by Amanda Mason
He has got past being embarrassed, being uncomfortable; it’s actually helped, sitting here like this, waiting. Whatever is going on, whatever is here – and he’s willing now to admit that perhaps not everything can be explained or be reasoned away – it’s still not something they can talk to, or interact with. It’s not something they can make sense of.
The business earlier on the sofa, that was just a dream, a particularly vivid dream. Tib, whoever she was, doesn’t care about them. Hal stretches his neck and lets his head hang forward. Tib’s not going to talk to them, and the other stuff – as if on cue, the knocking in the girls’ bedroom starts up – it’s just so much window-dressing.
Party tricks.
Did he say that out loud?
Maybe they should go upstairs, see what all that noise is about. He opens his eyes.
The others have vanished.
Hal should be afraid, but he’s not. He stands and brushes the dust off his jeans.
He’s
He’s
He’ll go and find them and then they can get out of here. He opens the living-room door and steps out into the darkened hallway. He must have been sitting there for much longer than he realised.
‘Hey!’ It’s an effort to shout. He clears his throat and tries again. ‘Hey!’
This time there’s an answer.
‘Hal?’ Lucy. She must be in her room. Her old room.
He takes the stairs slowly. He’ s alone, but he has the feeling he’s being followed. He even stops once, turning to look behind him, but there’s no one there, just the carpeted stairs falling away into the shadows.
‘Hal, where are you?’
Here.
He goes into the bedroom. It’s dark in here too. The door knocks back against the girls’ bunk beds. There’s a figure there, huddled on the bottom mattress, underneath the blankets, crying.
The poor little cow.
The curtains by the window stir lazily, and he can see someone standing there, someone else.
‘Where are you?’
I’m here.
‘What’s your name?’
Hal.
Behind him, the figure on the bed sniffs. She’s crying.
‘Oh, shut up.’
He can’t tell who said that. He steps closer and the room seems to stretch out in front of him, dusty bare boards give way underfoot and the window is bigger somehow, taking up the whole wall.
‘It’s all your fault,’ says the girl and now there are two of them, hand in hand. The taller girl reaches up and pulls the curtains open and the sun, the blazing sun, fills the room, dazzling him.
‘Your stupid bloody game.’
It’s the unshaded light bulb, of course, although why it should be burning so very brightly puzzles him for a moment.
He’s lying on the floor.
Shit.
Lucy is leaning over him, her hand wrapped around his. He shuts his eyes and the buzzing in his head recedes a little.
‘Can you sit up?’
‘Sure.’ He’s pretty certain this is a lie, but he gives it a go anyway. Nina and Lewis are staring at him. The Sony, he notices, is no longer on the tripod under the window; someone has placed it on the floor, next to him.
‘Switch it off,’ he says.
But no one moves.
‘What happened?’ he says.
Lucy slowly releases his fingers. ‘Can’t you remember?’ she says. It’s a trick question, she’s testing him.
‘I had a dream. It felt like a dream.’
Another one.
It’s darker now and a sudden gust of wind strikes the plastic sheeting at the window which bulges then shrinks, a black lung, sucking, wheezing. Hal leans across and switches off the camera.
‘We got it on video,’ says Nina, ‘if you want to see.’
On the screen it’s Lucy who speaks first.
‘Hal. Hal, can you hear me?’
He doesn’t answer; he just shakes his head absently.
‘Shit,’ says Lewis and he and the others scramble across the floor to him.
‘Hal?’ Lucy reaches towards him as a door upstairs slams shut.
Nina gets to her feet and for a moment she is all Hal can see as she approaches the camera, then the room tilts and sways as she vanishes, picking the camera up and turning it on the three of them.
‘What do we do now?’ she asks, out of shot.
Hal finds that the best way to view the footage is professionally, looking at the framing, the quality of the image and the sound.
‘What do we do now?’ asks Nina again. She keeps them both in frame, just him and Lucy. He doesn’t answer when Lucy says his name, not at first, but after a while …
‘Can’t you get it any louder?’ he says, tapping on the mouse pad.
‘No.’
He can’t make it out. He’s speaking, mumbling; Lucy is listening intently.
‘What am I saying?’
‘Something about a game?’ says Lewis.
On-screen the mumbling stops and the four of them are still again. Lucy is leaning over to speak to him.
It doesn’t make sense.
The image wavers briefly as Nina steps in closer.
As Lucy reaches out and takes Hal’s hand there’s a sharp crack off camera, and Lewis glances over to his right. Hal falls back, limp, and the two of them catch him and lay him down on the floor. Nina finally places the camera there too, close to Hal, too close.
His face fills the screen.
‘Hal? Hal?’ Nina’s voice, they’re leaning over him; then something changes, he lies still and the room is quiet again.
She’s gone. Just looking at the screen he can tell that she’s gone.
‘How long was I …?’ His voice trails away.
‘Three minutes? Four?’
‘It felt … longer. I was dreaming. I was upstairs and she was there.’ He looks at Lucy. ‘I thought it was you at first.’ She looks terrible, her face drained of all colour.
Back on the screen he sits up and moves out of shot. Lucy sits back against the sofa, wrapping her arms around herself.
‘Who was there?’ asks Nina.
‘I can’t remember.’
Lucy stands up.
‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘I just need to …’
And she walks out of the room.
Hal watches himself reaching out towards the lens then the screen goes blank.
The bathroom hasn’t changed much. Someone has replaced the fittings: the bath tub now stands on claw feet and the taps are bulbous things carefully marked hot and cold, but the room itself remains dark and cramped, and the mirror over the sink is still too high and too narrow.
Lucy sits on the edge of the bathtub. She pulls her phone out of her pocket, noting the slight tremor in her hands, and stares at it.
She should ring … someone.
She can hear them all downstairs, watching their video, their proof. She feels cold, shivery, as if she’s coming down with something. Maybe they have enough now, despite her best efforts.
Maybe they will pack up and go away and the past couple of days will become a postscript in Simon’s book and nothing more. She’ll agree to an interview, anything they want, if only they’ll leave. Surely that will be enough.
She closes her eyes and plays the scene again; she doesn’t need Hal’s camera and anyway, it’s the voice she’s trying to conjure up, the feeling that she recognised it.
Recognised her.
Impossible.
‘I’ll give you everything you want,’ says Lucy. ‘Interviews, family photos – such as they are, access to Cathy, introductions to my brothers and my sister. Whatever you need to complete your work here.’
They are sitting at the dining table, which is covered with laptops, cables, Nina’s notebooks and Lewis’ clipboards.
‘That’s very generous of you,’ says Nina. ‘Very kind.’
‘But we have to go. And we have to go now.’ Lucy glances up at the window. The
sky is darkening and even if they did as she asked, straightaway with no comment or dispute, she doubts they’d be ready to leave before darkness has fully fallen. It doesn’t matter, she tells herself – as long as they get away, as long as they get out of the house.
‘No.’ Nina’s voice is flat, determined.
‘Hang on,’ says Lewis. ‘We need to talk about this.’
‘No, we don’t, it’s a bribe, pure and simple.’
‘But we could go, do the interviews,’ Lewis smiles encouragingly at Lucy, as if Nina’s tone might cause her to withdraw the offer, ‘and then come back to do follow-up observations here. It’s a terrific opportunity, Nina.’
He might agree at least, Lewis might go along with her, and Hal too, judging by the state of him – it’s taken a toll this time, his waking dream, and it’s clearly not an experience he wishes to repeat.
‘Lucy’s not asking us to drop the investigation,’ says Lewis.
‘Of course not,’ says Lucy. ‘I’m offering you my help.’
‘Then why can’t we stay?’
‘Because it’s – because that’s what we agreed, one sitting just like the first time – and – and, and I’m sorry – you’re just a group of … students.’
‘We know what we’re doing.’ Nina’s getting defensive now, and that won’t help at all, but Lucy can’t work out how to turn the conversation around.
‘Well, I certainly don’t. It was irresponsible of me to agree to let things get this far.’
‘We don’t need your permission to be here.’
‘I realise that. But if things are getting out of control …’
‘If things are getting out of control, then maybe that’s what we need. If things get out of control then maybe we’ll actually get some answers and the last thing we want to do is run away from that.’
Lucy folds her hands in her lap. The urge she feels to hit Nina, to slap some sense into her, appals her and she takes a breath, once, twice. She can do this; she can get them away.
They have been here too long already. She has no choice. ‘What if I gave you your answers?’ she says. ‘What if I told you – everything? Would you leave, with me, right now?’
‘I don’t understand,’ says Lewis.
‘New information,’ says Lucy. ‘Things that Simon didn’t write about, couldn’t write about. If I told you, would you leave?’
There is a long pause. It seems to Lucy that the house is getting colder. Distantly, at the top of the house a door thuds shut, and she could almost fool herself that Bee will come downstairs to see what’s going on, what all the fuss is about.
‘Sure,’ Nina says. ‘If your information is … relevant.’
Lucy stands up and goes to the window. She looks out across the village, the valley, the houses picked out by their tiny bright yellow lights. It’s getting dark and they still have to get away. She doubts Nina will keep her word, but still she has to try.
‘It was a game,’ she says. ‘It was our game.’
30
Then
It was ages before the grown-ups left them alone. First Michael was hovering around them, asking questions and taking notes, then Olivia crouched down by the sofa and spoke to Loo in her soft voice, reassuring her, telling her how brave she’d been. Last of all Cathy had appeared with a glass of lemon barley water, cloudy and sour, and through it all Loo lay on the sofa. It was like being ill, the way everyone fussed over her; everyone except Bee.
But at last the grown-ups decided they needed to have a talk about what to do next, and because no one had thought to ask her what she wanted to do, they’d left Loo behind in the living room.
‘Bee can keep an eye on you, can’t you, Bee?’ said Simon. Bee had pretended to be fed up, and Simon had smiled and teased her and, in the end, she’d agreed and he’d gone off with the others looking pleased with himself.
He closed the door carefully, so as not to disturb Loo, and the two of them listened until they were sure everyone was in the kitchen.
‘God,’ said Bee, pushing Loo’s legs out of the way and flopping down onto the sofa, ‘you messed that up, didn’t you?’
‘Shut up … they’ll hear you.’
‘You shut up.’ Bee’s bony fingers found a soft spot on Loo’s arm and she nipped her, hard. ‘Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up.’
‘Don’t!’
‘What was all that rubbish about the barn for?’
‘It wasn’t rubbish. Dan said make something up, so I did.’
‘About the house, stupid, about poor old Tib and her wicked mother.’
Loo stood up and went to the open window, sticking her head out cautiously. There was no sign of Dan or Flor. ‘Do you think she’ll stay now?’ she asked. ‘Do you think she’ll try again?’
‘Olivia?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Dunno.’
Loo would have liked to go outside, sit in the garden, or go for a walk, but she didn’t think Bee would let her. ‘I’m hungry,’ she said, sliding down the wall and closing her eyes.
Bee didn’t answer and for a while Loo just sat still, thinking about the stuff Olivia had said, about relaxing and opening her mind, but mostly she just listened to the sounds of the garden, the road, and the valley beyond. They would all go soon, she realised, Olivia, Michael, Simon, even Issy, and she had that sad, back-to-school feeling she used to get.
‘The barn,’ said Bee again, as if she couldn’t quite believe it. ‘You’re bloody useless, you are.’
Cathy was leaning back against the sink, her arms crossed, frowning, as Michael continued to speak in a low, determined voice about breakthroughs and scientific method, and the best course of action. Simon was standing to one side, still holding the recorder; he would have liked to play the tape back, check that he’d got it all – he didn’t even want to think about the consequences of messing that session up – but it was best perhaps to wait until Michael and Cathy were done. He watched the boy, Flor, push his way into the circle of grown-ups.
‘Mum.’
‘Not now, Florian.’ Cathy placed a hand on his head absently, barely noticing when he shrugged her off and made his way to the table, grabbing at the bread she had left out.
‘Here, I’ll do that.’ Simon put the tape recorder on the table, picked up a knife and cut inexpertly at the slightly stale loaf. The resulting slice was uneven, but at least the boy hadn’t lost a finger getting his tea. He retrieved the butter from the fridge, it was too hard, it caught at the soft bread and tore holes in it, but Florian didn’t seem to mind. He snatched it up and began to eat, scattering crumbs over the table.
‘You’re welcome,’ said Simon.
‘I don’t understand, I don’t understand where she’s getting all of this from. Has it been here all along? In the house?’ said Cathy.
‘It would seem so,’ said Olivia.
‘It’s got worse, you’ve all made it worse—’
‘Not at all,’ said Michael. ‘What’s been happening here, it’s a kind of miracle.’
Cathy’s laugh, short, harsh, bitter, stopped him in his tracks. ‘You said you would help her.’
‘Lucia is clearly very sensitive, very gifted,’ said Olivia, ‘and it would be irresponsible of us to go now and to leave her to try to cope with this on her own.’
‘No,’ said Cathy. ‘If you really wanted to help, you’d make it stop. But you don’t, because you need it. All the noise and the confusion and the fuss.’
‘Nobody likes seeing you or the girls upset,’ said Michael.
‘But you don’t really mind it either, do you?’ said Cathy. ‘It’s all research to you. All material for the book.’
‘That’s not true.’
‘I honestly think you need to let us try again to contact Tib, to see if we can bring this to a natural conclusion,’ said Olivia, stepping forward, taking control. ‘It doesn’t do to ignore these things, Cathy, and to be honest, once I leave Longdale, I’m not entirely sure when I’ll be able t
o come back.’
There was a silence, broken only by Florian kicking softly at his chair as he ate his bread and butter.
‘No,’ said Cathy. ‘I’ve had enough. I want you to go.’
‘I really don’t think that’s the answer,’ Michael said.
‘I don’t care what you think.’ Cathy went to the door. ‘I want you to leave. Right now.’
Isobel lit the gas under the kettle.
‘They have to go, don’t they?’ said Cathy. ‘They have to respect my wishes.’
The others had left the house, at least, and were gathered under the shade of the apple tree in the garden. Michael, Olivia and Simon.
‘Of course they do,’ said Issy. Although, of course, none of them were going anywhere, not until Cathy had calmed down a bit, or not until they were sure she was OK, that’s how they’d put it. They had agreed to wait outside while Cathy discussed things with the family, with Issy too.
It wouldn’t do, the professor had said, to rush such an important decision.
Cathy had called the girls in from the living room and they sat at the table, a plate of bread and butter in front of each. Dan was leaning on the scullery door, watching his mother.
‘Cathy,’ said Isobel.
‘Don’t.’ Cathy placed a bowl of apples on the table, turned back to the sink and began filling glasses with water. ‘Just don’t.’
‘Cathy,’ Dan said. ‘Sit down for a minute.’
‘I just have to—’ She turned to the table, water slopping over her hands and onto the floor as she stopped suddenly, as if she had forgotten where she was and what she was doing. Dan pushed himself away from the door. ‘Here,’ he said, taking the glasses from her. ‘Do as you’re told.’
Between them, he and Issy got Cathy to sit, they cut more bread and butter for Flor and Loo and refilled their glasses, they made a pot of tea; even Bee helped, fetching milk from the fridge and clean mugs from the draining board.
‘Can we take some tea outside,’ Loo asked, ‘for Michael and Simon?’
‘No,’ said Cathy. ‘Not right now.’
Loo looked out of the open door; they were still sitting under the tree, talking quietly. She couldn’t see Olivia anywhere. She must have gone for another walk.
