Mean Spirit

I

The truth of it was, Grayle didn’t much like spiritualist mediums any more — was now prepared to admit never having encountered one who seemed wholly genuine. All this, I have a tall, grey-haired gentleman here, he says to tell Martha hello and he wants her to know he doesn’t get the migraines now.

Hey, screw the migraines, you wanted to scream … what’s it like over there? What does God look like?

Plus, they were usually creepy people. They had soft voices and wise little smiles. You looked at them and you thought of funeral flowers and the pink satin lining of grandma’s casket.

Of course, as an accredited New Age writer, Grayle was supposed to relish creepy, was supposed to embrace creepy.

Uh-huh. Shaking her head, driving nervously towards the next traffic island. Couldn’t handle that stuff the same any more, since Ersula. If this woman started giving her little personal messages from across the great divide, she was out of there.

Pink satin lining. No-one would ever know what kind of lining was in the special casket she had to obtain to take home what remained of Ersula. Closed for ever. Vacuum sealed.

Grayle shuddered at the wheel. She wished it was a brighter day, but this was mid-March — March still at its most unspringlike, blustering over Gloucester, a grey place every time she’d been here, which was maybe twice. Stay out of the city, that was the rule. Each time you meet with a junction, aim for the hills.

She swung hard right in front of a truck, which was not enormous by US standards but big enough to crush the Mini like a little red bug. The driver was leaning on the horn from way up there, glaring down at Grayle, who was gripping the wheel with both hands, cowering. OK, I blew it again, I switched lanes without a signal. But you’re a big rig in a tiny country. You should make allowances. Asshole.

In England even rural roads were now so crowded that driving had become small-scale and intricate, like macrame. OK, no comparison with New York, but in New York Grayle took cabs.

Places like Oxford were on the signs now. But what about Stroud? Was this OK for Stroud? There were hills ahead, at least. Not big hills, but in England the further east you went, the more they lowered the minimum height for hill status.

From behind, another horn was blasting her out. In her driver’s mirror she saw a guy in a dark blue van gesturing, moving his hand up and down like a conductor telling an orchestra to soften it up. OK, what did I do now?

It was three miles further on — Gloucester safely behind her, the blue van gone — when Grayle found out. This was when the clanking began, like she’d just gotten married and someone had attached a string of tin cans to the fender.

All too soon after this delightful image came to her the noise became more ominous, this awful grinding and then the car was sounding like a very ancient mowing machine.

Grayle pulled over, climbed out.

There was a dead metal python in the road with an extended lump in the middle, like it just dined on a dachsund. She realized what the van driver’s up-and-down hand movements had been about.

This was wonderful. This was just terrific.

She looked around. Suddenly the British countryside seemed an awful lot bigger.

The garage guy stood over the mangled exhaust system, doing all those garage-guy things — the head-shaking, the grimaces. Showing her how the pipe had apparently been attached to the underside of the car at one end by a length of fence wire. Fence wire?

Grayle said, ‘Couldn’t you just like patch it up and kind of … shove it back on?’

The garage guy found this richly amusing. Wasn’t that odd: the world over, garage guys having the same sense of humour?

It began to rain. Because her mobile was out of signal, she’d walked over a mile to a callbox, where she’d found the number of the local car repairer on a card taped to the backboard. Then walked all the way back to the Mini and waited another half-hour for this guy to arrive like some kind of knight in greasy armour.

‘Problem is …’ he kicked the pipe ‘… it’s not gonner be too easy finding one like this.’

‘You’re kidding, right?’

She stared at him. Was this not the most famous British car there ever was? A classic car? This was what the second-hand dealer had told her when she bought it — quiet-voiced middle-aged guy in a dark suit, not slick, not pushy. Marcus had been furious when he heard how much she had paid, but the car had run fine, until now.

‘As you say — was. Not any more, my sweet.’ The garage guy took off his baseball cap, scratched his head, replaced the cap, all the time grinning through his moustache at the dumb American broad. ‘How long you been over here?’

‘Oh … quite a while.’

‘This car of yours …’ The guy gesturing with a contemptuous foot. ‘Got to be well over twenty years old. Maybe twenty-five.’

He went silent, looked her all over, with that fixed grin. Over his shoulder she could see a copse of leafless trees and some serious clouds: the English countryside in March.

‘OK,’ she sighed. ‘What do you have in mind?’

Anything. She was at his mercy. She should have been there by now. No matter how you felt about the practice of mediumship, you did not turn up hours late for an interview with somebody as notoriously prickly as Persephone Callard.

The garage guy leaned on his white truck, pursed his mouth, sniffed meditatively. ‘Tow it in. I reckon. I could ring round a few of my mates in the trade. See what I can come up with.’

‘Right.’ She nodded. ‘OK.’ He had her. He was going to take several hours and then come up with something which, due to being a rare antique component, was going to cost-

‘Where you got to be, my sweet?’

‘Huh?’

‘Where you heading?’

‘Oh. Uh … it’s a place … couple miles out of Stroud. Mysleton?’

He considered this. ‘Ain’t much at Mysleton. ‘Cept for Mysleton House.’

‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘That’s the place.’

‘Sir Stephen Callard?’

‘You know him?’

‘I know his place.’ He wiped his hands on his overalled thighs. ‘I could take you there, if you like.’

‘Is it far from your workshop?’

‘Few miles. I could take you over there, then pick you up afterwards when we find an exhaust system.’

At some kind of price, she supposed. Or maybe he truly was a helpful person.

Whatever, was she going to get a better offer?

‘That would be most kind,’ Grayle said, collecting her purse from the passenger seat, tucking hair behind an ear, figuring to come over a little more English and refined.

They went first of all to the garage, which was not at all what she was expecting.

It was on the edge of this very cute Cotswold village: dreamy church, old cottages built from stone like mellow cheese-crust. Then you came to a newish housing estate created out of fake Cotswold stone, designed to maintain the golden glow all the way to the boundary.

But the garage made no compromise. It was hidden behind a bunch of fast-growing conifers close to the housing estate. It was not golden, never had been.

She saw a grey concrete forecourt, decorated with a couple of wrecked cars and two old gas pumps which had clocks with hands to measure the fuel throughput. The black rubber hoses were so withered it must have been years since any fuel passed their way.

The place was deserted and looked long dead. Either the other mechanics were out to lunch or this was a one-man outfit.

The guy — his name was Justin — unhooked the tow rope and left the Mini standing on the spider-cracked forecourt. Grayle surreptitiously gave the car a reassuring pat, making it clear she planned to return — if she was a car brought here she would figure it to be some kind of sad ante-room to the breaker’s yard.

Maybe it was the dereliction of the garage behind the beautiful facade of the village, but as they drove away in the pick-up she felt suddenly desolate.

It should be possible — like with the cottages — for age to confer beauty, for people to become golden with kindness and wisdom. How come they always ended up cold and grey and drab and flaking, like this garage?

Grayle had been in Britain over a year in total. Twenty-nine when she first arrived, now she was thirty-one, a mature woman who’d seen some death.

‘You a friend of Sir Stephen’s then?’ Justin asked. Curious, as well he might be — how many friends of Sir Stephen Callard, retired diplomat, would be driving around in a 25-year-old Austin Mini, the exhaust held in place by fence wire?

‘Uh … his daughter,’ she said.

Regretting it immediately. This was not for broadcast, Marcus had warned; the woman didn’t want it known she was down here.

‘You what?’

Justin had turned his head and was staring at her. Without the baseball cap, he didn’t look as old as she’d first figured. Maybe forty-five. His hair was still mostly black and curly, quite long. He had a gold earring, bigger than it needed to be.

‘No, uh … I’m not his daughter, I’m just here to see his daughter, but I would be grateful if … Jesus, look where you’re-!’

Justin glanced at the road as a big hedge came up fast in the windshield, dead ahead. The road was about as wide as a garden path. Driving with two fingers crooked around the wheel, Justin spun around the bend, then turned back on Grayle.

‘Seffi Callard, eh?’

Grayle sat up hard, pulling her flimsy black raincoat together across her thighs, dragging her purse on to her lap.

‘Relax, my sweet. I’ve travelled this ole road about a million times.’ Justin swivelled his gaze lazily back to the windshield. ‘I know every little bend, every pothole.’ He smiled, his big moustache spreading. ‘Every little hump.’

Hump? She closed her eyes briefly. Another goddamned ladies’ man. Kind of guy who’d just realized he wasn’t going to have too many more years of scoring chicks below a certain age threshold, not even puny, nervous, 31-year-old blondes. Grayle coughed, tucking flyaway hair into her coat collar.

‘So she’s staying with her old man.’ Justin was now using one crooked forefinger to control the throbbing wheel. ‘Paper said she’d gone abroad.’

‘Well, just don’t spread it around.’ Grayle was annoyed with herself for saying too much.

‘Who would I tell?’

‘She’ll like, uh, probably be going abroad tomorrow.’

‘Close friend of yours, then, Miz Callard?’

‘Not awful close.’

‘Quite a girl in her time.’ He glanced at Grayle again and winked. She noticed his overall had become unbuttoned to just below the waist. He smelled of engine oil. Were those overalls next to the skin?

‘Really,’ she said.

‘That’s what they say,’ Justin said airily. Grayle supposed that if she’d been a guy, this was where they’d be starting up with all the ribald, sexist stuff, Justin outlining all the things he wouldn’t mind doing with Persephone Callard.

‘Who?’ she said.

‘What?’

‘What who say?’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘the papers. You know.’ Maybe a touch wary now, in case she really happened to be a close friend of the Callard family, fallen on hard times.

‘Right,’ Grayle said. ‘The papers.’

‘They’re saying she’s cracked up. Lost her marbles. You believe that?’

‘Well, I wouldn’t know, Justin.’

‘So she’s not a close friend of yours, then.’

‘No.’

‘Ah.’ Justin slowed up. ‘You’re a reporter, right?’

Grayle sighed. ‘Kind of.’

His smile was now too smirklike for comfort. She knew what he was thinking now: what kind of reporter drives a 25-year-old heap with etcetera, etcetera?

‘I work for a small, specialist magazine,’ she said quickly. ‘You wouldn’t have heard of it.’

‘I see.’ Justin the ladies’ man leaned back, relaxed again, as the rain came down harder on the ochre ploughed fields to either side. She could guess his idea of a small, specialist magazine. ‘So, er … does she know you’re coming to interview her?’

‘Well, of course she does. You don’t drive all this way if you don’t expect someone to talk to you. Least, I don’t.’

‘So she’s expecting you.’

‘Sure. She’s expecting me in like … like a couple hours ago.’

‘She is, is she?’

‘Most certainly.’ This shameless probing was making her decidedly uneasy. ‘We talked on the phone just this morning. She’s probably calling around by now to find out why I didn’t show up.’

Complete lie about the phone; according to Marcus, Persephone Callard was not taking any calls right now.

‘What’s your name, my sweet?’

‘I-’

‘To put on the bill?’

‘Oh. Right. Underhill. Grayle Underhill.’

‘Grayle.’ Rolling it around his mouth like candy.

‘As in holy.’

‘And are you?’ His hand moved up and down the gearstick suggestively.

‘Devout,’ Grayle snapped. Jesus, however creepy Persephone Callard turned out to be, she was unlikely to be in the same league as this guy with his big moustache and his overalls open to the groin.

‘You believe in that stuff? Her stuff?’

‘Uh … some.’

‘You ask me,’ Justin said, ‘she’s a total bloody fraud, your Miz Callard. All that mumbo-jumbo and communicating with the departed spirits. Load of ole bloody twaddle.’

‘That’s what they say around here, is it?’

‘It’s what I say, Grayle. Way I see it, look, the stuff she does, if she was some old lady with a crystal ball she’d be lucky to get fifty pence for it in a bloody tent at the village fete.’

‘Well,’ Grayle said carefully, ‘that’s, uh … that’s one argument.’

‘’Stead of which, Grayle, she’s mugging the aristocracy for five K a time, and they all thinks she’s somethin’ special on account of her ole man’s loaded and got a title and a big bloody house. You wanner see her strutting round Stroud in her fancy clothes, nose in the bloody air. Nothin’ snottier on this earth than a coloured girl that reckons she’s a cut above. You know what her mother was, don’t you?’

‘A nurse,’ Grayle said tightly, ‘as I understand it.’

‘Oh, that’s what they calls ’em now, is it? You’re a reporter, why’n’t you expose her for a cheat and a phoney?’

‘Well, I, uh … my job is … Are you sure this is the right road to Mysleton?’

‘It’s the picturesque route.’ Justin laughed, like his display of self-righteous, racist rage had blown down a barrier between them. He looked more relaxed. Not a good development, in Grayle’s view.

‘Um, Justin, in light of the time I already lost, I think I would prefer to take a chance on the shabby route … like through the factory estates and stuff?’

‘There aren’t any fac-’ He turned to her. ‘You’re bloody having me on, Grayle!’

And what he did next … she could not believe this … he reached over and rubbed her goddamned thigh, pushing up the hem of her skirt, like they were long-time lovers sharing an intimate joke.

‘Jes-’

By the time she unfroze enough to grab his hand, he’d already pulled it casually back. The truck speeded up, going insanely fast for a road this narrow and twisting.

‘This is my famous Cotswold Tour, Grayle. You want the commentary?’

‘Look-’

If anything came around the bend now they’d be dogmeat.

‘Relax, my sweet. Listen, if we don’t get that ole exhaust sorted, you’ll be looking for a hotel, right? I can probably help you there.’

‘But it’s gonna be …’ Grayle bounced off of the door as the truck took a tight bend on two wheels ‘… fixed, isn’t it?’

‘Friend of mine does accommodation.’

‘Huh?’

The bastard actually thought he was going to fix her up with a room in some sleazy flophouse? She had to get out of here. She pushed herself up against the door, as more hedgerow reared up in the windshield.

Her mobile bleeped in the purse on the seat, between her and Justin.

‘Excuse me …’ Diving into the purse, scrabbling for the phone, fumbling for the green button. ‘Hello?’

‘… erhill?’ Marcus? His voice was breaking up badly. ‘Underhill, I’ve …’

‘It’s my …’

My boss, she was about to say. She bit that off and jammed the phone hard to her left ear so that Justin couldn’t hear the voice the other end. He’d slowed down and was watching her intently.

‘Oh!’ she cried. ‘Ms Callard! Yeah, I’m just on my way. I had a problem. My car broke down. No … really … nothing too serious, and I got lucky — I’ve been given a ride by a very … a very kind gentleman called … called Justin. Runs a small garage? In a village about three miles out of Stroud? Justin. Yeah. You know him? Gave me a ride in his … his … white … Toyota … truck.’

Justin slowed to a crawl, and she thought for a moment he was going to snatch the phone.

‘… UCKING SCOTCH!’ Marcus roared.

‘So I should see you in about … Oh, I should guess ten minutes? That would be terrific. Bye … bye, Ms Callard.’

Marcus had broken up into unintelligible crackle. Grayle pressed the end button. Trying hard to keep her breathing steady as she dropped the phone in her purse.

Justin’s eyes were back on the road.

‘Ten minutes, would that be about right, Justin?’

‘’Bout that,’ Justin said sullenly.

‘Good,’ Grayle said, breathless. ‘Terrific.’

Justin’s face looked dark with suppressed rage.