A Lady Under Siege

17

“Hello, anybody up? Good morning! Hello!”

Meghan woke with a start on the living room couch. The room was bright with sunlight. She threw off the duvet, and staggered to her feet, bumping the coffee table she’d pulled close the night before to keep her two phones within arm’s reach. In her groggy, half-wakened state she thought at first one of them must have rung, but which? No, a voice had called, that’s what it was—she turned and could see across the kitchen counter to the back door, where Derek knelt outside, bringing his grinning, expectant face close to the broken window pane.

“Slept on the couch, did you?”

Meghan came to the kitchen in her pyjamas. “I didn’t feel comfortable sleeping upstairs, knowing the door wasn’t lockable,” she explained. “Don’t!”

It was too late—Derek had already stuck his hand through, unlocked and turned the handle, and given the door enough of a push that the wine glass, perched precariously atop the paper towel roll, teetered and crashed to the floor tiles. Derek flinched at the sound, and closed the door sheepishly. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Didn’t know you’d booby-trapped the place.”

“Jesus Christ,” Meghan answered irritably. “Don’t try to come in until I sweep up.” She rummaged in the cupboard under the sink for a dustpan and a hand broom, and set to work brushing up splinters of glass on her hands and knees. Derek watched her through the closed door. She felt his eyes on her and realised self-consciously that on all fours like this her thin pyjamas were stretched tautly across her behind. She stood and then lowered herself to a squat instead, not that it made much difference. She was still a woman in pyjamas being watched by a man through a window.

“I’ve already been to the hardware and got the glass, it opens at seven a.m. for tradesmen, you know, even on Saturdays,” Derek nattered from the sunshine of the deck. Through the missing pane she could hear him well enough. “They’re all there, too, the poor bastards, working weekends. You have such a nice little deck here. Very cozy. Great view of my place, all the prized possessions piled in my back yard. It looks a mess, but believe it or not I know where everything is. And don’t ask me if I want coffee.”

“I wasn’t about to,” Meghan grumbled. A couple of the slivers of glass were so microscopic the broom was passing over them, leaving tiny glinting irritants that stoked her annoyance.

“And don’t make any for yourself, either,” he said cheerfully. “I brought you one, and some croissants. I asked myself, does she seem like the croissant type or the Danish type? Went with the croissant—you can add jam to a croissant, but scraping the jam from a Danish, it’s just not done.”

“That’s very good thinking!” chirped Betsy, prancing into the kitchen all smiles.

“Stop right there,” Meghan ordered. “Don’t come any closer in bare feet.”

“You I got tea,” Derek said to her.

“Black tea?” Meghan frowned. “She’s too young for caffeinated drinks.”

“I bet she likes Coke,” Derek responded. “That’s got a hell of a lot more caffeine than an innocent cup of tea.”

“She doesn’t drink sodas either,” Meghan answered sharply.

“You’re always getting me in trouble with your mother,” Derek teased Betsy.

“I drink ginger ale, sometimes,” she announced.

“That’s not caffeinated,” said Meghan. She stood up, surveyed the floor, and decided it passed muster. She went to empty the dustpan with its shards of wineglass under the sink.

“How’d you break that?” Betsy asked.

“I didn’t. He did,” said Meghan curtly. At the door she unknotted and removed the rope she’d strung the night before, her last line of defence. She opened the door and let him in. He crossed the threshold carrying a bag of croissants in one hand, and in the other he balanced the coffee and tea, one atop the other in their plastic-lidded paper cups. “Better be careful!” Betsy giggled delightedly, and Derek played to his audience of two, like a court jester or a clown at a birthday party, pretending to almost stumble and bobble the drinks. His cavalier style, which Meghan saw as deliberately courting disaster and further spillage, infuriated her. And yet when he set the cups upon the kitchen table, and turned around to look at her with his big open face, a strange emotion seized her.

The events of the previous night came flooding back to her, and her mind filled suddenly with images of the same sharp blue eyes, broad forehead and large mouth, seen precisely as Lady Sylvanne had seen them, in the bedroom of a sickly twelve-year-old girl. She was looking into the face of Thomas of Gastoncoe.

“Something wrong? Derek asked.

His words made her aware that she’d been blatantly staring at him, as if he were a painting, or a photograph.

“Mom, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” said Betsy.

“Not a ghost,” she said, flustered. “I’m fine, really. Derek has come to fix our door, so why don’t—”

“And our fence,” the girl interrupted.

“That’s right, and our fence, so why don’t we let him get on with it?”

“But we haven’t had our breakfast.”

“He has, I think.” He nodded in confirmation. “Let’s go get properly dressed, come back and eat up quickly, and get out of his way.”

“You won’t be in my way,” said Derek. “And this won’t take ten minutes. The fence is another matter, it’ll take a bit longer. I bought a couple of two-by-fours to reinforce it.”

“That’ll be fine,” Meghan said. She fought a continuous urge to stare at him. Thomas of Gastoncoe. A dead ringer.

“I’m going to have a sip of tea,” Betsy announced, putting on a British accent. To her great surprise, her mother didn’t say anything in response. She picked up the paper cup and brought it to her lips, and still Meghan paid her no heed. She sensed that her mother was suddenly preoccupied with Derek, and the feeling brought a pang of jealousy.

“I’m drinking it!” she declared.

“Fine, go ahead,” Meghan answered absently. “I’m going upstairs to get dressed.” She hadn’t figured out how to broach the matter of her dreams with Derek, but she knew one thing: it should not be done in pyjamas.

UPSTAIRS SHE WAS ABOUT to pull on a pair of jeans and a tank top—her usual Saturday uniform—when she decided a shower would clear her head and help sort her thoughts. Under the warm spray she gave her mind up to Sylvanne and Thomas. They had finally come together, they had clashed, and she had lived it—she had felt the ferocity of Sylvanne’s hatred of him, and it made her shudder. Then she recalled how Thomas has spoken the name Meghan, how he had described her. He called me a great beauty, she remembered, and the flattery pleased her. It’s too long since I’ve heard anything like that from a man, she thought, smiling to herself. Drunken Derek yelling “You’re cute when you’re angry!” doesn’t count. She remembered how Thomas had spoken of Derek’s life with incomprehension—what were the words he’d used? Dissolute and pointless. Dead on. With a sudden shock she realised she had left her daughter alone downstairs with that very man, a man she barely knew, a man she habitually described to friends as the obnoxious drunk next door.

She dressed quickly and hurried back down to the kitchen. There was no one there and the pane had already been replaced in the back door. Through the window she could see Derek pulling nails from the fence planks with a hammer, while Betsy, still in her pyjamas, was bouncing on the trampoline, landing on her feet one time, her bum the next. They were happily chattering to each other like old pals. Meghan opened the door and stepped out onto the deck.

“What the hell do unicorns need a horn for anyway?” Derek was asking. “Narwhals are the only other mammal with a big pointy pole sticking straight out their foreheads, and they use theirs, to dig up food from the sea bottom, but a unicorn eats grass like a horse, does he not? A horn’s only going be a nuisance in that case, getting in the way all the time.”

“They need the horns to defend themselves,” Betsy replied.

“From who?”

“Lions and tigers and things.”

“Your unicorns have wings—they’re not going to stand around poking their head at a bunch of hungry lions, they’d fly away.”

“They do have wings, you’re right.” Betsy slowed her trampoline act so she could examine her pyjamas, which were covered with supercute My-Little-Pony-style cartoon unicorns, with manes like the hairdos of homecoming queens. “A Pegasus is a horse with wings.”

“Those are Pegacorns,” Derek proclaimed. “Those are some clever marketer’s idea of what six year old girls want to cuddle up with.”

“I’m not six, I’m ten,” Betsy protested.

“Doesn’t matter. You were hooked at six. Or three. Now they’ve got you for life. At ninety-three you’ll be dusting your little glass menagerie of crystal unicorns and porcelain Pegasuses, or would that be Pegasi? My own dear mother treasures a shelf of little glass birdies in her nursing home, I swear on a stack of Bibles. They’re her best friends, I’d say.”

Betsy finally noticed her own mother, standing on the deck. “Mom,” she called. “Derek says unicorns are a crock.”

“Don’t lie,” Derek scolded her. “It’s most unbecoming in a child. I said no such thing.”

“You did!”

“I never used the word crock. They’re mythical beasts, myths are never a crock. They’re beyond that, like Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.”

Meghan came down into the garden. “Time you got out of those unicorns anyway,” she said. “Go get dressed. And then, my dear, I think it’s practice time on the piano.”

“Really? You haven’t made me practice it in weeks.”

“Exactly.”

Betsy attempted a cartwheel on the grass. Her form was excellent, a perfect whirling swirl of a circle that brought her to a standing stop in front of her mother. She beamed up at her. “I’m getting good,” she squealed happily.

“Practice makes perfect,” said Meghan. “Same for the piano.”

“You’re forgetting one thing,” Betsy said, holding up her bandaged finger.

“If you can do cartwheels on that hand, you can play a piano. Anyway, your pjs will get all grass-stained if you’re not careful,” Meghan said. “Go get changed.”

“In a bit.”

“Betsy, I need to talk to Derek. Alone.”

Derek set his hammer down. “Sounds ominous,” he said.

“Is it about me?” Betsy asked.

“No.”

“If it’s about me, I have a right to listen,” she insisted.

“It’s not about you.”

“Is it about your dreams?”

“Possibly.”

“Mommy has strange dreams,” Betsy said to Derek.

“So you mentioned,” he answered. “She’s lucky to remember them. I never do. Or maybe I’m the lucky one, I guess it depends on the dreams.”

“Hers are really strange—”

“Betsy,” her mother cut her short. “Go inside, get dressed, and I want to hear that piano for a good half hour before I see your face out here again.”

“You don’t have to yell,” said Betsy.

“I wasn’t yelling.”

“It’s most unbecoming in a mother.” She smiled at Derek, expecting him to appreciate what she thought was a splendidly clever echo of a phrase he’d just used himself, but he was looking down around his feet for a can of beer he’d set there. He picked it up and drained the last remaining dribble. “Just let me grab another, be right back.” That left Betsy alone under her mother’s withering glare. She slunk into the house.

“AREN’T PEOPLE SUPPOSED TO wait until noon for that?” Meghan asked when Derek returned.

“Maybe. But then I’d have to keep track of the time.” He took a swig from the can and said, “Working in the sun like this gives a man a thirst.”

Meghan said, “I’m not sure how to broach this. You’re going to think I’m strange.”

“Normal is strange to me,” he replied.

“This is not normal. Betsy’s right. I do have very odd dreams these days. It’s really one dream that continues every night, and related to it, I need to say something to you.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Have you ever heard of anyone named Thomas of Gastoncoe?”

Derek shook his head no. From inside the house the first notes of the piano could be heard. Betsy was playing a childlike, somehow compelling version of Good King Wenceslas.

“Well, Thomas is someone who looks just like you,” Meghan continued. “And I have reason to believe he might be in your head, listening to me now, so I’d like to speak directly to him, if I may.”

Derek looked amused. “Fire away.”

Meghan clasped her hands together at her waist, like a child composing herself to sing in front of strangers. “Thomas,” she began. “In my dreams last night I heard what you said to Sylvanne. I was there, in her mind. If there is anything I can do to help you, to cure your daughter’s illness, to bring her back to health, I will do it. I’ll start by advising you to give her lots of fruits and vegetables. Oranges, if you can get them. Or lemons or limes. Vitamin C, but you don’t know what that is. It can’t hurt. Try chicken soup. Go to Sylvanne, and tell her what Daphne’s been eating, and what medicines her doctor has been giving her. Tell her, make her listen, and I will hear it.”

She studied Derek’s face. He looked back at her neutrally.

“And one more thing,” she continued. “I know Lady Sylvanne has already tried to attack you with a sword, so your guard is up. Keep it that way, don’t ever drop it, because she wants your head. She means to kill you. Her husband planted the seed on his deathbed, he told her to learn the story of Judith and Holofernes, from the Bible—if you don’t know how it ends, well, Judith got into his bed and cut off his head.”

Meghan took a deep breath and exhaled. It felt very good to get that off her chest, regardless of what Derek might think of her. “There. That’s it, I’m done,” she said.

Derek looked around for his hammer. “All right then,” he declared. “This fence will be finished in just a bit.”

Meghan watched him pick a slat up from the ground and pull a nail from it with the hammer’s claw. “Thank you for taking this so well,” she said.

“How do you know how I’m taking it?” he asked. “All you’re seeing is the surface politeness.”

“And what’s underneath?”

“Loads of things. Bemusement. It’s kind of cute. Then bewilderment. What the f*ck is she talking about? But mostly it’s a pleasant surprise—it’s nice, it makes you more interesting. You’re more complicated than I thought.”

“Now you’re smirking.”

“Am I? It’s hard not to.”

From inside the house they could hear Betsy’s rendition of Good King Wenceslas collapse into childish random bashing of the keys.

“I better go keep her on course,” Meghan said. Derek nodded and turned back to his work.