Mrs Caliban and other stories

by Rachel Ingalls

  By the time their coats had been removed and the bottle plucked from Jim’s hands, they were ready for anything.

  One of the men led them down a corridor. Like the hallway, it was dark. The floor sounded as if it might be tile. The air was cold and smelled unpleasant. Lisa reached for Jim’s hand.

  The tall man in the lead threw open a double door. Light came rushing out in a flow of brilliance. In front of them lay a bright, inviting room: glass-topped tables, gilded mirrors, chrome and leather armchairs in black and white, semi-circular couches. There were eight other people in the room. They’d been laughing when the door had opened on them. Now they were turned towards Jim and Lisa as if the room had become a stage set and they were the cast of a play.

  ‘Your guests, madam,’ the first butler said. He snapped the doors shut behind him.

  A woman who had been standing by the mantelpiece came forward. She had on a long, blackish velvet gown and what at first appeared to be a head-dress, but which – seen closer – was actually her own dark hair piled up high; lines of pearls were strung out and perched in wavy configurations along the ridges and peaks of the structure.

  Jim let go of Lisa’s hand. She could feel how embarrassed he was. He’d be fighting the urge to jam his hands into his pockets.

  ‘Um,’ he began, ‘Elaine –’

  ‘We thought you’d never get here,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Isabelle.’

  She took his hand lightly in hers and let it go again almost immediately. Then she repeated the action as Jim made the introductions. Lisa realized that although the woman was certainly middle-aged and not particularly slim, she was beautiful. But something was wrong with the impression she gave. She had enough natural magnificence to carry her opera-diva get-up without appearing ridiculous; and yet she seemed out of date. And the touch of her hand had been odd.

  Isabelle introduced them around the room. Dora and Steve, the couple nearest to them, were grey-haired. Steve wore a grey flannel suit that might once have been office regulation but at the moment looked fairly shapeless. Dora sported a baggy tweed jacket and skirt. Both husband and wife were pudgily plump, and they wore glasses: his, an old-fashioned pair of horn-rims; hers, an extraordinary bat-wing design in neon blue, with rhinestones scintillating at the tips. It came out in subsequent conversation that the two were schoolteachers and that they were interested in the occult.

  Isabelle gave no hint as to the marital status of the next four people introduced: who was paired with whom, and in what way. There were two women and two men. The women were both young: Carrol, a plain girl with long, straight orange hair and a knobbly, pale face; Jeanette, pretty and brunette, who had shiny brown eyes and a good figure. She was an airline stewardess.

  ‘And Dr Benjamin,’ Isabelle said.

  The doctor bowed and said, ‘Oh, how do you do.’ He was a small, stooped man, just beginning to go white at the temples. He reminded Lisa a little of the father of a girl she’d been to school with.

  ‘And Neill. You probably recognize him.’ The young man Isabelle indicated gave Jim and Lisa each an effortless, charming smile, just specially for them. He said, ‘A lot of people don’t watch TV.’

  ‘I’m afraid we don’t,’ Jim said. ‘We get home tired, and then we eat.’ And then they jumped into bed, or else they did that before eating, or sometimes before and after too, but they hadn’t watched much television for months.

  ‘Are you in plays and things?’ Lisa asked.

  ‘I’m in a mega-soap called Beyond Love. The cast calls it Beyond Hope, or sometimes Beyond Belief. It really is.’

  ‘What’s it about?’

  ‘The short version, or the twenty-three episode breakdown?’

  ‘We all adore it,’ Isabelle said. ‘We miss it dreadfully now that the electricity’s going haywire again. We were hoping to watch it over the weekend.’

  ‘Just as well you can’t,’ Neill said.

  ‘Not another shooting? They aren’t writing you out of the script, are they?’

  ‘I think this is the one where I lose an arm. My illegitimate father whips me from the house, not knowing that – you did say the short version, didn’t you?’

  Isabelle said she didn’t believe any of it and he’d better behave. ‘And finally,’ she told Lisa and Jim, as she swayed ahead of them over the satiny rug, ‘my husband, Broderick.’ She left her hand open, her arm leading them to look at the man: swarthy, barrel-chested, bald and smiling. He looked like a man of power, an executive of some kind, who relaxed while others did the work he’d set up for them. He was leaning against the mantelpiece. The introductions had brought Jim and Lisa full circle in the room.

  ‘A quick drink,’ Isabelle suggested, pouncing gracefully upon two full glasses next to a silver tray. She handed them over, saying, ‘Our very own mixture, guaranteed harmless, but it does have some alcohol in it. If you’d rather have fruit juice –’

  Lisa was already sipping at her drink. The glass was like an oversized Martini glass but the cocktail wasn’t strong, or didn’t seem to be. It tasted rather delicate: herblike, yet pleasant. ‘This is fine,’ she said.

  ‘Sure,’ Jim added. She knew he wouldn’t like it but would be agreeing in order to be polite.

  ‘Now, we’re going to move to the dining-room soon, so if any of you ladies need a sweater or a shawl, there’s a pile over there. Or bring your own from your rooms.’ She said to Jim, ‘It’s such a nuisance – we have to keep most of the rooms a little under-heated. Something to do with the boiler.’

  ‘Not the boiler,’ Broderick said.

  ‘Well, pipes, or whatever it is. Poor Broderick – he’s suffered miseries over it.’

  ‘On the contrary. I just kicked out those two jokers who were trying to fleece us for their so-called work, and that’s why we’re up the creek now. Can’t get anybody else for another three weeks. Maybe it’ll get better tomorrow. It ought to be a lot warmer at this time of year.’

  ‘It wasn’t bad in town,’ Jim said. ‘I guess you must be in a kind of hollow. We hit a lot of fog. That’s why we were late.’

  ‘Yes, it’s notorious around here,’ Isabelle said. ‘The locals call it Foggy Valley.’

  One of the mournful butlers opened the double doors again and announced that dinner was served. Jim and Lisa tilted their glasses back. On the way out with the others, Lisa lifted a shawl from a chair near the doorway. All the other women had picked up something before her.

  *

  Carrol sat on Jim’s right, Jeanette at the left. He preferred Jeanette, who was cheerful, healthy-looking and pretty, but somehow he was drawn into talk with Carrol.

  The room was intensely, clammily, cold. He started to drink a lot of wine in order to warm himself up. Lisa, across from him, was drinking too – much more than usual.

  Carrol kept passing one of her pale, bony hands over her face, as if trying to push away cobwebs. She said that she’d felt very restless and nervous ever since giving up smoking. ‘I tried walking,’ she said. ‘They tell you to do that, but then I’d get back into the house and I’d want to start eating or smoking. So, I knit. But you can’t take it everywhere. It sort of breaks up the conversation. And I’m not very good at it, even after all this time. I have to concentrate on the counting.’ She blinked several times, as if about to cry.

  From his other side Jeanette said, ‘I guess we’re all looking for different things. Except – I bet really they’re not so different in the long run. In my case it was the planes. I’d get on and begin the routine, get everything working right, count the meals, look at the chart, see the passengers going in, and suddenly I’d just know: this one is going to crash.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Jim asked.

  ‘I got off. They were very nice about it when I explained. They didn’t fire me. But they said I had to take therapy.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I did. It was fine. It was a six-week course and it really made me feel a lot better. So, I went back to work again and
everything was OK for another year. I thought I had it licked. And then it started up again, just like before. That’s where I am now.’

  ‘What are you doing for it this time?’

  ‘I’m here,’ Jeanette said.

  Jim took another sip of the thick, brownish-red wine. It tasted dusty and bitter, although it seemed to be fairly potent, too. The bouquet reminded him of some plant or flower he couldn’t place. He took another swallow. His feet were beginning to feel cold. ‘You mean, here to relax?’ he said.

  ‘I’m here to consult Isabelle and Broderick.’

  ‘Oh. And is that helping?’

  ‘Of course. They’re wonderful.’

  ‘They’ve helped me too,’ Carrol said. ‘No end.’

  The two cadaverous butlers managed the refilling of the wine glasses and the serving of the meal, the main course of which was a stew that they ladled out of an enormous green casserole.

  Lisa looked longingly at the food as it started to be passed around. She wished that she’d taken two shawls with her instead of one. It wasn’t just the cold, either, or the general darkness of the room; there was a distinctly disagreeable, dank smell emanating from the corners, from the floor under the lovely old rug. Perhaps there was some reason, connected with the low temperature, for the odour: mould, or that kind of thing. She’d suspected at first that it might be coming from the wine, which she’d nearly choked on: it was like taking a mouthful of plasma. Neill had asked for, and been given, two more cocktails. She was thinking that she should have done that herself, when he handed both glasses straight to her without asking if she wanted them.

  She’d been seated between him and Dr Benjamin. She turned her attention to the doctor first. ‘Are you a medical doctor?’ she asked.

  He said no and told her what he was, which she didn’t understand. ‘Algae,’ he explained. ‘Pond life, biology.’ Then he made an encompassing gesture with his right hand and arm, adding, ‘But it’s all connected, you know. The animal kingdom, the vegetable kingdom, fish, flowers, rocks, trees. Fascinating. We’re only part of it.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said with delight, ‘yes.’ She’d caught his enthusiasm and all of a sudden she was drunk. She said to Neill, ‘I think I got a better deal on the cocktails. It’s just hit me. What’s in them?’

  ‘I should have warned you – they’re pretty strong. The ingredients are a closely guarded secret, but the rumour is that they’re dill, parsley and vodka, with a squeeze of lemon and a touch of aniseed. But mostly vodka.’

  ‘Nice. Better than the wine.’

  ‘The wine is an acquired taste. You’ll get to love it.’

  One of the butlers put a heaped plate of the stew in front of her. A rich, spicy aroma steamed up into her face. She looked towards Isabelle, who had lifted her fork, and dug in.

  The food was nearly as strange as the wine. The meat had a tang like game. ‘What is it?’ she asked, after she’d chewed the first mouthful.

  ‘Chicken livers, I think,’ the doctor said. ‘Delicious.’

  Lisa continued to eat. Surely they didn’t make chickens that big. And anyway, the pieces of meat were so chewy and tough, you could almost imagine they were parts of a bat.

  ‘I’ve never tasted any chicken livers like this,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, it’s all health food,’ Dr Benjamin assured her. ‘The flavours are much stronger and more natural. Our jaded palates aren’t used to them.’

  ‘Except the wine,’ Neill said. ‘It isn’t one of those health wines.’

  ‘Quite superb,’ the doctor agreed, raising his glass. The two men smiled at each other across Lisa. She bit down on another piece of her meal and hit a horny substance that resisted. It was too slippery to get back on to her fork again. She chewed rapidly, then gave up, reached in, quickly took it out of her mouth and put it on the side of her plate. It was a large, rubbery black triangle of cartilage. Her glance darted to the side. The doctor had noticed.

  ‘Wonderful stuff,’ he pronounced. ‘Terrific for the spleen.’

  ‘If you can get it that far,’ she said.

  ‘It’s good for the teeth and gums to have to chew.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Neill said. ‘I’ve got caps. Anything happens to them, it’s my salary in danger. But I’ve never hit a bone in this house. You can relax.’ He began to talk about the degree to which a television actor was dependent on his face, how you began to look at yourself completely dispassionately, as if seeing a mask from the outside. And then you stuck the emotions on afterwards. To do it the other way – beginning with the emotion and building towards the outward expression – was so exhausting that you could kill yourself like that, or go crazy. ‘You can go crazy in any case. I started to flip about three years ago. That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘I thought actors were supposed to like pretending and showing off.’

  ‘It was the series. Auto-suggestion. I got to the point where I’d think the things they were making up in the story were actually happening to me. Those characters in the soaps – they really go through it, you know. I was like living that crap. It broke up my life. Broke up my marriage.’

  ‘You got divorced?’ she asked. ‘Separated?’

  ‘It started with a coldness. Then there was an estrangement.’

  He stopped speaking. The mention of cold had made her conscious once more of the chilling damp. It seemed to be pulling the room down into ever darker and deeper layers of rawness.

  ‘Then,’ he said, ‘she took the children and left, and got the divorce.’

  ‘That’s awful,’ Lisa said. She looked at him with sympathy, but he smiled back, saying, ‘It turned out to be all for the best. It’s how I found this place. I’d never have known how far gone I was. I wouldn’t have tried to get help. Maybe an analyst, maybe not. But now I’m fine.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Broderick and Isabelle.’

  ‘Are they doctors?’

  ‘He’s a healer. She’s a medium. They don’t advertise it or anything. They aren’t in it for the money, like the fakes.’

  Just for the power, Lisa thought. She was surprised that a couple who looked as capable as Broderick and Isabelle should be mixed up in the occult. That, she thought, was for people like Dora and Steve.

  ‘I take it you’re not a believer,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I believe in faith-healing. That’s half of medicine. Well, not half. Forty-five per cent.’

  ‘You’ll come to see the rest, too,’ Dr Benjamin told her complacently. She felt angry suddenly. She didn’t know what she was doing at this stupid dinner, with these weird people, in a freezing room and eating such revolting food. Even the liquor was peculiar. She tried to catch Jim’s eye, but he was stuck with Carrol.

  The dessert arrived: a minty sherbet that hadn’t set right. The constituents were already separating, and the areas not beginning to melt were oozing and slimy. Lisa took one bite and left the rest. The after-taste was peppery. Jim finally looked at her from across the table. He gave her a defeated smile. She almost made a face back.

  ‘Coffee in the living-room?’ Isabelle asked the table. She stood up. Everyone followed. Lisa went straight to Jim. She whispered that she hoped they’d be cutting the evening short, right after the coffee. He nodded and whispered back, ‘You bet.’

  ‘They’re some kind of psychic health freaks,’ she said.

  ‘They cure people of psychosomatic things. Fears and stuff.’

  ‘I’ve got a fear of horrible food.’

  ‘Jesus, yes. Even the rolls and butter.’

  ‘I didn’t see them.’

  ‘It was sort of like trying to eat my jacket.’

  They wanted to stay together but Broderick moved them to chairs where they’d be near the people they hadn’t sat with at dinner. Lisa was expected to talk to Dora; the heat of the room felt so good that she didn’t mind. She attempted to look interested, while Dora spoke about the difficulty of finding a really good nursery. For several minutes Lisa tho
ught they were talking about children.

  She was handed a cup of coffee and lifted it to her lips. It was black, scalding, acrid, and didn’t taste like coffee. It was like trying to drink a cup of boiling urine. She set it back on its saucer and looked across the room. Isabelle’s neat hands were still busied with the silver pot and the cups. Carrol was actually drinking the stuff; so were Neill and Jeanette and Dr Benjamin. Dora’s husband, Steve, was positively slurping his with enjoyment.

  She watched Jim take his first swallow. His nostrils flared, his eyes screwed tight for a moment.

  ‘And that’s the most important thing, isn’t it?’ Dora said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The soil.’

  ‘Of course. Basic,’ Lisa said. She knew nothing about gardening. When her sister had been out in the back yard helping their mother to do the weeding, she’d stayed indoors to draw and cut up pieces of coloured paper. She said, ‘Do you teach botany at your school?’

  ‘Biology.’

  ‘Like the doctor.’

  ‘He’s a specialist. Most of his work is done through the microscope.’

  ‘I guess a lot of his job must be finding out how to get rid of all the chemical pollution around.’

  ‘It’s a crime,’ Dora said. ‘Is that your field?’

  ‘I work for a museum,’ Lisa told her. ‘I help to plan the exhibition catalogues and everything.’

  ‘How interesting.’

  It wasn’t actually very interesting so far, because she was right at the bottom, just picking up after the other people who did the real work. But some day it was going to be fine: she’d travel, and do her own designs, and be in charge. The only trouble would be trying to fit everything in so that it worked out with Jim.

  She could see that Dora was about to go back to biology when Jim stood up at the far end of the room. Lisa said, ‘Excuse me just a minute.’ She got up and joined him.

  He was talking to Isabelle, who had made him sit down again, beside her on the couch; she was saying, ‘But you can’t.’ She looked up at Lisa. ‘You can’t possibly just run off. You’re staying for the weekend.’