The Telling

A windy night. Creaking was no big deal. But my skin was prickling, the faint hair down my arms standing on end. I did the rational, sane thing. I switched the landing light on and climbed the stairs. The flicker at the corner of vision, the stirring of nerves; it’s just the mind filling in the blanks. It’s evolutionary twitchiness. Stare at it straight, it disappears.
    The door stood open on darkness.
    ‘Hello?’
    The word was barely spoken and already I regretted it. It seemed ridiculous; it also seemed to countenance the possibility of a reply. The landing light slipped past me, illuminating a strip of floor, a corner of the bookcase. My bag lay open-mouthed near the dressing table; a book was splayed face down on the bed. Through the window, the moon was low and full; clouds bunched and tumbled. Beyond the shaft of light, the bookcase was laden, swelling, bursting with books, heavy with newspapers, spilling journals, magazines. I glared at it, making it resolve back into a tailing-off half-shelf of books.
    Something moved. At the window. I looked straight at the dark panes. I wouldn’t let this happen, not again; I wouldn’t let my mind fool itself.
    A floorboard creaked under my foot. The air seemed to thicken, to condense. The wind tore at the slates, buffeted the glass. The dark was tussling outside; something was reflected on the glass, a pale shape. The pane rattled and the reflection juddered . I moved towards it, and it came clearer and closer: just me. My reflection. That was all. Beyond, the trees were in constant movement, the clouds massing and shredding across the moon.
    The image was thin against the dark. A suggestion of pale skin, dark eyes. I blinked, and was vividly conscious of what is normally an instinctive unnoticed act; she was using my eyes; she was watching me. The fizzing in the air changed, grew into a hum, a vibration; the boards were shivering under my feet and a new light glimmered through the room. The air seemed to coalesce into something else, something more dense.
    I thought, this is it.
    The image grew clearer. Dark eyes in deep shadowed pits, the line deep between her brows. The air was humming, shuddering with sound; light gathered, thickened. Her features were becoming more distinct. All sense of mutedness, of pinned-down restraint was now utterly dispelled. It was happening. She was coming. She was here.
    ‘Elizabeth?’ I breathed.
    The buzz exploded into a roar. Light swept the room. Everything was thrown into stark brilliance. The reflection stared back at me, blank with shock. The growling rattle of a diesel engine; a tractor spun past the house, its headlights raking through the window, tearing across the room, spattering me, the bed, the almost-empty bookshelves with sudden searching light. The tractor ground on up the village street, some piece of complex farm machinery chinking and clattering behind it. The roar fading out again into a hum, a buzz, a prickle in the air, and then quiet.
    I let a breath go. The breath shook. I watched my own faint reflection in the window. I tried to laugh; it didn’t come out right. I went downstairs. I plucked the cork out of the top of the bottle. I filled my glass to its brim. No pills to be had: I needed to use what came to hand. I’d switch myself off for the night. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’d go home. I’d get my pills.

 
     
     
     
    JUST AS MRS BRIGGS WAS DUE TO DISH UP THE SERVANTS ’ dinner, I was called for to dust the morning room. The curtains were drawn against the harsh summer sun, and it was dim and pleasant there. I skimmed the little tables, the windowsills and overmantel with a cloth; wiping down vases, ornaments, commonplace books and books of engravings, and whisking my feather duster over the clock, the carved flowers and grapes on the mantelpiece, enjoying the feel of things, the cool of alabaster, the give of carpet, the palm-shaped curve of carved chair backs. I returned to the kitchen with my nails grey, the cracks in my hands lined with grey, and ready for my dinner. As I came down the kitchen steps, into the smell of mutton stew, the morning-room bell jangled overhead. Maggie straightened her cap and trotted up the stairs to answer it, and I continued on to the scullery, put my cleaning things away and washed the dust off my hands. I was scrubbing at my calluses, trying to get the dirt out of the hardened skin, when I heard Maggie’s voice in the kitchen. It was pitched high and going fast; I