Authors: Kirsten Arcadio
It was Vince who answered, ‘Don’t think so, no. We’ve noticed a pattern: it’s usually the same core of people with new hangers-on who they recruit to join them every year.’ In answer to my questioning look, he continued. ‘The core group contains those neighbours of yours and their inner circle.’
There was a silence, which I cut into, ‘So these occurrences you are worried about. They happen every year either during or after the ball and you think the main people involved are in the inner circle of the Charismatic Community?’
Vince nodded but Val, who had just joined the circle to stand behind him, continued, ‘The problem, Dr Lewis, is that we haven’t been able to prove anything. Basically nobody will come forward. There aren’t any children involved so we can’t really get the social interested. Also, they cover their tracks. Where people have gone missing, we’ve not been able to link them back to the Charismatics or to the ball. In 2001 a young girl of about 20 went missing, but she wasn’t a guest at the ball. However, several people said they had seen her in the vicinity of Harlesden Hall on that night. Then, in 2003, a young man of a similar age also went missing – he’s still missing. He was at the ball but went home half way through the evening. He was last seen by his mother at home. What doesn’t make sense in his case, is that there are a few people who were sure they saw him in the Hall’s gardens later on that night. What both of those young people had in common was that they had recently joined the Charismatics – they were very close to their inner circle at the time of their disappearance.’
The room contracted.
‘In the early nineties, two people from the Community committed suicide the week after the ball,’ said Vince. ‘Unexplained. Then there was a gap of a few years before it started up again: disappearances, suspicious deaths, usually around this time of year and always people connected to the Community.’
I coughed into my drink, fighting the desire to draw any conclusions about Julia and Iain. I had the uncanny feeling that I’d sat in this chair, in this pub, with these people, a hundred times over, that we were all locked into an endlessly repeating cycle of events.
I cleared my throat. ‘Always this time of year?’
I could feel Vince’s eyes on me. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘With a gap between the mid-nineties and 2001. I was only a lad back in the nineties, but it was around then that Julia and Iain went on some kind of long missionary tour overseas. When they returned, a lot of people had forgotten about the deaths and all the fuss there had been.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘If we can’t prove anything about what happened in the past, we will just have to watch out that it doesn’t happen in the future. We don’t want history to repeat itself.’
A loud bang at the entrance of the pub attracted the attention of the dog, who roused himself to investigate. A few seconds later he returned and sat back down again in his usual position by the bar where the landlady was still serving beers to council members. Behind the dog shuffled a pair of slippered feet and legs clad in grimy jogging bottoms.
I got up to move towards the door.
Vince's voice made me jump. ‘Leaving us already? Looks like we’ll have to continue this discussion another time.’
‘Just a minute, Vince.’
I made towards the entrance. Someone whispered that they thought we were supposed to be having a lock-in tonight.
‘No, not yet,’ another said.
‘What’s up with her?’ said another. I didn’t hear the answer.
‘Tony, hello!’ I said, in as bright and breezy a tone as I could. The stale odour around him was more pungent than ever, his greying hair greasy and his chin grimy and covered in thick black stubble. At the sound of my voice, he looked up and the expression on his face was both empty and desperately sad. I knew this look all too well and threw a questioning glance at the landlady, whose eyes were boring into us from behind the bar. I just needed to buy us a bit of time. I could tell she wanted to chuck him out of her pub, and who could blame her?
Hands shaking, he fetched Rizlas and a tin of tobacco from his pocket. I shuddered, but tonight wasn't the night to raise any objection, despite the exaggerated cough at the bar and a low gale of hostile laughter I refused to turn and acknowledge. Who cared what they thought, anyway? Turning my attention back to Tony, I gestured for him to sit down with me, but as we did so, the landlord came downstairs carrying a bunch of keys, winking at Paul who yelled, 'Lock-in! Who's for another beer then?'
'What’s going on?'
‘A lock-in, Tony.'
‘I don't want them to lock me in. Tell them they can't lock me in.’
‘Nobody can hurt you in here Tony, it’s just a pub and it's just us here. It’s just so that they can keep drinking after the pub has shut for business.’
‘They will find a way in and then I won't be able to get out.’
I didn't question who 'they' were. I didn’t think it would help. For a few moments we sat there in silence. I was well aware of a curious audience behind me but for once I really didn't care. Blocking them out, I stretched my hand towards him but he shrank back. He was shaking, and he looked both cold and sweaty at the same time.
‘Look, Tony. Do you want me to walk you back home?’
He shot me a look of intense panic. 'They are waiting for me at home, I can't go there.'
I frowned and looked up. Contrary to what I’d thought, nobody was looking my way and the group at the bar only seemed concerned with getting stuck into their beer. I got up and lead him to a more secluded table in the corner, looking round for Val in case I needed to call on anyone for help. The stale and acrid smell of tobacco intensified as Tony smoked another roll up, his fingers continuing to shake as they clung to the Rizla paper, his mouth slack and voice slurred.
‘I've been praying a lot…Well, meditating, but I'm worried.’
I regarded him in silence.
‘Things have been happening.’ He looked through me. ‘Did I tell you I study comparative religion and philosophy?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘Well I’ve included a section on New Age and pagan philosophies, and, well…’ he tailed off and looked down at his fingers. His roll-up sat on an ash tray in by his right hand and I noticed his fingertips were yellow and his nails long. I suppressed a shudder at the sight of them.
‘What does Julia think about that?’
He flashed me a more coherent look. ‘You’re right, of course. But she’s been so kind. I was a little taken aback by her reaction. I mean, what’s the harm in it? As part of my studies I am required to look at belief systems across the board.’ There was a small pause as he took another drag.
‘Tell me something, Elena. Are you interested in the Tarot?’
I almost dropped the glass I’d been holding, and juice spilt over the edge of it onto my hand as I set it down on the table. ‘I used to be. Why?’
‘Oh, something and nothing, maybe. I heard Julia and Iain talking about it.’
I threw him a look. ‘About what? About me? Or the Tarot?’
‘I’m not sure.’ There was a pause. ‘I’m sorry, maybe I was confusing them with something else. I daydream a lot, it could have been that, but I thought I heard Julia tell Iain their neighbour was one of those people who dabbled in fortune telling, specifically Tarot cards but other things too.’
I drew a breath. ‘That’s rubbish I’m afraid, Tony. Maybe you didn’t hear that right.’
His hands wobbled as he took his next drag.
There was a short pause before I spoke again, this time my voice low. ‘Look, why are you here tonight? Are you in some kind of trouble?’
‘I heard from somewhere that you were a therapist. You know, for people like me,’ he replied, pausing to look at me, his eyes mournful. ‘I know I’m not well, and I’m feeling bad again. Sometimes I cope. Sometime I don’t.’
I nodded, smiling as I paused to think. His anxiety troubled me. Even though I was well aware he could be having an off day, there was something about it which didn’t resonate.
‘Is there anything else, Tony?’
He answered with a long silence. He stared into the middle distance and his hand fell back, the roll-up smoking uselessly by his side with ash building up at its tip and falling to the floor.
‘Tony?’
He looked at me. ‘Will you come to a Charismatic meeting with me?’
‘Tony, I don’t think I can.’ I said. ‘It isn’t really my thing. But if you want to come to me for therapy, I can arrange something.’
His eyes flashed, their gentle demeanour replaced with disappointment, and I realised I hadn’t handled him well, after all. I stretched out my hand to him but he was already standing up. I stood up too, haste causing my seat to clatter backwards on the floor behind me. Vince and Paul, who had been chatting quietly, stopped what they were doing to stare at me and I noticed that Vince was holding himself so still that his eyes seemed to take on a life of their own. Paul looked both faintly amused and alarmed at the same time, the amusement, I fancied, hidden as best possible beneath a veneer of concern.
I looked back to see Tony stagger to the outer door of the pub and disappear through the doorway.
‘Everything alright Elena?’ asked Paul, now closer, his head cocked to one side, his brown eyes sharp for once.
Vince continued to watch from the bar, his stance closed but casual. I couldn’t tell if he was interested in the proceedings or not and as facades went, Vince’s was good. Paul, on the other hand, wasn’t accomplished in this area at all.
‘I think I need to go,’ I said.
Paul cocked his head again. ‘Oh?’
‘Look, don’t worry about it, OK?’
‘You sure you’re alright?’
I jabbed my fingers into my forehead where the sharp pain had reappeared, pausing mid-massage to look back at the table where we’d been sitting.
‘I was just talking to…’ I frowned at the door, but there was no sign of him.
‘Look. Whatever.’ A faint smile appeared on his face, hastily suppressed. ‘Sure you don’t want another drink?’
I got up. ‘No thanks, and in fact I need to go home now. I’ve got a lot on tomorrow.’
I walked to the door in Tony’s footsteps. Looking around for the landlord I saw that I needn’t have bothered. Someone had already sent him over to open up for me. A little harassed, he produced a bunch of keys from his apron and unlocked the door with a swift and impatient hand movement. I escaped into the night air which hit my lungs, cold and turgid and stinking of coal smoke. I walked quickly to the end of the road and round the corner, padding softly through the deserted village streets until I got to my road. Turning into my street it occurred to me that the village was sleeping, indicating a later hour than I’d imagined. Looking at each window as I passed, I felt as if they were looking back at me, although many were opaque and unseeing. Thick curtains lined some windows and blinds others but others were nude and empty, revealing lifeless and unloved rooms beyond. I looked at my watch again: 11:30pm. That late? I shook my head, trying to reconcile the hour with the sense of time passing. It didn’t add up.
I was almost level with my house when I noticed a light glowing in a side window of the Victorian house just beyond. The window glass glowed the colour of burnished gold, its brightness providing stark contrast to a large, wooden cross pressed up against the glass. Facing my house, its wooden form seemed thrust aggressively against the window pane as if to ward me off. I got halfway down my driveway before I stopped to level with it. Time seemed to stop as I traced the outline of the wood with my eyes. Maybe Julia had underestimated me after all. Thinking of the chunky musky quality of the cross, I thought of my own secret weapon, which I kept hidden under the floorboards in my bedroom. It would take more than a wooden cross to scare me: I wondered if my neighbours didn’t know that much about me after all.
As I stood there on my driveway, I heard the sound of muffled voices carrying over in the night air: Tony’s voice remonstrating with a sharper tone.
‘Did I not tell you to beware?’
‘I just went to the pub.’
‘But look at you. You should be at home in bed where we can help you if you need it. I can’t protect you if you throw yourself in the path of danger, in the path of the outsiders. You should leave it to me to handle them - I am stronger.’
I slipped further down the driveway into the shadow of my house. Then, the sound of a door slamming and another, lower, growling voice took over.
‘Who did you see?’ I thought I heard it say, but the answer was oddly confident.
‘Just a friend.’
I didn’t hear anything else for a few moments and, letting down my guard, I sank against my front door, against its shadow. For once I was glad the landlord hadn’t yet fixed the porch light which would have revealed my statue-like stance to the curtain-twitchers on the other side of the street.
‘Elena…’ hissed a voice close by.
I sprang round. ‘Vince, what on earth are you doing? You scared the shit out of me!’
‘Now, now, that’s not very ladylike,’ he said, but his eyes had a wicked gleam in them. ‘I followed you out of the pub to see if you were OK. You didn’t look great when you left. And your behaviour beforehand was odd to say the least.’
‘Oh, ta. Thanks. Maybe it was because that guy who’s staying with them,’ I jerked my head towards Julia and Iain’s house, ‘turned up in his slippers. It was pretty surreal.’
I didn’t like the way he was looking at me.
‘Oh, he’s harmless,’ I was babbling now as he took a step closer. I kept talking, as if to widen the physical distance between us. ‘But, you know, he’s not well – hence the slippers, so when he left, I followed him home, then I heard him talking to
her
inside. Did you catch any of that?’
‘Any of what?’
‘Of what Julia was saying to him just now. I could hear them - they must have an open window somewhere.’
He was still regarding me with the same suspicious gleam in his eye. I shivered.
‘Back track there a sec,’ he said, scratching behind his right ear. ‘You were talking to some guy in the pub then you followed him home?’
I nodded. ‘Well, sort of.’
There was a pause. Vince opened his mouth to say something but shut it again. After a minute or so, he spoke, but I guessed it wasn’t what he really wanted to say.