Awakening (35 page)

‘Despair is a sin,' says Antigone sternly. ‘It's the sin against the Holy Spirit. We all know this.'

‘Don't,' says Anna, registering her sister's flinch. ‘How is this helpful?'

‘Let me explain. After my husband's passing, I left Salisbury for my sister's house. I was shown my room. Under the eaves. A perfectly adequate room, formerly a servant's. But despite all Sarah's kindness, I found my position in the household demeaning. I looked out of the skylight – nothing to be seen but the leads. The thought came – I'm ashamed to say it – that I should hang myself. I threw myself on the bed, howling into the pillow. The door swung open. And what do you think? A kitten came padding through. She has saved my life. I do believe she was sent. And since then we've shared nearly every waking and sleeping hour together. Tilly is a tabby with one white paw; her brothers and sisters were all drowned.'

‘I'm glad you have some comfort, dear Antigone,' Beatrice rouses herself to say. ‘Yours is a heavy burden.'

‘Ah, but Tilly was only the beginning. The following day I awoke early, dressed and looked round my shrunken world. I am a widow, I thought, looking in the mirror. That's all I am now. A relict. There came a sense of warmth – of presence. And
he
was there, at my shoulder. Our eyes met in the mirror. He spoke no words – aloud. I don't think so. He may have. But what I heard in my own mind was:
Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?
The words of the risen Christ to Mary. I don't know how long this went on. But I knew – I know – it was my husband. In person.'

Ghost or hallucination, Anna thinks, it was a Second Coming of sorts for Mr Kyffin – and no less, after all, than the poor man had promised.

‘Is this what you wanted to tell me, Antigone?' asks Beatrice.

‘This was just the beginning, dear. For then, you see, my sister introduced me to Mr Rayne, our dear pastor. Have either of you attended a séance? No, dears, of course not – your Papa would never have approved and you may well look sceptical – there are so many charlatans about to exploit the credulous. But we place our faith in the scientific method and revelation both. There's a word for Mr Kyffin's manifestation in my mirror.'

Yes, thinks Anna. It's delusion.

‘It is
crisis apparition
. At times a phantasm visits before a death; at others after it. The veil parts for a moment, our beloved slips through to comfort and advise. Beatrice, since then I've come to understand the Mind. The Mind is a great miracle. But no more than, say, the electric telegraph. Do we dismiss the telegraph or underground cable? Do we say, Oh dear no, this cannot happen, our senses are deceiving us? Such-and-such a message cannot have been transmitted from New Zealand or India? At our church we receive communications from the World Unseen. Many times Mr Kyffin has visited me through table-rappings, mind-readings, automatic writing, mesmeric trances. He came on Friday last, about seven in the evening, and this is why I am here. May I pass you his message?'

‘Is it from Luke?' Beatrice asks.

‘Oh yes.'

‘But how could he possibly speak to you, Antigone? He had no – vocabulary.'

‘Ah, but these messages come through
mediums
, dear. Otherwise we'd be at a loss to understand them. They are confided to the mediums by tutelary spirits in the Other World. The messages are at best translations. Besides, children grow up there far more rapidly than here. They're generally taken care of by their grandparents.'

‘Then how do you know it was him? How do you know it's authentic? The voices could be demons deceiving us.'

‘That could always be the case, Beatrice,' Mrs Kyffin gravely acknowledges. She explains that we're surrounded by evil angels as well as good – and the world is shifting in relation to its Creator. From what the Magnetic Church has gathered, the angels and demons are massing in vast armies ready to fight the final War. ‘We have to sift all messages carefully.'

‘Tell me then,' Beatrice says. Anna sees with misgiving the hunger and determination in her sister's face.

‘Luke wants you to know that he is safe and well. He says Grandmama Pentecost is looking after him. He says he swam back where he came from across the river. God made it an easy journey for him. He just gave a big yawn, closed his eyes and fell asleep. At first he didn't realise that he'd died. He begs you not to cry, dear heart.'

Beatrice asks, trembling, ‘But does he miss me?'

‘No, dear, why should he? He is here.'

‘Here?'

‘With us now, as we speak.'

‘Where?'

‘In this room.'

‘Let him tell us so himself. Let me see him.'

*

Christian would be dismayed. Probably. But Christian hasn't been told. He's in Ireland converting the Catholics. A job that could detain him indefinitely, Beatrice thinks cynically. What does he care anyway? Her sister has agreed to come, just for company and curiosity – and not because she believes in conjuring tricks.

They sit in a circle, blinds and curtains closed, the fifteen senior members of the Magnetic Church of Bradford on Avon, venerable and great-bearded gentlemen and several respectable-looking ladies. Beatrice is placed between Pastor Rayne and Antigone on a comfortable sofa, a hand held in each of theirs. The whole thing is conducted as a religious service and there's little to distinguish it from a prayer meeting. The nervous storm that all but prostrated Beatrice in the past week has waned. Once we arrive at the threshold, what's left to fear? The two Beatrices have fought like tigers and the mother won over the sceptic.

Shall I see you again and hear your voice?

Nothing whatever happens. The pastor emits a gentle purling of prayer. He's a handsome man with a silver wing of hair, softly spoken; pale blue eyes. The murmured prayer seems to go round in circles, calming one's breathing. By and by there's a shift: they all seem to be breathing as one organism. Between her lashes, Beatrice sees in the dim light Antigone Kyffin sitting like a sleeper propped in a chair, her head lolling forward. Antigone is vacating her fleshly house, opening it to the use of whatever spirit may wish to inhabit it. Through the closed blinds and curtains comes the dreamy song of the mistle thrush, with an echo to it. A dog barks in the distance; the clock, at first unheard, ticks louder and slower. Beatrice begins to slide. Her head tips back on the sofa; her lips slacken; her hands in those of her neighbours relax.

‘Gentle Saviour who dearly loved children,' Mr Rayne continues. ‘Breathe consolation into our sister Beatrice. If it be Thy Will, bring her into communication with her beloved Luke, the soul who has gone before her.'

Beatrice slips further down into a pool of quiet. Warmth seeps into her hands. She has a sensation of well-being. Then it's as if her face is being blown upon.

‘Mama!' A high, thin voice pipes from Antigone, whose head has fallen back in a swoon, face ashen.

Beatrice is on her feet, hands over her mouth. ‘Luke! Is it really you?'

Lispings. Babblings. Sighs and shifting sounds just like those Luke used to make as he was waking up but before he was completely awake. Beatrice would bend over the crib and her face would be the first he saw as he opened his eyes.

Then a lisping voice is heard, speaking in sentences. She makes out, ‘Mama! I am well. I'm over here with Jesus and Magdalena, Mama.'

Now Anna's on her feet, sobbing, and she cries out, ‘Magdalena! Lore, are you there?
'

Finger on lips, Mr Rayne gestures to Anna to sit down and be silent: this message is not for her. The quiet resumes. Beatrice can hardly breathe. She refrains from looking at her sister and closes her eyes. So it's true then: the graves are opening. The dead are coming amongst us. Mr Rayne squeezes Beatrice's hand. There's a scent of … something calming … lavender, lilac.

‘Luke – dear heart – it's your mama – darling – '

No answer. Anna's outburst has driven the messenger away.

Mr Rayne resumes his prayer. He asks for the peace of God that passes all understanding.

The baby on the other side begins to babble. There's an enormous chuckle as if he were being tickled. Mrs Kyffin heaves with laughter. Beatrice dissolves in tears. Then an elderly voice quavers a lullaby and one has the feeling that the baby's being rocked, rocked to sleep, and Beatrice rocks too.

But now there's another voice, adult, speaking with the suspicion of a foreign accent. Lore? It's Lore to the life, terse, tinged with asperity.

‘For whom in this room is your message? Please speak slowly and distinctly.'

‘For. My. Sister. Is that slow and distinct enough for you?'

Beatrice thinks: but Lore had no sister.

‘From whom is your message?' asks Mrs Kyffin.

‘From a child who is here.'

‘What is the child's name?'

‘You should know.'

‘Boy or girl?'

‘A mother's child.'

‘Does the child wish to speak to its mother?'

‘Why would that be necessary?'

‘Lore!' cries Beatrice. ‘I know it's you! For the love of God. Have some pity.'

Antigone begins to whistle. It's a high-pitched whistling between her teeth like a lad blowing on a grass blade between his thumbs; uncouth, unladylike. Antigone would, in the normal way, be ashamed to make such a rude noise. She'd be physically incapable of it. Over there in the Other World someone is mocking us. Beatrice claps her hands over her ears. The shrilling wakens Antigone herself. As she comes to with a jolt, the whistling stops. Drained of energy, the medium collapses. She is revived and offered a glass of water.

The pastor resumes his prayers. He asks the Lord for a blessing on the dear medium, peace of mind and a replenishment of her magnetic powers. He lays his hand on her head. Pastor and medium gaze into one another's eyes; Antigone's slowly close under the influence of his.

And Beatrice knows.

It's a theatre of illusion. Luke has gone forever. He no longer exists in any world that she can know. She understands that God has ordained this separation between herself and her beloved. She bends to the knowledge. What can there be but compliance? He ordered it at the beginning of time, before the Spirit moved on the face of the waters to create the world. He not only foresaw but ordained the arduous birth and painless death of Luke Ritter one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one years after the birth of Christ. He did this for reasons of his own, inscrutable and terrible and, in our human terms, arbitrary. Mr Spurgeon is right and Christian Ritter is wrong. There's no scaling God's high wall. It's just as her father told Beatrice. With our spectacles and telescopes, and standing on a mountain of books, we cannot even see to the top. All we can do is to kneel here in the dust and wait. Beatrice rises, puts on her gloves, picks up her bag and, without a word, leaves.

That was certainly Lore, she thinks, and shudders as she latches the door behind her. A demon got in.

*

It was Lore, thinks Anna. To the life. Lore is over there but also in here perhaps, in the room with us now. She looks round fearfully. Lore's death was nothing but a sham – a trick. When the dying woman turned her face to the wall, Anna thought she saw the suspicion of a smirk on her lips and has always had this odd feeling that Lore went into hiding.

What is one to make of the apparition's claim to have a sister? Who is Lore's sister? She had no sister.

I am Lore's sister, Anna realises.
A garden enclosed is my sister
,
my spouse
,
a spring shut up
,
a fountain sealed.

The phantom told not lies but riddles. Yes, she claimed a child was present. But Lore never named Luke. She withheld the gender. So it was not Luke then – perhaps – but Magdalena. And when she was asked if the child wished to address its mother, Lore answered, ‘Why would that be necessary?' It wouldn't be necessary if mother and child were already united and together. Over there, beyond the invisible wall.

Yet reason revolts against all this. Anna has so often scoffed at reports of haunting zither music from a musical box strapped to a medium's leg; levitations out of windows; a ghostly banquet in which sugar plums were decanted from a medium's sleeves and skirts. She gathers herself together. There's a chill in the air of the panelled room; the gaslights burn low and Anna wraps her cloak tightly round her. She has been born into a world that believes that the dead survive. When she rose from baptism in the Avon, she did so as an immortal. She has been brought up to credit miracles – water into wine, Lazarus resurrected. It would be blasphemy to ask whether Jesus was a conjuror. Lore was always looking beyond, to some homeland across the border of death: ‘
Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen bl
ü
hn
?'
She'd recite Goethe's poem, haunted by the absent land of the lemon trees, so present in her mind. Turning her head to peer along Lore's eyeline, Anna saw nothing but the heavy furniture of the material world.