Whispering Corner

by Marc Alexander

  ‘We were not aware of anything happening, but goodness knows what may be going on around us. I mean, there are radio waves about us the whole time but we’re not aware of them. They mean nothing until we turn the set on.’

  ‘I wonder what turned this set on?’ I mused.

  ‘I’m going to take your advice,’ said Ashley, getting up. ‘Scalding water and coffee, that’s what I need.’

  For once the sight of her pale olive body caught in the warm sunlight failed to give the usual erotic tug at my feelings, nor did she unconsciously hint at the coquette with a swing of the hip or breast as she usually did.

  ‘At least you should get some inspiration for your novel out of all this,’ she said with some irony as, slipping on her robe, she went to the bathroom.

  For a few minutes I continued to lie in bed. Ashley’s words had given me food for thought. What had happened would not help the novel because in it Falco and Lorna had already been menaced by the supernatural. It was reviewing what I had intended to put in the story next that would be significant.

  After I had showered away some of the weariness from my body I went down to the kitchen. Ashley was preparing breakfast and the wholesome smells of bacon frying, bread toasting and coffee percolating did for my spirits what the hot water had done for my body.

  When we were sitting opposite each other at the table Ashley said, ‘Jon, I want you to know that whatever you decide is fine by me. I’ll hang around. OK, cobber?’

  ‘Very OK, cobber,’ I said, picking up my knife and fork.

  ‘It may be that last night was a one-off,’ I suggested, once the bacon and eggs had been demolished and we were spreading lime marmalade on our toast. ‘Nothing out of the ordinary may ever happen again. On the other hand …’ I shrugged.

  ‘Could it — the haunting, I mean — actually do us any harm, do you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. But perhaps there’s a way to find out.’

  I had not known the role my villain was to play in my novel, or how he was to be introduced. The memory of an interview I had once done for my paper returned now to give me what I needed. Falco would turn for help to a spiritualist, and he would take advantage of the situation for his own ends. As yet I could not visualize him but I was confident that his character would develop once I had introduced him. And I would follow Falco’s example, and I knew just the medium to approach.

  ‘I met Angela Thurlby in my Fleet Street days,’ I said. ‘Of course I didn’t believe in the paranormal then and I took rather a cynical view of her.’

  ‘I can believe that,’ Ashley said.

  ‘Yes, but it didn’t stop me giving her a fair write-up.’

  ‘What was the story?’

  ‘She claimed that someone “came through’’ to give her the whereabouts of a child that had gone missing.’

  ‘Was she right?’

  ‘Yes. At the time I thought it was clever deduction or sheer good luck. But I must say that she quite impressed me — especially as she never tried to make any money out of her so-called gift.’

  ‘Do you think she’ll come here?’

  ‘It’s possible. I should imagine that what happened here isn’t exactly run-of-the-mill in the world of parapsychology, and she might be intrigued by it. In a minute I’ll see if I can find my old contacts book, then I’ll go to the village and phone her.’

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ Ashley said quickly.

  *

  Angela Thurlby arrived at Whispering Corner as dusk was gathering in the woodland, driven down in a Volvo estate by one of the helpers she had said she would need for her séance.

  She had remembered me when I telephoned her Kensington flat.

  ‘Of course I know who you are — you did the best write-up I’ve ever had, and since then I’ve read your books. Not exactly accurate, but entertaining. Now what can I do for you? Do you want some technical advice?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ I said, and went on to tell her of the night’s events as precisely as I could.

  When I had concluded she said promptly, ‘It sounds fascinating, my dear. I shall come down immediately if I can prevail upon Mr Peter to drive us.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘My little team. There’ll be five of us. They’ve worked with me for years and are absolutely indispensable for something like this. They boost my receptive powers.’

  Now the little group crossed the lawn and I went out to greet them. It was quite a few years since I had interviewed Angela, though I had seen her several times on television when some producer had decided to do a beat-up on spiritualism, and I saw the years had been kind to her. Although well into her fifties she was still slim, unlined and very well groomed. She came from an old Anglo-Indian family and she had the vivacity and charm so characteristic of that section of Indian society.

  Angela had left Lucknow as a young girl and it was in London that she discovered her psychic abilities, after a chance visit with a couple of giggly companions to the spiritualistic headquarters in Belgrave Square. Now she introduced her acolytes: Mr Peter, a middle-European with sad eyes who had a fashionable ikon gallery in Church Street; Nigel Chambers, a fresh-faced young man in beautifully tailored slacks and blazer who I gathered was an apprentice medium; Estelle Baker, an anorexic-looking girl with a spiky haircut whose accent was pure docklands before it became yuppie-belt (‘a fantastic sensitive, my dear’), and Mrs Kelly, a kindly widow whose powers as a scryer, I was assured, were not infrequently though unofficially put at the disposal of the police.

  Inside the house this oddly assorted team — the creme of her circle, Angela Thurlby assured me — fell upon the cakes and tea provided by Ashley with silent ferocity. Their leader merely required ‘pure, pure water’; I gave her Perrier.

  ‘Now tell us exactly what happened,’ said Angela as the jaw movements of her colleagues began to slow. I complied, giving a straightforward account of the events which had led up to the climax when Ashley and I had looked out upon an unfamiliar landscape, but I withheld any mention of Mary Lawson’s ‘Narration’ or the story of Sir Richard Elphick. I was still enough of a sceptic to want to see if the spirits could provide the medium with background information.

  ‘My dears, it seems that dormant forces have been released,’ Angela said. ‘We must discover what has triggered it. You haven’t been dabbling, have you?’

  ‘Dabbling?’

  ‘Black magic. Psychic experiments.’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Not even working out some sort of ritual for one of your creepy books?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Until last night Jon was an unbeliever,’ Ashley said.

  Angela Thurlby nodded. ‘I guessed that from the time he interviewed me. But why should people believe until something happens to prove the existence of the psychic world to them?’

  The group muttered agreement.

  ‘I take it that neither of you has experienced anything like this before?’

  ‘Never,’ Ashley and I said together.

  ‘What I find utterly fascinating is that you had a simultaneous experience at the French windows. I do wonder what it is that could cause such a powerful manifestation. You don’t know if this house was built on an earlier site — say of a church or tumulus?’

  ‘To my knowledge it was built on virgin land,’ I said. ‘Although I had a friend staying here who was into ley lines and he believed that there was a convergence of them at this spot.’

  ‘And what was that supposed to do?’

  ‘He linked it to a local legend about a part of the wood where the whispering of plague victims is supposed to be heard.’

  ‘Interesting,’ said Angela. ‘There are areas where conditions are such that the paranormal is intensified. In one of his stories Algernon Blackwood described a place as “a point where the veil between” — meaning between this world and some other dimension — “had worn a little thin”. Perhaps it is so here. Before we form our circle, it would be interesting to
visit the spot where the whispering has been heard.’

  We trooped out through the wicket gate and along Church Walk. The air was hushed and darkening about us though the sky that appeared between the leafy canopies of the trees retained a pale luminosity. Nigel looked down regretfully at his glossy shoes as we followed the earthen track, but the rest of the group appeared to enjoy this essay into the countryside.

  ‘You are so lucky to live in such a charming location,’ Angela remarked.

  ‘It wasn’t so charming last night,’ said Ashley.

  ‘I am sure it is some troubled spirit which will leave you in peace once it has been placated.’

  ‘How do you placate a trouble spirit?’ I asked as doubts about my plan to bring in a medium grew, especially when she replied, ‘Often it is done by prayer.’

  ‘Here we are,’ I said as we reached the bend in the path overshadowed by the huge tree whose roots held the mossy bank like the fingers of an emaciated giant. ‘This is where the legend says some of the fleeing plague victims rested and died. The wind seems to catch this part of the wood, and I’m sure it was the rustle of leaves which fuelled the legend.’

  ‘Estelle?’ said Angela.

  The girl stepped ahead of us and squatted in the middle of the path, the palms of her hands pressed over her eyes in concentration.

  ‘Hush, please,’ said Angela. ‘My forte is in spirit communication, but Miss Baker has a remarkable aptitude for sensing atmosphere.’

  We stood respectfully hushed, Mr Peter looking more mournful than ever and Nigel and Mrs Kelly ineffectually waving at the gnats dancing out of the gloom. ‘Tell us what you are feeling?’ Angela coaxed softly.

  ‘Nuffink,’ replied the sensitive.

  ‘Concentrate, my dear.’

  Silence, and then a slight rustle as an exhausted current of air died among the trees.

  ‘There’s something sad-like,’ said Estelle. ‘Unhappy voices. I dunno what they’re saying. Yeah. Could be prayin’, but it don’t sound like the way we talk …’

  My doubts increased. Considering I had just told the legend of the whispering voices Estelle’s remarks hardly came as a revelation.

  ‘It’s chilly,’ said Mrs Kelly, shivering.

  ‘Yes, it’s getting dark,’ said Nigel.

  ‘Cold, that’s what I’m getting,’ Estelle said. ‘It’s like there was a lot of people cold, whisperin’ away to each other in the dark, all afraid …’

  I dared not catch Ashley’s eye.

  We returned to Whispering Corner in the dusk and at Angela’s request went into the dining room where the table was ‘ideal’ for her purpose.

  ‘We need to find out everything we can,’ she said, opening a briefcase. ‘Sometimes I do go into a trance and the spirits speak through me. No need to be afraid if that happens, though you may find it a bit strange at first. But we’ll try the ouija to start with. So much faster than having to count the raps the way the old-timers used to do it.’

  From the briefcase she took out a small tape recorder and a number of plastic squares each with a bold letter or numeral which she began to space out round the edge of the circular dining table. On opposite sides of the table she placed two squares bearing the words YES and NO.

  ‘Oh, I know this,’ said Ashley. ‘We used to do it as kids. It was amazing what the glass spelled out. A great party game.’

  Angela pursed her lips but made no comment until the letters were set out to her satisfaction.

  ‘If anyone wants the loo now is the time to go,’ she said. ‘Once we start we mustn’t break the circle.’

  A few minutes later we were ready to begin the séance. A table lamp on a bookcase provided enough light for us to read the letters clearly and we seated ourselves round the table with the sexes alternating as though we were at a dinner party. Angela placed a crystal glass bottom upwards in the centre of the table.

  ‘I am sure you know all about this — especially you, my dear,’ she said with a thin smile at Ashley. ‘When the time comes each will lay the tip of the middle finger on the glass. Whatever you do you must not exert pressure on it.’

  Inwardly I groaned. Estelle the Sensitive had hardly left me speechless with awe, and now it seemed we were in for what Ashley rightly called a party game. I wondered which one of the team had the job of steering the glass to the correct letters. As I knew that Angela never took money for such a performance I wondered why she did it, and could only conclude that she must get some satisfaction out of being the centre of the charade. What had possessed me to turn to her for help? If I’d had any sense I would have been on the couch of a first class psychiatrist at this moment … except for the fact that Ashley had experienced some of the phenomena too, and we both couldn’t be mad in exactly the same way.

  ‘Ready, my dears,’ said Angela. ‘Jonathan, I know you are new to this, but just take your cue from us. Whatever happens — and this is terribly important — don’t break the circle. Together we generate harmonic vibrations to shield us from … well, whatever it is that disturbed you both.’

  Harmonic vibrations!

  I thought with irony how different the supernatural scenes I had portrayed in my novels were from this cosy little gathering round the ouija board.

  ‘Now, Jonathan and Ashley, just follow us,’ Angela continued. ‘Place your hands on the table, one hand on that of a neighbour, and for a few minutes let us sit in silence and prepare ourselves by quiet meditation.’

  I obeyed — having invited them down I had to go along with them — and placed my right hand on the table. I felt the hot moist palm of Estelle on the back of it, and in turn I laid my left fingertips on Ashley’s hand which she turned to give them a surreptitious squeeze. Then, like the others, I lowered my chin to my chest and endeavoured to clear my mind. The only sound was the measured tick of an old case clock Pamela and I had bought in Portobello Road soon after Steve was born, and for which I had the sort of affection that grows round inanimate household objects as the years pass by.

  Now conscious of the beat of its brass heart, I began to think of Pamela by association. I wondered if she had found someone, as I had, or whether she had been too caught up in the rush of her perfume campaign to have much of a social life.

  I remembered that I was supposed to be clearing my mind, and I really tried. But the cool skin of Ashley’s hand beneath my fingertips brought new thoughts into my mind. One thing I had decided was that if this attempt failed to throw light upon the situation at Whispering Corner I must take her away from here. Throughout the day I had not been able to rid my mind of the menace epitomized by that scarecrow figure of tangled linen. That was something for my novel, and I thought how curious it was that Ashley and I had experienced a haunting precisely when I was writing about Falco and Lorna’s being threatened by the supernatural. Was I writing a book, or was the book writing me?

  Of course I had to admit that just as their background — indeed the very name of their story — was based on Whispering Corner, so the plot owed a lot to the real-life ‘Narration’ of Mary Lawson. The similarity between fact and fiction, therefore, was not as remarkable as it might seem at first sight.

  A sigh brought my attention back to the fact that I was supposed to be part of a séance. Angela had raised her head and said quietly, ‘Now we are in a state to receive our unseen guests.’

  Unseen guests! The strangler shape I had seen poised above Ashley was hardly an unseen guest, but I did not know how much Angela believed of what I had told her. People who claim to have had so-called psychic experiences tend to exaggerate them, and I had to admit to myself that my account of the night’s events must have sounded far-fetched. Angela asked us to place our index fingers on the glass in the centre of the polished table top, and in low tones asked any spirit present to communicate. For a minute the only sound was the regular breathing of my companions, then again Angela asked, ‘Is there anyone there?’

  When there was no response she said reassuringly, ‘Somet
imes it takes ages for the conditions to become attuned. I sense there are difficult vibrations here, some elemental force trying to create a barrier.’

  ‘Bleeding lot of force around tonight,’ agreed the Sensitive.

  ‘I must say I’m not picking up anything at all, not a single thing,’ Nigel complained. ‘And not even a hint of Big Bull.’

  I felt Ashley’s fingers grip my knee at the mention of the young man’s spirit guide, and I knew she was making a brave effort to keep a straight face.

  ‘Maybe you was mistake,’ said Mr Peter in resigned tones. ‘Often people are mistake about psychic things. Something go bang in the night and — pouf! — they think it spirits.’ He looked at me with sad reproach.

  ‘Patience, my dears,’ Angela said.

  At that moment the glass jerked into life.

  13

  As anyone knows who has tried the ouija, the glass slides as though by its own volition and I found this startling at first. It made a series of circles within the border of letters, moving so fast that in turn we had to stretch out our arms so that our fingers would not slide off

  ‘You take over, Nigel,’ Angela said to her apprentice, removing her fingers from the glass and sitting back.

  ‘Do you wish to tell us something?’ he inquired of the empty air.

  The glass moved even faster, making circles across the table top towards the piece of plastic with the word YES on it, then it suddenly died.

  For half a minute we looked at each other enquiringly in the subdued light, then Nigel repeated his question.

  Slowly the glass began to move in a straight line until it reached YES.

  ‘Contact!’ murmured Mrs Kelly. ‘See, Mr Peter, it was no mistake.’

  ‘Maybe yes, maybe no …’ Mr Peter was interrupted by a sudden movement of the glass.