Time's Echo (40 page)

‘What!’ I glance down at Jane, still by my side, expecting to see her recoil, but she is watching Francis with a narrowed expression. ‘That is nonsense, and you know it,’
I tell him.

‘Is it? I know you went out to that old witch in the crofts, and came back with a magic “remedy”.’ He hooks his fingers in the air to add sarcastic emphasis to the word.
‘The next thing, your husband is dead and you are a wealthy widow. You cannot deny it is convenient, hmm?’

Convenient? My heart cracks at the thought of Ned, my dearest dear. It is only now that I realize he really is dead. He has not gone to Antwerp or London. He will not be back in a few weeks. He
is dead and I will never see him again.

‘Get out,’ I say to Francis through numb lips.

‘Hawise!’ Agnes protests.

I round on her. ‘You know how much I loved Ned, Agnes. How can you stand there and listen to him tell me that my husband’s death was
convenient
?’ I practically spit
out the word and she bridles.

‘Francis is only warning you what people are saying. It’s for your own good.’

‘I don’t need warning. I can look out for myself.’ My cold gaze swings back to Francis. ‘I think you should leave now.’

He hesitates, calculates. I am only a woman, with a girl and a babe, and I cannot force him out physically, but my will is stronger than his. I face him down, and in the end they do go.

‘On your own head be it,’ says Francis, and he moistens his mouth with his tongue very deliberately as he passes me.

The moment they have gone I start to shake. I miss Ned. I ache for him, and I cover my face with my hands.

‘Mistress?’ Jane tugs at my skirt.

‘I cannot bear it, Jane. I cannot do it on my own.’

‘You en’t on your own,’ she says stoutly. ‘You’ve got Bess. And me.’

I lower my hands and muster a smile. ‘Yes.’

‘Who was that man?’

My face darkens at the thought of Francis. ‘My sister’s husband.’

‘He’s a wrong ’un, I reckon,’ says Jane, and I nod slowly.

‘Yes,’ I say again. ‘Yes, he is.’

‘Can I help you?’ The touch on my arm was very gentle.

I lowered my hands to see a chaplain sitting beside me. Above her dog collar, her expression was compassionate. A woman priest? I recoiled in shock at the strangeness of it before I remembered
who I was,
when
I was.

‘I’m frightened.’ The words blurted out of me.

‘Then you’ve come to the right place,’ she said calmly. ‘You don’t need to fear when you’re with God.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you want to tell me your
name?’

‘Grace. I’m Grace.’ I said it with emphasis, as if to prove to myself that it was true. I was Grace, not Hawise. ‘Grace Trewe.’

‘I’m Penny. What are you afraid of, Grace?’

How much could I tell her? How much would she believe? ‘Do you believe in reincarnation?’ I asked, and she smiled.

‘I believe in life after death,’ she said. ‘Of course I do.’

‘I don’t. I don’t believe in God,’ I said defiantly.

‘And yet you’ve come here when you are afraid,’ she observed. ‘You may just have a grain of faith, but a grain is all you need. God’s love is infinite, Grace. If
you believe in that, you will find peace.’

‘It’s not me that needs peace,’ I said, and when she raised her brows, I opened my mouth and the whole story came tumbling out. I didn’t mean to tell her everything, and
I’m still not sure why I did. Perhaps it was something to do with the quietness of the chapel, and her calm certainty that both reassured and irritated me.

‘I thought Hawise had gone,’ I finished at last. ‘I thought I’d beaten her, but she’s taking over my mind again. I can’t go on like this.’ I’d
been staring ahead at the altar, twisting my hands together, but at that I turned to look directly at Penny. I’d like to think I didn’t look pathetically pleading, but I probably did.
It felt like a betrayal of Hawise, but I didn’t see any alternative, if I was to leave York and get on with my life. ‘Can you exorcize her?’

Penny looked at me thoughtfully. ‘It’s not quite as simple as that, Grace. I think you should talk to Richard Makepeace. He’s the Archbishop’s advisor for the Ministry of
Deliverance.’

Deliverance? I immediately thought of twanging banjos. She must have seen my look because she smiled. ‘We don’t talk about exorcism any more. He will listen to what you have to say,
and you can talk together. And then, if needs be, he can perform a service of deliverance and help Hawise to find rest. And in the meantime, we can pray.’

I left the Minster feeling much calmer, but I was still walking tentatively, still caught between two worlds. The air was shifty, treacherous. One moment the tourists gawping up at the tower
roof or clustered on the steps of the south transept looked blessedly normal, the next they were grotesque creatures from another world, horrifying in their casual demeanour and their obscene
display of flesh.

Averting my eyes, I tested each step. The ground felt fragile, as if it might shimmer and dissolve at any moment, and I was concentrating so fiercely on placing one foot in front of another that
I walked right into Ash.

‘I’m so sorry – oh.’ I broke off as I realized who it was.

‘It’s Grace, isn’t it?’ He studied me with the intense, shiny gaze that reminded me so horribly of Francis. ‘Sophie’s neighbour.’

‘Sophie’s
friend
,’ I said.

He acknowledged the point with a faint courteous dip of his head, but there was something else there too, something condescending, as if he had taken my insistence on Sophie’s friendship
as a pathetic challenge.

‘Are you unwell? You look pale.’ Oh, he sounded solicitous enough, but I sensed the malice rippling beneath the surface, like the buboes under Ned’s skin. I slammed a mental
door on the image.

‘I’m fine,’ I said shortly.

‘I saw you come out of the Minster,’ said Ash.

‘I was looking at the carvings in the chapter house,’ I lied. ‘Not that it’s any of your business.’

‘I sense a lot of hostility in you, Grace,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Why is that?’

‘I don’t like what you’re doing to Sophie.’

Ash spread his hands in a gesture of innocence as phoney as the rest of him. ‘
Doing
to her?’ he echoed. ‘I’m not doing anything. Sophie comes to our gatherings
of her own free will. We do not force her.’

‘She’s only fifteen,’ I said angrily. ‘You’re brainwashing her with all that mumbo-jumbo.’

‘“Mumbo-jumbo”?’ Ash repeated. ‘Ah, yes, I can just hear Dr Dyer saying that.’ His voice was light, but I saw the flare of dislike in his eyes.
‘He’s the type who dismisses as nonsense anything he can’t understand. Luckily Sophie has a more open mind than her father.’

I was beginning to wish I hadn’t got involved in this conversation. ‘Is that what this is about? Drew?’

‘
Drew
?’ he mocked. ‘Yes, I gathered that you’re more than just a neighbour to the great Dr Dyer, too.’

My fingers were clenched around the strap of my bag. ‘If you’ve got a problem with him, deal with him. Don’t take it out on his daughter.’

‘I am a mere servant of the gods,’ said Ash, something vicious clinging to the edges of his smile. ‘Sophie has opened herself to the power of the universe, and I cannot stand
in her way.’

‘She’ll grow out of it,’ I said, shaking with loathing. I couldn’t disentangle him from Francis in my mind. ‘And you,’ I added.

‘You think so?’

‘Sophie’s an intelligent girl. Sooner or later she’s going to see through you, the way the rest of us do,’ I said, probably unwisely, but I couldn’t stand being
with him any longer. I saw a flash of something unpleasant in his eyes as I pushed past him and I knew that I had made an enemy, but I dismissed Ash from my mind. I had other things to worry
about.

‘I didn’t go,’ I told Drew when he asked me how Edinburgh had been. ‘I didn’t feel well.’

I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t been able to cross Lendal Bridge. I didn’t tell him why. Drew was uncomfortable with anything other than the rational. He would have come up
with any number of scientific explanations rather than accept the fact that I had been possessed by the ghost of a desperate woman four hundred years dead. At the very least, he would have said
that I had been imagining things.

When I found myself sitting in an airy house in the Minster Close the following Monday, I began to wonder, too, if I had imagined it all. In that tranquil room with the light pouring through the
Georgian windows it was hard to explain the sense of horror I had felt. My story sounded more and more absurd, even to my own ears: I couldn’t walk across a bridge, I couldn’t get on a
bus. I kept stumbling in embarrassment, sure it must look as if I was making it all up for the sake of getting attention.

Richard Makepeace listened carefully, not saying much at first, but I noticed his questions were designed to find out what else might be at work. In some ways his questions were not unlike
Sarah’s. I answered half-impatiently. I had
been
there. I
wasn’t
mentally ill or unstable or screwed up. I was possessed.

There, I had said it.

‘I need help,’ I said, as I had to Sarah, and to Vivien.

‘And God will help you,’ he said. ‘Come, let us pray together.’

I felt foolish, mouthing ‘Amen’. How had I come to this, sitting with a bowed head and
praying
? I didn’t do God. But I had tried science and I had tried magic, and the
Church was all that was left. Besides, I was impressed by Richard Makepeace’s quiet belief.

‘We can help this lost soul to find peace,’ he said with certainty.

I hoped he was right, but I wasn’t sure that mouthing a prayer would be enough, so I was relieved when he said that he would come to the house and hold a service of deliverance.

I chewed my thumb. ‘What if it doesn’t work?’ I asked.

‘It will work,’ said Richard Makepeace simply.

‘Do I need to prepare, or anything?’ I had visions of spinning heads and projectile vomiting. At the very least I could have a bucket and some cloths ready to clear up the mess.

He smiled as if he knew exactly what I was thinking. ‘Just be ready to pray,’ he said.

The stench of rotting apples was very strong when I opened the door to him the next day. He had brought the vicar from the parish church of St Maurice with him. James Sanders was young and
fit-looking, and wore trendy glasses that sat oddly with his dog collar, but when I asked him if he could smell the apples, he nodded.

‘There is a very unhappy spirit here.’

‘I think this is where she was almost raped,’ I said, whispering as if Hawise might overhear. ‘I think this is where it all began.’

‘Then this is where we will pray.’

I was half-embarrassed, half-apprehensive. All I knew about exorcism came from horror films, and however much I told myself that we weren’t dealing with evil here, I couldn’t help
imagining myself gibbering at a crucifix, or howling in the corner of the room with Richard Makepeace and James Sanders standing sternly over me. What if Drew heard and came to find out what was
going on? I thought I’d seen him go out earlier, but what if he came back and saw me bulging-eyed and foaming at the mouth?

My mind swooped nervously as I followed Richard and James around the house. They were extraordinarily matter-of-fact, sprinkling holy water in the four corners of every room, as well as the
garden and even the dilapidated shed at the back. Richard sprinkled the holy water in the four corners.

‘In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I command any spirit not at rest to depart from this place to your appointed place of rest, in God’s care and keeping, never to return,’
he said in each place. He had a marvellously sonorous voice, filled with such conviction that I was awed in spite of myself.

‘You must pray too,’ he said to me. ‘However small your faith, you must pray.’

‘I don’t know how,’ I said. ‘I only know the Lord’s Prayer.’

‘Then say that.’

So I stumbled through ‘Our Father, who art in heaven’ in every room, and each time I felt Hawise’s influence shrinking. It was like having a thorn pulled slowly out of my
brain. My embarrassment and agitation faded. No gibbering, no howling. Maybe it was just psychological, but Richard’s calmness settled around me until I was still and steady.

When we had been round the whole house, it was my turn.

‘We now pray for you,’ he said, making the sign of the cross over my bent head, ‘that you may be graciously set free from any disturbing influences in this place, and that you
and your whole being may be filled with the peace of Christ.’

I was astounded to find tears stinging my eyes, and when I got to my feet I did feel peaceful in a way I had never felt before.

And the smell of apples had gone.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Drew was furious when he found out about the exorcism. He was letting himself into his house just as Richard Makepeace and James
Sanders were leaving. I saw him register the dog collars and frown, and I wasn’t surprised when he came round later to find out what was going on.

‘I didn’t think you were into the Church,’ he said, half-accusingly.

‘I’m not.’ I told him then what had happened the previous Saturday, and about my visit to Richard Makepeace. I lifted my hands and let them fall. ‘I didn’t know
what else to do.’

‘You could have told me.’

‘You weren’t here.’

‘There are such things as phones! I would have come back if you’d told me you needed me, but of course you’d never do that, would you? You’d never admit that you needed
anybody!’

It wasn’t like Drew to lash out like that. He was usually so measured, so steady. Now he was pacing around Lucy’s sitting room, while I sat curled up in a chair. He was dragging his
hands through his hair – what there was of it – and it was all standing up in different directions. It should have been funny, but I didn’t feel like laughing. I didn’t like
it that he was upset. I didn’t like the fact that I’d hurt him.

‘I know how you feel about past lives,’ I said, feeling defensive. ‘Be honest, if I’d dragged you out of that conference to tell you that a ghost wouldn’t let me
across the bridge to the station, you wouldn’t have believed me, would you?’