Kingdom of Shadows

by Barbara Erskine

  ‘Was I?’ Clare looked surprised. ‘The doorbell startled me, that’s all. Although’ – she hesitated – ‘it was rather horrible.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Clare shook her head.

  ‘Come on. You were about to tell me, and whatever it was it has nothing to do with you and Paul not being able to have children. It was to do with the meditation – if that’s what it is.’ Emma stood up and rummaged in the sideboard for Paul’s malt whisky. ‘You don’t think you really are conjuring up spirits, do you? Like a medium. Or making ghosts appear or something?’ Her eyes were sparkling. ‘Will you try? While I’m here?’ She gave a mock shudder. ‘Here, for God’s sake let’s have a drink! I’ve gone all shivery!’

  Clare laughed. ‘From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, good Lord deliver us! Oh, I’m glad you came, Em. I would have spent the evening in that other world otherwise and it’s much more fun with you. Isobel – that’s the girl whom I seem to see most – well, her life is not quite as fun to watch as it was. In fact I think it may be strictly for when this one is too awful to contemplate.’ Her face sobered for a moment as she remembered the dark, echoing chamber high in the keep at Duncairn, full of the sound of the sea.

  She pushed the picture away firmly. The only merit in the scene she had been witnessing was that Paul had not been able to follow her there too. ‘Come on. Give me ten minutes to change and we’ll go out. I have a feeling Paul has gone back to Bucksters without me – he doesn’t want to miss the party tomorrow.’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Are you and Peter going?’

  ‘To David and Gillian’s?’ Emma shook her head. ‘No fear. We’re going to the theatre. Clare, seriously –’

  ‘No, Em. I don’t want to talk about it any more. Let’s go out. Please.’ She collected the two glasses and put them down on the sideboard, then she turned back to Emma. ‘You won’t say anything about any of this to Paul, will you.’

  ‘Of course not. What do you take me for?’

  Clare smiled. ‘A friend. Otherwise I wouldn’t have told you anything.’

  Emma grinned back at her. ‘I’m the soul of discretion. You can count on me. You know that.’

  The Reverend Geoffrey Royland sat back comfortably at the breakfast table and opened his copy of The Times. At the table with him, his wife, Chloe and their two teenage children, Piers and Ruth, were immersed in the post. The large untidy kitchen, the only modernised room in the sprawling Edwardian rectory, smelled comfortably of coffee. When the doorbell rang no one moved.

  ‘Your turn, Piers.’ Ruth did not raise her eyes from the multi-paged letter in which she was engrossed.

  ‘It’s bound to be for Dad.’ Piers, two years younger than his sixteen-year-old sister, and already a head taller, was flipping through the latest issue of Combat.

  ‘Even so, it’s your turn, Piers.’ His mother, with an exasperated glance at her husband who appeared to have heard none of the exchange, tried to sound firm. ‘Come on, love. It’s time we all moved. I know it’s Saturday, but that’s no excuse, and Dad’s got a wedding this afternoon.’

  Grumbling, Piers climbed to his feet. Clutching his magazine he headed for the hall. Moments later they heard the creak as the heavy front door with its insets of vivid stained glass swung open.

  ‘It’s Em,’ Piers shouted over his shoulder, then he was gone, two at a time, up the stairs to his bedroom, leaving their guest to find her own way to the kitchen.

  Geoffrey, the middle Royland brother, stood up as he saw his sister. ‘What brings you out so early?’ He dropped a kiss on her cheek.

  ‘Coffee, Emma?’ Chloe slid an extra cup off the sideboard with a surreptitious glance at her sister-in-law. Emma looked tired, and there were dark rings under her eyes. Her normally cheerful face was very sober.

  ‘Please.’ Emma took Piers’s chair. There was a moment’s silence.

  ‘Is something wrong, Emma?’ Chloe put the cup down in front of her.

  ‘I don’t know. I wanted to talk to you, Geoff, about Pete and me.’

  ‘Ooh, lovely. Gossip!’ Ruth put down her letter, her eyes shining, and pushed her elbows forward on the table amongst the dirty plates and cups.

  Geoffrey frowned. ‘That’s enough, Ruth.’

  ‘It’s nothing very dramatic; I just feel I want someone to talk to.’ Emma smiled apologetically at Chloe.

  Geoffrey interrupted her with a gesture of his hand. ‘Why don’t you bring that coffee into my study. We’ll talk there. I know Chloe and Ruth will excuse us. They both have things to do.’

  Ignoring the almost identical looks of anger and frustration on the faces of his wife and daughter, Geoffrey led the way out of the kitchen. His study was a ground-floor room, overlooking a quiet tree-lined street. Outside he could see Emma’s Golf parked beyond the gate.

  Gesturing her towards what his family referred to as the interrogation chair, a deep-buttoned shabby leather arm-chair opposite his desk, he lowered himself into his own place. ‘You and Peter have been having problems for a while, haven’t you?’ He glanced at her, concerned.

  ‘Is it that obvious?’

  ‘Perhaps only to people who love you. Has something happened?’

  She shrugged. ‘Nothing special, I suppose.’ She sat back in her chair and sighed. ‘It’s just, well, he’s never there. I went out last night with Clare because I was all on my own again. Then when I got home the house was so – so empty!’

  Geoffrey sighed. ‘Poor Em. But from what I hear he won’t change his job. Wheeling and dealing in the Far East is his whole life. Can’t you and Julia go with him sometimes?’

  She raised her hands helplessly. ‘If I give up the gallery, I can.’

  ‘Ah.’ Geoffrey looked at her thoughtfully. ‘And you don’t want to do that.’

  ‘No I bloody well don’t! It’s not even as though Pete is away at the moment. He came back later from his beastly meeting and of course we had a row! The trouble is we never go out, Geoff! Even when he is home. It’s all work, work, work!’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I came to dump all this in your lap. I suppose it was talking to Clare last night. It made me realise how important it is to have something else if your marriage falls apart.’

  Geoffrey raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh dear. Don’t tell me that is what is happening to Clare and Paul too?’

  ‘They’ve found out it is she who can’t have a baby.’

  ‘Poor Clare. I know how heartbroken she must be, but surely that is not going to destroy their marriage?’

  ‘It’s helping. She’s discovering fast just how rotten Paul can be.’ Emma shook her head sadly. ‘She has got nothing now. No job. No children. And probably no husband. Poor Clare. All she is left with are her daydreams and her visiting spirits!’

  ‘Her what?’ Geoffrey looked startled.

  ‘Oh lord! I’m not supposed to tell anyone.’ Emma put her hand to her mouth. ‘Well, not Paul, anyway. She’s doing some kind of weird meditation and conjuring up the spirits of the dead.’ She paused, then, seeing her brother’s face, she was unable to resist dramatising her statement. ‘With candles and incantations and incense and spells!’

  Geoffrey was looking at her closely, unable for a moment to decide whether or not she was joking. It took only a moment to convince him that, in spite of the dramatic whisper, she was not.

  Uneasily he rubbed his hands together. ‘I think you’d better tell me all about it,’ he said after a moment. ‘How did she start all this?’

  ‘She met someone who had been teaching her yoga. It’s all right, Geoff. There is nothing strange about that, at least I don’t think so. Mind you he does sound a bit weird, and I suppose she is exactly the kind of target some of these freaky sinister people look for to exploit.’

  ‘And you think this man is freaky and sinister?’

  Emma shook her head and shrugged. ‘I’ve never seen him, but she seems to think he’s all right. She met him at a party. He’s Californian
.’

  ‘It follows,’ Geoffrey said dryly.

  ‘And he’s gay, so he’s not after her body, only her mind.’ She laughed.

  ‘Or her soul.’

  There was a pause. Emma eyed her brother uneasily. ‘Don’t take it too seriously, Geoff. Meditation is very trendy still, you know.’

  ‘Indeed. And so are all kinds of unfortunate cults. You don’t think Paul knows anything about this?’

  She shook her head violently. ‘And he mustn’t. She doesn’t need any more hassle from Paul, she really doesn’t.’

  ‘It isn’t just a question of hassle, Emma. This could be serious. If you are correct, then Clare could be playing with fire. So many people get involved with these things without realising how dangerous they are.’ Geoffrey stood up and walked across the room. Absentmindedly he picked up his pipe from an ashtray and tapped it against the white plaster moulding of the mantelpiece. ‘I really ought to talk to her,’ he went on after a long pause.

  Emma watched him uneasily. ‘Geoffrey, I promised I wouldn’t mention it to anyone.’

  ‘I’m glad you did, though.’ He polished the bowl of the pipe thoughtfully on the front of his sweater. ‘You and Clare get on well together, don’t you?’

  ‘You know we do.’

  ‘And you care about her?’

  ‘Of course!’

  He paused. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t this you came to tell me about, Emma? You are worried about her, aren’t you.’

  ‘I’m worried about myself, Geoff. That is why I came.’

  ‘Of course.’ He smiled. ‘And we must talk again. Don’t do anything too precipitous, Emma. Peter is a good man. I think you’ll work it out. I think you both still love one another. And as for Clare –’ He hesitated, frowning. ‘I really do feel I must do something for her. Unfortunately I have to go away next week, but in any case I must think about this very carefully, and …’ he hesitated with a quick glance at his sister, ‘I must pray.’

  Emma snorted. ‘What else?’ she said. She grinned. ‘Will you pray for me as well? I need it.’ Then her face sobered. ‘Don’t say anything to her, Geoff, please. Whatever it is she’s doing, it matters to her. It is all she’s got at the moment.’

  Geoffrey frowned. ‘That is the danger,’ he said. ‘That is exactly the danger. Poor Clare. I feel guilty that I hadn’t noticed that she was so unhappy. But we don’t see her and Paul that often, and when we do she always seems so self-contained. Chloe is very fond of her.’

  ‘So am I. And I don’t want to see her hurt. Leave it alone, Geoff, please.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Em. Not until I’ve found out what she really is doing. I have to, don’t you see? And something else. I think I should talk to Paul.’

  ‘No!’ Emma jumped to her feet. ‘No, you mustn’t. Look, maybe it’s not as bad as I’ve made it sound –’ She stopped as she caught sight of the expression on Geoffrey’s face and she could feel herself blushing. ‘No, I haven’t lied. Don’t look at me like that, but maybe I exaggerated a bit –’

  ‘Even if you have, Em, I think I should look into it as soon as I come back. I have to make sure she’s not doing something silly and I must make sure that Paul understands the strain she has been under.’

  ‘Blast you, Geoff! Can’t I make you understand! Leave Paul out of it!’ She put her hands on the edge of the desk. ‘Don’t mention it to Paul. Don’t you know yet what a bastard our brother can be?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Emma. That’s uncalled for.’

  ‘Is it?’ Emma slumped back in her chair. ‘I sometimes think you don’t know him at all, Geoff. Not at all.’

  ‘The idiot wouldn’t listen!’ Emma threw her car keys down on the kitchen table at home. Peter, deep in the weekend section of the Financial Times, did not respond.

  Emma clenched her fists. ‘Did you hear me, Peter?’

  ‘What?’ Something in her tone got through to him. He half closed the paper, but only to turn the page; then it was reopened before him, separating them from one another as effectively as a brick wall.

  ‘I said, Geoffrey wouldn’t listen!’ Emma repeated, her voice tight.

  ‘About what?’ Behind the paper Peter was obviously still listening, but only just. He had cooled off considerably since their row the night before when he had arrived home after midnight exhausted from his meeting in the City. She had refused to believe that work could have gone on that late, and he had been short-tempered and irritable after an endless evening with a party of Japanese industrialists who had indeed talked nothing but business the entire night. ‘You know, Em, we should try and grow some of these pollution-resistant shrubs. It says here they are –’

  He stopped abruptly as she swooped forward and plucked the newspaper out of his hands.

  ‘If you don’t shut up and listen, I am going to tear this into tiny little pieces and jump up and down on them!’

  ‘Sorry.’ Peter gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘So, you’ve been over to the Pompous Pontiff for breakfast.’

  In spite of herself, Emma giggled. ‘You must not call him that. Especially in front of Julia –’

  ‘Julia is quite spectacularly not here –’

  ‘I know that! She’s spending the day with Tamsin. Listen Peter, I told Geoff about Clare. I didn’t mean to, but it sort of slipped out, and now the idiot insists he’s got to tell Paul.’

  ‘Of course he must. If the whole family is being told, why should Paul be the only one left out?’

  ‘The whole family isn’t being told!’

  ‘No?’ Peter looked at her coldly. ‘Geoffrey and Chloe, and no doubt those fearful children know. James knows. I know. No doubt David and Gillian know. If they don’t, someone will tell them at their party tonight.’ He shrugged. ‘Thank God we’re not going to be able to go to that. I can’t stand all that open air and rural gossip.’

  ‘I would like to have gone.’

  ‘Rubbish. You’d spend your entire time sending up those terribly boring people David and Gillian know. The soi-disant grande bourgeoisie of East Anglia who order their copies of The Times to drain their green wellies on to. I doubt if any of them have ever actually opened a copy in their lives.’ Gently he retrieved his paper from Emma’s hands. ‘So, don’t pretend to be sorry. I bet Clare’s not going.’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘Exactly. She’s got more sense. And, whatever she’s doing, Em, in future keep out of it.’

  Paul had taken Casta for a walk across the fields. The grass was white with dew and a thick mist still clung amongst the trees; it was cold. Hands in pockets, he strode down the lane and up the edge of a field, watching with only half an eye as the dog ran back and forth, plumed tail wagging, flushing rabbits and partridge out of the hedgerow. He was still seething with anger. The drive back to Bucksters, always agonisingly slow on a Friday evening, the realisation that he should have brought Clare back for the party – David and Gillian would raise their eyebrows when he turned up without her – and the continuing nagging worry about the money, all had contributed towards a sleepless night and a king-size headache. He was well aware that he was being unfair to Clare, but he could no longer think about things rationally. He kicked at a stone which lay in his path. Across the fields a tractor was slowly pulling a plough parallel with the hedge away from him, a cloud of gulls following it, hovering excitedly as the dull dead stubble turned methodically into huge scoops of shining clay.

  She had to be persuaded to sell; it was imperative that she be made to see the sense of whatever offer was being made.

  He drew off his boots in the back porch and walked into the kitchen at Bucksters. Sarah Collins was rolling out some pastry at the table, her hands covered in flour. She glanced up as he walked in.

  ‘The post and papers have come, Mr Royland. They’re there, on the side.’ She smiled at him distractedly. ‘I’ll make you some coffee, shall I, as soon as this pie is in the oven?’

  Paul’s answering nod was automatic as he picked up the two ne
wspapers and the pile of letters before heading for the drawing room.

  One of the envelopes was addressed to Clare – typed, with an Edinburgh postmark. Thoughtfully he turned it over, then with sudden attention he ripped it open. He read the contents twice, carefully, standing with his back to the fire, then throwing the letter down on the low coffee table in front of the sofa he went to the french doors to stare across the garden. At last the mist was lifting and the sun was coming out. Slowly Paul smiled.

  ‘I sure like the house.’ Zak leaned back on the Victorian chair and stretched his long legs out before him.

  Clare smiled. ‘Thank you.’ She sat down opposite him. ‘I’m really glad you came.’ Her face was troubled.

  Zak gave her a quick appraising glance. ‘Did you speak to your doctor yet, about the results?’

  She shook her head. ‘I tried ringing once or twice, then I realised I didn’t want to speak to him. I can’t face it. I just want to put everything out of my mind for a while. I want to know that when I close my eyes at night I can forget about Paul and babies and doctors and tests and just sink into peaceful sleep. Without nightmares. Perhaps I should take sleeping tablets, I don’t know.’

  Zak shook his head slowly. ‘That’s not the answer, Clare, and you know it or you wouldn’t have rung me.’ He was studying her face.

  ‘I’ve been doing the yoga,’ she went on thoughtfully. ‘And that is good. I enjoy it and it makes me feel marvellous. At least it always has until yesterday. But the meditation exercises are different. They are all good for me, I suppose, when I can do them, but some of them are so boring.’ She glanced at him with a half smile. ‘All except the one – the visualisation one.’

  He waited, his eyes not moving from her face.

  ‘It’s the one you told me to do yesterday. The one where I think myself into a special place; where I’m supposed to find myself at peace somewhere I’ve been happy.’ Her voice had dropped so low he had to strain to hear it.

  Once more there was a long silence; Zak waited easily, not pushing her.

  ‘I managed to do it again after I spoke to you, but I don’t think I’m doing it right. Suddenly there is no peace in the scenes I see.’