Alison looked at her husband sideways, through her lashes. ‘I think it was the fact that they’ll let him keep his cat.’ She waved a dismissive hand. ‘Anyway, once we were over that hurdle, and he actually agreed to help assemble the Home Information Pack, it was smoother sailing.’
‘With a few squalls,’ Jon added, sipping his wine. ‘Stephen complained that he wasn’t one of those white-shorted, tennis-playing types that they seem so fond of featuring on all the brochures. He’s afraid he won’t fit in.’
Alison snorted. ‘Did you see any tennis courts at Coombe Hill? Of course, he’ll fit in,’ she continued, without waiting for an answer. ‘I’m more worried about getting him to keep the house tidy for viewings. With Jon busy teaching, that falls to me, of course, and frankly, I’m exhausted.’
‘Any interest in the property yet?’ Paul asked.
‘We had an offer early on, but Dad turned it down.’
‘The estate agent is advising him to lower the asking price, the economy being what it is . . .’ Jon let the sentence die. ‘But Alison’s father is a stubborn old goat and we feel we can push him only so far.’
‘Doesn’t sound like he’s serious about selling,’ Paul commented.
Alison scowled. ‘And he won’t sell, either, if he can’t keep his dirty clothing picked up off the floor when he has viewings.’
While Janet puttered about in the kitchen putting finishing touches on the hors d’oeuvres, refusing all offers of assistance, and Alison and I waited for our husbands to reappear from the wine cellar where they were consulting with Alan on the wines to be served with dinner that evening, I filled Alison in on my trip to Slapton Sands with Cathy Yates. ‘She says her father’s body is not at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, nor at Madingly near Cambridge, so she’s convinced herself that he’s lying in an unmarked grave somewhere in Devon, along with hundreds of others.’
Alison heaved a long-suffering sigh, filled with exasperation. ‘We’ve heard those rumors for years, and there’s not a bit of truth in them, yet Americans keep reading that damn book, coming over here, tramping all over our fields, looking for the ruins of those bomb shelters Ken Small claims he saw. If the man were still alive, I swear to God I’d strangle him. I wasn’t born until after the war, of course, but as far as I know, there were no air-raid shelters out here in the countryside. Nobody considered us a target-rich environment, for one thing. Philips’ Shipyard up at Noss, sure, but not South Hams. The Naval College was bombed, as you know, but everyone seems to think that was more of an accident. Some German pilot jettisoning a couple of surplus bombs on his way back to France.’
‘Would your dad be willing to talk to Cathy about the war? Set her straight? I sort of volunteered him, I’m afraid.’
‘He’ll be flattered to be asked, but from what you say, she’s not going to be easily swayed.’
‘She’s a Duracell bunny, that’s for sure. Indefatigable. Bears more than a passing resemblance to Ken Small’s Sherman tank, too, if you want to know the truth.’
‘Is Cathy joining us for dinner tonight, then?’
‘No.’ I grinned. ‘She was having a Big Mac attack, so she went off in search of the golden arches. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the nearest McDonald’s is in Torquay!’
Alison rolled her eyes. ‘And thank heaven for that! So, who else is coming, then?’
‘Didn’t Janet tell you?’
Alison considered me over the rim of her sherry glass, shook her head. ‘Maybe it’s a surprise? Prince Charles, perhaps? Sting? Sir Paul?’ She flapped a hand. ‘Be still my heart.’
I laughed. ‘No, but she is a television personality. Have you ever heard of Susan Parker?’
Alison had relaxed into the cushions, but at the mention of Susan Parker’s name, she snapped to attention so quickly that a bit of her wine sloshed on to the upholstery. ‘Susan Parker? The medium?’ She dabbed frantically at the wet spot on the cushion with her cocktail napkin.
‘That’s right.’ I explained about my strange encounter with Susan on the street earlier in the week. ‘Turns out she’s a friend of Janet and Alan’s.’
‘I can’t believe this. I love her show! I record every episode!’ She set her wine glass down on the end table and leaned forward, hands resting on her knees. ‘One of her shows was taped at the Naval College, did you know that?’
‘No kidding!’
‘You have got to see it! The woman is incredible.’ Alison slapped her chest with the flat of her hand as if trying to jumpstart her heart. ‘I can not believe that she’s coming here for dinner! Maybe I’ve died and gone to heaven.’
‘Not yet, I hope. Good friends like you are hard to find. But when you do pass on, Susan’ll be able to talk to you.’
‘Very funny, Hannah.’
We were giggling like schoolgirls when Janet breezed into the lounge carrying a platter of broiled mushroom caps. ‘Susan just phoned and said she’d be a few minutes late, but there’s no reason to hold off on these. Careful. They’re hot.’
I stabbed one of the mushrooms with a toothpick, waved it briefly in the air to cool it, then popped it into my mouth. Flavors exploded gloriously over my tongue – goat cheese, basil and another ingredient I couldn’t immediately identify. When the platter came back in my direction, I skewered another mushroom, chewed thoughtfully – for research, of course – and was able to put a name to it – kalamata olives. ‘These are so good,’ I moaned.
‘Dead easy, too,’ Janet said. ‘The recipe calls for pine nuts, but I’m not overly fond of pine nuts, so I leave them out.’
‘Fine with me. Pine nuts leave a metallic taste in my mouth,’ Alison said as she polished off another one of the hors d’oeuvres.
I speared a third. ‘You, too? I thought I was the only person in the world to suffer from a pine mouth affliction. Weird. Last time I ate pesto, it took me two weeks to get my taste buds back in order. One thing a person definitely needs while staying with you, Janet, is taste buds in proper working condition.’
‘Ooops! There’s the bell.’ Janet set the tray of mushrooms on the coffee table and hurried to answer the door.
When she returned to the sitting room with Susan Parker in tow, I was amused to see that the guest of honor and I had dressed in almost identical, loose-fitting linen dresses from Flax, except hers was lavender and mine was rose.
‘So, you are a psychic!’ I said, indicating our matching outfits.
‘No, not a psychic,’ Susan replied with a grin, shaking my hand. ‘Psychics can see into the future. I’ve never been able to do that. I don’t dream about fiery plane crashes, then rush off to Heathrow to start warning people not to take off on flight number whatever to Los Angeles, thank God. Think what a terrible responsibility that would be!’
Alison had captured Susan’s hand and was holding on to it with both of hers. ‘She’s clairvoyant. She sees things other people can’t. Like dead people.’
Susan extracted her hand, set her handbag down on the sofa and plopped down next to it. ‘Thank you. And the medium part means I serve as a go-between, bringing messages to the living from spirits on the other side.’
I felt a chill crawl up my spine. ‘Like my mother.’
‘Precisely.’ She might have elaborated, but I’ll never know because we were rudely interrupted by the return from the cellar of the ‘boys’, bearing half a dozen bottles of wine, each covered with a dusting of gray. ‘Here we go, ladies,’ announced Alan, carrot-topped, freckle-faced leader of the pack, as they jostled one another, tumbling into the sitting room like eager puppies. ‘Oh, Susan, you’re here!’ Alan tucked the bottle of Bordeaux he was holding under his left arm and shook the medium’s hand. ‘I’d like you to meet Hannah’s husband, Paul. And this reprobate over here, the studious-looking chap cradling the Chateau Macquin St George, is Jon Hamilton. He belongs to Alison.’
Susan shook Paul’s hand, then Jon’s, holding on to it – or so it seemed to me – a bit longer than necessary upon me
eting someone for the first time. She glanced from Jon to Alison and said, ‘Excuse me for asking, but this isn’t your first marriage, is it?’
Jon fumbled the bottle he was carrying, nearly dropping it, but he recovered quickly. ‘Ah, no.’
Alison tripped across the carpet to join her husband, slipped an arm through his, squeezing tight, standing in we’ll-get-through-this-together solidarity. ‘Jon’s first wife died more than a decade ago in a sailing accident.’
Susan cocked her head. ‘I’m seeing a B. Bonnie? Barbara? Bess?’
‘Beth!’ Alison bounced up and down on her toes. ‘Jon’s first wife was named Beth!’
‘Beth.’ Susan stood quietly for a few seconds. ‘Beth. That’s right. I’m feeling . . . Oh, my gosh!’ Susan’s hand shot to the back of her head. ‘I’m feeling pain here.’ She massaged the spot vigorously, then pressed her hand against her temple. ‘And here.’ To Jon she said, ‘Is that significant?’
‘I . . . I don’t know,’ he stammered, the scalp under his pale hair turning pink. ‘Biding Thyme washed up on the rocks near Stumpy Steps with her sails still set. Beth’s body was never found. The River Dart can be unforgiving.’
Behind me, Janet clucked her tongue and muttered, ‘Every year, the Dart takes a heart. That’s what they say.’
A tremor shook Susan’s body. She shrugged it off, then turned to face the rest of us, hands raised in apology. ‘Poof! Sorry. Gone. Do forgive me. It’s sometimes hard to turn the voices off. That’s why I plug myself into my iPod whenever I drive or walk the dog.’
‘Ever try a tinfoil hat?’ Paul wondered aloud.
I found my husband’s foot and mashed down on it, hard. ‘You promised to behave,’ I hissed.
Susan dissolved into peals of laughter. ‘Hannah, your husband is a hoot!’
I shot said husband the evil eye. ‘Oh, he’s a laugh a minute, all right!’
‘Well,’ Janet announced from the doorway. ‘Now that we’ve got that all settled, I wonder if you’d like to move into the dining room. Dinner, as they say, is served.’
As I followed our hostess into the dining room, my stomach clenched. Alison Hamilton and I were supposed to be friends. But this was the first I’d heard of a previous Mrs Hamilton.
At my house, you’re lucky to get a salad accompanying your casserole or one-skillet meal, but things were different at Horn Hill House. I’d just polished off my starter of smoked salmon and quail eggs and was buttering a fresh-baked roll, when the conversation took a hard right turn. Away from the Devon weather – if you don’t like it, wait a few minutes – to something even more interesting than wondering about Jon’s marital history.
‘How long have you known each other?’ Paul asked Janet, his eyes ping-ponging between our hostess on his left and Susan Parker across the table.
Susan laid down her fish knife. ‘Janet, haven’t you told them how we met?’
Janet blushed. ‘I didn’t want to scare them off.’
Paul looked puzzled. ‘Why would we be scared off?’
‘It’s a long story.’ Janet stood, pushed her chair back. As she circled the table collecting our empty plates she said, ‘Why don’t you tell them, Alan, while I go and fetch the main course.’
Like spectators at a tennis match, all heads swiveled obediently in Alan’s direction. He squirmed in his chair.
Paul tipped his wine glass at our host. ‘Yes, Alan. Do tell.’
Alan took a fortifying sip of a fine Sancerre. ‘It goes back to when the twins were born,’ he began.
I remembered that the twins, Samantha and Victoria, were around six years old and did the math. ‘So, 2004?’
‘Yes, that’s right. The girls were delivered at Torbay Hospital in Torquay and everything was fine until we brought them home.’
‘The girls were ill?’
‘No, no, the babies were fine,’ Janet interjected from the kitchen. A second later she appeared carrying three fully loaded dinner plates, one in each hand, and a third balanced on her left forearm. ‘Once we got the girls home, though, the strangest things began happening.’ As Alan helped pass the dinner plates around, Janet continued. ‘It was little things at first. After their two a. m. nursing, I’d put the girls down in their cots and go back to bed.’
‘They had separate cots,’ Alan added. ‘That’ll be important later.’
‘I’d just get back to sleep when Victoria would start to fuss. I’d ignore it, and then Samantha would chime in. So I’d go up, burp them, check their nappies, get them settled. Up and down, up and down, sometimes it seemed I was awake all night. Excuse me for a minute while I get the rest of your dinners.’
It sounded like new-motherhood-business-as-usual to me, but I figured Alan would get around to the ‘strange’ part eventually.
‘Janet was breastfeeding, so by the end of the second week, she was exhausted,’ Alan went on. ‘So one night when they started fussing I told her, “They’re fed, they’re dry, ignore them. The girls will go to sleep eventually.” But she was a new mother, and worried over every little thing.’
‘As one should do,’ Alison chimed in.
‘Exactly as one should do,’ echoed Janet, reappearing with the four remaining plates. She set one down in front of me and I nearly swooned: lamb with leeks and ginger. The aroma was intoxicating.
Janet reclaimed her seat at the head of the table, picked up her knife and fork and indicated that we should all do the same. ‘One night, though, I was so tired that when Victoria started tuning up, I decided to stay in bed and see how long she’d cry. Five minutes? Ten? An hour? After three minutes Samantha had joined the chorus and I was crazy to get out of bed, but Alan held me back. “Do you hear that?” he asked me, and he started squeezing my arm. “What?” I snapped. “All I hear is babies screaming.”’
‘What I heard was singing,’ Alan explained.
Janet paused, a fork full of lamb halfway to her mouth. ‘I didn’t hear anything, but after a minute or two Victoria stopped crying and seconds later, Samantha did, too.’
‘Somebody was singing a lullaby, very softly,’ Alan whispered. ‘“Sweet and low, sweet and low, wind of the western sea,”’ he crooned in a gravelly baritone.
‘Thank you, Luciano!’ Janet raised a hand, cutting her husband off before he could reach the second stanza. ‘I never heard the lullaby myself, regrettably, but soon enough, other weird things began to happen. Victoria’s cuddly lamb would end up in Samantha’s cot, and Sam’s cuddly bear would be in Vicky’s. I thought I was losing my mind. One day when I put the girls down for their nap, it was a little warm in the nursery, so I didn’t swaddle them in blankets like I usually did. When I came back to check up on them, though, both the girls were tucked in. Alan was always so good with the girls that I accused him of doing it.’
Alan raised an honest-injun hand. ‘Not I.’
‘He didn’t believe me at first.’
‘Quite true. I’d read about post-partum depression and, just between us, I thought the old girl was losing her grip.’
Jon swiped at the strand of corn silk that insisted on flopping over his left eye no matter how many haircare products he used. ‘Post-partum depression has been known to cause hallucinations and delusions.’
‘Perfectly true,’ Alan agreed. ‘So I arranged some little experiments. I’d leave their booties untied; they’d somehow get tied.’
‘One day I left Vicky’s dummy on the dresser, and when I came back half an hour later, I found Vicky happily sucking on it,’ Janet added.
‘And every once in a while, late at night, I’d hear someone singing that lullaby again.’ Alan picked up a bowl of oven-roasted potatoes, spooned a couple on to his plate, then passed the bowl to me. ‘We came to the conclusion that our house was haunted, but it was such a gentle spirit that we started calling her the Child Minder.’
‘Runner beans?’ Janet asked, sending the vegetable bowl on a circuit around the table. ‘One afternoon I mentioned the Child Minder to a friend
at St Saviour’s Church and right away, she introduced me to Susan.’
‘I was new to the community, then,’ Susan said, flushing modestly. ‘Word hadn’t gotten around about my special gift. Believe it or not, I’m really rather shy!’
‘No walking up to strangers in the street?’ I teased.
‘Exactly. That came later.’
‘Anyway,’ Janet continued, ‘this friend suggested that Susan might be able to communicate with our spirit, find out why she was hanging around the house. Our dream was to open a bed and breakfast, but we didn’t think a resident ghost would appeal to the kind of clientele we hoped to attract.’
‘I’m not so sure about that,’ Paul commented. ‘Horn Hill House could be a stop on the Haunted Dartmouth Tour.’
Alan frowned, Paul’s lame joke falling flat. ‘We really didn’t think it would be good for business.’
At the other end of the table, Janet’s head bobbed emphatically. ‘So, to make a long story short, we invited Susan for tea without telling her anything about our “little problem”.’ She drew quote marks in the air. ‘We walked her all around the house. Ground floor, nothing. First floor – that’s where Alan and I had our bedroom at the time – nothing. But when she got to the nursery!’ Janet pressed a hand to her mouth, overcome with emotion, as if the day were happening all over again.
Susan laid a comforting hand on Janet’s shoulder. ‘I’ll take the story from here if you like.’
Janet nodded. I thought she was about to cry.
‘Almost immediately,’ Susan began, ‘I sensed a strong female presence in the nursery. So I sat down in the rocking chair and waited. Gradually, the presence revealed herself. I got the impression of someone white-haired and fragile. She told me her name was Eleanor, and that she was there to look after the babies.’
‘We knew the history of the house,’ Alan interrupted, ‘so I informed Susan that I was positive that in all its one hundred plus years, nobody by the name of Eleanor had ever lived here.’
Susan leaned forward. ‘And Eleanor must have been listening, because she spoke right up to explain. She told me that she came home from the hospital with the babies.’
All Things Undying Page 5