House of Bells

by Chaz Brenchley

  Anyway. Here she was and doing things his way: seizing the moment on an impulse, accepting his offer with no thought at all, and now thinking how handy it was. She had errands of her own in town – one errand at least, if she could rid herself of company for half an hour.

  That shouldn’t be hard. In London, she’d only need to ask the way to the nearest chemist’s. Grown men would blush and jump to conclusions, point mutely and vanish. With this crew she wasn’t so certain that would work. They’d probably try to convert her to sphagnum moss or wild sponge or something equally natural and repulsive.

  Still, the day had not yet dawned when a determined woman couldn’t shed two young men in a public place. And yes, she was sure now about Fish; his arm might be as slim as a girl’s, but the hand on the gearstick was raw and awkward, man-sized, masculine. He didn’t speak, but she was still sure. His cheek was smoothed by razor, not by nature.

  They parked in the cobbled square. She sat for a moment in the vacated car before she remembered: they weren’t in Soho any more. Two young men, and neither one of them would think of opening the door for her.

  She did it for herself, then, and slithered out with grace enough to out-Rank the Charm School. And was all set to ditch the pair of them with a delicate murmur about shopping for delicates, when they did it themselves, for themselves, ditched her: ‘We’re going this way, things to do. See you at the Golden Lion later? It’s OK; we’re welcome there. Cookie vouches for us.’

  She knew that; it was where she’d found him. ‘Oh – yes, of course. What time . . .?’

  But they were gone already, side by side, so close they could almost be hand in hand; so close she could truly have confused them again and thought them lovers.

  Oh . . .

  Never mind. She pulled her thoughts back to her own needs, her own desires; headed straight for the Golden Lion and asked the landlord if she might use his telephone.

  ‘There’s a public phone on the square, miss.’

  ‘Yes, but someone’s in there. Please, it’s very urgent. It won’t cost you anything. I’ll reverse the charges, and I can pay you for using it – only not until next week.’ Money’s not an issue, she had money back at the house, only, stupidly, not in these spattered clothes. She hadn’t anticipated a trip to town, a trip anywhere. She wouldn’t have had pennies for the call box either, though in honesty she hadn’t even looked for it. How long had it been since she’d used a public call-box? She couldn’t remember; not since she was a teenager, at any rate. There were things you just didn’t do any more, you shouldn’t need to.

  He hesitated a bare moment – wax-spotted stranger – before leading her down the passage to the hotel reception-desk and leaving her there alone with the telephone. She wasn’t sure whether or not he remembered her from yesterday, but it seemed likely. He might think she’d survived one night at the commune and was yelling for help. He might encourage that.

  He might listen in on an extension, but she didn’t think so. Mostly, she thought he was doing this for Cookie’s sake, as he had with the scone and tea yesterday: some long-standing complicated exchange of favours that she was now tangled up with. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.

  She picked up the receiver, rang through to the operator and said, ‘I’d like to place a trunk call, please. To London, and reverse the charges.’

  At home she could just dial his number directly, any time she felt like it, so of course she never did. Here there was a delay that seemed endless, clicks and hums and a heavy physical silence, like a blanket, stuffy and full of dust. Then she heard his voice, his simple public-school: ‘Fledgwood,’ as though that would always be enough, and the operator’s brisk response:

  ‘Will you accept a reversed-charge call, sir?’ Her accent, perhaps, was a giveaway; he was already saying yes before she’d named the exchange. And then, ‘You’re through, caller,’ and the only sound on the line was his breathing, and suddenly she couldn’t speak. Which was her own kind of giveaway, and potentially fatal.

  He said, ‘Grace?’

  Which at least gave her the chance to say something: ‘No. Georgie.’

  Bless him, he didn’t laugh. ‘Of course. Georgie.’ His employee, not his subject matter. ‘How’s it going, Gee?’

  Gee. She liked that. She said, ‘I’m not sure. I’m in, but – well, this place is wacky.’

  ‘Of course it’s wacky. That’s why you’re there. Wacky how?’

  ‘Different from what I expected. It’s not all long hair and free love. I mean, it is that, but it’s more too. More serious.’ And haunted, but she didn’t want to say so. Instead she said, ‘I found your reporter for you.’

  ‘Francis? Did you? That’s quick work.’

  ‘I think I did. He’s called Frank here. But – well, he’s wacky too. Wacked, I think. I think he’s certifiable.’

  ‘Occupational hazard, pet. He was never the straightest pipe-cleaner in the box. What’s he been swallowing?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen anything here harder than dope, not yet.’

  ‘Well, it’s only been a day.’

  ‘Yes, but . . . I don’t think drugs are the thing here, Tony. Not for most people. There’s something else; it’s bigger than that. More ambitious. They don’t just want to get out of their skulls, they want to convert the world.’

  ‘Religious?’

  ‘No, not really.’ Or only Mother Mary, and she’d likely call herself spiritual instead. ‘They’re like . . . like Billy Graham without God. They still think there’s a better way to live, and they’re going to tell everyone about it. Once they get it sorted out for themselves.’

  Tony laughed. ‘That could be a long wait. But it sounds . . . harmless. Which is not what I’d heard, and not why I sent Francis in.’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t ever say that. They might be innocent.’ But that wasn’t always the same thing. The innocent could trail harm behind them like a fire trails smoke, like the Beatles trailed fans. Like she trailed harm herself – sorry, Kathie – even though she was far from innocent. The opposite of innocent.

  The house knew. It knew her, better than anyone did. Better than Tony. It saw through her, where he only wanted to see her through.

  She said, ‘I’m sure there’s a story here.’ The captain and Webb between them: the builder and the evangelist. John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. The fuel and the spark, perhaps. ‘But I think maybe you should talk to them, not spy on them. I think you could learn more.’

  ‘What’s up, precious? Are you buying into what they offer?’

  ‘What? No! No, I’m not.’ Though she could see how it worked, at least. She could feel their separate allures, Webb’s and the captain’s. If she only stayed here long enough, who knew? Maybe she would buy into one or the other, believe in the place as somewhere to be, or the man as someone to follow.

  Not that she planned to stay that long. She didn’t think she could afford to. She didn’t think she’d survive it.

  Perhaps he heard something of that in her voice as they talked, as she described the house and the way it worked as best she could after so short a time there. She didn’t mention her hurts or her fears, but they were hard to step around when the whole time had been a progression from one strange happening to the next, and she bore the scars of every one of them.

  At all events, abruptly and out of the blue, he said, ‘Sweetie? D’you want to come home?’

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  ‘Sure?’

  No. ‘Yes,’ she said aloud. ‘I’m sure. You gave me a job and . . . and I want to do it.’

  ‘You found Frank already, and that’s the main thing.’

  ‘Yes, but I want to find out what happened to him. I want to understand. And so do you, Tony Fledgwood, that’s why you sent me here.’

  ‘Yes . . .’ But he sounded uncertain even of that, as though he’d had another better reason underneath. Saving her from herself, one way or another. ‘Not if you’re goin
g to crack up too, though. It’s not worth that.’

  ‘I promise, I’m not going to crack up too.’ Unless she was cracked already, seeing ghosts at every turn – but she really, really didn’t think so. She thought the ghosts were real. So did Cookie. She could rely on him, she thought, if not so much on herself.

  ‘No,’ Tony said, unusually solemn, oddly not laughing at her. ‘I don’t suppose you are. One thing I can rely on: you’ve got a rock-solid grip on what matters, deep down. I wouldn’t have sent you, else.’

  Oh, Tony. If you only knew . . . He was right, of course; she did, rock solid. What mattered was the hollow at the heart, the missing space, the baby. She had that and would never let it go.

  It was her turn to laugh at him; he was waiting for it, but she couldn’t manage it either. She muttered something disparaging that the phone line must have garbled; it was as much as she could manage not to be crying now.

  ‘You’re sure, now? You don’t want me to come and get you? I would, you know. I need you to know that.’

  ‘No, you wouldn’t. You’d send Robbo. But you don’t need to do that anyway. I’m fine. Nothing’s going to happen to me here, if it hasn’t already.’ She could feel quite pleased with that, if it hadn’t come out quite so gulpy and sorrowful; it was true twice over, in different directions. If it hasn’t already, when of course it already had, and now she didn’t need to tell him about the bandage on her wrist or the bruises on her throat; and nothing’s going to happen to me, which was of course exactly true, only that nothing was a very great deal indeed, an absence, a vacuum that would happen to her in the worst way imaginable, a reality that would suck her down. Sooner or later, ready or not.

  Mostly, she thought she would just try to be ready.

  Punished enough. Ready to go.

  He called her a good girl, and she promised to call him again and hung up hastily before she could get herself even more tangled up between what she was saying to him and what she was hearing in her head.

  And then she’d done what she came for, and she didn’t know what else to do. It was far too soon to sit and wait for the boys, and she had no money to buy herself a pot of tea or anything at all; money’s not an issue, but it is when you neglect to bring it with you.

  The landlord had disappeared, so she couldn’t even thank him. Instead she spent some time in the lavatory, cleaning wax off her clothes as best she could, and then she walked out on to the square and into the sudden tumbling clamour of a tower of bells.

  It wasn’t Sunday, and it was only mid-afternoon. Nothing was ever fair, but this was purely cruel. The ringers must just be practising, but that would make no difference to her. Her hand moved instinctively to her wrist, to cradle it against the inevitable ache of fresh blood running.

  And found the bandage quite dry and the wrist only aching in that good way that flesh does when it’s starting to heal; and remembered that she wasn’t at the house any more. She was in the world, where bells only cut her on the inside.

  That was something. She supposed.

  What did people do, in market towns with no money? She had no idea. She couldn’t really remember what she used to do when she was a teenager with no money. Hung out with her friends, talked, smoked, listened to music: all those things that she couldn’t do here or now and saw no point in anyway. None of it led anywhere that mattered; it had only brought her here. What was there left to say, or to smoke, or to listen to . . .?

  Feeling unutterably depressed, she thought she might just stay by the car, under the sound of the bells, and wait the hours till the boys came back. Why not? She had nothing more useful to do. Nothing to do at all, so she might as well suffer.

  Suffer in public. Standing there and looking around, she was abruptly aware of people looking at her and stiffening, turning away, hurrying on. It wasn’t London, and they weren’t staring or spitting or crying down curses on her head, but even so . . .

  Gradually, she understood. This wasn’t London, and they weren’t seeing Grace Harley. They weren’t even seeing Georgie Hale. All they saw was a hippy from the big house, someone so utterly different from themselves there weren’t the words to describe it.

  Rather than linger by the car, then, she did the other thing: she walked deliberately away. That didn’t help. The car was a giveaway, yes, but so were her clothes. You are what you wear – there had been times when that was a cause for celebration, times when it was a weapon of war, times when it was a prison sentence. Right now, apparently, it was a condemnation.

  Brightly dressed, oddly dressed, she drew every eye with every movement. She moved through this conservative country town in its tweeds, its greens and browns, like molten wax in water: vivid and apart, surrounded but not swallowed. She seemed to have a force field around her that pushed other people aside: except that it was their choice, every time. They saw her coming and looked away, moved away. Crossed the road, or changed their minds about crossing; or simply blatantly waited until she’d passed, to be sure she didn’t infect them or their precious children or their dogs.

  Perhaps it was just as well that she had no money. She couldn’t imagine how they would treat her in any of the tea shops here. Or rather, she could. She could imagine it all too well, because it was how they treated Grace in half the boutiques on the King’s Road.

  She had thought it might be different for Georgie. Still, at least she knew how to deal with this. Chin up and eyes front, her face a mask until she found somewhere to go, somewhere to be out of the public gaze.

  That wasn’t going to be easy. If they weren’t ringing that damn bell, she might have risked the church, but—

  ‘There’s one of them now.’

  It was a male voice, young and rough. Off to the side, a little group gathered by a fountain. She didn’t turn her head, she didn’t scurry on, but something deep inside her held its breath. Young men were the worst. In the right mood, with enough beer inside them and their mates watching, they’d go for confrontation every time.

  Here they came. The sun was behind her; their shadows were all about her, hemming her in. Three of them, she thought. Maybe four. They wouldn’t, surely they wouldn’t actually attack her, in broad daylight, in the middle of town where everyone must know who they were; but nobody would care if they gave her a hard time any other way. She was the outsider here, the natural victim. No one knew who she was, and still she was the victim.

  It was only fair, and still she would have given plenty to escape whatever it was coming. She always did escape her just deserts, that was what she counted on; so—

  So a door opened abruptly just ahead of her, and the sudden jangle of its bell brought her to a dead stop just when she needed to keep moving, but no matter; here was rescue, apparently, though she didn’t understand it.

  Here was a woman, a stranger, middle-aged and dressed to suit – dressed for town, but even so: one of the enemy here, one of those who made a point of making space, not letting her near for fear of contamination – holding the door open for her, smiling at her, beckoning her inside.

  Seeming as though she knew her, had been waiting, was glad to see her now.

  Seeming utterly blind to her escort, that pack of lads at her heel.

  She didn’t need to understand it; she just grabbed, as she had done all her life. How the world works: take what’s on offer now, whatever you can reach. Pay for it later.

  She ducked straight inside the tea shop, heard the woman close the door behind her, felt almost grateful – almost! – for the dreadful jing-jang of the bell. At least it couldn’t hurt her here, and it was like another door, a lock, a wall to hide behind. Boys who hung around in the street wouldn’t follow her in here, the bell said.

  ‘They won’t come in here,’ the woman said, uncanny, clear and bell-like. ‘Come on, sit with us.’ Right in the window there, where she must have seen exactly what was happening outside. ‘You’re from D’Espérance, aren’t you?’

  So she’d seen it and understood it, t
hat too. And acted, swiftly and effectively; and who are you? was a question bubbling under but not ready yet, not ready to be asked.

  Here was her companion, a man maybe ten years older than she was, rising to his feet.

  ‘Edward Dorian,’ he said, reaching to shake her hand. She’d almost forgotten already that that was what people did. ‘And you’ve already met my wife, Ruth.’

  ‘Well, not to say met, exactly.’ The other woman smiled, her own hand at the ready – and then hesitated, frowned a little, said, ‘Haven’t we, though? Met? In London, perhaps . . .?’

  ‘Oh! No, I don’t think so, I really don’t.’ She really didn’t; it was most likely just that sense of familiarity that people carried away from newspaper photographs, a half-recognition that had brought her half-waves and vague smiles even before she was notorious. After that she thought that everyone knew exactly who she was – but only apparently in London, at the centre of things. Here she was distant enough and changed enough, dressed otherwise and not made-up, her hair flat and dirty and her whole presence just so utterly unlikely, she could get away with it. She hoped. ‘I’m Georgie Hale. Thank you, for—’

  A gesture through the window-glass covered the rest of that sentence. They were still out there, those boys, baffled by lace curtains and the smell of scones. They wouldn’t cross the threshold, and they wouldn’t linger long. Grace might not have lingered either, but Georgie felt obliged. She took the chair that Mrs Dorian drew back for her, and said thank you to the tea and refused the cake, and was taken aback when it was the male half of this unknown couple who turned abruptly personal. She called him ‘Mr Dorian’, and he said:

  ‘That’s Doctor Dorian, actually – and the doctor in me wants to know, what have you been up to, hmm?’

  ‘What? Oh, um, I cut myself . . .’ Fidgeting with the bandage on her wrist as though it were the cuff of a blouse, nothing more significant. Checking that it hadn’t started to bleed again. Trying to be angry – who was he, that he should interrogate her? – but not really managing it. He was a doctor; this was what they did.