The Magic Cottage (31 page)

‘There’s nothing unusual in that, is there? I mean, things coming out of the brickwork, monsters lurking in the dark – that’s pretty standard stuff on spoilt smack.’

‘You said yourself you didn’t take much.’

‘Enough to pick up bad vibes.’

‘What?’

Again a pause, a long one this time.

‘I gotta get back to bed,’ he said finally. ‘I’m not feeling as good as I might sound. Let me give you a call in the week, Mike, maybe say sorry to Midge personally. Take care of yourself.’

‘Wait a minute—’

The receiver went dead. I toyed with the idea of ringing him back, but somehow it didn’t appeal. Perhaps I was reluctant to press him further. I went back to the kitchen.

They were sitting side by side on the doorstep, Midge with her chin resting on her raised knees, arms tucking in the nightshirt she wore behind her legs. Val was leaning back against a porch post, stout legs stretched out onto the path before her. Birds pecked breadcrumbs, unperturbed by her brogues. The two women stopped talking when they heard my approach and looked over their shoulders at me.

‘How is he?’ asked Midge, and she really did look anxious.

‘Would you believe he doesn’t remember a thing?’

‘Oh yes, I’d believe that,’ Val commented drily. ‘He was so far gone last night, anything’s possible.’

‘Could be he doesn’t want to remember,’ I said.

She regarded me quizzically, but I said no more.

Midge stood. ‘I ought to get dressed and tidy up.’

‘I’ll give you a hand to straighten things upstairs,’ I volunteered.

‘No, you chat with Val for a while. I won’t take long.’

I caught her arm before she could pass by. ‘Bob says he’s sorry.’

She managed a thin smile. ‘I’m glad he’s okay, Mike, but I don’t want him here again. You know why.’

I drew her into my arms, not the least embarrassed by her agent’s presence.

‘I’m sorry too,’ I whispered.

She hugged me back only briefly, and there was something feeble about the effort. ‘You weren’t to know,’ she said. ‘I don’t blame you, Mike.’ Even so, her eyes didn’t shine for me as much as usual. She turned and disappeared up the stairs, leaving me standing there watching empty space.

‘You’ve got a problem.’

Val was in the doorway, blocking daylight and slapping dust off the back of her skirt.

I raised my eyebrows, wondering how much Midge had told her.

She stepped inside, walking-shoes clomping over the tiles. ‘Next door.’ She indicated with her head.

‘Huh?’

‘Hadn’t you noticed? I spotted it when your squirrel friend hopped onto the range. It’s only a hairline now, but it could get very dangerous later.’

‘What are you talking—’

‘The crack in the lintel above the range. It’s not that easy to see at first, I know.’

I went through, ignoring Rumbo, who was into the pots and pans cupboard beneath the working-top, unwisely left open by someone, and made straight for the iron range.

The crack was there all right, running from top to bottom of the stone. I gingerly touched the lintel and it seemed solid enough. I was shaking my head in disbelief when a shadow loomed up from behind.

‘You should get that seen to as soon as possible,’ Val advised. ‘In fact, I’m surprised you didn’t do so before you moved in; that could kill someone if they were bending over the range and it collapsed. I dread to think what will happen when the stone’s heated by fire in the winter. Goodness, are you feeling ill? You look quite pale. That lintel’s not going to fall in right away, you know; after all, it’s lasted for some time by the looks of it.’

I straightened and faced this largish woman, someone whom I’d always felt had held me in mild disdain, who didn’t actually dislike me – there had never been any true animosity between us – but who wasn’t madly in love with me either; and something in my demeanour must have alarmed her, because there was genuine concern in her voice when she said, ‘I think you need to tell me about things, Mike.’

And I did. We sat at the table and I went through everything with her, from the first visit to Gramarye, to the bizarre events of the previous night.

Then I went back, adding details, offering my own theories, feeling foolish in parts, but carrying on, getting it all off my chest.

Only the reappearance of Midge, standing at the foot of the stairs, brought my ramblings to a halt. Her face was screwed up in utter wretchedness and was blotchy-wet with tears; one hand buried itself in her hair, fingers working against the scalp.

I thought she’d overheard everything I’d said. But her other hand was pointing to the stairway behind her.

Spoiled Art

I could get no sense from her. I held Midge’s arms and tried to calm her, but she could only shake her head, a few incoherent words emerging between sobs.

So I pulled her aside, as gently as possible, and took the stairs two at a time, stopping only when I was in the middle of the round room, looking left and right, turning my whole body round, then round again, searching for whatever had upset her so much. The room was now tidy, bed reconverted to sofa, and little evidence of last night’s soirée remaining; the sun’s rays blazed through the windows, glorifying walls and furniture. I could see the forest outside, presented as framed mosaics through the glass, green and lush, with no hint of threat.

I searched and found nothing out of place, nothing that could have caused Midge’s distress.

I ran into our bedroom.

Empty.

The bathroom.

Empty.

The spare room.

Empty.

And back into the round room.

Where Midge, supported by her agent, now stood.

She was gesturing towards a window. No, towards the drawing board standing before the window. She seemed reluctant to go near it.

Val left her and strode across the room, and I quickly followed, catching up so that we reached the drawing board together.

And together we looked down at the picture of Gramarye, its overlay paper already turned back. I heard Val gasp, and perhaps I gasped too.

The painting was nothing more than a chaos of smeared colours, all shapes distorted and blurred, the picture’s original vibrancy reduced to an ugly mess, made dull by the random mixture of pigments, a deranged artist’s creation.

Even sunlight, reflected from its surface, failed to infuse any warmth.

Enticement

Just to add to our problems, Kinsella came knocking on the door a few days later.

I don’t recall the time exactly, but I know dusk was vignetting into night and Midge and I had finished yet another melancholic meal only minutes earlier – I say another because there had been a marked lack of joy at Gramarye since the weekend, and you can guess why.

God only knows the impression Val Harradine had of us when she left for home later that Sunday, with Bob’s straitjacket antics, my Twilight Zone account of life in the country, and Midge’s eventual melodramatic collapse into a weeping heap on the floor of the round room. Real Loony Tunes stuff. She must have thought – and who could blame her? – that there was something in the breeze down here that induced brainstorms and paranoia.

I’ll skip over the recriminations and further tearful scenes that Midge and I went through over the next few days, because they’d bore you (and thoroughly depress me); it’s enough to say we barely came through it all with our relationship still intact. I tried desperately to make her face up to the fact that there were inexplicable mysteries about Gramarye and I think she inwardly agreed; but strangely, she would never admit it openly, as if to do so would mean accepting that the cottage wasn’t quite the dream she had so fervently sought and imagined she’d found.

She accused Bob, of course, of destroying her painting, and when I rang him he naturally denied such (denied it pretty strongly, actually). I believed him. Midge didn’t.

I went over everything that had happened since arriving at the cottage – especially the rapid healing of my scalded hand (which she persisted in attributing to the wonderful powers of Mycroft) – time and time again, but she . . . well, like I said, you’d get bored. The outcome was that we’d arrived at an uneasy truce for the moment, neither one of us inclined to argue (or reason) any further.

So there we were, facing each other across the kitchen table, in the lull before nightfall, when came the knock on the door (by then we’d taken to keeping the door closed as soon as it began to get dark outside).

We looked at one another in surprise and I rose to answer it.

Kinsella stood on the step, hands tucked into the back pockets of his faded jeans, an easy grin on his too-bloody-handsome face.

‘Hi, good to see you two again.’ He peered past me at Midge. ‘Hope I’m not disturbing supper.’

Midge seemed glad to see him. ‘Not at all – we finished a few minutes ago.’ She joined us at the door.

‘How’s your arm, Mike?’

I begrudgingly held it up for inspection.

‘Hey, looks good! Not a goddam mark.’ His grin was well on the way to touching his earlobes. ‘No pain?’

I shook my head.

‘Boy, that’s somethin’.’ He glanced towards the gate, then turned back to us again. ‘Look, we don’t wanna intrude, but there’s someone out here who’d like to meet you guys again. You know who I mean?’

I said ‘Shit!’ to myself and Midge said ‘Mycroft?’ aloud.

She stood on tiptoe to look over Kinsella’s shoulder. ‘He’s come here?’ she asked.

‘Yup. He was kinda taken with you two. We were passing by and he thought it’d be nice to pay his respects, see how you were. Guess he’d like to see how your arm is, Mike.’

‘Um . . .’ I began to say.

‘Oh, we’d love to say hello,’ said Midge. ‘Please go and fetch him.’

Kinsella looked awkward for a moment. ‘Thing of it is, Mycroft’s sorta old-fashioned, y’know? He’s got great respect for other people’s privacy and doesn’t like to poke his nose in. It’d be nice if you invited him in personally, if you wouldn’t mind that.’

‘Of course we don’t mind,’ replied Midge, brighter than she’d been all week. ‘Is he in the car?’

‘That’s right, sittin’ in the back. He’ll be glad to see you.’

Kinsella stood aside so that Midge could hurry down the path. We both watched her open the gate.

‘That’s some lady you’ve got there,’ the American said, and I’m not sure whether the admiration in his eyes was for me or her. Then he leaned back against the door-jamb, hands still tucked behind in his pockets. ‘So how’ve things been at Gramarye?’ he asked, and I had to wonder at the casualness of the question.

‘Wonderful,’ I responded. ‘Couldn’t be better.’

‘That’s great.’

Was he mocking me? Or was paranoia really creeping in?

He pointed a finger. ‘Don’t mind me mentioning it, but you’re gonna have to watch those weeds in the garden. Let ’em get a hold and they’ll overrun.’

I followed his pointing finger and swore under my breath. I hadn’t noticed them before, but now I realized there were thin green tendrils spreading through the flowerbeds, a disorganized network of infiltrators, and the more I looked, the more I found.

‘Nature has a way of sneakin’ up on you,’ Kinsella confided and I nodded at his home-spun philosophy. ‘I could get on over anytime, bring a coupla helpers, and give you a hand there, Mike. We’d clear the mothers in no time.’

‘That’s okay. I’ll make a start tomorrow. It’ll give me something to do.’

‘You not writing?’

‘Uh, I’ve had other things on my mind lately.’

‘Well, the offer stands; just call on us any ol’ time.’

Midge was coming back through the gate, Mycroft following, two others behind. It was beginning to look more like a deputation than a friendly visit. Mycroft waved a hand in my direction as he approached and I realized the two figures accompanying him were Gillie and Neil Joby.

As he drew nearer, the Synergist leader examined the cottage – somewhat intently, I thought, like a surveyor searching for faults. And when he was only a few feet away I had the feeling his composure was not quite as placid as his demeanour indicated. It was in his eyes, you see – they were too active, never settling on any one thing for long. Even when we shook hands he couldn’t stop himself looking past me into the cottage. Then, not yet having said a word, he lifted my left hand and examined the fingers and lower arm, turning it over to study the other side. The rest of this amiable bunch gathered round and all but
oohed
and
aahed
.