Interlude for Spirits

What seest thou else in the dark backward and abysm of time?

– SHAKESPEARE, The Tempest

Interlude for Spirits

Not very long after Leslie’s court case, Margo was beset by another affliction to keep company with her acne. She suddenly started to put on weight and before long, to her horror, she was almost circular. Androuchelli, our doctor, was called in to view this mystery. He uttered a long series of distressed ‘Po, po, po’s’ as he viewed Margo’s obesity. He tried her on several pills and potions and a number of diets, to no effect.

‘He says,’ Margo confided to us tearfully at lunch one day, ‘that he thinks it’s glandular.’

‘Glandular?’ said Mother, alarmed. ‘What does he mean, glandular?’

‘I don’t know,’ wailed Margo.

‘Must we always discuss your ailments at mealtimes?’ inquired Larry.

‘Larry dear, Androuchelli says it’s glandular,’ said Mother.

‘Rubbish,’ said Larry airily. ‘It’s puppy fat.’

‘Puppy fat!’ squeaked Margo. ‘Do you know how much I weigh?’

‘What you want is more exercise,’ said Leslie. ‘Why don’t you take up sailing?’

‘Don’t think the boat’s big enough,’ said Larry.

‘Beast,’ said Margo, bursting into tears. ‘You wouldn’t say things like that if you knew how I felt.’

‘Larry dear,’ said Mother placatingly, ‘that wasn’t a very kind thing to say.’

‘Well, I can’t help it if she’s wandering around looking like a water-melon covered with spots,’ said Larry irritably. ‘One would think it was my fault the way you all go on.’

‘Something will have to be done,’ said Mother. ‘I shall see Androuchelli tomorrow.’

But Androuchelli repeated that he thought her condition might be glandular and that in his opinion Margo ought to go to London for treatment. So, after a flurry of telegrams and letters, Margo was dispatched to London and into the tender care of two of the only worth-while relatives with whom we were still on speaking terms, my mother’s cousin Prudence and her mother, Great-Aunt Fan.

Apart from a brief letter saying she had arrived safely and that she, Cousin Prue, and Aunt Fan had taken up residence at a hotel near Notting Hill Gate and that she had been put in touch with a good doctor, we heard nothing further from Margo for a considerable length of time.

‘I do wish she would write,’ Mother said.

‘Don’t fuss, Mother,’ said Larry. ‘What’s she got to write about, anyway, except to give you her new dimensions?’

‘Well, I like to know what’s going on,’ said Mother. ‘After all, she’s in London.’

‘What’s London got to do with it?’ asked Larry.

‘In a big city like that anything can happen,’ said Mother darkly. ‘You hear all sorts of things about girls in big cities.’

‘Really, Mother, you do worry unnecessarily,’ said Larry in exasperation. ‘What do you think’s happened to her, for Heaven’s sake? Do you think she’s being lured into some den of vice? They’d never get her through the door.’

‘It’s no joking matter, Larry,’ said Mother severely.

‘But you get yourself into a panic about nothing,’ said Larry. ‘I ask you, what self-respecting white slaver is going to look at Margo twice? I shouldn’t think there’s one strong enough to carry her off, anyway.’

‘Well, I’m worried,’ said Mother, ‘and I’m going to send a cable.’

So she sent a cable to Cousin Prudence, who replied at length saying that Margo was associating with people she didn’t approve of, that she thought it would be a good thing if Mother came to talk some sense into her. Immediately pandemonium reigned. Mother, distraught, dispatched Spiro to buy tickets and started packing frantically, until she suddenly remembered me. Feeling it would do more harm than good to leave me in the tender care of my two elder brothers, she decided that I should accompany her. So Spiro was dispatched to get more tickets and yet more packing was done. I regarded the whole situation as heaven-sent, for I had just acquired a new tutor, Mr Richard Kralefsky, who was endeavouring – with grim determination in the face of my opposition – to instruct me in irregular French verbs, and this trip to England, I thought, would give me a much-needed respite from this torture.

The journey by train was uneventful, except that Mother was in constant fear of being arrested by the Fascist carabinieri. This fear increased a thousand fold when, at Milan, I drew a caricature of Mussolini on the steamy window of the carriage. Mother scrubbed at it for quite ten minutes with her handkerchief, with all the dedication of a washerwoman in a contest, before she was satisfied that it was obliterated.

Coming from the calm, slow, sunlit days of Corfu, our arrival in London, late in the evening, was a shattering experience. So many people were at the station that we did not know, all hurrying to and fro, grey-faced and worried. The almost incomprehensible language that the porters spoke, and London aglitter with lights and churning with people. The taxi nosing its way through Piccadilly like a beetle through a firework display. The cold air that made your breath float like a web of smoke in front of your mouth as you talked, so that you felt like a character in a cartoon strip.

Eventually the taxi drew up outside the fake, soot-encrusted Corinthian columns of Balaklava Mansions. We got our luggage into the hotel with the aid of an elderly, bowlegged, Irish porter, but there was no one to greet us, so apparently the telegram signaling our arrival had gone astray. The young lady, we were informed by the porter, had gone to her meeting, and Miss Hughes and the old lady had gone to feed the dogs.

‘What did he say, dear?’ asked Mother when he had left the room, for his accent was so thick that it sounded almost as though he were talking a foreign language. I said that Margo had gone to a meeting and that Cousin Prue and Aunt Fan were feeding the dogs.

‘What can he mean?’ said Mother, bewildered. ‘What meeting has Margo gone to? What dogs is he talking about?’

I said I did not know but, from what I had seen of London, what it needed was a few more dogs around.

‘Well,’ said Mother, inexpertly putting a shilling in the meter and lighting the gas fire, ‘I suppose we’ll just have to make ourselves comfortable and wait until they come back.’

We had waited an hour when suddenly the door burst open and Cousin Prue rushed in, arms outstretched, crying ‘Louise, Louise, Louise,’ like some strange marsh bird. She embraced us both, her sloe dark eyes glowing with love and excitement. Her beautiful face, delicately scented, was soft as a pansy as I kissed her dutifully.

‘I began to think that you were never coming,’ she said. ‘Mummy is on her way up. She finds the stairs trying, poor dear. Well, now, don’t you both look well. You must tell me everything. Do you like this hotel, Louise? It’s so cheap and convenient, but full of the most peculiar people.’

A gentle wheezing sound made itself heard through the open door.

‘Ah, there’s Mummy,’ cried Prue. ‘Mummy! Mummy! Louise’s here.’

Through the door appeared my Great-Aunt Fan. At first glance she looked, I thought rather uncharitably, like a walking tent. She was enveloped in a rusty-red tweed suit of incredible style and dimensions. It made her look like a russet-red pyramid of tweed. On her head she wore a somewhat battered velveteen hat of the style that pixies are reputedly wont to use. Her spectacles, through which her eyes stared owlishly, glittered.

‘Louise!’ she cried throwing her arms wide and casting her eyes up as though Mother were some divine apparition. ‘Louise and Gerald! You have come!’

Mother and I were kissed and embraced heartily. This was not the feathery, petal-soft embrace of Cousin Prue. This was a hearty, rib-cracking embrace and a firm kiss that left your lips feeling bruised.

‘I am so sorry we weren’t here to greet you, Louise dear,’ said Prue, ‘but we weren’t sure when you were arriving and we had the dogs to feed.’

‘What dogs?’ asked Mother.

‘Why, my Bedlington puppies, of course,’ said Prue. ‘Didn’t you know? Mummy and I have become dog-breeders.’ She gave a coy, tinkling laugh.

‘But you had something else last time,’ said Mother. ‘Goats or something, wasn’t it?’

‘Oh, we’ve still got those,’ said Aunt Fan. ‘And my bees and the chickens. But Prudence here thought it would be a good thing to start dog-breeding. She’s got such a head for business.’

‘I really think it’s a paying concern, Louise dear,’ said Prue earnestly. ‘I bought Tinkerbell and then Lucybell…’

‘And then Tinybell,’ interrupted Aunt Fan.

‘And Tinybell,’ said Prue.

‘And Lucybell,’ said Aunt Fan.

‘Oh, Mummy, do be quiet. I’ve already said Lucybell.’

‘And there’s Tinkerbell too,’ said Aunt Fan.

‘Mummy is a little hard of hearing,’ said Prue unnecessarily, ‘and they have all had puppies. I brought them up to London to sell and at the same time we have been keeping an eye on Margo.’

‘Yes, where is Margo?’ asked Mother.

Prue tiptoed over to the door and closed it softly.

‘She’s at a meeting, dear,’ she said.

‘I know, but what sort of meeting?’ asked Mother.

Prue glanced round nervously.

‘A spiritualist meeting,’ she hissed.

‘And then there’s Lucybell,’ said Aunt Fan.

‘Oh, Mummy, do be quiet.’

‘Spiritualist meeting?’ said Mother. ‘What on earth’s she gone to a spiritualist meeting for?’

‘To cure her fatness and her acne,’ said Prue. ‘But mark my words, no good will come of it. It’s an evil power.’

I could see Mother beginning to get alarmed.

‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘I sent Margo home to see that doctor, what’s his name?’

‘I know you did, dear,’ said Prue. ‘Then, after she came to this hotel, she fell into the grasp of that evil woman.’

‘What evil woman?’ said Mother, now considerably alarmed.

‘The goats are well too,’ said Aunt Fan, ‘but their milk yield is down a little this year.’

‘Oh, Mummy, do shut up,’ hissed Prue. ‘I mean that evil woman, Mrs Haddock.’

‘Haddock, haddock,’ said Mother, bewildered. Her train of thought was always liable to be interrupted if anything culinary was mentioned.

‘She’s a medium, my dear,’ said Prue, ‘and she’s got her hooks on Margo. She’s told Margo that she’s got a guide.’

‘A guide?’ said Mother feebly. ‘What sort of guide?’

I could see, in her distraught condition, that she was now beginning to think Margo had taken up mountaineering or some similar occupation.

‘A spirit guide,’ said Prue. ‘It’s called Mawake. He’s supposed to be a Red Indian.’

‘I have ten hives now,’ said Aunt Fan proudly. ‘We get twice as much honey.’

‘Mother, be quiet,’ said Prue.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Mother plaintively. ‘Why isn’t she still going to the doctor for her injections?’

‘Because Mawake told her not to,’ said Prue triumphantly. ‘Three séances ago, he said – according to Margo, and of course the whole thing comes through Mrs Haddock so you can’t trust it for a moment – according to Margo, Mawake said she was to have no more punctures.’

‘Punctures?’ said Mother.

‘Well, I suppose it’s Red Indian for injections,’ said Prue.

‘It is nice to see you again, Louise,’ said Aunt Fan. ‘I think we ought to have a cup of tea.’

‘That’s a very good idea,’ said Mother faintly.

‘I’m not going down there to order tea, Mummy,’ said Prue, glancing at the door as if, behind it, were all the fiends of Hell. ‘Not when they’re having a meeting.’

‘Why, what happens?’ asked Mother.

‘And some toast would be nice,’ said Aunt Fan.

‘Oh, Mummy, do be quiet,’ said Prue. ‘You have no idea what happens at these meetings, Louise. Mrs Haddock goes into a trance, then becomes covered with ectoplasm.’

‘Ectoplasm?’ said Mother. ‘What’s ectoplasm?’

‘I’ve got a pot of my own honey in my room,’ said Aunt Fan. ‘I’m sure you will enjoy it, Louise. So much purer than these synthetic things you buy now.’

‘It’s a sort of stuff that mediums produce,’ said Prue. ‘It looks like… Well, it looks like, sort of like – I’ve never actually seen it, but I’m told that it looks like brains. Then they make trumpets fly about and things. I tell you, my dear, I never go into the lower regions of the hotel when they are holding a meeting.’

Fascinated though I was by the conversation, I felt the chance of seeing a woman called Mrs Haddock covered with brains, with a couple of trumpets floating about, was too good to miss, so I volunteered to go down and order tea.

However, to my disappointment, I saw nothing in the lower regions of the hotel to resemble remotely Cousin Prudence’s description, but I did manage to get a tray of tea brought up by the Irish porter. We were sipping this, and I was endeavouring to explain to Aunt Fan what ectoplasm was, when Margo arrived, carrying a large cabbage under one arm, accompanied by a dumpy little woman with protruding blue eyes and wispy hair.

‘Mother!’ said Margo dramatically. ‘You’ve come!’

‘Yes, dear,’ said Mother grimly. ‘And not a moment too soon, apparently.’

‘This is Mrs Haddock,’ said Margo. ‘She’s absolutely marvellous.’

It became immediately apparent that Mrs Haddock suffered from a strange affliction. For some obscure reason she seemed to be incapable of breathing while talking. The result was that she would gabble, all her words latched together like a daisy chain and would then, when her breath ran out, pause and suck it in, making a noise that sounded like ‘Whaaaha.’

Now she said to Mother, ‘I am delighted to meet you Mrs Durrell. Of course, my spirit guide informed me of your coming. I do hope you had a comfortable journey… Whaaaha.’

Mother, who had been intending to give Mrs Haddock a very frigid and dignified greeting, was somewhat put off by this strange delivery.

‘Oh, yes. Did we?’ she said nervously, straining her ears to understand what Mrs Haddock was saying.

‘Mrs Haddock is a spiritualist, Mother,’ said Margo proudly, as though she were introducing Leonardo da Vinci or the inventor of the first aeroplane.

‘Really, dear?’ said Mother, smiling frostily. ‘How very interesting.’

‘It gives one great comfort to know that hose who have gone before are still in touch with one… Whaaaha,’ said Mrs Haddock earnestly. ‘So many people are unaware… Whaa… aha… ofthe spirit world that lies so close.’

‘You should have seen the puppies tonight, Margo,’ observed Aunt Fan. ‘The little tinkers had torn up all their bedding.’

‘Mummy, do be quiet,’ said Prue, eyeing Mrs Haddock as though she expected her to grow horns and a tail at any moment.

‘Your daughter is very lucky in as much as she has… Whaa… aha… managed to obtain one of the better guides,’ said Mrs Haddock, rather as though Margaret had riffled through the Debrett before settling on her spirit counsellor.

‘He’s called Mawake,’ said Margo. ‘He’s absolutely marvellous!’

‘He doesn’t appear to have done you much good so far,’ said Mother tartly.

‘But he has,’ said Margo indignantly. ‘I’ve lost three ounces.’

‘It takes time and patience and implicit belief in the future life… Whaaaha… my dear Mrs Durrell,’ said Mrs Haddock, smiling at Mother with sickly sweetness.

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Mother, ‘but I really would prefer it if Margo were under a medical practitioner one could see.’

‘I don’t think they meant it,’ said Aunt Fan. ‘I think they’re teething. Their gums get sore, you know.’

‘Mummy, we are not talking about the puppies,’ said Prue. ‘We are talking about Margo’s guide.’

‘That will be nice for her,’ said Aunt Fan, beaming fondly at Margo.

‘The spirit world is so much wiser than any earthly being… Whaaaha,’ said Mrs Haddock. ‘You couldn’t have your daughter in better hands. Mawake was a great medicine man in his own tribe. One of the most knowledgeable in the whole of North America… Whaaah.’

‘And he’s given me such good advice, Mother,’ said Margo. ‘Hasn’t he, Mrs Haddock?’

‘Nomorepunctures. The white girl must have no more punctures… Whaaaha,’ intoned Mrs Haddock.

‘There you are,’ hissed Prue triumphantly, ‘I told you.’

‘Have some honey,’ said Aunt Fan companionably. ‘It’s not like that synthetic stuff you buy in the shops nowadays.’

‘Mummy, be quiet.’

‘I still feel, Mrs Haddock, that I would prefer my daughter to have sensible medical attention rather than this Mawake.’

‘Oh, Mother, you’re so narrow-minded and Victorian,’ said Margo in exasperation.

‘My dear Mrs Durrell you must learn to trust he great influences of the spirit world that are after all only trying to help and guideus… Whaaaha,’ said Mrs Haddock. ‘I feel that if you came to one of our meetings you would be convinced of the great powers of good that our spiritguides have… Whaaaha.’

‘I prefer to be guided by my own spirit, thank you very much,’ said Mother, with dignity.

‘Honey isn’t what it used to be,’ said Aunt Fan, who had been giving the matter some thought.

‘You are just prejudiced, Mother,’ said Margo. ‘You’re condemning a thing without even trying.’

‘I feel sure that if you could persuadey our Mother to attend one of our meetings… Whaaaha,’ said Mrs Haddock, ‘she would find a whole new world opening up before her.’

‘Yes, Mother,’ said Margo, ‘you must come to a meeting. I’m sure you’d be convinced. The things you see and hear! After all, there are no bricks without fire.’

I could see that Mother was suffering an inward struggle. For many years she had been deeply interested in superstitions, folk magic, witchcraft, and similar subjects, and now the temptation to accept Mrs Haddock’s offer was very great. I waited breathlessly, hoping that she would accept. There was nothing I wanted more at that moment than to see Mrs Haddock covered with brains and with trumpets flying round her head.

‘Well,’ said Mother, undecided, ‘we’ll see. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.’

‘I’m sure that once we break through the barrier for you we’ll be able to give you a lot of help and guidance… Whaaaha,’ said Mrs Haddock.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Margo. ‘Mawake’s simply wonderful!’

One would have thought she was talking about her favourite film star.

‘We are having another meeting tomorrow evening here in the hotel… Whaaaha,’ said Mrs Haddock, ‘and I do hope that both you and Margo will attend… Whaaaha.’

She gave us a pallid smile as though reluctantly forgiving us our sins, patted Margo on the cheek, and left.

‘Really, Margo,’ said Mother as the door closed behind Mrs Haddock, ‘you do make me cross.’

‘Oh, Mother, you are so old-fashioned,’ said Margo. ‘That doctor wasn’t doing me any good with his injections, anyway, and Mawake is working miracles.’

‘Miracles,’ snorted Mother scornfully. ‘You still look exactly the same size to me.’

‘Clover,’ said Aunt Fan, through a mouthful of toast, ‘is supposed to be the best, although I prefer heather myself.’

‘I tell you, dear,’ said Prue, ‘this woman’s got a grip on you. She’s malignant. Be warned before it’s too late.’

‘All I ask is that you just simply come to a meeting and see,’ said Margo.

‘Never,’ said Prue, shuddering. ‘My nerves wouldn’t stand it.’

‘It’s interesting, too, that they have to have bumble-bees to fertilize the clover,’ observed Aunt Fan.

‘Well,’ said Mother, ‘I’m much too tired to discuss it now. We will discuss it in the morning.’

‘Can you help me with my cabbage?’ asked Margo.

‘Do what?’ inquired Mother.

‘Help me with my cabbage,’ said Margo.

‘I have often wondered whether one could not cultivate bumble-bees,’ said Aunt Fan, thoughtfully.

‘What do you do with your cabbage?’ inquired Mother.

‘She puts it on her face,’ hissed Prue. ‘Ridiculous!’

‘It isn’t ridiculous,’ said Margo, angrily. ‘It’s done my acne a world of good.’

‘What? Do you mean you boil it or something?’ asked Mother.

‘No,’ said Margo, ‘I put the leaves on my face and you tie them on for me. Mawake advised it and it works wonders.’

‘It’s ridiculous, Louise dear. You should stop her,’ said Prue, bristling like a plump kitten. ‘It’s nothing more than witchcraft.’

‘Well, I’m too tired to argue about it,’ said Mother. ‘I don’t suppose it can do you any harm.’

So Margo sat in a chair and held to her face large crinkly cabbage leaves which Mother solemnly fixed to her head with lengths of red twine. I thought she looked like some curious vegetable mummy.

‘It’s paganism. That’s what it is,’ said Prue.

‘Nonsense, Prue, you do fuss,’ said Margo, her voice muffled by cabbage leaves.

‘I sometimes wonder,’ said Mother, tying the last knot, ‘whether my family’s all there.’

‘Is Margo going to a fancy-dress ball?’ inquired Aunt Fan, who had watched the procedure with interest.

‘No, Mummy,’ roared Prue, ‘it’s for her spots.’

Margo got up and groped her way to the door. ‘Well, I’m going to bed,’ she said.

‘If you meet anybody on the landing, you’ll give them a terrible shock,’ said Prue.

‘Have a good time,’ said Aunt Fan. ‘Don’t stay out till all hours. I know what you young things are like.’

After Margo had gone, Prue turned to Mother.

‘You see, Louise dear? I didn’t exaggerate,’ she said. ‘That woman is an evil influence. Margo’s behaving like a mad thing.’

‘Well,’ said Mother, whose maxim in life was always defend your young regardless of how much in the wrong they are, ‘I think she’s being a little unwise.’

‘Unwise!’ said Prue. ‘Cabbage leaves all over her face! Never doing anything that that Mawake doesn’t tell her to! It’s not healthy!’

‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if she didn’t win first prize,’ said Aunt Fan, chuckling. ‘I shouldn’t think there’d be other people there disguised as a cabbage.’

The argument waxed back and forth for a considerable time, interlaced with Aunt Fan’s reminiscences of fancy-dress balls she had been to in India. At length Prue and Aunt Fan left us and Mother and I prepared for bed.

‘I sometimes think,’ said Mother, as she pulled the clothes up and switched off the light, ‘I sometimes think that I’m the only sane member of the family.’

The following morning we decided to go shopping, since there were a great number of things unobtainable in Corfu that Mother wanted to purchase and take back with us. Prue said this would be an excellent plan, since she could drop her Bedlington puppies off with their new owner en route.

So at nine o’clock we assembled on the pavement outside Balaklava Mansions, and we must have presented a somewhat curious sight to passers-by. Aunt Fan, presumably to celebrate our arrival, had put on a pixie hat with a large feather in it. She stood on the pavement entwined like a maypole by the leashes of the eight Bedlington puppies that romped and fought and urinated round her.

‘I think we’d better take a taxi,’ said Mother, viewing the gambolling puppies with alarm.

‘Oh, no, Louise,’ said Prue. ‘Think of the expense! We can go by tube.’

‘With all the puppies?’ asked Mother doubtfully.

‘Yes, dear,’ said Prue. ‘Mummy’s quite used to handling them.’

Aunt Fan, now bound almost immobile by the puppies’ leashes, had to be disentangled before we could walk down the road to the tube station.

‘Yeast and maple syrup,’ said Margo. ‘You mustn’t let me forget yeast and maple syrup, Mother; Mawake says they’re excellent for acne.’

‘If you mention that man once again I shall get seriously angry,’ said Mother.

Our progress to the tube station was slow, since the puppies circumnavigated any obstacle in their path in different ways, and we had to pause continually to unwind Aunt Fan from the lamp-posts, pillar-boxes, and occasional passers-by.

‘Little tinkers!’ she would exclaim breathlessly, after each encounter. ‘They don’t mean any harm.’

When we finally arrived at the ticket office, Prue had a prolonged and acrimonious argument over the price charged for the Bedlingtons.

‘But they’re only eight weeks old,’ she kept protesting. ‘You don’t charge for children under three.’

Eventually, however, the tickets were purchased and we made our way to the escalators to face a continuous warm blast of air from the bowels of the earth, which the puppies appeared to find invigorating. Yapping and snarling in a tangle of leads, they forged ahead, dragging Aunt Fan, like a massive galleon, behind them. It was only when they saw the escalators that they began to have misgivings about what, hitherto, had appeared to be an exciting adventure. They did not, it appeared, like to stand on things that move and they were unanimous in their decision. Before long we were all wedged in a tight knot at the top of the escalator, struggling with the screaming, hysterical puppies.

A queue formed behind us.

‘It shouldn’t be allowed,’ said a frosty-looking man in a bowler hat. ‘Dogs shouldn’t be allowed on the tube.’

‘I have paid for them,’ panted Prue. ‘They have as much right to travel by tube as you have.’

‘Bloody ’ell,’ observed another man. ‘I’m in an ’urry. Can’t you let me get by?’

‘Little tinkers!’ observed Aunt Fan, laughing. ‘They’re so high-spirited at this age.’

‘Perhaps if we all picked up a puppy each?’ suggested Mother, getting increasingly alarmed by the muttering of the mob.

At that moment Aunt Fan stepped backwards onto the first step of the escalator and slipped and fell in a waterfall of tweeds, dragging the shrieking puppies after her.

‘Thank God for that,’ said the man in the bowler hat. ‘Perhaps now we can get on.’

Prue stood at the top of the escalator and peered down. Aunt Fan had now reached the half-way mark and was finding it impossible to rise, owing to the weight of puppies.

‘Mummy, Mummy, are you all right?’ screamed Prue.

‘I’m sure she is, dear,’ said Mother soothingly.

‘Little tinkers!’ said Aunt Fan faintly as she was carried down the escalator.

‘Now that your dogs have gone, Madam,’ said the man in the bowler hat, ‘would it be possible for us, too, to use the amenities of this station?’

Prue turned, bristling to do battle, but Margo and Mother grabbed her and they slid downwards on the staircase towards the heaving heap of tweed and Bedlingtons that was Great-Aunt Fan.

We picked her up and dusted her down and disentangled the puppies. Then we made our way along to the platform. The puppies now would have made a suitable subject for an RSPCA poster. Never, at the best of times, a prepossessing breed, Bedlingtons can, in moments of crisis, look more ill-used than any other dog I know. They stood uttering quavering, high-pitched yelps like miniature sea-gulls, shivering violently, periodically squatting down bow-legged to decorate the platform with the results of their fear.

‘Poor little things,’ said a fat woman commiseratingly, as she passed. ‘It’s a shame the way some people treat animals.’

‘Oh! Did you hear her?’ said Prue belligerently. ‘I’ve a good mind to follow her and give her a piece of my mind.’

Mercifully, at that moment the train arrived with a roar and a blast of hot air, and distracted everybody’s attention. The effect on the puppies was immediate. One minute they had been standing there shivering and wailing like a group of half-starved grey lambs and the next minute they had taken off down the platform like a team of virile huskies, dragging Aunt Fan in their wake.

‘Mummy, Mummy, come back,’ screamed Prue as we started off in pursuit.

She had forgotten Aunt Fan’s method of leading the dogs, which she had explained to me at great length. Never pull on the lead, because it might hurt their necks. Carrying out this novel method of dog-training, Aunt Fan galloped down the platform with the Bedlingtons streaming before her. We finally caught her and restrained the puppies just as the doors closed with a self-satisfied hiss and the train rumbled out of the station. So we had to wait in a pool of Bedlingtons for the next train to arrive. Once we finally got them in the train the puppies’ spirits suddenly revived. They fought each other with enjoyment, snarling and screeching. They wound their leads round people’s legs, and one of them, in a fit of exuberance, leaped up and tore a copy of The Times from the grasp of a man who looked as though he were the manager of the Bank of England.

We all had headaches by the time we arrived a tour destination, with the exception of Aunt Fan, who was enchanted by the virility of the puppies. Acting on Mother’s advice, we waited until there was a pause in the flow of human traffic before we attempted the escalator. To our surprise, we got the puppies to the top with little or no trouble. They were obviously becoming seasoned travellers.

‘Thank goodness that’s over,’ said Mother as we reached the top.

‘I’m afraid the puppies were a little bit trying,’ said Prue, flustered. ‘But then you see, they are used to the country. In town they think that everything’s wrong.’

‘Eh?’ said Aunt Fan.

‘Wrong,’ shouted Prue. ‘The puppies. They think that everything’s wrong.’

‘What a pity,’ said Aunt Fan, and before we could stop her she had led the puppies onto the other escalator and they disappeared once again into the bowels of the earth.

Once we had got rid of the puppies, in spite of feeling somewhat jaded by our experiences, we had quite a satisfactory morning’s shopping. Mother got all the things she needed, Margo got her yeast and maple syrup, and I, while they were purchasing these quite unnecessary items, managed to procure a beautiful red cardinal, a black-spotted salamander as fat and as shiny as an eiderdown, and a stuffed crocodile.

Each satisfied in our own way with our purchases, we returned to Balaklava Mansions.

At Margaret’s insistence, Mother had decided that she would attend the séance that evening.

‘Don’t do it, Louise dear,’ Cousin Prue said. ‘It’s dabbling with the unknown.’

Mother justified her action with a remarkable piece of logic.

‘I feel I ought to meet this Mawake person,’ she said to Prue. ‘After all, he’s giving Margo treatment.’

‘Well, dear,’ said Prue, seeing that Mother was adamant, ‘I think it’s madness, but I shall have to come with you. I can’t let you attend one of those things on your own.’

I begged to be allowed to go too, for, as I pointed out to Mother, I had some little time previously borrowed a book from Theodore on the art of exposing fake mediums, so I felt that my knowledge thus acquired might come in exceedingly useful.

‘I don’t think we ought to take Mummy,’ said Prue. ‘I think it might have a bad effect on her.’

So at six o’clock that evening, with Prue palpitating in our midst like a newly caught bird, we made our way down to Mrs Haddock’s basement room. Here we found quite a collection of people. There was Mrs Glut, the manageress of the hotel; a tall, saturnine Russian with an accent so thick that he sounded as though he were speaking through a mouthful of cheese; a young and very earnest blonde girl; and a vapid young man who, rumour had it, was studying to be an actor, but whom we had never seen do anything more strenuous than doze peacefully in the palm-fringed lounge. To my annoyance, Mother would not let me search the room before we started for hidden cords or fake ectoplasm. However, I did manage to tell Mrs Haddock about the book I had been reading, as I thought that if she was genuine it would be of interest to her. The look she bestowed upon me was anything but benevolent.

We sat in a circle holding hands and got off to a rather inauspicious start, since, as the lights were switched out, Prue uttered a piercing scream and leaped out of the chair she had been sitting in. It was discovered that the handbag she had leaned against the leg of the chair had slipped and touched her leg with a leathery clutch. When we had calmed Prue and assured her that she had not been assaulted by an evil spirit, we all returned to our chairs and held hands again. The illumination was from a night-light that guttered and blinked in a saucer and sent shadows rippling down the room and made our faces look as though they were newly arisen from a very old grave.

‘Now I don’t want any talking and I must ask you all to keep your hands firmly clasped so that we don’t lose any of the essence… Whaaaha,’ said Mrs Haddock. ‘I know there are unbelievers amongst us. Nevertheless I ask you to make your minds quiet and receptive.’

‘What does she mean?’ whispered Prue to Mother. ‘I’m not an unbeliever. My trouble is I believe too much.’

Having given us our instructions, Mrs Haddock then took up her position in an arm-chair, and with deceptive ease, went into a trance. I watched her narrowly. I was determined not to miss the ectoplasm. At first she just sat there with her eyes closed, and there was no sound except for the rustle and quiver of the agitated Prue. Then Mrs Haddock started to breathe deeply; presently she began to snore richly and vibrantly. It sounded like a sack of potatoes being emptied across a loft floor. I was not impressed. Snoring, after all, was one of the easiest things to fake. Prue’s hand clutching mine was moist with perspiration and I could feel her shivers of apprehension running down her arm.

‘Ahaaaaa,’ said Mrs Haddock suddenly, and Prue leaped in her chair and uttered a small, despairing squeak as though she had been stabbed.

‘Ahaaaaaaaa,’ said Mrs Haddock, extracting the full dramatic possibilities from this simple utterance.

‘I don’t like it,’ whispered Prue shakily. ‘Louise, dear, I don’t like it.’

‘Be quiet or you’ll spoil it all,’ whispered Margo. ‘Relax, and make your mind receptive.’

‘I see strangers among us,’ said Mrs Haddock suddenly, with such a strong Indian accent that it made me want to giggle. ‘Strangers who have come to join our circle. To them I say “welcome”.’

The only extraordinary thing about this, as far as I was concerned, was that Mrs Haddock was no longer stringing her words together and no longer uttering that strange inhalation of breath. She mumbled and muttered for a moment or so, incomprehensibly, and then said clearly, ‘This is Mawake.’

‘Ooo!’ said Margaret, delighted. ‘He’s come! There you are, Mother! That’s Mawake!’

‘I think I’m going to faint,’ said Prue.

I stared at Mrs Haddock in the dim, shaky light and I could not see any signs of ectoplasm or trumpets.

‘Mawake says,’ announced Mrs Haddock, ‘that the white girl must have no more punctures.’

‘There!’ said Margaret triumphantly.

‘White girl must obey Mawake. Must not be influenced by disbelievers.’

I heard Mother snort belligerently in the gloom.

‘Mawake says that if white girl trusts him, before the coming of two moons she will be cured. Mawake says…’

But what Mawake was about to say was never vouchsafed to us, for, at that moment, a cat that had been drifting round the room, cloudlike and unobserved, jumped onto Prue’s lap. Her scream was deafening. She leaped to her feet shouting, ‘Louise, Louise, Louise!’ and blundered like a bedazzled moth round the circle of people, screaming every time she touched anything.

Somebody had the good sense to switch on the lights before Prue, in her chicken-like panic, could do any damage.

‘I say, it’s a bit much, what?’ said the vapid young man.

‘You may have done her great harm,’ said the girl, glaring at Prue and fanning Mrs Haddock with her handkerchief.

‘I was touched by something. It touched me. Got into my lap,’ said Prue tearfully. ‘Ectoplasm.’

‘You spoiled everything,’ said Margo angrily. ‘Just as Mawake was coming through.’

‘I think we have heard quite enough from Mawake,’ said Mother. ‘I think it’s high time you stopped fooling around with this nonsense.’

Mrs Haddock, who had remained snoring with dignity throughout this scene, suddenly woke up.

‘Nonsense,’ she said fixing her protuberant blue eyes on Mother. ‘You dare to callitnon sense?… Whaaaha.’

It was one of the very few occasions when I had seen Mother really annoyed. She drew herself up to her full height of 4 feet 3½ inches and bristled.

‘Charlatan,’ she said uncharitably to Mrs Haddock. ‘I said it was nonsense and it is nonsense. I am not having my family mixed up in any jiggery-pokery like this. Come Margo, come Gerry, come Prue. We will leave.’

So astonished were we by this display of determination on the part of our normally placid mother, that we followed her meekly out of the room, leaving the raging Mrs Haddock and her several disciples.

As soon as we reached the sanctuary of our room, Margo burst into floods of tears.

‘You’ve spoiled it. You’ve spoiled it,’ she said, wringing her hands. ‘Mrs Haddock will never talk to us again.’

‘And a good job, too,’ said Mother grimly, pouring out a brandy for the twitching and still-distraught Prue.

‘Did you have a nice time?’ asked Aunt Fan, waking suddenly and beaming at us owlishly.

‘No,’ said Mother shortly, ‘we didn’t.’

‘I can’t get the thought of that ectoplasm out of my mind,’ said Prue, gulping brandy. ‘It was like a sort of… like… well, you know, squishy.’

‘Just as Mawake was coming through,’ howled Margo. ‘Just as he was going to tell us something important.’

‘I think you are wise to come back early,’ said Aunt Fan, ‘because even at this time of year it gets chilly in the evening.’

‘I felt sure it was coming for my throat,’ said Prue. ‘I felt it going for my throat. It was like a sort of… a kind of… well a squishy sort of hand thing.’

‘And Mawake’s the only one that’s done me any good.’

‘My father used to say that at this time of the year the weather can be very treacherous,’ said Aunt Fan.

‘Margo, stop behaving so stupidly,’ said Mother crossly.

‘And Louise dear, I could feel this horrible sort of squishy fingers groping up towards my throat,’ said Prue, ignoring Margo, busy with the embroidery of her experience.

‘My father always used to carry an umbrella, winter and summer,’ said Aunt Fan. ‘People used to laugh at him, but many’s the time, even on quite hot days, when he found he needed it.’

‘You always spoil everything,’ said Margo. ‘You always interfere.’

‘The trouble is I don’t interfere enough,’ said Mother. ‘I’m telling you, you’re to stop all this nonsense, stop crying, and we are going back to Corfu immediately.’

‘If I hadn’t leaped up when I did,’ said Prue, ‘it would have fastened itself in my jugular.’

‘There’s nothing more useful than a pair of galoshes, my father used to say,’ said Aunt Fan.

‘I’m not going back to Corfu. I won’t. I won’t.’

‘You will do as you’re told.’

‘It wound itself round my throat in such an evil way.’

‘He never approved of gum-boots, because he said they sent the blood to the head.’

I had ceased listening. My whole being was flooded with excitement. We were going back to Corfu. We were leaving the gritty, soulless absurdity of London. We were going back to the enchanted olive groves and blue sea, to the warmth and laughter of our friends, to the long, golden, gentle days.