A version of herself that seems more real than herself. More honest.
Since they left the army, Mark and Jayne have both struggled to settle into civvy life. Like her reflection in the glass, Jayne imagines them trapped on a different plane from everyone else, somewhere between now and their past.
For her part, on one side, she enjoys her time among thenovelties that are the small indignities and beautiful surprises of married life and the pleasures of her training as a physiotherapist.
On the other, the backward pull of the past is strong. She can’t erase the death she witnessed that happened as a result of intelligence she had gathered. Death filmed by drones or body cameras and seen by Jayne on multiple screens. Pixelated death, but as powerful to her as any other kind.
They witnessed it all.
The destruction of intended targets, saving lives.
But also, the collateral damage, the mistakes made. Women, children, families killed. Innocents. She could vomit when she thinks of it. Sometimes when she remembers her skin runs cold and she believes it will never warm up.
She slaps her own cheek, hard. A short, sharp shock. It’s enough. Her thousand-yard stare breaks. Her reflection stares back at her, chastised. Then resolute. That’s better, she thinks.
Remorse has a viselike grip on her, driving her to put things right the only way she can think to. She needs to. And she will. With Mark. Tomorrow.
Until then, she has to keep control, to ensure things go her way. The risk that Edie’s letter carries a real threat is infinitesimal, negligible. The risk that Jayne might fail to do what she intends to do if the other women break camp is higher. It cannot happen.
This is a calculation she made earlier, but one that is worth revisiting. The fluidity of risk has always fascinated her. It was a particular skill of hers when she was serving, this ability to react swiftly and effectively to rapidly evolving situations.
It’s clear to her now: she must double down on doing everything she can to keep Emily and Ruth here until the men turn up as planned.
She and her reflection exchange curt nods. In agreement. Yes, she thinks, I am resolute and I look calm and friendly.
Ready.
She turns out the light and makes her way downstairs toward the voices in the kitchen. In the hallway, she adds a smile to her expression.
John Elliott crouches in the shadows outside Dark Fell Barn, staring at the kitchen window.
Rain and hail pelt him, and particles of early-evening light settle on his shoulders to dissolve in the damp patches there. He has no idea what time it is, but tonight, daylight is surely dying earlier than it should and he can feel the valley gathering itself, braced for an onslaught. The storm isn’t done with them yet.
Condensation on the windows smears the scene inside the kitchen. John sees smudged silhouettes: two women around the table, the wine bottle between them, gestures of intensity.
He senses their building excitement, predicts the incipient drunkenness.
Excess upsets him.
People being here upsets him.
This, he knows.
Upstairs, in the bedroom above the kitchen, the third woman appears, clear to see because there’s no condensation. She pulls off her top. Beneath, she wears a plain black bra. He assesses her as he might one of his sheep, as a physical specimen. Her breasts are small and her bare shoulders bony, the muscles on her arms gently sculpted. There’s little to no meat on her, but plenty of strength.
He has the idea in his head that this woman is different from her friends. He can’t quite think of the reason why, but he’s sure this is the case. It’s something he can feel in his chest. He can’t relyon his brain. He thinks of it as Swiss cheese with gaping holes in it, blanks he must bypass before he can understand things. It can take time. Sometimes he gets lost on the way. The disorientation and confusion that result are horribly draining.
We can’t go on like this, Maggie said. He hears her voice clear as day. But she’s not here, it’s something she said earlier. Not now. But when? He has no sense of that. He looks around him. She’s not here. Why not?
The woman in the top window moves, recapturing his attention. He watches her pull on a vest top, then a blouse and fasten a necklace. She stares out of the window toward him, at him, and terror leaps unexpectedly in his throat. He swallows it down laboriously. She can’t see me. I’m well hidden in the shadows. I know where I can be seen and where I can’t. Though the woman stands there for so long, her face turned in his direction, that after a while he wonders if he’s wrong. But he holds his nerve and stays frozen in place, until she turns away and the light goes out.
His gaze reconnects with the two downstairs. At the table, leaning toward one another. Still with intensity. Are they arguing? Plotting? Who are they, even?
Strangers in Dark Fell Barn are a bad thing. That, he feels as an incontrovertible truth. As inarguable as the commandments he learned at Sunday school.
He realizes suddenly that he doesn’t know why he’s here, but he feels compelled to stay even as the rain drives harder, as hail stings his cheeks, wondering what the skinny woman was thinking about as she stared at him. Did he and she connect? Was she warning him? He can’t remember what he thought about this earlier, what conclusion he came to.
Frustration at his brain’s inability to put the pieces together drives him back, away from the barn. He takes the sense of a threat with him as he heads home the steep and secret way, on foot, cutting down through the valley and through fields and woodland,circumventing bogs and crevasses. A route you could never recommend to guests. You have to feel it as much as know it.
