Pale as the Dead

by Fiona Mountain

  She saw herself as she’d been just a few seconds ago, tall and slender, dressed in her favourite coat – long, black, Edwardian, with a high collar – Boris, a Red Setter, at her side, a splash of colour against the big, white sky and the silver of the river.

  ‘You’d be even more beautiful if you lost that chip on your shoulder.’ His breath brushed her ear and she almost dropped the camera. It occurred to her that it would look rather fetching wrapped around his neck. He took it, smirking, as if her anger amused him. ‘I bet you went to private school, didn’t you? Rambling old house with a garden like a park to play tennis and ride your pony in. Loving, encouraging parents. What have you got to feel pissed off about?’

  This was absurd. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’

  ‘I’m right though, aren’t I? About the posh school? I meant it as a compliment. You talk very nicely. You’ve got style. Attitude. What did they write on your reports?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Yes, you can. You were always top of the class I bet? Wanting approval, everyone to like you?’ She could feel his eyes on her, didn’t like how close to the truth he was. ‘Model pupil? Great future ahead? Is that what they wrote?’

  She wanted to shut him up and take him down a peg or two at the same time. ‘Actually.’ She turned on her brilliant smile. ‘You’re way off the mark. They probably did say I was bright. Bright but sometimes thinks she’s too smart. So you and I have a lot in common there.’

  He turned his attention back to the camera. ‘So, what’s she told you?’

  Instinctively, Natasha lied. ‘Nothing yet.’

  ‘You do surprise me.’

  He reverse-spooled a frame, handed the camera back.

  It was a close-up profile, the picture he’d taken without her knowledge.

  She looked OK, even if she hadn’t bothered to put on any makeup, had had more than usual trouble sleeping over the past weeks since Marcus had left and had to keep reminding herself to eat. Her heavy dark-gold hair was scooped up into a loose knot at the back of her head, and around her face the damp atmosphere had crimped it into small ringlets. Wide, almond shaped eyes, strong cheekbones, small nose, a high clear brow. A face she could never quite recognize as her own.

  Two

  NATASHA WAS SITTING sitting opposite Adam by a huge inglenook with a fire beneath the blackened oak beams of the Fox Inn at Little Barrington. Except for a trio of walkers in hiking boots, Cagoules and rucksacks, and a young couple sharing a bowl of chips and a bottle of red wine in an alcove, the place was empty, far enough away from any town to avoid the pre-Christmas round of office parties. On the small table in front of Adam and Natasha there was a vodka and tonic, a pint of Donnington’s and a white wine spritzer for Bethany, who was in the ladies drying her hair.

  ‘Are the photos for a magazine?’

  ‘An exhibition. In Oxford.’ Adam was chain-smoking, elbows resting on the table. The sleeve of his black jacket was slightly too long, part covering his fingers. It was made of velvet, the nap worn away at the cuffs. ‘The idea is to create a series of photographs in the style of the Pre-Raphaelite paintings. A modern version of them, if you like, using a modern day medium.’

  ‘Didn’t Julia Margaret Cameron already do that?’

  ‘Quite right.’ His tone was patronising, made Natasha wonder why she was bothering. She reminded herself this was a client meeting and summoned a suitably professional smile. ‘Cameron was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelites but she was also a contemporary,’ Adam said, offhandedly. ‘No one’s done anything similar for over a hundred years and I thought it would be interesting to give it a go.’

  ‘Which other paintings are you basing the photos on?’

  ‘Bethany particularly wanted to do Ophelia, because Lizzie Siddal was in the original. She’s obsessed with her.’ He slouched back against the settle. ‘Apart from that there won’t be any direct copies. Just scenes suggested by the subjects that inspired the Pre-Raphaelites. Y’know, mythology, supersitition, medieval themes. That kind of stuff.’

  ‘I can see you as a twenty-first century Rossetti.’ Actually, with his dark clothes and the way he wore his hair, long enough for the curls to touch his velvet collar, he wasn’t so much twenty-first century as nineteenth. Which, to Natasha made him interesting and attractive, she was sorry to admit.

  He picked up his beer, drank. ‘I’ve always liked the idea of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Secret societies.’

  ‘Me too. Ever since I read The Secret Seven.’ She smiled but he didn’t.

  ‘I formed one while I was at college. We used to meet in the evenings and sit around in candlelight, drinking lots of coffee or wine, playing records and talking about art and literature and philosophy. It was great for pulling girls.’

  ‘I bet.’ She paused. ‘The exhibition sounds great. Oxford’s the ideal place, with its Pre-Raphaelite connections.’

  Bethany came back from the cloakroom. There was kohl around her grey eyes, pale pink lipstick on her mouth. She slid in beside Adam on the settle, nestled up to him. He turned to her, gazed at her profile for a second, almost as if he was willing her to respond, but if she felt his eyes on her she chose not to meet them, stared resolutely ahead, sipping her wine. Adam drained his beer almost angrily. He stood, said he was going to the bar for a refill, asked Natasha if she’d like one too. She said no before she had a chance to change her mind.

  Bethany watched Adam walk away. Natasha recognized that look. Love mixed with sadness. It made her feel a tender concern for the girl. ‘You should have had a whisky.’

  Bethany cupped her hands and blew into them. ‘Or a hot cup of tea. I don’t think I’ll ever be warm again.’

  ‘Shall we swap places, so you’re nearer the fire?’

  ‘Thanks.’ Bethany came to sit in the wooden chair by the hearth and Natasha took the settle.

  ‘What you were saying,’ Natasha prompted, ‘earlier, about your name not really being Marshall?’

  Bethany hesitated, as if she regretted her previous confidence. ‘I think I’m descended from someone called Marshall. I don’t know her first name, except that it began with a J. Apparently her father was a doctor who was friends with the Pre-Raphaelites. I’ve got her diary. My grandmother left it to me.’

  The quiet thrill in the girl’s voice made Natasha like her even more. ‘That’s fascinating. Adam said you were interested in Lizzie Siddal. Is it because of the diary?’

  ‘I suppose so. I had this idea, that I’d like to write a proper biography of her sometime.’ She fiddled with the stem of her glass. ‘I started doing some research a while ago.’

  ‘One of the archivists at the Public Record Office investigated Lizzie Siddal’s early life just through census returns, trade directories, certificates and stuff. You should give her a call.’

  Bethany glanced towards Adam who was still at the bar, paying for his drink. ‘He doesn’t know about … Promise you won’t say anything about my name?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘It’s for the best,’ she said, emphatically.

  People changed their name for a variety of reasons. If they were running from something or someone, had done something they were ashamed of, committed a crime, or witnessed one and were at risk if they were found. For whatever reason, they usually needed to escape the past. Sometimes of course they simply had an aversion to the name they were born with. Natasha had the feeling Bethany didn’t fall into that category. She put her glass down. ‘Listen, are you OK?’

  She gave a weak smile. ‘Fine.’ Adam was walking back towards them. ‘This sounds like a really strange question…’ she broke off.

  ‘I’m used to strange questions,’ Natasha said. ‘Believe me.’

  ‘Do you think … is it possible that … well, that some families can be cursed?’

  Natasha thought for a second, not because she wasn’t sure how to answer, but because she was worried about the reason behind the question, didn’t want to b
e either dismissive or gloomy. ‘Sometimes,’ she said carefully. ‘In a way.’

  She wanted to explain but Adam plonked his beer on the table and Bethany made an obvious effort to shift subject, asked how far back into the past it was possible to go.

  ‘It depends.’ Natasha said. Adam hadn’t bothered to fetch another chair but had squeezed onto the small settle next to Natasha. She tried to ignore his lean thigh pressing up against hers, the fact that she was wedged in so tight she couldn’t budge an inch. He was pretending not to listen to the conversation but was clearly interested. ‘If a family were landowners there’s records stretching back centuries,’ Natasha finished.

  ‘How long does it take?’

  ‘You could get as far as great-great-grandparents within a month or so.’

  Bethany took a moment to let that sink in. ‘Why do people want to know do you think?’

  It was an odd sort of question, from someone who’d expressed an interest. ‘All sorts of reasons. I think mostly it’s to learn more about who you are.’

  ‘Is that always a good thing?’

  There was a flicker of fear in the girl’s eyes, something Natasha understood all too well. ‘I think it can help a lot sometimes.’

  ‘Come on,’ Adam scoffed. ‘It’s just about providing tales you can entertain your mates with in the pub, isn’t it? So you can boast about how a long deceased uncle was transported as a convict for stealing a loaf of bread. It can’t really mean anything in the end, what your great-great-grandfather did for a living?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Natasha said, playfully. ‘Some people say ghosts don’t cast shadows, but they can cast the longest shadows of all.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Ancestor Syndrome.’ She glanced at Bethany. ‘The idea that everything that happens to you – accidents, illnesses, fears, attitudes – are a kind of inherited fate, responses to what happened to your ancestors years ago.’

  ‘I love it,’ Adam sniggered. ‘Very Gothic romance. Let me guess. The only way to break the pattern is to understand what set it in place. The perfect genealogist’s sales pitch if you ask me.’

  Natasha turned to him. ‘Works every time.’

  Bethany finished her drink and put her empty glass down. ‘I’ll maybe give you a call, after Christmas.’

  ‘Whenever.’ Natasha would make a bet she’d never hear from Bethany again. Which was a shame. She liked her, was intrigued. She also had a gut feeling the girl needed help in some way. One thing Natasha could never resist. Helping, or meddling, depending on which way you chose to look at it.

  Adam had finished his second beer and stood.

  Natasha nodded goodbye to the landlord as they walked towards the door. She dropped back, let Adam go on ahead to the car park at the rear of the pub. ‘Are you off back to London now?’ she said to Bethany as they followed behind.

  ‘We’re staying at Adam’s friend’s place in Oxford, until after the exhibition.’ She spoke quickly, as if she didn’t want to dwell on that. There was not an ounce of enthusiasm in her voice. She tucked her hair behind her ears, securing it against the strong breeze. ‘Do you really think you can inherit fate?’

  ‘It’s just a theory. But it makes sense, certainly helps to explain why some families seem to have more than their fair share of tragedy.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, when an ancestor is the victim of a terrible crime or tragedy, say, you half expect the same to happen to you and so, subconsciously, when you reach that age, or else a certain date, perhaps you take more risks, get depressed, self-destructive, or maybe your resistance to illness drops.’ She could see she had Bethany’s attention. ‘So it seems like a curse when a similar thing happens again, but it’s more like a self-fulfilling prophecy.’ The Lancia was only a few strides away now, Adam already behind the wheel. Natasha stopped, turned towards her midnight blue Sunbeam Alpine. ‘When you think about it, you don’t even have to be aware of the original event. Say someone died falling from a building, a fear of heights could be passed on through the generations. Or a sense of shame, even if what caused it has been kept a secret, or forgotten.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ Bethany said, in a way that made Natasha wish she’d kept her mouth shut.

  Three

  THE VILLAGE OF Snowshill lived up to its name. As Natasha drove further into the Cotswolds, small white flakes began flashing towards her in the Alpine’s headlights. Because it lay high up, the village always caught the wildest weather and was often cut off for days. Snow tended to linger, in the folds of the hills, when it had long since disappeared elsewhere. You could drive down to the valleys and sheep pastures and see primroses and daffodils, when in Snowshill it still felt like winter.

  Natasha’s cottage was at the end of a short row dating from the seventeenth century. What she loved about it most was that inside, there was not a straight line anywhere. Undulating, low-beamed ceilings, thick slanted and bowed walls, tiny sloping leaded windows and crooked, creaking floors. It was called Orchard End, though there’d never been an orchard anywhere near. From the highest south-west facing windows though, you could see right across to Littleworth Wood and the Vale of Evesham, and Natasha liked to think the person who chose the name did so because it had been possible to see the drifts of blossom from the forest of fruit trees for which the Vale was once so renowned. The house and village suited her perfectly. She preferred small places, old places, where there was a sense of continuity, and of belonging.

  But the cottage didn’t seem like home in quite the way it once did, when it was Marcus’s home too. He’d lived there for three years, on and off. Every time he’d gone to work up at the Department of Medical Artists at Manchester University, or abroad, Natasha had always half believed he wouldn’t come back. But there had been the reassurance of his belongings in every room, daily phone calls or e-mails. Since he left two weeks ago, there was no reassurance, just silence and empty spaces where his toothbrush and razor and aftershave used to be, his boots and jacket in the hallway.

  She parked outside, let Boris skitter down from the passenger seat and unlocked the front door, ducking beneath the lintel. She checked her answering machine. A message from Mary, who ran the Snowshill Arms with her husband James, checking Natasha was coming round for supper tomorrow. Another from Natasha’s father, Steven, and a final message from Will, a former colleague from Generations, whom she’d dated eons ago. He was calling to invite her to a New Year’s party. Which wasn’t until 7 January. Typical Will.

  She changed quickly into a flying jacket, and stuffed the bottoms of her jeans into Wellington boots. Boris started barking eagerly, his tail beating her calves. With the snow falling thicker now, Natasha was almost as excited as he was. A fresh snowfall was magical, no matter how often you’d seen it. She followed Boris as he darted, sleek and quick as a fox, towards the church and then on down the steep lane to the track that led through the woods. The leafless trees were like images in a photographic negative, white with the snow that was settling softly along the branches.

  Some of the villagers, those whose families had lived in Snowshill for centuries, wouldn’t go near the lane that ran between the Manor and Orchard End once darkness had fallen.

  It was the Manor that brought visitors to Snowshill from all over the UK, America, Japan. When she told people where she lived, it was amazing how many had heard of such a tiny place. ‘Spooky’ was a frequent comment, accompanied by a shudder, as if the atmosphere of the Manor permeated the whole of the village.

  ‘A house for the evening hours’ as one of the guide books described it. It had fascinated Natasha from the first time she’d seen it. Its former owner Charles Paget Wade’s extraordinary collections filled the dim rooms. Tudor panelling and medieval fireplaces set off gruesome suits of Samurai armour, Balinese dancing masks and hanging lanterns from Persia that cast weird netted shadows.

  No one lived in the Manor now, and the windows were black as Natasha
made her way back.

  As she came towards the triangular village green the wonderful nutty scent of wood smoke drifted towards her and the glowing lights of the Snowshill Arms seemed very inviting.

  But going to the inn was only a way to avoid the empty cottage which had never troubled her until recently. She walked on determinedly. Dusk was the worst time. The brief pause between day and night, when lights had been turned on but curtains not yet drawn, making every front room a taunting tableau of family bliss.

  Natasha’s own cottage was freezing. The cranky central heating system had long ceased to be up to the job, but she had never got round to having it replaced.

  She turned on lamps, unscrewed a bottle of vodka and poured a hefty measure, didn’t bother to add any tonic. Boris was waiting optimistically on the faded Persian rug in front of the inglenook whilst she scrunched up an old copy of the Independent for kindling. Only three logs left in the basket. She must remember to pick up some more.

  She pulled over plump velvet and tapestry cushions and Boris came to rest his head on her lap, settling down with a contented snuffle. The room immediately looked more welcoming with the light of the flames on the dark oak furniture, the pewter candlesticks and knick-knacks she kept acquiring from antique fairs, the rich browns and reds and golds of the fabrics.

  Natasha flicked on the television. That was becoming a habit too. Filling the cottage with the voices and faces of strangers. She channel-hopped, finding only festive quiz shows and sitcoms, then hit a local news programme, showing an item about the Samaritans gearing up their busiest period. ‘There are more suicides at Christmas than at any other time of the year…’

  Very cheery.

  She could feel the vodka kicking in. She shifted Boris’s muzzle and wandered through to the kitchen to refill her glass. Her third today she remembered. But the first had been business. So that didn’t count.

  Boris had padded after her and she shook some biscuits into his bowl. She fixed herself a plate of pasta with tomato sauce and took it over to the iMac at her desk. She logged onto the internet, checked what was going on at a couple of family history chat rooms and then clicked on an MP3 site, downloaded a couple of tracks.