‘Right, well, let’s get going, shall we?’ said Maeve briskly as she settled herself into an armchair. She asked Monica to light some candles and extinguish the lights. The room became warmer and the atmosphere almost suffocating because the candles—great fat hand-made things—were heavily scented. Maeve was wedged into her chair, her hands gripping the arms and her head thrust back. Her eyes were screwed shut, her mouth half open, a look of intense concentration on her face. Her breathing was stertorous, but I did not feel she was asleep. Monica knelt beside her, holding one of her hands, looking intently into her face. Twenty minutes passed; I found myself on the point of falling asleep.
What prevented me was a sudden and pronounced fall in the room’s temperature. It was extraordinarily disquieting because there was nothing to indicate its cause. The temperature drop did not come from anywhere; there was no draught. The candles burned with a steady flame, still giving off their heavy scent, now made nauseous by the chill; logs still glowed in the open fire. Every sense except one told me that it should be warm. Monica looked at me triumphantly.
When Maeve began to talk, her voice was lower than it had been before her trance but otherwise no different. At first came a mere jumble of words and syllables, slurred and indistinct. Gradually the words began to form themselves into sentences, but there seemed to be very little sense in them. They might have come out of a dream. I remember her saying: ‘The Devil was on the wrong side, or rather the other side of the water, but he came right by the well-known favourite miracle of changing his faces.’ That sentence, like so many others, seemed to hover on the brink of meaning, even profundity. I saw that Monica was concentrating hard, as if she was trying to capture its evasive significance. I wanted to keep the words out of my mind, as I had the feeling that if I paid them too much attention they would suck all the sense out of my head and leave behind an imbecile.
Maeve’s enunciation became more distinct as what she said became more comprehensible. Her voice started to describe the situation in which it found itself. The description it gave was at once detailed and bafflingly vague. It said that she was on a ledge of black rock half way down a deep ‘hole’. The voice said it was a hole, but from other things she said, it would seem to be more like a chasm several miles wide. There were people at the top of the hole who were shouting at her. These people the voice interpreted as hostile though she admitted that they said they wanted to help her. The voice said she was not going to listen to these ‘shouters’, as she called them, until she had communicated a message to the world. There was a pause and I asked the voice who she was.
‘Eleanor,’ she said.
‘Is there anything you want to say to us?’
‘Justice,’ said Eleanor. ‘The shouters want me to go, but I can’t go until I have my justice. They call me guilty. I was not guilty. I have been abused. My name has been abused. I will not let go until they stop abusing me. There’s a man here abusing me. His play. His play is abusing me. Get out! Get out!’ The last words were spoken in a sort of guttural bark, like a savage animal. I immediately walked out of the room into the night outside.
After the strange unnatural chill indoors, it was warm in the garden. The air was free of human (and inhuman) tensions. I wandered about inhaling the soothing scents of Maeve’s herb garden. When I had done this I walked back to the cottage and looked through the window. I was relieved to see that Maeve was no longer in a trance, but sitting up and being given sips of blackcurrant leaf tea by Monica. She seemed pale and disturbed. When I walked back into the cottage she looked at me resentfully.
‘Where have you been?’ she said. The room was stiflingly hot again.
‘I had to get out.’
Monica refused to look at me, but sniffed her contempt; Maeve merely nodded. She said: ‘Something bad happened, didn’t it? I don’t remember anything. That’s unusual. I generally remember something. What happened?’
‘Nothing really, said Monica. ‘Eleanor got mad at him, that’s all.’
‘Why?’ asked Maeve.
‘Because he’s going to slag her off,’ said Monica. ‘In this play he’s writing. He’s going to abuse her.’ It struck me then that Eleanor’s voice had talked a lot about ‘abuse’, employing the word in a strangely modern way.
Maeve asked me if I was going to abuse Eleanor in my play and I said I was going to tell the truth. There was a pause and then I added the words: ‘as I see it.’
‘I don’t think we’d better hold any more sessions,’ said Maeve. ‘This is getting out of hand. We may already have gone too far.’ I asked Maeve what she meant by her last comment, but she refused to be drawn.
Monica drove me back to my guest room at the university in silence. It seemed to me that the séance with Maeve had brought to an end my relationship, such as it was, with Monica. She had taken Eleanor Marchant’s side and made me into the enemy. I did not think this fair, and I wanted us to part on friendly terms; so, when Monica had stopped the car to drop me off, I said I had a present for her.
They were the first words to be spoken since we had left Maeve’s and Monica shrank back from me as if I had made a pass at her. I took the piece of tile from Grove House out of my pocket, explained its origin and gave it to her. Monica looked at the little square object in her hand suspiciously.
‘Why are you giving this to me?’
‘I thought you’d like to have it. You could use it as a paperweight while you’re writing your book.
‘But what is it you’re trying to say?’
‘I hoped we could still be friends.’
Monica said ‘Okay’, then bent over and kissed my cheek. I was startled. Suddenly the time and the place became very vivid. The warm impression of her lips remained. I thanked her, got out of the car and made my way to the guest room.
**
This is a story of false endings. I delivered my script to the BBC and it was accepted. I thought that my involvement with Monica and Miss Marchant was now over. That is what I thought; what I felt was different. I cannot claim that this was some kind of psychic intuition of what was to come; it is much more likely to have been connected with sex plain and simple. Monica’s kiss had stayed with me. Of course, it was absurd, but that is how it is. If we had gone to bed together I might have got her out of my system. It was the fragility of the connection we had made which captivated my mind.
A new term had begun—I taught English to foreign students to keep body and soul together—and I was walking back one evening to my flat from Tufnell Park tube. I had washed the day’s events out of my mind and I was planning an evening of reading and writing. My eye was caught by a car which was parked opposite the entrance to my flat because someone was sitting in it. I have always been slightly disturbed by the sight of people sitting in parked cars. I suspect that they are spying or contemplating suicide, or otherwise up to no good. I took a closer look and saw that the occupant of the car was Monica. I went over and tapped on the window.
She was staring straight ahead, a slight frown on her face and did not respond immediately to my tapping. When she did she seemed indignant and wound down the window.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked querulously. I replied by asking her the same question. She looked confused for a moment, then she said: ‘I want to know what you’re doing about Eleanor. I want to read your play. I know you’re slagging her off.’
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. I felt ashamed and helpless. I lied to her, saying that all copies of the play were either with my agent or the BBC, and that my computer was down so I could not print her out a copy at the moment.
‘You must send a copy to me as soon as possible,’ she said. ‘Will you do that?’ I hesitated. ‘Please! It’s terribly important.’
‘Did you drive all the way down from Dorset to tell me this?’ I asked. Monica looked confused.
‘This is very important,’ she said.
‘Come in and have a cup of tea. Let’s talk about this.’
&
nbsp; ‘No. I can’t stop.’
‘Please, Monica!’ I tried to open the car door. She screamed and started the car. I let go of the door just in time to prevent myself being dragged into the road. The next moment the car had gone.
A week passed. I did not send Monica my script and sustained myself with the futile hope that everything would ‘blow over’. It did not.
One afternoon, as I was teaching, I was called out of my class. It was the police on the phone. A young woman had been seen breaking into my flat and had been apprehended. She was claiming that I knew her. I asked if the woman’s name was Monica Freede and was surprised to be told that it was not.
‘She says her name is Eleanor Marchant,’ came the matter-of-fact voice on the end of the phone. ‘Would you know her, sir?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I know Eleanor Marchant. I’m coming over.’ I felt like a man drowning.
When I arrived at the police station Monica was sitting in an interview room. At first I recognised her only from the clothes she was wearing. Her auburn hair had been scraped back into a crude bun; it was greasy and almost dark brown in colour. Something had happened to her face too. It was as if a hand had taken hold of it and subtly twisted it out of shape. I noticed that her mouth, wider than before, was pulled down at the corners in a way that reminded me of the photograph of Eleanor Marchant in Broadmoor.
When she saw me a brief look of recognition and relief registered on her face, to be replaced a moment later by a sullen glare.
‘We caught her with a tin of lighter fuel,’ said the W.P.C. in charge of her. ‘It looked as if she was going to burn the place down.’
‘Hello, Monica,’ I said, but there was no reply.
I told the police that I had no wish to press any charges, and that I would take responsibility for her. They made no objections; in fact they seemed positively relieved to have her off their hands. A sympathetic officer took me aside and told me rather superfluously that ‘Miss Marchant’ needed help. I heard another officer mutter something which included the phrase ‘gives me the creeps’.
Monica came with me silently and without resistance. I drove her back to my flat, gave her coffee which she drank and asked her questions to which she failed to reply. Sometimes she stared at me balefully; sometimes her face assumed a distracted expression, her eyes wandering uncontrollably, as if she was engaged in some deep mental conflict. At the end of one of these fits she quite suddenly fell asleep. As she did so her face relaxed and took on something of its normal beauty. With difficulty I carried her through into the next room and laid her on my bed.
The sight of her so helpless filled me with a feeling very like love, but I still had no idea how to help her. Only one idea occurred to me which was that Maeve, whom I was beginning to tell myself was responsible for ‘all this’, should find us a way out. Fortunately Monica’s address book was in her bag which had been left at the flat when she was caught. Though I had not remembered Maeve’s surname it did not take long to find her: she was under ‘M’ and, besides, the address book was quite sparsely populated.
With one eye on the sleeping shape of Monica in the next room I telephoned Maeve. She answered the telephone eventually in a drugged voice as if she had been asleep. It was four in the afternoon and she appeared to be irritated by my call. I said I was worried about Monica.
‘What’s that got to do with me?’ she said.
‘I thought you were her friend.’
‘So are you.’
‘I think she’s possessed.’
There was a long pause, then: ‘Are you serious?’
I replied irritably that of course I was serious, though looking at the peacefully sleeping Monica in my bedroom I began to doubt. After a little further argument we agreed that I should drive Monica down to Maeve’s cottage that night. I received the distinct impression that Maeve had no more idea of what to do than I.
I had difficulty in waking Monica, and even then she remained in a semi-comatose state while I got her to the car. By this time it was getting dark. Monica was disposed to sleep during the journey and I was happy to let her, but it was a strange, lonely drive down to Dorset.
As we were approaching the village of Wolfeton Monica woke up. She was confused and asked me where she was and what was happening. I tried to give her soothing answers but she was obviously troubled. Though I wondered whether I should stop the car and offer her more detailed reassurance my instinct was to go on as we were nearly at Maeve’s.
We were driving along a comparatively narrow stretch of road. Ahead I could see the lights of a lorry approaching. Suddenly Monica grasped the wheel and steered my car into the path of the oncoming vehicle. It was a strong cold grip. The lorry hooted. I wrenched control of the steering wheel and pushed the car back to the other side of the road. The lorry grazed the bumper; Monica screamed and I drove on. I was not going to stop until I reached Maeve’s.
I glanced at Monica in the car mirror. She was in some kind of fit. Tears were starting from her eyes and the mouth was being held down in that terrible rictus.
It was instinct or perhaps Providence which took me to Maeve’s cottage. My brakes screeched as I stopped beside the gate. I saw Maeve running out. Monica was sobbing uncontrollably beside me. When she noticed Maeve she scrambled out of the car and rushed into her arms. I let them go into the cottage together.
For about ten minutes I sat in the car recovering from the delayed shock of the incident with the lorry. My mind was clear but my body was incapable of movement. I can remember debating with myself quite rationally whether my paralysis was mental or physical, and whether such a Cartesian distinction between mind and body was valid in the circumstances. I wanted to move but knew I could not: all my impulses were stillborn.
Slowly, will and movement returned, beginning with the extremities. At last I was able to get out of the car and walk to the cottage. When I came through the door I saw Maeve facing me at the end of the room. Her big, slightly comic face had assumed a serious expression. I knew what it meant: indignation and the secret pleasure that accompanies feelings of moral superiority.
‘What have you been doing to her?’ she asked.
‘Where is she?’
‘Never mind that. She’s upstairs on my bed resting. She doesn’t want to see you ever again, and quite frankly I don’t blame her. First of all she comes down to see you to talk about the play and you try to have her arrested; then, while she’s asleep on the way down you start groping her. She wakes up and tries to hold you off, and in the struggle you bloody nearly drive into a lorry and kill her. And quite frankly, I don’t want to listen to any explanations or excuses, because I’ve had it up to here with you. Just get out.’
I stood my ground and told her what had really happened while she listened with an impenetrable face.
‘D’you expect me to believe that bullshit?’ she asked when I had finished.
‘Why would I have brought her down to you in the first place?’ I asked. After a pause I said. ‘She’s got to you, hasn’t she?’ This last question seemed to shake her.
‘What do you mean?’
I wasn’t sure what I meant, or even who I meant by ‘she’; I had spoken without thinking. Then I said: ‘You must admit there’s something about Monica that’s not quite right.’ Maeve did not reply, but I knew she had seen a little of what I had seen. The silence that followed was broken by a creak and then another. Maeve and I started violently.
The creaks came from the staircase which opened into the main living room through a door. Monica was coming down from the bedroom. We heard her fumbling with the latch; then she entered.
She was wearing nothing except one of Maeve’s dressing gowns which was hanging open. Her eyes were wandering and unfocussed. The corners of her mouth twitched as if they were being pinched by unseen fingers. When she saw me she let out a hiss. Her eyes became fixed on mine with that cold predatory stare that you sometimes see in cats. I thought Maeve would do something but she made no
move. Desperate, I let my mind empty itself of all thought in the hope that inspiration would fill the vacuum.
The next moment—perhaps the most extraordinary to me of the whole affair—I stepped forward and hit her hard across the cheek, at the same time shouting her name. The light of humane recognition entered her eyes and I held her close to me calling to her again and again. Her body entered a convulsive phase but I still held on to her and together we were propelled about the room in a strange involuntary dance.
The convulsions were replaced by trembling, then she became still. I laid her down in a chair, thinking the worst was over, but Eleanor Marchant had one more trick to play. With a sudden movement Monica launched herself at me. I cannot remember what happened but Maeve told me afterwards that Monica had butted me in the stomach; I had been thrown back and knocked myself out on the coal scuttle.
I can recall that period of unconsciousness as a kind of dream. Yet it was unlike any other dream I have had. The events in it were coherent, simple and stripped of surrounding detail; my mental faculties were sharply rational.
I found myself in a grey mist. I imagined myself to be standing, but I could feel no solid ground beneath my feet and I seemed to be suspended in vacancy. The sensation—or rather the absence of it—would have been disquieting if I didn’t have the feeling that I was there for a purpose.
A black speck appeared in the mist and seemed to get larger or come closer: in the absence of any surroundings it was impossible to tell which. The speck formed itself into the silhouette of a tall woman in a long dress. I recognised the shape as the one I had seen long ago in the ruins of Grove House. Though the shape became more sharply defined it remained only a shape; no details or features revealed themselves. It was as though I was looking into a black hole in the shape of Miss Eleanor Marchant.
The Dreams of Cardinal Vittorini and other Strange Stories Page 10
