Barbara Erskine - Kingdom of Shadows

‘Even I’ve done yoga,’ Emma said thoughtfully.

‘Well, there you are then. It must be all right.’ Clare smiled at her teasingly. She was beginning to feel better.

‘What you’re doing frightens you, though, doesn’t it?’ Emma was not to be distracted. ‘You were in quite a state when you opened the door earlier.’

‘Was I?’ Clare looked surprised. ‘The doorbell startled me, that’s all. Although’ – she hesitated – ‘it was rather horrible.’

‘What was?’

‘Nothing.’ Clare shook her head.

‘Come on. You were about to tell me, and whatever it was it has nothing to do with you and Paul not being able to have children. It was to do with the meditation – if that’s what it is.’ Emma stood up and rummaged in the sideboard for Paul’s malt whisky. ‘You don’t think you really are conjuring up spirits, do you? Like a medium. Or making ghosts appear or something?’ Her eyes were sparkling. ‘Will you try? While I’m here?’ She gave a mock shudder. ‘Here, for God’s sake let’s have a drink! I’ve gone all shivery!’

Clare laughed. ‘From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, good Lord deliver us! Oh, I’m glad you came, Em. I would have spent the evening in that other world otherwise and it’s much more fun with you. Isobel – that’s the girl whom I seem to see most – well, her life is not quite as fun to watch as it was. In fact I think it may be strictly for when this one is too awful to contemplate.’ Her face sobered for a moment as she remembered the dark, echoing chamber high in the keep at Duncairn, full of the sound of the sea.

She pushed the picture away firmly. The only merit in the scene she had been witnessing was that Paul had not been able to follow her there too. ‘Come on. Give me ten minutes to change and we’ll go out. I have a feeling Paul has gone back to Bucksters without me – he doesn’t want to miss the party tomorrow.’ She stopped suddenly. ‘Are you and Peter going?’

‘To David and Gillian’s?’ Emma shook her head. ‘No fear. We’re going to the theatre. Clare, seriously –’

‘No, Em. I don’t want to talk about it any more. Let’s go out. Please.’ She collected the two glasses and put them down on the sideboard, then she turned back to Emma. ‘You won’t say anything about any of this to Paul, will you.’

‘Of course not. What do you take me for?’

Clare smiled. ‘A friend. Otherwise I wouldn’t have told you anything.’

Emma grinned back at her. ‘I’m the soul of discretion. You can count on me. You know that.’

The Reverend Geoffrey Royland sat back comfortably at the breakfast table and opened his copy of The Times . At the table with him, his wife, Chloe and their two teenage children, Piers and Ruth, were immersed in the post. The large untidy kitchen, the only modernised room in the sprawling Edwardian rectory, smelled comfortably of coffee. When the doorbell rang no one moved.

‘Your turn, Piers.’ Ruth did not raise her eyes from the multi-paged letter in which she was engrossed.

‘It’s bound to be for Dad.’ Piers, two years younger than his sixteen-year-old sister, and already a head taller, was flipping through the latest issue of Combat .

‘Even so, it’s your turn, Piers.’ His mother, with an exasperated glance at her husband who appeared to have heard none of the exchange, tried to sound firm. ‘Come on, love. It’s time we all moved. I know it’s Saturday, but that’s no excuse, and Dad’s got a wedding this afternoon.’

Grumbling, Piers climbed to his feet. Clutching his magazine he headed for the hall. Moments later they heard the creak as the heavy front door with its insets of vivid stained glass swung open.

‘It’s Em,’ Piers shouted over his shoulder, then he was gone, two at a time, up the stairs to his bedroom, leaving their guest to find her own way to the kitchen.

Geoffrey, the middle Royland brother, stood up as he saw his sister. ‘What brings you out so early?’ He dropped a kiss on her cheek.

‘Coffee, Emma?’ Chloe slid an extra cup off the sideboard with a surreptitious glance at her sister-in-law. Emma looked tired, and there were dark rings under her eyes. Her normally cheerful face was very sober.

‘Please.’ Emma took Piers’s chair. There was a moment’s silence.

‘Is something wrong, Emma?’ Chloe put the cup down in front of her.

‘I don’t know. I wanted to talk to you, Geoff, about Pete and me.’

‘Ooh, lovely. Gossip!’ Ruth put down her letter, her eyes shining, and pushed her elbows forward on the table amongst the dirty plates and cups.

Geoffrey frowned. ‘That’s enough, Ruth.’

‘It’s nothing very dramatic; I just feel I want someone to talk to.’ Emma smiled apologetically at Chloe.

Geoffrey interrupted her with a gesture of his hand. ‘Why don’t you bring that coffee into my study. We’ll talk there. I know Chloe and Ruth will excuse us. They both have things to do.’

Ignoring the almost identical looks of anger and frustration on the faces of his wife and daughter, Geoffrey led the way out of the kitchen. His study was a ground-floor room, overlooking a quiet tree-lined street. Outside he could see Emma’s Golf parked beyond the gate.

Gesturing her towards what his family referred to as the interrogation chair, a deep-buttoned shabby leather arm-chair opposite his desk, he lowered himself into his own place. ‘You and Peter have been having problems for a while, haven’t you?’ He glanced at her, concerned.

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘Perhaps only to people who love you. Has something happened?’

She shrugged. ‘Nothing special, I suppose.’ She sat back in her chair and sighed. ‘It’s just, well, he’s never there. I went out last night with Clare because I was all on my own again. Then when I got home the house was so – so empty!’

Geoffrey sighed. ‘Poor Em. But from what I hear he won’t change his job. Wheeling and dealing in the Far East is his whole life. Can’t you and Julia go with him sometimes?’

She raised her hands helplessly. ‘If I give up the gallery, I can.’

‘Ah.’ Geoffrey looked at her thoughtfully. ‘And you don’t want to do that.’

‘No I bloody well don’t! It’s not even as though Pete is away at the moment. He came back later from his beastly meeting and of course we had a row! The trouble is we never go out, Geoff! Even when he is home. It’s all work, work, work!’ She smiled ruefully. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know why I came to dump all this in your lap. I suppose it was talking to Clare last night. It made me realise how important it is to have something else if your marriage falls apart.’

Geoffrey raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh dear. Don’t tell me that is what is happening to Clare and Paul too?’

‘They’ve found out it is she who can’t have a baby.’

‘Poor Clare. I know how heartbroken she must be, but surely that is not going to destroy their marriage?’

‘It’s helping. She’s discovering fast just how rotten Paul can be.’ Emma shook her head sadly. ‘She has got nothing now. No job. No children. And probably no husband. Poor Clare. All she is left with are her daydreams and her visiting spirits!’

‘Her what?’ Geoffrey looked startled.

‘Oh lord! I’m not supposed to tell anyone.’ Emma put her hand to her mouth. ‘Well, not Paul, anyway. She’s doing some kind of weird meditation and conjuring up the spirits of the dead.’ She paused, then, seeing her brother’s face, she was unable to resist dramatising her statement. ‘With candles and incantations and incense and spells!’

Geoffrey was looking at her closely, unable for a moment to decide whether or not she was joking. It took only a moment to convince him that, in spite of the dramatic whisper, she was not.