Ghislaine

Chapter 1: Waking

 

Get out. Get out now.

She sat up in bed with the words echoing so loudly, surely someone must have spoken them. But there was only herself and the walls, and the familiar fear lying over her like a dank blanket.

And yet something had changed. She sat up and found the light switch straight away, no groping across the blackness expecting something to come slithering up from under the bed and grab her arm. She saw that it was three in the morning, and her heart didn’t quail at the thought of the sleepless hours ahead and the alarm going off at seven. She reached for the glass of water that she ritually placed by her bed every night, took a long drink and lay back, thinking.

 

At half past eight the office of GG Evans Accounting was open and people were starting to arrive; some morose, some loudly cheerful, most in that state of grim stoicism that February mornings bring. Nobody noticed anything unusual about Gillian Bailie, who always crept in looking as if she hoped not to be seen at all. When she tapped on the manager’s office door at coffee break, clutching an envelope, there was nothing to suggest that it contained anything but a routine message.

Daniel looked up as the door opened in answer to his shout of ‘Come in!’ As always he found the sight of Gillian's meek face vaguely irritating, but today she didn’t poke her head sheepishly round the door and then, on being invited, gradually let the rest of her follow. She walked straight in, handed him the envelope she was clutching and, murmuring something about ‘if you wouldn’t mind’ was gone almost before he had read his name on the front.

Inside was a very brief, very formal letter stating that she wished to give a month’s notice for personal reasons. Not a man who thought much about the private lives of his staff, Daniel was startled into speculation. She certainly didn’t look pregnant, and would she simply be giving in her notice without a word if that were the reason? Terminal illness? lottery win? – though if the latter, she would surely be looking a bit more cheerful, not to mention having bought herself some new clothes or something. Anyway, it was all in order so there was nothing to do but accept it.

He caught up with her later that morning, hunched over the photocopier and peering into its depths.

‘I’m sorry you’re leaving us, Gillian,’ he said. It was true up to a point – she was conscientious, inoffensive and, despite her appearance, rarely ill, besides being less inefficient than she seemed – but a matter for mild annoyance rather than sorrow. Still. He sought for something more concrete to say and came up with: ‘And we’ll certainly miss you looking after the website.’

She looked up with a nervous smile and then back at the copier, hovering a finger over the button for several seconds and then dabbing at it; she performed even routine tasks as if she were trying them for the first time and expecting to fail. ‘I hope,’ Daniel asked in his best communication-seminar manner, ‘that there isn’t anything, er, wrong?’

‘Oh no,’ said Gillian at once, ‘thank you, Daniel, there’s nothing wrong at all. It’s just… something I have to do. By the way, would you mind not mentioning it to anyone for a few days?’

‘Of course, of course,’ said Daniel and retreated hastily for fear she might be about to unburden her soul over the copy paper.

 

It was already dark when, a little behind her colleagues as usual, Gillian saved her work, shut down and headed for the car park. She drove as anxiously as she did everything else, but the ten-mile journey from Evans’ was one of the few that she knew well enough to take calmly. Until she was clear of the suburbs there was still the rush-hour traffic to negotiate, but before long she was moving between fields, sharing the narrow lanes of her childhood with only a few commuters. So her mind was free instead to fight a growing panic over what was coming next: telling Aunt Emily. She passed along the wider avenue that linked the big housing estate to old Southash, the  ‘real’ village that contained everyone and everything that mattered to Aunt Emily, still with no idea of what she was going to say.

She couldn’t remember ever approaching the house without a jolt of anxiety; this square mid-Victorian building, big enough for a large family, yet where she still managed, hourly, to get on her aunt’s nerves. But tonight was far worse; her stomach tightened and her hands grew clammy on the wheel as she inched up the drive.

In the end when she let herself in and heard the familiar greeting of ‘You’re late!’ she lost her nerve. She muttered something about changing, went straight to her room and sat on the bed for a long while without moving. The thought of what she had done paralysed her – she who was liable to have a sleepless night if she didn’t return a colleague’s greeting warmly enough or forgot to read all her emails. But she had done it; and now there was time to think about the consequences.

The more she thought, the less she understood what was going on. Why had she woken up in the night, heard a voice telling her to get out, and then got up in the morning and blithely left the job where she had been for most of her adult life? That she might go on a journey, by herself – just pack a case, get a ticket and set off – was an idea as audacious and terrifying as she could imagine. She got up, went to the window and closed the curtains on the back garden. This garden, this house, this room with its furniture unchanged since her childhood: how many nights had she even spent away from here? She turned slowly back towards the bed, picked up her bag and felt inside it for her phone. She couldn’t hide in here forever; if she didn’t have the nerve to tell Aunt Emily yet, she could at least tell Kate.

‘You’re going to France? That’s lovely, Gill, it’s about time you had a holiday. Where exactly are you going then?’

Where indeed? And yet she heard herself answering breezily, ‘Well, I thought I’d go by car and just drive around for a few weeks – explore a bit.’

There was a brief silence. Then Kate’s voice, a little cooler than before, said, ‘It’s not like you to try and wind me up, Gill, and I really don’t have time for—’

Gillian hastily interrupted – she couldn’t bear to annoy Kate, who tended to treat her like one of her own children even though they were almost the same age. ‘No, no, Kate, I’m not joking. In fact I’ – this part was going to be difficult – ‘I, er, gave in my notice today.’

‘You…’

‘Gave in my notice. Yes.’

‘For God’s sake, Gill, what is it? Are you ill?’

‘No, no, I’ve never been better, it’s…’ As usual, she waited for her friend to tell her what to do; to explain the world to her.

Kate didn’t let her down. ‘Why don’t you come over and tell me about it? Come tonight if you like – Al’s out, and the anklebiters’ll be off to bed soon.’

‘You know I’d love to see Martha and Jack – thanks so much, I’ll come after dinner – about eight? And I’ll try and be making more sense by then.’

She went back to the living room. Now it was time to tell her. Aunt Emily, I’ve just given in my notice and I’m going to drive to France as soon as I can get a passport. What’s for dinner?

Aunt Emily looked up from the knitting that managed to make her look, not like a cosy old lady, but a tricoteuse crouching below the guillotine. ‘I’ve left you a plate in the oven,’ she said, ‘since you’re so late.’ Gillian said, ‘Oh, thank you, Aunt Emily, I’m sorry about being late – we were so busy today. I’m just popping over to Kate’s afterwards for a bit, I ... I think she wants some help with her laptop or something.’ This was both craven and unfair, since Kate never needed help with anything.

Kate and Al lived in one of the family houses on the estate which, though it had been there as long as Gillian could remember and was officially part of the village, still outraged Aunt Emily and her peers. Their two small children came rushing to the door demanding, in random order, sweets, stories and games – shy and awkward with children, she found it easiest to give in to their demands, as Jack and Martha were well aware. She sat on the floor with them while they competed for her attention, and while they were hauled off to bed by their mother, who believed in strict routines, tidied up the mess of toys and plastic mugs.

‘So,’ said Kate when the house was quiet and the two of them were sitting in the living room with coffee.

‘So.’ Gillian paused a moment, then began uncertainly, ‘I’m going to spend a month or two travelling around France – maybe somewhere else too, it depends – and then, well, I’ll see what happens.’

 ‘All right, but for a start why do you need to leave your job?’

‘Because—’ She wanted to say the words that had been in her head ever since they woke her in the night: I’ve got to get out. But in the face of Kate’s brisk capability they were just too silly to say aloud.

‘Oh, because it’s about time I did something new, isn’t it? Haven’t you told me so often enough?’

Kate was looking at her in astonishment. ‘Well yes,’ she said, ‘I know I’m always nagging you about living a bit, but I was thinking you might take up dancing, try speed-dating – I don’t know, I never expected you to drop everything and take off on your own! It wasn’t me lecturing you that put this into your head, was it?’

‘No, no, it’s me. I’m not worried about leaving Evans’: I won’t miss the place and I’m qualified, I’ll get another job. I’ve saved plenty, I could go six or eight months without any trouble. I might even find something in France.’

‘That’s the other thing – why France? I mean, you haven’t even been abroad in your life: you must be about the only person left under ninety who hasn’t—’

‘Well, there you are! You did once say I lived like an old lady, didn’t you? It’s because I’ve always spent my holidays with Aunt Emily, and now – well that’s just it, I never felt like travelling on my own, and there wasn’t anyone I could go with. But I always wanted to go to France more than anywhere.’ It felt strange to be talking about her life, talking so much about anything – had she ever done it before? ‘Maybe it’s because of my mother. She taught French in Southampton, did you know?’

‘No, you’ve never talked about your parents at all that I know of.’

Well, of course I don’t remember them. But she did teach French and …’

‘And what?’

Gillian realised she had drifted away into silence. ‘Oh, nothing. Anyway, later I wanted to do a French degree too.’

 ‘I thought you did business and admin at the college. Did you change because Emily thought that would be more use to you?’

‘She did, but that was only part of it. I did apply to study French and then when they started talking about the year abroad, when I really thought about having to go and live in France for a year’ – she looked down, blushing, and took a gulp of coffee – ‘it’s so stupid but I just lost my nerve. I’d probably have been working in a school, and ... well.’

‘Remembering the way we treated those poor French assistants at my school, you were probably right – can’t see you standing up to a classful of teenagers,’ said Kate, looking pityingly at her. ‘All the same, I’m surprised you never mentioned it.’

‘I just felt such a fool,’ she said lightly. ‘But anyway, I’ve always loved reading about France and I used to read in French, all the novels and things we did on the course. So now I thought I’d go and see the places I’d read about.’

‘You’re amazing, you know,’ said Kate. ‘In this day and age… you remind me of, of a young lady in a costume drama or something. People go on day trips to Paris and weekends to New York these days! And here you are contemplating this great adventure of going eleven miles across the channel… you’re the one who knows all that Victorian stuff, but isn’t there a book that starts like that? Not Jane Eyre, but something like it?’

Gillian looked up with a sudden smile. ‘Yes, Villette. Only that’s to Belgium, but you’re right, it is a bit like me. Well, maybe I’ll fall in love with a short French professor as well.’

‘Is that what happens? Well, it’s more likely than meeting anyone living here.’ Another pitying look; ‘meeting someone before it’s too late’ was something Kate urged on Gillian almost as often as ‘finding a new interest’, ‘doing something about your look/hair/posture’ and ‘taking an assertiveness course’.

‘I bet Emily got a shock when you told her.’

‘The thing is I haven’t told her yet. She’ll get so upset, I thought if I could tell her when it was all fixed…’

‘Or do you mean you’d tell her when it was too late to scare you out of it?’ Another of Kate’s frequent pieces of advice was to stop letting herself be bullied by her aunt.

Gillian smiled faintly. ‘I suppose I am just putting it off. But I’ll tell her tonight. Besides, we’ll need to find someone to come and help her in the house while I’m gone.’

 

Emily was still up when she came in. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘have you put Kate’s computer together again? You should have, the time you’ve taken.’

Gillian forced herself to come in and sit down instead of fleeing to her room again. ‘Aunt Emily, there’s something I’d like to tell you.’ Emily looked up but carried on knitting.

Stammering and feeling herself going red, Gillian explained her plans. Her aunt listened without interruption, but her face seemed to grow sharper as Gillian blundered on.

There was silence for a while except for the clack of needles. Then Emily said, ‘I suppose I should have expected you’d do something silly like this. After all, it’s just the sort of thing your mother would have done.’

‘Aunt Emily ...’

‘Not now, Gillian, not now.’ She folded her needles and wool abruptly together and got up. ‘I’m tired and I’m going to bed. We can discuss this in the morning.’

 

 

Awake and restless that night, Gillian thought about freedom. Here she was, single, childless, healthy, fairly well educated and not poor. Who should feel free if not she? And yet she barely understood the meaning of the word. Lying in the dark, it was as if she saw the bars of a cage around her bed; that they had always been there, but she was only aware of them now because, at long last, she was trying to move.

 

Which meant that everything she did from now on, every step beyond the cage door, would be a new adventure.