“Maudie, darling,” he said. “Tell me what’s been going on.”
I felt a warm, breaking wave of relief. I was going to tell him, finally, at last – I was going to tell him everything I should have told him from the beginning; Jessica, what had really happened in Cornwall, my hopes and doubts and fears - everything. I’d kept the door shut for so long; I’d kept that memory locked away, my ten-year-old mind trying to protect me from the awful truth. But I’d always known, hadn’t I? Because the door was in my head and I carried it around with me. The constant fear I’d felt in the presence of my father, the nervous breakdown, the drinking... all a direct consequence of the door in my mind, and what lay behind it.
Matt was watching my face, very carefully. I raised my eyes to his. “Angus killed Jessica,” I said.
He said nothing. He blinked once, twice. “What?” he said.
“You heard me,” I said. “Angus killed Jessica. My father killed her. In Cornwall, when we were both ten.”
He was silent for a long moment. “What do you mean?” he said eventually.
“I mean what I just said. Angus killed Jessica.”
“But-” he licked his lips and tried again. “What do you mean, he killed her? He really killed her? How do you know?”
“I saw him.”
“You saw him?” He put his hands out to my shoulders again and drew them back, again. “How could you have seen him?”
“When I went downstairs to meet Jessica. She was already there in the cottage. I saw him do it but I – I made myself forget it, I repressed it–”
“You forgot it?” He looked sceptical. “How could you just forget something like that?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know how I did it, but I did. It was like I had a room in my head and the memory went there, and I shut the door on it.”
Matt had been facing me but he slowly turned away. He was staring at the floor but then he looked back sharply. “Are you sure?” he demanded. “Are you sure you’re not just...”
“What?”
“Well-”
“I’m not making it up, if that’s what you mean,” I said. I didn’t speak sharply. I couldn’t summon up any kind of emotion.
He looked in my face again and he must have seen something to convince him. His face contracted a little.
“Why?” he said.
I closed my eyes. “I don’t know,” I said. “I couldn’t hear what they were saying before it – before it happened. Perhaps Jessica was – oh, I don’t know – threatening him over his affair with her mother. Oh yes–” I paused as Matt looked up sharply, “-he was having an affair with her mother. Perhaps he just went mad for a moment.” I gave a small laugh which was half a sob. “It runs in the family, don’t you know? Both sides, it seems.”
Matt black eyebrows were drawn together in a frown.
“Or perhaps there was another reason,” I said, softly. I said it almost to myself. “Perhaps he was – he–”
I had to stop. Did my fear of the open door go deeper than I remembered? I had a vision of myself as a small child, lying in bed, waiting wide-eyed with fear for the opening of the bedroom door. A vision or a memory? That was something I couldn’t face, an abyss too deep to ever climb out of. That was one door I would never open. I swallowed and thrust the thought away.
Matt hadn’t noticed my recent silence. He looked as though he was thinking ferociously hard. His gaze hadn’t moved from the floor.
“I’ll tell you about what’s been happening,” I said, when I was able to speak again. “I should have told you a lot earlier.”
He looked up at that. “Tell me what, Maudie?” he said.
“I need to tell you about Jessica,” I said. “Or someone I thought was Jessica. But it can’t be, because I know that Jessica is dead. I thought she came back, you see. Perhaps she did. Perhaps she is real, or as real as a ghost can be.”
He was staring at me again. “Maudie–” he said.
I went on, talking over him.
“But she’s not real,” I said. “She’s a figment of my imagination. I should have guessed it from the first – the black coat she wore, the way she just appeared from nowhere. I’d been through it all before. She isn’t Jessica, because Jessica is dead. She’s a hallucination. She’s a symptom of my mental illness.”
It took a long time. I had to keep going back over my story, filling in the little details, wondering what to include. He didn’t say much, just nodded, or asked me to repeat a few things. He didn’t touch me; he reached out a couple of times but his hands never quite connected with mine. But he scarcely took his eyes from my face. He had never paid such... such ferocious attention to me, not even at the start of our relationship.
Eventually, I stopped speaking. I felt limp, wrung out; leached of colour. I was spent. That summed it up for me; spent. I had nothing left in me.
After I finished speaking, we sat in silence. Matt had turned his face away again and stared into space. Then he got up. He moved like a man much older than his years.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “And I know this is normally something you’d say - but I need a drink.”
I didn’t watch him moving about the kitchen. I let my eyes go soft and unfocused, and stared into the middle distance. I listened to my heartbeat and my breathing. I’m still alive, I thought. Despite everything. I’m still here.
He came back and stood looking over me again, a brandy glass in his hand. “Have you told anyone else about this?” he said.
I shook my head.
“Seriously Maudie – you’re really sure? You haven’t told Margaret? Or Becca?”
“No.”
Matt leant forward and put his free hand under my chin, tipping my face up towards him. His eyes searched my face.
“Are you certain?” he said.
I shook my head, dislodging his fingers. “Yes.”
He left me again and walked into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him. I didn’t blame him. I was just grateful he was still here. I leaned my aching head against the back of the sofa and closed my eyes.
After a while, I was again aware of Matt’s presence. I opened my eyes to find him holding out a bottle of my pills, and in the other hand, a brimming glass of brandy.
“Here darling,” he said, “drink this.”
I realised he still had his gloves on from when he’d come in from outside. He must have been shocked to forget to take them off – Matt never did silly things like that. I took both things from him. It was odd, but for the first time in years, I didn’t feel like drinking. I felt oddly calm, peaceful even. Whatever had festered inside me for so long had been lanced, the poison drained away. Despite my aching head, and my injuries, I felt cleansed.
“Go on,” said Matt, “Drink it up.”
I took a sip.
“Ugh,” I said, almost gagging. “It tastes foul.”
Matt sat down next to me again, rather gingerly.
“Well, it’s supposed to. Spirits aren’t supposed to taste nice.”
I took another sip and grimaced.
“I’ll have it later,” I said, and put the glass down on the floor.
Matt looked annoyed.
“You’ve had a shock,” he said. “Drink it.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You don’t want a drink? You don’t? That must be a first.”
I felt a sob start to come up through my chest. “I’m sorry, Matt, but I just don’t want it.”
“Well, at least take your pills, then.”
I stared down at the little brown bottle in my hands. “These are sleeping pills.”