A Ghost in the Machine (59 page)

Dr. Lester glanced at the Mickey Mouse clock over the door. Ten minutes to go. Suddenly she shivered. A breeze seemed to be flowing directly through the open window, cooling her neck and arms. She got up to close it and the metal latch was clammy to her touch. Fastening it securely she noticed a butterfly clinging to the curtains and stood on tiptoe to get a closer look. It was extraordinary. Totally black; not just the velvety wings but even its body and antennae. Surprised and delighted, Barbara studied it for several seconds, even agitating the fabric gently to see if it would fly. When she sat down again Karen regarded her with a mixture of apprehension and yearning.

“So, Karen – these people you told Dr. Dickenson about. What are they like?”

“Ordinary.”

“When did you first see them?”

“I've always seen them.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere. Well, not in the house. At the shops, on the bus, just walking about.”

“And have you always talked to them?”

“Only if they talk to me. It got me into trouble, though.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“I was outside and one of them, an old lady – she was ever so nice – asked me to take a message.”

“Who to?”

“Elsie next door. She was in the garden. They don't ask unless the person's present.”

Dr. Lester held back a smile. The detail, everything fitting, every impossible aspect so rationally described was impressive, to say the least.

“I'd never actually done it before. I thought I'd try but then Ava came rushing out. She got hold of my hair and dragged me inside. She was ever so angry. She said if the neighbours heard me talking to myself it'd be all round the village I was mental.”

“But you weren't talking to yourself.”

At these words something happened to Karen. Her brow became smooth, her thin bony little fingers stopped plucking and pulling at her skirt and, interlacing, came to lie quietly in her lap. Her shoulders relaxed, which made her neck look longer. She held her head in a delicate, assured way. Her eyes, unclouded now, glistened with happiness. She smiled.

“I knew you'd understand.”

Dr. Lester experienced a moment of deep misgiving. Had the decision to appear to accept Karen's story been a mistake? If so she was stuck with it, for there could be no backtracking. The important thing was that the child should grow to trust her.

“I tried really hard to explain,” continued Karen. “Ava wouldn't listen. I didn't know what to do. But then she met this man, George, at a club. And suddenly everything got better.”

“I see.” Nothing about him in the notes. “And what was George like?”

“Really nice. He gave me a little bag made out of funny string. And some Smarties.”

“So…” For now she gave this unknown sweet-giver the benefit of the doubt. “He was Ava's friend?”

“Yes.”

“Did he ever stay at your house?”

“'Course not.” Karen laughed. “He lived with his mother.”

“So how did he ‘make things better'?”

“Well, she asked him round to Rainbow Lodge for tea. He was on the patio when this old man walked round the corner.”

“One of your…?”

“That's right. He gave me some messages for George but I got frightened and ran inside. The old man came after me. I didn't know what to do. So I told Ava. I went on and on and on to make her listen. I knew she wouldn't hit me with somebody else there.”

This was incredible. The child was so convincing Dr. Lester actually found herself leaning forward.

“And then what happened?”

“She said she had high hopes of George and didn't want him thinking she'd got a kid what was round the bloody twist. I promised I'd never, ever do it again if she'd just help me this one time.”

“And did she?”

“Yes. She made out she'd had this dream. All about an old tramp, trying to tell her things. But when she said what the things were George started shaking and crying. It was awful. She thought he was having a fit. Than he ran off shouting, ‘I have to tell Mummy. I have to tell Mummy.'”

Belatedly Dr. Lester realised this last scene was not in her notes and scribbled a couple of lines.

“Carry on, dear. Carry on.”

“Ava believed me after this. She said we had to have a serious talk because a gift like mine was from God and should be really worth something. Later on, George rang up and said he knew a lot about the…um…parasomething…”

“Paranormal?”

“Also, he belonged to this church and said for her to go along with him.”

“Where was it, the church?”

“In our village,” explained Karen, patiently. “It's called the Near at Hand.”

That the place could really exist Dr. Lester knew. Occasionally fantasists create a dazzlingly unreal universe as a background for their imaginings but mostly they would use genuine places. Often these will be inhabited by famous people flitting in and out of the action. Well-known landmarks too can be casually relocated to accommodate the plot. Pointless to argue as to authenticity. Try showing a globe to a member of the Flat Earth Society.

“And did she go?”

“Yes, but she couldn't do anything.”

“Because you weren't there?”

“Yes!” Karen glowed the glow of the appreciated. More, of the totally understood. “Back at home she kept walking up and down. I went to sleep and when I woke up she was still doing it. She said she was racking her brains.”

This time Dr. Lester did smile. Couldn't help it. The total wildness of the invention combined with Karen's fervent sincerity should have been disturbing, yet, because she was so young, the anodyne phrase “make believe” was never far away.

“Then she got this amazing idea. I told the doctor.”

“Yes – it's all down here.”

If the invention had been wild up till then it now spiralled totally off the wall. Ava apparently hit on a seemingly foolproof method of exploiting Karen's “gift.” Concealing the child behind curtains she had set up a microphone through which messages from all these strange and invisible people could be relayed. Ava then received them via an earpiece and passed them on to the waiting congregation.

What Dr. Lester found somewhat unsettling about this extraordinary tale was the amount of common or garden detail mixed up in it. Karen described precisely the shop in Slough where they had bought the equipment. And how her mother paid cash so she wouldn't have to give her real name. The assistants had laughed behind her back when she'd tried to swear them to secrecy if they were ever questioned.

“And you were happy with this arrangement?”

“It was brilliant. They came into my head, I passed the messages on and they went away.”

“I see.”

“But she'd only tell people happy things. There were terrible stories as well.”

“Thank you, Karen.” Dr. Lester smiled, slipping the notes back into her envelope file. “But we'll have to leave those for another time.”

“What do you mean?”

“I'm afraid our sessions only last half an hour.”

Karen stared at her. “You said you'd help me.”

“And I will—”

“You said you'd find someone to talk to them. Like Ava did.”

“I don't think—”

“They're coming all the time – going on at me. They never give up.”

“I can give you something to help your headaches.”

“
They're not headaches,
” screamed Karen. Her arms shot out with such force they seemed to be jumping from their sockets. They flailed the air, beating and flapping as if fending off some great bird.

Dr. Lester, shocked at the suddenness of this explosion, hesitated. Her immediate impulse was to try and restrain the child but even as she started to get up Karen became calm again.

The change happened so quickly Dr. Lester was immediately suspicious. Yet she could have sworn Karen was not manipulative and had not been acting. A draining paleness had come upon her. The milk-white skin now appeared almost translucent. Her hair, that floss of dazzling light, stirred slightly, though there was not the slightest breeze. Her colourless lips drooped at the corners in disappointment.

Barbara was glad the session was at an end. Glad too it was the last of the day. It had been a difficult one and she was very tired. They had already overrun by nearly ten minutes.

She said carefully, “Are you all right now, Karen?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Karen sat quite still, absorbing this new understanding that had so unkindly presented itself. Dr. Lester, in whom she had put all her faith, was not going to help. Karen had a moment of panic, of frail crying inside, then deliberately let all hope in that direction go.

But what to do now about the clamour in her head? She couldn't go on like this – she just couldn't. She'd go mad. If only she was older. If she was grown up they would all understand. Even now it would only take one person…

Dr. Lester picked up her briefcase and put the file inside, then pulled out a cardigan, throwing it casually over her shoulders. Almost immediately she shook it off and put it on properly. How cold her arms were. Almost goosepimply.

“Brrr…” said Dr. Lester.

Yet the sun was still out. She could tell because it was shining through the trees, throwing lovely reflections of pale grey leaves on to the office wall. The soft shifting and drifting of this shadowy mass was quite hypnotic. You could easily be drawn into a consoling reverie. Dr. Lester rested in this peaceful thought for all of a minute, then got to her feet saying firmly, “Time to go home.”

She set her answering machine, closed down the computer, locked her desk and checked the windows. The child hadn't moved but stayed, still and quiet, staring at the floor.

“Now, Karen—”

Karen jumped up and ran across to the sofa, placing herself exactly where Dr. Lester had been sitting. The doctor hesitated. Doubtless the quickest and most sensible way out of such a situation was to bring in the woman who had accompanied Karen and ask her to take the child away. Psychologically, however, the idea was not feasible. This room, this space now belonged to herself and Karen. Over time it was where they would hopefully build a secure relationship. Introduce an outsider, even a friendly one, and any future feelings of closeness would be that much harder to establish and maintain.

“What's worrying you, Karen? Are you afraid that if you go you might not be able to come back?”

“No.” Laying a hand on the cushion next to her, half patting, half stroking it.

“Good.” Dr. Lester sat down. “Because I've already got your next appointment in my book.”

Karen was regarding her closely and the doctor gave another friendly, if slightly strained, smile. What an odd little creature she was. Such strange eyes: the silvery rings encircling the pupil so bright. Indeed, as Dr. Lester watched, they seemed to glow with a stronger and stronger intensity, becoming almost luminous. She noticed the extraordinary quality of the silence that had stolen into the room. So deep she could have been at the bottom of the sea. So dense it was almost stifling.

Karen stared across at the wall with the trembling shadows, then looked back, encouraging Dr. Lester to follow her gaze. To the doctor's annoyance – for her intention had been to ease Karen towards the door in a firm but kindly manner – she was drawn to do this. The wall looked the same. Almost. Perhaps the shades of grey were a little deeper. The leaves and branches dancing in a slightly more vigorous fashion. Then she noticed one tiny leaf, darker than the rest. Nearly black. It moved in an almost three-dimensional way, apparently lifting from the wall to transfer itself, branch to branch. She looked again and recognised the butterfly.

Two things happened next, it seemed simultaneously. A freezing current of air slid across the floor, curling around her ankles, coating her bare feet in icy sweat. And there was a muffled rustling: a harsh susurration as of rough silk on silk that appeared to be coming from all corners of the room.

A closer look at the wall saw it transformed. The delicate pattern had thickened into a more solid mass and, smokelike, was shifting and swirling about. Suddenly it seemed to gather itself, intensify and advance into the room, though leaving a rounded emptiness in the middle, like the mouth of a cave. Then, at the very centre of this hollow cell, half concealed by a gossamer web of drifting vapour, an insubstantial white form arose.

The cold was now so intense that Dr. Lester found herself unable to move. Her limbs were heavy as lead. She tried to breathe but nausea overcame her. Her heart seemed unnaturally still. Then a powerful smell pervaded the room, as of freshly turned earth. And with this another recognition. She had mistaken the rustling. It was, in fact, whispering.

A galvanic shock made her cry out. She stared down at her arm, fearing a cut or sudden burn. But it was just the child, laying fingers gently across her wrist. Now Karen's face was kissing close, her breath further cooling Dr. Lester's already frozen cheek.

“Don't be frightened.”

“I'm…I can't…”

“It's all right, really.” The fingers tightened. Her voice had an open, yawning quality; the words unnaturally extended. “Do you understand what I'm saying?”

“Yes.”

“I have a message for you. From Alice.”

“Aahhh…”

“Your sister is happy. She sends you and your mother her love. She asks about Henry.”

“He ran away. Alice…Oh! Alice…”

“She can't hear you, I'm afraid.”

“But…she can hear you?”

“Oh, yes.” The uncanny lustre of her shining eyes deepened. Karen released her grip and sat back, satisfied. Confident. Vindicated. “She can hear me.”