Encounters

by Barbara Erskine

  Nothing was ever found to give any clues as to what had occurred that night. There was no trace of any body; the poor man’s description, as far as my father and Duncan managed to provide one, fitted no one who had been reported missing and as far as the police file went the murder went completely unsolved.

  No one would ever have been any the wiser had it not been by the most extraordinary coincidence that we found out who the victim was. It was more than a year later when Father’s Aunt Flavia arrived on a Christmas visit home from Canada. She was a tall, very upright old lady of, I suppose, about eighty, with brilliant blue eyes in her tanned face and a strong Canadian accent. It was tacitly understood by the family that no one would mention the horrible happenings of the summer before last but one night about three days after she had arrived when we were all sitting round the fire after supper, the incident was mentioned after all.

  ‘Well my dears,’ said Aunt Flavia, looking round with bright inquisitive eyes, ‘have any of you ever seen the ghosts of Camber?’

  She seemed disappointed that no one had, although we were all to varying degrees excited at the idea. I had often wondered if there might be a ghost or two at Camber but no one seemed to know. The house had belonged to our family for four hundred years although my father himself had been brought up in Canada and had only inherited it during the war when his uncle John and John’s only two sons had all been killed, and although he loved it and felt it to be in his ‘blood and bones’ as he put it, he knew comparatively little about its history.

  ‘There are two ghosts actually,’ said his aunt, seeing that she had our attention. ‘A lady who walks in the rose garden on summer nights and a little boy who runs about the upstairs corridors sometimes.’ She looked round hopefully but none of us could claim to have seen either of them.

  ‘How on earth do you know all this, Aunt Flavia?’ my mother asked suspiciously. Aunt Flavia laughed.

  ‘Very old books, my dear. My father left me lots of books which mention Camber. I don’t know why he ever brought them out to Canada because they rightfully belong here. You shall have them all back when I die.’

  ‘There must be a lot of history attached to this house,’ Duncan commented lazily. He was sitting on the window seat, one leg up on the cushion in front of him. ‘Cathie’s book will be out soon; there’s a whole chapter on Camber in that. I know Charles II came here once. Did anything else exciting ever happen here, Aunt, I’ve often wondered?’

  She frowned. ‘There was one time. At the time of the Monmouth Rebellion, against James II – do you remember? Judge Jeffreys and his ilk. There was a terrible fight here a bit later; young Marcus Nicholls, the son of the house, had fought for Monmouth at Sedgemoor and they captured him here in his own home. He was given a summary trial by some of the King’s officers in the dining room here at Camber according to my book and they sentenced him to be hanged.’ She paused, frowning for a moment. ‘I believe he is supposed to have stood up and shouted defiantly at his accusers something about giving his right arm to serve King Charles’s son and one of them said that in that case he would give Marcus the chance to give both.’ There was a long pause. Then she went on. ‘They cut off both his hands before they hanged him – somewhere in the outbuildings to the Court, I gather. According to the story he cursed King James and all his followers and said that if any of them or their descendants ever set foot in Camber again he would haunt them. They say he died very bravely, poor young man.’

  She looked round. I don’t know what reception she expected for her story but certainly not the stunned incredulity which showed on every face in the room.

  My father stood up and reached uncertainly for a cigarette. ‘When did you say this happened, Flavia?’

  ‘1685 dear, after Sedgemoor. Why? What’s the matter with you all?’

  ‘This young man, Marcus. What did he look like?’

  ‘I don’t know. How could I possibly? There’s probably a portrait of him in the house somewhere. Why?’ She suddenly sat up, looking from face to face. ‘You’ve seen him, haven’t you?’ She went pale.

  I had suddenly begun to feel terribly cold. I moved nearer the fire and catching my mother’s eye I saw she had begun to shiver too. The fine pale hairs on her forearms were standing straight up on end suddenly. I watched fascinated.

  Father told Flavia the story from beginning to end and she listened, nodding slowly from time to time. When he had finished she looked up and gave a faint smile. ‘Obviously this poor girl Cathie was the catalyst. She must be a descendant of one of the murderers – even of James himself – you said that her name is Steuart? What an awful thing.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’ Father relit his cigarette which had gone out while he was talking. ‘I can’t believe that that was an – apparition. I saw it. Duncan here saw it, it wasn’t only Cathie.’

  ‘But it disappeared, Dad.’ Duncan spoke at last from the dim corner on the window seat. ‘It disappeared without trace, without blood.’

  ‘And it’s still there.’ Mother’s voice was strangely flat. ‘That’s why Suki and the other horses still won’t enter the stable, after all this time.’ I hadn’t plucked up the courage to either.

  ‘The police dog knew,’ Sandy added suddenly. ‘Its hackles were all over the place and it growled and growled in that loose box and yet there was absolutely no scent for it to follow.’

  ‘Are you going to tell Cathie this story?’ Father suddenly turned towards Duncan.

  ‘You must tell her,’ Flavia said. ‘She has the right to know. And the poor girl can’t exactly have forgotten an incident like that. I don’t know if it will help to put her mind at rest at all, knowing that, but she should know; she’s part of the destiny of Camber.’

  I wondered if anyone besides myself noticed the violent blush which coloured Duncan’s cheeks as she said those words.

  ‘Does it mean she won’t be able to come back here without it happening again?’ I asked quietly. She never had come back to Camber, although we had all been to visit her in London and gone to her parents’ house in Bedfordshire.

  Duncan frowned. ‘Surely not?’ He looked at Flavia, but she shrugged.

  ‘What about an exorcism?’ Sandy said suddenly. ‘You know, bell, book and candle, the lot!’

  ‘No.’ Flavia rose slowly to her feet. ‘No. Whatever happened here that night, has not, as far as we know, happened in 300 years before. It may not happen again for as long. It may be that the thunderstorm and the fire had something to do with it; generating psychic energy or something. Leave it alone. That’s my advice; leave it alone.’

  ‘And the police?’ Father stubbed out his cigarette and went to stand with his back to the fire. ‘What do I tell the police? That the murder I reported witnessing happened 300 years ago and they’d better close the case?’

  Flavia frowned. ‘No, dear. Don’t say anything to the police. They’ll think you were drunk or something. It will have to go down on their files as unsolved. Leave it at that.’

  And leave it at that we did. Except for one incident.

  There was a portrait of Marcus Nicholls in the house. We found it hanging in a dark corner on the top landing where it had hardly been noticed before. It showed a tall, slim youth in riding breeches, one hand on the neck of a bony bay mare. He was a bit like Duncan to look at, I thought; the same nose and gently humorous mouth, but he had my eyes. Sandy pointed it out first. ‘I say, look at that. We all wanted to know where Vicky got her big green eyes and dark hair. Well, there’s your answer.’

  I went back later to look at the portrait by myself. They were right. He did have my eyes. He looked friendly and kind and I could swear that he was watching me.

  Everyone was busy in the garden that afternoon, gathering holly and ivy and mistletoe to decorate the house, so no one noticed when I slipped away.

  The stable was deserted; the stalls swept and empty. Hardly anyone went in there any more as far as I knew. I took a deep breath, screwing up my courage and s
tepped inside. There was the age old smell of sweet hay and horses and dust and still a suspicion of the tang of burning.

  Cautiously I made my way down the line of stalls watching the sunbeams slipping in through the high windows in the wall. I nearly didn’t go as far as the loose box. My courage was ebbing fast.

  Then I stood there, by the repaired partition which Suki had splintered. The door was still off, leaning against the wall. I looked in. The box was quite empty and absolutely quiet. A little patch of sunshine lit up the stone floor under the old blackened beam. Was it my imagination, or was there a brooding atmosphere about the place?

  I swallowed. Then I went in. I produced from behind my back the small bunch of winter jasmine and frosted rose buds which I had cut in the bright cold of the garden and I knelt and laid them on the stone. Then I looked up. ‘Please don’t hate any more,’ I said out loud. Was it just because we shared the same green eyes that I knew Marcus would listen to me? ‘Please forgive. Go in peace and let Cathie come back to Camber. Please.’

  I waited for a minute and then, feeling a little foolish, I scrambled to my feet and dusted the knees of my jeans. But somehow I felt better. I knew I wouldn’t be afraid to come in there again.

  The strength of the winter sun had woken a butterfly, which was trapped against the dusty window in the passage. I could hear it fluttering against the glass as I turned to go. Reaching up I pushed open the window and watched it soar up into the ice blue sky, then I walked out of the stable and made my way back towards the house.

  Salesmanship!

  Sylvia would insist on coming to the door and peering in as he worked. He didn’t turn, but he could feel her eyes boring into the canvas, analysing the brush strokes, quartering the painting for new details. The sureness of his touch would falter and slow until he laid the brush down and waited, teeth clenched, for her to go away.

  ‘Coffee, Sammy?’ She was aware instantly that he knew her to be there.

  ‘Thanks.’ He bit the end of his palette knife and grimaced at the bitter stickiness of the paint on it.

  ‘It’s nearly finished, isn’t it?’ Her voice was breezy, encouraging, even patronizing.

  ‘That’s right.’ Grudgingly he admitted it, stepping back to survey it himself.

  ‘It’s the best you’ve ever done.’

  She always said that, silly bitch. If his paintings were so bloody good, why didn’t they sell?

  He’d asked her that once and she had looked at the ground and waved her hands apologetically, her cigarette shedding ash over the spare room floor. There was no carpet; a carpet would have been a concession to its spare-roomness; boards confirmed its status as his studio.

  ‘They’ll sell one day,’ she had affirmed and he had snorted.

  ‘When I’m discovered, I suppose,’ he commented sarcastically.

  She brought him the coffee and he laid down his palette and sipped it. It was real. Sylvia refused to use instant and that irritated him too; real coffee upset his stomach. Mercifully she went away then and he heard the ting as the phone receiver was raised from the cradle. He relaxed. He had often wished there was a lock on the spare room door. Then he could have ensured his privacy. To put one on now at this late stage would be too hurtful for Sylvia, but if he had established a precedent for painting behind locked doors from the start it would have been all right. And it would have been so much better.

  The painting was good; he gazed at it, critically, just bathing himself in his achievement. The brush strokes were sure; the composition controlled and interesting, the colour and subject … He smiled. The subject was exquisite. He closed one eye to get a better look at it and his joy survived even that test.

  Later he went out. Only for a half. It wouldn’t take long and, after all, it was Saturday.

  When he returned Sylvia was in the studio and with her were two strangers, a man and a woman. All three were standing before the painting talking in hushed voices.

  Sammy stopped abruptly, suspicious. He had never suspected her of bringing in her friends to gloat. He felt a suppressed fury that the woman should be so disloyal and took a deep breath, summoning up a scathing remark which would without being overtly rude, send them chastised on their way. But Sylvia forestalled him.

  ‘Here is my husband,’ she exclaimed turning as if she hadn’t realized that he was there.

  The two with her turned in unison and smiled uncertainly, almost guiltily, at him.

  ‘These are Paul and Joy,’ Sylvia gushed. That was unusual for her. It meant she was unsure of her ground. They run the new art gallery in Chichampton.’

  Inwardly Sammy stiffened. Outwardly he bit back his remark and smiled instead, holding out his hand.

  ‘Your wife kindly asked us over to look at your work, Mr Korner. Joy was obviously the spokesperson. She was tiny and slim, in apple-green jeans with a muted blue shirt knotted below a token bust line. ‘And I’m so glad we came. They’re fantastic’ Her expansive gesture taking in the whole room, including the windows he noted, nearly knocked her colleague on the nose. Paul dodged expertly, then he nodded long sufferingly, presumably seconding her opinion.

  ‘We’d certainly like to take two or three for the gallery, wouldn’t we, Paul? She rushed on.

  Again he nodded.

  ‘This one on the easel; it’s powerful. We must have it. Do you have a framer?’ In the fascination of watching her bobbed hair flopping enthusiastically in time with her speech, Sammy missed the question. Then he noticed Sylvia looking worried. It was an unusual sight and he pulled himself together rapidly to find out why.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he smiled, he hoped with all his charm. ‘I missed that question.’

  ‘Your framer, dear,’ Sylvia hissed. ‘She was asking about your framer.’

  ‘I haven’t got a framer,’ Sammy commented candidly, still distracted by the hair. ‘I’ve never sold any of the paintings and for ourselves we’ve always made do by just hanging them up as they are.’

  He saw from Sylvia’s black look that he had said the wrong thing. Of course he should have implied that he sold lots of paintings and that he had a tame framer. They could always have found one later. But it was too late.

  Joy did not seem worried by his naivety. On the contrary, she seemed even more delighted. ‘It is so exciting to make a discovery!’ she pronounced earnestly. ‘Our very own discovery. I am glad you came in and asked us, Mrs Korner. We might never have seen your husband’s work otherwise.’

  Sylvia looked contrite. As well she might, thought Sammy. But he couldn’t help being pleased with her. So she really had had faith in him. She hadn’t just been flannelling all this time.

  He listened in a daze while Joy named dates and discussed, apparently with herself, the technicalities of mounting and presenting the paintings she wanted. She wrote down the name of a framer for him – strange, he thought, she had close-bitten nails like a little girl – and then she and Paul had gone.

  He and Sylvia stood looking at each other in the hall.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind, Sammy.’ Sylvia sounded rather scared. ‘I knew they’d be interested. It seemed so silly not to try to sell some of your paintings. We could do with the money.’

  Sammy winced at the last remark but on the whole he was prepared to forgive her even that. After all she was the one who had dared. Half shyly he put his arm round her and planted a hesitant kiss on her cheek. She giggled and after a second moved away.

  He went back up to the studio later, clicked on the light and drew the cheap cotton curtains. The painting on the easel stared at him reproachfully. Was it really finished? Under normal circumstances he might have pottered around adding the odd touch of paint here and there for days, but now … ‘Don’t touch it, Mr Korner; I forbid you to touch it; it’s perfect.’ The sound of Joy’s high-pitched voice echoed for a moment in his head. Don’t touch it! His own painting! He wandered restlessly round the room looking at other pictures; thinking, staring. Unconsciously he picked up the a
fternoon’s palette and dabbed at a still life leaning against the wall. As the paint made contact he jumped back guiltily. After all it was going to be framed. It couldn’t go with wet patches on it. He put down the brush miserably.

  Then with resolution he went to the easel and lifted down the painting. It was finished and that was that. The time had come to prepare another new, virgin canvas.

  Half an hour later he sloped downstairs and sat down on the sofa next to Sylvia. She was concentrating on the television and didn’t look round, but after a moment or two her hand, crawling hesitantly across the cushion, sought his and held on. Her eyes remained glued to the screen where unbelievably a large coffee jar appeared.

  ‘That’s it; that’s what I wish you’d buy.’ Sammy was momentarily stirred to enthusiasm. ‘Look, look!’ He tugged at her hand.

  ‘I am looking!’ She sounded cross and Sammy scanned her profile anxiously.

  ‘I do like real coffee, love.’ He hated the apologetic note in his voice. Why couldn’t he just tell her? ‘It’s just that it doesn’t like me.’ He shrugged helplessly and impassively she watched the screen which was now promoting with equal vigour the nutritional properties of a well-known chocolate bar.

  He sighed.

  When he wandered into the kitchen to boil the kettle she didn’t seem to notice. He left a cup of tea, a peace offering, on the table beside her and crept back up the stairs.

  Ten minutes later the painting was back on the easel, a corner wiped clean and a new idea under way. What the hell did Joy know about it anyway? A painting was a living, breathing, changing thing until it was actually sealed under varnish and left to hang in the dust.

  His tongue protruding a little between his teeth he worked hard. Occasionally he hummed a little. His tea grew cold; the top filmed over unnoticed.

  At closedown Sylvia looked in and watched in her accustomed manner over his shoulder for a while; but she was gone, yawning, before his arm had a chance to falter this time. He was relieved. If she had spotted what he had done she might have come right in and given an opinion. That would not have been welcome; not at the moment.