On the Edge of Darkness

One evening he did spare for Liza. It was her birthday. Poverty stricken as usual, he agonised for a long time over what to give her, then providence pointed the way. He had been rummaging through some boxes in his untidy room and under some books and notes he found an old cigarette carton. Shaking it hopefully he heard something rattle. Brid’s pendant had fallen out of the tissue paper he had wrapped it in and lay in the palm of his hand, tarnished but very beautiful. He looked down at the intricate, interwoven pattern, the tiny links in the chain, and just for a moment he felt a twinge of guilt at the idea which had leaped into his mind. He put the guilt aside at once. Brid would never know; he doubted if he would ever see her again anyway, and he had made it clear to her, hadn’t he, that men did not wear such things. And the beauty and craftsmanship would appeal enormously to Liza. Smiling to himself, he set about polishing it up.

Liza held it for a long time in her hand, gazing at it. Then at last she looked up at Adam and smiled. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ She leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, then she let him hang it round her neck.

It was the next day after taking Liza out to a quick lunch between lectures that Adam thought he saw Brid. Hand in hand he and Liza were walking up the Mound past the National Gallery, Liza wearing the pendant at the neck of her blouse, when Adam happened to glance across the road towards the Castle. A group of people were walking fast down the other pavement, laughing, some of the young men in uniform. The road was busy, full of traffic, and he could not see them clearly, but a figure walking slowly behind them caught his eye.

He stopped, shocked. The dark hair, the pale skin; something about the walk, the angle of the head …

‘What is it, Adam? What’s wrong?’ Liza caught his arm. ‘You’ve gone white as a sheet. What’s happened?’

‘Nothing.’ He took a deep breath, astonished to feel how shaken he was. ‘I thought I saw someone I knew from home, that’s all. But it couldn’t have been.’

‘Are you sure?’ Liza studied him for a moment and he looked away uncomfortably. Why did he sometimes get the feeling that she could read his very soul?

‘No. It wasn’t.’ The pavement was empty now. The crowd had hurried on. The slowly moving traffic threaded its way down the hill and whoever the woman had been, he could no longer see her.

That night he dreamed about Brid. He dreamed they made love and then he dreamed that she tried to drown him in the fairy pool. He woke screaming and lay there, sweating, waiting for Robbie to come in swearing at being woken up. But Robbie, who a month before had signed up to join the RAFVR, was not there. He was three miles away fast asleep in the arms of a student nurse Adam had introduced him to only the previous day.

Adam lay staring at the ceiling for the rest of the night, watching for the meagre grey dawn to creep into the close and fight its way through his window before he got up at last and began wearily to shave with a kettleful of hot water.

He saw his first death that day. He was visiting a fellow student who had fallen down the twisting stair to his digs after imbibing several pints and broken his leg. At the end of the ward there was a young man who had been taken to the Infirmary after an accident in the factory where he was working. He had fallen into unprotected machinery and his leg had been severed just below the hip. As he left the ward, Adam lingered a moment to look at the white face on the white pillow and the young man had opened his eyes and looked straight at him. Reading the pain and terror and loneliness in the bright blue gaze Adam went across to the bed and put a gentle hand on the young man’s shoulder. It was only minutes later that he realised the young man was dead. To his surprise for a while after life had gone the eyes stayed just as bright. He stood staring down, unable to take in the moment he had witnessed. Then the ward sister who had been escorting the doctor and his train of third-year students turned back and saw him. She touched Adam’s arm. ‘You all right?’ Her smile was kind. ‘It was nice of you to stay with him.’ She pulled up the sheet with calm professionalism. ‘On your way now, young man. Forget what you have seen.’

‘I saw him die.’ Sitting on the floor of Liza’s studio, his arms round his legs, his chin on his knees, Adam was still trying to come to terms with it. ‘And yet for a minute I couldn’t see any difference. He was white, but he was white before he died. He just stopped breathing. That’s all.’

She came and sat down beside him. They were listening to some Mozart. ‘Perhaps his spirit was still there. It didn’t want to go.’ She smiled. ‘You did the right thing, Adam, to be with him. It must be very frightening to die alone.’

He shook his head. ‘Somehow I always saw myself as a doctor saving lives. Stepping in heroically and working miracles. I didn’t think about the ones we can’t save.’ They were silent for a few minutes. ‘War is coming, Liza. I’ll be staying on as a student because they’ll need doctors. Robbie will be in the RAF. What will you do?’

She shrugged. ‘I want to go on painting. I’ll do it as long as I can. It’s my whole life. I don’t want to do anything else.’ She paused. ‘I suppose the folks might want me to go home and help with the farm.’

‘Back to Wales?’

She nodded. ‘It hasn’t happened yet, Adam. Perhaps it won’t. Perhaps Hitler will change his mind.’ She shook her head violently. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t bear the thought of him interfering in all our lives. I want everything to stay the same. I want to paint sunsets and flowers and happiness. I can’t think about war. I won’t.’

Adam gave a rueful smile. ‘We won’t have any choice. It’s in the air everywhere. Besides,’ he nodded over his shoulder at her shrouded easel, ‘you never paint sunsets and flowers and happiness. You wouldn’t know how.’

She let out a shout of laughter. ‘Perhaps you’re right.’

The first time they made love was after they had been to a concert together at the Usher Hall. As they walked through the darkened streets he put his arm round her shoulders and drew her to him.

‘Liza –’

She put her finger to his lips to silence him and then gently kissed him. They climbed the stairs to her studio and in the soft darkness she led him across to her bed.

They spent the summer together, and by the time the new term began they were inseparable. Liza was not like Brid in any way. Her loving was warm. In spite of her sometimes acerbic manner, with Liza he felt safe and secure and welcomed. All thoughts of the manse and the unhappiness there vanished. He had found someone in whom he could confide all his fears and hopes.

All his fears but one.

He saw Brid again one Thursday at the beginning of the new university year on South Bridge, and this time he was sure it was her.

Leaving Liza on the tram with a quick wave he had just jumped off with three fellow medics, a pile of books in his arms, his white coat slung across his shoulder, on his way to a physics lecture. The young men were laughing and talking loudly, dodging between the trams and cars, ducking their heads against cold relentless sheets of rain. Shaking his wet hair out of his eyes he looked up and saw her staring at him across the street.

‘A-dam –’ He saw her mouth frame the word, but as before the traffic was heavy and the street was crowded and when he looked again she had gone.

He was not proud of what he did next. Instead of crossing the road to look for her he dived after his friends into the Old Quad and forged ahead, leaving the spot where he had seen her far behind.

Handing in his card to the servitor in his top hat, Adam edged into his seat in the lecture hall and found that his hands were shaking. He stared down at them, fiercely willing them into fists. What was the matter with him? Why was he so afraid? Was it that she brought memories of the manse, things he wanted to forget? Or was it guilt, that he had abandoned her so easily and put her out of his mind? Whatever it was he did not want to see her again. After all, it was a coincidence almost too big to be possible that she should be in Edinburgh. It was probably his imagination. Comforted, he sat back and gave his attention to the professor in front of him.

Liza stood back from the canvas and chewed the end of her paint brush. She glanced at her watch and smiled. A good time to stop.

The knock on the door came at exactly the right moment. She and Adam were planning to bike over to the Royal Botanical Gardens for a picnic in the warm autumnal sunshine. The bicycles were a new idea, borrowed from friends of hers who had graduated to a three-wheeled Morgan. ‘Come in. It’s not locked!’ She was rinsing the brush in a jar of turps and did not turn round. ‘I’ll be with you in two seconds, Adam. I’ve done a lot of work this morning. What do you think?’ She turned, gesturing at the canvas and stopped short. Standing in the doorway was a strange young woman with long dark hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ Liza frowned, puzzled. ‘I thought you were someone else.’

‘You thought I was A-dam.’ The girl stepped into the studio and closed the door behind her. She was dressed in an ankle-length, russet dress with a soft woollen coat over it which came to her feet. On her shoulder hung a loosely woven bag. Her eyes were as hard as flint.

‘Who are you?’ Liza put down her brush and rag. The skin on the back of her neck had begun to prickle. There was something about this strange young woman which made her very uncomfortable. She moved surreptitiously a little nearer to the table and groped behind her for the knife with which she had been scraping her palette.

‘It does not matter who I am.’ The voice was strangely monotone.

‘I think it does. You are in my home. I would like to know what you want.’

‘You are A-dam’s girlfriend.’ The voice, though still flat, held venom.

Liza’s questing fingers found what she was looking for and she quietly picked up the palette knife. She stepped back again, putting the table between her and her visitor, praying that Adam would appear. Her nerves were beginning to scream. ‘I am his friend, certainly,’ she said cautiously. ‘If you are looking for him, he’ll be here soon.’

The young woman did not look round. Her eyes were fixed on Liza’s face. ‘I do not need you,’ she said calmly. ‘A-dam does not need you.’ She was reaching into her bag as she spoke.

Liza gasped. She saw a blade flash as the woman raised her arm and had barely registered the knife when without thinking she threw herself down behind the table at the same moment as she heard Adam’s cheerful shout from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Adam!’ she screamed. ‘Adam, be careful!’

He found her sobbing on her knees, the palette knife still clutched in her hand, her fingers covered in thick yellow paint.

‘Liza! Liza, what is it? What’s wrong?’ He was down beside her on his knees. ‘Tell me. What happened?’

‘Where is she?’ Shaking, Liza managed to stand up. ‘For God’s sake, Adam, who was she?’ She was staring round wildly. The studio was empty.

‘Who? What? What happened?’

‘That woman! That girl! You must have seen her?’ Unaware of the paint on her hand she pushed her hair back off her face, leaving a smear of yellow across her forehead. ‘She tried to kill me!’

Adam closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. Why had he thought immediately of Brid?

‘Describe her,’ he said. He led her to the bed and sat her down gently. Then he walked over to the door and stared down the stairs. As he had climbed them in the dark, glad to be out of the cutting wind, he had been halfway up when a cat had fled past him. He had time only to register the dark shape, the fierce green eyes, the wild fury of the claws on the worn steps, and it was gone. ‘There’s no other way out of here is there?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Then she must still be here.’ He walked slowly round the studio searching every corner, every cupboard, every shadow. There was no one there.

‘She was small, dark hair. Long dark-red clothes. She spoke with a funny foreign accent.’