Deadlight-Hall(2)

He let himself into his own rooms, and sat down to read the advertisement for Deadlight Hall’s new apartments again. There was a photograph of the Hall, which appeared to have been taken either at midnight or in the middle of a thunderstorm, and which made the old house look more like a gothic ghost setting than any house had a right to look. Leo read the description of the proposed flats again, and the comments from the builder, one Jack Hurst, whose firm were doing the work.

‘Unusual old place,’ Hurst had said. ‘But we’re hoping to retain the character of it – although we’re having to rip out some of the original features and fittings, of course.’

The original features and fittings … Such as what lay behind the iron door deep in the basement …? Leo frowned, and threw the cutting into the bin. Too many memories, and most of them so dark.

Or were the memories what nowadays were called false memories – memories that seemed real, but that had never happened? But some of the memories are real, he thought.

During all the years when Deadlight Hall had been empty and derelict and more or less forgotten, he had been able to keep the memories – real, imaginary or simply just exaggerated – banked down; to enjoy his modest, rather quiet life at Oxford. Then, a few months ago, had come this advertisement about the Hall’s renovations. At first, Leo had wondered if he could go along to the house, even present himself as a potential buyer. Would that lay the ghosts and the memories once and for all? But immediately the fear had come scudding in. To go back there, to enter that place again …

Had the builders working there – Jack Hurst and his workmen – sensed anything wrong about the house? Would Michael Flint? Or would Dr Flint return to say he had not heard or seen anything in the least peculiar, and remark what a splendid job the builders were making of the renovations?

Leo got up, opened the locked cupboard on one side of the fireplace of his study, and sat for a long time looking at what lay inside it. The trouble with old possessions was that memories clung to them, and those memories were not always good or happy. Could he discard this particular memory after so many years? Sophie was part of the memory, of course, but he did not need physical possessions to remember Sophie.

He snapped the box shut, replaced it in the cupboard, and with decision reached for the phone to dial Michael Flint’s number.

‘Professor Rosendale phoned after the meeting to say he’s decided to sell what he calls an old memory,’ said Michael to Nell West, later that evening over supper in the little house behind her Quire Court shop. ‘He wondered if you might be interested in helping with the sale of it, so I said I’d ask. I have no idea what it is, this memory.’

‘Does he need the money? I thought professors were quite well paid.’

‘He just said he was shaking off the past. I don’t know if that’s true or if he needs the money. I don’t know him very well, but I think he’s rather unworldly.’

‘What is he? I mean, what’s his subject?’

‘Philosophy and Theology. The Joint School thereof. He’s supposed to be brilliant when it comes to all those philosophy questions – logic and perception and free will and all the rest. He’s Czechoslovakian or Polish, I’m not sure which, and he’s been at Oriel since anyone can remember.’

‘I suppose he came here after the war?’ Nell spooned chilli con carne on to the plates, and accepted the glass of wine Michael had poured.

‘No idea. He’s well into his seventies, I should think, but he never talks about his childhood or his family. Actually, he doesn’t seem to have any family. If he comes into the shop, you’ll do what you can for him, won’t you?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘He’s a nice old boy,’ said Michael, rather absently.

Nell looked at him. ‘There’s something worrying you, though. Is it to do with Professor Rosendale and the old memory? Or is the chilli too hot?’

‘The chilli’s fine.’

Nell was usually hesitant to press Michael – he was unfailingly courteous, but he had a way of occasionally putting up a barrier which it was difficult to penetrate. But she said, ‘Are you worried by the prospect of grappling with an eerie old house? Yet again.’

‘Since I met you,’ said Michael, ‘I think I’ve encountered more eerie old houses than Wilberforce has caught mice.’

The barrier appeared to have come down slightly. Nell said, ‘How will you get in?’