Property of a Lady(31)
She was instantly horrified and sickeningly aware of disloyalty to Brad. It would be gratitude to Michael she was feeling, nothing more. Relief that Beth was safe. There was some German phrase about immense emotion being churned up towards people with whom one shared a danger or a difficult situation – this would be an example of that.
She pointed out the Internet connection so he could plug in the laptop and, as he sat down at the desk, headed for the kitchen to make coffee. As the percolator hissed and bubbled, Nell’s thoughts strayed again and she found herself wondering if he was linked up with anyone. He had said he was not married, but he would be sure to have some incredibly learned female don eagerly waiting for him at Oxford. Someone who was fluent in five or six languages, or wrote papers on ancient Sanskrit or obscure corners of medicine, and who lectured to immensely scholarly societies. One of those women who wore infuriatingly-flattering glasses and scooped their hair into loose chignons with apparent carelessness, but looked fantastic. Thinking man’s crumpet. Was it Joan Bakewell who had originally inspired that phrase? The coffee blew a series of loud raspberries, and Nell reached hastily for the jug and poured the steaming brew into mugs.
Michael had tangled up the laptop’s power lead with the Internet cable and was half lying under the desk, frowningly trying to sort them out.
He looked up as she came in. ‘I don’t think this is right, do you? I’m not actually terribly good at mechanical things or electronic things.’ He looked so perplexed that Nell laughed properly for the first time in twenty-four hours and said, ‘It looks as if you’ve been trying to plug the phone cable into the mains. Come out of the way and let me do it. If the battery’s sufficiently charged, you don’t really need to connect to the mains, not for the few minutes it’ll take to type an email.’
‘I can generally get somebody else to do this kind of thing,’ he said apologetically as Nell crawled under the desk and connected the laptop’s USB cable to the phone line. ‘Thanks, Nell. I’m fine from here on.’
As soon as the laptop came on and the email programme opened, Nell saw the email with the name Jack Harper on the ‘From’ line at once. Her heart leapt, even though she told herself it would contain an ordinary message, something to do with Charect House’s renovations. She sat in the deep armchair, her hands curled round her mug of coffee, trying not to watch as Michael read the email. But when he said, ‘Oh God,’ a voice within her said: something is wrong.
‘Come and see this,’ he said, getting up from the desk.
Nell, her heart racing, sat down and began to read.
Michael—
We’re thinking we might have to get Ellie away from Maryland for a time to see if it will cure these nightmares. Last night was by far the worst ever, and in the end we took her to ER. They checked just about everything that could be checked – all absolutely fine. All they could do in the end was hold her down and sedate her. If you’ve ever seen a seven-year-old girl restrained by two nurses and given chlorpromazine – well, I shouldn’t think you have, but it’s killing to see it. Liz was devastated, and so was I, although I didn’t show it as much as she did. Maybe I absorbed some British reserve at Oxford.
They’re waving the prospect of psychs at us, of course. It’s this business of ‘Elvira’ they’re worried about, and we understand that because we’re agonizingly worried about Elvira as well. I don’t know very much about schizophrenia or whatever it’s correctly called nowadays, but what I do know is that last night Ellie screamed Elvira’s name over and over again. Most of what she said was unintelligible – hysterical sobbing – but at one stage she said, very clearly, “He’s going to get her very soon. Only he mustn’t, he really really mustn’t . . .” She clung to me, shouting, “Daddy, don’t let him get her – promise you won’t let him . . . She’s so frightened of him . . .”
I promised I wouldn’t let anyone get Elvira – wouldn’t you have done the same? I said she was safe and Elvira was safe – Michael, I’d have promised her the moon and the universe to reassure her. But then I said, “In any case, hon, that man can’t ever get at anyone – he’s safely locked out.”
Ellie started sobbing again then. She said, between anger and panic, “But that’s just it, Daddy. You’re so stupid, you don’t understand. He can get in anywhere, he can. Because he can do the dead man’s knock on the door. When he does that, the doors open for him. All locks open to the dead man’s knock.”
Truly, Michael, I’ve never heard anything so all-out chilling in my life. Ellie believes all this – she believes this man is trying to find ‘Elvira’ – that he can get inside houses by means of a dead man’s knock, and I know that sounds like a macabre party game, but it’s what she said and I’ve no idea where she got hold of such a grisly idea.
What I do know is that Ellie believes when this man finds Elvira he’ll harm her in some appalling way she can’t explain.
The medics think Ellie’s had some sort of traumatic experience at the hands of an adult – something we don’t know about – and that she’s transferring the bad experience on to an alter ego. And it’s true the names are similar – Ellie and Elvira. But Liz and I would know if Ellie had been hurt or frightened or – oh God – abused. I can’t believe I wrote that last word. I’m sure we’d know, though. Ellie’s in school all day, and Liz takes and collects her along with a bunch of other kids. She and three neighbors take turns. So we know where she is all the time. We know her friends and their families. And listen, I know that’s what all parents of abused kids say, but I’m absolutely convinced nothing’s happened to her. And it can’t be right to put a seven-year-old into analysis.