Ghost Moth

by Michele Forbes

  “Not to worry. While I was waiting, your mother and I had a great conversation about the merits and demerits of the Mother’s Union!”

  “No, I don’t mean that, I mean . . .” But she could not bring herself to say it. She could feel something closing within her. “. . . Yes . . . I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry I was so late.”

  Her apology was all that George needed, it seemed, for he smiled widely at her.

  “Katherine, I’ve something to show you,” he said eagerly, and then he put his hand in the pocket of his jacket, sat down beside her, and presented her with a small blue velvet box.

  “This is why I wanted to see you tonight, Katherine, and I’m sorry, sorry that I couldn’t wait until we had made plans to go out, but it was just that I put the final payment down today after I had finished work”—his nervousness and excitement was making him speak very quickly now—“and I was able to collect it from the jeweler’s, and I know that I should have taken you out somewhere nice to give it to you, but, here we are, and I hope you really like it and that you’ll say—”

  He stopped talking suddenly, as though realizing he was in the middle of a speech he had yet to write. Katherine had her head bent so that he could not see the expression of complete bewilderment on her face. Only a short while ago, climbing the steps to her flat and thinking of Tom, she had felt transformed, had felt something new opening up within her. But now, looking at George, she realized how little she knew about Tom. And she knew George; that was the truth of it. She knew his ways, trusted him, relied on him, knew that he loved her and would care for her. Here is a decent man. Here is George. What did she know of Tom? Her thoughts were collapsing now like a stack of cards. Trembling, she held the blue velvet box in her hand.

  “I hope you like it, Katherine.”

  She opened the box. The box was lined with indigo satin, a tiny piece of night sky. Out of this sky, the neat diamond of a ring shone like a lone star. Around it, the ring’s gold band gleamed like a lick of yellow moon.

  “Will you marry me, Katherine?”

  Katherine slowly lifted her head and looked at George. In that moment, his sweet humility caught her. She knew, deep in her heart, that if she refused George, he would be devastated.

  “Yes,” she said, still trembling, while on the wooden floor of the parlor, under the table, the lie still sat, its tongue coated with sugar, waiting for scraps.

  Two days after George had asked her to marry him, Katherine slipped the dustcover over her accounting machine in the offices of the Ulster Bank and closed the block of files that had been resting on the wooden trolley by her table. There was a chorus of good-byes and “Show us again” from her envious colleagues, who rubbed their hands up and down their thighs as they cooed with admiration at the engagement ring on her finger. She quickly left the building and turned right along Waring Street, crossing onto Rosemary Street and then cutting through Berry Street into Smithfield Market.

  It was there that she spotted the small figurine sitting in the window of an antiques shop. The porcelain statuette of an old man with weathered skin, sitting cross-legged, a piece of cloth in one hand and a needle and thread in the other. When the proprietor informed her of its price—it was much more expensive than she had anticipated—she did not falter for a moment, but instead emptied her purse of its two shillings onto the counter. She then asked the proprietor if he would take something as security on the rest of the purchase so that she could take it with her, and then she slipped off her engagement ring and placed it on the counter beside her money. The proprietor made it clear to her that though it was not usual for him to agree to such an arrangement, he would agree nonetheless, for the value of the ring she had offered him was more than satisfactory. He wrapped the statuette in a double layer of brown paper, securing its edges with a long piece of string, and handed it to her.

  She left the shop with a rising sense of exhilaration. An urgent breeze began to rise up in bursts from around the street corners, flapping the awnings above the shopfronts and rudely lifting the hem of her skirt. She held the brown paper parcel close to her chest, its paper crackling like a catching fire. As she arrived at the tailors’ rooms, Mr. Boyne’s gray-haired secretary was leaving, as was the young woman with the ivy-patterned blouse. The last of the junior tailors had laid out their work carefully in place, to be ready for the following morning, and were taking their jackets and caps hastily from the coat stand by the door before they headed home. Katherine walked past the tailors without glancing at them. She could see that the door to the anteroom was open. As she approached it, she could hear him singing quietly. She could feel his voice pulling her in. She entered the room and could see him standing at his worktable, his head slightly bowed. As he lifted his head, he smiled at her through his song. Then he walked to the door, his eyes never leaving her, and closed it behind them both.

  Katherine and Tom lay still and awake on the rucks of cloth that he had spread out on the wooden floor. Crimson and gold. They lay curled into each other and fully dressed, her back against his chest, as though they were both waiting to be discovered in an empty house. Both concealed the true extent of their desire for each other, choosing instead a cautious foreplay of touch and conversation. Their senses were magnified by the uncertainty of decorum—its appropriateness or its waste of time—and so they hovered in a state of sexual suspense. The lamp on the worktable cast a hoopful of honeyed light across their bodies, while the cloth warmed under them and released the odor of its new thread. The statuette now sat on top of the work cabinet beside the boxes of buttons, its brown paper wrapping left like a discarded skin on the floor. Behind them, in the far corner of the room, the clock ticked, but neither of them wanted to shift from their position to look at it. So every so often, Katherine tapped Tom’s pocket watch with her fingernail and he told her the time. If she was late getting home, her mother would worry. They lay quietly, losing the sense of time as time passed, drifting even into moments of drowsiness, their eyes opening to gleams of silk and brocade and then the tap, tap, tap of her fingernail against his pocket watch.

  “Quarter past nine.”

  Through her spine she could feel Tom’s heartbeat. This distinct life resounding through her. This life she did not know. When she was a child, she would often place her ear against her father’s chest and, as she listened, feel that she was attached to an ancient tree, the steady tempo of his kindness, the layer upon layer of compassion ringing its deep tones, the vibration filling her ears and her head and her body. Solace tapered from an ancient wood. Here, that same resound, that same sense of bliss, but instead she was a new bird in a new forest, in her nest of skin and bone and body heat, the ridge of an unfamiliar pulse threading its way through her. A slender, yielding wood surrounding her, protecting her, exciting her.

  “You haven’t told me yet.” Tom’s voice was soft and unhurried.

  “What have I not told you?” She turned her head a little toward him.

  “What it is you do.”

  She sighed and stretched her legs, her upper back pushing into him slightly. She smiled.

  “Oh, it’s all so boring, and predictable. I work in the Ulster Bank offices on Waring Street. I add up all the figures on my accounting machine, and when they don’t add up, I find out why, because there’s always a reason, because it’s all mathematics, and then I fix that and I move on. And that’s what I do, all day, that’s it. I account for things.”

  “You’re an accountant?”

  “An accounting clerk. There’s a difference!”

  “And where did an accounting clerk learn to sing so beautifully?”

  “I’m very flattered you think so. But I’m not that good.”

  “I can hear you above me as I work. I think all the tailors are in love with you.”

  She shrugged off Tom’s comment.

  “No, I’m not that good at all. My father was a lovely singer, though. Not that he sang professionally or anything. He was a draftsman. Worked in
the drawing office of the Belfast Corporation. But he was a larger-than-life character, should have been a performer himself. Would always sing to me when I was a child. And never had a bad word to say about anyone.”

  “And does he still listen to you sing?”

  “No, no,” she said gently. “He died when I was nine.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She moved her head to rest her cheek against Tom’s arm.

  “How did he die?” Tom’s question surprised Katherine, so direct was its tone, so personal. But she embraced it nonetheless, felt the relief of responding to it.

  “Well . . . I was told he died from an accident at work, but I’m not so sure. I think it may have been a heart attack or something. I don’t know. It was never talked about. Never. And it was all so sudden. He just wasn’t there anymore—how can a person be just not there anymore? I feel as though I spend every day waiting for him to come back,” she said. “Isn’t that strange?”

  “No, not so strange.”

  The clock behind them ticked.

  Then her tone shifted quickly. “So that explains it, then,” she said. “He passed the singing on to me. You can blame him!”

  Tom gently stroked the pale skin exposed along her forearm.

  “And you’re not such a bad singer yourself,” she continued. They lay silently again. Then after a moment, she released a deep sigh. “Why do people say that?”

  “Say what?”

  “Why do people say ‘I’m sorry’ like that, as though they are responsible for the person dying?”

  “It’s just a formality.”

  Tap-tap-tap went her fingernail on his pocket watch.

  “Quarter to ten,” he said quietly.

  “If only I could have done something so that he didn’t die,” Katherine said quietly. “I don’t even know what I mean—I’m sure there’s nothing I could have done—but if only it had happened when I was with him.”

  “Katherine, you were only nine. There’s nothing you could have done.”

  “I know . . . but I can’t make any sense of it.”

  “Maybe stop trying.”

  Suddenly, voices rose from the photographer’s studio on the ground floor, where staff were locking up after working late. There was the bang of a door and then silence. From the lamp on the table Katherine could detect a limp fizzing sound. She turned her head to look. A moth had caught itself inside the shade and was trying to escape.

  Tom adjusted his position on the cloth, resting his chin lightly on her hair.

  “Thank you again for the present,” he said. “I’m very impressed.”

  “You’re very welcome—again.”

  “Is it supposed to be me?” he said, laughing a little as he spoke.

  “No!” she protested, nudging him with her elbow. “No, of course not.”

  They drifted each into their own world for a few moments. All was quiet.

  “How did a young man like you find himself as senior tailor anyway?”

  “I’m not as young as you think.” Tom traced his finger across the back of her hand.

  “You must be good at your job, then.”

  “Well, my father originally owned this business; he and Mr. Boyne were partners. It had started off as a modest alterations service, but then during the First World War, it thrived, making uniforms.” Tom spread his hand over hers. “Anyway, here’s where I started when I was sixteen, and five years after that I volunteered for the army, as the whole mess had started up again. I was stationed in Sussex on administration duties—so I know just how boring accounting is”—he strokes her hair—“and I was never drafted out to fight. But just as the war ended and I returned home, my father died.”

  “I’m sorry.” The response came automatically; then, realizing what she had just said, she checked Tom’s reaction.

  “You see. Just a formality.” He smiled, then pressed his body a little more into hers.

  “Well, two years on from that now and I find myself in my father’s shoes.”

  “But only Mr. Boyne’s name is used for the business.” She was curious.

  “It’s a long story, but my father had signed nothing to secure any of his holdings on the business, so I’m an employee here, just like everyone else, nothing more.”

  “And you live on your own?”

  “No, at home with my mother and sister.”

  They fell quiet. Their warm breath spread like a low smoke around them. She clicked her fingernail against Tom’s pocket watch again.

  “Forget the time, Katherine.”

  “I can’t.”

  Tom glanced at his pocket watch.

  “Nine fifty-five.”

  “So you’re an old bachelor, then.” She gave a short laugh, but she could feel her pulse begin to race. She swallowed hard.

  “Oh, call me an old romantic.... I’ve just been waiting for the right person to come along.”

  His reply pained her like a soft burning in her stomach. She closed her eyes in an attempt to quell it.

  “Don’t you believe in love at first sight?” he asked her.

  She didn’t answer him. Instead, she shifted the conversation in a different direction. “And where exactly do you live?” she asked him quickly.

  “Why do you want to know—exactly?”

  “You know where I live. You walked me there. You could find me anytime you wanted to.”

  “Ravenhill Road.”

  “And you walk home by the river?” She sounded incredulous. “Hardly a shortcut.”

  Tom paused. “I know, you’re right.”

  Katherine breathed deeply, then wriggled her shoulders as a way to settle into him a little more. She was aware of how late it was getting, but there was something she had wanted to ask him. Her eyes lifted to a costume rail in the corner, which was covered in a large cotton sheet.

  “Tom . . . the costume you’ve designed for me, for Carmen—”

  “Yes.”

  “It can’t be as elaborate as you’ve been making out. Everything is still ‘make do and mend.’ So all those things you were saying to Mr. Agnew at the fitting about the material, and the beading, and the sateen lining—you’re such a showman!”

  The moth beat its wings against the shade in a furious pitter.

  Pushing his body closer to her, Tom raised himself slightly on one arm and slipped the other around her waist. He placed his mouth close to her ear and said quietly, “You won’t believe how beautifully made it will be, Katherine. Wait until you see. Mr. Agnew wouldn’t know where to start. I’m going to make it for you, Katherine. I’m going to make it. Let me tell you what I’m going to do. . . .”

  The furious pitter of the moth came to a sudden stop.

  “First I’ll run the tracing wheel along the paper pattern. The tiny tracing wheel will make no sound as it moves, obeying the gentle thrust of my arm around your shape.” He moved his hand down her shoulder and along the length of her arm. “I’ll cut the material, holding it flat by the weights I’ve placed across it. My shears will slice effortlessly through the salmon-colored silk and its lining of lemon sateen, and through the mandarin-and-cherry-colored bouclé wool, for the blades are obscenely sharp and the cloth will surrender easily.” He spread his fingers along her thigh to her knee. “Then I’ll drape the roughly assembled bodice of the costume around the tailor’s dummy, pulling the waist of the garment tightly in toward the front.” He brought his hand up under her skirt and shifted her legs to open them a little. “I’ll bring the raw edges of the material together to pin them into a seam, snipping the armholes a little, if need be, as a surgeon might incise a flap of skin.” His hand moved upward along her inner thigh, rubbing against her stockings. “Then I’ll bind the seams with taffeta. When I press the seams under the hot iron, I’ll take in the smell of the new cloth and imagine how your sweet body heat will perfume it.” Then slowly he released his hand from under her skirt to turn her fully around to him, pressing his body gently on top of her. “Then I’
ll take some strips of whalebone and place them into a basin of warm water to soften them. I’ll cut the corners off the bone with the blade of my pocketknife, making a little curve at each end.” He leaned his body more heavily onto her. “And then I’ll insert the bone through the aperture of the casing, sliding it firmly upward all the way to the top of the seam. I’ll draw the bone back just a little, if I need to, so that it won’t force the material. The spring of the bone must always be right.” He stroked her face and neck. “I’ll begin to insert another strip of whalebone into the casing. Then another. And another. And the garment will slowly take on your shape.” He put his face close to her to smell her skin. “When I attach the panels of the skirt to the bodice, I’ll roll the material between my thumb and forefinger to firm its position; then I’ll fasten the rolls with thread as I go.” He kissed her face, his hand moving across her breast. “Once all the sections of the skirt are in place, then I’ll slip the garment onto the tailor’s dummy again to check that the waistline sits well down into the curve of the figure.” His hand moved up under her skirt again. “I’ll sew twenty-two buttons down the front of the bodice, along its opening. Twenty-two buttons I’ve already handmade from silk.” His hand pulled at her underwear. “For each buttonhole, I’ll work with a cerise linen thread, taking my time to allow the purl to come to the edge of the slit.” He kissed her again and eased her legs farther apart.

  She feels it is the strangest experience in the world, amid the perfumed heat, among the folds of warm cloth that wrap around them both in the crimson-edged light. A part of herself she has never known before, now discovered, now occupied, now made transparent.

  3

  August 1969

  ISABEL ARRIVES IN ELSA’S BACK GARDEN wearing bright yellow hot pants. She stands with a bold composure and a slender hand on her hip beside the small three-legged table, which has been covered with a green checkered tea towel. There are three plates on the table and a handwritten card saying “Home Baking.” Isabel is eyeing the roughly cut rectangles of boiled cake on the plate nearest Elsa, who is sitting politely on a little stool on the other side of the table. Elsa is looking at Isabel.