The Haunting of Las Lágrimas Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Leave us a review

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Note on the Text

  The Hotel Bristol, Mar del Plata

  A Stranger in the Garden

  The House of Tears

  Maldita (adj.)

  Rivacoba Makes Arrangements

  Across the Pampas

  Dinner for One

  A Tour of the Garden

  The Trophy Room

  The View from the Treehouse

  A Most Violent Sound

  The First Bath

  Beneath the Veil of Thorns

  The Axeman

  The Melancholia of Sr Moyano

  Inside the Cabin

  The Cold in my Bones

  Dry Matter

  A Morning at Leisure

  The Quarry & the Boy

  From Behind the Door

  Calista’s Remedy, Calista Speaks

  Gift or Warning?

  Treasures . . . & a Surprise

  Berganza’s Tale

  The Lights in the Trees

  Words with Latigez

  Over the Wailing Wall

  Giving Notice

  Calista is Offended

  Never an English Rose

  Mantrap

  Old Metal & Honeycomb

  ‘Wrist to Elbow’

  The Arrival of Don Paquito

  Blood on my Clothes

  The Garden & the Ghost

  Take Me with You!

  A House in Mourning

  Not Quite Alone

  Amidst the Amaranth & Moly

  A Fair Plan

  Hideously Afraid

  Beneath the Ombú Trees

  Once More into the House

  The Endless Way Ahead

  Postscript

  Hearsay & Speculation

  About the Author

  LEAVE US A REVIEW

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  The Haunting of Las Lágrimas

  Print edition ISBN: 9781789098334

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781789098341

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd.

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  www.titanbooks.com

  First edition February 2022

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © 2022 W.M. Cleese. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  For Nicole

  Note on the Text

  The following narrative was written in October 1913 in the journal of Ursula McKinder (née Kelp). Now a forgotten figure, in the decade after the war Ursula was a widely respected gardener counting the likes of Sir Arthur William Hill, the director of Kew Gardens, among her circle.

  Although the original journal has since been lost, while researching my book on the Malayan Emergency, I discovered a photostat of it in the papers of Ursula’s daughter, Flores. This reproduction was most likely made in the 1950s in Singapore, where the family had relocated to avoid the bloodshed in Malay. Quite why Flores made a copy remains uncertain.

  In preparing the journal for publication I was able to verify many elements of it: Ursula’s passage to Argentina aboard the RMS Arlanza; her employment in Buenos Aires with the Houghton family and sudden resignation; her subsequent stay at the Hotel Bristol in Mar del Plata. I even uncovered a receipt for the latter, her accommodation coming to 336 pesos (settled by banker’s draft). It is also evident that Ursula had travelled in the Pampas region. The contents of her grandfather’s will were confirmed by records held in the Cambridge offices of Cole, Cranley & White, solicitors.

  As for the disturbing events described at Las Lágrimas between 17 August and the first weeks of September 1913, I leave the reader to judge.

  WMC, February 2022

  SATURDAY, 4TH OCTOBER 1913

  The Hotel Bristol, Mar del Plata

  EVERY NIGHT THE same thing happens.

  I take supper in the hotel, insisting on a table in the centre of the restaurant, beneath the main chandelier, so that I am bathed in glittering light and surrounded by as many people as possible. Never did the hum of idle chatter reassure as much. I sit with my back to the windows to avoid the inky blackness of the ocean beyond. I eat only the day’s catch or salad, to rest easily on my digestion, and finish with a generous glass of port wine – not to fortify but to drug me.

  Then to my room where I draw a bath. The water is fiercely hot here and afterward I am left broiled and drowsy. I put on my nightclothes and sink into the sheets. They are so soft, especially with the memory of sleeping in the wilds of the Pampas still fresh in my mind. Out there, in those vast empty grasslands, the ground was hard and sodden; I had nothing but a poncho to protect me from the howling cold as I huddled, hungry and alone, in the grip of fear. Every light in the bedroom I keep switched on, something I would have once found a nonsense. Now I tremble at shadows – and what they may conceal. Finally, I swallow a sedative and close my eyes.

  At first it feels as if tonight I shall be successful. My limbs relax, my breathing deepens. I slide into my private darkness and begin to drift, dimly aware of the sounds outside the window… The crash and hiss of waves against the beach, the whip of the wind through palm trees…

  Then all at once I am at Las Lágrimas again – and I awaken. Thrashing and gasping and begging for deliverance.

  The remembrance of that dreadful place has been with me all day: when I rise from another sleepless night, when blearily I eat breakfast, when I stroll through town. Stroll? I march, practically at a dash, around Mar del Plata, racing along the rambla to where the coastline is undeveloped, then up to the cliffs before winding back my path through grids of pretty, Alpine-fashion houses to the seafront. There have been occasions when twice I have followed this circuit. The locals are beginning to recognize me: the demented inglesa with her darkly ringed eyes and trailing red hair. I walk a dozen hours of the day in the vain hope I will exhaust myself sufficiently for bedtime.

  I must admit that in the daylight and bracing sea air, with an abundance of people around me, I am something of my old self – albeit the numerous pleasure gardens I pass with their thoughtful planting patterns and eye-catching symmetries, gardens just now coming into bloom, gardens where once I could have idled away many happy hours, no longer captivate my interest.

  Mar del Plata is a modern seaside resort growing, as high-season approaches, more clement and populated by the day. Electric-lights illuminate the streets. My hotel, the Bristol, is the best in town, plush and secure behind lock and door aplenty. Rationally, I am assured that no harm can come to me here. Yet when the memory of Las Lágrimas forces itself upon me, the terror of recent events is as immediate and blood-chilling as it was during those last days at the house. M
y heart hammers with such fierceness that I know I shall be awake again to witness the dawn. It has been no different these past two weeks. I came to Mar del Plata to exorcise these memories, not fall deeper under their spell.

  I must do something!

  On previous nights I have paced my room in a fever of agitation before, inevitably, I take myself downstairs, craving the society of others. I frequent the lobby until the small hours when all the other guests have retired and my only company is the night staff. The concierge must think I am sweet on him or, I daresay, deranged. As a young Englishwoman staying here with neither family nor husband nor any chaperone, I have raised eyebrows enough already.

  I wish Grandfather were with me; never have I missed him so much. I do not need his presence, however, to be confident of what he would advise. His study was lined with the journals he had kept: leather-bound logbooks that had seen half the world, their pages distended with the salt of sea voyages and the steam of jungles more distant than ever I could imagine. Every hardship he suffered, every tropical fever and mortal threat – all those adventures that thrilled me as a child – laid to rest by writing them down. ‘Ink on paper,’ he would say, ‘soothes the soul.’

  I hear his voice now: Write, Ursula! Write it all down, in every last detail, and it will trouble you no further.

  Can it possibly be that simple?

  When I fled the house at Las Lágrimas I took only the barest of essentials. The rest – my clothes, books, gardening tools, nearly all the worldly possessions I had brought with me from Britain to Argentina – I had to abandon. I try not to think whether unseen fingers have since picked through my belongings. One thing I did slip into my pocket before I took flight was my fountain-pen, a gift from Grandfather for my twenty-first birthday, that I refused to leave. There is a stationer in the arcade by the hotel. Late this afternoon, as I returned from my long walk, I went in on the spur of the moment and purchased a pot of ink and a stiff-backed notebook bound in cloth, the self-same book I am writing these words in. I do not want to spend another night lingering in the lobby or shivering in my room purblinded by an excess of lights. I do not want a future where the thought of bed brings nothing but trepidation. I have never been prone to the nervous conditions that afflict many of my sex, like my sisters; damn it! say I, if I will start now. I have always understood that I am different, my temperament stronger. Indeed, I feel more possessed of myself simply in the knowledge of what I am about to undertake. I must summon all my bravery again, as I did on that final night in Las Lágrimas.

  And so I shall describe the happenings of these past weeks, setting them down as Grandfather would urge me to: in impeccable detail, as relentlessly truthful as if I were standing in court – though I am not sure all will make sense. Where the specifics are lost to me (I think, in particular, of the many ephemeral conversations) I shall capture their essence if not exactitude. I state this plainly, in advance, in order that the reader be confident that what follows is as accurate and faithful account as possible. When I am done, I pray I shall find peace anew. That it will be granted to me to lie on my crumpled bed, turn out the light-switches, and sleep. Dreamless, uninvaded sleep.

  This, then, is the story I must tell. I must take myself back to Las Lágrimas. God preserve me, I must live it all once more.

  A Stranger in the Garden

  IT WAS THE twelfth day of August, on a dismal, chilly morning – late-winter in the southern hemisphere – when the stranger returned. Although the hour was early I was already at work in the garden, my woollen overcoat damp from the air, the tips of my fingers red and numb. To be clear, the garden was not mine. It belonged to the Houghtons, associates of my solicitor, who had lived in Buenos Aires a decade since. Their house was one of the many mansions in the Belgrano district of the city, a grand property obscured by high brick walls and mature trees, they being a rather impressive collection of jacarandas, la tipas and Japanese maples, all leafless at that time of year.

  I recognized the stranger at once not least from his height. He was tall (especially for an Argentine), with a gaunt but gentlemanly face, and wearing a pigskin coat that hung down to his boots. On his head was a bowler hat. He had visited several days before and spoken with Señor Gil, our Head Gardener. It had been a brief exchange and Gil had sent the stranger packing with his usual charm. We were a garden staff of four, with myself as the most recent addition, and there was much speculation as to who this visitor might be. Gil had taken great pleasure in being tight-lipped on the subject, implying the stranger heralded important news, but offering no further insight.

  The previous encounter between the two had been by appointment in Gil’s hut, a building he insisted we refer to as his ‘office’. That morning, however, the stranger had let himself into the garden and ambushed Gil near the iris and lupin borders. By chance I was passing nearby, my hands cupped together holding a mouse’s nest. Gil often gave me jobs that brought me into contact with insects and rodents. His hope was that I would scream like an infant, but Grandfather had taught me to fear nothing, certainly not creatures smaller than my thumb! I had been clearing out pots when I found the mouse. Gil had a custom of stamping on the poor mites, so I wanted to move her to a corner of the garden where she might live unmolested. I was thus bound when I caught Gil and the stranger in conference. I was not popular amongst the staff. Any snippet of gossip I might come by would improve my standing, so I concealed myself and listened. I must confess to a certain thrill at eavesdropping, one of my uglier habits, and something Mother had often chided me for.

  Gil had a spectrum of tones from the blatantly obsequious when he spoke to the Houghtons to his toad-voice for those beneath him. Presently, his parlance was at its most amphibian. ‘… as I told you last time, I have no interest in your offer. Now leave. I’ve a busy morning.’

  ‘Imagine the opportunity,’ was the stranger’s reply. He had an odd voice, commanding with a hint of the cocksure, yet a fragile quality also. ‘Not a garden but an estancia. An entire estate for you to oversee.’

  ‘Even if it weren’t for the rest of it, who would want to live out there?’

  ‘With the new rail-line to Tandil, you can make the journey in two days.’

  ‘I don’t care for trains.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s the salary?’

  ‘Nor do I care for your money.’

  My ears pricked up. Here was a detail that would startle the others when shared. Few men were more avaricious than Eduardo Gil.

  ‘My employer is prepared to double his offer,’ said the stranger.

  ‘I have nothing else to say. I do not want your job, and I doubt you’ll find any man willing to take it.’

  I slipped away, my mind racing. Here was an opportunity to prove what I was capable of, to work as a proper gardener rather than a pair of ‘extra hands’ tolerated only because of my connection to Mr Houghton.

  I hurried to the wall that bounded Calle Miñones, lowered the mouse and watched her scurry off. ‘Good luck,’ I wished us both. Then I straightened my overcoat and arranged my hair more tidily beneath my hat. I could never be troubled to do much with it, another misdemeanour that earned me a daily rebuke from Gil. The Houghtons’ garden was designed along a grid of paths and hedges (it was, to my tastes, a little too formal). I skipped through them, positioning myself at an intersection where I knew the stranger must pass on his exit, and waited for him, pinching my cheeks to bring some colour to them. I breathed in damp lungfuls of air to steady my excitement – there was a smell of turned earth and leaf mould – and prepared what I would say. As the crunch of his footsteps on the gravel approached, I stepped out, moving deliberately so as not to waylay him. His face was a picture of annoyance and dejection.

  ‘Señor,’ I said, ‘my name is Ursula Kelp. I overheard your conversation with Gil and understand you are looking to employ a gardener.’

  ‘A Head Gardener, at an estancia in the Pampas, where I am the manager. Do you know of someone favourable?’
br />   ‘I myself would like to apply for the position.’

  He fixed me with his eyes and I feared he would laugh – but for a long while he said nothing. There was a hint of violet to his irises; the slightest bend to his nose. I did not shirk his gaze, Grandfather would expect nothing less, though as the seconds ticked past I had to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear by way of maintaining my composure. The stranger did not relent, as if challenging me to look away, as if he were a soul-reader. Now, of course, I wish I had – but at that moment, I had not the least intuition of the consequences.

  Finally, and in a grave tone, he said, ‘It is no job for a woman.’

  ‘I have gardened all my life,’ I answered him, bristling, ‘and am versed in horticulture as well as any man.’

  ‘Where are you from, Señorita? Your Spanish is good but you’re no Argentine. Nor is your complexion.’

  ‘From Britain.’

  ‘English?’

  He seemed rather emphatic on the point, which I thought a tad queer. I replied yes, from the good county of Cambridgeshire, adding, ‘I can provide letters of reference should you require.’

  His eyes were still set on mine, his whole bearing inanimate except for a scratching of his wrist as if some irritation troubled him there. I sensed a struggle – a calculation – going on behind his stare. ‘Would you have the kindness to show me your hands?’

  I have always found my hands a little on the inelegant side, not unattractive, you understand, but better buried in the soil than resting idly on my lap, manicured and adorned like my sisters’. I hesitated, then presented them, unsure what he was looking for, concerned they were either too clean or too grubby for his intended purpose.

  ‘Do you mind?’ he asked and, before I could reply, he had seized my hands, rubbing the skin to test how calloused it was. He rolled them over so my palms were facing downward and assessed the knuckles. For an alarming instant, I was convinced he planned to raise my fingers to his nose and sniff them. There was something rough in his manner as though he were examining the fetlocks of a nag at market. I freed myself from his grasp.