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Tiff,' she said, disdainfully. 'A joke, indeed. Do you really believe it of me that I could have such low taste as to make a joke about our poor dead loved ones?'

'Then it's true? Charlie really told you that?'

'Charlie did indeed.'

'Then why didn't he tell me?’

'I don't know. He probably had his reasons. He only discussed it with me because he was so upset about Mrs Manzi leaving him. He hasn't mentioned it very much since. Only obliquely.'

'Mrs Simons,' I said, 'this is beginning to frighten me. Can I tell you that? I don't understand it. I don't understand what's going on. I'm frightened.'

Mrs Simons stared at me again, and narrowly missed colliding with the rear end of a parked and unlit truck.

'I wish you'd please keep your eyes on the road,' I told her.

'Well, you listen,' she said, 'you don't have any cause at all to be frightened, not the way I see it. Why should you be frightened? Jane loved you when she was alive, why shouldn't she still love you now?'

'But she's haunting me. Just like Edgar is haunting you. And Neil is haunting Charlie. Mrs Simons, we're talking about ghosts.'

'Ghosts? You sound like a penny-dreadful.'

'I don't mean ghosts in the sense that — '

'They're lingering feelings, that's all, pervasive memories,' said Mrs Simons. 'They're not phantoms, or anything like that. As far as I can see, they're nothing more at all than the stored-up joys of our past relationships — echoing, as it were, beyond the passing of the people we loved.'

We had almost reached the foot of Quaker Lane. I pointed up ahead and said to Mrs Edgar Simons, 'Do you think you could pull up here? Don't bother to drive all the way up the lane. It's too dark, and you'll probably wreck your shocks.'

Mrs Edgar Simons smiled, almost beatifically, and drew the Buick into the side of the road. I opened the door, and a gust of wet wind blew in.

'Thanks for the ride,' I told her. 'Maybe we should talk some more. You know, about Edgar. And, I don't know, Jane.'

Her face was illuminated green in the light from the instruments on her dash. She looked very old and very prophetic: a little old witch.

The dead wish us nothing but sweetness, you know,' she told me, and nodded, and smiled. 'The people we used to love are as benign to us in death as they were in life. I know. And you will find out, too.'

I hesitated for a moment or two, and then I said, 'Goodnight, Mrs Simons,' and closed the door. I lifted my groceries out of the trunk, slammed it shut, and slapped the vinyl roof of the car to tell her that she could go. She drove off silently, her rear lights reflected on the wet tarmac in six wide scarlet tracks.

The dead wish us nothing but sweetness, I thought. Jesus.

The wind sighed in the wires. I turned my face towards the darkness of Quaker Lane, where the elm trees thrashed, and began the long uncertain walk uphill.

Seven

I was tempted, as I walked up Quaker Lane, to stop off at George Markham's house and play a few hands of cards with him and old Keith Reed. I had been neglecting my neighbours ever since Jane was killed, and if I was going to continue to live here, well, I thought I ought to do something about visiting more often.

But even as I approached George's front fence, I knew that I was only making excuses for myself. Visiting George would be nothing more than a way of deferring my return to Quaker Lane Cottage, and to whatever fears were concealed behind its doors. Visiting George would be cowardice: letting the whispers and the voices and the strange movements scare me away from my own home.

I hesitated, though, and looked in at George's parlour window, where I could just see the back of Keith Reed's head as he dealt out the cards, and the lamplit table, and the beer-bottles, and a sudden blue drift of smoke from George's cigar. I hoisted my sacks of groceries a little higher, and took in a deep breath, and carried on up the hill.

Quaker Lane Cottage was in complete darkness when I approached, even though I was sure that I had left the front porch light on to guide me home. The gale blew around the house and rustled its creepers like hair, and the two shuttered upstairs windows looked like tightly-closed eyes. A house that was keeping its secrets to itself. In the far distance I could hear the endless dejected grumbling of the North Atlantic surf.

I put down my sacks of groceries, took out my keys, and opened the front door. Inside, it was warm, and calm, and I could see the dancing light from the living-room fire reflected on the ceiling. I brought in my bags and closed the door behind me. Perhaps the house wasn't really haunted after all. Perhaps the creaking of that swing last night had simply put me on edge, and given me a temporary attack of mild hysteria.

Nevertheless, once I had stacked away the groceries and the liquor, and switched on the oven for my lasagna dinner, I went all the way around the house, upstairs and down, looking into every room, opening up every closet, kneeling down and peering under every bed. I just wanted to know when I sat down and ate my meal tonight that there wasn't anything hiding in the cottage that might come down and catch me unawares.

Ridiculous; but, what would you have done?

I watched television for an hour or so, although reception was blurry because of the weather. I watched Sanford and MASH and even Trapper John, M.D. Then I cleared up the remains of my meal, poured myself a large whisky, and went into the library. I wanted to take a look at that painting that Edward Wardwell had made such a fuss about in Salem, and see if perhaps I couldn't identify the ship in it.

It was strikingly cold in the library. Usually it was one of the warmest rooms in the house. It wasn't worth laying a fresh log fire; but I switched on the electric fan heater. After only a few seconds, though, the heater abruptly short-circuited, crackled sparks, whirred, and died. There was a smell of burned plastic and electricity. Outside, creepers tapped against the window; a soft and complicated pattern, like unremembered spirits seeking access.

I picked up the painting, still in its wrapper, and selected one or two books from the shelves that I thought might help me discover what the ship might be. Osborne's Salem Marine; Walcott's Massachusetts Merchant Vessels 1650–1850; and, just out of inspiration, Great Men of Salem, by Douglass. I remembered that many of the leading commercial and political figures in Old Salem used to own private ships, and Douglass' book might contain some clues about the one in the picture.

By the time I was ready to leave the library, it was so cold in there that I could actually see my breath. The barometer must be dropping like a stone, I thought to myself. Yet, in the hallway, it was as warm as it had been before, and the barometer pointed to the optimistic side of Unsettled. I looked back at the library, wondering if there was something wrong with it. Rising damp, perhaps. A freak draught down the chimney. And again I thought I could hear — what was it, breathing? Whispering? I froze where I was, unsure if I ought to go back and face whatever might be in there; or if I ought to carry on with what I was doing with as much apparent unconcern as I could. Maybe if you believed in ghosts, that gave them even more strength to manifest themselves. Maybe if you didn't believe in them, they'd get weak, and dispirited, and eventually leave you alone.

Whispering. Cold, soft, persistent whispering; like someone relating a very long and very unpleasant story.

'All right!' I said aloud. 'All right, that's it!' and hurtled open the library door. It shuddered on its hinges, and then creaked to rest. The library, of course, was deserted. Only the creepers tapping at the windows. Only the wind, and the occasional spatter of rain. My breath smoked, and I couldn't help thinking of all those creepy movies like The Exorcist where the presence of an evil demon is betrayed by a steep and sudden drop in temperature.