She regarded me uneasily. ‘What must have got in? What did you see? A bird?’
I shook my head. ‘Something bigger. Much, much bigger. Like a man. It flew, but it wasn’t a bird. It couldn’t have been. Not an ordinary bird. It was huge and black and flapping. I was afraid. I knew you were up in the attic, and with that hole in the roof – you said yourself, anything could get in. Anything. I saw it. I was so afraid for you.’
‘I think you’d better sit down and rest,’ Sylvia said. ‘I’ll make you some tea.’
‘You didn’t see anything? Nothing came into the attic?’
‘You can see I’m all right.’
‘You were alone? Nothing came in?’
She led me out of the room and I followed her downstairs, desperate for reassurance, wanting to hear her say that there had been nothing in the attic with her. Instead she said, ‘I don’t understand what you think happened. Tell me again what you saw.’
I was silent, trying to remember. It was suddenly difficult to sort out fact from fantasy, the reality of what I had seen from the terrifying vision which had obsessed me while I struggled back to the house. Sylvia threatened; Sylvia engulfed or embraced by something, by someone . . . ‘I don’t know,’ I said at last. ‘I saw something. I don’t know what it was.’
The Monday after Christmas I went to Cheltenham to pick up some material for curtains – and went alone. Sylvia wasn’t interested in going, although I had planned the trip as a treat for her.
‘We could make a day of it,’ I said. ‘Do some shopping, have a meal, see a film – whatever you like.’
Sylvia only smiled and shook her head.
‘Why do you want to stay here alone? What will you do while I’m gone?’
‘What makes you think it will be anything different from what I do while you’re here?’
I hadn’t meant that at all, but her words awakened suspicion. ‘Please come,’ I said. ‘It’ll do you good to get out of the house.’
She smiled. ‘I’ll take a walk. That’ll get me out of the house. It’s a nice day for it. I haven’t really explored the neighbourhood yet.’
And so I drove away on my own, feeling uneasy. Once in Cheltenham I had no urge to linger. I bought the material, filled the petrol tank, and drove back home without stopping for so much as a cup of coffee.
The house did not feel empty when I came in. Sylvia might have gone out for a walk, I knew, but I went through the house quietly, looking for her. I was on the upstairs landing when I heard the sound; I’m sure it would not have been audible downstairs. The sound came from the attic, directly overhead. It was a rustling, scrabbling sort of sound, with the occasional small thump, as of something moving around. I stopped breathing and stood still, staring at the featureless white ceiling, so low I could almost have reached up and touched it, to feel the movements on the back of my hand. The scrabbling sound gradually retreated as I listened, and finally stopped.
I bolted down the stairs and out of the front door. It would have to come out through the hole in the roof – I was sure of it. I might see it on the roof or in the high branches of the tree nearest the house. I would be able see what I had seen from the hill, and this time, perhaps, I would recognise it. It would have been a reward to see anything, even a rook, but although I circled the house, craning skyward, I saw nothing that moved against the dark roof or the pale sky. Finally I gave up and went into the house.
Sylvia was in the hall. I wondered how she had managed to slip past me. She looked flushed and slightly out of breath.
‘Your shirt-tail’s out,’ I said.
She smiled vaguely and stuffed it back into her jeans.
‘Did you have a nice walk?’
‘Mmm, lovely.’ She drifted away towards the kitchen.
‘I heard something just now. In the attic.’
She stopped and looked back at me. ‘When? I thought you just got back?’
‘I did just get back. I went upstairs to look for you and heard something moving in the attic. So I went outside to see if there was anything on the roof.’
She went on looking at me.
I shrugged, admitting defeat. ‘I didn’t see anything.’
She turned away. ‘You want coffee or tea? I’m going to put the kettle on.’
‘Coffee. Thanks.’ I watched her walk away from me.
It proved remarkably difficult to get someone to agree to come out and fix the roof before March. In this part of the world, it seemed, one booked roof repairs farther ahead than wedding receptions or holidays. I complained about it to Sylvia, who was indifferent.
‘So what? There’s no rush. There’s that tarp over the hole to keep the rain out.’
‘That was supposed to be a temporary thing,’ I said. ‘And what if it’s got loose? We’ve had some windy nights. It might be flapping free, letting things in.’
She looked at me with a little half-smile. ‘Do you want me to go up and check that it’s still in place?’
‘Up on the roof, you mean?’
‘I can see it from the attic. I can touch it, for that matter.’
I shrugged. ‘Well, I could go up into the attic and see for myself.’
‘Of course you could.’ She looked back down at her magazine, smiling to herself. She was curled up in one of the two matching armchairs I had arranged on either side of the wood-burning stove. The ruby chips on her finger glittered as she turned a page.
‘Do you know, I’ve never actually been into the attic?’ I was certain, as I asked, that she knew.
‘Well, you’re not missing much,’ she said calmly. She continued to read, and I paced the room, which I’d made comfortable and appealing with carefully selected furniture, dark brown curtains, and a beige carpet. I wondered if she knew that I was afraid of the attic – that dirty, dark place where something might lurk. She seemed so cool . . . But then maybe I was imagining things. Maybe she had nothing to hide. I should go up to the attic and see for myself, settle my mind and end these fantasies. But at the thought of climbing up there, poking my head up into the unknown darkness, my knees went weak and there was a tightness in my chest. No. There was no need to go up. If anything ever came into the attic, Sylvia would surely tell me, and ask for my help, just as she had at our mother’s grave, and a hundred times before.
The grey winter days dragged slowly by. It seemed always to be raining, or to be about to rain. I drew up lists of the improvements we would make in our house, the things we needed to buy, the vegetables and flowers we would grow in our garden.
Sylvia’s disappearances became more frequent. Sometimes she claimed to have been out for a walk – yes, even in the rain – and sometimes that she had been in the house all along. I had to be careful. She was suspicious of my questions, and I didn’t want to provoke her. Let her tell me all, in her own good time. I never mentioned the attic, or the sounds I heard at night. I pretended that I noticed nothing, and I waited.
And then one night I woke and knew that something was wrong. It was late: the moon was down and there was no light. The darkness lay on me like a weight. I got up, shivering, and wrapped myself in my dressing gown. As I stepped out of my room I could see that Sylvia’s door was shut and no light came from beneath it.
She’s asleep, I thought. Don’t disturb her.
But even as I cautioned myself I was shuffling forward, and my outstretched hand had grasped the doorknob. When the door was open I could see nothing in the blackness, and there was no sound. I reached for the light switch. Squinting in the harsh light, I saw that Sylvia’s bed was empty.
I leaned against the door frame, blinking miserably at the undisturbed bed. She hadn’t even slept in it.
Then I heard the noise.
There was someone in the attic. The sounds were soft but unmistakable, the sounds of movement. Floorboards creaked gently, rhythmically beneath a moving weight, and there was a jumble of softer sounds as well. I held my breath and listened, struggling to make sense of what I heard, trying to separate the sounds and identify them. I closed my eyes and held tightly to the door frame. Above me, the soft sounds paused, continued, paused, continued. Was it: cloth against flesh, flesh against flesh, a struggle, an embrace, a sob, a breath, a voice?