‘Well ... no ... No one thought. Should we?’
‘No, I wouldn’t, she’s just an added complication at the moment. But, look, I can’t get down for a while, I’ll come as soon as I can. Telephone me when she turns up again. Have the others said anything?’
‘Oh, they’d rather pretend she’s never been here at all. Complication is right. We can only — well, wait for her to wander back again.’
But she won’t, she won’t, he thought when at last he put the phone down. Little Mr Tiptoe had remembered the date very well, the day in April when he had set out early in the morning to drive to his mother’s; it was his mother’s birthday, he never missed a visit on her birthday. And when he returned he heard about the accident ... Leonora Lee had gone out early, too — to post a letter someone said — and she had stepped unthinkingly on to that roaring A road and gone under the wheels of a lorry. Leonora Lee had died and been cremated last April.
She had died on the very morning Henry had seen her crossing the common in Marchstearn.
16
It was a week before he got back to Marchstearn. The quiet welcome of his house, as he pottered about making himself at home, was disrupted by a flying visit from Cass. She was on edge, concerned with her own affairs, with Wynter’s funeral — ‘He wasn’t buried here, he didn’t want to be, it was the crematorium in town. Mandy organised it, there were so many show-biz people you could easily have mistaken it for an epic of some kind. I’ll say one thing for her — when she wants to give a performance she doesn’t let anything stand in her way, like good taste, for instance. She did her Gloria Swanson bit, Evelyn nearly suffocated with mortification —’
‘Cass, sit down. I’ve got something to tell you.’
She glanced at her watch in a precipitant way but the tone of his voice got through to her. She said, ‘You must help me find Leonora, I’m so worried about where she can have got to. And you blasted well drew a blank at that place you went to, you’ll have to think of something else.’
‘I didn’t entirely draw a blank, only as regards Leonora. That’s what I wanted to tell you. While I was there I began asking around, making enquiries. I turned up something else: a derelict property that had once belonged to Max Holme.’
‘How astonishing.’ She was busy searching for something in her bag, sitting on the sofa and tipping the bag sideways so that its contents slipped out.
‘He bought it under an assumed name. Twenty-one years ago.’
‘Did he? Whatever for?’
‘To hide Helen.’
She turned to him, her eyes wide. ‘What?’
He sat down and told her what he had discovered; he told her more: ‘I’ve been in touch with the local police in the meanwhile. They’ve begun their investigations, they’ve found the remains of a child’s body buried beneath the flagstones in the kitchen.’
‘Good God ... Helen.’
‘Probably, but after all this time identification is going to be almost impossible, unless they can turn up something you or Evelyn or Mandy could identify — a watch, a bracelet, something like that; or it might be that dental evidence — I’m sorry, Cass. I think you’d better have a drink.’
‘Yes ... It’s all right, just delayed shock.’ She had gone rather pale, her face strained and nervously vulnerable. ‘I’ve known — in a way I’ve always known that Helen was dead. We all did, we didn’t talk about it though, and Augustus — My God, how ironic, he went to his death without knowing, and you only knew because of Leonora ...’ As she drank the brandy he gave her the colour began to steal back into her cheeks. ‘Max, of all people. Huh, of all the people who hated Augustus, I should say. It was because of Jessica, of course.’
‘Revenge, for her death. I’m quite sure he intended to return Helen, but his death wrecked everything, those two people panicked —’
‘Will they ever find them?’
‘After all this time? I doubt it, Holmes covered his tracks so well. They’ll try, though.’
‘How he must have enjoyed watching Augustus suffer. I remember that cold sympathy. My God, he was a good hater.’ She sat thoughtful for a moment and then sighed. ‘Well. So it’s over. We know now.’
‘Not definitely, Cass.’
‘Not provably, you mean. But we know, don’t we?’
‘I don’t have any doubts.’
‘Neither do I.’ She handed him her empty glass, smiling, her eyes narrowed, her voice briefly soft and teasing, awakening memories of other moments. ‘What a clever beastie you are; devious and clever. Now you’ll have to be clever about finding Leonora ...’
No one will ever do that. The conviction had grown on him during a week spent thinking obsessively of her, turning over every detail, every possibility in his mind. And something else had been at work, some instinctual process that had led him to the belief that no rational explanation would ever be found to the riddle of Leonora’s identity and personality. And in his house, as soon as he walked into it, he had sensed in the atmosphere a subtle yet overwhelming finality. The house knew; perhaps the tarot cards knew; perhaps the ghost of his aunt had occasionally, unguessed at, gone about a gentle haunting, unable to pass to her lasting peace until her work was accomplished.
How could he say any of that to Cass? It was impossible. Lydia was the only person with whom he could share such thoughts and so far his confusion of mind had kept him from her.
‘Photographs,’ Cass was saying, busy raking through the contents of her handbag once more. ‘I’ve just picked these up from the chemist’s. Oh, curse, where are they?’
‘Photographs?’
‘Yes. I admit I’m terrible with a camera, but, you see, I had a few films left on a roll of some I’d taken at the County Show, and that day you were chasing about it occurred to me it might be useful to have a photograph of Leonora —’
‘You did that?’
‘Yes,’ she said triumphantly. ‘I used Cesar as an excuse, and I wanted one of him — and Mandy was there, I managed to get them all on. Ah, here they are. I took four, they were all I had left on the roll’ She took the photographs from the white folder and counted quickly through them; then, as she came to examine the ones she had picked out her face changed. Henry went to sit beside her. After a few moments’ silence during which they looked at the photographs together, he said, ‘Well, you did a great job, there, darling.’
She gave a wail, half bafflement, half outrage. ‘But she was on them, I’d swear to it.’
‘She isn’t now. You said you were lousy with a camera ...’
Of the four photographs one was completely blank; one showed a blurred view of Cesar’s head and a streak of light that obliterated everything else; two showed Cesar against the background of the stable yard, Mandy standing beside him smiling forcefully into the camera.
‘She was there. I had her in the viewfinder, honestly. Look, one of those with Mandy, there’s a space between her and Cesar ... Leonora was there, I know, she must have moved away and I didn’t realise, but ... Oh, hell, they’re no help at all, are they?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
She looked annoyed for a moment, then she laid the photographs aside, put her chin in her hands and stared at nothing, frowning, guarding thoughts he could not reach.
Watching her, he knew her to be a great distance from him. He no longer had any significance in her life, in a moment she would tell him so — kindly, carelessly, and expect him not to mind. For the last time he allowed himself to put out his hand and touch the cloudy softness of her hair.
If she was aware of his much she made no sign. After a while she stirred, sighed and said musingly, ‘Hen, isn’t it weird about Leonora? I mean, she didn’t know where she’d come from, those clues led nowhere, we don’t know where she’s gone to — it’s almost as if — as if she belonged in someone’s dream. Whose, I wonder? Augustus’s perhaps? He summoned her, in a way, and when he died she — ceased to exist. And his death, so dramatic, so much in character one could a
lmost believe he stage-managed it ...’ Her pensive tone changed as her face lit to an excited, speculative glow. ‘I can see him, can’t you? Struggling through the storm and the darkness, an old man challenging his own destiny, daring as a final act to approach those stones he dreaded and yet revered. And somewhere, somewhere — on the crest of the hill, outlined for an instant by a single flash of lightning — the figure of Leonora. A silent, enigmatic witness, a symbol of ... of ...’ Her imagination failed. She looked at Henry, half mocking, half defiant. ‘Well, goon. Say something practical and crushing.’
‘It’s a scene from one of his films.’
‘Well, why not? Why not?’ Eager, volatile, she grasped the idea. ‘His whole life was cinematic, why not his death? You can’t expect it to be like anyone else’s, it would have a significance somehow in keeping with the mysterious powers that had always guided him. He was one of the great masters of illusion, a myth-maker, a wonder-worker ...’
‘Careful, you’ll begin to sound like Mandy.’
She made a face of horrified denial; but — ‘Who’s to say it wasn’t like that?’ she murmured, reluctant to relinquish her fantasy of the last act of Wynter’s life.
And that, Henry thought, is probably how she will grow to believe it, and tell it in later years: a little embellishment here, a detail rearranged or invented here, and the fiction will become the accepted version.
Distractedly, she gathered the photographs into her handbag and stood up. ‘What an odd one Leonora was. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know about her now, will we? If ever you find out anything, will you ... No. No, it’s best to leave it like this.’ On the strength of that decision she moved to the door, where she paused and turned and looked across the room to him. ‘I’m going away, you see. You know that.’
‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ she said quickly, her glance taking on a wry appeal. ‘Don’t think badly of me for deserting you. But Marchstearn isn’t my kind of place — it is for you, you like things unchanging.’
‘Things do, though. And everything that happens to us changes us.’
She stood doubtfully, thinking this over, before answering, ‘Ye-es. Augustus’s death ... everything’s been changed by it. Finished ... for us.’
It was true that the uniqueness of their relationship had moved beyond reclamation. Their physical association — through which they had registered their intimate personalities, expressed only to and for each other — had been consumed by outside events, and had at the same time, in some measure, worked upon those events.
That was what occupied them as they touched hands, briefly, gently, then drew apart and looked at each other with some wonderment, some understanding. They would never be the same people again — she, who had given her affection to a woman who did not exist; he, who had held a phantom in his arms and kissed the mouth of a ghost.
*
In the lamplight, in her exquisite sitting room, Lydia applied intense concentration to the business of mixing gin and martini to the exact quantities Henry preferred. ‘You’ve no idea how sophisticated it makes me feel — drinking cocktails with a handsome man. At my time of life, too,’ she said as she waited his approval. ‘Ah, good.’ She sipped her own drink with an air of daring then put it aside to take up her tapestry, saying quietly, I see the papers made a great to-do about that man’s death. Hardly surprising, the circumstances being — dramatic, to say the least.’
‘I thought you’d prefer not to talk about it.’
She paused in her sewing, considering. ‘Oh, I don’t mind. He’s gone now, it’s almost as if a cloud has lifted. But ... it’s on your mind, isn’t it? That’s why you’ve come in ... to escape from your thoughts. Or to share them?’
‘Would you mind?’
She shook her head, diffident, perceptive. ‘It’s something to do with Bertha, isn’t it?’
‘It has to be. There’s no other explanation. And there’s no one else I can tell it to. You’ve always kept to yourself what you know of her.’
‘I always will, you can be assured of that.’ She put aside her sewing and sat attentively, her small hands clasped quietly, without any sign of nerviness. ‘I admit I had a cowardly attitude to that man, his affairs — yes, I did, Henry. But the danger is past, everything is settled now, isn’t it? And something has told me fora while that Bertha’s influence has been at work in some way.’
‘It has. In every way, throughout the whole business.’ He paused, wondering where to begin. Leonora. Where else but with Leonora? ‘There was a young woman. She turned up ... she appeared at Wynter’s house. On the night of October the thirty-first.’
‘Samain,’ Lydia said quietly. ‘The night the dead return.’
Wanda stirred, got up from her place by the fire, yawned and elegantly rearranged herself. Henry sat for a moment in silence, then he told Lydia what had happened at the ceremony on the night of Samain. When he had finished she murmured, ‘Go on,’ and he told her everything that followed, everything he had seen and heard and discovered of the woman who had called herself Leonora Lee. As he talked, all the fantastic possibilities unravelled slowly, all his reluctant self-questioning found its bizarre, inevitable answers; and in the peaceful room, in the lamplight, with the little dog asleep before the fire, he felt the faint occasional presence of a third person. Watching Lydia, seeing how she followed his thoughts, he knew she felt the presence, too, and was comforted by it — although once she shivered, not in fear but at the phantom touch of the magic that had drawn about them.
‘It isn’t possible,’ he said at last, and she answered calmly.
‘But it happened. It’s the only answer: Leonora Lee had a purpose, she had to be used for a purpose. That was what Bertha did.’
‘You can accept that?’
‘I knew your aunt ... She had no dread of dying; if she could alleviate that man’s terror she would do what she could. She would send something of Helenthat he would recognisein that woman. She was atpeace, Henry, I told you that before, I think maybe you doubted me, perhaps what has happened will convince you. She would feel such pity for anyone who was without that peace, particularly when they appealed to her for help.’
‘She said to you she had done what she could.’
‘Her exact words — “I’ve done what I can about the child.” Yes. I can see it now, can’t you? She used the tarot cards; by those means she divined the whereabouts of that poor child’s remains. She also made contact with Leonora Lee — who had, after all, been the last sympathetic human being in the child’s life.’
Henry said, ‘Wynter couldn’t die until he’d seen Helen again — he was to see Helen in Leonora. My aunt knew the date he had chosen for the ceremony — a night of great significance to the old religion. Boundaries of any kind were sacred to them, the division between the old year and the new was the supreme boundary — the one in time, a space where the spirit world was concentrated. And she plotted a course, using the leys, drawing Leonora from one mark point to the other with the words of the spell — But Leonora died before the time was right.’
Lydia shook her head calmly. ‘Death ... time ... we take these concepts to be positive but in Bertha’s world they were abstracts — or potentials, perhaps, capable of many interpretations.’
‘So, living or dead, Leonora answered the call ...’
Someone called me, from this house ...
And Leonora answered, carrying the spirit of Helen, guided along that mysterious network of leys, sustained by their latent force.
Lydia’s voice edged softly into his thoughts. ‘I think you are a great deal closer to Bertha than you care to acknowledge, the psychic strain runs in your family. She said that if anything happened you would understand. And you did. The practical man in you searched for answers in this world, the sensitive in you recognised that the complete explanation, the resolution was in the other world. To certain people the veil between the worlds is very thin — you are one of those people. N
o, don’t frown, Henry. You are.’
‘I find it difficult to accept.’
‘I daresay, but in your heart of hearts you know it must be so. After all, it could be said that we began at the same point, you and I. That first morning on the common. Remember? Who was it, of the two of us, who saw Leonora? Not I, Henry, she was not there for me to see, only for you.’
‘And I did see her,’ he murmured, his mind vivid with the vast golden beginning of that day when she had appeared to him at the moment of her death hundreds of miles away. Wondering, considering, he knew her to have been jolted at the very edge of extinction into a confusion of his aunt’s magical world. It was indeed a Cosmic miscalculation that had set her down in the right place at the wrong time, at the nearest point of contact to the one who had summoned her. Leonora at the boundary of life and death had been visible to no eyes but his because for one flickering space — perceiving her with what could only have been the sixth sense, where the logic of time was dislocated — he had occupied that boundary with her.
*
It was late when he left Lydia. The air was chill, sensitive as a spider’s web, and the moon had an uncanny brilliance, drawing him out to walk beneath leafless trees, across the silver common. As he walked his thoughts rested in the stillness of the night and all about him spread the calm, enduring magic of Marchstearn.
When he reached the church he went in through the gate, following the flagged path between moss-grown tombstones leaning with the weight of their carved remembrances:loved — loving — dearest — fondest. What a great deal of love embraced the dead, he thought.
He stood before his aunt’s grave. It was a family grave, and he had comfort in the thought of her resting there with generations of her kind, a continuity of death gathered into the rich, forgiving earth. He looked away to his left. The purity of the moon was intense, taking substance from shape, distorting distance; with its crouching earthwork and the stones that had borne witness to Wynter’s death, Mark Hill stood with a ghostly radiance. As he gazed at it he considered the invisible line of the ley coming down between the stones, down to the hollow that held the village, passing through Wynter’s house, through the church, along the ground on which he stood and — untraceable except in his mind’s eye — going away to the right, straight as an arrow up the flank of the encircling green hill.
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