Touched - By Malcolm Havard Page 0,46

she replied.

He turned and she was there. She was different though, looking just the same yet changed. She was calmer, much more in control of herself than she had been before. And that was all the more remarkable considering that she was staring at the laptop’s screen, apparently almost in a trance like state.

‘How long have you been there?’ he asked.

‘A while,’ she said without moving her gaze.

‘How much did you read?’ he said, knowing that it was too late now to minimize it.

‘Enough,’

‘OK,’ nodded Dan, ‘You didn’t know?’

Tess seemed to shake herself out of her trance, walking away from the dining table and going to sit on the settee. Dan followed her, sitting on ‘his’ two-seater, giving her space.

‘No,’ she said, ‘Well not really. Not at first anyway. I was more…confused, puzzled I guess. I knew something had happened but there was no one to tell me, to explain to me, what it was.’

Dan gave a wry smile. ‘It’s very hard to know what’s real and what’s made up in your head, isn’t it?’

She looked up and made eye contact for the first time. She nodded, ‘Exactly. That’s it exactly. You’re taking this…quite well?’

Dan shrugged, ‘So are you.’

‘Yes but…well I think I’d be running around screaming if this happened to me. And, as for me, well I have no choice do I? I am what I am – apparently.’

‘I…I don’t exactly know what you are,’ admitted Dan.

‘Oh, well I think I must be a…well, you know.’

Dan didn’t want to go there, not just yet. He said the first thing that came into his head. ‘What do you remember? About what happened? And since?’

‘What do I remember?’ she frowned, ‘Well I sort of remember the attack. Sort of, but, well I think I’d rather not go there. It hurt.’

‘That’s OK. Other than I suppose you don’t remember who did it?’

She shook her head.

‘My life before…it’s a bit foggy.’

‘OK. What about since?’

‘Since, there are gaps. I couldn’t work out why I had so many gaps. I’d sit around my flat at first, wondering where everyone was, why no one was calling or looking after me, yet I wasn’t able to call them. No. No, that’s not right, somehow I didn’t want to call anyone. I was just…there.

‘People came to the flat though, sometimes. Usually I just sat there quietly, watching them. They just ignored me. That was puzzling. I never felt the need to speak to them. They just came, did what they had to and left.

‘Except for one person. Annie. It was different with her. She only came once,’ Tess looked up, ‘Annie’s my big sister, two years older? Well, was I suppose.’ For the first time since she had reappeared a veil of sadness passed briefly across her face.

‘Yes I know about Annie,’ said Dan quietly, ‘I read about her.’

Tess nodded. ‘She looked so upset. It must have been so hard on her. She was getting married you know? That summer. It was meant to be her big, happy year. Poor Annie. And now mum’s gone too.

‘She was the one person I spoke to, or tried to at least. I tried to hold her, hug her. But she just shivered and cried even more. She ran out of the flat and I haven’t seen her since.

‘There was a long gap after that. A very long one. And then, when I came back, the flat was suddenly empty; all the furniture had gone, all my things. I was so lonely.’

She had been staring at a point in the floor as she spoke, clearly reflecting. But then she looked up straight into Dan’s eyes.

‘Then you came. Clipboard, serious face. Lovely eyes though, gentle and, somehow, sad too. I don’t know why but somehow I really wanted to speak to you. I did – and you spoke back! I was so amazed, so shocked when you did that I didn’t know what to say at first.’

‘I wonder why me and not anyone else,’ mused Dan.

‘I just struck lucky I guess.’ She forced a smile, ‘Are you psychic?’

‘Nope, not in the slightest. I don’t believe in anything like that.' He hesitated, looked straight at Tess and said, firmly: 'And I don’t believe in ghosts.’

‘Er…hi,’ she said, giving him a little wave.

Dan couldn’t help but smile.

‘I still don’t,’ he said, ‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t apologise. I’m with you on that actually. But then, what else do you think I can be?’

Dan just shrugged.

‘Ah,’ said Tess, slowly nodding, ‘You think I’m all in your mind, that you’re going