Yuki chan in Brontë Country (10 page)

She tried to find that postcard before she came out here, and she wonders if she had found it and could now place it in the same spot where it was written whether some powerful, universal circuit would be completed, and what the psychic consequences might be.

She takes out her phone, steps back and does her best to recreate her mother’s photograph. Takes three different shots and stares at each one, unconvinced. She looks around, at the rest of the room. Then turns the camera on her phone to the ‘movie’ setting, starts it recording and slowly pans from right to left. She watches the tiny screen as it sweeps the room. The desk, the drawers, then over to the bed, with Denny caught standing self-consciously – looking down and away. Then, with the camera still running, Yuki walks over to the bed until she catches it squarely in the camera’s frame, allows several moments to pass, each marked by the flash of the small red light at the base of the screen. Then brings the filming to a close.

And yet she knows that she’s failed to capture it. Not surprising, she thinks, when whatever it is she’s after exists on a plane quite separate from our own. Why should I expect to draw something so unfathomable into my stupid little machine?

And then she has it.

A few months ago she discovered an online audio archive of atmospheres. Mainly modern buildings: the inhalations and exhalations of air-cons … the many and
various hums of fluorescent lighting … the tonal registers of faceless conference rooms. Each location catalogued quite clinically and with an accompanying photograph. Yukiko should, she now sees, record the room’s atmosphere. A three-dimensional space, into which she can later admit herself, until she’s so deeply immersed that the sound will seal itself over her head.

She turns to Denny and brings a forefinger up to her lips. Then Yuki sweeps her thumb over the screen of her phone until she finds the appropriate icon and taps ‘Record’. She lifts her phone above her head and holds it there, as if she’s filming a concert. Or holding some industrial monitoring instrument, measuring the levels of psychic activity at hand.

How little sound two people can make, she thinks, when they put their minds to it. Although she’s sure that an expert would be able to somehow identify their presence, by aural heat or shadow. But amazing also how, when the most prominent sounds are stripped away, so many tiny sounds slowly allow themselves to be heard.

A car, a couple of streets away, straining on a hill. Tight air ringing in the pipes between the radiators. The window’s anxious rattle. But beneath all this, other, almost inaudible activity. The dust ever settling. The flinch of fibres in the carpet. All the hidden frequencies we have yet to identify.

Then, a minute or so into their silent meditation, another sound slowly emerges – distant movement … slowly assuming a rhythm. Footsteps on the stairs.
Reaching the top, then stopping. And, slower, making their way along the corridor.

Yuki and Denny turn and look at one another. Yuki still has the phone raised, just above her head. The footsteps approach, then stop, out on the landing. Denny and Yuki are both staring over at the door now. They imagine the B & B Lady on the other side. Three females of various ages, all standing and silently listening.

Yuki and Denny’s attention is now focused on the door handle. What exactly do you say when you and a friend are caught illicitly sampling the atmosphere of a room that you haven’t rented, as part of some private psychic investigation? What is the appropriate apology at such a time?

They keep on staring at the door handle. Almost willing it to turn. And Yuki silently drops her arm and looks at the screen on her phone, its little red light still happily flashing. I’d turn it off, she thinks, if I was sure it wouldn’t make some tiny bleep in the process. Then wonders if it has a built-in limit to its recording, and what sound it’s likely to make when it reaches it.

But the silence sustained by all three women continues. Could conceivably advance into eternity, one second at a time. Until at last the footsteps that had slowly made their way towards the room make their way off again, and the various creaks of the floorboards can be heard as those feet pad down the landing. Then down the carpeted stairs.

Yukiko waits as long as possible before stopping the
recording. And the phone does indeed emit a tiny squeak.

Yuki and Denny breathe again. This is too much, Yuki thinks. It must be inflicting long-term physical damage. Then she and Denny head over to the door. Yuki slips back to turn off the lamp on the bedside table. Denny eases open the door and the two of them creep back out into the world. And as they do so Yuki sees the key in the door where they left it. And thinks, What is the likelihood of someone coming along and standing right by that doorway and not noticing it?

Y
ukiko knew that her mother had visited the Institute of Psychic Studies when she was in London, not least because she’d talked so animatedly about the place on her return. She’d said what an odd place it was and once or twice mentioned their incredible collection of photographs without going into too much detail. So, long before she boarded the flight to Heathrow, Yuki had added the institute to her itinerary. Had found its location, looked up its opening times and worked out which day she’d most likely call.

It took Yuki two attempts before she managed to get the access she wanted. She first went up the broad stone steps on the Tuesday morning, only minutes after the institute opened. The building was part of a tall Victorian terrace just north of the Marylebone Road, with rusting railings between the pavement and basement, red-brick walls reaching up four or five storeys into the grey January sky and windows that looked as if they hadn’t been washed in twenty years.

She pressed the button below the intercom, pushed at the heavy door when she heard the lock buzz open and walked out onto a cold tiled floor. The reception desk was
at the far end of the lobby and Yukiko’s footsteps echoed around the walls as she made her way over towards it. Halfway there she became aware of a huge portrait bearing down on her, of a man with an impressively bushy beard. He and his beard looked like they’d been around a good hundred or more years ago. The ornate frame seemed a little extravagant beside the austere expression on its bearded subject, who, Yuki assumed, must be an early pioneer of psychic thought. He sat stiffly, both hands flat along the arms of his chair, and stared off into the distance, as if daring the people who passed by to rouse him from his beardy thoughts.

From their website Yuki knew she’d have to sign in before being shown the photographs, so as soon as she and the woman behind the desk had said Good morning she was glancing around for some form or aged ledger and the pen with which to fill it out. But the receptionist insisted on knowing the nature of Yukiko’s visit. Yuki apologised and fished about in her pocket for the piece of paper on which she’d written the words she knew she’d have trouble pronouncing, and slid it across the counter.

‘SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHS’, it read.

The receptionist read the note, nodded and asked Yuki to confirm that she actually wanted to see the photographs. Well, of course I want to goddamn see them, Yuki thought. Why the hell else would I be here?

Yes, said Yuki. To
see
them.

So the receptionist was obliged to inform her that the photographs were in the institute’s
collections
and that
visitors had to make an
appointment
if they wanted to have access to the Collections Room.

It took a few moments for Yukiko to understand what the woman was saying.

But I’ve come from Japan, she said. Which was true. She had indeed come from Japan. Admittedly, not just to visit the Institute of Psychic Studies: she had also come to spend some time with her long-lost, condescending sister. But there was no denying her having come from Japan. If her English had been better she might have said, I am a Scholar. Or even, I am a Psychic Detective. Very well known in Japan and many other countries around the world.

But the receptionist insisted that Yukiko would need an appointment with Mr Fields, the Head of Collections, in order to see the photographs. She asked Yuki if she would like her to consult the diary and see if such an appointment might be made. Yuki said she would. The receptionist opened up a great slab of a diary, slid her finger down the page and seemed almost disappointed to find that there was a slot available the following morning. Yuki was asked if she’d like to take it. She nodded and made a mental note of it. Then turned and prepared to go clattering back across the tiles, when the receptionist stopped her.

You know, she said, you’re more than welcome to visit the library. You don’t need an appointment to go in there.

So Yuki followed the receptionist’s directions and found her way through to the library. As she entered,
a woman who was returning some books to the shelves turned and looked over, and Yuki thought she might have to endure another little interview, but the librarian just smiled and nodded, then turned back to the shelves.

The room was tall and long, reaching off in both directions, and, like the rest of the institute, felt damp and somewhat neglected. Dark wooden shelves covered all four walls clear up to the ceiling, which was about three times Yuki’s height. The floor was covered with threadbare rugs and carpet and there was a faint smell of tobacco smoke.

For a while Yukiko drifted up and down, trying to make sense of the various categories which were written out on small cards and attached to the shelves at regular intervals, wondering at the sheer number of damp old books on show. They must have had to reinforce the floor, she thought. With steel. Or concrete. She advanced and allowed her finger to trail along the books’ spines –
click, click, click
– thinking as she did so, Perhaps my mum called in here when she paid a visit and trailed her finger along the very same books.

After she’d wandered around at floor level for several minutes and pulled out five or six books from the shelves she thought she’d like to explore the library’s upper reaches. She’d noticed a set of wooden steps with a post standing proud of the top step and small metal wheels at the bottom of one pair of its legs. She went over, climbed the first few steps and picked over a couple of shelves, just to see how much the thing was liable to wobble. Then
resolved to move the whole contraption a metre or two, in order to get to some of the more interesting-looking volumes above her head.

It wasn’t clear where she was meant to take hold of the ladder, or how to shift it. She sensed that the librarian, wherever she’d got to, was monitoring the situation – that this was a test of Yuki’s initiative and that her performance might well have a bearing on how much deeper into the establishment she’d be permitted to go. So she gamely took hold of the steps and tried to shunt them, but only rucked the carpet in small folds beneath its legs and it took Yuki a while to work out that she should go round the other side and tip the vertical posts towards her, bringing the wheelless legs up off the floor to allow a little movement. The wheels squeaked as she shuffled backwards, pulling the steps after her. She had to keep glancing over her shoulder to check she wasn’t about to hit a wall or knock some potted plant off its pedestal. As long as I don’t actually pull the goddamned thing right over, she thought – as long as I don’t end up pinned to the floor beneath it, I shall consider it a success. And she succeeded, in those terms at least, in dragging it into what looked like a more promising neighbourhood, set it down, then gave the whole thing a little jiggle, to check its steadiness, before finally climbing up the steps.

The books grew dustier and more obscure as she ascended. Many had been covered with transparent plastic, now grey and opaque with age. Some of the spines were held in place with ancient strips of tape.
The titles didn’t make a whole lot of sense to Yuki, so she brought out her phone and consulted her English–Japanese dictionary. There were a fair number of ‘Paths’ and ‘Pathways’ in the titles. Also a good deal of ‘death’, along with its denial – as in ‘No to Death’ and ‘Death is Not the End’. The covers sometimes gave an indication of the content – a misty mountain top … a net curtain billowing in a window … geometric shapes which revealed themselves to be optical illusions – but nearer the ceiling the books grew dark and solemn, as if they considered illustrated covers a little frivolous.

Clutching the upright post, Yuki reached out and plucked two or three books from the shelves, quite randomly. A fine grey dust lay across the top of their pages. Inside their front covers a small rectangle of the institute’s own headed paper was glued to the right-hand page, and on it were stamped the dates on which the books had last been taken out: 10th May 1974, 2nd April 1966 and, in one instance, 25th June 1954. Yuki climbed to the very top of the wooden steps, her hand clamped around the wooden post, and felt as if she’d reached the threshold of some vague and dusty portal, tucked away beneath the ceiling’s flaking paint. For a moment she saw herself as if from a distance. This is where I am with my investigation, she thought. On the cusp of revelation, or quite possibly oblivion. Teetering on a half-built bridge.

The day of Yuki’s second visit to the institute was an even colder, greyer affair. So dismal, in fact, that by the time she’d walked all the way out there and climbed the front steps of the beleaguered building she wondered if she had the strength to force herself through its doors. The same receptionist buzzed her through. The same big-bearded gentleman sat and gazed out from his portrait. Having signed in, Yuki was instructed to sit beneath him on a wooden bench. So for a while she and the bearded fellow sat and stared into the distance together, both wondering what the future had in store. After three or four minutes Yuki heard a clatter of footsteps coming across the tiled floor towards her and looked up to see a slightly younger man than the one above her, and not quite so beardy. They shook hands, he introduced himself, then led her past the reception and into the gloom.

Halfway down that dimly lit corridor he turned and pulled back an old wooden door, but it wasn’t until Yuki came alongside him and saw him drag a metal grille from left to right that she understood that this was an elevator. They stepped inside, Mr Fields slid the grille back, pressed a button and they started to ascend. It was the slowest elevator Yuki had ever encountered. She thought, We’d have been quicker taking the stairs. She pictured the wooden box in which the two of them stood dangling at the end of an ancient rope.

As they rose, creaking and bumping, through the middle of the building Yuki could see the plaster of the elevator shaft creep slowly past – could quite easily have
reached through the grille and written her name there so that future passengers in this wardrobe/elevator would wonder at the Japanese writing. Might imagine it to be some secret code. After they’d passed the second doorway without docking Yuki had a furtive glance up at her host. His beard still had several years’ growth ahead of it before entering the bushy realms of the fellow downstairs. Who knows, thought Yuki, perhaps within the institute’s walls the length of a man’s beard is restricted according to his psychic status. Or perhaps a beard responds spontaneously to a man’s spiritual experience, suddenly bursting forth as each new level is attained.

At the third door the elevator slumped to a halt and hung there, rattling in the shaft. Mr Fields swished back the grille, pushed at the door and held it open, allowing Yuki to step out first. Then he led her down the corridor, took out his keys and opened a door into a long room, about the same size as the library. Its ceiling was not so high and the shelves, rather than being spread evenly throughout, were crowded together at both ends. A huge old table took up the remaining space.

The room seemed very green. The table top was covered with a layer of green leather and the lampshades which hung down over it were even greener. As she edged her way round the table Yuki counted four large cast-iron radiators, each pumping out its own dusty Victorian heat. Mr Fields took her coat and pulled a chair out for her.

Now, he said, Mrs Harris tells me you’re interested
in spirit photography. And he asked if there were any particular photographers or collections that she’d care to see.

Yuki had only landed in the UK a couple of days earlier. She understood maybe half of what Mr Fields was saying, and was having to speculate about the rest.

My mother, she said, then stopped.

She gathered her thoughts and tried again, doing her best to tell Mr Fields how her mother had once visited the institute. Then raised both hands, with all ten fingers and thumbs splayed out.

Your mother visited us ten years ago? said Mr Fields. Yukiko nodded at him.

Yuki had had weeks – months, even – to practise her part in this conversation but, judging by the expression on Mr Fields’s face, most of her words failed to put him in mind of the word she was after and the ones that did didn’t seem to appreciate each other’s company. But she persevered and, one way or another, she thought, managed to convey the most significant point: that she wanted to see the photographs her mother had seen on her visit. Would that be possible?

Mr Fields seemed suddenly uncomfortable. He was sorry, he said, but whatever records the institute might have regarding their visitors and the material they requested would be confidential.

She may not have grasped every word but Yuki could tell from his face what he was saying. He seemed to genuinely regret the situation, but Yuki now sensed his
attitude towards her harden, as if she were guilty of having made an improper suggestion regarding his relationship with Mrs Harris. This troubled her. I am, after all, she wanted to say, just a psychic detective trying to follow in the footsteps of her poor dead mother. You’d think a place like this would be more sympathetic to my cause.

For a while Yukiko gazed down at the old green leather, ashamed and awkward. Until at last Mr Fields said, Why don’t I just bring out a few items for you to see?

Then he crept away, into the shadows at the far end of the room. Two minutes later he returned with a small stack of books propped against his chest and what appeared to be a pillow tucked under his elbow. He placed the books to one side and put the pillow squarely down in front of Yuki.

How kind, she thought. When the books, the Victorian heat and all the greenness become too much for me Mr Fields will lay my head down, dim the lights and leave me to my dreams.

In fact, she knew very well why Mr Fields had brought the pillow. These books were old and very precious. And, to confirm this, when Yuki next looked up she found Mr Fields pulling cotton gloves onto one hand, then the other. Yukiko was presented with her own gloves, and once they were on Mr Fields leaned over and picked a small book off the top of the pile.