I managed to attend the last day of the conference, but I was dazed and listless. Everyone understood—I had witnessed a rather spectacular suicide, after all. Back in Dubai, I had a lot of leads to follow up and a promotion to chase. I tried to keep myself busy, too busy to think about what I had seen in Bangalore. But I knew I was a marked man.
I thought of all the people over the ages who’d been felled by fates they had never chosen. Why should I be any different? I’d seen something I wasn’t meant to, and it had, in turn, seen me. Ajith’s story was a challenge, a way of letting me know the game was on. Then, it had waited, watched, drawn me back in and let me go, just to show that it could. I was a loose end and I would be tied up, all in good time. I’d crossed paths with something and I couldn’t shake it off. That was all there was to it.
THE PASCHAL CANDLESTICK
R.B. Russell
Wendy Owen received the phone call just before three in the afternoon, one weekday, not long before Christmas. The delivery driver claimed to have driven up and down Arkengarthdale without seeing any signs for Hackthwaite Lane, and he was now in Reeth. He was behind with his schedule, and was resolved to continue on to Richmond. He tried telling Wendy that she could pick up the package from a depot in Middlesborough at any time after ten the following day, but she pointed out that he was obliged to deliver before six that evening. She added that she had taken a whole day off work in the expectation of the delivery, and after a very long pause he reluctantly agreed to try again.
She gave the man detailed directions, telling him that he had to come back through Langthwaite, explaining that the turning for Hackthwaite Lane was immediately after the barn without a roof, and that the track up to Holme Cottage was adjacent to an old railway carriage used for storage by a local farmer. She made the man repeat it all back to her before he rang off; there was little chance of mobile phone coverage once he was out of Reeth.
It was almost completely dark when the van finally drew up outside the cottage. It was cold, and odd spits of rain were fleetingly visible in the beam of the vehicle’s yellow headlights. The driver was angry about the state of the track, and frustrated that he would have to reverse back down it because there was nowhere to turn his vehicle. The ‘package’ was actually a large wooden crate, and, inevitably, the driver wasn’t happy that he had to carry it around to the back porch, after they’d discovered that it was too wide to go in through the front door. But nothing, not even a bad-tempered driver, was going to stop Wendy from taking delivery of this; not after four years fighting for it through the courts.
She didn’t feel able to open it up until the sound of the reversing van, and its headlights, had disappeared into the night. She felt rather exposed standing in the light of the open back porch, even though her nearest neighbours, the Johnsons, were several hundred yards away and in the other direction. The upper part of Arkengarthdale is sparsely populated, but on a clear night there are a surprising number of lights visible, pinpoints in the darkness, from various scattered cottages and farms. Not that this night was at all clear; the rain was getting heavier and the wind stronger.
Wendy felt momentarily helpless when it came to opening up the crate. But then she remembered the poker by the fire in the living room. She was pleased to find that it was exactly the right implement for levering the planks apart. The nails shrieked as they were pulled out of the wood, and the straw with which the crate was packed spilled out over the porch floor, and was soon whipped away by the rising wind, out into the black night. It was not long before she was able to remove the large, plastic-wrapped bundle that it contained.
She brushed down the object that she had pulled from the straw, before taking it inside and standing it in the middle of the kitchen floor. Then she went back out to clear up the porch. The remaining straw and all the loose planks went back into the crate which she dragged into the woodshed, where she planned to break it up for kindling. Returning to the house she went first to the living room where she drew the curtains and turned on the rather harsh overhead lights, before putting a match to the newly-laid fire. Only then did she bring through the plastic-wrapped object from where it had been standing in the kitchen. With the scissors from her sewing basket she cut away the protective plastic with great care.
Wendy made herself take the pieces of wrapping and put them in the wheelie-bin outside. When she came back in she locked both the front and back doors; she didn’t quite know why. In the living room she put a couple of logs on the crackling fire, and only then did she dare to properly admire the sixteenth-century wooden paschal candlestick that she had inherited from her sister, Elizabeth.
It really was very beautiful. Five foot high and intricately carved, it stood on three feet that looked like those of a lion. The central column was almost classical, with swags of indeterminate fruit and flowers wrapped around it. It had not been restored; it showed the remains of the original polychrome paint, to which the firelight added its own suggestion of gilding. At the crown, the candlestick exploded into a riot of foliage with a wide flat top, upon which stood the remains of a very large, fractured candle which had obviously been damaged at some time during the four years it had been in storage.
Wendy moved the standard lamp away from her armchair and put the paschal candlestick in its place. It looked just as good as she had hoped it would. It was exactly as Elizabeth had once had it in her own, rather differently furnished living room. Wendy decided that finally everything was perfect, but then an icy shiver ran through her that she could not account for.
Holme Cottage is a traditional stone-built Yorkshire Dales house, and sits high on the south side of Arkengarthdale. That is, it faces north, and even in the summer it is rarely warm. With the rain thrown against the window that night, and the wind wuthering in the chimney, it was suddenly very cold in Wendy Owen’s living room. Since she had added the logs, the fire seemed to be giving out no heat at all. In the cupboard she had a new candle ready for the candlestick (she had bought it some years ago from an ecclesiastical supplies company in London), but all that she could think of now was lighting what remained of the one already in place. She took the matches from the mantelpiece and with shaking hands coaxed the small black stump of a wick into reluctant life. It flickered and spat for several moments, but it did finally catch, and then the flame slowly pulled itself up and burnt with great certainty, despite the draughts.
The feeling of cold had been a momentary one. When Wendy turned off the ceiling lights, all at once the room seemed to be filled with an amiable golden glow out of all proportion to the size of the flame. She sat in the armchair with the fire warming her on one side, and on the other the candlestick throwing its soft illumination on her book. The wind had changed direction; it was no longer making strange noises in the chimney, but was whistling around the front door out in the hall. The rain at the windows was quite insistent, but a calmness and contentment came over Wendy as she read by the light of the paschal candlestick.
***
Elizabeth Owen had been the senior buyer for a large department store in Darlington, and her 1970s-built house in Yarm had been furnished in an ultra-contemporary style, with a couple of twentieth-century design classics of which she was very proud. Wendy could appreciate her sister’s good taste, but was always glad that Elizabeth never made any comments about the ad-hoc way in which Wendy had put together the furnishings in Holme Cottage. The one item upon which the two sisters were in sympathy was the only true antique that Elizabeth owned; the candlestick that always stood so elegantly beside the armchair in her spacious living room. She had recklessly paid a great deal of money for it when she had been much younger, and she said that there was a story attached to it. One day, she always teased Wendy, she would tell her the tale, but she never did. All Wendy knew was what her sister had once said in an unguarded moment; that it was a souvenir of a perfect few weeks abroad, with friends, before she had been married.
Wendy nodded-off over her book, and when she wok
e up she was surprised to discover that it was after midnight. She decided not to blow out the candle until the last minute, and instead went out to wind up the clock in the hall, and to make herself a hot drink to take up to bed.
As she stood waiting for the kettle to boil, the unfortunate memory of Elizabeth’s husband, Trevor, forced itself upon her. Elizabeth and Trevor’s marriage had never been a happy one, but both were too stubborn to call it a day until just before Elizabeth’s death of a heart attack, aged only forty-five. Wendy had known Trevor when he had been studying law at university, and, unfortunately, she had effected the introduction between them. Wendy never could stand the man; she would only visit Elizabeth when she was sure that he was up in Newcastle, where he worked as a solicitor. When they did occasionally meet, Trevor made his own loathing of Wendy quite obvious.
To Wendy’s annoyance, Elizabeth had been very generous in her Will to Trevor. She had made a few specific bequests: her set of Marcel Breuer chairs to a friend, some Picasso prints to their brother, Tom, and her jewellery to Tom’s wife. The candlestick was for Wendy, of course, because she had always so admired it. . . . It was all very straightforward until Trevor decided to contest the Will. In spite of inheriting most of Elizabeth’s assets, he also wanted the candlestick!
Wendy had been forced to meet him with her solicitor, and Trevor produced a receipt for the candlestick, dated ten years previously. Wendy protested that Elizabeth had acquired it before she’d even met Trevor, and so it went to court. Even when Tom discovered a photograph taken in Elizabeth’s front room, showing them all there one Christmas, with the candlestick in the foreground, Trevor refused to back down. Burnt into the lower left hand corner of the photograph in orange numerals was the date that exposed Trevor’s lie.
Wendy took her hot drink upstairs, turning the lights off after her, still annoyed that the legal case with Trevor had cost her more in solicitors’ fees than the candlestick was probably worth. But she had not been going to give up the fight on principle! She asked Trevor, at one point, when they were alone, what he intended to do with the candlestick if he managed to obtain it. Unbelievably, he had said that he wanted to chop it into firewood and burn it! It made Wendy shudder to remember the hatred the man had displayed. She had always thought him ugly, but the barely concealed rage in his weasel-like face made him look positively evil. Even now she could not decide whether the vengeance was meant to have been at Elizabeth’s expense, or hers.
Although on the edge of sleep, with the bedside light switched off, Wendy could not stop thinking about how full of anger Trevor had been. When he was killed in a car accident over a year ago Wendy hoped that his claim on the candlestick would drop, but it had still dragged on for another twelve months until his estate had been settled.
Wendy slept surprisingly well considering how agitated her thoughts had been before falling asleep. When she came downstairs the following morning the flame was still determinedly burning in the wreck of the old candle. In the living room there was a surprising amount of residual warmth. Always a little worried about fire, Wendy was appalled that she had forgotten to blow the candle out before going to bed, and did so now with alacrity. The room seemed suddenly colder, but she threw back the curtains and went about her morning routine before leaving for work.
All day Wendy was in something of a dream, thinking about Elizabeth and Trevor, alternating between sorrow and loss, and an anger that she knew to be a waste of emotion. When she returned that evening, Wendy carried the candlestick out into the kitchen so that she could remove the old, broken candle. The new candle she had bought was very substantial, and of just the right proportions, but first she had to hollow out a hole in the bottom so that it would fit over the large metal spike on the top of the stick.
The weather had improved steadily during the day and the wind had died down. Now there were no draughts in the house the flame was even taller than before as it illuminated the living room. Wendy made herself supper and ate it in the armchair, listening to the radio. Later that evening she dug out her family photo album. Leafing through it, with Elizabeth’s candlestick at her side, she felt nostalgic for a past that seemed more distant than ever. Looking at the familiar images of her grandparents made Wendy smile, although the sentiment she felt when looking at the photographs of parents, brother and sister, was mainly sadness.
Wendy turned to the last leaf of the album and saw the studio photograph of Elizabeth that had been taken on her thirtieth birthday. Wendy had always admired it, but it was almost as though she had never before looked at it properly; Elizabeth was so beautiful, and so full of vitality and humour. Wendy remembered the silk dress Elizabeth was wearing, and wondered what had happened to it. Thrown away, she expected. But the pendant, with the tiny opals, would belong to Tom’s wife now. Would it be appreciated? Probably; Wendy liked Tom’s wife.
And then Wendy suddenly discovered that she was crying: it was so painfully wrong that her beloved sister was no longer alive.
She wiped away the tears that blurred her vision. She closed up the album and sniffed, resolving to do something practical that would stop her from dwelling on the past. She put the album on the floor while she banked-up the fire. Then she went out into the kitchen where she started on the process of making a Christmas cake. ‘Buck up, old girl!’ she said out loud, and then realised that talking to herself was not a good sign.
A half hour later the cake was in the oven, and Wendy went back into the living room to check on the fire, which was low. The candle was burning strongly, though, and in its kindly light she saw the photograph album where she had left it on the floor. Caught between the idea of adding more wood to the fire and picking up the album, while at the same time thinking about her sister, Wendy bent down and seemed to see sitting in the armchair, out of the corner of her eye, Elizabeth.
Wendy’s heart stopped and she could not breathe. She clutched her chest and had to put her hand out to the mantelpiece to steady herself. Her eyes had only shifted momentarily from the armchair, and now it was empty.
A second later and her heart seemed to miraculously re-start itself. She was able to gracefully draw in a breath.
Wendy Owen was a woman of good sense. She sat down on the small settee normally reserved for visitors and recovered herself, trying to calm her heart-rate. Not for one moment did she take her eyes off the armchair. In her mind she rehearsed how she might explain what she had seen to somebody like Tom. Words like ‘ghost’, ‘vision’, even ‘hallucination’ wouldn’t impress a rationalist like him. She told herself that in the brief instant she had seemed to see Elizabeth, her sister had been sitting there just as in the studio photograph. She could imagine Tom patiently explaining to her that, in trying to do several things at once, she had simply confused reality with imagination. Wendy could hear Tom telling her that, if she had seen anything at all, she must have projected on to it the thought of the photograph in her mind.
Wendy was already feeling much calmer. She had been startled, but she didn’t think that she had really been frightened. In fact, the apparent glimpse of Elizabeth seemed to bring her some comfort; as though, somehow, Elizabeth was with her, in the room. Wendy certainly wouldn’t tell Tom that! She knew she was being silly; it was obvious that her grief for her sister was still strong, even after all these years.
In the kitchen the oven alarm was ringing to let her know that the cake was ready. Had more than an hour already passed? She made herself go and take out the cake, and she left it on the side in the kitchen to cool. She found a dozen little household chores to do before getting herself ready for bed. That night, though, she did not forget to blow out the candle. The flame was burning resolutely; all was absolutely still outside and there were no draughts in the house. She blew out the candle only at the last possible moment, and hurried up to bed.
***
When Wendy awoke she instinctively knew that something was wrong. It was absolutely dark and perfectly quiet. The faintly luminescent hands of
her bedside clock suggested that it was past three in the morning. Something had woken her, but she didn’t know what it could have been.
Then she heard the slight noise from downstairs and was immediately terrified. It was the sound of metal, like the poker in the grate. She had an intruder, in the living room.
Wendy was terrified. Her heart was racing, but alongside fear was a hard-headed determination to escape. She slipped out of bed on the side of the room where the floorboards did not creak, and carefully made her way to the door. There was no light in the landing. If she heard anybody on the stairs, she decided, there was always the bedroom window for escape, although the bushes below wouldn’t receive her very comfortably.
At any moment she expected the beam of a burglar’s torch to probe the stairway. But then there was another sound, like a heavy item of furniture being moved. There was no doubt that the intruder was still in the living room. Wendy found it difficult to keep her composure, but she was able to tiptoe quietly to the head of the stairs, and then slowly descend. The front door was her goal; she knew the lock so well that she could open it and be outside in an instant. She just had to get to the door before he did. . . . And then, once outside, she would have to jump the garden wall and run across a field before she reached her neighbours, the Johnsons. Wendy congratulated herself on being so clear-headed when she was so scared. She was confident she could make it in the dark, even barefoot, without being caught by anybody.
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