Barbara Erskine - Hiding From the Light

The bedroom was in darkness. ‘Emma? Are you awake?’ He turned on the lamp in the corner. Emma was lying across the bed, her face buried in the pillow. She was wearing grey silk pyjamas. ‘Em?’ he whispered. He sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Are you asleep?’

There was no answer.

‘Would you like me to bring you something?’ He waited for several seconds, then with a sigh he turned off the light and crept out of the room.

On the bed Emma stirred. Hugging the pillow she turned over, her dark hair fanned out across the sheets and, in her sleep, she began once more to cry.

She was late into the office and within seconds of sitting down at her desk, she stood up again. Her hands were shaking and she had the worst headache she could remember.

Emma!

The voice was in her head again.

Emma! Buy it! You’ve got to, Emma. You have to come back, Emma!

She had awoken late, drenched in perspiration, her bedclothes tied in knots, but her dreams, if she had had any, were gone beyond recall. Piers had already left, after presumably sleeping on the sofa.

‘You OK, Emma?’ A colleague passing her desk stopped, concerned. ‘You look as though you tied one on last night with a vengeance!’ He laughed.

She glared at him and turned back to her desk, rifling through a drawer for some paracetamol. Then she picked up the phone. ‘Mr Fortingale? It’s Emma Dickson. Are you better?’ She only remembered just in time to ask. ‘I wondered if you had heard back from the Simpsons yet about my offer?’ Grasping the receiver with both hands, she stared unseeing at the computer monitor on her desk as she listened to the muffled voice the other end. She nodded slowly. ‘Good. Thank you. No, I told you, I don’t need a survey. I am instructing my solicitors this morning and as I said, I have nothing to sell. It’s a cash transaction and as the house is empty, hopefully it can all go through very fast indeed.’ She stood for a long time, listening to the whine on the phone after he had hung up, then gently she tipped the receiver back onto its base.

David Spencer looked up from the report he was studying as Emma appeared in the doorway of his office. She had tapped on the open door then hovered, staring in without seeming to see him.

‘Emma?’ He rose to his feet. ‘Is there a problem?’

She frowned, visibly trying to pull herself together and came in, closing the door behind her. ‘I’m giving in my notice, David.’ She stood in front of his desk, not meeting his eye. ‘I’m leaving London.’

‘You are joking!’ David ran his hand through thin, greying hair so that the carefully arranged strands rose in disarray around his head. ‘You can’t – what’s happened? For God’s sake, sit down. You don’t mean it.’

She obeyed him, pulling up a chair, and leaned forward, elbows on his desk, her head in her hands. ‘I do mean it, David. I’m sorry. I’ll work out my notice, of course.’

‘But why?’ He resumed his own seat opposite her. His voice was suddenly gentle. ‘Are you ill?’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Mad, perhaps.’ She gave a small, helpless laugh. ‘I’m buying a house in the country and I’m going to work there. I need a break from the City.’

You have to come back, Emma!

The words echoed in her mind for a moment. What was she saying? What was she doing? She was throwing away her career, her relationship, her home, her life. She looked up at David and he noted her pale face and red-rimmed eyes.

‘Is this something to do with Piers? Have you two split up?’

‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘Well, yes, I suppose we have. We will. He thinks I’m mad.’

‘You are. Look,’ he stood up again, ‘don’t say any more, Emma. Go home. You don’t look at all well, if I may say so. Think about this. Take a few days off. Don’t do anything you might regret. Please.’ He leaned forward across the desk and put his hands over hers. ‘You’re good at your job, Emma. Don’t throw it away.’

He watched her go back to her desk through the glass wall of his office. She picked up her bag and her briefcase, stood for a moment staring down at her desk, then left without a word to either of her colleagues, both of whom looked up and spoke to her as she passed. He frowned. There was something very wrong. He stood for several seconds staring down at his phone, then he picked up the receiver and dialled Piers’s direct line.

Tuesday afternoon

‘Emma?’ Piers pushed open the front door and pocketing his keys walked through the small white-painted hall into the living room. ‘Are you back?’

The French doors were open and he headed towards them, spotting her at once. She was lying on the swing seat, eyes closed, Max curled in the crook of her arm.

‘Hi, old thing. What are you doing home?’ He sat down on the edge of a chair near her, incongruous in his city suit and smart black shoes, noting that she too was still dressed in her office clothes.

‘I wasn’t feeling too good.’ She opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘What are you doing here yourself?’

‘I had a whole lot of reports to check and I kept thinking of this roof garden and a glass of white wine and how awful it was to be stuck in a glass palace in this heat and I thought, I’m going to play hooky!’ He smiled and climbed to his feet with a groan. ‘I’m going to have a shower and change into something more comfortable. Is there anything I can get you?’

Shaking her head, she closed her eyes again and he watched her for a moment, frowning.

When he came out again some time later she was asleep. Good as his word, he settled down to study the reports, glancing every now and then in her direction as the sun moved round towards the west and the shadow under the canopy where she lay deepened. It was still very hot. He finished a stack of papers, returned them to his briefcase and withdrew another pile. Somewhere below in the busy street he heard the wailing note of a police siren. It sounded for several seconds very close, then rapidly it faded into the distance as the car sped away towards the Cromwell Road.

In her dream Emma stood in the doorway of the cottage, looking round. She was dressed in a black cloak but under it her gown was silk, embroidered with flowers. ‘Liza?’ Her voice was her own, but the words came out strangely, with a soft country burr and unaccustomed words. ‘Liza, where be ye? I’ve brought ye some butter and some posset.’

She moved forward into the kitchen she knew so well. This small dower house on her father’s estate had been given to Liza in her old age as a reward for her care of this wayward young woman and her brother after their mother’s death. The fire was lit and a pot of water was hanging over it. She glanced in. It had nearly boiled dry. No herbs. No vegetables. Taking a thick cloth to pad her hands she lifted it off the hook and setting it down at the edge of the hearth she looked round for Liza’s cats. There were two, adored and spoiled, which the old woman had reared from kittens over twenty years before while she still lived up at the hall. If she was not careful they would steal the butter before Liza had set eyes on it. There was no sign of them.

The table behind her was strewn with flower heads. Two small boxes of dried herbs stood nearby, both open, both spilled. A knife lay on the floor, the small pestle and mortar beside it. Sarah frowned, a frightened chill suddenly settling over her, cold as the mist that drifted in the lane outside and shrouded the church. ‘Liza? Where are you?’ The whisper was scarcely audible. She moved to the foot of the stairs and stared up, her foot on the bottom step. For a moment she couldn’t force herself to move, then as she put her foot forward the door opened behind her.