Christina raised her head so that she could search his eyes. ‘Why is it so difficult for you to say? She drowned, and for some reason you can’t accept the word. Why does it make you so afraid, David?’
His reply was cold, toneless, a dull acceptance. ‘Because it was my fault.’ Disbelief, confusion – whatever her expression might have been, he repeated his guilt. ‘It was my fault that she drowned.’
He stared beyond Christina, looking into a distance of which time was the measurement. And the memories came easily, those childhood times that had been held at bay for so many years, contained like some terrible blight that might cause havoc if allowed freedom. They now emerged as if from a broken chrysalis of consciousness. He wondered, himself, at the outflow, dismayed that they could so suddenly pour through unchecked, arriving to taunt him, to remind him of events past that would best be forgotten. But nothing is truly lost from the mind’s labyrinthal vaults: although traumas may be hidden, perhaps placated, not all can be laid to rest; some merely lie low in anticipation of future arousal. Yet strangely, they brought with them a peculiar relief. Ash talked, and as he did so, visions played before him, their retrieval a smooth and unstoppable dredging. Ash shuddered inwardly as he remembered.
‘Juliet was a spiteful kid. Even after all these years I can remember her for that. To tell you the truth, I’ve no fond memories of her at all. Isn’t that a terrible thing to admit, Christina? My own sister, killed when she was only a kid, and I can’t find anything good to say about her, even though I miss her so much. She was a couple of years older than me, you see, and her great delight was to tease, to make me suffer. I honestly believe she resented sharing our parents’ love with me. But her pranks went beyond just sibling jealousy . . .’
He was watching himself as a boy.
‘. . . There was always something cruel in her teasing, her tricks . . .’
. . . The little boy’s face crumples to tears as his sister snaps off the wing of his model aeroplane, her smile pleasant enough, but a gleaming in her eyes that bids only contempt . . .
. . . A small foot, slyly protruding from beneath a table, tripping the boy as he passes by laden with dinner plates . . .
. . . The boy, a little older now, nudged in his sleep, awakened by a stiffened claw scraping his cheek. David screams and his sister scurries back to her own bed as footsteps are heard along the corridor, the dismembered claw quickly hidden beneath the blankets . . .
And Ash was absorbed into his younger self; he saw what he once saw . . .
. . . Excitedly, breath held, he watches the pale form of the fish approaching the fishing line, its movements jerky and cautious, resisting the river’s swift current with delicate twists. The fish nibbles at the bait and David’s grip on the crude rod tightens. But he utters a shout of dismay as a clod of earth shatters the water’s surface and the fish darts away in rapid angular sprints.
David whirls to find Juliet laughing at him, and he yells his outrage, which only increases her taunting. He lays the short home-made fishing rod on the footpath and runs at his sister, fists clenched as puny weapons; but Juliet easily dodges his rush and scoops up the rod. She teases him with it, poking his stomach, swishing it dangerously in the air, forcing him to keep his distance.
David cries out as the stick catches his cheek, drawing a thin line of blood.
He touches the wound, then studies the red slicks left on his fingertips.
The girl backs away from him, no fear in her step for she still laughs, mocking him, deriding the cut to his flesh. She moves close to the riverbank and, with a contemptuous sneer spoiling her pretty features, turns and calmly throws the fishing rod into the river. The stick of bamboo quickly hurries away, drawn into the stronger currents at the river’s centre.
It is more than this one cool and wicked gesture that incenses the boy, for his sister’s spite is no fresh thing: years of such artful and pernicious abuse have moulded a fury which has always before seemed to congeal inside his chest; now it is loosened, decongested, made free to rise as a gusher of hate. He tears towards his sister, hands clawed to grasp her.
As her tormenting had aroused his anger, so his anger at last arouses her fear. She stumbles away, avoiding his reach.
David sees the danger, his hands tensing in a different way, this time to restrain her.
But she mistakes his intention – or perhaps she loathes him too much to allow his touch. Another faltering step backwards. And she falls.
His hand has the material of her dress and he is pulled with her, his own momentum pitching him forward. They descend as one, brother and sister, irrevocably tied. Into the river.
Cold, cold embrace. A blurred cosmos of ponderous, muffled sounds and shadows. A breath-stealing place of infinite greyness.
The boy rises, although his will has nothing to do with the feat: the rushing currents merely toss him upwards like flotsam. He spins, head above the surface, and catches a brief sight of his father running towards the riverbank, his mother close behind, the picnic flask forgetfully clutched in her hand. Their mouths are wide with unheard cries.
David is dragged down again as if by invisible hands and his eyes close against the stinging weight that probes them. He knows he must not scream, for his throat and then his lungs will be clogged with the greyness; yet it’s impossible not to.
Hands that are more substantial now take hold, his father in the turmoiled water with him. He is pulled away from the other tenacious grip, a rag doll torn between opposing claimants – the avaricious current and the possessive patriarch. It is the man who gradually begins to win the prize.
David rises above the running surface once more and this time he glimpses the darkly matted hair of his sister, not yet far away, but swiftly becoming so.
She disappears, sucked down as if swallowed, a tiny waving hand the last to be seen of her.
David is dumped roughly against the riverbank, his mother’s hands, the flask finally dropped from them, dragging his wet and frail body upwards. His father plunges back into the deeper parts of the river, his desperate haste shattering the water’s surface. He dives, his feet momentarily kicking air, and the woman and boy, huddled together on the footpath, watch wretchedly.
After what seems an interminable time, David’s father rises, jaws open to gulp air. He dives again.
And to the boy the world is suddenly silent, a doleful void without sound and time, though movement is present, for the river still races, the grass still bends to the breeze. A neverness of waiting, an infinite lull.
Broken by the father’s despairing wail as he explodes from the water once again, his daughter lost in the weighty gloom below.
David jerks, startled by the terrible anguish in his father’s cry; his mother’s grip tightens around him, clutching as if to hold him where he will forever be safe.
He cowers against her breast, one eye staring out at his sister’s abductor. There comes a blankness to that vision as his father’s wailing grows louder, the rushing of the water swells to a thunderous roar . . .
. . . His head against the pillow, close to Christina’s, Ash’s vision was as blank as the boy’s all those years ago on the riverbank. And the numbing hurt was no less acute.
‘I never told them,’ he said, voice dull. ‘I never told anyone it was my fault, that I’d pushed Juliet into the river.’
‘But it was an accident,’ Christina said.
‘No. I meant her to drown. In that one insane moment I wanted her to die. I know I tried to help her, but . . . but when my father came out of that river, I was relieved, some dark part of me was glad.’ The admission, after years of confused and unconvincing denial to himself, staggered him. ‘I’m not sure which feeling of guilt has been worse since that day – guilt because of what I’d done, or what I felt afterwards.’
‘You’ve tortured yourself all this time? You were only a boy . . .’
‘I was so scared I’d be punished. I couldn’t get it out of my head that someh
ow I’d have to be punished for such a wicked thing. Everybody would know what I’d done, how I’d felt – they’d see it in my face. My parents would realize, they’d never forgive me . . . Juliet would never forgive me.’
‘Juliet?’
Ash shifted on the bed, turning so that he looked upwards, away from the girl beside him.
‘Sometimes I think I see her out of the corner of my eye,’ he said. ‘I catch a shadow, a blur, and I turn and it’s gone. But something lingers . . . I think I see her as she was then, a little girl, eleven years old, dressed in the same clothes as . . . as then.’
He closed his eyes, the image of Juliet sharp in his mind. But not her face. Her face had no solidity, no union of features. There was nothing there that could be focused upon. Further disturbed by the vagueness of his dead sister’s countenance, Ash opened his eyes once more. ‘The night before the funeral I heard her voice. She called to me. I was sleeping and her voice entered my dream. I woke and could still hear her, calling me to her. Her body was downstairs in an open coffin. I crept down there – I was so scared, but I couldn’t resist, I had to see her. Maybe something in me wanted her to be alive again; probably I wanted my own guilt taken away.’
His breathing unsteady, he said: ‘Juliet moved, Christina. Her body moved in that coffin. She spoke to me.’
As if fascinated, Christina watched him closely. He lolled his head towards her.
‘It could have been a nightmare – I don’t know. I was just a kid, I’d been through an awful experience. But something inside me told me it was really happening. My parents heard my screams. When they found me I was a heap on the floor. I’d passed out, fainted.’
His throat was dry, as though truly scorched by the dry heat in the cellar. His tongue moved across his lips, barely moistening them.
‘I was in a fever for two weeks after that – I missed it all, the service, the funeral, the worst of the family grieving – and they put it down to the fall in the river. I’d caught a chill. Can you believe that? I was glad that’s all they thought.’
Her hand reached for his. ‘Oh, David,’ she said, ‘that’s why, isn’t it?’
Ash gave a slight shake of his head, not understanding.
‘That’s why you’ve dedicated yourself to psychic investigation, disproving the supernatural, discounting life after death. Haven’t you realized that?’ She squeezed his hand in insistence. ‘Your scepticism comes from your own guilt. You never wanted there to be any such thing as ghosts. You were afraid of that nightmare, frightened that it hadn’t been a dream, that Juliet had spoken, had moved in her coffin. You’ve always been afraid that it really happened, that your sister would somehow demand retribution. David, can’t you see what a fool you’ve been?’
She moved closer, lifting herself so that she could kiss his cheek.
Ash held on to her, dismayed by her words, yet sensing there was some truth, some logic, to them. But it was too soon to accept such reasoning, for the unease had been with him too long, for too many years. He needed time to think. He needed to rest. He needed to consider her words. And at that moment, more than anything else, he needed Christina.
Ash groaned as he gathered her tight against him.
21
His eyelids fluttered open.
The room was in darkness save for soft moonlight through the window.
His naked body was wet with perspiration. His throat was parched. He remembered the fire.
He remembered everything.
Ash turned to Christina, wanting her reassurance, and as he moved he was aware that desire was still not satiated.
But Christina was not there. Her side of the bed was empty, and when he whispered her name there was no response from the shadows that cluttered the room.
The sheets where she had lain were drawn back, moonlight shading the indentation left by her body.
He touched that place, as if something of her presence might still be evoked; but the coldness he felt caused him to gasp and withdraw his hand.
It was as though his fingertips had dipped into icy liquid, for the chill was not only confined to the bedclothes themselves: an aura of frigidity seemed to issue from their rumpled surface.
He lay back, well away from that part of the bed, fear renewed, his thoughts unclear; yet he was too weary for effort, too exhausted in spirit to rise.
His eyelids were overwhelmingly heavy.
22
Edith Phipps hurried up the short flight of steps leading into the Psychical Research Institute, her cheeks pinched red by the frosty morning air. Behind her, rush-hour traffic crawled almost to a standstill, drivers venting their frustration on steering wheels or travelling companions, but only occasionally on their horns. Through the glass panels of the building’s double-door, Edith caught sight of Kate McCarrick descending the stairs leading from the Institute’s offices. She pushed open the door with some vigour, anxious to reach her colleague.
‘Kate . . .’ she said, once inside, a little out of breath.
The other woman expressed surprise, but continued her journey towards the receptionist’s desk. ‘Hello, Edith. Sorry I can’t stop – I’m late for the conference.’ To the receptionist, Kate said, ‘Did you get me a cab?’
‘Outside waiting for you,’ came the brisk reply.
‘Terrif. These are for posting – must go off this morning.’ The research director laid a pile of envelopes on the desk.
‘Kate, I have to talk to you.’ Edith was by Kate’s elbow.
‘No time, Edith,’ Kate said, facing the flustered medium. ‘I really am running late. I’ll try and ring you later. Will you be here at the Institute?’
‘Yes, I’ve got three sittings this morning. But it’s important . . .’
‘So’s the conference. There’s a lot of introductions I have to make before it starts and I’ll be skinned alive if I’m not there to do it.’
Politely as she could, Kate brushed past Edith, heading for the door.
The medium called after her. ‘It’s about David.’
Kate hesitated, one hand against the swing door, undecided. Then: ‘We’ll talk later.’
She went through, the door swinging shut behind her. Edith went after her, but stopped when she saw Kate through the glass climbing into the waiting taxi. The medium bit into her lower lip, knowing it would be useless to follow.
Instead she climbed the stairway, the effort tiring her more than she cared to admit, and made for Kate McCarrick’s office.
Inside, she put her handbag on the research director’s desk and went straight to a filing cabinet. She pulled out a drawer and studied the index of names.
Edith stopped when she found MARIELL. She took out the file.
As she opened it, she remembered the first time she had begun to wonder about David Ash . . .
23
‘Edith, meet David Ash.’
The dark-haired man had risen from his chair as Edith had entered the room, and now he extended a hand. His reserve was obvious. Interesting face, she thought, the deepest of eyes . . .
A sensation ran through her, the kind of shiver that can be caused by brushing fingertips over velvet, when they touched hands. The mild shock interrupted her thoughts.
His grip relaxed as if he, too, were momentarily confused; the handshake became firm again. ‘Kate has told me a lot about you,’ he said.
‘And I know of your reputation,’ she replied, equally swift to collect herself. Edith returned his smile to let him know there was no animosity intended in the remark.
‘I was surprised you asked Kate for my help.’
‘Believe it or not,’ said Kate McCarrick, beaming at them both, ‘Edith admires your work.’
Ash raised his eyebrows.
‘I don’t doubt your motives, Mr Ash,’ Edith said. ‘There really are too many charlatans in my profession. We suffer enough public scorn without these people exposing us all to even more ridicule.’
Ash was direct. ‘Forgive me for sa
ying this, but I’m used to your kind closing ranks on me.’
‘Not when we, ourselves, suspect fraud. It may take years, but such imposters are usually found out, and when that happens it reflects badly on us all. Their sharp practices need to be nipped in the bud, Mr Ash, to minimize the damage.’
‘And before these bogus mediums gain too big a following,’ Kate added. ‘The bigger the fan club, the harder it is to discredit the idol.’
Ash knew the truth of that – like any religion (for many, clairvoyance was regarded as such), it was the devotees’ will to believe that had to be confronted as much as the methods of the individual trickster.
‘The particular person we want you to investigate is beginning to step beyond acceptable bounds,’ said Kate.
‘Beyond acceptable bounds?’ Ash addressed his question to Edith: ‘So there are some deceptions, if they’re trivial enough, that are allowed?’
‘I can’t deny the theatrics of some mediums,’ Edith replied, ‘but they’re harmless, just their way of inducing a mood for sensing.’
She hadn’t liked Ash’s smile then.
Kate stood up from her desk, wary of how the meeting was progressing. ‘Why don’t I rustle up some tea or coffee while you explain the case in point to David? I think he’ll be very interested.’
‘I believe you will,’ said Edith as Ash sat and drew out a cigarette from its pack, his face expressionless. ‘Yes, I really believe you will.’
It was impressive. The atmosphere was charged, the expectation almost tangible. The light was low in the huge room – not just dim, not just suitably muted for the occasion of a seance, but low, dramatically so.
Ash inspected the medium who stood alone some distance away. She was impressive too, he mused. Jet-black hair (it had to be dyed that colour), drawn back severely over her scalp to gather into a tight bun at the nape of her neck; her heavily mascara’d eyes tilted at the corners as if from the strain of stretched skin. Sultry lips, darkly rouged, a prominent nose which dominated but did not spoil her face. Naturally enough, she was dressed in black: high-necked silk blouse, long, full skirt, and even dark hose and shoes. Value for money, Ash said to himself. If I were a paying customer (and he knew that money would change hands some time during the evening) it’s what I’d expect as part of the show. Her name was Elsa Brotski and he wondered why she didn’t go all the way and add the title ‘Madame’. All very impressive, but ludicrous too. Yet she was obviously revered by her following.