Mark of the Beast. Brian Ball
that he had fallen asleep. There was no sign that the terrible apparition had affected anyone else. Small groups of women chatted to one another. Someone had turned on the lights, and the hall no longer had the tomb-like atmosphere of so short a time before
But what about Mrs. Worrall? Alan nervously scrambled to his feet, and took a few steps towards the knot of women about the medium. Surely she at least must show some evidence of the thing that had used her as a channel from God knew what other world? Even as he caught sight of Mrs. Worrall’s kindly smiling face. Alan started to explain everything away.
She was grey-brown rather than the muddy coffee colour she had been; yet her white smile was firmly in place. Her lips were slightly ragged in two places, yet she appeared to suffer no distress on that account. There was no blood. And she was listening to the admiring congratulations of her small circle of devotees with every sign of enjoyment
Alan remembered the grunting, the half-formed sounds of incantation that might have been the language of a savage. A dream? It had to be a dream. Janice was looking at him with less distaste now. He shook his head.
“I’m sorry, Janice,” he said again. “It sounds crazy, but I’ve had some kind of hallucination. I suppose the atmosphere and everything did it—I thought Mrs. Worrall had a sort of fit, and that we all saw a sort of—”
“Sort of what, Mr. Charnock,” asked Linda Pierce.
“Well, I thought I saw a bloody ghost!”
“We don’t talk about such things!” Linda Pierce told him frostily. “The dear departed are not to be mixed up with that sort of talk!”
It was with a sense of relief that Alan Charnock heard his wife apologizing to the nearest of the Spiritualists. She was invited to return on another occasion, but the offer pointedly excluded him; he felt wretched, humiliated and yet troubled. A small remnant of masculine pride made him insist on driving to a pub on the outskirts of the small town.
“Where do you think you’re going, Alan?” asked Janice.
“I felt like a drink.”
“You don’t drink.”
“I feel like one now—I feel a bit shattered.”
“You’ll feel worse in the morning.”
“Jan, I just want one drink, that’s all! I didn’t feel too well at the séance.”
Alan saw his wife’s pale face set in harsh lines, so that it was in a state of some melancholy that he escorted Janice into the Lounge Bar of the ‘Coach and Horses’.
“A large brandy,” he told the landlord. “And a sweet sherry for my wife.”
CHAPTER FOUR
JANICE Charnock felt drowsy. She was annoyed with her husband, but not as much as he thought. The evening had excited her, though she would not admit as much to Alan. It didn’t do to let men know what you thought. They knew too much already.
She cast her mind back to the events of the séance.
Linda Pierce had promised a strange kind of communication—it seemed somehow thrilling and stimulating to hold a conversation with a person who had died. Charlie Pierce. He had been in his grave for years; and yet Linda believed that she could talk to him as if he was a customer in the shop. Alan was not impressed, of course.
His scorn at the questions of that old fool who had wanted to have his dog bark back at him was only too apparent. If she hadn’t felt so excited—so odd—Janice could have laughed. Alan wouldn’t have liked that. But there had been the other feeling.
Janice clenched her hands secretly into her thighs. She was sure that the skin on her palms was broken. It was a frightening experience, that sudden jolt of burning and yet soothing force that had flowed through and through her. She didn’t want to feel it again. Once was enough.
She cleared her throat. Alan was annoyed with her. He had finished one brandy—a double—and if she didn’t conciliate him a little he would drink more. She said:
“Alan, what on earth’s bothering you? You’re morbid tonight. Let’s go. I’m tired.” To reinforce her point, she added: “I’ve got a headache.”
“You can have an aspirin when we get back.”
Alan Charnock’s confusion of mind had resolved itself to some extent. He knew he would be sick in the morning. It didn’t seem to matter. A duodenal ulcer, the doctor had said. Don’t drink, don’t smoke, bed early, avoid excitement, take exercise in moderation and drink plenty of milk. All this Alan had done for a year, and yet the ulcer rode in his guts. It was time to counter-attack.
Tonight, he would get drunk.
He smiled at the landlord, a large and uncouth man who did not notice his attempt at friendliness. An old drunk with a broad red face stared at the rows of bottles. Alan asked for brandy.
“And a sherry?” asked the landlord.
“No. She’s had enough.”
The landlord nodded uninterestedly. The drunk fumbled with his whisky glass. Alan raised his own glass as the man gulped down the whisky. He felt almost light-headed. Memories tumbled through his brain, unpleasant memories, leftovers from the strange hallucinatory experience in the dingy hall. He blotted them out. The pub was warm and comfortable.
Alan watched as the man pursued an erratic course amongst the tables. He would pass near Janice. And Alan knew the man would stumble even as he did so. Janice was sipping her sherry as he pitched against her. It was a complete accident—he tried to grasp a chair-back, missed, and knocked Janice’s glass out of her hand. Janice did not say a thing.
Janice’s hand was still outstretched, so that they formed a tableau, she with golden wine soaking into the flowers of the dress; the drunk mumbling stupidly as he got to his feet.
“I’m sorry—” the drunk began to apologize. He stared at her hand.
He would have said more, but Janice’s cold smile stopped him. He looked into her face and shuddered. Then he turned away. She watched him as he stumbled out of the Lounge Bar.
It was the second time that Alan had experienced fear that evening.
Once during that odd dream or hallucination or whatever it was—and this was the second time. It was Janice’s look of icy, implacable hostility that frightened him now. The landlord followed him to the table.
“Sorry about that, sir,” said the landlord. “Can we get you a cloth or something, Missus?” he asked Janice
“It’s quite all right.”
“Get the lady another drink, shall I?”
“No,” said Janice. “I’ve had enough.”
“He was drunk,” said Alan. “It was just bad luck. I’m sorry I brought you.” He reached for her hand and saw the red mark on the palm. “Have you hurt yourself, Jan?”
She took her hand away, but not before he had seen the bright red mark. “It’s nothing. A rash. I must be allergic to something.”
Ideas tumbled through Alan’s mind. The right hand, the hand that had held his left: it was marked, clearly marked, with an imprint that was as red as the berries of belladonna.
“You have hurt it, Jan. Let me see.”
Janice stood up. “No, Alan. I want to go home. It’s nothing. A rash. Something I’ve eaten. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does!”
Janice’s whole attitude changed. The challenge and the harshness went out of her face as if someone had erased it—wiped it clean and left it open and smiling.
“See, love, it’s only a bit of a rash. I think it might be eating strawberries. We had some in the shop today.”
The