Ghost Stories - Lorna Bradbury [1]
Then the Mas was there in front of us, a huge, L-shaped farmhouse of pale grey stone. We climbed out of the car and followed René into the dark, cool house. My bedroom was at the top of the stone staircase and down a small corridor. I could see the Sainte Victoire from the window, beyond the dry, rock-strewn fields.
I saw another door, in the far wall of the room. René said it led to a part of the house that wasn’t used anymore and that it had been locked for as long as he could remember. The short stroke of the ‘L’, I thought.
I hadn’t realised plane tickets were so cheap. The young man in the travel agency even found me this hotel right in the centre of aix at a reasonable price. I managed to get here without mishap and I feel quite daring. who would have thought it?
The Tourist office is just around the corner so I get myself a guidebook, then I sit at a café on the Cours Mirabeau, sipping Perrier-menthe and thinking about the painting. i’ve come to the conclusion that my father was merely recording a memory: a sort of morbid holiday souvenir. after all – and this much I do remember – the incident was responsible for the panic attacks that blighted the rest of my childhood.
My father could not possibly have seen her, could he?
One day, I opened the door. My parents had gone down to the village and I was alone. I don’t know what made me try, as I knew it was locked. Only it wasn’t: I turned the handle and it opened easily. I went in, and found myself in a bedroom. From somewhere came the sound of piano music, melancholy notes drifting through the house like strands of gossamer. The shutters were open, which puzzled me. Didn’t René tell us this part of the house wasn’t used anymore? The window was on the same side of the house as my own yet, moving towards it, I realised that the view was different. I could see rooftops where there should have been only fields. It was raining hard outside and the sky was the shade of a swollen bruise, but I knew that here, thunderstorms could take you by surprise.
I turned from the window, just as she came into the room.
I had a bad night. it may have been the heat or the noisy air-conditioning but I couldn’t sleep. and now I stand at the window looking up at the blue, blue sky and wondering why on earth I came. on a whim? That would be a first.
I don’t want to go to Ventabren. I don’t have to. i’m on holiday. I could go anywhere: avignon, Marseille, Manosque … Besides, what could I hope to achieve by going back? The house might not even be standing and certainly, I have no idea where it is. I was only twelve.
The bus to Ventabren leaves at 9.45. as it winds towards the village I find myself scanning the countryside, just in case. The driver drops me outside a supermarket and, swinging my rucksack on to my back, I start to walk towards the village.
No. not this way.
I turn around and head into the hills.
She was a girl of about my own age, tall and thin with long, black hair. It was her eyes that startled me: the palest of grey, like an icy lake in winter. She closed the door and leant against it, staring straight ahead.
‘Hello,’ I said.
She turned those beautiful, strange eyes to the window, looking straight through me. Then she started to cry.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked. I wanted to reach out to her but I felt awkward, being caught in her room like that. She didn’t answer, but ran past me as if I wasn’t there and fell sobbing on to the bed. I didn’t know what to do, so I stood and watched her for a moment and then slipped quietly out, back into my sunlit bedroom.
There was no sign that it had been raining at all.
The heat seems to have eased off, for which i’m thankful. i’ve been walking over half an hour with no clear idea of where I am. what does surprise me is the number of modern villas with swimming pools and landscaped gardens. Such a pity.
And then I spot it. not the same sign, of course, but still pinned to the tree: