‘And your sort of horror?’ Charity asked.
‘Pure escapism. We turn from reality to fantasy. There is catharsis in being scared by something we know will never actually harm us. We are aware that vampires don’t exist, yet there’s a curious satisfaction about allowing ourselves to be scared stiff by Dracula …’
‘How can you be so sure that vampires do not exist?’ asked the Reverend McAndrew in his soft voice.
I was not going to let the old boy upstage me so I said pleasantly, ‘I agree that there might be a few deluded individuals who believe they are vampires, just as some women in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries really did believe they had the power of witchcraft. A few came forward and confessed to it even though they were not under suspicion. The human mind is capable of endless self-deception.’
I then went into the bit about horror being a basic ingredient of fairy tales. ‘They used to terrify me rigid,’ chimed in Mandy Devine, and the talk became general until Charity steered it to the king.
‘I agree with Mr Northrop,’ he said in his carefully modulated voice. ‘Our Arabian Nights stories, which have proved so popular in the West, are founded on horror. Poor Scheherazade had to be able to tell a tale a night to a sadistic caliph for a thousand and one nights in order to save herself from execution. Imagine, Mr Northrop, how you would feel writing under such conditions, knowing that you would be literally killed if your fictional output let you down for a single day.’
‘Your Majesty enjoys horror stories?’ Charity asked.
‘Rather. I became a horror buff when I was at Harrow. I discovered such writers as Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, M. R. James, William Hope Hodgson, H. P. Lovecraft … what pleasure they all gave me. Now I believe their worthy successor is Jonathan Northrop.’
A royal endorsement! I thought. If only Jocasta Mount-William was listening!
During the break for commercials Charity encouraged us with her dazzling smile and assurances that it was going fine, but she would like more anecdotes.
‘You must have had some odd experiences in your time,’ she said to me.
‘I feel rather a fraud, but I really don’t believe in psychic phenomena,’ I answered.
‘Perhaps it is that you will not allow yourself to believe,’ said Dr McAndrew gently.
‘Stand by,’ came the voice of the engineer from a loudspeaker. The Doggo jingle came to an end and Charity swung into action by asking the priest how he performed an exorcism.
Twenty minutes later the programme was over, and I hoped that Sylvia would be pleased. I had managed to mention the forthcoming Whispering Corner twice.
As Charity escorted us to the foyer King Syed turned to Dr McAndrew and me and invited us to have supper with him at the Hilton. The little priest thanked the king with grave courtesy and explained that he had to catch his train. But I was intrigued enough to accept. Collecting ‘characters’ is part of a writer’s trade.
A Radio City Rover — followed discreetly by a Special Branch car — took us to Park Lane while the king made conversation, asking me how many hours I worked a day, how many words I averaged and so on. After a few minutes I realized he was genuinely interested, and instead of giving stock answers I found I was enjoying discussing the writing process with him.
‘Jo, my American wife, was a press photographer when we married, so I have some comprehension,’ he said. ‘She will be pleased to meet a fellow professional. Although she makes an excellent queen, I fear that at times she misses her old days on the Voyageur magazine.’
At the Hilton we went immediately to the Rooftop Restaurant. The king had a table reserved on the raised floor by the vast windows which provided a panorama of the glittering city below, and a slender young woman with bronze hair down to her shoulders was already seated. The Arabian sun had given her skin an olive tone, and her expression of gravity was heightened by deep hazel eyes with glints of emerald.
‘Your Majesty,’ I said as the king introduced me to his wife.
‘Jo, please,’ she said. ‘We are trying hard to be incognito. And please call my husband Syed. He’s still not used to his titles.’
‘Which include the Sword of the Desert, the Leopard of the Righteousness and the Commander of the Faithful,’ said the king.
‘Surely “Commander of the Faithful” was one of the titles used by Haroun Al-Rashid?’
‘You are right. The royal line of Abu Sabbah is descended from the Abbaside dynasty. Haroun Al-Rashid was the fifth caliph, from 786 to 809.’
‘To go to Abu Sabbah is like walking back into the Arabian Nights,’ said Jo.
‘My country is very Third World,’ the king resumed after a waiter had taken our orders. ‘We have no oil and the income from camel hides and dates is limited. Yet my people are content with a way of life they understand. They do not have television, but neither do they know poverty. They still fear Allah and look to me for justice, but I cannot say how long this state of affairs will last. I must follow my brother’s example of leading them gently into what is left of the twentieth century, but it must be done so that the best of the old way of life is retained while the best of the new is gained. It is with this thought in mind that I am building a college as a memorial to my brother, King Hamid.’
‘You’ll remember that he was assassinated a year ago,’ Jo said.
‘Of course,’ I answered gravely, though in truth I had never heard of King Hamid.
‘It happened when he was leaving the mosque of El Saad,’ the king continued, an expression of sadness on his face. ‘A youth ran up the great steps towards him holding a petition. The royal bodyguard would have kept him back but Hamid — in the tradition of our house — waved him forward. The murderer knelt before him with a rolled up scroll, and then suddenly struck him in the chest with it. It contained a stiletto blade which pierced my brother’s heart. He died instantly, and the crowd tore the assassin to pieces.’
His words were simple but they conjured up a vivid picture in my imagination: the white mosque against a raw blue sky, the intent faces of the faithful watching their king bend over the kneeling fanatic, the sudden wail of desolation as he reeled back …
‘The Hamid IV College will be the key to my plans for modernization,’ the king continued. ‘English will be spoken, and our most promising young people will attend free — yes, even our young women.’
Jo gave me a sly grin. ‘Nothing chauvinistic about Syed,’ she murmured.
‘There, in air-conditioned classrooms, they will be awakened to the very best that the outside world has to offer. Not just self-defeating technology, but arts and philosophy and of course literature.’
As the supper passed I warmed to the king and his witty and attractive wife. If Abu Sabbah did survive modernization it would owe a debt of gratitude to this ex-American photo-journalist who I guessed was the practical power behind her husband’s throne.
At eleven o’clock I said that I must go. It would take me nearly three hours to drive home and I ought to start work reasonably early in the morning if I was to catch up with my schedule.
‘Before you leave, Mr Northrop, I will tell you what is in my mind,’ said the king. ‘I want you to come to Abu Sabbah.’
My face must have shown my surprise.
‘He would like you to be the writer-in-residence at the new college,’ Jo explained.
The king nodded. ‘I understand such a post is quite usual in America,’ he said.
I replied that I was honoured but as I could not speak Arabic …
The king dismissed this with a regal wave.
‘The students will speak English,’ he declared. ‘Also I have it in mind that my writer-in-residence will make a collection of folk tales which have been handed down the generations in my country. My rawi — my personal story-teller — has them in his head, but it requires the skill of someone like yourself to put them into a form which will give them a niche in the world’s literature. I want them preserved. Otherwise, when televisi
on does come to Abu Sabbah — when there are portable television sets in the tents of the desert tribes — the impact of Dallas and Worlds Beyond will obliterate our folklore.
‘Of course you would be paid for your work, and I think you would find the time spent in my kingdom a unique experience. You might even base one of your novels on our folklore — the legend of the ghoul might inspire you, for instance. And then there would be the satisfaction of bringing enlightenment to enthusiastic young people.’
I protested that I was hardly suitable. What was needed was someone with a first-class degree and lecturing experience.
‘Lecturers I can have!’ exclaimed the king. ‘I want a working writer so the students share in practical communication. I want the author of Shadows and Mirrors.’ A gust of wind whirled raindrops against the glass walls of the restaurant so that the ribbon of car lights along Park Lane was refracted into a thousand crystal shards.
‘Syed docs not expect an answer now,’ Jo said. ‘But do consider it. Abu Sabbah is a different world, and one I think you would enjoy.’
‘I’d miss that,’ I said jokingly, pointing to a champagne bottle up-ended in an ice bucket.
‘For a giaour there could be a dispensation,’ said the king with a smile. ‘Why not come out for a holiday and see how you like it? Then you could make up your mind. There’s no terrific hurry; the college won’t open for a few months yet. Meanwhile, I shall have a letter sent to you confirming what I have said.’
I thanked him and bade the royal couple goodnight. A few minutes later I was walking along the seemingly endless concrete corridor to the car park beneath Hyde Park, and it occurred to me that if I failed to make a success of Whispering Corner a few months’ retreat on the Red Sea coast might be a good idea.
But definitely no books about ghouls.
*
As I drove past the glare of Heathrow towards the M25 the gusts of rain had increased to a steady downpour, and by the time I had swung on to the M3 my windscreen wipers were switched to ‘fast’. I pressed a cassette into the player and the car was suddenly filled with great growling chords from Weather Report. I was cocooned in warmth and sound, and I did not mind that I had to drive at reduced speed as the rain danced over the road surface in my headlights.
I was glad that I had gone up to London. I felt I had said the right things — the things that Sweet Sylvia would approve of — on the Charity Brown show, and I had enjoyed supper with the first royal couple I had met. But most of all, as a professional character hunter, I was delighted to have met the little Anglican priest who specialized in exorcism. To most people his calling must seem like a relic from medieval times. Mild, almost timid, he might appear, but I guessed that his mind was as sharp as his piercing blue eyes.
Oh yes, Dr McAndrew, you are certainly a find, I thought. Do not be surprised if a character based on you should appear in the pages of Whispering Corner, sir.
The Peugeot 604 has a unique windscreen wiper system. The two blades are mounted close together so that the driver’s side of the glass gets an extra sweep, but even with this refinement I found visibility difficult when I was close to Lychett Matravers. The rain had become an unrelenting downpour and as I turned into the lane which led through the woods I was relieved that I would be home in a couple of minutes.
Suddenly twin patterns of light reflected on my windscreen. When the wipers momentarily cleared the glass I saw that an orange Mini had skidded and come to rest in the ditch. Its headlamps were aimed straight at me, illuminating the ancient trees on either side so that their tossing foliage appeared to form a tunnel.
Silhouetted against the faceted halo was a stumbling figure. I braked hard and my heart lost its rhythm as the car continued to slide on the mud which the rain had washed on to the road. My own headlights transformed the silhouette into a young woman with a blanched face and short black hair. Fearful that I would see her vanish under the bonnet of my skidding car I yelled a useless warning and instinctively eased the brakes long enough to enable the tyres to grip before braking again. She was still several yards away when I pulled up.
I pushed open the door and ran to her through the curtain of rain, and I could not help noticing the erotic effect created by the wet transparency of her clinging shirt. But my reaction was dispelled by the sight of blood mingling with the rivulets of rain on the side of her face.
‘Please help me,’ she murmured and I caught her as her knees buckled. For a moment I stood stupidly in the middle of the woodland tunnel. My first thought was to lay her on the wide back seat and drive her to hospital, until I realized I had no idea where the nearest hospital was. I could be an hour or more in this rainstorm trying to find the way. The best thing would be to take her to my house and get an ambulance to come for her.
I carried her to the car and sat her in the front seat, as it would be easier to lift her out by myself from that position, and then drove carefully to the entrance of my drive, which Warren had cleared of the briars and saplings which had blocked it. It was only when I reached the garden that I realized it would be impossible to call an ambulance. Having been so telephone-oriented in London, I had momentarily forgotten that as yet I had not got one installed in Whispering Corner.
There were two alternatives — to back the car up to the lane and drive in search of a hospital, or to take her into the house and do what I could myself.
I decided on the latter course as I believed she needed to lie down and get warm. I reasoned that she could have no dangerous spinal injury since she had been able to get herself out of the car.
I crossed the lawn to unlock the house and switch on the lights, then returned and carried her towards the French windows. The movement roused her, and she muttered something in the slurred tone of one in shock.
‘You’ll soon be safe and warm inside, and then I’ll get help,’ I reassured her.
She put her arm round my neck as though afraid I might drop her. I moved awkwardly over the waterlogged grass, finding her dead weight difficult to manage. I was panting by the time I laid her on the sofa, placed a rug over her and directed the warm breeze of a fan heater on to her.
‘First things first,’ I said as she shivered under the covering. ‘I just want to see where you’re hurt.’
As gently as possible I ran my fingertips over her head, which I guessed had struck the windscreen when her car went off the road. To my relief her skull felt firm to the touch beneath her springy hair; nor did she give any exclamation of pain which would have indicated that I had located a fracture. But I did feel the gash from which warm blood flowed with the alarming profusion of head wounds.
‘I’ll get some antiseptic and fix this temporarily,’ I said.
‘Don’t cut my hair,’ she whispered, vanity triumphant over adversity.
In the kitchen I switched on the electric kettle, then returned to swab the deep cut and bind a pad of gauze against it.
‘You look like a tennis player with a headband,’ I said as I tied the bandage. Talking for the sake of talking.
‘Feel cold,’ she said.
‘Hot tea coming. You must be shocked and no wonder. But do you hurt anywhere else?’
‘My leg, a little, but it’s my head. Everything seems to be revolving rather slowly. I think I was knocked out for a while.’ She made a valiant effort to sit up, but fell back with a grimace of pain.
‘Take it easy. You may have slight concussion. The good news is that nothing seems to be broken.’
From the kitchen I brought out two mugs of tea, hers sickeningly sweet with the sugar I had put into it as an antidote to shock.
‘Better,’ she said between sips. ‘It’s stopped my teeth chattering.’ She swivelled her eyes round the room. ‘Where … ?’
‘You’re in my house which is right by where you crashed. It’s called Whispering Corner.’
‘Ah. What about the car?’
‘I’ll take care of that. Top priority is to get you dry and warm.’
I
fetched a heavy bath towel and a nightshirt which my son had given me as a trendy present last Christmas.
‘Help me get these things off,’ she said. ‘I’ll manage my bra and pants.’
‘By the way, I’m Jonathan Northrop,’ I said as I eased her soaking sweater over her head.’
‘Hi,’ she said with the palest ghost of a grin. ‘I’m Ash. Ashley Matheson.’
Her lightly tanned skin was goose-pimpled with her drenching and I gently towelled her. The rain had made her underwear semi-transparent, revealing the large aureoles of her breasts and a generous pubic shadow. Had the circumstances been different the Old Adam might have been breathing heavily in my ear, and as she began to unfasten her bra clip she murmured with a brave attempt at humour, ‘If the bells of hell weren’t going ding-a-ling in my brain this could be fun.’
‘I’ll get more tea,’ I said, and retired tactfully. When I returned her clothing was a soggy mound on the polished floorboards and she was wearing my nightshirt with the rug wrapped round her.
‘I should have thanked you for your help,’ she muttered. ‘Sorry. I’m not quite myself. There’s a buzzing in my cars; it’s like being at a party where everyone’s talking at once.’
I shrugged her apology away. ‘You must rest now. In the morning we’ll get medical advice, to be on the safe side.’
I picked her up, carried her upstairs to the spare bedroom I had furnished in the hope that my son would visit me in his vacation, and laid a duvet over her. Her eyes closed in sleep and she began breathing heavily.
Hoping I had done the right thing, I turned off the main light and left her. By now I was shivering with cold myself, but before I could get out of my wet clothing I had to take a torch and trudge up the drive to where the headlights of Ashley Matheson’s car still shone. I lifted a small suitcase from the back seat, turned off the lights and locked the door with the key I took from the ignition.
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