I heard my blood pounding in my ears, then a low voice, a gentle growl, like the noise my teddy bear used to make when his tummy was squeezed, said, ‘Hector.’
Flooded with a mixture of terror and elation, I buried my face in the quilt until I thought I’d suffocate, then looked up and said, with more composure than I felt, ‘Come in.’
The bedroom door swung open to reveal Heckie in the doorway. He appeared to be waiting for permission to enter. Unable to speak, I simply nodded.
He came in, closed the door behind him and stood still. There was a long silence. Eventually he said, ‘You were wanting me?’
‘Yes. Thank you for coming back.’ My voice sounded much too loud. Was it always this loud?
Hector bent his auburn head in a little bow. ‘I’m at your service.’
‘Yes, I know. Even if I don’t know why,’ I added faintly. ‘Heckie— oh, I feel such an idiot calling you that! It’s so childish. You do realise I’m older than you now?’
‘Aye. The thought had occurred to me.’
‘From now on, I want to call you “Hector”. Is that all right?’
He bowed his head again. ‘Whatever suits.’
‘Good.’ I fell silent, at a complete loss as to where or how to begin. The being I now called Hector still stood waiting by the door, so I indicated the stool in front of the dressing table. ‘Would you like to sit down? Oh— I don’t suppose ghosts get tired, do they?’
‘Oh, aye. We get awfu’ tired,’ he replied, sitting on the stool. ‘There’s a deal of hanging about in draughty corridors, cellars, graveyards and the like. So we try to take the weight off our feet whenever we can.’ He regarded me, that half-smile hovering round his mouth again.
‘You’re mocking me.’
The smile vanished. ‘Not for the world. But I was born a hundred and thirty years ago. I wouldn’t know how to convey to you just how bone-weary I am.’
‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t meant to be a frivolous question. I’m just... nervous. And confused.’
‘Aye, I know. If there’s anything I can do—’
Panic came flooding back and I interrupted. ‘Hector, you don’t mean me any harm, do you?’
He looked astonished, almost angry. ‘If I’d another life to lay down, Ruth, I’d lay it down for you.’
That took my breath away and it was a moment or two before I could continue. ‘You said before that you needed me.’
‘Aye. In a way, I do.’
‘What way?’
‘In the days when I still believed in an almighty God, I might have claimed, “He works in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform”. But now... Well, I don’t know how it will happen, or when, or why, but I think there will be wonders, Ruth. If we let things take their course and don’t interfere.’
‘Wonders?’
‘Aye.’
‘For you or me?’
‘Both, maybe.’
I contemplated this vague but exciting prospect, then said, ‘When did you stop believing, Hector?’
‘In God?’ His shoulders sagged and he studied his long fingers as he wove them together. ‘At Loos. When the order was given for us to advance into clouds of our own chlorine gas. I decided that either God did not exist or, if he did, he should no longer be allowed to exist. But as you see, it was I who ceased to exist. Man proposes,’ he added with an ironic smile. ‘And God disposes.’
‘Was that how you—?’
‘No. I was lucky that time.’
‘Did you—’
‘Not now, Ruth,’ he said gently. ‘I’ll tell you one day. I promise.’
I exhaled, relieved to be spared the details. ‘So what is it you want of me, Hector?’
‘It’s hard to explain, but... I need you to not get in the way.’
‘In the way? Of what?’
‘Of what’s meant to be.’
‘Which is?’
He paused, then said, ‘I don’t know.’
‘That’s not terribly helpful. If you don’t know, how can I keep out of the way?’
‘I don’t know that either. I apologise for being so lamentably ill-informed. Wisdom doesn’t always come with age, not even my age. But I believe you’ll know, Ruth. You’ll know what needs to be done. And I can help you do it. We can help each other.’ Hector’s eyes were wide and bright now, as if his spirits had revived. ‘D’you believe me?’
I thought for a moment and it seemed to me there was a little hopeful fluttering in my heart too. ‘Oddly enough, I think I do. When I don’t think I’m completely deranged, I do think we can help each other. Why on earth should that be?’
‘Blood, perhaps. The same blood runs in your veins as ran in mine. Or because we’ve both seen more death than we know how to bear.’ He lowered his voice and I sensed he was losing ground again. ‘Perhaps because we’re both lonely.’
I looked down at the quilt and studied its intricate pattern of hexagons. I tried to remember who’d made it. Janet had told me years ago, but I’d forgotten. Hector would probably know. It might have been his sister. Or perhaps his mother.
I raised my head from contemplation of the quilt. ‘I’m not just lonely, Hector. I’m bloody alone.’
He regarded me with those cool, clear eyes, as if weighing me up, re-assessing something. My age, probably. He hadn’t seen me for thirty years. Was he looking for the child he’d once known?
‘You’re alone, Ruth, but you’re alive. You’re very alive. And where there’s life—’
‘Oh, I know, you don’t have to tell me. But what about you, Hector?’
‘Me?’
‘What if there’s... no life?’
‘Och, well, I hope anyway.’ He shrugged. ‘Where’s the harm?’ His smile had nothing of contentment about it. It was merely a re-arrangement of facial muscles, leaving the sadness in his eyes untouched.
My head was beginning to ache. I closed my eyes and told myself that when I opened them again, Hector would be gone, the temperature of the room would be back to normal and the air would no longer be tainted with the smell of decay - a smell to which I was already becoming accustomed. Willing Hector to be gone, I opened my eyes again.
He was still there, sitting patiently in front of the dressing table, the many folds of his kilt spread over the stool, his hands clasped loosely in his lap. As I looked at him, my eyes must have widened. He frowned and said, ‘Is something wrong?’
‘I’ve just noticed... The mirror.’ Hector didn’t turn round, but gave the slightest of nods. ‘There’s no reflection!’
‘There’s nothing to reflect.’
‘So I am imagining you!’
He fixed me with a look of such weary despair, I felt I should apologise. ‘Ruth, you didn’t imagine the wardrobe moving. Or Janet’s fountain pen. Or the lid of the piano. I think,’ he said with exaggerated patience, ‘I made my presence felt.’
‘Yes. You did. I’m sorry. You are real.’
‘Aye.’
‘A real ghost.’
‘Aye, if such a thing is not a contradiction in terms and your mind can comprehend it.’
‘I’m not sure it can.’
‘I’d sympathise, but I find myself unable. You see, I experienced the sea of mud and blood that was Loos. The chaos and carnage of No Man’s Land. I received - and, more remarkably, I obeyed - an order to lead my men into a thirty-foot-high bank of deadly fog. So I have no very great difficulty in believing I’m a ghost. I’ve seen things - and done things, Ruth - that have given me greater pause and would sooner tempt me to question my sanity. Or yours.’
As Hector delivered this speech - all of it to the floor, as if he didn’t trust himself to make eye contact - I studied his appearance. The thing was, he looked perfectly normal. He appeared solid enough: slight physically, but with a suggestion of wiry strength. His pallor was extreme and there was something rather odd about his eyes, but for all I knew, this is what James Hector Munro had looked like when he was alive. His spectral form certainly did
n’t look any different from his glass counterpart in the memorial window and that had presumably been based on photographs. Looking at Hector was just like looking at a real man.
Except that he had no reflection.
And the air in the centrally-heated bedroom was cold and smelled of newly dug earth - black and damp. A smell that hitherto I’d always associated with new life, a new growing season, fruitfulness. Not death.
Despite Hector’s explanations, my confusion was growing with every minute that passed. I felt a great longing for sleep, but at the same time, I knew I didn’t want to dismiss him. (Could I? Would Hector do as he was told?)
‘You need to sleep,’ he murmured.
I was so startled by this act of telepathy that I became instantly alert again. ‘No, I’m fine. I’m just struggling to take it all in, that’s all. I feel as if my brain has been asked to accept the existence of another dimension.’
‘I believe it has.’
‘Then I suppose it will take time for me to adjust.’ I stared at Hector again, then realised what had been bothering me. ‘I’m not seeing you as you were, am I? As you were... then,’ I added tactfully.
‘You see me as I present myself to you. I can choose. Up to a point.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘What you see is an act of will. My will. I can’t sustain it indefinitely. It was easier when you were a child, when you believed I was alive. And whole. It’s harder for me now. Now that you know. I’m beset by doubts, Ruth. Yours.’
‘So how I think of you affects how I see you?’
‘You see what you want to see. Which is why I was never frank with you when you were a wee girl.’
‘You’re saying it would be easier for you if I thought about you as - as you were at the end?’
‘Aye, it would. But I wouldn’t want to look at your face and see horror. And revulsion. I want us to be able to look each other in the eye. With trust. And affection. As we once did.’
‘So do I... So I should carry on thinking of you as you were when you were alive?’
‘Aye. I think it best.’
‘I’m sorry if that makes things harder for you.’ He raised a pale hand in an eloquent, wordless gesture. ‘I think I’ll get my head round it all, eventually. But I need time. Time to think.’
‘Of course.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll leave you now.’
Before I knew what I was doing, I leaned forward on the bed, extending a hand toward him. ‘Must you?’
He regarded me with surprise. ‘No. I can stay, if you wish.’ He sat down again.
Since I could think of nothing else to say, I sat feeling rather foolish, while Hector waited a few feet away, quite still, as if he’d sat there for a hundred years and was prepared to sit for a hundred more.
‘You know, I think perhaps I would like to sleep. But—’ I gazed at him, suddenly and unaccountably close to tears.
‘You’d like me to sit by the door.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘As I used to, in the old days.’
I struggled for a moment to remember what he was referring to and then I saw my younger self, enveloped in bedclothes, peeping out and fixing my anxious gaze on the man seated on the floor by my bedroom door, relaxed but watchful, like a dog. Satisfied Heckie was on sentry duty, I would close my troubled eyes and fall asleep, knowing he would be gone when I woke.
‘I think I’d like that. If you don’t mind.’
Hector rose and walked over to the door, then turned back. ‘Will I wait outside, Ruth?’ he asked uncertainly. ‘You used to want me to watch this side of the door, where you could see me. But now you’re older...’
Was it possible for a ghost to look embarrassed? It must surely have been a trick of the light. Hector stood, eyes cast down, waiting for instructions. I don’t know if my adult self spoke, or the child I used to be. (I was beginning to wonder where one ended and the other began.) The Ruth who couldn’t bear to be alone said, ‘Stay. As you used to. Please.’
Hector went and sat down in front of the door. ‘I’ll be here until you wake. But when you wake, I’ll be gone.’
‘I remember... Thank you, Hector.’
He raised his hand again, dismissing my thanks, as if such things were unnecessary between us. As he settled his back against the door, I turned off the bedside light, wrapped myself in the quilt and lay down. I peered into the darkness, trying to see if Hector was still there. The curtains were undrawn, but there was no moonlight to illuminate his pale features.
Once again, as if he’d read my mind, Hector announced, in that soft, comforting growl. ‘I’m here. You can sleep now, Ruth. Good night.’
‘Goodnight, Heckie.’
When I woke, an hour or so later, I sat up immediately and switched on the bedside light.
Hector was gone.
I felt completely bereft.
Chapter Eight
Waking to find Hector no longer on sentry duty at my door, I told myself he’d never been there. I got off the bed and went downstairs, switching on every light as I descended, until the whole house was cheerfully ablaze. Only once did I look over my shoulder.
As I surveyed the uninspiring contents of the fridge, I decided there was something very wrong with me. The way my thoughts were running gave new meaning to the phrase, “in two minds”. My brain seemed to have divided itself into two distinct and contradictory halves. Let’s call them Sane Mind and, for the sake of argument, Insane Mind.
Sane Mind registered that I’d woken from a fitful doze in which I’d dreamed I’d had an amiable and wide-ranging chat with the ghost-angel pictured in the memorial window. Insane Mind, meanwhile, was bracing itself for the unspecified “wonders” of which Hector had spoken. By the time I’d rustled up some cheese on toast, Insane Mind was curbing an impulse to summon Hector’s ghost for a bit of congenial company, while Sane Mind pointed out politely that if I wanted to avoid further unsettling dreams, I should lay off the cheese.
I carried my frugal supper over to the kitchen table and saw that Insane Mind had won. I’d laid two places. I’d even set out two wine glasses. All appetite gone, I sank on to a chair. This was what I used to do when I was eight. I’d insist that a place for Heckie be laid at Aunt Janet’s table, and, without demur, she would oblige.
As my Welsh rarebit congealed, I poured myself a glass of red wine. Then I poured one for Hector.
Sane Mind now advised me, as a matter of urgency, to email Dr Athelstan Blake to inform him I would shortly be returning to London to revive my flagging career. Not to be outdone, Insane Mind countered with the suggestion that I invite Dr Blake to come and pursue his musical research at Tigh-na-Linne.
Perhaps this wasn’t such a terrible idea. Something told me (Insane Mind, probably) that Stan would be thrilled to discover Janet’s house was haunted. Doubtless his curiosity and Canadian courtesy would extend toward paranormal manifestations. For a few moments, I allowed myself to fantasise about Stan and Hector meeting, maybe sinking a few drams of Talisker. Then I (or rather Sane Mind) remembered there was no such thing as ghosts. And that included Hector.
It was getting late but I suddenly felt the need to be outdoors, smelling the scents of the night, my feet planted firmly on the earth, grounded. Kicking off my slippers, I grabbed my coat from the back of the door and pulled it on. I stepped into my Wellingtons and went outside.
The cold November air was a shock to my system after the toasty, Aga-fuelled fug of the kitchen, but it was refreshing. Fallen leaves crackled underfoot as I strode across the lawn, spongy now with autumn rain. As I inhaled the smell of decaying vegetation, I began to feel better. Then I realised one of the reasons I felt better was because I was thinking about Hector again. I couldn’t fathom how thinking about him made me feel better and worse, but it was a familiar enough sensation. It was how I used to feel when I was with David: comforted, companionable, whilst knowing there was no future in the relationship.
Tigh-na-Linne’s tall, illuminated windows cast lozen
ges of light onto the wet grass. As I approached the shrubbery, I glanced back and thought how warm and welcoming the house looked, how inhabited, as if a big family lived there. Instead, there was only me.
And Hector. Possibly.
Again, I felt that panicky lurch toward something irrational, which was also something familiar. Hector and I had played Hide and Seek in this very shrubbery. I’d climbed these trees and he’d stood below, ready to catch me if I fell. (I never did, perhaps because I knew he was there.)
Wishing I’d brought a torch out with me, I turned away from the forbidding darkness of the shrubbery and walked back, past the big lily pond spanned by a dilapidated wooden bridge - Janet’s homage to Monet’s Giverny. My spine jolted as my boots hit the path again and I set off to patrol the perimeter of the house. My house.
Despite my proprietorial pride, things were not looking good for me. “Asset-rich, cash-poor” summed up my situation. I’d paid too much for my London flat, assuming it would appreciate, then the recession bit deep. The flat was actually too small, but I couldn’t afford to move. My contract with the BBC hadn’t been renewed and I was unlikely to get another now. I was getting on in television terms. (TV is much kinder to men than women when it comes to matters of age.) I was unemployed and currently living on my savings. Those were no longer substantial since David and I had blown thousands on our holiday-of-a-lifetime last year, spending a month in Australia, seeing the sights and catching up with his son, daughter-in-law and their new baby. (As I was finally meeting the folks, I’d half hoped David would propose while we were away. When he didn’t, I told myself I was relieved. Then I realised I was.)
I didn’t regret the trip, especially in the light of what happened to poor David, but now I was short of funds, short of space and short of a job. Or I needed to sell Tigh-na-Linne.
Setting aside my sentimental attachment to the place, would it sell? It needed refurbishment, but appeared to be basically sound. It was expensive to run and unless you were a keen gardener or employed one, the size of the plot was daunting, but the view was one of the best on Skye and would command a high price. The house itself was really too big for a family home, but too small to convert into a hotel. It would make a splendid guesthouse, but I didn’t see myself as a landlady.
The Glass Guardian Page 8