The Shadow in the Dark (Part Fourteen)

 

Several years ago - Mount Holyoke College:

 

I'm guided by a signal in the heavens

I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin

I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons

First we take Manhattan,

… then we take Berlin!

 

 

Bryony Addison had been true to her word when she said she would find me a boyfriend. And of course it was a Bryony Addison approved boyfriend, which meant there would be no possibility of the senior Sorority Sisters objecting. I would be free to receive him at weekends and walk around the grounds of the sprawling campus, holding hands, like sweethearts do..

 

Michael Emery had taken me for a walk through some nearby woodland before we then stopped off in town in his sports car for a light lunch at a very fashionable café. He wore a light linen suit, crisp white shirt and expensive Italian shoes. His hair cut was immaculate, in an Ivy League kind of style, and when he paid for our drinks and meal, he produced hundred dollar bills from a designer Gucci wallet, instead of paying by card. I assume it was to show off to the waitress, for whom he left a hundred dollar tip. I wore a floral summer dress that covered my knees and a pair of court shoes with a two inch heel, and a white silk ribbon in my hair. That was new. The New Feminism movement was evolving and Bryony was keen that I at least paid lip service to it. The white ribbon worn in the hair of a female student indicated a pledge of chastity until the time she might be companioned. To not wear a white ribbon suggested you intended to sleep around, that you were available and eager to satisfy men’s needs. That you were a slut. Very quickly the white ribbon became an established part of campus attire, whether the girl in question was a New Feminist or not. 

 

Michael liked to see me wearing a modest dress. What he didn’t like was for me to wear pants. He had made that abundantly clear on our first date when he had eventually turned the conversation round to a list of things inappropriate for a young woman in the 21st century.

 

“Male imitation clothing has confused women since the 1960s,” he explained over lunch as he dabbed his lips with a crisp linen napkin. “It has done them no good at all, and considerable harm. Such women seem scared to be women in the real sense. It is the tragedy of the modern age.” His intonation as he spoke those final three words suggested to me that he wasn’t very modern, in his outlook, himself. 

 

“Jeans and a t-shirt are comfortable,” I had said. I wore a dress for my first date,  but that was only because Bryony had warned me how to dress. “Do NOT wear pants, Ashlee!”

 

“Would you attend a funeral in jeans and a t-shirt?” asked Michael Emery.

 

“Well, no, of course not no. That would be…”

                                 

“Comfortable, surely?” suggested Michael.

 

“Comfort isn’t always appropriate,” I said.

 

“Exactly. Exactly. You see? You look pretty, Ashlee. Very pretty in your green cotton dress. The green contrasts so well with your red hair. Why lower yourself - your standards - when you can be such a striking and beautiful woman?”

 

 

Ah, you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win

You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the discipline

How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin

First we take Manhattan, 

…then we take Berlin!

 

 

I didn’t know what to make of Michael Emery. I knew of course that he came from the Emery family, who, like the Fricks and the Bannons, were the moneyed equivalent in the United States of European aristocracy.

 

“He likes you,” Bryony had excitedly told me after my second date, as she squeezed my hands. “We can go forward now, double dating! Won’t that be lovely?”

Again, I hadn’t been so certain. Michael was always polite, but controlling in certain ways. Bizarrely, he would tell me to leave my purse and credit cards at home when we went out. "You won’t be paying for anything, after all. A Free Woman does not need to carry funds with her when she is with her gentleman.”

 

His controlling nature even extended to my cell phone, which I was never to carry with me when I was him, but always carry with me when I wasn’t. He didn’t want me to be distracted by anything while I was in his presence, but at other times… 

 

“I have to be able to get in touch with my girlfriend when I need to,” he told me. 

 

I didn’t like this. But I knew Bryony would be angry if I told Michael I didn’t want to see him again. As I only saw him at weekends, and then only for a few hours at a time, the so-called relationship wasn’t too demanding, though I would receive text messages from him at unexpected moments. If I didn’t reply within what he considered to be a reasonable passage of time, he would text Bryony to check up on me and tell me to call Michael immediately.

 

I don't like your fashion business, mister

And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin

I don't like what happened to my sister

First we take Manhattan, 

…then we take Berlin!

 

And so we were still together on the last day of the summer term when Bryony was lying on the grass lawn in front of the main campus building, with her tousled head resting on Elijah Bannon’s lap.

 

Some R.E.M. song I didn’t recognise was playing on a Bluetooth speaker sat on the grass. Elijah was dramatically miming the lyrics as Michael and I approached, holdings hands like sweethearts do. He peered down at the sleepy Bryony as the chorus went, First we take Manhattan, and as the singer paused, he looked up at me with mock intensity to then mime, then we take Berlin!

 

“Hi Bryony,” I said, as I worked my hand free and I knelt down beside her.

 

“Hey, Ashlee.” She sounded sleepy. It was an uncharacteristically warm day. 

 

“What you been doing?” I asked as I ran my hand over the white ribbon in my hair to ensure it was till neat and tidy.

 

“Oh, you know, Elijah has been reading to me.”

 

A book lay out on the grass, pages down, spine broken from multiple reads through. I knew which book it was without even looking at the title. It was THEIR book. They were both infatuated by it, in much the same way a certain kind of intense student obsessed about the Lord of the Rings.

 

I mean, they read it ALL the time. And then talked about it.

 

I tended to switch off. 

 

It was THEIR book. And they would quote it repeatedly, as if to test one another.

 

The human race is unimportant. It is the self that must not be betrayed.

 

Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish in ourselves if we are to live in society.

 

Wolves don't hunt singly, but always in pairs. The lone wolf was a myth.

 

And the quote that made me shiver, late at night, as we sat in Bryony’s room, drinking expensive red wine by candlelight from paper cups, and listening to the wind howl outside our dormitory.

 

One of the great fallacies of our time is that the Nazis rose to power because they imposed order on chaos. Precisely the opposite is true - they were successful because they imposed chaos on order. They tore up the commandments, they denied the super-ego, what you will. They said, "You may persecute the minority, you may kill, you may torture, you may couple and breed without love." They offered humanity all its great temptations. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

 

Elijah looked up and smiled at me. “You’re looking pretty, today, Ashlee.”

 

“Thank you.” I said that because I saw how Bryony had nodded at me in encouragement. I was supposed to be charmed by his compliment, but somehow it felt, well, not so much of a compliment. Like, you’re looking pretty, today, Ashlee, because you didn’t yesterday? Or was I imagining the ambiguous tone of his voice?

 

“You’re very feminine,” said Bryony as she squeezed her boyfriends hand. “Bryony Addison approves!”

 

“Ashlee has been learning the Latin names for some flowers,” said Michael Emery as he placed his hand around my waist. “Tell them some of the Latin names you’ve learned today, Ashlee, while we walked through the woods, together.”

 

I tried to smile. I felt him squeeze my waist as if to remind me to answer. “Cerastium Tomentosum, commonly known as Snow in Summer. Um, Lilium Philadelphicum, which is the Wood Lily, and… um…”

 

“There was one more, wasn’t there, Ashlee? Come on, I told you what it was.” I felt his hand on my bottom through the fabric of my dress.

 

“I… I can’t remember the Latin. It was Red Trillium, but the Latin… I can’t…”

 

“Silly, girl. The Latin is Trillium Erectum. Ercetum.” He seemed amused by the word as he rolled the vowels. “Distinctive features include red flowers in the spring woods, three leaves in a whorl, with a red ovary centre. A ripe, red ovary centre. You’ll have to do better next weekend, Ashlee.” He stroked my hair as he said that and lay his fingers on my white purity ribbon. 

 

“Yes, Michael.” I said. 

 

Bryony squealed. “They have actually names like that for flowers? How very naughty!” She rose up onto her knees, with her thighs closed, the way Elijah liked her to sit. “Elijah, darling, can we have some champagne, now that Michael and Ashlee are here? It would be so lovely to have a glass before sun goes down. Pretty, pretty please?”

 

 

First we take Manhattan, 

…then we take Berlin!

 

 

*****************

 

‘is something wrong, Miss Ellis?” asked Sheriff Root. “You do remember me saying I would call round this morning?”

 

I sat, numb, at the kitchen table, dressed in my fucking Frozen silk slip, with a bowl of Nutri-girl breakfast food in front of me, while Rosemary busied herself with some washing up.

 

“She’s such a sleepy head,” said Rosemary. “I was just about to go and wake her up.”

 

“Why are you doing this?” I said. I fought back some tears.

 

Sheriff Root didn’t seem to understand. “Doing what, Miss Ellis?”

 

I buried my head in my hands. Yesterday I had rung my bureau. They hadn’t known who I was. And then I had rung Miles and spoken to his wife.

 

“Look, if you don’t feel up to driving out to where you crashed your car,” began Sheriff Root, “then I quite understand. You can go back to bed if you’re not feeling well?”

 

And what then? Wake up again and go down into the kitchen for breakfast and find Sheriff Root waiting for me? OVER AND OVER AGAIN!

 

“Stop it! Please stop it!” I cried.

 

Rosemary now looked as concerned as Sheriff Root. “She’s been through a lot,” suggested Rosemary. “Perhaps a doctor?”

 

“Doctor Willett, perhaps?” suggested Sheriff Root. “He could prescribe her something?”

 

“I’m not taking any drugs!” I screamed. “I’m not!” I rose to my feet. “Today is the 7^th of October! The 7^th of October!”

 

They looked at me as if I was mad.

 

I sat down again. For some reason I felt very hungry. I gazed at the bowl of Nutri-girl and picked up the spoon. Nutri-girl IS very tasty. I was beginning to understand now why so many women were switching to it.

 

“There, she’s eating, Sheriff. She’ll feel better with some Nutri-girl inside her.”

 

I couldn’t seem to stop eating the Nutri-girl. It would make my hair glossy and nails strong and it would redistribute fatty tissue to the most important parts of a girl’s body, and…

 

I jumped up off the kitchen stool and screamed.

 

And then suddenly Sheriff Root was there, standing above me, holding me in his arms, bed everything was suddenly all right.

 

He was so strong, so handsome, so masculine, so dominant.

 

I practically melted into his arms. It just felt so good for Sheriff Root to hold me like that. So very good. 

 

“Such a drama Queen,” tutted Rosemary. “My Ada was just the same.”

 

I closed my fluttering eyelids for a moment. Just for a moment, so I could savour how this felt.

 

When I opened them again, I was sitting in the passenger seat of Sheriff Root’s police car and we were driving along familiar country roads that led away from Rosemary’s house. I was dressed in a blue and white tartan pleated kilt skirt, white socks, flat soled shoes, and a white blouse. My hair was bunched back with a white ribbon. I didn’t remember getting dressed.

 

“… folks around here give the place a wide berth. It’s all just superstition, of course, but this is a quiet part of Massachusetts, and old habits die hard.” Sheriff Root had obviously been talking for some time as we drove. I took a deep breath and touched my left thigh where the skirt hem revealed it. My skin was smooth and unblemished. Why was I even thinking that?

 

I didn’t remember getting dressed.

 

“You okay, Miss Ellis?”

 

“No, I’m not.” How long was this going to go on for? How many times was I going to wake up in the teenage bedroom, to be told it was still the 5^th of October? “Are we driving to my car?”

 

“We are, yes.”

“There’s no point. We’ve already both been there.”

 

Sheriff Root looked concerned as he took his eyes of the road momentarily to look at me. “Miss Ellis?”

 

“You’re part of this, Sheriff. You have to be, because the alternative is I’m going mad, and I’m not going mad. I know I’m not insane.”

 

“I really don’t know what you’re…”

 

One thing I knew for certain – I wasn’t simply going to repeat the cycle of going to my car, wandering down to the river bank, seeing the bridge, or not seeing it, or whatever was supposed to happen this time. No, I would do something totally random – something that they can’t have prepared for me to do. And, I decided now, I wasn’t going to fall asleep where they might find me and bring me back to the bedroom. Tonight I would run away, hide, somewhere, anywhere that they couldn’t find me, and only then go to sleep. And hopefully, then, in the morning, I would wake up normally, not in Rosemary’s house, and that would prove to me that I wasn’t going insane.   

 

I turned my mind to focus on what had happened yesterday with the phone calls. I had spoken to my bureau, but the woman I had spoken to could have been anyone. She could have been part of this. I was. Speaking on a landline, so my call could easily have been diverted. Both my calls could have been diverted. 

 

I couldn’t yet explain the missing bridge, with no sign of its foundations, but I would get to that in time. There had to be a logical explanation for it. 

 

Focus on the phone calls. I had then spoken to Helen, Miles’s wife. That was harder to explain, because I was certain the voice was hers. Or was I? I’d only met Helen a handful of times, and really, come to think of it, how well did I actually know her? Our conversations had been mostly superficial and brief. I only knew her as the wife of Miles. And I had been very tired. Could I have just assumed it was her? 

 

“I don’t want to go to my crashed car,” I said.

 

“Okay,” Sheriff Root nodded as he continued to drive down the country road. “You want me to take you back to Rosemary’s house?”

 

“No.” I stared out of the window. I was beginning to recognise the route we were taking – certain landmarks seemed familiar as we drove past them. 

 

“I could drive you into Dunwich and you could see Doctor Willett?”

 

I needed to actually look someone in the eye as I spoke to them. I had to see someone I actually knew, and see if they were the person I remembered, or were acting as strange as Helen apparently was. It would be my sanity check. But who? And then I remembered what Sheriff Root had said. 

 

“Elijah Bannon lives nearby,” I said as we drove on. I had hoped that the weather might be different today, because if so that would prove I was right and that this whole Groundhog Day thing was people trying to manipulate me, but the weather seemed the same as yesterday and the day before. Were there slightly more clouds in the sky then I remembered? It was very hard to tell. It occurred to me that I could scratch my initials into the bark of a tree close to the car wreck, and if they were still there ‘the next day’ then that would be further indication that I wasn’t hallucinating all of this. But I’d have to do it without Sheriff Root seeing me do it. If they could make a bridge disappear, then they could possibly do something to the marking of a tree. 

 

“Elijah Bannon does live nearby, but I’m surprised you know him, Miss Ellis. Do you mind me asking how?”

 

“He dated a friend of mine. It was several years ago.” 

 

Practically a lifetime ago. I remembered only too well that last night of our final year at Mount Holyoke College, and how we all parted ways, never to speak again. 

 

“Take me to Elijah Bannon’s house.”

 

“Of course, Miss Ellis. Whatever you want.’ 

 

Sheriff Root smiled and then took the next left turn.