At last I was approaching the part of the novel where I could give my imagination full fantastical rein. Up to this point I had worked hard at portraying my characters as people my readers could identify with; I had striven to suspend disbelief, as the buzz phrase has it, and if my technique had succeeded I had led them imperceptibly into the realm of the damned. Of course there had been periodic mini-climaxes of increasing intensity in order to hold the interest and whet the appetite, but now the time had come for madder music and stronger wine.
There was a renewed enthusiasm for the story burning within me, and I rubbed my hands in anticipation of what I was about to write. Just over an hour ago my mind had been in turmoil over my problems, but as my forefingers began to tap the keys they receded into limbo. Later that morning Ashley brought me a cup of tea before going for a stroll to the village — she had been shocked by the empty refrigerator — and during this break it struck me that what I was doing might possibly be dangerous. Was there a risk that the events I was about to describe in the fictitious Whispering Corner might reflect upon the house that was its model?
In the manic mood of the moment I did not care. After the disappointing sales of my last book and the patent hostility of Jocasta Mount-William, after abandoning one novel and wrestling with writer’s block, it would be professional suicide to stop now or — worse! — water down the story.
Later, in more sober moments, I convinced myself that there was probably nothing to worry about. Since the visit of Dr McAndrew nothing abnormal had occurred and, I argued convincingly, should the border between fiction and reality be breached again it would hardly matter anyway. I would soon be quitting this house I loved, and the effects of its mysterious magic combined with my imagination would be ended.
The truth is that even if I had known there would be a psychic repercussion as a result of continuing with the story I would still have written it.
As I worked I got perverse pleasure out of building up the character of William Fortune. It was as though I was exacting revenge on Charles Nixon by casting him in the role of a sanctimonious crook.
My task was to portray the hold the medium was gaining over Falco and Lorna, and it became absorbing. As I typed I could almost hear his deep confident voice explaining, reassuring, cajoling and, at the psychologically right moment, bullying his victims. It was an equally demanding exercise to describe how their sense of independence deteriorated as he played upon their anxieties, especially in regard to Falco’s love for Whispering Corner. I concluded the chapter with Lorna convincing Falco that Fortune should hold his séance.
‘At least he’s trying, James. And what’s the alternative? You can’t go on living here under threat …’
‘You’re right, of course,’ Falco agreed. He swung round on his stool and took her hands. ‘I’ll go along with anything that gets this place back to normal so that you and I can just be happy here together. I’ll even go along with Fortune.’
‘Darling, you know that’s all I want too. Just to be with the man I love … ‘
Wishful thinking!
22
The next days were strange days. I felt mounting excitement as I worked towards the climax of Whispering Corner. From breakfast to supper the keys of my typewriter were rarely silent and I congratulated myself that I had really got back to being an author again. As for the situation with Ashley, it remained in limbo. On the surface we talked easily enough on neutral topics, listened to music in the evenings and kissed goodnight before we went to our respective bedrooms.
Once I made an attempt to get back on the old footing. Ashley, suffering from a headache — a not infrequent complaint that was a worrying legacy from her motor crash — had gone to bed early and I had sat up with an old book on mediumship from my reference library.
Around midnight, bored with mediums and their inevitable Red Indian guides, the absurdity of the situation struck me like a revelation. I was sharing my house with a girl with whom I had explored the erotic passions of the heart from the floor of the room where I was now sitting alone to the tepid waters of the Red Sea, and with whom I had wanted to spend the rest of my life. It was artificial and perverse to be living like polite acquaintances. I went up to Ashley’s room and sat on the edge of her bed.
‘Jonathan …’ she murmured, coming out of her sleep. ‘What?’
‘Move over, Ash,’ I said, lifting the duvet. ‘This charade has gone on long enough.’
If I had hoped that my bold action would revive our old relationship and I would be welcomed into her loving arms I could not have been more mistaken.
Next morning we met at breakfast as though the incident had not happened. Ashley poured coffee, set down a saucer of Whiskas for Mrs Foch and chatted in her usual way. The tension was terrible and it came as a relief when, in the late afternoon, Warren arrived.
From the study window I saw him appear on the lawn by the great hornbeam just as he had when he had first arrived at Whispering Corner. I was pleased to see him, believing that the presence of the cheerful young Australian would ease the tension which now hung over us.
I had been working on a description of Fortune preparing for his séance, in which he plans to introduce an incognito Fleet Street journalist as a member of his circle, and I needed to get the paragraph completed before I broke the train of thought by going downstairs to welcome my friend. He could introduce himself to Ashley, and doubtless she would give him a cup of tea or a can of beer from the refrigerator.
My reluctance to break off reflected the fact that my work seemed to be going remarkably well — perhaps because it was an escape from the situation with Ashley. When I had come back to Whispering Corner after my visit to Abu Sabbah, her absence had filled me with desperate loneliness, but now she had returned I was even more lonely. In some obscure way the girl I had fallen in love with had been replaced by a stranger. Several times I had tried to discuss the situation with her, and on each occasion she had said that she was sure our relationship would return to what it had been once she had ‘sorted herself out’. She was unable, or reluctant, to explain what it was that she needed to sort out. I was oppressed by various dark speculations inspired by my fear that she still mistrusted me, and the only thing I was certain of was the fact that day by day we were drifting further apart.
The minutes went by and still I sought to get down another couple of lines of dialogue or another descriptive sentence before I abandoned the thread of the story. The result was that half an hour must have slipped by before I saw Warren, and then it was he who came through the door to see me.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to finish this page.’
‘You seem to be in full cry. I could hear the old typer rattling downstairs. Don’t let me interrupt.’
Although I was anxious to keep going, I gestured for him to sit down. ‘Did you enjoy Findhorn?’
For a minute he extolled the mystical atmosphere of the place. ‘You should go up there as soon as your novel is finished, Jonathan. A good dose of tranquillity is just what you need.’
‘I won’t argue with that,’ I said.
‘Has everything been all right?’
‘All quiet since Dr McAndrew was here.’
‘So it must be over.’
‘Let’s hope so.’
He stood silently for a moment.
‘By the way, you’re interested in coincidences,’ he resumed. ‘When I arrived I was knocked out to see Ashley Matheson here. I’d met her in Sydney. Small world. At least it is out there. Everybody seems to know everybody.’
I said something about the world becoming a village.
‘If you fancy some chilli con carne tonight I’ll go to the village for some mince.’
‘Sounds great. Take Ashley with you. It’ll be good for her to chat about the old stamping ground. She’s been rather low-spirited lately.’
‘OK. I won’t hold up the creative flow any more. See you at supper.’
I nodded and returned to my ima
ginary world. By the time the sky turned to violet over the woods I had the dazed feeling that comes at the end of a day’s intensive writing. I needed time to unwind before I joined Ashley and Warren, so I took the Norbury and Poole eyepiece from a drawer and went to Miss Constance’s parlour.
The last rays of the setting sun reflected warmly on the brass of the telescope which, after Warren had worked on it during his first stay here, gleamed as it must have done when it first left the Liverpool factory a hundred years ago. The eyepiece snicked neatly into position and after a minute of adjustments I was scanning the treetops, amazed at the details of lacy foliage and birdlife that appeared in the lens.
Turning a wheel, I raised the barrel to the sky and suddenly was lost in a fantastical world of pink-edged cloud sculpture. Were I an author of fantasy tales I would never be short of magical landscapes and citadels to describe with such an instrument.
I was euphoric when I went down to join Ashley and Warren and, helped by a few drinks, supper passed very well. The presence of a third party, especially someone she had met before, had made a difference to Ashley, and, while both of us were content to let Warren describe the Findhorn community at length, her eyes were bright and something of her old animation had returned.
With the climax of Whispering Corner approaching I decided to attempt a couple more pages before I turned in, and I was able to leave them chatting over a bottle of Macon without feeling guilty.
By midnight I had reached the point where Fortune’s séance was about to begin under the lights of a camera crew. The story was winding up at last and I sensed that a stage in my own life was close to an end as well. Unless a minor miracle happened the bank would take possession of Whispering Corner in a few days, and I had no idea of what I would do then or what the situation between Ashley and myself would be. But as I gratefully sank on to my bed all that mattered was to make my final chapter powerful enough to reinstate me as a popular author.
*
I had been at work for a couple of hours when Warren brought up several letters which had just arrived. One was addressed in an Italic typeface.
‘I was thinking of taking Ash to see the folly over at High Wood,’ he said.
‘Good idea,’ I replied, my mind on Nixon’s letter which I was fumbling to open.
It was a letter written in a rage, and I guessed it had been typed immediately after Nixon had received the letter from my solicitor suggesting — quite strongly, I should imagine — that he pay his share of the company overdraft. Such was his anger when he composed it that words were misspelled, repeated and run together, but this only emphasized the manic effect.
He began by abusing me for ‘setting’ my solicitor on to him and continued with a series of ‘how dare I’s’, such as how dare I demand money before the ease had even come to court? And so on for a closely typed page. The tone changed on the second page, becoming self-pitying. He claimed that he was broke and in debt, thanks to the fact that he had worked so long on my behalf without reward; his marriage was falling apart; and now I, whose mediocre book he had promoted into a film that had been seen around the world, had turned against him. He could never have believed I would have repaid him with such ingratitude. Well, he was wiser now, but the effect of my harassment was taking its toll on his health.
The final paragraphs were written in sorrow rather than anger. He wondered how I, who must be making huge sums out of my books, could think of demanding money from someone who had no regular income (‘and at the moment cannot pay his telephone bill’) and had got himself into this position through his efforts to get another film produced by our company. He added that thanks to me he was at the end of his tether and concluded: ‘I fail to see how you can live with yourself — obviously others cannot!!!!!’
In his rhetoric he overlooked the fact that I knew he had recently worked as an independent producer, that I had never asked him to try and promote my work, and that it was Whispering Corner that was about to be sold, not his Richmond home.
Although I knew perfectly well that such bluff and moral outrage was part of his tactics for avoiding paying his share of the overdraft, there was an underlying warp of desperation about the letter that was almost physically repellent. Instead of throwing it into my wastepaper basket with screwed-up notes and sheets of typescript, I took it down to the garbage bin. As I did so I heard a door close and guessed that Warren and Ashley were on their way to see the tower, which had been originally built as a folly by Edward Drax at the end of the eighteenth century.
Back at my typewriter I re-entered the Whispering Corner of my imagination, where preparations were under way for Fortune’s séance. Falco finds his house suddenly invaded by a film crew.
‘They heard a rumour about my work here and just turned up, too late to send them away, old chap,’ Fortune lies.
The lighting cameraman and his assistant busy themselves setting up lights in the dining room and the cellar while a sound mixer moves about with his Nagra recorder demanding hush while he checks his levels. Members of Fortune’s group arrive in their different cars with the air of statesmen at an international conference, important and grave. One — who was not present at the first séance — takes a sympathetic interest in Lorna and gets into a deep discussion with her about her experiences since she arrived at the house. He is, of course, the Fleet Street man.
Feeling almost a stranger in his own home and uneasy at the prospect of the séance now that there is media involvement, Falco strolls past the parked vehicles in the drive. He has almost reached the lane when an elderly dark green Morris 1100 cautiously noses between the old stone gateposts.
A man’s head with a pink cherubic face and a shock of pure silver hair leaned through the driver’s window.
‘I’m looking for a house called Whispering Corner,’ he said tentatively.
‘You’ve come to the right place,’ said Falco. ‘Have you come for tonight’s — um —meeting?’
‘Actually, I’ve come to see Mr Falco.’
‘That’s me. You’re … ?’
‘Scott. Leslie Scott. I got back from Verona yesterday and having read your very graphic letter I thought I’d better come over as soon as possible.’
‘But you’re not …’
‘Oh, that. I only wear a dog collar when ritual necessity demands it. It tends to chafe. But I’m a priest all right.’
‘How kind of you to come. You can leave your car just inside the gateway. Sorry there’s not a lot of room.’
‘Have I come at an awkward time? It looks as if you’re having a party.’
Falco shook his head. ‘As a matter of fact, it’s a séance.’
Abruptly the Reverend Scott pulled his head inside. The wheels of the Morris spun in the mould as he shot into the driveway to park.
‘To hold a séance here is very unwise, if what you wrote to me is true,’ said the clergyman, climbing out of his car.
‘It’s true enough,’ said Falco. ‘But I understand from the medium that through the séance he might discover the reason behind these manifestations …’
‘Nonsense,’ said the Reverend Scott briskly. ‘Such things are snares and delusions. Like Saul, mediums trespass into forbidden territories, they make themselves prey to the minions of the evil one.’
‘I must say I’m not completely happy about what’s going to happen. It seems to be turning into a bit of a circus.’
‘They’re playing with things they don’t understand. Can you stop it?’
‘It’d be difficult,’ said Falco. ‘And rather embarrassing after I agreed to it.’
‘Ye-es,’ said the clergyman thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps you could arrange for me to be present. No need for anyone to know who I am. At least I’ll be able to give you protection if necessary.’
He took a small antique silver box from an inside pocket.
‘Here I have the best possible defence against the dark power,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘It contains a wafer of the Host, and with it t
here’s a phial of holy water from the shrine at Walsingham.’
‘Great’ murmured Falco, whose instinct assured him of the Reverend Scott’s sincerity but whose sense of logic balked at the accessories of exorcism. ‘I’ll introduce you as an old friend who has turned up unexpectedly.’
‘Although your letter gave me a pretty good idea of the phenomena that have been occurring here, it would be helpful if you could give me the details of what’s happened since you first found that there was something abnormal here.’
‘It began with voices, whispering voices,’ said Falco, as he led the Reverend Scott through the tunnel of trees towards the house.
*
I continued working through the morning, and I found that when William Fortune came into the story I described him and his actions with a bitter clarity that reflected my feelings about his archetype. It was as though Nixon’s letter that morning had released an emotional adrenalin within me. I hated the man whose only response to my forthcoming loss of Whispering Corner was abuse and self-righteous indignation, and as I write this I have to admit to a feeling of such anger against another human being as I had never experienced before.
Edgar Allan Poe, exploited and embittered, must have known it too. ‘The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult …
Poe bricked up Fortunato alive; for my William Fortune I reserved what to me was the ultimate horror.
It was after midday and I had reached the point in my chapter where the séance was about to begin when I decided to take a break for a snack and coffee before plunging on with the story and went down to the kitchen. Manx Mrs Foch regarded me with one green eye from her basket while I put a slice of bacon under the grill and switched on the electric kettle. Then, sandwich in one hand and a mug of Maxwell House in the other, I went back up the stairs to Miss Constance’s parlour. Before returning to work I wanted to relax my mind, and with this thought I decided to try out the telescope in bright daylight.
Whispering Corner Page 30