She poured the thick black coffee into tiny cups and placed them on coasters in front of us. Michael, who had remained the archetypal monosyllabic teenager throughout the meal, got up and began clearing the rest of the table. Although I offered to help, Maria would have none of it. Soon the table was empty of everything, including the tablecloth, leaving a polished walnut surface on which Michael placed a couple of coasters for our wine glasses, coffee cups and a large white candle in a silver holder.
Maria leaned forward, her eyes shining. ‘Have you ever felt the presence of a ghost in this great shared house of ours, Vincenzo?’
Vincent gripped his glass of wine tightly as he stared at the candle and I regarded our hostess suspiciously as she gave a tinkly laugh.
‘What makes you ask such a thing?’ Vincent’s voice held a tremor of alarm, though his eyes never left the candle.
‘I thought that while we were cut off from the outside world and feeling mellow after the wine, we could tell ghost stories and frighten one another,’ she said easily. ‘There is nothing like a good ghost story as after-dinner entertainment, I think.’ She turned back to the sideboard and brought out an incense stick, which she lit with a theatrical flourish before sitting back, smiling round at us.
Determined not to be dragged into it all, I drained my cup quickly and gave Vincent a pointed stare, expecting him to take the hint. ‘We shouldn’t keep Tara waiting too much longer, I suppose?’
Vincent took another mouthful of his wine, his eyes now fixed on Maria’s. ‘Tara’s probably turned in by now. I’d like to hear what Maria has to say.’
He rested his wine glass on the table. I could feel the anxiety emanating from him as he sat back in his chair. It was almost as if he had resigned himself to the inevitable and didn’t have the energy to fight it. I watched as Maria smiled knowingly, refilled his wine glass and poured more coffee into my cup.
‘I’ve got homework, Mum.’ Michael got up from the table. I had the impression he’d heard his mother’s stories many times before. He left the room, turning off the main light as he went, which left only two wall lights glowing dimly. Maria didn’t even seem to register his absence but sat staring at Vincent in a room that looked suddenly eerie and menacing in the flickering candlelight.
‘Cheryl and I often used to share a bottle of wine together in the evenings when you were late home from work or away on business,’ Maria said into the silence. ‘She was a good friend to me. I still miss her, you know.’
‘What has this to do with your ghost story?’
‘Oh, we used to tell one another stories, Cheryl and I. I think she was glad to leave the little girls with the housekeeper once in a while and remind herself she was something other than the mother of two sick children.’ She narrowed her eyes at Vincent and I wondered if I detected a hint of accusation behind the easy chatter. ‘Cheryl was good company. Sometimes we speculated about the house being haunted, the way the floorboards creak and the pipes groan when they settle. We fancied we could imagine a lonely spirit walking from one house to the other, passing through the dividing walls as if they were nothing more than thin air. And recently,’ Maria continued, ‘it seems that things have begun to vanish when I put them down and later turn up somewhere else. But Cheryl is no longer here to speculate on these things.’
I thought immediately of the previous night when I’d suffered such bad dreams and found myself wondering what these two residences had been like when they had been one big house.
‘I didn’t know Cheryl believed in ghosts.’ Vincent’s voice sounded hollow and nervous.
‘Perhaps there were things you did not know about her.’ Maria’s dark eyes glittered in the candlelight. ‘In my experience men never listen to what their wives are truly saying.’
I felt Vincent stiffen beside me but he remained silent. I could hear the accusation plainly in her voice now and wondered why Vincent was still sitting here listening to this woman inferring that he had not been a good husband. I nudged Vincent’s arm, wishing we could go back to his own half of the old house. I was tired, my head had begun to throb, and I didn’t want to be drawn into some strange quarrel between people I hardly knew. I suddenly felt more lost and alone than ever. This was not my world and these people were virtual strangers. I wished I could simply get up and leave.
Vincent at last seemed to sense my unease and started to push back his chair. ‘I don’t want to talk about my wife and daughter. It was all a long time ago. I don’t see any point in dragging up the past.’
Maria seemed unperturbed by Vincent’s reproof. ‘Sometimes the past has to be properly addressed before you can make a future.’ She reached out and laid her darkly taloned fingers on his arm. I felt a degree of embarrassment as she peered into his eyes, as though I was witnessing something private and meaningful pass between them; something in which I was not included.
Vincent stilled and I found I was holding my breath as they stared one another down. The candle sputtered suddenly as if a gust of air had entered the room and at that same moment the wall lights seemed magically to switch themselves off, breaking the spell between them. The room was plunged into momentary blackness and I gave a small yelp of fright. But the candle recovered, the flame burned bright once more and I watched as Maria removed her hand from Vincent’s arm in a room that was now dark save for the flickering candle.
‘I think we’ve had a power cut.’ Vincent seemed to come to his senses as he pushed his chair all the way back. He motioned to the pitch-black hall beyond the dining room. ‘The lights are out there too.’
Maria also appeared to give herself a mental shake. She flicked the wall switches up and down to no avail, then moved to the sideboard and returned with another candle, which she lit from the one in the centre of the table. ‘I will take this up to Michael,’ she said as his voice called and footsteps sounded on the stairs in the hallway.
Vincent and I followed Maria out into the hallway, waited while she reassured her son and handed him the candle to take back upstairs. Shivering, I pulled on the cardigan Maria then held out for me. As I buttoned it I wondered again what trick of fate had brought me to this place where so many unseen currents ran just below the surface.
‘The strange thing is,’ Maria announced, her sultry voice echoing in the darkness as she walked us to the door and fumbled for the latch as if nothing untoward had happened, ‘that Cheryl used to confide in me all the time, but she didn’t even tell me she was thinking of leaving you.’
Vincent and I walked back across the snowy front lawn, our arms linked together as we staggered rather unsteadily through the slippery snow towards his front door. As my boots sought a sound foothold I wondered quite how much wine I’d actually drunk and how much bearing it had had on what I had just experienced.
‘The lights are out here too.’ Vincent frowned as we approached the shadowy darkness of his front door, our breath clouding the air. ‘We left the porch light on, didn’t we?’
I nodded, waiting while he groped for the key. I wasn’t sure how much of his fumbling was due to the lack of light and the cold, and how much to the quantity of good Italian wine he’d consumed, but he soon had the door open and I entered the dark house behind him with trepidation.
‘Tara?’ he called softly. ‘Tara, we’re back.’
There was a red flickering light coming from the dying embers of the fire and in that light a shadowy shape loomed up from the sofa, making me step closer to Vincent in fright as I remembered Maria’s talk of ghosts.
‘You’re back then?’ Tara’s voice cut through the gloom.