Wake Wood (11 page)

She met his gaze. ‘But if we have to lie, won’t it be worth it to get Alice back, even if it will only be for three days?’

‘I hope so, Louise,’ he murmured. ‘I really hope so.’

Louise abandoned her tidying of the guest room. She set the bundles of Alice’s clothes that she hadn’t stowed away on the bed, along with the remainder of her toys and the bed linen she intended to use to make up Alice’s bed.

‘You telephone Arthur and invite him over tonight, Patrick. I’ll cook.’

Reluctant to invite Arthur without any further discussion, he said, ‘Isn’t it late for dinner? We can wait until tomorrow.’

‘If it’s too late for dinner, tell Arthur he’s invited for
supper
.’ She left the room, passed Patrick and the tray he’d abandoned on the floor of the landing, and ran lightly down the stairs.

Patrick waited until he heard her opening the freezer in the kitchen before picking up the tray. The tea had grown cold. His hands shook so much it slopped over the rims of the cups into the saucers as he carried the tray downstairs. He left it on the dining-room table and went into the hall to telephone.

Arthur answered promptly and Patrick pictured his partner, sitting in front of a blazing fire beside the phone in his book-lined snug, a glass of single malt whisky at his elbow, cigar and book in hand.

Arthur was as patient and soft-spoken as usual. He listened attentively while Patrick told him that Louise wanted to go ahead and accept his offer to bring Alice back.

Arthur only answered after he was sure that Patrick had finished speaking. ‘And you’re quite sure about this, Patrick?’ he checked.

‘Quite sure,’ Patrick lied. He wasn’t even sure about inviting Arthur to their cottage that night, let alone Arthur’s proposal to raise Alice from the dead. The more he thought about Arthur’s proposition, the more bizarre and logic-defying he considered it to be.

‘Please, tell Louise she doesn’t have to make supper for me.’

‘She’s already preparing it, Arthur.’

‘In that case, thank her and tell her I’ll be along shortly.’ Arthur hesitated. ‘And you, Patrick? How do you really feel about this?’

‘It’s what Louise wants,’ Patrick answered.

‘I was asking how
you
feel about this, not Louise.’

Patrick could only repeat what he’d already said. ‘It’s what Louise wants.’

‘I’ll see you soon, Patrick.’

‘Yes, Arthur.’ Patrick was resigned. ‘We’ll see you soon.’

LOUISE SETTLED ON
a simple menu of soup, salad and pasta followed by sorbet. While she laid the table, grated cheese, and made the soup and pasta sauce, Patrick poured himself a beer. He took it into the living room, opened the curtains and looked out of the window. The rain had abated and the sky was clear apart from a few light, wispy clouds. A thin sliver of new moon shone down, surrounded by a bevy of stars brighter than he’d ever seen them when they’d lived in the city.

Would Alice have liked living here in this cottage in the country? Would she have settled to rural life and made friends with the young people in the town? Would he have bought a telescope so they could take up stargazing together? Would she have demanded more pets as they had more space and outbuildings to keep them in? Dogs, cats, the pony she’d been nagging for before she’d died …

The sound of a car engine put an end to his musings. Headlights glowed, illuminating the garden of the cottage as Arthur’s car turned off the main road and swept around the curve of the drive, pulled up and parked behind their estate car.

To Patrick’s surprise, Arthur lifted an old-fashioned leather doctor’s bag from the boot of his car. Patrick knew it didn’t contain Arthur’s veterinary instruments. Like him, Arthur owned a modern steel case filled with the latest in equipment.

He unlatched the living-room window, intending to tell Arthur that he’d left the front door open for him, but hesitated when Arthur stood back, looked at the house and then at the sky before solemnly reciting,

‘There is a web of life, you know,

That joins all things that breathe and grow.

But when man gets to meet his mentor

We’re shocked to find we’re not the centre.’

Arthur’s words were innocuous enough, but the way he said them sent a chill down Patrick’s spine. He shuddered, overwhelmed by a dark feeling of foreboding.

Arthur had promised Louise that he would accomplish the impossible. Bring Alice back to life. He should stop the nonsense now, before he, as well as Louise, became totally unhinged by Arthur’s promises …

‘Why didn’t you tell me that Arthur had arrived?’ Louise reproached as she walked into the room behind him.

He looked at her and caught a glimpse of the young girl he’d fallen in love with, in the ghost of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth and the brightness of her eyes. ‘He’s only just got here. You go ahead and pour the wine. I’ll show him in.’

Louise had laid the table for three. She’d set out her best silver cutlery and porcelain crockery, decorated the table with candles and produced a simple but excellently cooked meal of leek and potato soup, followed by lasagne and salad, accompanied by chilled white Italian wine. But only Arthur ate with any appetite.

The conversation varied from banal observations on the weather to local gossip. By tacit agreement all of them avoided mentioning the tragedy at the O’Shea farm late that afternoon. Both Patrick and Louise found it difficult to concentrate on what Arthur was saying because all they could think of – all they wanted to discuss – was Alice.

Patrick was also on edge because he oscillated between wanting to end the meal quickly along with Louise’s false hopes of seeing their daughter alive and well again; and daring Arthur to produce their daughter alive, if only for three days.

Louise was agitated because she couldn’t wait another moment to finalise the plans to bring her daughter back from her grave.

After Louise served the sorbet, Patrick poured the last of the wine into their glasses and broached the subject that he’d wanted to since the moment of Arthur’s arrival.

‘This offer of yours, Arthur,’ he began.

‘Yes, Patrick?’ Arthur looked expectantly at Patrick when he didn’t elaborate.

‘It’s a long way outside of Louise’s and my …’ Patrick searched for the right word and settled on, ‘experience.’

Arthur reached down for the bag he’d placed beside his chair and lifted it on to his lap. He opened it and rummaged through the contents. ‘Experience is generally overrated, Patrick,’ he pronounced with a gravity Patrick found suspect. ‘You can never jump in the same river twice, as the fellow said. It’s moved on. Heraclitus … or was it Heisenberg? I mix up my ancient Greeks. Of course, Heisenberg sounds like a Jew now that I think of it. Must have been Heraclitus—’

‘Arthur, you’re screwing with us,’ Patrick declared flatly.

Arthur smiled. ‘Yes, I’m afraid I am … I was. But not any more, Patrick. Now, let’s get down to serious business.’ He removed a peculiar object from the muddle of things in his bag. It was a large, old wooden frame of indeterminate shape, strung with metal bars ornamented by beads. It resembled an abacus but, given the number of metal rods of varying sizes and the myriad of oddly shaped beads, it was like no abacus Patrick or Louise had ever seen.

When Patrick examined the beads closely he realised they were made of drilled bone of varying sizes, dyed different colours. Animal or human bone? Patrick wondered but didn’t dare ask. Not with Louise sitting next to him.

Arthur moved his plate aside, laid the object on the table and set his bag on the floor. His demeanour changed as soon as he’d divested himself of his bag. Brisk and professional, he stretched the flats of both his hands over the frame and began his questioning.

‘Your daughter’s name was Alice?’

Louise confirmed it before Patrick could. ‘Alice,’ she echoed.

Patrick elaborated. ‘Alice Hannah Daley.’

Arthur clicked the beads on the frame and arranged them into position. He appeared to pay special attention to their alignment and colours. ‘Did she prefer mornings or evenings?’

‘Mornings,’ Patrick and Louise answered in unison.

Arthur rearranged the beads and looked at them for a few seconds. ‘Was her skin moist or dry?’

‘Moist,’ Patrick replied.

Arthur continued to work with the beads, sliding them up and down the rods. ‘Would she have liked cats, cows or horses best of all?’

‘Horses, ponies, definitely ponies. She loved them. She’d only just started riding lessons. She couldn’t wait for Saturday mornings to come …’ Louise realised she was giving far more information than Arthur required and stopped talking.

Arthur clicked more of the beads into position. ‘Was her hair thick or lank?’

‘It was thick, wasn’t it?’ Patrick looked to Louise for confirmation.

‘Quite thick,’ she concurred.

‘At what time of the year was she born?’ Concentrating on the task in hand, Arthur didn’t look up from the frame as he continued to work on it.

‘In January … the twenty-second.’ Louise clenched her fists tightly. It pained her just to say the date.

‘That was my next question.’ Arthur glanced up at her and smiled before moving more beads. ‘And how
long
has she been in the ground? I need you to be very exact and precise regarding this matter.’

Louise looked at Patrick then pushed back her chair.

‘Louise, you all right?’ Patrick asked solicitously.

Louise blanched. ‘I … I’m sorry … I can’t … just can’t …’ Clearly unable to answer any more questions about Alice, Louise left the table and fled from the room.

Patrick rose and followed her to the door. ‘Louise?’ he called as she entered the kitchen.

She closed the door in his face but he could still hear her sobs.

‘Patrick.’ Arthur brought him back to the present and immediate. ‘How long has your daughter been dead and in the ground? I need an answer and quickly.’

Patrick returned to the table, sank his head in his hands and took a few seconds to answer. When he spoke it was slowly, carefully and deliberately. ‘She’s been in the ground eleven months, two weeks and two days. She was buried five days after she died.’

Arthur nodded and made a final adjustment to the beads. ‘In that case we haven’t much time. Just over a week.’ He moved his hands away from the beads. As Patrick watched, one seemed to adjust itself, changing place without being manipulated and, in so doing, defying gravity.

Arthur was staring at it but he didn’t appear to find the movement in any way odd.

Patrick studied the pattern Arthur had made of the beads. It resembled a mosaic image of a bird. But Arthur frowned as he looked at it, as if he were dissatisfied with
the
outcome. He continued to flick the bone beads back and forth until a few minutes later he was left with a different image. An abstract picture he appeared happier to accept.

‘Now, this is what we can do for you and Louise,’ Arthur prophesied. ‘Alice will be brought back as soon as we can arrange it, certainly within the next day or two. And when she returns, you will make the most of the time that you’ll have with her. Three days.’

‘And nights?’ Patrick checked.

‘Precisely,’ Arthur confirmed. ‘And after that time she’ll have to go back to the woods and into the ground. You’ll have to bury her. You and Louise. You do understand? You’ll have to cover Alice with earth.’ Arthur looked Patrick in the eye. ‘Because Alice will just be on loan to you.’

‘Will she be normal?’

Patrick turned to see Louise standing in the doorway holding a tray of coffee. She’d moved quietly and neither of the men had heard her return to the room.

‘Yes, quite,’ Arthur reassured. ‘Alice’s heart will beat, her lungs will breathe. She’ll remember you and the life she had with you. Some of it,’ he qualified, ‘but she’ll also be deceased – although that’s something she won’t be aware of.’ He smiled again. A cold smile that troubled Patrick. ‘You’ll need to bear that in mind the entire time you’re with her.’

Patrick moved the plates on the table, stacking them one on top of the other to make space for Louise to set down the tray of coffee.

Arthur reached for his glass of wine and sipped it
before
continuing. ‘As Patrick just said, your time with Alice will last for three days and nights, and three days and nights only, during which you must keep Alice within the town perimeter of Wake Wood. That is a physical necessity. An absolute. It cannot be breached or infringed in any way. I cannot stress that strongly enough. Do you both understand? No matter what happens, you cannot take Alice beyond the town boundaries.’

Louise nodded agreement. ‘I understand.’

‘And when Alice’s time is up, the dead will have to return to the dead. There will be no delay, no argument. That is also the rule. It cannot be broken, no matter how much you may want to keep your daughter with you.’ Arthur looked from Patrick to Louise. ‘You both understand that also?’

‘Yes,’ they murmured in agreement, Louise watching Patrick as intently as he was watching her.

‘Now, for this to work we need a body. And as you’re all too aware, we’ve just had a tragedy in the community. Perhaps we can prevail on the family to sacrifice their corpse to our cause of bringing Alice back to you. But you, Louise, will have to ask Mrs O’Shea and her son for permission to use Mick O’Shea’s remains. We cannot do anything unless the family allows us to.’

‘Why do we need a body?’ Patrick asked.

‘You’ll see,’ Arthur replied enigmatically. ‘But first there are some things that you need to understand. The ritual of the return will bind you, both of you, to Wake Wood for ever. This will be hugely to this town’s and my own and my business’s benefit, but you must also understand that both of you will have to settle here
permanently
. You will not be able to leave Wake Wood afterwards. Not ever.’

‘Never,’ Patrick murmured. The word had acquired a new finality.

‘Never,’ Arthur reiterated emphatically. ‘And you, Patrick, will have to serve as Wake Wood’s veterinary surgeon until retirement. You’ll have to tend to animals without fail whenever you’re called, whenever the people of this town need you to minister to their livestock and pets. Needless to say, as I’ve said already, this suits me very well, but I hope it suits you also.’