An Affair to Remember

by Virginia Budd

  Reaching a bend in the track he becomes aware of the sound of horse’s hooves behind him. Turns. A face looks down at him from above the foaming horse, a fair young man with one golden earring, his arm raised. A sword glints in the sun… a searing pain. Nothing…

  Sam opens his eyes, sits up, aware of a pain in his chest. He appears to be in bed in a strange room. Slowly the pain recedes. Bemused, he looks round the room; where on earth…?

  *

  Eight thirty am. Beatrice is in the doorway of Sel’s office looking pale, but on the whole normal. Sel, seated at his desk, spectacles on nose, jumps nervously. “Good morning, dear, you slept well?”

  “Like the dead. All this country air I suppose.” Sel smiles in relief; whatever or whoever was there has left her, at least for the time being.

  “Just so,” he says.

  “Oh dear, what’s happened to your lovely mirror?”

  “Broken, alas, those wretched builders obviously didn’t fix the holding plug properly and it fell off the wall in the night. A shame really, it’s been in Clarrie’s family for years, she’s quite upset.” What on earth was he talking about – how did he manage to invent such rubbish?

  “What a dreadful shame! I do hope it doesn’t bring bad luck.”

  “Goodness me, of course not. Merely the result of a careless workman not doing his job properly. As a matter of fact I never liked it anyway. Now, and much more important – how are you feeling?”

  “Super! Absolutely super. Raring to go.” Where? Sel wonders, aware of a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. Outwardly, however, he manages to appear calm.

  “Good to hear,” he says, probably too heartily, “but perhaps in the light of –”

  “No need for worry on that score, I’m absolutely fine now. Is there anything you need done urgently, or shall I get on with the tape I started yesterday? I didn’t manage to get it finished because of our visit to Granny Bogg and then… well then… Oh no!” Light dawns; she’s beginning to remember. “What happened yesterday, Sel, what did I do? Tell me. What?” But Sel’s already on the job: hastily removing any objects from his desktop within her reach, he whips out one of Dr Hardcastle’s little yellow pills.

  “Take this, dear, it’ll do you good. And don’t worry, everything’s absolutely fine.”

  Beatrice, beginning to shake, waves it away. “No, Sel, please. I don’t need it, I’ll become an addict. It’ll only make me sleepy again and I need to do some work. Sel, please…”

  “Very well, dear,” he returns the pill to its box, “we’ll wait and see what the doctor says. Meanwhile –”

  “Not the doctor again!” Now she’s not only agitated, but angry. “Honestly, Sel, he’s absolutely useless. He hasn’t a clue, really he hasn’t, and I’m sorry but I don’t want him near me again.” Sel, however, is already at the door calling for help. Known by his colleagues as a good man in a crisis, this is one he simply cannot handle on his own. He looks up and down the passage; not a soul in sight, not even any sounds from the kitchen. Where the hell is everyone? Making soothing noises, he turns back into the office to find Beatrice pointing angrily at the window.

  “Who is that man grimacing at us? Julius must have him whipped, he –”

  What in God’s name is Ron up to now? “It’s Ron Head, dear, the archaeologist? He’s come to stay and help us with our problem. Don’t you remember we met him off the train yesterday? I think he wants us to join him. Would you like that?”

  “Please don’t treat me like a child, Sel.” Bewilderingly, Beatrice is back again. “I’m not mad, either, and only too aware we have to get this thing sorted…” At this point the phone rings. They both jump. Ron, from his position outside the window, appears to be making signs indicating he’s about to join them.

  Sel picks up the phone, “Yes?”

  “Emmie Mallory here, Mr Woodhead. I’m ever so sorry about last night, but something rather important cropped up. I was just wondering how my… how Sam is. Perhaps I should come round?”

  “Look, dear, it’s a little difficult to talk at the moment. May I ring you back?”

  “Has something happened? He’s not become violent, has he?”

  “No, dear, of course not, he’s just –”

  “Two social workers and a doctor…”

  “Sorry?”

  “I have a friend here, he tells me you need two social workers and a doctor nowadays to put people away. They’re really fussy. He says people used to be put away when there was nothing wrong with them, just to suit their relatives and that.”

  “I assure you, dear, in this case such arrangements would be quite unnecessary, and I really must go.” She’s still talking as he gently replaces the receiver.

  “Everything OK?” Ron at last. To Sel’s considerable relief he seems to have sized up the situation already and, smiling in a relaxed way at Beatrice, who appears, thankfully, to be calming down, he wishes her good morning.

  She smiles back: “Good morning, Mr Head, I hope you slept well. Would you like me to get Juan to rustle up some coffee?”

  Ron and Sel look at each other. “That would be most acceptable…”

  She hurries out. Ron does the thumbs up sign. “A near thing, eh?”

  “You could say that. Allah be praised (can’t think of the appropriate Roman), at least we managed to avoid the rough stuff…”

  *

  “But how on earth are we going to keep them apart?” Clarrie asks. She and Pippa are breakfasting in her bedroom.

  “Well it won’t be for long, after all, and Ron thinks they might help over the dig. I mean they know what happened, or at least some of what happened.” Pippa, in jeans and a pale pink T-shirt, still manages to look pretty formidable, as she bites efficiently into one of Mrs Bogg’s home made croissants. A good person to have around, Clarrie tells herself, but somehow remains unconvinced.

  She pours them both more coffee, “But isn’t it playing with fire a bit? I mean, supposing they both went round the bend completely. Apart from the general ghastliness, think of the publicity.”

  “If all goes as it should, any publicity there might be won’t do any of us any harm. I mean it’s not as if Sel’s career… well, things have been a little quiet for him lately, haven’t they, something like this might –”

  “Other people’s pain might give his career a boost. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Of course not, darling, what sort of a person do you think I am?”

  Clarrie, aware that the word ‘bitch’ springs to mind, decides to be conciliatory; things are difficult enough as it is without her adding to them. “Sorry, darling, what with one thing and another I seem to be a little on edge this morning, and obviously if they find what they’re looking for that’ll be great. It might even cause the ghosts in this house to decide to go back to wherever it is they came from, which would certainly be a plus. It’s just poor old Beatrice and Sam; it’s as though they’ve been made some sort of scapegoat.”

  Pippa decides, on balance, not to take offence. “You really needn’t worry about them darling. From now on they’ll be under constant surveillance.” (Poor them, thinks Clarrie.) “I took the liberty of ringing Professor Moss last night, he’s the man on hypnotherapy, as I’m sure you know, and he’s agreed to do what he can to help. He said he has an early meeting this morning he can’t miss, but should be down here well before lunch.”

  Clarrie looks doubtful, takes another sip of coffee. “But Pippa are you sure, I mean –?”

  “I wouldn’t suggest it if I wasn’t. Izzy Moss is, among other things, a qualified medic, so he can cope on that side of things as well, and he will of course be monitoring the single and collective reaction of both subjects round the clock. There simply is nothing to worry about.”

  Unconvinced, Clarrie says: “Have you told Sel?”

  “There hasn’t been time.” (There had actually, but she’d thought it better to confront Sel with a fait accompli – he could be difficult about s
uch things.) “But if you’d rather I put Izzy off…?”

  “Too late for that. If Moss is who I think he is the cat’s already out of the bag, and I don’t doubt it won’t be long before the Press has the story – half Fleet Street will be sniffing round.”

  “If that’s how you feel.” Pippa’s getting angry again. “I don’t think you realise, my dear, just how important this experiment could be. The marriage of folk memory, reincarnation, dreams, whatever, to actual solid archaeological evidence, Izzy says, will be quite unique.”

  “And what Izzy says goes! Honestly, Pippa, we’re talking about two very vulnerable human beings here, not a pair of guinea pigs.”

  Pippa places her coffee cup carefully down on the table beside the bed, rises gracefully to her feet: “I’ve known you more years than I care to remember, Clarrie Woodhead, but this is the first time I’ve ever put you down as the sentimental type. We’ll see what Sel has to say.” She stalks to the door.

  “You do that.”

  *

  Beatrice and Ron are seated under the monkey puzzle drinking coffee. Beatrice has brought out a rickety old card table and two chairs she found in a cupboard under the stairs – Clarrie hasn’t got round to garden furniture yet – a bee buzzes in a nearby clump of ragged Michaelmas daisies; the sun is warm on their backs. Ron sighs voluptuously, sips his coffee: “Petronius, he is still away?” he asks casually.

  Beatrice screws up her eyes against the sun. “I hope he never returns,” she says.

  Sam stands under the shower and lets the tepid water spray gently over him. Never in his life has he seen such a bathroom, talk about a five star hotel! Had they abducted him, he wonders, or is he still dreaming? There’s a gentle knock on the bedroom door and, hastily turning off the shower and draping himself toga-like in a voluminous orange bath towel, he hurries across the room to open it. To his considerable surprise it turns out to be Clarrie Woodhead, still in her dressing gown, bearing a breakfast tray. “Mrs Woodhead, you shouldn’t have bothered, I mean I could easily have come down,” he says, taking the tray from her and placing it on the table in front of the window. Clarrie smiles, she looks a little nervous, but her smile, he thinks, has warmth.

  “I’m so glad you’re speaking in English,” she says, “you see last night…”

  “Was I so very peculiar?” he asks her shyly.

  She sits down at the table; gestures him to follow her. “You were a bit. Would you like to tell me about it?”

  Sam, painfully aware of his nakedness under the bath towel, sits down opposite her. “I would rather,” he finds himself saying, “you see so far I haven’t really been able to tell anyone…”

  “Go ahead – I’m listening.”

  *

  “Is that Mrs Roper?” (Mrs Roper had retained her first husband’s name; somehow it had seemed more distinguished than the others, and besides one couldn’t keep changing one’s name, could one, no one would know who you were.) “Sylvia Campbell here, don’t know if you remember me. I am, or was, your daughter’s flatmate.”

  “Hullo, my dear, and what can I do for you?”

  “Well nothing, actually, Mrs Roper.” Why should the woman think she could? “It’s just I was wondering if you’ve heard from Beatie since she started her new job?” A pause. Surely even a mother like Mrs Roper must remember if she’d heard from her daughter or not.

  “I think we did have a card the other day saying she’d arrived and giving her new address, but Roddy’s been in one of his organising moods lately and he must have tidied it away before I had time to read it properly – goodness knows where it is now. Why, haven’t you heard from her?”

  “Once or twice, but the thing is I had this rather odd letter a couple of days ago…”

  Mrs Roper laughs her tinkling, mother-knows-best laugh. “Nothing new in that! When does one ever get anything else from Beatrice, you’re lucky she’s bothered to write at all.” Old cow, Syl thinks, old cow. She takes a deep breath, calms herself.

  “No, really, Mrs Roper, I’m serious about this. I think Beatie’s in some sort of trouble, but it’s hard to make out from her letter quite what the trouble is.”

  “Fallen in love with her boss, I expect. It was bound to happen – I told her at the time…”

  “No, it’s not that. Although she does seem to have met somebody, an ex-army major who runs the village shop; most odd. The letter says they keep having psychic experiences together, but what I don’t understand is –”

  “Sharing a psychic experience, that’s a first I must say! I don’t want to appear unfeeling, my dear, but if that turns you on, why not? It’s different, I agree, but could be rather fun, especially if other nice things follow, and –”

  “Mrs Roper, I don’t think you quite understand what I’m saying; Beatie’s frightened! She seems to think she’s being ‘taken over’ and when this happens, she becomes violent. At one point in the letter she says: ‘I caused a bit of damage by throwing an ash tray at a photo of Peter Sellers in a pub’ – her exact words, and if you don’t think that’s unlike Beatie, I do. Someone really should go down to this Brown End and find out what’s going on. Hence my call…” Mrs Roper, however, is rapidly losing interest. She can distinctly hear sounds of hoovering emanating from the box room; what on earth was Roddy up to now?

  “Well, my dear,” she suggests, shocking Sylvia even more than she had before, by her apparent lack of interest in the fate of her daughter, “if you’re so worried, why don’t you pay her a visit yourself? It’s a lovely part of the world and the weather’s still fine. I’d go with you, but quite honestly I’ve too much on my plate at the moment, besides which Beatrice never listens to anything I say, never has. Or what about ringing Horace and Lottie, I’ve got their number somewhere, they’re much more genned up on this sort of thing than I am.” Syl, thinking of her own over-protective but loving mother, wonders not for the first time what it must be like to have a family such as Beatie possessed.

  “Lottie and Horace are in China, Mrs Roper, they’re not due back for a month.”

  “Silly me!” Mrs Roper gives another of her tinkling laughs. “Of course they are. I wonder what Roddy’s done with the letter we had from them – pages and pages, I seem to remember, and so difficult to read.” Syl, assuming rightly the question was purely rhetorical, doesn’t reply, and Mrs Roper continues in a different vein. “Of course it’s in the family, you know. Beatrice’s father, Marcus Travers the Romanologist, is none too – how can I put it… Suffice to say it’s one of the reasons – although of course there were many others – why I was compelled to leave him – I mean I’m all for individuality in people, but you have to draw the line somewhere, don’t you agree?”

  The hoovering’s stopped now, to be replaced by a rather sinister knocking noise. Mrs Roper decides it’s time to wind things up. “Look, my dear, delightful to talk but I really must go. Don’t worry about Beatie, I’m sure everything’s alright and let me know when you get back. Bye.”

  Fuming, Syl replaces the receiver; picks up Beatrice’s letter and for the nth time reads it again. ‘…I hope I’m not going round the bend, Syl – I always said I would one day, didn’t I?’ she writes, in a hand quite unlike her usual, tidy script, ‘But honestly I feel so strange here. Sel’s a super boss, no bother with that, and the work is fun. It’s just, well, partly the place I suppose: luxurious, but ancient, with this really strange atmosphere, and I know, as I said earlier, you’ll think I’m bonkers, but I’m pretty sure I’ve lived here before. Then there’s this man, Sam Mallory, who has a shop in the village, who’s sure he lived here before too. We first met in this spooky grove on a hill above the house, and because of the things that have happened, we think we lived here in another life, and the two people we were then were in love, until somehow everything wrong…’

  But Syl’s had enough; it was no good, she’d have to take Mrs Roper’s advice, visit Brown End herself and find out what was happening. No use ringing – what on earth
could she say? If Tristram could manage to tear himself away from the Mission for a couple of days – which would do him a world of good anyway – they could drive down in his car, and stay in a pub in the village. Patrick could take over while Tris was away, it would be good for him too to have the responsibility. Relieved to be doing something positive at last, she picks up the phone again and dials the Mission’s number in Brixton. “Can I speak to Father O’Hara, please, it’s Sylvia Campbell…”

  *

  “Whatever are we going to do, Sid,” wails Emmie, settling herself in the passenger seat of Sid’s Mini Clubman en route for Brown End. True to his word, Sid had arrived at the shop within half an hour of his phone call, providentially interrupting her in a lively scene with Karen’s dad.

  Karen had carried out her threat and complained to her father about constantly being left alone in the shop and thereby becoming the innocent prey of would-be muggers and the lord knows what else. Mr Warren, a man of action, had taken her at her word, and paid a visit. “To be honest with you, Mrs Mallory, in these days with violence everywhere you look, it’s not right for a kid like my Karen to be left alone all day minding the shop. Anything could happen.”

  “Quite frankly, Mr Warren, I doubt whether the danger is as great as you seem to be implying, even if there’s any danger at all. As I’ve already told you, yesterday was an exceptional case – an unforeseen accident; my husband not himself. And –”