Eloise (5 page)

The rain, the cloud, the fierce February cold receded, and I fleetingly felt the caress of the duvet on my chilled limbs.

And then I woke up. And I wasn’t in my soft, warm bed, but outside in the garden. It was raining hard, and I was in my Grumpy T-shirt from Disney World. I had no recollection of how I’d got here. I must have sleepwalked out of the house. The rain drummed down and the wind howled as it had in my dream. I felt terrified. The Cornish night was as black as ebony. No stars, no moon, just a dim light
from the porch, and as I stumbled back towards the kitchen door, a low moan curdled my scared, shaken brain. It seemed to come from the willow tree. I was very tempted to ignore it, to slide back into my inviting bed, but as I hesitated it came again, and I saw, as I reluctantly stared into the darkness, a figure lying on the ground. At first I was so scared I thought it was Eloise, somehow transported from her place in the churchyard just above us at Saint Tallanus; but then I saw it was a man. Ted. Completely drunk and passed out on the lawn. He must have tried to leave, angry and embarrassed at his clumsy pass at me. His car was in the drive, and the porch light glinted on the bunch of keys clasped in his hand. I stared at him. Eloise’s warning sounded in my head.
Don’t trust him
. But that was just a dream. And Ted, wet, cold and drunk, needed my help despite his behaviour.

I tried to shake him awake, but he was totally oblivious. I thought of waking one of the neighbours, but it was, and I checked my watch, gone three in the morning. In the end, I’m ashamed to say, I left him. I covered him with the waterproof tarpaulin from the barbecue, rigged an old sun parasol over him to keep off the worst of the rain, and went back inside to the warmth of the kitchen. I left the door unlocked so he could get back in. Then I went upstairs, stripped off my soaking T-shirt, and towelled myself dry before climbing
into my welcoming bed. What’s more, I fell instantly and guiltlessly asleep.

I woke up late and flustered on Wednesday morning. It was after eleven. I got up and went into the bathroom. Brushing my teeth, I tried to remember exactly what had happened the night before. I must have been a bit tipsy myself. Everything seemed hazy. No wonder I’d had such a frightening dream about Eloise. While I was plying Ted with Scotch, I must have been pouring too much red wine for myself.

My heart lurched as I remembered. Ted! He had passed out under the willow tree and, unforgivably, I had left him outside in the cold rain of a February night. I felt sick. Clutching my dressing gown around me I pelted down the stairs. The living room was empty. I opened the kitchen door and walked out past the patio, up onto the lawn to the willow tree.

He wasn’t there, which filled me with relief, but the barbecue cover and the tatty old sun umbrella were still reproachfully and squelchily in place, looking sad and unsavoury in the grey, forlorn morning light.

I rushed downstairs to the children’s bedrooms, flung open their doors and found nothing. No beds had been disturbed, and the bathroom towels were pristine.

Back up to the living room, and I realised even his car had gone from the drive.

I was relieved – or was I? Obviously I had failed him last night. I mean, who wants a grieving guest to pass out drunkenly on the lawn on a cold February night? But somehow I did not want Ted in our house, certainly not when I was on my own. And I was glad, in a shamefaced way, that I didn’t have to make him breakfast this morning, or go back with him to Eloise’s lovely home in Fowey, as I’d offered, or even talk to him.

In the kitchen, I put the kettle on. There was a note on the worktop.

Cathy
, it read.

No, I thought. Definitely not. Not until Chris came back anyway.

I busied myself with a bit of house maintenance. I put some bedding in the wash, did some ironing. I was pretty fed up at not having the confidence to drive, to go somewhere totally disassociated with my dark thoughts about Eloise, but being fed up wasn’t enough to get me behind the wheel.

I phoned Chris but he was busy with a patient, so I left a message saying I desperately needed to talk to him. Two minutes later the phone rang. It was Ted.

‘Hi, Cathy. You OK?’

‘Yeah, sure.’ I tried to keep my voice neutral. ‘How are you?’

‘Well, I’d really like to talk to you. You’re the first person I’ve wanted to – well – let off steam to since it all happened. There’s so much you and Chris don’t know.’

‘I think it might be best if we waited for him to come back to talk about all that,’ I said primly.

‘Why? Cathy, look, I know I behaved badly last night. I’m really sorry and embarrassed because you and Chris have always been such good friends. But the thing is, I’m not myself at the moment, and I have to talk to someone. There’s so much I don’t understand. I mean, did Eloise ever tell you about Arthur?’

‘Arthur? Who’s Arthur? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

He gave a bitter laugh. ‘Well, no, perhaps you wouldn’t. Juliana does, though. She certainly knows the lot.’

I was beginning to feel faint and sick. I really didn’t like Ted’s tone. And I hated the way he seemed to be drawing me into a conspiracy against Eloise.

Was I being hopelessly romantic about her? Had I put her on a pedestal because of her beauty, her ancient and aristocratic family associations? And then I realised my reluctance to engage in a conversation with Ted was a kind of fear of finding out more about Eloise than I wanted to know.

I told him I was feeling ill. Which was quite true because at that moment I really wanted to throw up. But, always sensitive to my body, I knew that my sickness had nothing to do with a normal visceral reaction, and everything to do with what was going on in my head.

‘I can’t see you tonight, Ted. I feel like shit and I’ve got loads of work to do. So, not tonight, but of course I want to meet up soon. And who is Arthur?’

Ted chuckled, but it was a dark and nasty sound.

‘Arthur? Well, he’s just a spanner in the works. That’s what Arthur is. Not that I had the slightest idea about his existence until a few weeks ago. But, God, talk about betrayal. It’s about as bad as it gets.’

I realised then that he was possibly still a bit drunk from the night before. He sounded slurred and stressed. But also incredibly vindictive and angry.

I told him I’d call him back later. I really needed to talk to Chris.

Late that afternoon Chris called. I told him about Ted’s strange mood and how disturbing I found it. ‘He made me feel … quite frightened really.’

‘You’re imagining things, Cath. Ted’s bound to be under a lot of stress at the moment. That’s probably what you picked up on.’

‘No, Chris, I’m not imagining anything. He made me feel really uncomfortable. I think he … well, he tried to make a pass at me.’

There was a long pause. Then Chris spoke in the stony voice I’d come to dread, the one he used when he thought I wasn’t doing enough to stop my darker thoughts and emotions taking me over.

‘Right, that’s it. You’re coming home.’

I bristled. ‘No, I’m not. Stop ordering me about.’

He sighed. ‘Cathy, look. You’ve been very ill. So seriously depressed that at times I thought – well, you know what I thought. I wasn’t sure that you were going to get better. But you have. You’ve been doing so well, and now here I am
stuck in London and you’re having some kind of meltdown on your own in Cornwall. This is not good. You must know that.’

‘I’m not having a meltdown. I’m just … well … concerned about Ted.’

‘It’s not that I’m worried about. Look, I know the signs. The way you’ve started anguishing about Eloise. The way you can’t let it go. I know when these things get a grip on you. You’re getting obsessed with your dark thoughts again. It’s the start of a downward spiral.’

‘What are you talking about? I’m not obsessed. I’m not having dark thoughts,’ I protested, although of course I knew I was. ‘I’m just telling you what Ted was like with me last night. Are you suggesting I imagined it?’

‘Cathy, you need to come home. You need to be with your family. You really shouldn’t be alone. And I can’t come down because I have patients all day for the next few days. But if you won’t get the train, I’ll drive down overnight and pick you up. You leave me no choice.’

‘Jesus, Chris! Who do you think you are?’

‘Your husband. Who loves you. Cathy, this situation is intolerable. And if you are determined to be so completely stubborn that you won’t do what is obviously right for your mental health, then I have no choice but to act and get you home.’

‘Oh, I see. And when I get back, are you going to have me sectioned?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! Will you get the train or do I have to come down and get you?’

‘Do you know what, Chris? You can get lost. I’m going nowhere. You can go wherever the hell you want.’

I banged the phone down. There was no mobile signal in Talland Bay, so it was still possible to be melodramatic on the landline. I was furious, though. And also despairing. If you’ve had a breakdown, as I’d had, does that give everyone carte blanche to question your sanity ever after? I knew what I had heard in Ted’s voice, his angry attitude to Eloise. I wasn’t imagining it. How
dare
Chris decide I was being delusional? Did this mean that every time I told him something he didn’t want to hear he would assume I was mad again? How could any wife live with that?

Two summers ago, Evie had been ill. It had started with headaches so severe they made her weep. And then she started vomiting. We were staying in Cornwall, and the doctor referred her to Derriford Hospital. The consultant could find nothing wrong and Chris said it was probably just a stomach bug, but as the days went by and Eve’s pale face stared reproachfully at me as she lay on the sofa, clearly in dreadful pain, I became convinced she was suffering from
something much more terrifying. I decided she had brain cancer. And I insisted on a scan.

Chris felt I was over-reacting, but persuaded the consultant to indulge me. Evie had the brain scan. There was, said the doctor, absolutely nothing wrong with her. He showed us the X-ray. It meant little to me but Chris smiled with relief when he saw it. As he and the consultant looked at it, they laughed and joshed each other and I regarded them with disbelief. What were they laughing at? Our daughter had a brain tumour, and Chris was chuckling about the X-ray?

On the drive back to the cottage, I sat stunned, sick with horror. When we got back poor Evie, clutching her painful tummy, went to bed with a hot water bottle. Downstairs, I confronted Chris.

‘I want to get Evie back to London straight away. I want a second opinion, another scan.’

Chris looked at me, concerned at my shaking voice. ‘There’s no need, Cathy. I saw the scan. She’s absolutely fine, honey. It’s just a tummy bug, and now she’s taking antibiotics it’ll clear up in no time.’

I started to tremble. ‘Chris, she’s got cancer. I
know
she has. I just know it.’

He sat down beside me on the sofa, and took my hand. ‘Darling, I’m a doctor and I can assure you she hasn’t.’ He
stroked my hair. ‘I think I know what this is about. It’s Eloise, isn’t it?’

I rounded on him. ‘Eloise is dying,’ I hissed. ‘If it can happen to her out of the blue, it can happen to anyone. I
won’t
let it happen to Evie.’

Chris looked nonplussed. ‘But, darling, nothing’s going to happen to Evie. I promise you.’

‘Yes, well, that’s what everyone always says, isn’t it? Look at the way everyone told Eloise she was going to be fine.’ I started crying hysterically. ‘She’s dying, Chris. My Evie’s dying!’

And that was how it started. The dreams began that night.

I remember the first one. In it, Evie was a little girl, around three years old. She looked sweet, happy, singing to her dolls. But as I watched she started shrinking, dwindling. I snatched her up and she became a newborn baby in my arms. And then, she was gone.

I was distraught, panicked, frantically rushing around the house looking for her, lifting cushions, opening drawers. My baby had gone, she had left me. And then, on the mantelpiece, I saw a matchbox. I picked it up and slid it open. Inside, tiny as a mouse, lay my child. She looked perfect, as if she was just sleeping, but I knew she was dead.

There were many other dreams after that night, nightmares of Gothic horror, in which I wandered through a
green valley, and all around me severed heads rose up out of the ground, watching me gravely, almost pityingly, as their blood dripped onto the grass.

There were dreams where, everywhere I walked, I saw bodies of dead baby animals strewn along my path; calves, kittens, puppies, foals. They made me feel ineffably sad.

And the worst one of all. Eloise sat before me with the matchbox containing my dead daughter in her hands. She smiled at me, but without warmth. She looked gloating, gleeful.

‘You see, Cathy, it’s not just me. I’m not the only one dying before my time. Now you’ll know what it’s like, how I feel about leaving my daughters. Now YOU will know about unbearable grief, not just me.’

She looked so evil, staring at me, her beautiful face twisted with triumph. And then she began to cackle.

Night after night, I woke screaming or sobbing and Chris took me back to London, where I began treatment. For months my nights were filled with horror, my days drowned in a lethargic stupor. I was almost catatonic with fear and loss. I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression.

And Evie? It turned out she had a grumbling appendix. A few days after we got back to London, she was rushed to hospital for an emergency operation. At the time, I knew nothing about it. Chris was too frightened to tell me that our
daughter had, in fact, been in danger, albeit for a condition much less terrifying than brain cancer.