David Mitchell - Slade House

I get to work with the knife. “This beef smells incredible.”

She brings over the roast veg. “My mother’s recipe: red wine, rosemary, mint, nutmeg, cinnamon, soy, plus a few secret ingredients that I can’t reveal or I’d have to kill you.” Chloe removes the lid: parsnips, spuds, carrots, cubes of pumpkin. “Spiced beef needs a wine with a bit of welly. How about a punchy, dry Rioja?”

I make an It’s fine by me if it’s fine with you face.

“Rioja it is, then. I’m perrr itty sure I still have a Tempranillo ’81 stashed away.” When Julie spoke about wine she sounded like a beautician with no O levels aping a wine buff, which is what she was. Chloe sounds like she’s stating facts. She comes back and hands me the bottle and a corkscrew. With a glint in her eye? I twist the pointy bit into the cork and think carnal thoughts until the cork goes Pop! “I love that sound,” says Chloe. “Don’t you? Wine Nazis say that you let these heavy reds breathe for a quarter of an hour, but I say life’s too short. Here, use these glasses …” Their crystal bases trundle over the wood. “Pour away, Jeeves.”

I obey. The wine goes glug — glug-glugglugglugglugglug .

The tiramisu is a stunner, and I say so. Chloe dabs at a fleck of cream on her lip with her napkin. “Not too cloying, not too sweet?”

“Like everything else you’ve fed me, it was perfection. When did you find time to train as a chef?”

Looking pleased, she sips her wine and dabs away the red stain with her napkin. “Flatterer.”

“Flattery? Me? What motive could I possibly have for flattering you? None. There. Case dismissed.”

Chloe pours coffee from a pot shaped like a dragon. “Next time — well, I mean, if you ever want to help me out with my overcatering again — I’ll do you my vodka sorbet. Tonight, I didn’t—”

Right here, right next to us, a girl calls out, “Jonah!”

Clear as a bell. But there’s no girl here. But—

— I heard her. Right here. A girl. She said, “Jonah!”

There’s a clattery noise from the door—

I jump, my chair scrapes, tips and falls over.

The cat-flap’s swinging. The cat runs out.

Then I hear her again: “Jonah?”

I didn’t imagine that.

Again: “Jooo-naaah!”

I’m standing in a fight-or-flight crouch, but Chloe’s not looking shocked, and not looking like I’m a nutcase either. She’s watching me, calm and cool. My shins are trembling. I ask her, “Did you hear that?” My voice is a bit manic.

“Yes.” If anything, she looks relieved. “Yes, I did.”

“A girl,” I check, “right here, in the kitchen.”

Chloe shuts her eyes and nods, slowly.

“But … but you said you didn’t have children.”

Chloe breathes in, breathes out. “They’re not mine.”

Which is clear as mud. Adopted? Invisible? “Who are they?”

“Her name’s Norah. She’s Jonah’s sister. They live here.”

The hairs on my arms are standing up. “I … You … What? ”

Chloe takes one of my cigarettes. “You hear a voice; there’s no one here; it’s a very old house. Any thoughts, Detective?”

I can’t say the word “ghost”—but I just heard what I just heard: a girl saying “Jonah” when there’s no girl here.

“Those footsteps you heard last Saturday,” Chloe goes on, “round the house. You thought they were kids next door. Remember?”

I’m cold. I nod once.

“There are no kids living next door, Gordon. That was Norah and Jonah. I think they’re twins. Here. Smoke. Sit down.”

I do as she says, but my mind’s reeling and my fingers are clumsy as I light my cigarette.

“I first noticed them back in January, this year. In the garden, at first, like you did; and like you, I assumed it was neighbors. Then one afternoon when Stuart was flat out and asleep after chemo — Valentine’s Day, as it happens — I was on the stairs when I heard a girl humming on the little landing, by the grandfather clock. But there was nobody there. Then a boy’s voice called up from the doorway, “Norah, your boiled egg’s ready!” And the girl said, “I’ll be down as soon as I’ve wound up the clock!” I thought — or hoped, perhaps — they were kids who’d got in somehow, for a lark, for a dare, but … I was there, on the stairs, for heaven’s sake. By the clock.”

“Did your husband hear them?”

Chloe shakes her head. “Never. Around Easter, Jonah and Norah — the ‘ghosts’—walked right through the kitchen, chattering away about a pony called Blackjack, and Stuart was sitting right where you are. He didn’t even look up from his crossword. I asked, ‘Did you hear that?’ and he replied, ‘Hear what?’ ‘Those voices,’ I said. Stuart gave me a weird and worried look so I pretended I might’ve left a radio on upstairs.” Chloe lights her own cigarette and gazes at the glowing tip. “Stuart was a biochemist, an atheist, and he just didn’t do ghosts. A few weeks later we had a dinner party here, and as I served up the starters I heard Jonah and Norah walk right by, singing, ‘Here comes the bride, a million miles wide’ and giggling like drains. Loud as real children. We had eight guests sitting around the table, but not one of them heard.”

In the fireplace the flames snap. My CID brain telexes in the word schizophrenia . But I heard the voice too, and I sure as heck never heard of shared schizophrenia.

Chloe empties the last of the wine into our glasses. “I was terrified I was losing my marbles, so — without telling Stuart — I visited three separate doctors, had a brain scan, the works. Nothing sinister showed up. I was Stuart’s round-the-clock carer, he was going downhill fast, so two of the three consultants put it down to stress. One told me the voices were caused by my unmet desire for children. I didn’t go back to him.”

I drink the wine. I puff on the cigarette. “So apart from me, nobody else has heard them?”

“That’s right. I–I can’t tell you how relieved I was, last Saturday, when I saw you’d heard them too. How less lonely I felt. God, just to be able to discuss them like this, without being afraid you’ll think I’m a nut … You’ve got no idea, Gordon.”

Blue eyes. Gray eyes. “Hence my invitation?”

A shy little smile. “Not the only reason. Don’t feel exploited.”

“I don’t. Hey, Bergerac sensed them, too. He just legged it.” I pour myself coffee from the silver pot. “Why do you stay here, Chloe? Why don’t you sell up, and move somewhere … less haunted?”

Chloe grimaces the way I’ve noticed she does when faced with a thorny question. “Slade House is home. I feel safe here, and … it’s not as if Norah and Jonah go ‘wooooooh’ or drip ectoplasm or write scary messages in mirrors. I … I’m not even sure they know I’m here. Yes, I hear them, once or twice, every one or two days, but they’re just going about their business.” Chloe balances a teaspoon on a dish. “There’s one other voice I call ‘Eeyore’ because he’s always so negative, but I’ve only heard him a handful of times. He mumbles things like ‘They’re liars’ or ‘Run away’ or stuff that makes no sense, and I suppose he’s a bit disconcerting, but he wouldn’t qualify as a poltergeist. I’m not leaving Slade House just because of him.”

Bergerac rubs his back against my shins. I hadn’t noticed him come back in. “I still think you’re made of pretty stern stuff, Chloe. I mean … well … ghosts .”

Chloe sighs. “Some people keep boa constrictors, or tarantulas: surely that’s weirder and scarier and riskier than my innocuous housemates? I’m not even convinced they’re real ‘ghosts’ at all.”