Authors: Gillian White
Horace lifts his funereal eyes and rests them on Georgie. ‘Have you considered the possibility,’ he asks, ‘that you might be imagining things?’
Her answer is swift. She puts him straight. ‘I am definitely not that sort of person. I have even, in my time, been called insensitive.’
Is Horace even listening? Still staring in his hang-dog way, he advises in all seriousness, ‘Perhaps it might be wiser if you went back to London.’
‘So you think all this is in my head,’ Georgie bridles, ‘and that I am losing my marbles?’
His answer is slow and ponderous. ‘No, not quite. I think it’s difficult for anyone to come to terms with somewhere as unique as this from the sort of life you have obviously been used to. This solitary existence could well affect you, I certainly don’t believe you are making anything up. Strange things do happen in the country, but you appear to have lumped all sorts of little incidents together and associated them with one man, the figure you saw on the hill.’
‘Yes,’ says Georgie, ‘that’s true. I have. So you’re saying that all these events could be unconnected?’
‘And that most of them are just the sort of silly, odd occurrences that happen every day. When you lead a sociable, busy life, like yours, you don’t notice them. But now there’s time to sit and think.’
‘It’s incredible what the effects can do. OK, I give you that a stranger could have been passing through and that Stephen, for some reason, kept a doll and a child’s make-up case in his woodshed. They might even belong to Donna, the girl is such a puzzle. I even give you the unlikely possibility that the fire could have started on its own. But how about the paint?
It was blood
, Horace, dammit, and I know how unbelievable that might sound, but I know without doubt,
it was blood.
’
‘A bird could have flown in your window that night. It could have wounded itself while trying to escape, banging against the window. It could have left a mess on the table…’
Georgie, exasperated, cries, ‘But there was no blood anywhere else in the room. My God, I looked, I checked.’
‘Or a rodent. There are rats in the country, you know.’
Why is he denying the truth? To protect her? To make her feel better? There is nothing more annoying than this. ‘What?
A wounded rat?
A wounded rat managed to climb onto my table, not leaving a trace anywhere else, and stagger about in the paint for a while before wiping its feet and retreating?’
Horace remains patient. ‘I am merely attempting to justify…’
‘But there isn’t an answer, Horace, is there? That’s what’s so alarming. There really is no reasonable answer.’ Georgie looks at him sadly, they exchange gloomy glances. ‘Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I should go back to London.’
He raises melancholic eyebrows which force hairy question marks on his forehead. ‘I think that is probably the answer.’
‘But I have nowhere to go in London.’ Georgie gives a tired shrug. ‘My flat is let. I would have to find somewhere else and start over again.’
‘That sounds like an excuse to me, not an insurmountable problem.’
But there’s another reason. ‘I really don’t want to leave the cottage to go to seed again, empty for another winter. The damp would soon break through and destroy all the work we’ve done.’
‘I’d be happy to take care of the cottage. I could light the odd fire, if that’s what you wanted.’ The poor man sounds so terribly weary.
‘I challenged myself to stay here. I told myself I could do it. There are important reasons why I need to be on my own.’ She is not prepared to delve any further into her own personal problems. She does not want Wooton-Coney to know what drove her here, or to realize who she is.
‘You have to make your own decision,’ says Horace, over noises from the kitchen, the preparatory sounds of Nancy’s return. ‘Of course. But my advice to you is to leave.’
His words are laden with foreboding and gloom.
They go through the familiar performance with the hostess trolley and Nancy’s excitement at catering for that rare event, a visitor. This time she sits beside Georgie and shows her some precious catalogues. They encompass everything, from children’s toys to bathroom suites, from underwear to garden sheds. ‘I am a special, treasured customer,’ she says, scurrying off to find the letters where the customer’s name is printed in a slot. ‘
Dear Mrs Horsefield
,’ she reads her favourite out to Georgie. ‘We
know how proud you will be to know you have been awarded our silver shield, a shield only ever presented to those customers whose patronage we particularly treasure.
’ And Nancy holds up a cardboard shield she has carefully covered with cling film. ‘I am determined to get the gold shield one day,’ she tells Georgie excitedly while Horace pours the tea.
Is Nancy Horsefield quite as harmless as she seems?
Georgie tries to avoid Chad Cramer, not only because he’s a nasty piece of work, but because she is sure he resents her friendship with Donna. Donna is always telling her so, she seems quite proud of the fact. He is bound to know the kind of confidences Donna is sharing, and it’s not hard to guess what Georgie’s advice is likely to be—leave him, he’s a bastard. But one dark evening she meets him unexpectedly, he on his way to the farm, presumably to pay the rent, and Georgie on her way home having paid her milk bill. Instead of walking on after an exchange of unfriendly grunts, this time she decides to confront him.
‘Oh, by the way, I managed to get some good prices for Stephen’s paintings. I thought you’d like to know. There was also a rather expensive Jacobean chest and a couple of Turkish rugs. And I’ve cleaned up the furniture, I kept it all in the end. The cottage is quite a different place.’
‘Some folks have got more money,’ he growls, ‘than they know what to do with.’
‘I see you’re not out of your cottage yet? You’re still holding out?’
‘It’ll take more than that bleeding lot to budge me.’ He’s wearing his poacher’s cap tonight and a torn brown anorak that comes away from the zip at the front. His skin is an unhealthy blotchy colour. ‘And I see you’ve decided to hang on here now your posh mates have gone back up the line?’
If it is Cramer up to these grim tricks, and Georgie suspects that it is because there is no other answer, if he is trying to frighten her off, then she wants him to know that his plan is not working. ‘Of course I’m still here, Chad. I’m like you, a sticker. It’d take more than a few small unpleasantnesses to move me out. No, I’m dug in for good.’
It is hard to gauge his reaction. Georgie can’t stand him. There’s an air of unpleasant arrogance about him, and he stretches out an arm and lets it rest on the wall beside her, too close, much too close. In a subtle way this gesture is a threat. She gives him a most superior smile. ‘I love it here,’ she lies, ‘it’s a quite remarkable place.’
‘You’ve not experienced real winter yet,’ is all he grunts as he strolls away, whistling softly under his breath. ‘I’d like to see what you think of that.’ Is that the same whistle Georgie heard coming from the figure on the hill? But no, Chad’s is a well-known song, the other was on two notes and tuneless. But a cheap, pink make-up case, he could easily have picked one up on the road.
Georgie tackles Donna cautiously the next time she comes over. Donna is nervous enough already, it wouldn’t do to scare her. Georgie turns the conversation: ‘Years ago, of course, travellers were quite different, gentlemen of the road, respected, even, for their eccentricity, and countryfolk used to give them food and let them sleep in their barns. They were quite harmless, those old tramps, funny, you don’t see many these days.’
‘No,’ says Donna scrabbling around and half emptying Georgie’s tissue box. ‘Now it’s scruffy old vans and dogs, and nobody gives a toss about them.’
‘Have you ever seen a tramp round here, Donna? What about when you’re out alone at night? Have you noticed anything odd? Do many strangers find their way to the depths of Wooton-Coney, I wonder?’
‘Nah. I’ve never seen one.’
‘Or kids?’ Georgie goes on hopefully. ‘Do the Buckpits have any other family, or friends? It’s rather odd how this place lacks children, even visiting children.’
‘You never see anyone new round here, that’s the bleeding trouble, nobody ever comes and Chad’s only got enemies.’
‘I’d never have guessed.’ But should she quiz Donna further about her nocturnal excursions? Surely, now the weather has turned, she stays safely indoors. This is not the first time it has occurred to Georgie that Donna could easily have let herself into the cottage that night, and for some distorted reason of her own smeared her painting palette with blood. It could have been she who started the fire. Most of her attention-seeking behaviour is pathetically transparent: wearing a bandage when she’s not hurt, colouring her hair a dreadful purple, stealing small items she knows will be missed, telling the most unbelievable lies. But even more worrying than this, it is now quite apparent that Donna has some kind of schoolgirl crush on her caring neighbour. ‘You’re a bit old for this sort of thing,’ was Georgie’s immediate response when Donna tried to air her feelings.
‘I know, I can’t help it, that’s all.’ She stood there with her legs crossed, her head hung low like a naughty child. ‘I just need to be with you, to be near you… I really think that I love you.’ She played with her nail-bitten fingers. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she stuttered her eternal devotion. ‘I know how silly I sound but, Georgie, I can’t get you out of my mind.’
Stranger things than this have happened between clients and their counsellors, and Donna is badly disturbed. ‘It will pass,’ said Georgie sternly, cutting her off before she went further. Perhaps this transference, although peculiar and most unwelcome, could help Donna eventually in her bid for freedom from Chad.
But now she has to ask the girl. ‘Do you ever come in here during the night when I’m upstairs asleep?’
Donna frowns. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Out of curiosity. Out of a need to know.’
‘Would you care if I did?’ Donna asks obstinately.
‘I would much rather you asked me first.’
‘I never did. Although sometimes I sat on the grass and watched. Wishing I could be in here with you. Safe and happy. Asleep in your spare room. Anyway, I don’t go out any more. I only do that in summer when I can see where I’m going. I don’t like it in the dark. It’s dark in our cottage, dark and dingy.’ Poor Donna gazes round Georgie’s kitchen, not de luxe by any means, but far more comfortable than her own. ‘And it’s cold,’ she shivers. ‘It’s always so bleeding freezing in there.’
‘So why does Chad choose to make the place so depressing? I can see why he wouldn’t bother to do up the house when they want him out, but he could bring in more comfortable furniture, there’s plenty of electric fires in that old carriage of his, carpets, lamps, why doesn’t he use any of them himself? Couldn’t you persuade him, Donna?’
‘Oh, I’ve tried,’ Donna whinges, ‘over and over again. But he’s the sort of bloke who doesn’t notice his surroundings. If it’s cold he puts his jacket on and sits by the fire in that. He’s so sodding mean, that man. I dread another winter here. One more winter in that fridge and I think I might even die of exposure. I really wish I could live here with you. Why can’t I live here with you? I wouldn’t be a nuisance. I could help in all sorts of ways.’
How often Georgie longs to shake her. ‘I’ve told you why you can’t live here. I need to be on my own, that’s why I came here in the first place, and anyway, it wouldn’t be the answer. Have you tried the social services yet, Donna? Have you explained everything to them?’
Donna sulks. ‘It wouldn’t do no good, there’d be no sodding point. They’d send me back to Manchester. You don’t really care about me at all, do you? Do you?
Tell me the truth!
’
Georgie refuses to get into this. They’ve been through this so many times before and it only ends in more tears. ‘And don’t you think that Manchester might be better than another winter here,
with him
? You’re not really happy, are you, Donna?’ And that is an understatement.
‘But I just couldn’t bear to be on my own. I’m not ready to make the break.’ Poor despondent Donna, waiting for something wonderful, yearning for the impossible. She can’t see that if that’s what she’s after she should damn well go and try for it.
‘Well. One day perhaps.’
Just how damaged is Donna? What might she be capable of? Starting a fire? Cutting herself? She’s done that before, one look at her wrists gives that secret away.
What other questions can Georgie ask? There are no satisfactory answers. She starts to lock her door at nights. She buys a bolt and chain. She wonders if she should pick some wild garlic to keep the devil at bay.
S
OME HOSTILE FORCE IS
tampering with time. The days, which ought to be getting shorter, are stretching themselves into endless weeks, endless like the lonely moor, a thousand feet above the sea, which rolls away to left and right, the road just a small rope in the wilderness. This is loneliness, intense and hidden. Huh. How ironic to think that once Georgie truly believed she was getting over Angie’s death, after those long summer months helped by a change of scenery, a change of lifestyle. But as winter’s metal lid starts to close over the valley and seal it, well, I’m afraid that’s how her head is starting to feel.
She cannot get rid of the nightmares—a child clad in a nightie tumbling down the steps at Kurzon Mount Buildings, with huddles of crow-faced women screaming at the burning doll in her arms. Somebody could have saved her, but he was standing on a hillside too far away, a dark figure just watching. Just a dream, only a dream. Trembling and sweating into wakefulness she staggers downstairs, but after finding the blood—was it blood?—she feels uneasy at her own kitchen table. By now she has convinced herself that Cramer is the culprit, that vicious slob broke into her cottage and smeared the blood in a mean act of vengeance. And she starts to dwell on the way she was hounded out of her London flat with bricks and letters and phone calls, that slowly turning cycle seems to be in motion again.
When will her persecutors leave her alone?