Unhallowed Ground (18 page)

‘Then I’m sorry.’

But, Christ, that wasn’t good enough. Georgie wanted to lean forward, grab Claire Bettison by the padded shoulders and shake the very life out of her. She hated the face that swam before her, so full of well-meaning and yet so undermining, so devious. How could she make such vile suggestions at such a traumatic time? How could she come here, so cool, so judgemental, when everyone knew the very same tragedy could have happened to anyone here?

‘Perhaps we could get together afterwards, talk some more, have a drink.’

‘No. I don’t think so, Claire. I’d rather try to forget what you said. I’d rather we did not meet, and there’s certainly nothing to talk about…’

‘Georgie, just let me…’

But people were drifting back to the table and Georgie turned her back on Claire and strode purposefully away. By now she felt sick, she felt dizzy. They had turned the heating up far too high and she shouldn’t have worn this thick jumper. Cotton would have done, the wool itched round her neck.

If that’s what Claire Bettison was honestly thinking, then how many more thought the same, but were not prepared to speak up? She felt like climbing onto the table, screaming at every one of them, kicking holes in all those polite, caring faces.

As the day wore on and the room grew hot with human breath, it was obvious that this was not how the majority were thinking. It was certainly not what they were saying. They were firmly on Georgie’s side, if sides could be taken in such dreadful circumstances. They were tactful and sensitive. They tried to be positive and helpful. Afterwards, with another day to go but the worst of the nightmare over, Roger accompanied Georgie to the door. Helen would be waiting outside. She would have managed to find somewhere to park against all the odds. Georgie ignored Claire pointedly, although she had seen her floating towards her with a velvet cape over her shoulders. ‘They’re all behind you, Georgie,’ Roger said supportively. ‘They are all reliving this horror with you. There was absolutely nothing you could have done, there was no way you could have known…’

But Georgie hardly heard his words she was so busy searching his face. It was mild and well-meaning and full of nothing but the truth. He was an experienced social worker, certainly no kind of fool. He was a friend who knew Georgie well, better than Claire ever had and yet… and yet…

They might as well do away with all this, put her in prison and throw away the key. The huddled women with their hatred were right, the arsonist at the cottage was right, and the person who threw the brick last night came closer to the truth than any official inquiry.

For Georgie that meeting with her devious friend proved to be the final straw.

‘Y
OU ARE RIGHT OUT
of your tree.’ Helen Mace looked across sharply. ‘Only yesterday you were telling me you wouldn’t live there to save your life, a place where nightmares are made, and now you’re saying you’ve changed your mind. You’ve lost it, Georgie, you have, seriously.’

‘It wouldn’t be on a permanent basis.’ It was hard to argue when even she was so supremely unsure of her ground, just full of a desperate courage. But every morning she scanned the papers with a fear so fascinated that it was almost a disappointment to find nothing. Fate was offering her a quick way out, she would be a fool not to take it. ‘I just need to get away from here.’ Georgie longed for a cigarette. They were at the Maces’ house again, supper was over, the kids were in bed and Roger was out at a meeting. They sat round the fire, toasting their feet on the fender along with damp socks that steamed on the safety guard, all colours and sizes of socks were threaded through the holes in the wire. It had snowed and the five little Maces had soaked themselves in the pure white joy of it. In the early evening Georgie watched them, in the grey snow-dark as the sun sank, as their footsteps turned to black, and her heart ached for just one tiny glow of their happiness, their innocence. ‘I’m asking for a year’s sabbatical. Whatever happens I’ve got to move, and I can’t sit around doing nothing until all this horror is cleared up. The cottage is there already. It needs a hell of a lot of work. I can go there at once, hide away for a while and get to grips with this whole damn thing, get to grips with myself. Helen,’ she groaned, ‘I can’t go on like this.’

‘But what about the offer? Don’t tell me you’re turning it down. All that lovely money!’

Georgie shook her head. ‘There’ll be other offers, Helen, especially when the place is done up. It could be a dream cottage’—she put some enthusiasm back in her voice—‘with a tad of imagination and money spent on it. And while I’m down there I’ll let the flat to bring in an income and pay the mortgage. After a year I’ll sell them both, when I’ve finally decided what to do.’

‘So. You’ve got it all worked out.’ Helen remonstrated gently, aware of Georgie’s frail state of mind. ‘But you’ll be so far from your friends, that’s what really bugs me. And from what you’ve said there’s no-one around in that spooky place who’ll be the slightest use.’

Georgie looked at Helen directly, a listless stare out of dull eyes, oh yes, she knew what she looked like. And they both knew there was only so much a body could take before action was required, any action, and common sense rarely plays a part. Georgie said, ‘Perhaps that might be a good thing. Perhaps I’ve been leaning too hard on my friends, maybe it’s time I relied on myself. And I can’t do that here, Helen, it’s just not possible here.’

‘Something has happened,’ said Helen astutely, in her most businesslike voice. ‘Something has made you change your mind and you’re not telling me what. I don’t like this haste, I don’t like this panic. It seems like you’re running away to hide.’

‘What the hell is wrong with that? I’ve no intention of hiding for ever. I’m talking about one year, that’s all.’ And such a short while ago all things around her were ordained, considered and under control. Once all she cared about was getting her pine doors stripped. She chose to go into social work to help other people, dammit. A very proper ambition. Served Georgie right, how little is virtue rewarded.

Helen frowned and bit her lip. She stole a glance at Georgie’s face, so pale with emotion. Georgie was in a strange mood, not looking well. ‘Yes, and around about then it’ll be time for Ray Hopkins’s trial and everything’ll start up again. You can’t run away, Georgie, there’s really no escape from this shit.’

‘But I can build myself up, get stronger.’ Georgie, with her strained face and her unbrushed hair, was sadder but no wiser. What games people play. She automatically spouted the first thoughts that came into her head, like repeating great chunks of
Hiawatha
. She knew the persecution she suffered could not be connected to the fire in the woodshed, nobody in Wooton-Coney knew who she was or where she came from, and none of the brick-throwing, phone-calling heavies would be able to trace her down there. So buried in Devon she would be safe. Sticks and stones may break my bones… the evil tongue of old Mrs Buckpit would be all she would have to endure.

‘If it’s work you want, I’m sure Roger can find you some research to do.’

‘Now you’re being patronizing, Helen, I’m going to Devon and that’s how it is. Whatever you say, and I know you’re worried about me, really, I have made up my mind.’

‘But it’s such a sinister place, Georgie,’ said Helen, despair on her plump and easy face. ‘Dammit, you wretched woman. You’re only just back from there. You can’t have forgotten already.’

‘I know. I know. It’s the weirdest place I’ve ever been.’ What on earth is the matter with Georgina Jefferson? For the first time that evening she managed a smile, if a wry one.

Wise head shakings and gloomy prophesies. Everyone was against it, especially old Mr Selby. ‘But we’ve even agreed a price,’ he wheezed, ‘we can’t go back on our word. That would be most unethical.’ She imagined him rolling his watery eyes at something so vulgar and distasteful.

‘I know it’s difficult, and I hate to back out of an agreement, but you must see that my circumstances are unusual and that this is a kind of emergency. This is a personal matter and I’m afraid I can’t explain it further.’

‘You won’t get another offer like this.’

‘No? Well, we will have to see.’

‘The purchasers are not going to like it.’

‘Well, as we don’t even know who they are, I can’t say I am too concerned about that. I’m sorry, Mr Selby, I really am…’

‘This is not the sort of way to behave. You should have made this decision in the first place.’

Georgie groaned inwardly. She had not expected to be treated like a wayward child. He should be on her side. ‘Circumstances have changed since then, I’m afraid, Mr Selby, and you must admit it was all being done in rather a hurry. I didn’t have much time to make my decision. And we haven’t actually signed anything.’

But it was quite clear that Mr Selby did not approve at all. And rightly.

And the more Georgie had to argue her case the more sensible it sounded, until she began to feel it was the only way out of her trap.

Isla was furious.

‘Who’s going to come to the theatre with me now? David won’t. He can’t stand it. Who’s going to come shopping, play tennis, drive me home from parties? And we’re all going to miss you at work, already this place feels odd without you. How can you selfishly seriously think of abandoning us like this?’

Georgie was in the flat showing Isla Stephen’s paintings. The flat felt like a different place when there was someone else in there with her. But alone, it was unbearable. She went out at every opportunity, even just to browse round the shops. But were people really staring? Did they know who she was, even in a headscarf? Was Georgie ill? Was it paranoia?

Isla caught her breath as she saw one of Stephen’s more crazed efforts. ‘There’s definitely something wrong here.’ She turned to Georgie and said seriously, ‘I think it’s probably a good thing you didn’t know this man. I mean, look at this. Don’t you feel there’s something wrong?’

‘Disturbing? Yes. But he was an alcoholic, remember. He did drink himself to death.’

Isla propped up the picture and backed away, turning her curly dark head this way and that in an effort to make sense of it. ‘But how old was he? Was he a schizo, on top of everything else?’ she asked. ‘Because compared to the others it looks as if someone quite demonic has taken over the oils.’

‘It is odd, yes. Because the majority are so good.’

Isla went to sit down again. Gypsylike, with her beads and fringed scarf and her long dangly earrings, she was always boasting that some distant relations had once been Romanies. ‘I think the others are excellent. I think Stephen could have made serious money if he was into that sort of thing, if he’d known the right people and the right places to go.’

‘I’m going to try and sell some of them,’ said Georgie. ‘I’m only going to keep the ones I really like.’

‘But no-one’ll touch these crazy ones.’ Isla poured more wine and her wrists jangled with bangles. ‘No-one’ll touch them with a barge pole. They’re far too harrowing, and ugly. There’s something vicious about them. Infantile, even. A crazy baby. Bits of mouth and eye, broken limbs and blood… and all those screaming crimson faces.’ Isla stared at the painting she had rested against the chair, perhaps it was more acceptable through the dull red glow of a wineglass. A gypsy musing into her ball, could she see something Georgie could not, so puzzled was her expression?

Eventually she shook her head, too bemused to take it further. She might as well say what she came for. ‘So there’s no point in arguing with you about this flight into darkest obscurity? You’ve made your decision and nobody’s going to change your mind?’

Georgie nodded.

‘For a true act of contrition, my child, you should go into proper retreat, or cut off your hair, sackcloth and ashes, or do a spell with Romanian orphans. Shelter would welcome you with open arms. Languishing down in Devon is such an easy option, nourishing the inner self and all that crap, so wickedly wasteful, I am very much afraid you will continue to dwell with the damned.’ She noted Georgie’s smiling complacence. She climbed down off her soap box. ‘You always were an obstinate prat. Suzie told me it would be a waste of time, but I thought I’d give it a try.’

‘But I’m going to need you to visit. I don’t want you to forget where I am. And there is such a thing as a telephone, that’s the first thing I’m going to arrange. And years ago, remember, people actually used to write letters.’

‘You’ll have to come up and stay with me and David.’

But Georgie made her point, straightening up to defend herself. ‘If I need to keep coming to London it will mean that my plan has failed.’

Isla ignored her. She tried to put some hope in her voice. ‘I know someone who’ll be thrilled and that’s Lola.’ She touched the spaniel gently, the dog snored at her feet. Still avoiding Georgie’s eyes, drumming her fingers on the table, she added, ‘We haven’t been much help to you, have we? We haven’t protected you enough. Our support didn’t work and that’s why you’re going. I’ve got an awful feeling that you won’t be coming back.’

You always hurt someone. No matter what you do or how full of good intentions you are, you always bloody well hurt someone. What could Georgie say? Without her friends, without Isla’s constant good humour, phone calls, outings, conversations, without them throughout these last few months she’d be in a mental home by now. But surely Isla must know that? It hadn’t been easy for Georgie’s friends, it hadn’t been easy for anyone; so steeped was she in her own despair, Georgie hadn’t given much thought to the feelings of those around her. To some people she had drawn closer, from others she had backed away, perhaps wrongly. But Isla had always been special.

They had been misguided to protect and support her.

She was guilty. She had fooled everyone.

Claire Bettison was right. She had known something was wrong and she should have done something about it.

When Georgie failed to reply it was left to Isla to say softly, ‘Don’t you think you’ve punished yourself enough without taking this step, locking yourself up and throwing away the key?’