Cut Off

by Gill Mather

  It was the tractor driver who’d brought them here on the second day. Harry or William Roz thought he was called. She couldn't remember which.

  “I’ve come ta warn yar,” he said. Roz drew back an inch or two, clutching her little jade dragon.

  “Noo. Not me. It’s Jack. He knoo.”

  “Oh. I….er….”

  This man had a pronounced Suffolk accent which Roz was finding hard to follow to begin with. Unusual really in this day and age when regional accents seemed to be disappearing completely in favour of a generalized “estuary English”. Or else sometimes a rather foreign-sounding tongue even on the part of people who’d been born and brought up in this country as well as the actual indigenous English if there was such a thing. To her, Guy sounded “posh”, upper class. She wasn't sure about her own accent. A south-eastern mish-mash probably. She’d have to ask Guy some time.

  She had a friend who lived near Colchester and spoke with a mixture of Suffolk and cockney. Very odd, like a barrow-boy several onions short of a full string.

  “Sorry. I….er….Jack knows what?” she asked.

  “He knoo what you’re about.”

  “Gosh,” said Roz, uncertain how to respond.

  “Look. Jack’s a great blook. But he do like ta hev his oon way. I mean, what we’d do without him here I doon’t noo. This place’d loikely fall apart without him and a few others. But he doon’t like ter be crossed.”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Soo take heed. He’ll sort it out. I’d better be off. I’ve got ter look up a few moves for our chess session later and prepare for the dance. I’m doing the calling.”

  “Oh,” said Roz surprised. Never judge a book by its cover, she thought.

  “Well. There in’t much fer me ta do around here, snood in like this. I’ve got ter keep busy.”

  “Guy plays chess. I’ll tell him.”

  “Well I can beat Jack hands down.” He laughed. “He doon’t like that. Not at all.”

  “No. I imagine not,” said Roz.

  Harry/William ambled off chuckling and Roz, effectively awakened and pretty rattled, decided to give up reading and try to find something else do.

  NOTES ANNOUNCING VARIOUS activities were pinned to the board in the main hall. They were difficult to read by the light of a sconce of candles positioned above.

  Roz squinted at them to see if there was any group she might belatedly join. At just after four in the afternoon, most things would be almost over. However details of a “psychic session” being hosted by Amelia commencing at four o’ clock caught her attention. It would be at least another hour before Guy finished and returned to their room. According to the information, what there was of it, the session would be held in 3H(iv). Presumably this meant room H on the third floor. What on earth (iv) meant she couldn't imagine. The house plan in the centre of the board gave no clue. Still, it would be interesting to explore.

  She returned to their room to collect a candle stick and candle which she lit and sheltered with her hand as she hurried to the nearest staircase. She made her way to the second floor at which point she stopped. Did 3H mean the third level, in which case the floor she was on? Or did it mean the third floor and therefore the floor above? The latter wasn’t very likely as the rooms on the third floor were in the roof space. She understood they’d largely been converted into bedsits for the floating body of workers and helpers who mainly turned up in the summer months and then moved on.

  She therefore stepped out onto the landing. A long dark corridor stretched before her. It was very quiet. As Jack had told them, the house was divided into several wings and what went on in one wing was seemingly inaudible in the others. Nice for the flat owners. Not to have a lot of noise from neighbours. She wasn’t sure which wing she was in now. No light came from outside, but any curtains were being drawn at three in the afternoon to conserve the heat. It wasn’t warm in the corridor but not desperately cold either.

  Roz walked slowly along holding the candle up to the doors looking for the letter H. In fact none of them bore either numbers or letters but what sounded like house names. Rather quaint and suburban in such a situation, though some had a hippie feel to them, such as ‘Rainbow Island’ and ‘Dharma Zone’. She came to a T junction, made a left turn and was thereby presumably in another wing. Peering closely at a door to see if it bore any number or letter, she failed to notice a figure approaching from the opposite direction.

  “Having trouble?” said the deep fruity voice she couldn't help but recognise. She jumped.

  “I….er….want to attend one of the activities but I can't find the room. If I don't find it soon, it’ll be over.”

  “What room is it?” Jack asked.

  “Well the board says 3H(iv). Roman four. I assumed it meant Room H on the third floor or third level.”

  “I suppose it’s something to do with Amelia.”

  “Well. Yes.”

  “Hmm. Only she’d be so obtuse as to describe the room in such a way. You’ve probably noticed that this building is roughly H shaped. The 3 refers to the bar of the H. One and two are on one side of the bar. Four and five are on the other. The Roman four is the room number on the ground floor.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look. I’m just going back to our flat to get something. Come with me and then I’ll take you there. As you know, the rehearsals are on the ground floor too.”

  Roz didn't respond. Instead, she looked at his gloved hands. One held his lantern aloft. The other clutched a piece of paper. Her eyes had fastened themselves firmly on the leather gloves. Following her gaze, he shook his head and sighed.

  “They’re part of my costume. We’re having a dress rehearsal as the play’s tomorrow.”

  His look wasn't quite withering but ‘Silly woman’, Roz could almost hear him thinking.

  She felt incredibly stupid. She wondered what Mrs. Jack must be like. Another silly woman? Probably not. In fact probably quite a hard nut to be able to match Jack. Probably an efficient business woman to have been working abroad and one of those capable creatures able to effortlessly juggle career, kids, marriage and….

  “Well. Come on,” said Jack. “What are you waiting for. I’m in rather a hurry actually.”

  Roz bit her lip. She supposed it would mean going into his flat, all alone with him, while he found what it was he wanted. She looked up at him. He was rather tall and a little like Severus Snape from Harry Potter but without the long greasy hair. He certainly sounded like Alan Rickman. Some women would doubtless find him attractive, but to her he was creepy. Especially after the “warning” earlier this afternoon. That Jack knew what she was about.

  She found it hard to speak.

  “I’ll….erm….find it myself. Now that you’ve explained it, I think I can.”

  “Suit yourself,” he said. “Are you sure you’re all right? You sound a bit odd.” His head came forward rather aggressively as he emphasised the word ‘odd’.

  Roz coughed. “Yes thanks. Thanks for the directions.”

  And she hurried off to the end of the corridor where she was sure there’d be another set of stairs. She wouldn't have been in the least surprised if Jack had held out a hand to restrain her and dragged her off to his flat wherever it was. But instead, when she looked over her shoulder, he was striding quickly away from her on his long legs. Roz shook her head and continued on her way.

  “I FEEL A PRESENCE amongst us. Who goes there?”

  Amelia, eyes closed, lifted her head and cocked an ear in the direction of the door. Roz shut the door as quietly as she could but the whole group stiffened and gasped. Their clasped hands shook and beat a rapid tatoo on the table at which they were sitting. Though their eyes too remained shut.

  “Is it the spirit of the Black Monk Sebastian departed?” Amelia incanted in an odd high voice. “Here among us? Come to punish us for our earthly sins? That we may burn in the fires of purgatory, such that the flesh may melt from our mortal bones, just as it did from
Sebastian’s. Blackened and twisted. Ahhhh. Feel the flames, heed the warning….”

  Roz, having crept part way into the room, backed up and felt her way gingerly along the wall. The only light came from a fire burning and crackling merrily away in the hearth, though the glow it threw was surprisingly bright as Roz’s eyes adjusted. There was another door within a couple of feet which hopefully led out onto the corridor.

  “Ahhhh. I feel another presence. An interloper.” Amelia’s voice took on a more normal tone. Roz knocked a small table she hadn’t spotted. The ornaments on it clattered to the floor. She stood stock still, though what good that might do she had to doubt.

  Amelia’s eyes opened and fixed upon her in the gloom.

  “Well dear, if you want to join one of our sessions, you have only to sign up to it or speak to me. Your aura was very evident. And that of your little charm. Have you named him yet?”

  “I….erm….was thinking of Harland. After an uncle of mine.”

  “Oh. Mischief-maker. Trouble-maker even. Hmm. Well well. Come and sit down.”

  The others made space for her next to Amelia, ample posteriors wriggling and shuffling their chairs in a clockwise direction. Roz pulled in a spare chair, sat down and extended her hands to join theirs.

  An immediate warmth ran through her hand and arm from Amelia to her right. A cold, clammy sweatiness enveloped her other hand from the big woman on her left. By the firelight, she could see the perspiration glistening on the woman’s forehead and on her wispy moustache, her face screwed up in earnest concentration.

  Abruptly, Amelia said: “Sister Sinistra, I give way.”

  At that, the fat woman to Roz’s left began to shake violently. Her face turned puce, visible even in the dim light, and she groaned as if in some distress. Roz, fearing the woman Sinistra was ill, went to pull her own hands away but found that they were held in a vice-like grip from either side. Nails like talons dug into her, sinews tightened.

  Sinistra’s moaning deepened, her breath came in shallower pants, her shaking hand took on the insistence of a steam engine piston, until, without warning, in gravelly tones, she informed the group that Mary had arrived.

  Tinkling laughter swirled around the room. Roz daren’t move a muscle though her eyes cast about. The source of the sound must surely be one of the seated women. Watching their pursed lips, it seemed not. And the sound wasn't at table level, but issued from somewhere above, just below the ceiling. Diverted, Roz raised her eyes and the message began to come across.

  “My feeble body is not long for this earth. But my mind remains sharp, my memory acute. I may be unable to form the words any longer but in my head, I don’t repent in the slightest. My Sisters, you understand. Care for him my child, lest he makes a noose for his own neck. From where my physical remains reside, in this bin of dementia, it is impossible for me to protect….”

  A cry escaped Sinistra’s open mouth, her breathing became laboured. She collapsed, heaving, onto the table.

  “The link is broken,” Amelia told the gathering. “The object must be near at hand, breathing his negative humours into our midst even as we sit here.”

  There was a quiet knock at the door which creaked open and a head appeared.

  “Come along ladies. It’s well past five o’ clock. Dinner’s early tonight remember as it’s the chess tournament,” Jack said.

  Chapter 5 Checkmate

  THE NUMBER OF people that had managed to squeeze into the small ante-room was surprising. Clearly, any diversion was welcome. There was a sort of wartime spirit abroad. Roz had mixed feelings, part of her hoping there would be no thaw for some time, but the sensible side of her brain intuiting that an early remove from the Hall might be no bad thing.

  The audience had to stand. One long narrow table stretched almost the length of the room with eight chairs either side, a chess board in between each pair of opposing chairs set ready for combat. Little digital clocks with two screens sat next to each board.

  “You didn’t say you’d put your name down,” Roz had chided Guy earlier before dinner. “And I didn’t know it was an actual tournament. That Harry or William said it was just a session. I assumed a regular weekly thing.”

  “Well, it slipped my mind. I thought I wouldn't get a place. It was heavily over-subscribed. But lots were drawn and I was one of the lucky ones. I expect I’ll get thrashed in the first round.”

  “But what if it goes on all night? Or several days? What if the games take ages?”

  “Can't happen. We’re playing Blitz chess. Or something like it anyway. Each player only gets thirty minutes to make all their moves, with no increments, so once a player has run out of time or there’s a checkmate or one resigns or….”

  “All right, all right. I’ll believe you.”

  “Actually, I wasn’t being quite accurate. The final can go on for as long as it takes. All night, all tomorrow if necessary.”

  “But what about the play and the concert?”

  “Not sure. But in practice the final is likely to start before tennish so there should be plenty of time to finish it.”

  “Anyway, don't aggravate Jack. Just let him win if necessary.”

  Roz had already told Guy that Jack “knoo what I’m about.” Guy of course had been dismissive. More so on hearing about the séance, that Jack's “negative humours” had been breathed into their midst.

  “OK. I admit that the whole thing was a touch theatrical. But still. That disembodied voice telling us about her son needing protection. It was immensely spooky. No-one’s lips moved. I swear it.”

  “It’s most likely the case that one of those women is an expert ventriloquist. And were you looking at all of the women, all of the time?”

  “Well no. The voice was coming from above. So I was looking upwards.”

  “There you are then. It’s how these frauds are perpetrated.”

  “But why? Why bother? It’s not as though I was paying any money for some sort of performance.”

  “They probably do it habitually to entertain the holiday-makers. Or else someone gets a kick out of deceiving people. I’m surprised you’re so concerned. Just yesterday you were saying how much you were loving it here, how great you felt. Perhaps,” he laughed, “you should go back on the Happy Juice.”

  “But that’s kind of what I’m getting at. There has been a disappeared young man. And a corpse so far. It’s not as though there isn't cause for concern. Actually Guy, don't you feel….”

  Roz paused.

  “What? Don’t I feel what?”

  “Well. You’re able to make light of these things. But they’re serious.”

  “Meaning?”

  “That we’re getting falsely reassured. Deliberately pacified. Made to acquiesce. We’re getting sucked into their twisted way of viewing things. Almost like being drugged, or brainwashed.”

  Guy looked at her for a second, his brow furrowed. Then his expression cleared.

  “I wouldn't think so. OK so a thirty or forty year old corpse has come to light and a young man’s disappeared. The Adam thing’s probably nothing. And as to the corpse, I doubt if any of this present lot were even living here at the time the man died.”

  “Perhaps we should try to find that out. I mean who was already here thirty or forty years ago. I don't mean asking obvious questions but just talking to people about the history of the place and see what emerges.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Jack for a start.”

  Guy sighed. “Well. I don't mind chatting casually. But I’m not going in for any barefaced interrogating.”

  “No. Just chatting.”

  ROZ HAPPENED TO be standing near the fire, which at the beginning was very welcome after a dash down the stairs and through the corridors which weren’t exactly tropical. However after half an hour trying to follow the action on the table, her eyelids were drooping and the legs of her jeans were threatening to spontaneously combust. She had to move away. Shame, since the couple next to her w
ere whispering her through the games. Accordingly she knew that Guy had won his first match. Not just drawn but won, though her new friends seemed to know that draws were discouraged if not downright prohibited. Therefore Guy was matched against another winner.

  To escape the crush for a time, she elbowed her way through the throng to the open door at the opposite end. She saw as she went that Guy was pitting his skills against a large woman in a kaftan. The sweat was literally pouring from the woman’s face onto the table. It might have been Sinistra. Guy, head down, totally engrossed, gave no sign that he noticed her leave.

  The room next door was described as a bower, some sort of intimate dining area for the medieval family, though to Roz it was extensive, far grander than today’s suburban reception rooms and much bigger than the anteroom. A wonder that the tournament hadn’t been held in here. Though perhaps that was the idea, to restrict numbers and therefore keep conversation and distractions to a minimum. There were plenty of people in here, chatting, dipping into the food on offer and swilling down ale or mead or wine or cordial. Roz chose a goblet of wine.

  Spotting Amelia with a group of older women and not knowing anyone else, she loitered nearby. Some of the women had been present at the séance, some not. Sinistra wasn't among them. Sure enough, Amelia beckoned her over.

  Roz was able to thank Amelia for the very enlightening psychic experience and Amelia beamed.

  “I’m glad you benefitted from it. Not all can find it in themselves to accept the spirit world.”

  “No. I’m sure not.”

  Roz made general conversation with Amelia about the tournament, the forthcoming play, the continuing whiteout, and so on. When Amelia asked, she told her how she’d met Guy, a chance encounter after years of silent, distant longing apparently on the part of both of them.

  “Oh. The spirit is capable of such leaps of faith, stretching over the reaches of time and space. Books and films call it romance. I call it providence, destiny, kismet. You were clearly meant for each other.”