In Her Shadow Page 3

  ‘I hated the thought of my mother being in this monstrous house on her own,’ she said, straightening her back with difficulty and making the bangles on her arm chink. ‘I didn’t know she had young friends. And you,’ she looked at me and smiled a smile that warmed me inside, ‘you must have reminded her of Ellen, mustn’t she, Pieter! How perfect that you were there to look after her!’

  Ellen’s father gave a little mock bow and graced me with a smile so devastating that my stomach flipped and my cheeks burned. I had never met anyone like him in my whole life. Never.

  ‘We didn’t exactly look after her,’ I said.

  ‘Of course you did!’ said Ellen’s father.

  Just then, a shorter, stocky, older woman, dressed in dark clothes, came through from the back of the house. She was carrying a box of ornaments, wrapped in news paper, which she placed on the small table beside the telephone. Ellen’s father backed away from the woman, like a snail retracting from salt. He moved into the shadows and watched from under his hair, rubbing his chin.

  ‘Are these children bothering you, Anne?’ the woman asked Ellen’s mama.

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You should sit down. You’re overdoing it – you need to rest.’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you, Mrs Todd,’ said Ellen’s mother.

  ‘Your mother needs some peace and quiet,’ Mrs Todd said to Ellen. ‘Go and play somewhere else.’

  From behind Mrs Todd, Ellen’s father rolled his eyes. I put my hand over my mouth to contain a giggle. Then he beckoned me over to him. He took a wallet out of his pocket and removed a five-pound note, which he gave to me. He closed my fingers around the money. ‘It’s for sharing,’ he said, enclosing my hand in his fist and giving it a squeeze, and then he leaned down and whispered, ‘But you, adorable Miss Hannah, must be responsible for it.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I whispered. He winked at me. I held the note very tight in my hand. Nobody had ever called me ‘adorable’ before.

  Outside, Jago, Ellen and I were tongue-tied. We walked along the lane in silence for a while. I kept looking at the money to make sure I hadn’t lost it.

  ‘Your parents are very nice,’ I said eventually.

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘Who’s the other lady?’

  ‘Mrs Todd? Oh, she’s our housekeeper.’

  ‘Is she a servant?’ Jago asked.

  ‘Kind of. She does the cleaning and cooking and looks after Mama.’

  ‘Hannah’s mum’s a cleaner too,’ Jago said.

  It was true but I wished Jago hadn’t said anything. It took all the shine away from the morning. I didn’t want Ellen knowing that my mum wore a housecoat and spent her days scrubbing floors and toilets and that her fingers were rough and her arms meaty and that she smelled of bleach. I wanted her to think we were the same.

  Ellen looked at me in a curious way but I turned my head and didn’t elaborate.

  We bought iced lollies at the garage and then walked to the church and sat on the wall looking out over the sparkling sea beyond the fields. Ellen peeled the paper from her Fab fastidiously, and dropped it behind her, into the graveyard.

  ‘Where do you two live?’ she asked.

  ‘Down there.’ Jago pointed. You couldn’t see Cross Hands Lane from where we were, or the pebble-dashed cottages, only the slate-grey colour of the roof-tiles way below in between the leaves of the trees.

  ‘Our houses are semi-detached,’ Jago said.

  ‘Joined together,’ I explained.

  Ellen was impressed by this. I licked the bottom of my lolly, which was melting down my hand, and smiled at Jago. He smiled back. Ellen was watching. I moved my leg a little closer to his, scraping my thighs on the wall.

  ‘Tell me about your families,’ Ellen said.

  ‘My mum is dead of cancer and my dad is gone away,’ Jago said without looking up. ‘I live with my uncle and aunt. He’s a bastard and she’s a bitch.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Ellen, her eyes widening. ‘That’s so sad!’

  Jago shrugged.

  Ellen sat for a moment, swinging her legs and processing this information. ‘I never met anyone whose mother was dead before.’ She turned to me. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Nothing really. Boring. One mum, one dad, that’s all.’

  ‘Same as me,’ said Ellen. She smiled at me then and it was a friendly smile. This was something we had in common. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. It was enough.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  DARKNESS WAS SWIRLING around my legs like fog and my bare feet were cold. I was hiding in the back garden at Thornfield House. It was dusk, or dawn perhaps, and the sky was bruise-coloured. Trees and bushes were illuminated by the shadowy light of candles flickering in jars made of barbed wire hanging from the branches. We were playing Murder in the Dark and Ellen was the killer. She’d already found Jago and her father and Mrs Brecht. Only I was left, pressed against the trunk of an old willow tree hidden in the swaying umbrella of its long fronds. ‘I’m coming, Hannah!’ Ellen called softly. ‘I’m coming to get you!’

  I peeped through the willow leaves and saw her approaching through the twilight. She was smiling a charming, chilling smile and her hands were behind her back. I crept backwards as she came forwards, holding my breath, feeling the ground beneath my feet: toes, sole, heel, treading as carefully as if I were walking on glass. ‘I know where you are, Hannah!’ Ellen called. ‘I can see you!’

  I was careless – my foot slipped and I fell backwards, tumbled down and I was suddenly falling through water and Ellen’s cold little hands were holding onto my ankles, her fingernails digging into my bones, pulling me down away from the daylight, down, down, down. Too late, I realized she had tricked me, and as the light faded in my head I could hear Ellen’s voice whispering: ‘You can’t get away, Hannah. You know you can’t. Not now! Not ever!’

  I opened my eyes wide and thanked God I was in my bedroom in my flat in Montpelier, and there was the antique vanity mirror over the chest of drawers with the shell necklace Jago had given me hooked over the stand; there were my Klimt prints on the wall, the picture of my parents – and the beams of light sent by passing cars outside were sliding over the corner of the ceiling as they always did. Everything was in order, everything was normal. Everything except me.

  I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye-sockets.

  I wished I could get Ellen Brecht out of my head.

  I had to stop her tormenting me in this way. I couldn’t go on like this.

  The room was almost dark. Dusk had fallen while I slept. Lily was still beside me, but Rina had gone. The day had died and the ghosts of my past had come creeping in through the open window.

  The telephone was ringing. Had that been what woke me? I counted seven rings, then it fell silent. I turned onto my side, pulled the duvet over me and tucked myself into a foetal position. Sleep had not refreshed me; rather I felt exhausted, emotionally battered. The telephone rang again. I didn’t want to move, I felt safe in the cocoon of the bed, but I craved company; even a voice at the end of the line would be better than nothing. I slipped out of bed, turned on the lights, went into the kitchen and picked up the phone. I could see from the caller display that it was John Lansdown, my colleague from the museum.

  I answered, tucked the phone between my ear and shoulder, filled the kettle and plugged it in while John apologized for disturbing me. ‘Rina said you’d had a bit of a turn,’ he said. ‘I wanted to make sure you were all right.’

  ‘What did she tell you, John?’

  He hesitated a moment. Then he said: ‘She told me you thought you’d seen a ghost.’

  ‘It was a migraine,’ I lied. ‘They affect my eyes.’

  ‘I thought it must have been something like that. How are you now?’

  ‘I’m absolutely fine, John. It’s kind of you to ring but you don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be back at work as normal in the morning.’

  ‘I know you will, Hannah, that’s not why I called.
Actually I wanted to ask you a favour.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘Charlotte’s out, the girls are at a sleepover and there’s no food in the house. I was going to go out for supper and I wondered if you’d like to join me.’

  I hesitated.

  ‘It would be a good opportunity to talk about the plans for the new museum annexe,’ John continued. ‘And I thought after the day you’ve had, you probably wouldn’t be in the mood for cooking either.’

  Still I hesitated. I had little doubt Rina had somehow engineered this invitation to make sure I was not left on my own that evening.

  ‘Low blood sugar is very bad for migraines, you know,’ John said. ‘Although if you have other plans …’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘No, I’d love to come.’

  ‘Great,’ said John. ‘That’s great. I’ll pick you up in an hour.’

  I tried to pull myself together before John arrived. I showered, dried my hair and dressed, then listened to a recording of Beethoven’s Prelude for Piano as I wandered about the flat barefoot, with the cat winding around my ankles. The gentle music soothed me. The Brechts had taught me the alchemy of music. They were experts in the subject. They knew precisely which music would comfort and which would cause pain, and how music’s echo lives on in the mind long after the record has finished.

  I didn’t want to think about the Brechts. The curtains were drawn, all the lamps were lit. I was in my home. I could choose to listen to whatever I wanted, or I could choose silence. I felt safe. When the buzzer rang, I slipped on my shoes and picked up a jacket. John was waiting for me on the pavement outside the front door.

  I’d known John for eight years, since I’d taken up my position at the museum. Rina had told me he came from a wealthy background, and he’d obviously had a good education, but he was so down-to-earth that it was easy to forget his privileges. It didn’t matter that our upbringings could hardly have been more different; they never interfered with our friendship. I enjoyed his company and respected his methodical approach to work. We shared an interest in ancient history and often John lent me books, or forwarded links to articles or discussions he thought would interest me. He also enjoyed circulating quirky or funny cuttings and pictures – he found humour in many things and it was largely due to his buoyancy that the museum was such a happy place to work in. The whole team liked John, but I believed I was closest to him. He teased me, gently, if ever I became too immersed in a project or took something too seriously. He told me off if I worked too late. I always felt as if he were looking out for me, and I reciprocated.

  John was one of the most highly regarded academics in his field but it was not unusual to find him standing in the museum involved in an earnest discussion about the comparative ferocity of different dinosaurs with a group of small children. He wasn’t being patronizing, he was genuinely interested in their opinions and ideas.

  John was wonderful.

  I didn’t feel the same about his wife. Charlotte worked in the Admissions Department at the University. I’d met her on many occasions at functions and events, and she was the kind of woman who made me feel uncomfortable – all cleavage and innuendo. She was a keen and apparently competent showjumper and, as far as I could tell, she only had two topics of conversation: horses and sex. Everything about her was loud and colourful, she was a peacock of a woman, and she was happiest when she was surrounded by admirers.

  I’d heard her talking about John at the launch of the museum’s summer exhibition. ‘He’s so obsessed with his job that I honestly think he’d pay more attention to me if I was a fossil!’ she had said, with wide eyes and a melodramatic shudder. ‘I bought some new lingerie for his birthday and was draped in the doorway like so …’ she adopted a provocative pose, ‘and when I asked him if there was anything he fancied, he said: “Yes, the Panorama special”!’

  Everyone had laughed; everyone except me.

  Worse still, it was impossible to be part of a team that worked so closely with the University staff and not hear the rumours about Charlotte. I didn’t know what was true and what was not, and a person who flirted as obviously and as much as Charlotte did was bound to be the subject of gossip, but I believed there must be some substance in the speculation that she had had, and was still having, a series of affairs. John was one of the most honest and honourable people I’d ever known. I could not bear to think of him being hurt and humiliated. That was why I avoided Charlotte where possible. That was why I could not stand her.

  That evening, he had taken the roof off his little sports car and I felt more like myself as he drove me through the quietening streets of St Paul’s and into the centre of Bristol. The city wind was warm in my hair. I closed my eyes and felt it on my face and I smelled the smells of the city and was grateful to be out with John and not in the flat, on my own.

  When we stopped at the traffic-lights, I looked at him. He turned to smile at me and I smiled back. His gentleness was balm to me. That evening, and not for the first time, I wished he and I were together, a couple, so that I could reach my hand out and take hold of his. If he was mine, he would tether me. He wouldn’t let me go. In a world of inconsistencies, John was a constant, somebody who could be relied upon. For the thousandth time I wished he and Charlotte had never met, never married, never had children. If things had been different, if it had been me instead of her, then perhaps …

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Hannah!’ Ellen’s voice whispered in my ear. ‘He wouldn’t look at you twice.’

  I turned away from John and intertwined my fingers, and as he pulled away from the lights, I concentrated on watching the city go by. I did my best to ignore Ellen, but she was there; all the time she was there, with me like a persistent ache. I sensed her presence in the golden stains seeping across the twilight sky; I glimpsed her reflected in the glass panes of shop windows; I heard her voice in the breeze.

  ‘I won’t go away, Hannah,’ the voice whispered. ‘You know I won’t. Not now. Not ever.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  THAT FIRST SUMMER, the summer the Brechts moved into Thornfield House, I went there almost every day during the school holidays. My parents were both out at work, Jago was helping at the farm and I was bored at home. There was nothing for a young girl to do in Trethene, and anyway I loved going up to the house to call on Ellen and her parents. I liked seeing how they were settling in, how the rooms were being redecorated and the garden cleared, and how traces of Mrs Withiel were being painted over and scrubbed away. Mr and Mrs Brecht were different from other adults. They made me feel welcome in their home, as if I were special. They were more sophisticated than the Trethene people I’d known all my life. They didn’t have mud on their boots, their skin wasn’t red-raw from being outdoors too much and they were interested in other things besides the weather, the tourists and the tides. They were glamorous, attractive and exotic, and they made me feel like I was one of them – almost. I wanted to spend every moment I could with them, hoping some of the gold dust of their perfect lives would rub off on me.

  Ellen’s father was German but had gone to university in America on a music scholarship, and he spoke with a sophisticated accent, like a film star. Whenever I went to Thornfield House, butterflies of anticipation would flutter in my stomach at the thought of being close to Mr Brecht with his long legs, his teasing, his cigarettes and his pointy-toed boots.

  ‘Our little English rose is back!’ he would exclaim when he saw me, pulling me in, captivating me with his smile, the twinkling, easy warmth of his manner. And, God, he was handsome. He had good, straight white teeth and dark, soft hair that fell over his almond-shaped brown eyes. He rolled up his shirt-sleeves and the hairs on his arms were dark and his wrists were bony, his fingers long and square. He teased me all the time, played little jokes on me, pretended there was a spider on my back, tickled me, serenaded me, made me jump, made me giggle, made me almost faint with happiness.

  ‘Come on, come on,’ he would say, clapping his hands and squinti
ng one eye to protect it from the smoke of the cigarette burning between his lips. ‘I’ve got fifty pence here for the person who does the best handstand!’

  I wasn’t very good at handstands. Ellen could stay up for ages, she could even walk on her hands, or flip her legs right over to make a crab; I normally collapsed after a few seconds, but I did my best to please Mr Brecht. He always declared the outcome of such competitions a draw, except for the times when Ellen had played up, shown off or otherwise misbehaved, and then I would win. Fortunately for me, she did this regularly.

  Ellen was nine months younger than me, but sometimes she acted like a baby. She also told terrible lies – she was always making up stories, sometimes when there was no need for them. She couldn’t seem to help it.

  ‘What sort of place did you live in when you were in Germany?’ I asked her once, and she said, ‘It was a castle.’

  I pulled a face.

  ‘It was,’ she said. ‘It was a proper castle with a moat and a drawbridge. My father’s family is related to royalty. So you’d better be nice to me, Hannah Brown, or I’ll have you put in a dungeon and chained up with the rats until you die!’

  I went home and told my mum, who warned me not to be so gullible.

  Another time, we found a dead dove in the pond at the back of Thornfield House. Ellen fished the bird out and held it dripping between her hands, its head hanging lifeless between her fingers. Mrs Todd came out and asked what had happened.

  ‘I drowned it,’ Ellen said. She held the bird up to her face, and kissed its beak.

  Mrs Todd grabbed Ellen by the arm, said she was a wicked girl, and took her indoors. The bird fell back into the pond and I went home.

  Later, Ellen told me that her father had beaten her with his belt for killing the bird. I was so upset by the thought of Ellen being beaten that I burst into tears and Mrs Todd, hurrying to console me, assured me that Mr Brecht hadn’t laid a finger on her. She said it was just another one of Ellen’s stories and not to take any notice.

  ‘She didn’t even kill the bird,’ I wept. ‘It was already dead when we found it,’ and Mrs Todd shook her head and said, ‘Those lies are going to get that girl into real trouble, one of these days.’