Yesterday's Sun (7 page)

Silence filled the room and time ticked by. Holly stayed where she was until the baby finished her bottle and then she reluctantly withdrew as Tom made a move to stand up. She stood up, too, facing him as he perched Libby on his shoulder and then picked up the bassinet.

“Bedtime for us, I think,” Tom said with false bravado.

As he turned and headed for the door, Holly put her hand on his shoulder, not wanting him to leave. “Stay with me,” she pleaded as the sense of panic returned.

Tom paused. “Stay with me,” he whispered, but then he left the room.

Holly felt close to a breaking point and she was paralyzed by fear. Her breathing was getting faster and deeper and she started to feel woozy. She was on the verge of hyperventilating. She heard Tom’s footsteps going up the stairs and then the creaking of floorboards overhead. For the second time that night, the sound of the baby crying sent her whole body into spasm.

The combination of the need for fresh air and the overwhelming desire to run away was enough to give Holly the strength to leave the house. She stumbled through to the kitchen, fumbling with the door handle before eventually letting herself out of the house and across the garden. It was still cold, much too cold for late April, and the wind whipped around her.

Holly’s eyes darted from one side of the garden to the other, and she wondered what demons lurked in the shadows to strip away the last shreds of her sanity. In answer to her challenge, Holly’s attention was drawn toward the orchard. The trees that should have been on the verge of blossom were now forlornly hanging on to withered leaves, fragments of a summer long gone. Holly stumbled on until she reached the moondial.

“I’m not dead. I’m not dead!” she cried out. She sank to her knees and curled up into a ball. “I’m here, Tom. Why can’t you see me?” she pleaded.

Holly wasn’t sure how long she remained curled up beneath the moondial. Exhausted and cold, terrified and confused, she didn’t know what to do next.

It was only when the kitchen light was switched off and the garden was etched in gray once more that Holly lifted her head and looked toward the house.

A few seconds later, a light appeared from her bedroom window. It was the soft glow of a bedside lamp. The bedroom blind was open. Holly tried to remember if she had left the blind open or closed. She sighed deeply. What did it matter? Everything had changed and Holly felt trapped in a world she no longer belonged in. But Tom was in there. If she didn’t belong with him, then where did she belong?

Holly rose to her feet and, beneath the watchful gaze of the full moon, felt an urge to go back into the house and run to Tom. She was about to take a step forward when the unmistakable silhouette of her husband appeared at the bedroom window. He was rocking from side to side and although Holly was raging against the impossibility of it all, she knew he had the baby in his arms. The slow rocking motion of his body suddenly froze. Holly couldn’t see his eyes, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was looking at her.

It felt as if the world were closing in around her when she fell under Tom’s gaze. There was a crushing weight pushing against her chest as the rhythmic sound of a ticking clock grew closer and then stopped with a thud. Whether it was the wind that whipped around her or just sheer exhaustion, Holly stumbled and reached out to the moondial to steady herself. The moment she touched the dial, a host of dancing moonbeams scampered around her. The garden became a blur and the air became heavier and a few degrees warmer.

Holly needed to keep both hands on the dial to keep herself steady. She closed her eyes in an effort to stem the waves of dizziness that ebbed and flowed through her. One of her hands touched something on the dial. Holly blinked to chase away the shadows left by the light of the moonbeams. It took a while before she could safely pick up what she had touched. She held it in her hands and a sense of relief washed away the terror. It was the wooden box. The dial mechanism and the orb had all reappeared, too. The orb trembled benignly in the loosened grasp of the brass claws. Everything was as it should be.

The wind had eased and as Holly looked toward the orchard, the telltale white buds of spring sparkled against the night. Below her feet, the long grass was just as overgrown as it ever had been. Holly’s head snapped toward the house. Her bedroom window was in darkness, as was the whole house, minus one conservatory. The bedroom blind was rolled up but no figure looked down on her.

Holly snatched the orb from the dial and threw it urgently into the box as if holding it would burn her fingers. Taking the box with her, she ran through the grass, not stopping until she was back in the kitchen where she quickly turned the light on. A quick check confirmed that there was no baby equipment, no notepad on the table.

The tentacles of Holly’s living nightmare were slowly releasing their grip on her heart and her mind. Stepping more tentatively into the hallway, Holly checked both reception rooms before heading upstairs. Her bedroom was empty, her bed a writhing mess of bed linen just as she’d left it. The digital display on the clock read 3:21
AM
.

Holly stripped out of her clothes, her jog pants still sodden from the wet grass. She crawled into the comfort of her bed and wrapped herself in her duvet. Unable to even begin to make sense of the last hour, Holly closed her eyes and closed down her mind. The sleep that previously evaded her came swiftly and mercifully.

3

T
he ominous glow of the full moon had surrendered to the harsh spring sunlight by the time Holly was shocked into consciousness by someone banging on the front door. Jumping from her bed, she ignored the discarded clothes on the floor and grabbed her dressing gown. Her body ached all over as she made her way downstairs.

“Sorry, Billy, I must have slept in,” she apologized as she rubbed the last remnants of sleep from her eyes.

“Now, now, Mrs. Corrigan,” tutted Billy. “You can’t go answering the door in your slinky nightie when there are builders around. You’ll have my lads dropping hammers on their toes.”

“It’s an old dressing gown, Billy, and I think I’m more likely to frighten them off than anything else,” retorted Holly. She knew she must look a state but was silently grateful for Billy’s gallantry as she tried to scrape back her hair into some kind of order.

Billy’s mischievous smile dropped and his playful tone was replaced by one of concern. “Hey, what happened to your face?” he asked.

Holly leaned back and took a look at herself in the hallway mirror. The right side of her cheek was bruised and grazed. “It’s nothing,” Holly said in a robotic tone as the memory of her moonlit walkabout replayed in her mind for the first time since waking.

“If that man of yours has been knocking you about then we’ll be having serious words when he gets back,” Billy growled.

“Don’t be daft,” Holly said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I’m just a weak and feeble woman who can’t be trusted on her own. I tripped in the garden, that’s all.”

“Well, it sounds like it was a good idea of mine to send Jocelyn around. I knew you’d need looking after.”

Holly was in no mood for Billy’s usual banter, but if she didn’t appear her usual self, who knew who else he would be sending around to check on her.

“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, but yes, it was a very good idea. She’s a lovely lady,” replied Holly with a smile that was more genuine this time.

“You need to get out more, visit people.”

“Now if I promise I will, could you stop nagging and get on with your work?”

Billy saluted. “I aim to please. We should have the internal work finished by the end of the week, so if you want to start thinking about those bells and whistles you wanted to add, now would be a good time. After that, if there’s anything else you need, you only have to ask.”

“Is that a proposition, Billy?” gasped Holly with a half-smile.

Billy actually blushed. “Erm, well, I was actually thinking, well, what I meant was, erm, the garden could do with a proper makeover. We don’t want any more accidents, do we?” he stammered.

Holly shivered as she recalled the sensation of kneeling on the soft lawn. “Thanks, Billy, but I’m not sure I want to let Tom off the hook with that particular job just yet.”

She brought her chat with Billy to a swift end, promising to make him and his lads a nice cup of tea. With Billy dispatched to the studio, Holly took another look at her reflection in the mirror. She wanted desperately to believe that the events of the previous night had just been a weird and not-so-wonderful nightmare, but the physical evidence was difficult to dismiss.

As she went through the motions of getting showered and dressed, her mind remained focused on finding a rational explanation for what had happened the night before. There was absolutely no doubt that she’d left the house during the night. The open kitchen door and the wet jog pants proved that she had gone into the garden. The wooden box left abandoned on the kitchen table confirmed that she had been playing with the moondial. But at what point did reality end and her imagination take over?

Everything made sense up until the point when she banged her head. A mild concussion might explain her bizarre vision of the future; in fact, it was the only explanation Holly was willing to consider.

Refusing to waste any more time thinking about the hallucination, she readied herself for a full day’s work. She went downstairs and made the promised pot of tea for the builders and then a strong cup of coffee for herself.

Holly set out the tools of her trade on the kitchen table, determined to spend the day focused on Mrs. Bronson’s commission. Being organized and disciplined sometimes conflicted with her creativity, but today she needed something to concentrate her mind on. No distractions.

Tom phoned. There were some distractions that were an exception to the rule and Holly needed the comfort of simply hearing his voice.

“Good morning, my light, my life,” Tom chirped.

“Good morning, my compass, my anchor,” replied Holly, and she was surprised at how relieved she was to have Tom hear and acknowledge her. She thought of the man she had seen the night before, bereft and lost, but quickly pushed the image from her mind.

“Haven’t disturbed you, have I?” Tom asked.

“No, not at all. You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve missed you.”

“Not got the substitute installed yet, then?” Tom asked playfully.

Holly smiled, enjoying the normality of the conversation. The tension she had been carrying with her all morning slipped from her body. “It was a bit fraught earlier,” she told Tom. “But I’ve managed to kick the rugby team out of my bed.”

“Only one rugby team? Your stamina must be slipping.”

“So how about you? Sourced out a string of hussies to keep you busy?”

“Oh, there was extensive auditioning last night but no one compares to you.”

“I miss you,” Holly whispered, unable to keep up the pretense any longer.

“I miss you, too.”

“I don’t think I can bear to be away from you for so long. To hell with Mrs. Bronson, I should come and join you.”

There was the longest silence. Holly sensed Tom’s agreement, but neither of them wanted to break their resolve to see this through.

“No, ignore me,” Holly added quickly before Tom could answer. “I’ve had a bad night, that’s all. And it’s only been one day. I’ll be fine, honest. It’ll take a few days for me to settle and after all, I’ve got this damned commission to do. Throwing in the towel just isn’t an option. I’ve only got today and tomorrow left to get the designs right. I’ll throw myself into my work and I’ll be fine. Ignore me. I’ll be fine. Honest.”

“Holly.”

“Yes?”

“You’re rambling.”

Holly sighed. “Sorry.”

“So you didn’t have a good night?”

“Now that’s an understatement.” Holly paused, not sure about how much she could tell Tom without worrying him. “Now don’t go freaking out, but I had a bit of an accident. And no, I don’t mean I wet the bed.” She hoped the levity in her voice sounded genuine.

“What kind of accident? Are you OK?” Tom’s voice was laced with anxiety.

Holly did a quick editing exercise in her mind. Tom was level-headed about most things, but he’d be sending her off for a brain scan if she mentioned hallucinations. “I was in the garden and slipped. It’s just a graze on the cheek, nothing major.”

“You banged your head? Did you knock yourself out? Did you lose consciousness?”

“I watch the medical dramas, too, you know. No, I didn’t lose consciousness. No concussion, doctor, honest,” Holly said with an air of confidence she didn’t feel. “Although I may have dented the moondial with my head.”

“What do you mean, the moondial? Don’t you mean the sundial? Are you sure that knock to the head didn’t affect your senses?”

“I’m fine,” repeated Holly, a little too curtly. Tom was closer to the truth than he realized. “It was Jocelyn who called it a moondial and she should know. She lived here first.”

Holly had already told Tom all about her unexpected visitor and mentioning Jocelyn again was a good way to change the subject. Holly hadn’t exactly lied to Tom about her fall, but she hadn’t told him the whole truth either. “She wasn’t very impressed with the rest of the garden, though, and I was actually embarrassed. So when are you going to spend time at home long enough to get it sorted?” she asked.