He nodded.
‘And see the lights?’
He nodded again.
‘Do you think they lived happily ever after?’
She needed him to say yes, but he laughed.
‘Oh, my darling sweet romantic. And I thought you were a hard-boiled business woman! No, I don’t suppose they did. They probably had happy bits and sad bits. I expect they quarrelled and they made up and they had four or five children and lived to become fat and staid and boring. But I expect he always remembered that passionate wild gesture of hers, and she always remembered that he saved her life, whatever it was he had done before. And that was the secret they never told their children and they never spoke of again. A secret which when it happened caused them both to feel such pain and such fear that it was imprinted on time itself. I think that is what ghosts are. They are not the spirits of dead people; they are emotions so intense, so raw, so deeply felt that they become locked into the place where they happened and sometimes, if the time is right, other people see and hear them.’
He took her hand and tucked it under his arm. To her surprise she did not move it.
‘Come on, I can feel a philosophical drink by the fire is in order,’ he said firmly. ‘Will you let me drive you home and propose a toast to Mary and her Joe.’
‘How do you know his name?’
Below them the car park was suddenly dark. The music had stopped and the wind was blowing through empty, ruined rooms.
‘I don’t. I guessed.’ He smiled. ‘Come on, my dear. Let’s go home.’
Party Trick
‘Have you ever tried dowsing?’ Morgan Conway looked across at Pippa and smiled.
He had arrived to spend the weekend at the cottage with her and Colin, but now Colin was out on call, attending a calving two miles away, leaving them facing each other over cups of strong coffee, running out of small talk after only a few minutes. The trouble was that Colin had told her nothing about their unexpected guest. ‘We were at school together. Lives in London. Nice chap.’ And that was all, for God’s sake! Nothing about where he had been up to now and why she hadn’t met him before. Things were difficult enough between her and Colin at the moment. They had only lived here a few months and she loved the cottage, but unable to find a job, any job, let alone the busy administrative post she’d had before, she was as bored as he was happy and fulfilled in the new practice.
Their latest row was a direct result of her own personal angst. It had been about babies. Why not? Colin had said. The implication being that it would give her something to do; something to fill her time; keep her out of mischief. Her anguished refusal even to contemplate having a child had appalled him and their quarrel had escalated terrifyingly. Her misery at his apparent lack of understanding, at the crassness of the timing of the suggestion, made her say things she didn’t mean – that she never wanted children, that a baby would be an admission of defeat, that there were enough children in the world already.
Since the argument a couple of days ago they had barely spoken. It was not a good time to try and entertain a stranger.
Except, perhaps sensing her hostility and her embarrassment, he was obviously intending to entertain her.
‘By dowsing, you mean water divining?’ She stood up and went to the stove. This would be her third cup – he had declined her offer of a refill – and already her nerves were jumping.
He glanced at her, noting the smartly cut blonde hair, the intense blue eyes, the tight nervous smile. She was good looking, Colin’s wife, but obviously highly strung and, if he was any judge, utterly miserable.
He nodded. ‘It’s my party trick. Weekends in the country with vets and doctors. They take one look at me and retreat immediately to deal with emergencies leaving me with their poor wives who would much rather be out shopping with their friends.’
She was glad she had her back to him, to hide her confusion. Was she that transparent? Well, he was wrong about one thing: she had no friends down here yet. None at all.
When she turned, coffee pot in hand, he was watching her, his eyebrow raised. He had a nice face, kind, rugged, if a bit lopsided, and she realised as she met his gaze, he wasn’t teasing. He was perfectly serious about his party trick. ‘Have you got any wire coat hangers?’
She produced them and watched while he bent, snapped and twisted them into two right-angled rods.
‘OK. Here’s where I earn my lunch. What have you lost?’
‘Lost?’
He nodded. ‘Engagement ring? Wedding ring?’ So, he had noticed the bare third finger of her left hand. A silly gesture, taking it off. They had got married, hadn’t they, and they weren’t divorced. Not yet. ‘Have you mislaid your car keys? Rolex? Pension book?’ He stood up holding the rods loosely in front of him. They remained still, but she had the feeling that they were quivering slightly like dogs waiting for a command. The idea made her smile.
Sitting down again she found she had relaxed for the first time since he had arrived. ‘If you’re serious, I lost a little gold cross soon after we moved here. My godmother gave it to me and it really upset me. I searched everywhere.’
He nodded. Moving away from the table he held the rods out in front of him. ‘OK. Let’s ask a few questions.’ He concentrated for a moment, then addressed the rods. ‘Is the cross in the house?’
The two bent coat hangers quivered and sprang apart.
He glanced up at Pippa. ‘Which room? We’ll ask one by one. Tell me what rooms you have.’
Within seconds they had established that the cross was – according to the rods – in the small conservatory behind the kitchen.
‘But that’s ridiculous. I never took it in there!’ Pippa found she wanted desperately for him to be right. She had never seen this done before and it intrigued her enormously. Once when she was a child, her grandfather had shown her and her sisters how to dowse for water, walking up and down the back lawn with a hazel twig in his hands. It was a bit like that. He had found the main water pipe into the house but they had all known it was there anyway and so they had not been impressed.
‘Is it in the flower beds?’ Morgan asked the rods.
No.
‘Pots?’
No.
‘What else is there?’ he asked Pippa. It was as though he were interpreting at a conference – or a police enquiry.
‘Paving stones?’
No.
‘Plants, I suppose. Perhaps they ate it!’
Her frivolous remark did not even need to be relayed. The rods sprang apart.
Yes!
‘OK. Which plant?’ Morgan was frowning with concentration.
‘Geranium.’
No.
‘Busy Lizzie?’
No.
‘Cactus?’
No.
‘Oleander?’
YES!
She laughed. ‘Oh please! Not possible. Those skimpy old things at the back? This I have to see!’
