by Jan Siegel
‘If you didn’t see anything,’ Hazel demanded, ‘how did you know there was anything there?’
‘I saw – movement. Twigs quivering, a disturbance on the ground. It’s difficult to explain.’
‘And you want to go back? D’you really think the missing paper will be there? I mean … it doesn’t seem awfully likely to me.’
‘Not the injunction, no,’ Nathan conceded. ‘But there’s got to be something.’
‘How do you know?’ Hazel asked.
‘If there’s nothing to hide, why chase me away?’
Hazel could find no argument against this reasoning, though she wasn’t happy about it. ‘All right,’ she said finally. ‘I’ll go there with you. But only if it’s a nice, sunny, friendly sort of day. Not if it’s all cloudy and – and ominous. Okay?’
‘I thought you didn’t believe in fairytales?’ Nathan said, feeling sufficiently encouraged to tease her.
‘I don’t. But I do believe in ghost-stories. Besides, what happened – whatever it was – frightened you, and you’re normally much braver than me.’
‘When we go back,’ Nathan said doggedly, ‘I won’t be frightened.’
In the week, Bartlemy telephoned Annie. ‘How would you like a day in London? It’ll take your mind off your troubles, real or imagined – stop you worrying about things you can’t change.’
‘That would be lovely,’ Annie said. ‘What’s brought this on?’ She could never recall Bartlemy spending a day in London, or indeed anywhere else, since she had known him.
‘Rowena Thorn is off to Sotheby’s to take a look at the Grimthorn Grail. She wants me to go with her – moral support – and I thought a day out would do you good.’
‘The Grimthorn Grail!’ Annie exclaimed. ‘Nathan will be jealous. It’s really caught his imagination. I will get to see it too, won’t I?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Bartlemy responded. ‘If they make a fuss, we can always say you’re another expert. Apparently, they’ve been trying to date it and they’ve encountered some kind of a problem …’
‘But I’m not an expert!’
‘Of course you are. You have an amazing way with computers, small children, and dogs. We don’t have to say what you’re an expert on.’
Annie laughed. Michael Addison, who was in the shop at the time, drinking coffee and leafing through a rare history of the Agricultural Revolution, looked up inquiringly. After Annie had rung off, she told him of the project.
‘I shall have to close for the day,’ she said.
He grinned. ‘Shocking. Seriously, the old man’s right. You could do with a day off. Playing truant from everything. You worry too much about Nat. He’s a good kid.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Sometimes, that’s what scares me.’
‘So tell me about the Grimthorn Grail – if it’s not a secret?’
They went up to London on Wednesday, leaving the Jowett in Crowford and taking the train. The sun shone, and the city looked its best decked out in the vivid greens of early summer. At Rowena’s insistence they took a taxi to Bond Street; Mrs Thorn had the habits, if not the income, of the privileged, and disdained bus and tube. They were greeted at Sotheby’s by her friend Julian Epstein, a man of fortyish with badger-striped hair and beard and heavy eyebrows drawn into what appeared to be a permanent frown. He accepted, rather doubtfully, the presence of Bartlemy, hesitated over Annie (‘My assistant,’ Bartlemy said), then gave in. ‘Any advice is welcome,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘This damned cup has got everyone baffled. What exactly do you know about its history, Rowena?’
‘Just what I’ve told you,’ she said guardedly.
‘Have you had it carbon-dated?’ Bartlemy inquired.
‘Yes,’ said Epstein, ‘and no.’ He led them into a room with strong artificial lighting and no windows, and unlocked a steel cupboard. From inside he produced a box, an ordinary wooden box packed with false straw. ‘It came in this,’ he said. ‘God knows where they’d been keeping it. Took us a day to get it clean.’ He thrust the straw aside and extricated the cup.
Without really thinking about it, Annie had been anticipating the gleam of gold, even a diamond or two, and its dullness came as something of a disappointment. Rowena took it, turning it in her hands, and an eagerness came into her face which could not be hidden, changing it, making it harder and stronger. Bartlemy wondered if Epstein noticed. ‘You said, yes and no?’ he probed gently.
‘We tried,’ Epstein elaborated. ‘The results were – bizarre. Carbon-dating never fails, but this time … They tested it three times, and were told variously that it was a hundred years old, eight thousand years old, and two hundred thousand years old. There appears to be no logical explanation. In addition, we have so far been unable to discover what it is made of. Is there any clue in your family records?’
‘Tradition said it was gold,’ said Rowena. ‘Or stone.’ She hadn’t taken her eyes off it. ‘I’d go for stone. Some sort of agate, perhaps. It’s definitely not metal. So it didn’t want to be dated? Family legend claims it has strange powers. You should be careful how you meddle with legends, Julian.’
Epstein looked sceptical. ‘Are you going to tell me there’s a curse?’
Rowena gave a snort, not quite laughter, but made no answer.
‘May I see?’ Bartlemy requested.
She relinquished the cup slowly, as if with reluctance. He passed his hand over it, his eyes half closing, as though seeing through his fingers, or feeling with senses beyond touch. Observing it more closely, Annie saw it was made of some dark substance, green-tainted, bleared as if with stains so old that they had become a part of its natural patina. The snaky patterns round the rim seemed little more than scratches, worn thin with the scrubbing of centuries. It looked neither valuable nor beautiful, only very ancient, primitive, even crude, holding perhaps some faint echo of forgotten magic, but too remote or too obsolete to have any lingering significance. ‘Would you like to take a closer look?’ Bartlemy said, passing it to Annie – he didn’t miss Rowena’s quick gesture of interception, abruptly checked.
Annie’s fingers closed around the stem. The sudden rush of nausea that swept over her was so violent the world turned black – she felt herself losing hold on consciousness, tried to cry out, let the cup slip from her grasp. Then she fainted.
She came to, moments later, to see Bartlemy’s concerned face bent over her. She had been lifted into a chair; his arm was around her shoulders. Julian Epstein peered past him, his natural frown deepened with anxiety. Only Rowena wasn’t looking at her: she had picked up the cup, and was staring fixedly into the shallow bowl. ‘We should get her out of this room,’ Epstein was saying. ‘It’s airless in here. A touch of claustrophobia …?’
‘Possibly,’ said Bartlemy. ‘Secure the cup.’ He threw a quick glance towards Rowena, conveying what might have been a warning.
Epstein turned to Mrs Thorn; Annie tried to stand up and found she was still sick and shaking. Bartlemy picked her up with surprising ease and carried her from the room.
Afterwards, while she was recovering in a comfortable chair by an open window, he asked her what had happened. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I really don’t. I touched the goblet, and then – that was it. Sickness. Blackness. I’ll be all right in a minute.’
He looked at her long and thoughtfully. Presently, Epstein reappeared bringing a glass of water, with Rowena in his train. While Annie sipped from the glass he continued to expand on his theory of claustrophobia, almost as if he were trying to convince himself. Mrs Thorn looked disbelieving.
‘Don’t start telling me that this is more evidence for your family legends,’ Epstein said to her. ‘I’ve never thought of you as the credulous type. You seemed very intrigued by the cup. Are you going to try and buy back the lost heirloom?’
She hesitated, then took the plunge. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m going to prove the original sale was illegal.’
‘How will you do that?’
; ‘There’s an injunction still in existence dating back to the fifteenth century, specifically forbidding any sale or other disposal of the cup.’ She didn’t mention that she had yet to lay her hands on it.
Epstein’s frown-lines tightened. ‘It’ll never stand up in court.’
‘Sorry, Julian,’ she said, ‘but it will. Don’t want to spoil your fun, but there it is. The Grimthorn Grail’s mine – mine and my family’s – and I’m taking it back.’
The session ended on an unsatisfactory note. Leaving Epstein, presumably to summon lawyers of his own, they went to lunch. But Annie could barely eat, and sat only half listening as Rowena discussed the cup with unconcealed excitement. ‘It’s the genuine article,’ she said. ‘No question. I knew it the moment I touched it. Fascinating that business about dates. If it is the actual Grail – the real McCoy, Arthur and all – it might have the power to resist scientific analysis. I know: a month ago I’d have said this was baloney, but you heard Julian. No accurate date; they don’t even know what it’s made of. That’s a twenty-four-carat mystery, and in this day and age such mysteries are rare.’
‘It’s certainly interesting,’ Bartlemy conceded. ‘There is, as they say, a case to answer.’
Rowena turned to Annie. ‘It was the cup that affected you, wasn’t it?’ she insisted. ‘You held it, and you fainted. It was the cup.’
‘Perhaps,’ Bartlemy said. ‘But why? Why Annie?’
‘Part of the mystery,’ Mrs Thorn declared with evident relish.
Annie, taking no part in the conversation, excused herself and went to the Ladies. In the mirror, she thought she looked very pale, almost ghostly. As if she had been ill. Maybe that’s it, she concluded. Maybe I’m ill. Some sort of summer ’flu, or migraine, or a brain tumour … She panicked at the idea, resolving to rush to her GP for a check-up; but in her heart she didn’t really believe it. Rowena was right: it was something to do with the cup …
Still staring in the mirror, she saw the door opening behind her. A woman glanced in – for an instant their eyes met – and then hastily withdrew. Annie spun round, tugged at the door, peered out; but the woman had gone. Nonetheless, Annie knew she couldn’t be mistaken. It was Rianna Sardou.
In the attic space above the Bagots’ house, Effie Carlow had cleared a table for her own use. She was heating something in a blackened saucepan on a small camping gas – a thick dark liquid that bubbled sluggishly. Every so often she would add a few drops from one of a collection of bottles, muttering under her breath as she did so. A pungent smell wafted through the room, overpowering in that confined space. Finding nowhere to waft to, it hung around, stinging Effie’s sinuses and making her eyes water. But she seemed indifferent to discomfort. The bracelet lay on the table beside her: a cheap ornament such as teenagers wear, with ragged strands of beads sprouting from an elasticated wristband. Caught among the beads there were still a couple of short curling hairs, light brown in colour. Carefully she detached one of them and let it fall into the saucepan. The liquid bubbled on regardless and the smell worsened.
After a few minutes she removed the saucepan from the heat and poured the liquid into a basin to cool. Burnt residue adhering to the inside of the pan indicated that during a previous attempt she must have allowed the contents to boil dry. This time, she was more diligent, never leaving her experiment for a moment, waiting by the basin, fidgeting in her chair or blowing gently on the dark surface. As the liquid cooled, its consistency changed. It no longer looked thick, becoming instead smooth and shining like black glass. When she thought it was ready she mumbled something – a charm perhaps – bending over the bowl, gazing fixedly into the shallowness of its depths. Her skills were limited, she knew that, but this was the best mirror-magic she had achieved: her former efforts had been cloudy, showing images that were few and blurred. She had done better now; she was confident of that. And using the hair would ensure that the spell focused on Annie – Annie whom Hazel had found crying for no cause, who was hiding the truth about Nathan, whatever that truth might be. Hazel had not wanted to confide in her great-grandmother or give her the bracelet, but Effie had learned long ago how to assert control over an unformed mind. Besides, she had told her: ‘You are a Carlow, not a Bagot. The power is in your blood. One day, I will teach you how to use it.’
And now … now she stared into the basin and saw shapes developing, not clear and bright as in Bartlemy’s spellfire but through a glass darkly, through the looking-glass into someone else’s life. Annie … Annie walking down a lane between dim hedgerows, on the way to Riverside House …
It was the day after her trip to London, and she had resolved to ask some of the awkward questions, even if she couldn’t get any answers. Michael was in. He greeted her with the twist of his smile and offered coffee. ‘I’d make it lunch,’ he said, ‘but for two things. Firstly, I have to get to town for a three o’clock meeting with my agent, and secondly, there’s nothing in the fridge. That’s the problem with living alone a lot: it’s easy not to bother with proper meals. I live off snacks. If I buy real food it never gets cooked; it just sits around growing green fur. Very unhealthy.’
‘For you, or the food?’ Annie quipped. She found herself wishing she didn’t like Michael quite so much. It made things harder.
‘How was your day in the big city?’ he inquired. ‘I should take you up with me some time, shouldn’t I? Or wouldn’t you come?’
Annie ignored that. ‘Actually, I wasn’t awfully well,’ she said, and went on to describe the incident at Sotheby’s, while Michael filled a cafetière and interpolated questions.
‘You should go to your doctor,’ he concluded, looking concerned.
‘There’s nothing wrong with me, I’m sure of it. I think Rowena was right: it was something to do with the cup. They can’t date it; they don’t even know what it’s made of. Maybe there was some kind of emanation from it –’
‘A magical aura?’ Michael’s tone was sardonic.
‘Maybe,’ Annie said, undeterred. ‘There are so many strange things in the world – and beyond it. As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned … you need a very broad mind to take it all in. Magic is the word we use for things we don’t understand. Radiation was a magical aura until someone figured it out.’
‘Fair enough. Are you suggesting the cup of the Grimthorns exudes a new form of radiation? And if so, why didn’t it affect anybody else?’
‘If I knew,’ Annie said, ‘I wouldn’t need to speculate. But that wasn’t why I wanted to talk to you.’
‘I hoped you came for the pleasure of my company,’ Michael said, passing her a cup of coffee.
There was a teasing note in his voice; if she had been a little younger she would have blushed. She was glad to find herself too old for that weakness. ‘Not entirely,’ she said, maintaining her poise. ‘I wanted to ask you … I saw Rianna in London.’
‘That’s impossible,’ Michael responded promptly. ‘She’s on tour in Georgia – Georgia in Russia, not the US state. Forging cultural bonds across the globe: Rianna’s into all that. As the play’s in English I’m not sure who’s going to understand it, but never mind. I thought I told you.’
‘You did,’ Annie said. ‘That’s why I was so surprised.’
He was looking perplexed. ‘Where did you –’
‘We were at lunch at Le Caprice. I went to the loo, and while I was looking in the mirror I saw her come in behind me. When she saw me she backed off. I tried to follow her but by the time I opened the door again she’d gone. She wasn’t in the restaurant, either.’
‘You only saw her reflection for a second or two,’ Michael said. ‘You could have been mistaken.’
‘No,’ Annie said. ‘She doesn’t look like her screen image, but she’s distinctive. I saw her; she saw me. That’s why she went.’
‘There’s no reason for her to run away from you,’ Michael pointed out.
‘There is if she’s supposed to be in Georgia,’ Annie retorted. ‘Besides, she’s been
– odd – with me before. I didn’t tell you, but she came into the shop once, and asked me a lot of strange questions.’
Michael’s face tensed very slightly. ‘About me?’
‘No. About Nathan.’
‘Nat?’ Michael looked honestly bewildered. ‘Why should Rianna be interested in him?’
‘That was one of the things I came to ask you.’
Michael had begun to pace about the kitchen; Annie thought she detected something else behind his confusion. ‘You must have got it wrong,’ he insisted. ‘Rianna’s in Georgia proving her credentials as a citizen of the world. I’ve had three phone calls from her. She’s been complaining about the director – she always does – saying one of her fellow actors is grossly underrated, better than Branagh – she always does – asking me to keep her posted on the mess in the Middle East since she can’t get enough news out there …’
‘Have you – have you been able to phone her?’ Annie asked tentatively.
‘Of course not. She’s moving around too much. She –’ He stopped.
‘I’m sorry,’ Annie whispered. ‘I know it doesn’t make sense. But it was her I saw. And that time in the shop, she appeared – oh, intrigued by Nathan. She wanted to know about his father.’
‘His father? God, I keep echoing you like a bloody parrot. I don’t get any of this. Rianna and I …’ He paused, took a deep breath, started again. ‘I daresay you’ve guessed. We have a fairly – disconnected marriage. We go our separate ways most of the time. When we’re together, we get along. Good friends, or so I thought. It was passionate once, but not – not for a while now. Not for a long while. She never wanted a divorce – I give her someone to come home to – and I … well, I suppose I just let things chug along. Laziness, you’ll tell me. Just like a man.’ Annie smiled. ‘I never had a reason to make a change.’
