Bristol House (6 page)

Her danger grows. I must begin the telling.

I was barely sixteen in the year 1531 when my master, Thomas Cromwell, commanded I become a monk of the Charterhouse. There, he said, I might be his eyes in a place he could not go. I shall tell more of that, but my true adventure, and the source of my most grievous sin, began four years later, on the occasion of the mighty wind which was a portent of terrible things to come, though none yet knew the extent to which all England would struggle and suffer.

The day of the great circular wind was a May Thursday, a day when the custom of our order demanded we chant together the litanies that beg Almighty God for all manner of good. Thus, well before dawn, we hermit monks had left our individual cells, as Carthusians call the little houses wherein each lives alone with God, and assembled in the courtyard outside the great church of the monastery. Our prior was not with us that day (an absence of which I will later have more to say), so it fell to old Dom Hilary to lead the prayers. His voice occasionally betrayed the shiver of age, but the rest of us sang out the responses with force and enthusiasm. Indeed, those were times so troubled as to make every man know how grave was our need for divine aid.

It was whilst Dom Hilary petitioned heaven on behalf of all of us that the strange and violent wind came out of the sky and rushed toward earth. So strong it was that a man might actually see it with his own eyes, a visible wind in the form of a funnel-shaped cloud.

This thing, which the moment it appeared was so extraordinary that every monk in the courtyard fell silent and signed himself with the cross of the Savior, touched down near where we stood. In that instant when the wind met the earth, I felt myself threatened with something that could hurl me into total darkness, where I should forget even the memory of light. I resisted with all my might, clinging to the thought of Jesus Christ crucified for my sins, and in the flash of an eye I had escaped the most terrible of judgments, and the thing lifted itself up again into the heavens and disappeared.

In the place where the tip of the funnel-shaped wind had struck, the cobbles were shattered into dust, which two of the brothers who live with us priest-monks immediately swept into a neat pile. Yet, wondrous to report, despite that evidence of the wind’s immense power, no one of us was in any way harmed, and the monastery church was untouched.

It is only among the silent monks of the Charterhouse that such an event could remain a secret for all history, but I tell it here, and my testimony from this Waiting Place is true.

The great funnel wind was a sign from heaven of the trials to come. In the illusion of passing time with which men live before each faces judgment, it occurred in the year of Our Lord 1535, in the twenty-third year of the reign of Henry VIII, the second Tudor king of England, in the twenty-seventh year of his marriage to Queen Catherine of Aragon, and the fourth year of his illicit liaison—though Henry and most of his ministers insisted it was a true and heaven-blessed union—with Anne Boleyn.

Many then believed we had come to the end of what was called the King’s Great Matter, his annulment and remarriage. We had, however, only begun the greatest matter of all: whether king or pope should be head of the Christian church in England. As for me, the monk known in the Charterhouse as Dom Justin, the day of the visible wind began a passage of many months during which love and lust would entwine to endanger my soul and the souls of others then unborn.

•

Annie opened her eyes. She was lying on the floor, but she was unhurt. The room seemed undisturbed. The Bible was exactly where she’d put it originally. The candle, however, had been extinguished, and the brass bell was shattered into tiny bits. They formed a neat pile on the desk, as if someone had been tidying up after the tumult and swept them all together.

She used the side of the bed to pull herself upright. Her sketchbook was where she’d left it as well. Annie took it with her when she left the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

She put the sketchbook in the dining room and went across the hall into the bathroom and turned on the shower, stripping off her running clothes while she waited for the water to get hot, struggling to believe that what she’d experienced had really happened.

It wasn’t until she was standing under the comforting spray, feeling the heat begin to revive her, that she noticed the scrapes. They occurred only on the left side of her body, a series of consecutive scratches that went from her rib cage to just above her knee, as if someone had drawn an oversize fork across her flesh, pressing just hard enough to break the skin but not tear it.

***

Annie spent the rest of the day at her laptop, so intent she forgot to eat. She was looking for information about the old London Charterhouse, because the symbol Richard Scranton had drawn on his sixteenth-century map, identifying the monks with opposition to Henry’s plans, was the only link she had to what was occurring in number eight Bristol House. The fact that she’d been shown Scranton’s map while doing her job, trying to find out about the Jew of Holborn and his ancient treasures, was one more indication that there was nothing coincidental about this haunting. Somehow the two mysteries were related.

A little before six her phone rang. It lay beside her on the dining room table, and Annie picked it up without looking at it. “Annie Kendall here.” She remained intent on the laptop screen and a nineteenth-century out-of-print history of the monks of the London Charterhouse she’d found among the millions scanned by Google.

“Geoffrey Harris. How are you?”

“I’m . . . I’m fine.”

“That doesn’t sound too sure.”

“No, it is sure. I am fine.” The scrapes on her left side had stopped stinging about an hour earlier. She had to touch them every once in a while to provoke a reaction and remind herself they truly existed. “I was working. You caught me by surprise.”

“The sun’s over the yardarm. Time to stop work. I know it’s short notice, but will you have dinner with me? If you don’t have other plans.”

“No other plans,” Annie admitted. “I don’t know anyone in London.”

He chuckled. “In that case, perhaps you won’t mind settling for me.”

She was glad he could not see her blush.

***

Most of the Monday-night crowd in the pub in Cosmo Place, a small and busy pedestrian passage between Southampton Row and Queen Street, were still drinking, not yet eating. Geoff, however, insisted they order immediately when Annie confided she’d had no lunch and was really hungry.

Their first course arrived. Duck spring rolls for him; mackerel pâté with mint salsa for her. The food looked good and smelled better. Their waiter, a sullen young man with bad skin and worse teeth, asked if they wanted fresh drinks. “Two more,” Geoff said, nodding toward the small green bottles of Perrier. “Lime for me. Lemon for the lady.” Too much wine with his agent at lunch, he’d said. He was teetotal for the night. And he’d remembered her saying she didn’t drink.

“How was your meeting with Tony Blair?” Annie asked, starting on what turned out to be delicious pâté. “That is who you meant, isn’t it?”

He looked puzzled. “Meant how?”

“When you left me the other day, you said bloody Blair would only see you if you got there in twenty minutes. Since you only talk to politicians, I presumed Tony Blair.”

“On the evidence,” he said, “politicians and curly ginger-heads with green eyes.” He held out his fork, offering her a bite of spring roll.

Annie shook her head and felt the chin-length curls brush against her cheek. She’d been letting her hair grow lately. When she was drinking, she’d kept it as short as a man’s, cutting it herself with a pair of old barber’s shears, sometimes without even looking in a mirror. In all that time it was the only thing in her life about which she had been consistent. Last fall, when she passed the fourth anniversary of being sober and ran the New York Marathon—it took her five hours, twenty-seven minutes, but she’d finished—she realized that whatever statement she’d been making with her hair was no longer relevant. She threw the shears away.

“Tony Blair it was,” Geoff said. “But not in his capacity as the unlamented former prime minister. My book’s about modern Britain’s relationship to the Middle East. Lawrence of Arabia to now. Blair’s important because, having landed us with that god-awful cock-up called the Iraq War, the EU rewarded him by making him envoy to the place he’d left in a worse mess than he found it.”

The boy with the bad skin reappeared with their main courses. Steak for Geoff, lamb chops for her. “To be fair,” Geoff said when the boy was gone, “Blair put me in touch with a couple of Syrians I’m very glad to have met. They were only in London for two days, so it was fortuitous.”

Was that meant as an apology? He had not called her in the last few days because he had been pursuing two Syrians who would not long be available. But why should three days of not calling a woman you’ve only just met require an apology? “I still have your sweater,” she said. “The one you lent me—”

“—the other evening in Bloomsbury Square,” he finished for her. “Not to worry.”

“Are you always so gallant?”

He took a moment over the answer. “I think probably not. But despite the title and the expertise, you rather invite gallantry, Dr. Annie Kendall.”

“I do? Why?”

He laughed. “I wish I knew. But frankly, I find the role of Sir Galahad novel. And enjoyable.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“If you like.”

She hadn’t found anything about another marriage online, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened. And she wasn’t entirely certain if this was a “date” or some sort of extension of their previous meeting. “Are you married?”

“Was,” he said. “My wife died four years ago. What about you?”

“Also was.”

He nodded toward her bracelet. “To someone called Ari?”

“No, Ari was my twin.” She never talked about her son. It was too painful a wound and, even after ten years, still much too raw. “I’m divorced, by the way, not widowed.” She said nothing more. The silence between them lasted a few seconds.

“Change of subject,” he said, apparently picking up the go-no-further vibe. “Why do you keep staring at me the way you do? As if you thought we’d met before. We haven’t, have we?”

She turned bright red. “No. At least I don’t think so. But there’s something . . . I don’t think I should . . .” Yes, she did think she should. That’s why she’d brought the drawings.

He seemed to have read her mind. “I’m betting you want to show me something. And that it’s in that satchel you’re lugging around.”

Another blush. She couldn’t control them, and she’d long since given up trying.

An upscale pub, he’d said, with better-than-average grub. She’d worn skinny jeans, dressed up with a truly gorgeous black chiffon blouse—and despite the fact that it didn’t go with her outfit, she’d carried her unfashionable Davis School tote so she could bring the sketchbook. She’d pictured them in a booth that provided some privacy. Instead the pub had only tiny tables shoved almost up against one another. “You’re right,” she said. “I do want to show you something. But . . .” She nodded, indicating their surroundings.

As before, Geoff didn’t bother asking for a check. He put a few bills on the table and stood up. “My place,” he said. “It’s not far.”

***

He lived at 29 Orde Hall Street, about five minutes from Southampton Row, in what the English called a terrace, a string of houses sharing party walls on either side. Only one party wall in Geoff’s case—his house was on the corner. “Fabulous High Victorian,” Annie said, glancing up at the facade. “Built around 1855.”

“Eighteen fifty-six,” Geoff said as he fished for his key. “I’m impressed.”

“Don’t be. The shape of that pediment over the doorway is a dead giveaway.”

“Hope you’re not disappointed with the inside,” he said. “The facade’s the only thing original about the place. The interior had pretty much been gutted when I bought it, and I ripped out whatever remained of the old layout.”

He did something with what appeared to be the keypad of an alarm system, then flicked a switch by the door. Subdued lights came on in various places, revealing what looked to be an acre of shiny oak flooring, and an open plan layout with a sleek kitchen at one end and other living spaces delineated by groups of furnishings. Everything was stainless steel, black leather, or polished wood. “Now I’m impressed,” Annie said.

“No, you’re not. You hate it.”

“I do not.”

“I’m betting you do. Nothing particularly English about it. No sagging springs or faded old velvets. Nothing to do with theme park Britain. It’s perfectly all right. Horses for courses.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It’s a quaint British way of saying everyone’s entitled to their own taste. Coffee? I can offer espresso or cafetière.”

Geoff Harris’s was apparently one of the few British households that didn’t use instant, and cafetière she knew to be what she thought of as French press. “Cafetière, please. And I don’t hate your house. Obviously you have exquisite taste.” She followed him to the kitchen. Everything that wasn’t granite was marble or copper or brass.

Geoff activated the switch on the electric kettle and another beside it. The house was filled with Mozart’s Flute Concerto no. 1.

Annie smiled. “Sometimes I think that’s my all-time favorite piece of classical music. Is it the Galway recording?”

“Yes, and I love it too. I’m glad our tastes aren’t so entirely different. Now, let’s see what’s in that bag. The thing you wanted to show me.”

“Not one thing,” Annie said, as she took out her sketchbook and laid it on his granite kitchen counter. “A series of drawings.”

She had deliberately left the sketch of the monk’s face on top. She covered the date with her hand and waited.

Geoff leaned forward and took a long look. “Am I to understand you drew this?”

“Yes.”

“I see. Well, except for the strange buzz cut, it looks like me.”