Lilian's Spell Book

by Toby Litt

  ‘What do you think we’re going to do?’ I called to him. ‘Hold a séance?’

  ‘There’s no need for anything that elaborate,’ said Father Trovato, grimly. ‘As I’m sure you already know.’

  Matthew and Gracie got out of their car, a brand new Mini Cooper in shiny green.

  ‘Hello,’ they said to us, very smiley. Matthew was holding a bottle of wine in each hand. Gracie looked beautiful – so young. They were oddly dressed as usual. Matthew wore a yellow silk shirt beneath a bright green suit. His shoes were orangey brown brogues. Gracie wore a yellow and green cheongsam.

  ‘Come in,’ said Peter. ‘Father Trovato’s just leaving.’

  ‘Until tomorrow morning,’ said Father Trovato, heaving himself down into his tiny Fiat.

  ‘I won’t ask,’ said Matthew, watching him go.

  ‘I will,’ said Gracie. ‘Are you very Catholic?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Peter. ‘Officially, we are.’

  As we went into the kitchen, Peter began to explain the circumstances of the inheritance. Our guests sat down. Peter opened the wine. I served the starters. Peter poured the wine.

  ‘What a deal,’ said Matthew, when Peter had finished.

  ‘Are you going to stick to it?’ Gracie asked.

  ‘I think so,’ said Peter. ‘Jack’s already under instruction. And I became a Catholic at University. With me, it’s just remedial work.’ He looked at me.

  ‘I’m the most reluctant,’ I said. ‘But I love the house. I’d do almost anything to keep it.’

  ‘Almost?’ asked Gracie.

  ‘It’s not worth someone’s life,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gracie, ‘but what about their soul?’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘Are you Catholic?’ Peter asked her.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But my father was on the other side. Seriously so. I heard a lot about the Pope, growing up. None of it very complimentary.’

  ‘No, it’s not worth a soul,’ I said. ‘Nothing is.’

  ‘I thought you were the one who didn’t believe in all that,’ said Peter.

  ‘I don’t really,’ I said. ‘But if Gracie’s saying those are the stakes, then I’m saying that’s what I think. A house is just a house – any house.’

  ‘But this is a very special house,’ said Matthew. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve had time to read Mr. Gatward’s books about it.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘well, most of them. I haven’t managed to find Hidden Histories. They didn’t have it in the shop, and it’s out of print.’

  ‘Oh, we’ve got it,’ said Gracie. ‘We’ll lend it to you, if you’d like. We’ve got all his books. I think we’re his biggest fans.’ She laughed her tinkly laugh.

  ‘He’s really the reason we discovered the village in the first place,’ Matthew continued. ‘We were just passing through. We like to look at old churches and things, and when I went into the shop for a bar of chocolate, I mentioned I was interested in the church – Mrs. Willows managed to hawk me a copy of A Kindly Place.’

  ‘We came back the next weekend,’ picked up Gracie. ‘And after that, we couldn’t stay away.’

  ‘It became something of an addiction,’ Matthew said.

  ‘We hated being in London.’

  ‘So when the farm came on the market – ’

  ‘We weren’t going to let anyone else have it,’ said Gracie. ‘Even though it did need a massive amount of work.’

  They were quite the double act.

  ‘Lovely avocados,’ said Matthew.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Gracie.

  Matthew and Peter started to talk about wine. Gracie asked me about how Jack and Mary were – and before I knew it, we’d finished eating and were sitting around in the downstairs drawing room having coffee. Matthew and Gracie were on one sofa, Peter and me were on another.

  The food seemed to have gone down pretty well. I’d been worried they would think it all pretty boring, them being used to home produce and everything. But Matthew had come back for thirds of the fish pie, and Gracie had asked me whether the chocolate pots were Delia or Nigella. (I’d confessed they were neither, and showed her the packet.)

  ‘It’s hard to believe you’ve had two babies,’ said Gracie. ‘You look so fantastic. Do you work out?’

  ‘Me?’ I said. ‘I do a lot of picking up and carrying, but I’ve never been to a gym in my life.’

  ‘You surprise me,’ said Matthew. ‘We had a home gym built onto the farm before we moved in. Nothing fancy. Just a jogging machine and one of those workout milarkeys – with the weights and everything.’

  ‘And the pool,’ said Gracie. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without that. I’m in there first thing every morning, and last thing at night.’

  ‘Not quite last thing,’ said Matthew, flirtatiously. Then he turned to me. ‘I’ve started to find the smell of chlorine quite a turn-on all by itself.’

  Matthew’s hand was on Gracie’s knee already. But now it moved upwards, and I saw him give her a squeeze on the thigh. Her cheongsam, which was quite short anyway, was split all the way up to the top of her legs. I couldn’t help noticing, she didn’t have anything on underneath it. A quick glance at Peter was enough to confirm that he’d noticed, too. He was blushing quite fiercely.

  ‘I could fall asleep any time, day or night,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know about falling asleep,’ said Gracie. ‘But going to bed…’

  ‘Working the farm must be exhausting,’ said Peter. ‘You must have to get up really early.’

  ‘Oh, we have quite a lot of help,’ said Matthew. ‘I like to drive the tractor around, supervise. It’s really more about efficient management than anything else. That leaves me plenty of time for other things.’

  ‘You haven’t thought about having children?’ I asked.

  ‘We can’t, said Gracie.

  ‘Actually, I can’t,’ said Matthew. ‘They’ve done loads of tests. Apparently the little buggers just swim round in circles – when they swim at all. It’s a bit pathetic really.’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Gracie said.

  ‘Gracie knew before she married me,’ Matthew said. ‘It wasn’t some horrible surprise. We decided that we had other priorities.’

  I was so caught up in Jack and Mary that I found it quite hard to imagine what those priorities might be. Working the land? Buying weirdly bright clothes? Coming on to other couples?

  ‘We want to live the best lives we can,’ said Gracie. ‘Just in ourselves.’

  ‘We want to try different things,’ Matthew said. ‘Not limit ourselves. Experience whatever’s out there to be experienced.’

  ‘There can’t be all that much,’ said Peter. ‘Out here. Isn’t it all a bit quiet?’

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised,’ said Matthew. ‘It can get quite lively, if you’re up for it.’

  He leaned across and kissed Gracie. They didn’t snog, thank God, but it was a little more pouty and noisy than I felt comfortable with.

  ‘The thing is,’ Gracie said, ‘when you’re out in the country, no one overlooking your property, you have a lot more freedom than those people living in tiny little flats in the city – all living on top of and spying on one another.’

  That was our life she was describing – a life we’d only stopped living a week ago.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Matthew. ‘You can set your own rules. The law isn’t going to come bothering you. In fact,’ he said, ‘the law is quite an interesting chap himself.’

  ‘He’s very friendly, P.C. Hollerhan,’ said Gracie. ‘Very amenable. And he likes a swim.’ She raised her eyebrows at me, sending me quite a clear message. I didn’t know where to look.

  ‘It’s getting quite late,’ said Peter, coming to my rescue. ‘I’m afraid we’re going to be up a couple of times in the night. Mary’s not been very settled since we moved in.’

  ‘Well, it’s a strange new house, isn’t it?’ said Gracie. She changed tack
with impressive speed.

  ‘Yes, it’s funny they still call it “The New House”,’ said Matthew. ‘I mean, look at it.’

  We were sitting in front of the huge fireplace. I took the whole amazing place in once more. It would have felt much more natural for Matthew and Gracie to stay here, Lord and Lady of the Manor, and for me and Peter to get up and leave – back to our maisonette. But that wasn’t how it was going to be. They were leaving, and as soon as we could possibly get rid of them. No one spoke, however. And while we were sitting there in silence, my eyes happened to fall on the fire tools – the hammer and tongs and brush. Each of them had a brass phoenix at the top. Not only that, though – the phoenixes were shaped to look like the business end of keys. Maybe the fire door would be opened by one of the fire tools.

  It was all I could do not to get up there and then, go over and inspect the tool more closely.

  Peter noticed that I was staring at something, and Matthew was watching too closely to miss this.

  ‘Penny for them,’ said Matthew.

  ‘I was wondering,’ I said, ‘where we were going to get enough logs to fill that thing in winter.’

  ‘Oh, I think your gardener keeps a fairly tidy stock of logs around and about the place,’ Gracie said.

  ‘You mean Robert,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, that’s his name,’ said Gracie. ‘He’s not very friendly to us, I’m afraid. We’ve had a few disputes concerning fences, boundary lines, overhanging trees.’

  ‘Just about everything we could have a dispute about,’ added Matthew.

  ‘Well, I hope we’ll be able to sort all of those out between us,’ said Peter. ‘We’d like to be good neighbours.’

  ‘We hope you’ll be a lot more than that,’ said Gracie.

  ‘Friends, then,’ said Peter.

  ‘More than that, too,’ said Matthew.

  It was unbearable. I stood up.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But I’m really exhausted. We’ve had a really busy week – and, like Peter says, Mary’s not going to sleep through. I think I’m going to have to turn in before I fall asleep myself.’

  ‘Of course, of course,’ said Matthew, retreating immediately.

  ‘I’m sorry we kept you up,’ said Gracie. ‘We should have known.’

  The two of them thanked us for a lovely evening, for the lovely food and the lovely coffee. Slowly, we ushered them towards the door. They seemed to be keen on dragging the goodbyes out for as long as possible. Gracie made me promise to bring Jack round for that horse ride. Matthew was telling Peter how fascinating the carved panels on the hall ceiling were, and how he’d love to be able to come back one day and study them.

  ‘I love that kind of thing,’ he said. ‘Brass rubbings.’

  ‘You have some trouble rubbing those,’ said Peter, looking the two storeys up.

  ‘I’ve got a very powerful camera,’ said Matthew.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to come back some time,’ I said. ‘We’d like other people to enjoy the house. We don’t want to keep it just to ourselves.’

  Gracie looked as though she was about to cry. ‘That’s perfect,’ she said. ‘That’s just what we… what everyone in the village has been wanting to hear.’

  ‘How about tomorrow morning?’ Matthew asked.

  ‘I’m afraid we have Father Trovato coming back then,’ said Peter. ‘We’ll let you know when’s a good time. We’re still settling in.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Matthew.

  ‘But I’ll drop a copy of Hidden Histories off tomorrow,’ said Gracie. ‘I think we have a spare.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘We’re so glad you’re joining the community,’ said Matthew. ‘You’ve got so much to contribute.’

  And finally, finally, they were out the door – and the door was shut – and we listened to them slowly walk away.

  Gracie started to say something, but Matthew immediately said, ‘Wait till we’re in the car.’

  Gracie giggled one last time, the car doors slammed solidly and they were driving away.

  Peter said, ‘They did just make a pass at us, didn’t they?’

  ‘More than one,’ I said. ‘I think I lost count.’

  ‘So they’re the local swingers, are they?’

  ‘Them and the local bobbie,’ I said. ‘P.C. Likes-a-swim.’

  We couldn’t help but laugh. It was so ridiculous.

  ‘I’d heard that’s what it was like in the country,’ said Peter. ‘Key parties and wife-swapping and everything, but… We’re hardly in the door. They weren’t exactly subtle, were they?’

  We went into the sitting room and started turning off the lights.

  ‘Seems like brass isn’t the only thing he likes rubbing,’ said Peter.

  ‘I thought his hand wasn’t going to stop,’ I said. ‘I thought we were going to get the full Sharon Stone.’

  The last light was out.

  ‘That was only a flash,’ said Peter.

  ‘You weren’t tempted, then?’ I said. ‘She’s very attractive.’

  ‘She’s a freak,’ said Peter. ‘They’re both total freaks.’

  ‘And we’re not?’ I said.

  ‘Well, I’m not,’ said Peter. ‘I’m perfectly normal.’

  The good mood between us evaporated very suddenly.

  ‘I am not a freak,’ I said. ‘Don’t say that.’

  Peter kept quiet while we brushed our teeth and got ready for bed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, once we were tucked in and the lights out. ‘I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.’

  ‘Go to sleep,’ I said. ‘Normal people need lots of sleep.’

  I know all the advice about never letting the sun go down on an argument, but Peter needed to be taught a lesson. The cold shoulder had worked before. I hadn’t let him near me for months after the affair. Even though he’d been the one in the wrong, he still held that against me. But I was so angry with him I just couldn’t face any kind of intimacy.

  He kissed me on the back of the head and said, ‘Night night.’

  I was woken by muffled screaming at I didn’t know what time. It came from Jack’s room, and Peter, though stirring a little in his sleep, hadn’t woken up.

  Chapter 35.

  I got out of bed and hurried through the door – no idea what I’d find there.

  The room was dark. I couldn’t see any suspicious shapes, no presences.

  By the time I got to him, Jack was sitting up in bed, sobbing. It took him a good couple of minutes of cuddles to calm down.

  ‘Did I? Did I?’ He kept saying, before finally coming out with it, ‘Did I almost die?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. ‘Mummy and Daddy were there. We weren’t going to let anything happen to you.’

  ‘I don’t want to die, Mummy,’ said Jack. ‘I don’t want to be a dead person.’

  What do you say to a child when they say this? A child like Jack who has had a genuinely terrifying experience or just a child who has woken up in the dark after a nightmare? What do you say when you’re all groggy from dreams of your own, and you’ve never really known what the best and most comforting thing is to say? I felt lost. I wished very much I had some definite faith that I could pass on – that I could say to Jack, Jesus loves you and will look after you and make sure nothing bad happens to you. Or Allah or someone big and reassuring.

  But the world was a place full of accidents. He could die, I could die, any of us could.

  ‘You’re not going to die, not for a long, long time,’ I said. ‘You’re a fit, healthy boy. And we’re here to look after you.’

  ‘You won’t die, will you?’

  ‘I’m not planning to,’ I said. ‘I want to be around to watch you grow very old. We all want to be alive.’

  ‘I was scared, Mummy,’ said Jack.

  ‘I know you were, my love. I was, too. But we’re all right now, aren’t we? Tucked up all safe and cosy in bed. We’re all right.’

  ‘I�
��m brave really,’ said Jack. ‘I was scared in the water, when the water was over me.’

  ‘It was a very scary thing,’ I said. ‘Would you like me to sing you a song?’

  Jack nodded yes.

  I sang softly to him, until he’d gone to sleep. And then I went back to my own bed, leaving the door to his room open.

  ‘Please, protect him,’ I said to whomever might be listening.

  Rap-rap. Rap-rap.

  This time I didn’t have even a moment’s doubt who it was. Mary had slept right through, but I still felt exhausted as I nudged Peter.

  ‘You’ll have to let him in.’

  Blearily, Peter checked his watch. ‘It’s half past five,’ he said.

  ‘Then tell him to go away,’ I said. ‘This is just rude.’

  Peter started to get dressed.

  ‘Quickly,’ I said, ‘or he’ll wake Jack.’

  Peter went downstairs in jeans and stripey pyjama top.

  I heard the door open, muffled greetings, footfalls across the hall and down the passage.

  Peter returned. ‘He’s prepared to wait,’ he said. ‘We’ve got half an hour.’

  I stretched this out to an hour, taking my time in the bathroom. Mary woke up around six and I pretended to feed her for ten minutes, even though I could tell she wasn’t taking anything.

  We were about to go down when Jack surfaced.

  ‘Your favourite person’s here,’ I said.

  ‘Batman?’ he said.

  ‘No, Father Trovato.’

  Jack ran downstairs in his pyjamas. It’s great how kids can just accelerate to a hundred miles an hour from a standing start.

  I went into the kitchen first and, after Peter popped in to ask where I was, made some coffee.

  ‘Or would you prefer orange juice, Father,’ I said, as I carried the tray into the living room. ‘That’s what Jack’s having.’

  ‘Good morning, Mrs. Jonson,’ said Father Trovato. He was looking quite rumpled – not his usual sparkly-eyed self at all.

  We drank the coffee while Jack asked Father Trovato about Jesus. ‘When they stuck the nails in his hands, did the blood go everywhere?’

  ‘It went everywhere in the universe,’ said Father Trovato. ‘Everything was touched by it.’