floor-boards were of solid timber, and in the excellent repair my predecessor had put them in. I made a good deal of noise, did some damage and sweated copiously getting the first one up. There was nothing but whorls of dust and streaks of cobwebby material on the laths and plaster beneath it, or as far as my weakening light would reach between the joists. On the assumption that the crucifix had gone on behaving supernaturally after disappearing, it might be anywhere in the area generally beneath me, if indeed it had not passed altogether beyond my reach. But I could see no alternative to going on as I had started.
Time went unprofitably by. I was working on my fourth floor-board when Nick and Lucy arrived.
‘Hallo, Dad, what’s going on?’
‘Just …‘ I looked up at them, and was aware of how much like a husband and wife they seemed. ‘I dropped something down a crack in the floor. Rather a valuable thing. I thought I’d see if I could find it.’
‘What sort of thing?’ Nick sounded sceptical.
‘Well, it’s a kind of heirloom. Something Gramps gave me.’
‘Can’t you, I mean, which crack did it go down? You seem to be—’
‘No, it rolled, you see. I don’t know.’
Nick glanced at Lucy. ‘Are you sure you’re all right, Dad?’
‘Fine. Bit hot.’
‘This isn’t part of all the ghost stuff and everything that’s been going on, is it? I wish you’d say if it is.’
‘No, honestly. Just this—’
‘Because you know you can tell us and it’ll be all right,’ said Lucy. ‘We won’t think you’re mentally disturbed, or tell anyone else if you don’t want us to. It’ll be all right.’
‘No, really,’ I said, thinking that her use of the plural stretched the facts a little. ‘Don’t worry; if I can’t find it soon I’ll pack up.’
When I turned back to my work, I was aware of a brief silent conference going on above my head, and ending with their departure. At the end of another five minutes or so, I had the fourth floor-board out. Nothing again; or perhaps something, an odd bulge in a joist, a small object leaning against it at arm’s length. My extended fingers touched metal.
What I held in my hand a moment later was just recognizable as the crucifix the young man had given me: speckled, worn and stained almost black in places. In its present state it testified to no sort of miracle; an impartial mind would merely add it to the endless list of mildly surprising discoveries in old houses. I dismissed it from consideration, but was still overwhelmed with what felt like rage and disappointment. These and allied emotions went on showing through while I put all the energy I could into the task of relaying floor and carpet. As soon as this was done, they returned in full.
I left the tools and the torch where I had dropped them, and walked round the room trying to master myself, which meant, or must be prefaced by, discovering what it was that oppressed me. As if in answer, my visitor’s empty glass, standing on the low table between the armchairs, presented itself to my eye. I snatched it up and saw the marks of a human hand on its surface and of a human mouth at its rim. Well, what of it? Was I to take it to a spiritualist medium, a forensic scientist or the curator of the Vatican museum? I threw it hard into the back of the fireplace, breathing fast and starting to cry. Yes, it was disappointment all right, with him for his coldness and his lightness, with myself for my failure to have brought forward any question or accusation of the least significance, and also with the triviality of the ultimate secrets I had supposedly learned. And there was fear besides. I had always thought that personal extinction was the ultimate horror, but, having taken in those few dry hints about an after-life, that pronouncement that I would never escape from him, I now knew better.
An overwhelming desire to get out of the house took hold of me and helped me to stop crying. There were more things to be done before I could leave. A quick shower and a change of underclothes took off the sweat and grime of my exertions with the floor-boards. When I had dressed I went in search of Lucy, and by good luck found her alone in the great bedroom, brushing her short head of hair with surprising energy.
‘Lucy, I’m going out now and won’t be back till late. Will you tell the others? I’ll talk to David before I go.’
‘By all means.’
‘And there’s something else I’d like you to do for me. I want everybody in bed and preferably asleep by midnight. Well, I know you can’t put them to sleep, but Joyce is never any problem, and if you could try to get Nick off in good time, that would be a great help to me.’
‘I’ll do everything I can, of course. Uh, Maurice, is this something to do with your ghosts, or is it, you know, somebody you want to see privately?’
She made this allusion to my amorous activities (I had not known that—or not bothered before now to wonder whether— she knew about them) with commendable tact of manner. ‘It’s my ghosts,’ I said.
‘I see. Would you like me as a witness?’
‘Thank you for offering, Lucy, but I’m sure he won’t come if there’s anyone else apart from me about. You believe I saw him before really, don’t you?’
‘I still think you thought you saw him, but I may be wrong. Did you find that thing you were looking for under the floor?’
‘Yes.’
‘Was it any good?’
‘No.’
‘Like the writing on that piece of paper?’
This was an inspired guess or feat of deduction. ‘Very much like that.’
‘Well, let me know what happens tonight, if anything does.’
‘I will. Thanks, Lucy.’
The last thing was getting hold of David and asking him to see to it that the few expected outside diners and drinkers were similarly off the premises by midnight. The resident guests could not actually be sent to their rooms, but they were unlikely to feel like prolonged carousing in the bar the night after a funeral so close by. I supposed, at least, that talking to David would be the last thing, until I almost literally ran into Joyce and Diana in the car- park.
They had their jewellery and their garden-party look on again, and were unfeignedly sorry to see me. I thought at first that they were (as they might well be) nervous of possible embarrassment, then I thought that they were simply resentful at the intrusion of any third party, and then I saw that they were even more simply annoyed because I had turned up.
‘Hallo,’ I said brightly. At that moment I could not devise any other utterance that seemed absolutely free of irony and/or obscenity.
They exchanged their now familiar glance of consultation, and Joyce said, ‘We thought we’d go and have a drink in the village.’
‘Good idea. I’m going out myself. Don’t wait up for me.’
‘Do you want me to leave you something to eat?’
‘No thanks. See you, then.’
While they got slowly into the Mini-Cooper, I got quickly into the Volkswagen, reflecting on Diana’s silence during the last exchange. I had never before known her to be content with less than about a two-thirds share of any conversation, however brief. And her whole demeanour over those dozen seconds had been docile, almost subservient. Whatever had happened between those two had had plenty of time to happen, I decided when I looked at my watch and found that the time was exactly eight o’clock.
My spirits, which had been improving a little, fell again sharply when I contemplated the four hours that had somehow to be filled in. I still had no idea where I was making for, and the mere action of driving at speed towards no destination had the effect of emphasizing to me my anxiety to escape, which soon started to make me feel as if I were being pursued by some malignant person or thing. Only as if; I was perfectly clear in my mind that nobody and nothing was pursuing me; but I have never known a powerful illusion of this kind to be appreciably weakened by being recognized as an illusion. I had touched eighty on the
I stopped at the George on the outskirts of Royston, ate some tongue sandwiches, drank a pint and a half of
