‘What on earth were you doing in there?’ he asked, voice down to a whisper.
‘Nothing. I tell you I was fast asleep. And relax. The house can’t hear you. It’s switched off.’
We wandered across the churned gravel and waded through the water which lay like a black mirror. Stamers shook his head.
‘The place must have been insane. If you ask me it needs a psychiatrist to straighten it out.’
‘You’re right,’ I told him. ‘In fact, that was exactly my role – to reconstruct the original traumatic situation and release the repressed material.’
‘Why joke about it? It tried to kill you.’
‘Don’t be absurd. The real culprit is Vanden Starr. But as the lieutenant implied, you can’t arrest a man who’s been dead for ten years. It was the pent-up memory of his death which tried to kill me. Even if Gloria Tremayne was driven to pulling the trigger, Starr pointed the gun. Believe me, I lived out his role for a couple of months. What worries me is that if Fay hadn’t had enough good sense to leave she might have been hypnotized by the persona of Gloria Tremayne into killing
Much to Stamers’s surprise, I decided to stay on at 99 Stellavista. Apart from the fact that I hadn’t enough cash to buy another place, the house had certain undeniable memories for me that I didn’t want to forsake. Gloria Tremayne was still there, and I was sure that Vanden Starr had at last gone. The kitchen and service units were still functional, and apart from their contorted shapes most of the rooms were habitable. In addition I needed a rest, and nothing is so quiet as a static house.
Of course, in its present form 99 Stellavista can hardly be regarded as a typical static dwelling. Yet, the deformed rooms and twisted corridors have as much personality as any psychotropic house. The PT unit is still working and one day I shall switch it on again. But one thing worries me. The violent spasms which ruptured the house may in some way have damaged Gloria Tremayne’s personality. To live with it might well be madness for me, as there’s a subtle charm about the house even in its distorted form, like the ambiguous smile of a beautiful but insane woman.
Often I unlock the control console and examine the memory drum. Her personality, whatever it may be, is there. Nothing would be simpler than to erase it. But I can’t.
One day soon, whatever the outcome, I know that I shall have to switch the house on again.
