But Susie was now blind.
As Frannie hurried back to her flat she wondered how she could get hold of her. She knew that her mother lived in Sussex, remembered Susie telling her
it was the village where Virginia Woolf had once lived. Rodmell! She remembered that, although she wasn’t sure why. The number should be easy to get, Verbeeten wasn’t a common name.
She picked two days’ worth of post from the hall floor: bills, mostly, and a birthday card with Italian stamps and a Naples postmark, from her aunt, who every year sent her a card that unfailingly defeated the Italian postal system and arrived early. Then she went into the living-room and dialled Directory Enquiries, doodling on the back of a telephone bill envelope as she waited.
NON OMNIS MORIAR
, she wrote in capitals, then scrawled down the number and dialled it immediately.
The phone was answered by a woman with a small, high-pitched voice that had a hint of a smoker’s gravelliness about it: ‘I’ll just get her for you. Who’s calling, please?’
‘Frannie Monsanto. We were at university together.’
She heard the sound of the receiver being lifted. Then Susie greeted her with a warm and cheery ‘Spags! How are you?!’
Frannie was taken aback. It was as if they hadn’t spoken for a couple of days; not for over three years. ‘Fine, I’m fine.’
‘What are you up to?’
Frannie told her. Susie seemed genuinely interested to know about her work, to know exactly what she had been doing since university, with whom she had kept in touch.
‘I wondered if you are going to be down in Sussex over the weekend?’ Frannie said.
‘Yes, I’m here all the time.’
‘Are you anywhere near a village called Meston, outside Lewes?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘That’s where I’ll be this weekend.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Frannie! That’s about four miles away! Come over and see us – have a drink or a meal.’
‘Love to. When would be best?’
‘Any time at all – I’ve got no plans.’
Frannie hesitated. ‘Susie – do you remember that Ouija session we once had underneath my parents’ café?’
‘Funny you should mention that.’
‘Why?’
‘Phoebe Hawkins asked me the same thing.’
‘Recently?’
‘Yes. She rang me on Tuesday evening and told me she had just been to Meredith’s funeral. That’s when she asked about the Ouija. She asked if I could remember who had been there.’
Frannie was silent. It did not sound as if she had heard about Phoebe’s accident. ‘Can you?’
‘I always used to keep a diary; I would probably have written the names down in it. It’s rather difficult looking through things like that in my –’ her voice tailed.
‘Perhaps I could give you a hand? I think I can remember but I need to make sure.’
‘What is it, Frannie? What’s up?’
Frannie didn’t want to talk about it on the telephone. ‘Can you think about it overnight? I know it was some time ago. See what you could find, or remember?’
‘Yes,’ Susie said uneasily, ‘I’ll do my best. Do you think there’s something –?’
‘I don’t know. I think it’s just coincidence.’
‘I’ve always thought that.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’ve always remembered the message the Ouija gave me.’
‘What was it?’
‘It was just one word, that was all.
Dark
.’
The traffic heading south out of London crawled forwards then stopped again. Oliver braked and put the Range Rover’s gear into neutral. It was a blustery day: fat, overripe clouds wallowed in the blue sky; trees bent in the wind; leaves and empty cartons scudded down the pavements.
Oliver was wearing a thin blue jumper over a rugger shirt, and blue jeans; his hair was untidy and he looked tired. Frannie wondered if he was all right, as they sat in silence, each preoccupied with their own worries.
Phoebe Hawkins. Phoebe had gone straight back from the funeral and phoned Susie Verbeeten to ask her who had been at the Ouija session. Then she had rung to warn Frannie of the number twenty-six. Why? She thought about the cloakroom tag at the art gallery on Wednesday night, then Oliver getting clamped. Ridiculous. Then she thought about her birthday next week and felt a prickle of unease. Her twenty-sixth. What did Phoebe know?
Non omnis moriar
. The harder she thought back, the more uncertain she became. She could remember being scared, blocking her ears at some point, not wanting to hear the message that came through for her. More than scared; she could remember being terrified.
The Ouija had given each of them a message, but she could not remember what they were. She had never known what her own was, had asked them not to tell her. She knew that sometimes, if you were told something bad, you could end up turning it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Dark
. Could Susie Verbeeten have willed herself to go blind?
Oliver took her hand suddenly, and kissed it. ‘I never apologized to you for getting angry at you on Sunday. I’m sorry.’
She shook her head. ‘It was my fault. I was in such pain I wasn’t thinking straight. I didn’t mean to accuse Edward. I just –’
They joined the motorway; the traffic was lighter and moving more freely now. Oliver accelerated hard, moving over into the fast lane. ‘I should have explained to you about him earlier.’ He ran his right hand through his hair, then lowered his window a fraction. There was a sharp hiss of air. ‘He has a behavioural problem; what the shrinks call a disturbed child. I don’t know whether it’s his mother’s death or whether it’s me.’
‘You?’
He talked quietly, keeping his eyes on the road ahead and she had to listen hard to hear him.
‘I never had much of a relationship with my parents. I was sent to boarding-school from the time I was seven and I was brought up by staff in the holidays. My brother and I had nannies until we were quite old; and Mrs Beakbane. I was never able to relate to my mother or father. So I don’t find it easy to be close to Edward. After what happened to his mother, I knew that he was going to need me to be there for him, but I’m not sure I’ve ever succeeded.’
‘You seem to have a really good relationship with each other,’ she said, feeling sad for him. Sad for his son. ‘I haven’t seen that much of you together –’ She stopped, as she remembered when she had met them at King’s Cross: Edward’s tantrum and Oliver’s helplessness. And then her mind went back further to the morning the woman was decapitated in Poultry. The father and son coming into the café: the son’s tantrum.
‘Only since I’ve met you,’ Oliver said. He slowed down, his mind wandering from his driving, and moved back into the nearside lane. The traffic they had just passed began to overtake them. ‘You seem to work wonders with him. That time I met you at King’s Cross, he had been vile the whole journey; he was good as gold the rest of the day. Last Saturday he was great; and Sunday, except –’
‘Except when I accused him of giving me the plum deliberately. God, I’m sorry!’
He took his left hand from the wheel and patted her thigh. ‘Listen, he might have done it.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It was an accident.’ She looked at him. ‘There’s no reason on earth why he should have wanted to hurt me, is there?’
I hope you’re not planning to sleep with my daddy
.
‘No,’ he said with a weary smile that contained no conviction, and placed his left hand back on the wheel.
She experienced the familiar feeling that he was holding something back. ‘When you say he’s “disturbed”, what do you mean? The strange silences he lapses into, and the Latin he starts speaking?’
‘It’s a whole raft of things. He’s very disruptive at school – some of the other boys are quite wary of him. I’ve had a couple of warnings from the headmaster that they might not be able to keep him there.’
‘Disruptive?’
‘Things like refusing to attend the chapel, which they’re meant to do every morning. How do you convince him God loves him when he knows that God took away his mother?’ He looked at Frannie and she had no reply. ‘Gets into a lot of fights with other children. And the worst thing was last term when he set fire to a wastebin.’
Frannie stifled a grin, guiltily, her heart going out to
Edward. ‘Bloody nearly burned the school down,’ Oliver said.
‘Has he seen anyone?’
‘Shrinks?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve done the rounds. Behavioural psychologists; psychiatrists. Been to the best people. He’s sweet as pie with them. Angelic; they end up getting nowhere with him. I’ve tried a homeopath; dietary changes; drugs.’ He shrugged. ‘So far you’re the only thing that’s worked.’
‘I’m very flattered.’
He took her hand and squeezed it, then drove on in silence for a while. She saw a police car sitting on a motorway bridge ahead, but Oliver was driving below the limit. A jumbo jet came alarmingly close and flew low across the motorway in front of them, landing at Gatwick, filling the air with the screams of its engines.
She stroked his hand. ‘With your fear of coincidence, what do you make of my finding the tiger in the cupboard at the Museum?’ She detected a faint tremor in his hand.
‘I don’t know,’ he said.
‘It’s odd, isn’t it? It’s almost as if there’s something that’s drawing us together, bit by bit. One connection after another.’
‘Yes,’ he said tersely.
The road slid beneath them. The Range Rover’s grimy bonnet vibrated a little; a large fly exploded on the windscreen in a smear of blood; its wings continued flapping as if they were trying desperately to fly off without the body.
Oliver drove on for a couple of miles in silence, then indicated left and they turned off the motorway at an
earlier junction than last weekend. ‘Edward’s school,’ he said by way of explanation.
A short distance on, he braked and turned into a driveway between brick pillars and over a cattle-grid, past a large sign saying
STOWELL PARK PREPARATORY SCHOOL
. As they drove up a long avenue of poplars and beech, Oliver’s face came slowly back to life, like a creature awakening from hibernation; as if he was filled with yearning at the prospect of seeing Edward again, and Frannie was touched; it was the first time she had really felt the intensity of Oliver’s love for his son.
‘If there’s anything I can do to help with Edward in any way, do tell me. I’ll gladly do it.’
‘You are helping,’ he said. ‘Just by being around. It’ll be a real surprise for him that you’ve come with me to collect him.’
There was farmland beyond the trees on both sides; sheep were grazing and the soft hills of the Downs lay beyond. Frannie compared the idyllic setting with her own old school yard in Bethnal Green, and wondered how she would have viewed life if she had been here instead. Yet she felt no resentment; that was life’s lottery. She also wondered how she would have viewed life if she had seen her mother decapitated when she was five.
It was warm in the car and she wound her window down a little. ‘Rodmell’s quite close to you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, just down the road.’
‘There’s an old student friend of mine who lives there. I’d like to pop over and see her some time today or tomorrow. The poor girl’s gone blind.’
‘Christ. What happened?’
‘I’m not exactly sure. I gather it was some virus she picked up in the Far East.’
‘You’re not having much luck with your friends,’ he said grimly.
She did not reply.
‘Why don’t you go over this morning? I have to go and look at some machinery with Charles in the afternoon and I was hoping you might keep an eye on the boys for a couple of hours. I can run you over and pick you up, or you can take the car, if you like.’
‘Sure, if you don’t need it; thanks.’
‘Mrs Beakbane would normally look after them but she’s going to a wedding or something. You don’t mind?’
‘No, not at all.’ And she didn’t. She had got over her feeling of being a surrogate nanny and looked forward to spending some time with Edward and gaining his confidence.
‘Tristram can be a bit of a monkey sometimes; and Edward rather encourages him.’
A squat Victorian baroque pile came into view. Oliver slowed for a sleeping policeman and the Range Rover bumped over it. Two boys pedalled down on bicycles towards them.
‘A lot of children can be pretty mischievous,’ she said. ‘Maybe Edward gets blamed for more than his fair share.’
Oliver said nothing.
Her eyes rested on the signet ring on his wedding finger. She could just make out the wyverns on the crest.
Non omnis moriar
. She swallowed.
Frannie steered the Range Rover through the narrow wooden posts of the gates, craning her neck as she tried to gauge the width of the vehicle. She pressed the accelerator and the engine bellowed; the tyres munched the balding gravel drive and her wing mirror slid past the post with a centimetre to spare.
There was a ramshackle farmhouse fifty yards ahead, looking as if it had recently weathered a trip around the world lashed to the deck of a ship. A tired Volvo station-wagon sat in the yard, sagging on its suspension, its sills shot with rust, a faded yellow
Nuclear Power – No Thanks!
sticker visible through the grime on the rear window.
She pulled the handbrake on with difficulty, and switched off the engine. Then she unbuckled her seat-belt slowly, in no hurry to get out now that she had found the house. She felt anxious about meeting Susie, worried about how blindness might have changed her.
As she climbed down, she heard hens clucking and smelled the stench of pigs. A strong gust scattered her hair and she pushed several strands away from her eyes. A combine harvester droned through a large cornfield behind the house. Harvest. Autumn was coming. If she lived that long.
High above her the mid-morning sun glinted like a mirror but gave her no warmth. She walked up to the house, glancing through the double doors of a barn across the yard. Inside she could see a canvas on an easel; a window had been cut into the far wall, opening a view out on to the fields.
Bits of gravel stuck in the tread of her trainers and clicked as she stepped on the porch tiles. She pressed the doorbell but heard nothing ring and wondered if it worked. She waited a moment, then lifted the rusty iron knocker and rapped loudly.