The Wise Friend, page 13
“I won’t keep you. I just wanted to tell you not to bother with Halfway Halt, if you meant to.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know how you’d get there, but it isn’t worth the effort.”
“We already have.”
This made me uneasier than ever. “What did you find?”
“I think Bell’s getting more out of all this than me. If she does that’s what matters.”
“Where are you now?” I had to ask.
“Just walking.”
“Yes, but where?”
As though he shouldn’t have withheld the information Bella said “Darkmarsh.”
“And what are you expecting to turn up there?”
I meant this for Roy, but Bella answered. “We’ll know it when we meet it, Patrick.”
“Talk more soon, dad, okay? It’s getting a bit cold just standing round.”
“I may know what you mean,” I said and was preparing to explain when I realised they’d already gone. I had to resist the urge to call Roy back; at the very least it would irritate him, and I wasn’t even sure he would answer. No doubt they would take a sample from Darkmarsh and had collected one from Halfway Halt. Could their souvenir do any harm? I might have been more qualified to judge if I’d taken one myself, but I was considerably less than eager to go back.
Perhaps I had a source of insight in my hand. I told the phone to search for Magister Stellarum. I thought it might inform me that it didn’t understand, a response that always sounded like a polite rebuke, but a link to a site appeared within seconds – the Sorcerous Atlas of Britain. The link brought up an outline map swarming with tags. One tag was enlarged, and its pointer rested somewhere in the middle of the country, uncomfortably close to my location. The tag said Magister Stellarum.
When I touched it, the tag expanded. Victorian occultist, it added. Real name Harold Lambkin. I tried to find this laughable if not pathetic, but was troubled by the last phrase on the marker: His domain. I used a thumb and forefinger to zoom in on the map, and a border swelled up like a stain around the pointer. As the circle spread from Halfway Halt it appeared to be creeping to catch up with me. I didn’t need to see how close it might come, and I dropped the phone on the seat beside me before starting the car. I’d already seen more places I recognised by name on the map, and one I knew very well indeed.
Chapter Fifteen
Burials
“You never met them, Bell.”
“I don’t believe I ever said I had.”
“No, I mean you should have.”
Bella glanced at me, presumably to ascertain how Roy’s comments were affecting me. “Why do you say that?”
“I expect you’d have liked them and they’d have liked you.”
“Then I’m sorry. I am anyway, Patrick. What do you think I’d have liked?”
“I used to like how they never tried to be like me.”
“Who do you know that does?” When he shook his head as if to dislodge a quick grimace Bella said “Unless you mean Patrick.”
Julia offered this a laugh that sounded tentative or just polite. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Patrick, but I wouldn’t exactly call you trendy. What are you thinking of, Bella?”
“Roy knows.” Since his face betrayed no knowledge Bella said “Following our search.”
“I’m afraid you’ve left me behind,” Julia said.
We were in the pub – the Green Female, apparently formerly a man – where the wake had been held after my parents’ funeral. The last of the other mourners had left a few minutes ago, probably concluding I might want to be alone with my feelings and my family, however temporarily reconstituted. In fact my emotions felt as if they’d been embalmed before I’d had a chance to experience them properly, and the spectacle of my parents packed in plush at the undertaker’s had only helped freeze my response. They had both looked so rejuvenated that I could almost have imagined someone had substituted flattering waxworks. Even their calm seemed unreal, a denial of the shock and injuries they must have suffered in the car crash. When I’d spoken from the lectern at the funeral I’d felt as though I was enumerating their merits rather than truly remembering my parents as they’d been while they had breath. I’d heard myself talking like a candidate for a job at Turnbill and Semple, exhibiting the qualities my parents would have wanted from a potential partner in their firm.
Perhaps my eulogy had grown arid because I was striving to be rational about other events in my life. What had I really experienced at Halfway Halt? Had I been so bent on seeing things from my aunt’s viewpoint that I’d turned the place into a deranged cartoon of itself? Perhaps at some time in my childhood I’d overheard her mentioning Magister Stellarum in connection with Halfway Halt. The notion seemed not too far from desperate, and there was too much that it failed to explain. Now I was additionally disconcerted by Bella’s comment – by feeling I’d been used as a defence, though I had no idea why she should feel defensive. “So,” Julia said, “is anybody going to let me into the secret?”
“It isn’t much of one,” Roy said.
“Then it shouldn’t take much keeping.”
Resentfully enough to be blaming me Roy said “Dad can say.”
I thought he should be blaming Bella for alerting Julia, but no doubt his girlfriend was exempt. “We’ve been visiting places that gave my aunt ideas,” I said.
“Are you trying to recapture memories?” Julia said.
“These aren’t memories.”
“Things to do with your family, then.” As though I’d rebuffed her sympathy she said “Trying to hold on to anything you can.”
“Anybody would,” Bella said. “It’s only human.”
We were letting Julia assume too much that wasn’t true, but I preferred this to arguing. When I didn’t speak she said “Where have you visited?”
“Places Thelma wrote down. I think she started after she met the character who took my uncle’s place.”
“You think that’s what he did,” Bella said.
“Gave my aunt ideas or helped to, yes, I believe so.”
“He didn’t try to be like your uncle, then.”
As though she found the digression at the very best irrelevant Julia said “What were the places like?”
“What would you two say?”
“Maybe you had to be her,” Roy said, “to see what she saw.”
“Or you can let them speak to you,” Bella said.
An uneasy memory of Halfway Halt prompted me to ask “What did you hear?”
“They speak like her paintings, Patrick. Speak to your soul.”
“I’m afraid they don’t speak to mine,” Julia said.
Roy’s look might have been implying she had none. Not least for fear that he would voice the thought, I said “Magister Stellarum.”
Everybody turned to me, and Bella’s eyes were widest. As though he’d expected someone else to speak, Roy said “What was that supposed to be?”
“Didn’t you hear it at Halfway Halt?”
“Just heard the trees, and it was cold even though there wasn’t any wind.”
“If there wasn’t a wind, how did you hear the trees?”
“There must have been one up where they were. How about you, Bell?”
“Don’t mind me,” Julia said, “but I’m afraid I’m feeling uninformed again.”
Roy and Bella gazed at me as if I was responsible for deciding how much to reveal. “All the places Thelma wrote down have to do with magic,” I said. “Maybe there are people buried there who did.”
“What makes you think that?” Bella said.
“I found a map of them.”
I was tired of withholding the truth from Julia – in fact, I’d begun to feel I might welcome her support. I brought up the atlas on my phone, and Roy peered at it while Bella gave it just a lingering blink. “May I see as well?” Julia said.
Roy passed the phone across the table occupied by soft drinks and wine depleted by respectful sips. Julia used a finger and thumb to expand details on the map, a process that enlarged her frown as well. Eventually she said to nobody specific “Well, I hope you won’t be doing this much longer.”
“There aren’t too many, are there, Patrick? Just the ones Thelma had to visit.”
“Did you notice Third Mile Wood is on that map?”
“Maybe that’s why she bought her house there,” Roy said.
“She wasn’t online then.”
“Maybe she didn’t need the map to feel the magic.”
I thought Julia might object, but she appeared to think she’d made her point. “It’s where Diana Arborum is meant to be buried,” I told her. “Don’t ask me where.”
“I wasn’t about to. I shouldn’t think anyone cares.”
“Supposedly a witch. Real name Mary Hodge. The most recent of them on the map.” Since this brought no response, I turned to Roy and Bella. “Whoever’s planted somewhere around Halfway Halt liked to call himself Magister Stellarum,” I said. “Master of the stars, which he must have thought was more impressive than Harold Lambkin.”
I was hoping this would amuse my listeners – better still, strike them as pathetically absurd – but not even Julia smiled. “Names help to make us,” Bella said. “You’d have changed yours when you married, Julia.”
“And now I’ve changed it back.” Perhaps Julia felt this was unnecessarily insensitive at the wake. “What about yours, Bella?” she said as if to leave her remark well behind. “I don’t know the rest of your name.”
Roy laughed at Bella’s answer. “Bella Knowall?”
“That isn’t what I said, Roy. I wouldn’t take that name.”
“It sounds a bit like you sometimes.”
“Bella Noel,” Julia said to forestall any quarrel. “I’d call it musical.”
“Thank you, Julia. I’m glad it has some charm.”
“Does it mean you were born at Christmas?” Roy said.
“Something like that if you like.”
“Roy, you’re confusing us,” his mother said. “Her surname wasn’t changed, was it, Bella?”
“It’s the only one I’ve ever had.”
“I was sure it must be,” Julia said and handed me my phone, which had blotted out the atlas and was demanding identification. Apparently she thought her blank look was eloquent enough about the map. She didn’t speak again until she’d taken a sip of wine followed by a resolutely final one. “I really should be going, Patrick,” she said, and told Bella “I hope I’ll see you again soon.”
“We ought to be making tracks as well if Patrick doesn’t mind.”
I couldn’t very well expect my son to linger by himself. “Thanks for coming,” I said.
“I wouldn’t have felt right otherwise,” Bella said. “Could I ride part of the way with you, Julia?”
“Of course you can. We can start to get to know one another better.”
Outside the pub Julia gave me a terse loose hug, and Roy came up with an embrace that consisted mostly of slapping my back. Bella delivered an enveloping squeeze that lasted long enough for Julia to raise her eyebrows. “See you soon, dad,” Roy said, and Bella left a look that seemed to convey the same, while Julia’s touched upon the possibility. I watched them drive away, engrossed in a conversation I couldn’t hear. I had a sense of having missed an opportunity, and perhaps that distracted me from grasping how much else I’d missed.
Chapter Sixteen
Someone on the Roof
“What can I do for you now, Patrick?”
“We didn’t really have a chance to talk much yesterday.”
“I’m sorry if we left before you wanted.”
“I mean I wish we could have been alone.”
“Patrick, I know you must be upset about your parents, but—”
“So we could talk properly, I mean. Can you now?”
I thought her pause might hide a silent sigh. “What do you need to talk about?”
“Roy and his lady. Did you learn much about her?”
“We just chatted. They mostly did. She wasn’t with us long before I dropped her off.”
“Where?”
“The nearest station.”
“You don’t know where she was headed for.”
“I didn’t ask. Why do you want to know?”
“You said yourself we don’t know much about her.”
“I’m not so sure I ever said that, and I don’t doubt we will if they stay together.”
“Are you hoping they will? I thought you’d be bothered by the things she’s making Roy do.”
“I’m busy right now.” I thought Julia was dismissing my observation and quite possibly me as well until the sound of a door let me know that someone had looked into her office. More sharply still she said “What things, Patrick?”
“Not just visiting the places Thelma went but taking samples of them.”
“Samples,” Julia said as if it mightn’t even be a word.
“Souvenirs if you like. Some of the earth.”
“I don’t know if I like or not. Whatever gave her that idea?”
“My aunt used to do it. She kept them in jars in her studio.”
“That’s what you made such a fuss about at her funeral. You accused your parents of throwing them out.” With too little of a pause to let me speak Julia said “So Bella must have picked up the idea from you. She never met your aunt.”
“I suppose it may have come from me indirectly, but—”
“A good deal more than indirectly. Weren’t you there with her and Roy?”
I did my best to be prepared for the response I would provoke by saying “No.”
“You certainly led me to think you were. May I ask why you’d do that?”
“As I say, I wanted to discuss it when we were by ourselves.”
“I don’t know what sense that makes.” As I willed her to find it justified, her voice slowed down as though burdened by her thoughts. “Now I understand what Bella meant. She must have wanted me to realise.”
More uneasily than I could quite conceal I said “What did she tell you?”
“She said it to you and they left you to explain to me, but you didn’t.”
I recalled this style of accusation from our marriage. “Explain what?” I knew I wouldn’t learn unless I said.
“She said you’d been following them. What have you been up to, Patrick?”
“Not following in the way you mean. Just going to some of the places they’ve visited.”
“I wonder how you think I meant it. What’s this really all about?”
“I told you, I’d have expected you to be more concerned about their behaviour.”
“If you mean going places your aunt went, I’m hoping it lets them work her out of their system. Or have you something else on your mind? It’s not at all like you to object to anybody showing interest in your aunt.”
“Their kind is different. Even I think it may be too much.”
“Then you should take it up with Roy yourself. How do you know they’ve been collecting what you call souvenirs? Is he keeping them at your flat?”
“No, but—”
“And they certainly aren’t at my house. Have you even seen them?”
“Bella must have them wherever she lives.”
“In other words you haven’t. I wonder if there’s more to this than you’re admitting.”
“Tell me what there would be.”
“Do you suppose you might be a little jealous?”
“Jealous?” When this failed to convey all my disbelief I said “Of what?”
“Of our son and the relationship he seems to be developing. You do seem rather anxious to undermine it.”
“I’m nothing of the sort if it’s good for him.”
“If it is.” Once she’d made it plain that the doubts were wholly mine Julia said “You might want to be a bit more careful round her, Patrick.”
“Careful of what?”
“You were getting rather affectionate yesterday. You gave her quite a hug.”
“That was her, if you noticed. She gave it to me.”
“You shouldn’t blame a girl of her age. At the very least it’s irresponsible.”
“Whatever age you think that is.”
“That’s the kind of excuse worse men than you make. At least, I hope you aren’t like them.” As I tried to gather words to use in not too furious a retort, Julia said “I hope we’ve said all we need to say about her now. Speak to me if you need to talk about your loss.”
I couldn’t judge whether she was inviting this immediately or later, nor did I care. “I don’t,” I said.
“Just look after yourself,” Julia said, which I could have taken for a warning not to interfere, and ended the call.
For a moment I thought a dormant voice was making itself heard on my phone, but a train in the station was counselling vigilance. On the horizon a solitary windmill in the middle of the rank stirred as though regaining life and then reverted to emulating its neighbours. I went back to poring over Colin Wilson, determined to read him more attentively than he appeared to have treated some of the texts he’d read. I wished I could approach the book more carelessly, because the theme of the need for magic had grown less than welcome. I’d just learned that both Crowley and Strindberg believed they could render themselves invisible when my phone announced an unknown caller.
