‘No, I don’t.’
‘What about alcohol?’
‘I’m a light social drinker,’ she told him. ‘I did have a bit of liqueur that night, the first time, but not much, and the second time was mid-morning and I was drinking tea.’
‘Sounds fine,’ he said. ‘All right, Mrs Spence. Now, let’s assume that what happened to you was genuine.’
‘Yes.’
‘What do you want to ask me about it?’
That threw her. ‘What was it?’
‘I don’t know. A ghost? That’s an old worn-out term, loaded with dubious connotations. I think it’s more helpful to consider these things as a form of communication.’
‘He was naked,’ Carrie said suddenly. ‘Jeffrey told me that you had said that made it more likely to be genuine, because the dead don’t take their clothes with them when they die.’
Crawford seemed to find that rather amusing. ‘Jeffrey would misunderstand that, now, wouldn’t he? But it doesn’t necessarily prove anything. Stop and think. Dead people don’t take their clothes with them, true, but they don’t take their skin and bones either, do they?’
‘Well … no.’
‘So, what you saw was a kind of projection. It was the form and language of a particular communication.’
‘From my father.’
‘That seems likely.’
‘In the afterlife.’
Crawford frowned. ‘That’s another weak term, afterlife. As if death is an end. But maybe it’s just the continuation of this life, in another form, here but unseen and unheard – most of the time. Maybe here is all there is, and it’s for ever.’
‘But…’ Carrie had the feeling that she wasn’t making any progress, that Crawford might continue to offer nothing more than nebulous ambiguities. ‘What would be the point of it?’
‘Simply to communicate.’
‘To communicate what?’ she persisted.
‘That he survives, that there is continuation. To remind you of him, and his love for you.’
‘And that’s the end of it?’
‘Quite possibly.’ Crawford signalled for another round. ‘I know that most mediums and channels profess to carry on endless conversations with the spirits of the departed, but you shouldn’t put much stock in that. The best and most likely cases of real contact are the briefest glancing hits, like the ones you seem to have experienced.’
‘There has to be more to it.’
‘You want more. That’s understandable. We all do.’
‘No,’ Carrie insisted, surprised at the surge of conviction in her own voice. ‘He was in such pain, or sadness, and he was trying to tell me something.’
‘If there is more, something will happen.’
‘Could it be a warning? An omen?’
‘Could be. There are lots of possibilities.’
It was maddening. ‘This doesn’t help me at all,’ she said in exasperation. ‘I want to do something, I want to understand. I don’t want to sit around waiting and hoping, I want to take the next step myself.’
Crawford stared at her, then sighed.
‘Mrs Spence, if you want to invest your time and money in this, you can. But I want you to understand that the chances are really very, very slim that it will lead anywhere. It’s a rarity when genuine contact is made at all, far rarer still for it to be continued or revived. You can spend months and even years at it, and end up knowing nothing more than you do now.’
‘How can I try?’
Crawford sighed again. ‘A medium. I think channel is a terrible word. Anyhow, most of them are either deluded fools or outright frauds, but there are a few – very few – individuals who appear to have remarkable abilities.’
‘Can you put me in touch with one of them?’
‘She might not even see you,’ Crawford warned. ‘But there’s a very interesting young woman in Connecticut…’
7
Charley poured a generous amount of gin into a glass pitcher and then added Sauterne. He stirred, tasted the chopstick, added more Sauterne and tasted again. Too sweet: another splash of gin. The object was neutrality. Ah, yes.
‘Here, try this.’ He handed Heather the drink.
She made a face. ‘It tastes strange.’
Charley gave a wicked low laugh. ‘It’s called Dog and Duck, and it was cooked up by the obscure Welsh spook writer and genial essayist, Arthur Machen. I suppose that you’ve never even heard of him, poor ignorant child of the times that you are.’
‘Never. What’s it supposed to be?’
‘The martini from hell.’
‘You can’t taste the gin.’
‘Point. And when you wake up, it’ll be September.’
‘Did you mix it right?’ Heather could be so uncooperative. ‘It has a horrible stink and it looks like pee.’
‘Keep drinking, my sweet.’
He changed the music, putting on the Hamilton Harty disc to which he regularly subjected Heather, in the admittedly faint hope that it might eventually leach into her brain. But she was a graduate assistant in musicology, and you couldn’t tell her anything. He plopped down into a heavy armchair.
‘Charley, you didn’t tell me there already is a biography of Dunsany. I was in Sterling yesterday, and I looked him up in the subject index, since you’re always mumbling about him, and I saw this biography listed. Is that why you’ve never followed through and written one yourself?’
‘I don’t mumble,’ he said. ‘That’s a shoddy piece of work, that one is. An anecdotal account of the life, zero analytical content. Magic realism is never mentioned, but the Latins adore the little git. They’ll tell you straight up.’
‘So why don’t you do it properly?’
‘I may yet.’ A change of subject was called for: he was in no mood to be lectured on career moves. Heather was a darling, and she certainly meant well, but she was still young and hopeful and she knew nothing about the subtle compensations of decline. ‘Heather, let me ask you something. Do you believe in ESP, ghosts, the spirit world, messages from the dead? Do you think there’s anything to it?’
She blinked. Thought. ‘Well, maybe. Why not?’ She sat up a little straighter in her chair. ‘Well, yes. I do.’
Not quite a monument to Aristotelian logic, Charley thought, but every generation must find its own humble way.
‘Why?’ he dared to ask.
‘I know a few people who have experienced it,’ Heather told him. ‘My mother, for one. Years ago, before I was born, she got all shivery and trembling. It was in the middle of a warm summer afternoon and she suddenly felt cold and frightened, and couldn’t do anything for an hour or so until it passed. It turned out it was at about that time that her cousin died in Vietnam.’
‘A cousin?’ Didn’t seem quite right to Charley. That sort of supernatural carry-on ought to be restricted to members of the immediate family.
‘They were very close,’ Heather explained.
‘So, what would you say it was, exactly?’ he asked. ‘How do you account for something like that?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted cheerfully. ‘But it happens to people often enough, so there must be something to it.’
Ah, yes. There must be something to it. Charley had heard that before, and found it unsatisfactory. All the same, it was a tricky point to get around. Reasonable people, like Maggie, felt there had to be something to it. Sensible and highly intelligent people, like Mal, were open to the possibility. And, give Heather her due, she was a bright lass and a solid academic.
So why did he resist?
The original incident itself was reason enough. No one in their right mind would want to recall the sheer godless horror of it. Then there was the idiocy of the claim. It was an insult to the intelligence to suggest that some potty old woman could pull down a message out of thin air from the dead. Long dead. If you needed more, there was the pointlessness of it all. You proceed on the basis of certain assumptions, Maggie had told him. Okay, but where does it all
lead? Assume it was a real message and that it came from Fiona. What could she say? How I dearly wish I wasn’t here. It’s cold and dark and lonely. Like that.
People had been fooling around in this line for ages, gazing at tea-leaves, shuffling Tarot cards, peering into crystals and rattling tables – and yet, what was there to show for it? No clear, consistent understanding, not even a slim foothold of solid ground. Nothing at all.
‘Why did you ask?’
‘Funny thing happened to a friend of mine.’
‘What was it?’
Charley frowned. ‘He was at a seance, I guess, some kind of psychic gathering, and right out of the blue he heard the name of somebody he’d known years ago.’
‘Did anyone else there know the name?’
‘Apparently not. That’s what’s spooky about it.’
‘A dead person?’
‘Oh, yes, yes…’
‘Wow. What did he do about it?’
‘Not much you can do, is there?’
Charley got up and poured himself some more of Mr Machen’s inspired punch. He topped up Heather’s glass too. It seemed to be giving her an attractive smutty glow.
‘Maybe he could help.’
‘Help how?’ Charley asked warily.
‘If a spirit is troubled, not at peace.’
‘Oh?’ Charley didn’t want to hear any more about it, but he had to eventually. It was the one niggling thought that wouldn’t go away. Maggie and Malcolm hadn’t even mentioned it, no doubt thinking it would be too painful for him, and they had probably known that he would find his own way to it sooner or later. ‘Just what is that supposed to mean? Not at peace?’
Heather shrugged. ‘A restless spirit that’s trapped between this world and the next?’
‘Why would it be trapped?’
‘Perhaps it can’t let go and needs help. Perhaps it has to make peace with the living before it can move on.’
‘Unfinished business, sort of thing?’
‘Yes. Well, when you hear about a place that’s supposed to be haunted, it’s usually something like that. Some dead people can’t cut their ties to this world. They’re not ready to depart, so their spirit lingers on. You know?’
God, it was ludicrous, Charley thought. As if the dead were jet planes lined up on some cosmic runway and had to have their wings de-iced before they could take off. Crazy.
Or was he being too sceptical? Maybe he was so addicted to rationalism that he could no longer cope with true uncertainty. How were you supposed to deal with it or respond to it? Charley had no skills in this area.
‘So what would you do in that situation?’ he asked. ‘How would you help a restless spirit?’
‘Gosh, I have no idea,’ Heather said, with a laugh.
Fair enough. Look at me, will you? Asking questions like that and expecting a sensible answer from a person who listens to some of the worst racket in the history of human sound.
‘Maybe it was his angel,’ she offered.
‘His angel?’ Wild disbelief. ‘Guardian angel?’
‘Yes, they’re very popular these days. Nice idea, I guess. I saw the author of a book about them on TV not long ago.’
‘Bullshit is what it is,’ Charley said bitterly. Where had Fiona’s guardian angel been that day? Down at the pub, having a quick pint? Away on an errand for the Boss? ‘Complete bullshit. Fuck that shit. Angels.’
Heather’s eyes widened. ‘Charley. What is it? Was it you? Did that happen to you?’
‘No, it really was a friend of mine. Honest.’ Technically true. Heather knew nothing about Fiona, and Charley didn’t care to unveil that grim megalith of history to her.
‘Only you seem so intense about it.’
‘I’m sorry. Bad mood.’ Charley rallied himself. ‘Maybe if you were to hitch the hem of that skirt a bit north of your knee. I’ll fetch another pail of the right stuff.’
Heather could be wonderfully teasing and seductive when she was given a hint, bless her. Jan would give you a blank look if you said something like that to her. Fifteen years ago she would have given you a blank look. Alas and alack, a lass with a lack. And so – an occasional drink, a book, music, a secret dalliance, whatever it takes to get your mind off morbid thoughts.
Because the thought that something of Fiona might linger on to this day, restless and unhappy, that was unbearable. Where does it end? Does it ever end? Or is there some torment beyond death, a bleak and barren limbo of infinite misery to which even innocent wee babes are consigned? And, if that were true, surely no living person could do anything to help. You can’t storm the kingdom of the dead and perform heroic Dunsanian rescues. It’s just not on. You can’t help the dead, old son.
And yet. And yet. And yet.
How could you not try?
* * *
The best part of a week passed before Charley arrived at Lea Crescent. Time enough to feel foolish, and guilty. He had called up and spoken to some woman but had found himself suddenly so tattered with emotion that he was barely coherent, and afterwards he could hardly remember a thing she’d said to him.
Late afternoon was the best time – she had said that, or so he seemed to recall. Westville was a small neighbourhood of quiet streets and older homes, duplexes and triple-deckers. It took a few minutes of cruising around before Charley found Lea Crescent. He pulled his aged green Volvo to the kerb and checked the house numbers. Third one along, near enough. He cut the engine, which died with its usual clatter and wheeze.
The house was set back from the street and on a knoll. The yard was narrow, bordered with tall but stringy hedges of hemlock and shaded by a couple of huge sugar maples. There was a flight of cement stairs from the street, and then a stone pathway rising more gradually across a spotty lawn to the front porch.
The house itself was not unattractive. It looked large and roomy, but it needed a bit of scrape and paint in places. At a guess, it was fifty to sixty years old. Charley climbed the four steps to the porch. He felt nervous, and that annoyed him. They were auditioning, he reminded himself, he wasn’t.
The woman who answered the door was a good deal younger than he had expected, young enough to pass for an undergraduate. Her jeans and sweatshirt were from an expensive mail-order catalogue, and she wore thick white socks with no shoes. She was tall, with fair skin and long auburn hair. A bit of all right.
‘I called a few days ago? Charley O’Donnell.’
‘Oh, yes. I’m Rosalind Rodgers. Do come in.’
Charley followed her into a front room just off the entrance hall. She shut the door behind them and they sat down on either side of a large glass coffee table.
‘How can I help you?’
Charley perched on the edge of the armchair and cleared his throat. ‘Well, somebody suggested that I get in touch with you. I need some advice. I lost someone. A dear friend,’ he added, on an impulse. ‘He may be trying to reach me or he may need my help in some way. I’m not sure, and I don’t know about these things, but if there’s a chance that you – or Oona, is it? If she can help me I’d be very grateful.’
‘Yes, Oona.’ Rosalind nodded once. ‘When you say that you’ve lost someone, I take it you mean he died.’
‘Yes.’
‘Because we get both kinds of cases. Runaways, abductions and others presumed still living, as well as the dead.’
‘I see. No, this person is dead.’
‘All right.’ Another brief nod. ‘I’d better explain a few things so there’s no misunderstanding. Oona doesn’t claim to conduct conversations with the dead. She isn’t a channel, in the sense that most people understand the term.’
Charley nodded. Her eyes were flat blue, almost slate, and she had three jet studs in one earlobe.
‘Oona has a very special talent,’ Rosalind went on. ‘In the right circumstances she can open new lines of understanding, and that can make a profound difference to the people involved. It’s often a difficult process that takes time, but it can also be as bri
ef and inexact as looking through the window of a train as it speeds by. And that may be all you ever get.’
‘That would be something.’
She was studying him carefully. ‘But you may come away with less than you thought, or in some way be the worse for it.’
‘How could that happen?’ Aside from losing money.
‘You may think you know what you’ll find on the other side, but you’re never sure until you actually do it.’
‘Yes, well, I’m quite prepared to come away empty-handed, if that’s the way it is. But I have to try.’
‘It can be painful.’
‘A little pain’s good for the soul.’
‘I mean, very painful. I mean, deeply disturbing – in ways that could change you and stay with you permanently.’
‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ he asked. ‘That I learn my friend has been sent to hell for eternity?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s not the worst—’
The door opened at that moment, and a younger woman stepped into the room. Young enough to pass for a high school senior, Charley noted. A cut-off Morrissey T-shirt, Spandex racing shorts, knee socks that were bunched up around the high tops of her sneakers, and an astounding flame of thick black hair that shot out and down and away from her head. Slimmer, not as tall, and yet there was a facial resemblance. The kid sister, most likely, and an eyeful at that.
‘There you are,’ she said to Rosalind. But then she noticed Charley. ‘Oh, sorry.’
She started to back out of the room but stopped, looking at him intently. She came closer and Charley felt unnerved suddenly by the ferocious hunger in her eyes. It was a peculiar look that made him think she might be marginally deranged, and all the more disconcerting on such a lovely face. The closer she came to him, the more she seemed to fill the room and crowd him. His thoughts appeared to be fraying visibly around the inner circumference of his eyeballs. Now he could see that her eyes were a very intense blue, deep enough to approach dark purple. Charley could imagine a pinhole of light burning through his forehead, then out through the back of his skull. Himself leaking away.
‘You’ve come to see me, haven’t you?’ she said.
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