The Feast of All Souls Read online

  Alice halted by the pond, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet. What kind of New Agey bollocks was that? It was the kind of thing John would have come out with. The thought of him made her break into a run again.

  She’d been doing that a lot since the break-up. Partly that was down to the weight she’d gained in those last horrible months with John, as she’d watched herself say and do things she hadn’t wanted to but had been unable to stop herself from doing. Had it been the same for him? Whatever. She’d put on nearly three stone courtesy of chocolate, pizza and Chinese takeaways: the running helped burn it off. And it let her think she could outrace the pain of the loss. She couldn’t, of course, but lately it had started to feel as though she was starting to widen the gap between her and the grief. It was weakening. One day it would be gone.

  And on a day like this, when you could feel Spring coming, smell its freshness in the air – how could you not feel hope?

  She jogged back home, ran upstairs and showered.

  Her mood dimmed a little as she dressed in her bedroom. There were still posters of the indie bands she’d liked before heading off to college: James, the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Carter USM. That all seemed long ago and far away now. Another world and a different girl, a child who’d known nothing. She wasn’t that girl any more, but her parents didn’t know how to deal with her as anyone else.

  She went downstairs. Mum was washing up. “Morning, love.”

  “Morning, Mum.” They didn’t say anything else. Her parents had tried to close the gap she’d left when she’d moved out as best they could. Their chick had flown the nest and they’d assumed she wouldn’t return. Now that gap was too pinched and narrowed to fit her. Meanwhile, she worked in a shop in Manchester – she’d been teaching at a FE college, same as John, but they hadn’t renewed her contract – paid some rent and saved the rest, building up a nest egg in between shuttling hither and yon in search of work.

  The letter box clacked and rattled; she heard objects falling on the doormat. From the front room came the thwack of Dad flinging the Saturday paper down and bounding to the hall; he was still like a big kid when it came to the post, always hoping there’d be something exciting for him.

  “Post!” he called, and walked into the breakfast room. “Morning, love.” He bent and kissed Alice’s hair, then put an arm round Mum’s waist, squeezing. Alice winced; her parents had got a lot more touchy-feely with one another since she’d left home, and on more than one night she’d heard the squeak of bedsprings and other sounds from their room.

  “Couple for you here.” Dad dropped two envelopes beside her. The first had John’s handwriting; the other was unfamiliar, but had a Hastings postmark. She didn’t know why that seemed familiar, not then.

  “Thanks, Dad.” She finished her toast in silence, glancing occasionally at the letters. She wasn’t reading them here; she never did. She had no idea if Mum or Dad recognised John’s handwriting too, but the less they knew, the better. As for the other – could it have been David, he of that brief, on-the-rebound, affair? After they’d broken up, he’d moved away. Had that been down south? She really couldn’t remember now. Either way, she’d feel more comfortable opening the letter in private.

  She finished her toast and went upstairs. In her room she shut the door, sat crosslegged on the bed and held the first envelope by the corners each clasped between finger and thumb. For a moment she toyed with the flap of the envelope, but in the end she left it unopened, pulled the biscuit tin out from under the bed, took off the lid and put the letter inside to join the rest.

  Four months on and the letters still came, even though she’d never replied – after all, it wouldn’t be easy doing so if she never even read one. Each time one arrived she wondered if this would be the one she’d bring herself to open – and, after it, the others – but she never did. And the more the letters piled up the harder it got.

  At first it had simply been a case of thinking: No. John would want her to come back, of course he would, because this hurt, for her as well as him. But he was who he was and wanted what he wanted, and she was herself and wanted her own wants. And ne’er the twain shall meet. Besides, too much had been said, too many angry words. In ira veritas, was that the Latin for it? In anger, the truth?

  You couldn’t go back. But had there been a little injured pride, too, a little too much concern over how it might look to her parents if she undid the grand gesture and went slinking back? If she was honest, yes, that might have played a part too. Not the only one or even the biggest – even without it her decision might have been the same – but it had been there.

  So the first letter, the second – they’d been easy enough to ignore when they came. Even the third. Even if she hadn’t been quite able to destroy them then, even if she’d set them aside, meant to read the story’s ending when it was old enough to be without pain. But then had come the fourth letter, and the fifth, and she’d started to brood on what might be in them. Perhaps he wasn’t giving up – or perhaps now he had. Maybe those first letters had held open the door for her return, admitted he’d been in the wrong or at least offered some sort of compromise, only for these later letters to slam that door in her face. Fine then, Alice. It’s over. I get the message. Or: I’ve met someone else. I hope you’ll be happy.

  Other possibilities tormented her: what if one were a suicide note, or gave word of him going off to join some mad New Age cult or religious sect, something she might have prevented? When that happened she had to harden her heart and tell herself that John would have done whatever he’d done whether she’d been there or not. He still had his father, his sister. If he was so weak as to be unable to face life now, or to need the crutch of faith – especially that kind – she couldn’t possibly have saved him from it.

  The need to know, in the end, was meaningless when weighed beside the fear of what she might learn. And with each letter, the weight on that side of the scales grew and grew.

  Before she put the lid on the box, though, she still eyed the postmark on the letter. London, it said. So, he’d moved – or perhaps he’d been in London for the day, for a job interview or to visit friends or just for the hell of it. The questions each letter raised were a torment, surpassed only by the thought of what the answers might be.

  Alice clamped the lid on tight, then shoved the box back under the bed.

  That left the other letter. Hastings; what was it about Hastings? She slit the envelope and eased out the letter.

  She saw the letterhead through the paper before she unfolded it. Amberson Electronics, Hastings. She remembered now: she’d gone down there for an interview – Christ, it must have been a couple of months back now. She’d hadn’t heard anything since and had assumed she hadn’t got it. That hadn’t been a surprise; Amberson’s stock-in-trade was research and development and while they didn’t have the largest of workforces, a lot of money went into the place – into the equipment, the work they did and into the people they did hire. It was a pretty select workforce, and even applying for it, Alice hadn’t expected to get the job. She’d been thrilled just to get an interview; although she’d prepared for it as assiduously as any other she’d gone for, the best she’d thought to hope for was to get noticed, her name remembered for future reference.

  She unfolded the letter.

  Dear Miss Collier,

  Thank you for attending the job interview on Friday 8th December 2000.

  I am happy to inform you...

  Alice blinked. That wasn’t right, surely? It should be I regret. That had to be a mistake; maybe she should apply to work there as a secretary. One way to get a foot in the door.

  But:

  I am happy to inform you that we would like to offer you the position of Research and Development Assistant...

  The room spun; Alice rocked back on the bed. It couldn’t be right. But she read the letter again, and it still said the same thing. The starting date, the starting salary: they hadn’t changed either.

&nb
sp; She put her hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh, and in the same moment felt her eyes prickle with tears. It was a job, it was a new start miles away from all she’d known; it was the kind of money that would let her live well enough without scrimping, and to save up too, to make sure she never risked the poverty and uncertainty of her childhood. This one letter, it changed everything.

  In a moment she’d shout for Mum and Dad; in a moment she’d tell them the news. They’d be happy and sad, she guessed, but they’d cope. For now, though, she just sat on a bed that seemed to spin and spin and spin through space.

  THE NEXT MONTH blurred by. Amberson’s wanted Alice to start work at the beginning of April; in that time she had to find herself a home in or near Hastings. Amberson’s paid a substantial relocation bonus, which was the cherry on the top as far as Alice was concerned.

  She found a small flat in the town, put down a deposit, then returned to Manchester and began the task of packing.

  It was hard to get her parents out of the house in those last weeks – she was flying the nest, and not just to the other side of the city as before – but she managed to at last, a few days before the move. They went out, for dinner and a film. Alice padded round the house, taking stock of the silent rooms: the framed pictures on the front-room mantelpiece, the old kitchen where Dad had fed her shepherd’s pie after she broke up with Tom Passmore, the little domain Mum had ruled with a rod of iron and absolute calm certainty on Christmas Day in order to produce turkey with all the trimmings. She’d even gone into her parents’ bedroom and walked round the bed, wondering why. She knew really, of course: it was a farewell.

  After she’d done all that, she’d gone to her bedroom, taken the biscuit tin out from under the bed and gone downstairs, then unlocked the patio doors and gone outside.

  It had been cold on the patio, but fresh; that February morning had made good on its promise of spring. But the barbecue Dad had built there stood cold and unused: it wasn’t warm enough for that just yet.

  Alice lifted the lid of the metal pan, opened the biscuit tin and took out John’s letters; all of them, handful by handful. How many were there? She was tempted to count them, but didn’t. She laid them on the barbecue.

  There were two other items in the biscuit tin: a bottle of lighter fluid and a box of kitchen matches. She opened out the nozzle, squirted about half the contents onto the unopened envelopes and waited to let them soak until the reek of petrol made her head ache. Then she struck a match, let it flare, flicked it towards the barbecue and stepped back.

  A muffled whoomf and the flames shot upwards. The smell of fuel gave way to that of burning paper. There was a poker on a stand behind the barbecue; Alice picked it up, poked and thumped at the burning items. The flames roared anew, finding fresh paper to attack.

  She squirted on more lighter fluid – a spurt here, a gout there – until only char and scraps remained, on the bottom of the barbecue pan, having fallen through the grill. She poured the last of the fluid through so the remnants floated in a puddle of it, then dropped another lit match through the grill.

  At last, only ashes remained. She shut the barbecue pan, buried the empty bottle in the dustbin, took the biscuit tin inside and shut the doors.

  April 2001

  “JUST IN THERE, please.”

  “Right-o, love.” The removals man nodded to his assistant and together they picked up the sofa, huffing and puffing as they carried it through.

  “All done, I think, love,” the man said. He was in his forties – that seemed an eternity older than her, that day – with a rumpled face and salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Yup,” she nodded. “You want a brew before you go?”

  “That’d be great, wouldn’t it Sid?” The other removal man, a beefy lad around Alice’s age, nodded and grinned. She put the kettle on.

  “Nice place,” Sid said.

  “Thanks.” The flat was nice, too. She hadn’t been in so much of a hurry that she hadn’t thought to check that everything worked, that the neighbours weren’t deranged addicts or the neighbourhood itself the kind of place she wouldn’t dare venture out of at night. It was bright and clean and roomy, and it was on the third floor of a building on the outskirts of Hastings, with a bus-stop close by. When she could afford it, she’d save up for a car, but for now it would make her journeys home of an evening that little bit safer.

  “So how many of you are there gonna be?” asked Sid.

  “Just me,” Alice said. She could afford it: her starting salary was generous enough, and if she worked hard, applied herself, it could go a lot higher. There was opportunity here, and she was going to take advantage of it. She’d already set a budget to live on, covering the cost of living with something for the odd night out at the pictures, the theatre. The rest would be divided between two savings accounts; one to serve as an emergency fund, the other a high-interest one for her future needs.

  “You got friends down this way, then?” said the older man.

  “Nah.”

  “Boyfriend?” said Sid.

  “Sid! That’s not your business. Sorry, love.”

  “It’s okay. No. No boyfriend, Sid.” She made her smile bright and hard, stared him down as she added, “No girlfriend either, in case you were wondering.”

  Sid looked down, red-faced. The older man had reddened a little too, and not long after that they left, their cups of tea half-finished.

  Well, it served them right, Sid especially. Even if he had been her type, he’d have been out of luck. There’d be no boyfriends for her, and no, no girlfriends either, not for a while: no nothing, just work. In five years’ time she’d be thirty, and with any luck by then she’d have a good career and a decent nest-egg, and still be more than young enough to start a family. It wasn’t that she didn’t want one, after all; it was just that it could wait. There were priorities here.

  CREATION SWUM AROUND her in glimmering blue and white. She reached out a hand that wasn’t a hand, wasn’t anything but atoms and energy moved by her will; she’d been dissolved into the cosmos, like fine sugar in warm water, and only her mind was left.

  It could extricate her, that mind of hers: could put her back together, but only if it could keep itself in one piece, stop the demons and the memories and urges born of fury, grief and suffering from tearing it apart. If that happened, she’d vanish: just one more ghost story about 378 Collarmill Road.

  Thinking of the house threatened to pull her towards it, towards John, threatened to make her true purpose fade, and that mustn’t happen. Distraction was another enemy out here; you could so easily find yourself lost, your energy depleted, too far from home to ever find your way back.

  Already the way she had to go was falling away from her, but here was a thread to lead her back. The way forward. That was how she’d been thinking, back then. What mattered was her career and her bank account, to winch her clear of the poverty she’d grown up in, the fear of the thugs kicking down her door. Nothing else counted; nothing else would be allowed to get in the way.

  The foaming blue-white void about her hissed and seethed and shaped itself into a face that pushed towards her: the Beast’s, Old Harry’s, slobbering in its greed.

  No, that wasn’t her; it wasn’t, it wasn’t. But perhaps, at some forked point in the past, had she gone left instead of right, it might have been.

  But it hadn’t. She clung to that as she clung to the thread, and reeled herself back in towards her past.

  February 2002

  IT WAS VALENTINE’S Day that things changed, almost a year after she’d started at Amberson’s.

  The card was lying on Sally’s keyboard when Alice came in that morning. Every machine in a lab, she’d rapidly learned, had its own name. The Amberson lab had Molly the Multimeter, Ozzy the Oscilloscope and a stereomicroscope called Ethel. In addition, it had three computer terminals – one attached to Ron, the main analyser, to input commands and check results, and two others in the data entry area of the lab, used by Andrew a
nd her – dubbed, respectively, Tom, Dick and Sally.

  A plain red envelope with Alice spelt out in slightly jagged block caps. Probably written left-handed to conceal the sender’s identity. Silly custom. Alice sighed, shook her head, and almost consigned the card to the bin unopened, but on a whim she slit the envelope and took out the card.

  Be mine love...? read the message inside in the same jaggedy left-hand sprawl. Unsigned, of course. Alice tossed the card back into her in-tray and mulled.

  The lab was deserted, which wasn’t unusual: Alice was often in before everyone else, head down and working. She planned on getting ahead, and didn’t care who saw it. So the card must have been planted last night, after she’d gone home.

  That immediately narrowed the suspects down to a shortlist of one: there were only three of them in the lab, and Teddy Ratner, Amberson’s chief researcher, had already gone home before she’d left. Teddy was the motor that drove the lab work, while the two assistants – or ‘minions’, as he liked to call them – did the donkeywork.

  In any case, Teddy was not only gay – ‘camp as a row of tents’, her mother would have said – and old enough to be her father, but had been happily boyfriended for nearly twenty years. Unless a piece of lab equipment had suffered a particularly bizarre malfunction and zapped him with a ray that had turned him straight, the card was unlikely to be from him.

  Which left Andrew Villiers, a young assistant who’d joined a few months earlier: a tall, athletic-looking man about her age, maybe a year or two younger, with long brown hair tied back in a pony-tail. He liked to look the part of a rocker, although she was pretty sure he was quite posh. But ever since he’d started, he’d been trying to catch her eye, and smiling at her whenever he managed to.