Will Kingdom: Mean Spirit

Marcus wiped sweat from his glasses.

It had been one of those archaic boarding schools which, after about four centuries, had been induced to admit girls. There were probably a whole bunch of black girls there now, but Persephone — Afro-Caribbean/Home Counties English — had been the first.

‘And took shit from kids of both sexes, I guess,’ Grayle Underhill had said, when he’d given her the history, working on her to meet Persephone on his behalf.

‘Especially when things started disappearing,’ he’d recalled.

Small things at first, like pens, then there was a watch — from classrooms and dormitories where Persephone had been, and then fingers had been pointed. Made no difference when some of the items had turned up again, sometimes in the same place, sometimes not. Kleptomania, they sneered. Always go for glittery things and coloured beads, don’t they?

Underhill had looked sceptical. ‘So you’re saying this was … what’s the word?’

‘Teleportation. I was convinced of it. Many of the disappearing items were things no-one would ever want to steal. And they would vanish so swiftly and completely that unless she’d been a master of sleight-of-hand …’

He saw her grimace, heard the whispered Beam me up, Scotty.

Yes, all right. Where Persephone was concerned, all Marcus’s own cynicism went out of the window.

‘By now, some of the girls had switched from patronizing her to basically shunning her. While from some of the boys she had what today would be described as plain sexual harassment.’

All of which had made her withdrawn. But she wasn’t inarticulate and maladjusted like the psychokinetic kids in all those overblown films. Persephone was highly intelligent and aware of the unearthly beauty of it all.

‘Confused, obviously. A little scared — who wouldn’t be? But there was also this tremulous excitement. She resented being treated like some sort of pariah, but equally she was glad not to be … normal.’

‘So what was this, Marcus? Just straight up poltergeist activity, or what?’

‘Energies channelled through her, I suppose. It happens. I wondered if, like many people with this kind of ability, she’d had some sort of electric shock as a young child. But if she had, she didn’t remember it.’

‘Or chose not to. I guess Ms Callard would hate to think all this was down to some unfortunate accident during infancy.’

‘But she never once ran away from it, Underhill. What she resented was the randomness of it — didn’t like to be out of control, like a psychic puppet. Hated being used. Wanted to know how to use it. And after a while she did. It was how she first came to my attention, actually. All those essays in a variety of handwriting styles.’

‘Oh, right … She was getting the spirits to do her …’

‘Her prep. Something like that. I never actually taught her in class, you understand. I was the A-level Eng. Lit. man, and she was only fourteen then. But one day her English mistress brought me a piece of apparent verse Persephone had handed in. I couldn’t make head or bloody tail of it at first, and then I realized … it was Chaucerian English. And more than that…’

Marcus staring into the stove, the embers reflected in his glasses. Reliving the sheer excitement of it.

‘It was Sir Topaz,’ he said.

‘Who?’

‘There’s this spoof bit in The Canterbury Tales. Where Chaucer himself is invited by the Host at the inn to tell a tale. He begins to relate the story of Sir Topaz — doesn’t matter who he is. Point is that after a few minutes, the Host interrupts Chaucer and informs him, in no uncertain fashion, that his tale is bollocks.’

‘Which is a joke, right?’ Underhill said. ‘We all know Chaucer’s written all the rest of the stuff, so he must be pretty smart, therefore-’

‘Exactly. Persephone’s verse seemed to be continuing the tale of Sir Topaz, where Chaucer left off.’

‘Good stuff?’

‘The whole point’, Marcus said irritably, ‘is that the Host is critical of Chaucer’s literary skills. The notable line being, as I recall, “your dreary rhyming isn’t worth a turd”.’

‘So like if Seffi’s poetry was not of sufficient literary merit to be recognizable as vintage Chaucer coming through Callard, it could still be genuine, because this is Chaucer deliberately writing bad poetry. That’s smart.’

‘Too bloody smart for a fourteen-year-old girl who’d never been exposed to Chaucer.’

Soon after the night of the exploding window, Marcus had resigned, cleared off to the other side of the country and back into state education, in which he’d remained until the opportunity had arisen to purchase The Vision, or The Phenomenologist, as the magazine had been known then — memories of the Callard affair fuelling his resolve to take the gamble.

Because he knew the girl was absolutely bloody genuine ! Adolescents, particularly at boarding school, relied on friends, peer support. No fourteen-year-old girl would choose to condemn herself to life as a social outcast.

And he’d seen the incomprehension in her eyes.

His head full of fever, Marcus glared out of the window at the farmyard and the castle ruins. Feeling like a bloody prisoner. Dripping a little single malt into his glass. Which left just under an inch in the bottom of the bottle. How the hell was he supposed to survive flu on an inch of whisky ?

‘ BOTTLE OF SCOTCH !’ he’d bawled at the static surrounding Underhill’s bastard mobile phone. ‘BRING BACK A BOTTLE OF FUCKING SCOTCH !’

All right: if he was honest, the whisky had also been an excuse. He’d assumed Underhill had reached Persephone Callard by now. Had hoped she’d be able to pass the phone over to Persephone, so that he might explain why he was not there in person. And make sure that Persephone understood that, contrary to her appearance and general attitude, Underhill was, in fact, relatively trustworthy.

Another week — another three days, even — and he might have been fit enough to drive over there. Right now, he was too fucking ill to walk to the pub in St Mary’s for a bottle of Scotch. He couldn’t think straight and Persephone’s letter was burning up his brain.

… know we haven’t spoken since my departure many years ago from A Certain School. Perhaps you feel disappointed or offended by my subsequent commercial exploitation of my God-given Abilities.… surrounded by leeches, parasites, false lovers. You remain the only person who has ever been there when I needed understanding, tolerance and common sense…

The letter pleaded for Marcus to come and see her at the lodge at her father’s house. Not to write or phone — she was afraid her calls were being monitored.

‘Crazy,’ Underhill had said. ‘She’s blown it, you only need to read the papers. You don’t need this shit. Call her up when you’re on your feet, but play it cool. Don’t get involved.’

… I still recall our talks with the deepest gratitude. If you only knew how often I’ve wished that there was someone like you with whom I could discuss my grimmest fears …

‘Oh Marcus, you were like a father to me.’ Underhill raising her eyes to the oak beams. ‘Like the father I never had on account of he was always across the sea in some God-forsaken consulate …’

‘She’s never-’

‘Subtext, Marcus.’

‘Underhill, I was simply a teacher at her boarding school. A teacher who listened. She thought she was going mad, with all the things that were happening to her, and I was the only teacher who was prepared to consider the alternatives.’