Borderliners (11 page)

‘I didn’t see who you were talking to in the pub, but when you left you looked pretty distracted. Paul thought someone should come after you.’ Taking a step forward, he stretched out his arm to stroke a piece of renegade hair out of my eyes. ‘Your hair is falling out of its hairdo here’ he said. ‘You’re beginning to look like your patients. And behave like them now too.’

Another step closer, but this time it was too dark for me to read anything in his eyes.

‘Joking aside, Elena, you need to be more careful,’ he said, his voice low. ‘That conversation we were having in the pub. It’s all true, the disappearances and suicides. People don’t talk about it. Sometimes it takes an outsider to resurrect the battle. But outsiders have tried in the past, and failed.’

I took a step back into the shrubs which crept up the garden wall adjacent to my front door and my ankle crumpled. Vince caught me and yanked me up, so that we were eye to eye.

‘Look,’ I said, twisting away from his gaze. ‘We need to talk.’

A heavy click on the other side of the wall interrupted my thoughts and I froze as a voice rasped into the darkness. ‘That bitch,’ it said.

Vince froze. ‘Don’t move,’ he hissed.

‘Just what we needed,’ continued the voice. ‘Little bitch, interfering with my guests, with my followers. Nosing into the women’s prayer group, asking patients about us.’

It sounded like he’d been drinking, this holier than thou neighbour of mine. Vince and I stood in silence for another few moments, until a second click told us he had returned to his house.

‘Where were we?’ said Vince, but at that moment, his phone buzzed and he stepped away, releasing me to the cold air and damp bushes. Something like disappointment washed over me, but I banished it quickly, keen to stay in control.

‘Yes,’ he said into his phone and turned away. After a few seconds he shoved the phone into his pocket. ‘I have to go. Let yourself into the house and bolt the door behind you. I’ll ring you later.’

I wanted to tell him I didn’t need to bolt the door, but I didn’t know if he’d appreciate the reasons, so I simply nodded and smiled, waiting for him to leave.

He jerked his head towards the door, hands now thrust into his pockets. ‘Go!’

Shrugging my shoulders, I stepped over to my front door and put the key in the lock, noticing for the first time that I was soaking wet and covered in green foliage. As I opened the door and turned to wave goodbye to Vince, I saw that he had already gone.

Julia awoke me this morning. No, not deliberately. Her voice. It came to me from outside, not from inside my head, and it rose above the voices I had been dreaming of. She was nearby, near enough to hear me breathing, or to hear the voices. But not close enough for me to work out exactly where she was. Both near and far. I held my breath.

I heard her say, ‘I don’t like her, Iain. Can we do something?’

I didn’t hear his reply, which came like a low hum from somewhere else in the house. She said, louder this time. ‘Did you hear? We should do something…Yes, I know. I’ve tried that. It didn’t work. She doesn’t seem bothered.’

Again the hum. Iain’s low voice, droning on.

‘Yes I know. The other doctors are behind us. But I’m worried. It only takes one, Iain. This is what we learnt from our mentors. We need to be cautious.’

Iain spoke again and I strained to listen. His voice, as usual, was low and guttural. He always sounds as if he is hiding a wild animal somewhere inside.

Hum hum hum. It started to get louder. I felt like there was a swarm of bees in the house and tried to keep listening over the racket. I glanced around, fearful my medication had worn off, for in the place of a bed, there was a wooden, slatted contraption with some kind of giant, flat cushion rolled up on the top of it. My eyes itched at the sight and I rubbed them. The walls seemed a different colour. I blinked them away, trying to focus on the conversation outside once more.

‘Well, OK Iain, I know she’s snooping around. Let me deal with it. I know we have the ceremony to think of. And of course, we have our project to complete so that we can be sure our finances are ready for the next stage.’

Another pause filled with the low hum I imagined to be Iain.

I lit up a cigarette as I couldn’t find my roll-ups, took a drag and continued listening but they had stopped talking. I thought I heard Julia coughing outside my door before footsteps retreated down the stairs. I heard a ‘shh’ sound, but then again, it could have been the wind. In the meantime, my bed reappeared in the corner of the room. I breathed a sigh of relief and closed my eyes for a moment.

I must have drifted off into my thoughts as I was surprised to see Julia in my doorway, the door open wide like her eyes. She was bare foot and her was hair wild. I jumped and stubbed out my roll-up.

‘You know, Iain and I don’t smoke. And neither should you,’ she said, still framed by the doorway. ‘And if you wish to become a Charismatic, you must not have vices. It is forbidden.’ She enunciated this, her thin, red lips puckered around the ‘b’ and opened to bare teeth at me as she pronounced the ‘d’. I couldn’t remember saying I wanted to join their organisation, and yet here she was, talking at me as if I had begged her.

‘I was just,’ I started, keen to change the subject, ‘going to ask you. That woman next door. Is she a member of your community?’

Silence descended as Julia shut her mouth and stared over at me. In two decisive steps she was by my side at the desk by the window. She grabbed my pill bottle and wrenched it open, emptying the contents all over the book I had open in front of me.

‘It appears you are not taking your medication,’ she said, her voice laced with an undertone which filled me with dread. ‘I promised your mother.’

I looked up at her and nodded, reaching over to take three tablets which I stuffed into my mouth all at once. Then there was a pause which I fell into. Images of people rose up and stood by her, chanting prayers, poems, rites. They crowded my vision. In the middle of them all Julia raised her hands slowly and chanted something too, her lips moving slowly and deliberately. But I couldn’t hear what she was saying. After a long moment in which I felt myself drowning in the noise, Julia’s eyes flew open and those who had been standing around her faded from view. Then she thrust a glass of water into my hand and ordered me to swallow the tablets - which were still resting in my mouth, half-chewed - down in one.

I sat in my chair for a very long time afterwards, just thinking. My mind turned to thoughts of that woman I’ve seen next door. She seems different from the rest. I made a note of it, as it seemed worth committing to memory. She has such an odd demeanour, one of a true loner. Not unlike me. She reminds me of Camus’ “Outsider”: so detached from the rest. Julia and Iain have what I can only describe as ‘followers’. They are not friends, nor are they what I understand to be congregation. No, they are more reminiscent of fans, almost like those a pop star or sports personality might have.

I watched her yesterday from the window of my new residence. Sad and elusive, she has straight hair which looks a bit like the rest of her – somewhat long, thin, pale and wan, like a ghost. Her poise frightens people off, I’m sure of it. Such confidence. It seems a rarity in these parts. Most of the villagers depend on Julia for affirmation. They require membership of her community to feel a part of life here. The neighbour, however, does not need this. In fact, she appears to reject it. And this puzzles me. At their gathering the other day she seemed to float around, quite separate from everyone else. Julia often says, ‘This is a small village and everybody knows everybody. Most people are very friendly.’ But when I asked her about the neighbours a look passed, like a shadow, between her and Iain.

Moreover, I don’t think the neighbour is a member of Julia’s community. It’s an oddity in this otherwise close knit village world. Yet again, Julia invited me to join, as I thought she would. ‘I’m sorry you didn’t make it last Sunday. We don’t just meet on Sundays, of course, we meet to pray on other days of the week too. If you ever fancy going and you can’t find us, we’re usually there - in the community in a hall on the other side of the village,’ Julia told me, after the strange end to my questions about the neighbour. ‘When you’re ready, we would love it if you joined us for our Sunday meeting - it’s the highlight of our week!’ There was a pause as she fixed me with an enquiring look. When I didn’t reply, she continued. ‘Well, all in good time. Maybe we could start you off at our daily prayer group instead. In the meantime, help yourself to anything from our library.’ She pressed a few books onto me, insisting I took them up to my bedroom to read. I looked down at the books which sat cradled in arms which felt disconnected from my body. They would give me enough to go on for a while, words to delve into, words to contemplate.

So I went with her for my first session at ‘Daily Moments’, Julia’s prayer/meditation group. Whilst I was sitting in contemplation with her group, a strange sensation came over me. As if someone was watching over me. It was a wonderful feeling of peace, one I haven’t experienced for a long time. Not since long before my problems began.

I must have been sitting there for at least an hour, just letting the proceedings wash over me, just listening to Julia’s voice chanting in a low, soothing tone somewhere in the distance as I drifted in and out of this world. Eventually one of the group - an older man, hitherto silent - began to talk. He said, ‘Imagine that love is the sun. You can’t look directly at it but it is there, all around us. Indeed, without it, we are nothing. We would wither up and die. Maybe you can’t feel the warmth of the sun right now, but try taking off your coat or your jumper, and bare your skin to the warmth of the sun’s rays. There, you see. You couldn’t feel the warmth of the sun before, but now that you have peeled off your layers, you can. It is the same with your heart. Maybe you can’t feel love because your heart is cold. Open your heart to love…’

I considered this, hoping one day I would be able to lower my defences, allow others to get closer. I’ve been isolated for so long, not wanting to inflict my problems on others. But maybe it’s the time for me to open up now. I watched the woman next door from my window: so tall, pale, brittle and watchful. As she sat on her garden chair I noticed her look around several times, glancing my way a few times although I knew she couldn’t see me concealed in the shadow of my room. Wary suspicion was etched into her face and the stiffness of her posture gave her the appearance of someone older than her years. On the garden table in front of her was a pack of cards which she placed to one side of a curious little flat typewriter with no paper. I’ve never seen such a thing before.

So many things about this woman are curious, like the village itself which is friendly and yet not friendly. Neither rich nor poor, old nor young. There is no reality here, just shades of grey.

Silent fountains and Japanese water gardens greeted me as I stepped across the decking which led to the entrance of a large, luxurious villa. It housed the health club I was a member of - one of my few guilty pleasures in life. The days had turned to dusky, pithy cold and the decking had been gritted in anticipation of bad weather overnight. As I stepped over it, it seemed to me that the chill of autumn was plummeting along with my mood. I cast a glance towards the wide expanse of polished glass which lay between the decking and the right hand wing of the building, noticing that several people were eating an evening meal in the spa's restaurant. I checked my phone: 8pm. It was getting late, but I needed to unwind and think things over, away from the cards and Martha’s diary.

On first impressions, the place seemed deserted, which was how I liked it. I started off in the gym. Picking up the kettle bells in the far corner of the room, I got stuck in, working through my training regime slowly and thoroughly before moving to the mats to do the moves I’d been taught through the long programme of martial arts training I’d followed as a youngster. My routine drew a few curious looks but I just smiled and got on with it. Once finished I made my way to the changing room to get ready for a swim.

It took me a minute to change. On my way through to the pool, I caught my reflection in the windows. There hung an echo of what others saw: a tall, willowy frame; long, wispily blond hair pinned up, and unusual eyes - I tried not to look at my eyes – pale and wary in the yellow glare of the overhead lights. The floor-to-ceiling glass of the pool windows sucked the night in from outside and distorted my ghostly white body, its long limbs all athletic, but all too thin with it. This wasn’t a body people felt at ease around. My tattoo winked at me from the base of my spine. I found it comforting. Its position meant I didn’t often catch sight of it and sometimes I forgot it was there at all. I stopped for a second, half turning my hips to get a better look.

The quincunx had been my symbol of choice for as long as I could remember. Four connected diamonds within a fifth, it contained meanings in many ancient traditions and religions. In alchemy it represented the theory that the whole amounted to more than the sum of its parts. My favourite was the idea of passing through the four levels of the physical world to reach the fifth, a god-like state or enlightenment. The idea of using discipline of both my mind and my body to rise above the physical world to achieve enlightenment was important to me. It was one of the reasons I lived alone and valued my independence and solitude. Sometimes it was my lifeline.

Lowering myself into the water, I began the first of several sets of lengths. First crawl, then backstroke. After I’d done a few lengths, an uneasy sensation began to gnaw away at my stomach forcing me to stop. Someone in the Jacuzzi was watching me. It was difficult to make out exactly who it was but her body language was uncomfortably familiar. Shaking off her stare, I swam a length of front crawl before lifting my goggles to take a better look.

Up closer I found there was only a late middle aged couple gazing at one another like love-struck teenagers. I quelled a rising sense of hostility to the pair, and got out of the pool to walk towards the Jacuzzi. There really was nobody else there aside from the couple. I perched on a sun lounger at the side of the pool area, a disturbing image in my head: a mixture of the diary and a pair of eyes, as black as night, which rose up to read it with me.