Haggopian and Other Stories

She would be getting on in years a bit now. How old, I wondered? Older than my mother, her sister, by a couple of years—the same age (obviously) as her twin brother, George, in Australia—but of course I was also ignorant of his age. In the end, making what calculations I could, I worked it out that Aunt Hester and her distant brother must have seen at least one hundred and eight summers between them. Yes, my aunt must be about fifty-four years old. It was about time someone took an interest in her.

It was a bright Friday night, the first after my arrival in Harden, when the ideal opportunity presented itself for visiting Aunt Hester. My school friend, Albert, had a date—one he did not really want to put off—and though he had tried his best during the day it had early been apparent that his luck was out regards finding, on short notice, a second girl for me. It had been left too late. But in any case, I’m not much on blind dates—and most dates are “blind” unless you really know the girl—and I go even less on doubles; the truth of the matter was that I had wanted the night for my own purposes. And so, when the time came for Albert to set out to meet his girl, I walked off in the opposite direction, across the autumn fences and fields to ancient Castle-Ilden.

I arrived at the little old village at about eight, just as dusk was making its hesitant decision whether or not to allow night’s onset, and went straight to Aunt Hester’s thatch-roofed bungalow. The place stood (just as I remembered it) at the Blackhill end of cobbled Main Street, in a neat garden framed by cherry trees with the fruit heavy in their branches. As I approached the gate the door opened and out of the house wandered the oddest quartet of strangers I could ever have wished to see.

There was a humped-up, frenetically mobile and babbling old chap, ninety if he was a day; a frumpish fat woman with many quivering chins; a skeletally thin, incredibly tall, ridiculously wrapped-up man in scarf, pencil-slim overcoat, and fur gloves; and finally, a perfectly delicate old lady with a walking-stick and ear-trumpet. They were shepherded by my Aunt Hester, no different it seemed than when I had last seen her, to the gate and out into the street. There followed a piped and grunted hubbub of thanks and general genialities before the four were gone—in the direction of the leaning village pub—leaving my aunt at the gate finally to spot me where I stood in the shadow of one of her cherry trees. She knew me almost at once, despite the interval of nearly a decade.

“Peter?”

“Hello, Aunt Hester.”

“Why, Peter Norton! My favourite young man—and tall as a tree! Come in, come in!”

“It’s bad of me to drop in on you like this,” I answered, taking the arm she offered, “all unannounced and after so long away, but I—”

“No excuses required,” she waved an airy hand before us and smiled up at me, laughter lines showing at the corners of her eyes and in her unpretty face. “And you came at just the right time—my group has just left me all alone.”

“Your ‘group’?”

“My séance group! I’ve had it for a long time now, many a year. Didn’t you know I was a bit on the psychic side? No, I suppose not; your parents wouldn’t have told you about that, now would they? That’s what started it all originally—the trouble in the family, I mean.” We went on into the house.

“Now I had meant to ask you about that,” I told her. “You mean my parents don’t like you messing about with spiritualism? I can see that they wouldn’t, of course—not at all the Old Man’s cup of tea—but still, I don’t really see what it could have to do with them.”

“Not, your parents, Love,” (she had always called me “Love”), “mine—and yours later; but especially George, your uncle in Australia. And not just spiritualism, though that has since become part of it. Did you know that my brother left home and settled in Australia because of me?” A distant look came into her eyes. “No, of course you didn’t, and I don’t suppose anyone else would ever have become aware of my power if George hadn’t walked me through a window…”

“Eh?” I said, believing my hearing to be out of order. “Power? Walked you through a window?”

“Yes,” she answered, nodding her head, “he walked me through a window! Listen, I’ll tell you the story from the beginning.”

By that time we had settled ourselves down in front of the fire in Aunt Hester’s living-room and I was able to scan, as she talked, the paraphernalia her “group” had left behind. There were old leather-bound tomes and treatises, tarot cards, a ouija board shiny brown with age, oh, and several other items beloved of the spiritualist. I was fascinated, as ever I had been as a boy, by the many obscure curiosities in Aunt Hester’s cottage.