Mary & Arthur

As yet unfinished short story.

The music seemed to be coming from the other room, but there was no one else in the house. David was at a seminar and wouldn't be back until late. Mary looked up from her book. It was unmistakeably a violin. A composition of long, mournful notes that stretched into the silence like long, spindly fingers winding through the air to pluck at your nape, where the hair now rose to meet the sudden chill. Mary stopped reading and slowly and quietly put her book onto the little mahogany table next to the lamp without looking away from the large oak-panelled doors. She peered over the rim of her reading glasses. Was that a shadow sliding past the crack of light that reflected off the floorboards?
    Mary discovered, somewhat to her surprise, that she was standing and had her hand to her chest. She manoeuvred around the high-backed chair and then marvelled at the idiocy of putting upholstery between her and an intruder. If the door burst open, whoever it was could be upon her in four steps �" three if he was a man of stature. A large, heavyset man with a thick, unshaven jaw and a bullish neck. With hair on his knuckles and dirt under his nails. Piggish eyes and cauliflower ears. A swollen red strawberry nose with teeth the colour of aged papyrus and breath that reeked of gin and sin. He would burst through the doors as if it were constructed from balsa, rending it from it's frame, sending splinters skittering. He would tear through the door and be on her, grabbing and pawing, wheezing his foul stench in her face as he rasped a laugh while she struggled in vain to escape from his stinging grip.
    Mary's heart was hammering on the walls of her ribcage. The music had stopped. Somehow that was worse. He was toying with her. He knew she'd never get out in time. He knew she couldn't outrun his swathing stride, that he would overpower her before she made it across the room to the door that lead into the hallway and then out into the street. How had he gotten in? There was no exterior door in the other room. He'd either somehow forced a window or else... or else he'd slipped in earlier in the day while she was in the kitchen or about the house. He'd probably watched her while her back was turned, waiting for his moment. How long had he been waiting in the other room? It must have been hours. Waiting, biding his time because he could. She knew her realisation would give him pleasure. He'd meticulously planned the whole thing and the more she realised the depths of his depraved plan, the worse he made it, the more it gave him pleasure that she knew.
    Oh god, what could she do? She was almost paralysed with fear, unable to demand movement from her previously complicit limbs. She began to cry, but had to hold in her sobs lest he hear her and her distress spur him to new thoughts of how he might defile her. Her knees were shaking and had buckled slightly. She leaned against the chair for support in lieu of strength.
    Another shadow flitted across the floor from behind the door and a sob escaped her. That would be his cue �" he would have been waiting for a sign that she was utterly distraught and she had just unwittingly given it to him. A floorboard in the other room creaked. He wasn't going to burst through the door, he was going to open it calmly and civilly. He was going to peer slowly around the door, all sallow cheeks and ridged brow, a manic smile of half-rotten yellowed ivory, glinting with malice and spittle that bubbled at the corners of his mouth. He would walk slowly towards her, his thick soled boots scraping against the wood, slightly hunched and feral-looking. He would shuffle across the rug, leaving clods of filth in his wake until they were almost nose to nose and see could make out the intent in his bright little eyes, darting over her from out of leathery folds and canal-like lines.
    From somewhere, Mary summoned the courage to move a foot. Then she managed, through sheer force of will, to drag the other forward as well, but they moved so feebly, it was like she had been anaesthetised from the waist down. She tried again and moved another couple of inches, still choking back sobs, her vision blurry with tears. She had to get out. She couldn't, she wouldn't allow this calculating fiend to realise his foetid plan upon her. She moved again, a few more half steps until a creeping dread turned her stomach cold. She was headed towards the doors to the other room. Why in God's name had her muscles betrayed her? She lurched forwards another small step and her arm extended out and her fingers splayed, trembling towards the gilded handle. She curled her slender fingers around it and pushed.
    The door gave inwardly into a large dining room with a long table, covered in crisp linen and decorated with a spray of carnations and chrysanthemums in corn yellow and baby pink. At one end an old but well polished piano sat under a faded portrait who seemed to have no interest in her plight. Light gleamed in through the window and was diffused by the nets before bouncing off the surfaces and back up onto the ceiling.
    She couldn't see him. She waited for a breath before moving tentatively into the space, awaiting a crippling blow to the head or deep cut across the thigh, a cruel blade dragging through her flesh and parting the meat. None came. Mary looked to the other side of the room and saw only the large mirror with it's ornamental carved frame, leafed in gold. The wild eyed woman in it stared back at her. There was no one there.

    David returned home around nine to find Mary obviously shaken, although trying her best to hide it. She'd washed her face and reapplied her make up, but her eyes retained some of their scarlet hue. David enquired as to what was wrong but Mary kept changing the subject so avidly while she made his supper that he decided to let the matter drop until after he'd eaten.
    They retired to the living room where Mary sat almost on the edge of her seat. David peered over the top of his newspaper.
    “Finished your book dear?”
    “No, I... can I get you a drink.”
    “Really Mary, whatever is the matter? You've been acting oddly ever since I got home.”
    Mary glanced over at the double doors.
    “It's not - you know... is it?”
    “No, it's just...” She tailed off and plucked at her lips distractedly. “I feel so dashed silly saying it, but when I was alone in the house earlier, I thought I heard music.”
    “Music?”
    “Yes a violin and... oh it's so silly.” She pursed her lips.
    “What dear? It's all right, you can tell me.”
    “Well I thought there was someone else in the house.”
    “Because of the music?”
    “Yes, and I'm afraid I got myself in rather a tizz worrying about it.”
    David smiled warmly, the pipe hanging from the upturned corner of his mouth, blue smoke curling towards the ceiling.
    “Oh dear. You daft pickle.” he chuckled.
    Mary smiled genuinely for the first time that evening. David always knew how to set her at ease somehow. His presence always soothed her �" the smell of his cherry tobacco hanging in the air, his familiar tweed, his low, softly spoken tones, the way he would gesticulate with his pipe, stabbing the air with the end to help prove a point; his military gait, the way his moustache twitched when he smiled. She hated it when he had to go away.
    “I suppose I'm just not used to the new house yet.”
    “Well you'll have plenty of time to get used to it �" I'm going away for a week on the thirteenth.”
    Mary's heart sank. A week?
    “Yes,” she sighed, “I suppose I will.”
    “So what was it?”
    “Pardon?”
    “The music. Where was it coming from?”
    “I don't know. Perhaps I imagined it.”
    “Well they do say that every house has it's own score.” He winked over the curling edge of the sports page at her. “The creak of a floorboard for percussion, the groan of a pipe for the brass section, the howl of the wind through the rafters for the woodwinds �" we should get you a baton, you could conduct!”
    He grinned and his moustache shuffled under his nose. Mary laughed, as much out of relief as humour.
    She slept fitfully that night, her dreams filled with half snatches of greasy shapes, looming at her out of the darkness, only to draw back and fade into the deep. At one point she started awake, the sound of a violin seeming to echo faintly, but David was right, it was just the sound of air in a pipe or else a cat somewhere. Besides, David was right there next to her and he wouldn't stand for any nonsense from a phantom violinist. He'd fought in a war and presumably had to deal with real horrors, although he never spoke of it. Such things made disembodied music somewhat trivial.
    Morning brought golden light, an azure sky like a canopy of still, deep water and birdsong. Mary rose early to make breakfast and take a short walk in the garden, which was lovely and already beginning to show promise of blooms even this early in the year. The dappled grass under the apple trees was still dewy and Mary took off her shoes, enjoying feeling the coolness of the natural carpet underfoot. She caught herself humming an unfamiliar melody, until she realised, in horror that it was the tune she'd heard emanating from the dining room. Disconcerted, she headed back toward the house. By the time she got back, David was already beginning his morning's ablutions. They breakfasted on the white painted wrought iron table on the patio, as it was such a nice morning and all thoughts of the previous day drifted away with the warm sunshine and gentle breeze.
    In the afternoon David retired to his study and Mary read for a while before sorting through a couple of the boxes that had yet to be unpacked for her needlepoint. They had a light supper and listened to the radio for a while in the evening, David offering his opinion on several of the matters of the day.
    Several days passed in this fashion and suddenly it was the thirteenth.
    “You will be all right while I'm gone won't you dear?”
    “Of course.”
    “There's Mrs Patterson down the lane if you get stuck for anything. I told her you might pop in one day in the week when I saw her. She said you'd have to remind her to give you some of her chutney.”
    “I will. Take care darling.”
    David doffed his hat and bowed before picking up his battered old tan attaché case.  Mary watched him get into the car from the window and stood there for a few minutes after his lights had crested the hill at the end of the lane and disappeared from view.    
    The first couple of days passed quietly. There was still a lot to do around the house, not least of which was cleaning thoroughly �" something the previous owners had not been as fastidious about as Mary liked to be. She started in the bedroom and worked her way through the house in the course of the first day. By the end of it, she had earned her supper and a small glass of wine, as even the mantle gleamed.
    The second day she had walked down the lane, which was overgrown and quite thick with nettles and the occasional thistle that grabbed at her skirts, to visit Mrs Patterson, who welcomed Mary in with hot tea and scones with clotted cream and home made raspberry jam. Mrs Patterson had lived alone since her husband had died. She didn't say how long ago that was and Mary was too polite to ask but she got the impression it had been some time. Mrs Patterson was the sort of lady who didn't sit down for very long and would bustle about the place fetching this and placing that and even fixing a shelf while she talked to Mary in her lovely Scottish brogue, which lilted through the air. All the while her cat, Angus would weave deftly around her legs as she walked to and fro until she sat down for a couple of minutes at a time, at which point Angus would turn his attentions to rubbing against Mary's leg under the table. Mary was not particularly fond of cats and didn't want to get hair on her skirt, so tried to gently shoo him away with her foot, which Angus took as a sign of affection and rubbed against her leg with renewed fervour, purring.
    “He likes you. Disn' aften take to new people, but you've abviously worked some charm on him.”
    “Oh... I er...”
    “Keeps me company. Aften think I only keep him aroon' so's Ah can talk to mesel' an' get away wi it!”
    She leaned over the table in mock-conspiracy and lowered her voice and Mary found herself holding her breath.
    “People think yer mad if yeh talk to yersel'. It's only when yeh talk to other people that aren't there that yeh qualify as mad in ma book.”
    She winked and sat back onto the little wooden chair, which groaned in protest slightly.
    “How're yeh findin' the new hoose?”
    “Oh, settling in, yes. Almost unpacked.”
    “Well done. A've still a few yet to open me'sel an' A've been here a wee while now.”  
    She got up again and went over to the large iron stove.
    “More tea?”
    “Oh thank you no, I really should start heading back to the house. I should think that  the lane gets rather unnavigable in the dark.”
    “Aye. Well let me get you a chutney fee the pantry as Ah said I would.”
    
    It was around twilight of the next day when Mary heard the violin again. She told herself that it couldn't possibly be a violin, that she was imagining it. Mrs Patterson was the only other person for miles in any direction and Mary had rather deftly managed to enquire if she played any instruments during her visit. It was a great regret, said Mrs Patterson, that she did not, but she was fond of listening to music. Perhaps that was it. Mrs Patterson was listening to a wireless. Or it was Angus, caterwauling into the dusk. But it wasn't. It was most definitely coming from the front room, as before.
    Mary was awash with fear again but decided to be brave. She walked through the now spotless hall and turned into the living room. The double doors to the dining room were closed, as always. The violin was louder now, the same melancholy tune as before. She made her way carefully across the room to the double doors.
    “Is someone there? I warn you, my husband is only across the hall in his study and he's a military man!”
    The music had stopped the second she had started to speak. She gripped the handle and turned, slowly easing the door. There was someone at the window. He was tall but slim framed, with short blonde hair. He had his back to the door and was looking out over the lane. He raised his arm and drew on a cigarette, letting the smoke churn uneasily into the air.
    “Do you mind if I smoke?”
    “Who are you? What are you doing in my house? My husband will...”
    “David's away Mary. That's why I'm here.”
    “How do you know my name? How do you know David? I shall call for the Police if you don't leave this instant!”
    “And leave you all alone? No I think I'll stay a while yet.”
    He turned on his heel, one arm behind his back and drew on his cigarette again. He was wearing a black jacket and bow tie, as if he'd arrived from a function. The light from the window combined with the smoke made it difficult to see his face. He took a stride forward.
    “Not another step! I shall scream!”
    “You'll wake Mrs Patterson Mary.”
    He took another step forward and lowered his cigarette. He had steely blue eyes which were lightly rimmed with red and fair eyebrows to match his hair. His cheekbones were high set and he sported a collection of freckles across his nose and cheeks. His high forehead, accentuated by a receding hairline glimmered with tiny beads of moisture.
    “Who are you? I don't know you! How do you know my name?”
    He grabbed at her suddenly around the waist and before any sound could be formed in her throat he had spun her around and away from him, only to catch her hand as she turned and pulled her back to him.
    “Daaaaarun! Da daaaa da! Der ner ner ner naaaarun, da daaaa da!”  
    Again he had her held firmly at the waist, her left hand clasped in his right, cigarette hanging from his mouth.
    “What's the matter sis? You used to love to Tango!”
    “Arthur?”
    “In the very flesh!”
    Mary broke away and slapped him hard on the arm.
    “You... You scared me half to death! You could have warned me you were coming!”
    “Would've spoiled the surprise somewhat. Why so jumpy oh sister of mine?”
    “It's nothing...”
    “Don't keep secrets. You know what happens if you keep secrets from me.”
    “Don't you dare Arthur. I'm far too old to be tickled.”
    Arthur grabbed her playfully under the ribs.
    “Ah! No! Stop... stop it! Arthur! All right, I'll tell you! I thought I heard a violin playing in this room the other day and I convinced myself we had an intruder...”
    “Who wanted to serenade you? David should be careful ...”
    “Shush Arthur! Don't be so vulgar. Do you want to hear or not?”
    “Yes.”
    “I thought I heard a violin and I got rather... scared and you know how I get and then today just before I came in, I thought I heard it again.”
    “I thought I'd make an entrance. I've been practising.”
    “I know very well you don't play. And put that out, you know David doesn't approve of cigarettes.”
    “He smokes a pipe!”
    “That may be, but he disapproves of pre-rolled cigarettes and while this is his house we shall abide by his rules.”
    Arthur stubbed his cigarette out in a nearby ashtray and grinned.
    “So do I get the tour?”