‘You did?’
‘Of course. He’s my type, not yours: tall, dark, clever, tricky, and younger than me. And although he asked me a lot about you, he seemed more interested in the Crypt-ograms and the mind reading and prediction stuff, and your knowledge of the local spooks, than anything more personal about you.’
‘I don’t suppose he told you why?’
‘Well, no, but I suppose it’s natural he should be interested.’
‘He’s going to let his sister run part of the Hall as a sort of guesthouse doing Ghastly Weekends for Ghost-hunters.’
‘But he can’t do that, the rat! I’m the local B&B!’ Orla exclaimed indignantly. ‘And he can’t need the money: Miss Kedge was loaded.’
‘A man can never be too thin or too rich?’ I suggested.
‘Huh!’ she said inelegantly.
‘But it sounds more like an occasional weekend thing rather than a regular business like yours, so it shouldn’t affect you, Orla. I don’t think he really wants to do it either, it’s more his sister talked him into it.’
‘You seem to know an awful lot after “just bumping into each other”,’ she said sarcastically.
‘I spent the night with him,’ I confessed.
‘What!’
‘In a non-carnal way,’ I assured her hastily, lying through my teeth. It was almost true, after all, and if I said it enough times even I might believe it.
I told her the Jack and the Enormous Door Key tale and about the abortive ghost hunt, but left out the brandy, the bed, and the black guilty heart bit. (Dante’s, not mine.) I needed another hands-on session with concentration before I passed judgement on that one, and now he knew I could do it he was unlikely to give me another chance even if our paths crossed, which I sincerely hoped they didn’t.
I wondered if I should try reading Jason’s mind, as a sort of guilt-comparison? And a couple of random men too, perhaps? Orla knew quite a few random men.
She listened avidly to my story, then asked me if I didn’t fancy Dante Chase.
‘No, you get him, you can have him,’ I said generously. ‘He’s not my type, as you said.’
‘Actually, he is your type in that you both look a bit the same.’
‘You know, that was my first impression too – apart from the nose,’ I added hastily. ‘And the thin lips, and the square chin, and – no, forget it, we’re not alike at all.’
‘You both have lovely bones, deep-set eyes, hollow cheeks and straight dark eyebrows,’ Orla pointed out. ‘You’re beautiful, he’s sexy.’
‘I’m not beautiful, and he’s not sexy,’ I said stubbornly.
‘Oh, come on! And he’s got one of those lovely, gravelly, slightly gin-and-cigarettes voices, while yours is melodious but mournful even when you tell jokes.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It’s all right: part of your charm is that you’re not like everyone else.’
‘It certainly never charmed my parents.’
‘No, but it isn’t your fault you take after some tall, dark, wicked forebear while all your brothers are medium-sized blue-eyed blonds, is it?’
‘You’d think so,’ I said. ‘My sister, Jane’s, a little Goldilocks too, so it’s just me with the unhealthy white pallor and dried ox-blood hair.’
‘Darkest auburn.’
‘Whatever. Anyway, you’re the beautiful one. Mike must have been out of his mind to leave you.’
‘For a younger version of me? You know, I’ve just had one of my brilliant ideas!’ she added.
My heart sank.
‘We’re such a terrific contrast to each other that we should put a lonely hearts ad in a magazine together. That way, one man out of every two we pull might be halfway decent.’
‘No thanks, I’m not doing anything hasty until I’ve seen Max after the funeral.’
Anything else hasty, that is.
‘Funeral? Which funeral?’ she said, baffled. ‘Who’s died?’
‘Oh Orla! Haven’t I told you? I’ve had so much to think about that …’ I stopped. ‘But I’m sure I told Jason, so why didn’t he pass it on?’
‘I haven’t seen Jason, he’s off at some country house auction. What funeral?’ she repeated patiently.
‘Rosemary’s. She had an accident a few days ago and died. Max is coming back for the funeral next week.’
‘My God! Does this mean you can get married at last? Do you still want to marry him?’
Trust Orla to ask the million-dollar question!
‘I don’t know any more, and I don’t know how he feels after all these months apart. He didn’t even phone me to tell me the news, Orla! I found out from my sister, Jane, first.’
‘That is pretty bad,’ she conceded, ‘though I suppose he had a lot to do?’
‘I expect so, but he wouldn’t let me go out there to help. He’s supposed to be coming to visit me after the funeral, and then we will see. I’m just so confused about everything right now,’ I confessed. ‘And by then too, I’ll have performed the last fertility rite.’
‘You won’t do anything rash, will you?’ she asked anxiously.
Too late! I thought; but according to the charts, the wrong man had been combined with the wrong time of month, fortunately.
‘Seeing Max after so long you might get carried away,’ she suggested.
‘Max is the one who is always careful about taking precautions: he’s got condomania. He’s never got so carried away that he forgot,’ I said bitterly.
‘Right. Anyway, even if there are only one or two eggs rolling around in the bottom of the basket, you still don’t want to do it at your age. It’s too risky. Get a lover and a dog.’
‘I’ve got a lover – I think. But I’ll consider the dog. It might have to be a dog.’
‘Much less trouble. By the way,’ she added with seeming casualness, ‘have you decided about the Wonder Woman thing yet?’
‘Give it up,’ I advised her wearily. ‘There is no way I’m going anywhere in that outfit.’
‘I could do with some new ones. My Tarzan’s getting a bit long in the tooth for a leopardskin.’
‘He could be a Geriatric Tarzanogram. Wrap some fake vine leaves round his zimmer frame, and it would go down a treat with elderly ladies.’
I was joking but she was quite taken with it. ‘That’s a great idea! And I could advertise for a new young Tarzan, couldn’t I? Do you want to sit in on the interviews?’
‘If I ever get off this phone and finish the book,’ I said. ‘Goodnight, Orla!’
But by then I was definitely jaded, and so went to bed instead.
9
Somersaulting Backwards
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I stood in thick, tangible, muffling darkness, but far away at the end of the corridor a half-open door spilled a beckoning buttery pool of light on to the stone flags.
Half-open: or half-shut?
But sanctuary whichever it was, and my only hope of escape, though even as I started to run towards it I knew what would happen: every step forward instead sent me tumbling backwards like an acrobat into the waiting darkness.
Neat, slow and triangular, the somersaults always finished with an agile twist landing me face to face with the other door. The dark door. The door I really didn’t want to open.
This time was no different, and I stood helpless as my shaking hand was drawn inexorably to the handle, the bones lit from inside the skin like an X-ray.
Some dark, rancid fluid began to gather and ooze from the keyhole, dripping with echoing loudness on to the stone flags befo
re reaching a viscous tentacle towards my bare feet …
‘Cassandra!’ shrilled a voice. ‘Cassandra!’
The octopus tentacle of filth jerked galvanically then started to retract – and suddenly I was free, cartwheeling away, round and dizzyingly round, until I finally fell into a gasping heap and opened my eyes to the safe, warm, golden light.
A light bearing a striking resemblance to my bedside light: a happy glass sun with a smiley face.
Another face hovered over me, equally fair but far from sunny, and so incongruous that I knew I must still be asleep.
‘Jane?’ I muttered. ‘Were you in the cupboard? Scary!’
But sort of a relief too, because Jane’s a monster I can deal with. Turning over, I let my heavy eyelids close, the worst past, the demons all let out.
A skeletal hand banded with gold shook my shoulder.
‘Ouch!’ I screwed my eyes tighter shut. ‘Go away, Jane. You can’t frighten me, now I know it’s only you in the cupboard.’
‘Will you wake up, Cassandra?’ Jane snapped, and with a click the room was illuminated by the bright ceiling light.
‘Jane?’
My sister hovered over me, her fair Madonna face distorted by a weasel snarl of exasperation unfamiliar to her many admirers, including probably her husband. I recognized it, though.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ I sat up, feeling disorientated. ‘And how did you get in?’
‘If you will leave the spare key in such an obvious hiding place,’ she said scathingly. ‘I did ring, but obviously you were asleep. You seemed to be having a bad dream.’
‘I was somersaulting backwards.’
‘Still? I thought you’d have grown out of all that by now. Lots of children get put in cupboards for being naughty and they don’t grow up warped. Get over it.’
‘I thought you were the awful thing in the cupboard.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Maybe you really are, and this is still part of the bad dream?’ I suggested hopefully, closing and opening my eyes. But no, unfortunately she was still there, Fair, but set for Squally Weather. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘There wasn’t anywhere else,’ she said simply, and with a sinking feeling I noticed a suitcase big enough to hold three bodies parked by the door.
… slowly she bent and undid the heavy metal clasps securing the huge trunk, the dust of centuries thick and soft under her fingertips.
Yet something living and desperate bumped and whimpered against the lid, with the imperative, irresistible cries of a small child.
Needless to say, my sleep was even more disturbed after that, and I got up late and bleary-eyed.
There was no sign of Jane other than a beige cashmere coat tossed on to a chair, and a pale pink pashmina, neatly folded, on the window seat. I threw them both behind the sofa (out of sight, out of mind) and hoped that they, and Jane with them, would magically vanish all on their own.
I had lots of post. This little row of houses is out on a limb – literally a dead end, the occupants of the graveyard not receiving much in the way of snail mail – so the postman frequently doesn’t bother to deliver our letters for two or three days. Then we get a bundle, wadded together with elastic bands.
I opened the one with the foreign stamp first. It looked more exciting than the gas bill, but it wasn’t really, since it was just from my brother Jamie.
Dear Sis
Hope you liked the little present I sent you from out East.
We are still here on manoeuvres. Boz and Foxy and me went on shore yesterday and got absolutely slewed, and Boz fell in the harbour, which believe me is not the healthiest water around here to fall in! Hope his hepatitis shots are up to date. (Ha! ha!)
Had a message from Pa the other day. I knew he’d come round eventually after I got the chaplain to tell him I wasn’t a harlot! He’s saying Jane’s going to burn in hell now, so the poor old thing’s definitely losing his marbles. We all know you’re the one lined up for the eternal fire. Pa said your feller’s wife finally shuffled off too, but even marriage to the adulterer wouldn’t keep you from the fiery pit. Still, maybe when you’re a respectable married woman they’ll come round a bit.
Boz just came into a bit of money, and he says we could leave the navy early and set up a chicken farm, because at least there’s no Mad Chicken disease, so everyone will buy poultry. Foxy says geese would be better – I don’t know why. Still, might give it a go before too long!
See you next leave,
xxx Jamie
I did not fancy the chances of a poultry farm run by the likes of Boz, Foxy and Jamie, because intellectually the chickens would run rings around them.
Still, at least Jamie’s letter explained that battered parcel I’d had with the pink silk Chinese slippers. Trust my brother Jamie to get the size wrong and I hated pink.
Fortunately, Alice’s Alternative Clothes Emporium in town, where I purchase most of my rather alternative clothing, had some very similar green ones in stock in my size, and took mine in part exchange.
I didn’t suppose Jamie would notice the change of colour when he paid one of his flying visits on his way up to make a duty call on Ma and Pa.
You wouldn’t think from his letter that he was an officer in the navy, although he was never going to get to the top of the naval tree like George, who not only has a brain but is also deadly serious. He’s something in the Admiralty now, married to the runt of a titled family, while Jamie is eternally mentally fifteen.
I suppose it did help that George was sort of semi-adopted by a rich relative when he was eight, because he had all the right connections when he needed them.
I have four brothers. George is the oldest, then Jamie, Francis and Edward. The sea and the Church are in the family blood, which probably accounts for George and Jamie’s interest in the navy. Eddie, too, ran away to sea at sixteen, and was next heard of via a postcard from Jamaica, which explains his long-standing ganja habit, although he is a New Age traveller now.
None of them has embraced religion, probably due to seeing Pa take it to extremes. He might have gone a long way if it hadn’t been for the brandy and going off at a tangent, since he was exceedingly charismatic when sober. Come to that, he was pretty compelling even when not sober, in a hell and damnation sort of way.
Pa went to the USA as a young man, thinking he was some sort of reverse Billy Graham; but instead he converted to the Charismatic Church of God sect and brought that back here, eventually setting up his little community in Scotland. Several American members of the sect joined him there, all, strangely enough, wealthy widows.
I don’t know where he picked the brandy habit up, or how he squared that with his God, since he was very strongly against all alcohol in his preaching. In the family, if referred to at all, it was as ‘Pa’s medicine’, so clearly it conveniently transmuted in his mind into something other than spirits.
Francis and I are both sports, I suppose: he climbs things, and has a little shop up in the Highlands that stocks the sort of serious stuff climbers need, and indeed is usually full of craggy, weathered, serious climbers, some wearing plaster casts. He was generally in mild favour with Pa, since they rarely saw him and so have not sussed that his climbing and business partner, Robbie, is female.
Eddie and Francis are my favourite brothers, even if they did think up most of the pranks that got us into trouble when we were children, mostly because Jane always snitched on us.
Eddie is Ma’s favourite too, and probably the only thing Ma’s ever stood up to Pa about in all their marriage. She believes he was called to his wandering way of life because he is touched by God.
Frankly, between you and me, Eddie is just touched. He’s as cracked as Pa in his own way, like a pleasantly glazed old piece of pot.
When Pa made it clear that my relationship with Max would mean eviction from the family circle (as well as eternal damnation) I thought: Big deal, I never felt I was in it anyway, though I suppose the hope o
f one day winning their respect, if not love, never quite died.
But the boys all kept in contact like nothing ever happened, and popped in to see me if they could, except George: his idea of keeping in touch with anyone, including family, not useful to his career or social life, was to send an annual pre-printed Christmas card.
There was a postcard of the Cairngorms hidden underneath Jamie’s letter. It read:
Dear Sis,
Am on Channel 5 programme Friday at 6.45: ‘Impossible Climbs’,
Love, Francis
Friday was today.
I’d just set a video to record it in case I forgot later, when Jane wandered in yawning, with her golden hair falling becomingly over her silk-clad shoulders. Mine felt like a bird’s nest, and though the balding violet chenille robe I was wearing was a much-mended favourite, it could hardly be described as flattering.
Still, I learned the lesson when very young that there was no point in competing with Jane, because the race was fixed: angelic blue-eyed blondes won every time.
Just call me Maggie Tulliver. Now there was a girl with a dark side!
‘Post? Anything for me?’ she asked, pouring a cup of coffee and reaching for my pile of letters.
‘How on earth would anyone know you were here?’ I pointed out, snatching them back, but not before she’d got hold of Jamie’s epistle.
‘How come you got a present, when he hardly ever writes even a postcard to me?’ she complained indignantly.
‘Because he doesn’t like you, Jane. None of the boys like you, you’re a snitch. When we were little you told on us all the time just to make yourself look good and you’ve never stopped. How else would Ma and Pa know already about Max’s wife? You’re a little sneak and I don’t like you either.’
‘George’s wife likes me,’ she pointed out complacently. ‘Philadelphia often invites me to stay.’
‘Phily’s a genetic mutation, that’s why she ended up marrying George. He was the only one desperate enough to propose to her.’
A Good Heart is Hard to Find Page 10