‘Up there. He is very anxious.’
‘I can’t see him.’ Carol’s arms were round his neck and she was babbling about the painting of a horse she had done today at school.
‘I can,’ Françoise Jeury murmured, but the window was empty.
‘He’s in that room, up there. I saw him a moment ago. He is very unhappy, Richard. What have you been doing to him?’
She had expected to feel the same appalling pain on entering the house that had afflicted her earlier. She was surprised and relieved, therefore, to find that she could enter the building without attack. Explaining this to Richard, she said, ‘Sometimes my senses are attuned very highly to violence or anger …’
‘Violence or anger
in
an object, you mean? Not just in the air … ?’
He was struggling to understand the nature of the woman’s reputed power, still unsure of her.
Françoise nodded. ‘I must tell you some of my encounters. Usually I have to
touch
an object to get the feel of what it is, what it has been. I get visions of the past through objects, especially stone and bones. Not so much metal. But yes – sometimes I feel the power of a totem, or a weapon, without making contact.’
‘Must make for an uneasy life,’ Richard said quietly. He was aware that the woman smiled thinly, conscious of his scepticism, but not responding to it.
Susan greeted them. Richard noticed that she was wary of the other woman and was as stiff as usual with Jack Goodman.
They drank coffee laced with brandy
in the sitting room while Carol talked to each of them in turn, showing drawings and demanding attention. Goodman was uncomfortable with the child’s attention, but Françoise was enchanted by the girl. ‘You will have to draw
me
, now. A good portrait for my friend at home.’
‘What’s your friend’s name?’
‘Lee. He’s an American. We search out ghosts together.’
Carol seemed less than interested in the idea of ghosts. She sat down on the floor to oblige on the art side, and five minutes later had produced a grotesque caricature of the French woman, accurate in hair and skin colour, but very unflattering in bodily girth.
Françoise accepted the portrait with enormous grace, if with a slightly startled expression.
On a tour of the studios, she was delighted with Susan Whitlock’s collection of dolls. They spent long minutes talking about them, handling prized specimens, laughing. The Mocking Cross doll sat on the shelf and Françoise acknowledged it, but seemed reluctant to touch it. Richard perched on the end of his desk, talking with Jack Goodman, idly examining the wolf-girl statuette. At length, Françoise and Susan came back from the studio. Susan was holding the Mocking Cross. Françoise was quite pale.
She smiled as she saw the golden statue. ‘This is the girl? It’s beautiful.’
She held the gold object, pressed it, admired it, and then said the words that were becoming so familiar: ‘It has no age. It is like the bronze dagger. It has no age at all. This is a copy. Very beautiful, but very new.’
Richard asked, ‘What if the statuette had never been associated with violence? Or with passion, say. What if there was no
emotion
in the piece that had been trapped. Would you still be able to feel something
about it?’
She watched him blankly for a moment, her eyes wide and softly green, a disturbing look that made Richard’s skin prickle. Then she nodded. ‘I am sure of it. I would feel something. Something of the centuries. Even if it was only a sense of confinement, of darkness, of nothingness. No. This is very new.’
At last she was ready for the Viking instrument of desecration. As she cradled the wooden figure in her hands she breathed very deeply.
‘This is new too. Not the wood. That has a feel to it, but wild. Natural. But this has killed.’
Her hands were shaking and she placed the cross down.
‘It was used to cut open the belly of a young man. A holy man. It cut deeply through the flesh, killing him agonizingly.’
‘You can know that from touching the object?’
‘As if in a dream,’ she said. ‘I live his death. The death is there, and the laughter of the killer. It cut through his belly, cracked his breast. As he died he prayed to Jesus Christ.’
Goodman made a sound, like laughter but more derisory. He didn’t quite catch himself in time. He seemed to ignore his own rudeness and said, ‘That would confuse me, you see, Françoise. You say the knife is new. That it has “no age”. But you also say that it cut out the heart of a young Christian monk. Now if your
talent
is true, then the two things are incompatible. This knife hasn’t been used to kill recently. If it was used in the way we think, and which you describe, then that’s an event that occurred a thousand years ago—’
‘This knife isn’t a thousand years old. I am certain of it.’
‘It has to be. If not, then it has been used for a ritual murder in the last few years – but there’s no sign of dried blood on it now, and those chips and snags
on the cutting edge are long dried out. Besides, I can’t recall accounts of any such murder.’
‘The man who died was not of this time,’ the woman said. And now she, too, seemed confused. ‘Perhaps my sense
is
awry. Perhaps I can’t help.’ She smiled at Susan, glanced at Richard Whitlock, then shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. I am a strange tool of archaeology. Sometimes I dig well. Sometimes I don’t.’
Susan said quickly, ‘I’d like you to speak to Michael. Would you do that? I’m sure he’ll like you.’
‘He didn’t like me at the back door,’ Françoise said quietly, cryptically, but she nodded. ‘All right. But outside. Not inside. I want him to take me to his castle.’
A hundred yards
into the quarry Françoise suddenly caught her breath and stopped. With a smile of delight she said, ‘This is the outer gate! This is the outer gate of your castle!’
‘Yes!’
‘I didn’t see it before.’
Michael was pleased. She was standing right between the chalk markers, where the outer winding path began.
The woman looked up, then raised her hands in a pushing motion. ‘Cre-e-ak …’ she went, and laughed. Michael laughed too. She braced her body and mimed the opening of heavy gates, stepping forward (but not along the hidden path). He had been so apprehensive of her, an hour ago. Now he felt she was his friend. He wasn’t sure yet whether to tell her about Chalk Boy – Chalk Boy might be angry if he did – but she could imagine the castle, and believed in its walls and gates. She might even be aware of the endless tunnels that riddled the earth below it. He didn’t mind if she knew: she couldn’t get in, not without help, not even if she could feel them.
They walked on slowly. The dusk deepened and a breeze began to stir the stunted trees.
‘Why do you call your castle “Limbo”? It’s a strange name.’
As he followed her through the quarry, Michael struggled for the words, trying to
remember what the priest had told them at Church. ‘Limbo is the place between heaven and hell. It’s not a bad place. It’s not a good place. It’s a place where people go when they can’t get to heaven, but they’re too good to go to hell. It’s a place in the middle. People go there when they haven’t got a soul. No one can see Limbo. That’s what my castle is like. No one can see it.’ He lowered his voice and glanced away, then on some sudden, confiding impulse said, ‘That’s what I’m like too.’
‘You? You’re like that? I don’t understand.’ Françoise crouched, hitching up her suit trousers. She smelled faintly of soap and coffee. Her eyes were very kind and very strong. Michael felt his body rock back slightly as he watched her, as if she was shaking him with her gaze. The breeze blew her red hair over her face and she brushed at it distractedly. She repeated her question. ‘I don’t understand. Please help me. Why do
you
feel in the middle?’
He whispered, ‘I was given away when I was born. Nobody wanted me. I don’t have a proper soul.’
‘Of
course
you do, Michael. Everybody does. The soul is just the
person
. There is no heaven, no hell, only conscience. Your priest is very old-fashioned. Of course you have a soul!’
‘No I
don’t
, Michael insisted, still in a quiet voice. ‘Chalk B—’
He broke off, biting back the name. The word ‘adopted’ fluttered in his head, but he didn’t want to say it. It was a word that hurt him, like a sharp sting. He had wanted to say that Chalk Boy had told him adopted children forfeited their souls. His jaw clenched as he tried to regain control.
Françoise frowned, looking both sad and concerned. Jenny sometimes looked this way when she talked to him. She said, ‘Chalk? What about chalk?’
Michael shook his head.
He shouldn’t talk about his friend. Not yet. When Chalk Boy got angry he made Michael fetch disgusting things, and laughed at him. He said, ‘I only have a
shadow
. Not a proper soul.’
‘Don’t be so silly …’
‘I’m not silly! It’s true. That’s why my parents can’t always see me. They can see Carol because her shadow is inside her, where her soul is. They put the shadow there when she was born. But they can only see me
sometimes
, so they get angry, or think I’ve run away, or don’t talk to me because they don’t know I’m there. But when I find the bright things my shadow comes inside me for a while and they can see me properly. Then Daddy laughs and tells me stories.’
‘How many bright things have you found?’
‘Quite a lot, now.’
The woman bit her lip. After a moment she reached out and tugged at Michael’s hair, gently and affectionately. ‘Does your father like these bright things?’
Michael nodded.
‘Does he tell you stories all the time?’
‘He does when he’s happy. Do you know about the Fisher King? He ruled over a great wasteland, and all of King Arthur’s Knights had to find the Holy Grail to bring the trees and fields back to life. That’s my favourite story.’
She seemed delighted. ‘Mine too! Arthur and his Knights. And the grumpy old wizard Merlin. And wily Vivien. And the gorgeous and foolish Lancelot! My father told me the stories when I was young too. I loved them. I still do. If I had children …’
She stopped suddenly and tugged Michael’s long, ginger hair again.
‘Did you find bright things?’ he asked. ‘Did they tell you stories when you found pretty things?’
To his surprise her eyes became tearful, although her face seemed angry. She drew him into
a tight embrace. ‘No. No, my darling,’ she said quietly. ‘I didn’t have to …’
A few minutes later they stood before the empty dungeon. Michael stared hard at the broken gorse bush, his body very tense. Françoise rested a hand on his shoulder. The fragments, organic remains and artefacts were up at the house now, wrapped in polythene, labelled, boxed.
‘We found where you’d been hiding the more unpleasant things. It’s not healthy to play near to decaying animals. Did you know that?’
‘I didn’t mean to fetch them,’ Michael said. ‘I only like the bright and glittery presents. But sometimes Chalk—’
Again, he bit back the name. But this time he decided not to worry. ‘Sometimes Chalk Boy shows me things that look pretty, but when I fetch them they’re not the same. Sometimes they scream.’
Françoise shivered quickly, but was unwilling to press the point just yet. ‘Chalk Boy? Of course. Your mother mentioned your invisible friend.’
Michael felt suddenly cold. Chalk Boy didn’t like to be talked about. He looked up at the thoughtful woman and whispered, ‘He’s a secret though. Please don’t tell anybody else.’
‘No. Of course I won’t. Can I meet him?’
‘He lives by the sea, at the end of the big tunnel. He has a cave there. I can’t get to the beach, but sometimes he comes up the tunnel to the castle. He hides in the chalk. Sometimes I dream of him in the house.’
‘That’s some playmate,’ Françoise said, then confidentially: ‘Is he around now?’
Michael cocked his head, then sniffed the air hard, like a dog. He was puzzled for a moment, then shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. But he hides a lot.’
Her hands on his head were gentle,
the fingers that touched his skin and his hair were soothing, reassuring. He stood there, watching her, letting her stroke him. She smiled suddenly and drew her hands away. ‘Mr Spock could do it. Not me. Only stones and bones.’
Michael didn’t understand the allusion.
She went on. ‘I’m staying in the house for a while longer. If Chalk Boy comes back, if he comes out of hiding, will you let me meet him?’
‘He doesn’t like people to know about him.’
‘Well, can you put in a good word for me?’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Are the pretty things here in the pit? When you fetch them?’
He thought about that for a moment, then said, ‘Sort of. I see them and reach for them. Sometimes they’re hard to fetch and I get thrown out of the tunnel. It hurts a lot sometimes. I get cut and bruised.’ He pointed almost proudly to the scar over his right eye. ‘But nothing very serious.’
‘Tell me something … does Chalk Boy ever tell you where he finds the pretty things for you to fetch?’
Michael shook his head. ‘He can move around the world. He can see everything that’s being made, even if it’s hidden away for thousands of years. He can see things when they’re new. If he wants to be friends with me he brings them straight up the tunnel to the pit. That’s why they’re so bright. Because they’re so new. But that’s a
secret
.’
His eyes blazed and he realized he was frightened. He had told the secret. Françoise was watching him excitedly. She seemed astonished, half laughing, half thinking. There was moisture on her face now, and her hands on his shoulders were trembling.
He beckoned her to bend lower
and whispered the greatest secret of all. ‘Don’t tell anyone …’ he began, then hesitated.
‘Don’t tell anyone what?’
‘I’m trying to find the Grail. If I can find the Grail it will make Daddy famous.’
‘My God, yes,’ Françoise said, suddenly dull, a shadow on her face. ‘It will do that all right.’ Then she smiled again. ‘Is that what your father wants?’
‘He doesn’t know about it. It’s a secret. But if I can fetch it for him he might get his job back. He could write books.’