by Rumer Haven
Next trip wasn’t as far away from London—Hampton Court Palace. Henry VIII lived there after basically booting Cardinal Wolsey out for not supporting the king’s divorce with Catherine of Aragon. The oval above the altar in the Chapel Royal is supposedly the only one of its kind in a Christian church, representing an egg (as opposed to a cross) as the symbol for resurrection and rebirth. And buried beneath the altar are the organs of one of Henry’s wives, Jane Seymour (who died soon after giving birth to a male heir) because it was believed the soul resides in our innards. This inscription was written for her:
Here lieth a Phoenix, by whose death
Another Phoenix life gave breath:
It is to be lamented much
The world at once ne’er knew two such.
Then there was the Haunted Gallery. Henry’s lesser-loved wife, Catherine Howard, was accused of adultery and locked in her rooms—apparently, she tried to escape once and was dragged back kicking and screaming by the guards. She’s now known as the Screaming Lady that haunts the corridor.
Speaking of hauntings, after I left and researched more about the palace online, I found a video of a ghost caught on camera there—a man dressed in period clothing, opening and closing a couple of fire doors. I don’t know if I walked that way or not, but I’m glad I didn’t know about it at the time… Creeeepy, as Derek would say.
Anyways, I got there too late in the day to tour the gardens and maze, but I covered the palace pretty well. Instead of following an audioguide or reading every information plaque I passed, I just soaked in the general atmosphere, not bogging my mind down with facts but trying to experience it as an occupant might have. Other than the staff waiting around to close up shop, the corridors were empty by the time I left—just me and my footsteps on the wood and cobbles, echoing off the walls.
This is silly, but I felt like it was my own home as I looked at myself in tarnishing mirrors that would’ve once reflected back images of nobility and the servants scurrying in their service. I found myself straightening my back, folding my hands at waist-height, and trying to walk like a proper lady in a corset, hoops, and pinching little shoes. I stopped gawking around like a tourist and looked straight-on as though all the décor was everyday familiar, with the occasional glance side to side, nodding in acknowledgement of those milling about to pay me honor as the next to bear a male heir. I felt important and inadequate all at once. So random…
Chapter 4
Fact & Fiction
RAND WAS FINALLY DUE HOME the next day. Margot had already attended some seminars on Cultural Considerations in Mass Communications and The Art of Persuasion. Nothing too intensive assigned just yet, only a few chapters of dry reading to prepare for small-group discussion. It hadn’t been easy getting herself up and going again, but she welcomed the routine and made a concentrated effort to stick to it.
She was feeling unfocused this evening, though. To get blood rushing back to her brain, she got up to walk laps with what range of motion the flat allowed.
When that wasn’t enough to quell her restless spirit, she ventured out of the unit but not the building. She stuck to the stairwell, feeling the smooth wood of the banister glide across her palm with every step down. All the while, she imagined what it must’ve been like having to take the stairs in a long Victorian gown and not her yoga pants, how tricky it would’ve been to walk down or up without tripping on the skirts. She wondered if anyone had ever fallen to her death because of that and instinctively firmed her grip on the banister.
She made it all the way down to the foyer and was on her way back up when her pace slowed on reaching the next floor. The entrance to the unit below Rand’s was actually a double door, looking like it could lead into a small ballroom or some kind of entertainment space. Having rounded onto the landing in front of it, Margot stopped to look at the doorway and imagine what soirées might’ve gone on behind it back in the day. Was it where the woman of the house would’ve received callers?
The more she stared at the deep mahogany stain on the doors, the more her imagination could see through them, just barely discerning a mustachioed man seated in there by the window and beside a lamp with a fringed shade. The man in her mind sat with his legs crossed and a newspaper on his lap, his expression grave as he appeared to study the periodical in his hands.
The image grew clearer until the man suddenly looked up and Margot heard a shuffle from within, breaking her spell. She tiptoed the rest of her way up the stairs and back into Rand’s flat before the neighbors could catch her spying.
Once inside, she heard the thud of footsteps overhead as well. She always heard people above, below, and on either side of her, through the shared walls and floors, and she’d watch them walk outside, too, with their places to go and people to see. While here she was, alone on only one floor of what probably used to be a full and active house. Circling the living area that had once been part of the master bedroom, Margot imagined a Victorian husband and wife lying in each other’s arms, pillow-talking of the future and filling their home with children. Her distance from a situation like that seemed to coat her in cotton, muffling her ears and dulling her senses.
Screw studying. She flicked on the TV and walked into the kitchen to open a bottle of Malbec. Entire-bottle-of-wine-unto-oneself nights had become her new thing with Rand out of town, so she filled herself a glass, gave it a swirl, and contemplated the scrawny legs streaking down its sides.
Liquid happy.
A dramatic flourish of orchestral music brought her attention to the television, just in time to see the film Enchantment begin on a movie channel. At the sight of David Niven, she raised her glass to toast the Last Gentleman to Roam the Earth, then took a swill as she walked to the sofa to enjoy the flick. For all that she’d endured James’s teasing for it, Margot was an unashamed sucker for classics like this, valuing dialogue over action, romance over sex, gradual over rapid. She possessed a nurturing patience for the slow-going in her need-that-done-yesterday world. Tried to find herself in such stories by losing herself in them.
The bottle of Malbec was three-quarters empty and Margot slumped three-quarters down on the sofa by the time Pax, a World War II pilot, departed 99 Wiltshire Crescent. The home’s owner, Rollo (played by Niven), asked his niece Grizel about the young man. He went on to stress the importance of being loved, but she insisted her heart had been broken before, so she wouldn’t risk that again with Pax.
Knowing the feeling too well, Margot closed her eyes to lose her personal heartache to the darkness behind them. She drifted away a bit but brought her awareness back to see that Grizel had left and Rollo crossed the room to an armchair. Settling there, he heart-wrenchingly whispered into the air to his long-lost lover, Lark, asking if she’d heard Grizel’s foolish words. Chastised, Margot felt warm tears stream down her face. She clenched her eyes shut again to quell their burning.
And then she passed out to sweet, black oblivion…
Until a blast jolted her back. She woke to the sounds of the London Blitz—the humming of fighter jets, the wailing of sirens. The tremendous burst of a bomb. Opening a bleary eye, Margot saw Rollo lying in the debris of 99 Wiltshire Crescent. The house itself narrated the film’s ending, about how the young would occupy it again with a new lease on life.
My name wasn’t even on the lease to that condo, she thought before opening her other eye—only to see her wine glass hanging from her fingers. It pointed down to what now looked like a violent crime scene, minus the chalk-outlined figure.
“Oh shit! Fuck!”
She stumbled to the kitchen and yanked a dish towel from the oven door.
“Fuck! Shit! Fucking shit!” She scrubbed to prevent permanent stains on Rand’s pale carpeting. “Fucking cream carpeting!” she boozily ranted while wearing the small dishcloth down to a fuzzy red nub.
Head spinning, Margot rose from her little puddle and ambled down to the bathroom to grab a bigger—and darker—towel. She didn’t bother turning on the light as
she felt her way to the sink and the cabinet beneath. Finding a bath sheet there, she stood and couldn’t help but look at her shadowy reflection. In the absence of anyone else to acknowledge her, she needed to see in the large mirror that she was flesh and blood and interacting with the world. That she was here, in your face, and she mattered.
In the dim natural light still coming through the windows, she stared into the black circular voids of her eye sockets. Opened her mouth to see a larger cavity gape ghoulishly beneath them. She shut and opened and shut it again to the acute sound of her clamping teeth. The movement confirmed the reflection was hers, that she had control of it.
But the longer she looked at her skull-like image, it appeared to pulse and crawl like so many maggots, brightening every second with a throbbing glow. Freaked, Margot ran to flick on the bathroom light before returning to the mirror.
She could see, now, how her lips and teeth were stained red, but her brighter reflection was still more reassuring. She decided to practice a conversation she’d started in her mind a while back, the tough-girl monologue she’d deliver if she ever ran into James again. As she fine-tuned the script, her reflection served as an acting coach, giving Margot feedback on body language.
I don’t belong to you or anybody. I’m me. My—
“Self. Yeah? ’Sright.”
Leaning down onto her elbows, she hung her limp hands over the sink and just zoned out at the mirror. She stared until her two hazel eyes appeared to merge into one. She wasn’t certain whom she saw in the reflection, only that she didn’t recognize herself anywhere in it.
Hugging the bath towel tightly, she lumbered over to the tub to turn on the faucet. When the water ran hot, she stoppered the drain, added some salts, and began to undress as she walked to her bedroom to fetch her little black journal. If any more thoughts came to mind for her eloquent James speech, she could jot them down as she soaked.
(Dream Entry—June 5)
spinning and spinning my center cannot hold much longer it will flail apart from the centrifugal force that dizzies me takes my breath makes me vomit rips me open inside out again and again like a changeling child born to torment with premature death only to be reborn cycle after cycle a bittersweet reincarnation
She’d lost track of time in the tub. Whether she’d actually fallen asleep or simply slipped into some waking, wine-induced nightmare, she’d abruptly splashed forward with a gasp and reached for her diary and pen to scribble her fantasies before they escaped her.
Overwhelmed by her rapid heartbeat and the heat and humidity of the bathroom, Margot finally stepped her pruned feet out of the tub. Disoriented but relatively sober again, she wrapped herself in a towel and walked a few more laps around the flat to find her breath. She eventually found her hand on the doorknob to Rand’s bedroom. And then, oddly enough, she found herself turning it and opening the door.
Whoops, wasn’t me…
She punched the light switch on as she entered the bedroom. Though bigger, the room was just like hers in design, from its decorative moldings to the crystal chandelier to the pine bedroom set. The sparse beige walls were true to bachelor-pad form, along with the orange rack on one of them for his road bike. But for what he lacked in décor, Rand compensated with an eclectic hodgepodge of framed photos on his dresser—from the exotic landscapes of his travels to family gatherings in what looked like a New England fishing village. Margot guessed it was Cornwall, based on what she’d seen in her guidebooks. Wherever it was, the Wyndhams looked happy together.
The sentimental fool. She smiled.
In a few different photos, she saw Rand standing beside two equally tall and similar-looking men that she figured were his brothers. And in some way or another, he was always in affectionate physical contact with a petite, pale young woman; Margot couldn’t tell if it was a sister or Gwen. In a couple of photos, he had an arm thrown around the woman’s shoulders or both arms wrapped around her from behind, while in another he kissed the top of her head. She was attractive despite her downturned little mouth. There was one photo she wasn’t in, though, which looked more recent if Rand’s hairstyle was anything to go by. Maybe it was a trip Gwen couldn’t make that time.
Margot looked over at the rumpled sheets on Rand’s bed and felt a hollow in her stomach. Walking to it, she sat at its edge and leaned toward his pillow to seek traces of cologne or perfume.
Okay, stalker. She straightened and glanced around, glad for no witnesses. She also noticed how neatly Rand kept everything in place, other than his unmade bed. With seemingly nothing to hide, he really didn’t need to keep his door closed. Unless he doesn’t trust me…
Sitting on the man’s bed in nothing but a bath towel, after nearly sniffing his linens, she couldn’t say she blamed him. Time to go.
Before she left, though, she raised his roman shade to peer at the gardens out back, smiling at their enchanting foliage beneath the dusky sky. It was just like the bathroom’s view from the tub, except Rand’s bedroom was set back by two or three yards. As a result, the building’s rear extension to the right—the old stairwell and current bathroom—blocked part of the panorama.
Margot looked down at an illuminated window in that side brick wall. The window’s frame was situated just a foot or two below Rand’s bedroom window, and though the glass was fogged, she could make out some of the downstairs flat. Such a voyeurish thing to do—again—yet somehow it had an odd, cozy charm, like peeking into one of the Thorne Miniature Rooms at Chicago’s Art Institute.
The first thing Margot spied down there was a hairbrush, then a black-and-khaki cosmetic bag sitting on a counter near the edge of a sink.
She gripped the ledge beneath her, breathing shallower as her muscles stiffened.
Those were her toiletries. Hers.
That was Rand’s bathroom. His.
The window was foggy from her own bath.
Paralyzed for a moment, she eventually turned with trepidation, knowing what she must do: She must walk out of this room and turn left at the hall. She must follow this hall and go down the stairs. She must then look out the bathroom’s side window at the unit upstairs. She must confirm the upstairs window she’d looked through the other day was not the one where she was standing right now.
But that was impossible. Not because she couldn’t follow this plan of action, but because, when she did, what she saw from the bathroom was without question Rand’s bedroom window. Having left the light on upstairs, she could clearly distinguish a few crystals dangling from the familiar chandelier.
Maybe all the units have the same light fixtures as part of the same house, she reasoned until she saw, propped on an orange metal pole, a cyclist helmet and, just below that, the white-taped handlebars of Rand’s bike.
On her first day in London, she hadn’t registered how much lower the bathroom was from the rest of his flat. When she’d looked out its side window, she’d automatically assumed she was looking up into the unit above Rand’s. Realizing now that it was his unit, Margot had only one question to ask:
Who was she?
On the verge of panic, she forced herself to focus on the practical. She returned upstairs to Rand’s room, shut the light off, and closed the door, even wiping fingerprints from the knob in all her paranoia.
And then a figurative light bulb clicked on: Derek. She would call Derek. It would be late enough in the afternoon for him, and he didn’t take his day job seriously anyway.
So, she brewed up some coffee in Rand’s French press, got dressed in her PJs, and settled at the desk in her bedroom. She chose not to dwell on what she thought she might have seen and vowed to hold a casual conversation with her friend. After signing into her online chat account, she opened the music playlist on Rand’s computer, point-and-clicked on The Cure’s Staring at the Sea album for some background noise, then propped her foot up on the desk chair and held her knee close to her chest for a sense of security, false or not. Her brain on overload, she spoke out loud as she audio-called
Derek’s cell phone.
“Okay, so I’m not going to talk or even think about what must not be talked or thought about. Just get a grip.”
Fuck, I wish Rand were here.
Margot listened to the ring tone as she drummed her fingers to the opening beats of “10:15 Saturday Night.” Unsure what the actual time was, she flicked a glance at the screen’s upper corner in time to see its clock switch from twenty-two fourteen to twenty-two fifteen. Margot was still adjusting to the military time used in Europe, so had to do mental math and subtract twelve from the hour to arrive at 10:15 p.m., just like in the song now playing.
I should start journaling these coincidences, see if there’s a pattern.
“Good thing it’s not Saturday or I’d really freak out,” she muttered.
“Huh?”
“Derek?”
“Yeah. Margot?”
“Yeah.”
“Who’re you talking to?”
“Who do you think?”
“If I had to guess, probably your neurotic self.”
“Bingo.”
“Everything all right?”
“Sure.”
“Yeah, right. Spill it.”
I’m not getting into it. Ask him how his day is going.
“I think I saw a ghost.” So much for that.
“What? Did you say a ghost or a goat?”
“Yes, a goat, Derek. I was strolling through the pastures today in my good bonnet.” Calmed by joking around, she rode the wave and affected a falsetto British accent. “Dear, dear, I would have caught my death of influenza if the gentle-hearted goat had not so kindly carted me back upon its coarse hide.”
“You’re a peculiar one. Or drunk.”
“Mm, both.”
“So wait, then, did you say you saw a ghost?”