by Will Maclean
‘Does Graham know?’
‘Yes, we told him. Quite amusing in its own way, that inversion of the usual situation. Someone reacting with frustration to the news that a house isn’t haunted.’ Neil stared at me and sniffed. ‘So why are the new people here again?’
‘Forgive Neil,’ said Sally. ‘He doesn’t mean to be rude.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ muttered Seb.
‘Tim and Neville came to see what we’re doing here and how we’re getting on. Graham tells me that Tim here is quite the authority on ghosts.’
‘Is he now?’ muttered Neil. Juliet whispered something to Sebastian, who smiled smugly.
I was confused. ‘But you all are, aren’t you? You’re all interested in the paranormal, at the very least? That’s why you’re all here?’
‘Yes,’ said Polly. ‘But that wasn’t the only criteria for selection. Graham picked all of us for this study because we’re bright, for a start. But as far as spooky phenomena go, we all believe in it to some degree, but have very different ideas as to how it’s caused.’
‘So at one end of the scale you have people like me,’ said Neil, ‘who believe hauntings are a mental effect, entirely in the mind, and at the other end you have traditionalists like Juliet, who, despite the last hundred or so years of science and reason, still hold fast to the belief that ghosts are the surviving remnants of the dead.’
‘Thank you,’ said Juliet brightly.
‘You’re welcome. However, Juliet’s beliefs aren’t the most outlandish held by those present. That honour goes to—’
‘Oh Lord—’ Sally rolled her eyes.
‘—to Sally, with her bespoke mish-mash of superstition, folklore, ghostlore and barely understood concepts from the fringes of current science.’
‘Unbelievable,’ said Sally. There was a smile in her voice. ‘You rotter!’
‘I speak as I find,’ said Neil. ‘Anyway, I think Graham decided that the best way of getting to the bottom of this particular ghost was assembling a group of young people with different opinions on the subject.’
‘But all believers,’ I said. ‘In one way or another.’
Neil wrinkled his nose ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. Speaking in the broadest possible sense. Anyway, that’s why we’re here. To record any paranormal phenomena from differing, yet informed, perspectives. And so far, I think we can all agree, that approach has been a resounding failure.’
‘I’m glad you think so, Neil.’ Graham stood behind him, holding a jug of lemonade and a wooden bowl filled with salad. Mr Henshaw was with him; I sensed they had been talking. I hadn’t heard either of them approach. Clearly, neither had Neil, who flushed and looked down at his plate.
Graham seemed unfazed by Neil’s assessment. ‘What you’re forgetting, of course, Neil, is that a negative result is, nonetheless, a result. The fact that we haven’t encountered any ghostly phenomena in a house locally reputed to be extremely haunted – to the point where I can’t hire a local cleaner – is itself a tangible outcome.’
Neil’s sardonic smile had returned. ‘Well, that’s very handy, isn’t it?’
Graham began to fork salad onto each person’s plate in turn, and didn’t look up as he replied. ‘That’s the scientific method, I’m afraid, Neil. Observe, record, but don’t influence.’
‘Yes,’ said Neil. ‘And what could be more scientific than a séance?’
‘Not this again,’ said Seb.
Sally took up the knife. ‘Shall I carve?’
‘Why ever not?’ said Graham. ‘What else were you lot talking about?’
‘Nothing much. Tim still hasn’t quite told us why he’s here!’ laughed Sally. I blushed slightly, but she smiled at me and I smiled back at her. The knife flashed above her head momentarily as she pushed a strand of her red hair back with her wrist. She really was pretty.
‘There’s no big mystery,’ I said. ‘Mr Henshaw is my … teacher, and after an – incident – in my own life, he thought coming here would be a good idea.’
‘Tim?’ said Mr Henshaw, in a tone of voice that said, is this wise?
‘It’s fine, really. Mr Henshaw felt my attempts to explain certain things with paranormal causes weren’t healthy. He thought bringing me here would help.’
‘Thank you for your honesty, Tim,’ said Graham slowly. ‘Neville, I’m not clear on something. How did you think bringing Tim here might help him?’
Mr Henshaw stayed calm and chose his words just as carefully as I had. ‘I wanted him to see what a real search for something paranormal looked like.’
‘Was that all?’ Graham’s tone remained affable, but he didn’t look away from Mr Henshaw, and I felt Mr Henshaw squirm slightly. For the first time, I could hear the sonic signature of the house as an object in space as the rain spattered every inch of it, drumming on the slate roofs and ringing the long, empty corridors with a mindless intensity.
‘Chicken’s good!’ said Seb brightly through a mouthful. Juliet giggled.
‘How long have you two young lovebirds been together?’ Mr Henshaw asked.
‘Nine months?’ said Seb, without looking up.
‘Ten,’ said Juliet definitely.
‘So you knew each other before coming here?’ I said. ‘I thought you’d all met here?’
‘Nope,’ said Seb. ‘Jules, myself and Awful all go to the same school.’
‘Very funny,’ said Neil. ‘As fresh now as it was the first one thousand times I heard it.’
‘Awful?’ I asked, before I could stop myself.
‘It’s a stupid nickname,’ said Neil. ‘My surname is Audle, so I get called Awful.’
‘If he’s lucky,’ said Seb, grinning. Juliet punched him on the shoulder.
‘It’s not even a successful homonym,’ Neil grumbled into his plate, as if this were the major objection anyone would raise to such a thing.
‘Which school would that be?’
‘Sixth form at Alderston,’ said Seb. I was impressed. Even I had heard of Alderston. It was a very posh – and very expensive – Catholic school, somewhere in Wiltshire.
‘A friend of mine is a teacher there,’ said Graham, ‘so that’s where I sourced my first lot of volunteers for this project. Polly came to me through a recommendation from friends at the Institute.’
‘The Institute?’ I asked.
‘The Parapsychological Institute of Great Britain,’ said Graham. ‘They’re paying for much of this … experiment. And they loaned me most of the equipment. The electromagnetic field detector, and the two tape recorders.’ He tilted his head to the far corner of the room, and I saw another large, expensive-looking reel-to-reel tape recorder.
‘All mod cons!’ said Sebastian. He put on a mocking oriental voice. ‘Made by honourable Japanese.’
‘Amazing,’ I said. ‘We – I – always wanted a tape recorder.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Neil. ‘It’s all very exciting. Mind you, you haven’t spent all morning with it, recording the sweet sound of absolutely nothing.’
‘Oh Neil!’ said Polly. ‘Really. It wasn’t that bad!’
‘Oh Lord, it’s my turn next,’ said Sally. ‘Ninety minutes of silence on my own. It is me in the scullery today, isn’t it? I haven’t looked at the rota.’
Mr Henshaw almost snorted. ‘You have a rota? Like house cleaning?’
‘You don’t change, do you, Neville? Still mocking any approach that doesn’t come from a textbook. Just like you did at university.’ Graham’s tone was, for a second, almost bitter. ‘But here, the least you can do is respect my methods. There are over thirty rooms in this house and only two tape recorders. What else would you propose we do?’
‘I’m sorry, Graham. I suppose there’s no right way of doing these things, is there?’ There was the flicker of a smile on Mr Henshaw’s lips as he said this.
‘What say you, Tim?’ Sally smiled. ‘After the séance, d’you fancy joining me for an hour and a half of silence followed by an hour and a half o
f transcribing said silence?’
Such a direct level of female attention was so far out of my experience that I found myself unable to speak, let alone respond. I glanced nervously at Mr Henshaw, and then realised I was looking to a grown-up for help. In an attempt to restore my sense of control, I smiled an awkward, unnatural smile at Sally that I felt sure must have looked almost goblin-like.
‘Maybe some other time.’
Sally shrugged and smiled. ‘I can hardly say I blame you.’ I smiled again, instantly and bitterly regretting the squandered chance to spend time with a bright, pretty young woman, which had flared up and gone out faster than I could properly consider it.
19
After lunch, Juliet and Neil cleared the table and disappeared to do the washing-up. Meanwhile, Mr Henshaw and I went to the blue room, to watch as Sally and Graham prepared it for the séance. Sally removed the tablecloth and folded it, set up candles and partially drew the heavy curtains. An additional dining chair was brought through from the Great Hall to join the six already gathered around the table. Graham was similarly busy, positioning the tape recorder, setting up thermometers on the mantelpiece, and checking the settings on the electromagnetic field detector. I watched both of them with intense fascination.
Outside, the rain battered the window panes relentlessly, and a flicker of lightning lit up the room in a splash of cold white light. This was followed, two or three seconds later, by a clap of thunder, like the noise of a great stone structure collapsing in on itself.
‘Certainly the weather for it,’ said Mr Henshaw drily, looking up from the New Musical Express he had pointedly buried his nose in since preparations for the séance had begun. ‘Aren’t you worried about the effect of cliché on the experiment, Graham? You do have a device for detecting clichés?’ He ended this with a little nasal snort of laughter, which I knew, from our time together, indicated that Mr Henshaw believed himself to have just said something enormously clever and amusing. Graham, for his part, shot back a painfully polite smile and carried on checking his instruments. Sebastian, motivated probably by boredom more than curiosity, slunk in through the doorway and flopped into a chair.
‘OK,’ said Graham, after a few more minutes of staring at jumping needles on dials until they settled, ‘I’m ready. Are you ready, Sally?’
Sally was already seated at the table. ‘Uh-huh.’
‘Well then,’ said Graham. ‘Shall we summon the others with the servants’ bell?’
‘We said we weren’t going to ring the servants’ bell,’ said Sally. ‘It’s a reminder of the obsolete class system that once predominated, and of which this country has no right to be proud.’
‘For God’s sake,’ said Sebastian, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll ring the bloody bell.’ He leaned past Sally and pulled a faded gold cord. A distant jangling sounded somewhere in the bowels of the house. Seb grinned and started to light a cigarette. Sally grabbed his arm.
‘No cigarettes. Not during a session.’
Seb exhaled sharply and slumped into a chair. He caught me looking at him. ‘You see what I have to live with? This is the problem with sharing a house with a load of women.’
‘And Neil,’ said Polly, as she entered the room. She sat down next to Seb.
‘Neil doesn’t count,’ Seb snorted, just as Neil and Juliet appeared at the doorway. ‘Oh, hello Neil, we were just talking about you, improbable though that sounds.’
‘Most amusing, Sebastian,’ said Neil. ‘I hope you were finally unburdening yourself of the terrible jealousy you feel towards me.’
Sebastian either couldn’t think of an appropriate response or simply couldn’t be bothered, choosing instead to shake his head in a dismissive way. ‘Let’s just get on with this, yeah?’
‘Right,’ said Graham. ‘We’re all set up. The equipment is running. Sally, am I all right to leave everything in your capable hands?’
‘You are indeed,’ said Sally brightly. ‘OK everybody. Neville, are you sure you’re not going to join us?’
‘Quite sure, thank you,’ said Mr Henshaw from his chair by the wall, without looking up. He suddenly sounded a great deal older than he was.
‘All right then. I suppose it’s just the seven of us, which might be a more powerful number anyway.’
‘Oh Lord,’ said Neil.
‘Neil! Please. No cynicism. The time to scoff is afterwards, if we don’t produce any tangible effects.’
‘I’m just trying to save time,’ said Neil, but muttered it quietly, into the table.
‘Come down to the end. Graham and I will sit here. Tim and Neil, you sit that side. Polly, Seb, Juliet, that side. There. Like so. Right, are we all ready? Any questions?’ Sally’s smile was incongruously bright and warm, her manner incongruously keen. We were, after all, attempting to speak with spirits.
Juliet’s voice was nervous and thin. ‘What do we do if we want to stop?’
‘We can stop any time. Just tell us to stop, and we’ll do so.’
Juliet nodded. A moment of silence, followed by a distant growl of thunder, pacing heavily round the Suffolk sky like some vast animal. Sally rose and drew the curtains.
‘Neville, would you mind turning off the lights, please?’
‘Right you are.’ Mr Henshaw got up, and after a couple of seconds we were bathed only in the light of the three small candles. Now, instead of faces, six masks stared back at me, all made of a dull, unglazed porcelain the colour of flame.
‘OK,’ said the mask that was Sally. ‘Everybody join hands, please. We’re recording, aren’t we? Great. This is a séance taking place in Yarlings Hall, at one p.m. on Saturday, the twenty-fifth of May, 1974. Present are Sebastian Stourton, Juliet Fields-Ray, Neil Audle, Polly Rook, Graham Shaw, and Tim …?’ She glanced at me.
‘Smith.’
‘… Tim Smith. Also present as an observer is Neville Henshaw.’
‘Hello,’ said Mr Henshaw, from somewhere in the darkness. We all laughed nervously.
‘I, Sally Devonshire, will act as operator for this sitting. We have lit candles and extinguished all electric light. As well as the tape recorder, other equipment is in operation, namely an electromagnetic field detector. Now I am going to ask all participants to join hands.’
Sally took my left hand. Her hand was warm and soft, and pleasant to hold. Neil took my right hand. His was clammy and his grip awkward, as if he had never held anyone’s hand before. I realised that this was perfectly possible.
‘Everybody? Excellent. Let us now invite the spirits to join us.’
The rain pattered incessantly against the great old house, echoing through the dark passageways and the grand rooms. The entire colossal, empty house hummed and sighed with the noise of rain.
‘Repeat after me, as we chant in unison. Spirits of this place. We invite you to speak. Make yourselves known. Spirits of this place. We invite you to speak. Make yourselves known.’
Slowly, at first, but then more confidently, we all joined in.
‘Spirits of this place. We invite you to speak. Make yourselves known. Spirits of this place. We invite you to speak. Make yourselves known …’
‘How long do we do this?’ said Neil.
Under all of our hands, the table lurched.
‘Shit!’ said Juliet, amazed. It was the first time I’d ever heard a woman say that word.
‘Which one of you did that?’ said Neil, his eyes darting nervously.
‘No one did anything,’ said Polly, glancing into the darkness around us.
‘Are you there?’ Sally said calmly.
‘I don’t like this,’ said Juliet. Her voice suddenly sounded childish and small.
‘Are you there?’ Sally repeated.
The table lurched again.
‘Who is that?’
Seb could barely contain the laughter in his voice. ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist it!’
Polly let out a gasp. ‘Oh God. Oh Jesus.’
‘Twit,’ said Neil.
; ‘You’re such an idiot sometimes!’ said Juliet, a note of real frustration in her voice. ‘So immature!’
‘Sor-reeee.’ The amusement faded from Seb’s voice as he finally realised how seriously other people were taking this.
‘All right then.’ Sally’s voice, not scolding, but infinitely patient. ‘For the benefit of the tape recorder, that was Sebastian nudging the table there. Let’s start again, shall we? Spirits of this place. We invite you to speak. Make yourselves—’
The table lurched again.
‘Very funny, Seb.’ Juliet’s voice was drained of all patience.
‘That wasn’t me,’ said Seb, very definitely. ‘Is that you, Awful?’
‘I’m not doing anything,’ said Neil. ‘And don’t call me Aw—’
The table moved again. Under my hands, it almost felt as if it were struggling.
‘New boy, whatever your name is. Is that you?’
‘No,’ I breathed. My mouth was dry.
‘Good Lord,’ said Graham.
Another movement. One short, angry shove, towards Seb. Seb yelped.
‘Ow! That is you, Audle! If you do that again, I swear to God—’
‘It’s – not – me,’ hissed Neil.
‘Talk to it, Sally!’ said Graham.
‘Spirit,’ said Sally. ‘Please rap on the table if you can hear us.’
A sudden and very definite knock. We all jumped. Neil’s hand, in my right hand, became a claw, digging into my flesh. Behind him, I saw Mr Henshaw, half on his feet, his mouth open in surprise.
‘Please answer our questions. One knock for yes, two for no. Do you understand?’
A single heavy knock. The blood raced round my head, and irrational thoughts came in a flood. It’s all rubbish, of course, said the mind, during daylight, in company, surrounded by distractions. It’s all nonsense. The ideomotor effect. The unconscious. Trickery. Suggestion. Nonsense. It was easy to dismiss, because you knew, absolutely and definitely, that it wasn’t true. But here in the flickering circle of light, nestled in darkness, enclosed by timber ribs raised centuries ago by hands that were now not even dust, it was all too easy to believe. The rap on the table echoed round the room, like a judge’s gavel.