Free The House That Jack Built by Graham Masterton Page B

BMW jounced between the oaks, Craig deliberately slowed. Now that he was here, he wanted to savour his first view of Valhalla, he wanted to tantalise himself. He knew it was ridiculous, of course. But he felt Valhalla drawing him closer and closer; and what was strangest of all, he wanted to be there, he needed to be there. He felt a magnetism as strong as gravity.
        At the same time, he felt the first needlings of a sharp and inexplicable sense of regret. I should have been here long before now - I would have been, if my life had turned out different. This is where I belong. Why did I never find this place before?
        'Do you know what?' he asked Effie. 'Did you ever feel that your whole destiny was waiting for you, just around the corner?'
        She looked at him - his broad-jawed, handsome face, his thick Kennedy-style hair. He was smiling in a way that she hadn't seen him smile for months, since long before his mugging, and she suddenly felt that she had managed to set him free. He looked like Craig Bellman again, the tall, humorous law student who had pushed in beside her at the Corner Bistro on Jane Street, and asked her if she liked Mallarmo.
        'What's Mallarmo? A drink?'
        'He's a French writer. He wrote, "Oh, mirror! How many times, for hours on end, saddened by dreams and searching for my memories, have I seen myself in you as a distant ghost!" '
        She had stared at him in astonishment. 'And?'
        'And, I don't know. You just looked like the kind of girl who would find that really impressive.'
        Maybe he had reminded her too much of her father. He had always liked to take charge of everything. The only difference between Craig and her father was that her father had grown gender and more understanding with every new responsibility, a warm and loving patriarch; whereas Craig had grown harder and more obsessive and had eventually lost the courtesy that it always takes to compromise.
        Now that they were here, at Valhalla, she began to recognise him again. It was unexpected, and frankly it was wonderful. It gave her the same warm, confused feeling that she had experienced that night at the Corner Bistro. Who is this man? How can he talk like this?
         'Que de fois et pendant les heures, desolee des songes el cher-chant mes souvenirs, je m'apparus en toi comme une ombre loin-taine.'
        'What?' he said.
        'Don't you remember? Mallarmo.'
        For one split second he looked cross. Then he seemed to realise what she was talking about, and smiled.
        ' Une ombre lointaine ,' she repeated, and rested her head against his shoulder. 'A distant ghost.'
        Lightning cracked and cracked again, and the whole world turned electric white. Thunder bellowed so loudly that Effie felt as if the sky was literally collapsing on top of her, and she covered her head with her hands.
        'It's okay, sweetheart,' Craig told her, cupping his hand reassuringly around the back of her head. 'Come on, sweetheart. There's nothing to be scared of.'
        They jostled along the coarsely-shingled driveway through the trees. On either side of them, the oaks were champing and churning in the wind, like panicked horses. Quite suddenly, however, they drove out onto an open crest; and below them they saw a wide, wide field of long, rain-beaten grass - a field that had once been a croquet lawn, or a tennis court, or several tennis courts. Overlooking the field was a stone terrace, like a low medieval rampart, black with moss, with a derelict fountain and overturned urns.
        Beyond the terrace was the house itself, Valhalla. It was raining so hard now that Craig had to switch the wipers full on; but even through the cascading rain and the madly-flapping wiper blades, they could both see what a breathtaking building it was.
        'Will you look at that,' said Craig, stopping the car for a moment.
        The house was huge, three storeys high, built of dark