Property of a Lady

She glanced nervously at Nell, and Michael, seeing Nell’s hesitation, said, ‘It’ll have been part of an old song. Country places like this have really old songs – people hand them down from their grandparents, and they’ve handed them down from their grandparents. Some of them are actually quite interesting. It lets us know what people sang hundreds of years ago. I quite like knowing what people used to sing.’


‘I’d like knowing as well,’ said Beth. ‘Only, not when it’s about dead men’s hands and stuff. That’s pretty grim, I think.’

‘So do I. But I bet it really was just an old song you heard.’

Beth appeared to find this acceptable. She said, ‘That man thought I was somebody else. He thought I was somebody called Elvira.’

Elvira . . . It whispered into the kitchen, leaving a snail’s trail of fear through the homely scents of teacakes being toasted and the singing of the kettle as it came up to the boil. Elvira whose name was inscribed on a forgotten gravestone in a desolate churchyard. But where was Elvira’s grave?

Nell said, ‘Beth, that teacake’s burning. How did you know that about Elvira?’

‘Because he said so.’ Beth rescued the teacake. ‘“You’re not Elvira,” that’s what he said. “I must find her.” Then he sort of cried a bit. It was sad when he did that.’

‘Perhaps Elvira was somebody he had once known.’

‘I think Elvira’s a stupid name,’ said Beth robustly. ‘Can we have the teacakes now? And can I hear some more about Wilberforce?’

After the teacakes had been consumed, Beth went up to her room to tell the animal collection about a new exploit involving the mice’s preparations for Christmas and a Christmas tree in which Wilberforce had become indignantly entangled.

Nell said, ‘Sleepwalking was the most reassuring answer I could think of.’

For her or for you? Michael wondered, but he only said, ‘It might even be true.’ He studied her for a moment. ‘D’you still think the nightmares are bound up with her father’s death?’ Damn, he thought, why can’t I say “your husband”. Or even use his name? Brad, that’s what he’s called.

‘I’m not discounting it entirely,’ said Nell slowly, and Michael looked at her and thought: you’re not discounting it because you have nightmares of your own. ‘It doesn’t explain Elvira, though,’ said Nell and, before Michael could say anything, she said: ‘It doesn’t explain the Hand of Glory rhyme, either. That’s what Beth heard, isn’t it? It’s what Ellie hears, as well. “Sleep all who sleep, wake all who wake, but be as the dead for the dead man’s sake.” And Michael, the thing that terrifies me most about that—’

‘Is that it actually seems to have sent Beth to sleep,’ said Michael.

‘Yes.’

It terrified Michael as well, but he only said, ‘She seems to have bounced back fairly quickly.’

‘She does, doesn’t she?’ said Nell with a kind of eager gratitude. ‘She’s astonishingly resilient, really. I think she could go back to school in a couple of days. I think the normality of that will help. She’ll get absorbed in lessons and her friends, and it will fade. At least, that’s what I’m hoping. Would you like another cup of tea? And d’you want to check your emails?’

‘Yes to both questions, please,’ said Michael, smiling at her.

He connected up the laptop, pleased to find he remembered which socket plugged into the phone line, and switched on.

The email programme opened up and Jack’s name seemed to jump out at him.

Michael—

We’ve made a decision, and it’s that Ellie absolutely must have a complete change of scenery and people. Frankly, it’s the only thing left we can think of to try.

Last night she began crying around midnight – the most despairing, heart-rending sobbing you can imagine, and nothing we could do or say seemed to reach her.

“He’s waiting for me,” she kept saying. “He really is. Don’t let him get to me, please don’t.”