Fog Heart (20 page)

‘That's not a problem,' Oona said. ‘If something occurs to you, just say it. You won't do any harm.'

‘Ah, good.'

So agreeable, this Oona. He still didn't know quite what to make of her. She seemed perfectly innocent, a sunny and cheerful young lady who was out to help. Pleasant, attractive. She imposed no special rules or conditions, which was the opposite of what you would expect for events like this. And while they took place in the little snuggery at the back of her living room, Oona gave the impression that she could stage them anywhere, almost at the drop of a tweed hat.

This session began as the first one had, with Oona jabbering on while she rubbed their hands and touched their faces. It was easy enough to endure, but still seemed rather silly.

‘You're so sensitive,' Oona was telling Jan.

Oh, yes, he'd had occasion to observe that – once or twice a year, perhaps. Since when was being guilt-haunted the same thing as being sensitive? Jan, of course, was eating it up. Her eyes tearful already, her head nodding in agreement. Yes, yes, I'm so sensitive, please tell me more.

It was so disheartening. With Maggie, at least, it could be described as a kind of research. She might believe in it but she was also investigating something that could be traced back to her studies of old Celtic folklore. The crazy women with the gift of vision. Witches or seers, whatever. Charley and Jan had no such rationale. Just an old tragedy, and nothing Oona said would ever change it in any way.

‘Wenda wenda wenda—'

She was on track. They had explained this. Oona often had to cover old ground to find the way. Every time out she advanced a little further along. So they said.

‘Wenda wenda when the when the—'

‘Laird,' Charley prompted.

‘When the laird the laird the laird—'

‘When the last Laird of Ravenswood to Ravenswood shall ride, and woo a dead maiden to be his bride,' Charley quoted, ‘he shall stable his steed in the Kelpie's flow, and his name shall be lost for ever more.'

Oona's mouth continued to move but she had gone silent, her eyes blank and her fingers making empty gestures in the air. Roz gave him a puzzled look but said nothing. Jan's expression was one of tight-lipped, hard-eyed annoyance.

‘Sir Walter Scott,' he told Roz. ‘
The Bride of Lammermoor.
It rang a bell the last time, and I tracked it down. It may not be exactly word for word, but that's more or less it.'

‘How interesting,' Roz said.

‘Yes, it is.' A cool one, that girl. ‘What do you suppose it means?'

‘I don't know.' A hushed tone, telling him to shut up.

‘Well, she's quoting Sir Walter Scott,' Charley persisted. ‘I find that rather curious, and I'd—'

Jan and Roz waved him silent. They were gazing at Oona, who was flat on her back, her limbs straight and her body shuddering tightly. Sweat was pouring off her face, which had turned bright red and now was shading into a ghastly purple. Her breathing was somewhat quickened but still close to normal. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth in a painful grimace. Her jaw jumped, and the words came out in tortured clots of sound.

‘Youdontwanna bay bee Idontwanna bay bee—'

‘That's not true,' Charley said softly, but angrily.

‘Wickedwickwickedwickwickedwick—'

Oona's hands flapped uselessly. She looked half dead. The colour had drained from her face, and her skin was streaked with grey and white. Her eyes were shut, but tears flowed freely from them. As before, Charley found these physical changes impressive and weirdly fascinating, but he also resented them.

And there hadn't been anything wrong with the bloody wick in that ancient Everglo paraffin heater. That wasn't it at all. It shouldn't have been used in the nursery, that was the unfortunate truth of the matter. Nothing more, nothing less.

‘Adare–Adare–Adare–Adare–Adare—'

Jan clamped a hand over her mouth and Charley could feel the skin tighten on his face. The bitch. The anger he felt undercut the creeping sense of fear on the edge of his mind. It had never been in any newspaper or media report, as far as he knew. It had never been made public because it was irrelevant. Everybody knew about that cursed jerrycan of fuel, but not that it had the name Adare on the side of it in chipped letters. Adare being the name of the local shopkeeper who had supplied it to Charley. There was no way Oona could know – Christ, he was tired of thinking that each time Oona said something she wasn't supposed to know.

‘A daring bird of omen bird of doom daring to daring to dare to come come come oh no oh no oh no don't come—'

Charley exhaled.
Dare. Daring.
So it wasn't necessarily a mention of Adare at all. Just another case of the words sounding alike, being virtually the same, and thus triggering a connection in his mind and Jan's. He would tell her that later, not that it would do any good. But you have to put things on record.

‘Dunsany had a bird of doom,' he pointed out affably. ‘It's in
The Gods of Pegana,
his very first book. Every writer worth his salt has at least one bird of omen or bird of doom in their work – it's required. Symbolism 101.'

But Jan and Roz ignored him. Fair enough. He was playing the spoilsport and they had no use for it. But it seemed to him that someone had to take on that role, however thankless it might be, and he was the only person present with the detachment to see through the veil of dubious links and associations.

‘Dontdontdontdontdont – don't lettem come don't lettem come don't wanna – don't wanna – baybee – the corbies come the bird of doom the corbies shadow in the room – oh no oh no—'

‘Fiona,' Jan wailed helplessly.

Oona writhed and twisted, pinching her arms and body. Her skin turned white then red where she picked at it. There was a look of strange pleasure on her face, a kind of fierce smile that seemed to defy her obvious discomfort.

Her light cotton dress was drenched in places with sweat and stuck to her. The sleeves were bunched up above the elbows, the loose skirt crushed in a clump between her knees. Her hair hung in damp, tangled strands. Oona's eyes opened and closed, rolling about aimlessly, seeing only within.

A trance. Okay, so she goes into a trance state, as much as anybody ever can. Charley would give her that. But there was no special benefit or magic to it. It was a form of escape. People push themselves into a trance and think they've made a mystical connection. But it was imaginary, illusory, the product of their own subconscious minds off on a toot. You could reach the cosmos and the past just as well by meditating serenely, or having a few pints in Mooney's on a quiet afternoon.

‘Don't go don't go don't go now—'

‘I'm sorry,' Jan sobbed.

‘Don't leave the laird the bird the shadow the smoke the lie in the lie of the light – the glow—'

‘Fiona, I'm so sorry…'

It was possible, just possible, to look at Oona in such an extraordinary state, to hear the words flowing and jumping out of her, and to believe it. You almost had to work harder to reject it. But you had to reject it, because otherwise everything else in your life spun out of control. And fell away, empty and drab and meaningless.

If you could communicate with the dead, how could you spend your time doing anything else? If you could cross the barrier to the afterlife, or another dimension of being – whatever it might be – how could you go back to teaching, writing, cleaning house, watching a ballgame or dulling your mind with drink? Surely you would feel compelled to spend every waking moment of your life on it, trying to perfect it and understand it. To do anything else would be an outrageous waste of time and opportunity. You would have to devote your whole life to it.

To the dead.

Oona had fallen still. She looked wrung out and limp, like a floppy doll that had seen too much careless use. Charley hoped the show was over. He wanted to take Jan home.

Oona sat up and looked around. Her eyes were clear and wide open now, but she still gave the impression of being blind, or of seeing something other than her immediate surroundings. Her eyes were a brilliant blue, but were lost.

‘Don't leave me, Mam. Please don't leave me here like this. Mam, please don't. Stay with me, Mam. Take me with you. Don't leave me here like this. Please don't.'

The voice of a child, small and pleading. The words didn't come in synch with Oona's occasional lip movements. They seemed to float out of her mouth unaided. But what was most disturbing about it, shocking even, was how frail and human that tiny voice sounded. And yet it had a crushing sense of reality, after, of the incantatory outbursts that had come earlier.

‘Don't leave that there, Dad. Please don't do that. Not in the corner, not in this room. Mr Adare told you, Dad. Leave it loose, not tight. Leave it in the shed. Dad, don't—'

‘God.'

‘Don't forget it there like that. Don't leave me here, Mam. Take me with you. See the corbies in the tree. See them on the wall at the back of the garden. Take me with you, Mam, stay with me this time. Please—'

Jan was sobbing violently, but no sound came from her. She leaned forward, hands clasped at her mouth, and put her forehead to the cushion at Oona's knees.

‘Mam? Dad? Where are you?'

Oona began to gasp, her cheeks coruscating with fear in the blood. Her voice rose, and yet seemed to lose strength, or hope. Her fingers trembled at her breast.

‘Mam? Dad? Don't leave me this time. Stay with me. Take me with you this time. Mam? Dad? Please! PLEASE!!'

Her voice became a scream, and Oona repeated those same few monosyllables over and over again. Her face was twisted, racked with terror, and the veins in her neck stood out like cables.

‘Mam! Dad! Where are you? Don't go!'

Jan: ‘I'm – so – sorry—'

Charley felt as if his chest was full of knots. He couldn't move, couldn't take his eyes from Oona. He wasn't breathing, and he seemed to be strangling inside.

‘PLEASE! PLEASE! OH PLEASE!'

A shriek in the teeth of death, and then Oona's voice reeled off into wordless, skirling yelps, raging hysteria. Charley felt as if steel bands were snapping inside him, and he took her in his arms suddenly. Stroked her hair and face. Contained her, as she collapsed in his embrace.

‘It's all right.' His voice congested. ‘I'm here.'

16

‘This is not a good idea,' Roz said with a look of reproach. ‘If it were up to me … But she does want to see you.'

‘I'm sorry.' Carrie didn't know what else to say. When she had phoned earlier that morning, she had suspected that Roz and Oona were not quite in agreement. But even if she only got to see Oona for five or ten minutes, it was necessary. What had happened was so terrible, and Oona was the only person who could help.

‘Well, anyway. She wants to see you alone. As long as the two of you just talk, that's okay. But if she shows any sign of going into a spell again, I want you to leave the room and let me know at once. I'll be down here.'

Carrie nodded. She followed Roz up the front hall stairs to the second floor. Oona was in the master bedroom at the back of the house, propped up against a bank of pillows. She had a stack of women's magazines beside her, and the television was showing a music video. She was wearing light summer pyjamas. She had a cigarette in one hand, and there was a tall glass of tomato juice on the night table next to her. Her face lit up with a big smile when she saw Carrie.

‘Hi, come on in.'

‘Hello.'

‘Are you all right, love?' Roz asked.

‘Yes, thanks. Fine,' Oona answered dismissively. She patted the bed, and said to Carrie, ‘Here, come sit with me.'

Roz left the room, leaving the door open an inch, as Carrie sat down on the edge of the bed, facing Oona.

‘I'm sorry to trouble you like this.'

‘Oh, that's all right,' Oona told her. ‘I'm really glad to see you. But I guess you had a rough night.'

‘Yes, I did.'

‘I'm still glad you didn't fly to Europe.' Oona tapped out her cigarette. ‘Do you want a Bloody Mary or something?'

‘Oh, no, thanks.'

‘Come on, have one with me. Please.'

‘Well, maybe a weak one.'

‘Good.'

Oona reached down to the floor beside her and came up with a clean glass and a bottle of vodka. She poured a large measure, then topped it off with tomato juice from another bottle. That was it, a far cry from the Bloody Marys at the Carlyle. Carrie took one sip and held the drink.

‘You probably think I'm terrible, drinking at eleven o'clock in the morning,' Oona said, with a brief giggle.

‘No, of course not. Oliver and I often have a Bloody Mary or a Screwdriver on Sunday morning, with the papers.'

‘Well, I probably do drink too much,' Oona said, without any hint of regret. ‘But I don't like sleeping pills, and a couple of drinks makes it easier to sleep without dreaming. During the day it helps hold off the voices and visions.'

‘They happen that often?'

‘They would, yes. Unless I'm too weak from the last time or if I'm feeling mellow enough with drink.'

‘And you have no control over it?'

‘Not a lot. Not much at all, in fact.' Oona grinned. ‘But never mind about that. What happened last night?'

Carrie told her how the incident had developed, from the odd noises and the sight of the figure running down the hall and into Oliver's office, to the way the room was changed, the strangling, and how Carrie then found herself in the victim's place.