Secret Obsession

John Thornton moved forward and his wife stopped talking and turned her head. She saw Nerissa and her face lit up.

‘Here’s your father now, Philip,’ she said conversationally. ‘And Nerissa’s with him! There, I told you she’d come, didn’t I? And she looks just the same; she hasn’t changed.’

She got up and held out her arms; Nerissa ran into them and they hugged, kissing. Aunt Grace moved back to look at her, tears sparkling in her bright brown eyes.

‘You look well. She looks well, Philip. Lost weight, mind. Skinnier than ever! Don’t you eat down there in London? Did your uncle take you to have a bite to eat before you came here? I told him to make sure you got some lunch first—I know those trains—nothing but sandwiches and crisps; that’s all you get on them these days. In the old days they had a proper buffet car and a three-course lunch, with waiters in white coats and silver cutlery and good glasses on the table, but these days they can’t be bothered.’

‘We stopped and had a ploughman’s in a pub,’ Nerissa said, and her aunt clucked her tongue.

‘Is that all? Did you hear that, Philip? Isn’t that just like your father? John Thornton, you should have taken her somewhere better than that. A bite of cheese and some bread isn’t a fit meal for anyone but a mouse.’

‘She said she wasn’t hungry!’

‘You shouldn’t have taken any notice of her!’

Nerissa had stopped listening. She moved to the bedside and looked down at Philip, her heart wrung, wanting to cry. The top of his head was bandaged, domed, only his face visible. He had been shaved, she noted. There was no sign of stubble on his cheek and she knew that Philip needed to shave every day. He had once stopped shaving for a weekend camping trip on Hadrian’s Wall, not far from his home, and come back on the Monday morning with the rough beginnings of a curly brown beard.

His mother wasn’t talking any more. She was watching her niece. ‘Say hello to him, Nerissa. He can hear you; they say he can, even if he isn’t showing any signs. You know she’s here, don’t you, Philip? You’re waiting for her to talk to you.’

His hand lay on the white coverlet, brown and strong, with wide-spanned fingers, nails cut very short, a practical hand used to hard manual work. Nerissa touched it lightly, whispered, ‘Hello, Philip, it’s me.’

‘Say your name,’ her uncle urged her. ‘Say, it’s Nerissa.’

‘He knows,’ Grace Thornton said, still watching Nerissa. ‘I told him she was here, didn’t I? Not that I needed to; he’ll have known her voice the minute he heard it. We’ll go and have a cup of tea, Nerissa, and leave you to talk to him.’

Nerissa didn’t look round, just nodded. She heard them go out, heard the door click softly into place. She sank down on the chair her aunt had been sitting on and picked up Philip’s hand, stroked it lightly.

‘I’m sorry I haven’t come until now. Your father only rang me yesterday.’

It had been one of the biggest shocks of her life. She had been at work, had picked up the phone expecting it to be a business call and heard her uncle’s voice with a start of alarm. She had known it couldn’t be good news; he wouldn’t ring her at work for that.

‘I came as soon as I could,’ she added. She couldn’t get over the blankness of his face. The emptiness. His features unmoving, unchanging.

This is how he would look if he were dead, Nerissa thought, and her body winced in pain. Maybe he is dying? If they switched off this life-support machine would he die?

‘Darling, wake up!’ Urgency possessed her. She was afraid to touch his face, afraid of jarring his head, so she put her face down against his hand and kissed it, held it to her cheek. She had half expected his skin to be cold but it was warm; she put her lips against his inner wrist and felt the blood pumping sluggishly there, in the blue vein which she could see threading beneath the skin.

‘Wake up, Philip!’ she whispered against this one sign of Me in him.

There was no response, of course; she didn’t expect any. He had lain like this ever since the car crash in which he had suffered head injuries necessitating surgery—surgery which had physically relieved the pressure on his brain, her uncle had told her, but had left him like this, in a deep coma.

She couldn’t bear the idea of Philip dying. They had grown up together, as close as twins. For most of her life Philip had been the most important person in the world to her.

Behind her she heard the door open and sat up quickly, still holding his hand.

‘You must be his cousin,’ said a friendly voice and she turned to see a nurse behind her. ‘Hello, I’m his day special—I look after him during the day. He has someone else at night. I’m Staff Nurse Courtney.’

Nerissa smiled shyly at her. ‘Hello.’

‘How do you think he’s looking?’ The shrewd brown eyes watched her. ‘Bit of a shock, I expect, seeing him like this, but his condition has stabilised; there’s been no deterioration over the last couple of days.’

‘Does that mean he’s getting better?’ Nerissa asked hopefully, and saw the other girl hesitate.

‘Not exactly. It just means he isn’t getting any worse, which, believe me, is a hopeful sign.’

Nerissa’s face fell and Nurse Courtney quickly added, ‘It could mean he is going to take a turn for the better any minute. His mother’s doing a wonderful job and now you’re here, too. Keep talking to him; he needs all the stimulation he can get, anything that keeps jogging his brain.’

She left a few minutes later and Nerissa sat down beside Philip again and took his hand. ‘Do you like her?’ she asked him conversationally. ‘She has a very nice face—it matches her voice. I think you’ll like her. She’s the one who shaves you every day, she says. She’s good at it, too; you couldn’t do better yourself.’

His parents came back while she was telling him that it had started to rain. ‘Typical—it was wonderful weather in London, but I get back here and down comes the rain! It’s a wonder we don’t all have gills and fins, the rain we get up here.’

John Thornton laughed behind her and she glanced round. ‘Oh, your mum and dad are back, Philip.’

They sat down near by and talked to her, spoke to Philip as well, all the time, as if he were awake, so that after a while it seemed quite natural to Nerissa to do the same. She almost began to expect him to chime in occasionally—argue about something, laugh.

It had got dark by the time Grace Thornton looked at her watch and said, ‘I think you should take Nerissa home for some tea, John. She’s had a long journey today; she’ll need a good night’s rest.’

Nerissa couldn’t deny she was tired—her eyelids were heavy and she had to suppress yawns all the time—but she protested. ‘I went to stay, in case he wakes up!’

‘You can’t stay here all the time,’ said his mother. ‘It’s exhausting. I should know; I’ve done it for hours at a stretch. But if you’re to be any use to Philip you need to be fresh, and that means getting sleep. I shall be home later. I like to see him tucked up for the night, then I go home. We’ll come back tomorrow morning.’

Nerissa fell asleep in the car during the drive through the hills to her uncle’s farm. She woke up only when she heard dogs barking, and realised that the car had stopped in the farmyard.

‘I thought I was going to have to carry you up to bed!’ John Thornton said cheerfully. ‘Grace was right. You’re dead on your feet.’

‘I think I’ll go straight to bed,’ she admitted, yawning. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘You said that before,’ he said, unlocking the solid oak front door and switching on the light in the small, panelled hall. ‘Look, you get undressed and hop into bed and I’ll bring you some hot chocolate and a sandwich—how’s that?’

She hugged him. ‘Oh, I’ve missed you, both of you, in London! It’s great to be home.’

She caught the flash of sadness in his eyes, and knew what he was thinking. She couldn’t let him say anything, though, so she ran up the old, creaking oak stairs, her nostrils filling with the familiar fragrance from her childhood—beeswax-polished furniture and stair-treads, home-made potpourri from the roses and lavender in the garden.

This was not a large house but a solid, well-made one, built of local stone and flint, carefully placed to shut out the prevailing winds on these Northumbrian hills, sheltered on all sides by ancient trees and high stone walls. Lantern Farm had been in one family since it was built in the seventeenth century. The Thorntons were not rich but they had always lived comfortably, running their sheep on the pastures above the house, keeping a few pigs, geese, horses and hens to supplement their income.

The furniture was all old, worn, shabby and wellkept. It shone with polish. Any tears in curtains and upholstery were neatly darned and there was rarely need to buy anything since the attics were well-stocked with household objects which were often brought back into use when a fashion returned after a century or so.

There were four bedrooms. Nerissa had always had a small one at the side of the house, overlooking an orchard. She undressed and climbed into bed, shivering a little because it was so much colder than her centrally heated home in London. At Lantern Farm they still kept wood fires, and none had been lit in this room since she’d left.

The faded tapestry curtains were threadbare; the wind blew through the lattice panes and rattled the door. On the bed lay an old patchwork quilt, made by John Thornton’s mother when she was first married from dozens of little cut-up pieces from old cotton shirts, dresses, curtains. The colours had faded but Nerissa thought it was beautiful. She stroked it, following the pattern, the diamonds and circles interlocking, and then she looked around the room, feeling very strange; it was like being caught in a time warp, spun back to her teens, to a very different Nerissa.

Her uncle arrived with a tray bearing a plate of tiny, finger sandwiches—brown bread leafed with ham and salad—a glass of water and a mug of hot chocolate. Under his arm he carried a hot-water bottle in a furry case which he handed her first.

‘Oh, thank you,’ she said gratefully, pushing it under her covers and feeling warmth begin to circulate around her frozen feet and legs.

‘I should have lit a fire in here—shall I light one now?’

‘No, I’ll be fine,’ she said, and bit one of the tiny sandwiches. ‘Mmm, that’s delicious. You remembered, I love ham.’

‘Always did,’ he said, beaming. ‘Goodnight, then, love. If there’s anything you want, give me a shout.’

Ten minutes later the light was out and Nerissa was already half asleep.

It was strange to wake up in that house again. Strange to put on jeans and a thick, warm sweater and go out into the crisp autumn dawn where the shouting wind caught her black hair and blew it around her like a banner. She ran, startling horses in the pasture below the house. Climbing the wall and jumping down, she hunted for new mushrooms in the long grass where they had always grown.

When she went back to the house she found her aunt slicing tomatoes. ‘I saw you from the window gathering mushrooms; we’ll have them with toast,’ Grace Thornton said. ‘Your uncle’s away up to the top, to work on one of the walls—it came down in the last storm. He took his breakfast with him and a flask of tea. There’s nothing like rebuilding a wall to cheer him up.’

Nerissa remembered he had always gone off to work on the drystone walls whenever he was upset; the routine task was soothing to him.

After breakfast she and her aunt drove off to the hospital again. There was no change, Staff Nurse Courtney told them.

‘No change isn’t necessarily bad news, though,’ she said, and Nerissa wished she could believe her. ‘It’s a long, slow haul,’ added the nurse, and that, at least, Nerissa believed.

Towards the end of that very long day she wondered how her aunt managed to stay so cheerful, how she kept talking to her son when there was absolutely no response.

They had taken it in turns to talk to Philip. When his mother was tired she went off for a break and a cup of tea and sat outside, in the cool fresh air, in a little garden beside the ward, so that if she was wanted she was near by. Several times that day Nerissa went out and left Philip alone with his mother. After sitting about for hours Nerissa preferred a brisk walk around the garden after she had had her tea and a sandwich.

Her uncle arrived in the afternoon, and at six o’clock Grace Thornton sent them both home again. ‘And make sure you eat a proper cooked meal this time,’ she told them. ‘John, did you remember to pop that casserole into the oven?’

He nodded. ‘Just as you said, at two o’clock. What time shall I take it out?’

‘As soon as you want to eat. It won’t spoil, but it’s ready whenever you want it.’

When they got back to the farm Nerissa said, ‘I’ll serve supper,’ but John Thornton shook his head.

‘Nay, lass, your aunt told me to do it, and I’d better, or she’ll never let me hear t’end of it.’

‘I’ll lay the table, then.’

They ate in the farm kitchen, the biggest room in the house, with white-washed deep stone walls, small windows, an old range which gave out great warmth on cold days and cheerful red and white checked curtains. The table was old and wellscrubbed, the wood deeply bitten with knife-cuts and scratches and carved initials. Along the high windowsills stood rows of pink geraniums, all grown by Grace Thornton, who often won prizes for them at local flower shows.

The casserole was lamb, with seasonal vegetables—potatoes and carrots, late green beans and leeks and onion. It was all grown there, on the farm, and the smell was mouthwatering and the taste delicious.

They washed up and put everything away, leaving some of the casserole in the oven for Grace when she got back. John Thornton went out to his yard to feed some of his animals, and Nerissa switched on the radio to listen to some music.

She curled up in a chair, her mind occupied with Philip, worrying, remembering his white face and the carved, blind look of his closed eyes.

Was he ever going to wake up? And, if he did, would he be some sort of human vegetable? She knew that that was what was terrifying his parents. They hadn’t said anything, but she knew them. She had caught looks they gave each other, words they began and cut off.

She put her hands over her face. It wasn’t fair! Why had this happened to Philip? Hadn’t he borne enough grief already?

The phone rang beside her, making her jump. She had a sudden presentiment that it was news of Philip, that it was her aunt ringing from the hospital to say…what? That he had come out of his coma? Or…was dying?

Her hand shaking, she reached for it, whispered, ‘Yes, hello?’

There was a silence at the other end.

‘Hello? Lantcrn Farm,’ Nerissa said urgently. ‘Aunt Grace…is that you?’

The phone cut off suddenly. She held it, listening to the dead tone. Whoever had rung had hung up without speaking.

The silence was eloquent. Nerissa felt ice trickle down her nape. It could be a wrong number, of course. But she was afraid that it wasn’t.

She was afraid it was Ben. He would have rung their home, only got the answering machine, then perhaps tried ringing friends, her boss. She had known that sooner or later Ben would realise she was not at home. She had hoped it would take him longer to work it out, but she had known it would happen, and that he would not forgive her for going to Philip without telling him what she meant to do.

Her heart beat with terror. If that had been him, what would he do now?

For the moment, nothing, she quickly told herself. He was in The Hague representing a client at the Court of Human Rights. He couldn’t leave; this was an important case. Ben had been working on it for a long time; he wouldn’t walk out on it now. He had said he estimated that it would take at least a week, maybe longer, for him to present his case. He wouldn’t have to stay there to wait for the court’s decision—that might take weeks, even months—but he certainly couldn’t leave yet.

She had a breathing space. Days. Maybe a week, maybe longer. But sooner or later he would arrive and demand that she leave with him, and when she refused—as she knew she must—their marriage would be over.

CHAPTER TWO

NERISSA didn’t sleep much that night, and when her aunt saw her next morning she gave her a frowning, anxious stare.

‘You look terrible. Didn’t you sleep? Your eyes look like holes in a white paper bag. I can’t let you go to the hospital looking like that. They’ll take one look at you and send you home in case you’re coming down with something contagious.’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, sitting down at the table and looking without much interest at the fruit, the cereal, the coffee waiting for her.

‘Fine? Nonsense!’ snorted Grace Thornton. ‘I know what you’re like—if you’re upset you don’t sleep or eat and the next thing we’ll find is that you’re ill, too. Look what happened when you were competing in the county swimming competition—you couldn’t stop throwing up for hours beforehand. And what about the year you took your final exams at school? You ended up with pneumonia that time. You’re one of those people who can’t take any sort of strain for long.’

Nerissa gave her a wounded look, her huge eyes darkened. ‘I’ll be OK. Don’t stop me going to see Philip; I can sleep later, when I get back. That’s all that’s wrong with me—I had something on my mind and couldn’t get to sleep for hours, that’s all.’

Grace Thornton frowned, face intent. ‘Something on your mind? What? Philip?’

‘Of course. I can’t help worrying about him, can I?’

‘You mustn’t let yourself worry; you have to be fit to sit by his bed all day. You must train yourself not to think too much.’

Nerissa laughed bitterly. ‘That would be a good trick. Tell me how I do that!’

She poured herself some coffee, took one of the apples grown in the farm orchard—an oldfashioned, crunchy, brown-skinned russet—and bit into it, very aware of her aunt watching her.

‘It isn’t just Philip you’ve got on your mind, is it? What else is bothering you?’ A pause, then Grace shrewdly said, ‘Your husband?’

‘Sometimes I think you’re a witch,’ Nerissa said, smiling wryly. ‘How can you always read my mind?’

‘I know you,’ Grace said, and sighed. ‘You should never have told him,’ she added, her voice thickening with remembered pain and angry pride. ‘I can’t understand why you did, talking about family business to an outsider like that!’

Nerissa put down the half-eaten apple, her head bent, the cloudy dark hair falling in a wave over her face, hiding it from Grace.

‘I didn’t tell him. He guessed.’

A snort. ‘How could he?’ Grace rejected. ‘He only spent two weeks up here and folk who’ve known us for years never guessed—how should he? What would he know about folk like us, and him coming from London, where they don’t even know their own neighbour, let alone give them a helping hand when times are bad? Nay, lass, if he guessed you gave it away—you must have said something to give him a clue.’

‘But I didn’t tell him,’ insisted Nerissa. ‘He just picked it up from something I said, or read it in my face, or in yours…or…’ Her voice faltered. ‘Or in Philip’s.’

Grace Thornton flinched, but said gruffly, ‘I don’t believe it. He couldn’t have.’

Nerissa said flatly, ‘Ben is very shrewd, especially with people. He’s a lawyer, remember, trained to read character, to sense when people are telling the truth or lying—whether it’s an out-and-out lie, or just not telling the whole truth. I never lied to him, I just…left out things…but all the same he guessed. It’s as if he has antennae like a radio and can pick up what isn’t being said, right out of the air.’

Grace Thornton’s face had stiffened into a pale mask; she watched Nerissa bleakly. ‘Aye, he doesn’t miss a trick! A hard man—I could tell that from the minute he walked in here with you. I reckon they grow an extra skin in big cities like London, just to get by, like. It can’t be easy living there, but I can’t say I liked him. He’s not our sort. But he is your husband; there’s no getting past that.’ She fell silent for a moment, then said quietly, ‘Are you happy with him, Nerissa?’

She didn’t ask, Do you love him, Nerissa? That was ice too thin for either of them.

Nerissa said, ‘Yes,’ quickly, too quickly.

Grace Thornton wasn’t deceived. ‘I’d feel a lot easier if I knew you were happy, love,’ she said, and sighed.

Nerissa could never fool her. She had never known another mother; the bond of affection between her and Grace Thornton was very strong and sure, based on years of caring and security. There had been a time when it had been shaken, that trust—but its roots had been too deep and in time it had been rebuilt because of that long, deep affection.

Nerissa’s parents had both died when she was very small—too young, in fact, to remember them clearly. Her mother had been Grace’s sister, but they couldn’t have been more different. Ellen had been tiny and delicate—it was from her that Nerissa had inherited her build and colouring. Ellen had died of leukaemia three years after her only child was born. Her husband, Joe, had taken Nerissa up to Northumberland to her aunt, and that was Nerissa’s first memory—of being tired and weepy after a long journey from somewhere she didn’t remember but later discovered to have been London, of wanting her mother, wanting her own home, being frightened and bewildered. Her father had carried her into the comfortable firelit kitchen and her aunt had taken her into her arms, kissed her, brushed back her black curls, murmuring to her, while over her shoulder Nerissa had stared down at Philip, who was almost a year older, but a sturdy little boy, much larger than herself, sitting on a rug playing with toy cars.

‘That’s your cousin; that’s my Philip,’ Grace Thornton had said. ‘Go and play with him, sweetheart.’ And she had set Nerissa down and given her a gentle push towards the other child.

Philip had grinned at her, silently held out one of his cars.

Nerissa had toddled over to take it and sat down on the hearthrug with a bump and had begun to push the car back and forward, making the same noises Philip was making. ‘Brrmm…brrmm…’

She had never forgotten the moment. In a sense, it had been the beginning of her life. She couldn’t remember anything that had happened before that moment, that day.

The first three years of her life had vanished—her mother’s face, where they had lived—every detail. All gone, as if they had never happened.

Except that one moment, at the beginning, when she was carried into the firelit kitchen by her father. That instant was sharp and bright in her memory, beginning her conscious life.

Her father had left the next day and never come back. He had gone to Australia, she was told, and one day he would come back for her—but he never did. When she was seven she was told he had died, in the outback, of blood-poisoning, after neglecting a cut on his arm. There had been no doctor for many miles and it was too late by the time his condition was finally diagnosed.

Nerissa had cried when they’d told her, mostly because she felt she should, and even at the age of seven she’d had a strong sense of what she ought to do, think, feel. Her father’s death had made no real difference to her life because by then she had felt she belonged here, with her uncle and aunt and Philip.

They were her family. She had forgotten she had ever had another one. Her life lay here, on the farm, in these remote, wind-blown hills. Their isolation threw them together more than most families; they had no near neighbours. There was another farmhouse half a mile away across the fields, but the farmer and his wife were old and their children grown-up and living away from home.

The nearest village was nearly two miles away, and it was tiny. It had a pub, a church which was hundreds of years old and a shop which sold anything and everything. Once there had been a school; it had closed years ago and now the children had to catch a bus to the next village which was larger and still had a school.