B - Echoes - Chapter One

Chapter One

The water was desperately dark, murky with mud that welled up from the
depths. Below her feet stretched blackness, an endless gulf that yawned
to receive her. She opened her mouth to scream, and her cries,
impossibly, echoed through the lake, a choking and gurgling sound, the
sound of drowning. She took a breath, expecting the cold water to force
itself into her lungs, but she took in dank, stinking air, even though
the surface was many feet above her. The echoes of her screaming then
welled up again from below as if they'd bounced off the bottom, but now
the voice sounded choked with mud and weed, and she saw bubbles rising
up from the darkness, red and glowing like fireballs, but glistening
like globules of blood. She pushed for the surface, for the glimmers of
light that rippled there, but her clothes weighed her down, and the
deep echoing voices seemed to be drawing nearer. A line of bubbles rose
near her, and she caught a foul stench of decay, of stale blood left to
rot on an abattoir floor, and then a hand grabbed one of her ankles and
tugged her down. The faint light was swallowed in the general darkness,
and she screamed again as stinking mud closed around her. And now,
bitter, freezing water filled her lungs and she lurched crying into
oblivion.

She shuddered into wakefulness and the glimmer of light had returned,
a pale glow through tattered curtains. She rose from bed, because the
sheets reminded her too much of what had happened the night before, and
of the wet, dark mud that had sucked her breath away. The air of the
room was chill against her flesh, and she pressed her face against the
grimy glass, beyond which the world was grey beneath a low canopy of
cloud. Leaves trembled as they were struck by rain, rivulets of water
curved lazily along the edges of the lane as it sloped around a clump
of sad-looking poplars and plunged down into a river-valley. The glass
was wet as she ran her hands almost lovingly over it, relishing the
sharp cold as she then rubbed the moisture onto her face. She turned
away, and tried the door, but it was locked, of course. She remembered
the harsh rattle as he had left last night, when she had been lying
shivering with terror, sobbing quietly, her face buried in the pillow.
She sank down into a corner and moaned when she felt pain throb in her
temple and cheek, where the flesh was tender and blue. She closed her
eyes, brushed back a lock of yellow hair that had fallen across her
brow, and listened to the noises of the house. The soft sigh of the
rain, the occasional creak of timber, her own laboured breathing.
She opened her eyes and the sky outside had darkened further. She must
have lapsed briefly into unconsciousness. A bare, broken bulb hung
mockingly from the ceiling. She attempted to smile back at it and then
decided it really wasn't worth the bother. What good was light to her
anyway? It seemed that hers had faded long ago, had been suffocated by
this grey-walled room. It had been painted white once, but grime had
long since stained it.
Then there was the painting. The single painting that hung by the
window. It showed a crudely-painted country scene, lumpy hills topped
by ripply villages that sagged under the weight of a sky burning bright
with morning. In the foreground, misshapen horses dragged a harrow over
a field of brown clotted paint, and a lonely man stared out longingly
at her with his wonky eyes.
But she loved it. She loved Henry Shieldsley, who had painted it so
badly some fifty years before, and scrawled his signature over a
horse's muddy hoof. This was her real window, not the other which
showed only what she could not reach, and where she saw only the rain,
because he would not allow her to see the sun; where the lane swung
agonisingly out of sight, teasing her with dreams of what might lie
around its corner. Shieldsley had painted an immortal sun that shone
even when night came and the key screeched in the lock. And even when
she lay back when alcohol stank on his breath and he forced himself
into her, slobbering and panting, she turned her head to one side, and
the dark rectangle standing out on the lighter wall comforted her,
allowed her to all but ignore the pain and the shame.
The little painted man with his lop-sided face would stare back at her
while his horse laboured behind him, and sometimes she would even
imagine that he had somehow escaped from the confines of his world of
paint and stillness, and stood at the end of her bed, a vague and misty
shape, one arm stretching out offering help, sustenance. And then she
would rise while her body stayed behind, and would take his hand and
stare into the eyes that were no longer lop-sided, but reflected sparks
of fire in their greenish depths. The frame would receive them, welcome
them into that world where the sun always shone, and each grassy hill
was topped by an idyllic village of thatched roofs and cobbled streets.
And she would lie in the grass, the skin of her face shining in the
warmth of the sun, breathing in the rich scents of the countryside as
the harrow forever broke the stubborn clods, and the man would laugh
before he kissed her.
Her eyes had drifted towards the painting but turned sharply towards
the door when she heard footsteps thudding on a hard stone floor. Her
heart jigged in her chest as she sprang quickly to her feet, which she
suddenly realised were bare and numb on the floorboards. The key grated
in the lock and he entered, lank hair dishevelled, sunken eyes
bloodshot and bruised beneath thick, dark brows.
For a moment he stared into her eyes, and his lip quivered with some
terrible, suppressed emotion. Then they moved down over her body, and
she blushed when she realised she hadn't even dressed, and wore only a
torn T-shirt that reached to her thighs.
He stared at the floor, hands clasped together but writhing endlessly
like worms twisting in the soil.
"I.....I wondered if you wanted anything to eat."
His voice was hoarse and cracked, burnt by the alcohol that had
slipped mercilessly down his throat the night before.
She looked away, hating him and loving him at the same time. The
bruise stood out harshly on her cheek, throbbing with painful
memory.
"No thanks, Dad. I feel a bit sick actually."
The thick brows furrowed. "You know how much I hate you calling me
that. You know my name."
"You're my father."
He took a step forward, hands still rubbing together agitatedly. She
closed her eyes, expecting him to lash out, expecting the pain that the
sting of his hand would bring. Instead he grabbed her by the shoulders
and lent forward so she could see the swollen capillaries
criss-crossing like veins on a leaf in his staring eyes. He stank of
stale alcohol, of cigarette smoke and dried sweat.
"You must always remember that I love you. I promised your mother that
I'd look after you and...I...and I have. Now I want you to tell me that
you love me. It means so much just to hear things.....like that."
She looked down, where patterns whirled on the floorboards. A bitter
taste welled up in her throat as her vision became obscured by hot,
torturing tears. Her father's face moved closer and she felt his
unshaven skin against her own pale flesh.
"I love you." The words sounded flat and meaningless, and as she felt
his lips touch hers, as his hands moved down from her shoulders, she
felt only the cold of the room, and heard only the sighing of the rain
on the filthy glass.