The Magic Cottage (26 page)

‘I wish I understood myself,’ I sighed. ‘It seemed so real to me, as if I were inside the picture itself, walking up the path, smelling the flowers, feeling everything around me.’ I had to smile. ‘Remember that old film where Gene Kelly danced with the cartoon mouse? Well it was almost like that, as if real life and animation had come together, but with no black lines around the painted parts. So much more real, nothing to do with fantasy. And scary. Jesus, I’ve never been so frightened.’ I pulled back my head to look at her face and her eyes were mournfully wide. ‘You’ve gotta believe me, Midge,’ I all but pleaded.

‘I guess I do,’ she responded, and a familiar softness returned to her expression. ‘They said there might be long-lasting after-effects, that nobody knew precisely how long certain drug traces might remain in the system. But all these years . . .?’

‘Doesn’t seem possible, does it? That has to be the answer, though. Unless I’m going crazy.’

‘You mean you used to be sane?’ Feeble, and spoken in a doleful voice, but at least it was a stab at humour. My fingers tucked into her hair at the back of her head.

‘You must have a check-up, Mike. It could be dangerous for you.’

‘No real harm done, just a fright for both of us.’

‘More than that. What if it happens again only with worse consequences?’

I didn’t enquire what
they
might be. ‘I’m tired, I’ve been up most of the night talking old times and drinking with Bob.
And
we’d worked hard at the session yesterday. Maybe I’m more exhausted than I realized. The combination of weariness and alcohol may have sparked off something that’s still sneaking around inside me.’ I wanted to say:
But it could be the cottage itself, Midge. Maybe there’s something going on here that’s way beyond our comprehension, something that creates illusions (hadn’t I seen a hundred bats at least inside the loft when there weren’t half as many? Didn’t I keep seeing someone watching us from the edge of the woods? Hadn’t I been absorbed into a painting so that I’d become a part of it, a human element walking in living paint?), some kind of Magic that cures sick animals, and even people if the stories about Flora Chaldean were to be believed (and what about my own arm? Had the Synergists healed the burns, or had Gramarye worked its powers during the night while I slept? Their green liquid might have stopped the pain, but had it really soothed away the burns?)
That’s what I wanted to say, but it sounded ridiculous enough in my own mind. Midge would have thought I’d really flipped, and my fear was that she’d be right. So I kept quiet when I should have brought everything out into the open there and then. At least that way Midge might have been given cause to acknowledge some of her own feelings concerning Gramarye, intuitions that she was unable to accept consciously. It wasn’t to be, though, not just then.

‘Promise me you’ll go back to the hospital, Mike, the one they took you to before. They know your history, so they can give you the appropriate tests and find out if you really are clear.’

‘You’re talking as if I used to be a regular junkhead, Midge. You know I was never that way.’

‘You indulged.’

‘Occasionally, and only soft stuff, for Chrissake. And never since
that
time.’

‘All right, Mike. Please don’t get angry, I don’t want to fight any more.’

‘Me neither. But don’t let things grow out of proportion: doping was never a habit with me. Yeah, I know – they nearly all claim that, but you know it’s true in my case. I’ve seen too many good lives wasted for me to get hooked.’

Her fingers dug into my back, but her kiss was soft. ‘Forgive me for getting mad earlier?’

‘I can’t blame you – God knows how it must have looked.’ I returned her kiss, glad the wall was down (partially down, anyway: I was still holding back on vague and sinister notions and, although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, so was she). To change the subject, lest I got in too deep, I said, ‘I tried to call you on my way back this morning and got no reply. Have you been out most of the day?’

‘I went for a long walk.’

‘In the rain?’

‘A little rain doesn’t bother me. I felt the need to be in the open, among the trees, to feel grass beneath my feet. I’d worked on the painting all day yesterday and some of this morning and I needed to clear my head.’

‘So you went into the forest?’

‘Yes. Believe it or not, I managed to lose my direction and found myself looking down on Croughton Hall again.’ Her voice had become low once more, as though not keen to continue that particular line of conversation.

Naturally I persisted. ‘You mean the Synergist Temple – it isn’t called Croughton Hall any more. What did you do? Did you go down there?’

‘I thought I’d just say hello – you know how kind they were to us at the weekend. I thought they’d like to know how your arm was, too.’

‘Oh yeah? Who did you see? Kinsella, Gillie?’

‘I saw Mycroft.’

‘Considering he’s supposed to be a mystery man, he’s been pretty much in evidence as far as you’re concerned.’

‘I’ve only met him twice now, Mike.’

‘Twice more than the local vicar.’

‘Who wouldn’t want to avoid
him
?’

‘I don’t suppose our Reverend realized he was upsetting you – upsetting us
both
– with his gruesome little story. He probably imagined it would make Gramarye more interesting to us, y’know, add more character.’

‘It did that all right, unpleasantly so. I’ve begun to get nervous when I go down to the kitchen in the morning, wondering what I’ll find sitting there at the table.’

I didn’t mention I’d had the same trepidations. ‘Put it out of your mind. You don’t believe in spooks anyway.’

‘Not that kind. I don’t believe death is the end of everything, though – there has to be something more that gives meaning to all this. We can’t exist and then not-exist, otherwise all we do or try to do would be so pointless.’

‘Well, that’s something we’ll never know until they close the lid on us, will we? I’ve gotta admit, I’m not that curious right now.’

‘Mycroft told me we can know. Or at least, we can glean some idea of our state after death.’

‘Ahhh, Midge, you’re not falling for all that shit, are you? “
Is there anybody there, Uncle George, can you hear me, is there anyone around the table who had a grey-haired grandma who passed over recently, say within the last twenty years or so?
” You’ve gotta be kidding.’

‘No, not that kind of nonsense, I don’t go along with any form of footlights spiritualism. It’s no better than certain religions which only make a mockery of people’s beliefs.’ She paused, as though unsure whether or not to go on. Then she said, ‘Mycroft teaches that when the will is truly attuned to the Divine Spirit, then the mind can achieve a higher perceptual condition than ever before experienced. He believes that our own spiritual force can be united with the perpetual essence of those who once lived.’

A small, weary groan from me halted her for a moment.

‘No, Mike, not by the simplistic and phony methods used by so-called mediums and their like, but in a truer sense, solely through awareness. Perhaps in a form that’s outwardly less substantial than voices or movement of objects, or even visions, but all the more pure and undistorted because of that. No chicanery, no illusion; just a mutual contact between psychical energies, with Mycroft as guide and, if you like, interpreter. Words can’t explain it properly – certainly mine can’t; you just have to believe.’

‘I bet you do. I’ll bet his whole cult is based on that kind of blind faith. How can you seriously consider what he’s been telling you?’

‘I never said I did.’ The tightness was back in her voice. ‘But his ideologies and concepts are interesting to hear, and if you’re open-minded enough they make a lot of sense. You have to listen for yourself, though, Mike – listen to him, not me. You’d soon realize he’s a remarkable man.’

‘No, thanks, I think I’ll remain my ignorant, unimpressed self.’

‘I should have known that’s all I could expect from you. Always the cynic, for ever wrapped up in your own non-beliefs. You have to step outside that jokey little world of yours sometime, Mike, you have to
try
and reach for something more.’

‘Jesus, he’s really got to you.’

Midge turned away from me, a wild, disgusted movement, and I immediately regretted my scorn, justified though I thought it was. I laid a hand on her shoulder and felt a sob jerk through her.

‘Midge, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you like this. Guess our bio-rhythms are out of sync today, huh?’ Quit the gags, I warned myself, and closed the gap between us so that we spooned together, my front against her back, as snug as yin and yang. I wished our attitudes towards each other at that moment could be as comfortable. ‘I should know by now that you’re always willing to listen to fresh ideas and philosophies without necessarily accepting them. That’s always been one of your virtues, the ability to absorb new thoughts and consider them.’ I expected to hear ‘brown-nose’ from her, a usual reaction to nice comments from me, but she really was too upset. ‘Maybe I’ve got Mycroft and his groupies all wrong. I’m sure he’s completely sincere in his beliefs, but you can’t really expect an old diehard cynic like me to swallow them, can you?’

Snuffles from Midge.

‘Let’s talk about it,’ I went on. ‘You can tell me more, and then maybe I can throw in some other points of view. It’s always worked that way for us in the past, hasn’t it?’

She spoke, but she didn’t turn around. ‘Mycroft says he can help me reach my parents.’

I was too stunned to say anything right away, and probably that was just as well. Eventually, I did say, ‘Oh, babe . . .’ and immediately felt her go rigid.

But I was firm, and pulled her round to face me. This was something we really did have to discuss.

It was dark when I woke up later, although a bright moon somewhere from view did its best to compensate; light from the window made a monochrome quilt of the bedsheet. I turned to Midge and her breathing had the evenness of deep sleep.

I’d made an effort to keep cool earlier, holding back on a lot of things I’d like to have said about Mycroft and his crazy notions. I know I took the coward’s way, but I was anxious to repair the silly rift that had developed; trouble was, Midge took my lack of argument as condonation and became more enthused with the idea of reaching her parents through this self-deluded Synergist. I tried to pull on the reins gently, but she’d soon become carried away, filled with the idea of actually ‘talking’ to her folks again, almost as if she could in some weird fashion lay their spirits to rest. Their deaths hadn’t been easy, you see, no slipping smoothly away into eternal sleep, and she had the unhappy thought that somehow the traumatic circumstances in which they’d died wouldn’t allow them peace in the after-life (whatever
that
was).

I shivered and pulled up the sheet around my neck; the day’s rain had left the night chilly. And there was a definite damp mustiness to the bedroom now, much stronger than it had been earlier on. The digital clock on the small, round table beside the bed told me it was 22.26 and it took me more seconds to work out that it was twenty-six minutes past ten. We’d slept through the afternoon and evening.

As I lay there, a shadow flitted past the window, a bat or an owl on its nocturnal jaunt. The flapping of wings sounded hollow in the windless air.

My throat was still hangover dry and I was tempted to rouse Midge so that we could go down to the kitchen together, have coffee or hot milk, a sandwich maybe, and talk some more. I felt our afternoon’s conversation might be advanced a little, hopefully with me infusing a modicum of logic into the situation. There was a need to tread warily, though, because I’d never known her quite so gullible about anything like this before, but I was sure patient reasoning would sooner or later win through.

Leaning over, I kissed her exposed shoulder. She stirred and mumbled something unintelligible that probably made sense in whatever dream she was having, then turned onto her stomach, out to the world. I nuzzled the back of her neck, but she was really van-Winkled, not another movement in her. Resting back on my elbows, I stared across the room at the window, the sky there a kind of shiny blue; miserably, I recalled the love-making that had preceded our sleep. The physical act that should have been sweetened by lovers’ reconciliation hadn’t been good. Oh no, it hadn’t been good at all. I think the effort of at least achieving a result had contributed considerably to our mutual weariness, because I know I flaked out immediately afterwards. Now I mentally apologized to Midge, more for falling asleep so fast than for my poor performance (we were both old and wise enough to know these things happened occasionally even in the best and most sensual relationships).

I tossed back the sheet, half hoping the movement would wake her, but it didn’t. Slipping on my robe, I crept over to the door, deciding it really would be unfair to disturb such a deep sleep. My hand touched the wall for guidance as I neared the door and I was surprised when my palm came away wet. I stroked the plaster and my fingers slid through a sheen of moisture. A leak? No, couldn’t be – this dampness wasn’t running. Condensation, then? In summer? Had to be, though, and it
had
been raining for most of the day. It made me wonder what winter was going to bring! Obviously there was more work to be done on this place, but we wouldn’t know what until the weather changed for the worse.

I went through to the hallway at the top of the stairs. I flicked on the light-switch, but the stairs still looked shadowy where they curved round the bend. To be honest, I didn’t much fancy going down into the kitchen and I guess you know why, but I convinced myself I was grown-up and an unbeliever at that. I began the descent and stopped halfway, the black hole at the bottom that was the kitchen itself looking particularly uninviting. The ‘hallucination’ with the picture had obviously unnerved me a lot more than I’d thought.

Gritting my teeth in the best hero tradition, I continued down, my hand scrabbling ahead of me for the light-switch that was just inside the open doorway. The image –
the feeling
– of unseen, cold and bony fingers curling around my wrist was unbearably strong in my mind, almost strong enough to send me scurrying back upstairs, in fact, but I stalwartly (well,
stubbornly
might be more apt) resisted the impulse.