House of Bells

by Chaz Brenchley

  —and coming up on Cookie’s settee, with the air full of smoke – that cigar, and Cookie’s rollies, and Ruth too was having a cigarette – and that set her coughing, which reminded her.

  She told them about Frank, not coughing now, in his blazing charcoal smoke. She thought she got it all out, all the important stuff, and then she was gone again.

  She came back again in a room she hadn’t seen before, low beams and an angled ceiling, far too cramped for D’Espérance. She must still be in Cookie’s cottage: a little bedroom up in the eaves. A lamp burned in one corner, shaded by a silk scarf so that it cast a dim reddish light. For a while she just lay there, looking. She was conscious of another presence in the room, though: the sounds of movement, soft and subtle and controlled. Someone else’s breathing, that too. She supposed that was movement too, the movement of air and muscles. It was oddly reassuring, that whoever watched this night with her did at least need to breathe.

  No woman should be glad, not to find her child with her; but still. Here she was. Still breathing.

  Not bleeding, not now. Her one hand checked the other, below the covers: freshly bandaged, and quite dry.

  Also, no smell of smoke. None on her, none in the air. She’d been washed when she was undressed, before she was put to bed. Washed unconscious like a child, like a patient. Now she was being sat over in her sleep and in her waking, like a child, like a patient.

  She turned her head, and was utterly unsurprised to find a nurse there. Ruth was sitting on a straight hard chair beside the bed, working with a crochet hook and a skein of wool.

  Without lifting her eyes from her fingers, Ruth said, ‘Well, I know that’s nothing I did. I didn’t even bring my knitting up, because the click of the needles might have disturbed you. How are you feeling?’

  She thought about it for a moment. ‘Fine,’ she said, a little surprised to find that true. Then: ‘Tired,’ because she was that too. Then she remembered Frank and had to think about him, and how she felt about that; and then of course she had to ask, ‘Is Frank . . .?’

  The question seemed to die half-spoken, but it carried weight enough to get where she’d meant it to go.

  ‘Frank’s being taken care of,’ Ruth said carefully. Covering the ground. ‘The menfolk are out there now, with the authorities, handling everything. It’s not exactly the first mysterious happening at D’Espérance. And the local police inspector is . . . well, very local. He’s lived around here all his life. He knows about the house, and he won’t make difficulties. Edward can certify it as a suicide, and people will accept that. Of course they will; what else? It’s fairly obvious that the balance of the man’s mind was disturbed. There’ll need to be an inquest, but the coroner’s onside too. It’ll mean a day or two of disruption here and some formalities – you’ll have to be interviewed, I’m afraid, though one of us will sit in with you and make sure to keep things easy – but I don’t think there’ll be too much trouble, so long as we can keep it out of the nationals. A little local suicide, they shouldn’t be interested, but you never can tell what the Sundays might pick up . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry about the papers,’ she said. ‘I’ll make sure they leave this alone.’

  A little beat of silence, of disbelief: and then perhaps Ruth remembered who she was, or one of the people she was, and said, ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘I . . . would have thought that your name would attract them, rather than the opposite.’

  ‘I can play decoy if I have to, if that will help. But – no, I shouldn’t have to do that. Only a phone call.’ Tony would be upset, to have this news come so hard on the heels of her earlier report: I’ve found him. But Tony wanted what was best for the Messenger, and for himself. It was never good when the newspaper became the story; the last thing he’d want would be for this story to break nationally. He’d have to come up here himself then, to answer the coroner’s questions in open court: why he’d sent a reporter to the commune under cover, exactly when and how he’d lost touch with his man, exactly how and why he’d chosen to send a notorious and unstable woman after him to find out what had happened . . .

  No. That was not a story Tony would want to tell, nor to see told. Neither would his father. Between the two of them, they had influence enough to deter any other paper that came sniffing around. Tony was everybody’s friend, and if friendship wasn’t enough then his father’s money would carry the day, or else his political contacts. That was how the world worked, for people like that. She knew; she’d seen it from underneath as they came crushing down on top of her. Nobody could stand up, under that.

  ‘Well. We’d be very grateful. But you may not need to use the telephone, if face-to-face would be better.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Ruth didn’t understand. The idea was to keep Tony from coming. Or thinking that he needed to come, or sending anyone else.

  ‘We’ve a private ambulance arriving in the morning, to take Kathie down to London. My husband thinks that it ought to take you too, and I have to say I agree with him. You’ve lost a lot of blood, dear, never mind the shocks of the night. A few days in the clinic will put you on your feet again.’

  It was the perfect escape for everyone. Any nosy journo wanting to know where she’d been would never think to look up here if he found her still in London, taking bed rest in some fancy private nursing-home. He’d think terrible things, and likely print them too, and she’d have all of that to live through; but it would all be lies, and lies were easy. You just denied them and denied them, and let people believe what they liked, what they were comfortable with. They’d all think she had a drink problem or another baby to get rid of: one or the other, or both. No one would bother to look any further; why should they? It was the best kind of lying, where you got someone else to tell the lies and they were all true anyway, even if not actually now . . .

  ‘Oh, hush,’ Ruth said gently. ‘What are you crying for, you silly girl? Don’t you worry, we’ll take care of you. I could wish I’d had the care of you before this, but—’

  Somehow, effortfully, she managed to shake her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and that was true too, ‘but I can’t come to London with you. I still have things to settle here.’

  ‘The coroner will wait, dear. The policeman too, if he doesn’t get to you this morning.’

  ‘Not them. Things of my own.’ Frank didn’t change anything. Or no, that was nonsense; of course he did. But he didn’t change everything. Not yet.

  Not that she was getting out of bed in chase of things, not yet. She slept, and when she woke Cookie brought her food; and then again, the sleeping and the waking and the meal. Tea and toast the first time, with a coddled egg, nursery food; and then soup again, a different kind of soup, thick and nourishing. Invalid food.

  She looked at him through the steam of the bowl, and frowned, and said, ‘Why do they call you Cookie?’

  He smiled and gestured at her tray. The bread was his own bake, clearly, and she rather thought he might have made the butter too.

  ‘That’s what I thought. Your name’s not Mr Cook at all, is it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  And then he was gone, leaving her with more questions than answers, and more irritation than either. Wasn’t the big house enigmatic enough already, without those who lived in its shadow playing their own games with mystery and shadow?

  Apparently not. No matter.

  In the afternoon, she had a visitor. Voices down below; light feet on the stairs; a hesitant knock on the door. That uncertain tapping would have been enough to give him away, if she wouldn’t have known him just by his tread after following him about ever since she came here, if she hadn’t heard his voice quite clearly wafting up the stairwell.

  It was hard to reconcile the self-doubting boy on the landing here with the confident young magician who could kill a blaze of candles with a single word, but there it was. Here he was.

  She would rather have avoided him, but this did have to
happen; and it was probably better here, now, where he was unsure of his ground. So she told him to come in, and he did that; and fidgeted awkwardly at the foot of the bed, waiting for her to tell him to for Pete’s sake sit down in the chair there, where Ruth had been before.

  Instead, she patted the edge of the bed, where he’d be just a couple of inches and a couple of blankets from her barely-decent bed-warm flesh. He could hardly help but be aware of that, aware of every shift her body made between the old worn cotton sheets. Right now she just wanted to keep him off-balance.

  He perched obediently where her hand had indicated. Lying through her teeth, she said, ‘It’s lovely to see you, Tom. Thanks for coming.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘of course . . .’ And ran dry, and stopped; and shrugged, and rallied, and tried again. ‘I feel, you know, responsible. I was the one who found you in the wood and brought you on. I introduced you to the house. And you’ve had such a rotten time since you came, though you were a hero for trying to save Kathie; and then last night, and – well, some people are saying you’re a Jonah, that you bring trouble, but of course I don’t believe that, and . . .’

  And somebody has to come and see you, he seemed to be saying, so it had better be me. There really isn’t anybody else. She was sure that wasn’t actually what he meant to say, though it might still be the truth. She just smiled thinly and said, ‘Well. I’m sorry if people think I’m bad luck. I don’t think I believe in luck.’ Only what’s deserved. And never getting that, never being that lucky. ‘Things happen, things have happened, but it’s really not my fault. You’re not saying that people really think it is?’

  ‘Oh, no, not really. No, I’m sure not,’ he said, sounding anything but sure. Yes, they do. ‘Only, well, everything’s been so . . . so dramatic since you came, and now Frank’s dead and we’ve got police all over, and some of the people here don’t mix well with the pigs; and they do just want someone to blame, and I’m afraid that’s you.’ Because you’re still a stranger, he was saying, not one of us.

  She could have given him a better reason. Because I’m responsible, she could have said. In part she was, no question; and she could take it all. Why not?

  Because he knew the truth, of course; he knew how much he was responsible for himself. Of course he’d let the house blame her, but . . .

  ‘Tom? Are you seriously saying that nothing strange had happened here before I came?’ Didn’t you have to practise?

  ‘Oh – no, I’m not saying that. Of course not. Some people think the house is haunted; some think it’s blessed. The captain says it’s a reservoir of power. When I came here, I thought I was following ley lines to a nexus. Webb says it’s not the house, it’s the people. He says wherever you get a concentration of people who believe, even if they believe in different things, you’re going to get a sense of something happening – but I . . . I . . . I don’t think he’s right. I think places store things up, like batteries; I think they take energy in and release it. Maybe it comes from us, I don’t know. Maybe it’s inherent in the earth, that’s what I used to think, but . . .’

  But he was being heretical, taking a stand against his guru, and it was really difficult for him; and he really, really didn’t sound like a magician today, or like he’d ever made anything happen on his own account.

  She could be kind. Georgie could, always. She said, ‘But either way, any way it comes, there was stuff going on before I turned up, right?’

  ‘Little things,’ he said. ‘Feelings, mostly. Some people thought they saw a ghost or a wood spirit or a manifestation of the Goddess. And then there was Frank, of course. Frank . . . well, we don’t like to say he was mad. He just saw the world differently, and it was a struggle always to keep him settled. He couldn’t stand being in the house, basically. From the day he came, things happened around him. He said it was a poltergeist, but I know Mother Mary thought he was doing it all himself. Whether or not he remembered doing it, after. Either he was pretending really hard, or else he had, you know, a split personality, or else . . .’

  ‘Or else it was real. To him, at least. And people who are pretending don’t hang themselves, mostly.’

  ‘No. No, they don’t. Which is why, well, don’t tell anyone – but I just think he was mad. I have to think that. It’s either that or . . . or something supernatural. Something malevolent. In the house, or in the woods. Which I’m not going to believe, but a lot of people do, that’s what I’m saying. They think you’re like Frank, a catalyst. A lightning rod. Something that brings out the bad stuff.’

  And the thought distressed him deeply, or else he was a very good actor; and she didn’t believe that for a moment. She knew a thing or two about playing a part. She’d played herself half her life, and now she was Georgie too; and even Grace at her most cynical couldn’t see Tom faking it this well.

  And yet . . .

  She said, ‘Let’s change the subject. Please,’ as though she couldn’t bear to talk about this any longer; and then, when he nodded an immediate acquiescence, she went straight on: ‘Tell me about last night. I know I was distracted, and I’m sorry; but I didn’t realize until afterwards that there was something you wanted to tell me, something you were really pleased about. Tell me about that.’

  ‘Oh,’ he said awkwardly, shrugging, ‘that was nothing. Nothing now.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s not nothing. Then or now. Never mind what’s happened since – tell me what you did last night. I really want to know.’

  ‘It’s just – it was like a door opening, and all this light spilling out . . . Which is kind of apt, in a way, because of what happened. What I did. Except it’s not me, not really. It’s the language. There’s real power in it, just like Webb’s been saying. It doesn’t just describe the world, it can shape the world. Remake it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tom, I’m not smart like you. I didn’t do well at school. You’re going to have to explain that. What did you actually do?’

  ‘I said a word,’ he said, quietly proud, ‘the word for extinguish, and all the lights in the room went out.’

  I know. I was there. But he thought it wasn’t him, and so did she, now. He thought it was the word that counted; she wasn’t so sure. ‘Who else was there?’ Apart from me. I wasn’t the lightning rod for this.

  She thought he would just say Webb, and then everything would be clear and easy.

  He didn’t.

  Getting out of bed was a hard thing. Not the hardest, not yet; but hard enough, for now.

  Just the physical act of it, getting up and washing, finding clothes: hard effort and tricky doings, she had no strength and no control. It was like working someone else’s fingers, from a distance.

  Stumbling her way downstairs, when balance was like something her body had forgotten: she had to lean into the wall all the way. And then stand straight and tell lies, say that she felt good, thanks, perfectly fit, and fine to be leaving now. Just going up to the house, yes. To see a man about a horse, yes. No, she didn’t mean that literally; she wasn’t delirious, no. She wasn’t being deliberately evasive, either; she just wanted to talk to somebody, and no, it really wasn’t any of Cookie’s business, and . . .

  Oh, all right, then. She was being deliberately evasive, yes.

  Even so. He didn’t have any right to stop her, even patients could discharge themselves from hospital, and . . .

  Oh. More soup, before she went? Well, if he insisted, then. Yes.

  The doctor and Ruth weren’t there, which might be the only reason she got away with it. She couldn’t have stood up to all three of them. She could hardly stand up at all, to be honest. Sitting down was better. More soup: that was better too. For somebody who mostly couldn’t be bothered to eat, she did seem to be wonderfully hungry.

  And she didn’t honestly have to stand up to Cookie much, once she’d let him bully her into this respite. Indeed, she almost thought he was colluding. He satisfied himself that she was fuelled and primed, and then he released her.

/>   Better: he drove her up to the house. She had never expected him to do that. Whoever he was and whatever position he held here – she still didn’t know his actual name, had no label for him beyond ‘Cookie’, which he really wasn’t, any more than she thought he was a janitor – she’d come to think of him as a neutral observer, holding himself apart. Even this much engagement was a surprise. Though she supposed he just wanted to see what she meant to do, the results of it at least, and he must have doubted she’d even make it as far as the house without his help.

  Either that, or he didn’t want to confess to Dr Dorian – or to Ruth – that he’d let their patient walk through the woods all that way. These potent woods, when she was short of blood already, and still open at the wrist.

  Anyway: he drove her to the back door but didn’t try to come in, didn’t apparently want to fuss over her once he was sure that she’d been delivered. Didn’t want to snoop.

  Which was just as well, because what she did – whatever she did – she didn’t mean to be snooped upon.

  The sun was setting, but it was not yet dinner time for the house. The captain’s belly hadn’t proclaimed it, or else there was no one to announce it, they hadn’t yet thought to arrange a substitute for Frank. People were milling in the corridors like school kids, perching on window sills and squatting in circles on the floor, smoking like bad kids, waiting for the summons.

  She thought somebody ought to be taking control. She was quite surprised that Webb wasn’t: the first mate taking charge, keeping the great ship on time and on course. Deferring naturally to the captain, but still making sure the crew got fed . . . Wasn’t that his job?

  Keeping the gangways clear, that too. He wasn’t doing that either. She was prepared to elbow and kick her way through if she had to, no more sweet shy Georgie now; but actually they moved out of her way, mostly, when they saw her coming. They all knew who she was, or at least who she was here, who she was now: the girl who saved Kathie and then didn’t; the girl who found Frank and couldn’t save him either; the Jonah. None of these knew her well enough to talk to, these random hippies; and those who might have stopped her anyway, out of duty or curiosity or sentiment – well, perhaps they saw something in her face.