by Tim Roux
Where do they go?
“So there you are, Paul. You now know the whole house, and some of its less likely occupants, it would seem. I seriously would like to have a discussion with the original family who lived here, so if you happen to come across them, you will broker a meeting, won’t you?”
“Certainly.”
The Countess smiles. I have been dismissed by her too.
“I think I’ll go for a walk,” I explain.
“Then I’ll see you at dinner,” replies the Countess. “You will be here for dinner, won’t you?”
“Yes, I shall.”
“Good. I’ll reserve a place next to me. I would like to pick your brains, if I may. I am assured that they are plentiful.”
* * *
Tonight we are dining formally inside the Château, don’t ask me why, maybe in honour of the arrival of Maggie and Reginald, the first true friends of the Earl and Countess I have seen staying here.
The solemnity of the occasion has been recognised by a few of the sillier guests adopting full black-tie evening dress while, in general, everyone’s clothes are looking more ironed and less crumpled and sweat-stained than when we eat outside.
Mike and I are in jeans, which is unusual because we hardly ever wear jeans. Nobody warned us what was happening, not that anybody seems to care. The Countess did not even glance at my clothes. Overall, the impression is of animated faces washed toxic red with delight, embarrassment, alcohol or sun.
There is no seat allocation, so most are approaching the table - which is bejewelled with silver, china and crystal - from oblique angles, gluing themselves reassuringly to groups, waiting for the more socially agile to take the lead and sniff out the most promising or convenient spots.
True to her word, the Countess has reserved a place for me on her right. Jennifer, whom I recognise by sight but little more, will be seated on my right, and Fiona, William and Marc are opposite me. I have noticed that Natalie and Marcel appear to be in full-on tiff, Natalie’s aggrieved looks being batted back by Marcel’s bored response. I don’t suppose Marcel tolerates his women playing up, so I suspect that she is sliding down the manky launching strip into the cold sea of rejection.
Mike is way down the table, seated between some nano-polished young lady with a nose shaped like the hacking edge of an old-fashioned tin-opener, and Shirley who ramshackles for the arts, hee-hawing with her other neighbour to her left.
The Earl is suitably heading up the table and monitoring the arrangements with grunts and coughs, while our party is settling itself halfway down.
Suddenly, the hesitant, loitering patterns break, and everyone makes a move towards the table like a hesitant dinner-time game of musical chairs.
It is a strange phenomenon, but whereas when we are outside on the terrace, everything we say seems to be audible to almost everyone else around the table, in this formal dining-room the acoustics are muted by late eighteenth century white noise. As I speak to the Countess, I am almost certain that nobody else can overhear us unless they thrust their heads between us.
“Paul, I want to hear all about ghosts,” enthuses the Countess. “After all, I am not so many years off being one myself.”
I surreptitiously glance around and no-one is listening.
“What do you want to know?”
“How many are there, for instance, in this house?”
“I am not sure that I have seen them all, but there must be at least twenty.”
“Do they talk to each other?”
“I suppose they must do but I have never seen them do that.”
“Do they like us?”
“I really don’t know. The Marquis de Reynaud and his family seemed fairly aloof, but they are probably that way with anyway. They belong to their time.”
“What do they do all day?”
“Watch us, I would guess or wander around.”
“It seems a very boring life,” laments the Countess.
“It probably is. What do you do when you haven’t got a body to do it with? There is a limit to how much fun thinking can be.”
“I am not sure I want to be a ghost. I have always wanted to hang around to look after Constance and Fiona, but I am not going to do it if I am going to be bored stiff all the time.”
“I doubt that you get a choice. Ghosts linger because they have unfinished business, usually traumatic unfinished business like Alice in the village.” I haven’t been expecting to discuss Alice with her but I have suddenly discovered that I want to do so. I have obviously some unresolved issues to address.
“Alice? The poor girl who keeps turning up in pieces? I remember her disappearing a few years ago. Have you met her?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Originally at the house Inspector John is renting.”
“And what does she say happened to her?”
“She was killed by her father and buried outside Montauban.”
“So it was not entirely an accident that you were involved in her father’s arrest?”
(Sharp as ever).
“No.”
“And she is now hoping for revenge?”
“She is hoping that we can persuade the police to look for her body based on the map she instructed me to draw.”
“Have you spoken to the Earl about this?”
“Not yet.”
“You should. If you could get them to meet up, I am sure that she could convince him to help her.”
“Do you think I can simply go up to him and ask?”
The Countess lays a hand on my wrist. “Of course you can, my dear. There is no need to be afraid of Constance. He is really most approachable, and he has no side whatsoever, except that you are helping out our family, so I am sure that he will be particularly open to anything you suggest. What will happen to the girl when the whole matter is cleared up?”
“It is most likely that she will be released into the light.”
“She will ascend into the afterlife?”
“Yes.”
She leans forward and scrutinises me. “And what do you know about the afterlife? Is there a heaven and a hell?”
I shrug my shoulders. “I haven’t a clue. I can only see what is here.”
She slumps back. “Oh, how disappointing!”
There is a disturbance at the head of the table. The Earl is on his feet and addressing what must appear to the rest of the table to be an empty space. In fact, almost the entire complement of ghosts who occupy the Château is assembled in the corner, hurling abuse at him. They split up and start swirling round the room, dive bombing him from all angles.
“Get away,” he shouts, “get away. I can see you.” He is flailing his arms at them while the guests gawp at him.
“What do you want? Can’t you be civilised about this?”
(“Civilised?” mocks the Marquis de Reynaud, “Since when were your mob civilised, Sir? They are a complete rabble of loud, drunk, arrogant ignoramuses whom I am ashamed to see in my house.”)
“And what are your lot, Sir?” counters the Earl angrily. “Attacking me like this.” He ducks as a particularly furious ghost lunges at his head. “Is this a civilised way to behave?”
(“We’ve had enough of this bordelle,” splutters the Marquis. “We demand that the whole lot be cleared out.”)
Down the table they are all starting to whisper conspiratorially about the Earl’s behaviour.
Across the table, William leans over to Fiona. “Fiona, don’t you think that you should usher your father out of here?”
Fiona glances across at me for advice. I swirl my eyes around the room to indicate that it is packed with ghosts flying around. Fiona nods her acknowledgement.
The Countess catches my gestures. “So Constance hasn’t gone completely mad then, has he?”
“No,” I whisper. “He is being besieged by a particularly angry bunch of them who are attacking him like fighter planes. I cannot make sense of what is going on except that ghos
ts like these are always fairly bad tempered at the best of times. They have had centuries of disappointment to build up grievances. I hate these types. They really do my head in.”
And indeed they do. The noises they are bending round the airwaves are making me feel sick. It sounds like a cross between a washboard being strummed, a wobble board being shaken, and a Stuka diving towards its attack point. I crumple back onto my chair and hold my head between my hands, a defensive gesture that does nothing to protect me from the sounds but which I sometimes find comforting.
Either the Earl is deaf in general, or he is more cut off from supernatural disturbances than I am because he is still shouting as a posse of guests converges on him.
“Why now?” he screams. “Why now?” picking up on my thoughts possibly. “Why after all this time? We have lived together peaceably until now.”
(“We have had enough. We cannot take this charade any longer,” protests an otherwise generous-looking woman from somewhere in the mid-nineteenth century).
“Well let’s all sit down and talk this out calmly. Stop throwing yourselves around like this.”
(The Marquis folds his arms. “There is absolutely nothing to discuss. We want this circus out of here, then we can sit down and talk about how we share this house in a suitably gentlemanly manner.”)
“We can talk in the morning,” the Earl decides, not about to be bullied into clearing his house in mid dinner party.
(“Now,” screams the Marquis, almost hysterically. “We have had enough, enough, enough!”)
As the Earl calculates his next gambit, he is forcibly seized by several of his own guests and jostled out of the room as they attempt to soothe him with calming words. “Come this way, Sir. Maybe too much sun.”
Within one minute the whole room is empty as everyone, except the Countess and Fiona, troupe behind the Earl. The ghosts are beside themselves with joy, congratulating the Marquis on his strategy while his wife and two daughters stand demurely beside him.
The atmosphere has calmed, a development that frees me to vent my own fury. How dare you! I shout inwardly, tearing into them.
The Marquis turns round to face me as the others twist in shock. “Young man,” the Marquis addresses me, “our quarrel is not with you.”
What was all that about?
“We are utterly sick of being invaded,” exclaims the Marquise. “They are a truly dreadful bunch of people and they never stop. Never. They are insupportable.”
I know what you mean, I concede.
“Thank God that there is someone here with some sense in his head,” remarks the mid-nineteenth century lady. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to arbitrate between us.”
I will do my best.
“Paul, what is going on?” inquires Fiona anxiously.
“They are just repeating what they said to your father. They are tired of the excesses of the never-ending carnival around here.”
“Why was my father so angry?” Fiona asks.
“Because they were attacking him.”
“We were making our point forcibly,” the tempestuous one who lunged at the Earl corrects me.
Very forcibly.
“We had to make him listen to us somehow.”
At this rate you will have him dragged off to an asylum, and he is the only one who can listen to you.
“Well you are the go-between now,” observes the Marquis. “They can listen to you.”
Yes, but I have no authority, and I haven’t the slightest intention of admitting to those people out there that I can communicate with you, otherwise I will be joining the Earl in the funny farm.
“Funny farm?”
Lunatic asylum.
“What about the Countess, here. She seems to be willing to listen.”
I turn to the Countess. “They would like to talk to you.”
“So long as they do so reasonably, Paul. I am not going to be treated the way they have just behaved towards my husband. I am not half as tolerant as my husband. You can inform them of that.”
“They can hear you for themselves.”
“That is an unfair advantage.”
“Please be so kind as to inform the Countess here that we would very much appreciate it if she could ask the guests to leave for a few weeks to give us some respite. That is all we are asking for.”
“The former families here,” (that was diplomatic), “ask if they could have a few weeks holiday of their own without having lots of people about invading their peace.”
“Well, I must admit that I have never thought of that before, that the former occupants should have equal rights to us who own the house.”
“Why should we not?” demands the Marquis.
“We have always assumed that the house is exclusively ours to do with what we wish.”
“We live here too. We have no choice. We wish it were otherwise,” observes the Marquise. “Just because we are dead doesn’t mean that we are deaf, or blind, or teenagers. And we have already put up with a lot. Too much, in fact.”
“They are arguing that as they are forced to live here, their rights should be carefully considered, with every respect to you and the Earl.” I gloss over the fact that they could actually live wherever they like but choose to remain here. Why complicate negotiations?
“Well, I shall discuss the matter with my husband.”
“Please tell the Countess that we would be most grateful, and most reasonable. No more pyrotechnics, we promise,” adds the Marquise.
The Countess straightens herself and heads for the door. “I had better save my husband from everybody’s good intentions before it proves too late.”
* * *
The Countess approaches me in the hallway.
“Paul, Constance would like a word with you, and with you too, Fiona. He is upstairs in our private apartments.”
I am fascinated to see how the Earl has been affected by his ordeal, so I am not arguing. Fiona and I climb the stairs to the first floor and, as we hit the landing, Fiona takes my hand. “Paul,” she says with some admiration, “I have to admit, it looks like you are the man in a crisis.”
“Not in all crises,” I correct her.
She draws me face-on to her and hugs me tight.
“You are not doing badly so far – the arrest of a serial killer, a critical mediation between worlds, and maybe the continuation of the Affligem line. Those are big contributions.”
“I am glad you think so.”
“Don’t you?”
“Don’t know, really. I am just doing what I am doing.”
We climb the next stairway behind the door and find the Earl in the formal reception room. He is looking shockingly white but his eyes are brilliant with excitement – some might say 'deranged#. To me he is more like the sun burning through an early morning haze. He is having some very hot thoughts which will burst out to scorch us all in a few minutes.
“Paul, Fiona, thank you for coming. Did you see that?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“I didn’t see a thing,” Fiona admits.
“Paul did you see what happened down there?”
“Yes, I did.”
“All of it?”
“I cannot answer that, but I believe I probably did.”
“Did you see them attacking me from all sides?”
The Earl waves his arms around wildly, making whooshing noises to describe the hectic pace of a Star Wars inter-galactic dog fight. “You saw all that?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t see anything at all, Fiona?”
“Not a thing, but I believe that it happened.”
“It was extraordinary,” the Earl beams. “One of the most exciting episodes of my life. I would never have believed it possible.”
He lapses into silence for a few seconds, all sorts of wonderment passing across his face. “And you saw everything?” he checks with me again.
I decide not to try to be too precise in my response. The Earl is not listenin
g to philosophical cavils. “Yes.”
“I have obviously seen them wondering around the house, and occupying dark corners, but I never guessed that they could possibly behave like that. I thought that they were sad, passive creatures, not outraged tyrants capable of laying their full fury on me.”
“Ghosts can certainly do that,” I comment.
“You have seen them like that before?”
“Many times. They often seem to get super-agitated when I turn up. It is what they do in front of a receptive audience, I suppose. I bring out the worst in them. I am afraid I probably did that tonight too.”
“But it was me they attacked.”
“I am sorry about that.”
“Why do you think it was your doing?”
“I met the Marquis de Reynaud and his family here earlier.”
“Here?” the Earl demands, pointing at the floor.
“Well, more in the corridor.”
“Through there?”
“Exactly.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing much. He just did the introductions to his wife and to his two daughters, but I must have triggered something inside him. He presumably knew that you are receptive to the spirit world, and me too, so he suddenly had an audience to air his grievances in front of.”
“That he is sick and tired of the noise and bustle around here. I think I got that.”
“Yes, that is his grievance.”
“He wants a clearing out of the Augean stables?”
“Exactly.”
“Well, I can understand that. I get rather keen on that from time-to-time myself, but we do it for the children.”
“You don’t need to do it for me,” Fiona protests. “I don’t know who half of these people are either.”
“That makes it very simple, then,” the Earl declares. “They can all pack their bags in the morning, and we can have a family holiday for a change. That we haven’t had in years.”
“The other occupants of the house will be delighted to hear that.”
And, indeed, on cue, the Marquis appears in the doorway. The Earl notices him immediately.
“Your Lordship,” I announce formally, “his Excellency the Marquis de Reynaud. Monsieur le Marquis, his Lordship the Earl of Affligem.”
