(1992) Prophecy (35 page)

‘Take it,’ he said. ‘Please take it.’

‘Can’t you tell me some more? Please, Penrose.’

‘It’s just a blur – too many conflicting emotions. Too much to drink. I can only pick up the past not the present.’

‘I thought mediums could divine the future through psychometry?’ She clipped her watch back on, reluctantly.

Spode ran his eye suspiciously across the dishes, as if he was surveying enemy territory. ‘That’s a rather presumptuous thing to do,’ he said, hovering the chopsticks over a mange-tout that stuck like a green fin out of a dish that she did not remember ordering. ‘Objects are not crystal balls; they are like video-recorders; the past is imprinted in them, not the future. And I’m not a medium.’ He looked uncomfortable; evasive.

The mange-tout fell on to the tablecloth and he picked it up with his chopsticks with a sudden deftness that surprised Frannie, and clearly surprised him also. She heard the crunch as his teeth bit the crisp vegetable, then saw him lick his lips with the satisfaction of someone who has achieved a small but significant personal landmark of progress. He studied his chopsticks through new, triumphant eyes, as if they had changed from being his enemies into his friends.

‘That wasn’t just telepathy, what you did? You didn’t subconsciously pick those thoughts out of my head?’

‘I might have done.’ He suddenly looked sullen and she saw a trace of the old Penrose Spode she knew in the office, the supercilious, petulant introvert. ‘But when I hold the teabowl that belonged to an Ashokan warrior two thousand years ago and learn about things that happened to him, I don’t imagine his decomposed remains are in much of a condition to communicate to me telepathically.’

‘I didn’t mean to be rude – it’s just – I mean – what you told me is incredible – so accurate.’

He looked appeased and drank some more wine. Then he lowered his voice right down and leaned close again, glancing warily around him before he spoke. ‘I’ve helped my brother a couple of times.’ He nodded, knowingly.

‘I didn’t know you had a brother.’

‘He’s a priest.’ He raised his glass to his mouth and noticed to his surprise that it was empty. He lifted the bottle out of the ice bucket and a rivulet of water trickled on to his plate as he filled both Frannie’s glass and his own to the brim.

‘Are you religious, also?’

He shook his head. ‘We don’t get on very well.’

‘How’ve you helped him?’

‘Hauntings. Place memories. He’s a diocesan exorcist. He knows what I can do isn’t telepathy.’

‘Exorcist?’

‘Not his title – but that’s what he is.’

‘Who does he work for?’

‘Church of England.’

‘They have an exorcist?’

‘Several. He has to investigate – when people in his
parish think they have a ghost in their house or their pub or something. He has to go and see what it is. I’ve gone along and done my bit.’

‘By reading objects?’

‘Objects. Or walls.’

‘I don’t see the connection with exorcism.’

‘Some ghosts are place memories that people trigger off. I can read what they are for him.’

‘Off the walls?’

‘Mostly.’

‘Does that scare you?’

He carefully raised his full glass. ‘There’s nothing scary about the past; it can’t harm you.’ He looked down as if he did not want to meet her eye.

‘Do you know anything about Ouija boards?’

He inspected the top of his glass, lowered it unsteadily and picked up his chopsticks again. ‘My brother doesn’t like them.’ He ran his gaze across each of the dishes and fished out another mushroom. ‘He gets a lot of people with problems after the Ouija.’

‘What sort of problems?’

The mushroom fell from the chopsticks inches from his mouth but he did not notice; he suddenly stood up, the colour drained from his face, and without saying anything, walked hurriedly and erratically to the back of the restaurant. Ten minutes later he had not reappeared. Frannie went down the narrow stairs at the back of the restaurant to look for him. At the bottom were two doors, one with the silhouette of a man, the other a woman. She knocked on the one with the man but there was no response. Timidly she opened it and there was a strong reek of vomit. Spode was curled up on the floor beneath the wash-basin, asleep.

Frannie cleaned her colleague’s face with a damp paper towel and the manager called a taxi. She paid
the bill for the two of them and Spode recovered enough to stagger to the taxi, supported by herself and a waiter, and tried to give his address to the driver. ‘Spenrose Pode, Number Sheventy-sheven.’

The taxi stopped outside the Victorian mansion block in Wandsworth where Frannie knew he lived, and she helped him along the corridor to his flat and made sure he was safely in. His flat was as neat and bland as his desk. He looked at her with barely focusing eyes, and made a supreme effort to be coherent, ‘My brother could help you,’ he said, then she had to catch him as he stumbled.

‘Yes, please.’

‘Call him in morning.’

She climbed back into the waiting taxi, her own head swimming from the wine and the exertion, and fell asleep herself. She woke with a start to find she was outside her flat, paid the driver a sum which would normally have grieved her and heaved herself out, walking unsteadily down the steps, clinging to the rail as she went, and bashed noisily into the dustbins at the bottom.

She let herself in, staring at the post scattered on the floor. As she closed the front door, silence enclosed her.

Too silent.

Suddenly as sober as a judge, she stared down the empty hallway with a feeling of apprehension, backed towards the door, put her hand on the Yale latch, listening. Something was not right. Silence except for the hum of the fridge. Took a step forward. Then another. Her bedroom door was open. So was the kitchen door. Darkness spilled out of them into the hall. The sitting-room door was open also. The faint haze of orange from the street lighting shone through.

Through the silence.

She took another step forward. Waited. Heard the voices above her. A man shouting. Then a woman. The couple rowing as they often did. The baby crying. The sounds of other life in the building gave Frannie courage and she stepped forward again. Then pushed the sitting-room door open, reached in her hand and snapped on the light.

Nothing moved. Nothing there. Empty. The curtains hung open, undisturbed. Her Roman vase sat on the coffee table. She walked in slowly, looking around. Something caught her eye in the hallway; a shadow moving; or maybe it was her imagination. She stared at the doorway, watching the emptiness. Her ears popped as if she were going up in an aeroplane and she swallowed to relieve them. Then the phone rang and the stillness was shattered like exploding glass.

She snatched at the receiver, brought it to her ear. ‘Yeshallo?’ she said, talking quietly, as if afraid someone in the flat would overhear her.

‘Frannie?’ It was Oliver’s voice.

‘Frannie? You all right?’

‘Yes.’ Just a whisper again.

‘I’ve been calling you all evening. I’ve been worried out of my wits.’

She watched the hall. The shadow moved again. Stopped. Moved again. ‘Where are you?’

‘Down at Meston.’

Shadows suddenly jumped all around her. She looked up. The light that hung from the ceiling was swaying wildly in the breeze.

Except there was no breeze.

Alarm coursed through her nerves. The light began to swing faster. The cheap fringed shade the colour of parchment; the brown flex. Faster. The wire frame
creaked against the bakelite collar. Faster. The shade hit the ceiling and the flex went slack for a moment; then it swung and hit the ceiling on the opposite side; the shade cracked and a piece of dry, papery material fell to the floor.

‘Frannie? Frannie? Are you there?’

The light swung the other way, hit the ceiling even harder, hurled in anger; a huge chunk of the shade fell away. It swung back the opposite way. Hit the ceiling again. Hit it in fury.

She shrieked, putting her hands up as a chunk of the shade and its wire frame fell away, missing her by inches. She jumped to her feet, pulling the phone with her behind the sofa, staring at the lamp in blind terror.

‘Frannie?’

This time the lamp swung even harder. The rest of the shade fell away, leaving the bare bulb and a few spikes of wire.

‘I’m leaving right now, Frannie. I’ll be with you in an hour.’

There was a flash above her head. Then the entire flat was plunged into darkness.

She threw down the phone and ran out into the hall, down to the front door, jerked it open and stumbled up the steps to the pavement, then stood gulping down air, leaning against the railings in a cold sweat.

Without moving and without looking back at the flat, she stayed there for over an hour until the lights of Oliver’s Range Rover shone in her face, and he was cradling her in his arms.

‘I didn’t imagine it, Oliver.’

He had mended the fuses and they were sitting on the sofa in her living-room.

‘I didn’t.’ She noticed for the first time how
exhausted he looked. His face was white, with a patina of grease, and his hair was limp. His dark grey pinstriped suit was crumpled, his top shirt-button was undone and his tie hanging loose. His hands were grimy. He stared at the Roman vase. ‘The Bishop rang. He was very helpful. I told him you’re a Catholic – or used to be, but he said it made no difference – he’s referred me to a rector in London who’s the diocesan exorcist for the area. Protocol, I suppose.’ He shoved his hands into his trouser pockets. ‘I tried ringing him, but he must have been out. I left a message on his answering machine. Are you free any time tomorrow?’

‘I’m having lunch with Seb Holland.’

‘Perhaps he ought to come too if we go to this clergyman?’

‘If I can persuade him.’

‘Are you going to work in the morning?’

‘Yes.’

‘The message I left the rector – I asked him to call you if he couldn’t get hold of me – I gave him both your numbers.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘It’s – ah –’ He clicked his finger and thumb a couple of times. ‘Rather odd name.’ He pulled out his diary, opened it and turned several pages; then he seemed to have difficulty deciphering his writing. ‘Canon Benedict Spode,’ he read out finally.

‘Spode?’

He nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘S-P-O-D-E?’ she spelled out.

‘Yes.’ He looked at her with surprise. ‘Why? Do you know him?’

She stared back at him. ‘Where do they stop, these coincidences?’

He frowned. ‘I’m not with you.’

She shook her head in disbelief. ‘I share an office with his brother. We had dinner together tonight.’

The page of Frannie’s diary said ‘Tue 25th Sept’.

She sat at her desk trying to work, waiting for the phone to ring, running through in her mind what she was going to say to Seb Holland. She was trying hard to hold her sanity together, trying to think of everything that had happened and not think about it at the same time. Not thinking about Tristram. Phoebe’s stump. Max Gabriel being eaten away.

Her head ached fiercely. It was a damp, overcast morning and a strong wind was blowing outside; a chill fear soaked through the whole of her body, mildewing her insides and making her feel sick. She wished she had dressed in warmer clothes than her navy linen two-piece and the cerise blouse which she had put on to look smart for Seb, as well as for seeing the priest.

Penrose Spode did not appear until after eleven o’clock, and when he did he slipped in wordlessly, hung his cycling kit on the hook and walked across the office in a curious, upright manner as if he had just come from a lesson in deportment.

He eased himself into his chair and carefully placed his hands on his desk. His face was a similar shade of white to when Frannie had found him on the washroom floor. He smiled apologetically then winced, as if the act of stretching his lips had hurt his face.

‘Morning,’ she said.

Spode mouthed a silent reply.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Rather fragile.’ He stared around the office as if trying to remember where he was. ‘I think the food
must have been a little rich for me. Thank you for –’ He raised his hands and dropped them, blushing. He sat down, closed his eyes and pinched his forehead tightly between his hands. ‘I’m not very good at drinking.’

‘We had quite a lot.’

He looked as if he was about to stand up again. ‘I think I might get a coffee – would you like one?’

‘You were talking about your brother last night.’

He cradled his forehead in his hand for some moments, then he nodded slowly. ‘I spoke to him already.’

‘You have?’

‘That’s why I’m late in. I went round to him.’

‘Oh?’

‘I wanted to make sure he understood.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, surprised.

‘I’ve arranged for you to see him at half past six this evening. All right?’

‘Yes – yes, thank you.’

‘Good. I –’ He fell silent and his mind seemed to wander. Then he stood up. ‘Black, no sugar?’

‘Yes, thanks. Want me to get them?’

‘No, it’s OK.’ He shuffled across the room like an old man. As he reached the door, he stopped and looked at her for some moments. ‘You will go, won’t you?’

‘Of course.’

‘It’s very important.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘It’s just sometimes I’m never quite sure when you are being serious.’

‘I am serious. Penrose. Really serious. There’s someone else I’d like to take with me if it would be all
right.’ She looked at him, but was unable to read his reaction. ‘His name’s Seb Holland.’

He said nothing else, and shuffled out of the door down the corridor.

Frannie came out of Bank tube station at a quarter to one, blinking in the sunlight which had broken through the cloud. The autumnal wind was freshening, blowing right through her thin clothes. Her hair thrashed irritatingly around her face, her jacket and skirt flapped and billowed.

She waited for the lights to change before she crossed over. A sightseeing coach chuntered past. A taxi followed, then a BMW, its driver talking on his telephone. A motor-cycle courier weaved by, its engine blasting. A road drill pounded and her own nerves pounded with it.