Thirty-One

Joanna shakes the hand of the housemaster. He opens the car door for her and she gets in in her usual way, seating herself first and then swivelling round her legs with her customary elegance. She has not allowed illness to compromise her standards. I feel a rush of pity and tender love for her. My lip trembles, but then I see the odious little man looking across her. He is grinning – whether at my discomfort or because he has just uttered some valedictory witticism, I can’t tell. If he did speak, I wasn’t listening to him. I turn on the ignition and rev up the engine. Reluctantly, he slams shut the door for Joanna and stands back. As we draw away, I look back in the mirror and see that he is waving like a maniac.

I give Joanna a sidelong glance. Her face is long, her cheeks sunken, her eyes somehow smaller and more receded into their sockets. Her expression is set, to show me how angry she still is, but what she most conveys is her sheer exhaustion. Of course, we’ve both known for some time that Joanna has only a few months left, but it suddenly dawns on me how close she now is to death. She barely seems strong enough to last the night, perhaps too fragile even to take the journey back to Laurieston. She is living on willpower alone; the skull beneath the flesh is gaining ground by the hour.

“You look tired. When we get home, you must rest. Spend tomorrow in bed. The flight has worn you out.”

“Rest isn’t going to help me now. In any case, I don’t feel any worse than I did when I was lolling around in St Lucia. I’m glad to be back. Nothing’s more important than making sure that Archie is as OK as he can be. I must have been mad to allow you to persuade me to go away in the first place.”

“It was a joint decision,” I remind her, “and one based partly on what we thought would be best for Archie. If you remember, we didn’t think it would be good for him to see you . . .” I pause, searching for words that will not devastate.

“On my way out, you mean?” Her tone is bleak, her look savage.

“I was going to say, looking ill.” I know this sounds feeble and insincere. I look at her again. She’s staring straight ahead, unseeing. I feel for her hand. She snatches it away.

“Concentrate on the road, will you? Hideous as this illness is, I don’t want to die in the wreckage of your bloody car.”

“How is Archie?”

“Tearful. Confused. Resentful.”

“Resentful of what?”

“Not what, whom. You, mostly.”

“He has no reason to resent me, unless you’ve encouraged him to.” I’m desperate not to pick a quarrel with her, but I know I can’t let this pass.

“He found out that you’d come home without going straight to see him, as I asked. And he knows you tried to make me stay in St Lucia.”

“I see.” I decide not to pursue this, but I wonder if it’s just Joanna who’s been telling Archie these things. If someone else has been unsettling him – or her – I swear I’ll find out who it is.

We travel on silently for several minutes. I look at the clock on the dashboard. It’s earlier than I’d planned. Unless we take a detour, we’re going to be back at Laurieston before the police leave. I glance at Joanna again. She’s clearly long past the state where she might find pleasure in stopping somewhere for tea and she’ll notice immediately if I don’t take the direct route. I realise that even if we manage to avoid the police, they’ll probably have left some evidence of their visit, or someone – Mrs Briggs or Briggs, or Sentance, if he comes poncing round – will let something slip. I realise that I’m going to have to tell Joanna about the skeletons. I drive until we reach a lay-by and pull over.

“Why are you stopping?” Her voice is sharp.

“There’s something I need to tell you. It will help to explain to you why I was unable to see Archie.”

“Oh. You have an excuse?”

“It’s not an excuse, and that’s not the reason I’m telling you. You’re right: I should have made Archie the priority. I was disorganised. But I want to tell you about this . . . other thing, anyway.”

She looks sceptical and doesn’t reply, but she seems to be waiting for me to continue. I see that she will listen to me.

“You know that the reason that I had to come home was that the police had found forged passports in the cellar?”

“Of course. And you gave me to understand that you had no idea how they could have got there.”

“I didn’t – I don’t. It’s not about that. Naturally, they asked for permission to search the cellar more thoroughly. As a matter of fact, they produced a warrant, though I’d have let them do it anyway. I was keen to show that I had nothing to hide and at that stage I was still doing all I could to come back to be with you in St Lucia by the end of the week.”

“I hope they enjoyed themselves in the cellar. I’ve never been brave enough to sift through all that junk myself.” I detect a glimmer of humour in her statement which makes my heart lurch. I have no idea how she will react to what I have to say next.

“The thing is, they found something else down there.”

“What was it? A body?” She gives a short laugh.

“Not exactly. A skeleton. Three skeletons, actually.”

“Skeletons? You mean that three people have died in the cellar?” She is shocked, incredulous.

“No-one knows how they died, or whether they died there or somewhere else. If they were murdered, the murderer almost certainly won’t be caught, because the skeletons appear to be old – perhaps almost as old as the house.”

“You mean they’ve been there all the time . . .” – she takes a deep breath – “. . . all the time we’ve been living there?”

“It looks like it.”

“My God!”

She is suddenly paler, her eyes swerving skittishly. I lean across awkwardly to embrace her and she doesn’t resist. I half-bury my face in her hair. I’m comforted because she allows it and at the same time it cuts through me like a knife that this may be one of my last opportunities to breathe in her scent.

“Try not to get upset about it,” I murmur. “I know it’s unpleasant to think of them lying there, but they’ll have just been bones for many years before we were even born. Looked at logically, it’s no worse than living in a deconsecrated church or chapel, with coffins in the crypt.”

She struggles free.

“Don’t be ridiculous!” she spits the words so fiercely that her saliva sprays my cheek. “Those aren’t just bones. They’re malevolent, they belong to evil spirits! I understand now what’s made me ill. I thought I was imagining it before.”

“Joanna, darling, you’re not making sense! Try to tell me what you mean.”

She’s staring at me now, her irises huge and black.

“I’ve heard them down there, banging around. I heard a scream once, and crying. They’ve haunted us; they’ve put a curse on us. That’s why Archie’s ill. That’s why I’m dying.”

I trust Joanna. Mentally as well as physically, she is but a cypher of the woman that she once was, but she’s not mad. Although it’s impossible for me to draw the same conclusions as she has, I don’t doubt that something real must have disturbed her.

“What have you heard? When did you first hear it? Tell me about it. Why have you never said anything before?”

“Please don’t bombard me with questions. I can’t cope.”

“I’m sorry – take your time. But you must tell me. Don’t you see, I’m furious that you haven’t felt at peace in your own home. Do you want some water?” I add, seeing that her face, which had been deathly pale, has now turned a hectic shade of red. She nods.

There’s a small bottle of mineral water in the pocket of the car door. I lift it out and unscrew the cap before I hand it to her. She takes it from me, sips at it weakly a few times and replaces the cap. I take her hand again. She is calmer now. Her hostility has evaporated.

“I can’t remember when it first happened,” she said, “but it was a long time ago – Archie was only a toddler. It was Archie who heard the noise first. He’d been in the hallway, playing some game with his trucks. I was in the kitchen with Mrs Briggs when he came running in. He was crying. He said that he’d heard ‘nasty noises’ coming from the cellar. I said that there couldn’t be anything there, that I’d take him down to the cellar and show him. I wanted to put his mind at rest.”

“Did you succeed?”

“I managed to soothe him, no thanks to Mrs Briggs. I’d expected to get some common-sense support from her, but she was as frightened as he was. She advised me to ‘let well alone’ in the cellar. She said that she’d always thought of it as an evil place and that wild horses wouldn’t drag her down there. I asked her what she meant and she was evasive – unlike her, as you know. She said that she’d always had a thing about that cellar, ever since she was a girl.”

“But surely you weren’t swayed by such rubbish?”

“Not on that occasion, no. Archie had calmed down and, although I was annoyed with her for reinforcing his fear of the cellar, I decided that it would do no good to drag him down there against his will. It would probably have given him nightmares.”

“Where was I at the time?”

“I don’t know: not at home. I think you were probably away somewhere – I mean properly away, not just for the day. That must have been why I didn’t mention it to you.”

“But it happened again?”

“Yes. Several months later. It was after you and I had started to worry about Archie’s behaviour. I was in the drawing-room when he came tearing in, sobbing hysterically. It took me a good five minutes to placate him enough to get him to speak to me. He said that he’d heard rattling in the cellar and someone crying for help. I held him until he’d stopped crying. I was afraid for him: he’d already seen Dr Johnston then and we were waiting for the results of the tests. I was hoping against hope that they’d be normal. I wanted to keep him as placid as possible.”

“Were you on your own this time, or was Mrs Briggs in the house with you again?”

“I think I was alone. If Mrs Briggs was there, she must have been in the kitchen. But I don’t think so, because I know I didn’t discuss it with her.”

“Did you talk to anyone about it?”

“Only Tony.”

“Tony! How did he get involved?”

“He happened to be in the house. You know he often calls to collect things from the office when you’re away.”

“Oh, so I was away again, was I?”

“Yes.”

“And did it again slip your mind to mention it? Or was it Tony’s suggestion that you shouldn’t?”

“It was Tony’s idea, but you’re making him out to be sinister, or at least interfering. He wasn’t, at all. He was still in the office after I’d put Archie to bed and I looked in on him to ask if he’d like some tea. He’d heard the noise that Archie had made and he also knew of Dr Johnston’s concerns.”

“You told him about those?”

Joanna sighed.

“I know you don’t like Tony, Kevan, but if it weren’t for him we wouldn’t have Archie. Naturally he feels responsible for him. I felt it was only fair to tell him that Archie might have a . . . disorder.”

“Why? So that we could ask for a refund? A discount for damaged goods?” I took one look at her stricken face and immediately wished I could have bitten the words back again.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean that.”

“Tony offered to come down into the cellar with me, so that I could see for myself that Archie was imagining things. Between Archie and Mrs Briggs, I’d developed a thing about the place myself by then, but when I followed Tony down there I could see that nothing had been touched for a very long time. Everything was as I remembered it when I’d cleared out your grandfather’s furniture soon after we came to live here.”

“So did Tony oblige you with some words of advice?”

“He did, actually. He said that our best chance of ‘curing’ Archie was to say nothing about the episode unless Archie himself mentioned it. If he did, I was to say I’d looked in the cellar with Uncle Tony and there was nothing to be frightened of; that he’d probably heard a trick of the wind, or something like that.”

“I see. Did he suggest I shouldn’t be told about what had happened?”

“Not in so many words, no.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“He thought that the whole matter should be played down; that dwelling on it could only harm Archie. Why can’t you accept that?”

“Assuming that I do accept it, what about the other occasions? The ones when you say you heard the noises yourself. When did they happen?”

“More recently. About the time that I first became ill again – or just before it, I’m not sure. The first time was late one afternoon. Archie was away at school and you were on one of the boats. I’d made myself a cup of tea and taken it into the drawing-room. I was very tired. I must have drifted off to sleep. I was woken up suddenly by an unearthly low moan and the beginnings of a scream – as if someone had started to scream, and been suddenly silenced.”

“What did you do?”

“I was afraid, but I knew I couldn’t let it rest. I opened the door of the drawing-room and listened, but all was quiet again. I moved across to the cellar door and stood with my head against it, still listening, but there was no sound. I was thinking about going down there again when Tony came downstairs and asked me if I was all right. He said that I looked ill.”

“Just how often does Tony come to work in the office when I’m not there?”

“Not all that often. Perhaps once each time you’re away. You know he brings papers for you to look at when you return. He sorts them into piles for you so that you can deal with them as quickly as possible. Surely that’s helpful?”

“Oh, amazingly helpful. And he just happens to be on the premises every time something strange happens! What was his take on it this time?”

“He said that I was over-tired from worrying about Archie and that I’d probably projected Archie’s irrational fears on to my subconscious.”

“And you believed that?”

“It seemed to make sense.”

“Was that the last time you heard the noises?”

“No, I’ve heard them twice more: both times when I was completely alone. But I was taking the new medication by then, and I thought that this, combined with the reason that Tony had suggested, could probably explain them.”

“In other words, you decided that you might be hearing things?”

“Yes.”

“So how does knowing about the skeletons change your view?”

“Because, despite all I’ve told you, I’ve had the feeling all along that there’s something really evil there. I’ve never been down into the cellar again since that time I went with Tony. It’s always scared me. And, although I know it sounds superstitious, I’ve been convinced that whatever the evil thing is, it’s been sapping my strength, just as it’s undermined Archie’s sanity.”

I embrace her again, looking over her head at the march of the flat fields beyond. I have no doubt that someone has sapped her strength and frightened both her and Archie. I am equally convinced that it is a living person, or people, and not the ghosts of three unfortunate Africans who died more than one hundred years ago.