Halton Cray (Shadows of the World Book 1) (13 page)

‘Poor kid must’ve been so scared. It was lucky you
and that guy were around. Speaking of which, what’s this Thom like? Isn’t he
the one Stacey calls a ghost?’

‘He would be the one.’

‘Even though this ghost dives into rivers?’ She
smiled.

‘I wish Stacey were as overwhelmed by common sense
as you are, Bee.’

‘So what does this Thom person do? What’s he
like?’

‘He’s the curator. Not just at Halton Cray, but at
Richford House, too. He spends most of his time working from what I can tell.’

‘Okay,’ she said after a pause. ‘You didn’t answer
what he’s like. That is, other than transparent and likes rattling chains.’

‘Oh, I don’t know.’ – I caught a knowing glance
from her. – ‘He’s okay. He’s nice, a bit sarcastic, but in a good way. I mean,
not
in a good way. Just in a funny, cheeky sort of way. He’s just okay.’

She gave me an intelligent smile.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ Her smile grew. ‘He’s nice, funny and
okay. It’s not saying much about him, considering you’ve spent some time
together.’

‘And I suppose that means something?’

‘Of course it does.’ She began shuffling through
takeaway menus. ‘There’s just as much, if not more meaning in the things people
don’t say than those they do. It means you’re not sure it’s all okay, but you
don’t want to find out yet because you’re enjoying it, so better not spoil it
by letting a wise friend tell you to stay away from him.’

‘Wise words my friend!’ I took a moment. ‘So
are
you telling me to stay away from him?’

‘I don’t need to. If you’re the one avoiding
telling me what he’s about, then you already know what I might say if you did
tell me all.’

‘So, I’m not telling you something because you
might say something that I already know, on some level, but am afraid of
admitting to myself?’

‘Yeah, that’s it!’ She giggled.

‘I’m so confused! Really though, I don’t know what
else to say about him. He’s quirky, okay?’

‘Like you.’

‘I’m not saying it’s a bad thing.’

‘God forbid! But you like him?’

‘I won’t deny I like quirky. Anyway, enough
shoptalk!’ I felt the heat in my cheeks. ‘Let’s eat.’

After dinner we put on a movie, keeping the volume
low because Beth’s daughter, Eloise, was now in bed. I tried to pay attention
but I couldn’t help drifting into daydreams of my quirky friend.

The scent of Thom’s shirt was overpowering when I
got indoors. In my rush earlier I’d forgotten to take it back with me. That
spicy smell of him filled the entire house. Its potency had grown and
manifested to spread into every corner of every room, like an inviting
red
weed
.

I fell asleep that night the minute my head hit
the pillow. It was probably the best sleep I ever had. Maybe it helped that I
couldn’t hear the foxes outside screaming like a troop of deranged monkeys.
Perhaps they didn’t like the fog that kept returning after dark.

Thirteen

‘
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with
easeful Death, call’d him soft names in many a mused rhyme, to take into the
air my quiet breath.’

– John Keats,
Ode to a Nightingale

It was bound to happen. The
following Tuesday I missed my bus and had to wait twenty minutes for another. I
hurried to the Cray, noticing it was one of those rare days where patches of
blue were present directly over the estate.

Turning into the car park I saw Daniel heading out.
I didn’t see him often, but I hadn’t time to stop and chat. He was practically
laughing as I approached to pass him.

‘Hey! So, I heard you were a bit of a hero the
other day,’ he said, while opening a can of fizzy drink. ‘Shame I missed it. Did
you enjoy your swim?’

‘It was invigorating. You should
really
give it a go. Seriously, Thom was the hero.’ – I felt a quickening under my
ribs at just pronouncing his name.

‘That’s not what I heard, Alex, and from the horse’s
mouth. You know, I lost a mobile phone in that river once. You didn’t happen to
see it down there? –
Hey
! Where’s the fire?’

‘Sorry, I’m just so late. I’ve got to go.’

‘Well I’m off to Richford. Maybe I’ll see you in
the week!’

I waved and ran to get inside the house. Mrs Evans
stood outside the shop with hands on hips and disappointment scratched into her
lined face.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I panted.

‘No excuses, madam!’ she shot harshly, as if I’d
committed a capital offence. She didn’t give me a chance to explain.

The sound of footsteps descended the staircase
behind me. I knew that tread; that scent on the air. My stomach twisted up as
Mrs Evans continued to scold me in Thom’s earshot.

‘If you don’t want to be here then you know what
to do!’ She snapped her handbag shut with such force I thought she’d broken the
clasp. Clearly she was in a bad mood that I just happened to add to, and take
the entire effect of. It looked like I’d made her late for something – probably
a smoke.

‘You’re needed in the shop.’ She motioned with her
eyes, before turning away. As she passed Thom in the entrance hall, she hollered
to me –

‘I’ll be back round in a moment!’

‘Like a plague of locusts,’ he uttered acrimoniously.

She walked on pretending not to have heard him. He
gave me a look, which was hard to read, before disappearing round the corner
towards his office. It shocked me to hear him mock her directly like that,
though it wasn’t enough to lift my spirits. What bad luck to have him witness her
telling me off like a child. I realised I’d left his shirt hanging on my
bedroom door again.

Mrs Evans returned an hour later, and with an icy
tone told me to mind the front desk. On my way round, I noticed a certain woman
down the corridor, lingering just inside the Colman Smith Gallery. It was Carla-Louise.
I went to the De Morgan Gallery for cover. I couldn’t help needing a closer
look. She was pacing impatiently back and forth outside Thom’s office, huffing
and puffing on each turn, swinging her immaculate hair about her shoulders. – Frances
approached her.

‘Can I help you?’

‘I’m looking for Thom.’ She raised her head to
Frances, because the latter eye-levelled her. ‘He must be playing hide-and-seek
lately, but I’m not having any fun.’

‘I’m sorry but he’s not here at the moment,’ she
said in her delicate way. ‘I think he’s only been out for an hour or so.’

‘Oh, so you were joking?’ She blatantly looked
Frances up and down.

‘Sorry?’

‘When you asked if you could help me,’ she scoffed.
‘It was clearly a joke.’

‘If you think talking to people like that will get
you anywhere –!’ Frances began, revealing another side to her.

Meanwhile, I noticed Thom standing just within the
alley, slowly opening the door. He was listening – a scornful look vacating his
face. It was seconds before he noticed me, and smiling, he strolled brightly
towards his office.

‘Hello you,’ he greeted her in a husky voice. To
this Carla-
thing
melted like a knob of lard in a hot pan. She opened his
office door and waltzed inside. Thom mimed ‘Sorry’ to Frances, before following
the brunette with the legs.

It was hard to ignore her outward appearance – the
well cut dark eyes, graceful neck and tall figure – these visible irritants to
me. Others may see them as qualities, as beauty often is. The good fairy is
always beautiful. The bad witch always ugly. People too often mistake good
looks for good nature. Could they not see that her arrogance and incivility were
hidden sludge’s beneath the surface of a pretty pond? Thom was not shallow. Her
looks, if he found them attractive at all, were things immaterial to someone
like him. At least I hoped they were. Only I couldn’t fully trust that owing to
my own trepidations and jealousy.

Thom had left his office door open. Frances shook
her head and seeing me, she came hurrying over.

‘Did you hear that awful woman, Alex?’

I nodded.

‘I really don’t like her,’ she exhaled hotly. ‘I
feel sorry for Thom having to deal with people like that.’

‘He seems to be okay with it.’

‘I think he has to put on a bit of a front with
these people. I can’t imagine he could like
her
.’

‘Dan thinks he does like her,’ I muttered, my eyes
falling to the floor. ‘So it’s a mystery.’

‘I disagree with him then. I think Thom’s just
being nice.’

A little too nice than is necessary, I thought.

Silence ensued for an hour back at my desk. Nobody
walked through the house. Outside I could see people ambling, coming and going,
down paths, across the lawns. I watched them uninterestingly out the side window.
I was bored – no, I was dispirited. Mrs Evans’s scolding earlier had thrown me
into a mood of uselessness. Thom’s familiarity with his female friend added
somewhat negatively to this.

I must have drifted into daydreams. Memories of
fun I’d had at the Cray years ago, when responsibility was something alien. – In
my peripheral vision, I saw the smudge of a dark figure pass my desk and
silently exit the house. Instinctively I leant towards the window and looked
round to see who it was. I recognised a prominent belly and dull overcoat,
which he was holding closed at the front, as if trying to conceal something. He
turned down the path that ran round the house and walked awkwardly away. I
didn’t like the idea that he’d been in the house without my knowledge. He truly
gave me the creeps with his lurking in the gardens.

I got up and leant out the door to see where he
would go. He took his time, moving in that zombie fashion, turning the south
side of the house, out of my view, in the direction of the Rose Garden. I remained
in the doorway, watching people leaving the grounds. A family with small
children. An old man with a walking stick. A cluster of teenage girls, five of
them in all, staggering towards the gates. They were giggling and falling on to
one another, clearly drunk. One of them swung a carrier bag around that appeared
to hold a bottle of something. Probably whatever they couldn’t finish. I
predicted what was going to happen just by the way she carelessly swerved the
bag about. At that moment, it split and a glass bottle fell through, smashing
on the concrete. What ever happened to drinking cheap cider from plastic
bottles at that age? Clearly they were more sophisticated than I ever was.
Faithful to my prediction the girls ran off laughing.

Since small children were running all over the
place, as if it was a playground and not a pathway to a busy car park, I went
straight over to pick up the glass. In my own frustration, I made a grab for
the carrier hastily, which concealed a fragment beneath. The devious shard
pierced the palm of my left hand, deep enough to pin the bag to my skin. It
hurt like hell and made me shriek. A few people looked up. The old man with
walking cane came rushing over. Despite his limp, he got to me quickly. In this
time I’d already yanked out the glass because it looked ridiculous. I
immediately realised my mistake. It now oozed with blood and I had nothing to
wrap it in.

‘Oh dear!’ he exclaimed on reaching me, pulling
his white bushy eyebrows together. ‘That looks bad!’ He took a handkerchief
from his pocket and kindly handed it to me. ‘It’s clean. Now let’s get you
inside.’

I gritted my teeth in agony as I wound the hankie
round my palm. The metallic, full-bodied smell of blood entered my nasal
passages and clung there.

‘The glass was better left in,’ he said, hobbling
at my side. ‘It was corking the wound.’

I caught sight of Thom standing in the doorway
ahead. He was looking straight at me disturbingly. Just the sight of his
familiar face made me want to run into his arms. Tears had wet my cheek, but I
was not embarrassed to wipe them away. Abruptly, Thom turned back inside the
house without a word. Disappointment salted my wound at how he didn’t seem to
care.

‘There’s a lady who works here who does first aid,’
said the old gentleman, who smelt of peppermint. ‘Let’s see if we can find her.
Or maybe you need to go to hospital and have it stitched.’

‘No. I don’t like hospitals!’ I shook my head
doggedly.

We got inside and Frances came hurriedly round the
corner.

‘This is the lady!’ he exclaimed.

‘Oh, Alex! Are you alright?’ She came rushing over
and took my hand in hers, keeping it wrapped in the blood-soaked hankie.
‘Better not let any more escape before we can have a better look. Come on. There’s
a kit in the staffroom.’

I thanked the old man, and apologised for his
handkerchief.

‘Oh, I’ve plenty more of those!’ he said
graciously, turning away with a smile. The sound of his cane striking the stone
floor echoed until we reached the staffroom.

Frances took me over to the sink and unravelled
the reddened hankie.

‘Let me see,’ she said, while turning on the mixer
tap. ‘I might have to tweeze out any debris. No – it looks worse than it is.’

She held my hand under the water for a minute.
Even though my blood was running down the plughole, it felt soothing under the
water – until she took my hand away, then it stung. From the cupboard above our
heads she took out a first aid kit.

‘Apply this pressure, Alex, and keep your hand up
to stop the flow.’

My blood finally began to coagulate. The cut actually
measured about half an inch across at the centre of my palm.

‘It looks clean,’ she said, examining it, ‘and not
as deep as I thought, but it would be better to have it stitched. It reduces
the risk of infection.’

I shook my head. ‘I’ll take my chances. I’m not
having my skin sewn up. The idea of someone darning flesh with a needle makes
me feel sick. It will heal by itself under a bandage.’

From the kit she took a bottle of ethanol and sterile
wipe, warning me that this would sting ‘a little’ before dabbing my cut with
the brutal stuff. I ground my teeth.

‘Just to be safe, have you had a tetanus shot in
the past three years?’

‘Yes,’ I lied.

‘I can butterfly-stitch this, bandage it, and give
you some painkillers.’

I tried to think of something else while she
pulled the flesh closed and began stretching the adhesive stitches across my
cut.

‘I can’t believe Thom!’ I exclaimed, before I
realised I’d said it aloud.

She looked up at me puzzled.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ I hesitated. ‘I just saw him
walk off, that’s all. He didn’t even ask if I was okay.’

‘Well, he probably didn’t want to waste any time. He
came rushing into the De Morgan Gallery saying you’d “Impaled yourself on some
sharp object” and needed me that moment!’

‘Oh.’ Oops.

‘He was rather insistent in hurrying me,’ she went
on, while bandaging my hand. ‘If he hadn’t then answered my questions, which revealed
it to be more like a cut, I would have thought you’d severed your arm or something
very serious. There – all done!’

‘Thank you.’

I assumed Frances was exaggerating his insistence
a little, since he still hadn’t come into the staffroom to see how I was. She
then explained that he was not in the best of moods at present.

‘He’s just this minute discovered an artefact
missing from one of the displays,’ she exhaled. ‘A scythe from a farming
collection. It must have gone missing today, because I saw it in the West
Gallery just yesterday fixed to the wall. I can’t believe that someone was able
to get it down from up there and walk out with it! Thom said it could be
classed as a dangerous weapon, which I think bothered him more than anything.
He has to report it missing to the police, notify the owner of the collection
whom he loaned it from, speak to insurance people, and goodness knows what
else. He’s not happy.’

This put me in my place, well, at first. I knew that
Thom’s world didn’t revolve around me, but affirmation of my initial feelings took
shape when I didn’t see him for the rest of the day. Nor did I see him on my
next shift. It almost felt like he was avoiding me, though I never saw him to
confirm it. It was just the feeling I had.