‘Why? You know Amelia’s story. You’re reading to it, you’re refusing to let men near it, so obviously you believe in it.’
‘It’s not that simple,’ says Vanessa, wincing.
‘Why not? It’s only your emotions complicating it.’
I want to shout at Rebecca, make her stop this attack, because all it is doing is making me feel sorry for my mother, defensive towards her, and that is the last thing I want.
‘The statue is—It’s not just a statue, that much is plain, but I never experienced anything like—’
‘So you think Amelia made it up? In that case, don’t you need to admit to yourself that you’re using this statue as an excuse to not face up to the consequences of your actions?’
‘That’s it.’ Vanessa stands up. ‘Come and see it.’
‘Pardon?’ says Rebecca.
‘The statue.’
It’s the first time I’ve seen Rebecca lost for words. Perhaps nobody ever called her bluff in a counselling session before. She blinks, and shakes her head.
‘Seriously?’ says Kay. She stands up too, and scratches her neck, a masculine gesture, like a builder being asked to give a quote. ‘I’m up for it. In the library, right? Through the door with the four coloured squares. I have to tell you, I believe in monsters, but I don’t expect to see one down there. Still, I’d like to have a look, if that’s okay.’
Everyone turns to me. I have become the focus of the room.
The unspoken question is – do I believe in monsters?
I know there is something behind the white door with four squares, and I don’t want to face it.
I could side with Rebecca. She’s waiting for me to announce that I won’t be buying into this delusion, that my mother needs professional help, that we need to get her off this island before we can even begin to form a normal mother–daughter relationship. Where does that kind of help get you? The kind where somebody takes your own ideas from your head and stuffs in fresh ones instead?
Do those new, shiny thoughts mean that monsters no longer exist? Does it mean the rapist isn’t breathing hard outside the door?
I don’t believe that every monster, real or imaginary, needs to be faced. But the one in this house does.
So I stand up. ‘Let’s go.’
For one moment, it looks as though Rebecca is going to cling to her principles and stay at the table, but then she pushes back her chair and smoothes her skirts. ‘Perhaps this is the best course of action,’ she says. ‘Facing it head-on.’
‘The monster?’ asks Vanessa in an amused voice.
‘Whatever you think it is.’
‘What a very delicate way of putting it.’ Vanessa strides out of the dining room and we follow after her in a snake: Kay, Rebecca, me. We march through a minimalist living room, the fire unlit, into a long draughty hall with black and white tiles on the floor and walls. Underneath the wide staircase, carpeted in a scuffed and faded red, is a door, painted black. Vanessa turns the handle and we follow her farther, down into the basement. The stone steps, so bare in contrast to the décor of the house, are lit by small electric lights running the length of the sloping ceiling, strung on two bare wires, but even though the way is clearly visible, I can’t bring myself to close the black door behind me. I don’t want to lose that opening, that possibility of escape.
At the bottom of the steps we enter familiar territory: the corridor, and then the library, with the rows of shelves holding empty declarations. Vanessa slows her pace, and strolls down the ‘A–G’ aisle, running one hand along the folders. She reaches the small white door with the four squares, then takes off her green jacket, folds it and puts it on the floor, and rolls up the sleeves of her cream blouse, even though it’s freezing. She picks up a folder from the tray next to the door, then traces her finger along the squares. ‘Red for heroes. Blue for villains. Yellow for sidekicks, and green for wise men. Or wizards, if you like. Sages. Sage green. I’ve often wondered if that’s where the saying comes from. Amelia told me they were as old as the statue, those definitions.’ She swings back the door and steps into the darkness.
Kay is the first to follow. Rebecca looks at me. I return her stare calmly, much more calmly than I feel, and then I walk through the doorway too. I hear Rebecca following after me. She manages something I could not; she shuts the door behind her. The light of the library is snatched away, and Kay makes a small hissing sound. I stop walking and wait for my eyes to adjust. I have no idea if I’m in a tiny room or a cavernous space. Although I know there can’t be a lot of room down here, under the house, I have the idea that if I lift up my hands I wouldn’t scrape my knuckles across a low ceiling, but would find only air.
There is a greenish glow coming from the wall on my right. As the seconds pass, I make out more colours, coming from where the walls give way to natural rock. I see red, blue, and yellow too, faintly, giving just enough light to let me see the outlines of shapes, and to stop me from stumbling as I walk forward to stand next to Kay. Vanessa is ahead, turned towards us, her face barely visible. There is the sound of water, trickling. I shiver, and there’s the sudden sensation of pressure between my shoulder blades.
‘I can’t see anything,’ whispers Rebecca, next to my ear. She is holding on to my jumper, I think; I can picture her fist bunching the wool.
Vanessa turns around, shows us her upright back, her blouse reflecting the dim light. ‘Hello, Moira,’ she says.
The sound of trickling water is not strong, but I have the impression we are close to the source of it. There’s dampness in the air, and I think the uneven floor might be wet. I feel as though I’m standing in a shallow puddle, but my walking boots protect my feet. Isn’t Rebecca wearing high heels? She’s still holding on to me. I resist the urge to turn to her, to ask her if she’s okay, if her feet are wet, anything at all just to get her to let go of me.
‘It’s a woman,’ says Kay, and her voice trembles, resonates with fear, and that tone would be enough to make me run if Rebecca wasn’t pressed up against my back. Her grip is relentless.
Kay has stopped moving. I manage to walk up to stand beside her, and she whispers to me, ‘It’s a woman. Is it?’
In front of us, in an alcove set in the back of the rough cave, she stands. Behind her the rocks glow red, yellow, blue, green, dimly. I can only just make out her features; she is beautiful, I think. She radiates age and intelligence, and it is humbling to be near her.
‘Meet Moira,’ says Vanessa. ‘That’s the name Amelia gave to her.’
The statue doesn’t move. Of course. How could it move?
And yet my strong feeling is that she’s not carved from stone. She is encased in it, a thin layer of it; it has grown on her. The reality of her is just under the surface of the rock. Very close to waking, as if she could stretch and the stone would fall from her. She is waiting.
I don’t know what she’s waiting for.
‘It’s a statue,’ says Rebecca, and the fact that she really believes that shines through her voice. She just doesn’t get it. ‘It’s just a statue.’
I say, ‘No.’
But now she has planted the doubt, it begins to grow inside me. What is Moira? Are my senses lying to me? Why should my perception be different to Rebecca’s?
Moira’s face alters. Not discernibly, not so a person could take a photograph and point out differences, but there is no mistaking a change from beautiful to ugly. The nose is now severe rather than straight, and the mouth is loose rather than generous. I now feel I’m looking at an older woman, one whose hard life has written itself on her face.
‘She changes all the time,’ says Vanessa. ‘I watch her for hours.’ She walks up to Moira with a nonchalance that shocks me. Has she really been in Moira’s company for so long that she is able to touch her without feeling profoundly uncomfortable? But Vanessa stops short of touching her. She walks behind her and taps something attached to the wall. I take a step to the right and see a length of pipe jutting from the rock, leading down to a squat barrel from which the trickling sound emanates.