by A. L. Barker
Nina ran her fingers up and down her glass, looking thoughtful.
Charlie took a swig of whisky. ‘I came here reckoning on turning round and going straight back. But my car’s broken down and I’ve had to put up at a hotel.’
‘You could stay here, at Mellilot.’
‘I don’t think J.T. would approve. The fact is, I need ready cash to pay for repairs. I can’t use my card, the bank won’t give me any more credit.’
‘Hard times?’ She was crisp, dismissive. Listening might be as far as she was prepared to go, plus tea and sympathy – or just the whisky. ‘Which hotel are you staying at?’
‘The Bellechasse, a little family-run place. Until I can get the car repaired.’
‘How did you get here?’
‘I had a lift.’ He voiced the thought which had been uppermost in his mind. ‘He said he was going to burn it.’
‘He hasn’t.’
She was with him, always had been when it came to his work. He felt a glow in his bones which outshone other considerations, including the money. Even the money. ‘I miss you. You were the only one who knew what I was trying to do.’
‘I often wanted to do it myself.’
‘I bet he doesn’t give you moments like that.’
‘Charlie, my darling, if you’re jealous, my cup will overflow.’ So saying, she emptied her glass. ‘Another for the road? You’re not hitching, surely?’
Suddenly the glow was gone, leaving him as he had been, less than he had been. Miserable. Whisky did that to him.
‘Stay for lunch.’
‘I can’t. There’s someone waiting.’
‘Waiting?’
‘To take me back, a fellow guest from the hotel.’
‘He can stay too.’
‘We have to get back. Thanks all the same.’
‘Come when you’ve got your car fixed and talk to J.T. I’ll get you the right price for my portrait. It’s worth at least five hundred to a connoisseur of nudes.’
‘Would you care if it went to someone like that?’
‘Why should I? You painted what you saw and no one else has seen.’
‘Suppose J.T. burns it?’
‘He won’t until he’s done looking at it. Come back tomorrow.’
‘Someone said the big end’s gone. Isn’t that the worst that can happen to a car? I may have to dump it.’ His eyes watered. ‘Why do we drink this stuff?’
‘John Barleycorn the golden.’ Nina herself was riding high.
‘God knows when I’ll see you again.’
‘Have the garage send me the repair bill. You can pay back when you’re able.’
In a gush of emotion he sprang up to take her hands and drew her to him. But over her shoulder he sighted Senga crossing the terrace.
‘Come tomorrow,’ said Nina, ‘or the next day or the next. But come.’
‘Did you mean what you said? About the garage bill?’
‘I want to see you!’
She folded against him. He lifted her arms from his neck. ‘Someone’s coming.’
‘Damn!’ She went to the window. ‘Who on earth’s that?’
‘A girl from the hotel.’ Nina had a way of shutting her face. He hadn’t seen her do it for a long time: it was an eminently unhelpful sign. Under his breath he cursed Fate which was screwing things up. ‘She was kind enough to drive me here.’
Senga came in, held out her hand. ‘Mrs Mellilot, I presume?’
*
The evening meal had been enlivened by the Claphams waiting at table. They kept the swing door into the kitchen permanently swinging, passing each other with laden trays and uncooperative cries. Eashing and Mildred felt unable to give undivided attention to their food.
Afterwards Felicia Soulsby delivered a lecturette on what she called the uncoefficiency of the Bellechasse.
‘The kitchen is outdated. All working surfaces should be of synthetic material, unproliferating plastic.’
‘I find no fault with the catering,’ said Mildred.
‘I give you Mrs Clapham’s a good plain cook, traditional to a degree. Certainly not nouvelle cuisine.’
‘I have never been attracted to foreign dishes.’
‘I’m no foodie,’ said Felicia. ‘The point is, our good Mrs Clapham could do with more help.’
‘Now that the greater-busted Bet has flown,’ remarked Senga.
‘Flown?’ Progressively and systematically deprived of his faculties, Eashing had every reason to be sorry for himself and little sorrow left over for anyone else. But now he was vividly reminded of Bettony, her diligent breathing as she came to his table and the miscible kitchen odours she exuded. ‘Flown where?’
‘Back to Grandaddy. They live in a council flat.’
Mildred said thankfully, ‘That’s nice.’
‘The old man was accustomed to spit in the fire when they lived in a cottage. Now he spits at the central heating, one of his more mentionable habits.’
‘He isn’t unkind?’
‘He only beats her when she breaks something.’
Felicia said alertly, ‘So there’s a history of breakages?’
‘The poor kid’s cack-handed.’
‘She has psi-faculty, common in teenagers with mental shortfall.’
Eashing said, ‘You’re saying she’s feeble-minded?’
‘Mentally disadvantaged. She has had an unpropitious upbringing, it takes understanding and patience to supplement low IQ.’
Eashing turned to Senga. ‘How do you know about this grandfather?’
‘She told me. She’s not so dumb. People see her as a kitchamajig and don’t bother to talk to her.’
Eashing, too, was used to being overlooked, his immobility taken for insensibility.
‘I have been content to observe,’ said Felicia. ‘Interrogation and interpretation must come later. A premature approach can do permanent harm to the psyche.’
‘Interrogation? Interpretation?’ Eashing struck at his useless knees. ‘What are you getting into?’
‘Psychobabble,’ said Senga cheerfully.
‘The paranormal is of profound interest. I have made a study.’
‘When is the normal para?’ said Antony Wellington.
‘That,’ said Felicia, leaning on it, ‘is the million-dollar question.’
Senga appeared to take a cigarette out of the air. Eashing, who was watching, saw that it came from behind her ear and had been concealed under her hair. ‘She just needs to be noticed: you’d be surprised what she’s noticed about us.’
‘Us?’
‘All of us here. This place is the world to her, she doesn’t know any other to compare it with.’
‘Pam says she’s felt someone watching her.’
‘I have tried to engage Bettony in conversation.’ said Mildred.
‘What will she do now she’s lost her world,’ wondered Eashing.
Felicia Soulsby turned her star-spangled glasses on him. ‘You underestimate her potential. The world of the paranormal knows no boundaries, it is rich and strange. I find it épatant.’
‘Clapham’s already advertised the vacancy,’ said Wallington. ‘There’s a notice on the gate – “Help wanted”.’
‘A telekinetic teenager is not an asset in the kitchen,’ concluded Felicia.
*
Piper picked up the phone. Sam said, ‘Yeah?’, his greeting to friend and foe alike.
‘Where have you been?’
‘To the pictures.’
‘Who with?’
‘My circle, from the church.’
It was news that Sam had a circle, or a church. ‘What was the film?’
‘No film. We went to the National Gallery to look at pictures of Jesus.’
‘Someone here paints pictures of trees rising from the dead. And someone else is showing undue interest in my affairs.’
‘I didn’t tell her where you are!’
‘Don’t shout. I can deal.’
‘Can I come and see the
trees rising from the dead?’
‘Not just now, Sammy. I’m too busy. What was she like, the girl who wanted to know where I am?’
‘Like?’
‘Was she tall, short, fat, thin, dark, fair?’
‘How should I know? She came through on the blower.’ Sam was sulking.
*
As they walked in the rain, the girl had told Piper, ‘You and I are two of a kind.’
‘What kind is that?’
‘We’re both journalists.’
‘I see myself in the role of counsellor.’
‘“The Listening Ear” – “The Prying Eye”?’
Piper had a prospectus prepared for cavillers. ‘I recognise the need which was previously supplied by family life and has been sadly lost in this day and age. The need for confidant, adviser, friend. So many people are isolated by circumstance and the materialism of modern life, they need to share their troubles. The knowledge that someone, somewhere, cares, can make a postage stamp the price of a life. I have had letters from people on the brink of suicide.’
‘Yes, I’ve seen them.’
‘You read my page?’
‘If I have to.’
Tasting salt in the air, Piper had a presentiment. ‘How did you know where I was?’
‘I had the salient fact from your editor.’
‘He had no right to divulge it.’
‘He thought it might be good publicity. I’ve been commissioned to do a series of articles on the usage and abusage of the cult figure through the ages, back to Merlin. I’d like to start with you.’
*
When she was not at breakfast next morning, he asked Mildred Gascoigne, ‘Where’s your friend?’
‘You mean Senga?’
‘Your niece, perhaps.’
‘I have no brother or sister. She’s not actually a friend. We’ve only just met. Friendship takes longer.’
He wondered if she had left the hotel. But of course she wouldn’t. She was going to write about him. Mildred wondered why he was interested in Senga, gave herself one guess, and grieved.
Clouds were building over the sea, gassy yellow shapes steadily advancing before a too-warm wind.
‘Weather’s on the blink, Miss Gee,’ Clapham said to Mildred as she prepared to take her newspaper into the garden.
‘Oh dear. Perhaps it will improve this afternoon?’
‘I wouldn’t bank on it, coming in from the sea.’ Clapham shook his head.
She summoned her courage – really it was absurd, she scolded herself and rehearsed what she would say before she went up to Piper’s room in the tower.
She tapped on his door, but being invited to enter, hesitated in the doorway.
‘Miss Gascoigne, please come in,’ he said.
‘Am I intruding? Do please say – You won’t remember – I wrote to you – “Perplexed, Bromley”. I have never forgotten your reply, it was so warm and understanding. You quoted a poem: “Love is not love that alteration finds”. It was so right.’
Piper was familiar with the alterations love found. He hadn’t dared to stand and fight them, he had lost so many battles, cravenly let himself be driven away.
‘Mr Piper, may I seek your help now in a small matter? Quite trifling, really,’ she broke off, flustered. ‘I was planning a visit to one of the National Trust gardens, but the weather is deteriorating and my entrance fee would be wasted – here one has no recourse – I would have expected some provision for indoor pastimes—’
Piper wondered if she was going to suggest hide-and-seek or hunt the slipper. He said, ‘Personally I am relieved to find no electronic games installed.’
‘Oh I do so agree! I was thinking of Scrabble, Ludo, non-competitive pursuits such as jigsaws—’
A through-draught blowing round her obliged him to lay restraining hands over the papers on his table.
‘Of course you have your work and I am disturbing you. It’s really such a trifle—’
He had heard someone describe Mildred Gascoigne as looking like a rabbit with no ears. He now saw how apt the description was. He said, ‘Perhaps you will tell me what your problem is.’
‘If I might consult – if you have it with you – I mean – your dictionary. I am trying to finish the Daily Telegraph crossword and I have racked my brains – I do hate being beaten. It’s frivolous of me to interrupt when you are so busy.’
‘Not at all. What is the clue?’
‘It reads: “Public vehicle reversing would diminish a country residence but portend a wedding”. The only thing which fits is “cottabus”. Is there such a word?’
‘Let’s see.’ He leafed through the dictionary. ‘As a matter of fact, you’re right. Cottabus was a game played by young men in ancient Greece. He who threw the most wine into a wine-jar was accounted lucky in love.’ When he smiled at her, colour rushed up from her collar-bone. ‘“Bus” being the vehicle in reverse becomes “sub”, otherwise “inferior” – refers to “cotta” short for “cottage”, the country residence.’
A gust of wind, gathering strength as it was channelled through the tower, slammed the door to, shoving Mildred bodily over the threshold and hunting loose sheets off Piper’s table. They flew up like birds, flattened themselves on walls and ceiling and fell, twitching, into corners. It was as if the room went wild.
Mildred, on her knees, tried to retrieve typewritten pages from under the table.
‘Please,’ Piper said. ‘Leave me to restore the sequence.’
‘Oh dear, I am so sorry—’
He put out a hand to help her to her feet. ‘It has allowed us to get acquainted.’
*
Reading in the garden, Eashing was distracted by a sudden darkening of the page. Someone, a heavy breather, was stooping over him. He recognised the breaths: they had often tempered his soup.
‘You all right, mister?’
‘Thank you, yes.’
‘You looked dead.’
‘I’m not quite. Yet.’
She bent lower: he felt as well as heard her breath. ‘You don’t want to talk like that.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I work here.’
‘I understood not any longer. Did they give you due notice?’
‘She took against me. But Mister C’s been good to me.’
Eashing said he was glad to hear it.
‘There’s a storm coming. Better get you inside.’ She swung his chair round, hauled him backwards up the steps, talking all the way. ‘He didn’t want me to go. “Don’t you forget our good times. I never will”, he said, “I never had such times, only with you.”’
Eashing was struck by the pride in her voice and didn’t know which of them to be sorry for, her or Clapham. On the whole he thought she was the most deserving.
As she wheeled him into the lobby a hot wind went before. Leaflets pinned to the walls lifted horizontal, the rotating stand displaying postcards of local views spun round like a top.
Mrs Clapham rose from the reception desk, mottle-necked and glaring. ‘You!’
Patently she was addressing Bettony, but Eashing replied. ‘It seems a storm is brewing: we’ve come in for shelter.’
‘I told you, miss, to stay away from us!’
‘Bettony was kind enough to help me indoors. I might otherwise have been exposed to drenching rain, to say nothing of thunder and lightning.’
‘You wouldn’t, I’d have come myself to fetch you.’ Mrs Clapham was making dismissive gestures as though she were shooing chickens. ‘Off you go, girl, no hanging about.’
Eashing could not see Bettony’s face, but heard her sniff deeply. The door slammed. He said, ‘I’m afraid she’ll be caught by the rain.’
Mrs Clapham’s neck condensed to a unified wine colour. ‘She’d walk dry if the sky fell.’
‘Why are you bolting the door?’
‘Against the storm.’
*
When Pam Wellington first dreamed the dream it stayed with he
r all day: nothing else could get through. She kept coming over sick and faint, her body behaving as if it was trying to expel something. She had believed it was only one night’s nightmare, but all that day was aware of imperfection, as if she had the power of seeing to a faulty source.
The dream kept recurring, undimmed. She tried recapturing the worst moments in her mind, hoping to see them in a different light. Because there must be hope, the source which had produced dinosaurs and phased them out in favour of humans surely must get it right in the end.
Then it happened. She had walked down to the creek in the very early morning, she had just had the dream again and couldn’t bear to stay in bed. She felt cut off, targeted. The rest of the world was asleep and she was on her own. A tree stump blocked her path. It had been a big tree; the slab of wood that was all that was left of its base was several feet across. Antony said you could tell the age of a tree by the rings in its bark. She didn’t want to know how old this tree had been. She pushed through the shrubbery to where the light was, over the sea. The air around her was still grainy from the dark. The grains gathered in hollows. Rhododendron leaves licked her bare arms. How easily a bush becomes a bear. She thought, Where did I hear that?
She had reached the point of asking the purpose of the dream, why it kept coming – once would have been enough. The obvious answer was that it was a warning. Someone, or something, was trying to warn her, her own flesh and blood perhaps, she had been all hints and nudges since coming to this place. Perhaps the obvious answer was too obvious. Weren’t dreams supposed to work in reverse? Dream of the dead, hear of the living. Having dreamed of the partly living, must she face the wholly dead? Or was it a sort of riddle? Or a trick to alert her to one threat while setting up another much worse? Was she being threatened with the loss of Antony? The sickness of her heart became a stranglehold. She broke through the shrubbery on to the shingle. The tide was turning, petticoat frills rolled round the headland. A cabin cruiser, scabby with lichen, bore the name The Maid of Orleans. Burned at the stake, did she know that was coming?
Pam looked into the boat. The wheel was secured by a tarred rope; plastic coverings of the seats had broken loose and hung in shreds; visible through the gaps in the bottom boards was a wash of cloudy yellow liquid.
The dream began. Beneath the surface of the liquid, only just beneath – it was so light, weighed next to nothing – was the thing she had been obliged to cradle in her arms night after night. It was coloured by the waters in its wooden womb: it looked up, eyeless, stretched its buds of arms in entreaty, turned its faceless head and cried, soundlessly, from a non-existent mouth.
