Eve Makes Her Mind Up

The show was called Make Your Mind Up. Nobody to do with it really liked that name. It sounded too much like a vexed parent losing patience with a dithering child in a sweet shop. But Both Sides Now probably infringed copyright law, and Fact or Fiction made it sound as if it was a book programme. In fact, Eve Williams would have much preferred to work on a book programme, but she still knew she was lucky to get the job. Okay, and the producer being a member of the same cricket club as her Great Uncle Theodor probably helped, but not officially, of course.

      There were plenty of shows that were not overdemanding of scientific or well-documented proof when it came to psychic phenomena, and there were others that made it their mission in life to entirely debunk so much as a passing glance of great-great grandma. Make Your Mind Up claimed to take a more neutral stance, aimed, not necessarily at either the believer or the cynic but those with “An interest and an Open Mind.” That was by way of being a catchphrase. 

     There were three presenters. Kevin Harrison, the voice of science and reason, Ellen Stokes, the believer, and Eve, who was basically Everywoman, whose own mind was there to be made up (or otherwise). Sometimes, particularly in the Specials, all three of them went to one venue and investigated one “case”, as they called them, but more often than not, just one was sent along, and then the matter was discussed, with “witnesses”.

     Eve had mixed feelings about being the chosen one for Fleetby Hall. Or as it was technically known now, the Fleetby Hall Hotel. Even in its heyday it had never been in the Premier League of Stately Homes, and nor was it in the Premier League of hotels. It was in the part of Lincolnshire that the tourist office called Betwixt the Wolds and the Sea, and as Kevin said (he wasn’t only a cynic in the matter of ghostly phenomena) if somewhere is only identified as being betwixt two other things, it isn’t exactly enticing. 

     But Eve felt a need to defend Fleetby Hall, irrespective of its ghosts or lack thereof. She had a weakness for the slightly shabby, the slightly run down and dilapidated (for all the brochure and website assured that it had been tastefully restored). She had spent much of her own childhood in a former railway crossing house, which while not even on a par with Fleetby Hall’s B-list grandeur, she had always proudly thought of as just that bit different from her friends’ homes. 

     True, she was somewhat undecided and contradictory on the matter of hotels, and had a secret sneaky liking for modern budget chains, thinking them much maligned. But she had her favourites of the other kind, too, and was certainly prepared – on both counts – to give Fleetby Hall the benefit of the doubt. Especially as Channel East was paying for her stay. 

     Fleetby was one of those places that can only be called a village, and yet didn’t confirm to most people’s expectations of one. It was a line of buildings along a road coming from somewhere else and going to somewhere else. It still had its squat stone church, but the village school had gone and the village shop had gone, though the building was still there, and there was intermittent talk of it being opened again at some vague future date. If the French custom of a sign crossing out the name of a village on leaving it had been in use there, Eve didn’t know quite where it would have been placed. 

     Fleetby Hall had some of the “essentials” of a stately home and a stately home hotel. It had a drive, though admittedly not a very long one, and the quick-growing conifers that flanked it were a fairly recent addition, the original trees having died. It had a most impressive oak front door that creaked atmospherically, a creak that could probably have been fixed easily enough, but wasn’t. The reception area had slightly faded rugs on the floorboards, and pictures on the wall of fierce and apathetic looking ladies and gentlemen who may or may not have been members of the Fleetby Family (for at least that much had been authenticated and the family who lived at the home had given their name to the village). The last member of the Fleetby family to live at the hall had been Robert, a much-loved old gentleman, a veteran of the Somme who lived into the 1980s. But as the local people said, it had begun to “overget him”. He had left it to his only child, Roland, knowing that he had said he had no interest in living there. Roland, who had been respected but not especially liked, had made a few renovations, but only enough to make it saleable. It had a brief spell as the wish fulfilment fantasy of a lottery winner, who admitted before long that he couldn’t “settle” there – whether that referred to realising that the rural life wasn’t all he’d imagined it was, or to any unsettling presence wasn’t quite clear.

     Then it had its “sleeping stage”, as the present owner, Nicola Herriot, termed it. What that basically entailed was everything in the grounds either dying or growing rank, some of it poking tendrils into the house itself, damp patches on the walls becoming, well, the walls, lead flashings disappearing from the roof and rats and moths doing their worst. But Nicola still saw potential. And her brother was a builder who liked a challenge. 

     So it metamorphosed, over a period of months, into the Fleetby Hall Hotel, complete with a sign proclaiming that fact, and somewhat self-referentially showing a picture of the hall that managed to make it look both more splendid and more spooky at the same time.

     Because there was a ghost. In fact, there was (if you believed such things) more than one ghost. Now those who could remember Sir Robert (and even nowadays, that gave you a kind of kudos in the stretched out village) could not recall him specifically referring to a ghost. But it was generally agreed that he had an open mind on such things, and had definitely not said there wasn’t one. 

     The two ghosts most frequently referred to weren’t even members of the Fleetby Family. There was one who was variously referred to as The Governess or The Housekeeper – anyway she was some kind of female upper servant, soberly dressed, rather forbidding, an uneasy amalgam of Jane Eyre and Mrs Danvers. The other was known as The Soldier, and cut a rather forlorn figure, as if constantly looking for his lost comrades. Eve wondered if Robert might have seen that figure, whether he spoke of him or not. 

     She was greeted by Nicola herself – a surprisingly ordinary woman, though not in a bad way, whose roots needed touching up, but who had a pleasant and welcoming smile. I wonder what she really wants me to say, thought Eve. I suspect that she hopes I agree there’s some substance – for want of a better word! – to the ghosts, but not that there’s anything menacing. Eve really did have an open mind. Oh, there were some so-called hauntings that even Ellen had to admit were “unlikely” and she thought were pure bunkum, but other things she’d have struggled to explain logically, no matter what Kevin said. Perhaps that was part of her appeal. Believable indecisiveness and fence-sitting could be surprisingly difficult to fake convincingly!

     Nicola led Eve up a moderately impressive wooden staircase to her room on the first floor. Even if there is no ghost here, thought Eve, hands have pressed on this handrail and feet have trodden those steps for hundreds of years – at least, if she believed what Nicola said about them being original, and she had no reason not to. Even though she didn’t approve of hunting, Eve was slightly disappointed that she had, so far, not spotted one stag’s head. She wondered if there were any in the dining room. But she was quite relieved that her door, even if it stuck a bit, did not creak, and that the plumbing was at least relatively modern. There was an old fashioned china jug and bowl in the room, but they were just for decorative purposes. Still, the room had that feel that probably only comes in an old room in an old house. There was, thought Eve, something about hotels anyway, even modern chain ones. They were neither and nor sorts of places, half prosaic, half disorienting, especially if your stay was only brief – after ten days or a fortnight, things sometimes inverted, and going home felt strange and disorienting. She liked hotels, though. Very casually, Nicola said, “Sir Robert’s daughter, Francesca’s, governess lived in this room, though she went to school when she was ten.”

     “I thought he only had a son!” 

     Nicola sighed. “Francesca died when she was only eighteen, poor thing. A riding accident.”

    Yet Francesca was not one of the ghosts of Fleetby Hall. Eve honestly couldn’t decide if that made her more or less inclined to believe in them. Nicola went on, “But I don’t think she was the governess as in The Governess. Miss Pettigrew – Francesca’s governess – was a small, plump woman, and most folk who’ve seen – who say they’ve seen – The Governess – say she’s tall and skinny.”

     Eve noticed the use of words like “most” and “don’t think” and “who say” as if Nicola were intent on being scrupulously honest but ruling nothing out. 

     “Well, I’ll leave you to – to freshen up, to have a rest, to – do whatever you like, really …..” her voice trailed off a tad lamely, and Eve couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. It was plain to anyone that though Fleetby Hall Hotel had weathered crises and fallow times before, now it was really getting desperate. True, it was still relatively early, but she had seen no other cars on the car park, and the lounge leading off from the reception area, the door half-open, was empty, with nobody sitting on the slightly threadbare leather armchairs with their embroidered antimacassers. 

     But half an hour or so later, she was feeling sorrier for herself. Eve wasn’t one of those people who never got ill, she was prone to sinus headaches and a martyr to hayfever in the summer. But everyone who knew her even passably well agreed that she seemed to have a cast iron stomach. The various viruses, bacteria, and questionable food that were others’ nemesis left her untouched. 

     So just what was going on? She had a griping pain across her belly, and felt nauseated and wretched. She opened the casement window. It did no good. She took a couple of sips of water. It did no good. She remembered reading somewhere that ginger, in any way shape or form, was good to settle the stomach, but there were no ginger biscuits in the little packets provided, and she doubted she could have got one down, anyway.

     I am going to disgrace myself, she thought, miserably, and yet she had a horrible suspicion she had more than that to worry about. She opened the door that was now sticking even more obdurately, or was it just that she was so weak, and started to make her way down to reception to ask Nicola if she had any medications, and to say that she was terribly sorry. But it wasn’t a good idea. Everything lurched frighteningly in and out of focus, and a pain across her belly was so sharp and sheer that it knocked her off balance. 

     She woke up back in her room, feeling still weary and disoriented, but the pain and the nausea had gone. She noticed that the bedding was white, and was sure that before there had been a coloured counterpane. A young woman she didn’t recognise was sitting beside her. It must be evening, she thought, after all, Nicola can’t be on reception al the time. Oh dear, I will have to apologise to everybody for making such a nuisance of myself. I hope I feel well enough to make the programme.

     “How are you feeling now, Eve?” the young woman asked. She had a very kind voice and face, and lovely eyes, too, that kind of blue that turn it into a warm colour. Yet something about that gaze still unsettled Eve, and she was just in a hurry to get back to normal life, and to filming Make Your Mind Up, forgetting this whole unfortunate episode.

     “Much better, thank you,” she said, politely. “I’m so sorry about this …..?” she made one of those pauses that are universally understood as requesting a name.

     “My name’s Francesca.” Well, that was a coincidence, but after all, it wasn’t that uncommon a name.

     “Mine’s Eve – well, I expect you know that, I expect Nicola has told you ...” She realised that she was doing what Kevin called babbling. Normally an equable and tolerant man, civil even in the face of phoney psychics, every so often he made it plain that he was irritated by babbling. 

     “Yes, I know your name.”

     “Anyway, I’m sorry, and sorry I keep repeating yourself.”

     “It is of no importance. Eve, listen carefully now, my dear.” Though she was older by at least ten years, Eve suddenly felt like a little girl. “Everyone did their best for you. They called the ambulance. But it was peritonitis. You didn’t stand a chance. And now you need no longer concern yourself with the fake spectres of Fleetby Hall. You are like me. You have become one of the real ones.”