Strange Sight by Syd Moore

Author:Syd Moore
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786072061
Publisher: Oneworld Publications
Published: 2017-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWELVE

Ethel-Rose was a vivacious young woman. Bright, with a personality that switched between infectious cheer and reflective solemnity. This I knew from my dad. His mum, he had told me, was beautiful too with an evident glamour that lent her the charisma of a ballet dancer or a movie star. This I also discovered for myself, after viewing the Strange family portrait that hung over the fireplace in the museum lounge that Sam and I sprawled in while Bronson boosted the fire.

I also thought, though no one had mentioned it, that she was quite sexy.

In the picture she’d chosen a sumptuous pink evening gown, taffeta or silk or a fabric similarly shiny, which revealed just enough décolletage to titillate decorously. The painter had certainly appreciated the view, you could tell. He’d worked hard on the cleavage and her eyes – which turned out wide and lashy and kitten-green. Certainly I thought he’d captured a spark, a moment of impish mischievousness in them. Or maybe that was just me.

More recently I had learnt from Sam that Ethel-Rose possessed another interesting quality: she was allegedly clairvoyant. That is, my grandfather, who seemed to have once been the expert on such matters, thought her so. In fact it was this rather unconventional aspect of her character that had brought her to his notice. He had been assigned to investigate her case which he approached with every intention of catching her out. But he couldn’t and ended up marrying her. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. I wasn’t sure about any of that malarkey. Though I had taken my foot off my own brakes of late, having learnt from Sam that absolute scepticism could be just as blinding as absolute faith. And despite loud protests to the contrary, it did resonate somewhere within.

Sitting back into his armchair Bronson took a sip of the brandy he’d found in the cellar, and said, ‘She was a beauty, your grandmother. I was only five years old when she disappeared but my father—’

Eh? I sat up straight. ‘She disappeared?’ I thought she died. ‘What do you mean “disappeared”?’ Dad hadn’t mentioned that.

For a moment he seemed doubtful, then Sam came in and said, ‘I told you. The other night. When we were at your flat. It’s another Strange family mystery.’

‘Did you?’ I said, not really able to remember. But anyway, that wasn’t the point. ‘Sorry.’ I nodded at Bronson, eager not to put him off. ‘Please. You were saying your father …?’ Though internally I was almost quaking.

‘Yes,’ he said sending his mind back to his childhood, I supposed. ‘My father remembered her very fondly. He used to work with her father, your great-grandfather, Frederick, at his nursery. He was a lovely man, Fred. The wife though, she had, what you’d call “airs and graces”. Reckoned herself as a bit of a madam. Not that she had any cause to set herself above the rest of the village from what I heard. Pair of them arrived in Adder’s Fork during the First World War.

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