Don't Read Alone

by Finch, Paul

  Charlie almost fell off his chair. “I’m glad someone admits to remembering us from way back then.”

  “It always bugs me how so many people only recall the ’70s for disco and punk,” I said. “It’s almost like the long-haired, guitar subculture never existed. And it isn’t just head-bangers, like us, who get overlooked. What about Genesis under Gabriel, what about Pink Floyd, ELP?”

  “Never mind them !” Joe blurted. “What about Uriah Heep, Nazereth? We’d only been news half a year when they hit the scene.” He rounded on Miss Ryder-Howe. “And they hit it big, I’m telling you. But you never hear them mentioned either.”

  We lapsed into thoughtful silence. I recollected that glorious first decade. At the time, it had seemed that we’d go on forever. After Grease , disco fizzled out almost as quickly as the first part of John Travolta’s career, and while punk soon fell victim to the very excesses it had set out to parody, we hard rockers just kept on going, cutting a steady if unfashionable swathe through the entire music business. TV pop shows and mainstream radio stations might have ignored us, but we made a fortune and filled houses everywhere. Wolfbane had helped set a trend in motion that by the mid-1970s was bringing some stupendous bands into the public arena. Judas Priest and UFO came shortly after us. But there were foreign outfits who could really hack it, too: AC/DC, Rush, Van Halen.

  “And of course, the ‘New Wave of British Heavy Metal’ was only just around the corner,” Joe added. We nodded in sage agreement. He was about to comment further on this – the NWBHM was a pet-subject of his – when Rob radically changed the subject.

  “Anyone here speak Latin?” he asked.

  There was a momentary silence. Perplexed glances were exchanged. Only I knew what he was driving at, but I kept my mouth shut.

  “It’s just that we went out to the Lamuratum earlier,” he said.

  “Oh …” Miss Ryder-Howe’s buoyant mood seemed to flag a little.

  “We found it with no trouble at all,” Rob added, looking at her in a way that implied she’d been lying to us earlier on. He turned to Troy, who was seated at the head of the table, watching him carefully. “Well, I mean, it’s the most Roman thing here, isn’t it, Troy? Even if it was built in 1805. We thought we ought to check it out. There’s an inscription on it. Eligata Proficis … something or other. Here …” He produced several slips of paper, which he commenced to pass around the table. “I’ve written it down. Anyone know what it means?”

  There were murmurs in the negative. Troy, I noticed, didn’t even bother to glance down at the paper that was placed in front of him. “Is it really essential you possess this information?” he asked.

  Rob sat back. “Not essential. Thought it might be interesting. You want us to get into this project, don’t you?”

  Troy made a vague, dismissive gesture. Rob was still in a belligerent mood, but, thanks to all the wine and good food, Troy had clearly mellowed out. He didn’t want a confrontation.

  “There’s an Anglo-Latin dictionary, if that would help,” Miss Ryder-Howe said. “In the sitting room. Which is where we’ll have our after-dinner coffee, if that’s okay with everyone?”

  We all mumbled that it was, though she looked for specific approval from Rob, who, now that he’d had his bluff called, seemed to lose interest in the subject. He shrugged. But later on, when we were all relaxing in the sitting room, I noticed that he took the Anglo-Latin dictionary from a shelf and leafed through it.

  The most interesting thing that I found in the sitting room was a huge oil painting of a very impressive Regency man. A caption below it revealed that he was the famed Thomas Ryder-Howe. The portrait dominated the room, which was actually smaller and cosier than most other rooms in the house, but teak-panelled and lined with shelves of books, and in that respect very elegant. The furnishings were primarily sofas and armchairs, though there was also a central coffee table, against which Barbara was already kneeling, playing herself at patience. The rest of us lolled around, chatting idly or smoking. Rob was in a chair in the corner, working his way studiously through the Latin dictionary, though it didn’t take him long to lay it aside and lift another book from the shelf. For my part, I was fascinated by the huge painting. I sensed Miss Ryder-Howe come up alongside me.

  “So this is the man?” I said.

  She nodded. “This is indeed the man .”

  “He looks very pleased with himself.”

  She giggled. “So he ought to. He was the making of my family. Oh, we had a title and all, but we were very much the poor relations. Not after this chap had got done with us, though.”

  I considered what I knew about him, namely that he was a fanatical antiquarian. Not that he looked like an antiquarian. At least, he wasn’t how I’d imagined an antiquarian to look. At first I’d expected a Dr Johnson type; a portly gentleman in a white wig, with jovial apple-cheeks and a soft smile. This real version was smiling, but not so attractively. If anything, he was rather rakish. He had sharp, aquiline features with high, prominent cheekbones. His hair was jet-black, almost slick, and aside from his two sideburns, which were diamond-shaped, it was cropped very short. He was clad as a period dandy in a dark green smoking jacket, the frilly cuffs of his shirt showing at the ends of its sleeves. A chain with a pendant was visible around his neck, and his black-gloved hands were steepled in front of him. He wore an inscrutable, somewhat self-satisfied smile. It wasn’t massively endearing.

  “Will that be all for tonight, ma-am?” someone asked.

  Mrs. Hacket, who’d served us all coffee and cigars, and had then opened a drinks cabinet in which several quality malts and brandies were contained, was now standing with her coat on and a handbag over her arm. Her son Lionel hovered close behind her, as though eager to be given his marching orders as well.

  Miss Ryder-Howe nodded. “Yes, Francine. I’ll see you and Lionel tomorrow.”

  Without another word, Mrs. Hacket and her son withdrew from the room. The double-doors closed quietly behind them.

  “They don’t actually live on the estate?” I asked.

  Miss Ryder-Howe shook her head. “They live in town, in Lyndhurst.”

  Joe had ambled up alongside us, a fat King Edward dangling from his lips. “Like in that horror film,” he sniggered. “What was it? … The Haunting … ‘if you’re all alone in the dark, we’ll be in town’.” He raised his arms phantom-like, pulled a ghastly face. “‘There’ll be no-one any nearer than that. No-one will come nearer than that. Not at night. In the dark’. Wooo-ooo …”

  “Unfortunately it’s not quite so melodramatic,” Miss Ryder-Howe said with a smile. “Mrs. Hacket has a husband and a young daughter, who both need looking after.”

  “I need looking after,” Luke wailed from a nearby armchair. Again he’d taken possession of a bottle of Jack Daniels, but apparently even this wasn’t enough. He gestured weakly with the bottle, eyes half-closed, drool on his chin. “Codeine, someone get me codeine.”

  More out of habit than annoyance, we ignored him.

  “Is anyone else living on the estate?” Barbara asked as she laid rows of cards on the table.

  Miss Ryder-Howe glanced round at her. “No. No-one.”

  “Oh.” Barbara seemed confused. “It’s just that, well … when me and Charlie were out on the lake, earlier, we could’ve sworn we saw a woman walking on the far shore.”

  “A woman?” Miss Ryder-Howe looked bewildered.

  “Yeah … well, looked like a woman. Whoever it was, they had a long purple dress on. Or a robe of some sort.”

  “A robe?” Miss Ryder-Howe could only shake her head, nonplussed.

  “People must wander onto the estate all the time, mustn’t they,” Troy said from the open French window.

  Miss Ryder-Howe gave it some thought. “I suppose so. There’s nothing really to stop them.”

  “She looked very at home, the way she was strolling along,” Barbara said.

  “How close were you to her?” Troy wondered.


  “It was a fair distance. A hundred yards maybe.”

  “Oh well … you’re probably mistaken.”

  Barbara glanced up at him. “No, Troy. I’m not. I definitely saw someone.”

  Charlie, who’d been slumped by the empty hearth, contemplating the room through his glass of Glenfiddich, looked up. “There was someone, yeah.”

  Troy shrugged. “Whatever you say. There’ll be a perfectly good reason for it, though.”

  Miss Ryder-Howe and I were still in front of the portrait. Rob came and joined us. He still had the second book in his hand. It was backed with faded green leather. Up close, I saw its title:

  RELIGIO ROMANA

  Being a list of holidays and festivals of the Greeks and Romans

  He gazed at the painting. “This the bloke you were on about? Thomas what’s his name.”

  “That’s him,” Miss Ryder-Howe confirmed. “My great-great-great grandfather, or whatever he was.”

  “Ever tried to communicate with him?”

  She looked bemused. “I’m sorry?”

  “Have a séance, like?”

  “Er … no. No, I haven’t.”

  I looked at Rob quizzically, but he seemed perfectly serious. “It’d be a gas,” he said. “Gramps here could probably tell you what you want to know about the Roman history of this place. If you’re that bothered.”

  “That’s silly, isn’t it?” she said. “I mean, do séances work?”

  “Ask Barbara. She’s the expert.”

  Barbara glanced up at us.

  “You’d know what you were doing if we had one?” Miss Ryder-Howe asked her.

  “I’m no medium,” Barbara said, “but I’ve done it a few times.”

  Miss Ryder-Howe turned back to Rob and I. “You seriously think we could contact him …?”

  I was uncertain, and said so. Now that he’d been put on the spot, Rob also looked unsure. Joe made the decision for us.

  “Can’t do any harm to try, can it!” he said, swiping the table clean of cards and moving the tray of coffee-things to a sideboard. “Too early to go to bed yet, anyway.”

  We were soon kneeling around the table in a circle, an upside-down whiskey tumbler placed in the middle of a ring of cut-out letters and numbers. Luke was still panned out in the armchair, so there was seven of us in total. Barbara assured us that this was a good number, as seven had many connotations in esoteric lore. Besides, it also meant there was just enough room for us all to get a fingertip on the bottom of the upturned glass. To improve the atmosphere, Miss Ryder-Howe had turned the lights down and lit several fat candles, which she’d placed at strategic locations around the room. They burned brightly, but with the dark teak panelling and mainly red and ochre-brown décor, much of their illumination was leeched away, leaving a sombre, smoky dimness.

  Our hostess was starting to look nervous about what she was buying into here, though for the rest of us it was more commonplace. We’d held countless séances before, often as the result of being drunk or stoned, and invariably these occasions had been punctuated with tomfoolery, hoaxes and much ribald mickey-taking. Several times we’d tried to contact the ‘metal gods’ as we called them; those giants of the field who’d gone on before us. In ’76 it was Paul Kossoff, in ’80 Bon Scott, in ’86 Phil Lynott. Needless to say, we’d never had much success, except for on one occasion, when we’d got really ambitious and had gone after Hendrix, only for some wag to hit us mid-way through with an unexpected, multi-decibel blast of Purple Haze from a hidden speaker. After we’d recovered from our momentary but very real shock, that one had gone down a hoot. This time, oddly – considering that we’d been well fed, had had a good drink and were now chilling out in the cordial surroundings of a grand country house – the atmosphere was strained and rather serious.

  “Hello?” Barbara said, after her customary opening minute of contemplative silence.

  “We’re gathered here in the hope that we might be able to speak to someone.” There was a pause. “A spirit perhaps?” The glass remained resolutely still. “A specific spirit, in fact. The spirit of …” She stopped mid-sentence, very abruptly.

  I glanced down at the glass, wondering if it had moved. In truth, though we’d only been at it a short while, it had never taken us this long before to get a reaction, though on most occasions – as I said – it had been someone cheating.

  Then I realised what it was. A curious smell was suddenly in the room with us.

  At first I saw Barbara’s nostrils twitching. Then I smelled it, myself. It was faint, only a whiff, but I knew what it was: rot, decay. Not of flesh, but of vegetation, like leaves, or forest mould.

  “What the heck is tha …” Joe began, only for a glare of light to grab our attention.

  One of the candle-flames had reared to unusual height, maybe six or seven inches. A split-second later, it receded. Another one then did exactly the same thing. And now the woodland scent was stronger. There was a chill in the air, a dankness. Still the tumbler sat motionless, but no-one in that room now had any doubt that we’d contacted someone – or something.

  Rob turned to Barbara. “Ask something, anything … Barbara? ”

  We all looked at her, and received a horrible shock.

  Barbara was kneeling upright, as she had been before, but was now rigid as a board. There was a glazed look on her ashen face. Her eyes bulged, as though about to pop from her head, but there was no sight in them. And then she spoke.

  “Eligatu,” she said, in a deep, harsh tone that was clearly not her own; if anything, it sounded like a man was speaking. “Eligatua … eligatua proficiscatua …”

  There was a stunned silence. I can’t speak for the others, but my hair was prickling. Goose pimples ran along my arms. Across the table from me, Charlie gawked at his wife in something like fascination rather than fear, but I could see the worry and doubt growing in his face.

  “Barb …?” he said slowly.

  “Eligatua proficiscatua!” she proclaimed, this time in a bark – a loud, aggressive bark.

  Behind us, the candles flared again; the whole room was now rank. “Eligatua proficiscatua!” Her eyes remained blank; her frothed lips drew back, as though for a final furious roar: “ELIGATUA PROFICIS … ”

  “Oh that’s enough!” Miss Ryder-Howe shouted, pulling away from the circle and hurrying for the nearest light-switch, which she slapped hard.

  As soon as the electric light came on, the spell seemed to break.

  There were gasps of relief all round. I think every one of us fell backward, as though invisible supports had been withdrawn. Barbara, with a hiss-like exhalation of breath, slumped down onto her side, narrowly missing the corner of the table with her head.

  I climbed quickly to my feet and sniffed at the air.

  Nothing – the smoke from the cigars; the sizzled wax of the candles. But nothing else.

  Despite her innate politeness, Miss Ryder-Howe was unapologetic and to the point.

  “This is just great!” she stated emotionally. “I have to live here, remember? When you lot have gone, I don’t want to find that some … entity has been invited in!”

  Charlie had scrambled over to his wife. He lifted her gently into an armchair, and checked her vital signs, something you learn to do promptly and proficiently after living for three decades in a world where drugs-overdoses are common. Barbara looked to be okay, though. The colour was returning to her cheeks, and she was mumbling.

  “Is she all right?” Miss Ryder-Howe asked, suddenly sounding worried, as though it had only now occurred to her that there might be more at risk here than her own peace of mind.

  “She’s okay,” Charlie said, patting Barbara’s cheek to bring her round. “She’s only fainted. Can someone get her a drink?”

  I hurried to assist. Before she’d gone out, Mrs. Hacket had left us a pitcher of iced water on the drinks cabinet. I handed it over, and Charlie took the glass we’d been using for the séance, filled it and put it to Barbara’s lips.r />
  “Did you hear what he was saying?” someone whispered in my ear.

  I turned to find Rob there, his eyes wide.

  “What do you mean he ?” I asked.

  “That voice! You heard what it was saying. It’s that phrase from the temple.”

  “No way.”

  “It is, man, I’m telling you.”

  “Crap!” I retorted, though I knew it wasn’t.

  “Eligatua, proficiscatua,” someone else said, in grand Shakespearean fashion.

  We looked in disbelief at Luke, who was still slumped in the armchair, the half-full JD bottle resting in his lap. The others were all so concerned with Barbara that Rob and I were the only ones who’d noticed. Luke’s eyes were lidded, but he was smirking like a happy schoolboy. He was at least half awake.

  “Say that again,” Rob said slowly.

  “Eligatua, proficiscatua,” Luke repeated. “One is chosen, one will go forth.”

  “One is chosen, one will …” Rob looked at me, then back at Luke again. “You’re not telling us you speak Latin?”

  Luke opened his eyes fully and sat up, hitching himself against the backrest. He yawned and rolled his shoulders. “I was a choirboy. Remember?”

  It was very hard to remember, looking at the physical wreck that he’d become. I certainly couldn’t picture him wearing a surplice and a cherubic smile.

  “I did most of my voice-training with Brother Aelfric,” he added. “Big one for his medieval Latin, he was. Had us singing all sorts of stuff. Psalms, bits of the Mass … you name it.”

  At first we were tongue-tied. I think, initially, it was just the shock that Luke was awake enough to converse; that in itself was a rarity. I wondered fleetingly if the grass he’d been smoking and the alcohol he’d so copiously imbibed had somehow worked to counteract each other. I’m not even aware that such a thing is possible, but you never knew what miracles of science could occur in Luke’s overly polluted system. That would have been bewildering enough. But add this sudden outpouring of theological knowledge, and you had a real event on your hands.

  Rob still sounded highly doubtful. “You’re saying that … Eligat,” he faltered, “that eligatua … profic- …”