The Glass Guardian

by Linda Gillard

  ‘I’d like to know if - well, if there’s any satisfaction for you. In what we do.’

  His auburn brows shot up, then he smiled, rolled on to his back and put his hands behind his head. ‘Och, plenty!’

  Relieved, I lay down beside him and ran my hand over the ripples of his ribcage, letting it come to rest in the shallow concavity below. I spread exploratory fingers, twining them in the tendrils of soft, curling hair they eventually found. Hector closed his eyes and arched his spine. I explored further. He moaned softly.

  ‘What I’m seeing, Hector... what I’m touching... now. That’s just what I want to see?’

  ‘Aye. And it’s what I want you to see.’

  ‘So do you present yourself in a flattering light?’

  He opened his eyes and looked at me candidly. ‘There’s no need. Your loving eyes do that for me. I simply present myself to you in human form.’ His expression darkened a little. ‘As the man I once was.’

  I swallowed and said, ‘Hector, I wish—’

  He raised a hand and laid his fingertips on my mouth. ‘This is why we cannot be lovers. If I present myself to you as a man - fully as a man - you’ll think of me as a man. And I’m not. And can never be.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘I can work wonders, Ruth, not miracles.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘If you ever got the miracle you desire, it wouldn’t be my doing.’ He lifted my hand and pressed it to his lips. ‘But it can never be. We both know it.’

  I rolled away from him, sat up and hugged my knees, thinking it would be easier to accept Hector’s words if I didn’t have to look at him. It wasn’t.

  Keeping my back turned to him, I said, ‘Will I always be able to see you?’

  ‘You see me when you need to.’

  ‘Only if you co-operate,’ I retorted.

  Ignoring me, he went on. ‘So, no, perhaps you won’t always be able to see me.’

  There was a long silence while I contemplated the misery of this, then I said, ‘Can anyone else see you?’

  ‘Not unless they want to. Or need to.’

  The question had already formed in my mind, but I was reluctant to ask, as if Hector’s answer might confirm, once and for all, his existence or, alternatively, my madness. I moistened my lips and, my voice barely more than a whisper, said, ‘Did Janet see you?’

  ‘Aye, she did.’

  It was now or never, I supposed. ‘Hector... You composed In Memoriam, didn’t you? And it was you who dedicated it to Frieda.’

  ‘Aye.’

  I bowed my head and rested it on my raised knees. ‘Why on earth would Janet pass off your work as hers? I can’t believe she’d do such a thing. Not Janet!’

  Something cool trickled down my spine. Hector’s fingers. ‘Poor Ruth. So many things you can’t believe. Just like Alice.’

  I lifted my head, and swivelled round to look at him. ‘Alice?’

  ‘Through the Looking Glass. She tells the White Queen she can’t believe impossible things. The Queen says that’s because she hasn’t had much practice. “Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast”.’ Despite myself, I smiled at Hector’s haughty, English falsetto. ‘I used to read that book to your grandmother - my wee sister, Gracie. It was her favourite. Grace had no trouble at all believing impossible things! And she was the first to see me, the first to allow me into her life. Her pain and loneliness provided a portal, so I could get back. Then one day she met a young man who became a good friend. Then something more. And I didn’t see Gracie again... I wasn’t forgotten. But I was no longer needed.’

  I stretched out my hand and touched his cheek. ‘I do believe in you, Hector. Even though you’re impossible. In all senses.’

  He grinned. ‘I find it easy to believe impossible things now. I suppose I’ve a vested interest in believing in myself. Discovering I’d become a ghost was some small consolation for finding myself dead.’ He sat up and, with his mouth close to my ear, said, ‘D’you not believe what happened to you a while ago, Ruth? The evidence of your own eyes? Your own body?’

  ‘Yes. I believe what I feel. Well, most of the time. But I just can’t believe my aunt was capable of deceit!’

  ‘There was a good reason for the subterfuge and you’ll not be surprised to hear Janet’s motive was entirely unselfish. She’d no reason to believe my music would be any more successful than her own. It belonged to an earlier age. We thought it would be deemed old-fashioned. But it was taken up by a popular soprano who made a recording of it. The piece became a great success - critically and with the public. It was played on the radio and in concert halls all over the world. Which was exactly what we’d hoped for.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’d helped Janet. Supported her. A long time ago. When she lost her wee brother to scarlet fever. And I was there again when she lost her parents. Janet and I had quite a history... So she wanted to help me. Help me find someone. But how could I search for anyone when I couldn’t leave Tigh-na-Linne? When I could only speak to people who believed in me? So Janet suggested we use my music.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Hector. Start at the beginning.’

  His arm slipped round my shoulders and he drew me back down on to the bed, so that we lay side by side. I stretched myself along the cool length of him and relaxed. It felt very pleasant. Something like floating.

  ‘When you were a wee girl,’ Hector said, ‘I told you I wasn’t able to rest because there was something I needed to do. Someone I needed to find. So that I could set things right.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. Is that why you’re here now?’

  ‘Aye. It’s why I’ve been here all this time.’

  ‘But surely everyone you knew must be dead by now?’

  ‘Oh, aye. But then - we’re talking fifty years ago now - then, the people I wanted to find could have been alive. It’s even possible one of the people I was trying to find is still alive now.’

  ‘Who were you looking for?’

  ‘I was looking for Frieda.’

  ‘But you knew her name. And where she lived, presumably?’

  ‘The last time I heard from her, she told me her father had gone into hiding to avoid persecution. Her mother was long dead. It looked as if the war was going to last forever, so Frieda said she was going to go abroad and change her name to something thoroughly Scots. She was born and bred in Edinburgh and she was a Scot,’ Hector added, unable to keep the note of anger from his voice. ‘But she was a Scot called Elfriede von Hügel.’

  ‘And she didn’t tell you where she was going?’

  ‘No. But in her last letter, she gave me another piece of news. News that made it all the more imperative for her to go away and begin a new life.’

  Received letter from Frieda. This is a very bad business. I am in Hell.

  ‘She told you she was expecting your child.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Oh, Hector...’

  He didn’t say any more, but lay very still while I watched his chest rise and fall. Eventually, his voice quite level, he said, ‘Frieda lived in Edinburgh with her father. He was a retired singer of some renown. Before the war he gave singing lessons. She kept house for him and accompanied his pupils on the piano, but she was a fine singer herself. We’d met in a choir and had become friends. Frieda cherished hopes of becoming a professional singer one day and we used to give the odd wee recital together. I played the piano and she sang. Occasionally she sang pieces I’d composed. Her favourite was called The Definition of Love. It was my setting of the Marvell poem.’

  ‘And that was the piece Janet published as In Memoriam?’

  ‘Aye... Frieda and I planned to marry, but we hadn’t told our parents. Then war broke out. It was not a good time to bear a German name. Then both my brothers died in the first year. Frieda and I agreed we couldn’t make my parents suffer any more. Or Grace. We wanted to remain friends but... well, that was impossible. So I said we must
stop seeing each other. I thought it for the best. I expected to be killed at the front and I was sure Frieda would find a new love. She was a beautiful young woman... But I hadn’t taken into account her fidelity. Or the strength of her feelings.’

  Hector’s body seemed to become cooler and less solid. Fearful he was about to de-materialise, I felt for his hand and twined my fingers with his, hoping to keep him with me. With what sounded like an effort, he continued.

  ‘The night before I was due to travel to London on my way back to the Front, Frieda came to my lodgings late at night... I’d thought never to see her again. We were so happy!... But what happened was beyond reason and I alone must bear the blame. She asked me - begged me to love her. And I begged her to leave. I should have been stronger. I should have compelled her to leave, told her I didn’t love her, anything, rather than besmirch her name and leave her alone, unprovided for, with the burden of my child.’

  ‘But if that was what she wanted? The path she chose for herself? Maybe she wanted your child.’

  ‘She said she did. She said she wanted to have our child because she wished to give my parents another Munro son. I think she cherished hopes that a child might change their minds about our union. She also gave me to understand that in the event of my death, a child would be a consolation to her.’

  ‘Well, she had that, at least.’

  ‘Aye. If it lived.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘No. Her last letter told me only of her condition. I didn’t have the opportunity to reply. We went into battle and I was killed. I don’t know if the bairn lived. I don’t know where Frieda went or what became of her. In Memoriam was my attempt to locate her. She’d sung that music many times and the words had come to have a special meaning for us. If she’d ever heard it played, she would have recognised it as mine and known it had been plagiarised. And if I knew Frieda, wherever she was, she would have made contact with Janet to demand why she was passing off Hector Munro’s music as her own.’

  ‘But that never happened?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So do you think perhaps Frieda was dead by then?’

  ‘Aye, perhaps.’

  ‘But you still didn’t give up hope of tracing her?’

  ‘No. I thought she might have told the child something about me. About my family. My music. There was the silver locket - the only thing I’d ever given her. And the song that had meant so much to us... It was little enough on which to pin my hopes, but it was all I had.’

  ‘What exactly were you hoping for?’

  ‘I wanted my child to know - somehow - that in the seconds before I died, he - or she - was in my thoughts. When that shell came screaming over and I saw it land, I knew I was a dead man. As it exploded, my only thought was, I wanted that wee bairn to know it was my dying regret that we’d never know each other, never even meet... And I still want that, Ruth! In death as in life. I cannot rest - will not rest - until I’ve made my peace. Until I’ve made some kind of reparation. For my absence.’

  ‘Don’t you think Frieda would have explained? As best she could, as soon as the child was old enough to understand?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. If she’d married, our child would have been raised as another man’s, with another name. The child might have known nothing at all about me.’

  ‘Would Frieda have learned of your death?’

  ‘She might have contacted mutual friends. She could have contacted the school where I taught before I enlisted. Or she could have checked the casualty lists. My body would never have been identified. There was nothing to bury,’ Hector added in a matter-of-fact voice that made me cling to the pale, naked form that lay beside me. As my hand curved around his shoulder, Hector’s flesh yielded to my touch and I thought of the white, waxen petals of magnolia blooms - how they felt firm, but fragile. And were so short-lived.

  ‘I would have been posted “Missing, presumed killed”,’ Hector explained. ‘But my parents would not have informed Frieda of my death. In their eyes, she was the enemy. They had no idea how much she meant to me, nor that she probably bore them their first grandchild. But even if I’d lived, I doubt I could have discovered what happened to her, or where she went. Her alias would have made that impossible.’

  ‘And yet...’

  ‘And yet?’

  ‘You still believed - believe - there’s a connection? That there’s some way you can contact your child? In life or in death?’

  ‘Aye. I have to believe, Ruth. I feel it! I’ve felt that connection for nearly a hundred years. Unbroken. Even though Frieda died many years ago. The connection’s not with Frieda, but with the child. Members of my family have called me back again and again. When they’re unhappy. When they’re bereaved. When they are about to be bereaved. I recognise the summons of grief and I have to obey. I’m a messenger of death, but I’m also a companion in sorrow. I bring consolation. And, I hope, comfort.’

  ‘Yes, you do. You did! I don’t know how I’d have coped with my mother’s death if I hadn’t had you to talk to. I couldn’t talk to my father. He couldn’t handle his own grief, let alone mine.’ I propped myself up on the bed and looked down at Hector’s sad, ravaged face. It was the face of a young man, but his eyes reflected a century of suffering. ‘It’s not fair. You’ve been the repository for so much grief and sadness. It’s more than any man should have to bear.’

  ‘I’m not a man, Ruth. Not any more. But whatever I am now, I’m glad to be of service to my family. Especially if it means there was some meaning in my meaningless death.’ He looked away and, as I studied his profile, I racked my brains to think of something to say, but could think of nothing that would comfort a ghost.

  Eventually, I said, ‘I know you’re not a man, Hector - and I do try to remember that - but what exactly are you?’

  His laugh was short and mirthless. ‘Damned if I know! I’m a father looking for his child. I’m a lover looking for his sweetheart.’ He sighed. ‘Sometimes I think I’m every man who ever lost someone he loved. Someone he believed he could never live without. Sometimes I think that’s all I am: a personification of grief.’

  ‘You’ve been more than that to me. Even when I was a child, you were so much more. You helped me come to terms with losing my mother. You helped me see past her suffering. And my own. You showed me the natural world and encouraged me to explore. You showed me the consolation to be found in a garden, a wood, a pond and all the plants and animals that lived there. You taught me about life, Hector. Not death.’

  ‘Och, it was Janet did that!’

  I fixed him with a look. ‘And who taught Janet?’ He didn’t reply, but I noticed the muscles round his mouth relax a little, so I pressed on. ‘Best of all, you taught me to have an open mind. Open to the natural world. And other worlds. You did all that for me, Hector. And for the generations before me.’

  ‘Aye, maybe... But you’ll be the last.’

  ‘The last?’

  ‘The last of the Munro line. You’re my sister’s grandchild. There’s no one else left now.’

  ‘Unless your child lived.’

  ‘Aye. Unless it lived.’

  ‘And if he or she did—’

  ‘There’s nothing more I can do but wait. And hope. As I’ve waited and hoped for almost a century.’

  With that, he rolled away from me. I’m sure I only blinked - I certainly wasn’t nodding off - but when I opened my eyes again, he was sitting, dressed, on the edge of the bed, with his back to me. Unusually for Hector, his spine curved forward and his shoulders sagged. His head hung, as if he couldn’t summon the strength to raise it.

  ‘I sense my time is drawing to an end, Ruth. And God knows,’ he added wearily, ‘I’ve had enough of waiting! I long to sleep. Not when I’m with you, nor when I was with Janet. Or Gracie. When there was companionship to enjoy, a sense of purpose, time didn’t hang so heavy. It was something like being alive again. But when I’m alone, when I’m... not in the form of the man I once was, the te
nsion and the damnable boredom are indescribable! It’s like being in the trenches again, waiting for an assault to begin.’

  I sat up and, resting my chin on Hector’s shoulder, I saw he was clasping his hands tightly in his lap, as if he were trying to prevent them from shaking. His silence began to bother me. Sensing his suffering, I began to wonder what right I had to expect this extraordinary being to inhabit my world?

  But he’d said time spent with me was bearable. More than bearable. He’d said - I hadn’t dreamed it, surely? - that he loved me. But it wasn’t a man’s love, even if it felt something like a man’s love. Even if my lover expressed it with something that looked and felt like a man’s body. But it was love, of that I was certain. Just love of a different kind.

  And what I felt for Hector? That too must be love. How did I know? Because if there was one thing worse than contemplating Hector’s absence, it was knowing that I might be making him suffer. He had a mission and he longed to complete it. Then he just wanted to sleep. For ever. If I loved him - really loved him - then I would have to find the strength to let him go.

  Was that what Hector had meant when he’d said I would know what to do?...

  I slid my arms round his waist and laid my cheek between his shoulder blades. His tunic should have felt rough against my skin but it felt like the rest of him. Cool. Soft. Moist. I synchronised my breathing with his and wondered how long we had. Weeks? Perhaps only days?...

  Unable to bear the silence any longer, I ventured a question. ‘Hector, what was it like in the trenches? Can you bear to talk about it? I mean, I just can’t imagine...’

  His ribs swung out as he inhaled, then sank again, like a bellows. ‘Life was very boring. And very dangerous. And the boredom made it more dangerous. The unutterable tedium caused many a lad to put his head above the parapet, just to get a glimpse of a different view. But Jerry would always be waiting. Waiting with a sniper’s bullet to transport the curious to that “undiscovered country, from which no traveller returns”.’

  Hector fell silent again. Clinging to his back, I said, ‘Tell me more. Please. If you can bear it. I want to know as much about you as possible.’ I didn’t say the words, but the thought hung in the air between us: Before you leave me. ‘Tell me more about your life. About when you were a man. An officer looking after your men. I like to think of you doing that. I’m sure you’d have been very good at it. And very popular.’