That summer was one of the happiest times I can remember. Philip had arranged to leave High Wycombe on the same day that school finished and, side-stepping our parents’ invitation, we set off immediately for Cumbria. His appointment was due to take effect from the end of August, which gave us a month in which to relax and settle into our new surroundings.
I remember, those first weeks, spending a lot of time standing at the picture window in the sitting-room staring out from our vantage point at the magnificent panorama before me. Immediately below was the garden, with gnarled old trees, outcrops of rockery and masses of every coloured rose imaginable. Over at the far end of it stood a little bungalow that I hadn’t noticed on our first brief visit. It was built of stone like most of the houses in the village and a low picket fence surrounded it to ensure its privacy; a garden within a garden. I wondered idly who lived there.
Beyond the high wall stretched the gardens of other houses further down Fell Lane, and beyond them again the main road. On the far side of it I could just see the roof of the Lakeside Hotel and to the left the jetty from where boats plied continually across the lake. It was an outlook which never failed to fascinate me.
“Back at the lookout post?” Philip enquired laughingly, coming in one day to find me in my usual position.
“I still can’t believe our good luck.”
He joined me at the window. “Will we ever get blasé about being able to see mountains, lakes and woods without moving from our own sitting-room?”
“I doubt it,” I said.
There was a table under one of the windows and we formed the habit of eating our evening meal there, watching the ever-changing parade of holiday-makers strolling down Lake Road or making their way to the Pavilion for the nightly dancing. And over coffee we’d watch the lights come on all down the hill and feel the still, dark closeness of the surrounding hills.
Once or twice we hired a boat and drifted lazily in the water for hours at a time, putting in at various little bays and rocky beaches on the eastern shore, where the mountain came down to meet the lake. I showed Philip the path I’d discovered alongside Minnowbeck, the stream that flowed along the valley, and by chance we discovered the site of the village’s third hotel, whose owners I’d met at the Greystones. And finally, the week before Philip was due to join Dr Sampson, he said one morning, “I want to go up to the camp and check on the twins.”
I had been awaiting this decision ever since we arrived but felt it to be his rather than mine. He had twice saved the twins’ short lives and regarded them, I knew, as his protégés.
Nell Smith was draping tattered nappies on the nearby bushes when we arrived. She was a small, pale woman with straggling nondescript hair and she wore down-trodden bedroom slippers and a greasy apron. Over by the caravan stood a battered old pram without wheels and from its depths I could see a small fist waving. Nell saw us, hesitated, then, wiping her hands on her apron, came towards us warily.
“Good morning, Nell. We’ve come to enquire after the twins.”
“They’re well enough.” Her eyes were not inviting and there was an unpleasant odour about her, a general unwashed smell which pricked at the nostrils.
“May we have a look at them?”
She jerked her head in the direction of the pram and we walked over. The babies had filled out amazingly in the intervening four months. Black eyes regarded us with interest from either end of the pram. Nell had followed us across, like a bitch, I thought uncharitably, which waits for praise when someone admires its pups.
“They’re fine babies,” Philip said warmly. “What are their names?”
“Davy and Kim.”
“Can you tell them apart?”
“Never tried. There’s two mouths to feed, that’s all there is to it.”
Philip gave a short laugh. “And Granny? She hasn’t interfered with them at all?”
Nell shook her head, glancing nervously over her shoulder.
A young boy came wandering towards us, sucking his thumb. His shambling gait and vacant eyes proclaimed him to be Benjie, who had once spent a night within the Gemelly Circle. Before he could reach us, his mother Nan swooped on him and bore him away.
“We’ve come to live in Crowthorpe,” Philip told Nell. “I’d like to come up from time to time to see the twins.”
“There’s no need,” she said resentfully. “They’ll not come to no harm.”
“I’d just like to keep in touch,” Philip returned smoothly.
A young man came down the steps of the adjacent caravan. He was small and slight, his whole appearance marred by a truly horrific squint. He hesitated when he saw us, gave us a surly nod, and set off in the direction of the village. We took our leave of Nell and followed him at our leisure, assuming that since he was not old enough to be Nan’s husband, he must be Janetta’s – and Granny Lee’s son.
This was confirmed by Eve when she called round that evening to bring us some shortbread she’d made. “Yes, that would be Jem all right. Poor lad, he has his work cut out with Janetta! People say she only married him because he couldn’t properly see what she was up to!”
“Has Granny still got her crow?” Philip asked casually.
“As far as I know, but I haven’t seen her for a while. She’s the most restless of the bunch, probably because she was on the road for the best part of her life. Every now and then she takes her caravan, leaving Jem and Janetta to shack up as best they can, and sets off by herself for weeks at a time.”
I for one did not regret Granny Lee’s departure. It would have suited me very well if she never returned.
So the summer slid slowly away, the bright red berries appeared on the rowan trees, and Philip and I took up our respective employment. I found my new colleagues pleasant and friendly, and although I was pleasant and friendly in return, I didn’t encourage any close friendships. I had no need of them, now Philip was with me, and having learned my lesson from Sue Anderson, I resolved not to form any ties with either of the female staff. In a village this size, as I knew from Eve, gossip was rife and would not be as easy to ignore as it had been in Swindon.
However, friendships in which Philip shared were welcome, and we continued to see Eve and Anita fairly regularly. There was a closeness between the four of us which had some deep mainspring we hadn’t yet plumbed, and we felt the need of each other’s company. How their husbands felt on the subject, Philip and I never bothered to discover. Occasionally they would join us for coffee or drinks when we met at their homes, but although both men were included in return invitations, they never accompanied their wives to our flat. Nor was either of them present at the Greystones one October evening when Philip again broached the subject of telepathy.
“I’ve been thinking over what you said in the spring, Eve, about the need to extend rather than just use it between ourselves.”
Eve’s eyes dropped. “Did I say that?”
“I think you’re right. If one has a gift, one should develop it, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’m not so sure. Douglas didn’t even approve when Anita and I used to do it. He regards it as an intrusion on another’s privacy. If he knew we’d tried it with you –”
“Then don’t tell him!”
She stared at him wide-eyed and Anita gave an excited laugh. There was a look in her eyes which reminded me of the first time we’d seen her.
“In any case,” Philip was continuing, “I wasn’t just referring to the four of us. We know we can all read each other’s minds. I want to reach out farther still and see what happens.”
“Oh God!” Eve said softly.
“It was you who started it,” I reminded her.
“I can’t imagine why. I suppose it was the shock of suddenly seeing you both – and at the Circle, too. I should have left well alone.” She gave a little shudder.
Anita said ringingly, “Well, I think you’re right, Philip! It is time we extended our field. How do you propose to go about it?”
“If we start right away, we’ll have to choose whoever’s available. Is George around?”
“You’re not going to try him, surely? He’s much too down to earth to respond to such things!”
“But is he in the hotel?”
“Yes, he’ll probably look in later. He’s finishing off some figures for the accountant.”
“Let’s see if I can bring him earlier than he intends.”
We sat in silence for some minutes. I had gauged Philip’s intentions and didn’t see how they could possibly be fulfilled. But shortly afterwards George Barlow came into the room. As Philip signalled everyone to silence, he sat down on the floor in the centre of the carpet and to his wife’s amazement proceeded to remove his shoes and socks. He then stood up, circled an armchair three times in complete silence, solemnly replaced his footwear and left the room.
As the door closed behind him, Anita said stiffly, “You didn’t have to make him look ridiculous.”
“No harm was done. He won’t remember anything.”
“Then it’s more like hypnotism,” Eve pointed out. “From a distance, too. Rather frightening.”
“Whatever you like to call it, it’s simply mind control.” Philip sounded slightly aggrieved that his feat hadn’t been more wholeheartedly applauded. “The human brain is vastly underrated, as you know. If we can see some way of developing further, it could be of enormous benefit.”
“Or harm.” Eve put in unexpectedly.
The subject dropped by mutual consent, but it was at our next meeting that the Marshall twins arrived.
We were at the vicarage and when the doorbell rang, Eve went to answer it. We could hear her quite clearly. “Hello girls. What can I do for you?”
A child’s voice said hesitantly, “We’ve come to see Mr Selby.”
Anita and Philip turned to me and I shook my head in mystification.
“You’d better come in, then.”
It was obvious who they were: two pretty little girls, fair-haired like their mother, one with a long ponytail, one with plaits. My heart had started to beat with slow, heavy thuds. “You wanted to see me?”
The one with the ponytail answered pertly, “It was you who wanted to see us.”
I was aware of a constriction in my chest. Some twenty minutes earlier, the idea had crossed my mind that it would be interesting to meet this other pair of twins. They went to a private school in Barrowick, so I hadn’t come across them in the course of work as I’d hoped. But it had been only a passing thought and I’d done nothing about it – consciously.
Philip said softly. “How did you know my brother wanted to see you?”
The child with plaits – Claire, as we later discovered – answered with a little frown. "He called us.”
“Called?" Anita repeated. “In what way? You mean he phoned?”
“No, just – called.” Claire looked about to cry and Eve said quickly. “It’s lovely to see you, anyway. Come and sit down and I’ll bring you some milk and biscuits. Does Mummy know you’re here?”
They shook their heads, settling on the floor like puppies.
“Then I’d better ring and tell her you’re safe.”
Ten minutes later Geoff Marshall called to collect his daughters. “I really do apologize for the intrusion. I can’t imagine what possessed them.”
Possessed them? I felt a chill on the back of my neck.
Eve said smoothly. “Don’t worry, it was nothing. Just some misunderstanding. I gather.”
“You know. I feel quite odd in here with the rest of you.” Geoff said with a laugh. “Three sets of twins and me. It’s an uncanny sensation.”
I said. “I don’t think you’ve met my brother. Philip.”
“Oh, sorry!” Eve exclaimed. “I’d forgotten he wasn’t at the drinks party.”
Philip stood up and shook his hand.
Geoff looked from him to me. “I must admit I couldn’t have said which of you I’d met! There’s no point of difference at all, is there?”
“I told Felicity they were clones!” Eve said with a smile.
When he had gone, herding the little girls in front of him, everyone turned to me. I spread my hands helplessly. “I thought I’d like to meet them. I promise you that’s all.”
“It was enough,” said Eve. “If you now only have to think something in passing for it to happen, this is getting beyond a joke. I think we’d better put the wraps on it for a while. We don’t want the entire village turning up at our coffee evenings!”
To be truthful, the arrival of the Marshalls had shaken me considerably. Being able to influence someone as a result of deep concentration, an effort of will, was exhilarating. But as Eve had said, that a casual thought, no sooner formed than forgotten, should have had such instant ratification was something else entirely.
When we set out for home that evening, Philip put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll need it eventually but the time is not yet. It developed more quickly than we expected, that’s all.”
“But suppose I can’t control it?” I heard my voice shake. “Hell, I can’t help what I think. It’s like the old fairy story of being granted three wishes and not taking time to choose carefully.”
“Except that you’re not rationed to three. Nobody’s counting, as far as I can see. Perhaps this is what Janetta meant when she spoke of the power we should have. I don’t suppose the Marshalls had any intention of calling at the vicarage until they received your ‘message’, which means you didn’t just read their thoughts but actually influenced them. A kind of hypnotism, as Eve said – even brainwashing. However –” as he felt me shudder under his hand “– we must take things slowly. We don’t want to alarm anyone. Relax, Matthew. I’ll help you to suppress it until we know which direction to take. In the meantime, as Eve said, we’d better cool it for a while.”
So “cool it” we did, for over two years in fact, though it’s hard to believe, looking back, that so much time could have passed. For myself, I was happy enough to leave well alone. The upsurgence of unlooked-for power had worried me, not least because of the ideas it had given Philip. I put it firmly to the back of my mind and developed the habit of breaking any train of thought which threatened to become too concentrated, and having satisfied myself everything was under control again, I was able to relax and enjoy my new life to the full.
The routine of village life sucked us into its comfortable predictability, the seasons came and went, and we were content. It was only after our third Christmas in Cumbria that I began to feel uneasy again.
Several times that spring I experienced a sudden and inexplicable draining of energy, so devastating that I could only slump to a chair and wait for it to pass. It usually occurred during school hours, and more than once my sudden stumbling lunge towards my desk caused suppressed titters. I was completely at a loss to account for these attacks and too frightened to mention them. Only when I began to hear the first whispers of Philip’s growing reputation did an inkling of their cause begin to filter into my mind.
These unsolicited testimonials, overhead in shop or pub, were broken off at my entrance with embarrassed grins and murmurs, but they began to add up in my brain and it finally became clear that my extreme lassitude and Philip’s successes were not unconnected. He was beginning to flex his psychic muscles again and since we apparently shared our power source, these experiments took their toll of me as well.
“You might have warned me!” I burst out furiously one evening up in the flat. “How do you think I’ve felt, imagining for weeks that I’m suffering from some incurable disease?”
“I’m sorry, Matthew, really. I’d no idea it would affect you so much, and you never said anything. I’ll try to spread it a bit. There’s no reason why we should take the full impact.”
I paused in the act of getting a can of beer from the fridge. “I’m not sure that I follow you.”
“I don’t see why Eve and Anita shouldn’t contribute their share. Come to that –” he was avoiding my eyes “– the Marshalls as well. The more there are in the ‘pool’, the less hard it will be on individuals.”
“Philip –” The coldness from the can had moved up my arm and across my shoulder-blades. “What exactly are you planning to do?”
He smiled, and the light in his eyes did nothing to reassure me. “Create Utopia, Matthew, that’s all. An ideal state!”
I moistened my lips. “How long have you been thinking along these lines? Why didn’t you discuss it with me?” What I meant was, why hadn’t I known what he was thinking?
He said gently, “It was for your own sake. You panicked when you realized how much power was on tap, so when I began working things out, I felt it wise to – block you off for a while.”
“You put up a barrier to stop me reading your mind?”
“Not a barrier, only a screen. It can come down now, if you’re ready to join me.”
Slowly I poured the beer into a tankard.
“Matthew? You’re not angry, are you? I wasn’t trying to shut you out, only mark time till you could accept it.”
“Accept what?” My voice was still stiff.
He perched on the edge of the kitchen table. “Remember what Janetta said?”
I moved impatiently. “For God’s sake! Only fools believe in crystal balls!”
“The crystal had nothing to do with it. She could sense something in us, something which was bound to find expression, which couldn’t be stopped. ‘Power over body and soul, life and death’.”
“So you’re planning a Brave New World?”
“A corner of it, perhaps. I want to see if it’s possible, by the power of thought, to influence things for the better. Why don’t you try it? Pick out one of your pupils – someone, perhaps, who isn’t particularly bright – and try to instil knowledge into him telepathically. You might well find yourself with a class of Einsteins!”
I had a sudden picture of the dark lake that Easter nearly three years before, and Philip saying, “I’ll take care of their bodies and you look after their minds!” And I’d thought he was joking.
“The Smith twins are psychic.”
“What?” Abruptly I came back to the present.
“Davy and Kim. I can contact them any time.”
“Philip, they’re babies.”
“Even babies have minds. As a matter of fact they’re very self-sufficient for their age. They’ve had to be, poor little blighters. The rest of the crowd up there are frightened of them. They get food and shelter and precious little else.”
Philip had been paying regular visits to the Smiths. Sometimes he invited me to go with him, but I preferred to spend my Sunday afternoons relaxing with the papers. Now I furiously resented this further evidence of our separation.
“They’re intelligent boys,” he went on. “They talk pretty fluently and they’re not three yet. I’ve great hopes of them.”
Jealous of his interest in the Smiths, I switched back to his original point. “You mentioned involving Eve and Anita.”
Although the four of us still met regularly, telepathy had not been mentioned since the evening of the Marshalls’ visit, and our meetings now took the innocuous form of bridge evenings. I suspected this also satisfied their husbands as a plausible reason for our meeting at all.
“Yes, we’ve soft-pedalled long enough,” Philip answered firmly. “I don’t think Anita will take much persuading, but Eve has Douglas to contend with. And it’s also time we began to take the Marshall girls in hand. There’s a lot of untapped potential there.”
It was getting dark, but neither of us made a move to switch on the light. Our conversation was more suited to the shadows.
“Eve and Anita perhaps,” I said finally, “but I don’t like meddling with children’s minds. We should leave the Smiths and Marshalls alone.”
“Absolute nonsense! There has to be some reason for this concentration of twins. Four pairs in a village this size – a veritable power-house! It’s not as if we’re going to hurt them; in some cases they won’t even know they’re being used. I just want to open the channels and see what happens. And if we can overcome disease, just here, on our own small patch – and if we can produce extra-bright children in our local school, well, there’s no knowing where it could lead! To a Nobel Prize at the very least!”
“Given the choice, people might prefer illness and thick kids to a mental take-over.”
But my objections were only token, because Philip had progressed so far without me. Already I could feel a stirring of excitement as I mentally took stock of my class with a view to selecting the first guinea pig.
A week or two later, Jason Quinn came into our lives.
“Would you mind if we didn’t start playing straight away?” Anita asked when she and Eve arrived for our bridge evening. “There’s a programme I’d like to see on television and you might find it interesting too. Have you seen any of the Jason Quinn interviews?”
Philip lifted the card table to one side. “No, but the name sounds familiar.”
Eve said, “He wrote that play there was such a fuss about a few years ago – The Temple Builders, wasn’t it? Now he’s started these interviews on TV, making a point of choosing people whose views he disagrees with, and there seems to be no shortage of them! Poor souls, he gives them no quarter at all!”
“I’m surprised they agree to appear. Who’s his victim tonight?”
“A medium.” Anita’s voice shook slightly. “That’s why I thought you’d be interested.”
Philip said softly, “And we’re to presume he doesn’t agree with mediums either?”
“There’s not much doubt about that. He has absolutely no patience with the supernatural.”
“Then it should be an interesting half-hour.” Certainly it was no disappointment. Dr Arnold Fosdock was, we could see at once, a lost cause. A small thin man, balding and with rimless spectacles, he fidgeted nervously with his tie and took several sips of water from the glass in front of him while Jason Quinn, smooth and unhurried, began the interview with a series of deceptively innocuous questions. It was a classic case of the lion amusing itself till it was ready to pounce and destroy. Nor was the metaphor of a lion misplaced, considering the mane of brown-gold hair and lazy, assessing eyes.
There was something about the man which instilled in me a strong dislike while at the same time commanding my attention. He was so casually immaculate, so totally at his ease, that I was conscious of an increasingly powerful desire to ruffle him out of his complacency. So engrossed was I in my analysis that by the time I began to listen to the exchange, Quinn was already moving in for the kill.
“And you actually believe that this – ectoplasm – flows from your body to clothe the ‘spirit’?” His voice was politely incredulous.
“Of course I do. Yes.” And, as Quinn didn’t speak, “Yes, I do.”
“But if as you say you’re in a trance at the time, presumably you’re not able to see it?”
“Not personally, but everyone else does.”
“You see, Doctor, that’s precisely my point. These phenomena always seem to be experienced at one remove, which I find strains my credulity to the limit.”
“But it’s actually been photographed!” Fosdock began to rummage frantically through the papers in front of him.
Jason Quinn raised a hand. “I believe I’ve seen some of those photographs.” His tone made clear his opinion of their authenticity. “I might add that in the cause of research I’ve attended séances myself, but regrettably nothing whatever materialized at them.”
“I’m not surprised!” muttered the doctor.
Quinn smiled. “Naturally I don’t doubt your sincerity; I merely suggest that it’s misplaced.”
So it went on, deceptively gentle, entirely merciless, until the poor doctor had contradicted himself several times and in struggling to retrieve lost ground, became hopelessly stuck in the quagmire prepared for him. It was a relief to all of us when the programme came to an end. Philip leant forward and switched off the set.
“What a bastard!” he commented. “Anyone’s drink need freshening?”
But I was unable to dismiss Jason Quinn so lightly from my mind, and as is often the way, having once been brought to our notice, his name kept cropping up repeatedly over the next few weeks. His programme had become a cult, and secure in their own living-rooms, the viewing public relished each ensuing destruction as voraciously as had the crowds in Roman arenas or the tricoteuses at the guillotine.
One Sunday in April a leading newspaper featured his profile, and leaving Philip to pay his customary visit to the gypsies, I settled down with some interest to read it.
... Physically, Quinn is an imposing figure, over six feet and with the well-known thatch which reviewers have not been slow to dub ‘Jason’s Golden Fleece’. At Cambridge, where he read classics, he was in constant demand for debates, always appearing against rather than for the motion, and frequent invitations to speak at College dinners soon earned him a reputation as a brilliant raconteur. It was at Cambridge that he met his first wife, writer Penelope Russell, though they didn’t marry till some years later. For a while after coming down he worked with a firm of stockbrokers but found his true vocation with the outstanding success of his brilliantly satirical play The Temple Builders in the early eighties. Two more plays followed, and although they didn’t attract such wide critical acclaim, one of them, Lord Moses, was adapted for television and it was this that first fired his interest in the medium. Shortly afterwards he was invited to take part in the quiz programme Next Question, where his caustic wit and wide general knowledge were an immediate success.
His new series, Jason Quinn Interviews which he hosts himself, has already attracted high viewing figures and though his cavalier treatment of guests seems to be making him a man the viewers love to hate, he must nevertheless be admired for his sincere dislike of chicanery, into which category he uncompromisingly groups most of the fringe sciences. “The supernatural,” he once said, “has nothing to recommend it. It’s dangerous to the gullible and unacceptable to everyone else.”
... He was divorced from his first wife last December and shortly afterwards married the actress Tania Partridge ...
There was quite a lot more and I carefully tore out the page for future reference. I had the obscure conviction that it would come in useful.
Whether due to Jason Quinn’s scepticism or Philip’s willpower, it was only a week or so later that Anita said tentatively one evening, “Do you think perhaps we should try some more telepathy? As you said, it seems wrong not to make use of it.”
Philip and I avoided each other’s eyes, but a wave of triumph surged between us. This time, we knew, there would be no back-tracking. Our real work in Crowthorpe was about to begin.