Chapter 7
Ollie’s car is where he left it the night before, and cautiously he opens the door and climbs in. There is no hint of the sensation he had yesterday, no scent of perfume, nothing. An empty car. He drives down to the village, and parks outside Cathy’s cottage. She opens the door to him and looks at him. She looks tired, her hair rumpled.
“Something has happened”. It wasn’t a question, but he nods, and drops his gaze. “I thought it might. She looks past him. “It is a nice morning, let’s go for a walk, we can go over to the Manor later.”
Cathy picks up her coat, and a bag that is ready by the door, and they walk down to the bay. At this time of the year there is no ice cream van, but overlooking the water a rather hopeful mobile kiosk selling coffee and an assortment of plastic-wrapped cakes and biscuits, and they pick up drinks and a couple of biscuits and head for a nearby bench. Cathy has brought a rug and wraps herself in it.
Ollie recounts the events of the evening before, and the incident when Alice stared at him out of the picture. “I think Alice is haunting me. There was something in her face when I first saw the painting, and it keeps coming back to her. I think it was her by the Tower, in the car. Is she dead? How did she die? Dad never spoke about her, but you must know. Did she kill herself?”
“Your father only knew part of the story. He knew that she had died young. I did try to talk about it, but he wouldn’t let me. I thought he would be more curious, but when she was mentioned he clammed up.”
Cathy reaches into her handbag and takes from one of the pockets a photograph of a boy, taken on the beach near where they are sitting. Ollie recognises it as a picture of his father, perhaps fifteen or sixteen years old. Tall and smiling awkwardly at the camera.
“Philip was very happy here as a boy, but there were echoes of Alice in him. He went to boarding school, and each time he came back he was less settled, less comfortable here. When he went to university he came back much less, and didn’t stay long. He once told me he had dreams in which Alice appeared, strange dreams, and they stopped when he was away from here. I tried to get him to tell me more, but he wouldn’t, and didn’t want to talk about her. As a teenager he was withdrawn. Your mother brought him out of himself, helped him to relax. He still didn’t come down very often, but perhaps was less troubled when she was with him. But there was one incident in particular that I remember. He had brought your mother down to tell us about their engagement. It was summer, hot and lazy, and they stayed for a few days. The last day they were here he was out in the garden. I was sorting out some flowers and he came rushing in to the house in some sort of a state. He looked pale, his eyes were scared, his forehead damp, and he asked if I had seen Debbie. I told him she was upstairs, and he ran up looking for her, still wearing his outdoor shoes. Later I asked him if there had been a problem, whether he had found her, and he said it was all fine, not to worry. It was Debbie who told me the story, she mentioned it that evening as if in passing, but clearly it had unsettled her. ”
Cathy pauses, sips her coffee, and looks at Ollie.
“This is what he told your mother. He had been reading a book in the garden, and as the light started to fade he walked over to the fence looking towards the sea. He heard someone coming up behind him and assumed it was Debbie. It was warm, quiet, nothing out of the ordinary. He felt hands over his eyes, and someone standing close behind him. A woman’s hands, a woman’s scent.
“ ‘Shush, don’t move,’ she said. ‘Close your eyes.’ He closed his eyes, and they stood for a few minutes, and then he turned and they embraced, his eyes still closed, still for several minutes. Something strange happened then, as he described it afterwards, it felt as if she started to fade. Her body had less substance. He opened his eyes and there was no one there. There was nowhere she could have gone, she just wasn’t there any longer. It was all over in a few minutes. He came in, passing me on the way, and found Debbie upstairs in their room. He was very agitated, wouldn’t sit down, wanted to touch her, her arm, her face, to hug her, but in a distant way. He wanted to know where she had been, had she been out in the garden? But she had been in the house for some time. It took a while for him to calm down, longer before she could make him explain what had happened outside.
“I did speak to him about it some weeks later. I had met up with him in London for lunch and Alice came up in conversation. I asked if he had thought about her when he came down. He didn’t speak at first, and then decided he needed to tell someone and it all come out. As soon as he had come down with Debbie Alice had started to reappear in his dreams. At first he wasn’t sure – dreams are strange things and he would wake with a sense of someone who had been at the edge of the stage, but not sure who it was. Then the dreams started to get more intense. Alice was there as a physical character, almost too physical he said, disturbed. He would wake sweating. In the garden that day your mother had been inside all along, as had I. He was convinced that it was Alice who had embraced him. He hinted that it wasn’t the first time, that she was in his head whenever he came down, and he had seen her in the garden before, and on the cliffs by the Tower. He didn’t want to go into detail, but apologised that he had to return to London to get her out of his head.”
“Was it just Dad? Have you seen or felt her? Has she appeared to anyone else?”
Cathy looks at him, pulling the rug tighter about her shoulders. “I feel that she is with me here all the time.” She puts her hand on her chest. “She was my sister, and I loved her, I still do. But I have never seen her, not since she left the house, I have never thought she was here. I don’t believe that a ghost can have a physical presence, but her unhappy spirit is here always. She was damaged as a child, and has never had a chance to heal. Who knows what happens to your suffering when you die? Can it live on in some form? Our age gap was too great for her to discuss her problems with me; if anything she tried to shield me from them. Everything that she found difficult was compounded when Mother married Harry. I do not think Alice had much experience of men, she had had admirers but never what you would call a regular boyfriend. But she certainly had a crush on Harry. He used to flirt with her, encourage her to wear a particular dress, or to do something with her hair. He was closer in age to her than he was to Mother. And Alice would respond; she would touch his arm, or if we were sitting she would brush her hand against his leg. It all seemed very innocent; for Harry it was a game. But not for her.
“I remember her shouting when Mother told her that Harry had proposed to her. She said that Mother was too old for him, that he didn’t love her, that Alice was the one that he loved. I know I asked you before, but have you still got that photograph that you took on your phone?”
Ollie checks his recent photos again. “No, it got deleted somehow.”
“I think I need to see the portrait. There was something wrong about it. I couldn’t place it at the time, I haven’t seen the picture in years, but I think I know now what it is. Can you take me up to the Manor? I need to have a look at the original.”
Ollie picks up the rug and the coffee cups, and they walk back to the cottage.
“I just need to fetch something from inside. You wait here.”
Cathy is gone for nearly 20 minutes, and when she reappears she has tidied her hair and changed her coat and her shoes. She is carrying a large handbag.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting, let’s go now.”