The Dust That Falls from Dreams (25 page)

T
he Reverend Captain Fairhead and the four sisters arrived at the house in Glebe Avenue with a quarter of an hour to spare. Rosie was having deep pangs of doubt, and kept repeating, ‘I’m sure that we shouldn’t be doing this.’ Sophie was saying, ‘What fun! Isn’t this naughty of us? So apprehensible!’ Fairhead was keeping a grave and thoughtful silence, and Ottilie and Christabel were arm in arm for mutual reassurance.

They were shown into a sort of anteroom by an elderly maid who radiated a powerful sense of disapproval, and they sat on hard wooden chairs in a ring around the walls, in the company of six other nervous characters who all carried with them on their faces the stresses and losses of the last four years. The air was heavy with cigarette smoke.

The sour-faced maid served them with tea and langue de chat biscuits served up on delicate porcelain that was decorated with pink roses and sprigs of greenery. They stared dumbly at the dark green flock wallpaper as outside the rain began to patter against the windows.

‘Turned out wet again,’ said one of the six strangers, and everyone nodded in wise agreement and sipped at their tea.

‘Been raining for days,’ offered someone else.

‘The garden needed it,’ offered another. ‘It was about time.’

Christabel thought, ‘Well, what are you supposed to talk about when you’re hoping to talk with the dead?’ and decided not to contribute. She felt sombre and subdued. She had dilemmas of her own to worry about.

At last they were shown into a wide, dark room, at the centre of which was a large round mahogany table that had clearly been distinguished in its time, but which had become scuffed and scratched. The same could be said of the Chippendale chairs that surrounded it. In one corner of the room stood a cello on its
stand, with Ernest Bloch’s
Schelemo
open on the music stand before it, and propped against the back of an armchair was a violin. Against the wall was an upright piano, with the names of the notes written on the white keys in thick blue chinagraph crayon.

The moment they were seated, Madame Valentine entered, exuding a heavy scent of lavender. She was a voluminous woman with a bust so massive that, had she ever attempted to walk down a mountain, she would not have been able to see her feet. She was dressed in swathes of gauzy and floaty chiffon, and upon her head she wore a pink turban with a white cockade exactly in the middle, above her nose. On her fingers she wore enormous rings in silver and gold, with topaz and ruby predominating amongst the stones. Her long nails were painted crimson, the same shade as her lips, and her cheeks were highlighted with rouge, somewhat hastily applied.

She would have appeared comical, the mere stereotype of a medium, had it not been for the dignity of her bearing and the authority in her voice.

She seated herself, put her hand to her mouth and coughed for silence.

‘Welcome to you all,’ she said. ‘First things first, for those of you who have not been before. I regret to have to tell you that I cannot charge fees for what I do. The spirits forbid it. However, should you wish to show your gratitude, I am free to accept offerings that may be placed on the tray which is on the table in the hall. I will not be present. Fortunately for me, enough people have been grateful for me to be able to continue to operate.’

‘What would be the normal contribution? Is there a sum that you recommend?’ asked Fairhead, to the surprise of the assembled folk.

She glared at him a little balefully. ‘The most I have ever received is twenty pounds, two shillings, and sixpence, and the least is nought pounds, nought shillings, nought pence and two farthings. If you should wish to contribute, it is entirely at your discretion. Measure your wealth against your gratitude and your credence. And in case you may be tempted to think that I am nobler than
I truly am, you should know that we workers in the spiritual world generally believe that to accept payment for our services would cause us to lose our powers. This may or not be a superstition, but I am not prepared to risk it.’

‘Thank you,’ said Fairhead, feeling a little cowed.

‘In addition,’ she announced, ‘the spirit world, is, I’m afraid, somewhat overpopulated by jesters, mimics and mischief-makers. It is sometimes very hard to know which ones to take seriously. I generally find that a prayer before we start is a good idea.’ She looked at Fairhead severely. ‘Perhaps you would be so kind as to oblige?’

‘Me?’

‘You are a clergyman, are you not?’

‘Yes, but…how could you have possibly known that?’ He had come without his dog collar, strange though that felt, and had believed he was in disguise.

She looked at him and replied, ‘Would you be so kind as to oblige?’

Somewhat disconcerted, Fairhead could not think of anything except the blessing. He bowed his head, and the company followed suit. ‘The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you, the Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon you and give you peace. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost.’

They all intoned the ‘Amen’, and Rosie noticed that Captain Fairhead was blinking back tears.

‘Thank you,’ said Madame Valentine. ‘Shall we begin? I expect we shall have rapping noises to begin with. We normally do. Lights off, Spedegue.’

The morose and disapproving servant left the room and switched off the lights as she went. ‘Join hands,’ said Madame Valentine, and the company meekly did as it was told, although with great unease, as the British are not natural hand-holders.

‘Come! Come!’ demanded Madame Valentine in the darkness. After a few moments there was a sudden violent rap right in the middle of the table, and Rosie was one of those who jumped in her seat with startlement.

‘To whom do you wish to speak?’

There was one more rap, and Madame Valentine sighed with impatience. ‘Whoever it is does not wish to speak to anybody,’ she said. ‘Please leave, whoever you are. Now, I would ask you all to concentrate. If there is someone with whom you desire communication, kindly picture them in your mind and try to call them. If they arrive, they will do so through me.’

Rosie began to concentrate her mind on Ash, and Ottilie thought of a nursing friend in Brighton who had quite suddenly collapsed and died whilst changing sheets. Fairhead’s memory was so full of the dead that he was quite unable to focus. Sophie sat, full of wonder, thinking that this was all great fun, and Christabel was wishing that she had asked permission to take photographs. She had a Kodak Brownie with her in her bag, but only because she always carried one, just in case an interesting subject should pop up out of the blue. All of the others were thinking of brothers and sons.

It was then that a series of fantastic and extraordinary events began to take place. Madame Valentine started to moan in a manner that struck some of the married people as positively sexual. The sitters’ eyes had by now accustomed themselves to the darkness and they could dimly see the room and its contents.

The table at which they were sitting lifted slowly from the floor and floated, swaying like a rowing boat at harbour. They were still looking at this in amazement, when the piano too rose in the air and then suddenly crashed to the floor with that cataclysmic noise of which only a falling piano is capable. Then the cello and the violin rose into the air and sailed above the table, where they began to play a very discordant, gypsy-like and sarcastic, but entirely recognisable version of ‘There’s No Place Like Home’, followed by ‘Gilbert the Filbert’, which made the hairs on Rosie’s neck prickle. The most wondrous thing was that they could all clearly see the pale disembodied hands and fingers that were plying the bows and pressing the strings.

A large fireball emerged from the wall above Madame Valentine’s head and hissed across the room, disappearing through the wall above the door through which sitters had entered, followed by several smaller ones that swerved wildly past their heads and forced them to duck.

A woman who had come in the hope of a message from her son, who had been dematerialised by a high explosive shell on the Italian Front, became hysterical with fear and began to wail and sob, at which point the manifestations abruptly ceased. Madame Valentine emerged from her trance, looked around as if in extreme confusion, and Spedegue re-entered the room and turned on the light. Sophie, never a woman to be unnecessarily inhibited by custom, put her arms around the unfortunate hysteric and cooed soft words of comfort into her ear.

‘Oh Lord, what happened?’ asked Madame Valentine, whereupon she was subjected to the excited babble of the company as everyone tried to tell her at once. She listened in dismay and said, ‘Oh dear, I am most terribly sorry. This is too awful.’

‘Too awful?’ said Christabel, who had been mightily impressed.

‘I had no intention…One has these powers, you know…sometimes it can’t be helped…I was hoping we would have a nice quiet time talking to the departed…and then this happens again.’

‘I fear my prayer was ineffective,’ said Fairhead a little drily.

‘I fear it was,’ agreed Madame Valentine. She got up and went to inspect the piano. ‘It’s very odd,’ she said. ‘It never gets damaged one little bit.’

‘Perhaps you should move it to another room,’ suggested Ottilie.

‘You still get the grand piano smash,’ said Madame Valentine. ‘That’s what I like to call it, “The Grand Piano Smash”. Even if you move it out, you still get the noise. I wonder if I can get the house exorcised, then I could make a fresh start.’

On the way out Fairhead had a brief private conversation with Madame Valentine, and left a half-crown on the plate even though he had received no messages. Rosie and her sisters left a florin each, and the woman who had been so frightened left a one-pound note, as if in apology for bringing about the termination of the séance.

The five walked towards Colliers Wood in a loose gaggle, Ottilie and Christabel arm in arm, Rosie at the front, and Fairhead and Sophie bringing up the rear.

‘What a terrific show!’ exclaimed Christabel. ‘What are we to think of it?

‘Lord knows,’ said Fairhead. ‘Do you really think it was just a show?’

Christabel stopped and turned, and everyone else stopped walking too. ‘Don’t you?’

‘No,’ said Fairhead. ‘The fact that it all went wrong and out of control indicates to me that she’s genuine. If everyone got a nice message about being all right and not to worry from a relative with an “e” in their name, you could be certain she was a run-of-the-mill fraud.’

‘If she could do all that in daylight, I’d be a lot more impressed,’ said Ottilie seriously.

‘It was horrid,’ said Rosie, her eyes shining with anger. ‘She’s an illusionist. She’s putting on shows and just taking advantage of people!’

‘You think she’s a charlatan?’

‘What else could she be?’

‘Why would she be upset, then?’ asked Sophie.

‘It’s all part of the deception, obviously.’

‘Silly me,’ said Sophie cheerfully, rolling her eyes.

‘I don’t think you really believe what you’re saying,’ said Ottilie to Rosie. ‘I remember Ash was always whistling or singing “Gilbert the Filbert”.’

Rosie did not reply, but addressed herself to Fairhead. ‘Why were you upset when you said the blessing? I’m sorry to ask. I just can’t help being curious.’

‘Oh, you noticed. Well, it’s just that I’ve said that blessing hundreds of times, at the final moments. It suddenly occurred to me that forever and forever that blessing will remind me of all those dying boys. I shall always be trying not to let it show.’

A week later the Reverend Captain Fairhead called by and the door was answered by Christabel. ‘How’s the new darkroom?’ he asked.

‘Up and running,’ she replied. ‘I have pictures drying on lines all over the attic. It’s murder trying to keep the kitten out. He seems to be able to be everywhere at once. I see you’ve arrived exactly at teatime.’

‘Purely a coincidence,’ he replied. ‘I do hope Cookie has made scones.’

‘Flapjacks,’ replied Christabel. ‘Bad luck.’

In the drawing room Mrs McCosh, Rosie and Ottilie were playing mah-jong, with Rosie being two players at once, and Sophie and her father were seated at a small table, playing spillikins, exclaiming every time that a stick moved or was successfully lifted. They were suffering terrible interference from the kitten, who was darting in and pouncing on the sticks the moment they moved. ‘Daddy, you’re such a gregarious cheat!’ Sophie exclaimed as Fairhead came into the room. The kitten chose that moment to hurtle up the curtains and perch on top of the pelmet.

‘Ha ha, I’ve got the masterstick!’ said Mr McCosh, brandishing it in the air.

After tea, Captain Fairhead said to Christabel, ‘I would very much like to see some of your photographs.’

‘She’s quite the professional these days,’ said Sophie. ‘She did a photographic portrait for the Fermoys, and they paid her squillions.’

‘All thanks to the Snapshot League,’ said Christabel. ‘Who would have thought? I’ll go and get the new ones, they should be dry by now.’

‘Do be careful how you go up that ladder into the attic,’ said Mrs McCosh.

‘I’ll make sure no one is standing underneath,’ said Christabel.

‘Ladies should not use ladders at all,’ said Mrs McCosh. ‘Who knows what might happen?’

‘The Queen of Serbia used a ladder recently,’ said Sophie. ‘She climbed up a ladder against a wall so that she could have a peek at Romania. I saw it in the papers.’

‘Did she?’ asked Mrs McCosh. ‘Well I never.’

‘It’s all right, she was wearing culottes.’

‘Culottes? Gracious!’

‘Oh, Mama, she’s teasing you,’ said Rosie. ‘I don’t think the Queen of Serbia is wearing rational dress.’

‘Rational dress!’ exclaimed Mr McCosh. ‘Have you seen the photographs? Thoroughly peculiar people wearing the most absurd things. Give me irrational dress or let me go naked.’

‘Hamilton!’ exclaimed his wife reprovingly, much to his satisfaction.

Christabel returned a few minutes later, and carefully laid out her pictures on the dining-room table. ‘There are one or two duds,’ she said apologetically. ‘There always are. I have absolutely no idea what this one is. I don’t even remember taking it.’