Read WHO FOLLOWS: a gripping, dramatic, intense and suspenseful thriller Online
Authors: Diane M Dickson
She is gone and my rooms have become voids. The silence resounds and I feel that I will be lost in the empty spaces. Leaving, on the drive she paused and turned and blew a kiss, an old-fashioned and charming gesture that took my breath leaving me gasping from emptied lungs. The great car, a leviathan in black with glittering chrome and darkened windows, a monster of a thing made wonderful by her hands at the wheel and her slender feet against the pedals. It drew away from the kerb and I watched until it turned at the corner and became a memory.
The door slammed into the silence and I leaned my back to the wood and slid, slowly and ungraciously to the floor. Hugging myself in delight and disbelief I re-played every moment of this chaotic, desperate, storm laden day. From the ghastly discovery of a husband and the dreadful bistro meal to the wondrous parade of events that brought her here to my home, my kitchen, sitting at my table.
As I loll against the wood, surrounded by the ticking of my great clock and the creaking of central heating the day gives way to evening. The shadows grow and the familiar noises of returning commuters drag me back to reality and to the need to move lest the numbness in my legs renders me lame and limping. I don’t want to limp, I don’t want to feel my age. She is young, so very much younger than I am with a lithe and supple body and shining hair. Passing the hall stand I avert my eyes from the mirror. Wrinkles, sagging skin and dulled eyes have never bothered me until I start to imagine how she sees me. As her mother, her grandmother surely not, but then again just what is the age difference? Turning back I approach the glass that gleams in the fading daylight. There it is, my old face, the creases and wrinkles undeniable. My hair styled for practicality rather than glamour and my eyes, are they rheumy behind my sensible spectacles?
The sobbing starts before I even acknowledge the sadness and useless tears cascade across my flabby cheeks. I rub at the moisture and try to control the outburst. Where has this come from, could I really be ill? No of course not. I am overwrought by the events of the last few hours and more, so much more than that I am reduced by the knowledge that my dear Humming Bird is most probably beyond my grasp. Cruel, cruel that I should meet her now in the gloaming of my days. I know that she is so much more than I could have ever hoped but at the same moment I acknowledge that she is for me, so very, very far out of reach.
I banister drag myself up the stairs and throw myself across the duvet and so give way to a torrent of self-pity and hopelessness. For the first time in my life I feel the years crushing me and I wail for the past and for the loss and for the pain of it all.
Tonight we will meet again for dinner. This is the third date and I am dressing with care. I apply cosmetics, something that I thought I had forsaken for good some years ago but Hannah insists that I should “Keep up my standards.” Not give up on the feminine side of things. I call her Hannah, I have let go the pretension of Humming Bird. She is so much more real now and is deserving of her correct title. She is Hannah and in the secret corners of my mind I admit that she is “My Hannah”.
We are going to an Italian restaurant and then to a play reading. Friends from when I taught at the college part-time have invited us. More properly they invited me and a friend, and what other friend would I take? She is endearingly excited about the play reading, it is her first experience of such and I pray that she won’t be disappointed. I am so very surprised at her naiveté. For such an accomplished business woman and talented artist she is surprisingly inexperienced in many things that I have taken for granted. She has travelled a little and is “cultured” in the usual sort of way, some Shakespeare, Opera even Glyndebourne with her ex-husband but there are still many, many things for me to show her, and indeed she teaches me something new every time we meet.
We are comfortable together now, her sense of humour is perforce younger than mine but it is enchanting to me. I have yet to broach the subject of the difference in our ages, I don’t dare mention it. I have chosen to ignore it. It is a pretence and I know it will come back to haunt me and I continually shore up the wall that threatens to crumble each time I acknowledge the issue. I am afraid all the time, I fear that she will tire of me, that she will realise that there are too many differences, that the generational discrepancy will prove too much. So many things that keep me tossing and turning in the night, and in an agony of worry in the day when my mind insists that I think about it. So many things that could force my hand and cause me to act while I am still unprepared.
For tonight I will live again in the moment, I will enjoy the sight of her, the feel of her skin as she wraps her arms around me. I will devour the wondrous feel of her lips on my cheek and the brush of air as she kisses me. I will enjoy the tinkle of her voice, the chime of her laughter and the warmth of her in my space. I will bathe in the glory of her nearness. Then later when I am alone again I will, I know, feel the track of salt water across my cheeks and under my ears as I lie in my solitary bed and crave her presence.
It can’t go on I know that, the time is coming when I will have to decide how to progress, what direction this relationship will take. Will she come willingly, become my happy helpmate and my loving companion or will it be like the last time, the time with Marie. I pray there will be no need for any of that and as my thoughts stray down that painful alleyway I fiddle with the charm on my neck chain. It is the only thing that there is left of her my silly, silly girl. How sad that was.
The days move on and with them joy grows ever stronger. I have invited Hannah for dinner. I am in a dither, my hands shake as I trim beans and skin the salmon. The wine is chilled and there are small dishes of nuts and dips with carrot sticks. Flowers cascade in colourful abandon from vases on the side tables and my room is shadowed and charming with the small lights turned on and the curtains closed. I love my home and have spent many hours and much money on the gathering of things and the decoration. Normally it is a source of great pride but tonight I see only the faults. There are stains on the wall near the door, the result of damp umbrellas leaning there. There is a crack on one of the kitchen tiles which I have never been able to have repaired. These small things bother me occasionally but tonight they have assumed huge importance. Her life is after all made up of decoration and beautification.
The times that she has visited, since the first time when she made coffee, she has merely rung the bell and I have been ready, waiting for her in a fever of anticipation and so we have left with only a momentary greeting. There is sound reason for this. I don’t think I can trust myself alone in my home with her. I have no confidence in my ability to hold my tongue and not blurt out my feelings and my desires. It has been too soon I know and so I have avoided a situation that would lead me astray and cause untimely action.
Now I am ready, the time has come. I can wait no longer. I have no way to gauge what her reactions and indeed her actions will be. I know that she was married but she has shown great affection for me and often hugs and kisses me. She is naturally a very tactile person, to my continuous delight I admit. Anyway I have made the decision, tonight I will lay my cards on the table. I will admit my total devotion to her and if I judge that it is time to progress my case I will suggest that we take our relationship to another level. It is dangerous, it is nerve-wracking and it is an end game for I will have her and tonight will decide how and when that will happen.
The time approaches, the clock chimes six and I hear her great car pull in to the kerb. I hear the click clack of her heels on my path. There it is, the chime of the doorbell. I throw my apron onto the worktop. I check my appearance in the hall mirror.
“Welcome my dear, welcome.” A short peck on the cheek.
“Some wine, I hope it will suit what we are eating.”
“Perfect, quite perfect. Come in, here let me take your coat.”
I lock the door and take the key and slip it into the little wooden drawer, she doesn’t see. She walks before me down the dimly lit hall.
Well, I don’t know, I just don’t know. I had thought deeply about how the evening might progress. It is my own fault I know, but how was I to help it? Such hopes had bloomed as I planned and prepared. It is too soon, I see that now, but how deep is this disappointment?
In my mind I had foreseen a pleasant evening leading to my declaration and her happy, happy acceptance. Perhaps talk of the future, at the least a deepening of our connection.
It began well, the food was – adequate – the atmosphere convivial and intimate. Music filled the quiet moments. Hannah truly did seem to enjoy what she ate and she is a delightful table companion. My standards are high, there is a correct way to behave at table and though there are a few rough edges there she performed well. I can polish and hone her until our future meals together will be the delight I have missed for so long.
Perhaps it has been too long, perhaps my voluntary solitude has made me too friable, too intense. I never expected that she would stay the night, of course not. Indeed it would have been in some way a disappointment, an indication of looser morals than I would hope for.
The last years have been difficult, I have needed to work so very hard. Maria, how you still hurt me. True, it hasn’t always been so very near to the forefront of my mind but it is there, like a miasma hidden in the more solid everyday. I try to hold it back, I keep busy, physical activity is often the answer.
I take other precautions as well. Sensible adult actions. I never go to the woods at the top of the heath. I know that should I go there my feet would be drawn inexorably to that spot where the earth is soft and the moss smells of damp and rot. That way lies disaster. I never see any of our old acquaintances. This is easy as I moved away from our old flat after the event. I don’t play the music that she liked, I have discarded many discs and films that we listened to and watched together. Yes, I decided very quickly that the best way to insulate myself was to try to behave as if the whole sad, sad affair had never happened. But it did, didn’t it? And so now and again when my guard is down she intrudes. It has made me afraid, afraid to hope and to trust, I couldn’t bear it should I find myself in that place again.
No, no I don’t need to go down that road. I had dreaded that something of that nature would happen but in the event, we spent a wonderful evening of friendship and laughter and before I could take things any further it was time for her to go. As we stood in the hall waiting for the taxi, I took her hand ready to declare myself and she simply smiled and leaned to me and kissed me lightly on the cheek.
“What a lovely evening we have had. You must come to me next time and we must make it soon.” And at that the taxi blew its horn and she was gone. I felt bereft and stupid to be frank and even now can’t explain how I let things get so much away from me.
Now I am sitting here unwilling to go upstairs, I know that tonight Maria will be with me. I have a feeling of dread and a solid lump of disquiet in my stomach. I will need to remain sleepless, on guard. I will do some work and then if that doesn’t help there is no other option but to go and run in the dark streets with the rain glistening on the cobbles and the silence of the night to wrap up my thoughts and deaden the memory.
I have tried to work but the wine will have its way and no meaningful progress will be made tonight.
It feels strange to be donning running gear with the street lamps peering through the gaps in the curtains and the house creaking in the way that houses only do in the darkest hours. I feel a thrill, I am not afraid, I will take a whistle with me and my confidence and all will be well.
As I pull the door closed quietly behind me the damp air kisses my cheek and moisture very quickly coats the skin of my face. There is the feel of rain in the air and the trees drip quietly into the silence.
Down the path and turn, to the left. No, no tonight I will take the other route. The wine fizzes in my blood and my nerves tingle as I head for the Heath. I shouldn’t do this I know but there is madness in me now. Where did it come from? I don’t know, but it enthrals me and the decision is made to let it draw me onwards down roads that I have avoided for some two years. Up the once familiar slope to the top of the Heath and then across the gravel and there it is before me now, the wood.
Shivers trickle up and down my spine as my pulse quickens more from the strange excitement than from the jogging. Oh I know I am no longer young but I have stayed fit, partly because of good genes and partly because of effort. The exercise has taken very little toll on my breathing but this thing that I am about to do causes my lungs to feel deprived and my heart to thud in a way that is part discomfort, part thrill. My knees shake, and my hands tremble.
The branches are lowered with the weight of the rain on the leaves and they grab and reach at me as I enter the darkness. There is no need for a torch. The moonlight and the small glow from the street lamps are enough. Though I haven’t been this way for many months I know the pathway as if I trod it only yesterday. In the night watches I have imagined this journey over and over. The weight of the body, the stickiness of the drying blood and yes, I admit it, the horror of what I had done. It has become now like a dream or a film seen many years ago but as I tread deeper along the spongy path the night transforms and I am transported in time. I can almost see it from this two years distance, her head lolls against my shoulder, her body, wrapped in a sheet is surprisingly heavy and I stop several times to rest. The fear comes back, much diminished but still it clenches at my gut and causes me to gasp. I hadn’t forgotten but I now remember vividly and it is more awful than I had thought.
It is deeply dark now and I need to hold my hand in front of me to avoid colliding with the trunks and take care that I don’t trip on partly buried roots. That night I had brought a torch because I had gone back and forth, once with the bundle in the sheet and then back for the spade from the boot of the car and then lastly for the small bag of belongings that I needed to dispose of.
It is there now before me, the clearing. How peaceful it seems. Quiet in the gloom and monotone, just shadow and yet deeper shadow with here and there the glow of a white rock or a piece of litter. I think I remember the very tree and slowly I approach. Yes, yes this is the one. It is a huge willow and at the base I know that the rich soil and green moss are imbued with decay.
My knees have at last let me go and I flop to the earth, I am overwhelmed with feelings I don’t understand. It is a strange passion, recognition of the magnitude of the deed and then atop that relief that all is as it was, there is no sign of disturbance and I realise that this has been cathartic for me. It has actually been beneficial to come here and be where she is.
“Maria, how different it could all have been.”