The Old Knowledge and Other Strange Tales Read online

  The Old

  Knowledge

  & Other

  Strange Tales

  by

  Rosalie Parker

  Published by Tartarus Press

  The Old Knowledge & Other Strange Tales

  by Rosalie Parker

  Stories © Rosalie Parker, MMX

  Introduction © Glen Cavaliero, MMX

  First published by The Swan River Press Dublin, Ireland 2010

  This ebook edition published 2011 by Tartarus Press

  www.tartaruspress.com

  For Ray and Tim

  Contents

  Introduction by Glen Cavaliero

  The Rain

  Spirit Solutions

  In the Garden

  Chanctonbury Ring

  The Supply Teacher

  The Old Knowledge

  The Cook’s Story

  The Picture

  Acknowledgements

  ***

  About Tartarus Press

  Introduction by Glen Cavaliero

  To write a convincing weird story requires a touch of magic, since the effect of such tales depends not merely on content and methodology but on style. For it is style that determines impact; and certain masters of the genre have left their personal mark on all they write. ‘Given the imagination, man himself indeed may some day be able to distinguish what shapes are walking during our own terrestrial midnight amid the black shadows of the craters of the moon.’ Such a sentence is unmistakeably the work of Walter de la Mare, not only in its long drawn-out musicality but in its speculative hyperbole. So too one can recognise the oblique self-questioning of Oliver Onions or the sedate geniality pervading the progress of a narrative by M.R. James—witness the closing words of ‘The Residence at Whitminster’: ‘Whitminster has a Bluebeard’s chamber, and, I am rather inclined to suspect, a Jack-in-the box awaiting some future occupant of the residence of the senior prebendary.’ Those meticulous commas! One can almost hear the smack of the lips following the conclusion of that sentence (which also removes the peril to a safe distance from the reader). All three writers are essentially spell-binders—James speaking to a docile audience, Onions apparently in dialogue with his own inventions, de la Mare infusing his stories in a mystifying glamour. Each of them is a magician of the word, whose verbal conjurations depend upon the vehicle of a meticulously crafted prose. Like Henry James or Kipling, they are highly individual stylists whose verbal artistry imposes their view of life upon their acquiescent readers. And ghost story addicts are usually willing, are indeed anxious, to be persuaded.

  Late twentieth-century supernaturalists on the other hand have been less concerned to arouse a sense of participating in a personal experience than to effect a radical alteration of normative perceptions, such a term as ‘magic realism’ representing a shift from efforts at persuasiveness to a reappraisal of what is meant by the realistic. William Golding, Muriel Spark and Iris Murdoch all provide frequent instances of such a preoccupation; while in the field of shorter fiction Robert Aickman is pre-eminent in dispensing with the usual canons of normality. Such writers anticipate the age of electronic computerised technology, of instant communication and stored and readily accessible information, a world in which mobile phones and digital cameras transgress the previously immutable laws of space and time. We live now in a world of multi-dimensional relativity, only stabilised by the working processes of individual human bodies. It is in this context that Rosalie Parker’s stories make their quietly disturbing impact.

  What at once strikes a reader is their exclusion of any exaggerated pictorial or emotional effects: Parker is the least manipulative of writers. She is adept at capturing speech inflexions—the self-satisfied monologue of ‘In the Garden’ or the unaffected directness of the young surveyor in ‘Chanctonbury Ring’ (observe how he makes no out-of-character evocation of the atmosphere or traditions of that almost legendary Sussex landmark: he sees it in terms of his job). Although most of these eight tales have rural settings (two of them are concerned with archaeology), their world is the world of today, one of supply teachers, garage mechanics, part-time cooks, people who remedy short-falls in the functioning of a mechanised and mobile tightly organised society. There are no preternatural intrusions like those in ‘Mr Wrong’, Elizabeth Jane Howard’s alarming story of a haunted motor car. Parker gets her effects more indirectly than this: ‘Spirit Solutions’, for instance, allows for an overlapping of the boundaries between technology and the supernatural in a manner that involves a full readerly participation. Indeed, what is presented is an alternative take on the reading process itself, replacing passive receptivity with a challenge to veridical interpretation. Parker follows Henry James’s prescription in his preface for the New York Edition of ‘The Turn of the Screw’—‘make the reader think the evil, make him think it for himself, and you are released from weak specifications.’ There are no such specifications here. In ‘The Cook’s Story’ the setting may suggest a Gothic thriller—an ancient house in its park, the Derbyshire landscape of Jane Eyre, the friendly housekeeper, a ‘sighting’ that may or may not have a rational explanation; but Ellen’s narrative does not provide a supernatural one. The enigmatic, elusive conclusion is characteristic of this author’s particular literary skills, a coalescence of seemingly unrelated pointers allowing her readers to interpret what is happening for themselves.

  When Parker does employ shock tactics or a sudden alteration in perspective the change in narratorial gear is well-nigh inaudible. ‘The Supply Teacher’ and ‘In the Garden’ are instances of this, and the effect remains unnerving because it calls in question one’s instinctive response to what is being told and one’s customary scale of narrative values, as when ‘The Picture’ thwarts a supernaturalist interpretation by suggesting an unexpectedly moral one. Like all good stories of the preternatural, these in The Old Knowledge have a subversive effect.

  The longest of them, ‘The Rain’, provides an especially complicated and enigmatic distortion of perspective. Geraldine’s journey to the North is a journey from one source of alienation to another—alienation from her customary and, it would seem, guilt-ridden way of life into an escapist’s world that is inevitably unreal. Parker captures the sterile idea of comfort provided by the soulless little holiday cottage, and the sense of baffled emptiness and lack of purpose attendant on too determined an effort to relax. In such a vacuum Geraldine is sucked into a number of possible alternative realities: which of these, if any is the ‘real’ one? The detailed portraits of Mrs Williams and the surly Roger implies a material existence; but this only makes their disappearances the more disturbing. Above all, ‘The Rain’ evokes the sense of being helplessly in the wrong where other people are concerned; a personal psychic drama is enacted through the medium of a tale of the uncanny. In some of the other stories we seem to move between alternative levels of reality, each with its own autonomous validity that renders it susceptible to rational investigation; but ‘The Rain’ engulfs its readers in a confusion between inner and outward experiences that appear to be in the process of changing places, for it is Geraldine’s responses which determine the story’s progress, rather than any directive interventions on the author’s part.

  At one critical moment a familiar perplexity is voiced. ‘She couldn’t understand it. It was one of those minor mysteries which, because unyielding of explanation, assume a greater importance than they otherwise merit.’ In their different ways Parker’s stories are similarly disturbing. The inexplicable, which in a religious age would become matter for pious or philosophical speculation, in our own technological age is a threat to an overriding need to make things work. Thus we now
speak of problems (which can be solved) instead of difficulties (which can be overcome). The people in Rosalie Parker’s stories tend to confront enigmatic ‘impossibilities’ with practical solutions, often of a drastic nature. As in most good stories of this kind, the world of logical, predictable reality is seen to be at risk from rejected modes of knowledge which can thwart the materialist and victimise those innocents who stumble into another order of reality—people such as the guileless narrator of ‘Chanctonbury Ring’ or, presumably, the pupils being addressed by their all too well-informed supply teacher. Both tales suggest how fragile the boundaries between quotidian reality and the abnormal can be: the very tones of the teacher and of the monologist of ‘In the Garden’ generate disquiet. It is indeed precisely their ability to arouse a feeling of minor distress rather than of downright terror (a terror that none the less may, as in ‘Spirit Solutions’, implicitly be waiting on pages left unwritten) that gives their particular flavour to this author’s tales of the uncanny. Their unostentatious magic is of an insidious kind; and like the protagonist of the title story, is liable to exert itself in disconcerting ways.

  The Rain

  It was a pity about the weather, but even in Yorkshire it couldn’t rain all the time. Geraldine pushed her hair into her rainhood and studied the thin drizzle pittering into brimming puddles. All around, low clouds cloaked the hills, separating the stone-built village from its context of green. The place was beautiful, if more rugged than she had thought it would be. In spite of the rain, she hoped it would still be a good place to take a holiday.

  Although Geraldine believed that she had achieved a certain amount of resistance to advertising, it was a glossy holiday cottage brochure that had brought her here. The promotional photograph had fixed the small stone-built cottage in its summer garb—bower-like, roses round the door, a backdrop of egg-shell blue sky. As she had gazed at the page she had felt a tug of desire, the kind of passion aroused by an unlooked-for opportunity suddenly presenting itself. Here was a chance to get away from November-grey London, to cast off the routine of work; getting up in the dark, battling through the underground to the office, returning home once more through darkness to find the usually empty flat awaiting her. And it would be a respite from Michael.

  In the event it had not even been necessary for her to explain it to him. His wife had the flu, and during their short telephone conversation Michael had informed Geraldine, in his gentlest tone of regret, that he would have to help at home, mind the children. These were things with which in the normal course of events he needn’t trouble himself, but he would have to this time because the home help had also caught the cold. He hadn’t asked Geraldine what she intended to do with her weekend, and some impulse held her back from telling him that she had found the cottage.

  In the photograph, behind the cottage, snaky drystone walls carved up the landscape. High, crag-topped fells loomed over the long fields. Another photograph, which must have been taken from a light aeroplane, showed the village, a narrow gold and grey ribbon unfolding for nearly a mile along either side of the only visible road. This, the breathless blurb explained, ran the full length of one of the lesser-known northern dales. The village, one of four in the dale and the largest, didn’t have a shop, but that other basic necessity of civilisation, a pub which served food, was just down the road from the cottage.

  Geraldine had telephoned the holiday firm immediately, telling herself that at such short notice it would be sure to have been booked by someone else; a young family, perhaps, or an older couple, unencumbered by children and arthritis, fond of hill-walking … But it was still available; apparently there had been a late cancellation. If she could not have had that cottage, she would more than likely be in London still.

  The journey, nearly three hundred miles north in her small car, had proved a drag. Long dull stretches of motorway, crowded until Leeds and then less so, a bad play on the radio, peering through the rain at unfamiliar northern names on the roadsigns. Geraldine, who usually indulged in cultural holidays abroad, sometimes with Michael but more often without, was amused to find her own country, or at any rate that part which lay beyond the south eastern hub, so foreign. Knaresborough, Bedale, Northallerton, Leyburn, Hawes—a litany of unfamiliar placenames. So many roads, buildings, other people about whose lives, by choice it had to be admitted, she knew little. She shivered and turned up the heating. It had been cold in London, but surely it must be several degrees colder here.

  She began to feel better as the long drive neared its end. The directions that had arrived in the post the morning before were accurate, and as she drove slowly through the village, she recognised the cottage immediately, around half a mile in on the right hand side, one of a small terrace. It was as neat-and-tidy looking as it had been in the photograph, only, as it was now November, the roses had died back. The first frosts had also denuded the small front garden of the boiled-sweet-like bedding plants of the summer. Rain was still falling as Geraldine parked the car in the space opposite the house. The village seemed deserted, but as she looked up, bag in hand, from locking the car boot, she caught a glimpse through the murk of the promised pub. Its name, The Woodsman’s Arms, was just decipherable. Situated only around fifty yards downhill, it looked promising indeed—an old, reassuringly unimproved stone building, long and low as most of the village houses were, its tasteful, top-hung sign creaking gently to and fro on the frame outside. She thought she could detect a faint whiff of coal smoke. The weather and warm fires must be keeping everyone inside.

  The cottage door was unlocked, as she had been told it would be. The interior did not exactly disappoint, but the owners had furnished it in a perhaps too cheerful style: there was a great deal of bare wood and bright fabric, and no sign that anyone else had ever stayed there, not a speck of dirt, clutter or accumulated bric-a-brac. After the chill outside it felt very warm; the central heating must have been left on. The largish square sitting room, entered directly from the front door, had a beamed ceiling and a flat-arched stone fireplace. A scuttle of coal, kindling and a few logs had been arranged in tidy groups on either side of the hearth. The small kitchen behind was well-equipped and the narrow stairs which rose from it led up to two light, equally over-cheerful bedrooms and a minute but efficient bathroom. Geraldine put down her bag in the larger of the two bedrooms and threw herself onto the double bed. The long journey had wearied her more than she had realised, and the muggy warmth of the room made her drowsy. She felt her body relaxing, her mind drifting off. It would be wonderful, for a few days anyway, to do just as she wished: eat, drink, go out or stay in whenever she wanted to, and no one to please but herself; not even Michael. Her mouth curved fleetingly into a smile as she abandoned herself to sleep.

  **

  He was leaning over the bed, his breath rasping onto her face, the flat cap pulled down so that she could not see his eyes. There was a blur of black stubble and rough red skin, and she could smell the sourness of stale alcohol on him. And something else, an outdoor smell, something metallic and earthy. Waves of hatred and desire pulsed from him. His hand stretched out and her eyes followed his fingers as they reached forward …

  Geraldine awoke with a start, sitting up on the bed, her heart beating hard against her ribs. Little light remained in the room and it took her a few seconds to remember where she was: the huge shadow of the pine wardrobe reared crazily over the foot of the bed.

  How stupid! How crass of her! It must be years since she had had a nightmare. In fact, it was so long ago that she couldn’t remember anything about it. A glance at her watch informed her that she must have slept for more than four hours. She had not realised that she had been so tired. Her mouth felt very dry. As she rose to switch on the light, she could see that it was still raining outside; down the road the lights of the pub glimmered invitingly. She pulled the curtains together and went downstairs to find the kettle and make herself a cup of tea.

  While the kettle boiled she unpacked the few provisions s
he had brought from home; tomorrow she would have to find the nearest town and stock up. Although she didn’t usually take it, she stirred a spoonful of sugar into her tea. This small act of self-indulgence helped to at least partly disperse the aura left in the wake of the nightmare. It had shaken her, made her feel helpless, almost a child again. And something much worse, as if a blanket of despair had been thrown over her. There was something disconcertingly familiar about that feeling. She lifted the mug of sweet tea and a hint of memory stirred at the back of her mind, but as the hot china touched her lips her thoughts were interrupted by a sharp, business-like rap on the door.

  It was the woman who cleaned the cottage. She introduced herself as Mrs Williams.

  ‘I hope you found everything straight?’

  ‘Oh yes, thank you, very clean and tidy.’

  The woman stood there impassively, looking over Geraldine’s shoulder into the living room. Geraldine sighed inwardly. ‘Would you like to come in?’ she asked. ‘I’ve just made some tea.’

  ‘Just for a moment, then. I like to make sure the guests have settled in.’

  Mrs Williams closed the door behind her and wiped her feet meticulously on the doormat. ‘This rain! You’d think it’d never stop! What must you think of us.’

  Geraldine guessed she must be in her mid-fifties, although it was hard to tell. She dressed in that old-fashioned style that respectable country people still adopt; an amorphous belted dress half hidden beneath a heavy woollen coat, her feet encased in sensible brown shoes. Her dark grey hair was drawn back into a tidy bun.

  ‘Well, its raining in London too, I expect. Would you like a cup of tea?’

  Mrs Williams nodded her assent. ‘So you’re from London.’ It was a statement rather than a question. Geraldine scented the usual rural prejudice.

  ‘You live locally, Mrs Williams?’

  ‘Oh Lord, yes. I’ve always lived in the village.’