The House on the Cliff by Charlotte Williams

well.
    There was a long silence. The cigarette was still burning in the ashtray, the smoke emanating from it thin and pungent. When it finally went out, Arianrhod didn’t bother to relight it. Instead she rose to her feet, as though she’d suddenly come to a decision.
    “Come on,” she said. “Bring your coffee, if you like. I’ll take you up now.”
     
    Arianrhod led me upstairs, through narrow corridors with beamed ceilings and uneven floors, until we came to the door of Gwydion’s room. She knocked, but there was no reply, so she opened it gently.
    “Gwydi? Dr. Mayhew’s here to see you.”
    I peered into the room over her shoulder. It was dark, the curtains drawn. I could just make out a bed beside the window.
    “She’d like to talk to you.”
    There was an almost inaudible groan from the bed. Arianrhod opened the door wider, stepped aside, and gave me a little push into the room.
    “Good luck,” she whispered. Then she closed the door behind me and left.
    I stood by the door for a moment, my eyes adjusting to the dark. I wasn’t sure what to do. So I stayed there and said, in what I hoped was a reassuring voice, “Gwydion, it’s me, Jessica. Would you mind if I came over and sat beside you for a while?”
    There was another groan that I took to be assent. I walked quietly over to the bedside, drew up a low armchair, and sat down.
    Gwydion was lying in bed with his eyes closed. He was unshaven and his hair was greasy. His complexion looked sallow, unhealthy. Underneath the bedclothes I could see that he was wearing a sweater, a scarf, a dressing gown, and pajamas. The room was rather draughty—it was that kind of house—but it certainly wasn’t cold. I wondered if he often overdressed like this, or whether this was something new. The button phobia flashed through my mind, but I couldn’t make anything of it.
    There was a long silence. Interminable. I looked around the room. It had obviously been Gwydion’s since boyhood. Ranged around the shelves on the walls were piles of comics, a Game Boy, a chess set. Propped in a corner was an ancient cricket bat, taped up along the bottom where the wood had cracked. Sitting on a chest of drawers was a sheep’s skull and a homemade catapult. It all looked idyllic, reminiscent of the kind of childhood you read about in books, but seldom actually encounter, where tousle-haired boys make dens in the woods, and the worst that can happen is a scraped knee after climbing a tree, or a chill after playing out in the rain: healthy, happy, carefree. Except that I knew from looking at the figure lying in the bed that it wasn’t. Or if it was, that something had gone very wrong along the way.
    “I’ve had the dream again.” I jumped as Gwydion spoke. He still had his eyes closed.
    “Yes?” I said. I tried to sound encouraging, without being pushy.
    Silence fell once again.
    “This time there were voices.” Gwydion spoke in a low whisper.
    “Voices?”
    “Yes.” He frowned. “I’m in the box again,” he went on. His voice was a monotone. “It’s dark. I can’t see anything, but I can hear . . .” He stopped. He appeared to be making a tremendous effort to remember something. “Two voices . . . a man’s and a woman’s . . .”
    He stopped talking and turned his face to the wall.
    We sat there in silence for a while. Then I said, “Gwydion. Would you mind opening your eyes for a moment and looking at me?”
    I don’t know what made me say that. Irritation, probably, that he hadn’t had the manners to open his eyes, say hello, register my presence. But the minute I’d spoken, I regretted it. There’d been a distinct note of impatience in my voice, which I hadn’t managed to disguise.
    He turned over, his back to me.
    My irritation increased. I started to wonder whether he was having me on, whether this was all some absurd game he was playing. Of course, I should have known better: people struggling with mental illness do play games, run rings