Fog Heart (15 page)

‘She didn't have a voice,' Charley said calmly. ‘She was an infant. She didn't have a human speaking voice.'

‘But it was Fiona.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I just know.'

Jesus, why argue? ‘Did you actually see her?'

‘No.'

‘But she said it was all right.'

‘Y-yes.'

‘What was all right?' Say it aloud, woman.

Jan was close to tears again. ‘What happened. She doesn't blame us. You weren't there, but I was. Charley, Fiona doesn't blame me for it.'

Jan put a hand over her mouth, then held onto her jaw. Her entire head was shaking with nervous emotion.

‘Ah, Jesus.' Charley put his arms around her and pulled her to his chest. Now she let go, sobbing and trembling freely. ‘Of course she doesn't blame you or me, love. How could she? There, there now, come on. It's bad enough it happened, but there's no point in guilt or blame. It happened, that's all. It was a long time ago. It's over and done with. Remember what everybody told us then? We have to let her go. Let her rest in peace.'

‘She told me.'

‘Well, good. There you are.'

Oh, yes, the poor woman was still haunted by it. Charley had known that all along, but Jan seldom allowed it to break through to the surface like this.

‘When did you have this dream?' he asked.

‘A few nights ago.'

‘Have you ever had it before?' A nod against his chest, but Jan wouldn't face him. ‘Many times?'

‘Yes.' A tiny voice.

‘Over the years?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why didn't you ever tell me?'

‘I couldn't.' Now Jan pulled back her head and looked up at him. ‘It was always just the pram and the sea, nothing else. No voice. I didn't want you to feel any worse than you already did. But it was different this time. She spoke to me. Charley, it was like Fiona's soul communicating directly with mine and she told me it was all right. It was not our fault.'

He nodded. There had never been any forgiveness, until now. Sixteen years of suffering and secret penance for imaginary sins that were never committed, and now, at last, she lets you off the hook. And me, by extension. Well, how nice.

But it wasn't Fiona, of course. It was Jan, his poor broken lady wife, Jan. Her mind, in its self-torture, had finally found a way out of the anguish. A dream. If it actually worked, fine, but Charley had no faith in it. The dream and Fiona's voice were just another delusion. Somehow, it wouldn't last. It would lose its potency, and the curse would come back to haunt Jan again. A month, two months from now, some time soon – and she'd find a way to start blaming herself once more.

The strange workings of the human mind. Just to think about it was enough to deflate any anger, and leave him feeling merely sad. Another sad eejit in the toils of a remorseless fate. What to do. Have a drink. It occurred to Charley that it might be an extremely good idea to get Jan a bit sozzled, take her to bed and send her to sleep on clouds of erotic bliss. He could do it, if he really put his mind to it – among other things.

‘What were you going to tell me?'

Oh dear. Forgot about that part. ‘Nothing, really.' He no longer wanted to mention Oona. If Jan thinks she has found peace or absolution, good; let her be.

‘It was about Fiona.'

‘No, not really.'

‘Charley.' Suddenly, alarmingly firm. ‘Tell me.'

She could get bloody-minded like that, and he knew there was no way he could avoid giving her at least a partial explanation. So get it out, all of it, and hopefully be done with it. Charley hated these moments.

‘I met this woman. A spiritualist, I guess…'

He tried to put a negative spin on it, downplayed the entire business and gave the impression that he was only going to bring it up in the first place because it was so odd and silly.

But Jan wasn't having any of that. She listened to him with obvious fascination and seemed to find it all perfectly credible. She nodded constantly, until he suggested that Oona must have learned about the O'Donnells somewhere and was trying to use that to take money from them. He probably didn't even believe it himself any more. Jan frowned at the unlikeliness of it and shook her head. Before he was done, Charley knew he was done.

‘It can't be coincidence. Fiona speaks to me in a dream and then reaches out to you through this other woman. She must have more to tell us. It's not over yet.'

‘What more can she have to say?' Charley asked in a tone of feeble protest. ‘Her message to you ended it, surely.'

‘No, I don't think so.'

‘Jan, we—'

‘We have to find out. We can't just ignore her.'

Ignore her? Listen to yourself, will you? How bizarre. It was never going to end. That was the truth of it. Jan had found a way to forgive herself, but that wasn't good enough. There had to be more. There would always have to be more. Fiona was never going to be truly dead, as long as either of them lived.

God, when it came to life and death people would grab at any crumb of immortality. He despised himself, not least for giving any credence to this. Yes, he had gone to Westville, thinking he had an obligation to do so if there was half a grain of truth in it. And yes, he had half convinced himself that there
was,
and he was going to drag his wife along to a seance.

But now, hearing Jan's dream and seeing her reaction to what he had told her about Oona, he couldn't stand it. Charley felt as if he and Jan were entering a shared madness, a sad, desperate folly that would do neither of them any good at all.

He hated it.

*   *   *

By the time they went for their first session with Oona, his anger had burned down to a low-grade heat, a residual smouldering of resentment. Charley no longer had any control over the events in progress. Very well. He would go along because there was no easy way out. Besides, he was largely responsible for this state of affairs.

Charley paid little attention to the palaver at the outset, the explanations that were not explanations, the playing down of mystical expectations in order to build them up. It was a clever routine, what he took in of it, but he had no use for it. He had one thing in mind, and that was to keep an eye on Jan. If it got to be too much for her, he would take her away. By force, should it come to that.

The next step was an unexpected touch. Literally. He liked the way Oona started crawling all over them. Himself, anyway. A pleasing bit of contact. Oona was a bit young for Charley's play group – he liked to graze the graduate pastures – but she was a toothsome little lass. For her part, Jan endured it with a stoic expression. Not the physical-contact type, Jan. No doubt there was a rationale for this business: you have to get in touch with your body before you can get in touch with the spirits, some such ethereal New Age folderol. He could think of another one: if you rub the punters the right way, they'll be in a better mood to buy the rest of the performance.

‘The flow, the flow, the flow…'

Quite right too, Charley thought. We must go with the flow. Whatever the flow was supposed to be.

Oona seemed to be going into a mild trance state. If you're willing to credit that sort of thing. Charley glanced at Roz, by herself in the corner. All business. Roz was closer to his play group, and a woman with more of a body on her. He looked back to Oona, who was writhing impressively.

‘Wenda, wenda, wenda, wenda…'

She could wriggle all over him, as far as he was concerned. Oona's hand patted the air in front of her face, and she had the look of the blind in her eyes. She'd broken out in a sweat and fetching little tendrils of black hair clung to her face – then Charley noticed the way her cheeks changed colour so quickly. Red as a virgin's blush, then chalk white and streaky. As far as he could tell she didn't have any lipstick on but there was a bluish shading in the skin about Oona's mouth. Was she asthmatic?

‘Wenda – wenda – wenda—'

Oona's body froze. Her eyes fluttered and her voice changed sharply, became a halting child-like singsong.

‘When the last laird of Ravenswood to Ravenswood did ride to woo to woo a dead maiden to be his bride beyond a beyond take me beyond a kelpie's flow to Ravenswood take me beyond a I am beyond a kelpie's flow flow flow the laird the laird to woo beyond to be a dead maiden stable his steed in the kelpie's flow a dead maiden beyond his name lost for ever glow ever more lost lost—'

So this is the start of it, Charley thought. All the same, he couldn't help but feel a prickle of disquiet as the nerves in the skin on his arms and face reacted to Oona's recitation. This was the kind of thing that had caught the Brownes' attention, for certain. Charley filed a couple of quick mental notes for future consideration. It seemed so convenient, the way she made mention of Ravenswood right off the bat. More important was the way Oona pronounced the words ‘beyond a'. Run together, with a marginally lengthened ‘o' in there, it could be mistaken for ‘Fiona'.

Oona had gone limp, but the rigidity came back into her body again just a few seconds later. Her vacant eyes widened, her jaw extended itself unnaturally, and the spate of words resumed in a shuddering rhythm.

‘Hie to moorish gills and rocks wily wolf and prowling fox O birds of omen dark and foul night-crow raven bat and owl oh no oh no oh no leave the sick man to his dream all night all night all night he hears your screams as the laird comes down to Ravenswood to who to who to who is dead the dead maiden beyond the kelpie's flow oh no oh no birds of omen night-crow raven bat and owl leave him leave him ghaist-like she fades she fades O kelpie quench in bog and fen beyond a bog and fen the laird the laird is lost for ever more for ever glow his name lost for ever more—'

The girl subsided for the time being. She looked empty and weak, and her breath came in shallow gasps. Charley had to admit that there was a kind of raw power to the performance. There was no doubting Oona's effort. She put herself into it and flat-out raved. It could work like a spell on you, if you let it.

But years of labouring over words had taught Charley a thing or two. Oh, he caught the reference to Everglo all right, and it was understandably disturbing. And yet, it could just as easily have been ‘ever glow', and have no relevance to them at all. Ravenswood was the only unambiguous term but it was a place name, probably a common one throughout Britain and Ireland; it might sound like a strong link, but it was actually the weakest. And if Fiona was a misreading of ‘beyond a', which was quite possible in the fervid excesses of Oona's delivery, then the whole thing was meaningless to them and collapsed like a house of straw.

There were other parts that had sounded fascinating, but he would have to consider them later. Oona was stirring again. Her voice was shrill now, an accusatory cry. Her fingers, stiff and claw-like, pulled the skin on her face back and raked through her wild mane of hair.

‘You don't want a baby I don't want a baby you don't want a child I don't want a child – a CHILD – watch out CHILD the bird of omen night-crow raven bat and owl the laird comes for you who woo the dead maiden ever more you don't you don't you don't want a baby I don't want a baby will kill you wax wax wax—'

Charley's eyes were on Jan. At the eruption of those first words, she flinched visibly. Her hands were twisted in a fierce grip of each other on her lap. Don't you see, love? It's all a fog of suggestion and similarities, designed to let you associate freely and fill in the gaps. It was so hurtful and untrue.

‘– wax wax wax wax wax—'

Another temporary subsidence. But the yapping repetition of the word
wax
got through to Charley. Paraffin was a form of wax. A derivative, wasn't it? Refined, distilled, whatever. It had been an Everglo paraffin space heater that had taken the life of their daughter. First the fumes, the smoke, and then the flames. Nearly took Jan as well.

Charley looked from Jan back to Oona – her face was cherry red now, the sudden sight of it making him catch his breath. She had wedged herself hard against the cushions, close to Jan, with her legs extended towards Charley. Little bare feet and red welts on her calves – appearing, it seemed, even while he watched. It must have been a momentary illusion, and they had been there all along. Oona's voice turned flatter and broader.

‘Font – Font – Font – Fontane – Fontayna – dead maiden stable your steed by the edge of the lake where the kelpie waits the laird the laird of Fontane Fontayna Fon Tay—'

Abruptly back to a previous Scots snarl.

‘The corbies wait the corbies keep the corbies come when you fall asleep oh no don't oh please don't do that to me the corbies wait please don't FATHER the corbies keep MOTHER the corbies come when you're asleep Font Font Fontane Fontayna—'

Oona kicked the air several times, while pressing her face into Jan's arm as if to hide. Hesitant at first, Jan cautiously put an arm around Oona's shoulder and gently stroked her cheek to comfort her.

Charley heard his wife say: ‘I know. It's all right.'

What was this? Damned if he knew. Oona had pulled another rabbit out of the hat. Jan had been born and raised in the small southern Wisconsin town of Fontana, which did happen to be on a lake. But, in itself, that fact meant nothing.

Oona tore loose from Jan, sat up and screamed. Her face was racked, and blood oozed over her lips. Her fingers clutched at her forearms compulsively, then picked at the skin on her cheeks. The scream drained her, and when it finally ended in a dying moan she toppled forward across Charley's legs. He caught her, easing her down onto the cushions beside him.

She felt cold, too cold. He looked at Roz, who returned his gaze evenly but said nothing. Jan was weeping. Charley reached for Oona's hand and checked her pulse. Nothing. Somewhere, it's there somewhere. But he couldn't find it. Cold as marble. This was wrong. He tried to find the artery in her neck, but again he failed. Charley put his ear to her chest and forced his mind to concentrate. Surely he would hear a heartbeat, especially coming right after all that exertion. But he heard nothing.