by Faith Martin
‘Hello, you still with me, sweetheart?’ Her friend’s gently rolling voice brought her back out of her reverie with a start and she felt herself flush slightly in embarrassment. She speared an inoffensive little cherry tomato with rather more savagery than it deserved and forced herself to smile.
‘Sorry, I sometimes find myself zoning out every now and then,’ she admitted wryly.
Duncan nodded gravely. ‘It’s called grieving, Effie. It affects people in a variety of ways, but everyone who’s lost someone dear to them goes through it,’ he said gently.
Effie nodded and sought desperately for a way to change the subject. Then remembered that she had a perfect excuse right at hand. ‘So, you mentioned something about an adventure. Exactly what kind of an adventure did you have in mind?’ she asked cautiously.
‘Oh, nothing outlandish,’ Duncan promised rapidly, attempting to sound soothing. ‘So there’s no need to look so wary!’
Which, naturally, set Effie’s inner alarm bells ringing. Duncan was a lovely man, charming, clever and warm. But he could also be a proper menace at times. And she had the rather uncomfortable feeling that this was going to be one of those occasions.
Definitely time to start putting up the perimeter defences.
‘Well, you know I’m volunteering at a couple of charity shops now,’ she began quickly. ‘Which gets me out of the house quite a bit already. And don’t forget I have the garden,’ she pointed out firmly.
Her garden was her pride and joy. Large and lovely, she kept it maintained with the help of Fred, a retired old man in her village.
When she’d first moved into the house after the honeymoon, the garden had terrified her. Extensive and well maintained — if a bit regimented — it had seemed a formidable challenge for her to take on. Her father had always taken care of the tiny garden that had come with the council house that she had grown up in.
And although she had the services of Old Fred — who knew it like the back of his hand — he had made it known that he would be taking his instructions from her. And since she couldn’t, in the beginning, tell a Canterbury bell from a Michaelmas daisy, it had been a steep learning curve.
But she had surprised herself, and perhaps Old Fred too, by quickly coming to love and understand the plot of land that was all her own. Watching shed-loads of television programmes dedicated to gardening had helped, as did library books. And, from those early, tentative beginnings, Effie had quickly become a passionate gardener. She loved seeing the first snowdrops appear under the apple trees in February, followed by the burst of all the yellow colours of spring — daffodils, forsythia, crocuses, primroses.
Rose pergolas and climbing honeysuckle arbours had followed, as had a successful rockery dedicated mostly to succulents.
And Michael had been pleased too, especially when her growing skill and a developing eye for pleasing natural disorder had resulted in their various neighbours complimenting them on their Japanese acers and ornamental wildlife pond.
So perhaps it was not surprising that now her garden was one of the few things that she thought of as truly belonging to her. She’d chosen every plant, overseen the careful placing of each of the three seating areas, and lovingly pruned every plum, cherry and apple tree. In her garden she could feel the weight of the world slip off her shoulders.
Odd, really, when growing up she’d never given a garden a single thought.
‘With just Fred to help, that takes up the bulk of my time, as you can imagine. Fred won’t admit it, but he can’t do as much as he once could. And what with that and walking Toad twice a day,’ she mentioned her Yorkshire terrier with a fond smile, ‘I don’t have much spare time left.’
She’d got the four-year-old dog from a rescue shelter just six weeks after losing her husband. Michael had not been an animal lover, but Effie had always loved them. Growing up as an only child, her mum and dad (perhaps out of a sense of guilt) had spoilt her by letting her have a veritable menagerie of animals for playmates that included dogs, cats, guinea pigs, rabbits and even a white rat.
So when she’d suddenly found herself living alone, and the cold numbness of loss had begun to wear off, it didn’t take her long to realize that she really needed another warm presence in her house to keep her company. And taking on a rescue dog had been something of a no-brainer — she’d not only get to stroke warm fur and look into appealing big brown eyes whenever she needed to sit and cry, but she’d also be giving a previously unlucky animal a new, loving home.
‘So you can see, I don’t have as much spare time as you might think,’ Effie ploughed on. She could feel herself burbling now, but couldn’t seem to stop. ‘I know everyone thinks that a recent widow, living alone in a big modern house, must have hours and hours on her hands—’
‘They must spread out before you like a desert,’ Duncan put in softly, stopping her in manic mid-flow. ‘When you lost Michael, you also lost your job at his firm — you’re bound to feel that absence too,’ he put forward gently.
Effie took another deep breath and did her best to make her shrug look nonchalant.
At nineteen, and fresh from a year at secretarial college, she had found her first job as a secretary at the Oxford architectural firm of James & Fitch. It had seemed to her then, a simple working-class girl from Bicester, to be the epitome of hitting it big. Working in the glamorous and beautiful university city for a firm that designed spectacular houses and public buildings for the rich and discerning was a dream job.
And when, after just six months, she’d been promoted to working with Michael James, one of the founding partners himself, she had been over the moon in more ways than one. For Michael — a good decade older than herself — had been charming, intelligent and urbane, and had quickly swept her off her feet. Before she’d known it, she had accepted his offer of dinner. Which had promptly led to another date. And then another. Which in turn led to weekends away, a holiday abroad and, barely a year later, an official engagement.
She still had the diamond ring he’d given her at home. She rarely wore it nowadays because it had a tendency to pinch her finger in a certain spot and make it sore.
And after their wedding, Effie had carried on working at her husband’s side — not because she continued to need the income, of course. Michael, as well as being one of the senior partners, had also been born into a wealthy family, and had always had a large stock portfolio and real estate purchases to cushion his lifestyle.
No, she’d carried on working simply because she loved it. She loved seeing the blueprints of fine houses and public buildings become reality. She loved the way people gasped and admired the creations of her husband and those of his employees when fine Portland stone, brickwork or cornices became real. And she’d also loved working alongside Michael — anticipating his needs, smoothing the way, being his buffer against all the nitpicking, niggardly little day-to-day worries that distracted and irritated him, leaving him free to create and build his visions.
And later, after the years began to roll by and children failed to make an appearance in their life, it had been even more necessary for her to keep on working. To be useful and needed, and to feel validated, even if only in some small way . . .
‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry. Well, perhaps just a bit,’ Duncan said, again making her start just a little.
Good grief, she’d done it again! She really was going to have to watch this tendency to just drift off into her own little universe all willy-nilly, she thought uneasily.
Forcing herself to smile, she took a small sip of orange juice. ‘Oh, that’s all right. And yes, OK, perhaps I do find that sometimes the hours drag a little bit. But that doesn’t mean,’ she added hastily, ‘that I feel the need to fill them up with some kind of an adventure. I’m not a member of the Famous Five, you know! And like I said, I have no intention of being part of some kind of weird psychology experiment.’
Duncan sighed softly and shook his head mournfully. ‘Effie, Effie, Effie,’ he
said with mock sorrow. ‘Anyone would think that you didn’t trust me.’
‘That’s because I don’t,’ she growled, and not particularly jocularly, either.
Duncan bit back a grin. ‘OK, pax,’ he held up a hand in surrender. ‘What say we talk about my latest project instead?’ he proffered, spearing a large piece of sautéed potato and chewing it hedonistically. ‘Oh my, that’s good. Sure you don’t want to pinch one off my plate?’
Effie eyed the delicious-looking, fluffy, golden fried concoction and sighed. ‘I’m sure,’ she muttered grimly, raising a piece of lettuce to her lips and telling herself sternly that it would taste just as good.
It didn’t of course.
‘All right, let’s discuss your latest project,’ she echoed, still not trusting him one inch. ‘It’s another book, I take it?’
Duncan, in his spare time, wrote books that were almost bestsellers, designed to appeal to the general public who liked to feel that they were being educated even as they were being entertained. They always covered some aspects of psychology, obviously, but in a way that anyone could digest and understand. Some of his more envious colleagues and critics called them his ‘pop psychology scribblings’ but Duncan annoyed them considerably by simply laughing it off and accusing them all of being jealous. And, without doubt, the money he earned from his book sales supplemented his university income very nicely indeed. There were even rumours flying about that one of the independent digital channels was thinking of buying the options on one or two of them for a documentary series about life in modern Britain.
‘Of course it’s another book,’ Duncan said airily. ‘Ask me what it’s about this time.’
Effie sighed theatrically, her lips twitching. ‘Oh, Professor Fergusson,’ she said in a parody of a breathy, excited little voice, ‘do tell me what your latest book is going to be about. I did so adore the way you wrote last time about the psychology behind the transgender boom of the early twenty-first century.’ She finished off the performance by batting her eyelashes shamelessly.
‘Oh, that was so last year,’ Duncan said reprovingly around a mouthful of fried mushroom, not a whit abashed by her performance of an adoring sycophantic student. ‘Right now it’s all about the paranormal. That’s where the real buzz is.’
Effie nearly choked on a slice of cucumber.
‘Ghosts?’ she finally managed to squeak, after patting her chest and consuming nearly half her glass of juice.
Duncan watched her antics with a gimlet eye. ‘Scoff all you like, but there’s no denying that it’s always been a popular subject — and right now, it’s more popular than ever. Haven’t you noticed just how many television programmes are dedicated to it nowadays?’
Effie admitted to noticing a programme called Most Haunted but had never watched it.
‘Oh, there’s all sorts of stuff like that out there,’ Duncan promised her with relish. ‘Something else called Paranormal Witness, for example. Of course, a lot of it comes from America, and as such is strictly produced for entertainment value only,’ he said, a shade cavalierly, Effie thought. ‘But there’s also some more serious work going on in the field. And some of it right here in good old Oxford, believe it or not.’
Effie looked genuinely surprised. And, immediately understanding the reason for her scepticism, he quickly waved a dismissive hand in the air.
‘Oh, not the serious academics of course — you know how snooty and sniffy that lot can be about subjects like that,’ he admitted. ‘But talented amateurs, now they’re another matter.’
Effie leaned slowly back in her chair, looking at her old friend in puzzlement. ‘I never had you down as the type who believes in ghoulies and ghosties, and long-legged beasties and things that go bump in the night, Duncan.’
Her friend grinned wolfishly. ‘I’m not. But there are a lot of people who are,’ he reprimanded her primly. ‘And what I think is beside the point. For me, it’s the psychology behind it that is so fascinating.’ He leaned forward in his chair, becoming clearly enthused with his subject matter. ‘We all know that in today’s society, more and more people are actively searching for something to take the place of the established church. All that really began in the sixties of course, with the hippies and their alternative lifestyles, which led more recently to the wave of New Age philosophies.’ He paused for breath and to shrug amiably. ‘People will always seek out new ways of defining death, and how to cope with their own mortality — that goes without saying. It’s all to do with our deepest fears about dying and what comes afterwards. Or more to the point, what might not come afterwards. Before, people always turned to religion to manage their fears. Nowadays, for a growing number of people, it’s the paranormal which makes sense. After all, if you can prove that ghosts exist, or that there is some kind of afterlife, then death loses a lot of the fearsome grip that it has on your psyche.’
‘Hmmm,’ Effie said vaguely. As macabre and fascinating as all this undoubtedly was, she was not at all sure where her friend was going with it. Or even whether she agreed with Duncan’s rather perfunctory analysis of the issue. But still, it seemed a safe enough topic. Unless . . .
‘Duncan, you’re not asking me to go to some sort of ghastly séance or something, are you?’ she demanded crossly.
And then went cold all over as another, far more hideous thought hit her. He didn’t really think that she would agree to be part of some kind of farce whereby some charlatan of a medium tried to convince her that he or she was in touch with her dead husband, did he?
‘Good heavens, no!’ Duncan said, and with enough acerbity to sound genuinely aggrieved. ‘If I wanted to delve into the murky world of so-called psychics and mediums, I’d have a big enough pool of people to study, believe me. Unfortunately, there’s no shortage of people willing to prey on the weak and vulnerable. And don’t get me started on the way the bereaved can be exploited. Not that I’m saying there aren’t genuine mediums out there; that is, people who actually believe that they have the gift for speaking to the dead,’ he amended hastily. ‘But that’s a whole different—’
Effie quickly held up a hand. ‘Duncan, I’m not one of your students, remember?’ she reminded him sharply. ‘And this isn’t one of your famous lectures.’
Duncan at least had the grace to look a little shamefaced. ‘You’re right. Sorry. I got a little carried away. You know me. Mind you, that’s not to say that the whole spiritualist movement back in Victorian times isn’t fascinating. It gave working-class women a way to earn vast fortunes by claiming to communicate with the dead. It became something of a mini social revolution for them, in an age when the poor were trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty. And the movement took in a lot of prominent and intelligent people, you know, in spite of all that ectoplasm nonsense, and frauds merrily table-tipping away and using all sorts of other tricks with smoke and mirrors. Arthur Conan Doyle, for instance . . .’
‘Duncan?’ Effie said softly.
‘Yes?’
‘Not a student, remember?’ she repeated sweetly.
‘Yes. Sorry. Really.’ He made a pantomime of zipping his mouth shut.
Effie slowly began to count. If he made it to five without speaking she’d . . .
‘But really, that’s not what I’m talking about,’ Duncan said, two and a half seconds later. ‘What I’m really interested in, as I said, is the psychology behind the interest in ghosts and the search for evidence of the paranormal and UFOs. Tell me, Effie, what do you think makes your average, rational member of the public believe in ghosts?’
Effie sighed patiently, knowing what her friend was like when he had a bee in his bonnet about something. It was all but impossible to distract him. So she shrugged one shoulder, acknowledging that it was easier just to go along with him. Besides, she’d finished her salad and was trying to tell herself that she didn’t feel hungry enough for a dessert. Not even a partially ‘good’ one like fresh fruit salad with just the merest drizzle of cream.
‘I have
no idea,’ she said in answer to his question. ‘It’s not something that I’ve ever really taken the time to think about.’
‘Not seen a ghost yourself then?’ he asked casually.
‘No.’
‘What about a friend? It’s an interesting fact, but in my preliminary research, nearly everyone I’ve interviewed admits to knowing someone who’s had some sort of paranormal experience, even if they haven’t themselves. One chap I talked to, for instance, is a carpet fitter, and he told me that his mate once went into an empty house to lay a carpet, and “someone” kept moving his coat about from place to place.’
Effie smiled. ‘Sorry. None of my friends have had their coats moved by spirits. Or any other article of clothing, as far as I know.’
‘So you’re a sceptic then?’ Duncan asked craftily. ‘You don’t believe it’s possible that, when we die, our spirit or energy or some part of us gets left behind?’
Effie frowned. ‘Now don’t go putting words into my mouth,’ she said crossly, her mind still half on thoughts of sweet-tasting pineapple and melon drizzled in cream. ‘I have no more idea of what really happens to us after death than anyone else. How could I?’
‘Well done, I knew I could rely on you to have a truly open mind,’ Duncan congratulated her.
And, much too late, Effie realized that she’d fallen straight into one of Duncan’s famous traps.
‘What?’ she asked sharply, berating herself for not paying better attention. It wasn’t as if she had the excuse of not knowing that he was up to something! ‘I never said I had an open mind,’ she said. Then flushed slightly as she heard just how silly that sounded. Damn him, this was typical of Duncan. Already he was tying her up in knots. ‘What I mean is, I like to think that I’m not so set in my thinking that I’m not open to reasonable . . .’
She broke off and took a deep breath. Wearily, and acknowledging to herself that she had been outfoxed yet again by her wily companion, she slumped back in her chair. ‘Duncan, just tell me what it is that you want me to do,’ she said, finally admitting defeat. ‘What exactly does this little adventure of yours entail?’