Sarah Rayne - What Lies Beneath

She sounded all right but she looked all wrong. Her face was flushed and she was breathing quickly as if she had been running for a long time or was starting a cold. Ella said, ‘Are you all right?’ and her mother said at once that she was perfectly all right.

‘It was just a bit warm in there. And it’s a bit warm now – don’t you think there’s a lot of heat still in the day?’

Ella had had to wind her scarf tightly round her neck and dig her hands deep into her pockets because she had felt cold while she’d waited. But she said, yes, it was quite warm.

They walked home across Mordwich Bank and along to Upper Bramley, looking on the ground for the glint of gold from the wristwatch, but not seeing it. Once her mother paused and said she would have a little rest, she was becoming so out of breath, and once she stopped and unscrewed the top of the medicine bottle she kept in her handbag, and drank from it. The sun had almost set by this time, but Ella thought her mother’s face looked as if she had been lying in hot sunshine for hours and hours. She was not sure if she should be worried about this.

It was not until they turned into the lane leading down to their cottage that Ella finally managed to say, ‘Did you see him? The man?’

Mum took a few minutes to reply, then she said, ‘Yes, he was there. He must have died at once. Clean and quick and painless. You don’t need to worry about it.’

‘Did anyone seem to be around?’

‘No. The house was deserted.’

‘Yes, I see,’ said Ella. As they went into the house, she thought: but then who was playing his music?

After supper Ella’s mother complained of the heat again. ‘It’s really uncomfortable in here,’ she said, taking off the woollen jacket she had been wearing. ‘It’s making my skin itchy. I wonder if we’re due for a thunderstorm.’

By Ella’s bedtime she was gasping with pain and her eyes were bloodshot. She asked Ella to switch on the light and Ella, feeling a bit scared, said, ‘It’s already on.’

‘The bulb must be going. Or I might have a touch of that eye infection – conjunctivitis. I’ll get some ointment from the chemist’s.’

But by Ella’s bedtime her mother was shivering and moaning, rocking back and forth in the chair. When the light from the standard lamp fell on her face, her eyelids were swollen, and large blisters had formed on her neck and on the side of her face. Once she rubbed at them and to Ella’s horror the blister burst and thick yellow fluid ran out of it.

She said, ‘Mum, you’re ill, really ill. Should I get someone?’ She had no clear idea who she should get, but her mother said, in a hoarse crackly voice, ‘I think you’d better just go along next door and ask them to phone the doctor’s surgery from the call box. Can you do that? Tell them to ask the doctor to come out.’

‘Yes, of course.’ Ella was off like a shot, trying not to shiver with fear, trying not to remember the coppery dust that had been everywhere in Priors Bramley.

‘Chemical burns, by the look of it,’ said the doctor when he arrived an hour later. ‘Very unpleasant. I can’t think how you’d get such a thing in an ordinary domestic environment, though, unless… Have you been near to Priors Bramley in the past twenty-four hours? Ah, that might explain it, then. They’re starting to say that Geranos stuff might be harmful, although nobody’s admitting it outright, not yet at any rate. Still, I’ll report it to the Medical Officer for the county. He might be able to get some details about what it actually contains. That way we’d know what we were treating. I’m afraid we’ll have to take you to hospital, Mrs Ford. But don’t worry, you’ll be all right.’

Ella’s mother was in hospital for three weeks, which everyone said was a long time, but Ella was not to worry, the doctors were marvellous these days and her mother would be fine.

Ella stayed with Veronica for the three weeks. She did not visit her mother; the hospital was twelve miles away anyway, which would have meant two bus journeys. Veronica’s father offered to drive her there, but Ella did not want anyone talking to the doctors or nurses in case it came out about actually being in Priors Bramley and the reason for it. So she said visitors were not allowed, and made up a story about a pan of hot oil, meant for frying fish, tipping over and burning her mother’s neck.

When her mother was finally allowed out of hospital, everyone said how wonderful, and how pleased Ella would be to go back home. Ella did not say she was not particularly pleased. She had liked living in Veronica’s house because it was big and there was a beautiful garden where they had tea on the lawn on Sunday afternoons. Several times, looking around her, Ella thought how much she would like to have a house like this.

Her mother was allowed home on a Monday morning, and Ella was given the day off school to meet her. Veronica’s mother took her shopping first so they could get some nice food as a welcome home. She paid for all the food, buying things Ella’s mother would have said were expensive and extravagant, and rounding it all off with grapes and peaches and a bunch of flowers. Ella could put them in a vase and it would be lovely for her mother to see them when she came in.

The cottage smelled sour and a bit damp, and there were newspapers and letters on the doormat. Ella threw these away and opened the windows to let in some fresh air. Veronica’s mother helped put the food away, and hunted out polish and dusters so they could make the cottage spick and span. Ella began to think it would be nice, after all, to be in her own bedroom again, and she looked forward to seeing her mother’s pleasure at the nice fresh cottage and the food.

But her mother did not seem particularly pleased at anything. She was wearing a thick sweater with a scarf wound round her neck, and her hair was combed forward over her face, which was a new thing. She did not say anything about the flowers or the nicely polished furniture, and she said the food was messy foreign stuff and she was surprised at Ella buying such expensive rubbish. When Ella explained that Veronica’s mother had got the food, her mother said, very sharply, ‘I hope she kept a note of everything so I can pay her back.’

‘I don’t think she meant you to. I think it was a sort of present.’

‘I’m not having charity,’ said Mum, even more sharply. ‘I shall post the money to her, or you must give it to Veronica.’

She ate the food Veronica’s mother had left, picking at it suspiciously and turning it over on her fork. Ella had been looking forward to having this meal with Mum after a whole three weeks, but it was all going wrong.

After they had finished eating, her mother’s hair fell back into its usual place, tucked behind her ears. Ella stared at her in horror. Down the whole of one side of her face were dark lumpy scars, ugly and puckered. When she took off the sweater and scarf, there were more of the same scars down her neck.

Ella tried to look away, but could not, and her mother said, very angrily, ‘Yes, Ella, that’s what the Geranos did to me. It burned my skin and the scars won’t ever fade. You killed that man in Cadence Manor – I know you did – and because of what you did I’m scarred and deformed for ever.’

They never talked about it again. Ella did not dare and her mother did not give her chance.

After she came home from hospital she was different. The doctor told Ella that her mother would have to take things easy for several weeks. He offered to organize visits by people who would help with cooking and shopping, but Ella’s mother said they did not want that, and they would manage. After he had gone, she told Ella she did not want people poking and prying.