In Her Shadow (4 page)

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 squinting 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.’

When Ellen was in disgrace, Mr Brecht paid special attention to me. I basked in the glory of being with him, and not having to share him with her. I alone would perform a dance routine I’d spent hours practising, or pretend to be amazed by his magic tricks, or listen to him singing silly, and sometimes rude, lyrics to popular songs and clap my hands with genuine delight. His irreverence excited, seduced and appalled me; and being appalled by Mr Brecht was a thrill in itself.

At those times, Ellen would hide away somewhere for as long as she could bear to be alone, but eventually she always turned up, sucking a strand of hair, scowling. Mr Brecht would pretend he hadn’t noticed her for a while then suddenly he’d leap over to where she was standing, pick her up and swing her round; he danced outrageously with her, she holding on for dear life as he galloped around the garden.
My girl!
Mr Brecht would sing, leaning forward so Ellen had to arch her back, and usually by this time she would be laughing, no matter how hard she tried not to: it was impossible to sulk when Mr Brecht was trying to make you happy. ‘
Dancing round with my girl!
’ he sang, waltzing around the pond swinging Ellen until she was flushed with dizziness and joy.