I'd made an effort to keep cool earlier, holding back on a lot of things I'd like to have said about Mycroft and his crazy notions. I know I took the coward's way, but I was anxious to repair the silly rift that had developed; trouble was, Midge took my lack of argument as condonation and became more enthused with the idea of reaching her parents through this self-deluded Synergist. I tried to pull on the reins gently, but she'd soon become carried away, Filled with the idea of actually "talking" to her folks again, almost as if she could in some weird fashion lay their spirits to rest. Their deaths hadn't been easy, you see, no slipping smoothly away into eternal sleep, and she had the unhappy thought that somehow the traumatic circumstances in which they'd died wouldn't allow them peace in the afterlife (whatever that was).
I shivered and pulled up the sheet around my neck; the day's rain had left the night chilly. And there was a definite damp mustiness to the bedroom now, much stronger than it had been earlier on. The digital clock on the small, round table beside the bed told me it was 22:26 and it took me more seconds to work, out that it was twenty-six minutes past ten. We'd slept through the afternoon and evening.
As I lay there, a shadow flitted past the window, a bat or an owl on its nocturnal jaunt. The flapping of wings sounded hollow in the windless air.
My throat was still hangover dry and I was tempted to rouse Midge so that we could go down to the kitchen together, have coffee or hot milk, a sandwich maybe, and talk some more. I felt our afternoon's conversation might be advanced a little, hopefully with me infusing a modicum of logic into the situation. There was a need to tread warily, though, because I'd never known her quite so gullible about anything like this before, but I was sure patient reasoning would sooner or later win through.
Leaning over, I kissed her exposed shoulder. She stirred and mumbled something unintelligible that probably made sense in whatever dream she was having, then turned onto her stomach, out to the world. I nuzzled the back of her neck, but she was really van-Winkled, not another movement in her. Resting back on my elbows, I stared across the room at the window, the sky there a kind of shiny blue; miserably, I recalled the lovemaking that had preceded our sleep. The physical act that should have been sweetened by lovers' reconciliation hadn't been good. Oh no, it hadn't been good at all. I think the effort of at least achieving a result had contributed considerably to our mutual weariness, because I know I flaked out immediately afterward. Now I mentally apologized to Midge, more for falling asleep so fast than for my poor performance (we were both old and wise enough to know these things happened occasionally even in the best and most sensual relationships).
I tossed back the sheet, half hoping the movement would wake her, but it didn't. Slipping on my robe, I crept over to the door, deciding it really would be unfair to disturb such a deep sleep. My hand touched the wall for guidance as I neared the door and I was surprised when my palm came away wet. I stroked the plaster and my fingers slid through a sheen of moisture. A leak? No, couldn't be—this dampness wasn't running. Condensation, then? In summer? Had to be, though, and it had been raining for most of the day.
It made me wonder what winter was going to bring! Obviously there was more work to be done on this place, but we wouldn't know what until the weather changed for the worse.
I went through to the hallway at the top of the stairs. I flicked on the lightswitch, but the stairs still looked shadowy where they curved around the bend. To be honest, I didn't much fancy going down into the kitchen and I guess you know why, but I convinced myself I was grown-up and an unbeliever at that. I began the descent and stopped halfway, the black hole at the bottom that was the kitchen itself looking particularly uninviting. The "hallucination" with the picture had obviously unnerved me a lot more than I'd thought.
Gritting my teeth in the best hero tradition, I continued down, my hand scrabbling ahead of me for the lightswitch that was just inside the open doorway. The image—the feeling— of unseen, cold and bony fingers curling around my wrist was unbearably strong in my mind, almost strong enough to send me scurrying back upstairs, in fact, but I stalwartly (well, stubbornly might be more apt) resisted the impulse.
The light came on and it was a relief to find the room unoccupied. I padded past the table into the kitchen proper, going straight to the fridge (the same switch operated the lights in both sections of the kitchen) and taking out a milk carton. A tall glass had been left to dry on the drainer and I filled it to the brim with milk, drinking half standing there at the sink, then filling it again. Delving back into the fridge, I found some ham, and it was as I was spreading butter on a slice of bread that I got the curious prickling feeling of not being quite alone. I looked up and around: the window over the sink only showed me a pale reflection of myself. From where I stood at the working surface I couldn't see the table and chairs next door. But my mind could see someone sitting there.
I turned slowly so that I faced the opening. I didn't want to look, not really. As a matter of fact, I wanted to bang on the ceiling with the broom handle and get Midge down there fast, just for company, you understand. Naturally I couldn't do that, and naturally I had to poke my head through the doorway, unless I was prepared to wait there till morning. I moved cautiously and steadily toward the doorway, like a Hitchcock camera performing one of those lamous tracking maneuvers, the angle beyond the opening changing as I approached, revealing more and more the closer I got. The corner of the table, a shopping-list notepad lying there, a pepper shaker, the edge of a chair . . .
My own slow, deliberate movement was giving me the creeps, but the feeling that someone was sitting there waiting for me to peer around the corner of the doorway, waiting there and grinning, moldy tea untouched, was just about overwhelining.
So I took the last couple of feet at a rush.
She wasn't there. Old Flora was lying up at the village cemetery, not sitting at the kitchen table in Gramarye. Thank God.
I leaned against the side of the doorway and steadied my breathing. She wasn't there, but oh, there was an atmosphere in that room. Maybe my imagination was running loose again, but I was sure I could sense a presence, something in the air that was almost tangible. There was an old person's smell about the room, you know the kind I mean? Sort of sweet and musty and ancient at the same time. I once read somewhere that certain parapsychologists claim ghosts are nothing more than the lingering dregs of a dead person's aura, and now I thought that theory could easily apply here inside the cottage, Flora Chaldean's psychic residue permeating the surroundings, her seeping vitality impregnating the furniture, the walls themselves. And that's what it felt like: she was gone, but a part of her personality remained locked inside Gramarye, perhaps in lime to fade to nothing.
I shuddered at the idea, but at least it precluded any romantic notions of ghosts and hauntings.
I went back to the worktop and swiftly finished making the sandwich, then took it and the glass of milk through to the stairway, unable to stop myself from glancing at the table as I passed. I felt I could reach out and touch her, so strong was the eidetic image. It took some effort to switch off the light down there.
I went up the stairs faster than I'd come down, leaving on the hall light when I went into the round room. Despite my nervousness, though, I didn't turn on the light in there, and there was a simple reason for that: so as not to disturb my sleeping partner, I was going to eat my snack outside the bedroom, but I didn't want to look at that picture again, not in full light, just in case those vibrant colors worked their peculiar tricks again. Light from the hallway and moonlight flooding through the windows was good enough for me to see comfortably by, yet subdued enough not to make things too clear. I slumped onto the sofa and filled my mouth with ham and bread, my naked knees projecting whitely before me like the tops of two thin skulls, the milk glass held on one covered thigh.