PREVIEW: A Cold Season by Alison Littlewood

A Cold Season

Cass is trying to rebuild her life after the loss of her soldier husband, and a renovated mill in the picture-perfect village of Darnshaw looks to be the idyllic spot to bring up her traumatised son, Ben. But the locals aren't as friendly as Cass had hoped, and Ben is beginning to display a hostility she can't understand. Then the blizzards blow in, and Darnshaw is marooned in a sea of snow. Now, threatened on all sides, Cass finds herself pitted against forces she can barely comprehend.

A Cold Season is the fabulous debut novel by Alison Littlewood for Jo Fletcher Books. Gaining widespread publicity after being chosen for the Richard and Judy Book Club, this is classic Brtish occult horror, with strong characterization, an atmospheric sense of place and a plot that keeps offering surprises until the final page. Alison will be appearing at Twisted Tales of the Supernatural in Lancaster on Friday 15th June 2012 and Liverpool on Saturday 16th June 2012. To find out more about Alison's work, visit:
http://www.alisonlittlewood.co.uk

In a new preview for Twisted Tales readers, we are publishing the first chapter of her novel.

 Chapter One

 The fog swallowed everything: moorland, colour, sound. Even Ben was silent in the passenger seat. The road was little more than a narrow track winding across what Cass thought of as God’s own country, which she knew to be wide and rolling and open where it lay hidden behind the fog.
            Cass caught a glimpse of heather and bracken, everything sapped and rendered colourless. Ahead, the road dipped into a shallow bowl before winding upwards once more. She took her foot from the accelerator and allowed the car to slow.
            ‘What’s up?’ Ben stirred, and she realised he had been asleep. ‘Where are we?’
            ‘Saddleworth Moor.’ Cass braked to a halt and gestured down into the dip. ‘Isn’t it weird? You’d think the fog would gather here, but it’s clear.’ She turned to him. His face was closed, uninterested. ‘You should take a look. You won’t see much of the moor in this fog.’
            He shrugged. Don’t care.
            Cass gripped the wheel once more and took her foot from the brake. As the car began to move, she slammed it down again.
            Ben jerked forward and scowled. ‘What’s that for?’
            Cass continued to stare down into the bowl.
            Ben followed her gaze. ‘There’s nothing there.’
            Her son was right, but Cass tightened her grip on the wheel anyway. ‘Didn’t you feel it?’ She took her foot off the brake and the car rolled. ‘It’s going the wrong way.’
            This time Ben saw. He straightened, looking back the way they had come.
            Cass eased off the brake and the car rolled further, back. Up the slope. ‘Damn,’ she said, under her breath. She felt dizzy. ‘It’s a hill.’
            ‘What are you on about?’
            ‘I’ve heard about this. It’s – I don’t know, Ben – some kind of optical illusion. It looks like a dip but it’s really a hill. We’re on an upward slope, not downward.’
            Ben’s face lit and Cass felt a surge of something. Hope? Joy? She wasn’t sure.
            ‘Wow,’ he said.
            She reached out and rubbed his knee. ‘Feel. I’ll let it roll.’
            ‘Go on, Mum.’
            Cass grinned, easing off again. The car started to roll back, slowly at first, then picking up speed. A sound blared into the silence, cutting through the air and dopplering away as a dark shape shot past them. Headlights made everything brilliant; then it was gone. Cass stamped on the brake once more.
            ‘Mu-um,’ Ben complained. His face was closed again, the way it had been when they started this journey. The way he had been since Cass had told him his father wasn’t coming back.
            ‘Sorry.’ Cass checked the mirror, seeing only a solid grey wall. She eased down on the accelerator, going forward this time. Despite this, the car slowed again. Cass accelerated harder but the car stopped anyway and she let out her breath.
            ‘Mum, stop messing about.’
            The car rocked on its wheels and rolled back. Cass braked heavily, leaning forward, gripping the wheel and staring out at the road. It felt as though something was pushing them, but there was nothing: only that dip, a round, natural bowl as though a giant football had landed in soft earth.
            She accelerated until the engine roared and suddenly the car was free and shot forward.
            Ben made an exasperated sound and crossed his arms, turning to stare out of the window.
            ‘Sorry,’ Cass said. ‘I don’t know what that was.’
            ‘You’re doing it.’
            ‘No – it must have been the wind or something.’ Cass’ heart raced. Her hands felt slippery on the wheel. It hadn’t felt like the wind.
             Her son remained silent.
            The car navigated the dip – the rise, Cass reminded herself – and the fog closed in once more, swallowing sound, swallowing the road save for a grey strip in front of the car and the tufts of grass that marked the edge.


Cass tried to decide whether they were going uphill or down, but it took all her concentration to follow the curves of the road. The white wall of fog drew back as the car approached, permitting them a narrow space into which they could see, and closed again behind them. It deadened everything. Cass listened for the steady hum of the car, but it only seemed to be there when she tried to hear it. The fog was a visible silence.
            She hadn’t seen another car in a long time.
            Ben wriggled in his seat. ‘Are we still on the moor? I don’t like it.’

            ‘Yes,’ Cass replied, and wondered how she knew that was true. ‘It can’t be much longer.’
            She kept her eyes on the road. It was like floating. It reminded her of one of Ben’s video games: she was driving a racing car and the road was nothing but two short lines in front of the stub of a bonnet. It had been impossible to stay between them.
            ‘What’s that?’ asked Ben. He wriggled in his seat and turned to the window. Cass glanced over to see his breath spreading on the pane, fog coming out of his body and into the car.
            ‘Don’t,’ she said, and then thought, Why not?
            Ben raised a hand and spread it on the glass. Each finger left a dark smudge in the mist. He pressed his face to the window.
            ‘What is it? Ben?’
            ‘I thought . . . Nothing,’ he said, slumping back into the seat. ‘It’s nothing.’


Cass turned back to the road. The fog retreated as the car went onwards, headlights shining on its white wall, making it look solid. She was still shuffling in her seat as it seemed to dissolve, showing its true nature after all – nothing but droplets of water suspended in the air, a shifting translucent thing. The centre of it curled in on itself, revealing something dark in its heart.
            Cass saw a figure standing in the road, its arms held out. There were no features, only shadow.
            In that instant Cass remembered the murders that had happened thirty, forty years before. There were murdered children buried on these moors. Had they all been found? She couldn’t remember. She also had no time to think. Even while the idea of lost children formed in her mind she slammed on the brakes and hauled on the wheel. The car slewed and rocked, and then the wheels gripped and she jolted to a stop. Ben jerked forward, was caught by his seatbelt and thrown back into his seat. He didn’t complain this time.
            Cass and Ben stared at each other. His face was white. Cass imagined her own was too.
            She glanced in the rear-view mirror. The fog was lurid in her brake lights, pressing in close. If another car came along . . . She glanced out to the side. It was impossible to tell how far across the road she’d finished up.
            A rattle made her catch her breath. Ben cried out and Cass turned to see a face peering in at his window. Ben leaned away from it, his small arm pressing against Cass’ body. She reached out and drew him in.
            A tap on the glass. There was a flash of a hand curled up: not a fist, but the casual shape someone might make when knocking on a door, the knuckle of the index finger protruding. Tap tap tap. There was a large ring on the middle finger, something with leaves and flowers in brightly coloured stones.
            Tap tap tap.
            ‘Ben,’ said Cass, ‘wind the window down.’ He pressed up against her and she remembered she could control the passenger window from her side. She put one arm more firmly around her son and felt for the button with the other. There was a loud whirr and tendrils of fog snaked in, bringing cold, damp air.
            ‘Thank goodness,’ a voice said. ‘Thank you so much for stopping.’ The figure bent and the face resolved into a woman’s, her dark curls frizzed by the moist air. ‘I’m Sally,’ she said. ‘Are you going to Darnshaw?’


‘We’d better get moving,’ Sally said. ‘You don’t want somebody running into the back of you. It’s a bad place to stop.’
            Cass prevented herself from shooting a hard glance at the woman. Sally was in the passenger seat. Cass had kissed the top of Ben’s head and got him to jump into the back, where he was crammed in amid a pile of luggage. Now the woman’s dark oilskin coat filled the space. When she’d climbed in, Cass saw she was wearing boots with fur around the top. One of them looked soaked, as though she had stepped into a bog. There was a smell too, which pervaded the car. Her hair was wet, and her face and voluminous coat were damp and shining.
            ‘Sorry if I gave you a scare,’ said Sally. ‘I’ve broken down further back along the road.’
            ‘Oh,’ said Cass. ‘I didn’t see a car.’
            ‘It’s pulled into a lay-by.’
            Cass hadn’t seen a lay-by either, but she didn’t say so. She could have passed within inches of the woman’s car and not seen it. The lay-by could merely have been a break in the tufts of grass edging the road, maybe not even that.
            ‘There’s no mobile phone signal up here – I’m lucky you came along. It’s a long walk home.’ Sally laughed. ‘Sharp left bend coming up.’ She went on in this way, punctuating her conversation with directions, and Cass picked up speed. Was it so obvious she didn’t know the road?
            ‘You’re into the S-bends soon,’ Sally said. ‘We’ll be dropping down towards the village.’ She twisted around. ‘I’ve a son about your age,’ she said to Ben.
            He didn’t reply. After a moment Cass said, ‘Does he go to the Grange School?’
            Sally smiled. ‘You’re the lady who’s taken a place in Foxdene Mill, aren’t you?’
            ‘That’s right.’ Small world. Word had spread already.
            ‘Yes, Damon goes to the Grange. All the kids in Darnshaw go there. It gets good results.’
            ‘I heard. It’s one of the reasons I came back.’
            ‘Back?’
            ‘I lived here for a while, when I was a child.’
            ‘How lovely.’
            ‘What’s Mrs Cambrey like?’
            ‘Sorry?’
            ‘Mrs Cambrey. The head. She sounded really nice on the phone.’
            ‘She is – yes, she is lovely.’ There was something in Sally’s voice.
            Cass glanced at her. ‘I have a meeting with her on Monday.’
            ‘Of course.’ Sally’s voice brightened. ‘Well, I’m sure she’ll be delighted to see you both. I am. It’s very quiet in Darnshaw. It’s time we had some new blood.’
            They fell silent as Cass negotiated the bends. The road had indeed begun to snake down, edged by a steep bank on one side and a high stone wall on the other. Anything else was lost in the fog – but then the car popped out of it and the view spread around them. It was like emerging from a doorway. Cass glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw the fog as a solid line across the road. Ben twisted in his seat to look at it.
            ‘That’s strange,’ said Cass. ‘It’s stopped, just like that.’
            Sally didn’t look around. ‘It happens like that sometimes. It gathers on the tops. When you drop down a bit it’s as clear as day. Look!’ She pointed. A pheasant stood on the wall. Beyond it was orange bracken, darkened by recent rain, and a few pines growing at a sharp angle. From the corner of her eye Cass thought she saw pale light flashing on water, but it was too late; it had already gone.
            Cass remembered something. ‘Sally,’ she said, ‘You know the road further back – it looks like it dips down, like a big bowl.’
            Her passenger was silent.
            ‘We stopped there. It looked like we were going downhill, only we weren’t. We were going uphill all the time. Do you know the place?’
            Sally frowned. ‘Can’t say I do. I never heard of anything like that around here. It must have been the fog. It makes everything look different sometimes.’
            ‘But it really looked like a dip – only, we rolled—’
            ‘It’s just the fog,’ said Sally. ‘I’d know if there was something like that. I know this road pretty well.’
            It was Cass’ turn to fall silent.
            ‘Here we are,’ said Sally. ‘Welcome to Darnshaw.’
            The first houses came into view, a row of terraces built of stone, blackened by passing traffic or smoke. Cass rounded the corner and found herself on a lane that followed the line of the valley. There were turn-offs to each side, where more houses nestled. She saw a general store, a small post office, a butcher, a greengrocer and a florist. To each side, steep hills rose to an opaque grey sky.
            ‘You’ve gone past,’ said Sally. ‘That was your lane. Still, if you don’t mind carrying on a bit, you could drop me at home.’
            Cass nodded. She tried to glance down side roads as Sally pointed out a small park and the school. She told them where various walks began, mostly following the river. Then she indicated the road where she lived: Willowbank Crescent. It was ordinary-looking, the houses built from brick rather than the local stone. Sally gestured towards a small semi and Cass realised the woman was shivering.
            ‘I suppose you won’t want to come in,’ Sally said, reaching for the door handle. ‘You’ll want to settle in and all that? Well, thanks again.’ She smiled, got out and pushed the door shut behind her.
            Cass turned round in a driveway and headed back down the road. As she passed the house, she saw that Sally was still watching. Cass waved and turned onto the main road, only then realising she hadn’t given Ben a chance to jump back into the front seat.
            ‘We’ll be there soon,’ she said over her shoulder.
            There was no answer. Cass slowed and turned, saw her son frowning.
            ‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘The lady smelled.’
            ‘Ben, that’s rude.’
            ‘She smelled bad and I hate it here.’
            ‘You need to give it a chance. I loved it when I was your age.’ Even as she said the words, Cass found herself wondering if that was true. And yet when she had heard the name Darnshaw again, she had pictured Ben here, running about the hills and laughing. Enjoying an idyllic childhood, everything she wanted to give him.
            ‘She smelled like a butcher’s shop.’
            ‘Oh, Ben.’ She didn’t know what to say. And there had been a smell, hadn’t there? A musky smell, a little like wet wool. Something else, underneath the earthy moorland – a richer tang, more animal.
            Like a butcher’s shop.
            Cass grinned at her over-active imagination. ‘Let’s go and see the new place, shall we?’


The mill glowed amid wintry skeletal woodland. From the top of the lane Cass could see a grey slate roof amid the reaching fingers of mature oaks. It would be beautiful in summer. Even now, early in the new year, the stone, sandblasted clean, was mellow and warm-looking. The photographs hadn’t done it justice. She grinned. ‘What do you think?’
            Ben shrugged.
            The lane led steeply down to a wide gravelled area that crunched under the car’s tyres. It stretched away to either side of the mill, but their eyes were drawn to the front. A central doorway was painted in deep crimson, an etched glass panel proclaiming ‘Foxdene Mill’.
            Ben stirred at last. ‘Will there be other kids?’ He slipped his seatbelt off and leaned over to get a better look. The building was four storeys high.
            ‘Of course there will,’ said Cass. According to the brochure, the mill had been converted into twenty-one apartments: six on each of the lower floors, with views towards either the valley or the millpond, and three penthouses on the top. ‘There are bound to be lots of kids. You’ll have a great time.’
            Their apartment was at the back of the building on the left side, so they would have views over both the millpond and the river. Cass had snapped it up as soon as she saw the brochure, though she had opted to rent, not buy. She needed to build a home for Ben quickly, get him settled into something new. Renting meant everything would be provided – beds, wardrobes, tables and chairs. She needed all of those things. They had been hers only while she stayed in Army accommodation, and she couldn’t do that for ever, not without Pete.
            When the brochure landed at her door and she saw that the mill lay in Darnshaw, it had felt like fate. She hadn’t even waited for a viewing.
            Cass parked by the door. As soon as she stepped out she heard the river, rushing and burbling down the valley. The air smelled green and fresh: woodland after rain. She stared up at the building, spotted the clock tower she had seen in the pictures. The clock had a white face, as she remembered, but no hands. Time was standing still in the valley – that was appropriate. She remembered herself as a little girl, leaning over the garden gate and listening to the river rushing by.
            Ben got out and stood by her side. She ruffled his hair and he squirmed, but she didn’t care. ‘Do you smell that?’ she asked.
            He wrinkled his nose.
            ‘Come on. Let’s have a look at the place before we unload.’
            ‘Where is everybody?’
            Cass tapped the entry code into the panel by the door. It beeped and she grabbed the brass handle. ‘I could get used to this,’ she said. The door was double-width and panelled. Probably not original, but it looked grand enough.
            The hall was wide and a little cold. To their left a stairway led up, carpeted in red. Mailboxes, each bearing a brass number, were set into the right-hand wall and ahead was a door which must lead towards the ground-floor apartments. The lobby was flagged, the rough-surfaced stones showing the wear of many years.
            Cass felt like she already knew the way: up the stairs, through the fire-doors and into the hall. Ben hung back as they went, stomping his feet behind her.
            The upstairs hall was as grand as the entrance had been, red-carpeted, wide and lined with white-painted doors. Cass went down without looking to left or right until she stopped in front of one of them. It looked like all the others they had passed but somehow she knew it was theirs. Sure enough, the brass number set into it was a 12.
            A delightful apartment with stunning views to the millpond and down the valley, the picture of peace and solitude . . .
            Cass pulled the key from her pocket. It had a cardboard tag with the number 12 scrawled on it in biro, along with a dirty fingerprint, a builder’s fingerprint. The mill had been freshly converted. Everything would be new; they were to be the first occupants. Cass felt a shiver of excitement as she pushed open the door. When she turned to smile at Ben, though, there was no expression on his face at all. Cass beckoned him inside.
            The apartment’s hall was also lined with white doors, all of them closed except the one directly ahead. Cass went through and found herself in a wide lounge with windows set into two of its walls. She went to the nearest, realising as she approached how large it was. She would be able to sit on the sill quite comfortably, reading a book maybe, or simply taking in the view. She looked out.
            The millpond was a line of acid-green between the trees. Between the mill and the water were piles of gravel and sand, with a yellow digger standing desolate among them.
            ‘Where is everybody?’ asked Ben, and Cass realised it wasn’t the first time he’d asked.
            ‘It’s a Saturday,’ she said. ‘They won’t be working on a Saturday. They must still be fitting out some of the apartments.’
            ‘So where are all the people?’
            Cass frowned and went to the other window. This one looked over a wide gravel parking area with an outhouse at one end. What looked like bags of cement were piled against its wall and beyond it, a stile led into a field and a path wound towards the river. Behind everything, the hills rose steeply away.
            ‘Look,’ said Cass, ‘we can walk along the riverbank. Won’t that be nice?’
            ‘But where are all the kids?’ Ben scowled, his eyes narrowed. There was a gleam in them Cass didn’t like. She turned back to the window and noticed an odd thing. The parking area was completely empty.
            ‘I want Dad,’ Ben said.
            ‘Ben, please.’
            ‘I want him back – how’s he going to find us now? He won’t know where to look.’ His face crumpled.
            Cass bent and put her arms around her son. Ben’s whole body was hot to the touch and she felt his forehead. He didn’t push her hand away. ‘I want him,’ he repeated.
            ‘I know. I’m sorry, Ben. But you have to understand, he’s not coming back.’
            Ben struggled in her arms and she drew him in closer. Holding him. ‘I want him too,’ she whispered. ‘Ben, I want him too. I do. But we’ll be okay.’ She drew back. ‘It’s you and me now,’ she said, ‘and everything will be all right.’

Ghosts Know by Ramsey Campbell [Preview]

In the continued build up to our PS Publishing showcase event at the end of the month we are privileged to be able to bring you the first three chapters of the new book by none other than Ramsey Campbell. The book is called Ghosts Know and is published by PS, here's the synopsis:

SYNOPSIS:

Before I can retreat a youth runs up the steps behind me. I haven’t time to think—I feel as if my clenched fists are swinging me around to punch him in the face. His lips split and squash wetly against my fist, and his chin bruises a knuckle. I would hit him again, but he flounders down a couple of steps until Si thumps his shoulders with an arm to steady him. They’re blocking my retreat, and Si lifts his knife as if I’ve given him another reason to use it. Jay’s helper has run to prevent me from jumping down onto the towpath, even if I could without breaking a leg. My only chance is to take Jay on. As I start along the walkway he jerks up his knife . . .

How did I get here? I’m Graham Wilde, the presenter of Wilde Card on Waves Radio. A few weeks ago I interviewed a psychic who was helping the police search for a missing girl. He seemed to know more about me than he should, but I knew more about him than he expected, and perhaps that’s where all my troubles began. He kept after me, first of all on my show and then at a funeral, and he wasn’t the only one there who did. What else could I do except find out who was responsible for what people seemed to think I’d done? But I didn’t realise how much danger I was putting myself in until it was too late . . .

 -

ONE: ON THE AIR

“And another thing about all these immigrants,” Arthur from Stockport declares. “You won’t want anybody hearing about the factory that’s had to change its name.”

 “You’re here to enlighten us, Arthur.”

 “Don’t patronise me, Mr Wilde.”

 I’ve never had a caller make my name sound so much like an insult, though he’s had plenty of competition. Beyond the soundproof window of the studio Christine twirls one finger in the air. “You’ve got just a minute, Arthur,” I tell him. “We’re nearly at the news.”

 “You always put anyone who thinks like me on last, don’t you, Mr Wilde? Bob from Blackley, he’s another. You haven’t let us on for weeks and now I’ve not got time to say what I came on for.”

 “You’re using up your minute, Arthur.”

 “It was a muslin factory till the lot who took all the jobs said it sounded too much like Muslim. They didn’t fancy the idea you could make those in a factory, so they told the boss they’d get him done for being racist if he didn’t call it a fabric manufacturer.”

 “Where did you hear about that, Arthur?”

 “It’s well known, Mr Wilde. Just try talking to a few people that live in the real world. And before you ask, the factory’s somewhere in Lancashire. Pakishire, we’ll have to call it if they carry on like this.”

“You mustn’t use words like that on here, Arthur.”

“It’s all right to call us Brits, but they won’t let us call them – ”

“That’s all from Wilde Card for another lunchtime,” I say not quite fast enough to blot out his last word, and flick the switch to cut him off. “Here’s Sammy Baxter with the news at two o’clock.”

I take off my headphones as Christine switches the output to the news studio. I’m leaning back in the swivel chair to wriggle my shoulders and stretch when Rick Till blunders in, combing his unruly reddish hair at the same time as dragging his other arm free of his leather jacket. He’s always this harassed when he’s due on the air, even though he isn’t for five minutes. “All yours, Rick,” I say as he hangs the jacket on the back of my chair.

Samantha’s newscast meets me in the control room. “Kylie Goodchild’s mum made an emotional appeal…” The fifteen-year-old is still missing, but we don’t hear just her mother’s voice; it’s underlaid by the kind of tastefully mournful music that films use to demonstrate they’re serious. I’m so offended by the artificiality that I yank the outer door open and demand “Whose idea was that?”

Christine comes after me and lays a hand on my shoulder. “Graham…”

Some of the reporters and presenters in the large unpartitioned newsroom glance up from their desks, and Trevor Lofthouse lifts his head. He shakes it to flip back a lock of hair and adjusts his flimsy rectangular spectacles but doesn’t otherwise respond. “Do we really think we have to manipulate the listeners like that?” I’m determined to establish. “Do we think they won’t care otherwise?”

 “What are you saying is manipulation?” Lofthouse retorts.
“Calling it an emotional appeal. What other kind is she going to make? Who needs to be told?” As the news editor’s spectacles twitch with a frown I say “And calling her the girl’s mum. What’s wrong with mother? It’s supposed to be the news, not somebody gossiping over a fence.”

“You’re off the air now, Graham. No need to start more arguments today.” Before I can retort that I never manufacture them he says “Why are you so bothered?”

“Maybe I hate clichés.” I sense that Christine would like me to leave it at that, but I resent the question too much. “Can’t we even broadcast an appeal without some music under it? We mustn’t think too highly of our audience if we think they need to be told what to feel.”

“It’s from Kylie Goodchild’s favourite film.”

Lofthouse doesn’t tell me so, and Christine doesn’t either. Paula Harding has opened her door and is watching me across the length of the newsroom. Even though she needs heels to reach five feet, it’s disconcerting that I didn’t notice her until she spoke – I’ve no idea how much she overheard. “Which film?” I suppose I have to ask.

“To Kill a Mockingbird,” says Trevor. “Her class are studying the book at school and they were shown the film.”

I’d say it was an unusually worthy favourite for a girl of her age, but Paula calls “Can we talk in my office, Graham? I’ve just heard from one of your listeners.”

Christine gives my arm more of a squeeze than she ordinarily would at work, and I lay my hand over hers for a moment. As I head for Paula’s room everyone grows conspicuously busier at their desks. They’re embarrassed to watch me, but I suspect they’re also glad I’ve been singled out rather than them. Even Christine doesn’t know what I’m thinking, however. If Paula means to lecture me or worse, that may be all the excuse I need.

TWO: HOW TO EARN SWEETS

As I close the door of Paula’s office Rick Till speaks from the computer on her desk. “Here’s Rick Till Five on Waves in Manchester,” he says in a voice so suavely confident that I can hardly believe it belongs to the discomposed man who ousted me from the studio. He plays the station jingle – “We’re the station that makes waves” – before starting to chat like a cross between a comedian and a chum who’s dropped in. “It’s Friend A Faith Day, so cuddle a Christian or snuggle a Sikh or hug a Hindu, or you could embrace an Evangelical or squeeze a Shintoist or make your own arrangements…”

The name of the day is the reason I’ve had two hours of calls like Arthur’s and a few more moderate. Paula perches on the cushion that adds stature to the chair behind her desk and plants her stubby hands on either side of the screen. “Let me just give you Rick’s Trick for today,” Till is saying. “What was the name of the ship in the Anthony Hopkins film of Mutiny on the Bounty? That’s the Tony Hopkins one, not Charles Laughton or Marlon Brando.” He doesn’t simply say the names but adopts a version of the actor’s voice for each. “Yesterday’s winner was Annie from Salford, and the question was what were Fay Wray’s first words to King Kong…”

I hope Paula doesn’t expect me to learn from his example, and my gaze drifts to the window behind her desk. Beyond the double glazing the canal glitters with sunlit ripples as a barge slips into the shadow of a bridge. The vessel is losing a race with a train on the left side of the canal and an equally elevated tram on the other, a contest that would be silent except for Till. “Time to rock with Rick. Here’s the Gastric Band from Oldham with their new single, Eating Up the World…”

Paula turns him down at last. “Park your bum, Graham,” she urges.

The low flabby leather chair I sit in gives a nervous fart on my behalf. Paula leans forward, but her straight black hair has been so thoroughly sprayed it doesn’t stir. Chopped off straight at chin level, it lends her pale face the look of an Oriental mask. She’s resting a hand next to a glass bowl of sweets, and perhaps I’m meant to be aware that she hasn’t offered me one. “So what do you think to our Rick?” she says.

“I expect he’s what people want to hear after two hours of me.”

“We need to speak to all our audience.” Paula sucks at a bottle of Frugen (“the trigger of vigour”) and wipes the nipple before saying “Anyway, I heard from Arthur Mason.”

“I don’t think I know him.”

 “You were talking to him before you came out to complain about Mrs Goodchild.”

“I wouldn’t have said anything if I’d known it was her idea. You don’t need me to tell you I hope she finds her daughter. I expect the girl’s just gone off somewhere for reasons of her own. Girls that age often do, don’t they?” In case Paula thinks I’m avoiding the reason that she called me in I say “I didn’t know his name was Mason.”

“He says he has to ring up dozens of times to get on the air, and you always put him on at the end. That’ll be Christine’s decision as your producer, will it?”

I don’t want Christine to be blamed for any trouble I’ve stirred up. “Somebody has to be last. He had nearly five minutes.”

“He’s not the only one, he says. Does Bob from Blackley come to mind?”

“He used to be a regular, but we haven’t heard from him for a while as far as I know.”

“Mr Mason says that’s because of how you dealt with him last time. Do you think we should listen to you, Graham?”

I’ve time to wonder if she’s questioning my honesty before she takes hold of the computer mouse to bring up my voice from Learn Another Language Day, weeks ago. It sounds even more detached from me than it always does in my headphones. “And now here’s Bob from Blackley…”

“Get it right. There’s no Blake about it.”

“I believe it’s always been pronounced Blakely, Bob.”

“About time they called it black and have done with it. If that lot want us learning new words there’s one for them.”

“Which lot would that be, Bob?”

 “The lot that has the law on us if we say anything they don’t like, and it’s the tax we’ve paid that pays for them to do it. It’s getting so you won’t even be able to say you’re white.”

“Why on earth would anybody want to stop me? As it happens I am.”

“Half the time you don’t sound it. It’s the likes of you that want to stop us being proud of it. Where’s White Pride Day with all these other days?”

 “It might sound a bit like a kind of sliced bread, do you think?”

“More like you’re scared to say there ought to be one. They wouldn’t like it, the lot that’s driving us out of our own country.”
“Who’s being driven, Bob? Whites are the largest group where you live.” While speaking to him I’d found the statistics for Blackley online. “Less than four per cent black people, and – ”

“Never mind your figures. You want to come and walk along the street here. You’d love it. It’s full of the lot of them.”

“You still haven’t said which lot you mean.”

“The Sicks and the Shites and the rest of their sort. You can’t hardly move round here for refugees.”

“It’s Shiite, Bob, and how can you tell by looking? It’s a religion, not a race.”

“Don’t talk to me about religion. That’s their excuse for everything they get up to. I ought to tie a curtain round my head and then I could ride a bike without a helmet. Or I could say I’m an Islam or a Mohammed or whatever they like to be called and then I’d be able to tell the wife and the girl to hide their mugs and shut their gobs because Allah says so. Mind you, that’d be a blessing.”

“Haven’t you any faith of your own, Bob?”

“I’ve got plenty of that and it’s all in myself. And I’ll tell you what else I believe in, this life and that’s your lot. The life these Islams and the rest of them want to rob off us.” He’s interrupted by a screech that puts me in mind of a butcher’s circular blade. “I’m on the fucking radio,” he shouts. “Close that fucking door or I’ll fucking – ”

“I’m sorry, you can’t talk like that on the air. Gussy from Prestwich, you’re live on Wilde Card.”

“The things you have to deal with, I think it’s time they had Presenter Awareness Day.”

“I’m not going to argue with you about that.”

 “Sometimes what you think shows through, Graham,” Paula says as she stops the playback.

I have the disconcerting sense that my voice has returned to me. “I wouldn’t want to think I’m just controversy for hire.”

“What do you think the new bosses would say if they heard all that?”

If she’s decided I don’t fit in now that Waves has become part of the Frugo empire, I’m glad. I almost retort that I may have had a better offer, but instead I say “What do you?”

“That you could have been sharper with him. You let him get away with those comments about women. Your show isn’t called Gray Area any more. Remember your slogan.”

“It’s a phone-in, not a drone-in.” I’ve played it so often that it starts up like a recording in my head. It was among my more desperate attempts to impress her with a brainstorm, and I barely managed not to laugh when she said it was the one she liked. “You want me to go on the offensive,” I say but don’t necessarily hope.

“If you feel it say it, Graham. Don’t go too far but as far as you can. You know what Frugo tell everyone who works for them.”

“I don’t believe I’ve heard it,” I say without wanting to know.

“Everything you do and say at work should be an ad for where you’re working. Just do everything you can to make certain you’re one, Graham. They’ll be listening to our output before they come to visit. Let’s make sure they know we’re the ones making waves.”
She sits back to end the interview. As I stand up, drawing a sound that might be a sigh of relief or resignation from the chair, she says “It’s about time Bob was on your show again. Tell Christine to put him on next time he calls.” This halts me long enough for her to ask “Was there anything else?”

I won’t mention Hannah Leatherhead until we’ve had more of a word. I’m turning away when Paula says “Aren’t you having your sweet?”

I’m reminded of visiting the doctor’s as a child or of being rewarded with a sweet for some other unpleasant experience. Wrappings rustle as I rummage in the bowl and find a lemon drop. “Thanks,” I say, mostly for the sweet, and hear Paula’s keyboard start to clack as I reach the door.

Nobody in the newsroom seems to know whether they should look at me. I unwrap the sweet into my mouth and drop the cellophane in the bin beside my desk on the way to the control room. Christine spins around in her chair as I ease the door out of its rubbery frame. “Was it bad?” she murmurs.

She’s enough of a reason for me to keep working at Waves – the eternal valentine of her gently heart-shaped face framed by soft spikes of black hair that’s cropped to the nape of her long neck, her slim lithe body in a black polo-neck and matching jeans, her eyes alert for my answer, her pink lips parted in anticipation. “It isn’t going to change my life,” I say, which makes me aware that I’ve yet to mention Hannah Leatherhead.

 

THREE: STAGING THE ANCESTORS

It’s Walk To Work Day, but every workday is for me. As I step out of the apartment building, where the massive lintel over the tall thick door still sports the insignia of a Victorian broker, the gilded nameplate of Walter Belvedere’s literary agency glints above my handwritten cardboard tag. Perhaps he can place my novel if I ever finish it. A train swings onto the bridge over the street with a screech of wheels on the curve of the track, and I’m reminded of the noise that made Bob from Blackley lose control. Though the sun is nearly at its peak, the street is darkened by office blocks – you could imagine the shadows are their age made visible, more than a century of it. Sunlight meets me on Whitworth Street, where a man in shorts with a multitude of pockets is parading the biggest and certainly the bluest poodle I’ve ever seen. Along Princess Street girls are cycling in the first-floor window of Corporate Sana (“We mind if your body’s healthy,” says the slogan), but Christine isn’t in the gym; she’s producing the food and news show, Currant Affairs. As I pass her flat on Whitworth Street I glance up at the windows, but there’s no sign of an intruder.

Where Oxford Street turns into Oxford Road a Palace faces a Palace. The one that isn’t a hotel displays posters for an American psychic, Frank Jasper. Early lunchers are taking sandwiches or sushi down the steps to eat by the canal. They make me feel later than I am, and I hurry along the western stretch of Whitworth Street to Waves. The guard at his desk nods to me as the automatic doors let me in, and a lift takes me to the fourth floor, where Shilpa at Reception is on the phone, attempting to explain that there’s no prize for solving Rick’s Trick. My badge on its extending wire unlocks the door to the newsroom, where Trevor Lofthouse is playing back a television newscast on his computer. I’m making for my desk when I see the name Goodchild on the screen.

It’s a press conference with Kylie Goodchild’s parents and a teenager. At least it isn’t using any music. Mrs Goodchild is a redhead, rather too plump for the unbuttoned jacket of her grey suit. Her husband is even broader and a head taller, and resembles a pugilist despite his tie and dark suit, mostly because of his large flattened nose. To judge by the name tattooed on the teenager’s neck, he’s Kylie’s boyfriend. He’s warning anyone who may have abducted her, in language so ferocious it blots out his mouth – censorship does, at any rate. Mr Goodchild jerks a hand that isn’t quite a fist at him, and a journalist takes the chance to ask “Is it right you’re bringing in a psychic?”

As Goodchild gives a nod so fierce it looks defensive, his wife says “We’ll do anything we’ve got to that will bring our Kylie back.”

In the control room Christine meets me with a smile and a wave as if we didn’t part just a few hours ago. The news gives way to my signature tune, and a girl’s even brighter voice chirps my slogan as I don the headphones and read the screen. “First up is Margaret from Hyde,” I say. “You’re calling about Kylie Goodchild, Margaret.”

“I’m praying for her and her parents. I feel in my heart they’ll find her now Frank Jasper’s helping them.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He’s meant to be marvellous, isn’t he? One of my neighbours went to see him last night at the Palace and she said he was.”

“Did he tell her what she wanted to hear?”

“He most definitely did.” She’s either unaware of my irony or ignoring it. “He was in touch with her father.”

“I take it the gentleman’s no longer with us.”

“He died a couple of years ago. Mr Jasper knew that and he knew his name was John.”

“That’s unusual.”

“He told her a lot more than that.” By the sound of it Margaret has spotted my skepticism. “He knew she used to worry about her father but he says she needn’t any longer,” she insists. “And he knew her grandchild’s having some problems at school but they’ll be sorted out before long. And her father’s glad she’s been able to have some work done on her house and take a holiday she’s been wanting to take.”

I’ve found Jasper’s web site. Frank Jasper – Your Psychic Friend, the opening page calls him. He’s holding out his hands as though to bless his audience or to offer them an invisible gift, unless he’s inviting donations. His ingratiating chubby face is topped with a shock of hair so pale that it may have been bleached by the sun that bronzed his skin, or else all this is as artificial as his wide-eyed look. I think he’s trying to appear alert and welcoming and visionary too. His denim shirt is almost the same watery blue as his eyes, and its open collar displays a bright green pendant nestling among wiry golden curls on his chest. We’re told he has advised police on investigations in America and helped recover stolen goods. His customers are promised that he’ll tell them the name of their spirit guardian; supposedly we all have one of those. All this makes me angry, and so does Margaret’s account, though not with her. “Did she really need her father to tell her any of that?” I ask as gently as I can.

“That wasn’t all. He said her father was standing by her shoulder.”

“Don’t say he said her father was her spirit guardian.”

“That’s exactly what he did say. How did you know?”

“Maybe I’m as psychic as he is.”

One reason I’ve grown confrontational is that Paula has appeared in the doorway of her office. “Did he say what the lady’s father looked like?”

“Just like her favourite memory of him.”

I don’t want to risk destroying this, even if there’s no reason to assume Margaret’s neighbour is listening. “And he doesn’t only tell people what they want to hear,” Margaret says with some defiance. “He told one couple their son killed himself when they thought he died in an accident.”

Paula is advancing across the newsroom, but I don’t need her to tell me how to feel. “Well,” I say, “that must have done them some good. Cheered them up no end, I expect.”

“He has to tell the truth when he sees it, doesn’t he? He said their son had found peace.”

“I hope the parents have despite Mr Jasper.”

“Why do you say that? It was because of him. He said now their son is always with them.”

“He’s never turned into their spirit guardian.”

“Wouldn’t you want him to? Don’t you believe in anything?”
Paula has come into the control room to stand at Christine’s shoulder like a parody of the subject under discussion. “I believe Mr Jasper is a stage performer,” I inform anyone who wants to hear.

“If you think you’re as good as he is,” Margaret retorts, “why don’t you have him on your show and see who’s best?”

I’m close to declaring that I hope I’m better in several ways when Paula grabs Christine’s microphone. “That’s what you need, Graham. Let’s have him on.”

“Excuse me a moment, Margaret. I’ve got our manager in my ear.” I take myself off the air to ask “What are you saying I should do?”

“Bring him in and question him as hard as you like and let your callers talk to him.”

“Margaret, we’ll see if I can grant your wish. Keep listening and you may hear Mr Jasper.”

“I’ll tell my friends,” she says, not entirely like a promise.

Christine’s microphone is still open, and I’ve been hearing Paula say “See if you can book Graham to watch him on stage before he comes in.”

I play a trail for Rick Till Five so as to speak to Christine. “Don’t say who you’re booking for. Just reserve a seat as close to the stage as you can and I’ll pay cash.”

“All right, Mr Devious. You sound as if you’ve already made up your mind about him.”

“Haven’t you?”

“I’ll leave it till I’ve seen him.”
“Go ahead, book two seats. I expect Waves can stand the expense.” I should have asked if she wanted to come, not least in case she might notice details I overlook. “The more eyes the better,” I say and go back on the air.

Quiet Houses by Simon Kurt Unsworth [Preview]

THE HOUSES ARE QUIET. IT IS THEIR RESIDENTS WHO ARE SCREAMING...

Simon Kurt Unsworth reinvents the classic English ghost story with a portmanteau collection that takes the haunted house genre and makes it scream...quietly.

Because the most terrifying screams are the silent ones.

“No-one could be that unhappy and be alive...” A chambermaid’s seemingly innocent request is granted, an act of kindness that has dire consequences for a guest at THE ELMS, MORECAMBE... 

“I wish I had been right; I wish that it had been a man, or death alone, that had found her...” An unearthly light in an abandoned bungalow resolves the mystery of a missing child, but no human force has taken her. An entity that fishes for children is in THE MERRY HOUSE, SCALE HALL...

“Go beyond the graves, and they will come to you.” An invitation to a clifftop graveyard leads to a harrowing chase by things that remain unseen, their hunger unknown and never satisfied, BEYOND ST PATRICK’S CHAPEL.

“The great delight in being part of the Save Our Shit crew was that sometimes they could persuade those designers of the present and the future to save or incorporate the past into their designs.” In THE OCEAN GRAND hotel, work is underway to upgrade the building but something is stalking the workers...

“Something white came out. Something white, screaming and screaming...” Jobs fit for heroes, they were promised after the Great War. They were given something else in THE TEMPLE OF RELIEF AND EASE.

There is a hidden agenda to paranormal researcher Richard Nakata’s investigations into these houses. A commission that witnesses cattle lowing in the cowsheds of STACK’S FARM long after they’ve been slaughtered, and a reckoning in the showhouse of 24 GLASSHOUSE, as he and his colleagues pay the price for creating their own ghost...

The Elms, Morecambe

Nakata shifted; the cafe’s seats weren’t exactly uncomfortable, but the angle of their upright made his back twinge. Across from him the man, Wisher, reacted to the shift by glancing up from his coffee and then back down again. Nakata waited, letting Wisher find his own timings and securities, suspecting that any pressure would lead to the man closing down into silence.

            “It’s closed,” Wisher said eventually. “I don’t suppose it matters anymore.”

            “Take your time,” said Nakata. Beyond Wisher’s shoulder, the cafe’s large front windows had grown a skin of condensation across their insides, and the world beyond had become a loose morass of grey smears through which darker shapes sometimes passed. In the last week the weather had soured, becoming cold and wet. If he could have seen it, he knew that the sea beyond the wide pavements and strip of beach would be bucking and unsettled. “You know I have to record this? That you need to go on the record for this to be any use to me?”

            “Yes,” said Wisher, his voice thin. “Like I said, it doesn’t matter. Not now.”

            “It might,” said Nakata.

            “No,” said Wisher, and this time Nakata didn’t respond, understanding that Wisher was speaking only to something within himself.

            “There’s a hotel,” said Wisher after a few moments. “Or, at least, there was. It was the best one in town until The Midland reopened, but it shut last year. The building’s still there; they started work on converting it to apartments, but then the money ran out and they stopped. It’s covered in scaffolding. It’s a shame. I mean, it’s not the most attractive of buildings, but still.” He broke off, eyes leaping up to Nakata’s face and then immediately dropping away again. Whatever had happened to this man, it had exhausted him, Nakata saw: the flesh under his eyes was bruised with tiredness, and the expression on his face was one of hopelessness, all the confidence leached out of him.

            “It was a nice place,” he finally said.

            “What was it called?” asked Nakata. “The more information you can give me, the better.”

            “The Elms,” said Wisher after a pause in which the indecision played across his face. “It was nice, old fashioned but kept nicely, you know?”
            “Yes.”

            “The members of staff were good, attentive without being pushy. The head waiter was Hungarian, Polish, something like that; he’d been there as long as I can remember, always polite, good at his job. He could do that thing when he poured champagne, making it look like he was being careless and making it fizz up but knowing just when to stop so that the bubbles came up past the rim of the glass and looked like they were about to spill over, but they never did. It always made Julie smile when he did that. Funny, the things you remember, isn’t it?”

            “Yes,” said Nakata again. He checked his dictaphone, tiny and black on the table between them. It should be picking up Wisher’s voice easily enough; the sound of the cafe was still low. It was midmorning, midweek, and the other customers were mostly older couples. The air was damp with the exhalations of rain and sweat from their clothes and coats and skin, and was gently poaching in the heat from the small kitchen. Three umbrellas lay by the door, inverted and dripping like wounded crabs.

            “It served good food, which was why we went, mostly. Sunday lunches, good roast dinners. We went for Christmas one year, when Julie didn’t feel like cooking. That was the Christmas before she died,” said Wisher, his voice empty. “But we never stayed there overnight. We’d never needed to; we lived nearby, so it was only a short taxi ride away. It was just a place we liked.

            “Then my daughter decided to get married, and she decided to have the reception in The Elms.” Wisher let out a long, loose sigh that sounded as though it was attached to him with threads that twitched as they emerged, pulling it into a new, uneven shape. “This was a year or so after Julie died, and she only chose the place because I liked it, I’m sure. I told her she shouldn’t pick it because of me, if they wanted to go somewhere else, somewhere more modern. She said no, The Elms was where she wanted her wedding reception to be. I should’ve tried harder.”

            Nakata finished his coffee, waiting for Wisher to continue. The message the man had left on Nakata’s voicemail had been like this, elliptical, unclear, as though he were skirting the real meaning of what he wanted to say, harrying at its edges but refusing to tackle it head on.

            “I decided to stay there, rather than go home, on the night of the wedding. Lots of family and friends were staying, so I thought it’d be nice to spend time over breakfast with them on the Sunday morning. If I’m honest, I wasn’t sure how I’d be if I went home after. Without Julie, I mean. Without her to share it with. Besides, the rumours that The Elms was going to close were pretty strong by that point, and I wanted to say I’d stayed there, even if it was just once. It felt important. Does that make sense?”

            “Yes,” said Nakata. My role here is validation, he thought briefly. To hear him and tell him things are okay, that the story is real even if the facts turn out not to be, no matter what the story is. To let him know that someone believes him.

            “It was a lovely day, even without Julie,” said Wisher after another pause, as though marshalling himself. “Meg, that’s my daughter, she looked so beautiful and Oscar, her husband, he’s a good man and they were so happy. Everyone enjoyed themselves, and The Elms was excellent. The food was cooked just right and served properly, all the tables of guests getting their food at the same time so that no one was waiting for their starters as some people got their main courses. I think that’s important, it shows that the restaurant, caterers, whatever, are taking it seriously, don’t you? I’m glad, even with everything that’s happened since, that I had that day. That Meg had her day, and I could be there with her.

            “Anyway, even though I enjoyed myself, I thought I’d have an early night. The disco was loud, and I was starting to miss Julie more and more, to wish she was there to see Meg so happy, and it was upsetting me. She was always better at that kind of thing than I was, and I didn’t want to sit in the corner and get maudlin and upset, spoil Meg and Oscar’s night, have people see me make a show of myself, so I said my goodbyes and I went to my room.”

            Nakata shifted again. He was wet from the seafront rain, the damp probing around his crotch and his shoulders, warm and uncomfortable in the clinging, moist atmosphere of the cafe.

            “I’d got a twin room,” said Wisher, “and I was just sitting down on one of the beds with a cup of tea and watching the news, trying not to miss Julie, when there was a knock at the door. I was a bit surprised, really. I’d gone to bed early compared to most, but it was still late for visiting, and I didn’t want anyone trying to persuade me to go back downstairs. I was still dressed, except for my shoes and tie and jacket, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone, not then. I just wanted to sit and be quiet and drink my tea and watch what was happening in the world and try to enjoy the last bit of the day, but whoever it was knocked again. I only answered, in the end, because I suddenly thought it might be Meg and that she might need something.

“When I opened the door, there was a young woman, a girl really, standing there. She was very neatly dressed, in a black skirt and a white blouse, and she had her hair tied back off her face. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and she looked very young. I didn’t recognise her from the wedding, so I said ‘Yes?’ and I must have sounded angry because she took a step back from the door as if she wanted to get out of my reach. I said ‘Yes?’ again, and she said, ‘Can I turn your sheets, sir?’”

This time, Wisher looked Nakata in the eye, hunching his shoulders up as though to protect his neck, the expectation of disbelief clear in his expression. “It sounds stupid, doesn’t it? ‘Can I turn your sheets, sir?’”

“No,” said Nakata. “It doesn’t. What did the girl look like? Her clothes, I mean?”

“Normal. Plain,” said Wisher. “But that’s not what you’re asking is it, not really? You mean, could I tell she was a ghost? No, I couldn’t. She wasn’t see-through, her clothes weren’t old fashioned, and she wasn’t wearing a bonnet that made me think of the Victorians or the Edwardians or whoever. She just looked like a normal girl, woman. I’m not stupid, I know that it’s not usual for hotel staff to offer to turn people’s sheets back these days, but I just thought it was something The Elms did, like, oh I don’t know, like a selling point, you know? ‘Little old-world touches to make your stay more pleasurable’,” he intoned, and then stopped.

“I wasn’t going to let her in,” he said after swallowing the last of his coffee. “It had been such a nice day, but it had been so busy and I’d been so nervous making my speech and then talking to everyone. Most of them hadn’t seen me since Julie had died, except maybe at the funeral, and they were all asking me how I was doing, how I was coping, and I’d been saying ‘Yes, yes, fine, thanks, it’s hard but I’m getting there’ or variations of it all day, even though that wasn’t really true, not really, and I just wanted a little peace and quiet with no people around me before I went to sleep. I even opened my mouth to tell her no, I wasn’t interested, but she looked so small and miserable and I couldn’t do it.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” said Nakata.

“Neither do I!” cried out Wisher suddenly, startling Nakata. The couple at the next table looked around, but Wisher appeared not to have noticed. “She wasn’t doing anything. She was just standing in the corridor, her face white because the light was right above her, just standing there, and she was sad, I could feel it, so sad. It was like there was something hanging around her, something I couldn’t see but I could feel it just by the way she was standing and I don’t know, maybe it was because I’d had such a good day, been with all those happy people, or maybe because her sadness felt a little like my sadness, as though she was missing someone or something too, and I didn’t want to add to it, make her feel worse, so I didn’t say no, I stood back from the door and said, ‘Yes, come in’.” He took another of those loose, twitched breaths and then said loudly, “And she came in.”

People at a number of the other tables were looking at them now, the staff behind the counter peering towards them. Wisher dropped his face into his hands, his elbows on the table. One was in a puddle of spilled coffee, Nakata saw, but he said nothing; Wisher was sobbing, near-silent and hoarse. Nakata rose and went to the counter, purchasing two more coffees then returning to his seat slowly with the drinks, giving Wisher time to recover himself. The cafe was darker, he noticed, as though the lights were struggling against the out-of-season atmosphere. The condensation coating the inside of the windows was thicker, occasionally breaking to roll down the glass in fat, heavy rivulets. Looking around, he saw that one of the people at a nearby table was also crying, her companion stroking her arm gently. Near the door, a young girl was trying to calm a fractious child, bouncing him on her knee. The child refused to be comforted, was red-faced and grizzling, his eyes screwed shut and his glistening tongue emerging from his mouth like some pink worm tasting the air.

“She came in,” said Wisher when his sobs had subsided, “and went to the middle of the room. The bed I’d been sitting on was clear, but the other one had my jacket on it and a bag with my toilet things and a book and clothes for the next day, and when she saw them, her shoulders fell. I was standing behind her, and I saw them, saw her shoulders drop so that they were sloped down, like the bed with things on was the most upsetting thing she’d ever seen. She shuffled, taking these little slow steps like an old woman, went to the other bed and peeled the sheets back from under the pillows, getting one corner out and folding it back so that I could easily pull them back to get in, and then she looked at the other bed again and her shoulders just sort of slumped even further. I can’t even explain it, not properly, but it was so upsetting, like seeing a child cry, and I couldn’t stand it. I think I said something like, ‘I’ll move the bag, don’t worry’. She looked at me, and the look on her face was so grateful, like I’d given her a gift, not just offered to shift my overnight bag.

“I put the bag on the floor and picked my jacket up, then she came and turned the sheets back, just like on the other bed. Afterwards she said, ‘Thank you, sir’, and went to the door. As she went past me, I patted her arm, just to say thank you, to try to cheer her up, and she turned to me and smiled and oh, it was the most awful smile! It was like she was trying not to cry, that a terrible wrong had been done to her and she was putting a brave face on it, but couldn’t really do it and the misery she felt was just there, under the surface of her skin and about to burst out. I didn’t know what to say, whether she wanted something from me, was waiting for something else, but she just said, ‘Thank you, sir,’ and went out. ‘Thank you, sir.’”

Wisher took a mouthful of his coffee; his hands shook as he lifted the cup to his mouth, Nakata saw. He let out another of those disjointed breaths and then said, “By the next morning, I’d persuaded myself that she hadn’t really looked like that. She didn’t like her job, was pissed off with having to work on a Saturday night turning the sheets of fat middle-aged men who patted her on the arm, and I’d misread the expression on her face because of my own confusion; being happy and sad and lonely and not wanting to see anyone getting all mixed up in me, making me see things that weren’t there. I had a nice breakfast with some of my friends and family, made promises to keep in touch, and then went to check out. I wanted to get home by then; I’d had enough of being away. I just wanted to be somewhere that was completely mine, was empty, so that I could relax, where there was no need to smile or pretend or be anything but me.

“As I checked out, I said something about the girl to the man behind the counter, just that she’d done a good job or something, but he looked at me as though he didn’t know what I was talking about. I said it again, that the girl who came to turn my sheets had been very good or something. I don’t know, I thought that if she was told that one of the guests had said something nice about her, she might feel a bit better, be a bit less upset or angry or whatever, but the man behind the counter just looked at me again like I was talking gibberish. The head waiter, the Hungarian, though, he was standing nearby and he must have heard because he said, ‘Oh ho ho, so you have had a midnight visit?’ I remember that he said, ‘oh ho ho’, because I’d never heard anyone else say it before. ‘Oh ho ho’, like some great big Santa, and he’s smiling at me like it’s some sort of joke. I think I said something like, ‘Pardon’, and he said, ‘The mysterious chambermaid! Did you not know? She has been visiting people here for years, knocking on the doors of guests and offering to turn their sheets or clean their shoes.’

“‘Who is she?’ I asked, and he said, ‘We do not know. She comes at night every now and again. She causes no trouble and she leaves when people send her away. Often it is a long time between her visits, or people do not tell us because it is such a silly thing, is it not? She is The Elms’ ghost!’ I thought he was, you know, joking, that it was a practical joke, but even though he was laughing as he said it, I realised he was being serious.

“‘A ghost?’” I asked.

“‘Our very own, the only one we have!’ he said. ‘But harmless. She goes and does not come back, whoever she is. I have been here years, more than I care to remember, and in all that time she has never bothered anyone. She asks, is sent away and comes not again!’ He should have sounded comical, with his funny accent, but somehow he didn’t. ‘I thought everyone knew of her,’ he said, ‘our little sad girl. Tell me, how miserable did she look when you sent her away?’ ‘I didn’t,’ I said. ‘I let her turn the sheets, and she went after she’d done.’

“At that, the Hungarian gave a big grin and said, ‘So our poor girl has done her job, yes? Good girl!’ and then he was shaking my hand and asking me if everything had been good enough and walking with me to my car. He was so good, so careful, even how he walked, you know? Precise. Neat. I wish I could remember his name, just calling him ‘The Hungarian’ sounds so dismissive. It may not even be right; he might have been a Pole or from one of those countries that have been invented these past few years and that keep fighting each other. Eastern Europe, anyway.”

Nakata moved again, rolling the base of his spine forward to stop it knotting. He was sweating with the trapped heat of the cafe now, his sweat mixing with the moisture seeping through his clothes to form a layer that was clammy against his skin. Wisher groaned and lowered his head again, saying something that Nakata missed. “You need to say it louder, please,” he said, “so that the recorder catches it. I have to have it on record.”

“Yes,” said Wisher. “I said ‘It doesn’t matter’. I mean, which country he was from, it doesn’t matter, not now. He’s not important, I never saw him again. I only went back to The Elms one more time.

“About a week later, I saw in the local paper that The Elms had closed a couple of days after Meg’s wedding. The staff members were told first thing one morning and then made to work their shifts that day. There was a 70^th birthday held in the hotel that day, if I remember right, which I thought was cruel. It must have been hard for them to work that birthday party, to be cheerful and serve the guests like nothing had happened and all the while knowing that they’d just lost their jobs. After all, whatever problems the hotel had, the service was good, and I wondered what had happened to them. To the Hungarian. I even thought about the girl in the night, but I’d pretty much decided that the Hungarian had been joking. Perhaps he’d just thought of it on the spur on the moment, or maybe it was a regular thing they did. It seemed a bit childish, I suppose, but not harmful. Not harmful.

“And then she came again.

“I was asleep, in my own bed, alone as ever since Julie died, but I think I remember being mostly happy before I went to bed that night. As happy as I got, anyway. I wish I could remember it better, really, say that the night had something to mark it out and make it different, but it didn’t.” He gave a laugh, explosive and bitter, and then said, “After all, it’s not often you find a ghost in your bedroom, is it?”

“No,” said Nakata. “It’s not. What happened?”

“Have you got children?” asked Wisher, suddenly.

“No,” said Nakata, suddenly, strangely, conscious that his wedding ring finger was bare. Wisher was spinning the ring on his own finger.

“When they’re young, sometimes kids will come in and lean over you. They don’t make any sound, they don’t touch: if they’re trying very hard, they’ll even hold their breath so that they don’t disturb you that way. Somehow, though, you know they’re there; it’s like you can sense them without knowing quite how. Maybe it’s the love you can feel, if you’re lucky enough to have kids who love you. Well, that’s what happened at first; I woke up because there was someone standing over me, bending down, their face not far from mine, close enough to kiss me but not breathing, not touching me. I thought I was dreaming, remembering Meg when she was a girl and she’d creep in and see how long it would take for me and her mum to wake up.

“I opened my eyes, and as I did I remembered that Meg was older now, married and living with Oscar, that Julie was gone, had been for over a year, and suddenly I was panicking. If someone was in the room, then they weren’t supposed to be. The room was dark. I’ve never been able to sleep if there was even a bit of light, but I could see that there was someone on the other side of the room, a darker patch in the shadows. They weren’t near me, weren’t bending over me like I’d thought, but there was a definite shape, a person, and even though I couldn’t see, I knew that they were looking at me, staring at me.

“I wanted to scream, but I was frozen. I’m not a brave man; I haven’t ever been one for fighting or even arguments, so screaming seemed like the best bet, trying to frighten them away or startle them, but before I could, they spoke.

“‘Turn your sheets, sir?’”

“It was so stupid that it stopped me from screaming. It was the girl from The Elms. I recognised the voice, and I think that that was worse than a burglar in a funny sort of way. I remembered the Hungarian saying ‘our little sad girl’, and I think I spoke, said something inane like ‘What’ or ‘Pardon,’ and she said again, ‘Turn your sheets, sir?’ and came forward so that I could see her face. She was smiling, but it was a smile like the one she’d given me as she left my room in The Elms, like it was perched on top of a great heap of unhappiness and misery, was slithering around and trying to hold it all in. She looked grey in the darkness, and her eyes were so hopeful, so desperate, and I did scream then, and scrambled back across the bed, the same one I’d shared with Julie. How I wished she was there to tell me it was a dream, that I was being silly, but she wasn’t. There was just me and this girl who I knew was a ghost--not because the Hungarian had told me--but because the unhappiness was coming off her in waves. I could feel it, so thick, and no one could be that unhappy and be alive.”

Nakata watched as Wisher slumped down across the table. It was like watching the air being let out of a balloon, as though Wisher had held it all inside, stiffening in him like souring milk until there was nothing else and now that it was out, he could collapse. The only reason that his head didn’t hit the table was that it was cradled in hands that were shaking badly now, the fingers spread out and pressing into the scalp that glistened pinkly from under the thinning hair.

“I fell out of the bed and onto the floor, and when I did, she came right to the side of the bed and she gripped my duvet and shook it, straightening it then folding  back the top of it so that it was ready to get into. I’d banged my head when I fell and had stopped screaming, and I didn’t start again. I watched as she shook the pillow I’d been lying on, plumping it up and laying it against the headboard, then she smiled at me, the same, awful, thankful smile, and backed away into the corner, and as she went she sort of blended with the shadows and then she was gone.

“I couldn’t move at first, terrified that she might come back as soon as I did, but eventually I started to get cold. I couldn’t get back into the bed, wouldn’t, so instead I went downstairs. I must have looked like a thief, because I didn’t even run, I scurried downstairs, trying to be small and insignificant and not be noticed by anyone. Anything. I sat in my lounge with all the lights on until the sun came up and then I opened the curtains, and even then the room didn’t feel bright enough. I wanted all the shadows gone from the corners so that I could feel normal, but it didn’t work.

“Had I dreamed her? Hallucinated? I didn’t know, but I do know she had felt real, actual, that my memories of her were the memories of something that had actually happened. Maybe that’s how mad people think, I don’t know. A real ghost. Jesus.” Wisher sat up again, looking across at Nakata. Nakata had never actually seen anyone square their shoulders before, but Wisher did so now. “I’m not lying or mad, Mr Nakata. The girl was in my bedroom.”

“I know,” said Nakata. “I believe you. It sounds as though it was terrifying.”
            “Terrifying,” repeated Wisher slowly. “Yes. Yes, it was terrifying, and so was finding her in the kitchen when I went through to make myself a coffee.

“She was at the kitchen, doing my dishes, washing the plates as though it was the most normal thing in the world. I stopped in the doorway, and it was as though some huge hand had grabbed my heart in my chest. It was partly the fear of her, this stranger in my house, but also it was the feelings again, the sense of loss and desperation coming off her. It filled the room, and I suddenly missed Julie again, and wished that I could die, just fall dead there between the kitchen and the hallway so that I could go where she’d gone and join her.”

Nakata nodded, understanding what Wisher meant. An image came to him, unbidden, of Amy, lost to him for almost three years now. The knowledge that he would only ever see her smile in old photographs and in his memory hit him hard, harder than it had in months. He could smell her, taste her memory, and the missing her welled up in him with bitter force. He started to speak, but his voice cracked. Wisher, hearing it, looked across at him, grinning broadly and without humour. “Horrible, isn’t it?” he said.

“She was everywhere with me after that, this girl. All the time, waking me up with offers to turn my sheets, being ahead of me in the rooms I went into even if she had been in the room I’d just left only moments before, asking if I wanted some menial task doing. Sometimes I’d agree, and she’d disappear when she’d done it, but more often I would ignore her, and she’d stand in the corner staring at me, waiting for me to tell her to do something. I tried to tell her to go, to leave me alone, but she wouldn’t; she’d just stand there with a look on her face like I’d kicked her, like I’d betrayed her and that it was exactly what she’d expected.

“At first I was scared, terrified, but soon the fear faded. It sounds silly, doesn’t it? That having a ghost with you all the time could ever not be frightening, but in the end there wasn’t much to be frightened of. She was just always there, always, always trailing after me or being up ahead of me, looking at me as though I was the answer to her problems. Even when I went out, she would appear, standing behind me in shops or next to me in lifts. She once spent the whole of a car journey sitting on the back seat of my car so that I could almost see her in the mirror every time I looked. Nothing I did or said seemed to make a difference, she was just there, whether I wanted her or not.

“Eventually, I went back to The Elms. I’m not sure what I hoped for, maybe that she might see the building and somehow be stuck back into it, but I knew as soon as I got there it wouldn’t work. I could feel the difference as I stood in the car park; whatever had made the building more than just bricks, wood, and glass had gone. It was covered in scaffolding, the windows were boarded up and there were chains through the door handles on the main doors, but it was more than that. The life had gone from it. All the while I was looking at it, I could see her out of the corner of my eye, standing by the car. Even in the shadows of the falling night, I could feel her misery. Her shoulders were down, her head bowed, and I suddenly had the most awful thought: what if I’d brought this on myself? What if, by showing her some kindness, by acknowledging her, I’d somehow given her the power to come with me, that when The Elms closed she’d followed the last person who had been nice to her? Had I given her some hope, however small, and anchored her to me?”

Wisher fell silent. The cafe’s breathing went on around him, the child still squalling and the woman at the nearby table still weeping quietly, her companion comforting her. Nakata took another mouthful of his coffee and found that it had gone cold, the liquid cloying, clinging to his teeth and coating his tongue tastelessly. He wanted to speak, but wasn’t sure what he could say, thinking instead about Amy. She would have known what to do or say, had always been so much better than him at making people feel better. Wisher, his features haggard and his skin the colour of whey, saw Nakata looking across the table at him and said, “I went home. What else could I do?

“I think I could even have got used to my personal ghost, whoever she was, but for the feelings.”

“What feelings?”

“It was all about her, like a cloud,” said Wisher, apparently ignoring the question. Now, he looked at Nakata fully, meeting his gaze and smiling a terrible, rictus smile. “Misery. Unhappiness. Loneliness.  It wasn’t just the look on her face or the way she stood or the sound of her, it was something else. You could feel it, all about her, and it soaked into the walls and the floor of my home, like cigarette smoke will do if there’s a smoker in the house, staining everything. Whoever this girl was, whatever she’d been through when she was alive, it had left her so terribly sad, and her sadness was contagious. I’d never had many visitors, not since Julie died anyway, but even Meg and Oscar stopped coming to my house. Meg told me she thought I should get out more, that the house was full of old memories and it wasn’t healthy for me to be there all the time, but she was wrong, it wasn’t the memories that were unhealthy; they were the only thing keeping me going. If I could remember Julie, remember Meg and Julie together when Meg was little, remember the Christmases we’d had there and the birthdays, and how Julie smelled and felt when we hugged, then the blackness that surrounded the girl never quite overwhelmed me and I could keep it at bay. Even when I went out in public, the girl was there, always hovering at the edges of crowds or just behind me so that I could see her in the reflections in shop windows but never when I turned around to look at her directly. Thank Christ I’d retired after Julie died, I don’t know how I’d have coped at work on top of everything else, having to act as though everything was fine when all the time she’d have been in the corner of the office or standing behind people at meetings and looking at me. And it wasn’t just me; if I went somewhere in public, she’d be in the room with me and I think people would see her but would ignore her, move around her, but after a while you’d see them get caught by it as well. They’d sag, look miserable, stop laughing. Eventually I stopped going out unless I had to.”

“Did you talk to anyone about her, tell anyone what was happening?”

“Who? What would I tell them?” asked Wisher, his voice cold. Steam from the coffee maker behind the counter danced above their heads for a moment before dissipating. More condensation broke on the windows, rolling down the glass in long strings like wounds that healed almost as soon as they were opened, scabbing over with more grey, misting skin. Nakata felt tired, emotionally worn, as though he’d been in the cafe for hours or days rather than simply part of the morning. The sounds of the child crying were becoming wearing now, the comforting sounds from its mother irritating; the people at the next table had settled into a routine of tears, conversation, tears, which Nakata found equally hard to hear. Shadows gathered around his feet and under the tables nearby, pools of dirty light through which the floor glimmered, the tiles ill-formed and murky. He looked again at the recorder, at the time counter rolling implacably onwards, and thought again of Amy and the way she had of making the world feel brighter, lighter. “Who would I tell?” asked Wisher again, and Nakata couldn’t answer him. Instead, he asked another question.

“What did you do? To stop it, I mean?”

“What did I do to stop it?” repeated Wisher, grimacing. “What could I do? Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing. I wondered about talking to a priest, but what would I say? That I was being haunted by the ghost of a sad, lonely girl who tried to help me but made me feel terrible? So no, I did nothing.”

“So how did you stop her haunting you?”

“I didn’t. She’s sitting at one of the tables at the back of the cafe now, staring at me.”

Nakata started and began to turn but Wisher lunged across the table and gripped his shoulders, saying, “Don’t!

“That feeling you have, now, of misery? That little wave of sadness you felt before? You remembered someone important to you, yes? Someone who’s died or you don’t see any more, and the memory made you sad? Yes? That’s nothing to how it feels when she’s with you all the time. You cannot acknowledge her, please, because if you turn to her, see her, believe in her, she may come to you when I’m gone.”

Nakata tried to twist again to see her, see the ghost in the cafe that might prove once and for all the things he had argued for so long, but Wisher gripped his shoulder more tightly. “I’ve not told you this because I think you can help,” he said, “or to shift my burden to you, but because I want it said before it’s too late. I don’t see anyone anymore; don’t see Meg or Oscar because I don’t want them exposed to her, don’t want her dogging them like she has me, making everything in their lives cold and miserable the way she has mine.” He lifted his other hand to Nakata’s face, placing it almost tenderly along his cheek so that he couldn’t turn any further around. The child screamed, desolate, and the person at the next table wept openly. Nakata struggled against Wisher’s grip, thinking of Amy, of what seeing the dead girl might mean for Amy and for him, but still couldn’t move.

“I’ll go soon, there’s nothing more to tell. I’ve tried to photograph her and record her, but it doesn’t work, there’s nothing there when I check the pictures or the recording. I’m sure other people can see her, sometimes, but they don’t know what she is, don’t realise, and I’m glad. Wherever I go, she comes along and she brings these feeling with her. I can see it, see people suddenly remember something sad, see their moods drop, watch them as they suddenly think of something that hurts them, and they change in front of me, all around me. Don’t look around, please. Don’t look for her, or at her. Please. Please.”

Wisher let go of Nakata and stood, saying, “I have very little time left anyway. Meg and Oscar, they’re happy, and Julie’s waiting for me, I hope. This poor girl, she needs to belong to me. I don’t know why, but maybe when I’m gone, she’ll go on, too. Maybe she’ll realise that she doesn’t have to keep hold of all this unhappiness, all this grief, and she can be free, too. I hope so. I hope this is useful, Mr Nakata, I truly do.”

Nakata watched as Wisher walked to the door. There was a rustle of cloth as someone went past him, and in the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of someone in a dark skirt and white blouse go past. The feelings of loss, of missing Amy, rose sharply in him, hard and taut and painful. Wisher turned briefly and nodded back at him and then left. A moment later Nakata watched a girl’s back as she, too, left. As the door clicked shut behind her, the infant in the corner gave a grizzled burp and stopped squalling. Its mother said, “That’s better, baby,” and there was tired relief in her voice. The child giggled suddenly, high and bright. At the next table, the woman had stopped crying and was smiling across the table at her companion.

Wisher’s blurred shape passed across the front of the cafe windows, indistinct and grey on the far side of the weeping glass, and a step behind him, a smaller, darker shape followed.

To find out more about Simon Kurt Unsworth visit:

http://simonkurtunsworth.wordpress.com/

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 http://darkcontinents.com/2011/09/20/quiet-houses/