom she had given birth. She certainly wasn’t remotely worried about me, and the mental torment her ‘visits’ had caused me.

I no longer liked Eloise. Oh, I knew this was all about her
children, a mother’s fierce and natural determination to put them first at all cost. But that cost now included me. And I had children too. They had already suffered because of Eloise’s hold over me. They had seen me ill again. Of course there was a desperate craving, a real cry for help in her invasions of my dreams, I was sure of that. But I was just a medium, a cog in a complex supernatural equation aimed squarely at channelling my fragile mind. She was using me. I had no idea what this was all about, the big picture, as they used to say in Hollywood. But as much as I revered the memory of my dear dead friend, I had no wish to be involved in a ghostly mission for justice that might destroy my stability and the happiness of my own dear children.

So there you go. Your kids or mine, Ellie? No contest.

On Sunday, Chris and I went to church. The children stayed in bed, but, wordlessly, we knew we wanted to visit St Tallanus, our beautiful Celtic chapel. The church was the spiritual centre of our tiny hamlet. The very name Talland meant, in Cornish, the Holy Place on the Hill. It was built, as were all Celtic sites of worship, by running water, a tiny stream trickling down the slope beside the graveyard wall. The entire edifice had a powerful aura of mystery; it was said that the altar was built on a place where two ancient ley lines intersected. And it is true that to kneel and worship there
was to experience a profound sense of awe and belonging. We had had our wedding blessed there ten years ago. We originally married in a Register Office, and neither of us had thought we were particularly religious, but the absolute calm we felt in Talland Church moved us to seek a blessing on our marriage four years after we moved into the cottage. This ancient place proffered a secure and holy roof, protecting the commitment we had made to each other, transforming it into a sacrament: we shall love each other, in sickness and in health, ‘til death us do part.

We walked through the graveyard, past yearning, tragic headstones bearing witness to infants and young mothers who had succumbed to the carnage of death in childbirth. Past the more romantic and adventurous tributes to smugglers cut down by the Preventive Men as they brought their booty ashore on Talland Beach. And, inevitably, past the still-rounded mound that marked the passing of Eloise less than five months ago. Eloise had worshipped here, too, when they stayed over, and loved the peace and tranquillity, so it had been her choice to be buried here, with the endless sea before her and the gentle sound of the stream only feet away. It was too early yet for a gravestone to be erected – the earth had to settle first – but on my friend’s still-fresh resting place lay a forest of flowers: tumbling towers of faded roses, garlands of pink clematis. I stared at it, seeing the
sweetness of the flowers, thinking of the body of my dead friend in the casket below. Oh Eloise, why couldn’t you rest in peace? Why, in this beautiful country churchyard, couldn’t you give yourself up to eternal quiet, your tasks complete, your work done? And, after all your pain, sorrow and fear, sleep softly in this gentle bower, knowing that you had done your best, and your trials at last were over?

But there could be no repose for you, my Ellie. Not yet. Maybe not ever, unless I could fulfil your wishes. And I was not prepared to do that. You had frightened me too much, overplayed your hand.

I looked up. From Eloise’s grave you could see a vast expanse of glittering sea, green hills swooping down to sand and rock, astonishing colours of blue, gold, purple and silver. It was a place of rest to be desired, to be devoutly wished. Paradise. But for the lonely spirit trapped below, Paradise was truly lost.

The service was calming. We took Communion, and when I settled back into the pew I felt a genuine sense of peace. If Eloise really was wandering about at night along the clifftop, scaring me to death with her dire predictions of doom, then I felt here, in this holy place, I might find the strength to resist her.

Afterwards the congregation, such as it was, gathered in the porch. We said goodbye to the vicar, a lovely woman
with a marvellously confident pulpit voice, and various neighbours milled around exchanging gossip and invitations to Sunday drinks. An old lady I had not seen for nearly a year approached and eagerly embraced me.

‘Winnie,’ I said, happily returning her kiss. ‘How are you? Have you got over that terrible flu?’

Winnie Wharton had been confined to bed for weeks with not just flu but a frightening lung infection at the time of Ellie’s death. One of her neighbours had said darkly, at Ellie’s funeral, that she might have to go into the hospital in Plymouth, and we all knew what that implied at her great age. She was well into her eighties and pneumonia was not a welcome diagnosis. But Winnie, always doughty and courageous, had clearly recovered from her illness.

‘Oh goodness, yes,’ she said. ‘Fit as a fiddle I am now, though it took until May, and it’s so grand to get back to church. First time I’ve been since January.’

‘That’s brilliant, Winnie. If you come next Sunday, maybe you and Wilf can come back to our house and have a sherry with us and a few friends?’

‘Ooh, we’d love that. I must say it’s been a bit quiet for us while I was poorly – hardly seen a soul in months. I’d like to have a bit of a knees-up again.’

I laughed. ‘I’m not sure a few sherries on a Sunday lunchtime qualifies as a knees-up, but I’ll do my best.’

‘That will be lovely. Will Eloise be there?’

I was staggered. Surely she knew Eloise was dead and buried. Maybe I had misheard.

‘Eloise? No, of course not.’ Not exactly tactful, but I felt stunned.

‘Oh, that’s a pity. I’d like to talk to her again. Such a lovely young woman.’

I breathed again. Winnie, for weeks marooned in her sickbed, was clearly unaware that Eloise had died. And since Ellie had kept her illness secret from all but her closest family and friends, why should an elderly lady of the parish know that the lovely, glamorous, vivacious star of south Cornwall now lay buried just a few feet in front of her?

Winnie burbled happily on. ‘I tried to speak to her this morning when I saw her outside church, but I don’t think she heard me. And then I thought I’d see her at Communion, but she didn’t come. She looked lovely in her red swishy skirt.’

I stared at Winnie. ‘You … you must be mistaken. Eloise isn’t here. Hasn’t been for months.’

I couldn’t bear to say the words:
Eloise is dead
.

‘Well, I don’t know about that.’ Winnie was beginning to bristle, in the way old people do when they think their memory is being questioned. ‘All I know is that Eloise was here this morning when I arrived at church. She was
standing right there.’ And Winnie pointed to Ellie’s unmarked grave.

‘She had someone with her as well. A young boy, about sixteen or so. Lovely-looking young man he was. They were both looking at those gorgeous flowers on that poor soul’s grave. Don’t know whose it is, but someone’s been taking good care of it.’

I was dumbfounded. I stared at the grave, saw nothing but heaped earth and tumbled blossoms. I really didn’t have the heart to remonstrate with Winnie, but before I could say anything, she let out a cry.

‘There he is. That’s the lad. He’s on his own now, but before she was with him. And the way she looked at him, you’d have thought the sun shone out of his eyes.’

And wandering slowly among the graves, reading headstones avidly as he meandered from tomb to tomb, was the young man Chris and I had seen coming out of the Talland Bay Hotel. Evie’s beautiful boy, pale and unearthly, haunting the sacred ground where so many Cornish lay dead.

I whipped around, trying to spot Eloise among the small congregation in the churchyard. But of course she wasn’t there.

I grabbed Chris’s hand and set off to talk to the boy. Chris wasn’t happy. He’d been in deep conversation with the vicar, about a psychotherapy self-help group they were trying to set
up in the parish. But, with his usual patience and stiff upper lip, Chris allowed himself to be dragged away.

‘What are you doing?’ he hissed as I pulled him down the slope toward the place where I had seen the boy.

‘We need to talk to him, Chris. I just know he is really important in all this; he’s a clue to why I keep dreaming about Eloise.’

‘Talk to who? And what on earth do you mean, a clue to your dreams? Are you still imagining all that rubbish about Eloise? You’re not making any sense. And not for the first time,’ he added.

I froze. Stopped and turned to him. ‘Look, Chris. I’ve just about had enough of this. You keep implying I’m mad. I know I’ve been disturbed, depressed, but actually I am perfectly well at the moment. Something is going on here about Eloise. You heard what Ted said yesterday. Did that sound normal to you?’

‘Absolutely normal behaviour after a bereavement. Cathy, look. I can’t stand much more of this. Can’t you get it into your head that there was nothing strange or unexpected about Eloise’s death? Last time we came down here you started obsessing about it. You were fine back home in London, back to your old self, but now it’s all starting again. I can see the signs. Look at the way you were staring at her grave just then. As if you’d never seen it before. For God’s sake, she’s
dead
. It’s all over.’

He looked stricken, genuinely upset.

‘I just don’t know what to do about you any more, Cath. God knows I’ve tried. And I don’t think you understand what you’re doing to
me
. I couldn’t have been more supportive or understanding. I’ve put everything on hold for you. My work, my research. I was supposed to publish my book on schizophrenia this autumn, but there’s no way I’ll finish it now. And that won’t go down well with the Faculty.’

I interrupted him. ‘Are you saying you can’t work because of me? Because you know that’s ridiculous. I’ve never stopped you doing your research, or writing your bloody book.’

Suddenly Chris looked furious. ‘God, Cath, you don’t understand anything, do you? You’re so obsessed with yourself you can’t think about anyone else. How do you think I can work when I’m worried sick about you all the time? You’re so damned selfish, acting as if all that matters are your warped emotions. And I mean that. They are warped and twisted. Eloise died from
cancer
, for Christ’s sake, no big mystery there, but you just can’t let it go, can you? Jesus, I spend all my professional life dealing with mental patients. How do you think it feels to come home to one as well? You’re my wife, not another sad case at the hospital. Don’t you think I need some care and affection when I come home? Instead of which all I get is your stress and ridiculous delusions. I can’t stand this much longer.’

He stared at me, his face contorted with anger and misery, and then wheeled round and stalked back to the church. Everyone was looking at us. They obviously knew we’d had a row. I was stunned at Chris’s outburst, at the hostility and venom he had hurled at me. He had never spoken to me like that before, but I knew he was telling me the truth. He had had enough of me.

I walked away, downhill past the church. I no longer looked for Evie’s gorgeous boy, or for Eloise herself. I suddenly knew I was on my own. Chris was at the end of his tether. He had tried to help with my depression, and then with my fixation about Eloise’s death. But he could no longer go along with an obsession he regarded as stupid and misguided. He thought I was being self-indulgent, attention-seeking. Was I? No. My dreams felt real enough to me.

I felt dreadful. Everything around me was dead, over. Without Chris, how could I ever ride over this nightmare, this horrible thing that visited me almost nightly?

I walked up the hill, past the hotel, down our drive, past the fence wreathed with clematis, and down the steps to our cottage. The children were still in bed. I made a cup of tea and carried it out onto the terrace. I was suddenly seized with an impulse to visit our wildflower meadow and orchard, which we had reclaimed at eye-watering expense when we bought the house. The bills were frightening, but we never
regretted it. The paddock was huge, around three acres, but had been completely overgrown with Japanese Knotweed, impenetrably neck-high, and impossible to hack through to get down to the very pretty pond which sat at the bottom of the valley. The landscape gardeners who at last transformed our paddock into a kind of wonderland also enlarged the pond, so that it now has a little wooden pier, and a skiff on which you can lazily boat among the water lilies and reeds.