Falco crossed the room and looked at the dribbles of wax which had dried on the wallpaper, and the candelabrum, one of whose arms was badly bent with the impact of striking the wall.
‘I’ve never believed in that stuff,’ he said. ‘It’s not been scientifically proved.’
Lorna looked at him wide-eyed. ‘But I’m telling you I saw it happen,’ she said in a quiet, determined voice. ‘Do you think I threw it across the room? Are you suggesting that I made the story up?’
‘Of course not. Most likely you felt faint, grabbed the candelabrum and it shot out of your hand …’
‘So, as I was going into a swoon, the candelabrum left my hand with enough force to bend it.’
‘OK, that’s a stupid theory,’ Falco conceded. ‘It’s just that I can’t take that psychic …’
His voice stopped in midsentence.
Somewhere in the house a baby was crying.
I decided that was a good point to end the chapter.
9
Looking back on the days following Ashley’s dramatic entry into my life, I find it quite extraordinary how swiftly my mood could change. Often during the witch hour of the night I would wake up with a panic attack and lie in the darkness with mad sums going through my head; sums in which I tried to work out how I could pay the Regent Bank and still keep Whispering Corner. Sums that of course never worked out.
Sometimes my mood was a calm, almost melancholic, depression about the novel I was writing. Reviewing what I had written I would come to the conclusion that the whole thing was ridiculous. I was merely putting down words in a Pavlovian reflex. Then I would tell myself that I ought to return to reality and do something positive such as take up King Syed’s offer and go and teach Eng. Lit. in Abu Sabbah.
Reflecting these moods were dreams — or did my moods reflect my dreams? — which would have delighted a psychoanalyst for their textbook quality. I remember one in particular in which I was seated at a bal masque. Costumed dancers whirled in wild rhythm; then the music changed and they began a formal minuet. Something about their automaton-like movements gave me a sense of foreboding. They stopped and in the following silence a couple approached where I was seated in shadow. They were dressed as Harlequin and Columbine and when they removed their masks I saw the faces of Jocasta Mount-William and Charles Nixon. At that moment a spotlight focused upon me and laughter rolled from the assembled company. Then, to my horror, I realized that I was seated on a lavatory.
I found the best antidote to the negative phases was to have a brandy and get to work. As my anxiety subsided and I gained control of my thoughts, a calmer frame of mind took over and I became immersed in the relationship between Falco and Lorna, and the growing atmosphere of menace which hung over them. It seemed to me that since these two characters became lovers they had come to life, their feelings for each other animating them in a way I had not known even with the best of my previous characters.
A curious aspect of the developing story was that while I was deeply involved in their discovery of each other and enjoyed writing their conversations, the gathering storm of paranormal activity seemed to develop automatically. I began to share the sense of claustrophobia that was enfolding them.
A couple of days after my return from London I telephoned my accountant in the forlorn hope that he might have found a way out of the mess.
‘I’ve got a copy of the form you signed from the bank,’ Paul Lincoln told me. ‘There’s no doubt about it; they’ve got you over a barrel. There was no limit on how high the overdraft could go. The way people cheerfully sign away their birthrights never ceases to amaze me.’
‘But I should have been warned,’ I said, warming to the old theme.
‘Barnet was right when he told you there was no legal obligation on the bank to do so, but, having said that, they should have protected your interests, especially when they must have known the sort of character your partner is. My private opinion is that someone boobed in allowing him to have such a facility when no money was coming in, and now they’re trying to rectify it by clobbering you before head office clobbers them. But that doesn’t help you.’
‘I just don’t know what to do,’ I said dispiritedly.
‘You just get your book finished and hope that your agent can get some quick sales. Meanwhile there’s nothing that can be done at the moment. When the bank gets a writ issued against you we’ll need a red hot solicitor.’
He talked on for a while, explaining the legal steps that must be followed before the bailiff actually knocked on my door.
The depression engendered by this conversation lifted as I returned to Whispering Corner and saw its steep-angled gables appear through the symphony of greens which made up the woodland. The early summer light gave it a comforting quality, its patches of ivy dark green against ancient brick, its windows no longer blank but shining in welcome. I felt that since my arrival the house had become subtly reanimated, and whatever happened in the future nothing could take away the pleasure I had found in it. That, like the love one feels for a dead friend, would remain forever.
An airmail letter was waiting for me. As I picked it up I realized that over the past few days my thoughts had revolved so closely round the bank and round my novel, and the part Ashley was playing in it as Lorna, that everything else had become remote. I had rarely thought about Pamela until I slit the envelope she had addressed.
In the letter she wrote enthusiastically about her work on the perfume launch and the breathless — her word — time she was having in New York. She closed affectionately, as though to an old friend, and left me with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction.
At the end of the day I drove to the cottage hospital for my usual visit to Ashley. Each time I saw her she had improved, her speech growing more confident and the tendency for her eyes to close lessening. When she had been in hospital for a week she announced, ‘I’m having another lot of tests tomorrow and then, if they’re OK, I can go home.’
‘And where is home?’ I asked, prepared for this development.
She answered that she would go to London and find accommodation. On the notice board at New Zealand House there would be advertisements from girls looking for flatmates. No problem. But I saw that despite her confident tone she was not looking forward to the effort it would involve.
‘You won’t feel like traipsing round bedsitland yet,’
I said. ‘You really need to have a quiet period after concussion. I can just imagine what it’d be like if you moved in with a bunch of lively kiwi girls — the ghetto-blaster blasting, telly on until close-down, all-night parties …’
Ashley gave an amused shudder.
‘And their boyfriends! Big muscle-bound brutes named Bruce and Kevin singing rugby songs and cracking tubes …’
‘Not Bruce and Kevin!’ She was laughing now.
‘Definitely Bruce and Kevin. But you do have another option.’
‘I have?’
‘You could stay at Whispering Corner until you’re fit enough to brave the big city.’
‘That’s kind,’ she said, giving me a level look with her cool dark eyes. ‘But you have your novel to finish and I’d only be in the way.’
I shook my head. ‘There’s more than enough room for two in the house. We could go for ages without bumping into each other. And no strings,’ I added.
‘No strings?’
‘I promise.’
She gave a little smile and I thought I must have sounded pompous.
‘I’m having a raving affair with my heroine at the moment,’ I said to lighten my words. ‘I couldn’t be unfaithful to her.’
‘If it’s not my eager young body you lust after — why?’
‘I suppose you could call it friendship,’ I replied. ‘And it seems to me that as you had such bad luck when you came to see your great-aunt’s old home it might be nice for you to live in it for a little while.’
‘Yes, I’d love that. Maybe I’d pick up her vibes. But are you sure th
at’s the real reason? You haven’t got a complex about helping lame dogs … ?’
What was the real reason? I looked at Ashley with her black curls on the pristine hospital pillow while the blood-red hospital blanket decorously outlined her breasts — so full for someone as slender as she — and I had to admit that I found her a highly attractive young woman. Yet this was not the reason I wanted her to be my guest.
Probably the least endearing aspect of a writer is his detachment. No matter how involved he may become in human situations, no matter how much he may enjoy himself or suffer, there is part of him standing to one side, a neutral observer taking notes for future reference. This alter ego will even seek copy in his own tragedy; he will store the dialogue when a lover announces the end of an affair, analyse emotions by the open grave. Once I believed I was dying and as I was rushed into hospital I was aware of the other me — the recorder — observing my reactions and quite aloof from the pain as I was wheeled to what I expected to be my doom.
There was no doubt that the idea of having Ashley about the house was pleasant, but at that moment it was as Lorna that I really wanted her.
So it was agreed that she would recuperate at Whispering Corner. I drove home in the twilight with a rare sense of elation, savouring the sky darkening to indigo, the curving fields blurring into dusk, the black acrobatics of the bats and the woods losing their innocence with nightfall.
All I needed now was a villain for my puppet theatre.
*
The next day I brought Ashley home. Perhaps it is odd to use that expression, as she had never lived at Whispering Corner, but it indicates how my mind was working at the time. Although Ashley fiercely denied it, she was still weak from the effects of concussion and a week in a hospital bed. After a boil-in-the-bag supper she was relieved to go up to the bedroom I had prepared for her.
‘Thanks for everything,’ she said at the door as I bade her goodnight. ‘I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to be staying in my great-aunt’s house. It must sound crazy, but it’s like a childhood dream come true. I feel there is something very special about this place. Or is that just my imagination?’
‘I felt that from the moment I first saw Whispering Corner,’ I answered. ‘Perhaps there is something in Lawrence Durrell’s idea of Spirit of Place. Sleep well, and tomorrow you can explore the ancestral pile to your heart’s content.’
I went to my study and started to work against the background of the Dian Derbyshire LP. It was well after midnight when I sat back with the dazed feeling that comes after an intensive stint on the typewriter, and when I went to bed soon afterwards I had a recurrence of the hypnagogic voices which had repeated meaningless sentences in my head after my arrival at Whispering Corner. Again there were the disjointed phrases, and a sibilant voice repeating over and over, ‘The time will come … the time will come.’
This did not worry me. I had looked up hypnagogsis in one of my reference books and was reassured to read that it is not an uncommon occurrence, especially when one is fatigued or anxious.
Next morning I awoke to a glorious day. From my bedroom window I saw the tops of the trees moving in a gentle sea swell, while the cloudless sky appeared to have transposed its colour from the Mediterranean. The vividness of the scene communicated an excitement to me, the sort of excitement I had felt as a young man waking up in a strange city when anything seemed possible. Even my usual morning depression — with its desperate financial reckonings, imaginary letters to the Regent Bank and imaginary conversations with Charles Nixon — was absent. And I remembered that I had a guest.
I shaved, dressed and went down to the kitchen to make breakfast. Though the bacon was a little too crisp — some epicures might have said charred — in places, the second batch of toast was passable. I was opening the window to allow the fumes of the first lot to escape when Ashley appeared at the door in a cream towelling robe.
‘Something smells good,’ she lied. ‘Am I invited?’
‘This breakfast feast is in your honour.’
‘Then I am honoured … I think those eggs are done.’
While I snatched the frying pan from the glowing ring of the stove she seated herself at the table and exclaimed, ‘What a bright, peaceful morning. It makes me feel as though Whispering Corner likes me being here. It is kind of you to let me stay.’
‘How do you feel?’
‘The headache’s gone. The funny thing is I can’t remember much of what happened before I was taken to hospital. Did I really run out into the garden or was that a nightmare?’
‘You ran out all right and scared the hell out of me,’ I told her. ‘Have you any idea what made you do it?’
‘I think something upset me.’
‘At the time you said that voices frightened you and you had to get out.’
‘That’s interesting. I don’t remember hearing anything now, but it might have been caused by the concussion.’ Then she laughed. ‘It couldn’t have been the whispering of the plague victims, could it?’
‘You know about the legend?’
‘Oh, yes. My grandfather told us about the ghostly voices with great relish. It was all part of the mythology of Whispering Corner. It was that old story which gave the house its name, wasn’t it?’
‘So I believe.’
‘Do you think I heard ghosts, then?’ She looked amused at the idea and I could imagine her writing it as an anecdote in a letter to the folks back in Taranaki.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Even if there was such a thing as the whispering you wouldn’t hear it here. I’ll show you the spot. It’s a bend in Church Walk where, according to the vicar, the plague refugees were supposed to have rested. It would be easy to think you could hear something like soft voices there — the wind makes the trees rustle quite loudly in that part of the wood. If you’re superstitious you can imagine all sorts of weird things. Since I’ve been down here I’ve heard voices just as I’m going to sleep. If I believed in old wives’ tales I could imagine I was having a supernatural experience; in fact it’s quite a common symptom caused by fatigue or tension.’
‘You suffer from tension?’
‘I was a bit worried about my novel being behind schedule,’ I said lightly.
‘I guessed you were under some sort of stress when you visited me,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid that I’ll be in the way and make matters worse.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘I’ll do the cooking. That’ll give you a bit more time.’
‘That’s a deal,’ I said. ‘A young chap stayed a few nights here a couple of weeks ago. He took over the catering and it made a great difference.’
‘Now I know why you really wanted me here,’ Ashley laughed.
‘When I bought the house I had to have it redecorated,’ I said, ‘but there’s one room which escaped the handyman’s attention because the door was locked. I had to break in, finally. Later on I’ll show it to you. Miss Constance used it as her sanctum and there are still a few mementos of her there.’ And I went on to tell her about the poem that had been written in the trenches.
‘I’d love to make a copy of it,’ she said. ‘It’s sort of sad that a few lines on a piece of paper are all that remains of her great love affair.’
‘That’s exactly what I thought when I found it.’
After breakfast I took myself off to my study and resumed the story. Falco is unable to accept the idea of the supernatural, and fears that the girl he has fallen in love with has a split personality. The only explanation he can think of for the so-called poltergeist incident is that she threw the candelabra at the wall herself and immediately afterwards was unaware of what she had done.
Falco watches her actions and reactions surreptitiously but not surreptitiously enough and Lorna has a shrewd notion of what he suspects. Afraid of bringing their thoughts out into the open, both endeavour to behave normally, and the growing tension that results is only relieved by frantic — almost despairing — love-making.
I knew
that soon two things would have to happen in the story. Firstly a petty quarrel will cause Falco to lose his self-control and voice his suspicions, and Lorna will leave Whispering Corner in anger. Then Falco will come face to face with the supernatural himself. This time it will be something more dramatic than a candelabrum flying across a room.
Secondly, my instinct as a storyteller warned me that the element of human iniquity must soon be added to that of the paranormal. The trouble was that at that stage I had no idea of the character of my villain or his — or her — motivation in bringing harm to the couple.
I had just reached the point where Falco and Lorna are about to turn on each other when there was a tap at the door and Ashley entered wearing boutique jeans and a dark red shirt which complemented her olive complexion.
‘I don’t want to disturb the muse,’ she began. ‘But you said …’
‘I’d show you round,’ I finished. ‘Don’t worry, Melpomene is ready for her coffee break. Just give me a few minutes.’
‘Melpomene? I should have thought Calliope would have been your goddess.’
While I typed she looked about the room with curiosity, especially at my reference books.
‘You into black magic?’ she asked when I triumphantly pulled a sheet of paper from my typewriter and laid it on a pile in the desk drawer. Only another two hundred and fifty to go!
‘Of course not,’ I answered. ‘But I’ve made a study of the occult to get authentic backgrounds for some of my novels.’
‘Your readers would be disappointed if they knew what an unbeliever you are,’ she said. ‘But there are things that can’t be explained. When I was a little girl I believed in the local taniwha. The Maoris believed it was a sort of supernatural water monster. In the creek near our farm there was supposed to be a taniwha who claimed a life every year, and sure enough I can’t remember a year going by without someone being drowned in it.’
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