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  Becky listened with a thoughtful expression on her face, not looking at us, not interrupting at all.

  ‘So you see,’ Tara concluded, ‘we reckon some nasty vibe is hanging around that table and it’s kind of infecting you.’

  ‘Causing delusions...’ Becky whispered and then more urgently. ‘Could that happen? Delusions? Even hallucinations and things?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Tara said, backing off an inch, clearly surprised by Becky’s seemingly ready acceptance of our theory. ‘I suppose it could. What you’ve been experiencing recently haven’t been your feelings but Celia Rutticker’s... probably.’

  Becky sighed deeply. ‘Oh, of course, of course,’ she said, and the relief in her voice was heart-wrenching. ‘I didn’t think for one moment that it might be me!’ She looked at us desperately. ‘And now I know, the... feelings will stop?’

  Tara glanced at me. ‘I should think so,’ she said. ‘But anyway, we’re here across the hall. We’ll help you.’

  Becky set her face in a determined expression. ‘I think I should get rid of the table,’ she said. ‘It might seem like cowardice, but I don’t care. It’s going, whether we need one or not.’

  ‘Hey, you can have the one Mrs. C. gave us,’ I said, not daring to look at Tara in case she disagreed. ‘We didn’t really need another one. Everything’s fine.’

  Becky sighed again. ‘I did such a lot of work on it,’ she said. ‘And this is how it repays me. With tricks, with lies. I hate it. I want to burn it.’

  ‘Then let’s do it. Probably do you good.’

  Becky nodded. ‘I have to apologise to Al,’ she said.

  Tara went upstairs to fetch the men. It all seemed like a happy ending. I thought I’d go over to Becky’s and clean up. She was perfectly OK now. She’d been given answers. In the flat, I dumped papers, Becky’s sewing and a few mugs off the table and left them on the floor. The table gleamed beautifully; its surface almost like a mirror. What a shame, I thought. All that work. What a shame. Becky must have gone a little wild before she burst out onto the landing. The place was pretty well messed up, things thrown around, so I started tidying. On the fleece rug by the hearth I found Al’s little strongbox, the one he kept his birth certificate, kiddy photos and exam results in. Becky must have broken it open. The rug was strewn with the black flakes of burned photographs.

  Almost like a religious ritual, the table was ceremoniously carried downstairs and into the back yard. Muffled in scarves and gloves, we beat the thing to bits and then set fire to its hacked-up body.

  Becky and Al stood close together, but with a definite barrier between them. Becky stared into the flames and her eyes were saying, ‘Burn you bastard, burn!’

  I was feeling strangely annoyed with Dominic and reacted badly when he came over and whispered, ‘Why the hell are you doing this?’ in my ear.

  ‘It’s symbolic, that’s all!’ I hissed, not prepared to explain further. Obviously, nobody else had told him.

  By ten o’clock it was all over, just a mess of smouldering charcoal, and we went upstairs to hit the vodka.

  God, how naive we were! What wonderland did we inhabit where ghostly emotions could live on in a piece of furniture? Some wonderland, surely, for we just accepted that it could happen. In stories, in our story, the haunted table can be burned, burned and destroyed. A tidy ending. What we’d forgotten was that lives were involved; those complex things, beyond straight lines or analysis.. And lives are real.

  The house was on tenterhooks for a few days, testing the water, sniffing around, but nothing happened. Quiet prevailed in the flat across the hall and all we heard at night was the whir of Becky’s sewing machine. Al still spent a lot of time upstairs, though. Whenever Tara or I called in to see Simon or Dom, Al was there with them, either curled over a chess board or else tapping his feet, listening to examples of Simon’s infinite collection of cacophonous jazz records. It was true he always looked more relaxed away from Becky, hanging bonelessly over Simon and Dom’s furniture and flashing his wonderful, dark eyes far more than he usually dared to. We half suspected he hadn’t noticed that much going on.

  Dominic, in fact, began to spend more time down at our place (perhaps he didn’t like the jazz either), offering to help out with our orders, which both Tara and I appreciated. He was no artist, but at least he could keep our coffee mugs topped up and offer encouraging remarks. One night he told me I looked nice which pleased me immensely. I revised all the suspicions I’d had about him being gay, and wondered whether he was just shy.

  A couple of nights a week, Simon would come down too and the four of us would get drunk and set the world to rights until 2 a.m. Sometimes Becky and Al would join us and we’d all stroll off to see a movie or go to a nightclub. Becky certainly seemed like her old self, but perhaps it was only me who saw the real ghost, the real phantom; Becky’s smile, Becky’s laugh. I realised she hadn’t forgotten whatever illusions the table had shown her but, because I truly wanted it to be over, I didn’t even talk about this with Tara. I just watched and, God help me, I know I waited.

  One afternoon, I was in by myself toying with an idea for a new line of dinner plates and Becky came over for a chat. It was a weekend, and Tara had gone shopping with the upstairs boys. We’d planned to spend the evening in with liquor and a couple of new videos. Becky prowled round our front room until I told her she was making me dizzy and to sit down. She perched on the edge of the sofa and pushed back her hair. God, she’d lost so much weight, to the point where it was past becoming. ‘Want a sandwich?’ I asked.

  She said, ‘OK,’ in a tired voice and followed me into the kitchen, leaning on the sink, looking like a schoolgirl. I cut cheese and slapped margarine around, uncomfortable and edgy. Becky never used to be such a looming presence

  ‘What do you think Celia Rutticker used to worry about?’ she blurted out.

  I looked up and saw she was blushing furiously.

  ‘No, Becky,’ I said, ‘don’t.’ But it was for my benefit, not hers.

  ‘Tell me. You asked Mrs. Cryer. You know all about it, so tell me.’

  I blathered on, repeating Tara’s theories about social rejection, inadequacy, self-blame, etc. etc.

  ‘So you don’t think it was to do with… a boyfriend, or anything?’

  I furiously cut bread. ‘How the hell can we know that, Beck? Most of it is guesses. How can we know what Celia used to think about?’

  She shrugged. ‘Just wondered. Whether Mrs. C. said anything about that or not. Do you think I should get in touch with Celia Rutticker?’

  ‘Good God, no!’ I cried, excruciating visions rushing before my eyes; the results of such a suggestion. ‘At best she’ll think you’re insane, at worst, dangerous and call the police. Leave it, Beck, it’s over. You must forget it.’

  ‘It’s cosy for you to think that, isn’t it,’ Becky said quietly. She took the plate of sandwiches from my hand and went into the living room again.

  I took the slap in the face and thought about it for a few seconds. She was right. I went after her.

  ‘You’re still bothered then?’

  She nodded. ‘I am. It seemed so convenient to blame it all on what you said. I’m still not right, Jo. I’m scared.’

  ‘So what’s wrong?’ I sat down next to her. She was nibbling on a sandwich.

  ‘I get these crazy ideas, really crazy. Sick too. I’m not sure what’s me anymore. If I’m going mad or not.’

  ‘What ideas?’

  She looked at me gravely and shook her head. ‘No, I can’t tell you that, Jo. I really can’t. Not that I don’t trust you. I just don’t want to hear them aloud, not ever.’ She took another bite. ‘I am fighting it, and I know I can be naturally paranoid over... certain things, so I am fighting it.’

  We were silent for a while.

  ‘I’ve been wondering whether I should get away for a day or so,’ she said eventually, ‘but I know I can’t do that because the fears, the sickness will just feed on that, mak
ing it worse when I get back. My head will be full of the things. I can’t leave, but I don’t want to stay. What can I do?’

  I put on a blank face. ‘Have you thought of seeing your doctor?’

  She gave a small, bitter laugh. ‘Weeks ago, Joanna dear. The magic pills he gave me have kept me quiet these past few weeks.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I...’ I shrugged helplessly.

  ‘I’ve been happy for years,’ she said. ‘That’s what makes me keep on thinking it’s all to do with that damn table. It has to be, otherwise...’ She shook her head.

  ‘What does Al think?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t tell him. He goes upstairs to drink beer and play board games and listen to music. I don’t want to bother him.’ She avoided my eyes. ‘I’d better go. I’m interrupting your work.’

  ‘No, no,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t want to stay,’ she replied and walked out.

  If only she’d told me what was going on in her head. She didn’t. She didn’t tell anyone until it was too late. A week later, Becky tried to commit suicide, cutting her wrists, inexpertly, on the floor of her living room while Al was upstairs with Simon. We only found her in time because Dominic was down with Tara and me, helping us with a rush order and we ran out of milk. Becky and Al always leave their door unlocked when they’re in. Perhaps she wanted someone to find her. Perhaps she’d have locked it otherwise. Tara went over to scrounge milk and we heard her yelling and rushed across the hall to a scene from a horror movie. Becky had managed to spray a hell of a lot of blood around. There were ambulances and police and noise and panic and rushing about, Al wringing his hands in the doorway, Tara blaming herself for whatever reasons and Becky saying to me in a weak voice as they patched her up before the journey to hospital, ‘There were no faces in the picture, but I knew Jo. I just knew.’

  She never came back to live in our house, never. Her mother came and I helped her pack up Becky’s things.

  ‘It’s best if she came home for a while,’ Mrs. Olson said.

  Post script. About a month later, Simon moved out of the upstairs flat and in with Al. We guessed Al needed the company; he’d gone white and withdrawn, understandably. After a lot of self-denial and flirting disguised as sparring, Dominic and I realised we’d fallen in love with each other somewhere along the way.

  All that time I’d been thinking he didn’t fancy me and he thought I wasn’t the kind of girl who wanted proper commitment in a relationship. We’d both been wrong. I also decided that he was far more beautiful than Simon, and one night told him so. He laughed ruefully. ‘Simon sends people up, you know. He’s not that bad a person.’

  I shrugged and rolled onto the other side of the bed, wondering at the same time, why those words made me feel edgy. ‘I don’t like him,’ I said, relishing being able to say that out loud at last.

  ‘I know. You hide it well, though. That’s a talent you both have.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I did not like being compared with Simon.

  ‘Hiding what you feel. Simon comes on like a hard-hearted bastard. It’s a defence mechanism.’

  ‘You don’t have to defend your friend to me!’ I said, angrily.

  Dominic sneered and laughed and grossly misinterpreted my words, which as usual, I’d uttered in all innocence. ‘Oh, I see! You thought...’ He laughed again. ‘Is that why you hate him so much? I suppose I’m flattered. Shows you care. I like possessiveness in my lovers.’ He sidled up and nuzzled me, while my brain did a few somersaults.

  ‘Hold on, dear,’ I said, fending him off. ‘Can you just elaborate a bit on that, please?’

  ‘Simon and I have never been lovers,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  I spluttered a little.

  ‘Does it make you feel better to hear that? Will you stop hating him now? Of course, you must still feel bad about your friend, but... well, I heard all the other side of it, I suppose. I know it’s hard, but try to understand. He did try to talk with her about it, you know, but it was so difficult, she was so... well, straight, I guess.’

  I sat up in bed. ‘Dom, what are you telling me?’

  There was a huge silence. He lay there, looking up at me, his mouth half open. ‘You don’t mean... Christ, Jo, don’t tell me you don’t know!’ He slapped his head. ‘Jesus! What have I said?’

  Well, naturally, I made him tell me the rest. He said that Al and Simon had been having an affair from virtually right when the boys had moved in upstairs. The biggest jigsaw piece ever. I felt giddy when I heard that, not just because it was such a shock to discover that Al had gay proclivities never suspected before, but because it made me realise that us, with our stupid table theories, had probably fucked up Becky’s life, if not forever, then for a long time to come.

  Everything became all too clear; the suspicions Becky must have had, the change in behaviour, paranoid prowling of the stairs, feelings of inadequacy. She’d known, of course she’d known, but hadn’t wanted to accept such a horrifying truth. She and Al had been together for nine years, for God’s sake! And we, little know-all occult sleuths, we’d taught her not to trust her instincts. We’d let her lie to herself, encouraged her to, until the overwhelming wave of evidence against her safety must have swamped her.

  Why the hell hadn’t one of us had the sense to see what was going on? The start of Becky’s trouble coincided not just with acquiring the table but when Simon had arrived too. Simon the seducer. It was obvious now the way he’d taken Al over, getting him upstairs away from Becky who was quietly going mad beneath them. But we’d ignored the signs; too fond of the mysterious, I suppose. We’d just made it easier for them. If possession exists, it’s surely a human manipulation.

  ‘If you’d told me about your crackpot theories, I could have enlightened you!’ Dominic said in a bristly way. ‘I just thought you knew. I thought Becky would have confided in you...’

  ‘I think she tried to,’ I said, ‘and we kept insisting it was the table! God, were we fools!’

  ‘It’s not your fault, Jo.’ Dominic soothed. ‘Like I said, Simon’s good at hiding things.’

  ‘And you did pretty well too,’ I said coldly.

  ‘I never gossip about him. We’ve been friends for years. I’m sorry. What else can I say?’

  Well, he said plenty, and I forgave him eventually, but it still made me feel sick about the way dear Simon must have watched Becky disintegrate. If he’d been decent, he’d have confided in Tara or something. He’d had the perfect opportunity that night we’d called him down to tell him our suspicions. How he must have laughed at us. I’m not as generous as Dominic. I think there’s a pretty hard heart beating in Simon’s beautifully tanned chest, whatever my lover thinks.

  Tara and I don’t have much to do with Simon and Al now. In her most generous, philosophical moments, Tara says this is because we feel piqued because we weren’t in on what was going on. Perhaps she’s right. Neither she nor I ever really liked Becky that much. I wonder. Are we all cold, cruel creatures under the skin? One thing still had me foxed though, and that was how Simon had managed to seduce Al of all people. That is, until...

  Yesterday, I met Capt. Lonsdale in the street. For whatever reason, maybe because the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day, or I was just in a good mood, I stopped to listen to him. An idea struck me. ‘Tell me about Lamp House,’ I said. ‘Our landlady thinks you knew the people who lived there after the Rutticker family left.’

  He chewed his beard and rolled his eyes a bit. ‘Knew, young lady? Hardly.’ He leaned forward. ‘Knew of, of course.’ A roguish wink. ‘But knew, never!’

  ‘Really?’ I prompted. ‘Why?’

  He lowered his voice to a confidential level and came so close I could smell the whisky he’d had for breakfast. ‘Queers, you know,’ he said. ‘That Rutticker boy. He stayed on at the house after his people went to the country. Had some kid living there with him. Perverts! The police got ‘em! Bloody good job too! Locked ‘em up good and fast, but there was a he
ll of a mess.’ He grabbed my arm, which had frozen, despite the warm weather. ‘Young lad tried to kill himself, you know. Cut his wrists or something. Rutticker was done for it. It’s like attempted murder when you think about it, isn’t it?’

  Tara and I are amateur researchers of the supernatural. I don’t think we’ll bother again.

  The Vitreous Suzerain

  The days were entirely disorientating to the new Suzerain of Leeleefam. They were of a new length to him, of course and he suspected that length was bizarrely variable. They told him he had been in residence in the squat palace for three weeks now, yet it seemed like months.

  ‘Guldron, this planet makes me dizzy,’ he would say to his withdrawn, long-fingered principal aide. Guldron was not a native either, but Claude envied her adaptability. Perhaps it signified only a lack of imagination.

  Suzerain Claude Enquito also craved company. Back in the governmental office on Abbey Five, he had enjoyed his work; the social life being perhaps more fulfilling than his job, but here on Sheller’s Brake in the province of Leeleefam, he felt alone, surrounded by people who would obey his every word but whom he could never call friends. It was almost as if this new position, which in financial terms was certainly a promotion, was really some kind of punishment for misdemeanour - a banishment. He’d often thought about this, wondering whether he’d unwittingly offended some high-ranking person on Abbey Five, but could think of nothing. He’d always been a popular man and it had been for this reason he’d been offered the suzerainship of Leeleefam, or so his superiors had told him. There had been warnings of course. Working on a world where there was a subdued native culture was never a straightforward operation.

  Leeleefam had been a nonchalant host to humankind for about three years now. Sheller’s Brake was a planet rich in ores and Seven Worlds Enterprises had lost no time in staking a claim there when it had first been discovered; a moon-ringed radiant ball hanging at the edge of Wineburst Star’s planetary system. Whatever lofty notions humankind had started out with when it had acquired enough knowledge to traverse the infinity of space, had degenerated locally into the usual commercial power struggles. Naturally, ‘locally’ now meant something rather greater than the distance comfortably travelled in an hour or so; it referred somewhat carelessly to entire solar systems and star clusters. Gulfs of culture wider than anyone from the past could ever imagine had divided the human race into a multitude of diverse races; each seemed to adapt psychologically to the environment it found itself in. Great empires had never been realised; the universe was too vast for that. Claude Enquito belonged to a society of assorted ethnic origins that had control of a handful of planets. They were industrialists not tyrants. The fact that Sheller’s Brake had indigenous life of its own had not been regarded as a cue for conquest but merely as an inconvenience. It necessitated being very careful; civilised humans went to great pains not to interfere with or upset native cultures less advanced than their own. It did not prevent, however, the use of local labour for less than princely salaries.