The door opened and Bernie put his head in.
“Zoe, one of the guests has just seen the vagrant lurking among the trees near the entrance. I’m off up there.”
Zoe jumped up. “I’ll come with you, Bernie. You OK to look after things here for half an hour, Alice?”
“Sure.”
“Come on,” said Bernie, “let’s go. Take a waterproof. We’re in for a downpour.”
Zoe hurried through the internal doorway into the passage beyond and grabbed a waterproof from a hook on the wall of the utility area. She wondered where Vito was. She whistled to see if he was anywhere in the house and waited for him to come bounding down the passageway. But there was no sign of him. She hurried out of the back door to meet Bernie in the courtyard.
“Come on,” said Bernie, “let’s nail this guy.”
“Yes,” she said as they walked across the courtyard.
The gloom overhead had thickened since Zoe crossed the courtyard earlier. She didn’t care. She needed to get to grips with at least one of the mysteries in this place, and if it was the vagrant, so much the better. She and Bernie walked round the house and across the forecourt and set off up the driveway to the main entrance.
When they were still twenty metres from the car park entrance, she glimpsed movement to her right. She spun, staring into the trees, her heart beating fast.
“There he is, Bernie,” she said.
At once the thought flashed into her mind: Bernie would protect her if necessary. Not that the tramp had tried to assault her yet, but she no longer wanted to meet up with him while she was on her own. She now felt people like him needed to be visited in pairs.
“Hello,” called Bernie. “Come on out. We know you’re there. Talk to us.”
Branches swayed. Twigs cracked. She jumped back as the vagrant appeared. Her fingers tightened into a ball. There he was: same filthy old coat; same thick beard and matted hair. His eyes snapped at her and Bernie; bloodshot, challenging.
She took a grip on herself, swallowed a couple of times. “Sorry, haven’t got anything for you to eat.”
“Come down to the house with us,” said Bernie. “We can help you there.”
He snorted then spat on the ground. Zoe couldn’t stop a grimace of disgust from springing to her face. Then, without warning, he leapt forward and seized her by the hand. Immediately Bernie grabbed hold of his arm.
“Let her go,” he ordered, forcing the tramp to release his grip.
The vagrant growled something indistinct, wiped his sleeve across his face, glared at them one more time, then swept round and disappeared back in among the trees.
“Right, I’ll follow him,” said Bernie. “You go back to the house, Zoe. I’ll take care of this.” He plunged after the tramp.
Zoe was about to follow Bernie, despite his words, but then thought better of it. Instead, she turned and hurried down the drive again towards the house. She chided herself for her unprofessional behaviour. She was the centre administrator. She should have gone with Bernie into the trees to flush their unwanted visitor out.
Her heart was pumping so fast she thought it might jump out of her chest. She longed to wash and scrub her hand, the one he’d grabbed. Bending down, she wiped it hard on the damp grass.
She had in the past, especially as a student, had huge amounts of sympathy for those on the edge of society, the dispossessed and the marginalised. But there was something different about this individual that disturbed her. Something that hinted all was not as it appeared to be.
A brisk walk along the path through the conifers did little to calm her. Then she felt the first drops of rain. The expected downpour was about to materialise. She continued to brood upon her own sense of self-doubt. In Theo’s absence, she should be able to take charge of this situation. But instead she felt powerless, superfluous, and utterly miserable; and increasingly uneasy at herself for relying so heavily on Alice’s support. How was she ever to fight Natasha in this frame of mind? As the rain intensified, she returned to the office. There, she found James waiting for her.
“Ah, Zoe,” he said, “fresh, full of energy and ready for us to start working together. Excellent.”
She gave him a hard stare.
“Where’s Alice?” she asked.
A shadow flitted through James’s eyes.
“Alice?” he said. “I’ve sacked her.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“You’ve sacked Alice?” Zoe gasped, rain still dripping from her waterproof, as she confronted James. “That’s impossible.”
James anchored himself on the corner of Alice’s desk.
“Not at all,” he said. “I simply told her we no longer need her services here.”
Zoe stood with her hands on her hips, trying to combat a mounting sense of panic and paranoia. “But that’s rubbish. We do need her – more than ever.”
“I disagree.” James slipped down from his perch.
She stood her ground, her heart pounding.
He held his hands out, palms uppermost. “What’s the big deal? This was only a temporary thing for her. She’s an actress waiting for her agent to ring. She’ll get that part of hers soon.”
“I’m amazed at you, James,” said Zoe. “You, an actor, saying this? You know how much this means to her, and why she’s here instead of living and working in London. Until she gets the part she deserves, this job is a lifesaver for her.”
He sighed. “It’s insecure, the life of an actor. But I’m not one any more, am I? I’m standing in the gap here at this centre, saving it for the future.”
She gasped. Impervious to her reaction, he threw himself into an easy chair and sprawled in an indolent pose.
Zoe started towards him. “Call Alice right now,” she said, her body tense, hands clenched by her side. “Tell her she has this job as long as she needs it.”
James’s eyes narrowed. He rested his right ankle on his left knee and drummed his fingers on the other knee.
“Listen,” he said, “Alice was here because you wanted her. Yes, I know the background. Jessica’s told me. And I agree, at the time, it suited Alice too. Well, now, I’m in charge. And I make the decisions, in the best interest of all of us. I’ve decided to let her go. You’ll need to respect that.”
“Never,” she said.
“Too late,” he replied. “Alice cleared her desk and left ten minutes ago.”
Zoe spun round, flew from the office and out into the damp courtyard. Ahead of her, a group of guests were making their way towards the barn, chatting: Gareth, Cynthia and Heidi. She nearly crashed into Gareth.
He turned with a startled expression and the other two stopped and looked round at them both.
“Oh, sorry, Gareth,” she said.
“No problem,” he replied.
“We’ll be so sad to leave tomorrow,” said Heidi. “This week has been unbelievable!”
“But we’ll all be seeing Natasha again, though,” added Cynthia.
“What?” said Zoe.
“Oh yes, how could anyone possibly let her go, once having found her?”
“See you later,” said Zoe, “must dash.” Then she hurried away from them and onto the path leading to the car park.
“Alice!”
Alice stopped and turned as Zoe entered the car park through the woodland gate. Zoe ran up to her, panting. “Alice, don’t go.”
“I must. James has fired me.”
“James can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. And so can Natasha”
Alice put a warning hand on Zoe’s arm. Both girls turned.
Natasha had materialised as if from nowhere. She would have had to walk up to the car park along the path, same as anyone else. But Zoe hadn’t seen her. Normally, she’d have noticed out of the corner of her eye, or felt Natasha behind her.
“Hello, Natasha,” said Alice.
Natasha said nothing. Her eyes settled upon Zoe’s, and began once again to draw her in. Zoe felt as if she was sinking down a deep well
into a subterranean cavern far away from all questions, doubts and memories. All she could see was Natasha’s face in its perfection, her almond-shaped eyes, her soft, glowing complexion, her exquisitely-defined cheekbones. She seemed the very prototype of idealised feminine beauty; past, present and future. Zoe felt in that moment exactly what it was to equate this with moral superiority. Truth is beauty, beauty’s truth, that’s all you know on earth and all you need to know… Surely she could trust this lovely woman?
Then she began to fight desperately. As she did so, Natasha swayed, the lines which defined her seemed to blur, she became more obscure, then faded back, receding into the distance.
Alice’s voice tugged at Zoe, sharp and insistent.
“Zoe! Let’s go!”
Alice shoved Zoe into the front passenger seat of her car. Then she slammed the door closed behind her, and raced round to the driver’s side. The next thing Zoe knew, the engine had started and the car leapt forward. In the rear-view mirror, Zoe saw Natasha’s ethereal form behind them, seeming to float above the tarmac surface of the car park.
Zoe put her hand to her mouth. She was breathing fast. “Quick getaway,” she said.
“Yeah, she started to hypnotise you.”
“It was worse than that, Alice. She was trying to possess me. And she nearly succeeded.”
Alice shot a glance at Zoe, as she powered up the driveway, out through the main entrance, and swung left. A sense of solidity and reality returned. Zoe tried to calm her breathing.
“What you just said,” began Alice, “did you mean it?”
“Yes, I did.”
“I’m glad,” said Alice, “because now you are beginning to see properly for the first time.”
Zoe stared at her. “Is Natasha demonic?” she asked, and shuddered. “Sorry, I can’t stop shaking.”
“Take your time,” said Alice, slowing down as they drew closer to a farm tractor in front of them. “Oh, come on,” she said to the back of the tractor.
“Tell me what you think, Alice,” pleaded Zoe.
Alice started indicating right and edging out behind the tractor.
“What I think”, she said, “is based upon my experience of playing Lady Macbeth. You see, sometimes, being an actor can be psychologically very dangerous because you’re stripping yourself away, your character, and taking on board someone else and their spiritual and mental state. If you’re playing someone evil, it’s almost as if, for that period of time, you take on…”
She hesitated.
“… Their heart of darkness?” supplied Zoe.
Alice nodded.
Zoe studied her. “Do you recognise the power Natasha is using, Alice?”
“I believe so, yes.”
“So what shall I do about Natasha?”
“Do? What you do about this, Zoe, is take it into your own hands.”
“But I don’t understand… Natasha is so strong. Whatever this power is that she uses, I cannot overcome it.”
“You fight it every time you encounter her, Zoe. You’re strong, much stronger than you think.” Alice stepped on the accelerator and sped round the tractor and on up the lane, leaving it far behind. “Listen. I know you and Theo are Christians, and I respect that. I don’t believe quite the way you do, and not in exactly the same things. But this is where you and I do agree, Zoe. Natasha is using negative spiritual power and we can’t beat that on a physical level. You can fight it only on the same level, but with power that comes from a different source.”
“I do believe that,” said Zoe. “But where do I go from here?”
“Put it this way,” said Alice. “You believe in ghosts, you and Theo, but what about spirits? Spirits in the house?”
Zoe gave a nervous laugh. “You don’t mean the spirit of James’s ancestor, do you?”
“No. Many people have been associated with the story of that house. Their spirits would have been absorbed into the walls. I’ve never met anyone in the acting profession who didn’t accept this idea. You know the relic wall at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon? Why do you think they had to retain that wall? Because so many actors insisted that it be preserved, knowing the spirits of the great actors in the past had been absorbed into the fabric of the wall.”
Alice reached the end of the lane, looked to the right, checked the road was clear, and accelerated onto the A road.
Zoe drew in her breath between her teeth. “I know the house ‘has a personality of its own’. Lots of people have commented on it.”
“They have. And when people say such things, there’s far more to it.”
The speedometer started racing up to seventy.
“Oh, Alice, it sounds weird. I know if Theo properly understood the danger, he’d pray about it.”
Alice made a small grimace, which Zoe didn’t miss.
“Pray to his God? Well, yes, of course. That’s what my mum would say. But, Zoe, will you try my way as well?”
Zoe bit her lip.
“Spirits?” she said.
“Yes. The house has many. They’ve been absorbed into it over the course of nearly five centuries.”
The road streamed behind them.
“But what makes you think they’d be on my side, and Theo’s, against James?”
Despite her scepticism, Zoe focused on Alice, intent on every word she spoke.
“I believe they would. And you can make them move against James and Natasha, if you ask.”
“I’m not sure, Alice, I can still hear Theo saying ‘it would be best to pray about it’.”
Alice raised her hands and smacked them back down onto the steering wheel. “Well,” she said, “perhaps Theo has the patience to wait for those prayers to be answered. But have we?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Alice and Zoe made their way upstairs to the first floor. The evening meal was due to begin in ten minutes in the dining area across the courtyard. Zoe had asked Alice to return to the house at this time, as the best way to avoid awkward encounters with James and with inquisitive guests.
The footfall of centuries had passed over these timber treads, wearing them smooth. As always, when Zoe placed her feet on the silken surface of the oak she felt in danger of slipping. At the top she placed her hand on the structural post to her right which was helping to support the floor above. She’d long wondered about the fissures in the timber. It was possible that a few Roundheads had tested the point of their swords as they searched the house for hidden priests or monks.
Zoe found the atmosphere of the house dreamy and serene, despite being caught up in the power struggle going on within its walls. Several guests had mentioned this gentle, inviting presence which could be felt throughout the building – but they, of course, knew nothing of any conflict among the centre staff.
At least, so Zoe hoped.
Floorboards creaked as Zoe followed Alice along the passageway. Zoe had asked Alice to show her what she meant. Alice clearly hoped Zoe would recognise the spirits as real and engage with them. Zoe didn’t feel at all sure about what Alice intended to do. But curiosity and a sense of intrigue led her on.
Raised voices intervened. James and Bernie were in the study. And the conversation sounded heated.
Alice and Zoe stopped. They exchanged a quick glance and flattened themselves against the wall adjacent to the study door. Heavy footsteps paced to and fro across the floorboards of the study.
Bernie’s voice broke in.
“James, so far we’ve been grateful for your help. But I cannot agree with this. Alice has shown herself to be a hardworking member of staff in the short time she’s been here. I know it’s a temporary job.” Bernie seemed to have reached the window, swung round, and began pacing back again across the study, towards the door. “But she should stay with us until she gets her next professional acting role. As house manager, I rely on her. Where will Jessica get a replacement at such short notice? Please ring Alice right now and tell her to come back.”
James
’s laugh sounded thin.
A book smacked down hard on the desk.
“I make the decisions now, Bernie,” said James. “Jessica authorised it. You must trust that I act for the best of reasons.”
The floorboards creaked again. “Well, it’s hard to see any sense in this decision. I know Theo’s ill, and Jessica’s put you in charge for the time being. But I still believe you might have consulted me over this business with Alice.”
Alice and Zoe gave each other a subtle thumbs-up.
A chair scraped back across the floor. “Sorry, Bernie, but I don’t have to consult you. Jessica gave me power to hire and fire.”
More protest from the floorboards.
“No she didn’t. I was there when she spoke to you. She gave you no such power.”
“She did,” insisted James. “I’ve asked Alice to leave. And she’s gone. As for Zoe – I must say, pretty as she is, and hard to resist, she’s also very naive.” The chair creaked again. “Nobody suggested she was fit to take over during Theo’s absence. After all, Jessica could easily have done that, and recruited a couple of temporary secretaries, if she had so chosen. I propose we contact an employment agency, though I don’t see that Zoe needs to continue in her current role during this period, either, since I have things so well in hand. I’m going to suggest she gives herself a break from this centre for a while.”
Zoe would listen no more. She leapt forward, flung the door open, and stormed in.
“How dare you, James?”
Bernie, whose back had been turned, whirled round to face her, his eyes wide with dismay.
Beyond him, James sat in the chair, placed to the side of the desk. His jaw hung as he took in Zoe’s entry.
Removing his hand from the desk, James rose to his feet, scrutinising Zoe.
“I’m surprised you’ve broken in on us like this,” he said, “but it gives me a good chance to say what I want to say to you. Listen, you’re young, and charming, and I’m sure you’ve worked hard at the centre administration. But now Theo’s ill… why not take a break? A couple of months, at least, I suggest.”
A Passionate Spirit Page 10