The Haunt (6 page)

He manoeuvred his chair to the threshold of his room. Whenever he wheeled along the passage to the toilet people were wont to ask where he was heading and try to help by pushing. Fortunately, he had a handbrake which he could pull on hard, sometimes winding the pusher. ‘I can manage,’ he would say, conserving his dignity.

The maid-of-all-work was in the cloakroom, on her knees, washing the floor. She looked up as he hauled his chair through the door.

‘I’m supposed to do this before you come in.’

‘Don’t mind me.’

She wore a sacking apron. He wondered where she had found it: there were no sacking aprons in the shops. She sat on her heels to watch him get out of his chair. He didn’t mind her watching. He gripped the jamb of the cubicle door with one hand, the door itself with the other and pulled himself to his feet, swivelling to push the chair clear of the door. As he started to close it she said, ‘You’ve done that before.’

When he came out, she was gone. The floor was under a film of water. He got his slippers wet and swore mildly.

Back in his room, he finished his letter. ‘Don’t send any more girls, it’s a waste paying for their fares and lunches. I
must look for a nurse-companion who is strong, well-washed and mute.’

As it was a fine morning he decided to make the trip to the postbox along the lane. Seeing if he could get there by his will-power would be in the nature of a test. He feared deterioration in the strength of his hands and arms.

An unrolled grit track led from the hotel to the road. The wheels of his chair picked up grit which transferred to his palms. He paused to wipe them just as a car turned in at the gate, obliging him to get himself and his chair on to the verge.

The effort made his heart knock on his ribs. That was another thing, cardiac arrest: it was also possible for a lung to collapse under strain, arteries to clog, the nervous system to fail – the body had so many degenerative processes at its disposal.

He was not ready to die. He set the chair in motion, rolled out into the lane, past a board bearing an inscription ‘Bellechasse Hotel, props. Mr & Mrs E. Clapham’. It was unlikely to rate a star in the Michelin guide, but it suited him. He had researched extensively before deciding to come here and had reasonable expectations as well as whimsical hopes of names such as Gumpas St. George, Blowhouse Moor, Goonhallow, Trywoos and Butteriss. His interest was in funerary sculpture and there was always the chance of coming across an undocumented joy, a masterstroke among the standard English repertoire.

The lane was full of moving shadows cast by a thicket hedge of big oily leaves. The gradient necessitated a steady
haul. He began to tire. Suddenly the shadows seemed to coalesce – the girl he had seen the previous evening in the hotel dining room was beside him.

She said, ‘You could get an electric buggy.’

Saving his breath, he hauled himself along, trying to escape her hand which was on the back of his chair.

‘There are ones you can turn on a sixpence. If you’ve got a sixpence.’

‘Where would be the advantage?’

‘You want to be mobile?’

‘Up to a point. Rushing around is no longer necessary. Anyway, I intend to walk again.’

A magpie flew up from the road, almost under his wheels.

‘One for sorrow,’ said the girl. ‘But there’s another in the hedge – two for joy.’

The postbox was now only yards away, but she held on to his chair, halting it. ‘Do you know Piper?’

‘Who?’

‘He’s staying at the hotel. At least he was. He’s gone off somewhere.’

‘His car passed me in the drive a few minutes ago.’

‘That was him? Piper?’

Eashing said, ‘I have not actually made his acquaintance. Be good enough to let me get to the postbox.’

‘Sorry.’ She gave his chair a vigorous push. He reached up to drop his letter in the box and when he turned she was running back along the lane.

*

That night, as so often, he dreamed he was running –
beautifully, as a bird flies; and convinced himself that what he most desired was possible, he had only to rise up from his chair and walk.

That ambition should dwindle to the performance of a simple reflex was humiliating. He yearned for the privileged years when he could move about unaided. He watched everyone else exercising the right of passage, their hip-joints rolling easily in a cup of bone, and on the quiet wept tears of impotence and despair.

The Claphams’ room being next to his on the ground floor with only a party-wall between, he heard more about their private life than he cared to (though sometimes he kept his hearing-aid in and listened just for company). He learned that Mrs Clapham blamed her husband for their misfortunes. As he was a born loser she might well have faulted his chromosomes, but chose to blame his lubricity.

‘She’s got to go. Either she goes or I do. I’m not staying under the same roof as her. She’s bad luck, nothing’s been right since she came. She’s put the finger on me.’

‘Finger? What finger?’

‘Old Scratch’s.’

‘Edie, you’re talking crap.’

‘You brought her here to gratify your animal appetite—’

‘I brought her here to wait at tables and do the veggies – to help you.’

Eashing wondered how the girl had come by the reputation of a demoniac. He discounted the episode of the flying casserole as evidence of Mrs Clapham’s neurosis. The girl herself was little more than a child to whom youth had not
been kind. She had acne, was overweight and perpetually open-mouthed. That could be due to adenoids or innocence: an encounter with Clapham’s animal appetite would certainly come into the category of experience.

*

Piper had tried writing detective fiction but could never contrive to hide the identity of his murderer until the last page. Also, he had technical trouble with the actual killing. His corpses were unenterprising and he was told that his clues lacked originality and his narrative style was reminiscent of the old
Quiver
magazine. Investigating that criticism he had discovered possibilities in the agony columns of yester-year. From them he deducted that the
manner
of counselling was more important than the counsel. The sort of people who wrote in, baring their souls, did not want advice, they wanted to be the centre of someone’s attention. He managed to convince an editor that involvement and an open mind were all that were needed, and was allotted a regular page under his own logo – a listening ear.

He achieved his success with warm-hearted chats about human dilemmas and how to face up to them. He relied a lot on love, in the home and out of it, thought of himself as a smoother-out of wrinkles in the woof of life and felt no resentment when his advice was ignored. Replying to the
cris
de
coeur
addressed to him personally was part of his brief. He did not find it a chore.

A package was waiting for him, last week’s Listening Ear correspondence, forwarded from the London office,
an unusually large bundle of letters, promising to keep him busy.

The telephone rang. It was Sam, breathless over the wire. ‘I didn’t tell. You said not to and I didn’t.’

‘What didn’t you tell?’

‘Where you are.’

‘Tell who? Calm down, take a big breath and hold it.’

‘She kept saying it was business. Important, she said. I didn’t know, I never know with you.’

Piper said, ‘My dear, you know exactly.’

‘She said she had access and she’d fax you. That bad?’

‘Who was this person?’

‘A bird.’ Sam mourned, ‘I’m lonesome. Why don’t I come to you?’

‘Sam, no. I have to work and there’s no one here you’d take to.’

‘You don’t want me!’

He would be showing the whites of his eyes, between fear and anger, the fear of losing his regular handouts. Piper’s own feelings were mixed. He was fond of the boy: Sam’s poor look-out worried him. He felt compassion and a certain unease, as if he sighted an ambush. ‘Don’t be such a goose.’ Prudently he rang off.

His thoughts kept reverting to the unknown female seeking to know his whereabouts: the sense of ambush was strong.

He wandered down to the beach, a dog’s leg of grey shingle in a rocky cove. Spiky pink flowers clung to the cliff-face. A slick of weed marked high water. Beyond it was an area of
mud: streams leaking over it kept it to the consistency of melted cocoa. Bladderwrack, advancing and retreating with the pull of the tide, rolled up a plastic bottle. Piper toed it before him until it was swept out of reach. He saw it brought out and in again, never quite making the land and having no function there anyway. A cabin cruiser, its hull bright with algae, rested comfortably on its side. Gulls, also comfortable, perched on the gunwales.

Piper trod on over the shingle, observing that it was constituted of grit, chips of marble, scoured glass, straw and winkle shells. His feet slithered on kelp. This was not, never would be, a development area: the inlet was so narrow that there was only tunnel vision to the sea. Boats of any size, when they came up at all, had to come single file and hug the rock to pass each other.

But there was a small concrete landing-stage and someone sitting, cross-legged. He looked up as Piper approached, waved two fingers, then bent to the board held across his knees.

Drawing near, Piper saw that he was sketching a tree on the cliff, a skinny sapling lodged in a crevice and clinging in virtual extremis to the rock face. He said, ‘See this tree? Its guts are being squeezed dry and it’s got nowhere else to grow.’ He sketched a penumbra round the tree, intensifying it. ‘There’s an altar-piece by a German Renaissance painter showing an arm and a leg sticking out from under a stone slab. The unquiet grave. It was done for the chapel of a hospital order and the sick saw it every time they went to pray for a cure.’

‘How has that to do with your picture?’

He looked up at Piper. There were smudges of charcoal under his nose. ‘This little tree has been buried alive and is trying to escape.’

*

There were new faces at dinner. Mildred Gascoigne had a friend at her table, which did not stop her greeting Piper. ‘How was London?’

‘As usual, grey and grubby.’

‘I always think it’s so colourful.’

‘The only colour I saw was in Royal Hospital Road.’

‘Hospital? You’re not ill – there’s nothing wrong?’

Aware that every face was turned his way, he said briefly, ‘Chelsea pensioners.’

Unrolling her napkin, Mildred dropped the ring which bowled across the floor directly to Piper’s feet. He handed the ring back to her.

She thanked him with effusion and the girl at her table quizzed him openly. A man at the window table put on horn-rims and looked at Piper over the top. The woman with him wore star-spangled spectacles and had a vulpine smartness which chilled. ‘Soulsby,’ said the man, nodding. ‘Felicia,’ said the woman, glittering.

Mrs Clapham came, bringing hors d’oeuvres, plates balanced on each arm. Her mouth was tight shut, her nostrils dilated. She dumped the plates on the tables and swept out. When she returned with two more hors d’oeuvres, Pam Wellington asked where Bettony was.

‘She tried to kill me.’

Pam cried, ‘What?’

Mrs Clapham put the plates on the Soulsbys’ table. A blast from her nostrils lifted Mrs Soulsby’s fringe. ‘She threw a stewpan at me, inch-thick earthenware it was. I saw it coming. I ducked and it went through the kitchen door.’

‘Some throw,’ said Soulsby.

‘The door wasn’t open.’

They were a moment taking in the meaning. ‘It went
through
the door?’ said Pam, incredulous. Mrs Clapham nodded, dignified, even haughty. ‘Through the thickness of the door? That’s not possible!’

‘That is what I mean.’ Mrs Clapham went, taking the Soulsbys’ wine with her.

Pam looked round at them all. ‘What do you make of that?’

‘There was still wine in our bottle,’ said Soulsby.

‘Poor Bettony!’ said Mildred Gascoigne.

Clapham, wearing a white jacket, brought the second course. ‘The wife’s resting. She’s had a bit of a turn.’

‘What has happened to Bettony?’

‘Wife locked her out.’

Pam said, ‘Did she really – what Mrs Clapham said?’

‘Throw the stewpot? She couldn’t, it was on a high shelf, she couldn’t reach it down, poor little cow.’

Mrs Soulsby said, ‘The girl’s pubescent, it sounds as if there’s a poltergeist at work.’

‘Have you
seen
anything?’ said Pam.

‘Poltergeists don’t show themselves.’

‘We saw a fox,’ said Soulsby.

‘I don’t mind the wildlife.’

Pam Wallington said, ‘I saw a man carrying a dead child.’

‘Cut it out, Pam,’ said her husband.

Mrs Soulsby held up a restraining hand. ‘You saw what?’

‘It was dripping wet. It had been drowned.’

‘When was this?’

‘Years ago,’ Antony said hastily, ‘at the seaside. Nobody has been drowned, for God’s sake!’

Pam, ready to burst into tears, insisted, ‘He was old, the man, his eyes fixed me – like looking into the headlights of a car—’

‘Many a rabbit I’ve caught in my headlights and popped in the pot still warm,’ said Clapham.

‘When I looked back there was nothing and no one!’

‘How very interesting,’ said Mrs Soulsby. ‘Cornwall is well known for paranormal perceptions. Quite possibly you witnessed a telesthetic event which was happening in another place at that same time or even quite a different moment.’

Antony Wallington said, ‘Please don’t alarm my wife.’

‘I hear trees in the night,’ said Mildred Gascoigne. ‘Big trees stirring in the wind. Such a sad, wild sound.’

‘A woman here once swore she heard wolves.’ Clapham grinned. ‘Funny though, she was stone deaf. What you hear, Miss Gee, is the tide on the turn.’

‘What about Mrs Clapham and the flying casserole,’ said Mrs Soulsby. ‘How do you account for that?’

‘Imagination. I blame the Change.’ Clapham gave it a confederate grin and capital letter.

‘It wasn’t years ago at the seaside,’ said Pam. ‘It was here, yesterday.’

There was a pause. Nobody moved, except Piper, who walked out.