“Please.”
I consider it for a moment. I don’t suppose it can hurt. It might even make things better between us. And anyway, we’ll have to go back there sometime so she can pick up her stuff because even if she and I chose to live there together eventually, it can’t happen now.
She points at her mouth with an unsteady finger.
“What?” I say before realizing. “Oh, yes! This mess on my mouth.” It’s hardening and starting to feel unpleasant. “I’d better wash that off before you think I’m completely mad.”
I laugh. She doesn’t.
I pause in the doorway before I leave her.
“It means a lot to me, to be able to spend this time with you,” I say.
But perhaps I didn’t pick the right moment to say it, because it looks as if those tears might fall.
Emily lies on the sofa in the barn, her foot up. She wanted to be long gone from here by now, but Ruth has disappeared, so the others are searching for her and nobody will drive down until she’s found or considered so lost that reinforcements need to be called in.
How they hope to find Ruth in this fog, Emily can’t imagine. She can hear them calling for Ruth and their cries, stretched and desperate, shatter the still air of the valley.
Jayne swears that Ruth was beside her when she went to sleep. She was blotto, Jayne told William. “I couldn’t rouse her, and I was worried about her. I thought she might vomit so I fell asleep with her beside me, and I wasn’t aware of anything else until Emily woke me. I didn’t hear Ruth get up.”
Emily watched Jayne as she spoke. There was an undertone, barely detectable, but definitely present, of strain in her voice, as if Jayne was holding something back, something she was afraid of.
It frightened Emily, tightened her sense of claustrophobia, her desperation to be away from here.
She watched on as they decided to search for Ruth themselves, before calling for help. They reasoned that Ruth could have gone out for an early walk, to clear her head after last night. It didn’t seem likely, to Emily. Not considering how drunk Ruth was.
Emily shuts her eyes. She is useless, lying here. Last night felt like a fever dream and this morning is no different. She can see out of the window from where she lies. Swifts are carving dizzying ellipses through the fog, as if distressed.
She hears voices and they sound urgent. She sits up, trying to figure out where they’re coming from, and who is talking. It sounds like the farmer and his wife but it’s impossible to hear what they’re saying because their voices have the hushed quality of people trying not to be overheard.
Emily limps into the hall. She wants to hear more. The voices aren’t coming from behind the front door but via the broken window in the kitchen. She sidles closer, down the hallway, until she’s standing as near to the kitchen as she dares but can’t be seen. She has to strain to hear.
“I’ve done something,” John Elliott says. “I tried to scare them away.”
“Dear God, what did you do?” Maggie’s voice is tense with desperation. “What is it, John? Tell me!”
“It’s my fault that she’s gone missing.”
“What did you do?”
“I scared them.” He murmurs the rest of his answer. Emily struggles to hear. Something about a dead animal, a scarecrow, the intent to terrorize them so they left the barn. She feels as if someone is dragging an ice cube up her back.
But she also hears his remorse, and how Maggie’s muted anger turns to reassurance.
“We’ll find her, it’s fine. It’ll be okay, you’ll see.”
Neither of them speaks for a while after that, or not that Emily can hear, but then she hears a breath sharply drawn in, a half-swallowed sob, muted grunts.
“John, no,” Maggie says.
It sounds like a physical struggle. She doesn’t know if harm is being done or if someone is being restrained, but it’s unbearable to listen to. After her dad left, when her mum got lost in drink, Emily learned how to hide while conflict erupted around her: punching, kicking, the rhythmic sound of a head being pounded against a door creating a low beat beneath the turned-up sound of rock music on the stereo.
She was too afraid to intervene then, but she’s not, now.
The kitchen seems miles wide. She makes it to the table, leans on it heavily, and says, “Who’s there?”
From experience it’s best to sound as if you’re stumbling on conflict innocently, not to give away the fact that you’ve been listening.
