The Dead House E-Book

Billy O'Callaghan

• Herausgeber: Brandon
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Attempting to rebuild her life after a violent relationship, Maggie Turner, a successful young artist, moves from London to Allihies and buys an ancient abandoned cottage. Keen to concentrate on her art, she is captivated by the wild beauty of her surroundings. After renovations, she hosts a house-warming weekend for friends. A drunken game with a Ouija board briefly descends into something more sinister, as Maggie apparently channels a spirit who refers to himself simply as 'The Master'. The others are visibly shaken, but the day after the whole thing is easily dismissed as the combination of suggestion and alcohol. Maggie immerses herself in her painting, but the work devolves, day by day, until her style is no longer recognisable. She glimpses things, hears voices, finds herself drawn to certain areas: a stone circle in the nearby hills, the reefs at the west end of the beach behind her home ... A compelling modern ghost story from a supremely talented writer. From the Costa Short Story Award Finalist, Billy O'Callaghan. 'a welcome voice to the pantheon of new Irish writing' - Edna O'Brien

Leseprobe

Praise for The Things We Lose, The Things We Leave Behind

‘I know of no writer on either side of the Atlantic who is better at exploring the human spirit under assault than Billy O’Callaghan.’ Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winner

‘O’Callaghan’s protagonists may have a “predilection for melancholy” but nevertheless there are touches of hope in how they seek to take control of their lives, moments of action which serve as valuable counterpoints and contribute much to the texture of the volume …’ Irish Examiner

‘The elegant force of Billy O’Callaghan’s prose is immediate and impossible to recover from. He is one of Ireland’s finest short-story writers.’ Simon Van Booy, Frank O’Connor Award-winning author of Love Begins in Winter

‘O’Callaghan’s ability to use words to convey emotion is astonishing … The words coming up from the page and wrapping around you, transmitting that emotion, the aching from the core of the piece into the reader themselves … A delight to read, with strong, immediate prose, a distinctive style that becomes a thing of beauty.’ The Red Curtain

To Nellie and Peggy, my grandmothers,

for the stories they gave me and give me still. Sometimes, when the wind lifts the dead still sing.

Contents

Title Page DedicationAcknowledgements Prologue Part I Part II Part III Epilogue About the AuthorCopyright

Acknowledgements

Books owe their lives to several people in a myriad of small but critical ways.

This story had been in my bones for years, decades, but it wasn’t until Chang Ying-Tai and I set out to explore the Beara Peninsula, back in 2011, that I found the way of letting it be told. So, if it wasn’t for her, there’d be no The Dead House. I owe her a lot, including that.

Others, too, mattered more than I can say. These are the ones who helped stoke the fire, or who kept me going with their belief when, on occasion, my confidence hit the dirt: Pete Duffy, Ronnie McGinn and Billy McCarthy, fellow scribes and my Rambling House-mates; and also Ann Riordan, Emma Turnbull, Denise and John Juliano, Cliodhna Lynch, Julia, Florian, Valentin, Helmut and Christine – the wonderful Schwaninger family, Sylvia Petter, Jack Power, Shoko Kanenari, Emilio José Bonome Ares, Yasemin Yazici, Seda Peksen and Aysu Erden. Deserving of my deepest and most sincere thanks are Martin McCarthy and Brian Whelan, friends and writers whose opinions I value more than those of anyone else, for reading and encouraging when no one else wanted to know.

It hardly needs saying, but I’ll say it anyway, that my family are the reason I am anything at all. Martin, Kate and my great pal, Liam, who these days is the cause of nearly all my smiles; Irene, Yann and Jazz, who live my writing with me; and, of course, my parents, Liam and Regina, the most generous hearts I know, the ones who hold it all together and who keep us going when we stumble.

Beyond the writing, though – because, for me, the writing is usually the easy part; it’s the living, to paraphrase the great Kris Kristofferson, that’s hard – this book owes its existence to my agent and friend, Svetlana Pironko, of the Author Rights Agency, who fights my battles for me.

I must also acknowledge Cork County Council (and, in particular, the wonderfully supportive Library Arts Officer, Sinead Donnelly) for the Literature Bursary in 2015, which let me spend precious time contemplating ways of getting a long-festering idea finally down on paper.

And finally, my gratitude to the staff of The O’Brien Press/Brandon Books, especially my patient, put-upon editor, Ide ní Laoghaire, for wrestling my words into such beautiful print; and, most of all, to Michael O’Brien, for seeing in my work what I always hope is there.

Walking

I walk ahead

– Just out of reach

Of the ocean’s polished claw – a body

Observing the West Cork sun

Through rusted eye

– Hooked,

Hauled in,

And smashed,

And smashed again against the side.

A white and shivering skin

Assembles on the clawed floor.

I am afraid to turn and find

Only myself,

The sea,

And the wind.

Andrew Godsell (1971-2003)

Prologue

Tonight, I have a story to tell, one that for years I’ve kept buried, one that I’d hoped could have remained so forever. But the circumstances of the past several hours have brought everything once again to the surface, and I can no longer deny the things I’ve seen.

This is the truth as I know it to be, this is what I remember. At the very least, I want this to stand as a kind of confession. No, not only want. Need. Even now, I find myself clinging to the idea that some vital and previously overlooked detail will reveal itself, some glint sparking away in the dark distance with a final offer of salvation, something I have long misread or overlooked. God, hope, something. Clinging to logic in the face of every contradiction. Because time, as we all know, can blur things. But maybe it can also, in its way, bring clarity. I only hope that, with so much at stake, I have not waited too long to speak of this.

And if it should prove that I am deluding myself, that talking changes nothing, then tell me, please, if you can, what choice do I have? Hoping for the best, even in the face of certain worst, is how we all live our lives. Isn’t it the reason why so many of us pray?

I suppose, in the final analysis, this story will hang on a single burning question:

Do you believe in ghosts?

Because that’s really where it begins, with belief. We glimpse or experience something that defies explanation and we either accept the stretch in our reality or we choose to turn our heads away. It’s a question that torments even philosophers: Do you believe? Our minds build our worlds for us, setting a line between what is acceptable as truth and what is not. We are conditioned to doubt the reality of the supernatural, and encouraged to assume that our world holds nothing more than the details of its surface. There is little about life as we have come to know it that can’t be explained away on some basic scientific level. Yet when the wind howls, and we find ourselves alone with only the yellow pool of a guttering candle to hold back the darkness, our instinct, perhaps our innate need for something above and beyond, still screams otherwise.

That is, as I say, where it begins. With belief. I’ve seen, and the truth is that even now, with all that has happened and all that seems to be happening again, a part of me remains uncertain. The stains of scepticism are just as hard to scrub away as those of faith. What I do know is that, for me at least, the past simply will not remain the past. The dead refuse to rest, or even to lie still. And I am not asking you to believe. I ask only that you give yourself time and space to consider the question, and that you listen, with an open mind. Because this is something I need to tell.

Part I

My name is Michael Simmons. I am married to Alison, and the father of one child, a daughter, Hannah, who is almost seven now, and our reason for bliss. Home for us is Southwell, a small village on the Cornish coast. Our house, a mile and a half out, is a modest but ample stone-build that sits on its own wood-backed acre overlooking the sea. It is a place that holds the illusion of loneliness, yet lies within easy calling distance of the church bell. An ideal compromise. And we could not have chosen a more beautiful place to live than Southwell, positioned as it is among the folds of land and distinguished by steep streets and alleyways and lots of outlying greenery, the sort of place perfect for children. Even on the sodden days of winter, it retains a peculiar beauty. The air is clean, we can walk the cliffs, swim during the summer months or search for amber on the beaches. Cars drive slowly along its narrow roads, and everyone knows everyone else by name.