Louis de Bernières - The Dust That Falls From Dreams

‘Come! Come!’ demanded Madame Valentine in the darkness. After a few moments there was a sudden violent rap right in the middle of the table, and Rosie was one of those who jumped in her seat with startlement.

‘To whom do you wish to speak?’

There was one more rap, and Madame Valentine sighed with impatience. ‘Whoever it is does not wish to speak to anybody,’ she said. ‘Please leave, whoever you are. Now, I would ask you all to concentrate. If there is someone with whom you desire communication, kindly picture them in your mind and try to call them. If they arrive, they will do so through me.’

Rosie began to concentrate her mind on Ash, and Ottilie thought of a nursing friend in Brighton who had quite suddenly collapsed and died whilst changing sheets. Fairhead’s memory was so full of the dead that he was quite unable to focus. Sophie sat, full of wonder, thinking that this was all great fun, and Christabel was wishing that she had asked permission to take photographs. She had a Kodak Brownie with her in her bag, but only because she always carried one, just in case an interesting subject should pop up out of the blue. All of the others were thinking of brothers and sons.

It was then that a series of fantastic and extraordinary events began to take place. Madame Valentine started to moan in a manner that struck some of the married people as positively sexual. The sitters’ eyes had by now accustomed themselves to the darkness and they could dimly see the room and its contents.

The table at which they were sitting lifted slowly from the floor and floated, swaying like a rowing boat at harbour. They were still looking at this in amazement, when the piano too rose in the air and then suddenly crashed to the floor with that cataclysmic noise of which only a falling piano is capable. Then the cello and the violin rose into the air and sailed above the table, where they began to play a very discordant, gypsy-like and sarcastic, but entirely recognisable version of ‘There’s No Place Like Home’, followed by ‘Gilbert the Filbert’, which made the hairs on Rosie’s neck prickle. The most wondrous thing was that they could all clearly see the pale disembodied hands and fingers that were plying the bows and pressing the strings.

A large fireball emerged from the wall above Madame Valentine’s head and hissed across the room, disappearing through the wall above the door through which sitters had entered, followed by several smaller ones that swerved wildly past their heads and forced them to duck.

A woman who had come in the hope of a message from her son, who had been dematerialised by a high explosive shell on the Italian Front, became hysterical with fear and began to wail and sob, at which point the manifestations abruptly ceased. Madame Valentine emerged from her trance, looked around as if in extreme confusion, and Spedegue re-entered the room and turned on the light. Sophie, never a woman to be unnecessarily inhibited by custom, put her arms around the unfortunate hysteric and cooed soft words of comfort into her ear.

‘Oh Lord, what happened?’ asked Madame Valentine, whereupon she was subjected to the excited babble of the company as everyone tried to tell her at once. She listened in dismay and said, ‘Oh dear, I am most terribly sorry. This is too awful.’

‘Too awful?’ said Christabel, who had been mightily impressed.

‘I had no intention … One has these powers, you know … sometimes it can’t be helped … I was hoping we would have a nice quiet time talking to the departed … and then this happens again.’

‘I fear my prayer was ineffective,’ said Fairhead a little drily.

‘I fear it was,’ agreed Madame Valentine. She got up and went to inspect the piano. ‘It’s very odd,’ she said. ‘It never gets damaged one little bit.’

‘Perhaps you should move it to another room,’ suggested Ottilie.

‘You still get the grand piano smash,’ said Madame Valentine. ‘That’s what I like to call it, “The Grand Piano Smash”. Even if you move it out, you still get the noise. I wonder if I can get the house exorcised, then I could make a fresh start.’

On the way out Fairhead had a brief private conversation with Madame Valentine, and left a half-crown on the plate even though he had received no messages. Rosie and her sisters left a florin each, and the woman who had been so frightened left a one-pound note, as if in apology for bringing about the termination of the séance.

The five walked towards Colliers Wood in a loose gaggle, Ottilie and Christabel arm in arm, Rosie at the front, and Fairhead and Sophie bringing up the rear.

‘What a terrific show!’ exclaimed Christabel. ‘What are we to think of it?

‘Lord knows,’ said Fairhead. ‘Do you really think it was just a show?’

Christabel stopped and turned, and everyone else stopped walking too. ‘Don’t you?’

‘No,’ said Fairhead. ‘The fact that it all went wrong and out of control indicates to me that she’s genuine. If everyone got a nice message about being all right and not to worry from a relative with an “e” in their name, you could be certain she was a run-of-the-mill fraud.’

‘If she could do all that in daylight, I’d be a lot more impressed,’ said Ottilie seriously.

‘It was horrid,’ said Rosie, her eyes shining with anger. ‘She’s an illusionist. She’s putting on shows and just taking advantage of people!’

‘You think she’s a charlatan?’

‘What else could she be?’

‘Why would she be upset, then?’ asked Sophie.

‘It’s all part of the deception, obviously.’

‘Silly me,’ said Sophie cheerfully, rolling her eyes.

‘I don’t think you really believe what you’re saying,’ said Ottilie to Rosie. ‘I remember Ash was always whistling or singing “Gilbert the Filbert”.’

Rosie did not reply, but addressed herself to Fairhead. ‘Why were you upset when you said the blessing? I’m sorry to ask. I just can’t help being curious.’

‘Oh, you noticed. Well, it’s just that I’ve said that blessing hundreds of times, at the final moments. It suddenly occurred to me that forever and forever that blessing will remind me of all those dying boys. I shall always be trying not to let it show.’

A week later the Reverend Captain Fairhead called by and the door was answered by Christabel. ‘How’s the new darkroom?’ he asked.

‘Up and running,’ she replied. ‘I have pictures drying on lines all over the attic. It’s murder trying to keep the kitten out. He seems to be able to be everywhere at once. I see you’ve arrived exactly at teatime.’

‘Purely a coincidence,’ he replied. ‘I do hope Cookie has made scones.’

‘Flapjacks,’ replied Christabel. ‘Bad luck.’

In the drawing room Mrs McCosh, Rosie and Ottilie were playing mah-jong, with Rosie being two players at once, and Sophie and her father were seated at a small table, playing spillikins, exclaiming every time that a stick moved or was successfully lifted. They were suffering terrible interference from the kitten, who was darting in and pouncing on the sticks the moment they moved. ‘Daddy, you’re such a gregarious cheat!’ Sophie exclaimed as Fairhead came into the room. The kitten chose that moment to hurtle up the curtains and perch on top of the pelmet.

‘Ha ha, I’ve got the masterstick!’ said Mr McCosh, brandishing it in the air.

After tea, Captain Fairhead said to Christabel, ‘I would very much like to see some of your photographs.’

‘She’s quite the professional these days,’ said Sophie. ‘She did a photographic portrait for the Fermoys, and they paid her squillions.’

‘All thanks to the Snapshot League,’ said Christabel. ‘Who would have thought? I’ll go and get the new ones, they should be dry by now.’