The Space Behind the Curtains

“So yeah, it’s all good, just so long as his wife doesn’t find out,” my friend, Lucy, is updating me on her latest conquest.  She always was a one for the boys and now that she’s in her fifties, nothing’s changed, flitting from one bloke to the next, but that’s her way and a sight raising of my eyebrows is the most I ever respond with.  None of us is perfect.

“Anyway,” she continues, sipping her flat white spiced cinnamon something or other, “what are you up to tonight whilst Justin’s away?  Got anything planned?” she adds with a wink.

“Nothing planned,” I smile, “I’m just going to settle in for an evening on my own.  Will be weird, I’ve never spent a night alone in that house - sounds silly, but I’m not really looking forward to it.”  I don’t add that actually, it’s been praying on my mind and knotting my stomach ever since Justin told me he would have to work away this weekend.  He’s never done that before, but the money for the joinery job setting up show stands at the national exhibition complex is worth the inconvenience of a Saturday night away from home.

“Oh, you’ll be fine Isabelle,” Lucy finishes her drink and glances at her watch, “blimey is that the time?  I’ve got to go, Derek is taking me out tonight, I need to go home and get ready.”  I don’t ask who Derek is, there are so many names I can’t keep track of, so I just smile and finish my cup of tea.  “Anyway, you enjoy your night in, must catch up soon!” and with a quick peck on the cheek she’s off, and I put on my coat and head for home.

To me, home was always just a building, maybe with a garden and somewhere to park a car, or perhaps a flat in a huge tower block, a residence, somewhere to lay your head at night at least, but since moving in with Justin, the idea of a home has become so much more that just bricks and mortar, more like somewhere to rest your soul, somewhere that hugs you when you walk through the door.  That’s what I’d like and I’m sure people would think me ungrateful if they thought for one second that I had misgivings about the old stone cottage where I’ve lived with Justin for the last nine years.  As I turn the corner into our road, there it stands, Oakleaf Nook, a small detached dwelling, at least three hundred years old, it sits at the end of a Victorian terrace, the taller houses overshadowing it like bullies in a playground, and our little house sits there quietly minding its own business, most of the time.

When Justin and I first met, I was getting over the mess of my previous marriage and living in a rented flat, so it made absolute sense, that once we’d realised we were going to make a go of things, get married and all the rest, I moved into Oakleaf Nook, where Justin had lived pretty much forever.  It had been his childhood home, a place full of memories and history, somewhere that he wanted to stay, and in the heady days of early romance I was happy that he wanted to share that with me.

I unlock the heavy oak door, and slip off my shoes, straight into my slippers as I flick on the hall light and turn up the thermometer, to kick out the December chill that really knows how to get into these old walls, like it wants to hide in here rather than be outside where it’s supposed to be.  The long case clock in the hall that Justin winds each morning has stopped, he was in such a rush when he left and it’s thunking metronome of a tick is conspicuous by its absence, so I open the case and pull the chain, clunk clunk as the heavy weight makes its way to the top, set for another twenty four hours, he might be back home by then.

Dusk has already crept its way through the streets, banishing the meagre daylight as night approaches, the living room feels cheerless and I switch on a couple of lamps and close the heavy velvet curtains in an attempt to keep out the dark and the chill of the night.  I lay fresh logs in the hearth and fiddle with matches as they refuse to light the kindling, this is usually Justin’s job, and my thoughts ponder how many fires have blazed in this grate over the years, how many dead embers have been swept out over centuries of cold mornings.  Fires that have been stoked here thousands of times, the physical and the metaphorical ones too, that are set ablaze during our time on this earth.  The kindling finally catches and I get up from my knees, even with a fire in the grate the room still feels as inhospitable as it always does when I’m here alone.  At least when Justin is at home, his presence pushes out the darkness and between us, we create a little warmth between these old walls.

With only the sound of the clock in the hallway for company, I switch on the television as a distraction and head upstairs to the bathroom to wash my hands.  When I first moved in, the bathroom was the place where it would always catch me alone.  The first time I bathed in the old cast iron bath with its clawed feet and cold rolled top, I didn’t think to question the bits of mortar that flew across the room from the exposed stone walls, assuming it was something to do with the house being so old.  It was later that I questioned how a piece of dried old matter could hurtle across the bathroom and hit me directly in the face, and more questions arose when, amongst other unexplained events, I would often find the picture of tiger lilies that I’d been given as a twenty-first birthday present, lying on the bathroom floor, the hook still on the wall and the picture wire still intact.  Justin had joked about me having an overactive imagination, but it only happens when he’s not around, and up to now, I’ve managed to deal with the quirks of the old place, broken dishes, missing keys, flickering lights, and cold drafts, but a night here on my own is another thing entirely.

The space behind the curtains tugs at me to look, but I ignore it and make a cheese sandwich and cup of tea and settle into the corner of the sofa to watch television.  Immediately, as soon as I’ve sat down, it knows, it won’t let me settle, and the floor creaks above, Justin’s feet across the bedroom floor, except Justin isn’t here.  I turn up the volume on the television, the woman on the game-show shrieks with laughter at her own stupidity and I wonder where they find the contestants for this show, even the presenter, a has-been comedian with buck-teeth and a bad wig, who should have retired by now, looks mortally embarrassed as the woman goes on to incorrectly name France as a European capital city.  I stick with the show for a couple more minutes, but I can’t settle and I hit the remote’s off button.  The room falls quiet, except for the scratching coming from the hallway and my breathing which is becoming inexplicably more laboured.  I take my empty plate and cup into the kitchen and poke my head into the hallway, where of course there’s nothing there, just the ticking clock and the small table where we put our keys and letters.

Returning to the corner of the sofa I pick up my phone, scroll through social media, everyone looks so happy on there and I add a few likes, then click on an advert for winter sweaters somehow managing to purchase another knitted garment that I don’t really need.  The moths will have a field day.

If it’s not moths in this house then it’s some other sort of pest.  Noises a couple of months ago, this time not down to the house or whatever it is that torments me, but mice in the loft, mice in heavy boots, stamping about at all times of the night and day.  Justin and I bickered about who should be the one to remove the little dead creatures, neither of us relishing the prising open of traps, and extraction of the bloodied furry bodies.  But those noises, springing traps and scuttling mice, I can deal with that.  Not like the creaking footsteps that are on the stairs right now, or the door on the landing that’s groaning back and forth on its hinges.  An icy breath catches at my neck, the space behind the curtains, it says, but I don’t want to look behind the curtains, whatever’s in here is enough for me to cope with, without experiencing what’s out there too.

The landlord had sent a joiner to fix the sticking front door on my rented flat, that was how I’d met Justin, a quiet, unassuming man, who was polite and friendly and who I warmed to instantly.  A cup of coffee when he’d finished mending the door led to a date, the rest is history and after a couple of years, we took the plunge, got married, and I moved into Oakleaf Nook, Justin, no longer the bachelor that he’d assumed he’d always be.  Having lived here with his mother for so many years, it wasn’t until she passed away, when Justin was in his forties, that he felt there might be room for someone else in his life.  His mother, from what I understand, was a formidable force, bringing Justin up alone with no father entered on his birth certificate, she’d been determined to survive on her own wits, and that mantra was one she instilled in Justin, resulting in a reserved man, content in his own company, and happy in the house that protected them both.

Even though I bought some pieces of furniture, books, ornaments and pictures, the cottage never felt like my home, whatever I did it never felt right.  There were so many of Justin’s mother’s possessions, and I accepted that at the beginning, I wasn’t going to push Justin into putting them in the loft or selling them, so I knew it would take time for the place to feel like home, but even nine years on, with new rugs, my own pots and pans, photos on the sideboard, I still feel like a visitor here.  Justin won’t hear of it, tells me to do whatever I want, paint the walls, change the carpets and curtains, make it ours, but whatever I do, the house still shuns me.

The curtain in the living room shifts in the corner of my eye, beckoning me to open it, but I won’t, I won’t because the cracking from the bedroom above is getting louder, it’s deafening, like someone hitting a hammer on a broken mirror, and the television has sprung back to life, a music show, the hits of 1972, the year Justin was born, the volume increases, the cracking above intensifies, and Chuck Berry blasts out My Ding-a-ling as the lamps flicker on and off, fizzing and hissing, static takes over from Chuck and the screen wavers and warps, rising to a crescendo as the image dissolves into blackness with a crackle and then an almighty bang rendering the television silent.  The sound of a plate smashing on the tiled kitchen floor pulls my senses in another direction and as the creaking footsteps on the stairs disappear onto the upstairs landing, the space behind the curtains beckons me, imploring me to look, but I don’t know why and I don’t want to see what’s there.

I’m no stranger to this, the bangs and the thuds, the uninvited icy chill that makes its way around the house, even at the height of summer, I still have to wear extra layers when I’m indoors, Justin thinks I’m crazy, he never sees or feels any of it.  And up to now, I’ve stood my ground, during the day when Justin’s at work, it’s just about bearable, but now, here with the darkness enveloping the house and the sounds and smells playing at the edges of my senses, always there, even when I think they’ve gone, something at the periphery, chipping away at me, this is different, whatever it is is making the most of me being alone here, I can feel it.

I crouch in front of the fire and prod it with the poker, stirring the embers, and add a couple more logs, it spits a little as it settles, and as I’m about to rise to my feet, invisible hands grab mine, I’ve no control, it’s tight round my left wrist, and however hard I try, I can’t fight it’s strength as some unseen malevolent force pulls my hand closer and closer toward the flames, and there it is, my left hand, gorged by the heat, the flames wrapping around it as my palm lies flat against the glowing logs, I scream, excruciating pain, but I can’t withdraw my hand, the lamps go off and it’s completely dark except for the fiercely burning fire and my hand plunged within it, the stench of burning flesh.  I think I’m going to faint, I feel sick, my stomach retches, and I scream again, and it screams back at me, the house, from the depth of it’s stones, the oak beams, the mortar, a sound from another place, rasping, stone against stone, the course layers of time twisting against each other, and then suddenly my hand releases, blistered and burned, the stench is overpowering and I stagger to the kitchen, holding my tortured hand under the flow of cold water from the tap, my wedding ring, encrusted by something no longer resembling human skin.

Shaking with sickness, I soak a clean towel in cold water and wrap it around my screaming hand, I need to get to a hospital, I’m reeling with shock, unable to put my thoughts and my body in to action, I return to the dark of the living room to find my phone, to call for help, and it’s not there, I flick on the main light and search, lifting the sofa cushions, under the chairs, it’s not here.  And then it’s there again, the space behind the curtains, Isabelle, face into what’s there.

The sensation in my hand is beyond pain, as though it’s so intense that my body can no longer feel it, something broken and unable to piece together what’s just happened, water drips from the sodden towel, and trails across the floor as I make my way through the room to the heavy velvet curtains, they move ever so slightly inviting me, upstairs a wooden chair screeches across the boards of the bedroom floor and the window in the bathroom bangs open and shut like something possessed.  My trembling good hand reaches out, towards the place where the heavy velvet curtains meet, where they join and keep out the night and the dark, and before I am able to step away, I’m pulling them apart and there it is, in the space behind the curtains, in the darkness of the window, like an illuminated movie screen of horror, the house ablaze, flames lapping, reaching into the night sky, the acrid plumes of smoke, reflecting back at me from the darkness, and the guttural screams of terror from within, the stench of burning, and my expressionless face, emotionless, emblazoned across the scene as my first husband chokes and burns to death, taken by the smoke and the flames that refuse to cease until the act is complete.

I turn my face away from the hideous nightmare, clenching my eyes closed to the horror, the ghastly images that I’ve tried to erase from my mind for so many harrowing years.  It knows, this house knows, but how could it?  Justin doesn’t know, nobody around here has any suspicion, it was all going to be a fresh start.  It wasn’t my fault, the doctors said so, they made everything better, years have passed, it was all going to be okay, and when I met Justin, I knew that it would be, that there’d be no more fires.  No more fires, just us.  But it’s found out, somehow, the house knows everything, and now with mortifying clarity, I understand why it doesn’t want me here.