want to be drawn into some strange quarrel between people I hardly knew. I suddenly felt more lost and alone than ever. This was not my world and these people were virtual strangers. I wished I could simply get up and leave.
Vincent at last seemed to sense my unease and started to push back his chair. ‘I don’t want to talk about my wife and daughter. It was all a long time ago. I don’t see any point in dragging up the past.’
Maria seemed unperturbed by Vincent’s reproof. ‘Sometimes the past has to be properly addressed before you can make a future.’ She reached out and laid her darkly taloned fingers on his arm. I felt a degree of embarrassment as she peered into his eyes, as though I was witnessing something private and meaningful pass between them; something in which I was not included.
Vincent stilled and I found I was holding my breath as they stared one another down. The candle sputtered suddenly as if a gust of air had entered the room and at that same moment the wall lights seemed magically to switch themselves off, breaking the spell between them. The room was plunged into momentary blackness and I gave a small yelp of fright. But the candle recovered, the flame burned bright once more and I watched as Maria removed her hand from Vincent’s arm in a room that was now dark save for the flickering candle.
‘I think we’ve had a power cut.’ Vincent seemed to come to his senses as he pushed his chair all the way back. He motioned to the pitch-black hall beyond the dining room. ‘The lights are out there too.’
Maria also appeared to give herself a mental shake. She flicked the wall switches up and down to no avail, then moved to the sideboard and returned with another candle, which she lit from the one in the centre of the table. ‘I will take this up to Michael,’ she said as his voice called and footsteps sounded on the stairs in the hallway.
Vincent and I followed Maria out into the hallway, waited while she reassured her son and handed him the candle to take back upstairs. Shivering, I pulled on the cardigan Maria then held out for me. As I buttoned it I wondered again what trick of fate had brought me to this place where so many unseen currents ran just below the surface.
‘The strange thing is,’ Maria announced, her sultry voice echoing in the darkness as she walked us to the door and fumbled for the latch as if nothing untoward had happened, ‘that Cheryl used to confide in me all the time, but she didn’t even tell me she was thinking of leaving you.’
Vincent and I walked back across the snowy front lawn, our arms linked together as we staggered rather unsteadily through the slippery snow towards his front door. As my boots sought a sound foothold I wondered quite how much wine I’d actually drunk and how much bearing it had had on what I had just experienced.
‘The lights are out here too.’ Vincent frowned as we approached the shadowy darkness of his front door, our breath clouding the air. ‘We left the porch light on, didn’t we?’
I nodded, waiting while he groped for the key. I wasn’t sure how much of his fumbling was due to the lack of light and the cold, and how much to the quantity of good Italian wine he’d consumed, but he soon had the door open and I entered the dark house behind him with trepidation.
‘Tara?’ he called softly. ‘Tara, we’re back.’
There was a red flickering light coming from the dying embers of the fire and in that light a shadowy shape loomed up from the sofa, making me step closer to Vincent in fright as I remembered Maria’s talk of ghosts.
‘You’re back then?’ Tara’s voice cut through the gloom.
‘I wish we’d never gone,’ Vincent mumbled as he made his way unsteadily to the sofa.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’ Tara picked up a small candle and a box of matches from the coffee table, lit the candle and handed them to me. ‘You know what Maria’s like. She’s been trying to get you over there since her husband left. Now you’ve fallen straight into her clutches.’ She smirked quietly to herself, obviously pleased she’d been right about the inadvisability of us going next door.
‘Maria is a good cook, but she did seem to have some sort of agenda,’ I admitted.
‘I don’t doubt it for a moment. That woman’s agenda has been obvious for some time.’ Tara shot a glance towards Vincent. ‘I’d suggest a nightcap but I expect you’ve had enough for one evening.’
‘I wouldn’t mind a stiff brandy as it happens,’ Vincent said, peeling off his coat and throwing it over the back of the sofa.
I looked at him as he flopped down wearily onto the couch. Maybe it was the glow from the dying fire or the shadows thrown by my flickering candle, but he looked tired and drawn. Tara obviously thought so too, because she quickly poured and handed him a glass of brandy without further comment.
‘Well, I’m off to bed.’ Her teasing tone had been swiftly replaced by quiet concern. ‘I’ll see you in the morning; hopefully the electricity will be on again by then.’
‘I’ll come up too,’ I said hastily. ‘It’ll be easier to see the way with both of our candles.’ I didn’t want to admit it was because my nerves were still jangling and I didn’t want to go upstairs alone in the still unfamiliar house in the dark.
Vincent continued to stare moodily into the fire’s embers as Tara and I mounted the stairs side by side. I was worried about leaving him down there to brood, and obviously so was Tara because when we reached the dark landing she turned to face me.
‘He misses his wife and daughter terribly,’ she confided. ‘He never says anything, but I’m sure that’s why he makes himself scarce whenever he can. Work is just an excuse to run away without actually leaving us.’
I noticed her use of the word ‘us’ with a sinking heart. It reminded me that I had no business feeling anything other than gratitude towards Vincent. ‘Do you think he’ll ever be able to move on?’
‘I don’t know.’ Tara wiped a hand over her tired eyes. ‘I wouldn’t have said he was the sort of man to brood, but grief does funny things to people.’
We walked down the corridor together, paused outside Jadie’s room to check that she was sleeping soundly and said good night outside my room. Holding the candle in front of me, I pushed open the door and slipped inside.
It didn’t take me long to jump between the icy sheets. Once in bed I blew out the flame and stared into the pitch-darkness, going over the evening in my mind. First there had been the episode in the shower…had I really just fainted and dreamed the near drowning? And what had happened between Vincent and Maria next door? Had Maria really been suggesting that Vincent had somehow been to blame for his wife’s sudden departure? Or had I merely been responding to the unsettling timing of the power cut, the effects of quite a large quantity of good wine and the heady incense-filled atmosphere?
As I closed my eyes and drifted into sleep I really wasn’t quite sure.
It was still dark when I awoke. And try as I might I couldn’t get back to sleep. My mind seemed filled with images of people and places I didn’t recognise, and I had no idea if the hazy figures that came and went in my mind’s eye were characters from my real life or whether I was conjuring imaginary pictures of Cheryl and Amber
