* * *
Darkness had fallen. His smart clothes lay in a heap where he had thrown them. It was nine o’clock, and he was well into his third scotch. He had meant to ring Matt, or Philip, or Sam, or the Samaritans — he wasn’t sure which — but in the end he had called no one.
He had spent nearly half an hour with some stranger, a poor imitation of the woman he had married. Kate had sat there wearing a smile that he didn’t recognise, her hair brushed into a style that wasn’t hers.
Before he went in to see her, Lawrence Hassel had advised him that she would be subdued, and perhaps a little forgetful or confused. This was only the effect of her medication and he was not to worry. It would soon begin to wear off as she became more accustomed to the powerful drugs. The good doctor had neglected to mention that Will would not actually be seeing Kate, but some badly put together doppelgänger.
He had cut short his visit and left without saying a word to anyone.
The last thing Will remembered about that terrible day was the clatter as the whisky bottle slid from his grasp and struck the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Will sat on the bench and eyed the latest crack in the wall. A few had appeared since the fen had flooded for the second time and they had called in a surveyor, who had assured them that there was nothing to worry about. Pity, thought Will. He still hated the place.
When the man went on to admire the house, calling it a “sturdy old building, well designed and constructed to withstand the elements and the soft Lincolnshire soil,” Kate had smiled, taking the compliment personally.
They had now lived there a full year.
In the end, Lawrence Hassel had worked wonders. Kate was, to all intents and purposes, back to normal. Except that she could not paint. Both the skill and the desire had gone, and her work for Angela’s eighth volume had been rejected. As Will had feared, the illustrations were far too dark and frightening for a children’s book. Her contract had been terminated.
To his immense sadness, he soon discovered that along with her desire to paint, Kate had also lost her passion for life. Only Will seemed to notice that Kate had become a pretty shell, an empty husk. Of late, he had sensed her drawing even further away from him.
The last time he had felt close to her was a few weeks after she had left the clinic. He had done as she requested and had the rowan tree dragged out on to the fen, where he had burnt what he could of it. The great pyre had lit up the sky for days, and by the time Kate returned, some of the charred trunk remained. He had taken to using the spot for burning garden rubbish that was too big for the incinerator. On that particular day, he had taken out a dead conifer and along with some other garden waste, had built quite a substantial bonfire.
She had stood with him, her arm through his, and they had watched the fire consume the dead fir tree branch by branch. After a while she had gone indoors and to his surprise, returned carrying the dark paintings, which she had committed to the flames.
Then, from under her jacket, she had produced the doll and with a kiss, consigned that too to the pyre.
He had held her tightly, told her that he was proud of her, and kissed her with all his old passion. They had gone up to their room and, tenderly, made love.
The following day her feelings seemed to have cooled along with the ashes, and from that moment on, she began to drift away.
While the news came from Canada that Sophie was improving and becoming stronger, Kate seemed to wane. Every day she became a little more transparent, less substantial.
He gazed at the figure silhouetted against the horizon. He could just make out her red windcheater. She had left at breakfast time, and it was now just after eleven o’clock. He had sat on the bench, daydreaming, unable to force himself to move. He was tired of trying to work out what to do about his wife. He couldn’t bear to think of life without her, but life with her was becoming unbearable too. He really should ring Matt, or maybe Sam, but he couldn’t muster the energy to even make a call.
He stood up and stretched. He had heard the postman earlier but hadn’t bothered to check the mail. It would only be bills. No one ever wrote to them these days. At least Philip phoned regularly. Those calls were the only bright point in Will’s life. Sophie was back at school. She was still receiving therapy, but she was much recovered. There was even talk about her going off to camp again. Philip and Annette had trudged through the mountain of required paperwork and were well on the way to becoming Sophie’s legal parents.
He went to check the post. Among the bills he found a letter, the address written in a clear, childish hand. The stamps told him it came from Canada.
Will turned it over in his hands. After a few moments, he took the letter outside and with a beating heart, tore the envelope open.
Dear Uncle Will,
You may never get to read this, and it feels really spooky to be writing when maybe what I say will only get lost or screwed up and thrown away. My therapist says I should write out my most worrying thoughts, then burn them, letting the sparks fly up to Heaven to be purified. Weird, or what!
Do you remember the rabbit? It ran away last week, and we caught it under Mr Bloomfield’s car. It was lucky we got it out, it could have been run over. I think Mr Bloomfield was more worried about his brake cables, whatever they are!
I have a new mum and dad now. I expect you know that. I hear Annette and Philip talk to you sometimes, they always say it is someone else, but I know it’s you. They will never take the place of my real mum and dad, but they are very kind to me, and I am sorry because I think I have been horrible to them. Dr A. says it is not my fault, it is because I have been ill, and they still love me. I hope so. Dr A. says my therapist is right to tell me to write things out, so I decided to write to you.
The thing is, I don’t want to remember the bad thing that happened because it frightens me, but Dr A. reckons if I talk about it just once, I can forget it for ever. That would be really neat. François is pretty cool about everything and if I start to get freaky she just goes, ‘Oh Soph, chill out will you, you’re upsetting the dog,’ or something like that. She has great clothes by the way and says I can borrow them but she’s bigger than me which is a shame. So, as I want to forget the bad thing for ever, I thought I should tell you that I really should not blame you for what Auntie Kate did. It was not your fault. I know that now, and I also know that she did not mean to hurt me. She was just trying to protect me from the house. See, when Philip left me by the pool that day, I suddenly remembered all the fun Mum and Dad and me used to have. I missed them so much I thought my heart had broken. So, I needed you and I went to find you. I knew that I could do it and I did. But I met Auntie Kate down the lane, and she said it was really dangerous for me to go to the house. She said that I should never have gone to the fen. She hid me somewhere smelly and told me to wait for her. She said that only she could save me. She told me lots of things, Uncle Will, about the horrible things that happen to children out in the marsh. She told me that I must not go to anyone, that the marsh monster could change into anything it liked, even into you. She said I must hide, and if I saw you, it would be the marsh monster in disguise. But she didn’t come back to save me, and she wasn’t there when the men took me away, so I thought they were all monsters.
Well, that sounds really silly, doesn’t it? and I hope Dr A. is right because now I’ve written it out, that means that I can forget it for ever.