Borderliners (6 page)

Watching Tony go, I was thoughtful. It was clear he was unable to stay in a room full of people for very long. On reflection I conceded I wasn’t cut out for crowds either, and decided to take my leave.

It often seems to me that the voices of people from my past echo forwards through time. When the mood takes me, I tune into conversations which interest me, voices with something relevant to say. The ones who threaten me, well, I can only say I’m glad to see the back of them.

And I am well attuned to my new surroundings. Such a welcome break from my otherwise parsimonious existence, from the vicious alternation between the pain of absolute solitude and the demands of my ageing mother. My hosts are about my age, but they are wiser than most. Their devotion is impressive and it leads me to wonder what brings about such faith in the unseen. Moreover, their hospitality fascinates me. Only yesterday they hosted a dinner for some people from their community. In other organisations I would imagine they would be a council of some kind, an organising body, but Julia called them something else. She called them her ‘inner circle’.

I watched the proceedings with caution as I’ve never been good at parties, but I needn’t have worried. Julia drew me into the conversation and stuffed me with canapés, too many to choose from. ‘This mini sweetcorn is all the rage,’ she told me. ‘Take one, they’re delicious.’ At one point she disappeared for five minutes and returned with piping hot food which called the assembled party to the table. ‘I did them in my new microwave.’ She stood back to assess the reaction of her guests who didn’t disappoint with their surprise and admiration.

‘Are those things safe? Do they work?’ said an older woman who was standing nearby. I recognised her from the surgery, but didn’t acknowledge her as such. I noticed the others were also key figures from the community: the proprietor of the largest farm, the village’s only lawyer, the pharmacy owner, most of the doctors and a few others who were introduced as local business owners of some sort or another. Most of them were much older than Julia and Iain, but this did not faze them. Julia’s tall willowy presence put them under a kind of spell.

I was introduced to everybody, to so many people. After an hour or so my head was buzzing with the words: ‘This is Tony, my cousin. He’s staying with us for a few weeks and he’s hoping to make headway on his PhD. He’s a Theology scholar, you know.’ People reacted in a variety of ways. Some nodded and smiled but said nothing. Some fixed me with a questioning stare, and others just looked at Julia, as if they were waiting for her permission to ask me something.

Afterwards Julia pushed me towards the bathroom. ‘You’ll enjoy a nice bath now, won’t you?’ she said, but I didn’t need a bath. I could just imagine myself sitting in the tub surrounded by bubbles, each one reflecting my ragged face, which looks crumpled and broken, older than my forty-five years. Suffice to say, she insisted and I’m learning she’s not to used to being questioned. So I did as I was told, listening all the while to the clatter of plates and cutlery, to the bustle of helpers from their community - or whatever it is they run here - I hope to find out soon. Bustle rustle, they busied themselves downstairs as I sat, listening to the water fill up. The bath is an old-fashioned wrought iron tub which suits its surroundings: cold and Victorian, deep and unfathomable. I do not like to bathe. Normally I do it when it suits me, at the same time each week. Routine helps me to organise the others, to keep them where I can intuit their intentions, but it seems Julia has other plans for me. New clothes, too, to replace my jogging bottoms and my old jeans. Not that I’m complaining, but I was quite fond of the old ones.

Maybe I’ll look them out when the coast’s clear.

My grandmother appraised me from the small framed photograph I kept of her in my kitchen. I liked to have it there so that I could talk to her as I prepared my coffee each morning and put the world to rights. If something was bothering me, I would stare over at her as the thick dark mass of espresso spit up through the lid of my Italian caffettiera. Whilst I waited for my coffee, I complained to her about Julia's house party and the diary, which had plagued my thoughts all night. As usual, Nonna Rosa seemed to advise fresh air, just as she had done when I was a little girl. It made perfect sense. With one shot of coffee inside me I pulled on my tracksuit, scraped up my hair and went outside to warm up on my drive.

Mid-stretch, I spied Julia nip out of her front door with her cordless phone against her ear. Darting into my back garden, I tried to listen to what she was saying from behind the fence. Her voice was soft and deliberate as she spoke into her handset. ‘We’ve got to deal with that woman…She collapsed in my house…She’s a liability. It’s because she can’t accept what we’re telling her.’ There was a pause. ‘I have her in mind as one of my candidates for the ceremony…She needs to understand.’ I heard footsteps as she paced nearer to where I was hiding. ‘She’s been going to that therapist. I’m sure. I’ve had her followed.’

I wanted to cough but as I stifled it Julia moved further away and I couldn’t hear much more of the conversation before she ended it. A few more minutes passed before I heard the click of her front door. After waiting another while longer to be sure the coast was clear, I slipped back to my driveway to start my run, easing myself into the early morning silence, iPod clamped to my arm. I scrolled to my favourite running music and set off, gathering pace towards the woods on the outskirts of the village.

Running through the trees usually helped me relax, but today it seemed to whip my mind up into even more of a frenzy. The threat of frost clung to the air as I ran, and I pounded on, pushing myself faster to heat up my hands and feet, cursing my lack of gloves and a hat. As I dodged a myriad of sticks and leaves on the ground I thought about the Tarot again: the card combination my intruder had pulled out was like a ticking time bomb, waiting to drop into this strange and unsettled life of mine.

After an hour or so I found myself back where I had started but my mind, rather than being relaxed post-run, was racing as if to keep pace with my heart.

‘You're up early,’ said a voice on the path ahead. His fluffy sheepdog bounded up to me playfully until he gave it a curt order to stay down.

I stopped in my tracks, aware of the sweat which was dripping from my armpits and clinging to my back; of my naked face and wild hair, purposefully left unwashed until after my exercise.

'I like to run sometimes to clear my head.' This, by way of explanation. It was funny how I always felt like I had to explain my actions to this man.

'Going to the festival later?' Vince continued.

He was in an amiable mood for once, I thought. ‘Probably,’ I answered.

'Well, I won't keep you.' And with that, he closed the conversation and moved off down the road, leaving me standing on the path behind him. I observed the lithe movement of his relaxed stride which the little dog had to trot to keep up with and as I did so, I felt a little shiver of something flutter down my spine. Curious to see if he would turn around to see if I was still watching him, I was a little disappointed that he didn’t.

Back home I turned on the shower in my little en-suite bathroom, allowing the windows to steam up as I gave free rein to my thoughts. At last year’s farm festival, Julia’s entourage had been out in force, giving out leaflets, dragging passers-by onto their stall, expounding the virtues of their belief system via a series of megaphoned monologues. Although friendly enough, their sales patter had been edged with gritty persuasion and there had been something about their technique which reminded me of cold callers.

The phone rang.

‘Hey love, how are you?’ It was my friend Dan. His voice was deep and warm, and its resonance down the phone line was comforting. We’d been friends since college and were still close but I hadn’t heard from him in a while. I could just picture him on the other end of the telephone line. Large and bear-like, he was a good doctor with an easy manner and great at putting his patients at ease. Still quite young, not yet thirty, he was already a partner in a GP practice. His canny way with people extended to an acute sense of how to run a business, too.

‘Dan, hi. I’m fine. Still in this damned village.’

‘Well that was your choice, love.’

We chatted for a few minutes, and he chuckled as I told him about the party next door, and the apparent hostility of those around me. ‘You’ve never been great at making friends, Elena,’ he said. ‘It takes you a while. Accept it. ’

I sighed, changing tack. 'Actually Dan, I might need your help with something.’

He cleared his throat. ‘What trouble have you got yourself into this time?’

‘Oh, nothing like that med school incident, Dan.’ He always sought to remind me of the past mishaps and adventures we had shared at university. ‘No, just a bit of bother I might be in.’

‘A bit of bother?’ I could hear the amusement in his voice, and another slightly smoky chuckle. I relaxed a bit. The darkness shrank away with the sound of his voice.

‘It’s good to talk to you, Dan,’ I said. ‘But you know so many things you shouldn’t! Seriously though, there is something bothering me and I thought you wouldn’t mind…’

‘…If you bore me with it. Go on then.’

I told him about Martha’s death, the Tarot cards and the so-called Charismatic Community. He’d been to visit me in the village before, of course, but I’d merely told him my neighbours ran a prayer group which was popular with the villagers.

‘So you think this neighbour of yours, Julia, has got something to do with it?’ He didn’t sound too convinced. ‘Whatever it is?’

We were verging into student territory. He knew the drill from those days. I’d knock on his door and spout the most recent activity I was into and he’d tell me what was wrong with it.

And right on cue, he did. ‘Not all this New Age nonsense again, love?’

I sighed. ‘Not any more Dan, you know that.’ He still wasn’t taking it seriously. ‘Look, a patient of mine decided to end her own life and you think it’s funny?’

‘No. No no no. I’m just wondering why you continue to attract all these crazies to your doorstep.’ There was a pause and I could just imagine him lighting up one of his cigarettes, so at odds with his profession as a surgeon and yet so endearing.

‘I’m a psychotherapist, remember?’

‘Yes, but this seems beyond the usual remit of a psychotherapist, don’t you think?’ He was serious now. I had been correct about the cigarettes, as I heard him take a thoughtful drag, an almost imperceptible hiss followed by a pregnant gap. I could hear his thoughts ticking over.

‘The Tarot cards, Dan. I can’t think who would have left them.’

‘Well, some nutter, maybe? You sure people there don’t know anything about your past? It’s not the place to advertise it, you know.’ Another hiss and a pause. He didn’t approve of my decision to move to the village from Bristol, where I had completed my training, but he hadn’t understood the opportunity. I closed my eyes, thinking again of the position I’d seen advertised by the Royal College of Psychiatry. It seemed few people wanted to set up on their own in a small village in the middle of nowhere and the position had been easier to secure than I’d imagined. When I played Monopoly I was the one who always got the ‘Get out of jail free’ card, and this had seemed another such opportunity. I wondered about that now.

‘Look, I think you should go to the police and report the card incident a break in.’

‘I can’t, Dan. I need to stay under the radar. The police are already suspicious that I found Martha. Especially after what happened last year with those other patients of mine. I’ve had them on the phone about Martha a few times already. Asking if I had any evidence of her state of mind. No note, you see.’

‘No note?’

‘Erm, yes.’ I realised I hadn’t told Dan this before. ‘Look Dan, I have to go in a minute, but I had something else to ask you?’

‘Oh yes?’ His tone lightened.

‘Yes, an event I wanted you to come to with me,’ I said thinking of the village ball later that autumn. ‘I’ll email over details? Let me know what you think. I’d love it if you could join me.’

‘All right love, but think about going to the police in the meantime.’

‘OK. Bye, take care.’ I put the phone down.

As a village council member, I was expected to attend the local farm festival. Although the village itself had a strong mining tradition, the surrounding area was filled with rolling farm land, something the locals were proud of, and as I drove to the festival through narrow country lanes that morning, I reflected on how they contained a strange juxtaposition of rich farmers in Land Rovers and people in battered old second-hand Renaults. It was a tetchy combination and something which was reflected in local society, too. There was an uncomfortable pyramid of power with farmers at the top and the rest of us at the bottom. The area wasn’t well connected, not even to the nearest big cities, and the variety of work city dwellers took for granted was simply not available. Some people made their own luck, but there were many workless households and a feeling of emptiness abounded. It was as if the heart of the English heartland had been ripped clean out, leaving a great chasm into which people could fall. So there were many festivals and celebrations of the local countryside and sometimes I wondered what else they had been left with.

After ten minutes of driving I reached the field in which the festival was being held, my heart sinking as I manoeuvred my newly washed car through the sludge. There were already lots of other vehicles gleaming silently in the makeshift car park. A cursory scan revealed a few I recognised from the village. People of all ages milled around in wellingtons and raincoats in anticipation of forecast rain, and I looked down at my own footwear, a pair of mid-heeled court shoes, tutting at my lack of foresight. Smoke curled up gently from the corner of the next door field.

I wandered across the grass, milling through intermittent crowds as I went. Familiar faces jumped out but I let them wash over me. Not many of them smiled as I moved from stall to stall, studying all the craft items, the Women’s Institute jams and the Scout group’s carvings, avoiding the children’s fairground rides as I went, allowing my mind to wander as I milled around.