by Amanda Mason
Simon picked up the tape recorder and placed it on the sideboard. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked Loo.
‘Leave her alone. Leave us alone.’ Bee wouldn’t look at him, at any of them.
‘It’s OK, it’s fine,’ said Simon.
‘We’ll stop there for now.’ Michael stood and Isobel began to move away, snapping the back of the camera into place.
‘It’s too hot in here,’ she said. She left the room, not bothering to close the door behind her. A moment later Simon heard the back door open and a gust of warm air blew into the house, shifting his notes and the professor’s papers, unsettling them all.
‘Simon, I’d like a word, if I may?’ said Michael, gathering his notes up, placing them in a manila folder, his eyes bright.
‘Sure.’ Simon looked at the girls on the sofa. Loo had her face buried in Bee’s shoulder, still trembling.
‘It’s all right,’ said Bee. ‘I’ll look after her.’
They went outside to talk. Michael was doing his best to remain calm. He was the lead investigator here and he felt a certain duty of care to Simon and to Isobel. But this – today’s session – was really quite …
‘Extraordinary.’ He even permitted himself a smile. ‘We have a name, Simon.’
‘Yes. I mean …’ Simon looked back at the house. ‘Has it been her along, then?’ he asked.
‘Loo?’
‘No. This … Tib character. The knocking, the other disturbances, all her, do you think?’
‘I suspect so, yes. Yes.’
There was a great deal to organise. The Society would need to be informed, obviously, Roland Miskin and the others, the press too, when the moment was right. Michael had already agreed to a TV interview, just the local independent station. It had taken quite a while to set it up, as a matter of fact, but that would definitely have to be postponed. The last thing he needed was the burden of media scrutiny, not in the face of such an extraordinary development. He needed to know who he was dealing with first, get some background information then once he was sure, an interview and a formal statement perhaps, with some carefully selected audio to back things up. He was almost certain he’d be able to get Cathy to agree to that. And there was more material here than could be outlined in an article or lecture series; he had enough here for a book, he was sure of it.
He walked down the garden path and into the lane, turning without thinking to the left, where the road began its lazy ascent to the top of the moor. ‘This really is quite, quite remarkable, you know. One spends so much time hoping – a career, a – lifetime and here it is, at last.’
His voice drifted away. He stopped and looked out across the valley. She had lived here, died here too, he was sure of it. Tib. Beside him Simon waited.
‘So, the next time we speak with her, with Tib, we’ll need to elicit some details. Dates, family names, anything which will help us place her in the public record. That really is a priority. I’ll put you on to that, if you don’t mind, a little research project for you. And we’ll need to get in touch with the Society again.’
‘With Dr Miskin?’ Simon asked, bracing himself for the kindly explanation that his services were no longer needed.
‘As a matter of fact, no,’ said the professor. ‘I think the time has come for a more specialised perspective.’
He looked back towards the house, set a little way up from the road, silent and solid. There was so much to do, he barely knew where to begin.
‘Damn.’ Cathy put the receiver down with more force than was strictly necessary and leant back against the bookcase, looking up at the landscapes that crowded the wall opposite. It was her own fault, she supposed, for ignoring the red bills, but she hadn’t thought they’d cut the phone off quite so quickly. They were stuck now if she needed to call anyone, or if anyone wanted to call them. She wondered again how she might go about selling a couple of Joe’s paintings for a halfway decent price. They had no contacts here, that was the trouble. There was nothing like an art gallery in the village, so she’d have to get herself and the canvases, and God help her, the kids, out to the coast somehow. Issy would probably give her a lift but even then, she’d have to try and find somewhere that set its sights higher than the usual tourist tat. Maybe she’d be better off trying to sell them back in Leeds.
She sat down on the stairs, leaning her head against the wall. Glad to have five minutes to herself, to be honest. Michael and Simon had gone off somewhere, full of their latest development – it had a name, now, Tib. Sue wasn’t sure how she felt about that. At least the house was quiet now, peaceful. They’d had such plans for this place when they’d moved in. They’d even made a start, on the garden at least.
But everything seemed to take longer without Joe. She’d always been the practical one: managing the house, the kids, dealing with buyers. She had thought that without Joe she’d get on much as she had before, better, but she’d been wrong.
It was starting to feel as if everything was slipping away, that it was all her fault. If only she could take it back, start over again. She needed him. She missed him. How was she supposed to manage without a phone?
The living-room door crashed open behind her and the girls came out, Bee first, then Loo.
‘We’re going for a walk,’ said Bee.
‘Where?’ Cathy stood, pushing her hair out of her eyes.
‘Don’t know. See you later, Cathy.’
Loo followed her sister down the front path and out onto the lane. The sky was clear and the warm air was still. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Out. To the shop. Have you got any money?’
‘No.’ Loo stopped and took a precautionary step back, ready to dodge out of reach. ‘You can go if you want. I don’t want to.’
‘Baby.’
Ignoring this taunt, Loo pulled herself up onto the wall and perched among the slabs of stone, wiggling her toes. ‘I’m tired,’ she said.
‘We could go exploring.’
Loo recognised this for the bribe it was, but still, she was tempted. ‘Can we go and see if Simon’s in his tent?’
‘Boring.’
‘Where then?’
Bee hoisted up her dress and climbed over the wall. ‘Come and see,’ she said.
‘We’re not allowed,’ said Loo, standing well back as if their father might suddenly appear. The barn was built of stone with black double doors at the front and ground-floor windows covered by wooden shutters. There were double doors up at the top of the building too, round the side. They were the entrance to the hayloft: that always seemed a bit wrong to Loo, two improbable doors opening out onto nowhere.
‘No one’s going to know, stupid.’
The two girls looked at the barn, solid in the summer heat, its stones set against them, the door locked.
‘We don’t have a key,’ said Loo. Almost the first thing their father had done when they moved in was get hold of some chain and a padlock for his studio.
‘We don’t need one.’ Bee walked around the back of the building, leaving Loo to decide for herself.
She could leave her to it. She could go back to the house. She could get her sunglasses and a book and maybe even some of the money she’d quietly managed to keep hidden away from her sister, and go off on her own for a bit. Maybe she’d do that and then Simon would find her sitting on her own by the War Memorial and he’d talk to her, just her, and that would be …
It was very quiet. Loo wondered if Bee had found a way in after all. They’d never been in the barn, none of them, not even Dan, and he wasn’t scared of anything. Maybe she’d hurt herself. Maybe Bee had climbed up onto the roof or something and had fallen and was now lying unconscious somewhere. Bee was only ever quiet if she was asleep. Loo turned away and looked back across the field, pretending she wasn’t going to tag along this time.
Bee had found a sturdy stick and was kneeling up on the stone window ledge, wedging it in between the shutters.
‘You can’t do that. He’ll know someone’s been in,’ Loo whisp
ered, even though no one else was around.
‘So? He won’t know who, will he?’
‘Bee, we can’t go in. Get down—’ A shutter gave way with a sudden crack, and, throwing the stick away, Bee pulled at the flimsy wood now hanging lopsided on its hinges.
‘See? Easy,’ she said, as she squeezed herself through the window and dropped out of sight.
‘Bee? Bee?’ There was no answer. Maybe she really was hurt this time. Loo climbed up onto the ledge and stuck her head and shoulders through the gap. It was dark inside the barn, and the air was still and cool. She couldn’t really make much out at first, just gloomy shapes and the scent of paint and turps, and she couldn’t see her sister at all.
‘Where are you?’ Loo leant further in. Maybe she’d have to go for help. If she got Dan, then they wouldn’t get into trouble. Below her, her back pressed against the wall, Bee reached up and, grabbing hold of her arm, she pulled. Loo landed more or less on top of her, her right arm and leg scraped by the raw wood, the breath knocked out of her.
‘That hurt,’ she said, scrubbing at the marks on her leg, blinking back the tears.
‘Oh, shut up,’ Bee said, pushing her away and clambering to her feet.
It was a bit of a disappointment, at first. Joe had made a point of putting everything away before he left, so there was precious little to look at. A stack of unused canvases against one wall, a series of four landscapes in varying stages of completion leaning against each another. Dust motes dancing around the jars of pencils and brushes.
They had to pick through everything to find him: bits of paper and card, broken stubs of charcoal, discarded rags stiff with paint. Squashed and crumbling cigarette butts on the floor, and tea cups stained and toppled to one side. It felt as though he had been gone for a very long time.
‘What are we looking for?’ Loo asked.
‘Clues,’ said Bee, leafing through a sketchbook.
‘What clues?’
‘Look.’ Bee held the book open and there she was, sitting on the kitchen step, scowling. It wasn’t a proper portrait, not even a sketch – it was more like a cartoon, the Bee on the paper was thinner, more elastic than the real-life girl, but it was still her.
‘Let me see,’ said Loo. ‘Did he do me too?’
They looked through the book together. The cartoons covered only a couple of pages and some of the figures were overdone and scribbled out, but they were all there, all Joe’s children, even the baby: comic-book versions of themselves, grouped together in twos and threes. It seemed to Loo that Joe had drawn Bee the most, over and over, in bold clean lines, and with different expressions, as if he couldn’t quite get her right.
‘Are there more?’ Loo asked. ‘Can we keep them?’
‘Cathy won’t like it,’ said Bee, snatching the book back and looking at herself again. If Loo had drawn her like that – with mad hair and a moody face on – she would have been furious, but because it was Joe … Bee almost looked sad.
‘Why not?’
‘She’s gone off him,’ said Bee. ‘It’s all her fault.’
‘What is?’
‘God, Loo, you are so thick sometimes.’ Bee put the book carefully on the table and picked up another.
‘I am not.’
But Bee had turned her attention to the loft. ‘Let’s try up there,’ she said.
‘No, we should go. When he comes back, he’ll guess; he’ll know.’
‘Oh, bloody hell, Loo.’ Bee looked exasperated, her hands on her hips, more like her mother now than she’d care to admit.
‘What?’
Bee glanced at the sketchbook again. ‘Nothing,’ she said.
Cathy had told them their father would be back soon, and Loo wished he would hurry up. He’d never been away this long before. She wasn’t even sure where he was – Edinburgh, Cathy had told them, but then Loo had heard her tell Issy he was in Glasgow – and the house felt odd, odder, without him. Being in the barn, the studio, was the closest she’d felt to him for ages.
‘Come on,’ said Bee, ‘let’s go up top. And don’t say no again.’
17
Now
Lewis works his way through his list. He’ll let Hal deal with the cameras, but he wants to check the audio as well as making notes of times and readings. He works methodically, the front bedroom first. He can hear the others downstairs in the dining room, chatting quietly as they eat, although he’s not convinced that’s a good idea. As far as he’s concerned, any detail Lucy provides about the past might influence the others’ perceptions of the house. Better by far, surely, to get through the rest of the evening before asking Lucy for her version of events; before moving on to the next phase.
Up here in the bedroom everything seems to be OK, although of course there’s no proper light here, just the one Hal fixed to the Sony. He moves carefully, trying not to block the light from the hallway. He’s reluctant to turn his back to the door; he can’t escape the feeling that someone – he’s not sure who – might think it funny to slam it shut. To leave him there in the dark. Although of course he has his torch and anyway—
He switches it on and directs the beam of light towards the landing; there’s no one there.
No one has followed him upstairs.
No one.
But still, he has the urge to speak, to communicate.
‘Hello?’ His voice is tentative, low. He makes a slow circle of the room. This was the girls’ bedroom and the starting point for all the phenomena. He lets the light from the torch sweep lazily over the walls and their palimpsest of paper. The mattress in the corner bothers him: even though he knows it wasn’t there in 1976, he could almost convince himself there’s something in it, something very still, something waiting.
He’s lost track of what he’s doing; his list, his clipboard that he never really needs anyway, seems to have vanished. He brought it upstairs, he knows he did, but he must have put it down when he was checking the batteries in the camera and now the bloody thing has vanished and if he could just find it then he’d be able to get on, to restore some order, to regain control.
The yellow-white light dances over the floorboards and he can see footprints in the dust, so many now between the five of them that he couldn’t retrace his footsteps if he tried. And then he remembers, not five, four.
A floorboard gives and he drops the torch.
‘Can you tell us about Tib?’ Nina glances up at the door, glad that Lewis is out of the way for a few minutes.
‘There’s not very much to tell.’ Lucy’s voice is even, not defensive, but not forthcoming either. Supper isn’t much, shop-bought sandwiches and crisps and bottled water, but at least it’s provided an excuse to sit down together. Nina wishes she could get rid of Hal too, she’d rather it was just her and Lucy; they’d been getting somewhere earlier, getting closer at least, and there were so many questions she wanted to ask.
‘Was she here all along? Right from the beginning?’ she asks.
Lucy is silent for a long time. Next to her, Hal clears his throat and shifts slightly. She can smell cigarette smoke on him, on his jacket and in his hair.
‘I’m not sure,’ says Lucy, eventually. ‘I suppose so. That’s what everyone decided in the end, isn’t it? That the disturbances were all her, Tib, trying to get through.’
‘From where?’
Lucy tips her head back slightly and closes her eyes. ‘Oh, I don’t know.’
‘Were you frightened?’ asks Hal. ‘I mean, the bit with the voice, it must have been … disturbing.’
‘I don’t remember,’ says Lucy.
‘But she spoke through you, surely—’ Nina can’t help herself; they haven’t gone to all this trouble just for Lucy to fob them off like this.
‘I was very young and for a long time I didn’t want to remember,’ says Lucy, opening her eyes now and sitting up straight. ‘If you want to know what Tib had to say for herself, you have Simon’s book. It’s all in there. I can’t tell you anything more.’<
br />
‘I’m sorry,’ says Hal. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’ Although actually, it’s Hal who looks upset, pale and slightly sickened. He stands. ‘Sorry,’ he says again, before leaving the room, heading upstairs.
In the bathroom, Hal flushes the loo and washes his hands.
It’s not a sudden change, like last time. This time it’s been gradual, a vague buzzing at the back of his head, something you could ignore really, just put to one side as you got on with things. Only left to its own devices the buzzing, the unease, has got worse and now it’s just there, in the way, blocking everything.
He could leave, of course. No one is forcing him to stay. It doesn’t seem to get to anyone else, this place, and it’s worse after dark. So he could leave, let them all get on with it; he’s set the cameras up for them and they could manage the rest.
The water gurgles and splutters in the sink and as he watches Hal tries to remember what it was he’d decided.
Something about the cameras.
Something about leaving.
Lewis still can’t find the clipboard, although he’s sure he brought it in with him. At the doorway he stops and checks one more time, the light from the torch cutting through the thick shadows in the corners of the room. He’ll have to ask the others.
The light in the hall makes him blink, the bulb there seems very bright, he could swear he can hear it buzzing; the harsh yellow light almost fizzes. He stands at the top of the stairs, waiting for the bulb to pop. It would be a relief, a comfort. But it doesn’t.
He finds Nina and Lucy in the living room.
‘Everything’s fine,’ he says. ‘If we give it another hour, take a quick look at the new footage, then we can switch rooms and do the second session.’
‘Right,’ says Lucy. She doesn’t look afraid, not exactly – tense perhaps, uneasy. He hopes she’s not about to change her mind about staying. ‘Whatever you say.’
‘Thanks,’ says Nina and above them Hal crosses the landing, slamming a door behind him.
Hal has switched cameras so they can still monitor Lucy and Nina, who have swapped rooms with Lewis. They’re just about to start when Lewis calls down the stairs.
