(1990) Sweet Heart (32 page)

She had dithered for half an hour deciding what to wear, putting things on and taking them off, wanting to look good. She felt better after she’d had a long bath and washed her hair, made up her face and put on a black halter top, trousers, a white satin jacket, patent shoes and a large chain-link necklace. She felt better, too, after another mouthful of gin and tonic.

‘You’re very quiet tonight,’ Hugh said. ‘You must be shaken finding your hypnotist dead like that — pretty horrific.’

‘It was. And Mrs Letters’s funeral.’

‘Are you still blaming yourself?’

She nodded.

‘I shall miss the old girl. I really liked her.’ He picked up his glass and rattled the ice cubes. ‘But it was an accident. Nothing more.’

She wished she could believe him.

‘Where are records about graves kept?’ she asked. ‘If you see a name on a gravestone, and you want to try to find out about that person, where would you look?’

‘On a recent grave?’

‘Early fifties.’

‘I should think the County Records Office in Lewes would be the place.’ He looked down at his drink then up at her. ‘Is it the grave you were looking at after the funeral?’

‘Yes.’

His eyes watched her carefully, but she saw behind their studiousness something else, a warmth, an interest. For the first time since she had met him she sensed he was looking at her for another reason than merely to try to probe into her mind. She blushed and he grinned and raised his glass and touched her own with a light clink, and she drank some more and began to feel good, began to feel safe, to feel that maybe it was going to be possible, one day, to be normal again.

‘Did you ever try to patch your marriage up?’ she said.

He rattled the ice cubes again. ‘Someone once said that marriage is like a glass. Once it’s broken you can stick the pieces back together, but you forever see the cracks.’

‘Are you ready to order yet?’ The waitress was smiling; she looked informal, like a college student.

‘A few more minutes,’ Hugh said, returning the smile, flirting with her, and Charley felt a pang of jealousy. He studied his menu for a few moments. ‘Will you and Tom get back together?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t think I have any confidence in anything any more.’ His large hand slid across the table and his fingers lightly touched the tops of hers. Then he gripped them gently but firmly.

‘You have lots to be confident about.’

Strange emotions heaved inside her. ‘Being adopted is an odd thing. You don’t feel secure. You’ve been given away, for whatever reason, even if your parents have been killed, you have the knowledge that someone had to find you a home, give you away. It makes you feel all your life that everyone else in the world is going to give you away too. I think I fooled myself into believing that our marriage would be forever. Nothing’s forever.’

He squeezed her fingers. ‘That depends what you call forever.’

‘Do you think that people meet again, in future lives?’

‘Some believe that’s what attracts people to one another. You know, you walk into a crowded party and you are immediately drawn to one person because it’s someone you knew from another life.’

‘But we’re not aware of it?’

‘Some people are. Not many.’

‘And you believe it’s possible?’

‘Yes.’

She fiddled with her napkin. ‘My doctor thinks I might be epileptic.’

‘Doctors are good at thinking that sort of thing.’

Their eyes met and they both smiled.

‘Did you find out who used to own the Triumph?’

‘I haven’t heard yet. I’m hoping to get her started tomorrow. I’m just waiting for some gaskets to arrive in the post. I’ll take you for a spin.’

‘That would feel very strange.’

‘You know, somewhere like Edinburgh University might be interested in doing a study on you. They have a faculty of parapsychology.’

‘No thanks,’ she said shortly. She glanced down the menu. She wasn’t hungry and did not care what she ate.
She searched for a new topic of conversation, one that would interest him.

‘Tell me about ley lines,’ she said. ‘What exactly are they?’

‘Narrow magnetic fields that run in straight lines. No one fully understands what they are. Ancient man used them as lines of alignment for sacred places. The Romans are credited with building straight roads, but they only built them along ancient leys. The electromagnetic fields seem to come from mineral deposits, ore seams and underground streams.’

‘Can they affect electricity?’ she asked, her pulse quickening.

‘The strongest force fields are on junctions between leys. You sometimes get electro-magnetic disturbances on those.’

‘What sort?’

‘The Alexandra Palace in London is built over a junction of two leys. It’s burned down three times.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. The most common thing over these junctions is ghost or poltergeist activity. There seems to be some evidence that spirits get energy from these things. Ancient man built all his ancient places of worship — burial grounds, barrows, sacred stones — along leys. The most important ones are on intersections. Stonehenge is on an intersection.’

She frowned.

He looked at her in a strange probing way that reminded her of the first time they had met. ‘So is Elmwood Mill.’

A full moon burned brightly above them as they climbed out of the Jaguar, and the water fell steadily over the weir. Charley listened for Ben’s barking, but could hear nothing.

Hugh stood still for a moment. ‘Do you know what I see when I look at the moon?’ he said.

‘What do you see?’

‘Three bags of American urine.’

‘Urine?’ She picked up the large rubber torch she had left on the back seat of the Jaguar, and they walked towards the steps.

‘That’s what they left up there — the first men, when they landed. Three bags of urine.’ He put his arm round her.

‘Why?’ her voice had a falsetto tremble.

‘The official reason was to see what would happen to it. I often wonder if it was something different: like dogs and cats pissing over new places to mark out territory.’

She laughed. His arm was snug, comforting. ‘So man’s technology still can’t nullify our base instincts?’

‘Something like that.’

The roar of water seemed deafeningly loud against the silence of the house. She put the key in the lock, twisted it and opened the door. The sharp white light of the torch shot across the hallway, bouncing up and down the stairs, great shadows dancing with it as if they were clipped to the beam. No sound from Ben.

She swung the torch in a wide arc and saw his eyes glowing red out of the darkness of the passageway. ‘Boy! Hallo, boy!’ He did not move.

She hurried to him, knelt and stroked him. He was sagging on his haunches, cold and shaking; his hair felt almost prickly, ‘I’m sorry, boy. Didn’t you like the dark?’ She hugged him, ‘Come on, boy, come outside!’

He slunk to the front door, then seemed to perk up as he ran down the steps and across the grass. Charley unlocked the cellar door, felt the cold draught brush her face, and went down, glad that Hugh was with her. The mains switch moved with a loud snap and the overhead light came on.

Hugh glanced around, his head almost touching the ceiling. Charley looked up at the disc of the meter. It was barely moving, ‘Do you know much about electrics?’ she said.

‘It’s a good system you’ve got here. This is the latest, safest technology. I’ve got it in my own house.’

They went up the stairs and she closed the door. Hugh took her shoulders in his large hands and held them gently; his eyes were smiling; her own smiled back. They kissed. It was strange, wicked; a good feeling. His mouth was softer than she had somehow imagined. They kissed again, longer, much longer, for five minutes, maybe more, until they were interrupted by Ben who came running up to them, barking and jumping, and Hugh laughed and said it looked like Ben had made a pretty good recovery.

They kissed again in the passageway, in the chilly draught from the front door that was still open and she felt Hugh’s hands slide up under her jacket, under her halter top and gently across the bare skin of her back.

As she worked his shirt tail out of his trousers and ran her hands up his warm powerful back, she did not hear the low humming that had started in the cellar.

Hugh lay, breathing heavily, cold sticky sweat drying on his body, sensing vaguely that he was at the wrong end of the bed. The moonlight beamed harshly in on his face, strong enough to tan him, he thought. He could hear Charley’s breathing, deep, rhythmic, could smell her perfume, her sweat, her animal body smells, and he was becoming aroused again.

His mouth tasted vile, of stale garlic and brandy and cigar smoke. He tried to move but something was holding him down, pinioning him down, a weight across his chest. He put his hand out and felt something hard, smooth. One of her legs. Gently he lifted it and
slid out from under it, padded across the room to the open window, and stood listening to the night, to the roaring water, the squeak of some creature, the solitary hoot of an owl.

He walked through into the bathroom and fumbled on the wash-basin for the toothpaste. He unscrewed the cap, squeezed some out on to his finger and rubbed it on his teeth. It tasted sharp, fresh, minty. He ran the tap and rinsed his mouth out, and out of the corner of his eye saw a figure coming through the doorway towards him, an indistinct, hazy figure through the darkness.

Charley. He was filled with a sudden energy and burst of lust as he saw a sheen of moonlight bounce on her breasts, saw her long naked legs. He wanted her in here, wanted to sit her up on the washbasin and —

She ran a finger down his back, tracing over his buttocks, down his thigh, then up, slowly up, took hold of his erection and began to rub it with strokes of her slender fingers, long light strokes, so light she was barely touching it. He smiled at her and she smiled back, a strange smile. A freaky smile.

Then he saw a glint of steel.

Saw the shadow as her arm came down and the knife sliced into his erection, sliced with burning agony right through it and blood sprayed like a fountain, agonising dark squirts in the darkness, spattering him in the face, spraying over her, covering her breasts, her stomach, her thighs, spraying over her grinning sick face.

The knife flashed again, seared into his stomach. Streaks of pain shot up inside him, and the knife twisted, tearing a scream of agony from his throat.

‘Stop!’ he bellowed, dropping his hands and grabbing the blade, but she tore it back, slicing open the skin of his hand, and bones of his fingers. The knife plunged again into his stomach, twisted, turned, lifted him upwards with an incredible maniacal strength, then he
fell down on the blade and it cut him open like a filleting knife.

‘Stop! Charley! Stop! For God’s —’

He was howling, pummelling with his fists, shaking crazily, trying to back away. He smashed against the wall, except the wall was soft, cushioned him, bounced him gently.

Charley’s face burned white, brilliant white. Moon white.

The moon.

He was staring out of the window at the moon, gulping down air. The room was quiet. Silence. Just as the roaring of the mill race outside and the thumping of his heart. He felt for Charley, but touched only an empty pillow.

There was a strong smell of perfume, a heady, musky perfume. Charley must have put it on, he thought, to freshen herself up. The smell seemed to be getting stronger, as if she were in the room now and coming towards him. But there was no one. He heard the door open and turned and saw Charley walking in, a shadowy figure in the moonlight.

Something was glinting in her hand.

His skin tightened around him. He pushed himself back, pressed the palms of his hands against the mattress, tensing his muscles, drawing his legs up, blind terror surging through him. He started moving across the bed, slithering across it.

‘Hi,’ she said, ‘I’ve brought you a glass of water.’

He stopped, his heart booming, resonating inside him, and stared warily as she moved towards him, as the moonlight glinted off the thing in her hand. He did not relax until the hard glass touched his teeth, the fresh water washed into his mouth, and he drank gratefully, drank like a child. Then she removed the glass and replaced it with her lips.

They kissed, and she pulled back her head playfully, ran her fingers through his hair, and said, ‘You taste nice and fresh. Did you brush your teeth?’

In the morning they made love again. Hugh lay on top of her and she felt his crushing weight, felt the warm strength of his body, the hairs of his beard tickled her face. He took some of his weight on to his elbows and she gazed into the blue-grey eyes that were so close they were blurred.

She felt safe. Safe with him here. Safe and good. A bird outside pipped. There was the clatter of the paper boy’s bicycle and Ben, downstairs, barked, ‘I’m going to have to throw you out in a minute,’ she said.

‘Oh yes?’ He nibbled the end of her nose.

‘The electrician’ll be here soon, and the builders. I don’t think it would be too good an idea if —’

‘Can I see you tonight?’ He rolled over and heaved himself up against the headboard.

She smiled, ‘Yes, please.’

His eyes became serious. ‘Charley, would you mind terribly if I did something?’

The change in the tone of his voice alarmed her. ‘What?’

His face reddened. ‘You know what I was saying last night, about ley lines — intersections?’

She said nothing.

‘I — I don’t know what it is exactly, but there is something very strange in this house — there’s some atmosphere —’ He smiled, but the smile failed to dismiss the worry that had suddenly etched into his face. ‘It’s probably what I think it is — a bit of electromagnetic interference caused by the ley lines — and that’s almost certainly what’s causing your electrical problems.’

‘Why have they only just started causing problems
now? Wouldn’t they have done so before?’

‘You don’t know they haven’t. Your predecessor here was mad as a hatter and she might not have been aware of the problems.’

‘Or maybe they drove her mad.’