The Lingering

by SJI Holliday

  ‘After that, a big box of lettuce will need washing. Then maybe you can slice me some mooli. You like mooli?’

  Another voice interrupts them. ‘It’s like radish but milder. Tastes a bit earthy but you’ll get used to it. You’ll need to. We seem to have a never-ending supply of the stuff in here. Tomatoes, boss.’

  Ali turns towards the newcomer: a tiny woman with a bird’s nest of blonde hair somehow contained with an elastic band and a small checked cap.

  ‘Rose,’ she says, offering a skeletal hand. ‘Sorry I didn’t get to chat to you at the welcoming party, I left early with a migraine.’

  A brief look passes between Fergus and Rose. Clearly Rose has been briefed on how the party ended. Ali decides to ignore it.

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ Fergus pats Rose on the shoulder. Then he takes the tomatoes and places them next to the box of lettuce. ‘OK, first things first. Lucy – are you ready? Time for the blessing.’

  A small, pale woman appears from behind the door of a tall steel fridge. They have a well-equipped kitchen, Ali realises. Nicer than any hospital kitchen she’s been in. She makes a mental note to ask about that later. It must’ve cost them a bit to refit it. She is curious about how people pay for things here, how they earn money.

  She blinks out of her daze, realising that the others are standing in a circle, holding hands. Waiting for her. Lucy and Rose have left a gap for her between them. For a moment she is confused.

  ‘We do the blessing of light now, Ali. It is good bonding. Makes us work well. Helps us cook good food.’

  Ali suddenly feels nervous. She is not used to this sort of thing. It’s as far away from her comfort zone as something could possibly be. She’d always enjoyed chatting to her colleagues in break times, but there is a closeness here that she isn’t prepared for. She’s used to idle chat and easy silences. Time away from the ward to gather her thoughts and help her through the rest of the day. On the surface, she’d been friendly, involved in the lives of others. But it was a front. She blinks away the image. The old life. The old Ali. Lonely in a room full of strangers, even those she’d known throughout a fifteen-year career. Embrace this change, she thinks. It’s the only way to forget.

  She takes hold of the other women’s hands. Everyone closes their eyes. She keeps hers open. She needs to see.

  Lucy speaks. Her voice is soft, and her accent is pure West Country. ‘We gather in the circle of light and we hope that today will be a good day. We hope that our hands will make good food. We hope that our meal will make happy mouths. Embrace the light and be thankful.’

  ‘Embrace the light and be thankful.’ The group repeats the last line together, then they open their eyes and smile. They raise their hands, just a tiny bit, and Ali feels her hands being squeezed, firm, fast. She is momentarily startled, but before she can squeeze back, the other women let go of her.

  ‘It helps us to focus on the task in hand,’ Rose says. ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  Ali smiles, not sure what to say.

  She walks over to the rumbler and throws in several handfuls of potatoes, until the drum is full. She switches on the machine and stands, mesmerised, while the potatoes rattle and roll, sliding down into the tray when they are smooth and skinned. Scraped clean, ready to be sliced. Afterwards, she washes her hands and goes in search of coffee.

  ‘Is there a kettle in here?’ she says, glancing around, surprised that it isn’t obvious.

  ‘We have a break in thirty minutes,’ Rose says, frowning, ‘but if you really need a hot drink now, just go and get one from the sitting room. We don’t keep the tea and coffee things in here.’

  ‘Right,’ Ali says, feeling chastised. She’s not used to being unable to get a hot drink when she wants one. Even when the wards were at their busiest, there was always someone around to make a brew. She’s not too keen on Rose’s tone, but she can let that slide for now. She has to try and keep her irritation in check with people, especially when they haven’t actually done anything wrong. Recently, she’s noticed more and more that people seem to get her back up for no real reason. She hopes that coming here might alleviate her stress, eventually.

  She nips through to the sitting room and makes herself a coffee. It feels like she’s bunking off school, doing something naughty. She takes a few long, deep breaths while she waits for the kettle to boil, and by the time she’s stirred in the milk she is feeling a lot calmer. She takes the drink back through to the kitchen, and finds the place deserted. She feels a flicker of worry. Where are they? Have they gone off somewhere to talk about her? There is a cool breeze trickling through the long room, and she realises the back door has been left open. Perhaps they’ve gone out to the gardens. Maybe they’ve gone to pick even more lettuce for her to wash. She pulls the door part-closed, not fully, in case it doesn’t open from the outside – she’s never come in that way, so she doesn’t know. Doesn’t want them to be stuck out there, when they come back from wherever it is that they’ve gone. She turns and frowns: there are small puddles of water on the floor. They definitely were not there before. Her first instinct is to glances upwards, looking for a leak in the ceiling. What is it with this place and its random wet patches? First in the corridor outside her room, now here. But there is no obvious drip. When she drops her head back down, she has to blink to make sure she has not imagined it.

  She takes a step back.

  A small boy is standing in front of her. He can’t be more than six years old. His hair is plastered over his face and he is dripping wet, leaving small puddles on the floor by his side. He is looking down at the floor, and a sudden icy finger of dread shoots up Ali’s back. She doesn’t want to see his face. She doesn’t want him to look up. Something is wrong with this boy. Something…

  She comes to her senses. ‘My God, you must be freezing. What happened to you? Where are your parents?’ She leaves him standing there, and quickly goes to the shelves full of cloths and towels. She grabs handfuls of whatever she can, and shakes them out, trying to find the largest of them, trying to find something to wrap him in. She spins around, arms outstretched, ‘Here, let me…’

  The words die in her mouth.

  The boy is gone.

  Ali stares at the puddles on the floor, watching as they slowly disappear, knowing that the kitchen is not hot enough for them to evaporate so quickly, especially with the breeze that seems to be reaching out to her with its long, icy fingers. Then she turns, and runs from the kitchen, ignoring the cries from Fergus and Rose as they call her name, asking her what on earth is going on.

  15

  Angela

  I definitely need to get to know Ali better now. Fergus has told me that she freaked out in the kitchen, that she was in there alone while he and Rose were out collecting herbs, and that something had happened. She rushed out red-faced, in tears. Fergus ran after her but she had gone. Back to her room? I don’t know, but I’m going to have a look. I run upstairs. I don’t know where Jack is. I think Ali is on her own. I have to know what it was that scared her so much in the kitchen. I press my ear to her door and I think I can hear her sobbing, but perhaps that’s just what I want to hear. Something in me wants her to be scared here. Why do I feel like this? I don’t remember anyone else eliciting such a reaction. I take a breath and knock gently. No answer. I wait a moment then try again.

  ‘Ali? Are you in there?’

  ‘Please go away.’

  ‘Ali, it’s Angela. Fergus said you were upset. I just want to make sure that you’re OK. You can talk to me, you know.’

  I wonder what she would think if she knew that I have been sneaking around in her room. That I’ve opened that box and found those newspaper clippings. I feel like I need to ask her about them, but I don’t know how to bring it up without making it obvious where I got the information from. Smeaton hasn’t told me any details about Jack’s old job. I’m not sure he knows any more than I do. I might have it all wrong. There might be another reason for those clippings. Research, ma
ybe. One of them might be writing something about missing persons, or hitchhikers or I don’t know what. It’s not actually any of my business.

  I stand quietly, hoping that she’ll let me in. After what seems like forever, I hear the sound of the key turning in the lock. I step back, and the door swings open gently. She walks away from me and sits down on the chair next to the dressing table. She has the Book of Light open at the page of things we aren’t supposed to do. She looks at me, her face a mixture of confusion and fear. She is giving off a sharp scent; something has definitely spooked her. Humans, just like animals, give off a smell when they’re scared. When adrenaline spikes, it swims around in your blood and leaks out of your pores. She smells like a wounded animal, looks small and scared.

  ‘I just don’t know what to make of this place, Angela,’ she blurts out. ‘I’m worried that we’ve made a huge mistake coming here. It’s not for everyone, right? Living in a freaky old ruin with a bunch of hippies. We’ve given it more than a week and I’m really not sure … Maybe it’s time for us to move on, find another way…’

  ‘What happened in the kitchen, Ali?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

  ‘Has anything else unusual happened since you’ve been here?’ I probe.

  She shakes her head again, but she won’t look at me. I’m dying to know what’s got her jitters up. Maybe she’s a conduit. I’m excited by the prospect, but I try to keep it in check. I don’t want to scare her any further right now.

  ‘I’ve got a good idea. Let me take you somewhere. Somewhere I’m sure you haven’t been taken on Smeaton’s official tour. Come on. You’ll like it, I promise. And I’ll tell you some stories too. About this place. About anything you like. I’d love us to be friends, Ali. You can trust me. I promise.’ I extend a hand towards her, expecting her to take it. It’s a friendly gesture, I think. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if I got it wrong. She takes my hand and stands up, but then she drops my hand as if it has burned her. She doesn’t give me time to squeeze, to tell her to embrace the light.

  I wonder if maybe that’s what has scared her, it would have happened in the kitchen before her shift – the blessing of the light. Maybe she’s not used to this kind of intimacy from strangers. I will ask about it later.

  She is already dressed with her boots still on, so she picks up a coat that she has left on the bed and follows me out of the door. She locks the room behind her, and pockets the key. Most people here don’t lock their rooms. There is no need to; no one has anything that anyone else wants. I think about the box again, the clippings. Hidden. They aren’t meant to be there. She doesn’t want people to know she has them. She doesn’t want to explain what they are.

  ‘I’ve been wondering…’ she says, as we walk along towards the stairs, ‘I’ve noticed various bits and bobs of equipment in some of the corridors.’ She points up at the corner of the ceiling and one of my cameras winks as we pass.

  I hesitate. This will go one of two ways. Most people tolerate it with a shrug, but I do get the occasional person who gets annoyed, angry even. Thinks I’m mad. I take a sharp breath and blow it out slowly. ‘Well, I suppose now is as good a time as any to tell you. It might help you understand this place a little more. It’s all to do with my investigations, you see.’

  ‘Your investigations? What kind of investigations? Are you watching people here? Is it some sort of CCTV?’ I can hear the tension in her voice.

  ‘Not quite. It’s not really people that I’m watching, although they do get caught on camera from time to time. I’m kind of watching…’ I pause, I feel nervous, suddenly. Should I just blurt it out? Will she laugh? Some people do. ‘I’m monitoring the entire building.’ I pause again. ‘For ghosts.’

  We continue walking, down the stairs, along the bottom corridor, and then we’re outside. She hasn’t replied. I steal a glance at her, and I can almost hear her brain whirling away, wondering. Deciding how to play it.

  ‘Ghosts? You’re not serious?’

  Her voice sounds slightly strained, but she hasn’t laughed. That’s a good start. It also confirms something for me. She’s seen something already, or felt it. Because if she hadn’t, she’d have had more of a reaction, I think. She’d be immediately questioning my sanity. As it is, I think she might be questioning her own. This is my chance to convince her.

  ‘We can’t just fade away, Ali. You can bury the body or burn it to smithereens, but you can’t tell me that’s all there is. There has to be something else out there – something for afterwards, for all the people whose souls couldn’t cope with this life. If there isn’t that, then what’s the point of all this? What is the point of now?

  ‘Ghosts are the ones who’ve lost their way. We need to make contact and help them find it. But I think that these spiritual imprints are only left behind when their body has been wronged. And, my theory is that only wrongdoers can see them.’ I pause, sensing Ali flinch beside me. ‘And if that’s the case, then it doesn’t matter what I want. It doesn’t matter if I want to help. I’m never going to see one, or feel one. Because I’ve never made one, do you understand? I think you can only see ghosts if you’re responsible for taking a life. I know they exist. I’m certain of it.’ I turn to face her, put my hand on her shoulder. ‘I think you do, too, Ali. What I don’t understand is – what did you do to make them exist in your realm? What have you seen?’

  Ali shrugs my hand away, and a cloud passes over her face.

  ‘There’s something, I know it. I wonder if it’s someone who died under your care, when you were a nurse – I’m sure it wasn’t your fault…’ Ali bristles beside me, from the corner of my eye I can see her clenching her hands into fists. I’m getting too carried away… ‘When I said wrongdoer, I meant in the sense that you were involved. When someone lost their life. People die in hospital all the time. Maybe there was something traumatic, something that’s latched on to you. Am I right? Or perhaps Jack – he was in the police, wasn’t he? Maybe he…’

  I let my sentence tail off. She’s shaking her head. She stops walking. ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’ I don’t understand.

  ‘Why do you think I’ve seen ghosts? I’ve dealt with dead people, sure. It was part of my job. Jack’s too. Are you saying…?’ She stops. She doesn’t want to continue, because she knows what I am implying.

  I’m suggesting that, yes, she has brought something in here with her. Some sort of link to the dead. Some sort of soulful energy that has caused a reaction in this house.

  We keep walking, in silence now. I need to let it sink in, for both of us. I’m not sure she believes me, but I know she is thinking about it now.

  We crunch through the woods, across the mulchy floor. Light zigzags through the trees. The tyre swing is turning gently in the breeze. I run towards it and jump on, circling my legs around the back, crossing them. I swing gently, but it’s not enough.

  ‘Push me.’

  She thrusts her hands into my back, a little too hard. Then she steps away.

  ‘Tell me these stories, then,’ she says.

  She grabs my feet, sends me into a spin. I don’t really like spinning fast, I feel a wave of nausea hit me, but I swallow it back. I lean back, trying to stop the spin, to make it swing. She senses my discomfort, grabs my legs and stops me spinning.

  ‘Please?’ she says.

  I have to decide what to tell her. I can’t tell her everything, because I need to be able to test her. I don’t want to suggest things. I’d rather she opened up by herself. If I tell her what I think is here, she might simply agree, and then how will I know if she’s telling the truth? I’m still not sure if I trust her. I didn’t tell her the full details of my theory. That it wasn’t just people around the dead who could carry their souls. I wanted her to believe that, because I’m still not sure if it’s her or Jack that I should be wary of. For now, it’s both of them.

  ‘OK, well there are two things I’ll tell you to start with. F
irst, the witches – but that was back in the fifteen hundreds and you might even know that story because it’s famous, much further afield than just here, although this is witchfinder country—’

  ‘Maybe the other one first? Those witches’ tales always end the same way. We all know there weren’t really any witches.’

  I shrug. She’s wrong, but the other story I have in mind for her is a better one anyway. More relevant, I think. After all, I’m not investigating witches. ‘There was a doctor here, a psychiatrist. Back in the early days, when it first became an asylum. 1898, I think.’ I take a breath. ‘He was said to like the female patients. A little too much, if you get what I mean? Back then women didn’t make such a fuss. They were too scared to tell the truth. Especially if they were in here as a patient – so-called mentally ill – and the person who was doing things was a well-respected doctor. Anyway, one of them did decide to speak out. She told her husband when he visited. Next day, they found the doctor … upside down in a rain barrel, face white and bloated like a jellyfish. They said it was an accident, but the women knew better. He comes back, after a night of heavy rain. You’ll see his pale face, reflected back in your bath water.’ I jump off the swing. ‘So the story goes, anyway.’

  Ali laughs, then. A proper belly laugh, that’s too loud for this sheltered place. I hear the skittering of small animals running away. The flap of wings, the sharp caw of departing birds.

  I kick the head off a fat toadstool and it puffs into the air, releasing angry spores. I glare at her and stomp back through the woods, keeping my distance from her as I run back towards the house.

  16

  Ali

  Ali makes her way slowly back to the house. What was that all about? There’s something off about that girl. Living in her own little world. All that nonsense about ghosts. Although she has to admit, the house does feel strange. But it’s all explainable, isn’t it? It has to be. She’s fully trained in all of the sciences, and she certainly understands how the mind works. She’s tired, that’s all. She feels like she has just woken from a strange dream; one of those dreams that you only have when you go to bed with all your clothes on, during the day. When you overheat, and you’re not quite asleep, not quite awake in that strange twilight place where you are almost lucid dreaming. Where you can drive your own fate. That weird nowhere place, where you fantasise about how different your life could be.