Part 15 (1/2)

'Paper, maybe?' Tom was frowning at the sheet. 'That makes no sense though. Paper's like ... year two or something. We celebrated that last year. Maybe it means opal. That first P could be an O.'

'Maybe it's telling us its name,' Flo said breathlessly. Her rage of a moment before was gone, and she looked excited almost hyper with it. She refilled and then drained her gla.s.s with three reckless gulps and then set it unsteadily back on the floor. I saw that her silvery-grey top, the twin of one Clare was wearing, had a red-wine stain down one sleeve. 'They don't always perform to order you know. Let's ask it. What is your name, spirit?'

The pen started again, looping swiftly over the page in large, quickly formed letters that ate up the s.p.a.ce, scribbling over the other writing from before.

Pa ... I saw and then ... by further across the page. Then it slowed to a halt and Flo craned her head to read out the text.

'Papa Begby. Wow. Who on earth is that?'

She looked around the circle of shrugging shoulders and shaking heads.

'Nora?' Flo said suddenly. 'Do you know who that is?'

'Christ, no!' I said, reflexively. To tell the truth, I was more than a little creeped out. The other stuff had been fairly obvious joking around. This felt distinctly odd. The others looked as unnerved as I felt. Clare was chewing the end of a piece of hair. Nina was looking elaborately unconcerned but I could see her fingers playing with her lighter in her pocket, nervously twisting it around beneath the cloth. Tom looked frankly shocked, his face pale even in the dim light. Only Flo looked genuinely thrilled.

'Wow,' she breathed. 'A real spirit. Papa Begby. Maybe he's the guy who owned this croft? Papa Begby,' she spoke respectfully into the s.p.a.ce above our heads. 'Papa Begby, do you have a message for us here tonight?'

The pen started moving again, more jerkily this time.

M ... I read. For a moment my heart sank. Not more jokes about coffee.

M ... m ... m ...

The script went faster and faster and then there was a sudden crunch and the planchette grated to a juddering halt. Clare lifted it up and put her hand to her mouth.

'Oh Flops, I'm so sorry.'

I looked down at the table. The biro had gone clean through the page, and into the polished wood beneath.

'Your aunt-'

'Oh never mind,' Flo said impatiently. She pushed the planchette away and lifted up the sheet. 'What does it say?'

We all looked, reading over her shoulder as she turned the page slowly this way and that, reading the curving spiral of writing.

M m mmmmuurderrrrrrrrrrrrrer 'Oh my G.o.d.' Tom put his hand to his mouth.

'That's not funny,' Nina said. Her face was pale and she took a step back from the group, scanning our faces. 'Who wrote that?'

'Look,' Tom said, 'hands up, I did the coffee one. But I didn't say that I wouldn't!'

We all looked at each other, searching for guilt in each other's eyes.

'Maybe you're barking up the wrong tree,' Flo said. Her flush was back, but this time I thought it had an edge of triumph rather than anger. 'Maybe it was a real message. After all, I know some things about you, about you all.'

'What do you mean?' Tom said. His voice was wary. 'Clare, what's she on about?'

Clare said nothing, just shook her head. Her face was quite white, her lips bloodless beneath the gloss. I found I was breathing hard and fast, almost hyperventilating.

'Hey,' Nina said suddenly. Her voice had an odd, far-away quality. 'Hey, Nora, are you OK?'

'I'm fine,' I said, or tried to say. I wasn't sure if the words came out. The room seemed to be closing in even as the great gla.s.s window opened out, like a mouthful of pointed piney teeth, waiting to swallow us all. I felt hands grabbing at my arms, pus.h.i.+ng me down on the sofa, my head between my knees.

'You're all right,' I heard Nina's firm voice, and suddenly it was easy to remember that she was a doctor, a professional medic and not just a friend that I went drinking with every few months. 'You're all right. Someone get a bag, a paper bag.'

'Drama queen,' I heard Flo say in an angry hiss, and she stomped out of the room.

'I'm fine,' I said. I tried to sit up, pus.h.i.+ng away Nina's hands. 'I don't need a paper bag. I'm OK.'

'You sure?' Nina looked into my face, searchingly. I nodded, trying to look convincing.

'I'm absolutely fine. Sorry, I don't know why I came over so funny. Too much wine. But I'm all right, I promise.'

'Too much drama,' Tom said under his breath, but he said it soberly, and I knew he didn't mean me.

'I just- I think I'll go and get some fresh air. It's too hot in here.'

It was hot, the stove was pumping out heat like a furnace. Nina nodded.

'I'll come with you.'

'No!' I said, more violently than I meant. And then, more calmly, 'Honestly, I'd rather be by myself. I just want a breather. OK?'

Outside, I stood with my back against the sliding gla.s.s doors of the kitchen. The sky above was deep blue velvet and the moon was astonis.h.i.+ngly white, ringed with a pale halo of frost. I felt the cold night air envelop me, the chill cooling my hot face and sweaty palms. I stood, listening to the pounding of my own heart, trying to slow its beats, trying to calm down.

It was absurd to be so ridiculously panicked. There was nothing to say the message was about me. Though, what was it Flo had said at the end?

I know some things about you ...

What had she meant? Which one of us was she talking to?

If it was me, there was only one thing she could have been referring to. And Clare was the only person who knew what had happened. Had she told Flo?

I wasn't sure. I wanted to think not. I tried to remember all the secrets I'd confided to Clare over the year, secrets she'd kept faithfully.

But I remembered going back to school to sit my French comprehension exam, and one of the other girls in the queue putting a hand on my arm. I'm so sorry, she'd said, you're so brave, and there was genuine pity in her face, but also a kind of glee, the sort you see sometimes when teens are interviewed about the tragic death of a friend. The sadness is there, and it's real, but there's an underlying thrill at the drama of it all, the realness of it all.

I didn't know for sure what she meant she might have been talking about me and James breaking up. But her reaction seemed extreme for that, and I began to wonder if Clare had told someone what had happened. All through the exam I worried, and worried at the question. And by the time the two hours was up, I knew what I had to do. Because I knew that the doubt would send me insane.

I never went back.

Now, I shut my eyes, feeling the cold on my face, and the snow penetrating my thin socks, and listening to the soft sounds of the night, the crackle and rush of snow-laden branches breaking beneath their weight, the hoot of an owl, the strange haunting shriek of a fox.

I had never lived in the country. I'd grown up on the outskirts of Reading, and then moved to London as soon as I turned eighteen. I'd lived there ever since.

But I could imagine living here, in the silence and the solitude, only seeing people when you wanted to. I wouldn't live in a vast gla.s.s bell jar, though. I'd live somewhere small, inconspicuous, part of the landscape.

I thought of the crofter's cottage that had once stood here, before it had been burned to the ground. I imagined a long, low building, its silhouette like an animal trying to go to ground, like a hare flattening its form into the gra.s.ses. I could have lived there, I thought.