Strange Sight

by Syd Moore

  Bronson looked at his feet. But Sam met my gaze and said, ‘No idea.’ Then he sighed and added. ‘No one does. I wasn’t sure how much you knew.’

  ‘So what are you saying here, Sam?’

  ‘Let’s go upstairs and light a fire,’ he suggested.

  ‘I’ll get on to that right away,’ said Bronson and darted out through a side door.

  ‘Come on, what’s the big deal?’ I was starting to feel annoyed.

  Sam folded his phone away. ‘Okay, well it was a very strange affair.’

  ‘Had to be, didn’t it?’ I said with a sigh. ‘Go on then.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ethel-Rose was a vivacious young woman. Bright, with a personality that switched between infectious cheer and reflective solemnity. This I knew from my dad. His mum, he had told me, was beautiful too with an evident glamour that lent her the charisma of a ballet dancer or a movie star. This I also discovered for myself, after viewing the Strange family portrait that hung over the fireplace in the museum lounge that Sam and I sprawled in while Bronson boosted the fire.

  I also thought, though no one had mentioned it, that she was quite sexy.

  In the picture she’d chosen a sumptuous pink evening gown, taffeta or silk or a fabric similarly shiny, which revealed just enough décolletage to titillate decorously. The painter had certainly appreciated the view, you could tell. He’d worked hard on the cleavage and her eyes – which turned out wide and lashy and kitten-green. Certainly I thought he’d captured a spark, a moment of impish mischievousness in them. Or maybe that was just me.

  More recently I had learnt from Sam that Ethel-Rose possessed another interesting quality: she was allegedly clairvoyant. That is, my grandfather, who seemed to have once been the expert on such matters, thought her so. In fact it was this rather unconventional aspect of her character that had brought her to his notice. He had been assigned to investigate her case which he approached with every intention of catching her out. But he couldn’t and ended up marrying her. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. I wasn’t sure about any of that malarkey. Though I had taken my foot off my own brakes of late, having learnt from Sam that absolute scepticism could be just as blinding as absolute faith. And despite loud protests to the contrary, it did resonate somewhere within.

  Sitting back into his armchair Bronson took a sip of the brandy he’d found in the cellar, and said, ‘She was a beauty, your grandmother. I was only five years old when she disappeared but my father—’

  Eh? I sat up straight. ‘She disappeared?’ I thought she died. ‘What do you mean “disappeared”?’ Dad hadn’t mentioned that.

  For a moment he seemed doubtful, then Sam came in and said, ‘I told you. The other night. When we were at your flat. It’s another Strange family mystery.’

  ‘Did you?’ I said, not really able to remember. But anyway, that wasn’t the point. ‘Sorry.’ I nodded at Bronson, eager not to put him off. ‘Please. You were saying your father …?’ Though internally I was almost quaking.

  ‘Yes,’ he said sending his mind back to his childhood, I supposed. ‘My father remembered her very fondly. He used to work with her father, your great-grandfather, Frederick, at his nursery. He was a lovely man, Fred. The wife though, she had, what you’d call “airs and graces”. Reckoned herself as a bit of a madam. Not that she had any cause to set herself above the rest of the village from what I heard. Pair of them arrived in Adder’s Fork during the First World War. Fred’s lungs were weak and they’d been living in the East End. His family ran a cigar factory.’

  ‘They were called Romanov, weren’t they?’ I remembered this from one rare occasion that Dad had reminisced about the family.

  ‘That’s right,’ Bronson concurred. ‘There were rumours they were distant relations of the imperial Romanovs. But I think the wife, Anne, put that around. My dad told me he’d heard her telling her husband it didn’t do no harm and opened doors that might have been closed to common tradespeople with peculiar surnames.’

  Not a bad idea, I thought, given the amount of xenophobia that must have been around at the time.

  ‘She, Anne, had come from the East End too. Father had been an Irish navvy, mother apparently from a gentle family that had lost its fortune. They’d come down after the first Zeppelin raid so Fred could have some country air. Lived in that nice cottage on Hollypot Lane in the village. Beautiful, covered in honeysuckle, flowers everywhere. But the grandma, on her side, she came down to see them once and never went away again. Her name was Roisin. She was Irish and I believe it was her who first taught Ethel-Rose to read the tea leaves and the palms. Filled her head with all sorts of nonsense about fairy folk too. And I think when she died, Anne hoped that would be an end to it. But along comes Fred’s sister, Rozalie – see Ethel-Rose was named after the pair of them – the grandmother and the aunt, and by god, they both left an impression on the child.’

  He shook his head at the fire, then looked at the portrait above it and smiled at some memory. ‘Anyway Rozalie was just as bad as Anne’s mother. With her, it was all tarot and spiritualism. See after the war, with so many lost, there was a lot wanted to get in touch with the dead. It wasn’t uncommon.’

  ‘What?’ I said, surprised to be hearing this. ‘So did Ethel-Rose do séances then?’

  Sam cleared his throat. ‘Not séances as such, I believe she called them “public meetings”. Rozalie encouraged her. And, as I told you, this is how Ethel-Rose and Septimus met.’

  I turned and lent him the full force of my gaze. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said, though he seemed to me a little reluctant. ‘This is what I know from Septimus.’ He was distancing himself. ‘She’d done a few in the village hall but they’d been attracting more and more people. Rozalie hired the ballroom at the old town hall in Litchenfield to accommodate everyone. The place was packed to the rafters. Word had got around. It was 1943 and the country was at war again. As Bronson quite rightly points out there were a lot of grieving people then who were desperate for hope and/or answers.

  ‘Your grandmother started off with the usual requests,’ Sam went on. ‘Finding mislaid lockets, wills, imparting messages of love from those who had passed on. However, towards the end one lady in black stood up and asked for her son. Ethel-Rose was in two minds as to whether to help, ironically. For she was very tired and well over her time but the sight of the woman apparently moved her. According to Septimus, she used to say that when she reached out it was like tuning into the “frequency of the dead”. Whatever, she swore that, that night, when she sent her mind into the blackness she heard the woman’s son speak. In a later interview, she testified that the boy was confused, lost in a wild vortex he supposed might be the roiling sea. But hearing her summons, he duly reported for duty giving his name and squadron. There were others with him too, pleading for help, whispering in low voices. “We,” they allegedly insisted, “are on Burnstow.” When Ethel-Rose repeated this a murmur rippled through the crowd. The mother of the boy, the woman in black, she immediately cried out and then fainted. Within seconds two men in brown suits, who had been sitting at the front, got up from their chairs, ascended to the stage and there, in front of the gathered audience, they arrested Ethel-Rose. There were also, unfortunately, press in among the rows.’

  ‘Why?’ I said. ‘Why did they do that? Arrest her? She wasn’t breaking any rules, was she?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘Depends what you believe. She was arrested under Section 4 of the 1735 Witchcraft Act. You see, the ship that Ethel-Rose reported the spirit sailors were aboard, the HMS Burnstow, had been sunk but one week previously, torpedoed by a German U-boat with a loss of 547 lives. To maintain the country’s morale this news, however, had not yet been released.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, sucking down a deep breath. ‘So how did she know? That it had been sunk?’

  Sam took a swig of his tea. ‘How did she know indeed?’ Then he fastened his eyes on me and blinked. His voice was conspicuously steady, his face rigi
dly calm. ‘Ethel-Rose Romanov became a cause célèbre. There were clamours and protests about her arrest. It caused a bit of a public uproar. So,’ he went on. ‘To demonstrate that something was being done the Home Office deployed a young freelance operative with some experience of the MI6 Occult Bureau. Enter Septimus Strange.’

  ‘Ah-ha!’ I said. The picture was becoming whole. ‘But did everyone think she was a witch or something?’

  Bronson, this time, took a breath and shook his head. ‘No. Not here. Everyone thought it was a bit of a joke.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Sam. ‘Ethel-Rose was arrested under the Witchcraft Act but that was an excellent act of dissembling. It was the easiest thing to slap on her and the perfect distraction. The serious question that they really wanted to interrogate her about was where the leak in the department was. Or had she somehow heard the news from abroad?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Spying?’

  ‘Sort of,’ he replied. ‘The Witchcraft Act was helpful because it lent cover and, like I said, people were desperate to believe in something more.’

  I frowned. ‘So was she a clairvoyant or not?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘Why are you asking me?’

  ‘Because you had my grandfather’s ear.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘you know that I believe that some things can’t be explained.’

  I nodded vigorously. ‘And some things can. So Ethel-Rose …?’

  ‘I don’t know. There could have been some form of telepathy going on. Ethel-Rose was allegedly clairaudient – she heard voices. But Frederick’s family were from Prague. He listened regularly to international radio broadcasts. Ethel-Rose herself was a telephonist; maybe she had heard something about the HMS Burnstow without realising what it was. I don’t know. Septimus, though, approached her with an open mind at first. He put her through quite a lot of tests and examinations and she proved unusual. Her results were extremely positive. She seemed to demonstrate certain gifts, keen perceptions, and in uncovering them, his admiration for her grew.’

  ‘I bet it did,’ I said, and laughed at my own joke.

  ‘Rosie,’ said Sam. ‘Really! This is your grandparents’ love story.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ I said, suitably chastened. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Eventually he was able to use his ministerial contacts to pull a fair many strings and negotiated a release. Two months later he returned triumphantly to Adder’s Fork with Miss Romanov.’

  ‘That’s quite a long time to be held in custody, isn’t it?’

  ‘Like I said, there were those that thought she may have been a spy. Could have been worse. But it was the war. Things didn’t run smoothly and fairly. On the positive side when they returned to village, the pair were in love.’

  ‘Ah, how sweet.’ I avoided his eyes.

  ‘When Septimus proposed on VE day, Ethel-Rose readily accepted. They married on 2 October in 1945, an autumn wedding shortly after the war ended. Soon they moved into the cottage with Rozalie. Fred and Anne had upgraded to a bigger house a few years before. Ethel-Rose’s aunt, however, continued to urge her niece to use her gifts. She believed they were a gift from God. That it was evil not to use them. Septimus insisted that even though the war was over there were those who would be watching Ethel-Rose and not with her best interests in mind. He was evasive about who these people were,’ Sam said. ‘I never did find out who he was referring to. Wouldn’t be drawn.’

  ‘Why would that be?’ I wondered out loud.

  Bronson piped up. ‘My father always said Septimus was afraid for her. For Ethel-Rose.’

  I took a moment to think about this. Who would be watching out for my grandmother? ‘Someone connected to the Occult Bureau?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know.’ Sam shook his head again. ‘But he thought it very important for her to lie low. He didn’t want her gifts to come to public notice again. Maybe it was the scandal that they’d caused. The drama. I think he’d indebted himself to certain government agents when he got her out of detention. Maybe he didn’t want to go through all of that again. I don’t know. But anyway, for a while, it worked. An uneasy truce existed between Septimus and Rozalie. The next few years were fine. Edward George Strange was brought into the world.’

  ‘Dad,’ I said, and nodded and smiled.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Sam. ‘And then in the summer of 1952, Celeste was born.’

  We shifted our collective gaze to the portrait hanging above the crackling fire.

  Septimus looked noble, tall and straight, Ethel-Rose all rosebud-pink and slinky. They cut an attractive pair. Dad scowled in his sailor suit and Celeste struggled in her christening robes, lobster-red and squealing. Such a traditional, conservative painting. And yet how unconventional they all must have been. Who’d know to look at them?

  ‘There was a brief period of joy and then rather suddenly Fred died. He was seventy-five, which was a good age considering his lung problems. However, it was sudden and had rather a dramatic effect on both his wife and daughter. Anne locked herself away and wouldn’t be persuaded to come out. Ethel-Rose fell into a bout of depression. She had had quite a difficult childbirth with Celeste and still had Ted running rings about her and Rozalie at the cottage. I think she may have been relying on her mother to help her out, but Anne insisted on staying in the dark. I know there were rows. Between mother and daughter, and husband and wife. Not too many, your grandfather said, but enough to make the police look at him with suspicion after she disappeared.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘So here’s the rub. How?’

  ‘As I said, Anne was morose. Rozalie, of course, thought the best way to ease her pain and help her to move on was to put her in touch with her husband, Fred. Though they had rarely seen eye to eye on this before, it seemed that the grief-stricken Anne very soon came round to Rozalie’s thinking.’

  I shrugged. ‘Bereavement does weird things to people. Especially in that regard. Makes them vulnerable.’

  ‘Problem was Rozalie,’ said Bronson and crossed his legs. The alcohol had made his skin flush scarlet. ‘She had a big mouth. I think Septimus never really forgave her for that. She thought if Ethel-Rose was going to do this one last time, then she should help as many people as possible.’

  ‘I see,’ I nodded. ‘Go out in a blaze of glory?’

  Sam gave a sad smile. ‘She should have been in PR. She really was ahead of her time – hired the village hall.’

  ‘So Ethel-Rose agreed to it?’

  ‘No, not initially.’

  Bronson came in again. ‘That Rozalie, she just disregarded that. She told her friends. One of these had a relative in Canvey Island and there had been terrible floods there. Lots of people drowned. The woman from Canvey told her friend from Jaywick, where there’d also been fatal flooding. A whole load of them came down.’

  ‘Septimus of course was livid,’ Sam went on. ‘He forbade her to get involved in such a thing.’

  ‘Is that what he actually said? I asked, ears prickling at certain archaic words. ‘Forbid?’

  ‘I’m paraphrasing. As you well know sexual politics was rather different back then. However, there was a period when the whole thing was called off. But then your grandfather was called away, at the last minute, on a job.’

  A thought crossed my mind. ‘Did Rozalie have anything to do with that?’ She sounded quite conniving.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, as if it had never occurred to him before. ‘But unguarded, as such, Ethel-Rose was persuaded to perform.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ I said in an exaggerated manner. ‘What could possibly go wrong?’

  ‘Quite,’ said Sam. ‘Well, it was spring and by all reports a warm night. Anne and Ethel-Rose walked to the hall chatting casually. It was one of the first times that Anne had been out since the funeral and it emboldened Ethel-Rose. However, when the pair of them arrived at the village hall, they had quite a shock. A dozen of the villagers were protesting outside. There had been a change of hands at the vicarage and the new incumbent wa
s of the fire-and-brimstone school of preaching. While Albert, the previous vicar, had looked upon Ethel-Rose’s divinations as a bit of fairground fun, the new regime, under the Reverend Roger Winsome, was not so tolerant. He had met with other villagers concerned that Adder’s Fork was attracting unwanted types, low of class and clearly low of standards, and becoming, they believed in the eyes of the outside world, a village associated with dark arts and black magic. Forming an alliance with the disgruntled villagers the new vicar used Ethel-Rose’s meeting to proudly proclaim his zero-tolerance moral crusade, and no doubt publicise his new-style leadership. The meeting was, the group shouted loudly, “Unwholesome, unholy and unwanted.” But, this time, her mother pushed her on. Mrs Romanov was hell-bent on communing with her dead husband. Even if it was to be at the expense of her living daughter.’

  ‘That was a bit of a turnaround,’ I said, reflecting that this Anne woman was, in fact, my great-grandmother.

  ‘It was.’ Sam paused and set his drink down. ‘Sometimes it can happen like that, can’t it?’ He glanced at me. ‘That which initially repels turns in on itself and becomes absurdly unstoppable in its attraction. Sometimes,’ he said, and coughed and went on more quickly, ‘Anyway, inside it was just as turbulent. Not only was there a police presence, but Ethel-Rose also sighted men who looked like the types in brown suits who had arrested her before. It didn’t help her nerves. Then, of course, there were the bereaved in various states of hopefulness and distress.

  ‘After a short introduction by the elderly Rozalie, Ethel-Rose began. Her priority was to reach out to her father, Fred, but others had requests too so she tuned in to the frequency of the dead once more and let the voices draw near. There was a whole gaggle of them desperate to speak and as they broke forth, Ethel-Rose repeated their messages.’

  That was quite a lot of detail for Sam to reel off, I thought. Maybe Septimus had written up a report. He was an investigator after all. I wondered if Sam had access to it.

  ‘At some point,’ he was saying, ‘a protest group burst into the room. On the stage, Ethel-Rose faltered. Someone in the crowd shouted out that she’d lost her wits and others began to jeer. But according to Anne, in among the clamour of voices, Ethel-Rose heard her father speak. We don’t know to this day what he was meant to have said, but we do know that Ethel-Rose suddenly became frightened and clutched her throat. She began to scan the faces in the crowd. Someone cried, “Charlatan.” Then Ethel-Rose screamed and flew from the stage. Her actions caused even more uproar and people began to rise to their feet. A fight broke out – half the protest group were pounced upon. The police waded in; the brown suits were co-opted to help contain the situation. On the stage Anne and Rozalie appealed for calm. But somehow in the middle of this commotion Ethel-Rose Strange simply disappeared.’ He paused and looked at me.