4 Impression of Bones (2 page)

“Not yet. But
it’s likely only a matter of time. He is usually sneaky and subtle about his harassment,
but he’s one of those that
has
to hit on anything female. His ego demands it. As soon
as the prey surrenders he moves on.” Mr. Third had so far kept his distance but
he could not hide his python-like nature from Juliet any longer. She had
sympathy for those who were younger and more attractive, and wondered from the
first whether she should warn them about what she had seen. “I wonder if he has
sense enough to keep his distance from me.
If for no other
reason than out of respect for you.
I should hate to have to break his
hands.”

She could
speak frankly about this to Raphael James. Juliet and her neighbor
were
not exactly a romantic item, but their relationship was
more than just a sociological experiment, or something pleasant to fill up
their spare time, a commodity which neither of them possessed in abundance and
therefore held dear.

“He has
admitted to you that he is aware of our friendship?” Raphael asked after a
moment, staring at the window before returning his gaze to her face.

“Not in so
many words. By the way, it was very brave of you to own me. There could be
talk.”

“Not
at all.
The
pleasure is mine,” he said lightly.
“But enough of this.
Tell me now what else you have learned of this castle. I am very curious about
your ghost. Surely the castle’s history suggests some possible identities for
an
unrestful
spirit.”

But Juliet
hadn’t been able to discover much on her own. What was available on the Internet
and in the tourist brochure was basic. Reading between the carefully edited
lines, the Barclay family tree had spread wide from its roots in Manchester and
had sent creepers out to take root in other lands, including the United States.
One of the creeps had landed in California. Through the years the limbs had
broken off and died out until the last California Barclay was no more. The
castle lived on though, financed through a trust. The expensive folly built—or
rebuilt, since the basic castle had been brought over from Scotland—in the
1890s had become a hospital in the 20s and a reformatory in the 40s. But then
the trust ran out of money and the castle reverted to some distant cousin in
Manchester, England. It was a case of the sins of the children being visited
back on the fathers.

Upkeep was
larger than the withering family tree could maintain and the new owner had not
been able to find anyone in the UK who wanted to invest in a white elephant. The
cousin was an intimate of Dolph’s and was persuaded to turn over the
rat-infested ruin to Dolph’s charity and to take the tax deduction, and let
Dolph worry about those pesky property taxes and expensive retrofit to bring
the castle up to code for earthquake safety.

“There was one
bit of creepiness already that somehow didn’t make the papers. There is an
underground tunnel leading no one knows where since it has caved in at the far
end and the gardens were left to go to wrack and ruin. The tunnel basement was
used as a morgue in the twenties and then bricked up when the castle was
converted to a reform school. The workmen opened it up and found that there
were lots of old cots down there, and one body found buried in some rotting
mattresses. The wall was a real hurry-up job—shoddy workmanship that is way
below code—so they tore the wall down and replaced it with one that’s up to
code. They have removed the body, of course. There was a thought that it could
be the head nurse who disappeared around this time, but the autopsy of the
remains, such as they were, showed that the person had tuberculosis and therefore
was probably a patient. No one thinks there is anything sinister about the
death, just gross carelessness among the staff at gathering up the cadavers
when they shut the hospital down. Dolph wanted to leave the tunnel open for the
tour. A bit of ancient ghoulishness is good for ticket sales but he was made to
see that it will make a good wine cellar and local wineries are willing to
stock it.”

“Could this neglected
patient be your ghost?”

“You know, I
don’t actually think there is a
ghost
ghost,” she finally said. “Not a black monk or a white lady or anything with an
organized personality. It’s just that the place is … troubling. It smells
neglected and it echoes, and it is always dark. It is like the very stones are
saturated with misery that spreads over you, so being inside is depressing.
Which I know sounds crazy. I just wish you could visit and see what I mean.
Maybe I’m just being fanciful because the people working there aren’t very nice
and it has made me paranoid.”

“Well, I can
visit,” he said calmly. “I’ve a week before I need to return to Quebec.”

Juliet
blinked.

“It isn’t
handicap accessible. Not yet,” she said regretfully because her disappointment
was keen.

“Arrangements
can be made. Recall that I know the project manager and he has been trying to
convince me to paint a mural in what will be the dining room since it began.”

“You’re kidding.
That would be great. I mean, you visiting—not painting a dining room mural. The
room is now stainless steel modern. Good God, is the man a heathen?”

“Worse,
a capitalist with pretensions of culture.
Don’t worry. I shall not be discommoded one whit more than I wish to
be.” Raphael seemed to find the very idea amusing.

Juliet felt
more cheerful the next morning and was even able to talk optimistically about
the project as she drove Raphael out to the castle. He had made formal arrangements
to see Barclay, probably by indicating that he was possibly interested in doing
something for the project. Dolph had been surprised, but not wanting to miss an
opportunity he had sensibly suggested that they use an antique carrying chair
to get him up and down the stairs and had detailed two men to help with that.
Raphael would use his portable wheelchair for the rest of the tour.

The day was
bright and the farther inland they traveled, the more pronounced the smell of
baking stone and pine became. The weather showed no awareness that it was not
technically summer yet and went on cooking the countryside in its harsh light.
She and Raphael eventually fell silent under the bombardment of heat and Juliet
began to feel slightly sleepy.

The area
around the castle grounds was heavily wooded, but they began to catch glimpses
of the fortress between the trees. Juliet pointed out the original parts of
Barclay which presently was an open square design with one lone round tower.
The castle’s modern add-ons, which included a garage, were done in slightly
redder stone but it was not particularly noticeable because of all the trees
and creepers rampaging up the walls. Though the castle was being retrofitted to
some degree, an effort was being made to preserve the plants on the front side
of the castle.

That may have
been because the unornamented fortress looked inappropriate plopped down on the
stony plateau, far from any town or other signs of life, and its loneliness
made it appear a ruin rather than an inhabited place. It was not a romantic
building and Juliet found it impossible to imagine the musketeers or the
Scarlet Pimpernel swashing through its passages as they fought for honor and
glory. If she were given to flights of fancy, which she generally wasn’t, the
place would be peopled with the ghosts of some distant, desert outpost of the
French Foreign Legion.

Fortunately,
the castle hadn’t come with any holy relics, or crypts that held saints or
martyrs, or any other grisly monument that would require extra insurance and
special preservation. It was just a well-organized pile of hewn rock.

The only grace
note on the property was a small pond fed by an underground spring, which had
once held white swans but was now the home to some squatter ducks, mainly
mallards, and some gray geese who seemed to poop their weight daily, rendering
the water
foul
and odiferous once the sun reached its
peak and set the shallow pond to simmering. Still, it could be made quite
pretty with some water lilies and a good filtration system that would keep down
the mosquitoes, and Juliet hoped that it would be restored.

They passed
through the security gate without being stopped. The guard was the young blond
one who was always listening to his iPod. He recognized Juliet and liked her.

There was an exterior
staircase made of wrought iron that circled the tower where Juliet worked. The
rusting metal was ugly, added when the castle became a reformatory. Because the
sun heated it, the creepers which might have lent it some beauty or at least
some disguise were unable to get a roothold and it remained naked. It had to be
one of the world’s most expensive fire escapes and one of the least attractive.

“We have to
park down here,” she apologized, pulling into a small lot encircled by oaks
whose limbs appeared afflicted with rheumatism. They were very old and probably
dying but Juliet was glad they would be spared in the remodel. The land was
already too bare and lifeless, a home for lizards and scorpions. “The upper lot
is needed for the landscaping equipment. It’s a day’s march to the castle, but
the path is smooth and level.”

The morning
was cool but it held the promise of heat later in the day. On the coast they
were usually protected from summer’s wrath, but inland the sun had its way. The
sound of heavy equipment grew loud as they emerged from the trees.

“Have they
been at it long?” Raphael found the noise disturbing. Juliet knew that he
preferred to work in silence and when that could not be
achieved,
he opted for the softest strains of Vivaldi.

The inside would
be quieter. The labor was done except for minor gilding. The work crews were
all outside now, moving with the shade as much as possible since the heat was
intense right next to the rock walls. They looked a bit like squirrels swarming
over the scaffolding, doing things that looked insanely dangerous to Juliet.
But then one probably didn’t take up that kind of work if one were burdened
with vertigo and paranoia. Or even a strong sense of survival.

“Just the last
two days. They are supposed to be done by the end of the week. They have to
clear everything away from the foundation for the retrofit and they are adding
a solarium on the south side as well. Someone saw the plans for it and says it
looks like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.”

They reached
the castle’s main entrance, an old portcullis that had been replaced with an
enormous door, and they found Dolph waiting with two burly men and a reporter
from a Silicon Valley paper. Juliet recognized that he wrote for the style
section and dredged up a smile and some party manners. She needn’t have
bothered. The man had eyes only for Raphael James.

Raphael
handled the ambush well, even answering some of the reporter’s questions,
though he gave away nothing about his intentions toward the castle and talked
instead about his restoration of a mural in a church in Quebec.

They walked
through the ground floor and Juliet got to see some of the rooms for the first
time. The design themes for the various chambers ran the gamut, sometimes in
ways that a gamut shouldn’t be run. Juliet wasn’t a slave to tradition but
wondered if the kind of person who would buy a castle would really want a
dining table and chairs made out of stainless steel and held up by what looked
like skinny robots.

It also struck
her that for rooms decorated by artists, there was actually very little art on
display, and wondered what Raphael made of it.

Though the
rooms were still as photographs, the courtyard was buzzing with activity. It
had been set up as a workshop where the various workmen and artists could keep
their tools and supplies laid out as long as the weather stayed fair. The
courtyard was also full of unused scaffolding, spools of wire, and sawhorses
that held miscellaneous piles of lumber. If need be, she could store her shelf
out there until she was ready to install it. Getting the thing out of her
studio would make the painting of the canvases easier. They needed a lot of
room to dry.

Watching the
men sweating in the sun, Juliet was grateful that she only had to decorate one
room and was not assigned the job of plumber or electrician on this project in
the rooms where either there was no electricity or else it was all below code
and had to be replaced. Stone didn’t forgive the way wood or stucco would.