Ghosts and Hauntings

by SIMS, MAYNARD

  I looked at Lucy and a guilty smile twitched my lips.

  Lucy pulled her bag from under her feet. I knew what she was looking for. “The estate agent details will confirm it,” I said quietly.

  She gave that whispered snort I had become so familiar with and pulled the small brochure onto her lap. I watched as she checked the address, flicked her eyes from the colour photo to the house itself, and finally turned the brochure to the back.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I ventured.

  “There’s always a first,” she said. Then a deep sigh, and, “I’m sorry. What am I thinking?”

  “Same as me.”

  “Which is? Don’t play games, John. This can’t be the right house.”

  “You’re thinking, have they got the price right in the sales brochure? How can this house be up for sale at this price?”

  “And what’s wrong with it?” she said.

  The man to tell us that, or rather to try to mask the problems, turning them into positives with his estate agent’s eloquence, opened the door of the house and beckoned us in.

  “He looks like your brother,” Lucy said, but I didn’t know if that was meant as a good thing or not.

  As I looked over at her I experienced an ever-diminishing emotion that had its cause in the remnants of affection. It wasn’t a recent reduction in romance, of course. No one had suddenly rushed over and poured cold water on our fire. Rather it was a gradual fading away, as if drops of water were slowly drizzled onto our love, drip, by lonely drip, making it soggy and uncomfortable.

  The agent, who looked nothing like my younger brother, was halfway between the house and the car before we stepped out and moved to greet him.

  “Mrs Thorne, Mr Thorne,” he gushed, his damp handshake a limp fish flopping on the water’s edge, as if it did belong in a pool somewhere.

  We shook hands and he appraised us artlessly, matching up our expectations with the features he had to sell, our perceived social standing with the lifestyle he had in mind. Would the house suit us, he wondered. I was more concerned about whether we would suit this grand house, and whether it could paper over the many ways we no longer suited one another.

  He was dressed for the occasion, blue pin striped suit and yellow tie setting off the pale blue shirt. Crisp and neat and even. We didn’t compare after the warm journey in the cramped car; crumpled, untidy and anything but even.

  Lucy was clutching the sale particulars; a fact not unnoticed by Mr Professional.

  “You’ve had a good look at the details then?”

  Lucy nodded. “Good size rooms, plenty of garden to lose oneself, kitchen and bathrooms recently modernised.”

  “In a nutshell, well done.”

  I winced at the ingratiating tone, waiting for a Lucy barb to stop him in his tracks, but none came. She was gazing up at the house, almost in awe. Another fact picked up on by the agent. Eagerness wasn’t wise in house buying, when price negotiation might be needed.

  “Has it been empty long?” I asked.

  “Few months, that’s all. The previous owners emigrated. His work I believe. Something in finance.”

  Lucy laughed, and the sound disturbed some rooks in a nearby tree. “John was in finance weren’t you darling? Assistant bank manager.”

  “Let’s take a look inside shall we?” the estate agent said smoothly.

  He opened the double front door and Lucy went inside. I held back just an instant to get a look at the exterior. It was red brick, with mullioned windows, a Russian vine creeping along the side wall, and at least three chimney pots that I could see. It was a large house, big enough to find plenty of space in which to hide.

  I thought I heard a noise on the gravel, just as Lucy and the estate agent disappeared from view. When I turned there was nothing there, except there were some scuff marks in the stones, as if someone had been digging their feet into the gravel and dragging them along, leaving track marks.

  The entrance hall was expansive, black and white marble tiles, several doors leading from it. Sunlight played down from windows in the circular landing that ran the perimeter of the hall on the first floor.

  He showed us around numerous rooms, all of them elegant. I began to wonder how our furniture would suit. The kitchen was ultra modern, with chrome and bleached wood, but as kitchens tend to do, it existed on its own, neither part of the house nor divided from it. Upstairs were six bedrooms, three with bathrooms attached, and a large family bathroom. The attic was boarded out with wood panels and apart from ample storage, the light through the dormers seemed perfect for the studio Lucy had in mind. She had returned to her love of painting and that suited the both of us, industrious privacy should work well for the marriage we thought.

  Back downstairs the agent suggested we sat in the drawing room, not a phrase Lucy and I used at home, but I could see her pull her shoulders back a little at the thought of using it in the future. While he disappeared into the kitchen to make some tea, Lucy and I sat on opposite sofas looking at each other for clues about what we thought about the house.

  “Is it too big?” she asked.

  “If you mean is it too grand for us, then probably it is. Does that matter?”

  “Does it matter to you? No, don’t answer that. We’ll grow into it. The price is still bothering me, though.”

  “We’ll get a thorough survey, I’ll use Tom, he owes me a favour.”

  Just then the tea arrived and we busied ourselves in the English ritual of cups, and leaves, and teapots.

  “I am obliged to tell you I have already had an offer, quite near the asking price.”

  This was a natural ploy of the breed but I could see from the expression on Lucy’s face that she was accepting his words as fact.

  “More tea, Peter?” I asked, as a diversion, having finally prised his first name from him.

  While he proffered his cup and I poured from the pot, I said. “The asking price is quite reasonable in the circumstances, although for such a substantial property, some might consider it on the low side.”

  He sat back and stirred his cup. “To your advantage then.”

  “Although a suspicious person might wonder what the reason for that might be. Obviously a full survey will reveal any deficiencies in the structure, but I wondered whether there might be another reason you could tell us about.”

  He sipped his tea, “Well, as the particulars…”

  “Remembering, naturally, that a vendor has a duty to reveal everything these days.”

  Lucy stood up and walked across to the French doors, staring at the garden through the windows. She was still holding her cup and saucer. I couldn’t see her face and the movement was not one I was familiar with so found it hard to interpret. Not that there were many of her gestures I could comprehend these days; many of them seemed to be staged for effect rather than from a natural emotion.

  I didn’t realise, she only saw fit to tell me later, but she saw one of them then, that first day. It was a young blonde girl, about eight or nine, Lucy thought. She was on a wooden swing, hung by two stout ropes from an impressive oak tree in the garden. The girl was idly swinging back and forth, as children tend to do, and she seemed to be talking to someone, although at the time Lucy assumed she was singing or playing with an imaginary friend.

  “The survey is a necessity I understand that, but you’ll not find anything in it that will deter you. The odd roof slate, some tidying on the pointing; you were a banker, nothing you won’t have seen a dozen times or more.”

  Lucy turned from the windows. “What then?” I knew from her words that her action had been borne of frustration. She wanted the house and it would be my fault if there were reasons why she shouldn’t have it.

  The agent looked at her, turned to me, and actually spread his hands open, palms upwards, in a classic statement of openness. “I could tell you it’s an unlucky house. I could say it’s haunted, I know…I know, unbelievable. The truth is the vendor died – oh, not here, peaceably at
a nursing home – and his family just want a quick sale. It really is nothing more than rank good fortune for you both.”

  When Lucy looked back into the garden the girl had gone, although the lazy movement of the swing continued for some time afterwards, perhaps too long she wondered.

  I inclined my head, a simple movement that had been known to extract hidden truths from clients in my best banking days, but they were a memory now, a closed ledger. They drew nothing further from Peter the agent; perhaps he was being honest, I suppose it could happen. And then I saw him tug on his left ear, and at the same time he glanced down at his notes and I knew he was holding something back.

  “Naturally withholding information is slightly more than unethical isn’t it?”

  He smiled in a way that made me realise he hadn’t expected us to probe him about the house quite as much. He clearly hoped we would be in awe of its size and grandeur and take it.

  “The truth is the vendor did die, and it was in a nursing home, although there was an accident, here at the house, and that’s why he ended up…”

  “What happened?” Lucy said. I could tell she was quite prepared to brush any uncomfortable facts away if it meant she could have the house. She had been doing the same with our lives for too long.

  Peter looked decidedly uncomfortable now but I could see he was made of better stuff than I had first thought. “There were three children, one from the woman’s first marriage and two from...well two from the current marriage. Only it’s not current any longer. The wife killed herself after the birth of the last baby, suicide, and I am afraid it was here, in the house, the bathroom I believe, a sharp knife. The man, Charles Wood, soldiered on with the help of some domestic agency staff, but three daughters, one no more than a baby, is a lot for anyone to cope with.”

  “Especially when your wife has…” Lucy said, and she spoke very quietly. Once again I thought I knew what she was thinking about.

  “Quite. The fire happened in the east side of the building. No one was quite sure how it started although there was talk that the nanny for the day was a smoker. The children didn’t stand a chance, and Mr. Wood, try as he did, was unable to get through the smoke and flames. Injured himself badly in the attempt.”

  “Sufficiently to put him in a nursing home,” I said.

  “He held on for a few weeks but the spirit, the will to live, had gone.”

  Lucy sat on her sofa again and put her cup and saucer on a low table. “Is any of the furniture included in the price?”

  I looked at her in surprise. “The tragedy hasn’t put you off?’

  “You can’t see the fire damage from the front of the house,” Peter said. “Although that is a part of the house that has been sealed for now, and…well you asked about the low nature of the price.”

  “We are only getting a certain part of it,” I said.

  “A very substantial part, and with time, and some money, the east wing could be fully restored. Some might say the situation is rank good fortune, though I wouldn’t be so crass.”

  Lucy and he chatted for a few moments about fixtures and fittings, furniture and floorings.

  I was deep in thought about the house. It was perfect for our purposes, and yet the deaths of three children, and the suicide of the mother, were naturally factors that had to be taken seriously. Could I live somewhere that had been the scene of such events? Or would my own misery merely add to the shroud of sadness that had clearly engulfed the house.

  Eventually Peter hesitated. “I did just wonder one thing,” he said.

  “Which was what?” I said.

  He spread his hands again, this time in an all-embracing sweep of the room, though we understood he meant the whole house. “It’s a large house, ‘substantial’, I think you called it. For the two of you…”

  Lucy looked at me, and I regret I looked away. She had to answer. “We hope to adopt, or at least to foster, children,” she said.

  In our late forties we possibly looked a little old to youthful Peter to want to have children. “We lost a child,” I said. “Our daughter, Annie.”

  “It’s why we needed a house with lots of space,” Lucy said. “Fostering, I mean, not…”

  “I’m sorry about your daughter. How many children do you want to have?”

  Once again Lucy and I exchanged a glance but this time it was only fair I offer an explanation of sorts. There was no need for the agent to know all our particulars, after all we weren’t in any brochure he had on his books. “We haven’t done anything about it yet, haven’t approached the appropriate agencies. We wanted to get our circumstances sorted out before we…”

  “Fair enough,” Peter said. “Shall we talk about an offer?”

  Rank good fortune Peter had called our purchase and it was also good fortune we had a buyer lined up for our London house. Good fortune the survey was sound on both houses, barring the inevitable long warning paragraphs about the fire damage to the manor house, as we were already calling it. The finances were in our favour, and a quick sale was everyone’s preferred choice. We were moving in before the end of September.

  Annie had been a much-wanted child. Several miscarriages followed years of infertility problems that meant tests, and exploratory operations and more tests. There was no reason we couldn’t conceive. Unexplained infertility was the less than helpful name they gave to a very common affliction. Each month though, however common the issue might be, when no pregnancy had been achieved, we went through days of tears and retribution until time came round to try again. Try after robotic try, temperatures checked, ovulations confirmed, and nothing.

  Not quite nothing, occasionally a conception, but short lived. A few weeks, a first scan, and the sad bad news broken in various degrees of sympathetic inevitability. Until that is we gave up. Stopped trying. Lucy blamed me, and I was too exhausted and felt too medically examined to care. We took a holiday, must have had sex, though by then it was like taking regular medication, and a few weeks later a scan showed a healthy foetus. There were plenty of scares during pregnancy, lots of bleeding, and Annie arrived a month early and had to stay in hospital for twelve days while her weight built up and she learned how to feed, but we had a baby.

  No longer had a marriage that was warm and loving but we had a baby.

  Come September and we moved in. the furniture that we had seen on the viewing was part of the deal and with our pieces we had a more than comfortable home.

  The house proved everything we hoped it would be. Lucy undertook the installation of a studio in the attics and I worked on the gardens. As we indulged our separate passions so I began to notice we developed different perspectives about the house.

  She found the upstairs full of light and energy; spending as many of her waking hours up there as she could, and indeed slept in her own bedroom on the first floor as well. I seemed to prefer the downstairs rooms where, the modern kitchen aside, the traditional décor and furnishings gave me a feeling of belonging, of coming home. Naturally I had my own bedroom on the first floor, but I often stayed downstairs, usually in the drawing room, on a sofa.

  We had been there about a fortnight when I heard the voices. They seemed to be coming from the first floor landing. Lucy was out, looking over the village she said. I was downstairs washing my hands after cutting the grass. There were substantial outbuildings and in one of them I found a large and serviceable sit on lawn mower. There was a small supply of petrol for it and once filled, and after several hard pulls on the ignition pulley, it worked perfectly well.

  I was drying my hands when I heard the sound of children playing upstairs. I couldn’t hear distinct words and to imagine children at play might sound fanciful but there was a cadence about the voices that was instantly recognizable as children with all their innocence and easy acceptance of the world.

  I walked up the stairs, attempting to distinguish from which part of the house the voices were coming from. Once on the landing I was certain they had as their source the eastern par
t. I got as far as I could before I was at the boarded and barred fire damaged part of the house. A neat and professional job had been done and with a new door installed and locked there was nothing to indicate that behind it was anything other than further rooms. Whether it was my imagination, though that is not a characteristic for which I am commonly known, but I fancied I could smell the aftermath of a fire. The unmistakable stench of smoke damaged furniture, the smell of burned wood. I knew from the estate agent and the survey report that all damage had been brought under control, even though the rooms had not been restored, so there should have been nothing to indicate a fire had occurred.

  As I stood in front of the barred door, I heard a voice calling my name. Just once, “John”, and I listened for it again. There seemed to me to be low giggling, as young girls do when they are together. I remember Annie, when she had friends over to our house, would laugh and giggle with the girls for hours and if I asked her what she was finding so funny she couldn’t say. It was as natural to her as breathing.

  “Daddy.” I heard the word spoken, I was sure I heard it rather than imagined it. I banged softly on the door, and sank to me knees with my face against the wood. There would be nothing I wouldn’t do to have Annie back.

  Downstairs we had discovered, quite overlooked in the initial inspection although it was in the particulars, a cellar. It was a bit damp, nothing dangerous according to the survey, and we used it for storage while we decided what to keep and what we could dispose of. It was in a box left behind by the previous owners that we found the toys. There were lots of them, mostly traditional wooden toys but books as well, many of them quite old.

  “These might be useful if we foster,” Lucy said.

  “If?”

  “I’d like to say, when, but at our age…I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

  A routine developed over the first few weeks and as winter sloped across the fields we began to feel at home in our new house. One of my regular activities was a long walk across the hills to the north. A stout walking stick in hand, a rucksack with packed lunch, and I could be occupied with my own thoughts for hours. I saw a woodpecker for the first time in my life, rabbits of course, some deer, and a family of foxes.