Mean Spirit

‘I don’t know what to call him.’

‘Ask for a name.’

Persephone sits with her spine straight, her hands clasped in the lap of her skirt.

She says, her voice robotic, ‘What’s your name?’

Cindy urgently visualizes the seventeen little stones — under the window, at the foot of the shelves, beneath the computer table — and, with a burst of will-power, makes them glow.

Persephone says, stronger now, ‘What’s your name?’

Cindy conjures in his head the sound of a drum beating, his own drum, his painted bodhran (knowing that the drum, lying on the back seat of his car, will now be vibrating).

‘Who are you?’ Persephone cries in anguish. ‘Who are you, who are you, WHO ARE YOU?’

The drum is beating on its own, Cindy thinking rapidly: this business of No Name indicates not so much the absence of a name but that Persephone refuses to hear it. Refuses to confront the possibility — Grayle, it was, suggested this and Grayle might well be right — that she may, in the time-honoured, deliberate formality of the seance, be conjuring a personification of her despised art at its most foetid and contemptible, summoning a spirit of the lowest order, comprised of spittle-like strands of sick longing.

You and I, we are prisoners in the same old, mildewed tower.

‘Ask its name, Persephone!’

‘He won’t … tell me.’

He. Always he. Part of the denial. Giving it maleness, giving it a hard, damaged face.

‘All right. All right then …’

The drum beating louder in his head, the circle of seventeen stones glowing brightly there, Cindy braces himself, aware that what he is about to suggest is not terribly wise. It will bring with it pain and suffering, awaken memories of old, foul dreams.

‘Throw it to me,’ Cindy says lightly, and turns to look directly at the sixth chair. ‘Throw him to me, lovely.’

* * *

His hands, both of them, moving rapidly on the pad, Maiden is becoming aware of a surge of enthusiasm, a sense of violent arousal. His thumb is smudging the freshly laid pencil shading into misted whorls as he sculpts the face.

He’s in Justin’s garage, rich with the smell of oil and fear, and Justin is sobbing, ‘Please … I don’t know … I’ve told you … for fucksake, man, I don’t …’ There’s a silent, gloating presence suspended in the vault of grimy light from the roof.

‘Nice one.’ A low and guttural sigh. A rasp. Rapture.

Seffi Callard screams. ‘He’s touching my face!’

Maiden jerks at once to his feet, the pad and pencil falling to the floor, and moves towards her, but it seems a long way, like swimming through dark, muddy water, his hands clawing at the soup.

Hearing Cindy, sharply, ‘Bobby, sit down.’

Maiden feels frustration. Anger. An old resentment running as deep as a sewer. Hate. Then Seffi-

‘He’s touching me-’

Seffi draws in a huge breath and her body rears back, shuddering, and then it goes still and tight and Maiden waits for her breath to come out, but it doesn’t. She’s frozen, arched and rigid, an abandoned sculpture in bronze.

Maiden throws himself at her, but there’s something in between, something that hones the air, makes it vicious like a blade. Far away, Malcolm’s howl is close to a scream.

‘The smell!’ Grayle blurts. ‘Oh Jesus, it’s coming … it’s coming off of her.’

Maiden tries to touch Seffi but his hands don’t reach, and Seffi, though still rigid, starts to vibrate, as though there’s electricity forking into her, and there’s sweat forming like a second, bubbling skin on her face, and when Maiden’s hands hover over her shoulders he expects the electric charge to go through him like a sizzling knife, and he doesn’t care.

‘Please,’ he whispers.

And they’re all dead, the stupid irresponsible bastards!

‘Not now!’ Cindy shouts. ‘Leave me alone, can’t you?’

The drumming has lost its rhythm and the seventeen small stones from High Knoll have lost their lights, and — despicably — all Cindy can think about is his own predicament, the dissolution of his brilliant career. In a sick, dispiriting moment, he finds himself looking at the sixth chair.

It is empty but, above it, he would swear he sees Kurt Campbell’s sharp face projected into the window, in the light of the oil lamp.

And then the window itself collapses, a waterfall of glass.

XXXIV

The bulkhead bulb came on, awakening shadows in the castle walls, as if the explosion had summoned to the surface all the violent drama locked into its eight hundred years of history. Grayle stood in the yard in the rain and the irritable wind, hugging herself to squash the shakes. Feeling the banging of her own heart, like an iron bucket against the sides of a deep, deep well.

Marcus stumbled out through the fan of light, slivers of glass shining like snow crystals in his hair, an open cut on his forehead.

‘Just don’t say it, Marcus!’ Grayle’s voice rising like an elevator out of control. ‘Just like the old days. Just like the old freaking school. Only difference is, this time it’s you got to explain to the insurance guys.’

And then she was sorry because Marcus, barely free of the flu, looked like shit. Looked like he’d been beaten up on.

‘Should be some … chipboard.’ He was looking around vaguely. ‘In the old pigsty, round the …’

‘Huh?’

‘To board up the window. Got to keep … keep the rain out.’

A fog behind his glasses. The sour chill in the air, the smell, the sound, the taste of it, and all of it right there in his own back yard, within his own castle walls. The shock of invasion.

Grayle took his arm. ‘We’ll deal with it, Marcus. Bobby and I will handle it. You come back inside. Let’s get you a big glass of something strong. Get that cut cleaned up.’

‘Cut?’ A nerve tweaking his cheek. ‘Where’s … where’s Persephone?’

‘I guess she’s still in there, with Cindy and Bobby. Leave it, huh?’

‘I have to talk to her. She’ll be distressed. She needs reassurance.’

‘No, Marcus,’ Grayle said patiently. ‘That was last time. That was twenty years ago. She grew up. She knows precisely what she did.’

Cindy came out, followed by Malcolm the dog, loosed from the study. Then Bobby.

‘Marcus? You OK? Grayle?’

‘We’re fine, Bobby. Just deciding which of the all-night glaziers in St Mary’s we should call out.’

A bubbling giggle forming. Here we go, that old hysteria, welcome home. Some glass splinters fell out of her hair.

Bobby was looking at Malcolm, who didn’t move. Grayle shook her head hard, watching more glass fall around her feet. Bobby bent and patted his thighs. Malcolm looked uncertain. Grayle thought, What is this? Did Bobby collect something in there?

Malcolm gave a slow wave of his stumpy tail, ambled over. Bobby crouched. He and the dog bonded under the bulkhead lamp.