Chapter Eight
Winter
Nights
Finally, Heath shone the torch on the
dusty old shoe box he was looking for.
‘This should satisfy her imagination,’ he
thought.
Inside lay a pile of photographs, taken
pre-digitally, tied in a bundle with a red ribbon. The photographs were of the
Spencers, as children, at the local primary school and playing together on
Hampstead Heath. There were more taken at boarding school in Scotland. They had
not been looked at or moved for almost twenty years and the top of the box was
thick with dust, but other than that, the photographs were in remarkably good
condition.
Heath rubbed his arms. He could anticipate
need now, the need for his medication, the need for blood. Heath could feel the
surge of want and desire in his venom. The tightness in his calves and wrists
would move through his body as his strength seemed to decrease physically. He’d
neglected his pint of blood this evening, which he always drank before eight
pm, but then he’d never had visitors to distract him. He looked at the
photograph in his hand.
‘Your beautiful face,’ Heath whispered,
fingers tracing the paper outline of her jaw as he held the edge of the torch
in his mouth He dropped it when he heard the dog bark and the girl cry out. He
rushed down the stairs to the drawing room.
Rain streamed in through the broken window
creating a fast-growing puddle of water in the drawing room. He walked over to
block the window with a chest of drawers as the girl shrank into the corner of
the wall…
‘I… I went to close the shutter and someone
tried to grab my hand.’
Heath paused.
‘You must have imagined it Katarina. It was
the wind and the rain. The winds are strong; it’s so isolated out here. A noise
sounds louder than it really is. Shadows seem like people. Now, calm yourself.
Here, take a seat and have a sip of your drink. I’ll make some tea.
Katarina sat on the couch, shocked and
shaken.
‘How did you do that? Move the chest so
easily? Pull down the window as if it was as light as a feather?’
Heath finished his drink and paused.
‘It’s not as heavy as it looks‘
The answer seemed to satisfy Katarina who
continued with her description...
‘The fingers, they were so cold…her skin
was…white. She wore a nightgown…’
‘Honestly Katarina, you sound like you’ve
read too many horror stories…’
‘Suddenly, I feel like I’m living one…’
‘Only suddenly?’ Heath said sarcastically. ‘You
wouldn’t be the first to say that. I’m thinking of selling it…. But
nevertheless, it’s not safe to leave now.’
‘It’s not safe to stay…’
‘Nonsense…mind plays tricks in here. I’ll
take you home the minute the storm finishes or morning comes…whichever arrives
first.’
Katarina sighed as Heath smiled and helped
her to her feet. Her father had clearly exaggerated. No stranger could have
been more welcoming.
Heath smiled again as he settled a mohair
rug around the girl. Katarina accidentally touched his hand and was shocked.
His palm was as cold as ice. He withdrew his hand quickly and rubbed his
fingers together.
‘Thank you,’ Katarina said, pretending not
to notice. Little did she know what an effort it was to play nice. Heath had
managed to take a few more sips of blood in his bedroom before going to find
the photos and was feeling somewhat revived. He had no attraction to this
girl’s blood. In any case, it was strange. He hadn’t even thought of drinking
her, especially as he was hungry. He’d trained himself to withhold when it came
to people he liked or met as friends. Perhaps this came from being
“mixed-race”. Heath’s specialist had once considered him that rarest of things;
a vampire-human hybrid. Now, he felt more vampire than hybrid.
‘I aim to please,’ he said cheerily, aware
how bland he sounded. He handed her the photograph album as he spoke. ‘We open
the grounds to visitors in the summer now that…my wife has left and the
children have grown up. I usually move to the Southern Hemisphere and enjoy the
winter in New Zealand (Heath wanted to add, ‘It’s
cold there when it’s hot here and there’s an endless supply of animal protein
and blood and no one asks any questions.’) Instead, he used the open house
story as an excuse, adding, ‘I was…opposed to it at first, but the visitors
bring in extra revenue and I don’t have to put up with them… and, it all goes
to a good cause - my charity for abandoned children…’
Her uncle sat opposite her now, sipping his
brandy as he discussed the plight of orphans.
How could a man who was involved in
charitable causes be as bad as her father had said?
The phone rang. Heath picked up the
receiver. He spoke curtly as Katarina poured over the photographs on her lap.
‘That was Linus,’ Heath added, after he hung
up. ‘He’s been caught up in the West End and Hinton is working late at the
studio. He goes to evening classes sometimes. I just got a text. They don’t
speak to me usually. Apparently, I spent too much of my energy on work when
they were growing up and now they don’t want to know me.’ Heath rationalized
this partial lie as easier than the truth.
Katarina looked intently at the
photographs of two children dressed up formally for a family function in the
grounds of Hareton Hall. They looked like twins apart from the fact that one
was a little taller than the other.
‘That’s us, when I first came to live with
the Spencers,’ Heath said.
‘You both look…so sweet,’ Katarina said. ‘I
was wondering…why didn’t my father like you?’
Heath paused, wondering how much to tell
the girl.
‘He didn’t like me because he thought he was
better than me…it’s as simple as that.’
The girl shook her head incredulously.
‘Oh…but my father would never…’
‘It…was different then. Everything was
different…’
Heath smiled. Katarina noticed his perfect,
white teeth.
‘It’s
late, we can continue our…discussion at a later date,’ Heath added, rising from
his chair.
It bothered him slightly to have her in the
house all night, not because he cared what anyone would think but… well, for
reasons which had already become obvious. The house itself…was unreliable,
strange… creepy. His desires were manageable. He was determined she would not
discover his secret but the girl had made an accurate assessment of hidden
forces that swirled through the hall like...ghosts.
‘When was this taken?’ Katarina asked as
Heath stood up.
The girl held the photograph of two children,
the boy with an untucked shirt, messy hair and wayward striped tie, and the
girl, standing up straight with knee high white socks and braids. The boater
hat sat atop her perfectly styled hair.
Heath looked at the photo dismissively.
‘First day of boarding school, Greta took us
to the train. We each had trunks with our names engraved on them in gold.’
Heath smiled at the memory.
‘Really…I didn’t know you and mother went
to school together…’
‘We didn’t…not really. There was a boys’
school and a girls’ school. They shared the same playing fields.’
‘Did you meet up in secret then?’
He suddenly tired of Katarina’s constant
questions and wanted someone else to distract her. He didn’t expect her to be
so smart, or to like her, even a little. Perhaps she had more of her mother in
her than her father…
‘Sometimes,’ he said warily, ‘Kate…your
mother…came to my football games…’
The storm howled outside as if to prove a
point. Heath walked heavily over to the bay windows and checked the locks from
the inside to prevent the incessant rattle which shook the room in the dark.
Usually, it drizzled here but tonight was different. Tonight reminded him of
Scotland and the stormy night his band played in the school hall for the first
time.
‘I like this photograph,’ Katarina said.
‘I’ve never seen it before. Where did
she get the outfit?’
Kate stood on the stairs of a ballroom in a
beautiful, low-cut, pink satin drop-waisted dress wearing high heels, tassels
on the knee length hem and a sequinned choker around her head. ‘It was the school formal, I suppose they
call it a “prom” on those American TV shows…’ he said dismissively. ‘The theme
of the occasion was 1920s,’ he warmed to the memory, ‘and so…we…the band I was
in…tried playing jazz, dressed as gangsters… We thought we were so cool… Your
mother…Kate, was determined to be the centre of attention that night…’ Heath
looked at the photograph and smiled.
As if reading his thoughts, Katarina said,
‘ ...Wearing that dress, I bet she succeeded.’
