linen?’
‘That’s the image Fuchsia claims she saw when she turned aroundfrom the wall she was plastering. Poetic, in its macabre way. Although this would’ve been crumpled plastic.’
‘Aye. Very literary,’ Huw said. ‘But, then, not surprising, really. It’s a quote.’
‘What?’
‘M. R. James. Author of classic ghost stories in the 1900s?’
‘Yeah, I know who M. R. James is.’
‘I can even tell you which story it comes from. “Whistle”.’
‘What are you—?’
‘“Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” is the one about the university professor haunted by a malevolent entity which … I’d get hold of a copy if I were you, without too much delay.’
‘You’re saying …’
There’d been a book of James’s stories amongst Fuchsia’s collection in the caravan. Orange-coloured spine on the shelf by the wood stove.
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
.
‘All right, lass?’
‘Let me get this totally right. You’re telling me it’s an actual phrase taken from one of M. R. James’s ghost stories?’
Merrily dropped her cigarette in the ashtray and flopped forward, both hands around the old black phone.
Oh, bugger
.
‘
Bit
of a coincidence, eh? If you have any problems finding the story, give us a call and I’ll scan a few pages and email them across.’
‘Yes. Thank you, Huw.’
Shit
.
Merrily tipped the phone very gently into its rest. Gazing at her reflection in the dark mirror of the scullery window and into a too-familiar void.
8
Heresy
T HIS JOB …
People learned what you did, and envisaged desecrated graves, chalices of blood, night-long spiritual struggles with an indelibly black metaphysical evil, his satanic majesty, The Beast 666.
Their disappointment, almost invariably, was palpable.
So you’ve never really had to rescue anyone from actual demonic possession?
To which you’d shrug and smile awkwardly and admit that, rather than the coils of the Old Serpent, it mostly came down to the spirals of the subconscious mind.
This was the void – the thought that there might, in the end, be nothing there that psychology would not be equipped to explain. That people like Siân Callaghan-Clarke might just be right about the relevance of what you were doing.
The dark night of no-soul. What, in the end, you feared most, and a dampener on the spirit, as Merrily drove down into the Unknown Border, using a route she’d never travelled before: sunken lanes below the bare, abraded hillsides, wind-whipped, twisted trees.
Still England. It had to be; there, below the road, was the River Monnow, which
was
the border, failing to be crossed by a smashed and collapsing footbridge, fenced off, with a sign that said:
Danger
.
But if this wasn’t Wales, neither was it truly Herefordshire, not with names like
Bagwllydiart
on the signposts. Rural Wales – almost all of it, now – was designated tourist country, while Herefordshire’s own tourist country was Ledwardine and its neighbouring black and white villages in the north of the county and the lushness of the Wye Valley in the south.
The Unknown Border was only about an hour from Ledwardine and, sooner or later, it would be joining the New Cotswolds.
Not for a while, though.
And it certainly had never been, nor ever would be, East Anglia.
Jane had them all, natch.
The Penguin Complete Ghost Stories of M. R. James (1862-1936)
.
Sitting up in bed last night, under the blackened oak beams, with her dressing gown around her shoulders and the tawny owls fluting in the churchyard, Merrily had read ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’, first published in 1904.
She couldn’t possibly have read it before or even seen it on TV, because it really wasn’t something that would ever allow itself to be forgotten, this story of Parkins, an academic on a golfing holiday on the Suffolk coast, and what he discovers there, and what discovers him.
Oh Parkins
, says a colleague before he leaves,
if you are going to
‘That’s the image Fuchsia claims she saw when she turned aroundfrom the wall she was plastering. Poetic, in its macabre way. Although this would’ve been crumpled plastic.’
‘Aye. Very literary,’ Huw said. ‘But, then, not surprising, really. It’s a quote.’
‘What?’
‘M. R. James. Author of classic ghost stories in the 1900s?’
‘Yeah, I know who M. R. James is.’
‘I can even tell you which story it comes from. “Whistle”.’
‘What are you—?’
‘“Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” is the one about the university professor haunted by a malevolent entity which … I’d get hold of a copy if I were you, without too much delay.’
‘You’re saying …’
There’d been a book of James’s stories amongst Fuchsia’s collection in the caravan. Orange-coloured spine on the shelf by the wood stove.
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
.
‘All right, lass?’
‘Let me get this totally right. You’re telling me it’s an actual phrase taken from one of M. R. James’s ghost stories?’
Merrily dropped her cigarette in the ashtray and flopped forward, both hands around the old black phone.
Oh, bugger
.
‘
Bit
of a coincidence, eh? If you have any problems finding the story, give us a call and I’ll scan a few pages and email them across.’
‘Yes. Thank you, Huw.’
Shit
.
Merrily tipped the phone very gently into its rest. Gazing at her reflection in the dark mirror of the scullery window and into a too-familiar void.
8
Heresy
T HIS JOB …
People learned what you did, and envisaged desecrated graves, chalices of blood, night-long spiritual struggles with an indelibly black metaphysical evil, his satanic majesty, The Beast 666.
Their disappointment, almost invariably, was palpable.
So you’ve never really had to rescue anyone from actual demonic possession?
To which you’d shrug and smile awkwardly and admit that, rather than the coils of the Old Serpent, it mostly came down to the spirals of the subconscious mind.
This was the void – the thought that there might, in the end, be nothing there that psychology would not be equipped to explain. That people like Siân Callaghan-Clarke might just be right about the relevance of what you were doing.
The dark night of no-soul. What, in the end, you feared most, and a dampener on the spirit, as Merrily drove down into the Unknown Border, using a route she’d never travelled before: sunken lanes below the bare, abraded hillsides, wind-whipped, twisted trees.
Still England. It had to be; there, below the road, was the River Monnow, which
was
the border, failing to be crossed by a smashed and collapsing footbridge, fenced off, with a sign that said:
Danger
.
But if this wasn’t Wales, neither was it truly Herefordshire, not with names like
Bagwllydiart
on the signposts. Rural Wales – almost all of it, now – was designated tourist country, while Herefordshire’s own tourist country was Ledwardine and its neighbouring black and white villages in the north of the county and the lushness of the Wye Valley in the south.
The Unknown Border was only about an hour from Ledwardine and, sooner or later, it would be joining the New Cotswolds.
Not for a while, though.
And it certainly had never been, nor ever would be, East Anglia.
Jane had them all, natch.
The Penguin Complete Ghost Stories of M. R. James (1862-1936)
.
Sitting up in bed last night, under the blackened oak beams, with her dressing gown around her shoulders and the tawny owls fluting in the churchyard, Merrily had read ‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’, first published in 1904.
She couldn’t possibly have read it before or even seen it on TV, because it really wasn’t something that would ever allow itself to be forgotten, this story of Parkins, an academic on a golfing holiday on the Suffolk coast, and what he discovers there, and what discovers him.
Oh Parkins
, says a colleague before he leaves,
if you are going to
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