The Silence of Ghosts Read online

  I thought he would tell me the family papers were off bounds or that they had been destroyed, but he did not.

  ‘Very well. I’m going in to the office tomorrow. We have an archivist, Cecil Blanchard. I’ll ask him to explain what’s what. I never paid any attention to that side of things myself. But if it improves your loyalty to the firm, why not?’

  He had just reached out for another slice of beef when we heard something from upstairs. Octavia was screaming at the top of her lungs. It went on and on for over a minute. I told my parents to stay and headed upstairs myself.

  Friday, 3 January

  I spent most of the morning moping about the flat. I was tired, of course, having been up with Octavia. My mother was with me part of the time, but my father just put her screaming down to the air raid that had come later than usual last night. I knew it wasn’t the bombing. I knew Octavia scarcely heard it, even with her hearing aid in place. I knew better than anyone that something was in the house.

  When my mother left the room to have an early breakfast and see to her toilette – about which she is fastidious, of course – I sat on the edge of the bed and wrote on a notepad for Octavia.

  ‘Why did you scream last night, dear?’ I asked.

  ‘I told you,’ she wrote on the next sheet. ‘Someone is here in the flat.’

  ‘Do you know who?’

  She shook her head and wrote.

  ‘Not one of the children. A man, I think. He speaks to me, but I don’t understand the words he uses. Do you know who he is?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘but I saw him at the house, I think. I’m trying to find out who he is. But I want to know why you screamed. You don’t normally scream, and never so loudly. Did you see him, is that what it was?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘I had a bad dream. People were dancing. They had soot on their faces and none of them had feet and some of them had no arms, and in the dream I could hear properly: drums were beating and a man’s voice sang words I couldn’t understand, and his voice went up and down, and I saw a great mist that came down and covered the dancers, but I could still hear the drumming and the man’s voice, and then it was still and I heard nothing, just as if my deafness had returned, and when I woke I was still deaf.’

  I thought of my Morris men with their black faces, dancing as they formed a ring about me.

  ‘Did they ring bells?’ I asked.

  She seemed unsure, so I picked up the little bell she sometimes uses to summon help in the middle of the night. I put it by her ear and she turned up the volume on her aid, and I rang it. She shuddered and nodded, the memory awakened deep inside her.

  I went to my room and came back to her, bringing with me my Portuguese guitar. I remembered how I had promised to play it for Rose, and it cut me through and through to think I might never do that now. But I wanted to play for Octavia, something I had never done before. If she could not understand speech yet, surely she could appreciate music. I started with a piece for guitar by Fernando Lopes-Graça, a partita which I had adapted for the twelve-string instrument. She’d heard a little music in church, and now I saw her face as she struggled to make sense of it. It did not happen right away, and I had worked my way through three other composers before I saw her eyes light up and a smile come to her lips. I thought I might have found a way to her soul, but I did not ask about such a thing. The damned do not have souls. I looked at the lesions on her face and body and was sure they had grown.

  In the afternoon, I went to our offices in High Holborn. My father was busy when I arrived, but I was made welcome and taken to a small, elegantly furnished room and given a cup of green tea, something that must have become hard to get. There were quejadinhas from Évora too. Or perhaps someone had baked them from a recipe. They tasted good. I sat down to wait for my father when he was free. To my surprise, he arrived in my little room ten minutes later, bringing with him a man I had not seen before. I tried to stand, rather clumsily I must admit, but he insisted on my staying seated.

  The stranger was introduced to me as Cecil Blanchard.

  ‘Cecil is something of an institution here, Dominic. I’m surprised you haven’t met him before. Cecil has a phenomenal memory, don’t you Cecil?’

  ‘I really can’t remember, sir,’ said Cecil in a quiet sort of voice.

  ‘Of course,’ my father said, ‘he is also something of a wit. His formal position in the company is that of archivist. He can pluck out a long-buried document from any point in the two hundred years we have been trading. He knows the names – the names of the people and the names of the ships, he knows the vintage years, two or three per decade, we are terribly fussy, as you know. Tell me, just what is it you’re after here? In the murky depths of our history, what do you seek? A billet-doux? The diaries of your grandfather’s mistress, or his father’s paramour or his father’s bit on the side? No? What can possibly interest you among all those dusty scrolls tied with pink ribbon? Surely you are not planning to become a historian?’

  Sensing that I was about to turn on him, Father addressed himself to Mr Blanchard.

  ‘Cecil, will you please take my son down to the cellars where you keep our sad little collection of invoices and receipts, bills of lading and manifests?’

  He turned back to me.

  ‘I’m afraid, Dominic, you’ll not find much down there. I should put a handkerchief across your mouth, for there is a lot of dust.’

  I thanked him, and Blanchard and I shot off as fast as I could manage. He produced a large key from his pocket and took me to the ground floor, where he showed me a heavy door that sported long iron hinges.

  ‘It won’t be easy getting you down here,’ he said.

  He opened the door, and I saw a narrow staircase that turned as it went down.

  ‘To tell you the truth, a basement is never the best place to keep an archive like this. We constantly have to protect it from damp. I learned a few tricks when I worked at the British Museum library, but there was a time when none of those things were implemented. Some items have been lost irretrievably.’

  ‘Haven’t you tried to move the archive?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘May I be completely honest?’

  ‘Of course. Nothing will reach my father.’

  ‘Well, sir, I’ve gone to your father several times over the years and told him the archive’s at risk. He just snaps at me and says I must do as I can. I think he would prefer to see the archive destroyed sooner than preserve it properly.’

  I told him what I was looking for.

  ‘That shouldn’t be too hard, sir. When I started here, I saw that the oldest papers were most at risk, so I moved them to the safest part of the basement. You say you want documents about Hallinhag House?’

  I nodded and he went inside and down. I left the door agape and went off to find a little office for myself on the ground floor. One of the secretaries, a middle-aged woman with spectacles and her hair tied up in a bun, and a pencil stuck inside it as if in a bird’s nest, saw me struggling past, guessed who I was, and turned a young woman out of her office to let me use her desk.

  Blanchard took his time. I’d been told he was thorough, so I didn’t grow too impatient. A junior brought me another cup of tea and a second plate of quesadinhas.

  ‘Or perhaps you’d prefer a glass of port, sir. I can fetch you a single quinta vintage from 1931, our finest year in some time.’

  ‘Take the tea away,’ I said, ‘and let me have the port. I had a little of that vintage a few years ago, and it was scrumptious. You should pour a glass for yourself. Bring it here and we’ll share it together.’

  I reckoned that, if I was to become a port baron, it was time I started to know some of our employees. We sat drinking our port – and it was every bit as delicious as I remembered, even more so when drunk with the little cakes – while we chatted. He told me about his wife – they were newly married – and the little property they rented, and by the time he finished I thought I unders
tood him, his problems and what he wanted to do in his life.

  Over an hour had passed when Cecil Blanchard returned, carrying several boxes. My port-drinking companion made his excuses and left, taking the bottle with him. I told him to take it home to share with his wife, who is a stenographer at the War Ministry. Father will never miss it.

  The next two hours passed surprisingly quickly. Blanchard had extracted all the early documents relating to Hallinhag, but had also brought along a box of papers that told the story of the founding of the firm, its first imports to London, and some bits and pieces about my family: letters, a wedding certificate, some burial notices, and even part of a diary, similar to the one I am keeping today.

  I only left because of the curfew, and then most reluctantly. At first the papers were jumbled, and many were hard to read. Gradually, however, with Blanchard’s help, a pattern began to emerge. Port came from Oporto in small shipments to begin with, during the 1730s and 1740s. It was stored in a shed on the East London Docks. At that time, the family had other businesses, manufacturing ropes for naval ships and importing cotton, silk and tea from India as shareholders in the East India Company. They were also involved with the Company in the trade in opium from Bengal to China.

  The head of my family at that time was Sir Henry Lancaster. At the age of thirty-five, he married the Honourable Lucy Craven, who bore four children for him and promptly died. Lucy came from a very respectable family that had a magnificent house in the Lake District, Marlowe Hall. There, the happy couple – if they were indeed happy – had spent many weeks each year, but in 1731 a fire broke out that gutted the house far beyond repair. Blanchard showed me a full account of the event, what had become of the staff, and how the loss of the Hall had broken Lucy’s father’s heart. He had set great store by the building, which had been designed at the start of the century when Wren and Hawksmoor were still in partnership, and which had contained furniture and objets d’art of great cost and surprising beauty.

  Sir Henry ordered the construction of Hallinhag House, a much smaller establishment, as a temporary dwelling for his parents-in-law, who were settling into their London house for the coming season. They never lived there, but when visiting during its construction Lord Craven went swimming in Ullswater one Sunday afternoon and never returned to shore. They found his shoes, his shirt and his breeches on the rock where he had left them. His body was never recovered. His widow decided to remain in London.

  And so Hallinhag became the Lancaster family’s summer resort. At about that time, Sir Henry was looking for a business that could be run closer to home. The long distances to and from India, and the precarious nature of the opium trade, which was illegal in China, led him to think of Portugal, with its long history in trade and exploration in the East, and this led him to port and the development of the vineyards in the upper Douro region. Thus Lancaster ports were born.

  Sir Henry died in 1761, but the trade was continued under the auspices of his son William, who strengthened links with Portugal. He himself spent some time in the country, returning in 1745 to marry his old sweetheart, the honourable Jane Fitzgibbons, whose grave I now remember seeing in the churchyard at St Martin’s.

  It is about this time that we found something untoward. I haven’t been able to piece it all together, but I can guess at some of it.

  Here is the text of a letter written by William soon after he took over the family fortunes.

  Hallinghag House

  Ullswater

  His Grace the Duke of Westmoreland

  My Lord Duke,

  I wish to thank Yr Grace for Yr latest communication. It is a relief to know that her Ladyship is fully recovered from her late illness. We have weathered great storms in these past few years, have we not, m’Lord?

  I take pleasure to inform Yr Grace that the shipment of Colheitas that was promised last year has arrived safely after having aged in oak barrels for these past 20 years. This firft shipment amounts to only fifty bottles, of which I have taken the immense liberty to reserve two dozen for Yr Grace, together with a barrel of Garrafeira for the Cambridge Club, where it will be laid down for above two years. A second vessel will dock in London in the next week, barring foul weather, with what we know on board. If this supply be healthy, as we anticipate, it will give some breathing space here at Ullswater.

  Last week, we lost three to ye gas or to whatsoever else was brought here by ye dancing men. I have asked Dr — to attend us, but after the last time he pleads business elsewhere. Perhaps Yr Grace can persuade him as You best know how and have the mood for it and the temperament. I defer to Yr Grace’s wisdom in all such matters, and I herewith enclose a bag of what you know in order to entice Yr Grace’s appetite for more. May I inquire if the young lady I sent last month has proved satisfactory? The supply of such goods is almost limitless, but it must be kept dark. Did Sir Q— receive what they sent from Lisbon, that came out of China by way of Cairo? He is too dmn’d fastidious and has no knowledge of what else we do here.

  As ever in this matter, m’Lord, I rely on Yr discretion. Should Yr Grace wish to inspect for Yourself what work we carry on here, I pledge myself to see to all Yr needs, for there is much to be seen, though they be restless both day and night. But rest assured they can be pacified. The ones who dance go at their japes & antiques something marvellous. They beat their drums and clash their sticks like the brute savages they are, and their black faces are a terror to me.

  Believe me at all times, my Lord, with sincerity and respect, your faithful obliged and humble servant,

  William Lancaster Bart

  There were other letters of a similar tenor. All of them light, many of them cross-letters, where the writing of one page is written over diagonally by what follows, in order to save money. Cecil Blanchard explained to me that in that period it was the recipient who paid for post, not the sender, and that heavier and longer letters attracted higher fees. I found these letters hard to read, but I have brought some home in order to apply myself more thoroughly to them. The letters were often in Sir William’s hand and had been returned to him for reasons I could not guess. They do not seem to have been unwelcome, for sometimes the original recipients would add friendly notes in a margin or near the signature. William’s addressees included the Honourable Bertram Grisham, the Marquess of Mallen, the Earl of Dunlop, the Viscount Newton, the Bishop of Durham, and less exalted men – there were no women – such as Sir Waldo Featherstone, Mr John Hawkridge, the Master of Rivenhall, and a number of individuals whom I took to be tradesmen.

  This correspondence took place over an extended compass. From one in Scotland, to two in Devon, to another in Yorkshire, one in Northumberland, and several in London. There were also several letters to him from Portugal, some from Lisbon, others from Oporto or Porto, and one from Coimbra, which is a prestigious university town like Oxford or Cambridge.

  Later

  I have just finished my first examination of these documents at home. They lie on the table like feathers that may, if stroked firmly enough, transform themselves back into birds. Nothing is straightforward. The letters are of very different dates: Cecil explained that it was not the custom then to include the year. There are various bills and receipts, only a few of which relate to shipments or sales of port. Some are for building materials, some are more obscure, like two in Portuguese that carry the tally of dez es’os, which I can’t disentangle save for the ‘ten’ at the start. Perhaps we can find someone who can read Portuguese better than I, since there are several letters, a few ship’s manifests, and a sort of diary in that language. Cecil tells me he will look for someone at London University. Unfortunately, nobody’s there at the moment since the whole university has moved out to safer locations round the country. The Ministry of Information has moved in. Cecil tells me King’s College has moved out to several destinations, Bristol, Glasgow, Birmingham and Leeds. We’ll have to work out who can tell us where their Portuguese department has gone – if they still have one, that is.


  I have organized the papers as best I can for the moment. One thing that has surprised me is a list of names, Portuguese names. The main list is organized alphabetically, and has asterisks against five names. It reads like this:

  Adão*

  Agostinho

  Alícia

  Caetano Moura

  Clara*

  Clarissa

  Débora

  Dinis

  Érica

  Félix

  Geraldo Paredes

  Gilberto Ribeiro

  Helena*

  Hugo

  Irene

  Loão

  Margarida*

  Mateus

  Octávia*

  Paulo

  Raymundo

  Rebeca

  It is the names with asterisks that frighten me. I was at first quite indifferent to them until I looked more closely. Adão. Clara. Helena. Margarida. Octávia. Adam. Clare. Helen. Margaret. And Octavia. Not English girls at all, not an English boy. Portuguese children, all of them, except for my sister. Unless my father had conceived her with a Portuguese woman during one of his long business trips to the country. Octavia did not in the least resemble my mother, who remained indifferent to her. My sister is dark-haired and looks as Portuguese as an Infanta.

  Later

  I was working on the documents in the library, where the family books – several generations’ worth – are kept, along with technical materials about wine, port, viniculture and Portugal. It is my favourite room in the flat, and over the years I have taken pains to keep it in good repair and to ensure that everything is maintained in good order. I was starting to feel hungry and realized it must be close to dinner. At that moment, the door opened and my mother appeared. She seemed a little on edge.

  ‘Dominic,’ she said, ‘have you seen Octavia lately?’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Not for some hours. I thought she stayed here today.’