The Rich Man’s House

by Andrew McGahan

  Everyone listened again, straining to hear some far-off shout from below. But the only sound was a kind of seashell whisper, immense and hollow, that rose up the shaft on a creeping breeze. The more Rita listened, the more it sounded, disturbingly, like the faintest of breathing—the mountain itself inhaling and exhaling through this artificial throat.

  Kushal shuddered. ‘This place gives me the creeps. I’m going back up. If we’re stuck here another night, then it’s time for a drink.’

  And so they abandoned the stairs.

  ▲

  Madelaine cooked dinner that night, her version of beef bourguignon, along with the last of the fresh bread that the house chefs had baked yesterday morning. Once more, they ate casually in the Saloon, and afterwards lounged about sipping on drinks.

  The mood was grimmer, however, than the previous night. There was no air of making-do this time, of impromptu camping out, no post-disaster sense of euphoria. For all the comforts of the food and the drinks and the fire and the soft leather couches, there was a palpable undercurrent of impatience.

  The change was most notable in Kushal. The builder was normally indefatigably cheerful and talkative, but tonight he was all but silent, slumped in an armchair, with one hand wrapped broodingly around his whisky glass. From time to time he would rise and stride impatiently to the windows to stare out, as if hoping to find that the fog had cleared. At other moments Rita would catch him sitting rigidly, his head tilted as if listening, perhaps for the unlikely sound of a helicopter arriving by night.

  If so, no sound ever came, nor did the fog against the windows shift or lift.

  Finally it appeared Kushal had had enough. In a lull in the conversation between the others, he sat up abruptly and said, ‘Are we going to talk about it? Are we going to address what’s happening here?’

  Richman considered him a moment, then said mildly, ‘What do you mean?’

  The builder waved a hand to the surroundings. ‘I mean, how it is that we’ve been stranded here—and what we should do about it. Or,’ he added, giving Rita a stare, ‘what she should do about it.’

  ‘Me?’ said Rita.

  The billionaire looked at them both, said only, ‘I still don’t see what you’re getting at.’

  ‘You don’t?’ Kushal challenged. He was, Rita noted, somewhat drunk. ‘Here we are in this impregnable palace of yours, and it’s supposed to be foolproof; there are backups for the backups. No matter what, we’re supposed to be able to leave whenever we want. There are three ways at least: by the lifts, by the stairs, or by helicopter.

  ‘But look, one by one we’ve lost each of those three. A tsunami floods Base, so the main power goes, so the lifts are out. This fog comes in and so the helicopter is out. The security door jams so we can’t use the stairs all day, and when we do get the door open the stairs are no good anyway, even though a quake like that shouldn’t have done any damage. For that matter, how did a quake so minor start an avalanche so big, a one-in-a-hundred-thousand-year event, Clara called it, from just a tremor.

  ‘No, something is going on here, something deliberate. She knows,’ he added, with another glare to Rita. ‘It’s all in that book of hers. I read it again last night. It’s your fault, Richman; you were the one talking about it. And now I can’t help wondering if something really does want us trapped here.’

  The others met this long outburst with a moment of strained silence.

  Then Richman said coolly, ‘So you think one of Rita’s presences is to blame for all this? You mean, a presence here in the Mount?’

  Kushal looked stubborn, then confused. ‘The Mount? Well, I don’t know. I thought … in her book, I mean, there aren’t supposed to be presences in places where lots of people have lived. People drive presences out, that’s how it works, isn’t it? And the Mount has had climbers all over it for years, and huts up here, even before we began construction.’

  His look to Rita was too pleading for her to refuse, despite the vast sea of reluctance that flooded up in her. She gave a cautious nod. ‘According to what’s in that book, you’re right; there should be no presence left here in the Mount. Not anymore.’

  ‘According to the book,’ Richman echoed, eyes dancing. ‘As if you didn’t write it yourself. But fine then,’ and now he looked back to Kushal, ‘if there’s no presence in the Mount, then where is it?’

  Kushal glanced at Rita, but when she gave no sign of answering, he said, ‘In the Wheel, of course. In that bloody great mountain out there.’

  The billionaire smiled easily once more. ‘But that can’t be, can it, Rita? I’ve read that book too, don’t forget. The Wheel is miles away from us, and I’m sure you explained somewhere that none of your presences can act across so much distance. They’re strictly local. Or have I got that wrong?’

  Rita flushed, and replied stiffly, ‘No, that’s what I wrote. It shouldn’t be possible.’

  ‘There you go then, Kushal. There can’t be a presence here in the Mount, and even if there is one in the Wheel, it can’t reach us. So you—’

  ‘But I’d never seen the Wheel when I wrote that book,’ Rita interrupted. ‘It’s … it’s not like any other place on Earth. If I had come here back in those days, then I might have written differently.’

  Richman only frowned at her silently, almost sadly, as if in disappointment.

  It was Kennedy who spoke next. The security chief had been sprawled back on a couch, staring at the ceiling, as if indifferent to the entire conversation. Now he lifted his head and said, ‘Would someone mind telling me what the fuck you all are talking about? What the hell are presences?’

  His employer glanced at him with cool amusement. ‘You still haven’t read her book? How many times have I asked you to do it?’

  Kennedy shrugged. ‘I don’t read fiction. Especially science fiction.’

  Richman laughed, gave a rueful shrug to Rita, then turned back to his security chief. ‘Well, I’ll explain it to you then. Of course, it all sounds a bit crazy if you just lay her theory out there, so I’ll start with the story of how Rita here came to believe what she believes, or what she used to believe. I’m taking this straight from the second chapter of her book. I remember it quite well, it made such an impression.’ His smile returned to Rita. ‘Unless you want to tell it?’

  She stared back without trying to hide her discomfort. ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘Okay then.’ He addressed Kennedy. ‘It all started when Rita was only a girl, fifteen or so, from memory. She was a very well-off only child. Her father was already famous by then, and very much in-demand. And it so happened that he came to work on a house that was being built in a unique position.

  ‘Oh, not as unique as this position, but still … Imagine a tall sandstone sea cliff—somewhere south of Sydney, quite remote, on the edge of one of those huge national parks they have around there. Scooped into this cliff was a big cave with an overhanging ceiling and spectacular views across the sea and down to the surf below. Somehow, the very rich owner of the block of land behind the cliff got planning permission to tunnel down and build himself a house in the cave. And he hired Richard Gausse to design it. Where was it again exactly, Rita? I can’t recall the name …’

  Rita hunched silently in her chair, not looking at Richman anymore. She could remember the name of the place all too well, but only shook her head—fuck him if he thought she’d say it aloud.

  ‘Well, forget the name,’ the billionaire went on, ‘it doesn’t matter. The house was designed on four levels, half dug into the solid rock of the cliff, half extending out into the cavity under the great arch of the cave roof. From above and behind the house was invisible, but from within it opened to views of the sea and to the waves crashing against the rocks. By all accounts it was going to be beautiful, if it had ever been completed. But of course, it never was. At least, not quite to the original design.

  ‘Rita and her mother came to visit one day. There was some mix-up; they were supposed to be meeting Rita’s fath
er at the site, but Richard was away on some errand, so Rita and her mother ended up there alone. And, according to the book, Rita began to notice that something didn’t feel right.’

  Still Rita refused to look at Richman, barely able to believe that he was really going to make her relive this awful moment, and in public. And he didn’t even have the details correct. Yes, on that terrible day, her father was away when she and her mother arrived—he had forgotten they were coming to see the house, and had gone to argue with a contractor over defective window frames. But they hadn’t been alone at the site, not in the beginning—there were more than a dozen workmen busy about the place.

  That’s why, at first, nothing felt wrong at all. Not with so many people around.

  But it was late in the day, and soon the workmen began to drift off. The foreman was the last to leave, and he assured Rita’s mother that Richard could not be long much longer, that he would certainly come back to the site, as he had left his briefcase, which he always took home with him at night. So if they wanted, they were welcome to stay and wait for him. (It was the days before mobile phones, when a simple call could have solved the matter.) The site was quite safe to wander about, all the structural work was complete, only the fitting out remained.

  So they waited, Rita and her mother, quietly exploring the four levels. The house was indeed beautiful, all glass walls and light and open terraces, the sea somehow visible from everywhere, even underfoot, and it was a warm, lovely evening. But even so, Rita began to grow uneasy.

  It was a feeling that had been stealing upon her as the workmen left one by one, a sense of not wanting them to go, and especially, as it dwindled to only the foreman, of not wanting to be alone there with her mother. But now they were alone, and her anxiety was mounting minute by minute. It was like nothing the fifteen-year-old Rita had ever experienced before, as if someone who hated her and meant her harm was hovering at her shoulder, on the cusp of violence. There was no one there, she looked multiple times, but the sensation would not go away.

  ‘Finally,’ Richman went on, ‘the two of them ended up on a lower balcony overlooking the drop down to the ocean, ninety feet or so, if I remember right; the book is quite detailed. Four stories overhead, meanwhile, was the giant overhang that formed the roof of the cave. Now, that overhang had been checked by structural engineers, and they were quite sure that it was solid, that there was no way it was likely to collapse any time soon, certainly not in the house’s expected lifetime.’

  Not in a dozen lifetimes, the engineers had said, Rita remembered. True, the very fact that this was a cave set within a sea cliff predicated that the roof would collapse one day, when the ocean finally ate away its foundations. But the estimates spoke of the event being centuries off, if not millennia.

  Still, before she and her mother stepped onto the balcony, Rita almost said something. Almost. She wanted to demand, or beg, that they get out of there, that they go up to the top floor and escape to the surface. That’s how strong it was, the sensation of hostility and resentment, of not being wanted by something that was all around them.

  But then they were out on the balcony, and the ocean was a glowing blue in the sunset light that streamed over the cliff top above, and the wind gusted warm and salt-laden, and her mother lifted her arms and said, Oh, this is lovely.

  Her last coherent words.

  ‘But secure or not,’ said Richman, ‘a chunk of the roof came down. Though just before it did, Rita somehow knew it was going to happen, and tried to shout a warning to her mother.’

  No. Again, it was not quite like that. Rita hadn’t known what was going to happen. Rather, the sensation of latent hostility in the air suddenly turned to a malicious glee, and its focus lifted. Rita looked up then, and saw the great boulder already falling. The cry she gave was too late, far too late.

  Richman carried on relentlessly. ‘Not in time, however. A rock the size of a car detached from the overhang and fell four stories to slam into the balcony, smashing a great hole in it. Rita’s mother almost got out of the way, but it glanced her, and she ended up hanging from the edge of the hole.’

  Rita was lost to memory. The concussion was all but silent, so easily did the tumbling boulder obliterate the balcony. Only when it hit the sea below did the rock arouse any thunder. And left behind was her mother, hanging at the edge of the huge hole, dangling over the ocean far beneath. She was not holding on deliberately, it was just that her left wrist had become trapped in a jagged crevice of concrete and reinforcement bar that lay exposed by the destruction.

  From that single wrist, the flesh laid open to the bone, she hung for several long moments, writhing in disbelief and shock. Her legs kicked wildly beneath her as if for purchase, and her free arm flailed as she tried to rise to take a hold. But even if there had been purchase or a hold it wouldn’t have mattered, for the boulder had shattered her legs and arm, and all three limbs were disjointed, jangling ruins.

  Even so, she may well have survived, if it had ended there. She would never have walked properly again, but she might have lived.

  But the sensation of malice that had surrounded Rita had not abated. Even through her terror and shock, she was aware of it, distracting her from what she should have been doing—which was going to her mother’s aid. Instead her attention was drawn, helplessly, back to the cliff top again.

  There, another great chunk of stone was readying itself to detach.

  No, it was being readied to detach.

  That was the only way she could describe it. The boulder was not quite as large as the first, but it was big enough, and directly over her mother, and it was being wrenched from its position. It was not yet free, but in a series of jolts and shivers, it was bit by bit splitting away, as if unseen hands were tugging at it, over and over and over again.

  And the sensation of glee, of vengeance, of retribution, was overpowering.

  Rita turned back to her mother, who was still trying frantically to lift herself by her painfully trapped wrist, blood streaming from a cut on her forehead (it was only later that Rita would realise that she herself was cut all over from flying stone splinters) and for a moment their eyes locked.

  Then came the final cracking sound above, and the rush of something huge in the air.

  ‘But then a second boulder broke loose,’ Richman concluded, ‘and carried another piece of the balcony away, and Rita’s mother with it. So she died. A terrible, tragic accident, you might think. But that was not how Rita as a girl saw it.’

  Rita herself might not have been in the room for all the attention that Richman gave her, he was speaking now only to Kennedy. In any case, she was trapped in the past, helpless all over again as her mother vanished in a blur of grey and a booming clap of thunder. She was alone, standing on a ragged edge of concrete, staring down to the rocks below, and at what was left there, smeared and bloody, already being washed away by the surf.

  And finally, for the teenage Rita, just before hysteria took her, before she descended into the screaming catatonia in which she would be found by her father when he arrived only five minutes later, her final memory of the event was of the unmistakable mood that exuded from the cave all around, even as it faded away. It was no longer hostility, or even glee. Now it was of accomplishment.

  Of vindication.

  ‘You see,’ Richman explained to his security chief, ‘Rita came to believe that her mother’s death wasn’t an accident at all. That it had been something quite deliberate.’

  Kennedy spoke at last. ‘What, that the overhang was sabotaged? By who?’

  The billionaire shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. Rita didn’t blame any human agency. She blamed … well, the cave itself, the overhang, for deciding to fall on her mother.’

  The security chief frowned a glance to Rita. ‘A piece of rock decided to fall?’

  ‘Well, more correctly, a presence in the rock,’ said Richman. ‘Something that had existed there ever since the cave was formed, and which had survi
ved for centuries because the cave was so remote that hardly any humans had set foot there.

  ‘That last thing is the key, for if enough humans had set foot there, then the presence would have been forced out. Humans weaken presences, you see. Kill them, eventually. Indeed, the one in Rita’s cave was already dying because of the construction, because of all the workers on site every day. If those men had hung around that evening, it wouldn’t have been able to do anything at all. But Rita and her mother were left alone, so it had just strength enough to do this last thing, before it faded away completely.’

  Rita held her gaze stubbornly upon the floor. She was furious, to have her life laid out like this, but she couldn’t argue or even deny anything the billionaire was saying. She had written it all exactly this way in her fucking book.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Kennedy with a puff of breath. ‘I knew it was all meant to be pretty crazy, but you’re kidding me. Kushal, seriously, you believe this shit? You think there’s a presence here?’

  The builder was hesitant but determined. ‘Look at all the problems we had here during construction. All the mishaps, all the things that went missing, all the people that got injured, the people that died. I’ve worked on a lot of sites, and if I’m honest, this one was different. And the way we have been trapped here, it’s orchestrated, can’t you feel that?’

  ‘Well, I don’t believe it,’ offered Madelaine. But her tone was full of ready sympathy. ‘I’m sorry, Rita. It must have been terrible beyond belief, to witness such a thing. And yet even so, what you claim is not something I can credit. But what about you, Walter? It was you who made us all read that book. You invited Rita to come here. Why did you do all that? Unless you believe the things she claims?’

  Rita lifted her gaze at last. The billionaire’s smile was ironic. ‘Believe? I don’t know about that. But I’ve come across similar ideas before. I remember when I was just a young climber cutting my teeth in the Himalayas the local Buddhist folk would tell us tales about the mountains we crazy Westerners were always so keen to climb. They believed that certain of those mountains—not all of them, but most of the prominent ones—were inhabited each by a guarding spirit, a local god, if you will. Which sounds rather similar in principle to Rita’s presences.’