The Unquiet House (33 page)

She looked at Charlie. She had doubted him, for so long, and all the time he was innocent; the woman’s pawn, not a part of her plan. He might be of her blood, this dark woman’s, but she couldn’t leave him here like this.

‘Let him go,’ she said.

She had expected more, but the woman simply gave a mocking bow and stepped away from him. Charlie blinked, his eyes unfocused, and he raised his head. He frowned, as if he had no recollection of how he came to find himself at the mire.

Emma stepped forward and took his arm. He didn’t react but he did listen when she said softly, ‘I think that’s enough of a walk, Charlie. There’s nothing here. Let’s go.’

He turned his head. ‘I—’ He paused. ‘I don’t—’ and then he coughed, as if embarrassed. She could almost sense him trying to explain his presence here to himself.

‘We’ve been working too hard,’ Emma said. ‘It’s time we had a break. Get away from this place.’

He rubbed his forehead. ‘You’re right. I’m not sure why – I mean, yes. I should be heading home.’

She smiled. ‘You should.’ She could still see the woman’s dark shape, outlined against the reeds at his back. She turned away from it. She took his arm and began to guide him away. There was no need for him to know what had happened. She walked towards the path, the ground beneath her feet becoming firmer with each step, and she saw the bridge ahead of her. Soon they would cross it; they would leave all of this behind. The dead need not concern her any longer, only the living.

Emma did not stop and she did not look back, but still the woman’s voice followed her. She glanced at Charlie, but he showed no sign of having heard it. She paused, closing her eyes, and she felt his hand close over her arm. He said something, but she didn’t listen: she could hear nothing but the woman’s voice, which followed her in a whisper.

‘There are few things more amusing than the deluded. There is
nothing
more amusing than someone who does not know they belong to me already.’

And then, so faintly that she wasn’t sure she had really heard it:
This is your home, Emma
.

Charlie seemed to wake as they went further from the mire. They crossed the bridge and reached the path and the ground was blessedly solid beneath them, and the colours intensified: the sky was deepening, and swallows were wheeling above them. Charlie pulled ahead, rubbing at the back of his neck, and she hurried to keep up. She felt lighter, freer:
alive
.

She failed
, she thought. The woman had failed. She had meant for Emma to die, to drown in the mire alone and away from anyone, and she had
failed
. She relished the cool air in her lungs and Charlie, here with her and himself once again. She remembered the way she’d woken with the telephone in her hand, wanting to speak to someone,
anyone
, to find out who he was and if she could trust him, and now she knew: he wasn’t evil, had never had any scheme, had never been against her. He was just Charlie, and they could get to know each other properly now, no doubts standing between them. She found herself smiling, joy tingling at the edge of her senses. She needn’t be alone.

And then Charlie whirled around and she saw the expression on his face and her smile faded. His skin was pale and his eyes
were wide, still unfocused. ‘I have to go,’ he said. ‘Emma, I’ve stayed here too long. I’m not sure why.’

He turned his back and started to run, away down the slope towards the lane, and after a moment she ran after him. His steps were loud on the road and then he was gone, turned in at the gate. When she caught up to him he was bent double with one arm resting on his car. He let it fall and slumped onto his knees, the crunch of it loud on the gravel. She winced, but he didn’t appear to feel any pain.

Slowly his head turned and he looked up at the house. The way he stared froze her. It was as if he was seeing something she couldn’t see and she looked up at the windows as a shadow passed across it. She shook her head. A cloud, or a bird; it couldn’t be anything else. Not now. Not here. The woman had
failed
.

Charlie bowed his head and his back jerked as if he was retching. She didn’t want to touch him, but after a moment she did, resting her hand lightly on his shoulder. He didn’t respond. It took him a while to raise his head. He turned to her again, and said: ‘There’s something wrong in there, Emma. There’s something in the house.’

She shook her head,
no
, there was nothing, it was all right now; but he looked away from her,
past
her, towards the road and away. ‘I have to go,’ he said.

‘Charlie, no. Not like this.’

‘I have to
get out
.’

‘Please. You could stay a while.’

He shook his head again, the movement wild, and she realised with shock that he was close to tears. ‘I can’t go in there,’ he said. He felt at his pockets, turning even paler, and then he
found his keys and clutched at his chest. ‘It’s all right,’ he muttered. ‘It’s all right.’

‘Charlie, come inside. You can have a drink first, rest a little—’

He pushed himself to his feet and edged around the car, supporting his weight against it once more. He reached the driver’s side door and pulled it open.

‘Wait. Your things …’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘I’ll get them for you.’

‘No! Emma, no. You should get away from here. You should get out.’ And then he paused and said, quietly, ‘If you can.’

‘Charlie?’

He half-fell into the car and fumbled with the keys. It started first time, ready to go, to drive away and leave her, just as they had been given this chance.

She didn’t call out or grab the door as he pulled it closed. She could see it wasn’t any use. He had panicked, that was all; he’d sensed something of what the woman had done to him and he wanted to get away, and she couldn’t blame him. He would leave this place and he would calm down and then, soon, she would see him again. They could start over. He probably wouldn’t even be able to remember why he’d wanted to go so badly. It would be all right.

He reversed onto the grass, the wheels sinking in, and then pulled forward, scattering gravel in his haste. He did not look back as he drove away; he didn’t even look at her.

Emma was left standing on the drive, staring at the road, wondering how long it would be before she saw him again.
He was mine
, she thought. He was only a distant relative, but it was painfully clear now that he was the only one she had.

There’s something in the house
.

Emma closed the door behind her and she knew that Charlie had been wrong. It wasn’t the house that was the problem, it never had been. It was the woman who had tainted it, cursing it with her presence.

She was grateful to be enclosed in its cool shade, its protective walls. Her fear was fading. The mire was behind her and she need never go there again. There had been no reason for Charlie to run away like that. For the first time she felt the stirrings of contempt. What on earth had he been thinking? But he too had been tainted by its ghost. He was of the woman’s blood so perhaps he had simply revolted against it, wanting to cast off her spirit, to get as far away from it as he could.

And it hadn’t been his fault. At least she knew now that Charlie had really been her friend. One day he too would realise that, and when he did, she would be here, waiting, when he came back.

No: she was still leaving, wasn’t she? That was her plan. She had only wanted to come back here and gather her things and get out, like Charlie. She would go far away and never return. She could sell the place, get rid of it –
pass it on
. She shivered.
She realised the house was cold, even now, in the daytime. Its air had a musty taint.

Still, it was hers.
Hers
.

She had seen it in her mind, right from the beginning, a grand place with light spilling down the stairs, gleaming on the polished balustrade and the freshly painted walls, the shining floor. It was a place where she could
live
, not just exist; somewhere that made her special, that set her apart. Somewhere that made her feel as if she belonged.

She swallowed, hard, remembering her parents’ house and her own small flat. They seemed impossibly far away. She didn’t need to run back to them. She no longer felt so frightened. Mire House folded itself around her and calmed her and made her feel safe. She was here now, and she had nowhere else to be. She belonged here. It was
hers
.

This place is your home, Emma. It always has been
.

She shook the woman’s words away. She didn’t have to listen to them. She had taken something that was true and right and made it twisted. Now she was here, inside, safe, she
didn’t
want to leave it. She didn’t want to be anywhere else; she wasn’t sure she had anywhere else left to be. Mire House was the only solid thing in the world. The woman had been right: she
did
belong here – but not in the way she had meant.

Emma closed her eyes. She belonged here because the woman had
failed
. Now she was here,
alone
, but that was all right. Somehow, it always had been. Being alone needn’t be frightening, not here.

She pictured her mother’s face, then her father’s, and they were smiling. They no longer reminded her of the hollow place inside. It had been her greatest fear, to have nothing and no
one left, that she would simply disappear, but now she was
home
. She could exist in its silence and call it peace. She could breathe again.

She did just that, taking a long draught of air, but there was something wrong with it. At first she wasn’t sure what it was, and then she knew: that stale taint – it hadn’t been that way when she’d set out on her walk with Charlie. It had been cleaner then, refreshed by the breeze from windows left ajar, the only scent the chemical tang of paint. Now it smelled of the mire. She looked up at the stairwell. Motes of dust hung there, circling one another like long-dead dancers. She narrowed her eyes. The walls were not as she remembered. The corners were darkened with dust-coated cobwebs and the walls were festooned with dry screws of peeling paint and flecked with mould. She could smell mould now too, the scent strong and organic. She closed her eyes and pictured her own hands, working, covering the walls with fresh paint. She opened them once more and the image faded. Everything was grey. It was shadowed; it was
old
.

She stepped forward and ran her fingertips across the wall, feeling only dust beneath them. Then she went towards the back of the house and pushed open the door to the dining room, one of the last rooms she’d worked on. It was where the mould was coming from, she could tell by the sourer tang in the air. It always had been stronger here at the back of the house, the closest point to the mire.

Dark blotches had spread from the back wall, painting them anew with its clammy fingers. The carpet was uneven, rippling like swampy ground. Beneath the mould the walls were a filthy ochre: the colour of abandonment, of loss. It looked as if no one had been here in a very long time. Emma made a sound in the
back of her throat. She could
see
the room as she had left it, brightened by the work of her hands, of
their
hands, hers and Charlie’s. She had worked so hard to make everything new, to show that it was her own. To
make
it her own. Now its air clogged her throat; she couldn’t breathe. She backed away, turning from it so that she wouldn’t have to see the old house appearing once more, emerging from the past. She must have been wrong. She was only confused, that was all. It must have been one of the other rooms that she’d painted. She had made a mistake.

She stood there, just breathing, forcing herself to think. The drawing room: that was the first thing to be finished when she came here. It was the first room she’d been able to
see
in her mind, the one where her vision was clearest. She had been going to paint it green and read a book in a tall chair by the light of a lamp. Charlie had seen the colour and told her it was perfect. And it was: it
was
.

She walked unsteadily across the hall, noting that the tiles were smeared with muddy footprints. Her own? She wasn’t sure and she didn’t want to think about it. She reached out to push the door open and then she stopped. There were voices, low and urgent, just on the edge of hearing. They were coming from somewhere behind her. At first it sounded as if they were everywhere, echoing around the hard tiles and empty walls of the hallway, and then she heard a soft crunch as of footsteps on gravel. She breathed again. It was someone outside. She couldn’t think who it might be. It occurred to her it could be the dark woman, come to reclaim the house she had built, but somehow it didn’t
feel
like that. She stayed motionless. If she didn’t move, they wouldn’t know she was there. Soon they would go away again.

She listened for a knock but instead the murmuring came again. She couldn’t make out the words but she could tell that one voice belonged to an older woman and one to a man; his voice was lower than her dry, cracked tones. With a start, she realised that she recognised it. She had heard it somewhere before, but she couldn’t remember when. Then she thought:

The voice belonged to the man from the church. What was his name? Frank, that was it. But why was he here, now? She froze and listened again. At last there was a knock at the door. She didn’t move but she leaned towards it, straining to hear.

‘It was never a good place.’ The voice was the woman’s.

‘I don’t suppose it was, Mum.’

‘I never did like you coming ’ere that time. I never wanted you to set foot in it, not really. Not one bit—’ Her voice faded.

‘Aye, well. I shouldn’t ’ave. I know what it led to, Mum. I still remember what ’e said, that ’e weren’t scared …’