by Phil Rickman
‘Don’t,’ he says. ‘Don’t be alone here, yet. Not being funny, see, but…’
She looks at him with dismay. The mullioned window is becoming rosy with evening. A hostile dampness will soon be forming in the gloom of the passages between rooms, like the furring of old arteries.
‘It’s a lonely place,’ he says lamely. ‘Well, that is… there are few places it’s safe for a woman to be alone nowadays. Especially a… someone like yourself.’
‘Oh, I’m not worried about that.’ A small, amused light in her eyes. ‘We have a security firm patrolling at night. And Katherine is…’
He looks sharply at her. Katherine Parr again.
‘I don’t know quite why I’m asking this, Trinity, but… has the late queen been seen… here?’
‘Well… maybe.’
‘By whom?’
‘Different people, over the years. I’m not sure.’
‘Including you?’
‘Not clearly. I sometimes think I see her watching me from a doorway. Very pale. And lights. And a smell of something sweet… perfume. I don’t know.’
‘What kind of perfume? Roses? Herbs?’
He doesn’t know much about sixteenth-century scents but suspects we would not necessarily recognize them as such. Less a precursor of Chanel No 5 than a way of masking the pervading body odours caused by extremely infrequent bathing.
‘A sweet smell, anyway,’ she says. ‘Quite strong. Pungent.’
‘And why did you think it was Katherine Parr?’
How likely was it, after all, was it that Katherine would have placed one dainty shoe on the pitted track to Knap Hall, a farmhouse full of rushes and rats?
‘Little lights,’ she says. ‘There was a pattern of tiny red lights, like a constellation, in the… figure. I thought of rubies. Katherine wore a lot of rubies.’
‘But why would she come here?’
‘To get away from Thomas Seymour?’
Thomas Seymour of Sudeley – it was his castle, but after their rapid marriage she seems to have given him much of the money left to her by the King to make it splendid. Seymour is remembered not fondly by history, mainly because of his alleged attempts to have sex with the King’s daughter Elizabeth – the future Elizabeth I – when she was not much more than a child. Katherine seemed to have been in love with him since long before Henry sent for her to be his queen. But to Seymour, she might still have been second best. Not so long after Katherine’s death, Seymour was executed for treason.
‘The Bishop who eventually gave him the last rites,’ Trinity says, ‘or whatever you did before an execution, said he was “wicked, covetous, ambitious” and… something else bad. On her deathbed – probably delirious – Katherine’s said to have bemoaned his treachery – his attentions to Elizabeth.’
‘And you think perhaps she came up here to get away sometimes from him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Or meet a secret lover, maybe?’
‘I never thought of that. There’s also supposed to be a good-looking young man seen here. Fair-haired, wearing leather.’
‘Who told you that?’
Trinity looks a little vague.
‘Do you feel she’s happy… Katherine, if… when she’s here?’
‘I’m not sure.’
Although they’re inside, she draws up the capacious hood of her winter cloak, half turning so he can’t see the expression on her face, muffling her response. Keeping something to herself.
‘She died in childbirth?’
‘After childbirth,’ she says. ‘Complications.’
‘Not uncommon in those days.’
Something not terribly healthy here. If the only reasons for Katherine to be at Knap Hall lie in the emotional needs of a woman who once played her in a film which was not really about her…
‘Trinity, would you do something for me? Would you have time to keep a little diary? Recording anything that happens, as soon after the event as you can. Would you do that?’
‘OK.’ She nods. ‘I can try. Have to be done under cover. Harry wouldn’t exactly approve. He’s… not a believer.’
‘Presumably he doesn’t know I’m here.’
She laughs.
‘He doesn’t even know I know you. Poor Cindy. But I wouldn’t want to talk to anyone else about all this. In my situation there are so few people you can ever really trust. Not even a vicar or anyone who might just want to… you know… get rid of her?’
Oh dear. She’s being selective here. Something bad she wants removed, but something she perceives as good. A question of babies and bathwater. Not really how it works.
‘Let’s make it a secret diary, then,’ he says.
‘The Secret Diary of Trinity Ansell, aged thirty-four and a half.’
They both laugh.
Another woman he could have loved, if he was normal.
At the door of his car, parked on the rubble forecourt, he turns back and sees her standing outside the broken porch in the last light. A chill on the purpling air, and her face is shaded by the hood. She looks more ghostly than ever, more ephemeral, more… temporary.
Essentially she hasn’t changed. Just because people have become rapidly rich doesn’t mean they become bad or selfish, self-indulgent, haughty, morally lax or corrupt. And if Katherine Parr looked this good then Henry VIII was a luckier man than he deserved to be.
What he’s decided is that he’ll drive out of the gate, park up the lane and then find his way to the top of the hill again, alone, absorbing what he can, feeling the landscape so that it can be journeyed back to, in his meditation. He notes all the outbuildings he hasn’t even entered, particularly the long stable block with its wide arched doorways and a belltower that’s probably older than the one on the chapel at the rear.
How to help a woman who – dear God – wants to be haunted?
But selectively.
He watches Trinity standing by the Elizabethan porch and thinks she would actually have been quite at home in Tudor times, might even have caught the King’s eye. She has a feel for history, and not in an academic way, and she senses the liminal nature of this landscape. The popular media will occasionally notice, with scornful amusement, her openness to clairvoyants, tarot-readers and… well… people like him.
As Trinity waves, he feels an entirely unexpected sting of tears, giving way to the dampening dread he so hoped he would not experience here. She wants somewhere to love and hopes she’s found it. But he doesn’t think this house, haunted or not, will love her back.
PART TWO
Before nightfall
Do I believe in ghosts? To which I answer that I am prepared to consider evidence and accept it if it satisfies me.
M.R. James
Preface to The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James (1931)
Another January
1
House
from: Leo Defford, Head of Production, HGTV
to: Paul Cooke, Commissioning Editor, Channel 4
Confidential update
Paul,
You’ll be glad to know that we have a final – and unexpectedly accommodating – agreement with Harry Ansell for the lease of his house until the end of the year. So that’s the first major hurdle out of the way. I was beginning to fear we’d never find somewhere entirely suitable.
Just to remind you, Knap Hall is an extended early-Tudor farmhouse in the hills above Winchcombe in the Northern Cotswolds. The house is set in about twenty acres of grounds, in an isolated location which, of course, suits our requirements. The word’s gone out that we’re developers preparing to reopen it as a hotel, so the increased traffic, installation of portacabins, etc., will arouse no suspicions locally.
Knap Hall is obviously best known through its connection with Mr Ansell’s late wife, Trinity. Until her death, the Ansells had been running it as a uniquely high-end country guest house, patronized mainly by wealthy tourists in search of the authentic Elizabethan experience without the pe
riod discomforts. We don’t intend to reveal the connection with Trinity Ansell, either to viewers or the inmates, until the seventh and final night, by which time her presence at Knap Hall may or may not have been proved significant.
Previously, the house has been a pub, a youth hostel and a home for antisocial boys. To my knowledge, it has never been featured on TV or radio or been included in any ‘haunted Britain’ guides.
We’ll be assigning an experienced researcher to the task of unearthing and documenting the relevant history of the house. As we understand some of the disturbances have been quite recent, we’ve asked her to talk to people employed there during the period of the Ansells’ occupancy who may also be useful as interviewees. The main aim, however, is to have points of reference for anything reported over the seven nights.
At present, our researcher is a journalist from a freelance news agency who knows only that it’s connected with a proposed TV documentary. Now we know where we’re going, we’ll need to think about having someone on a permanent contract.
As agreed, I’ll keep you fully in the picture.
best,
Leo.
PS. I’ve only made one short visit to Knap Hall, but I think it’s fair to say that it is (rubbing hands in gleeful anticipation) supremely unwelcoming.
2
Fairyland
GRAYLE SEES A shoulder of near-black cloud leaning on the hill, and she flinches. For no real reason – it’s probably just raining up there, or something. Only to someone a little twisted would dark weather look like a personal warning.
She’s driving impatiently to the end of all that modern housing mushrooming out of once-rural villages with pretty names like Bishop’s Cleeve and Woodmancote. A big, crowded suburb, now, without a city to give it identity, only the long and craggy hill beyond it.
This hill, ahead of her now, is Cleeve Hill, which forms the ramparts of the Cotswolds. She’s looking for a stone farmhouse, which should be obvious and isn’t.
Is this because she doesn’t want to find it?
Because she doesn’t want to be here at all, psyching herself up to go lie to someone who lost her job under tragic circumstances? The simple solution is to just call up the agency and quit before they fire her. Bequeath this crap to someone else. Above all, don’t get interested. Don’t, like, revert.
Grayle pulls into the side of the road, stops the car, plucks the cellphone from the dash. Go on. Do it. Might be throwing away however many weeks’ wages they feel obliged to give her along with their good wishes for a better life, but what the hell? She takes a breath and…
… no signal.
No signal? Here?
Holding up the phone in a futile kind of way, she sees, through a side window, across the pale grey fields, two tall chimneys on top of a stone farmhouse.
It starts to rain. Grayle starts to laugh.
Tosses the phone on to the passenger seat, knowing she’d never have made that call anyway. These were just excuses; her problems are more fundamental. Like that she could be going crazy again. She leans forward to start the car, raising a hand to pull the hair out of her eyes, the way she habitually used to.
Before having most of it cut off.
Grayle peers at herself in the rear-view mirror. Jesus, she even looks crazy now.
The young woman’s name is Lisa Muir and she’s the only one of them who’s agreed to talk to Grayle. The others were saying things like, Just can’t let it go, can you? and We had enough of you vultures at the time and Who told you about me, who gave you my number?
The stone farmhouse seems secure in the middle of its land. But, as Grayle parks the Cooper on the edge of the yard, she can see, through the wintry trees, red and pink modern housing creeping up like a skin rash.
The farm belongs to Lisa’s parents, who are not at home because it’s market day someplace and Lisa says they like to make a day of it. She takes Grayle into a rear parlour where long, grey velvet curtains frame a misty flank of Cleeve Hill. Two chocolate labradors follow them in.
Lisa’s looking apprehensive. She’s about twenty-two, with neat brown hair and a baby smile. One of those slightly posh but not over-educated young women looking for a respectable but not too taxing job before marriage to someone solid. In other words, not the kind of kid who would normally take a post with the job description scullery maid.
‘I mean, it sounded kind of hands and knees,’ she says when they’re sitting down with a coffee pot on a low table between them. ‘Bucket? Scrubbing brush? I’m going, Oh, come on…’
Lisa shakes her head dizzily. Grayle smiles over her cup.
‘You had to wear a uniform?’
‘Kind of. Well, not the… you know, the stiff black and white Victorian stuff, thank God. Just dull clothes, really, a bit dowdy, and no jewellery.’
She’s making up for that now. Pink cashmere sleeves are pushed up to show off a bunch of thin gold bangles. Judging by the velvet drapes and the quality landscape paintings in the room, her dad is probably what used to be called a Gentleman Farmer.
‘The money though… that was really good. And let’s be honest, even if it was crap you’d still grab their hands off to be working for Trinity Ansell. It really delivered on what you were hoping for. Like, every time a car pulls up outside, you’re off to the nearest window. Who’s it going to be? What film was he in? You know?’
Lisa giggles self-consciously, but her eyes are soon clouding over, both of them knowing this is a narrative that isn’t going to end well. She picks up a magazine from the sofa beside her, opens it to a picture feature that Grayle has seen before, headed
A TUDOR COUNTRY HOUSE WEEKEND WITH TRINITY
The magazine is Cotsworld, Harry Ansell’s flagship glossy. Grayle’s been reading about Harry, a Londoner who made his first millions out of downmarket hobby and computer-games mags in the 1980s. How all that got sidelined to another company and left behind, along with his old name, once Harry married Trinity Ansell, the ultimate trophy wife, and became a serious country gent. Acquiring one of those traditional rural lifestyle magazines, with pictures of landowners’ daughters marrying army officers, supplements on the best boarding schools and thirty pages of country houses that are never going to sell at those prices.
‘You can just see me in the right-hand corner. There…’
Lisa’s holding up a big picture, across most of two pages: guests arriving, as sunset turns to night, on the forecourt of an historic country house, its walls softly lit, Cotswold gold. The oak front door is thrown wide, and there’s a tall woman in a long skirt, with her dark hair up, in a warm halo of candlelight. And, yes, Lisa, slightly out of focus, helping with some baggage.
The picture says it all. Trinity was already famous – supermodel turned actress, two Hollywood movies behind her – when her new husband gave her the magazine to play with and a pile of money. Within three years Cotsworld was an international bible of taste and upper-class chic. The quintessential guide to English luxury-living in a fairyland of rolling hills and golden homes where most of your neighbours are movie stars and royalty. The kind of England you can’t find any more in multicultural London.
A vivid myth, Grayle thinks, as Lisa reverently lays down the magazine, still open, on the cushions beside her.
‘The house… I mean they’d spent loads on it. I can just about remember it being a pub, and my grandfather told me it was once a school for maladjusted boys. Intensive bad-kid rehab, with these big fences? Horrible, really. Rough, you know? Took a lot of work.’
‘But originally it was a farmhouse, right? Late medieval?’
‘Tudor times, anyway. Bits got added over the centuries until it was like a mansion? From the outside, now, it looks like it’s all the same period, but some of it’s only about a hundred years old, maybe less. Mr Ansell had it done up so it all looked old, including the newer parts. Only he didn’t clear it with the council, and some of these historical buildings experts were going berserk. It was in the papers, how
he was going to be taken to court. But he had good lawyers and historical experts and… a lot of money. And he was doing it for her. So it all got done. One way or another.’
Grayle nods, lets Lisa talk. Smiling and nodding encouragingly, just another awed American, like all the ladies who hauled their husbands to Knap Hall. Not The Knap Hall Hotel. Obviously, it was a hotel, but what people were paying for was a weekend as country-house guests. Her guests. Trinity. Her idyll.
‘There won’t be anything like this again, ever.’
Lisa looking down at the luscious, twilight picture in Cotsworld, which enshrines her most cherished memories. She closes the magazine, Grayle wondering if she’s only agreed to talk today as a way of reclaiming the golden past. She was young, she was at the centre of all that, and now it’s gone and she’s still young, and life stretches ahead like a dirt road.
‘Why did she want to do this?’ Grayle asks. ‘Why did she want to open her lovely house to… paying guests?’
‘Oh, they weren’t just— I mean they were paying… a lot. Far more than a five-star hotel. As her guests, at her house. With other people they recognized from TV and movies. Except, they weren’t paying, the celebs, they really were guests.’
‘So Cotsworld magazine illustrated the fantasy, and the Knap Hall Experience made it real – at a price.’
‘That was how it all started. A special offer to Cotsworld readers – the ones who subscribed. It didn’t say you had to be a millionaire, but… I mean it was the next best thing to staying with Charles and Camilla at Highgrove.’
At her own mention of royalty, Lisa’s eyes flicker, guarded.
‘What exactly did you say this programme was?’
She wants to talk about it, maybe even appear on TV as a part of it, but she doesn’t want any of it betrayed or devalued. She’s glancing nervously at the digital recorder on the coffee table between them.
‘It’s, um, still in development, Lisa, so I’m not allowed to tell you too much. Except that it relates to the, um… the tragedy of Trinity Ansell. And some of it will be shot at the house – with Mr Ansell’s permission. And you’ll get a fee for talking to me and, of course, a larger one if we record an interview.’