Free Gethsemane Hall by David Annandale Page A

to become known as the British Amityville, do you?”
    “Exactly.” Corderman had come to stand at her elbow, and piped up now. Pertwee held up a hand to shush him. Porter ignored him.
    “What are you proposing to do?” Porter asked.
    “Investigate the Hall properly. Show people what it’s really all about.”
    “And you think you know what it’s about?”
    “Of course! Don’t you?”
    Porter scratched the back of his neck, studied the bar surface as if he could see his reflection. “You’ll really have to pardon me, miss. Duty calls.” He swept away, and Pertwee heard him begin to laugh again as he took orders.
    You bastard, Pertwee thought. Just for that, I am going to make a scene . Her outrage fuelled her courage. “Right,” she muttered.
    “Should I be brave?” Corderman asked, half-joking.
    “I would say yes,” she said. She grabbed an ashtray and rapped it against the bar. “Excuse me!” she called. The woman standing next to her barely glanced her way. “Excuse me!” Again, louder. Her voice disappeared into the conversational roar. “ Oi! ” A few more looks, some awkward shuffling of feet. She was on her way to being an embarrassment instead of a provocateur. She considered climbing on the bar after all, but it looked narrow. People were leaning over it. She pictured herself falling over and began to flush in the anticipation of humiliation. “Can you whistle?” she asked Corderman, raising her index fingers to her mouth to indicate the kind of ear pierce she wanted. He shook his head. She couldn’t, either. Her shoulders slumped. Useless. She couldn’t even make a nuisance of herself. “Let’s go,” she said.
    As she headed for the exit, a man stepped forward to intercept her. He was very old. His back was as round as his shoulders, as if from a weight too heavy and carried too long. His eyes were the long plummet of fatigue. He touched his forehead with two fingers, tipping an imaginary cap. “Might I speak with you?” he asked. Pertwee nodded, and the man led them outside. He introduced himself as Roger Bellingham. “I do think you mean well,” he began. “You would, however, be doing the town and yourselves a service by leaving the Hall alone.”
    “I’m sorry. But I don’t think it’s fair for you to keep the house to yourselves. It’s too important.”
    His laugh was a short, bitter bark. “Oh, dear me, that isn’t what we’re trying to do.”
    “What, then? Are you afraid of it?”
    He didn’t answer. He poked at a stone on the pavement with his stick.
    “Can’t you feel it?” Pertwee pleaded. She spoke quietly.
    Bellingham looked up, the movement sharp and quick. “Feel what?” A hint of alarm.
    “It’s hard to describe. Like a pull. When I looked down the drive toward the Hall, and knew I was so close, even if I couldn’t actually see it, I felt drawn to it. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
    “Perfectly.”
    “Then you do feel the same thing?”
    “I have felt tugged toward that house every moment of every day of my life.” He said this with a resignation and despair so profound, Pertwee’s heart gave an unpleasant lurch.
    “Then all the more reason,” she began, “for you to help —”
    Bellingham held up a hand. “Do you love the sea?” he asked.
    Pertwee sputtered for a moment, trying to catch up. “Yes,” she said, confused.
    “But if you were swimming, and you encountered an undertow or a riptide, what would you do? Even if you love the sea, you don’t want to approach it on its own terms.”
    Corderman asked, “Are you saying the house is bad?”
    “It can’t be,” Pertwee answered, firm. “It was the home of a saint.”
    “You seem very sure,” Bellingham commented.
    “Am I wrong?”
    “No. It was on that site that Saint Rose the Evangelist lived and died. You are right about that.”
    “And people have, for centuries, found spiritual renewal in that house.”
    Bellingham gave her a curious look. “Yes,