The Link (28 page)

“So understand,” he finishes, “loving you is not enough to break the shackles on her, shackles she has been consummately content to wear these many years.”

The conversation shifts as Peter speaks again of his excitement about going to Harrowgate.

“I can’t tell you how many years I’ve been dying to hear the whisperings and scratchings of a pure-bred haunted house,” he says. “The footsteps, raps and clickings, thumps and bumps, the slamming of doors, the falling crockery, the distant screams, the hollow church music and singing of monks, the wraiths of Renaissance ladies drifting down gloomy corridors.”

Robert chuckles. “Don’t tell me we’re going to see all those things in one house,” he says.

“Unhappily, no,” says Peter. “The effects are limited, I’m sure, though, I’ve been promised, rather spectacular. No phantom coaches though.” He’s off again. “No men in grey flitting past casement windows. No banshee shrieks, no red-eyed demons glaring out of mirrors.”

“How much are you into this?” Robert asks, smiling.

He meant it to be an innocent question but Peter’s reaction is surprisingly stiff. “Into what?” he asks.

“Well… ghosts,” says Robert. “The dead. Survival.”

Peter gestures casually as though to end the conversation. “Just part of our research,” he answers.

It is the first time Robert has heard anything but total amiability in the older man’s voice.

They drift into a slightly uncomfortable trivia contest, then both, perhaps deliberately, escape into sleep.

Robert has the dream again in all its ominous detail. This time, however, when he is rushed up the stairs, it is to see exactly who the figure waiting for him is.

His mother with a crazed look on her face, screaming dementedly as she reaches for him.

He jolts awake with a faint cry, heart pounding, a sheen of perspiration on his face.

Peter, awakened, looks at him in surprise. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

Robert tells him of the nightmare and Peter is all sympathy. Seeing this, Robert apologizes if he seemed to be implying, in any way, that Peter’s interest in haunted houses was anything but scientific.

Peter smiles cordially and pats him on the shoulder. “Think nothing of it, old man,” he says. “It’s forgotten.”

Arrival in England. A weeping Carol is met by multiple relatives and she and Peter are whisked off to stay at someone’s house as Robert and Teddie cab to a London hotel.

“I never thought I would see this place again,” Teddie comments as the taxi moves through the city.

He reveals that, when he was young—before the war—his family was wealthy, owning several textile mills in Berlin, and he was sent to expensive schools “all over the place”, a year here, a year there.

“This was one of my favorite spots to be expelled from school,” he says. “Second only to Paris.” He looks around with sad, remembering eyes. “But that was long ago. So long ago.”

They reach the hotel and are taken to their rooms. The first thing Robert does is sit on the bed and look in the telephone directory for Harry Graves. There are seven of them. He almost starts to dial the first on the list, then changes his mind, tosses down the directory and stands.

He gazes out the window at night-illuminated London.

“God, I miss you, Cathy,” he murmurs.

Even tired, he avoids going to bed, fearing a recurrence of the nightmare.

Peter phones him in the morning, waking him up. They’re to visit (if Robert would care to come) the offices of the psi association from which he is on leave of absence.

“Cathy will probably be there,” he says, his tone casual.

Robert and Teddie cab to the offices of ESPS, Ltd (Extended Sensory Perception Society, Ltd) where Robert sees Cathy again.

It is a strangely uncomfortable reunion. Her attempt at being cheerful is apparent as she says, “You’re just in time. Mad De Vries is going on national telly tonight.”

She escorts Robert and Teddie around ESPS and we see the British equivalent of ESPA tests going on. Cathy tells them that her parents would like to take them all to dinner that night before they go to see De Vries perform at the studio. Teddie thanks her politely but says he’d rather go to the theatre than see “that bonehead Dutchman” again.

After an agonizing period of time, Robert has a few moments alone with Cathy and asks if his coming to England is distressing to her, she is acting so oddly.

“No, no, not at all,” she says. She admits to being disturbed but it is because, of all of them, she who wants the most to go to Russia isn’t going.

His smile is faint. “Well,” he says. “That does wonders for my ego.”

Cathy doesn’t smile. “We know the situation, Robert,” she tells him.

He nods, turning away from her.

It isn’t even Rob anymore.

Later, he tells Peter about Cathy’s disappointment over missing the trip to Russia. Peter says he’ll talk to Easton but it is his definite impression that Easton doesn’t want to put any more money into the junket.

Robert volunteers to let Cathy go in his place since it’s so important to her. Peter tells him that he doesn’t want him to do that. Teddie, overhearing, also volunteers to let Cathy replace him. That’s impossible, Peter says. The Russians have stipulated Teddie’s presence in the group.

So the situation remains unresolved.

Dinner with Cathy’s parents, her brother and Harry. Carol isn’t there. “She hasn’t seen her family in so long a time,” Peter explains but Robert can see his disturbance.

Depressed by Cathy’s cool reception, Robert is polite but relatively quiet.

It is not difficult to see the situation with Cathy’s parents. They are eminently sociable and just as eminently insulated. In their presence, Cathy is exactly the same. Her brother is a younger clone of his father, amiable, articulate, intelligent—and equally encapsulated in a psychological aura of detachment.

Her father holds forth at the dinner table on his experiments (his son assisting) on electro-magnetic radiation. “Shades of St. Elmo,” Robert mumbles of himself, evoking a glance from MICHAEL ROBERTSON, Cathy’s brother.

“It is apparent that all living matter is enveloped in electrodynamic fields,” says DR. ALEXANDER ROBERTSON.

“Our token physicist at ESPA can’t seem to find it anywhere,” says Robert, trying to sound amused but failing.

“He may not realize how tenuous it is,” says Cathy’s father. “The human system is far more sensitive than any known instrument. The sensitivity of the body—to magnetic anomalies, for instance—is remarkable, perceiving gradient changes as weak as one milli-microgauss or ten to the
minus
ninth power. The general run of physicist, not to mention parapsychologists, have no conception of the extreme attenuation of the L-field.”

“L-field?” Robert asks.

“Life fields,” Dr. Robertson answers. “Energy radiation. That which creates all so-called phenomena.”

Robert nods. Now he knows where Cathy gets it all from. Not that he can argue with it. But it certainly establishes the source of her root beliefs.

A BBC studio, the group watching as De Vries begins his performance.

A tray of assorted cutlery pieces is set on a table in front of the young Dutch psychic. He selects four big, solid spoons and hands one to each of three observing scientists, keeping one for himself.

In a minute or so, De Vries points to the spoon held by one of the scientists, a physicist.

It is bending by itself.

“There, you see,” says De Vries. “I do not even have to touch it. If I touch it, see what happens.”

He gently strokes the neck of the spoon and, in several seconds, the head of the spoon breaks off and drops to the floor. “You see how easy?” says De Vries. “Lots of power here tonight!”

Before the program had begun, an employee had drawn a picture and sealed it in a thick envelope. The envelope is placed on the table and De Vries gazes at it, a pad and pencil in his lap.

“Well, I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t expect much success on this. Very difficult. However—” hastily, he sketches.

The envelope is opened and the drawings compared.

Both are the side view of a yacht sailing on the water, sails unfurled, birds floating in the sky.

“Not bad,” says De Vries. “Better than I expected.”

The audience applauds. The scientists are baffled. “Well, if it’s a trick,” says one, a mathematician, “it’s a good one.”

“I am not a trickster!” says De Vries, offended.

Broken watches have been gathered on a tray. It is placed in front of De Vries who holds clenched fists over the watches, commanding them to start.

One of them begins to run and the second hand of another buckles under its glass face. “Do we know these watches were all broken?” demands the mathematician.

“They were examined carefully,” the moderator says. “All were non-functional and all second hands were intact.”

“Of course!” says De Vries. “It is power, not tricks! A camera levitates beside me on an airplane! A piece of metal is flung twenty feet in a laboratory! Once, in Sweden, when I appeared on television, there was a brown-out in the city! Check it out! It is my source! He is a cosmic clown!”

After the program, they all go out for a nightcap. Now Cathy’s mother holds forth.

“The cosmic clown he speaks of lies within his own brain,” she observes. “The similarity between his feats and those attributed to poltergeist children is unmistakable. De Vries never speaks about his background but I’ve examined it with some care and his psycho-profile indicates a distinct resentment against the so-called ‘grown-up’ world. There were definite signs of rebelliousness against this father when he was a little boy.”

As she speaks, Robert has an indistinct vision: himself as a young child, his father’s favorite cup having just been set on the table for supper, him staring at it angrily, the cup flying against the wall and shattering.

He is back in the hotel bar. They are staring at him. “I beg your pardon?” he says automatically.

“I asked what you thought of De Vries,” says Harry.

Robert thinks a moment, then replies, “I think he’s wasting everybody’s time.”

“How so?” asks Peter, interested by his reply.

“Is that what psi is all about?” Robert asks. “Bending spoons and repairing watches? Surely what we’re searching for is too important to reduce to the level of parlor tricks.”

“Hear, hear,” says Peter, smiling; but the obvious irritation in Robert’s voice has not enhanced the atmosphere.

They leave the hotel soon to return to their respective domiciles. By coincidence, Robert and Harry are left standing on the sidewalk.

“Regarding your presence here,” Harry says quietly, “I trust it doesn’t signify—renewal, shall we say, between Cathy and you.”

Robert is stunned. Cathy had been so positive that Harry knew nothing. He stares at the other man, speechless.

“I dislike to put you in an awkward spot like this,” says Harry. “I wouldn’t do it if it weren’t so important to me.”

Robert swallows. “There’s no renewal,” he murmurs. “It’s completely over.”

“Thank you,” Harry murmurs back as though in appreciation for the passing of a salt shaker.

Cathy comes out of the hotel with her mother and father, looking happy. “My parents are going to finance my way to Russia!” she says elatedly. “They think it’s too important for me to miss!” Impulsively, she hugs her father whose faint smile indicates habitual disinclination to public displays of emotion.