The Cold Calling

‘This is Cefn-y-bedd?’

‘What? Oh hell, no, this is … this was … Black Knoll? The prehistoric … whatever you wanna call it.’

‘What were you doing there?’ His eyes going a mite watchful.

‘That place is … I mean, seriously …’ Grayle shuddered a breath down, like the dregs of a glass of milk gurgling through a straw. ‘… haunted. Right?’

Haunted. Just saying the word … it was a whole different word now.

‘Are you saying you saw something? At Black Knoll?’

‘Would you think I was real crazy? Would you think, like, here’s this insane American tourist, she’s only been here like a couple hours and she’s already going around seeing-’

Another word. Another key player from the Holy Grayle thesaurus. Ghost. Phantom. Apparition. Spook. Revenant…

‘What was it you saw?’

‘You’re gonna think I’m crazy.’

‘I’m not. Honest.’

‘OK.’ Grayle pushed her hands through her still-damp hair. ‘A girl. A young girl. In a blue dress? With flowers on it? Like billowed out, kind of Alice in Wonderland? She had also … she had like, pigtails. And she was, you know, majorly upset. Like she was as scared of me as I … Or scared of something. A frightened ghost, Jesus, how can you have a frightened ghost?’

Grayle gulped down the rest of the Scotch.

‘This is crazy. They can’t harm you. In my column — I had this column — I was always quoting people who say, Oh they can’t harm you. Like all aliens are good aliens out of Close Encounters, never Independence Day. I mean, how the fuck do they know? You’re supposed to stand there, and like, Hey, this thing can’t harm me, maybe it needs my help? Are there people who could do that? I don’t believe it. I listen to all these assholes talk about communion with the spirit world, and now I know the truth, and the truth is it never happened to them. Never … happened. To them. Or else they’d know it is not nice, not good. We shouldn’t have to see them. It is truly terrifying, even when you think you understand. It is …’

This could send you terminally crazy. Was this how it started for Ersula? Any wonder she got the hell out?

‘Oh boy.’ Grayle started to shiver again, held on to the fat dog with uneven eyes. ‘Oh Jesus.’

No more than two dozen villagers had arrived at the Tup for the tea and sandwiches paid for by Marcus. Amy Jenkins let them get on with it and joined Cindy at his table in the deepest corner.

‘It’s a can of worms, love,’ she said. ‘Fair play, if it was happening today, I don’t think there’d be a problem. But the church doesn’t have that hold any more, see.’

‘A good thing,’ Cindy said. ‘But also a bad thing. So, let me get this right, the Church said, well, visions of the Virgin Mary, that’s a Catholic thing, so we don’t want to know.’.

‘Got to remember there was a big chapel influence, too.’

‘All hellfire and damnation. And at vision at a pagan place. Devil’s work?’

‘Well, it destroyed her family, isn’t it? That was the thing. Annie’s dad, Tommy Davies, he was never much of a churchgoer, apparently. Real old farmer, the kind you don’t get much nowadays, knew everything about the weather and the … you know … the land.’

‘Moods of the land?’

‘That sort of thing. Black Knoll was a forbidden place because of the bodies of hanged criminals they used to put there. Be people then could still remember it. But Tommy Davies, he wasn’t afraid. He’d say they put up these stones to help the old-time farmers. So he’d take Annie up the Knoll on the quiet and that’s why she was never afraid. Wouldn’t have got any other village girls going up there before sunrise.’

‘Does Marcus know about this?’

Amy snorted. ‘Nobody’d tell Marcus. Fair play to him, but he’d write it all down for his magazine, and nobody wanted that.’

Cindy bit into a cream cheese and celery vol-au-vent. ‘What do you mean, it destroyed her family?’

‘Because Annie’s mam, Edna, she was all for the Church. Headmistress of the school, ran the Women’s Institute, the Parish Council. Tells Annie she’d better forget this nonsense and pray for forgiveness, and when she won’t drop it, out comes the strap. Have the social services on to her now, see, but then …’

‘Didn’t her dad do anything to stop it?’

‘Edna was the dominant one. A Cadwallader. So it was a long time, see, before Tommy Davies did what he did.’

Cindy noticed they were getting some attention, now. A big woman in a hat giving Amy daggers.

‘Don’t you go looking at me like that, Ruthie Walters,’ Amy said. ‘Or I’ll tell him how much Owen and Ron took Falconer for, for that land.’

‘Careless talk…’ said the big woman.

‘The bloody war’s over,’ Amy snapped. ‘You don’t like it, tell your Edgar to get hisself a slate at the Crown.’

Ruthie Walters scowled. Amy said, ‘Owen and Ron Jenkins are That Bastard’s cousins who used to own Black Knoll. Till they found out how badly Falconer wanted it. That’s the sort of dealing goes on in this village. Like a dog with two dicks, Owen is. Where was I?’

‘You said it was a while before Tommy Davies did what he did,’ said Cindy.

‘Well.’ Amy lowered her voice. ‘He’ve snatched that strap off Edna and he’ve nailed it to the side of the barn. If that leather ever comes off its nail, Tommy says, he’s going to use the strap on Edna till her arse is blue.’

Cindy smiled and helped himself to another vol-auvent.

‘Well, nobody ever spoke to Edna Cadwallader like that before. A headmistress commanded respect, see. So the strap never came off the nail, but Edna never spoke to Tommy again for the rest of his life. The farmhouse was divided into two. They say you can still feel the change in the atmosphere to this day when you walk from Tommy’s half into Edna’s half.’

‘Well, well,’ Cindy said. No need to guess which half Mrs Willis’s Healing Room was in. Or was it? Perhaps she’d healed the house too.

‘And the two halves … well, that happened in the village as well. Those who supported Tommy … and the so-called God-fearing half who were on Edna’s side. Or didn’t dare not to be. It was like a feud. A silent feud. A … what’s the word?’

‘Schism?’

‘Prob’ly, aye. Family against family. Hard to credit, but this is a tiny little village.’ Amy looked up. ‘Are you trying to threaten me, Ruthie Walters?’

‘Get out of it, woman,’ an old man in a flat cap said. ‘It was somethin’ an’ nothin’.’

‘Oh, there was a truce,’ Amy told Cindy. ‘And the terms were that the whole thing was forgotten. So, to this day, nobody mentions Annie Davies’s vision.’

‘Weren’t her fault, though,’ the old man said.

‘That’s why there was such a turn-out this afternoon,’ Amy said. ‘No hard feelings, Annie.’

‘Now, you can say that, Fred,’ Ruthie Walters said. ‘But whatever powers that old woman had, I’m telling you, it wasn’t Christian.’

‘Course it was Christian, woman. Look at Lettie Pritchard’s shingles. You go an’ ask her if it wasn’t Christian to have her shingles took from her, her as sung in the church choir for forty-five year.’

‘See,’ Amy said. ‘Can of worms.’

‘No!’ Marcus said. ‘Whatever it is … no! I’m going to get pissed in my study and then I’m going to bed. The only person I want to speak to is a bloody decent estate agent, and as that’s probably a contradiction in terms it doesn’t arise.’

Maiden blocked his way to the study. ‘I just think you should speak to this person. Big Mysteries are involved.’

‘I’m sure,’ Marcus said sourly.

‘Her name’s Grayle Underhill. She’s from New York. She-’