Undercurrent Page 7

  The 'runs' were the corridors at the very bottom of the bastions, below sea level, leading from the centre in a curve round the base of the structure to rejoin it at the other end. Y ou will pass fifty-three small windows before you reach the next tunnel. . . count as you go. Maggie could hear the words of the tourist audiotape, imagine shuffling footsteps. The lights illuminated white damp on the walls, a lump of something vaguely fungoid she would not have wanted to touch. He warned her to sidestep a puddle of water as she followed him round the narrow passage. He walked ahead, confidently, with deliberately noisy footsteps, shoulders braced, and she knew if he had been alone he would be whistling as loud as he could to warm them, whoever they were, to get out of the way.

  He was a good-looking man, from behind. It was a pity he and Angela had divorced. A terrible waste. The shoulders of him almost touched the walls on either side in the runs. Medieval man was so much smaller. She could see miniature soldiers, shorter than her own five feet four inches, running around here on the double, each ready to shove the musket through his own window, and fire. Fifty-three to each bastion, two hundred and sixty-five men with muskets, and on the level above, the cannons. Under siege, they would surely have died of noise alone; now there were only footsteps.

  There were no more sweet papers, no signs of vandalism, no missing persons. They walked up the exit tunnel to the outer door, Neil obviously relieved, closing the door with a satisfied clang. She wondered what he would do if the smoke or burglar alarms went off at night and he was the only keyholder when the warden was away. He would hardly relish a nocturnal visit all by himself and she supposed if he were paged, he would call the police to go with him. They might not be enthusiastic either; it seemed to be men who were afraid- of ghosts.

  Neil gave the door an extra shove, to make sure. It was studded and bound with enough iron to keep out an army of foreign barbarians, but spirits and ghosts did not recognize such flimsy restrictions, and no door would keep them inside. She was always slightly surprised at the inconsistency of his superstitions. It seemed unreasonable to believe in the ghosts while refusing to concede that their supernatural nature meant they could not be confined.

  If they liked his company, or simply wished to torment him, they were surely at liberty to follow him home if they chose, but then maybe he thought that ghosts, like burglars, tended to stick to their own territory. They would be uncomfortable in Neil's tiny terraced house near the leisure centre. Like the distance across the dry moat for a soldier facing the inner keep, it would seem like a long way.

  What were they like, these ghosts? she had asked. Small and pale from living in the dark, he had told her. And angry. They think everyone is an enemy. Maybe they were prisoners here. A castle has many uses. But then Neil was a mixed man. He's not a man at all, Angela had said in her divorce petition. Not his fault, with diabetes and all, poor sod. He just can't get it up. Or only once in a blue moon.

  They ascended the steps back to the battlements on the far side and paused to look at the view.

  The lampposts on the pier were lit, ten pairs of them like benign sentinels, delineating the length of it. There was a slight mist, blurring the lights and making the glow from the caff blur at the edges.

  Saturday night was party night. Out to sea, Maggie watched the hazier, moving lights of a ferry on the horizon, passing far beyond the lightship. The effect was jaunty.

  'Doing something nice tonight, Neil?'

  He hesitated. Sometimes he was overwhelmingly talkative, a real confessor, but not consistently.

  On one day he had told her all about the ghosts in great detail, and then never mentioned them again. Or, he would talk about Angela and himself, sometimes with a fury of indignation which made her wonder about his uncertain temper. She only bloody well stayed with me so we could look like a pair and adopt. . . or, Poor cow, can't blame her, can I? Anyway, she helps me out here sometimes, and Tanya loves coming here. Knows it as well as I do. Can't complain, can I?

  The frankness with which he revealed anything depended upon drink consumed, the place he was in, the weather conditions, the state of his incipient depression, not necessarily in that order.

  He could reveal more on a crowded street corner than in a closed room with the lights off, she would take a bet on that. The battlements were ideal; he felt free up here and it usually loosened his tongue.

  'Well, it could be a terrific evening. Could be a disaster.' 'A woman, then,' Maggie stated.

  'How did you guess? You psychic or something?'

  'Me? Get on with you. Obvious, isn't it? Nothing is the recipe for triumph or disaster except an evening out or an evening in, for that matter, with a woman.' She shrugged. 'Or a man, in my case. Same difference, same-'

  'No. It isn't the same. It never is the same for a man like me. You don't know what it's like. I can fancy a woman rotten; I can sense she fancies me, but I never know if I'm going to be able to do anything about it. Variable response, you know. Chaotic, unpredictable response, if you must know.

  Deeply unreliable and embarrassing, made worse by emotion, if you must know. The more I want, the less I can do. Erectile dysfunction, caused by diabetes. Try telling a woman about that the first time you kiss her.'

  'Difficult.'

  'Bloody impossible.'

  They stared out to sea in silence. The ferry twinkled out of sight. The lightship was turning, slowly.

  'Only I've been to the doctor,' Neil continued without prompting. She knew better than to prompt. 'Not for the first time, I can tell you. You've gotta go a dozen times to a dozen bloody quacks before you can find one who doesn't laugh. And then tell you to do something which doesn't hurt or make you sick. Thank God for a gay doctor. No sniggering.'

  'So what's he given you?'

  'Viagra. Only enough to experiment. What did you think?' 'I was asking, not thinking. This girl, does she know?' 'Know what?' Neil was defensive.

  'Know what she might be in for. . .'

  He shrugged. 'Not any more than I do, really. She told me the other day how she really likes the fact I'm such a gent, so sensitive and all that, but wasn't it time. . .? I'm hoping she's in for a roll in the hay with a normal bloke. That's all. And that,' he added, banging his fist against the wall so hard that he made himself wince, 'would be absolutely fucking terrific.'

  She smiled at him and took a small, unobtrusive step back. There were things she wanted to know and things she didn't, but any invitation to confidence meant an invitation to the whole thing, didn't it? She couldn't select what she heard and wanted to hear, and he was a decent man, for all that. A fairly conscientious father to a child who was not his own, persisting even when Angela tried to shut him out, which she did when the going was good, calling him into play only when she and Tanya needed him.

  'Well bloody good luck, read the instructions on the packet and don't take an overdose. What more can I say?' she said lightly.

  They were back in the castle vestibule, facing the bridge over the moat, him switching off lights, fixing the lock. The sound of the sea, so prevalent at height, was subject here to the intermittent noise of cars on the road. She wanted to ask him about his dog but that was another sore point.

  'What about you? Saturday Night Fever again?' 'I've got my own telly, Neil. I'll watch it on that.'

  She had her own key and her own mobile phone in this phoneless house and her entry was virtually noiseless. The only dead giveaway would be the smell of the wrapped fish and chips she carried or the chance encounter on the way to the far back regions of the first floor, above the kitchen and removed from everything else. She delayed on the way home, glass of wine in a pub, just to show she was alive and well.

  People in pubs never asked questions provided you asked them first - they were far too busy answering but if she were to keep up this habit of social evasion, she had better get a dog. She could hide behind a dog; a dog would signal that she was not alone. Dogs deflected questions quicker than bubonic plague. Dogs in this place c
ould become the most abiding topic of conversation. If she got a dog, she could hide out with other dog owners and talk of nothing else.

  'Shhhhh,' she said to Senta, once inside the door. She paused on the landing, arrested by the voices from the dining room. The vicar, the baker, the candlestick maker, but particularly the American saying something in his shy accent which made them laugh and her flee to the shelter of her own room where she closed the door, firmly. Corkscrew, salt, pepper, TV, all there. The rest of the world, the English Channel included, could live entirely as it wished, provided, until morning, it left her alone. In the morning, she would be braver.

  But the, television programmes were inane; they could not begin to hold her attention. She refilled the wine glass and began to write the letter, all over again.

  Dear Philip,

  I hope all's well with you and the love affair has lasted. I just wanted you to know there never were any hard feelings, whatever I might have said at the time. I really just want you to be happy. . .

  She took a large slug of the wine. No, I DON'T want you to be happy. I want you to be non-existent.

  If I weren't so full of funerals, I'd dream of yours, but it wouldn't be the same, would it, standing round as the EX partner, while some other bitch is allowed the lion's share of the grief She continued: So, if you're happy, I'm happy for you. . . best of luck darling. . .

  You bastard, you cold-hearted stinker. You never knew me; you never wanted to know Me. What about Me? You DISTRACTED me, when I should have been paying attention to someone far more important than you. You never helped. I needed someone who would HELP.

  She blew her nose. Scribbled through the lines, then began writing again.

  Over the mountains and over the waves, Under the fountains and under the graves, Under floods that are deepest, which Neptune obeys;

  Over rocks that are steepest, Love will find out the way.

  And then with her hand scribbling faster, fresh wine in her glass, I'm jilted forsaken, outwitted, Yet think not I'll whimper or brawl- The lass is alone to be pitied, Who ne'er has been courted at all . . .

  That was much better. And there were other things to think about. Such as what to do next. How to handle the next stage. Thinking of Philip was merely filling a gap. Trying to stuff the holes in the heart.

  'What an extraordinary man you are, Henry! A scientist with an interest in the arts, a knowledge of English poetry, you said, and a burning desire to explore English castles! What a pleasure to have you among us! How long is your contract with Fergusons?'

  'Well, that's a question of how long is a piece of string. I have to suck it and see,' Henry said earnestly. 'I mean I have to see if I like it; they have to see if they need me . . .'

  'Developing a new drug?'

  'Well, maybe improving an old one. . .'

  'He's probably doing highly secret research into how to make Viagra work for women, or other pedigree animals otherwise reluctant to breed,' Peter said mildly. 'Or genetically engineering vegetables,' he added, offering more potatoes and then wagging a finger at the vicar. The vicar, Henry noticed, was just as an English vicar should be; he could have stepped from the pages of an Agatha Christie novel with his high voice, precise gestures, half-moon spectacles and domed forehead which would require the protection of a panama hat in high summer. He also had an aversion to sherry and a huge appetite for wine shared by the rest of the guests which, along with the mobile phone in the shirt pocket, made him differ a little from stereotype.

  Also attending the elegant dining table of the House of Enchantment was a haughty woman who reminded Henry of some ruined actress or other; someone whose face had seen better days and whose thin figure was swathed in layers of gauze. The widow of a local eminent artist, Tim had whispered on the way downstairs from inveigling Henry out of his top room. You must meet her.

  Don't say I told you, but whenever she's hard up, she fakes a couple of his paintings and says she found them in the attic. Then there was a beautiful young man who had remained silent, eating and drinking steadily, impervious to the constant buzz around him. There were no pockets of conversation; no one person of the six spoke exclusively to another without interruption, and mostly they all talked at once. The effect was slightly dizzying and Henry was enjoying himself immensely. His second night in a new town, and already he was in the middle of a party. Must be his charm.

  'Wife and family at home, Henry? Will they be joining you?' 'No. No.' That came out a little sharper than he intended. There was a second's silence.

  'I always think there's an ulterior motive for travelling,' the vicar went on smoothly. 'Some inner journey of the soul which becomes imperative. Some need which nothing else can satisfy. Or why would we ever leave the comfort of our own homes and the benediction of the familiar?'

  'Oh, fiddlesticks,' said the artist's widow. 'People travel because it's fun. Or for very simple reasons. My husband travelled to foreign parts because he said the light was better. Really, it was because he was so loathed at home. Frightful man. Me, I travel to get away from my children.

  Otherwise I might kill them.'

  There was general laughter at that. The widow spoke with a fetching drawl.

  'Pity Francesca Chisholm didn't do the same,' the vicar said solemnly. He seemed determined to add a little gravitas to the occasion. 'Poor woman.'

  'Poor woman!' the widow yelled. 'Poor woman, be damned! She had a tough time, drew a short straw with that child of hers, but who doesn't? Every child's a monster. Doesn't seem sufficient excuse to murder it. If it was that bad, she could have got someone else to look after it.'

  The silent young man looked up from the action of clearing his plate and gave an exaggerated shudder. 'I really don't think murder is a suitable subject to raise at a dinner party,' he remarked in a melodious voice. 'Especially in front of our welcome stranger. Mr Evans will think it happens all the time, but it doesn't, you know. Hardly ever. Once in a blue moon, here. Not like New York.' He smiled beatifically, inviting a defence.

  'New York's safer than London,' Peter volunteered helpfully, covering Henry's silence. Henry was looking peculiar, stretching his face into a reciprocal smile, unable to speak. His throat was suddenly swollen; he was about to choke. He nodded, speechlessly.

  'How can that possibly be, with all those guns?' the widow demanded belligerently.

  Henry was feeling cold and slightly less welcome than he had been half an hour earlier, discussing seventeenth-century verse and castles with the vicar. The room was warmed by a roaring fire; his face was flushed and his feet were chilled. The bruise on his forehead throbbed.

  'What difference do weapons make?' the young man asked, suddenly communicative, as if he had been unable up until now to eat and talk at the same time. 'It's the attitude to life which counts. I mean, if you want to kill someone, you'll do it, won't you? All Francesca Chisholm had to do was throw her baby off the pier-'

  'It wasn't a baby,' Peter interrupted. His face had a purple tinge and he was angry. 'It was a five-year-old, much-loved child.'

  This time the silence stretched for longer. 'Sorry,' the young man mumbled. 'Sorry, I forgot.

  You used to babysit, didn't you?'

  'Yes.' Tim, this time, sounding terse.

  'Well, a prayer for the dear deceased, I think,' the vicar intoned diplomatically, crossing himself and bowing his head. 'And talk of happier things.'

  'Such as pudding,' Tim said brightly. 'Will you all hand your plates this way, please?'

  There was a clatter of compliance, murmurs of delicious, a piling of forks and knives, all travelling from hand to hand towards Tim's end of the table. Senta the dog, banished to the hall, yapped from beyond the door in anticipation of scraps, and in the activity and resumption of chatter, Henry leaned forward to the young man, swallowed rapidly and spoke in a whisper.

  'This. . . Francesca . . . Was this a long time ago? Where does she live now?'

  'Oh not very far away.' He plucked a grape from the fr
uitbowl centrepiece. 'Cookham prison since last year, actually. Good Lord, almost a year to the day. She'll be there for life, I expect. Where else could she be except in prison?'

  'And she really killed her child? Not an accident or anything?' The young man picked another grape, chewed carefully, obviously approving the taste.

  'Oh no. It was all quite deliberate. She stuffed him through a broken floorboard of the fishing platform on the pier. Have you seen our pier yet? You must, you know. It is quite bizarrely 1950ish.

  And it's sinking.'

  Henry felt sick. He waited for the pudding to arrive, and then excused himself politely.

  The wine did it. Bad breakfast food, rich supper food, fucking foreigners. French wine, purchased on the other side of the Channel, bargain prices, better value. They had all talked about bargains; everyone, everywhere talked about bargains. But not in the same breath as talking about Francesca.

  Not his Francesca. Of course it was wine. His chronic weak stomach should never be treated with wine, although it did make him sleepy.

  His stomach liked bourbon and vitamins, precious little else. He might have told her that, given the chance. Hey, Frannie, remember how I always got sick in India and you found the Ayurvedic doctor who fixed me up? You sure were good at fixing things. . . you used all your money to pay for those kids to go, too. That was when I got you the shawl, because you'd given yours away. Ideal for a backpack, a ring shawl, because it folds away to nothing. See? You can drag all two metres of it though a wedding ring; it floats softer than silk, but it keeps you warmer than. . . toast, you said. And it's far too expensive, you said. Especially since I bought two for you, one to use and one to keep for best.