Caroline Graham - A Ghost in the Machine

“Whatever next.”

“Lady Bracknell gets them out for the lads?” suggested Nico.

“Nicolas!” said Joyce.

“Picture Dame Judi—”

“I’d rather not, thank you.”

“D’you think any of these psychics are genuine, Tom?”

“I am a practical man, Nicolas. A policeman. What do you think I think?”

“Garbage, he calls it,” said Joyce, gently nudging the cooking with a wooden spoon.

“Don’t poke!” Cully ran across to the cooker. Then Barnaby went over, and Nicolas too. They all stood looking down at a vast fish kettle containing a pretty vast fish.

“Sea bass with fennel, onion and lemon,” explained Cully. “You’ve turned the gas up, haven’t you?”

“No,” said Joyce.

“I told you. The liquid is just supposed to shiver.”

“Tremble.”

“Shut up, Nico. What do you know?”

“ I didn’t turn it up. ”

“What are we having as well?” asked Barnaby.

They had wild rice and a salad of green leaves, one or two of which were quite new to him. The salad had a mustardy dressing made with walnut oil and white wine vinegar. Joyce opened a third bottle of Prosecco and amiability was soon restored.

“This is definitely one for the gastrocenti,” said Nicolas. “We might almost be in Camden.”

“Not at these prices,” said Joyce.

“He’s right, though.” Barnaby speared a large chunk of sea bass that almost melted off his fork. “It’s delicious.”

“So what’s happening on the case, Dad?”

“Oh, not work,” cried Joyce.

“Very little, I’m afraid. We’ve found out where Ava left her car the night she died and that’s about it.”

“Have you come across any weird and wonderful specimens for us?”

“With interesting physical quirks.”

“You’re like a pair of cannibals,” said Joyce, “sucking what you want out of people and moving on.”

“What else are we supposed to do?”

“People are an actor’s raw material.”

“It’s not as if they know they’re being used.”

Barnaby was briefly tempted to offer up the Footscrays for his daughter’s delectation. How entertained they would be, Cully and Nicolas. Poor George, into his fifties before he was out of his teens, and his deranged mother now struck Barnaby as more sad than comic. He decided it would be cruel to hold them up as a laughing stock. Even if they’d never know.

“Doesn’t sound as if this Garret woman was much use anyway, Cully,” Joyce was saying. “Your Arcati being so different.”

“True. She was a good character, though. I’ll remember her.”

“And very convincing.”

“Oh, come on, Nico.”

“Look – she described the machine that killed him, what the room was like, the shape of the windows, the colour of the walls…”

“Someone must have told her then.”

Barnaby made a strange gurgling sound at the back of his throat.

“Tom?” Joyce came round the table. “What on earth’s the matter?”

“Sorry…gone down the wrong way.”

“Have some water.”

“Give him some more pop.”

“Thanks. I’ll be OK, darling. Don’t fuss.”

Pudding was clementines stacked in a perfect pyramid on a white china dish. And there were hazelnut and marzipan cookies, which had lumps of dark chocolate in as well.

“The fruit,” said Cully, sweet golden juice trickling from the corner of her exquisite mouth, “is organic.”

“That doesn’t make you immortal,” snapped Joyce. She was getting a bit fed up with suggestions on alternative living. Every time Cully rang there was some crisply delivered lecture. Massaging the back of her neck with ginger (headache); pressing a crystal to the tips of her ears (feeling grumpy); dried chrysanthemum tea (always forgetting where put glasses).

“It’ll be feng shui next.” Joyce began to clear the plates.

“Now that is pretty well proven,” insisted Cully.

“Try it,” suggested Nicolas.

“If you’ll move the piano.” Barnaby started on the biscuits.

“It does feel strange,” said Joyce, “coming for dinner and bringing your own food.”

“We can’t ask you to ours,” said Nicolas. “Nothing’s working.”

“When it’s all fixed,” said Cully, “you can come and stay.”

They went shortly after that. Cully had a rehearsal at ten with an hour of yoga and thirty minutes’ meditation before she left the house. They surrendered the marzipan cookies but took the fish kettle. Barnaby carried it to the car and put it in the boot.

“What on earth do the two of you want with a thing this size?”

“We’re always having people round,” explained Nicolas.

“There were sixteen for supper just before we moved.” Cully kissed her parents. “See you at the first night if I don’t before.”

Back inside, Joyce began to load the dishwasher. Barnaby thought about the fish kettle and the sixteen for supper. He pictured the kitchen in their new house full of theatricals. Laughing, drinking, gossiping. Tucking in. And felt a bleak sense of exclusion from his daughter’s life, which was ridiculous because barely five minutes earlier he had been sitting with her at his own table laughing, drinking, gossiping. Tucking in.

“Some people are never satisfied.”

“What are you muttering about?”

“Oh…” He stumbled through a rough approximation of his smarting thoughts.

“Really, Tom.” She came to him: slid her arms around his waist. “How often did we invite your parents round to meet our friends?”

“That was different.”

“No, it wasn’t. Anyway – remember when Cully asked us to a party after The Crucible closed?”

“No.”

“You said you’d never met such a load of posturing ninnies.”

“Oh, that party.”

“They’ve asked us to go and stay, Tom. Think about it.”

“Mmm.”

“But until that happy day,” she kissed him, “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”

“You’ll have to do then,” said Barnaby. And kissed her fondly back.

It was past seven o’clock before Mallory returned to Appleby House. By this time Kate had been through every emotion of which she was capable and quite a few she hadn’t known existed.

The anger that had driven her out into the forecourt yelling after Mallory as the car zoomed away drove her back into house and straight to the telephone. She dialled Polly’s number because, of course, this was to do with their daughter. Nothing else would have sent him haring off in such fear and anguish. Yes, fear. Kate had seen it on his face. Still he could have said something , she wailed, but silently, her throat already sore from screaming after him. The phone rang and rang and rang and rang. Eventually Kate hung up.

Neither herself nor Mallory had the number of Polly’s mobile. She had refused to give it, saying it would make her feel like some juvenile delinquent being tagged and kept track of. The one thing Kate knew she definitely must not do was ring Mallory on the car phone. He had left the house at an alarming speed. She tried not to think what he could be doing on the motorway.

So began the long wait that proved to be almost six hours. Kate spent quite a long time picking and tearing at various cushions. Then emptying the linen cupboard, folding and re-folding all the sheets and towels and pillowcases and putting them carefully back. Reading was out of the question. Television seemed occupied only by fools cackling with laughter and applauding themselves and each other. Gardening, which might have soothed, was not an option. Benny would almost certainly have come out to help and Kate would not have been able to conceal her misery and despair.

As the time dragged by she began to feel nauseous with an even deeper apprehension. Because whatever had happened to Polly was now beginning to seem like her, Kate’s, fault. If only she had encouraged Mallory to visit the flat the night before their move. And why had she accepted without question Benny’s suggestion that Polly had gone to Crete? She had never gone on holiday without letting them know before. To be honest, thought Kate with some shame, I was relieved. I was happy at the thought that we would have a couple of weeks on our own. And all the while…