MASQUES OF SATAN (31 page)

The rage which had been lulled to sleep during my long walk from the hospital suddenly woke. At first the door handle slipped in the sweat of my hand. I gripped tighter and twisted.

I entered the dining room and closed the door quietly behind me. All I could hear was the whirr and click of the film projector on the dining table and all I could see were the moving images on the screen ahead of me at the opposite end of the room. The silver profile of a man, sharp featured, black eyed, androgynous, was bending over that of a woman. Who was it? Valentino? Novarro? Novello? I could not tell. As my eyes became accustomed I could make out the back of Fand’s head with its combed white locks. He was sitting in front of the dining room table close to the screen and watching it, motionless. Now some words in white were shining out of the blackness.

‘My darling, we are one for all Eternity!’

As I came quietly up behind Fand I became aware of the smell again, that horrible, sweetish, sulphurous, rotting fish smell that I had caught at the first séance. He must be producing ectoplasm, drooling it out all on its own. Now as I came closer I could see it. There was not a little pocket handkerchief of it this time: it was as if a whole sheet of crumpled, faintly luminous, material had tumbled out of his sagging mouth. He was fully in a trance and couldn’t see me. His dead eyes were fixed on the screen, where a girl was running frantically along a street at night, lamplight glistening on wet paving.

The rotting fish smell was beginning to overwhelm me. I felt the urge to vomit; I wanted to leave the room, but I was held by the sight of the ectoplasm that had come out of him. It was moving.

It was a like a lava stream of grey-white luminescence that fell from his mouth to his lap, then from his knees on to the carpet, where it seemed to be gathering and coalescing with a curious rotating movement. Now above the rattle of the projector I could hear another sound, a little like stertorous breathing, but perhaps more like the noise children make when they are drinking through a straw and reach the bottom of the glass. It was coming from the loathsome matter that was gathering on the carpet.

‘Norman!’ I said. ‘Norman, wake up!’ But he had not heard me. On the screen the black-and-white face of the girl, wide-eyed, was screaming silently as hands closed about her throat. The stuff on the carpet was knotting itself into a shape somewhat like a head with no eyes, a small bump of a nose and a great black maw of a mouth. The thing was now no longer accidental but purposeful. It formed itself into an irregular serpentine shape with the eyeless head at one end and the tail in Fand’s mouth and began to wriggle towards me. It swayed from side to side as it approached. It was as if it were trying to find me out by smell or hearing. I dared not make a sudden movement, but backed slowly towards the window instead. The one thing I knew I could not do was touch the thing.

For a moment I looked away from the loathsome object and at the screen. On it were the words: ‘Under the roofs of the city every night a hundred tales of misery were unfolded to the unheeding stars. This has been one of them.’

It had come off the carpet, this ectoplasmic creation, and had started to rear up, swaying from side to side, like a cobra being piped by a snake charmer. Apart from its vague, inchoate head, it was still completely shapeless, but it was now vast. It was bigger than Fand, a great lurching mass of spongy grey stuff, and now the only thing that glowed in the room. The projector was still running but it showed only black on the screen, since the words THE END had faded.

It was taller than me, and it had found me. The whole room was now full of rotting fish. I was gasping for breath, and the creature was emitting a meaningless dribble of squeaks and groans, like a baby with an old man’s voice box.

Suddenly it shot out a tentacle of its stuff towards me. It touched my cheek and felt vile, spongy and yielding, like old candy floss, but somehow alive.

All this had happened while I was in a state of paralysed fear. Every second that passed, my mind was receding from any kind of will to move or act. It seemed to the rational part of my being that very soon I was going to be extinguished, as terror gave way to a longing for absence. Already, as if I were in a dream, my legs felt as if they had lead weights attached to them. I staggered forward and made an ungainly swing at the stuff with my right arm. It passed right through a wet, clammy membrane that palpitated unsteadily. This caused it to shriek in a high pitch, like a dog whistle. I stumbled back, fear and rage and blood returning to me. I reached out and grabbed the heavy damask curtain that covered the tall dining room windows, and then I knew what I must do. I wrenched the curtains aside and the room was flooded with light. At once the ectoplasm collapsed into a flabby, useless heap on to the carpet. The film at last had come to the end of its reel and was flapping around while the projector launched a blade of pure white at the screen. Mr Fand was caught in this crossfire of light and suddenly jerked in his chair. He began to choke on the shreds of ectoplasm which still hung from his mouth. And then he saw me.

His last look was one of concentrated loathing. Veins stood out like worms on his red, twitching face. He coughed twice and then out of his mouth came the white gobbets of ectoplasm followed by a torrent of dark blood. Then he fell to the ground.

My mind was still, silver and cool now. I went and turned off the electrical supply to the projector, taking care to cover my hand with a handkerchief as I did so, so as not to leave fingerprints. I took similar care while opening the window onto the front garden before I stepped through it. The avenue was empty. I started to walk up the slope towards Dora’s house. I passed it by and when I reached the top of the rise I turned to look back down towards Fand’s house. I thought I saw a woman holding a young boy by the hand standing on the pavement opposite. I thought they looked like Midge and Cyprian, but I did not stay to find out for certain.

A week later, while I was at Aunt Dora’s house, making arrangements for her funeral and sorting through her papers, I saw several black cars draw up outside Fand’s house. They disgorged a congregation of elderly, black-coated mourners, headed by Carl. Evidently they had returned from the funeral for the wake. So Fand’s seizure had been fatal, as I had expected. Some weeks after this there was an article in one of the Sunday papers to the effect that Midge was suing Carl because he had alleged that she was somehow implicated in Fand’s sudden death. Not long ago I read that a substantial out of court settlement in Midge’s favour had made her posthumous revenge complete. I doubt, though, if this has satisfied her.

I sometimes think of getting in touch, but I won’t; and she has made no effort to contact me. Had she done so, I might have chosen to play out the charade of our relationship to its inevitable bitter conclusion. The thought of her, though, still excites me a little, I admit. I suppose this leaves me free to find the ‘nice girl’ that Aunt Dora always wanted me to settle down with, but I have no appetite for it. The truth is, Midge has spoilt me for all the nice girls.

Two days ago I found out where Fand was buried and it was, I am glad to say, in Cricklewood and not Highgate Cemetery, like Aunt Dora. But the journey to Cricklewood has done little for me except to confirm that some things must remain unresolved.

After visiting Norman Fand’s grave I decided to pay a call on my Aunt. It is evening. I leave the cemetery where Aunt Dora lies with her Anton at last and walk up Highgate Hill. For a moment I pause and look down to where, in the far distance, sprawls the great grey web of London. Far across the respectable roofs and trees in the yellow autumn light a voice is singing. It is faint, but has the strange clarity of distance. A cracked, self-pitying wail it is, an old woman: perhaps — almost certainly — a drunk. She sings the last verse of a song I now know too well:

‘Pale hands, pink tipped, like Lotus buds that float

On those cool waters where we used to dwell,

I would have rather felt you round my throat,

Crushing out life, than waving me farewell!’

Now the voices are always with me. The old silence has gone.

Music by Moonlight

‘THIS WALK IS BY WAY OF being a memorial to Judy,’ said Mrs Brudenell. ‘You didn’t know Judy, did you? She was before your time. Oh, she was a darling, and it was she who started the whole idea of our Midnight Walks, of course. Well, it was my brainchild actually, but I like to say it was hers because she did all the organising. She was terribly good at that sort of thing. So this Friday, it being the first full moon in August, which is our date for doing it, and weather permitting — natch! — we’ll be carrying on the tradition, as ’twere, in her honour. Would you like to join us? We’d love to have you along.’

Max nodded. He wasn’t sure he liked being drawn in by this vigorous grey-haired woman with the upper class bleat and the affected locutions. Three months ago Max had moved into a rented cottage in Winterswick to compose music, and to recover from his wife Helen’s death. But it was wrong, he told himself, not to want to be part of the community, especially when everyone was so welcoming.

‘Oh, splendid, splendid,’ said Mrs Brudenell, who did not actually see his assent, but had taken it for granted. ‘Now what we do is this. At nine p.m. we’re all meeting up at The Angel in Sternborough, where we park our cars and have a bite to eat. It’s nothing special, but they do a perfectly acceptable lasagne, I’m told. By the time we’ve finished, it should be dark and the moon will be up, so we take the so-called “Smuggler’s Path” — Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! — up the River Sterne to Renhall. It should take a couple of hours, and we’ll arrive at our destination, which is Renhall Church, at midnight. The witching hour, as they say!’ She laughed, showing a mouth full of surprisingly large teeth. Max managed a smile. ‘The church will be opened so we can sit down, and perhaps have ourselves a naughty nip or two of  much-needed cherry brandy. Then we all assemble outside in the churchyard at Judy’s grave. It being the first year we’ve done the walk without her, I’ve prevailed upon Dick to say a few well-chosen words. You haven’t met Dick yet have you? He’s our local vicar. Runs the three parishes of Renhall, Sternborough, and Winterswick. He’s a non stipendiary, you know: you’ll like him, very approachable. Used to be quite high up in Hazards, the merchant bank, apparently, so thankfully not one of those awful happy-clappys from Croydon or Bootle, or wherever. Then Dr. Bartleet, who has parked his camper van at the church earlier in the day, will drive us all back to our cars at The Angel, thus concluding the summer night’s festivities!’

As the Friday approached Max was hoping fervently that the event would be rained off. It had been over six months since his wife’s death, but the famous healing processes of time had yet to do their work. The solitude he sought was not a balm, but it did seem to him the natural environment for his grief. After her death the most shocking thing had been simply Helen’s absence, not only in spirit, but even in memory. Without the aid of a photograph there were times when he could barely remember what she looked like. He had retired to the silent, flat lands of Suffolk, hoping somehow that, if he kept himself very still and quiet, something of her would return. As yet it had not, but he still hoped, which was why he begrudged every hour spent away from his loneliness and the music which was his sole companion.

Friday, however, turned out to be perfect for night walking: warm, cloudless, but slightly misty. The party that met at The Angel in Sternborough was nine strong, including Max. There was Mrs Brudenell and her husband, a retired army Major; Dick Seely, the vicar; Dr Bartleet; and Maggie and Dennis Hooper, an elderly, rather nondescript couple who ran the little general store in Winterswick and had been invited along because Mr Hooper was a cousin of Judy’s. Then there were Tim and Harriet Calder, middle aged, prosperous: he commuted to London during the week; she, apparently, drank.

At The Angel Max sat with the Hoopers, who were ignored by the others, though this did not seem to worry them greatly. They were a self-contained, rather complacent pair. When Max asked them about their cousin Judy, they said they had not known Judy that well, because ‘Judy’s dad and Dennis didn’t get on.’ This, for them, seemed to settle the matter of Judy, and made Max wonder what they were doing on the walk at all.

By ten, night had fallen and the party set off from The Angel, Dr Bartleet leading energetically with a map and a torch. The moon was high and the sky clear except for a few wisps of cloud. Mist clung to the meadows. The walkers followed Dr Bartleet in little groups of two or three strung out along the path that led through the fields to the River Sterne. It was an informal arrangement whereby one could move from one group to another for a different conversation, or walk alone with one’s own thoughts. Max began the expedition by himself but was soon overtaken by Major Brudenell, who took his social duties as seriously as his wife Madge, but with rather less enthusiasm. He was an inch or so shorter than his spouse, bald and neat, with a toothbrush moustache. Max had not met him before, beyond the briefest of formal introductions, and it soon became clear that the Major was one of those people who liked to put his fellow men and women into simple, impermeable categories.