Читать книгу The Girls In The Woods - Helen Phifer - Страница 14

Chapter 3

Joanne Tyson opened her eyes and wondered why she was lying on a damp, hard, concrete floor. For a moment she didn’t have a clue as she blinked and her vision semi-cleared, then she remembered exactly where she was. One eye was swollen shut and she opened her good eye; he had gone, she couldn’t hear him stomping around. Which was good. She tried to sit up but felt queasy and lightheaded; he’d managed to really do some damage this time. Joanne wondered what it was she’d said to make him fly off the handle; she thought back but couldn’t think of anything that had warranted him giving her a black eye and knocking her unconscious. He was getting much worse – for a while everything had seemed okay and he seemed to have forgotten about using her as a punching bag, but lately… She shuddered. Well, lately it was getting more painful to be around him. The floor was freezing and she remembered where she was – she had come into the garage to ask him if he wanted some dinner, and he’d flipped. Now here she was. She heard his heavy footsteps as he came back through the door and walked towards her. She sat up, tucking her knees under her chin and wrapping her arms around them. She felt the air cool as his dark shadow loomed over her and she flinched once more; he bent down and stroked her head.

‘I’m so sorry, Jo, I didn’t mean it. You caught me off guard – you know I don’t like you coming in here when I’m working. It puts me off my stride; if you put me off I lose my momentum, then I can’t get it back – and the bills won’t pay themselves, will they?’

She whispered, ‘I’m sorry, I forgot. I just wanted to see you. I get so bored on my own all day.’

He reached down and stroked her hair like she was some kind of pet dog. ‘I’m nearly done for now. How about you go and clean yourself up and I’ll come inside, make us both a sandwich?’

He reached down, putting his hands under her arms, then pulled her to her feet. He brushed her down and she had to stop herself from flinching at his touch. Keeping her one good eye on the ground, she didn’t look across at the bank of steel fridges that were now lined against the back wall. She remembered now that she had stared at them when she’d come in and that had been why he’d hit her. She’d never seen them before and wondered why he wanted those monstrosities, which looked like something out of a television morgue. He must have seen the shock on her face and that was when he’d hit her. She pushed the thought to the back of her mind. They weren’t morgue fridges. What would her husband want with second-hand fridges that had been used to store dead bodies in? It wasn’t right and he had no use for them – he was a photographer, not a pathologist. Maybe they were for keeping his equipment in, or something to do with developing his films. She pushed all thoughts of them to the back of her mind and stored them in the little black box where she kept the flashbacks of the kicks and punches he had hurt her with previously. She would lock them away and forget about them. She had no right prying into his business. If she kept out of here and did as she was told then he would be happy with her. She cursed herself under her breath. What on earth had she been thinking, coming in here?

She walked out of the garage, through his workshop and out through the studio, keeping her head down. He had been so busy lately and she had been so restless it had seemed like a good idea to come and see him. He hadn’t hit her for at least six weeks; what a fool she was, thinking that once again he had realised how cruel he was being to her and was a changed man – the same old stupid dream which had kept her going year after year. It was never going to come true. Now they were back at square one; she wouldn’t be able to go out of the house until the swelling had gone down and it was the height of summer, the weather was glorious. She supposed she could potter around the garden and there was nothing stopping her walking through the woods at the back of the house, although she didn’t really like them. On the rare occasions she’d gone walking out there she had always felt as if someone was hiding in the trees watching her and it freaked her out even though she knew it was just her imagination running wild. She didn’t need to go into the village really; it was easy to do an online shop now that every supermarket did home delivery, and the swelling would go down before she knew it. She went straight to the downstairs cloakroom to look at her reflection in the mirror. Her swollen eye was already turning blue; she’d never learn. Running the cold water tap she put the flannel underneath it, wrung it out, then sat down on the toilet and pressed it against her eyelid. ‘Ouch.’ She stayed that way until she heard the loud footsteps coming down the hallway towards the toilet. They paused outside the door and she felt a cold shiver run down the entire length of her spine, making her drop the flannel into the sink. She picked up a towel and patted the water from her cheek.

‘I’m coming, sorry, I won’t be a minute.’

Then she flushed the toilet, blew her nose and opened the door. There wasn’t anybody outside; she could have sworn she’d heard him walking towards the bathroom door. She looked around, not daring to call his name in case it made him angry again. Maybe she’d knocked her head when she hit the floor and was hearing things. Turning to wring out the flannel and fold it up, she put it back so it didn’t look untidy. She glanced into the mirror one last time, and screamed. There was a much younger woman watching her from inside the glass. Her face was pale, with huge dark circles under her eyes. Her long dark hair hung around her face and the left side of her head was covered in thick, almost black, dried blood. Part of her skull was showing where the flesh had been eaten away. Jo gasped and stepped away from the mirror; terrified the woman was behind her, she turned to look… but there was no one there. She looked back at the mirror, hoping she had gone – but the woman was still watching her. The fear which filled Jo’s heart was different to anything she’d ever felt. It was a cold, creeping feeling, like her entire body was freezing itself from the inside out. The woman in the mirror watched Jo for a little while longer then lifted her hands, which were bruised purple and black, and slammed them against the glass of the cabinet. The glass bent with the force of the blow and Jo turned and ran, expecting it to shatter everywhere. Slamming the door behind her she ran into the kitchen to see him coming through the door which led from his studio.

‘What’s the matter with you? You’ve gone white.’

Instead of telling him like she wanted to, like she should have been able to, she shook her head and tried her very best to make her voice not shake.

‘Nothing, sorry, I just gave myself a bit of a fright.’

He looked her up and down.

‘Well, that’s hardly a surprise. I mean you’ve had better days. Have you looked in the mirror lately?’

She bit her lip. Yes, she bloody well had and the mirror had looked back at her. Who was that girl and how did she get in there? It wasn’t possible – that mirror was hung on a plasterboard wall, and on the opposite side of that wall was the garage, so there was no way someone could have been standing there watching. Her heart was racing. All she wanted to do was go outside and get some fresh air, get away from this house, from him. But thanks to him and his twitchy fists she couldn’t even do that. Willing herself to calm down before he got angry again she opened the cupboard and took a loaf of bread out. He walked across and took the bread from her.

‘Sit down. I told you I’ll make lunch. I have no idea what is going on with you but you need to sort yourself out.’

She sat down, crossing her hands so he wouldn’t notice how much they were trembling. Then she began to recite a prayer in her mind over and over again. She didn’t know if she had really seen that woman or whether she was hallucinating because of the knock to her head, but she prayed to God to make it all go away. Her gran had been a very spiritual woman and when Jo had been little she would watch her through the crack in the curtains which separated Gran’s front room from the living room. Her gran would have people come around for readings, or to speak to their dearly departed. They’d sit around the small round table in the front room and dim the lights, the glow from the candle making them all seem very eerie. Jo’s mum didn’t believe in any of it and once, when her gran had told Jo she had the gift and one day she would be able to do what she did, Jo had gone home crying and her mum had gone mad. She’d stormed round to her gran’s house – which was a few doors up the street from them – and told her not to scare Jo and to keep her rubbish to herself. Jo’s mum never believed any of it and Jo definitely never believed in anything remotely paranormal; she hated horror films, much preferring to watch a nice feel-good film where the girl always got the guy and he would turn out to be the kind of man every woman fantasised about. No, her own life was a big enough horror story – so she didn’t want to add any further distress to it than she had to.

He slid a sandwich across the table to her and she thanked him, not wanting to eat because she felt sick, but not daring to turn it down because he would go mad at her for wasting his time and food – so she picked it up and began to nibble on it. He began to chatter away; when he did occasionally talk to her there was no stopping him, but today she couldn’t be bothered. Her eye was throbbing and her head hurt, not to mention that her heart was having palpitations because she couldn’t get the image of the woman from the mirror out of her mind. Jo wanted to scream at him to shut up; she wanted to pick up one of the pans from the hanging rack and smack him across the head with it to see how he liked it, give him a taste of his own medicine. Instead she listened to him going on about what a fabulous photographer he was and how he had this idea for a great project, something which no modern day photographer had ever done. She nodded and agreed with him whenever she thought it was necessary, anything to keep the peace and stop the pain.

When she looked up from her plate to face him, she felt her blood freeze. The rack of pans which hung down from the ceiling behind him was moving. The pans were swaying from side to side; they were heavy-based copper pans which she struggled to lift most of the time so how they were moving like that was beyond her. She glanced across at the window to see if it was open and letting in a breeze but it was shut tight, as were all the doors. Even if she did leave the windows and doors open she had never seen them all move like this all at the same time, ever. He looked at her.

‘What the hell is the matter with you today? What are you looking at?’

Jo shook her head.

‘Nothing. I don’t feel well. I must have banged my head when I fell over in the garage.’

She emphasised the ‘I’, careful not to accuse or throw any blame his way – even though it was completely his fault. The pans were still moving behind him. Why weren’t they making a noise? They should have been clanging together but they weren’t. She began to cough, choking on a bite of her sandwich, and the breath that came out of her mouth was surrounded by a plume of white smoke as if it was a crisp, frosty December day – not the end of August. He looked at her as if she was mad, shoved the last of his sandwich in his mouth, then stood up to go back to his studio.

‘I have clients in this afternoon Jo. I do not want you to come in or disturb me – do you understand?’

She nodded her head. She was going to go upstairs and lie down.

‘Good, I’m glad we cleared that up – because if you disturb me again when you’ve been told not to, I’ll fucking kill you.’

And with that he walked out of the door, turning the key in the lock from his side. She looked up at the pans which were now still, then towards the door that he’d just locked. Putting the plate on the side she stood up and forced her hand to reach up and touch one of the pans; her fingers brushed against the cold metal and she pulled back – it felt as if it had been in the freezer for an hour. She turned and stumbled her way upstairs to her bedroom… she needed to lie down. She wasn’t well at all.