Mythophidia

by Storm Constantine

  I stood up with her, and we embraced awkwardly. ‘Helen, this is vile!’

  She smiled tightly and put on her coat.

  ‘Will you call me tomorrow, after you’ve contacted some other psychics or something?’

  ‘Yes, I will.’

  As I watched her Jag glide off towards the road, I was afraid that I’d never see her again. I wish in some ways that had been true.

  That evening, as we shared a night cap in the parlour, I told Ted everything. I watched his eyes and I could see his feelings shifting from belief to disbelief and back again. Like me, he didn’t want to believe it, for believing in it meant it had to be dealt with, and how do you deal with a thing like that? Far better to ignore it, to scoff, to cling stubbornly to the mundane world, where only what you can see and touch are real, and there are no hidden powers. Perhaps it is worse for a man, because men are brought up to think they have to be in control, otherwise they’re sunk. We, as women, are somewhat more attuned to the unseen, the tides of our blood and instincts. We accept the unacceptable more readily.

  ‘Those weirdos have put these crazy ideas into her head,’ my husband declared, taking a stand. ‘You must see that, Annie. They’ve scared her to death. She lives in a huge, echoing, empty house, and she’s afraid of it. You know yourself she’s gullible. Now every echo is a disembodied voice, and every shadow a spook. She’s conjuring things up from her own mind. You must see that I’m right.’

  I looked at him steadily. He could be right. The explanation was rational and reasonable.

  ‘If you want to help her,’ Ted said, ‘you should make her believe what I’ve just said. Then her phantoms will disappear, I’m sure of it.’ He smiled and adopted an eerie tone. ‘Whether they’re real or not.’

  I laughed. ‘Ted!’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s just a question of belief.’

  ‘You’re quite a little mystic in your own way, aren’t you,’ I said. ‘So you won’t mind driving out with me to Helen’s church tomorrow.’

  ‘He pulled a comical face that was halfway to a frown. ‘What for?’

  ‘I just want to see, and I’d rather be with you than Helen. I’d feel safer with your rationality around. It would be like a shield, if there is anything nasty there.’

  Ted rolled his eyes. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation, but OK, if that’s what you want…’

  I knew it. He was hooked.

  Kids off-loaded to grandparents once more, we drove out to Loxcombe in the morning. It was a Saturday, a bright, cold day. There were two churches in Loxcombe, but it didn’t take us long to locate the semi-ruin that would soon belong to the Marchants. It was a dull little place, neglected and feeling sorry for itself. Ted and I nosed around the graveyard, and squinted at the plain, weathered stones, but there was no sign of Rufus Aston.

  ‘Surely, if his grave was here,’ Ted said, ‘it would be well known. He was a kind of personality, after all.’

  ‘I don’t think he was that well known,’ I said. ‘As far as I’m aware, there are no books in existence of his poetry.’

  Ted pulled an exasperated face. ‘What the hell are we doing here?’ he asked the sky, throwing up his hands.

  The door to the church was locked, but we found a smaller door round the back, which was open a few inches but stuck. Ted applied brawn to the wood and eventually, there was enough room for us to wriggle inside. The interior smelled musty and damp, the pews had been ripped to pieces, and the uninspiring stained glass windows broken. Still there was one wonder left. It was Ted who found it, and the awe in his voice when he said, ‘Annie, come and look at this!’ alerted me immediately. The tomb of the poet.

  There was no legend to tell us whose remains lay inside, but I recognised him immediately. There he lay; the stone effigy of Rufus Aston. The tomb was enormous, fit for a king. My first thought was that Rufus had been dearly loved by someone: a someone who could have afforded to pay for this monument, even if they had neglected to leave a reminder for the world concerning exactly who lay within it. The carving of the effigy was exquisite. But for the colour of the stone - a strange, shiny black - he could have been a youth lying there asleep. The long hair was not stiffly stylised, but reproduced as flowing over the stone, down the sides of the sarcophagus. One long fingered hand lay lightly on his breast, the other at his side. His shirt was open at the collar, revealing a slender throat, with the wonderful hollow that invites a finger to trace its depths. I touched him, with reverence, while Ted looked on. Neither of us said a word. If anything of Rufus was still there, he was certainly at peace. Even though the building was vandalised, the tranquillity seemed to flow from the tomb of the poet in waves. Helen should not, must not, violate this. Her problem was not Rufus, not now. She must not drag what was left him, essence or spirit, back into whatever filthy enterprise Richard Pargeter, alive or dead, represented. If an image of Rufus had ever haunted Helen’s garden, it must simply have been a memory, a captured moment in time replaying throughout history, not an essence, or a soul. I was entirely sure about these thoughts, so sure, it was like a telepathic message. Perhaps Rufus’ guardian angel was still around, keeping an eye out for him.

  I took a step back, and saw the inscription on the side of the tomb. Although there was no name to the words, I knew they had once been penned by the exquisite hand mimicked in stone above them:

  ‘Let me resist this old passion, let it pass over me.

  For the flower of this love is death, which I have picked with my own hands

  Pressed my own face into the flesh of it, taken the scent within.’

  ‘Strange they should put that on the tomb,’ Ted murmured.

  I glanced at him. ‘Not strange to whoever chose it.’

  What could I say to Helen, how could I dissuade her from trying to disturb the eternal rest of Rufus Aston?

  Back home, I called her immediately, but her housekeeper answered the phone. Mrs Marchant was ill, she wasn’t taking calls. ‘This is important,’ I told her, ‘very important.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Brown. She won’t come to the phone. She’s in bed. Can I take a message?’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ I demanded.

  ‘The flu,’ answered the housekeeper. ‘Is there any message?’

  ‘Just say I called.’ I slammed down the phone, thwarted. Was Helen’s illness feigned so she did not have to speak to me? I was getting paranoid. Still, I phoned Cathy straight away.

  ‘Cath, will you call Mags at Deermount for me?’

  ‘Why?’ Cathy’s voice showed she sensed intrigue.

  ‘Ask her if Helen is ill, and if so, with what? I’ve been trying to get in touch with her, but the housekeeper isn’t being very helpful.’

  Cathy phoned back about fifteen minutes later. ‘Madam has the flu,’ she reported.

  I slumped in relief. Flu might keep Helen away from Loxcombe for a while.

  ‘However,’ Cathy continued. ‘Mags has news. Since the psychics were kicked out, Madam and Sir have been arguing. Apparently, Helen looks a right wreck at the moment. She’s not eating, she’s chain-smoking, and she leaves all the lights on in the house at night. Must be costing them a fortune in electricity, given the size of the place! And that’s not all. The feudal slaves, bless them, are starting to get spooked as well. The girl who looks after the horses won’t go near the stables at night now, and the housekeeper saw something nasty on the stairs. She thought it was a big stain on the stair carpet, like oil, but when she went indignantly to investigate, scrubbing brush in hand, no doubt, the stain reared up and flew off like smoke. Poor woman nearly fell down stairs.’

  ‘Cathy,’ I said. ‘You don’t believe any of that, do you?’

  ‘Well it was probably a cat, or a bird, or something,’ she said, ‘but what a good tale, eh?’

  ‘Has Mags told you how Roland’s taking all this?’

  Spending time in the city, of course! What do you expect?’

  ‘What’s Helen doin
g about it, the funny goings on, I mean?’

  ‘She has the phone with her in bed, and several tons of Psychics’ Monthly beside her. Soon the old pile will be crawling with fat women in long dresses and beads, and cadaverous men who’ve never had girlfriends. Ghosts, beware!’

  ‘Cath, you’re enjoying this, aren’t you!’

  She laughed. ‘It’s the best of her obsessions yet!’

  I wanted to slam down the phone, angry with Cathy for the first time in years. Helen hadn’t mentioned her arguments with Roland, or the staff’s experiences. She hadn’t confided in me that deeply, then. And I was right: she was avoiding speaking to me.

  I phoned Helen every day, and after four attempts, she deigned to speak. I had resolved not to be too pushy. ‘How are you?’ I began.

  She did sound very snuffly. ‘Oh, I’m over the worst. And you?’

  Once the pleasantries were over, I asked her how she was getting on with locating a suitable psychic.

  ‘Some have been here already,’ she said. ‘I’m surprised Mags hasn’t told Cathy.’ The rebuke did not go unregistered, but I ignored it.

  ‘Any success?’

  ‘It’s too early to tell.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘And the church at Loxcombe? Have you been there yet?’

  ‘Of course. Ages ago. Did you think I’d buy it without seeing it?’

  ‘You’ve seen the tomb, then?’

  ‘What do you think?’ she retorted.

  ‘What’s it like?’

  ‘Just a tomb,’ Helen answered. Her voice was positively waspish. ‘What did you expect?’

  ‘A gravestone in a graveyard?’

  ‘That’s exactly what it is.’

  The lie outraged me. So much so I did a stupid thing and blurted out. ‘Helen, that’s bullshit! I’ve been there! I’ve seen it!’

  There was a silence and then Helen said in a slow, chilling voice, ‘How dare you!’

  ‘You don’t own it yet,’ I said. ‘Helen, I’ve got to speak to you about this. You mustn’t go charging in there, desecrating Aston’s tomb! Rufus is at rest. You must have been able to feel it! It would be wrong, so terribly wrong to...’

  I realised I was speaking to a dead line. My friend Helen had put the phone down on me, probably right after she’d asked me how I dared.

  There was silence for days. Cathy reported the comings and goings of the psychics, with one or two amusing anecdotes concerning their appearance and behaviour, but other than that, nothing. I must have picked up the phone a dozen times with the intention of calling Helen, but pride stopped me. If she wanted me, she knew where I was.

  Then Roland called us in the middle of the night. Ted got out of bed to answer the phone and I followed him down, sensing trouble.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I heard him say, soothingly. ‘Now think, Roland, where would she go?’

  Helen had disappeared. Of course, we offered to help Roland look for her. We couldn’t leave the kids alone, so Ted drove up to Deermount. Later he told me Roland was in a terrible state, out of his mind with worry. He confessed his wife hadn’t been right for weeks, perhaps months. He blamed himself. He should have done something, got her to see someone, anything.

  They found her at Loxcombe. Ted thought it was the obvious place.

  ‘She was lying on top of him, on top of the tomb,’ Ted said to me. ‘It was...’ He shook his head. ‘God, Annie, she’s out of her mind. You should have seen her. Writhing over that effigy in her dressing gown with nothing on beneath, mud up to her knees, her face scratched. Her face. It was like something out of Bedlam! Hardly human. God, that poor man. Poor Roland.’

  They’d carried her home and called the doctor. Scant hours later, an ambulance had come and Helen had been taken away. Roland, in a rare moment of eloquence, said dazedly to Ted, as they watched the ambulance disappear down the drive, ‘It’s as if she’s no longer with us. That person, it’s not Helen, it’s not her.’

  Ted brought Roland back to the farm. He stayed with us for over a week.

  That was the end of it really. The rest was simply having the details filled in. Helen’s breakdown was acute. She was going to be away for a long time. Ted, Cathy, Rupert and I did what we could to comfort Roland. He isn’t really a bad sort, and he was so bewildered and lost after the event, it was pathetic. I spent some time blaming myself, thinking I could have done something, told someone, but what good would that do now? I did take some action though. First, I found the psychic Steve’s number and called him. My intention was bawl him out over what had happened to Helen, but when I began telling him, he seemed genuinely appalled and asked if he could come to talk to me. Rather surprised, I agreed.

  He arrived with his girlfriend, Rachel, the same evening. They were young, earnest types, and not at all what I expected. Very down to earth, in fact.

  ‘Helen had a problem before we got there,’ Steve told me. ‘She was obviously suffering from some past trauma, and whatever was being repressed ignited the presence in the house. When she asked us to leave, I knew I shouldn’t just let it go at that. I wish I hadn’t now. I could have done something.’

  ‘We’ve all been blaming ourselves,’ I said, kindly. ‘You’re not alone in that.’

  I told him about the tomb at Loxcombe and expressed my concern for Rufus Aston. We agreed to drive out there together at the weekend, to see if Steve could pick anything up. I was amazed at myself. Only weeks before I had been scoffing at the boy, now I spoke to him as intimately as to an old friend.

  So, Ted and I and Steve and Rachel followed the lanes to the church on another bright, cold Saturday. I was nervous of what I might feel, and dreaded seeing some relic of Helen’s dementia on the tomb, but there was nothing. Steve seemed to light up like a candle as he nosed energetically around the building. His hands skimmed the contours of Rufus’ effigy. He nodded vigorously to himself.

  ‘They hid him here,’ he said. There was a weird light inside him, invisible yet entirely brilliant, that turned him into something quite beautiful.

  ‘They?’ I prompted.

  ‘Rufus’ friends. Away from Pargeter. He escaped, you see. I’ve always thought that. What Rufus must have realised was that true immortality means relinquishing the flesh. Therefore, we are all immortal already. Anything else is just a travesty against nature. Rufus’ death was his statement to Pargeter. An escape and a denial.’

  ‘Oh...’ I traced the words on the side of the tomb. ‘Were they lovers, do you think?’

  ‘It’s not unlikely,’ Steve said, ‘but I feel that’s Rufus’ business, don’t you?’

  I felt strangely chastened.

  ‘But anyway, Rufus’ friends must have thought it was important to hide his remains from Pargeter. There’s some strong cloaking around this place. The church is almost invisible, an unattractive dump, and yet,’ he gestured at the tomb, ‘here it is. A hidden masterpiece.’

  ‘Why did Helen come here?’ I asked. ‘Was she trying to reach Rufus’ spirit?’

  Steve frowned. ‘I don’t think Helen was quite herself by then,’ he remarked, but that was all.

  ‘Will she ever be?’ Ted enquired. We were both deferring to this intense youth.

  Steve shrugged. ‘I can’t say.’ He looked back at the tomb, let his hand hover over the breast of the effigy. ‘But I can reassure you that whatever Helen tried to do, our friend here didn’t bat an eyelid. The love and protection around him is too strong. He can’t be reached by something like that.’

  Relieved, we walked back into the harsh sunlight. I felt buoyant, melancholy, but sadly happy, if that’s possible.

  I went to visit Helen in hospital, and I wish I hadn’t. Roland was right. The Helen we knew had gone. Perhaps she was only hiding, and could be coaxed back into that limp, listless form, but I doubt it. A year has passed, and she’s still there, in that hospital, sitting in the same chair, looking out of the same window, seeing nothing. I hope she’s not suffering inside. Perhaps, like Rufus, she’s spu
rned the flesh, and what lives in her body is something else, something that’s trapped there now. That would be justice, I think.

  Two postscripts. The first was that Roland’s attempt to buy the church at Loxcombe fell through. He had no real idea what had been going on in Helen’s life and mind, and entertained the wistful notion that he could buy the place and do it up as a craft shop for Helen, for when she got out of hospital, if ever. Something blocked him though, and he was very puzzled about it, because his money usually meant he got everything he wanted. I suspected Rufus still had friends around who made sure the Marchants couldn’t get near him. Strangely enough, a couple of months later, the church was sold, and renovated, but who had bought it and what they wanted it for, no one knew. Workmen came and went, a high fence was put up around it, and a caretaker came to live in a caravan in the graveyard. To this day, the church is still barricaded against the world, more invisible now than it ever was. Weird.

  The second postscript results from a visit from Helen’s mother. She had never had much time for Cathy and I. We thought she’d considered us common and unsuitable friends for her glittering daughter. Now, she wanted to talk to me. I realised I had seen a lot more of Helen over the past year than she had. She was devastated by what had happened, naturally. Her dream girl had disappeared, as dreams do, when you wake up to reality. Rumours had filtered back to her concerning hauntings and possession, and she needed reassurance. I told her the rumours were exaggerated. ‘Helen was ill,’ I said. ‘There were no ghosts, not really.’

  Helen’s mother nodded at that. Then she told me the truth about something, which was sadly pertinent to the whole tragic drama. The reason Helen had returned to the village when she was twenty-five was because she’d had a breakdown in the city. She had, in fact, been in hospital for a month before she came home. Apparently, she’d got mixed up with some very dodgy characters, who were into a peculiar sort of cult, which involved a lot of drugs and sex and sheer debauchery. Helen must have been attracted to it because most of the devotees were very rich. She had, (perhaps inevitably, given his bank balance), fallen for the guru of the outfit, who’d used her in every conceivable way. She’d put up with this, until she discovered her Great Man was also abusing, in similar ways, most of the other members of the group, both male and female. There were complications by then, and Helen’s mind caved in.