Marcia Talley: All Things Undying

The way Janet emphasized ‘special’ made me wonder if said windows were endowed with supernatural powers, like the Grotto at Lourdes. I had to ask. ‘What do you mean, “special”?’

Janet leaned toward me and lowered her voice, speaking in a reverent whisper. ‘When the builders started pulling down the interior walls, they uncovered a pair of Byrne-Jones windows that somebody had covered up with plasterboard during the Second World War. A Miriam and a David, they were, smaller versions of the ones up at St Michael’s and All Angels in Hertfordshire. They’re part of Susan’s sitting room now.’

Byrne-Jones windows? I was astonished, and said so. ‘How could anyone simply forget a Byrne-Jones window? They’re classic! Trinity Church in Boston has one of his windows. The Adorations of the Magi. I’ve seen it, and it’s glorious.’

Janet shrugged. ‘Alan claims that Byrne-Jones was hopelessly out of fashion by the 1930s. Perhaps nobody missed them.’

‘What brought Susan Parker to Dartmouth, do you know? It seems a long way out of London. I presume that’s where she tapes her show.’

‘Three hours. But you’ll remember that from before, Hannah. Catch the eight-fifteen out of Totnes and you’re in London well before noon. People have been commuting from London to Dartmouth for at least a century of weekends.

I remembered that, too. ‘The English Riviera,’ I said, quoting a popular guidebook.

Someone says ‘Dartmouth’ and you think ‘sailing’. But sailors aren’t the only types attracted to this splendid little corner of the world. Writers, poets, artists, and musicians have all found inspiration in Devon – it’s that kind of place.

‘We certainly have had our share of celebrities buying holiday homes down here,’ Janet continued, ticking them off on her fingers. ‘Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Rudyard Kipling. Edmund Crispin. Daphne du Maurier.’ She paused for breath. ‘No, hold on. Du Maurier lived in Cornwall, didn’t she? And Agatha Christie, of course.’ She caught her breath. ‘Hannah!’

She spoke my name so sharply that I sloshed tea over the rim of my mug. Was there a spider crawling up my sleeve? A rattlesnake coiled at my ankles ready to strike?

‘Sorry! Didn’t mean to startle you,’ she said, handing me a napkin. ‘I suddenly remembered that the National Trust opened Christie’s home to the public just last month, and I know what a fan you are of mysteries, so I wanted to make sure you knew.’

‘Greenway House is on the top of my to-do list,’ I said with a smile. ‘Cut my teeth on Nancy Drew, then graduated to Christie. Never looked back. Visiting Greenway is a kind of pilgrimage, I suppose. Not sure about Paul, though. He’s more of a Grisham fan.’

‘When you go, take the ferry,’ Janet suggested. ‘It’s a wonderful trip. Besides, Greenway gives you a discount if you travel by green transport.’

‘We’ve got National Trust membership,’ I told her, patting the outside pocket of my handbag where I kept the magic National Trust get-into-just-about-anything-free card.

‘No worries, then. In any case, don’t miss the gardens! The rhododendrons should be glorious this time of year.’

Before Janet could take a long detour on to a botanical tangent, I asked, ‘Susan’s an American, isn’t she?’

Janet nodded. ‘From your American Midwest. She did a year abroad reading medieval English at one of the red bricks. University of Warwick, I believe it was.’

‘Gosh! I wonder how she got from Beowulf and Chaucer to… to…’ I thought for a moment. ‘Well, from reading about dead people to talking to them.’

‘Why don’t you ask her yourself?’

‘Oh, sure. What do you suggest? That I walk up to her flat and simply knock on the door?’

Janet’s smile took on Cheshire Cat proportions. ‘What are you doing on Thursday evening?’

‘Recuperating, I imagine. Paul wants to take the lower ferry to Kingswear and hike to Coleton Fishacre and back.’ Coleton Fishacre – the name, I learned, was a corruption of something bucolic in old French and had nothing to do with fish – was the holiday estate of the famous Sir Rupert D’Oyly Carte whose father was the impresario behind the operettas of Gilbert and Sullivan. Built in the Roaring Twenties, my guidebook gushed, the house was an Art Deco masterpiece redolent of the Jazz Age, set in acres of glorious gardens sweeping down to the sea.

‘I’ll ring her up and see if she’s available for dinner.’

‘Who? Susan Parker?’

‘Of course,’ Janet said, as if inviting celebrities to dinner was an everyday occurrence. ‘Anyone else you’d like me to invite?’

I thought for a moment. ‘Jon and Alison Hamilton, our friends from the college. You’ve met them, haven’t you?’

Janet nodded. ‘Indeed. Dartmouth’s a small town.’ She began stacking our empty mugs on the tea tray. ‘I’ll confirm with you later, then. Will you and Paul be wanting dinner in tonight?’

‘Thanks, Janet, but no. We’ve booked a table at the Royal Castle Hotel. When I walked by this morning, they had moules frites on the menu board outside. I am crazy for mussels!’ I stood up, too, and waved toward the remains of our tea.

Janet raised a hand. ‘You leave the washing-up to me.’

‘You sure?’ I gathered up my purchases. ‘Fingers crossed Susan will be able to come on Thursday. There are some things I’d like to ask her.’

Janet twisted the knob and held the lounge door open until I’d passed through it into the hallway. ‘She’ll probably be expecting my call.’

‘Why do you say that?’

Janet winked. ‘What kind of psychic would she be if she didn’t?’

‘In the course of a successful reading, the psychic may provide most of the words, but it is the client that provides most of the meaning and all of the significance.’ Ian Rowland, The Full Facts Book of Cold Reading , p.60

I was licking garlic butter off my fingers in the cozy, dark-timbered ambiance of The Royal Castle Hotel’s Galleon Bar, when Paul said, ‘Too bad you didn’t like the mussels.’

‘Mmmmmussels!’ I moaned.

With the exception of a mound of empty, wing-shaped ebony shells piled haphazardly in a bowl next to my elbow, there was no evidence that mussels had ever been served.

Between bites, I’d retold the story of my encounter with Susan Parker. Paul had listened politely, rolling his eyes only twice, which, knowing his propensity for critical thinking, must have required superhuman self-control.

Now I was finishing off my story as well as the last of the frites that had come with my moules . ‘So, you see why I’m kind of freaked.’

‘Hannah, Hannah, Hannah,’ Paul chided, as if he were dealing with a particularly slow and difficult child. ‘She’s a talented cold reader – i.e. a fake.’

I decided to ignore him. I dragged a French fry though the scrumptious broth remaining at the bottom of the pot the mussels had so recently occupied, popped the fry into my mouth and chewed slowly.

‘Earth to Hannah.’

‘Are you going to talk to me like a grown-up?’ When Paul agreed, I said, ‘OK. Leaving aside for a moment the question of is-she-for-real-or-isn’t-she, what I want to know is this: what’s in it for her? Why would she walk up to a total stranger on the street, pretend to have a conversation with that stranger’s dead mother, then simply disappear?’ I reached for my wine glass. ‘She didn’t ask me for money, Paul.’

‘No, but neither did that so-called psychic who showed up on our doorstep when Timmy was kidnapped. Dakota Whatshername.’

‘Montana. Montana Martin.’