The Unseen (30 page)

Outside it had clouded over – puffy, mottled, grey and white clouds, fat with unshed rain. The light in the room went ashen, leaching the colour from their faces and from the bright, functional furniture. Mark burst to his feet, quickly switching on the overhead lights as if he couldn’t bear it.

‘Mr Canning? Can you tell me anything about your grandparents? Anything at all?’

‘You’re wasting your time,’ Mark told her flatly, as he came back to his chair. He crossed his legs, picked at the seam of his jeans with one thumbnail.

‘Or anything about a family scandal? Something that happened, before you were born?’ she pressed.

‘Leah …’ Mark protested, wearily.

Geoffrey Canning turned to look at her, a pleasant, uncomprehending smile on his face, eyes slightly worried, as if he knew he had forgotten something important. Leah smiled reassuringly, and squeezed his hand.

‘John Profumo. That was the scandal of the day, my word! Yes. Lovely girl – what a cracker she was!’ he told them. ‘And the other one – the blonde.’ Geoffrey nodded sagely. Mark shook his head incredulously.

‘Of all the things he would remember! He always did have a crush on Christine Keeler.’

‘I guess the chances of him remembering any family gossip he’d heard are pretty slim,’ Leah said, somewhat deflated.

‘The memories are there, it’s just …’ Mark twisted his hand in the air between them. ‘Getting to them. They’re all knotted up. The pathways between memories and thoughts don’t work the way they should any more. It’s all disconnected …’

‘He may not even know anything about the fairy photos. It wasn’t much of a scandal, after all. It was probably forgotten about a couple of years afterwards …’ Leah sighed.

‘Fairy photographs? That wasn’t the thing, Mandy! No indeed. There were
big
secrets, things we weren’t allowed to talk about. Whenever I asked I was told “fairy photographs”, but that wasn’t it. I
heard
them talking. That wasn’t the big scandal in our house, oh no,’ Geoff told her, shaking his head adamantly. Leah’s heart beat faster, she gripped his hand tighter and he smiled delightedly.

‘What was the big secret, Mr Canning?’ she asked, intently. Geoffrey leant towards her, relishing the drama.

‘
Murder!
’ he whispered loudly, eyes as wide as a child’s. ‘Bloody
murder
!’

A shiver slipped between Leah’s shoulder blades. There was something in the way Geoffrey Canning’s eyes lit up, something in the way he whispered it, as though mimicking exactly how he’d first heard it. She was suddenly sure it was a real memory; that it had happened, and that this crime was what had haunted Hester Canning so.
Murder!

9

1911

‘These are … simply marvellous. Marvellous. Truly, the most
wonderful
pictures,’ Albert breathes, leaning forwards over the table top and putting his face close to the photos, as if unwilling to defile them with his touch. Robin Durrant smiles, his face alight, jubilant with triumph. He seems unable to speak, and instead puts out one hand to grip the vicar’s shoulder. Albert reaches up with his own hand and covers the theosophist’s, grasping the other man’s fingers tightly. For some reason, the ardour in that touch distracts Hester from the pictures, and she moves closer to her husband, putting her own hand gently upon his other shoulder. There they stand, Hester and Robin, either side of the vicar as he sits at his desk with the pictures Robin had taken that very morning arrayed before them, still reeking slightly of the developing chemicals. After a pause, Robin gently removes his hand from Albert’s, but the vicar does not reach up to take Hester’s hand instead. She fights the urge to pinch him, to lean her weight, make herself felt.

Instead she reaches forward and picks up one of the prints. ‘Careful, Hetty,’ Albert cautions her. ‘They are easily damaged by fingerprints and the like.’

‘I shan’t damage them, dear,’ Hester tells him. She examines the photo as closely as she can focus her eyes. The odd, androgynous form, swathed in diaphanous white and with copious hair flying out behind it. In most of the shots it is just a blur, features impossible to make out, form lost in the swirls of fabric. But in two or three, a human-like figure is clear to see, leaping with its thin limbs cast out
wide. ‘And is this like the ones you saw, Bertie? The ones you described to me?’

‘Yes,’ Albert says, although he does not sound entirely sure. ‘Though, this one seems to be better formed, and rather taller …’

‘That is only to be expected,’ Robin says, swiftly. ‘I expect, from your descriptions, Albert, that what you saw were some slightly lesser beings than this – perhaps elementals allied to some wild flower or meadow herb. I have seen just such beings myself in the meadows here, and they are indeed smaller and of a less sophisticated form. This, I believe to be the guardian of the old willow tree.’

‘A dryad?’ asks Albert.

‘As it would have been called, in ancient times, yes. Like the tree it nourishes, this elemental being is a larger and more sophisticated entity. I did endeavour to engage it in a dialogue, but it was wary of me, and perhaps wisely so, though I did my utmost to emanate waves of love and welcome towards it.’

‘Perhaps that was rude,’ Hester says, before she can catch herself. Robin glances at her. ‘Well, I mean … if it has lived with this tree in the meadow for many long years, perhaps you, as the visitor, ought not to have bade it welcome to its own home,’ she explains. Robin smiles slightly.

‘Really, Hetty. Don’t be so obtuse. Robin means only to speak in general of his emotional vibrations. There is no social etiquette to be observed here,’ Albert says.

‘Well,’ Hester says, taken aback. ‘I’m sure I didn’t meant to imply—’

‘No, it’s quite all right, Mrs Canning. I understand what you meant. One must of course tread carefully with something as pure and reactive as these beings,’ Robin says, benignly.

‘Look – look at this one. The face is almost discernible. And lovely – quite, quite lovely …’ Albert holds a particular photo up to the theosophist, who takes it and studies it closely, his eyes lost in thought.

‘Lovely indeed,’ he murmurs.

‘Robin – we must publish these at once! The whole world must see them! I shall call the papers myself – is there a particular one you should like to have the pictures first? Can copies be made?’

‘Of course, of course. We shall do just as you say, Albert,’ Robin soothes the trembling vicar.

‘Well, gentlemen, I shall leave you to your … great work. Amy must have got the children dressed by now, and we have promised them a trip into Thatcham to buy sweets,’ Hester says brightly, but if she hopes to cause a stir with her departure, she is disappointed.

‘I’m not sure what to make of it,’ Hester confesses to her sister, as they walk slowly along The Broadway in Thatcham, parasols on their shoulders with the sun beating down on them, almost like a physical weight. Ellie and John lag behind them, squabbling over a bag of liquorice twists. The town is quiet and stifled. From the smithy, the clank of hammer on metal is slow and irregular, as if, however used to the heat he might be, even Jack Morton’s arm is too heavy that day. Those people of Thatcham that are about walk slowly, their faces screwed up against the onslaught. Fat flies buzz around their heads with aggravating tenacity.

‘Come on, children. Let’s go down to the river and see the ducks,’ Amelia calls over her shoulder, her voice brittle with impatience. ‘These photographs of his, you mean? I’m not surprised you don’t. I shall have to see them myself before I pass comment, of course, but …’ She shrugs.

‘But? You suspect them to be … not genuine?’

‘How can they be? I’m sorry, Hetty, but it’s just too much.
Fairies
. Really! And you say he was quite alone when he took the pictures, and when he developed them?’

‘Oh, yes. Albert doesn’t go with him into the meadows any more, and nobody is allowed into the cold store. His dark room, that is.’ Hester steps carefully over the butcher’s brindle-haired
dog, fagged out flat on its side in the middle of the pavement. It twitches an eyelid as her skirt tickles it.

‘Well, there you are then! He’s had ample opportunity to doctor the images … I can’t see how he will hope to convince anyone if he has produced them in such secrecy,’ Amelia declares.

‘Well, they do seem … that is, it does look like a real … person – figure, that is. It’s just that … it’s so blurred it’s hard to tell if it is a fairy or just a … woman,’ Hester says, hesitantly. ‘But it can’t be a person. Who could it be? Nobody would partake willingly in such a deception. Nobody from the village has hair so long and fair, nor would be out in the meadows before sunrise. No. There is some other explanation … Perhaps it
is
real,’ she concedes. ‘Albert certainly believes it.’

‘Yes. It’s clear that Albert is rather … caught up in it all.’

‘Oh, yes. He is quite convinced by whatever Robin says,’ Hester agrees, not trying to keep her unhappiness from sounding.

‘Remarkable, how quickly they have become so close.’

‘Indeed. So very close. Sometimes … sometimes I catch Mr Durrant watching me with a most peculiar expression on his face, and I wonder …’

‘What, Hetty?’

‘I wonder if he knows things about me that I would rather he did not.’

‘You mean, that Albert may have been indiscreet? About your … marital affairs?’

‘Perhaps, as I confide in you, Albert has … confided in Robin,’ she says, hesitantly. Amelia takes a short breath and considers this for a moment.

‘That speech he gave last night, about the undines in their ecstasy … do you suppose he was referring to …?’ she suggests.

‘You would know better than I if that was what he was referring to,’ Hester says, miserably.

‘I thought he merely meant to cause a stir! Rascal of a man!’
Amelia’s voice is low and scandalised. ‘Well, that only confirms to me something I suspected from the very start, dear sister.’

‘What did you suspect?’

‘That Mr Durrant is not what he seems to be. Be careful, my dear. Do not let him get the better of you, and … try to distance yourself from this whole fairy business.’

‘How can I distance myself when my husband is so very involved?’ Hester asks. Amelia is silent, and appears deep in thought for some minutes.

‘It is a difficult situation, I do see. I think the best thing will be to speak of it little beyond the walls of The Rectory; to try to encourage scepticism in Albert, if it is at all possible; and to hope that the whole affair blows over quickly. A madness of this hot weather, and nothing more,’ she says at last.

‘Scepticism? Albert is busy writing a pamphlet about it all! They mean to go to the press, and publish the pictures … Surely that must mean that Robin is genuine? That he does not mean to dissemble? Surely he would not risk exposing himself in this way otherwise?’

‘But what has he to lose, Hetty? He is an unknown, who seeks to be known … whereas Albert has a reputation, an important role of long standing in the church and in society … He lends respectability to the project, but if there were to be a scandal …’ Amelia says seriously.

‘Then Albert would suffer more damage from it than Mr Durrant?’

‘Indeed he would, dearest.’

‘But … what can I do?’ Hester cries, fear making her tearful. Amelia takes both of her hands and squeezes them.

‘Don’t look so frightened! It will more than likely come to nothing at all! And perhaps it could be a good thing for them to publish the pictures – if they cause a stir, Mr Durrant may well take himself off on a tour with them, or some such. It may hasten his departure from The Rectory.’

‘Oh, do you think so?’ Hester says, hopefully.

‘You must hope so; and wait to see,’ says Amelia, and though she smiles at her sister, her eyes are grave.

At the river, Thatcham’s children are sporting in the greenish water, leaping from the bridge with whoops of delight, paddling haphazardly from bank to bank, where the grass is being trampled muddy. Ellie and John watch them with envy and rage, knowing better than to even ask their mother if they can join in. They stare, and chew their liquorice glumly, running blackened tongues over greyish lips. The air is cooler by the river, where tall horse chestnut trees shade it and the water soothes it. The two sisters walk very slowly and find a bench to sit upon. No ducks to feed, not with the racket the children are making.

‘I do wish you didn’t have to go back to town tomorrow, Amy,’ Hester says softly.

‘So do I, darling. But … we must. I have much to talk to my husband about.’

‘What will you tell him?’

‘Just what I told you. That if he continues, I will love him no more. Perhaps that will not bother him.’ She shrugs sadly. ‘Perhaps it will. But what else can I do?’

‘What can any woman do?’ Hester agrees. She thinks of Cat, and smiles. ‘My maid, Cat, would tell us off for such defeatism. She went to jail to earn us the vote, after all.’

‘Was that what it was all about? How ridiculous. They do more damage than good, those foolish vandals.’

‘Indeed,’ Hester murmurs. ‘And have you any more words of advice for me? Regarding my … marriage bed?’ she asks, and though she tries to make her tone light, the words come out with a quaver that sounds fragile, at breaking point. Amelia squeezes her hands again.

‘Only this. If you are lying close to him, smiling and asking to be taken into his arms, then your part is done, dearest. Anything
that is lacking is lacking in Albert, not in you. So I cannot help you, because you are not the problem,’ she says.

‘Yes. That is what I have come to fear.’

‘So, I suppose this will take Mr Durrant to pastures new,’ Hester says to Albert, lying on the cool sheet with the blankets cast off, in the sudden darkness of the bedroom after the lamps have been extinguished. The window is still open, to freshen the air, and the distant sound of a dog barking echoes in from the village. She turns onto her side, facing Albert, as she always does in bed, and can trace the shape of his face in the pale glow of the starry night sky. His eyes are open and shine softly. He does not reply for quite some time, and when he does his voice is tight with anguish.