Whispering Corner

by Marc Alexander

  ‘If you recall, the article in The Gentleman’s Companion was headed Notes on the Experiences of the Lawson Family in the House of Colonel Elphick in the Wood on the Edge of Lychett Village, and I naturally concluded that it referred to our village as the description of the house fitted perfectly with Whispering Corner. Mea culpa!

  ‘Looking into the matter further I found that the house built by Sir Richard was demolished about a hundred years ago and the wood in which it stood has long gone. Sad the way England has lost so much of her woodland.

  ‘Of course I am sure that this news will not affect the novel for which you are using Mrs Lawson’s “Narration” as a background. In a work of fiction it can hardly matter whether the events it is based upon took place in Lychett Matravers or a few miles away in Lychctt Minster. In fact it might be reassuring to know that your house was never haunted …’

  When Henry Gotobed had written that letter he could have had no idea of the effect it would have upon me. The best way I can describe it is to say that I felt like the pilot of a light aircraft flying through heavy cloud who suddenly finds that his instruments have failed. The implications were too great to absorb at once.

  I had been forced to put aside the conviction of a lifetime by experiencing paranormal manifestations only to find that the basis for them was non-existent.

  So what had I experienced? My first thoughts were that I was going insane, that everything that had happened at Whispering Corner had been a delusion triggered off by a fallacy. Then I sought to reassure myself with the thought that Ashley had shared some of the experiences with me. But supposing …

  At that moment Warren walked in.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ Then he grinned at the connotations of his remark. ‘Just in a manner of speaking. After the Reverend McAndrew’s visit I expect this place is pretty well de-ghosted.’

  ‘No wonder he was puzzled’, I said. ‘There haven’t been any ghosts here.’

  Warren sat down opposite me. ‘What’s all this about?’ I began to tell him, and what a relief it was. This young Australian was the most sympathetic and intelligent listener I could have chosen.

  When I came to the end of the story I gestured to Henry’s letter.

  ‘Read that,’ I said. ‘You’ll see that the murder and the disposal of the unwanted baby and everything that was described in Mary Lawson’s “Narration” could have nothing to do with Whispering Corner. So what has been happening here?’

  Warren read the letter carefully. ‘But even if Henry made a mistake very bloody weird things have been happening here,’ he said. ‘I remember you telling me that when Hoddy went berserk in the cellar he got the idea that you were Sir Richard Elphick …’

  We sat in silence, the letter between us.

  ‘Hang on a minute,’ said Warren suddenly. ‘I’ve got something that might throw some light on this.’

  He went to this room and returned with a bookstore bag from which he produced a volume with a yellow dust jacket. In bold black type it had Colin Wilson as the name of the author and beneath it the title POLTERGEIST! — a study in destructive haunting.

  ‘I first read it back in Sydney,’ Warren said. ‘When I saw that you hadn’t got it among your occult reference books I bought this copy to give you as a thank-you present before I take off.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I murmured automatically.

  ‘Least I could do after so much hospitality,’ he answered just as automatically as he ran his finger down the index. ‘Here we are, page 215. Now listen to this.’

  ‘In the early 1970s, members of the Toronto Society for Psychical Research, under the direction of A. R. G. Owen, decided to try to manufacture a ghost. For this purpose, they invented the case history of a man called Philip, a contemporary of Oliver Cromwell, who had an affair with a beautiful gypsy girl. When Philip’s wife found out, she had the girl accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake; Philip committed suicide.

  ‘Having elaborated this story and created a suitable background — an ancient manor house — they set about trying to conjure up the spirit of Philip. For several months there were no results. Then one evening, as they were relaxing and singing songs, there was a rap on the table. They used the usual code (one rap for yes, two for no), to question the “spirit”, which claimed to be Philip, and repeated the story they had invented for him. At later séances, Philip made the table dance all around the room, and even made it levitate in front of TV cameras.

  ‘Owen’s group rightly regarded this “creation” of a ghost as something of a triumph, making the natural assumption that Philip was a product of their unconscious minds …’

  Warren trailed off and his words seemed to hang in the air. Then he said, ‘The novel you’re writing, based on this house, brings in paranormal activity based on the “Narration”, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Of course. And I see perfectly well what you’re getting at. You think that as an author creating characters I created ghosts just as that group in Toronto created Philip.’

  ‘That’s how it seems to me.’

  ‘Me too,’ I admitted. ‘But why? My other horror books haven’t manufactured horrors.’

  ‘Perhaps because you didn’t write them in Whispering Corner. I told you it’s a nodal point for ley lines. There must be something here that causes such things to happen, something that preserved the sound of whispering. And maybe it’s something to do with you, a combination of you and Whispering Corner, and maybe if some other writer had come here it might not have happened. I remember sitting here and you talking to the vicar one night saying how your characters took on lives of their own and became like real people to you, and how in Shadows and Mirrors they actually worked out a different plot to what you’d had in mind. So when you began writing in this magical spot the process went further and the projections of your mind became reality …’

  ‘It’s all too fantastic!’ I exploded. ‘It’s not as though I was even a believer in the paranormal.’

  ‘It’d make a good theme for your next book,’ Warren said with a laugh, which he bit back when he saw my expression. ‘The fact remains, you read the “Narration” which you believed referred to this place, used the idea in the novel you were creating, and then things began to happen more or less as you described them in your book. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘It is,’ I admitted, and then added with short-lived triumph: ‘But something happened before I had written it down. When I first came here I heard voices in my head which at the time I believed were caused by hypnagogsis but which later became part of the psychic phenomena — the point is I hadn’t got into the book when it happened.’

  ‘But the thought of whispering voices was in your mind,’ Warren argued. ‘When you met Henry and he told you the legend of the plague victims you were aware of them, especially as they were responsible for the name of your house. And at the time, did you think of using the legend in your novel?’

  ‘It did occur to me.’

  ‘There you are. The fact that you hadn’t written it down didn’t matter. The point was you had conceived it as part of your story in your mind.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right,’ I said. Other thoughts were crowding in, about incidents I had put down to synchronicity, of what had been real and what had been extensions of my imagination.

  ‘Did you have a scene in your novel about someone becoming possessed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So at least your fictional creations can have no bearing on what happened to Hoddy.’

  ‘Oh, yes. We can say the hauntings came about in some mysterious way through me imagining them in my book, but as time went on an independence began to evolve just as it did in that experiment in Colin Wilson’s book. The psychic researchers created a whole scenario for their ghost Philip, but he took on a persona of his own when he showed off his poltergeist-type abilities by making the table dance and so on. Once the ghosts in my book came to life — to put it paradoxic
ally — they began to act more and more independently. Take the re-enactment of the murder. I didn’t describe it in my novel until after I had experienced it. It’s a bizarre thought that my book inspired ghosts who later inspired part of my book.’

  ‘I can see it’s more complicated than I thought,’ Warren admitted. ‘If things happened here because they were projected in an author’s mind that’s not too difficult to follow, but you’re saying that once they were created they took over …’

  ‘Of course they did — or the power that they personified. And that power was evil because in my novel it went back to the wicked actions of Sir Richard Elphick. Once it had been activated it was free to influence us. And as time has passed it seems to have got steadily stronger. Perhaps it absorbed some sort of psychic energy from your ley system. It gave me a bad experience in the cellar once, but that was nothing compared to what it did to Hoddy. Luckily it didn’t seem able to sustain its hold over him, but who knows what could happen if it became more powerful?’

  ‘So what are you going to do now? You can hardly continue with Whispering Corner in the circumstances.’

  ‘Of course I can. Whatever happens I’ve got to hand in a novel in a very short while.’

  ‘But surely that’d be dangerous?’

  ‘I don’t know, but at least I’ll try and make sure that the haunting can’t continue. If fact has followed fiction, fiction can now follow fact. In my novel Whispering Corner will be exorcised as it was in reality.’

  The next few days were the most intensive I have ever known. Warren left reluctantly as he had promised to meet a like-minded friend with whom he had longstanding plans to visit Findhorn. He promised he would return to Whispering Corner ‘to see how things were working out’ as soon as he could, and as he left I got the impression from his almost exuberant admonitions to take care that he felt some anxiety about leaving me alone.

  After I had driven him to Poole to catch his train I returned to Whispering Corner. The oppressive air, waiting for yet another thunderstorm to clear it, seemed to press down upon me as I stood in the centre of the lawn surveying my little domain. I was glad that I would be on my own for the next few days. Not even Henry’s serious conversation would intrude on the working regime I planned for myself.

  Despite everything, I still loved the house, and one of the positive things that had resulted from the revelation in Henry’s letters was the knowledge that Whispering Corner was ‘innocent’. No malign influences lurked in its fabric as I had feared. I had created the haunting and I would end it by fictionalizing the work of Dr McAndrew.

  Of course there was a lot more to it than had been discussed with Warren. There was the aspect which I was only just daring to consider. It was epitomized by my memory of meeting Ashley, of driving through the rain and seeing her in my headlights and her car slewed in the ditch — just as I had described it before I came to live at Whispering Corner …

  Perhaps it was the drowsy shadows of the trees, perhaps the Imp of the Perverse had returned to tempt me from the chore of sitting at my typewriter, but despite the stiffness that I still felt in my legs I decided to go for a walk in the woods.

  Passing through the wicket gate into Church Walk I set off towards the village. Light through the leafy canopy above the path played like a hundred spotlights on the massive roots of the great tree which writhed squid-like over the bank. Everything was hushed. The occasional call of a bird only emphasized the heavy silence. I sat down on a spongy log half hidden by ferns and tried to absorb the tranquillity of the moment, tried to get my chaotic ideas into some order.

  In this mood so many things seemed far away, otherworldly. Despite my yellowing bruises the memory of the wall collapsing like a brick-hued wave above me had become no more real than some old movie scene; it seemed impossible that less than a fortnight had passed since I had held Ashley in my arms. Moments of intimacy, such as our love-making on the midnight shore, had become transmuted into erotic nostalgia.

  I do not know how long I sat there lost in a reverie. It was ended by the sound of voices as a couple came into sight along the path. She was small and fair-haired and wore the sort of cotton dress that is reserved for holidays; he had a camera slung on his shoulder and when he saw the array of roots he disengaged her hand to take a picture. They were smiling at each other, and there was a togetherness about them which I envied more than I have envied anything else.

  Suddenly they saw me sitting in the shadow. The woman smiled and asked, ‘Is this the whispering place?’

  I nodded and climbed to my feet. The camera clicked. Their fingers linked again and they continued slowly through the trees. They — or what they seemed to represent — had broken my mood of introspection, and as I walked back down the path I was determined to bring Ashley back to Whispering Corner.

  In the house I paused to put out a fresh bowl of milk in front of Mrs Foch, who lay in the old washing basket which Warren had made comfortable for her with a folded blanket. The cat was lethargic and merely opened her pink mouth in a silent mew when she saw me. Perhaps it was the tablets which I had to coax down her throat with sardines that had that effect upon her, but I thought it more likely that she was also a victim of the powers I had unwittingly animated.

  *

  It was warm and oppressive in my study, and even though I opened the window my hands were damp with perspiration as I fed a sheet of paper into the Olympia. I did not feel up to the physical strain of writing, but mentally I was on fire to continue with the novel, and the next few days proved to be a victory of mind over matter.

  On several occasions fatigue overtook me and I would wake up with the typewriter keys making painful indentations in my forehead; then I would sluice my face, have black coffee with a shot of brandy and get back to the story. When I felt hungry I would eat chocolate, and when that became too cloying I would revert to bacon sandwiches. And there were times when, had there been a packet of cigarettes in the house, I would have gone back into the habit I had broken a dozen years ago.

  My first job was to complete the rift between Falco and Lorna, and this I did on the first night. Lorna left Whispering Corner as abruptly as Ashley had left me in Abu Sabbah. Although the situation and the locale was different, I found that Falco’s sense of loss was akin to my own, and as I described it my eyes felt dangerously moist. As the night wore on I could not have said precisely whether I was writing about Falco or myself.

  And no wonder. Thanks to what Warren termed the ‘magic’ of Whispering Corner my relationship with my characters must have been one of the strangest in the history of authorship. I created the fabric of their lives only to find it reflected in mine. As I sat in that sweltering room I remember how after I had described the arrival of Falco at the house he had inherited I had looked out and watched the scene re-enacted by Warren; when I described the first time Falco made love to Lorna I had no idea that in a few days I would be reliving it with Ashley.

  Figures of fact and fiction held hands in such a danse macabre that at times I really wondered if I was going insane. In retrospect I think there were times when I was. On one occasion I began to wonder if I had dreamed up everything, including Ashley, and would wake up in some aseptic room in a home for the bewildered. This thought obsessed me to a point when, shaky with fatigue, I had to go in search of clues to her existence. It was only finding some of her underwear thrown in the corner of the bedroom wardrobe that reassured me she had not been a succubus.

  The curious thing was that as far as writing was concerned my mind was clear. I knew exactly what I had to write and I did it with precision. I typed until my fingers were cramped and my spine hurt from sitting so long in one position, yet I had no inclination to stop. If only I could have had such a burst of creative energy earlier on, I told myself, Whispering Corner would have been delivered to Jocasta Mount-William by now.

  On the second morning of my new-found enthusiasm I saw the postman approaching over the grass, and when I went to meet him he
gave me look of mingled curiosity and concern. I suppose I must have looked rather debauched in my dressing-gown with my hair uncombed and my face unshaven.

  ‘Everything all right, then?’ he asked.

  I mumbled something about working late.

  ‘Aye, there’s work and work,’ he said cryptically. ‘Least you’ve got some interesting letters.’

  He handed me four letters. Two were airmail — one with a New York postmark and the other embossed with the silver emblem of Abu Sabbah, while of the other two one bore my address in an unusual italic script which I recognized as the typeface of Charles Nixon’s typewriter.

  Having commiserated with the postman on the unusual number of thunderstorms we were having this year, I went to the kitchen and laid the letters among the unwashed dishes on the kitchen table. While I drank my Maxwell House, I opened the least interesting-looking one, and found it to be an official notification that the case to be brought against me by the Regent Bank would be heard before the Queen’s Bench in London in three week’ time — coincidentally the delivery date for Whispering Corner.

  The news did not affect me as badly as it might have done. There is a certain relief in knowing the worst, and I consoled myself with the knowledge that if I could keep up the present impetus on Whispering Corner the novel would be completed before I faced the humiliation of having to admit in public that I could not pay the money I owed. If the story got picked up by a press agency I could imagine the pithy headings that would appear above the item.

  I opened the letter from Pamela.

  ‘Dear Jonathan,

  ‘It was sweet of you to send your congratulations from Abu Sabbah (a place I had never heard of and why were you there?) but sadly I don’t deserve them. The copy you read was not mine but the work of a baby-faced whizzkid — a prodigy who roller-skates in Central Park and wears T-shirts with rude words on them, damn him! I just could not get the copy as the Feinstein account exec wanted it, and so I blew my chance and I feel like hell about it.

  ‘Don’t know what I am going to do. Doubt if I’ll get another opportunity here but dread the thought of going back to London empty-handed. Feel such a failure and have suspicion that Liz is getting a bit peed off with having me here. She has given up sculpture for Aroma Therapy. Oh! Oh! What shall I do?