at home with Mum, or what had happened at her last school and the place they’d last lived. She could still remember the voices in the night, Paedo! Paedo! And the sound of breaking glass as a brick shattered the front window. She couldn’t tell Dad about that. And he wasn’t telling Kerry anything. He said things like It’s not so bad once you get used to it and Don’t worry, I’ll be home soon. Only he didn’t say that so much now. In his last letter, he’d said, Prison changes people, Kizz…
She didn’t watch the TV news, she didn’t read the papers. The teachers said they all should. But Kerry didn’t want to read what they said about her dad: Pervert. Monster. Evil.
She was there – Victoria Quays, the entrance to the canal basin. The water was black, reflecting the white of the moon. She hurried across the cobbles, her feet turning on the uneven footing, towards the café.
She pressed her nose against the window. Lyn? The café door opened, and some people came out. Kerry bit her fingernail. She could see through the steamed-up windows. There were only a few people, and she was sure…She kept looking. Lyn wasn’t there.
She tried Lyn’s number but got the answering service again. ‘I’m here,’ she said. ‘I got it.’ I got the message. That was a daft thing to say. Of course she’d got the message. Lyn knew that. It was so late, she’d got fed up and gone.
She didn’t want to give up yet. She could walk along the towpath, walk to the gallery. Maybe Lyn was there. She could see the faint gleam of the water ahead of her. The city lights made an orange glow against the sky but the path itself was in darkness. She hesitated a moment, then stepped out of the light into the shadow of the first bridge. The air was cold and damp and the ground felt soft and slippery under her feet.
She could see a faint gleam beyond the tunnel mouth and the dank smell of the water closed round her. Now she was feeling her way, her hands pressed against the curving stone wall that came down low, almost to her head. The water lapped against the brick in a sudden flurry of ripples as though something had disturbed it.
As she came out of the tunnel, a shape formed itself in the water, a moored boat, dark and featureless, half concealed in the shadow of the bridge. The boards of the deck were grey and uneven. The path seemed to be petering out now, the buildings coming right to the water’s edge. She was faced with a blank brick wall. She was on the wrong side of the canal. She needed to go back to the canal basin.
The moon came out and the reflection of the canal side appeared in the water. The water was still now, and she could see the walls that lined the path, the bushes and the path framed in the mirror of the canal. She turned back, and the darkness faced her, the black mouth of the tunnel, the smell of the canal that had rippled as though something was moving through the dark water. She didn’t want to go back that way.
Her throat felt tight. She turned round again, and the boat was low in the water beside her, and a brick wall in front of her. She looked back, but the tunnel waited, trapping Kerry between the canal and the wall.
Eliza couldn’t sleep. The sheet kept twisting up as she tried to find a comfortable place to lie, and she felt too hot, then she felt too cold. It was raining again, and the steady beat on the window became an irregular rattle as the wind blew the rain across in a flurry. The roof creaked. She turned over and punched the pillow into shape again. She settled down and curled her arm round her head. Deep, slow breathing, relax into the bed, just let go and melt away…There was a clatter from the other side of the wall, like the sound of something dropped on to a bare floor, rolling to stillness. She was awake again.
She was thinking about Maggie, and about Ellie. Seeing Cara’s baby tonight had reminded her of the first time she’d seen Ellie, a tiny bundle in Maggie’s arm. Eliza had been more engaged by the older Ellie, the bright girl with her mother’s talent for art and a delight in words that seemed to be her own. Raed Azile…
Images from the exhibition began to form in her mind. She didn’t want them there, not now. Suddenly, she wanted no part of that medieval dance of death. She turned over again, disturbing the quilt. A cold draught blew round her. She looked at the clock. One a.m. Tomorrow was going to be difficult. She needed to get some sleep. She could feel the draught again. She knew what it was – it had happened before. Cara must have come in up the outside staircase earlier and not shut the door properly, so it had blown open.
She braced herself and got out of bed. It was freezing. She pulled her dressing gown round her, shivering with cold, and looked out of her door. The passage was in darkness, but the door was open and banging in the wind. There was water on the floor where the rain had blown in. She pulled it shut, banging it hard to make sure it locked, half hoping that Cara would hear it and realize what had happened.
She huddled back into bed, her hard-won warmth gone. Someone was moving around on the other side of the wall. She could hear soft footsteps moving backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. The baby had cried almost every night since Cara had moved in.
The rain was heavier now, and she could hear the drips from the gutter hitting the fire escape. She drifted into the suspension of time that was neither sleep nor wakefulness. Her thoughts were starting to fragment into dreams. Then she was awake again. She had a residual awareness of a sudden noise. She listened. Only the rain and the blowing wind. Sometimes it blew through the broken roofs and windows of the canal-side buildings, making a shrill, wailing cry. She could hear the sound of the baby on the other side of the wall. She glanced at the clock again. Two. She was wide awake now. Maybe she should get some cocoa or something.
She needed to sleep. She’d try the hot-milk treatment. She got up and went over to the fridge. There wasn’t much milk left, but there was enough. Just. She tipped the milk into a pan and lit the gas, yawning and shivering slightly with the cold. Maybe she should curl up in a chair in front of the fire, drink her milk and try and drift off to sleep there.
The milk was starting to froth. She poured it into a glass, and sprinkled some chocolate on the top. She wrapped a blanket round her shoulders and curled up in the chair. The rain drummed on the skylight above her head. The wind was rising and the window rattled. She heard the staircase creak, and for a moment she thought there was someone out there, but it was only the wind making the building groan and rattle.
The crying had changed to hiccuping sobs. Eliza shifted restlessly. There was nothing she could do. She sipped the milk and tried to shut the sound out. The milk was warm and soothing, and the chair felt soft and comfortable as she sank back into its cushions. Her eyes were heavy now and she let the empty glass drop to the floor. Soft and warm. A sob, and silence. A sob and silence. She was looking for the baby. The corridor was long and there were doors and the baby was behind one of them, then she was in the gallery and the painting on the wall was the graveyard, and she protested because she didn’t want that painting. ‘You must.’ It was Maggie’s voice, and she laughed. She reached out to the painting but as she touched it, it fell apart under her fingers, the paint flaking away, falling off the canvas and vanishing as her hands dug deeper and deeper into the darkness, through the black of the topsoil and the yellow of the clay and then it was the canal and she could see the figure reaching up and up from the depths of the water, from the painted grave.
And then it was morning, bleak and dreary. She woke in the chair feeling stiff and cold. The rain had stopped, and on the other side of the wall there was silence.
The empty buildings were a faint presence in the dawn now, their dilapidation becoming apparent as the sun rose higher. The converted warehouse looked incongruous, new. The water lay still, gleaming in the faint morning light. The canal was little used here.
A
