Текст книги "The House on Fever Street"
Автор книги: Celina Grace
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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
Chapter Twenty-Four
Their vow of silence held. In the weeks that followed, they spoke of many things but Candice Stanton was not one of them. Jake went to work, came home, went to bed, got up the next morning and went to work. The dull routine of his days helped a little; it gave him something to focus on. It didn’t help much. The routine couldn’t help with the constant undercurrent of fear that ran through his days like a poisonous thread. It drove him from his bed in the mornings, to stand shivering under the shower. It was with him last thing at night, crowding his mind until the sleeping pills he was taking nightly began to wipe his thoughts away. He began to dread the landing, and the walk down the stairs, thinking of Candice’s head hitting the tiled floor, remembering the sound it made. After a while, he could only make the journey downstairs with his eyes shut, holding onto the banister and feeling for each step with his feet. He avoided walking on the cracked tile.
His work suffered. Luckily, the company was going through some troubled times and had no time to waste tracking each individual employee. Jake considered getting a long-term sick note but rejected the idea. The thought of being at Fever Street day after day, knowing what lay under the shed, less than forty feet from the house… it made him shudder.
By November, it was a bit – a little bit – easier. The days were short, the light draining from the sky at four in the afternoon, the sky gloomy and ragged with clouds. From the kitchen window, Jake could see almost nothing of the garden, just the ragged edge of the lawn, and the shed was hidden entirely from view. Those evenings, when the lamp light shone soft and golden, with the television murmuring quietly in the corner of the living room; when Veronica curled herself into the corner of the sofa to read her magazines and Jake could sit near her; when Carl was working late and it was just the two of them, being quiet and still together, he could almost manage to forget. Almost.
It was the dreams that were the worst. Almost nightly, they waited for him to slip into Temazepam’d unconsciousness. The drugs would stupefy him for four hours and then in the tail end of the night, in the coldest part of the night, the dreams would stealthily gather in the pit of his brain, ebbing into his unconscious. They were confused scrimmages – scraps of memory, images of desire. Once he dreamed that Candice Stanton was walking up the stairs, inexorably, unstoppable. He’d turned to get away, moving as if wading through treacle, in that dreadful way that dreams have of slowing movement, of being unable to get away. Then he’d woken in his own bed, drenched with sweat, trembling – turned, and found Candice lying next to him, her shattered head resting on his pillow. He’d really woken then, screamed himself awake with a sound that woke the others. He knew they were awake because as he lay there, feeling his heart thud away against the walls of his chest, he heard them whispering outside in the corridor. But neither one came in, or knocked, and in the morning, as he sat grey-faced and baggy eyed in the kitchen, neither one mentioned it.
The weeks passed. Christmas came and went, the usual day of so-called celebration at their father’s house, false smiles and making an early escape as possible. Veronica and Carl went out for New Year but Jake stayed in, working his way through a bottle of vodka, quickly enough to ensure he passed out at two minutes past midnight.
Spring became a hint, a whisper of warmth on the February breezes. Jake went to work, came home, went to work again. The dreams began to become a little less frequent but no less terrifying in their intensity. He took to staring out at the shed, just glimpsed from the bathroom window at the back of the house. The branches of the trees surrounding the shed grew buds, became filmed with a lacy green haze. The leaves grew thicker, hiding the roof from his gaze. The grass in the back garden grew slowly, inexorably, uncut for months.
And then, one day at the very end of June, Jake couldn’t get out of bed at all. He opened his eyes to the ceiling, to another day of this crashing, awful, unending nightmare, and he’d shut them again. He couldn’t move. He dismissed thoughts of work, of Jake and Veronica. He couldn’t move. He shut his eyes and slept again. When he opened them five hours later, he took two sleeping tablets and slept again. Dimly, as he drifted to unconsciousness, he heard the phone ringing. It was still ringing when he woke up in the early evening. He heard it picked up and Veronica’s voice. He shut his eyes again, drifted.
His bedroom door opened. Jake forced his eyes open. Carl stood in the doorway, looking at him, unsmiling.
“What’s up with you?”
Jake considered.
“Tired,” he said, after a moment.
“No shit. You’ve been in bed all day. Your work rang – V told them you were sick.”
“I am sick.”
Carl walked closer to the bed. Jake didn’t look at him. He stared up at the ceiling.
“Are you going to get up?”
Jake was silent.
Carl sighed.
“Have it your way.”
Jake closed his eyes again as Carl left the room.
He stayed in bed for a week. He didn’t wash. Veronica brought him cups of tea and plates of toast that he ate, grudgingly. She opened the window of his room and he waited until she was out of the room and then shut it again. He kept the curtains drawn.
He slept as much as he could. During the day, he found he didn’t dream, or didn’t dream of Candice, which was the important thing. When he was awake, he read magazines or his old collection of Viz comics, or watched a bit of television, or stared into space. He didn’t bother ringing his workplace – work felt like another lifetime ago, something completely separate from his life now. He didn’t think, or he tried not to think – it was harder than it sounded.
On the seventh day, he woke up incredibly early, at sunrise. He lay in bed, listening to the early morning birdsong, and felt the grey fog that surrounded him begin to lift. He watched a sunbeam creep gradually across the wall of his bedroom and felt his own spirit begin a slow and gradual lightening. It was so obvious, what he had to do. He would go to the police. He would tell them everything, and they would come and take the body away and whatever happened after that, happened. It couldn’t possibly be worse than what he’d been going through. It couldn’t possibly. He would deal with it, he knew he’d be able to deal with it. He couldn’t go on living like this, not for anything, not another day, not another minute.
The resolution he’d come to brought him such relief, he knew it was the right decision. He leapt out of bed, actually leapt, and ran to the shower. Scouring a week’s worth of grime from his skin brought him intense pleasure. He didn’t even look out of the window at the leaf-hidden roof of the shed.
It’s the right thing to do, he told himself. The right thing.
As he was dressing, he heard the front door slam and a moment later, the roar of Carl’s car. Off to work early then. He had planned to go straight to the police station but on impulse, he decided to go to and see Carl at work. It was only fair to tell him. For a moment, his euphoria dipped. What would Carl say? What would Carl do? Jake began to dress, slowly, his fingers fumbling over zips and buttons, as if he’d forgotten how to fasten his clothes. But I have to do something, he said to himself. I can’t go on like this.
It felt strange to be out of the house on Fever Street, after more than a week of seclusion. He walked slowly down towards the entrance to the Underground station. The morning commuters were beginning to flock towards the trains. He saw the Evening Standard seller’s board outside the station and saw the headline London Wins Olympic Bid. In his earlier life, the life before Candice Stanton, he might have been quite excited about that. He took the Northern Line down to Kings Cross. More and more people crammed themselves onto the train at every stop. Carl’s office was in Holborn so Jake battled his way through the crowds at Kings Cross and waded towards the Piccadilly line. As he reached the southbound platform, he could see the digital clock flick from 08.45 to 08.46. His early-morning elation was dissolving. Could he actually do this? Could he really go through with his plan? He tried to think of the possible outcomes but his mind was a blank. All he came up with was a queasy montage of late-night crime shows, blue-lit police cells, confrontations on the steps of a court house.
There was a low rumble, a metallic mutter and clatter as a train drew into the platform. People began to struggle towards the doors. Jake edged himself into the carriage and moved between the seats. He clenched his hand around the cool metal of the bar above his head. The rattle of the train was like the beat of a drum inside his head. Christ, could he do it? Did he have the courage to do it?
The platform flickered past the speeding windows of the train as it passed into the tunnel entrance. Jake shifted his grip on the bar. He was surrounded by people but he could only think of three – himself, Jake and Veronica. Could he do it to them? Could he –
He never finished the sentence. In the next second, came the loudest sound he had ever heard, an ear-splitting roar, a wave of sound so powerful he felt the shock of as a physical blow against his body. The train jolted beneath his feet, throwing him across the carriage. There was enough time for him to gasp, just an eyeblink of time in which to feel fear before the heat and noise struck him and blackness descended. He fell forward into darkness, into silence.
PART THREE
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bella remained sitting on the bed after Jake had told her. She felt frozen there, chilled through to the bone, her hands placed either side of her legs, steadying herself but unable to feel anything beneath her palms. At some point, she’d closed her eyes, in a primitive attempt to ward off what she was being told. But the mental images that came flocking were too terrible to contemplate and she opened them again and kept them fixed on the carpet, seeing but not comprehending the dirt particles, and the hairs and the shoe scuff marks by her feet.
He sat opposite her, in the clothes-strewn armchair that stood by the window. As he’d talked, the light had faded gradually from the square of glass, and Jake’s anguished face had gradually become obliterated by darkness. Eventually, when he’d stopped speaking, they both sat in the dark room, not speaking. Bella could hear Jake’s breathing, jagged after the storm of tears.
“Do you hate me?” he said eventually, with a gasp in his voice.
“No,” said Bella automatically, although she didn’t know what she was feeling towards him. She didn’t know what she was supposed to feel. I’m too young to handle this, she thought inconsequentially.
“It was an accident. She just fell.”
“I know.”
“She missed her footing on the stairs and fell. It was an accident.”
“I know,” said Bella, again. “I almost fell myself once.”
She got up off the bed and walked stiffly over to the bedside light. The click of its switch sounded harsh and condemnatory and despite the soft glow of the bulb, she saw Jake flinch back as if the light had been a powerful spotlight. Through the numbness, she felt a jab of pity for him. He looked down at the floor, his wet face shining in the soft golden light of the lamp. Bella stood by the bed. She couldn’t quite manage to touch him, not yet. She wavered and then walked to the dressing table. Her face in the mirror looked pale, her pupils wide and shocked. She ran a trembling hand through her hair. She was very cold, almost shivering with cold. She pulled a jumper from the drawers and hesitated. It was one of Jake’s. Slowly, she refolded it and put it back.
He was watching her every movement, still breathing raggedly. For a moment, she had an inkling of the toxic stew of emotions he must be going through. Bella found an old cardigan of hers and pulled it on, fumbling the buttons, as if her fingers had gone to sleep. She sat back down on the bed, her legs suddenly too weak to carry her.
“Are you okay?”
Jake was still watching her. She managed to nod.
“I’m okay. I’m just – “
She let the sentence trail off – it was too much effort to complete it.
“Bella? You look like you’re about to faint.”
“Mmmm…”
She blinked. The room began to blur slowly and there was a rustling sound welling in her ears, like the shifting branches of the beech tree in the garden, whispering leaves. The golden glow from the light began to swing slowly in her vision.
The next thing she saw was the carpet again, a foot away from her face. She struggled, trying to raise her head from between her knees. She could feel someone’s warm hand on the back of her neck.
“Get off – get off me – “
“Sorry.”
It was Jake. She brought her head up slowly, blinked dizzily. Jake was sat next to her on the bed and she felt a sudden pulse of alarm. He must have felt her tense beside him and he gave a sudden, gasping sob.
“Oh Bella, Bella, please don’t hate me – don’t be frightened of me – I would never do anything to hurt you, never, never – don’t run away from me, please…”
“Okay,” she said, in a gasp. “I’m okay. Just – just leave me alone for a bit, Jake. I have to be alone for a bit.”
He hesitated, until she said ‘please’ again. Then he stood up, uncertainly.
“Bella – “
She was looking down at the carpet again, trying to breathe deeply.
“What?” she said, without looking up.
“You won’t – “ he said, and stopped.
“What?”
She could hear him swallow before he spoke again.
“You won’t go to the police, will you?”
Bella blinked. She must have misheard him.
“What?” she said, for the third time.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Jake. He mumbled something else. Then she heard him say ‘I’ll be downstairs’ before the door shut behind him.
Bella lay down on the bed, pulling the duvet over her. She was still shivering with cold and clenched her jaw to stop her teeth from chattering. She fixed her eyes on the smeared paint of the bedside table and concentrated on breathing, in and out, in and out, trying to think of nothing else.
Somehow she must have fallen asleep because when she woke, the room was dark and she could feel the warm shape of Jake beside her in the bed. For a disorientated moment, she wondered whether she’d dreamed the entire conversation. Bella lay there quietly, trying to ascertain whether Jake was asleep. As if he’d read her mind, he suddenly said her name, quietly.
“I’m awake,” she said.
He shifted position, rolling over to face her.
“Bella – “ he stopped for a second, and then went on. She had the impression he’d been waiting for hours to for her to wake, so he could speak to her.
“Bella – I know that you might hate me. And I should have told you, I shouldn’t have lied to you. But Christ, can you see how my life has been since it happened? I’ve been in – in torment, wondering what to do. I’ve been suffering so much, I thought I was going mad. I just didn’t know what to do.”
Bella took a deep breath and then closed her mouth again, unable to speak.
Jake pressed on.
“Ever since the bombings – since I met you then, you’ve been my saviour. You’ve been the only person who can save me. I’ve needed you so badly all this time. Believe me, I wanted to tell you so many times but it was as if something was stopping my mouth, gagging me. And the others – “
He stopped speaking. Bella felt a sudden, unpleasant clutch of the stomach. The others – how could she have forgotten them? Carl and Veronica – the other sides of the triangle. Carl – she suddenly felt an actual, physical fear at the thought of him. And Veronica – how did she feel about Veronica?
“What about the others?” she said, so softly that Jake had to ask her to repeat herself.
“God,” he said soberly, when he’d finally heard her. There was a moment’s silence. “Christ – I don’t know. For fuck’s sake, don’t let onto them that you know.”
She felt him move closer, and recognised the touch of his hand, his fingers sliding gently over the curve of her hip. She thought of how she’d felt his hand in the tunnels, after the bombs; how his hand had led her out, from darkness into light. Tears came into her eyes. She took his fingers in hers.
“Why didn’t you go to the police, Jake? It was an accident, you said so yourself. You hadn’t done anything wrong.”
He was silent for a minute.
“I wish we had,” he said. “But – Carl said – Christ, Bella, I was in a state, I was in a mess. I couldn’t even think straight. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to go to court and tell them all the – the sordid things we’d done. And, who’s to say they would have believed us when we told them it was an accident?” He cleared his throat and spoke again in a lower voice. “They wouldn’t have believed us.”
Bella lay in silence. Jake put his hand out to her again, touching her tentatively.
“How did you find out?” he asked her, in a low voice.
“What?”
“What made you – why were you looking in my stuff? Was it – did you just come across it?”
Bella spoke and her voice clogged. She cleared her throat.
“I found the photograph.”
Jake’s stroking hand stilled.
“Photograph?”
Bella blinked in the darkness. It still hurt, even now.
“The photo of – of you all. In bed. You and Carl and Veronica and – and Candice.”
He was holding his breath. She heard him release it.
“That photograph…”
He sounded winded. She turned to him.
“Jake –“
“Sorry. It’s just – Christ – I’d forgotten about that. I’d forgotten all about that.”
“You must have hidden it away and forgotten about it.”
“I must have,” he muttered. “I don’t remember though.”
“You must have,” said Bella, wanting to stop talking about it. “How else could it get there?”
They lay in silence for a long moment.
“Why did you keep the clipping?” she asked.
“What?”
“The newspaper clipping. Why did you keep it?”
Jake didn’t answer for a moment. Then he sighed and moved closer.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I think it was to prove to myself that it actually happened. I had to see it to prove to myself that I wasn’t going mad.”
Bella said nothing. The words reverberated in the dark air above their heads.
Jake put his face against her shoulder. She could feel his breath moving against her skin.
“I love you,” he said quietly, and for the first time, she truly, utterly believed him.
“I love you too,” she said. They turned towards each other in the dark, feeling for warmth and comfort.
“Let’s not talk about this anymore,” said Jake, unsteadily. “Let’s sleep now. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Jake woke her early next morning. They dressed quietly and quickly in the grey half-light of dawn, and then crept down the stairs. Bella was halfway down before she realised it was these stairs that Candice had fallen down. She gulped and held onto the banister, holding herself so tightly that when she was on the other side of the front door, her whole body relaxed with an audible sigh.
“You okay?” whispered Jake.
She nodded. They got into the car and closed the doors as quietly as they could. Jake gently revved the cold engine and then they drove away down the street.
“Are we running away?” said Bella, as they reached the M25. Jake had driven all the way in silence.
He looked grim. “Not quite. We’re going for a day trip, that’s all. Dad’s got some land up in Hertfordshire, thought we’d have a day out.”
“Okay,” said Bella, somewhat unhappy. She felt swept away by circumstance, flailing for a grip on the situation. Briefly, she thought of her workplace. How could she go back to work on Monday? How could she go back to work at all, knowing what she knew? This was what it must have been like for Jake, she realised, after it happened. Having to cope with reality as your whole world fell apart. She clenched her cold hands.
“Can we stop for a coffee?” she said, not really caring what the answer was. Her voice felt creaky from misuse.
“Sure, Bel. We get off at this junction, anyway.”
They stopped briefly at a little roadside café, greasy-spoon standard, the room filled with the comforting smells of hot fat and bitter coffee. Bella cradled the hot paper cup against her breasts, warming herself. She felt divorced from the everyday world, sure that she and Jake were standing out from the landscape in glowing Technicolor, attracting every eye. She felt watched. They got back into the car.
“God, I wish I still smoked,” she said, leaning her head back against the car seat and closing her eyes. Jake didn’t reply.
Soon, he turned off the road and began to bump the car slowly down an unsurfaced track. The winter hedges scraped at the doors with their denuded branches. The sky was greyish-white, sagging with imminent rain. Bella took a last gulp of cooling coffee and crumpled the paper cup in her hand, watching the slow, flapping progress of a solitary black crow across the clouds.
Jake stopped the car at the end of the track. The windscreen showed them a slowly narrowing path, overhung with looming pine trees. Bella felt a momentary qualm. Jake had been so silent, so strange all morning… Feeling her heart begin a slow, queasy thudding, she fumbled for the door catch and pushed the heavy door open.
The air was mild, damp against her face. Bella pulled her scarf more tightly about her neck. She felt wrung dry, empty – drained. Jake stood beside her. After a moment, he reached tentatively for her hand.
“I thought we’d go for a walk,” he said. “If that’s all right by you.”
“Fine,” said Bella, too exhausted to demur. They set off slowly, hand in hand. Like the Babes in the Wood, she thought, with a tired, inner giggle.
Soon the path brought them to a clearing in the trees, looking out over a valley. There was a stone bench by the edge of the path, greened with lichen and glistening with damp. Jake gestured to it.
“Want to sit down?”
In another life, Bella would have protested. Instead, she nodded mutely and settled herself on the cold stone. Damp immediately began to seep into her jeans.
Jake sat beside her and took her hand.
“I’m not sure what you’re thinking,” he said. “Once I was pretty sure I knew what you were thinking all the time. It’s what you want in a relationship, isn’t it, a bit of knowledge of the other person, an insight into what they’re thinking. It was never like that with Carl or Veronica. I could never tell what either of them were thinking, not even my own brother. He was a closed book to me. More so, now. And V – well, who knows what she thinks? Who knows who she is? She’s just as much of a mystery now as she ever was.”
Bella shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t want to think of Veronica, or how Jake thought of her at this moment. Jake continued, clearing his throat.
“I was lost, after what happened. I mean, I was truly lost. I didn’t even have a sense of myself, or of the future, or the past or anything. Everything ended when – when she went down the stairs. And afterwards, I was in a daze, I was in a mess, such a – such a mess… It took me so long to feel normal again, even slightly normal. And then I was just getting a bit better, just a bit, you understand, maybe regaining a percentage point of myself, my original self – well, then you know what happened.”
“The bombs,” said Bella.
Jake sighed. “Yes, the bombs. It was punishment, you know – that’s what I thought. It was punishment for what I’d done. For what we’d done. And then, there you were, coming out of the smoke and you grabbed my hand…”
“You grabbed mine.”
“We grabbed each other’s.”
They were silent for a moment.
“You saved me, Bel. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I would have made it this far. But now you know, now I’ve told you, I feel – “ Jake paused. Bella stole a sideways glance at his face. It looked wiped clean; rapt, stripped of the glowering look that had dominated it ever since she’d known him. He looked like a little boy again. She gripped his hand hard. He went on. “I feel reborn. I feel cleansed. I feel – new.”
Bella’s heart swelled. She put her face against his, cold nose against cold nose, warm lips against warm lips.
“So, you see Bella, I can’t do this without you. I need you now. Will you – “
He stopped abruptly. Bella held her breath.
“Will you help me with the body?”
It was as if she’d suddenly dropped into glacial water. Bella sat back in shock. Jake grasped her hand as she leaned away from him, babbling in his panic.
“I need to see it, don’t you see Bella – we can’t do anything until we see it – the police will need to see it – I need to go into the shed but I can’t do it without you – please don’t leave me to do this on my own. Please – “
Bella stood up abruptly. Her heartbeat actually hurt – she could feel it thudding against her ribcage, making her catch her breath. For a second there, she’d actually thought… you idiot, she told herself in fury. You have no idea what’s going on.
She looked out over the valley, holding her clenched hands in her pockets. Behind her, she could hear Jake shifting from foot to foot.
“Bella – “ he said, tentatively. There was a plaintive, hopeless note in her voice that made her throat close up. Oh God, what to do… She heard herself give a gasp that was close to a sob.
Then Jake’s arms were around her, warm and close and holding her tight. She buried her face against the roughness of his jacket, her tears making a small damp patch on his shoulder. She heaved with sobs, holding Jake about the middle, feeling his hand stroke her hair, hearing his small, wordless soothings.
Eventually, her tears ceased. She disentangled herself gently and stood back, swiping her hand under her running nose. I must look like hell, she thought, before the following thought came immediately – who cares?
Jake put a hand on each of her shoulders. She stared into his face, his well-known face, drawn and tired and furred with stubble, but still beautiful to her. She’d seen that face in first morning light and in the last rays of the evening sun; in the ash-choked darkness of a London tube tunnel; twisted in pain, clenched in ecstasy, swollen with tiredness; had seen it smiling, laughing, crying. It was more familiar to her than her own. She put a hand up to his cheek.
“I’ll help you,” she said and listened with a thudding heart to his sigh of relief.
