Work seemed oddly relieved for me to take the week off. Sheila looked at me with her head on one side and asked if there was a man involved because, apparently, I’d become ‘argumentative’ and, obviously, there was only one reason that a perfectly amenable – for which read ‘absolute pushover’ – woman would get tetchy and that was because there was a man in the offing. When I said that, no, it was nothing to do with a man, she sucked her teeth and talked about hormones and offered a coffee and sit-down chat to talk about HRT, which, since I was thirty-four, I thought was bloody cheeky.
I’d lied, of course. The only reason I needed this short-notice week off was because of a man, even if that man was Grant. And Max too, but I didn’t count him. Not because he wasn’t a man, he was sufficiently male to be causing me sleepless nights, but none of this was his fault.
So on the Tuesday morning I pitched up at Hatherleigh Hall in my little Fiesta, feeling out of place and out of my depth. Technically I was on holiday. Did I really want to spend one of my rare holidays knee-deep in someone else’s angst?
Then Jenna dashed around the side of the building to meet me, and I remembered why I’d agreed to this. She was so slight she was practically invisible. Wearing trousers with huge flowers on them and a white shirt, she blended in with the garden that was blossoming almost audibly around her. ‘Alice! Oh, I am so glad you’ve agreed to do this! Max is throwing papers around and swearing again, I think he’s lost his notes.’ She lowered her voice, taking my arm to lead me through the side door. ‘I mean, he’s a lovely guy, my brother, but he’s really not very organised. It takes all his energy keeping this place running, I think, and I know he’d really like to sell but Dad was keen on the whole “family name” thing so he’s doing his duty and it’s really hard to keep all the plates in the air.’
‘What about your mum?’ We made our way up another staircase. I’d never find my way around this place. I’d have to stay wherever Max put me and never move; I’d better make sure it was close to a kettle and a toilet.
‘Oh, she died when we were both very little. Dad brought the estate back from the brink, apparently, after the war it was going to have to be broken up, but he worked and worked to get it earning. Then he left it all to Max.’ We rounded a corner that was vaguely familiar and were back in that carpeted corridor. There was the sound of vigorous language being used at volume from one of the rooms.
‘Max! Alice is here!’ Jenna tapped on the door and the swearing stopped. The door flew open to reveal Max, looking dishevelled and distraught, with a notepad in one hand and an iPad in the other. He was wearing a shirt that was half tucked in and half trailing from his belt, some kind of trousers like a cross between running and yoga wear, and his hair was on end.
‘Good.’ He scooped me into the room and kicked the door shut.
Jenna called, ‘I’m down in the rose garden if you need me!’ and padded away.
Max and I looked at one another.
‘You’re overdoing it,’ I observed mildly. ‘Either the swearing or the papers or the random writerly get up. You don’t need to do all three.’
‘Oh.’ He sat down. ‘Too much, you reckon?’
‘Way too much,’ I agreed. ‘You could just have told Jenna you needed help with research, you don’t have to lay on the “distracted author” thing quite so thick.’
‘I need her to believe that I’m in such a state that you’re coming over for a few days to help me get to the bottom of it.’ Max tucked in his shirt all round. ‘In case we can’t work out a way to reintroduce Grant quickly. I mean, yes, I do need you, but we needed a reason for it to be short-lived so you can go back to your – other job.’ He began straightening his hair. ‘If you’re sure…’
‘I’m sure,’ I said firmly and looked around the room. It was a study. In fact, it looked as though it had been carefully staged as A Study by an overenthusiastic props manager for a play. Big desk, check. Large leather furniture in shades of brown, squatting around the floor like tanned musclemen doing poses, check. Walls lined with bookshelves and globes and decanters and rugs, also check. ‘Good grief, this place looks as though it fell out of a Sherlock Holmes novel.’
‘Does it?’ He stared around, distractedly. ‘It’s my work room, I don’t really look at it.’
A huge computer with see-through innards beeped and flashed on a more sensibly sized desk near the window with a cardboard file labelled ‘Psych York’, which I assumed contained students’ work.
‘So.’ I perched on the arm of one of the well-muscled chairs. ‘How are we going to do this? Pretend to get a sudden phone call, or gradually drop hints, or what?’
Max sat on the desk and swung his legs. ‘Where’s Grant today?’
‘I’ve told him to go to the police station to report himself undead. He’s giving them the memory-loss story too.’
‘Good. Maybe that will mean they’ll stop sifting around in the remains of the Fortune House and I can get back up there again. I’ve got a ghost vigil planned for next week and I don’t want to have to cancel, because it’s the group that I’ve been working with for the last two years.’
‘There won’t be any reason for the police to be there any more, though, will there? They’ve just about concluded that the explosion was an accident, and without a body, it becomes “one of those things” presumably.’ I looked around the study again. There were piles of papers in corners, all differently sized and tottering, propped against walls and furniture with occasional drifts and slips slumped further onto the carpet. ‘What on earth is all this?’
Max rubbed at his arms as though the mess made him itchy. ‘When Alethia left me the house, she also left me all her papers. Everything. There might be something of interest in there somewhere but…’ He made a face. ‘She kept everything,’ he repeated. ‘Shopping receipts, notes to the milkman, paint samples, recipes – everything. I threw away the more obviously veterinary-related stuff, but…’ He scratched his arms again. ‘I told you I need an assistant,’ he finished, rather forlornly.
‘You need a bonfire,’ I said sturdily. ‘A quick go through to make sure there’s nothing valuable, and burn the rest.’
‘Well, an assistant could do that job.’ He gave me a significant look.
‘Oh, no. I’m here to help break the news to Jenna and make sure she’s all right, with a side order of gradually reintroducing Grant into polite society and trying to make sure he doesn’t shoot himself in the foot and upset her again. I am not here to tidy up your messes.’
‘But you’d be so good at it.’
We looked at one another for a moment.
‘Does that kind of flattery ever work?’ I asked, eventually, with interest.
He shrugged. ‘Sometimes. Students can be surprisingly gullible.’
Plus, I thought, I bet they’re under the spell of your good looks and charm and wanting to be ‘in’ with their lecturer. I was surprised he didn’t have teams of them in here already. I had a brief moment of imagining a collection of young women in short skirts wielding feather dusters and ‘falling’, having to have Max examine their twisted ankles, like a cross between a French farce and one of Sheila’s lurid romance novels.
‘But I don’t have the students here,’ Max went on. ‘It would be unethical. So this mess—’ a waved arm indicated the slowly subsiding piles, ‘is all down to me to sort.’
‘Anyone want a coffee?’ Jenna arrived in the doorway, carrying a tray bearing a cafetière and a milk jug shaped like a tiny Jersey cow. ‘I thought Alice might need a drink to help get over the shock of the state of this place.’
Max looked at me, raised his eyebrows, and I nodded.
‘Jen,’ he said gently, taking the tray from her hands, ‘sit down a minute. Alice and I have got some news for you…’
Ten minutes later, Jenna had stopped crying, just about. She’d got her hands cupped around a mug of coffee and was sipping at it as though she needed something to do with her face. ‘He’s alive,’ she kept saying. ‘He’s really alive?’
I thought of Grant, whom I’d left making a huge amount of mess in my kitchen and toasting himself the last of my loaf. ‘Oh, yes,’ I said fervently. ‘He’s really alive.’
‘And his memory is coming back?’
Max gave her another hug. ‘Yes, in bits and pieces. Like we said, he remembered where he used to live so he turned up on Alice’s doorstep.’
‘Did he think he was still married to you?’ Jenna’s eyes were very wide, but she seemed to have gone for our story, despite a few inconsistencies where Max had had to cover up the fact that he’d already seen Grant. We didn’t want Jen to even suspect there was a hint of collusion between us.
‘No. He remembers you.’ I refilled her mug. ‘He wants to see you, but he’s still – recovering.’ With the aid of all the food in my cupboards and all my hot water. ‘His memory is still a bit patchy, and he doesn’t remember why he was up at the Fortune House, he just remembers suddenly waking up in Peterborough.’
‘But the head injury has healed up all right?’ Jen was almost pleading. ‘His personality and everything aren’t affected? Just his memory?’
I wanted to say that Grant had so little personality that it was very hard to tell, and wished I’d thought of mocking up a head injury, preferably by hitting him with an actual brick, but I didn’t say anything, I could only nod.
Jenna began crying again. ‘When can I see him?’ She turned to Max. ‘Can I see him today? I want to see him as soon as possible.’
‘And he wants to see you,’ I said soothingly, trying not to catch Max’s eye. ‘We think it might be best to give him a day or two to… to…’ I flailed. ‘Get his story straight’ were the words I was trying not to let slip.
‘To recover,’ Max filled in smartly. ‘It’s been very traumatic for him, losing his memory, and he wants to make sure that he hasn’t forgotten anything that might cause you upset.’
Gosh, he was so smooth at this that I might almost imagine Max spent all his days fibbing wildly about supposedly dead people. But he’d had Monday to think about the details, I’d been at work, fending off Sheila’s menopause literature.
‘Yes. He was in pretty bad shape,’ I added, absolutely truthfully. ‘He’s asked me to pick up some of his clothes today, and he’s going for a haircut and shave.’
‘So he looks like the Grant you remember,’ Max said.
Jenna stood up. ‘I’ll go and get you some of his things.’ She put the mug down so quickly that a little bit of coffee slopped out over the rim. ‘I just can’t believe…’ More tears. ‘I don’t know whether I want to kiss him or kill him for putting me through this!’
Kill him, go on, said my thoughts, but my mouth was under firm control as usual. ‘It wasn’t his fault, Jenna,’ I lied. ‘He probably went up to the house to clear his head, the explosion was an accident, and the amnesia couldn’t have been foreseen.’ Unless you read Oliver Sacks. ‘Grant is still Grant.’ Unfortunately.
‘Yes, I know.’ Jenna sniffed. ‘I don’t know what to feel, I’m so… right, I’ll go and find his favourite jeans and some other stuff.’
Still sniffing, she went out. We waited. After about ten seconds, Max crept to the door and peered out. ‘She’s gone. She’ll be in her room, it’s down at the end.’
I let out a huge breath. ‘How did we do, do you think?’
He began to pour our neglected coffees. ‘Pretty well. Good thinking on your part, to say you’d rung to warn me. And that bit about Grant going up to the house to clear his head…’ He handed me a mug and I added milk to it. The cow’s tail was the jug handle and the milk poured out of its mouth, which I thought was odd, since it had been given a gigantic udder, but maybe milk coming direct from the udder was a bit too ‘on the nose’ for the upper classes. ‘Inspired,’ he finished.
‘So, I’ll bring him over tomorrow.’ The bitterness of the coffee seemed fitting. ‘Then we can introduce them slowly and leave them alone but under observation.’
‘Like a couple of mating dogs,’ Max said, obviously without thinking, and then dropped his head so that his hair covered his face. ‘Oh, God. I didn’t mean that. I’ve no idea why I said it. The family used to breed English Setters, I can only assume that one of my ancestors possessed my body there for a minute. Sorry.’
I laughed. The fact that Max, posh, good-looking, intelligent Max, could let his mouth run away with him was reassuring. ‘Yes, very much like mating dogs. Only without the bucket of water at the ready.’
‘You don’t actually need…’ Max began, then raised his head, met my eye and started to grin. ‘Oh.’
I rolled my eyes at him and stood up, my mug grasped firmly because this carpet was probably an heirloom. ‘Right. Well, since we’ve got the rest of the day to get through, would you like me to make a start on those papers for you? I may as well make myself useful while I’m here, and backup the story about coming to work for you for a while, although I think Jenna has completely forgotten about that little ruse now.’
‘I can’t even remember where we stand on the “you coming over” storyline,’ he said. ‘Not that you even really need a reason, you know, Alice. You’re always welcome here.’
I stood for a moment, as out of place in this over-furnished, dramatically masculine study as Max would have been among my window fitters. ‘Thank you,’ I said, somewhat stiffly. More words brewed up in my head, words about only being here because of Grant and Jenna, about this, all this, not feeling natural to me. I belonged in a cramped, stuffy office that smelled of Malcolm, in a Portacabin on a trading estate. I belonged in a tiny terraced house with a rowdy family one side and a middle-aged couple plus dog on the other. My house and office were small. My life was small. Not this.
But Jenna was kind and emotionally volatile and needed someone. Max was – well, he was Max. Attractive and intelligent and in need of my help and, if this was going to be as close as I got to a good-looking man wanting me, well, I’d take it for as long as it lasted. It was, I had to admit, but only very, very quietly to myself in the darkest part of the night, nice to be needed again.
‘Thank you,’ I said again, in case Max had seen me thinking all this. ‘Now, just point me at the most immediate of the papers and I’ll get sifting. Anything in particular you want to keep?’
He looked hopelessly at the heaps. ‘I don’t know, that’s the problem. I’m not a social historian, I don’t have the faintest idea what may be important to someone who’s recording life in the 1930s in a farmhouse on the moors.’
‘Right.’
‘But I need to keep anything that relates to the past of the house itself. Building records, planning papers, notes on renovations, that kind of thing.’ Max flicked me a dark look. ‘Apparitions are often reported around buildings undergoing structural work,’ he said. ‘I need to cross-reference.’
‘Okay.’
‘And anything obviously personal, like diaries or journals, although I hardly think the Fortunes are going to have been writing extensive memoirs of life out there. But there may be letters from Alethia and John, and I’d like to give those a once over in case they mention any kind of paranormal activity.’
I looked again at the slithering mounds of paper and card that dotted the carpet. It looked as though he was trying to house-train a library. ‘Right,’ I said again, with slightly less enthusiasm. ‘And what are you going to be doing?’
‘That pile,’ he pointed to a slightly more domesticated heap of cardboard files stacked under the computer desk, ‘is my research and notes on the house. I shall be putting them in chronological order and checking that they are there in the outline for the book.’ He went to move towards the window, where the curtains hung, velvet and heavy, under the weight of the sun that was obliquely illuminating the room, then stopped. ‘Thanks, Alice,’ he said, very quietly. ‘Really. Thank you.’
He wasn’t looking at me. He seemed to be staring inexplicably at the floor and his tone was what I could only describe as ‘intimate’. I felt the sickening pulse of heat building at the base of my throat and fought it back. ‘No problem,’ I replied briskly.
‘But you…’ He stopped. Cleared his throat. ‘You’ve put your life on hold for me. For Jenna. You’re going above and beyond for my family.’
‘To be fair, it’s my ex-husband that’s caused the drama, I do feel a little bit responsible.’ I turned my back, I didn’t want him to see how pink and sweaty I was getting. I didn’t want to give myself away, so I knelt down by the nearest pile of papers and began sifting.
I saw him move out of the corner of my eye, but it was just a twitch, I couldn’t really tell what he was doing. It looked a bit as if he took half a step towards me then thought better of it. ‘You’re a really lovely person, Alice.’
Ah, this was more familiar territory. The implications that had come from words like those in my past shoved the raw fuchsia colouring back where it belonged. ‘In two minutes, you’ll be telling me that I’ve got a great personality and you bet I’m really fun with a couple of drinks inside me.’ I was surprised at the acerbity in my voice. It was a shame, I hadn’t wanted to think that Max was this shallow, yet here he was—
‘What? No, I won’t! Er. I mean…’ He sounded flustered, and I chanced a quick look. He was half-crouched next to the file pile, head turned towards me, arrested in movement. He looked like Gollum protecting his Precious. ‘Sorry. Sorry if I sounded patronising. I really didn’t mean to, I just wanted you to know I appreciate everything you’re doing for me. For Jenna,’ he corrected himself.
I muttered a toneless acceptance of his apology, and started sorting my allotted papers into piles that I mentally labelled ‘throw away’, ‘burn’ and ‘burn then throw away’.
Personal communication from Douglas Andrews, experiencer of event, received via letter.
Apologies for sending you this so long after your initial request, but I live in Derby and my friend, who lives in York, has sent me the clipping of your letter from her local paper. Knowing of my experience, she suggested that I write to you and I hope I am not too late for my story to be of any use to you.
I see that you are asking us to be as accurate about the date and time of our story as possible. I’m afraid that I don’t remember exactly, I know only that it was during the early autumn and I think the year was 1978, although it could have been 1979 or even as late as 1982. I was very interested in birdwatching, and took many holidays up on the North York Moors during those years, prior to my marriage and other life events, which took me away from my hobby. I can, however, be sure of the time of year, as I had been watching out for migratory species, particularly short-eared owls heading from northern climes to winter in the UK.
As far as I remember, I had just disassembled my hide, having been lucky enough to see a flock of waxwings passing through the dale in search of berries. It was early evening, with the dusk starting to come in, and my car was not too far away, as I packed up my gear. However, as I passed by what I now know to be the Fortune House, I was overcome with a great thirst. I’d only had a flask of coffee with me and that was now fully drained. I have a medical condition which requires me to be well hydrated, and I had left my bottle of water at my lodgings, due to an oversight whilst rushing to leave.
The house was fully dark, with no lights showing, but I decided to knock on the door anyway, reasoning that someone might be about in the outbuildings at the back, or that I might find an outdoor tap from which to take some water. So I knocked and, to my surprise, the door was answered by a young man. He was wearing a cap and jacket, as though he had just come in from the farm, and I asked him for some water. He did not speak but held the door to allow me inside, and I found myself in a large kitchen.
Reasoning that the young man might be either deaf or unable to speak, I indicated the sink and asked, by means of gesture, if I might help myself to water. There was no reply but, as I had been allowed inside, I supposed it would not be begrudged. I refilled my flask with water, took a large drink, and turned to find that the young man had vanished, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I made my exit, closing the door behind me, and went back to my car.
It was only the following day, whilst talking to the lady who owned the lodgings where I was staying, that the mystery surrounding my water gathering mission became apparent. She informed me that the Fortune House was currently empty, the daughter and son of the family having grown up and left, and Mr and Mrs Fortune being down in York, where Mr Fortune was in hospital and Mrs Fortune was staying with her sister to be near him. There were, my landlady informed me, no animals requiring care, and no reason for anyone to be at the house. She investigated further on my behalf, and the house was found to be locked up securely, with no one resident or in evidence.
I can only say that the young man who let me into the house seemed familiar with the layout and also seemed to have no fear of being thought to be a burglar. His lack of speech, as I said, I put down to a disability, although I cannot attest to how ‘solid’ or ‘real’ he looked, as I only glanced at him, and the house was both dark and gloomy, so his appearance was not clear.
I add the note that, when I arrived back at my lodgings after this encounter, my flask was empty, which I attributed to my not having screwed the cap back on securely, and my thirst was completely slaked. I had no recurrence of my health problem, which leads me to believe that I drank whilst in the house. Some to whom I have told this story have told me that I must have seen a ghost, whilst others believe a more mundane explanation. I leave the decision in your hands.