Loe raamatut: «What’s Behind You»

“I’ve never really experienced anything genuinely spooky or supernatural,” Pendleton said. “With one exception.”

The rest of us were all ears.

Pendleton was a dominant figure at the far end of the dining table. He was a tall, lean man with longish white hair, bright eyes, a sharp patrician nose and a square jaw. His blue velvet smoking jacket, frilled shirt and ruffled neck-cloth, far from making him look a dandy or eccentric, gave him an almost regal bearing. His clipped, resonant voice – despite his North Country background, he spoke perfect ‘BBC English’ – was entirely in keeping with his current role as Slade Professor of Fine Art at University College.

The wives in our small social group were particularly fascinated by him. He was the only one of us who was single, though he’d been married at least twice in the past. He drove a classic Daimler and lived in a large detached villa on the outskirts of Gerrards Cross, furnished with the utmost taste and style.

“Do tell us, Roy,” Kirsty insisted, batting her spider-leg lashes at him. It was Halloween, and, with the exception of Pendleton, who always attended every function just as he was now, we’d dressed for dinner in accordance with the season. Kirsty was in ‘Goth’ persona: a high Pompadour wig dyed black, black eyeliner, black lipstick and a wraparound black silk dress. Her husband, Kevin, was more grotesquely clad in the bloodstained scrubs of a demented surgeon (somewhat disturbing, given that he was a surgeon by trade). I had come as Dracula in a black evening suit, a red-lined cape and white face make-up that was drying and cracking as the evening wore on. My actress wife, Liz, was decked as a sexy witch (I still can’t work out when it was that Halloween witch-wear moved from stick-on warts and crooked carrot-noses to thigh-boots, fishnet stockings and exposed décolletage). It was a similar story for the other two couples present: thoughtful combinations of horror chic and middle-age sensuality. Of course, despite the time we’d taken attiring ourselves, as the evening had worn on much splendid food had gone down, good wine had flowed and we’d all become a little sated. Rounding things off by nibbling cheese, sipping cognac and airing a few ghost stories had seemed an excellent if somewhat traditional notion, though up until now Pendleton hadn’t participated.

“Please do, Roy,” Kirsty beseeched him, placing a hand complete with long, black-lacquered fingernails on his arm. She wasn’t flirting as such. Kirsty was a famous party-giver in our Buckinghamshire village, and treated all her guests with great attentiveness. “If this is something that’s really happened, I’m sure we’d all be interested to hear it.”

“Well …” Pendleton shifted position in his chair. “I need you all to understand that I can’t explain this event. It’s just something that happened. It may have a rational explanation, but if so, I never discovered one. It concerns Sir James Ravenstock.”

“The famous Welsh painter?” I said.

“The very same,” Pendleton replied. He didn’t seem surprised that I knew of the man, but then I was a lecturer in social and economic history. Deciding that his audience was sufficiently rapt, Pendleton leaned forward, hands on the table, his long, slender fingers laced together. “Sir James was a close acquaintance of mine for several years, and is integral to this tale. Allow me to elaborate …”

*

It was back in 1960. I was just seventeen years old, and on the Fine Arts course at the Wigan Art School, in Lancashire. It was a very well thought-of establishment even in that rather depressed and industrialised part of England. Over the years we’d had some fairly illustrious names on the teaching staff – Lowry, Isherwood, Major. But the one in charge when I was a student there was Sir James Ravenstock.

It amazes me now, but at the time so many people took his presence on the faculty for granted, and yet he was a hugely successful artist, who had already produced an extensive and exquisite body of work. To this day, fifteen of his paintings are in the permanent collection at the Tate. He’d only come north because he found the industrial landscapes an inspiration, much as he had done during his youth in his native South Wales. He was an excellent tutor, not just a good communicator but very thoughtful of his students. He was also a little set in his ways. He lived in a rural bungalow at the end of a rutted farm track, which you’d have been lucky to get a car along. This didn’t trouble him as he didn’t drive. He preferred to cycle everywhere, though this was less to do with physical fitness and more to do with his being a technophobe. He had no television or radio, though back in 1960 that wouldn’t have been quite as startling as it would now.

His wife was significantly younger than he was, fair-haired and very pretty. Her name was Prunella. I understood that he’d first met her when she was modelling for him. We often used to nudge each other and express hope that she might someday come in and pose for us, but no such luck I’m afraid. Anyway, it was the end of the summer term that year, and at his own expense, Sir James had arranged for our class – seven of us in total – to travel down to the Gower Peninsula in South Wales, room in a comfortable boarding house at Rhossili Bay and take advantage of the wonderful summer light they get in that part of the world. Cornwall is very popular with painters because it boasts this incredible natural light, not to mention its epic seascapes and stunning coastal scenery. But the Gower boasts similar if not better, and is far less expensive.

Of course, back in those days South Wales was a long way from Lancashire. To get there we had to catch a train to Manchester, change at Cardiff, change to a bus at Swansea, by which time an entire day would have passed, and even then it was another hour’s journey to Rhossili. As I recall, on the morning in question we were all required to meet at Wigan Wallgate Station at some ungodly hour like six o’clock. Sir James had the furthest to travel to reach the railway station – he lived far out of town, and wasn’t even close to a bus route. So I volunteered to assist. I was still living with my parents, and my father was a colliery deputy. He used to work what we in the north called ‘the back-shift’, which meant that he finished around five o’clock in the morning. As such, it wasn’t too inconvenient for him to give me a lift to the station at that early hour, and he agreed that en route we would divert out of town and collect Sir James from his house.

It was a glorious July morning, the sun already high and the birds twittering. But it was quite a surprise when we arrived at Sir James’s bungalow, and found the front door closed and no sign of activity. I’d never been there before, and if I’m honest, the whole place was a little bit rundown. Sir James was not a bohemian type; he was quite dapper in public, so I was taken aback to see an untidy and overgrown front garden, with elms and sycamores clumped tightly around the house, their branches literally lying across its roof. My father was more concerned about the state of his undercarriage after negotiating the tricky country lane; he now wondered gruffly why “the old dear” wasn’t ready and waiting. He had no natural liking for the educational course I was pursuing, though thank God he never objected sufficiently to stop it. We waited, the Morris Minor chugging away, and still there was no sign of Sir James. It was very perplexing. My packed rucksack was stowed in the boot, along with my easel, my canvases, my brushes and boxes of paints. At the very least, I’d been expecting Sir James to be waiting at the front of his house with similar accoutrements. At length, my father advised that I’d better go and “wake him up”.