The dimness roared about her, open-throated. The heavy darkness tossed overhead, thickening. She lost the avenue. Dim pillars surrounded her with exits beyond exits, leading deeper into the roaring dark; their tangled archways rocked above her, thrashing loudly. Someone was following her, rapid and vague. She wasn't sure it was James.
The trees moved apart ahead. The wider gap led to little but dimness, but it was an avenue. She ran out from beneath the trees. Foliage hissed wildly on both sides of the avenue, darkness rushed over the grass, but her way was clear ahead. She ran faster, gasping. The avenue led to an edge full of nothing but sky; that must be the top of Mercy Hill. The avenue was wide and empty, except for a long dim sapling in the middle of her path. A crack rolled open briefly between the clouds, spilling gray light. She was running headlong toward the sapling, which was not a sapling at alclass="underline" it was a dreadfully thin figure, nodding toward her, arms stretched wide. She screamed and threw herself aside, toward the trees; a root caught her foot; she fell.
As soon as they reached her flat, James left her.
When she'd recovered from the shock of her fall she had seen him bending down to her. He had helped her to her feet, had guided her through the hectic darkness, without speaking. There was no sapling on the path. His silence rebuked her for fleeing.
He left her at her gate. "Don't leave me now," she pleaded, but he was striding away into the dark.
He was being childish. Had he no idea why she'd fled? Most women wouldn't have let him get so far. She'd tried to understand him, yet the first time she needed understanding he refused to try. She slammed her door angrily. Let him be childish if he enjoyed it. But her anger only delayed her fear of being alone. She hurried through the flat, making sure the windows were locked.
Days passed. She tried to work, but the thought of the nights distracted her; she couldn't stand the flat at night, the patient mocking stillness. She drifted toward the young people she'd interviewed. They knew she was a writer, they showed her off to friends or told her stories; they were comfortingly dull. Occasionally boys would invite her home, but she refused them—even though often as she lay in bed something moved at the window. If she drew the curtains tight, they moved as if it had got in.
Each morning she went to the park. Flights of ducks applauded her visits, squawking, before they plunged into their washes on the lake. The trees filled with pink, with white. There was never anyone about: never James.
One night a shadow appeared on her bedroom wall. She lay staring at it. It was taller than the ceiling; its head folded in half at the top of the wall. Its outline trembled and shifted like steam. It was only a man, waiting for someone outside beneath the lamp. It dwindled to a man's size; it ceased to be a menacing giant. Suddenly she realized that the dwindling meant he had come to the window—he was staring in, and his head still seemed oddly dislocated. She buried her face in the pillow, shaking. It seemed hours before she could look to see that the shadow had gone.
The next day James was in the park.
She saw him as she neared the gate. He was standing at the edge of the lake, against the shattering light. She blinked; her eyes were hot with sleeplessness. Then she began to pace stealthily toward him, like a hunter. He mustn't escape again.
No, that was silly. He wouldn't like her playing tricks on him. She strode loudly; her heels squeaked on the gravel. But he gazed at the sunlight scattered on the water, until she wondered if he meant to ignore her. Only when she was close enough to touch did he turn.
His face was full of the unspoken: the memory or anticipation of pain. "I'm sorry," she said, though she hadn't meant to be so direct. "Please come back."
After a while, when his face showed nothing but calm, he nodded. "I'll come to you tonight," he said. "Do you want me to stay?"
"If you like." She didn't want to dismay him by seeming too eager. But at once she saw the shadow in her room. "Please. Please stay," she said.
He gazed; she thought he wasn't sure whether she wanted him. He mustn't wonder about that. She would tell him all about Alastair. "I'll tell you some things I haven't told you," she said. "I'll tell you tonight. Then you'll understand me better."
He smiled slightly. "I've something to tell you, too." He moved away alongside the lake. "Until tonight," he said.
She ran home smiling. At last she dared think they might have more than half of a relationship. She would cook him meals instead of paying discreetly in restaurants. She could work without slowing to wonder whether she would see him today. She would be safe. Her smile carried her across the park.
She tidied her flat. God, what a mess she'd let accumulate! A poster mapping seventeenth-century Brichester, half-read books by Capote and D. H. Lawrence astray from the bookcases, notes for her own book tangled as the contents of a wastebasket: she'd be able to handle those soon. And all these letters she must answer. One from her publisher: the paperback edition was reprinting. One from the GPO about the delay in providing a telephone: it annoyed her not to be able to phone her friends in Camside—to invite them to meet James, she thought. One from a driving school, offering a free introductory lesson. If she learned to drive it would be worth her visiting friends in Camside: she wouldn't be restricted by the absurdly early last bus back.
When she'd finished she felt exhausted. Her loss of sleep was gaining on her. She checked that the door and windows were locked, smiling: she wouldn't need to do that in future. She'd make sure James stayed with her. She lay down on the couch, to rest.
She woke. The room was dark. But the darkness was shrinking. It had limbs and a head; it was walking on the wall, growing smaller yet closer to her. The ceiling thrust the head down at an angle that would have broken a man's neck. The shadow slipped from the ceiling, yet the head stayed impossibly canted. As she realized that, the shadow was extinguished. At once she felt the man lying beside her. She had to struggle to look; her body felt somehow hampered. But he waited for her. When she turned the face rolled toward her above the emaciated body, like a derisive thick-tongued mask that was almost falling loose: Alastair's face.
She woke gasping. The shadow filled the room; it had pressed against her eyes. She ran blindly to the door and snatched at the light switch. The room was empty, there was nobody outside the window. Night had fallen hours ago; it was past eleven o' clock. James might have come and gone unheard.
Surely he would come back. Wouldn't he? Mightn't he have thought she'd reconsidered, that he'd been right to hear doubt in her voice when she had asked him to come to stay? Might he have taken this as the final rebuff?
She gazed into the mirror, distracted. She must wait outside, then he would know she wanted him. If he came back he mightn't come as far as the door. She tugged at her hair with the brush, viciously. In the reflection of the room, a shadow passed.
She turned violently. There had been a dark movement in the mirror. She felt vulnerable, disoriented by the stealthy fall of night, trapped in unreality. The shadow passed again, dragging its stretched head across the ceiling. Betty ran to the window, but the street was empty. The streetlamp glowed in its lantern.
She couldn't go out there—not until she saw who was casting the shadow. She gazed at the bare pavement, the flat stagnant pool of light. She was still gazing when something dark moved behind her, in the room.
She whipped about, gasping. The shadow was stepping off the edge of the wall, into invisibility. Soon it returned, smaller now, more rapid. Whenever she turned the street was deserted. The shadow repassed, restless, impatient. Each time it was smaller, more intense; its outline hardly vibrated now. Betty kept turning frantically. She heard her body sobbing, felt its dizziness. The shadow was only a little larger than a man; soon he would reach for her. It vanished from the wall, moving purposefully. Her doorbell shrilled, rattling.