boot room with my foot while I shut the door on him. He doesn’t understand, but there is shattered glass all over the floor of the sitting room and I know that I have to clear it up before I can let him back in. He barks his hurt through the door at me as I take a broom and shovel from the kitchen cupboard and start to sweep up. It takes me nearly fifteen minutes, searching out every reflecting speck of glass, and then vacuuming the floor just to be sure.
I right a small table that has been upended, replacing the lamp that stood on it, thankful that the bulb remains intact. Then move into the bedroom to pick up the pieces of broken bulb from the bedside lamp and run the vacuum cleaner over the carpet to suck up any shards I might have missed.
The very act of cleaning up after the attack has allowed me to calm down. My heart is beating almost normally again, and the focus on finding every skelf of glass has stopped me thinking too much about it. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about anything . I want to go back to the day before yesterday and be who I was then. With whatever secrets I might have had. At least I would have known what they were.
Finally I let Bran back through, and he runs around the house, sniffing in every corner. Strange, threatening scents. He is still on full alert, even if I have put it behind me. Well, not behind me, exactly. It’s more like I have slipped into denial.
Which is when I notice the blade of my attacker’s knife catching the light where it lies, almost obscured beneath the television cabinet. I drop to my knees and bend down to fish it out and hold it in my hand with a sense of awe. This is a hunting knife with a nine-inch blade, razor-sharp along its curved edge, serrated along the other. Its black haft has finger grips. My insides turn to water as I imagine how it would have felt to have this cold, deadly blade slice through my flesh and veins and organs. And I carry it with me through to the bedroom to slip below my pillow before climbing back into bed, Bran jumping up to stretch himself along my length for comfort. If anyone comes for me again, this time I will be ready.
*
Day two, AML. After memory loss. Morning greets me with dried blood on the pillow and a scab that has formed over my right temple where it struck the coffee table during last night’s struggle. I have a thumping headache, which might owe as much to oversleeping as to my injury. Of the last twenty-four hours, I count up that I have slept away as many as fifteen. I suppose I must have needed to, but it hasn’t improved either my physical or mental well-being.
It is just after six and Bran is already up, sitting patiently in the boot room, waiting for me to open the door and let him out. I oblige, and he scampers away across the dunes, watched by the Highland pony that grazes habitually among the beach grasses. I put out food and water for him and leave the door open for his return, then set the kettle to boil and spoon coffee into a mug.
As I wait, I go through to the sitting room. The only evidence of the life-or-death struggle that took place here at midnight last night is the buckled remains of the coffee table. I lift it up and carry it through to the spare room, and when I come back the sitting room seems bigger, empty somehow. I cross to the French windows and gaze out across the beach, watching sunlight chase shadows across turquoise and silver before they race each other over the purple-grey hills beyond. Buford’s caravan draws my attention, and I realise it is because his Land Rover is gone. And I wonder where he might be at this time of the morning. What does he do all day, every day? And what is his interest in me?
The kettle boils and I make my coffee, pouring in milk to cool it enough to drink, then sit at the table with the view of the beach spread out before me. I close my eyes as I let the warmth of the coffee slip back over my throat, and try to focus on what it
I right a small table that has been upended, replacing the lamp that stood on it, thankful that the bulb remains intact. Then move into the bedroom to pick up the pieces of broken bulb from the bedside lamp and run the vacuum cleaner over the carpet to suck up any shards I might have missed.
The very act of cleaning up after the attack has allowed me to calm down. My heart is beating almost normally again, and the focus on finding every skelf of glass has stopped me thinking too much about it. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to think about anything . I want to go back to the day before yesterday and be who I was then. With whatever secrets I might have had. At least I would have known what they were.
Finally I let Bran back through, and he runs around the house, sniffing in every corner. Strange, threatening scents. He is still on full alert, even if I have put it behind me. Well, not behind me, exactly. It’s more like I have slipped into denial.
Which is when I notice the blade of my attacker’s knife catching the light where it lies, almost obscured beneath the television cabinet. I drop to my knees and bend down to fish it out and hold it in my hand with a sense of awe. This is a hunting knife with a nine-inch blade, razor-sharp along its curved edge, serrated along the other. Its black haft has finger grips. My insides turn to water as I imagine how it would have felt to have this cold, deadly blade slice through my flesh and veins and organs. And I carry it with me through to the bedroom to slip below my pillow before climbing back into bed, Bran jumping up to stretch himself along my length for comfort. If anyone comes for me again, this time I will be ready.
*
Day two, AML. After memory loss. Morning greets me with dried blood on the pillow and a scab that has formed over my right temple where it struck the coffee table during last night’s struggle. I have a thumping headache, which might owe as much to oversleeping as to my injury. Of the last twenty-four hours, I count up that I have slept away as many as fifteen. I suppose I must have needed to, but it hasn’t improved either my physical or mental well-being.
It is just after six and Bran is already up, sitting patiently in the boot room, waiting for me to open the door and let him out. I oblige, and he scampers away across the dunes, watched by the Highland pony that grazes habitually among the beach grasses. I put out food and water for him and leave the door open for his return, then set the kettle to boil and spoon coffee into a mug.
As I wait, I go through to the sitting room. The only evidence of the life-or-death struggle that took place here at midnight last night is the buckled remains of the coffee table. I lift it up and carry it through to the spare room, and when I come back the sitting room seems bigger, empty somehow. I cross to the French windows and gaze out across the beach, watching sunlight chase shadows across turquoise and silver before they race each other over the purple-grey hills beyond. Buford’s caravan draws my attention, and I realise it is because his Land Rover is gone. And I wonder where he might be at this time of the morning. What does he do all day, every day? And what is his interest in me?
The kettle boils and I make my coffee, pouring in milk to cool it enough to drink, then sit at the table with the view of the beach spread out before me. I close my eyes as I let the warmth of the coffee slip back over my throat, and try to focus on what it
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