All Things Undying Page 3

  ‘No worries, then. In any case, don’t miss the gardens! The rhododendrons should be glorious this time of year.’

  Before Janet could take a long detour on to a botanical tangent, I asked, ‘Susan’s an American, isn’t she?’

  Janet nodded. ‘From your American Midwest. She did a year abroad reading medieval English at one of the red bricks. University of Warwick, I believe it was.’

  ‘Gosh! I wonder how she got from Beowulf and Chaucer to . . . to . . .’ I thought for a moment. ‘Well, from reading about dead people to talking to them.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask her yourself?’

  ‘Oh, sure. What do you suggest? That I walk up to her flat and simply knock on the door?’

  Janet’s smile took on Cheshire Cat proportions. ‘What are you doing on Thursday evening?’

  ‘Recuperating, I imagine. Paul wants to take the lower ferry to Kingswear and hike to Coleton Fishacre and back.’ Coleton Fishacre – the name, I learned, was a corruption of something bucolic in old French and had nothing to do with fish – was the holiday estate of the famous Sir Rupert D’Oyly Carte whose father was the impresario behind the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. Built in the Roaring Twenties, my guidebook gushed, the house was an Art Deco masterpiece redolent of the Jazz Age, set in acres of glorious gardens sweeping down to the sea.

  ‘I’ll ring her up and see if she’s available for dinner.’

  ‘Who? Susan Parker?’

  ‘Of course,’ Janet said, as if inviting celebrities to dinner was an everyday occurrence. ‘Anyone else you’d like me to invite?’

  I thought for a moment. ‘Jon and Alison Hamilton, our friends from the college. You’ve met them, haven’t you?’

  Janet nodded. ‘Indeed. Dartmouth’s a small town.’ She began stacking our empty mugs on the tea tray. ‘I’ll confirm with you later, then. Will you and Paul be wanting dinner in tonight?’

  ‘Thanks, Janet, but no. We’ve booked a table at the Royal Castle Hotel. When I walked by this morning, they had moules frites on the menu board outside. I am crazy for mussels!’ I stood up, too, and waved toward the remains of our tea.

  Janet raised a hand. ‘You leave the washing-up to me.’

  ‘You sure?’ I gathered up my purchases. ‘Fingers crossed Susan will be able to come on Thursday. There are some things I’d like to ask her.’

  Janet twisted the knob and held the lounge door open until I’d passed through it into the hallway. ‘She’ll probably be expecting my call.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  Janet winked. ‘What kind of psychic would she be if she didn’t?’

  THREE

  ‘In the course of a successful reading, the psychic may provide most of the words, but it is the client that provides most of the meaning and all of the significance.’

  Ian Rowland, The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading, p.60

  I was licking garlic butter off my fingers in the cozy, dark-timbered ambiance of The Royal Castle Hotel’s Galleon Bar, when Paul said, ‘Too bad you didn’t like the mussels.’

  ‘Mmmmmussels!’ I moaned.

  With the exception of a mound of empty, wing-shaped ebony shells piled haphazardly in a bowl next to my elbow, there was no evidence that mussels had ever been served.

  Between bites, I’d retold the story of my encounter with Susan Parker. Paul had listened politely, rolling his eyes only twice, which, knowing his propensity for critical thinking, must have required superhuman self-control.

  Now I was finishing off my story as well as the last of the frites that had come with my moules. ‘So, you see why I’m kind of freaked.’

  ‘Hannah, Hannah, Hannah,’ Paul chided, as if he were dealing with a particularly slow and difficult child. ‘She’s a talented cold reader – i.e. a fake.’

  I decided to ignore him. I dragged a French fry though the scrumptious broth remaining at the bottom of the pot the mussels had so recently occupied, popped the fry into my mouth and chewed slowly.

  ‘Earth to Hannah.’

  ‘Are you going to talk to me like a grown-up?’ When Paul agreed, I said, ‘OK. Leaving aside for a moment the question of is-she-for-real-or-isn’t-she, what I want to know is this: what’s in it for her? Why would she walk up to a total stranger on the street, pretend to have a conversation with that stranger’s dead mother, then simply disappear?’ I reached for my wine glass. ‘She didn’t ask me for money, Paul.’

  ‘No, but neither did that so-called psychic who showed up on our doorstep when Timmy was kidnapped. Dakota Whatshername.’

  ‘Montana. Montana Martin.’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘But for Montana, there was money in it. There was the reward money, of course. Worse case, she did it for the publicity.’ I polished off another fry and stared at the copper pots gleaming from the walls, admiring the way they reflected the light. I flashed back to the day Montana Martin parked her boots on my daughter’s doorstep, and in a parting shot, claimed that my late mother wanted me to have her emerald ring. ‘Lucky guess,’ Paul had insisted at the time, but I had never been totally convinced.

  ‘Remember the ring?’ I asked.

  Paul shot an exasperated here-we-go-again glance at the ceiling. ‘The opposite of cold reading, Hannah, is hot reading. Quite simply, Montana cheated. Did her homework, I mean. The ring? It’s mentioned in your mother’s will. The will is on file with Anne Arundel County. It’s public record. Montana could have looked it up.’

  Paul had a point. I hadn’t thought of that. ‘But, but, but . . .’ I was stalling, organizing my thoughts. ‘But Susan Parker doesn’t know me from Adam! For all she knew, I was a tourist fresh off the Eurostar and she’d never see me again. What you’re suggesting is that she targets likely tourists, manages to learn their names, does a bit of research – on the Internet, I suppose – and then contrives to run into them on the street sort of accidentally on purpose.’ I puffed air out through my lips. ‘Doesn’t make sense. And that bit about my sister, Georgina. Spooky!’ I dragged out the ‘o’ and waggled my fingers.

  ‘Your mother’s obituary,’ Paul said reasonably. ‘If it appeared in the newspaper, it would definitely be available on the Internet.’

  I had one of those duh, head-slapping moments. ‘Right. “Survived by three daughters”, et cetera, et cetera.’

  I reached across the table and grabbed Paul’s hand. ‘Wait a minute! Information about my sisters could certainly be squirreled away in some remote corner of the Internet, but Susan knew that my mother died of a heart attack, and I’m pretty sure that information isn’t on the Internet.’

  ‘Not in her obituary?’

  ‘No, sir. I wrote it myself. It said “after a long illness”, which could mean anything.’

  ‘As I said earlier, Hannah, all that means is the woman’s an extraordinarily skilled cold reader. Tell me. Did this Parker woman come right out and say “heart attack” or did she work up to it first, like, “I feel a pain in the chest area”?’

  I closed my eyes and tried to replay the conversation I’d had with the medium, but I couldn’t remember Susan’s exact words.

  ‘Think of how many medical conditions “chest area” could refer to,’ Paul continued. ‘Heart attack. Lung cancer. Emphysema.’ He squeezed my hand. ‘Even breast cancer.’

  ‘Why do you have to be so goddamn reasonable?’

  ‘She was fishing for details, I’ll bet, and reading your body language, letting you connect the dots.’

  I was saved from having to agree with my husband by the reappearance of our server, inquiring if Sir and/or Madam would care for pudding this evening.

  ‘Yes, please.’ I dredged up a smile for the young woman. ‘It’s been a stressful day.’

  After she went off to fetch Paul’s apple tart and a crème brûlée for me, Paul leaned back in his chair and announced, ‘Anybody can be a psychic, even me.’

  ‘Do tell.’

  Paul reached across the table and captured my hand in
both of his. ‘First, I get you comfortable, ply you with good food and fine wine.’

  I snatched my hand away. ‘Where did you learn to be a psychic?’

  ‘I used to wow ’em with my magic tricks in high school. At lunchtime, I was the star of the cafeteria. And I did a lot of reading. The Amazing Randi has a lot to say on the subject of psychics.’

  ‘Randi? The magician?’ I put my lips together and made a rude noise. ‘None of it positive, I imagine.’

  ‘Like Houdini, he uses his skills as an illusionist to expose frauds. I guess you could call Randi a professional debunker. He refers to psychic shtick as woo-woo.’

  Grinning, Paul reclaimed my hand. ‘Next, I smile, make eye contact . . .’ He stared at me, his eyes like deep chocolate pools. What with his goofy grin and wide-eyed, silent screen star gaze, I couldn’t help it. I started to giggle.

  ‘You are . . . let me see.’ Paul began stroking the top of my hand as he held it over my half-empty wine glass. ‘I’m getting a strong feeling about September, here.’

  ‘Not fair! You know my birthday’s in September!’

  ‘Just play along, Hannah.’

  I closed my eyes. ‘OK. Yes. I was born in September, O Magnificent One.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I can see that.’

  My eyes flew open. ‘Hah! But what if I’d said, “September? I can’t think of anything special about September”? What would you have said, then?’

  Paul raised an eyebrow, patted my hand sympathetically. ‘Yes, I see that you’ve suppressed the memory of it. Something painful happened in September. Ah, I feel it, now. A pain, here, in my chest.’

  Then it was my turn to roll my eyes. ‘Well, duh!’

  Paul forged on. ‘You are not cooperating, Hannah! OK, try this on for size. What if I say, “You don’t work with heavy machinery, do you?” What do you answer?’

  ‘I say no, of course.’

  ‘But here’s the beauty of it! If you say no, I say, “Yes, I thought not.” If you say, “Yes, that’s amazing, I drive the Zamboni around the ice rink,” I say, “Yes, I thought so.” For the psychic, it’s win-win either way.’

  ‘Order me another glass of wine, Professor Ives, and do shut up!’

  Paul waved to attract the attention of our server. ‘Scientists have been trying to find proof of life after death for over a century,’ he continued as the server trotted off in the direction of the bar to fetch us more wine. ‘They’ve designed experiment after experiment, but I’m quite certain nothing’s been proved.’

  ‘Lots of things are invisible,’ I said. ‘Atoms, radio waves, the wind. You don’t see the wind; you see the effects of the wind. Maybe the spirits of the dead are like that.’

  ‘William James certainly thought that was a possibility,’ Paul agreed. ‘Back in the 1880s he theorized that researchers could be overlooking some sort of natural fact that might explain ghostly phenomena, simply because it didn’t fit into their carefully organized system of knowledge.’

  ‘Do I see a crack opening in your great wall of skepticism, Paul?’

  Paul laughed. ‘I’m willing to keep an open mind.’

  ‘Then promise me you’ll behave yourself at dinner on Thursday night,’ I said. ‘No ghost busting. No trick questions.’

  ‘You have my word.’ Paul raised his wine glass and clinked it against mine. ‘But sometimes you need a reality check, Hannah. And that’s my job, too.’

  ‘The Great Carnac has spoken.’

  ‘Damn right, sweetheart,’ Paul said, imitating Cagney.

  Our desserts arrived and we dug into them, all serious conversation replaced by a succession of yummy noises. As I scraped the last dabs of pudding from the ramekin, I had to admit that assuming Susan Parker had somehow managed to target me in advance, Paul’s arguments made sense. But there was something I still didn’t understand. Susan had asked me, Why do I keep seeing a refrigerator?

  And that was a question even Carnac in all his magnificence couldn’t answer.

  FOUR

  ‘It may seem strange but Operation Tiger, which happened so many years ago [to the Americans] is as if it happened yesterday . . . I have no doubt that this emotional feeling of loss stems also from the fact that they never got the bodies back. They never knew what had happened to them. All they had received were telegrams saying that their men were killed in the European theatre of operations.’

  Ken Small, The Forgotten Dead, Bloomsbury, 1989, p.197

  At home in Maryland, there are no surprises at the breakfast table, just Paul hunched over a bowl of Cheerios with the New York Times folded open to the OpEd section and propped up against the salt and pepper grinders. At a B&B, though, every morning stars a new cast of characters and some days can surprise you, like tuning in to Good Morning America without checking the program guide first.

  At Horn Hill House on Tuesday morning there were eight around the breakfast table, including a family of four from Nantes, and a rough-hewn Yorkshire man and his florid-faced wife who appeared to be huffing and puffing their way from Starcross to Salcombe along the coastal path. By Wednesday, the couple from Yorkshire had hiked on, to be replaced by an American who, if the noise on the stairway the previous night was any indication, had arrived late and out of sorts. It was well past eleven when she woke me with her grumbling as she bump-bump-bumped her roller bag up the staircase and along the landing just outside our room.

  ‘Good morning,’ the American chirped as she slid an expanse of Madras plaid into the chair next to Paul, grabbed her napkin, snapped it open and smoothed it over her bare knees. She leaned forward. ‘OK, so who are the other Americans here?’ Before anyone could answer, she held up a cautionary hand. ‘No, wait a minute. Let me guess.’

  Through slitted eyes, she considered each of us in turn, as if we were in a police line-up and she were a victim intent on making a positive ID. ‘You,’ she said, jabbing her finger at the mother of two from Nantes who had been ignoring the whole production while helping her daughter carve up some sausage. ‘You from the States?’

  The woman looked up. ‘Mais, non. I am Nicole. My family and I, we are from France.’

  ‘Well, can’t win ’em all.’ The new arrival snorted daintily, then turned to lavish a smile on my husband. She stuck out a pudgy hand. ‘So, you must be the Americans. I’m Cathy Yates, Cathy with a “C” from Pittsburgh, PA.’

  Paul laid down his fork. ‘I’m Paul Ives, and this is my wife, Hannah. We’re from Annapolis.’

  ‘Indianapolis?’ Cathy inquired lazily, toying with her spoon.

  ‘Annapolis. As in Maryland.’

  ‘Holey moley! My brother went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis!’

  After we compared notes and determined that Paul and her brother had overlapped, but he hadn’t been enrolled in any of the classes my husband taught, Paul and I got down to the serious business of tucking into the full English breakfast Janet set down in front of us: two eggs – I prefer mine soft-boiled, toast, baked beans, fried tomatoes, sautéed mushrooms and a nicely browned American-style sausage, not the fat, white tube of sausage-like substance one usually encountered in British B&Bs.

  ‘Gosh, that looks good,’ Cathy said. A strand of long, blond, stick-straight hair slipped over her shoulder and hovered dangerously over Paul’s plate as she leaned over to inspect his breakfast. ‘I’ll have what they’re having, Janet.’

  When a woman reaches a certain age, the hairstyle that saw you through the peace marches of the 1960s has got to go. Get a haircut, Cathy, I wanted to tell her, or put a bag over your head. But I held my tongue.

  While we ate, the newcomer entertained us with a stream-of-consciousness account of her harrowing trip to Dartmouth from Heathrow. ‘Jeeze laweeze,’ she began, ‘I thought I’d never get here. How on earth do you drive in this flipping country? I mean, cheese and crackers! It’s bad enough that you’re sitting on the wrong side of the car driving on the wrong side of the road, but you can’t see a flipping thing over the gee-dee bushe
s. Please pass the O.J.?’

  When the French couple simply looked confused, I translated for them – jus d’orange, s’il vous plaît. Nicole passed the pitcher to Paul who poured some orange juice into a glass and handed it to Cathy.

  A sip of the juice had remarkable restorative powers, giving Cathy the energy to barrel on. ‘Coming around this corner? Ran smack dab into a herd of sheep! And they kept moseying along, moseying along, all the time in the world, calm as you please. Baaa, baaa, baaa. Honestly, you think the fellow in charge would do something, wouldn’t you, but noooo.’ She set her glass down, selected a slice of wholewheat toast from the toast rack and slathered it with strawberry jam, wielding the table knife like a palette knife, covering every square centimeter of bread evenly with the jam, working right up to the edges of the crust, as if it were an art project she’d be graded on.

  ‘I left that rental in the parking lot down by the Tourist Center and there it’s going to stay until Europcar comes to pick the sucker up,’ she continued, aiming the toast at her mouth and taking a semi-circular bite. ‘Swear to God, I’m not setting foot inside it again. It is a miracle I got here at all.’

  ‘Driving in the UK can be a challenge,’ I agreed. ‘We lived in Dartmouth for almost a year, but when we first arrived, I thought I’d never get the hang of it. Once you master it, however, it’s like riding a bike. The skill is yours for life.’

  ‘And you have recent experience, too, Hannah, don’t forget about that.’

  At first I couldn’t imagine what Paul was talking about. And then I remembered. ‘We drove on the left in the Bahamas, too,’ I added with a grin. ‘But that was usually in an island golf cart. I’m not sure that qualifies.’

  Cathy’s breakfast had arrived, and she dug in, beginning with the baked beans. ‘Can’t trust a GPS, either,’ she grumbled. ‘Dang thing led me down a flipping dirt road, not that I’d dignify two ruts by calling it an actual road. Where the Sam Hill are you supposed to go when you meet somebody coming the other way?’ she asked the table at large between forkfuls. ‘I faced off grill to grill with this garbage truck, and I thought we were going to sit there all day, glaring at each other through our windshields. I honked and honked, and the guy finally backed up so I could get by. That was enough for me!’ She picked up her knife and began sawing on her sausage. ‘What I’m going to do for transportation the rest of the week I have no idea.’