by F. G. Cottam
‘Your Irish accent is much stronger when you are upset. That’s quite interesting. Is your apparition Irish?’
‘No, she is not. She speaks the English of a native. She is refined in her speech. There might be a hint of the West Country about it, but only a hint. She does not use contractions. She is from another time. She sounds Edwardian. She is attired in a school uniform. It is purple and grey, this livery. Close to, it is as threadbare as she is. She is not imagined. She is resurrected. She has not been dragged reluctantly back.’
‘What precisely does that last sentence mean?’
‘It means I think that she enjoys teasing me. Precisely, there is a sense in which she cavorts.’
‘I see.’
‘What do you think?’
Dr Deacon pondered for a long time before replying. Then she said, ‘There are two possibilities. You are right that cocaine psychosis is the most obvious cause and, trust me, we can deal with that. It’s a much more common problem than you might suppose and there are tried and tested therapies with which I have enjoyed encouraging success. Only a tiny percentage of my own patients relapse and that is because they are deliberately self-destructive, which, with your strong streak of narcissism, you are not.’
‘What’s the second possible cause?’
‘You have recently suffered the trauma of sudden and unexpected separation from someone to whom you have developed a strong emotional attachment. You need to resolve that situation yourself.’ She glanced behind her to where the illustrations were laid out on the desk. ‘She is a very talented woman.’
‘She is also quite captivating.’
‘My advice would be to take her at her word and accept that the affair is over. That said, you are not paying me to function as an agony aunt.’
‘No. You are much too expensive.’
‘And I’m far better qualified, Robert.’
‘Who do you think she is, the little girl?’
‘You want me to establish the identity of your ghost? That is quite straightforward. I think she is simply a character from a story you have not yet written.’ Dr Deacon glanced at her watch. Their session had concluded on the stroke of the hour. She was very professional. ‘What does she say to you, by the way? What does she talk about?’
Robert laughed. The consultation had left him feeling unexpectedly much better. It would have been cheap, he thought, at twice what he was being charged. Eleanor’s expertise would wean him off his destructive narcotic habit. He would woo and win Lillian with the stout heart and unwavering will a woman so lovely deserved.
‘What does she talk about? She tells me rather gleefully that I am going to die.’
‘We all owe God a death,’ Dr Deacon said.
‘So you believe in God?’
‘It’s a quote, Robert. It’s from Shakespeare.’
Robert grinned. ‘I knew that,’ he said. He really did feel much better than he had an hour earlier on walking into the room. Dr Deacon gathered the Lillian Greer illustrations up and put them back in the folder he had brought along and he put it into his bag.
He was her last appointment of the day. As he wrote his cheque or more likely paid with his debit card at the reception area two floors below, Dr Deacon considered the treatment Robert O’Brien would require from her to restore his mental equilibrium by conquering his cocaine addiction. She sat at her desk and wrote some notes on a pad. The first word she wrote was confidentiality.
A coke habit was not that serious a slur on the reputation of a writer of adult fiction. In some of the more hard-boiled genres, it was probably viewed as a necessary qualification, she thought, a badge of credibility. But in a writer of fiction for children it would spell disaster, should it ever become public knowledge. Children’s writers were not so much expected to live blameless lives as lives that in personal terms were invisible.
If the press found out about his habit, the consequences would be dire. Libraries would stop stocking and lending his books. School libraries would come under pressure from governors and local authorities and perhaps even parents to ban them. Bookshops would be reluctant to stock them for fear of public indignation. A man who derived a living from children’s pocket money could not squander that money on narcotics without encouraging widespread disapproval.
He was a role model, whether he liked it or not. And she suspected that he did like it. He revelled in his status. He was narcissistic and was proud of the position his success had earned him in the world. He liked the attention, the wide-eyed adulation he got from young readers like her daughter. That was why he did the school visits.
The first time she had treated him, in the aftermath of his mother’s death, she had thought him a very attractive man. He was physically beautiful, talented and so sensitive his sensitivity was almost as tender as an unhealed wound. She had identified two characteristics in him back then that she would have termed flaws. One, of course, was the narcissism. The other was stubbornness. He could be almost childishly petulant and this immaturity, allied to a strong will, caused him to be stubborn.
On this second consultation, she had not found him attractive. She had actually found him repellent. The flaws were more apparent and accompanied by rather too much self-pity. She did not think the stubbornness would hamper the cocaine habit treatment. He would not cling to that. She thought, however, that it would likely pose a problem for Lillian Greer. She was fairly sure that he would ignore her advice concerning the affair. It was obviously a lost cause. Or rather, it was obviously so to anyone but him.
Dr Deacon thought the flaws in O’Brien’s character very probably the consequence of a spoiled upbringing. She suspected that his Spanish mother had indulged him totally. He had been an only child. Prematurely born, he had almost died in the incubator on the maternity ward before his mother had got the opportunity to hold her son in her arms. Analysing the reasons for his personality weaknesses was child’s play. Treating them was impossible because he refused to recognise their existence.
She went over to her window, long experience having taught her to time the moment to perfection. And she saw him exit her premises and take the crash helmet from the case bolted to the back of the Harley Davidson motorcycle gleaming in the sunshine at the side of the kerb.
He zipped himself into his leather jacket. He pulled on his helmet. And across the road, against the railings of the far pavement, movement caught her eye as just for a moment she thought she saw a small, slight figure in purple and grey, the face pale and serious under a straw hat, gazing up at her.
Robert O’Brien kick-started his bike into an abrupt blat of loud engine noise. At her window, Dr Deacon blinked and recoiled. Straddling the machine, her patient opened the throttle and roared away. And when she looked again at the far pavement, it was entirely empty of life.
Richard Penmarrick showed them around Topper’s Reach. Lillian thought the inside of the house every bit as impressive as the exterior had earlier suggested it would be. It was light and spacious and stood in the sort of isolation that gave its occupants privacy. The views out over the bay were breathtaking in their scope and scale. It was a potential home for them more ideal than any they had coveted together poring over the pages of Coast magazine in the evening back in their Bermondsey sitting room. The contrast with their terraced townhouse, with its views of harried pedestrians and gridlocked rat-run traffic, could not have been more acute or pleasing.
The early history of the house was poignant, even tragic. Adam Gleason had been killed by a German sniper bullet at the front in 1916. His wife and daughter had not long survived him.
‘How did they die?’ Lillian asked Richard.
‘They perished within hours of each other, victims of the Spanish flu epidemic of 1919,’ he told her. ‘Sarah had not recovered at all from Adam’s death and was not physically or emotionally strong. Little Madeleine was only eight years old. Not that strength or maturity provided any meaningful protection against the epidemic. It was incredibly virulent
.’
‘I’m surprised it reached this far,’ James said. ‘The bay is pretty remote now. It must have been even more remote in those days.’
Lillian looked at her husband. She could still feel the faint throb inside her of their earlier lovemaking. It had been as passionate and raw as when they had met. He was the reason they were here, in this beautiful place. His vision and resolve had delivered them there. His forgiveness had overcome the infidelity she had allowed to jeopardise her family’s future. She looked at him in the vibrant light reflected upward through the windows from the sea and knew without doubt that she loved him.
‘Adam Gleason wasn’t the bay’s only volunteer,’ Richard said. ‘Others answered Kitchener’s call. A handful more were conscripted. Some of them perished as he did. But some returned and they brought the infection back with them.’
‘Of course,’ James said, nodding.
‘It was very virulent, as I said. Thank God it resulted here in only a few fatalities. But it hit this house hard, I’m afraid.’
Lillian looked around her. They were in the kitchen. She did not think there was anything sinister about the house, nor any lingering sadness. It was too brightly and lambently lit. Its proportions were far too generous. Many people had lived there very contentedly in the ninety years since the sad events Richard Penmarrick recounted. Devoid of a stick of furniture or a scrap of carpeting, the house did not even look empty in the hollow, negative sense. It looked instead like its exciting potential; like a vibrant domestic project waiting to begin.
She thought Richard quite extraordinary. He was picturesque, with his mane of hair, in his baubles and bangles, with the tattoo of his snakeskin boots on the bare floors of Topper’s Reach. But he had an impact well beyond the calculation of his dandified accessories.
His physical presence seemed a rude affront to space. She supposed that the word to describe him would be charismatic, but did not think it adequate. He actually possessed something she had always derided in her mind as an exhibitionist’s cliché. Richard Penmarrick had star quality. He has even more of it than Robert O’Brien has, she thought guiltily. Then a thought came into her mind that made her laugh out loud.
Both men looked at her, bemused.
‘I was just thinking,’ she said, ‘that you, Richard, must be the least likely person to be taken for an estate agent in the entire history of property sales.’
James frowned. Richard appeared to process what he had just heard. Lillian feared that she had just made a terribly tactless mistake. And then Richard threw back his head and laughed a generous, genuine laugh of pure amusement.
‘The question is,’ he said when he stopped laughing, ‘do I have a sale, madam?’
They agreed the deal verbally there and then. They shook hands on it. Richard embraced James in a manly hug and then kissed Lillian on the cheek. She recognised his aftershave as one her father had worn back in the late 1970s when she had been a very young child. It was Eau Sauvage. She hadn’t thought it was manufactured any longer.
He asked if they had arranged to eat that evening at the Leeward and they told him they had not. He said that should they wish to celebrate deciding on their new home with a decent dinner, he could recommend the very place, ‘Assuming you are both of you carnivores.’
‘We are,’ Lillian said. She could not remember having felt more excited. All her happiest personal memories were connected to the children. This was different. The children were fundamental to what they were planning, but for the moment it was a grown-up adventure and she was savouring every moment of it.
‘Good. The place I’d like to recommend is the Lodestone. I’d advise only against the crustacean element of the menu.’
He led the way. They twisted and turned down several cobbled lanes before arriving outside a whitewashed building embellished with a row of painted wheels from old horse-drawn wagons. They paused and James looked the place over and said, ‘Surely the crab and lobster will be good here, won’t they?’
Richard said, ‘There’s an event tomorrow night on the east beach. It is a custom here going back centuries. If you can attend, I suggest you stay away from the crab and lobster at the Lodestone. I won’t tell you any more because it will spoil the surprise.’
‘We’ll be there,’ Lillian said.
‘Fantastic,’ Richard said. He clapped his hands together and rocked slightly on his heels and the trinkets hung against his bare chest glimmered and chinked in the descending sunlight. ‘I’d recommend the lamb. The beef is equally good and the rabbit casserole simply to die for.’
‘We can’t thank you enough,’ James said.
Music was playing from inside the restaurant. It was Sandy Denny. The song was ‘The Sea’.
‘We can’t,’ Lillian said. ‘We can’t thank you adequately for what you have done for us.’
‘Nonsense,’ Richard said. He turned and began to walk away. ‘See you tomorrow night, people,’ he said, with a backward wave of his hand.
Uncle Mark had gone to fetch them a late supper of fish and chips. Their regular dinner time had come and gone. He was not as domesticated or as health-conscious as their dad was. The idea of him cooking was actually pretty ridiculous, Jack thought. Jack’s money would have been on pizza, since the pizzeria was closer than the fish and chip shop and Uncle Mark was on foot. The kebab shop was even closer than the pizzeria but even Uncle Mark wouldn’t have dared flout their mum’s well-known food fascism with kebabs. Jack could keep a secret. Olivia could not. Treated to something as exotic as a large doner with all the trimmings, come Monday, Olivia would have split on him.
They were in their dad’s study. Jack was there because the study computer was the most powerful and therefore the quickest in the house. Olivia was there because something had spooked her and she would be pretty much glued to him until Uncle Mark returned. He didn’t mind, really. He was in a very good mood. He had played tennis with Uncle Mark in the afternoon before his uncle had to go and fetch Livs from school. And all his fears about his sight and balance and hand-eye generally had proven to be worries over nothing.
He had actually taken a set off Uncle Mark, which he had never done before. They had played on the public courts around the corner from the house on Tanner Street. His footwork had been nimble, his volleying solid and he’d seen the ball as early as he’d ever done. Uncle Mark did not take prisoners on the court and there was no way he tanked in the set Jack took. Jack earned it and Uncle Mark said afterwards the difference was the six inches Jack had grown since the last time they had played. It had given his serve more penetration and it had a lot more kick.
‘What’s spooking you this time, Livs?’
‘Huh, like you’ve never been spooked.’
‘I have occasionally, I admit it. But not like you. You’re the spookmeister.’
‘What are you doing? It looks really boring. Can I go on Facebook?’
‘In a minute, you can.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m rating Robert O’Brien’s books on review sites. I’m giving them all one star.’
‘One star isn’t very much. I thought you liked him. You read all those Casey Shoals books.’
‘Well, I don’t like him any more. I’d give him no stars if I could. But one is the lowest rating they have.’
‘If I was the spookmeister, that would mean I was the one doing the spooking, wouldn’t it?’
‘Nobody likes a smartarse, Livs.’
‘I’ll tell Mum you called me that.’
‘The only thing worse is a smartarse snitch.’
‘I’ll tell Dad you looked at girls’ boobies on his computer.’
Jack wondered what story he could make up about Olivia that was worse. He couldn’t think of one. So he said, ‘What are you scared of?’
‘The spookmeister,’ she said slowly, looking out of the window as dusk gathered shadows in the tiny garden beyond.
She raised her arm slowly from her side and pointed a
finger towards the glass.
Jack frowned and looked up from the screen to where she was pointing. He could see nothing buts shadows and leaves. He shrugged. ‘You’re weird, Livs,’ he said.
‘It’s not my fault,’ Olivia said. ‘I can’t help it. I’d like it all to stop.’
‘Now you’re freaking me out.’
Olivia dropped her arm. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. But she did not shift an inch from her brother’s side.
Uncle Mark returned with a bundle of fried and battered food wrapped in rolls of cream paper. He was slightly breathless and he smelled, when he exhaled, sweetly of fresh beer. He had stopped on the way to the fish and chip shop for what Jack remembered his dad termed a swift one. Maybe he had enjoyed a swift two. His cheeks were pink and his eyes slightly moist, but that might have been smarting from the vinegar in which his own portion of chips had been drenched.
They ate in the kitchen. Uncle Mark took off his pullover but was still sweating slightly at the hairline when they had finished their food. He said, ‘I’m going to open a few windows.’
‘Please don’t,’ Olivia said.
He looked at her. Jack looked at her, too.
‘It’s okay to open the windows upstairs,’ she said.
‘But we’re boiling alive down here, Livs,’ Uncle Mark said.
‘You can open the windows at the front, then. But you can’t open the windows at the back of the house. It might get in.’
Uncle Mark said, ‘What might?’
‘The spookmeister,’ Jack said. He felt pretty jolly. The tennis had gone brilliantly. Dinner had been a carba-tastic treat. Uncle Mark had brought back cans of Fanta to wash it down with. He would definitely let his nephew stay up much later than was usually the case. Now his little sister was making a spectacle of herself in front of their dad’s only brother. Did life get any better?
Olivia turned to her uncle. ‘I’m frightened of the thing watching us from the garden,’ she said. ‘If we open one of the back windows, it might be tempted to come into the house. It hides itself really well. But when you catch sight of it, it looks very angry that you’ve spotted it. I think it is bad-tempered and easy to annoy. I think it would be very dangerous if it got into the house.’