Whispering Corner

by Marc Alexander

  Her work is finished with this elegy.

  She is calling,

  Sadly calling,

  Time is come, and only I am free.

  Up looms the dark, dim future, and it holds

  With steel-bound fingers all my destiny.

  No human eye or heart upon this earth

  Will ever see inside its mystery.

  It is calling,

  Sadly calling,

  Time is come, you are no longer free.

  And so like clouds above, all swiftly passing,

  Our joy and sorrow comes alternately.

  And over all I seem to hear this message:

  Endure — take all that comes unwearily.

  Something’s calling,

  Gladly calling,

  Time will come when you will yet be free.

  Underneath, in faded violet ink and penned in precise copperplate, were the words: ‘Arthur’s last poem. Written on the eve of the Somme offensive.’

  ‘Let’s go. I’ve got work to do,’ I said as I replaced the paper in the cabinet.

  ‘I’ll clean the room if you like,’ Warren volunteered. ‘It wouldn’t take long to emulsion it with a roller.’

  ‘Leave it for now,’ I said.

  The following week passed pleasantly. Apart from a visit to the Badbury Rings close by, Warren was happy to stay at Whispering Corner and tackle the garden, clad in cut-down jeans. The long grass was scythed and the yellowish stubble mown so that it soon regained the semblance of a lawn. Then, with berserk energy he attacked the encroaching brambles.

  With Warren taking care of the household chores I got up early each morning and spent the day in my study, but even in these ideal conditions I was disappointed by my progress. I would type a few paragraphs and then, thinking of what I should be writing next, I would drift into an almost trance-like state. My powers of concentration were at a low ebb and I had a tendency to doze.

  It was then that I began to experience hypnagogsis, that hallucinatory state which comes occasionally as one is being overtaken by sleep, bringing an illusion of voices. It seemed as though different people were saying sentences which held no more sense than the mysterious radio messages in Cocteau’s film Orphee, enigmatic messages one felt would have great significance if only one had the key to decipher them. Once, however, I distinctly heard a voice repeating in rapid succession ‘IcannotIcannotIcannot …’.

  At the end of a week Warren said that he wanted to visit Glastonbury for Beltane: an ancient Celtic festival celebrating the fire of Bel. Afterwards he would go on to Cornwall. On the morning he left he told me that he’d soon be back; he wanted to finish the work he had begun in the garden.

  ‘You’re welcome any time,’ I said. ‘The thought of going back to a diet of cornflakes and bacon sandwiches gives me the horrors.’

  After he vanished through the trees I returned to my study and introduced my heroine Lorna into the story by the device I had used in Ancient Dreams. She drives to Whispering Corner to persuade Falco to illustrate a book of children’s stories she has written, believing that the possibilities of its success will be much greater if he is associated with it.

  Following the accident Falco makes her stay the night at Whispering Corner, and — because I wanted to get to the emotional possibilities between them as soon as possible — the next day he takes her to see St Mary’s church.

  I sat at my desk and began to type.

  ‘Have you any commitments, James?’ Lorna asked as she and Falco strolled in the churchyard reading tombstone inscriptions. (An estranged wife with a gaggle of children or a sultry mistress lurking in the background?)

  He took the lightly phrased question seriously and shook his head.

  ‘I did have someone,’ he said. ‘But that ended quite a while ago. What about you? I can't believe someone like you … I mean someone as attractive as you are … hasn’t got a lover.’

  It was her turn to shake her head so that for a moment her fair hair fell across her face.

  ‘I've had my share of lovers,’ she answered in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘Too many.’

  ‘Why too many?’ he asked.

  She looked at him with wise grey eyes. ‘You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find a prince.’

  ‘And did you ever find one?’

  ‘I thought so for a while. But it turned out he was nicer when he was a frog.’

  Falco laughed.

  ‘And you — what happened to your girlfriend?’

  ‘She was my wife — she died,’ he said simply.

  I stopped typing.

  Until that moment it had not occurred to me that Falco had a tragedy in his past. I had thought to explain his present lack of emotional involvement by something less dramatic, his fiancée having left him for someone else, for example. From the point of view of the storyline this was better; it gave an acceptable reason for his wishing to change his lifestyle and begin a new era at Whispering Corner.

  Yet it was odd how Falco’s words just seemed to appear on the paper, a reassuring portent that my character was coming to life. At that stage I could not imagine what his wife had died from, but no doubt that would emerge in later conversations.

  Reviewing the novel so far I knew that after establishing Lorna I must quickly introduce the character I thought of as the villain. It was not enough for the two young people to be threatened by unearthly powers in their refuge from the world, as they would begin to regard Whispering Corner; there also needed to be an element of human conflict, an older character with a very positive personality who endeavoured to manipulate them for his own malign ends before the final betrayal. He should be someone in whom they placed their trust, because the betrayal of trust — the sudden alienation of the familiar — is the basic element of horror. That was a bitter lesson I had learned early in life. ‘Granny, what long teeth you have!’ is probably the most chilling line in folklore.

  At the moment I could not visualize the character who would take on this role, but it was not long before I was to have a model.

  I typed for the rest of the afternoon, sometimes x-ing out a few lines as better ideas occurred, and making notes in the margin to be incorporated in the final script. I grew increasingly intrigued by Lorna. I wanted her to be a slightly mysterious figure, the eternal enigmatic female, to provide a contrast to Falco’s relatively simple character.

  By sunset I had written a couple of thousand words, my best stint so far. What alarmed me was the knowledge that this would have to be my target every day if I was to meet my deadline.

  My head ached and my back was stiff when I left the study and went downstairs for a brandy and Perrier. Holding the glass, I went out into the garden, which smelled of newly mown grass. The low sun gilded layers of stratocumulus and stippled the lawn with tree shadows. Blue dusk was gathering about Whispering Corner and the air would soon be filled with soft rustlings as the woodland prepared for night.

  I sank into an old deckchair which Warren had unearthed somewhere to allow the peace of the moment to seep into my being. I was weary. The night before I had sat up late, listening to Warren extolling his ideas on the mystic elements of nature. Now as I lay back in the faded candy-striped canvas my eyelids drooped and I slipped into that indolent twilight state between wakefulness and sleep.

  I became aware of dissociated words and phrases forming in the recesses of my mind, the hypnagogic murmurings I had experienced before. Different voices competed like those heard when seeking an elusive station on a short waveband. Among the broken sentences a harsh military voice shouted, ‘Move, you buggers, move!’ It was replaced by a woman reciting a line from the poem which I had read in Miss Constance’s sanctum: ‘The muse is gone …’ And this was submerged by a babel of nonsense followed by a line I had heard before, ‘IcannotIcannotIcannot.’

  It brought me out of my dream state with a physical jerk. My heart was pounding, and despite the fact that the temperature had fallen with the dusk there was a sheen of perspi
ration on my forehead.

  I sat up in the deckchair, breathing hard and trying to shake off the lingering sensation of despair. If I had been of a credulous nature, it would have been easy to associate my experience with the tradition of Whispering Corner. Back in the house it took another brandy and Perrier to bring me back to normal.

  That night I slept so well that when I woke the sun was over the tops of the trees. After a couple of cups of strong coffee to erase the lingering effects of a sleeping pill, I went unshaven to my study and began to work on the character of Lorna. I typed steadily through the day and into the night, and was rewarded with a feeling that at last the novel was progressing.

  And for the next few days this pattern continued. Each day I sat in my study in my dressing-gown, my stubble softening into a beard and my diet consisting of bacon sandwiches.

  One evening I heard a tapping at the French windows and when I went down to investigate I saw the Reverend Gotobed — Henry — smiling on the other side of the glass. I let him in with a feeling of embarrassment at my unkempt state and the hint of Courvoisier on my breath. Either he was tactful or I fitted his concept of an author caught in the fever of creativity, because he never raised an eyebrow and agreed to join me in ‘one little drink’.

  He told me that he was just back from London where he had spent a fruitful day in the Reading Room of the British Museum. Handing me a large used manila envelope, he said almost shyly, ‘Here are some notes I took at the same time. They relate to this house and I thought they might be of help to you as you are setting your novel here. Oh, don’t bother with them now. Look at them at your leisure.’

  I thanked him and put the envelope to one side. I could imagine the sort of material it contained — a quotation from the Domesday Book, extracts from some ancient title deeds and population statistics over the last century. But it was a kind thought and I hope I responded correctly.

  Next morning a letter arrived embossed with the winged-helmet emblem which told me it was from my agent.

  ‘Why don’t you get a device known as a telephone installed like most civilized people?’ Sweet Sylvia wrote, and went on to say that Radio City had been in touch with her, asking if I would take part in Charity Brown’s chat programme in a couple of days’ time.

  ‘I said I was sure you would be interested,’ Sylvia wrote. ‘I hate the idea of your losing even one day on Whispering Corner but one cannot ignore Charity’s radio show. Such publicity would reassure your new editorial director that you’re hardly a back number. Please call me from a village phone box urgently.’

  Having at last established a work pattern in which all my time was devoted to the novel, I resented the prospect of having to drive up to London. But Sylvia knew best, I told myself, and after shaving off a growth of beard whose greyness came as something of a shock, I set out along Church Walk in the direction of the village. There I put a call through to the agency and told Sylvia I would be happy to do my bit on Radio City.

  ‘Splendid. I did insist that you’d be the only author,’ she said. ‘There’ll be three others, one of whom will be the obligatory pop star, I expect. But I do happen to know that you’ll be rubbing shoulders with royalty.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘King Syed of Abu Sabbah has agreed to go on air.’

  ‘King who of where?’

  ‘Syed of Abu Sabbah. The person at Radio City told me that Abu Sabbah is a tiny kingdom on the Red Sea. No one seems to have heard of it. No oil, I suppose. Now, old chum, dare I ask …’

  ‘It’s going,’ I said.

  ‘How many pages?’

  ‘You know I never number them.’

  ‘Same old answer to the same old question. But do get it finished on time. I think Jocasta Mount-William would love an excuse to hold your book back. I understand she’s using every trick in the book to push the Clipper fiction list more what she sees as upmarket.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, feeding more coins into the phone slot. ‘I eat, sleep and drink bloody Whispering Corner …’

  ‘Good. But go easy on the drinking bit, especially on the show. No remarks like that pearl about critics being like eunuchs in bordellos.’

  ‘In vino veritas,’ I said.

  ‘Well, no vino tomorrow night.’

  ‘I promise. I’ll stay cool, give the popular answers and plug my forthcoming book.’

  ‘Take a serious line; that’ll go down well with Clipper. The artistic aspect of the horror genre … drop a few names like Henry James and De Maupassant and any other literary worthies you can think of.’

  We chatted for another minute and then I trekked back past Jenny’s Lane to Church Walk. Before plunging into the shadowed woods I surveyed the gentle countryside whose fields and distant hills were so freshly green and I felt good. Whispering Corner was taking shape, I was still rated highly enough to be invited on to one of Britain’s most popular radio shows and I was in love with my new home. I felt that I was regaining control of my destiny.

  5

  The steel band theme music faded. The ‘on-air’ light glowed. Charity Brown began the introduction to her show.

  ‘You may not know it, but today is Beltane, a very special festival for the ancient Celts and still a time when witches celebrate,’ she told the microphone.

  A beautiful black girl, Charity looked like a model in a dress whose patterning of burnt umber and gold had a medieval look. Unlike her colleagues, she shunned the almost regulation jeans and Radio City T-shirts. Her un-trendy elegance had become her trademark and caused her to be nicknamed the Princess by other members of the staff, a nickname which I believe she relished.

  ‘So being an old pagan feast day, I thought it’d be fun to invite guests who have something to say about folklore — and perhaps the supernatural,’ she continued. ‘First, I am honoured to have with me His Royal Highness King Syed of Abu Sabbah, who is especially interested in the folklore of his own country.

  The dark man seated next to Charity at the baize-topped table inclined his head. In his beautifully tailored suit there was a hint of the film star about King Syed; a junior Omar Sharif, a gossip columnist later dubbed him.

  ‘And we also have with us Mandy Devine,’ said Charity. ‘Her hit single is still at number one, and I understand she has a really spooky story to tell us. Sitting next to Mandy is the Reverend Dr Andrew McAndrew, a Church of England clergyman who is regarded as the foremost exorcist in the country, and whether you believe that evil can be cast out of people or not I know you’ll be fascinated by what he has to say on the subject. Last but far from least, we have Jonathan Northrop, the author of Shadows and Mirrors.’ With the seemingly effortless skill that had made her a top broadcaster, Charity set the scene and got the chat under way. She knew to the second how long to let anyone speak and how to get someone else started. She launched Mandy Devine into a story about how she and her group saw ghosts when appearing in the old Opera House at Firbridge-on-Sea.

  ‘Right in the middle of our act I realized that we weren’t alone on the stage,’ said Mandy in her professional cockney. ‘It weren’t half eerie to have them shadowy figures round us. At first I thought I was seeing things like, because of the strobes. But they were there sure enough because the rest of the group saw ’em.’

  ‘How extraordinary,’ said Charity. ‘What were they doing?’

  ‘Rockin’. They had guitars like, but they were rockin’ to a different beat to us, if you know what I mean. Afterwards I found out we weren’t the first to see ’em. They were supposed to be the ghosts of a pop group that got killed in an accident.’

  A good story, dreamed up by her PR people, I thought. ‘You must have experienced the paranormal, Dr McAndrew,’ said Charity, neatly switching to the elderly priest. ‘I understand that the reason you have been so successful as an exorcist is because you have a psychic streak inherited from your mother — the “sight” as they call it in Scotland.’

  I watched him with professional interest as he launche
d into an amusing childhood story about a spectre in the Orkneys where he grew up. I believed the casting out of demons was rubbish — real popular press stuff — but I gained the impression that the old chap sincerely believed in what he termed ‘the ministry of exorcism’. One Sunday newspaper had labelled him the Devil Hunter, but it was hard to equate such a cognomen with the small, silver-haired man sitting beside me.

  Everything about him seemed mild; even his face gave no hint of his outré calling. His cheeks were rosy and his expression was the essence of mildness, apart from his eyes. Despite his age, and I believe he was close to his three score and ten, they were as clear as crystal and disturbingly blue.

  After he had finished his tale Charity turned to King Syed.

  ‘Obviously Abu Sabbah is Islamic,’ she said, ‘but do you have the same sort of folklore creatures as us? Ghosts, for example?’

  ‘Oh yes, we are highly haunted,’ he responded with his charming laugh. ‘And as I am sure Dr McAndrew will agree, our exorcists are kept busy getting rid of them, especially in the desert hinterland where the tribesfolk have not yet been encompassed by the twentieth century. And not only ghosts. You have vampires and we have ghouls.’

  ‘There’s a distinction?’

  ‘An unpleasant one. Your vampires gain sustenance from the blood of the living; our ghouls devour the flesh of the dead …’ And then he went on to talk about jinn, who had developed into our pantomime genie.

  When it came to my turn Charity asked me the usual question: what made me write horror novels? Remembering Sweet Sylvia’s strict injunction I did my serious bit, solemnly explaining that there was a social need for such literature and it was this aspect which fascinated me.

  ‘The world is going through a period of disillusionment,’ I said pontifically. ‘After Darwin scotched people’s belief in fundamental Christianity, science became the new religion. At the beginning of the century it appeared that the god Science would bring about a worldwide Utopia. Now we know that as well as benefits it has brought pollution and weapons of spectacular horror — and I don’t just mean nuclear bombs. On a less dramatic scale the god Science has handed us the tools of terrorism: napalm, car bombs, chemical weapons in the Gulf War. Remember when Beirut was bombarded with phosphorus shells? In the hospitals the bodies of children who had been hit had to be kept under water to stop them burning. That is real horror.’