The Haunting of Harriet Read online

  Jenny had never thought about fate. There was only the excitement of learning to sing. She was also delighted to have found a friend who not only knew much more than her, but was happy to discuss those profound puzzling questions that everyone else dismissed as irrelevant or tedious. So, later that same month, when Jenny sat on the jetty in her duffel coat kicking her heels against the post, she hoped her friend would join her as she had an important matter to discuss. As she swung her legs she began to sing, her feet beating time to her song as they skimmed above the high November waterline.

  “If happy little bluebirds fly…”

  “Beyond the rainbow…” Harriet joined in,

  “Why, oh, why, can’t I?” they finished in unison. The lady looked at the eager little face in front of her. The Jessop twins were both beautiful, but this one was special.

  “I think today you are in search of answers rather than tuition.”

  How did this woman always know just what to say? This lady never chastised Jenny for asking too many questions. Her mother did, and her teachers often ignored her because she shot her hand up so often, desperately in need of an answer. They all accused her of asking too many questions. But this lady understood that she needed the answers so as to move on to examine the next intriguing question. Jenny knew the questions instinctively yet although her vocabulary was remarkable for a child her age it was often too hard to put the thoughts into words. With Harriet there was no need. This remarkable woman, tall and quiet, leaning against her cane, her long, black cloak falling almost to the ground, simply read her mind. Words, although delicious, were not essential between them. But in this instance it was words that Jenny wanted to discuss:

  “I’ve been trying to establish the difference between transparent and invisible.”

  “Ah. Let’s see. Transparent comes from the Latin transparere. It literally means ‘shining through’; so light can shine through and let you see what is behind it.”

  The lady spoke so clearly, she made it seem obvious. “Like glass and water?”

  “Invisible, that’s also from the Latin: invisibilis. It means not visible, which just means we cannot see it.”

  “Like air?” asked Jenny tentatively.

  “It cannot be seen. But that pre-supposes it is really there. “

  “Unlike something imaginary?” Jenny was not yet satisfied. “I have a friend at school with an imaginary friend. Mummy says she’s imaginary and only exists in my friend’s head, but I think she’s actually there but no one else can see her. Doesn’t that make her invisible but real?”

  “We’ll sing now,” was all Harriet said.

  Jenny took her coat off and straightened her sweater, taking care to remember what she had been taught about stance and breathing.

  “Reality is relative; like time. Are you really here? Am I here? Who is to say we are? But who is to say we are not? We are certainly having a conversation so I would see that as a pretty good indication that we are both real to one another. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Absolutely!” exclaimed Jenny. “Can I ask you one more thing? Am I transparent?”

  “Remember your breathing. I’m going to teach you a French song.”

  With that, the lesson began. When it ended the teacher looked at Jenny and smiled. “Your mother is right. The light shines through you. You are a jewel.”

  Jenny smiled back. “I like your hair; it’s like thick snow. I’ve got my father’s hair but grandpa Jessop had invisible hair on top when he died. Do you look like your mother or father?”

  “Practise your breathing. That music is by Fauré and is not easy.”

  “You never actually answer a question, do you?”

  “When you sing it must come from the top of your head and through the eyes. That is where the true voice lives, not in the throat. That simply holds the mechanical parts. Listen to me, Jenny, it isn’t until you know the pain of loss that you will really be able to sing. A great singer learns to use their pain. You, my little one, are destined to be a great singer one day.”

  “I want to learn everything you know,” Jenny said.

  “When you get as old as me you will realize that all we ever know is the depth of our ignorance.” And she was gone.

  Jenny thought hard about what had just been said. She wanted more than anything to be a truly great singer. Was her voice good enough, and what was all that stuff about pain? Was something awful about to happen? She sat on the jetty dangling her legs, humming the Canticle to Jean Racine, which she was trying to memorize. The melody pulled at her insides until they hurt. Was that the pain her friend had been talking about, the pain of beautiful things? Jenny had already learnt that great music, fine paintings and especially nature could reduce her to tears. The common denominator she could recognize was love. But surely love should make you happy. In The Lives of the Saints, which her Aunty Brenda had given her for Christmas, all the saints had experienced a state of “ecstasy”. The dictionary described that as a state of supreme happiness; but it was always associated with agonizing torments, visions, or even death, which did not match her concept of being happy. Since she had given up the thought of being a vet she had been toying with the idea of becoming a saint, but suddenly it did not seem such a good idea. She abandoned all thoughts of ecstasy and set her sights a bit lower. She would be an opera singer of world renown: happy rather than ecstatic. Content to have reached such a satisfactory solution, she performed a near-perfect somersault and skipped back across the bridge to the house.

  CHAPTER 12

  2007 was meant to be an auspicious year. Edward would hit forty in March and the twins would make double figures in May. It was destined to be a year of celebrations. Edward was the first to display any doubts. His family and friends seemed to think it amusing that he was about to reach “a sensible age”. He was not quite so amused. He joked about it and expected to receive the odd walking-stick or Zimmer frame as presents, along with some incontinence pants and a few Viagra pills. But his laugh was growing thin, like his hair; he dreaded the changes that the passing years would bring. Was it time to take stock and settle down to a quieter life with a little less cricket and a little more gardening? Time to take up bird-watching, perhaps, or learn to play bridge?

  These doubts and fears had not gone unnoticed by Liz. Edward looked tired and drained. He was snappy and touchy with the children and she found herself treading on eggshells whenever they were alone. At first she put it down to stress of work. His working hours seemed to be getting longer all the time. Sometimes he stayed in London at a friend’s flat to save himself the journey from Kent to the birdcage, as he called Canary Wharf. Liz felt sorry for him but she hated those empty nights when he was away. The gulf between them was growing and was in danger of becoming wider than the distance between Beckmans and London. She was worried that a heart attack was never far away and she wished there was someone he would talk to. She decided to ask David if he could find out what was going on. Maybe at the next rugby match he could do a bit of casual detective work. David agreed to do some digging, but in truth Liz knew it was pointless. For all his bravado Edward was a very private man who seldom shared his inner-most thoughts. He never discussed his work except to brag about his mega-deals. If things were going wrong there was no way he would let on. He had always loved his job, thriving on the stress and the challenge. The financial world was in crisis, but that was exactly what he thrived on most. Liz knew better than to question him. He would never tell her anything anyway, certainly not if things got really bad. She would be the last to know. So when night after night he ate dinner in comparative silence before disappearing into his study, and the level in the scotch decanter fell at an alarming rate, she bit her tongue rather than have her head bitten off.

  This sorry state of affairs came to a head at Christmas: that fixed star in the heavens was shaken badly when Sue and David announced they would not be coming to Beckmans this year; or any other year. They were divorcing. David was going to France to w
rite his novel and Sue was off to the West Country to live with her newly married daughter, the indomitable Emily. They were all devastated. Edward took it particularly badly. He was secretly furious that his best mate had not confided in him. How dare he leave him in the lurch just when he needed a friend? Who would he play cricket with now? Like a wounded animal he lashed out. Instead of sympathizing with David he was cruelly flippant. He accused him of pursuing infantile fantasies and dared him to return without a bloody bestseller. He challenged him to lavish the proceeds of it around as a token repayment for all the times they had accepted his generosity. He upset the whole crowd by declaring that the only recognition David would get was an OBE for sticking it out with such a miserably dull wife for so long and that Emily was as stupid as her mother for even thinking they could survive more than a week of each other’s boring company. These remarks were dismissed as bad jokes or possibly drunken slips, but they seriously wounded his friendship with David and Sue, and shocked the rest of the group with their callousness.

  Bad moods were catching. An epidemic of tetchiness was in the air and Edward did not curb his barbed tongue throughout the rest of the festivities. The season of good will was tested to its limits. Normally Mel would have shrugged off Edward’s rudeness with a cutting but witty quip or two and contained the whole thing before it bubbled out of control. But recently she had not been her usual self. She was edgy and impatient with everyone. Even phlegmatic Bob did not escape the sharp end of her tongue when, more than once, she lashed out at him. Her usual go-with-the-flow attitude had gone and it took only the slightest thing to send her into a temper. Edward rose to the bait and they sparked each other off throughout the holiday. As Edward was carving the turkey, he started on again about how selfish and excruciatingly dull Sue had always been, and Mel exploded. For a while it was touch and go, with Edward brandishing the carving knife and Mel goading him across the table; but miraculously common sense prevailed. The Circus survived Christmas, more secure though smaller, having aired several unpleasant truths.

  The survival of the Circus was one thing; Liz and Edward were another. They were anything but secure in their relationship. Edward was spending more and more time at work. He left early in the morning and arrived back later and later at night. Often he stayed in town. When Liz accused him of caring more about work than family the rows began in earnest. He had been experiencing a new game-play in his wonderful world of finance. This once-benign territory had grown dangerously unpredictable. Signs that had used to be legible to him were suddenly hard to read. Investors were unsure whom to trust and had begun to flee the market altogether. He had never been afraid of competition, but he was now living through a famine where every scrap of food was fought over; you secured it or went under. His own investments were shrinking rapidly and for once his bonus was a mere drop in the proverbial rather than the tsunami of excess to which he had become accustomed. He had not shared any of this before because he did not want anyone to accuse him of failure. Being a natural optimist he believed it to be just a blip, a short down-turn of fortune. The market, in which he had total faith, would right itself given time. That market forces fluctuate was the fun of the game. One had to keep one’s head until they bottomed out and let supply-and-demand sort it. Market economy would flourish once more.

  At least they owned their house. Yes, property prices were falling dramatically but, as they had no intention of selling, that had little effect on their lives. Some prudent management and they would not even notice this dip in circumstances. However, things were not improving as quickly as he had planned. All the money he had put aside was in the form of stocks and shares and was hardly worth the paper it was written on. To sell now would be crazy. They had to ride out the storm and hope for the best. But it was his job. He should have seen it coming. He was beginning to hate his job; it was making more and more demands on him, and his hair was receding at an alarming rate.

  Edward stared at the man staring back at him from the bathroom mirror. It was his father. He checked his teeth. Not bad: a few crowns and a small bridge - pretty lucky after all those years of rugby. Should I invest in veneers?, he wondered. Placing his hands against his jaw he pulled the skin back towards his ears. Maybe a small nip-and-tuck? His hands slid to his hairline. He could get something to cover the grey, but what do I do about this? His fingers teased his hair back over his receding hairline. His father had gone bald at fifty; did the same fate await him? He turned his body sideways and breathed in. “Not bad,” he said aloud. He flexed his bicep and pulled a manly pose. Putting his face close to the mirror he caught the reflection of his wife’s eyes smiling back at him. “God, Liz. I look just like my dad,” he uttered despairingly.

  “So what’s wrong with that? I liked your dad,” she said.

  That flippant remark cut like a knife. Edward was used to being the best-looking guy in the room. Women always flirted with him and he flirted back, but that was about as far as it went. He had never actually been unfaithful, but had on occasions come close to the odd dalliance. Now a young woman who had just joined the firm was giving him signals that she wanted to get involved. He had played along with her, enjoying the game, and had even wondered what would happen if he had a fling. In his imaginings he was already being unfaithful, but he did not realize how short the distance was to the real thing. The next day at work he took that fatal step.

  Now he had real guilt to contend with and he began to twist the truth to fit his newly-acquired perspective. Edward had little or no perception of how Liz viewed the world. He worked all the days God gave him and he worked hard. The money he earned was generously spent to keep his wife and family in luxury. She had a cleaner, a woman to do the ironing, a full-time gardener, a plastic card for the house and a platinum card for her personal indulgences. What more could any woman want? It was true that until this latest deal was completed he would have to work very late and maybe give up some Saturdays too, which meant giving up his sport. For the life of him he did not understand why Liz was incapable of recognizing the sacrifices he made for her. A couple more bonuses, even as feeble as the last one, would secure the children’s schooling at whatever establishments they chose. It would even cover a large chunk of their university fees. Surely that was worth forgoing a few dinners at a posh restaurant. Most sensible women would recognize that all this luxury could stop as quickly as it had started. The financial climate was decidedly sticky and in the City there was talk of a general slump, even a depression. This was no time to take things easy. Was it too much to expect some gratitude, some appreciation for the effort he was making? So what if he took a little something for himself? Who wouldn’t? And, if that something meant a bit on the side, so what? He viewed his indulgence in a little extra-marital fling as harmless and forgivable, even inevitable, in the circumstances. He was still a young man with appetites. His work was placing more and more demands on him and he was exhausted. What he wanted was a woman who supported him, not one that nagged all the time. But instead of gratitude or sympathetic understanding Liz was deliberately creating this awful chasm, separating them both physically and emotionally.

  When Liz accused him of caring more about his work than his family, the rows began again, in earnest. When a woman reaches her mid-thirties life revolving around a house, a garden, young children and a dog can be claustrophobic and stifling; the beginning of the end; a sentence of repetitive service. If seen as a constant round of drudgery and sacrifice any resentment it might foster could, understandably, be justified. If survival depends on such sacrifice then the hard balancing act of keeping the wolf from the door becomes a worthy struggle, bringing a sense of pride and achievement with it. But a woman who feels trapped in domestic servitude, for no obvious reason, can become angry and resentful. To exist solely as the means of supporting a husband’s career is both demeaning and demoralizing, and this was where Liz now perceived herself to be. She felt dispensable and undervalued. Her life of domestic responsibilities, punctuated by c
offee mornings and lunches, bored her rigid. So she took her resentment out on Edward. His immediate reaction was to match aggression with aggression.

  His attitude to David and Sue at Christmas had frightened her. Was it shock and disappointment that made him let rip like that? Or did he harbour a secret callous streak? If so he had certainly hidden it well. What if his true feelings for her were equally well disguised? There was no longer any passion and neither party seemed eager to rekindle it. She was letting herself grow cold towards him and he did nothing to reverse the trend. Edward had never forgotten a birthday and his gifts were always generous to a fault. She began to wonder if they were a little too generous. Did they hide a guilty secret? Take those earrings he had given her for Christmas, they must have cost a small fortune but jewellery was an easy gift. Had his PA chosen them? They had not given her a feeling of being cherished. Nor did they elicit the hoped for response. Liz had thanked him, acknowledged that they were beautiful but that was that.

  She began to check his mobile and go through his pockets. She fostered wild thoughts of turning up at his office unannounced and checking the hours he had actually been working. An affair would explain all those late nights and the odd weekends when he had stopped over in town. Expensive gifts could be a way to salve a troubled conscience. Their love-making had ground to a virtual halt; when they had sex it was a hurried affair that left Liz wet and resentful. Surely these were classic signs of infidelity? She began to reject his advances, making excuses, sometimes out of spite, but mostly to avoid the hurt she felt when he rolled off her and fell into a deep satisfied coma, leaving her to angry tears as she washed herself between her legs and sat sleepless on the side of the bath, wondering: “Is this it?” Liz and Edward were on a collision course. One of them would have to give way, but they were both being equally stubborn.