39

“Let no stranger intrude here, no invader trespass”

—John Marsden, The Dead of Night

I’m bearing up. What a strange expression that is but apparently it’s what I’m doing. I’m bearing up the grievous weight of Tom’s betrayal and abandonment. I had a text from him—such bravery—his lily-livered words flickering and whispering from the screen.

Isabel—oh so formal now

Thing’s aren’t how they seem. I just need some time to think. I’m at a hotel, not anywhere else. I’m sorry.

Tom

I read this brief missive with cold dispassion.

If anyone had told me a year ago that I would find myself where I am today I wouldn’t have believed I could survive, but here I am. I haven’t withered and died on the vine, not yet. Somehow the knowing, bad though it is, is better than the doubt and a little part of me feels this was inevitable. I’m no longer the person I was back when we first met. Tom has struggled with that fact—and I have struggled with his struggling. I blame his mother—don’t we always—for I think her special brand of love, with its mixture of neediness and control, has shaped his sense of the world and his understanding of what love is.

Eventually we must talk and try to unravel this tangled mess. Not now. If I try to think about the future there’s a roller-coaster dip in my stomach and a shiver through my chest. I can’t face it yet.

Last night I didn’t dream. Mainly because I lay awake, listening, thinking, waiting. The dull thud in my chest marked the minutes, ticking away each hour and pumping the adrenaline through my limbs. Today I’m drained. My hair’s lank and there’s smudged indigo dusting my eyes, every year of my life writ large.

Amy and Zoe have asked why Tom isn’t here and I found myself giving them some lame story of a crisis at work. I can’t face telling them yet. I’m not sure why it should but it feels like I’ve failed somehow.

My negative energy is polluting the air and affecting everyone’s mood. This morning they drooped and sighed until I lost patience and told them to do something, go somewhere. Take the car and go out. I needed them gone for a while; at the moment I need to be alone to find space to think.

Zoe eventually rang Daniel and now he’s taken them both for lunch. He’s so thoughtful and intense, so different from the twins with their brand of audacious boldness born of privilege, that it’s odd to see the three of them together. He’s always appeared to me to be reserved rather than shy but Bill Arthur was here when he turned up today and I was surprised to see how he avoided him. I can only assume he’s different when there’s just him and Zoe for I can’t imagine her attracted by such diffidence. He is an attractive man though so maybe that makes up for it. There’s a look of Keanu Reeves about him; fine featured with those fathomless eyes that you can almost feel grazing your skin when he looks at you.

Now they’ve gone I find myself paralyzed by ennui. I’m just sitting in my studio, too listless even to think. The atmosphere around the coach house adds to my lethargy, that heavy-aired stillness. I run my hands over the arm of the sofa and feel every ridge and bobble of the fabric. It’s the old sofa from our flat and I feel a wave of nostalgia at the memory of us buying it. God we were so excited. We’d just moved in and every purchase, every eggcup, towel and spoon was an adventure. We were an adventure. Every fingertip’s touch, each eyelash, every mole or freckle a discovery and a wonder. I realize that in my mind we’re already over, Tom and me. I fear there’s no coming back from this.

I’m startled from my reverie by the sound of footsteps outside. The first thought that flashes into my mind is that I’m here alone. No one would even hear me scream. I know the door’s locked; it always is. Still I feel a prickle of fear. I never work with the doors unlocked now, the place feels too isolated and remote. Even though I’m happy here, I know bad things can happen.

I freeze and listen. The footsteps have stopped by the doors at the front and my eyes flick upward to check that the bolts are across. I hear someone tentatively trying the doors and see the slight strain of the wood inward. The bolts hold. The footsteps move away from the door and toward the edge of the building. Quickly, without a sound, I move to crouch behind the sofa. If whoever it is goes to the door at the side they could look in at the window and see me if I stay where I am. Thank God I haven’t yet put on the lights to give away my presence. The footsteps continue round to the side door and from my hiding place I see the handle slowly turn, followed by the sound of knocking and a voice tentatively calling, “Hello?”

This gives me some reassurance as it seems so courteous and safe somehow but I’m still not moving, even though the voice, a man’s voice, seems vaguely familiar. I hear him go to the window and stop. There’s a moment’s silence and I imagine him, face pressed to the glass, looking in, scanning the space inside for signs of life. I shrink down as far as I can, hopefully out of sight.

The mirror I use to check the perspective of my work is on the bench and I pray I’m not betrayed by its silvery surface. The mortar and pestle for grinding pigment sit benignly by it. The marble pestle has the hint of a weapon about it and for a moment I imagine it a cudgel, breaking bone. I picture its shiny surface wet and red with blood, stuck with gobbets of gray and tufts of dark hair. My hair. I fight to still the rising panic.

I manage to stay unseen and hear the eventual sound of his retreat, followed by the distant slam of a car door and the sound of an engine starting. My teeth are chattering with fright. I unlock the door and run outside, gasping for air. I find myself dry-heaving into the grass so great was my terror.

I hadn’t considered it before but with no front-facing windows, other than in the annex, there’s no way of seeing who might be approaching. Even with the new windows I’m having fitted to let in the north light, I still won’t be able to see the driveway. If I’m staying here, which now I doubt, I’ll need a security camera.

I’m so shaken I just sit in the damp grass. Everything overwhelms me, and I cry. I hate myself for how weak I’ve become. I hardly ever used to cry, what’s the point. Now it seems I leak tears like a tap.

I feel better afterward but I can’t paint today. I was expecting too much of myself to think that I could. I’d hoped it might help to distract me and calm my thoughts. Painting is so much a part of me that it becomes instinctive and I find I lose myself in the stark order of monochrome or the vibrancy of color.

Matthew’s commission is nearly finished so soon he’ll be committed to memory. It’s funny but I don’t feel the same excitement as before at the thought of him. I wonder, was the attraction I felt something real or was it just my reaction to Tom’s remoteness? Was my sense of the impending loss of him driving me to imagine comfort and longing elsewhere? Whatever the case I’ll keep my distance. I won’t rebound or seek revenge. I won’t compound Tom’s sin with one of my own.

I walk slowly back through the apple orchard, lost in these worthy thoughts. Windfalls lie brown and white-speckled, softly rotting among the leaves and the vinegary scent of their decay seems symbolic somehow. Much promised but gone to molder.

I’m startled by the sound of Bill Arthur’s voice calling my name, “Isabel, Isabel, I’m glad I’ve caught you.”

I turn and see him walking toward me, coming up fast on my blind side with a piece of crumpled paper in his hand. A spurt of adrenaline makes me aware of just how much my mystery visitor has disturbed me.

Bill looks pleased with himself this morning and despite the bleakness of my mood a faint smile finds its way to my lips. He approaches, waving the piece of paper.

“I found it, the number for Steve Turnbull.” I must look blank as he adds, “You know, the tree man.”

I don’t have the heart or the inclination to tell him we probably won’t need him now, so thank him anyway and take the crumpled sheet from his hand.

I look at the number in some confusion.

“Sorry, I jotted it down in a bit of a hurry. You’ll have to change the dialing code, that’s the old one from way back. It’s been a long time since we’ve used him but I don’t think he’s moved.”

I realize I can’t talk to him. My nerves are stretched like piano wire and I just want to lock myself away, to hunker down with my fear. I manage a watery smile and rudely leave him standing there in the orchard.

The house is quiet and my thoughts feel enormous in all this stillness. A surge of pure loneliness runs through me like a chill stream. It’s cold and clear with nothing reflected back bar my own thoughts. I feel a stirring of panic that this could be my life from now on, solitary and silent. My mind spirals ahead to a future where I’m old and strange, withered and whiskery, shuffling through sterile rooms. No lover to keep my oddness in check.

I have to eat. I go through to the kitchen to make a sandwich and instead pour myself a glass of wine, a large one. I think I’ll opt for a downward spiral into alcoholism as a happy alternative. I’ll be kind to myself and curl up on the sofa with my wine and watch a movie; perhaps an afternoon tearjerker where I can wallow in someone else’s misery.

I go upstairs to change out of my jeans and am unprepared for the hollow sound of my footsteps, the echoing squeak and creak of the stairs. I’ve spent a lot of time alone in this house but never have I felt quite so lonely.

I’d thought I would cope when the twins go home, for go they will, eventually. I thought I could stay here, bravely defiant. Now I’m not sure I can. Maybe I’ll go back to London with them when they leave.

I kick off my jeans and the piece of paper Bill gave me flutters from my pocket to the floor. The numbers in his spidery hand look up at me with a jolt of familiarity, their pattern resonating with me in a way I can’t explain. I reach to pick it up and as I do it comes to me: the annex; it’s reminiscent of the numbers etched there on the floor.

Despite myself my interest’s piqued and I riffle through my bedside drawer for the copy I made but it isn’t there. Then I remember, I took it with me to the police station. Unbidden the memory of that visit comes back to me ripe with my humiliation. I remember their exchange of glances and the way they spoke to me, so coolly patronizing and dismissive.

I find the pages furtively crumpled in the pocket of my coat. I smooth them out and examine the marks and numbers alongside those on the sheet from Bill. The scratches and gouges still give me the same familiar flicker of unrest. There’s mystery here and pain, I’m sure of it. I feel its echo as I look at the marks and in my mind’s eye I can see the scrabbling of the frantic fingers that made them. I shrug the image away and instead concentrate on the numbers. I was right. They start with almost the same pattern of digits, no more than a single number the difference between them. This cannot be coincidence; my number is a phone number after all. My heart quickens at the thought that the answer could be no more than a call away.

Regardless of all that has recently happened and how anxious and unsettled I feel, I’m still compelled to solve the mystery of this place. There’s an urgency to it now for if Tom and I are truly over, then we’ll sell the house and I’ll never know what haunts me or what may have happened here.

With shaking fingers I dial the number, replacing the first four digits with the local code. I wait as the line clicks and whirrs into silence. Nothing. I sit back disappointed and compare the numbers again. Bill’s number has a missing digit, a one immediately following the leading zero. I try replacing the first five digits of my number instead. Now I seem to be a digit short. I take the copy to the light and there, in the dusty graphite of my rubbing, is the slightest shadow of a number three. I’d missed it before but it’s there, faint but unmistakeable.

This time the line connects and somewhere in a distant home the phone is ringing. I slam down the receiver before anyone can answer and the reality of what this could mean hits me like a physical blow. It leaves me breathless.

I must think how to solve this. I need to know who the number belongs to, or more likely belonged, for it must be many years since unknown fingers scratched those numbers in the floor. I recall the hair clip, bent and broken, and imagine those same fingers, urgently prising and scraping with their makeshift tool.

I make a resolution, sitting here on my bed, a promise that I will find you, if you exist, and set you free.

I’ll start with when. I go to the PC and Google “dialing code changes UK,” more in hope than anticipation. The search engine starts its magic, trawling the ether for intelligent life. Wikipedia answers the call with PhONEday and the Big Number Change and I learn that new codes have been issued over the years, most recently in the early 2000s—well over a decade ago.