Ghosts

by John Banville

  The Professor stood and listened to the unsteady beating of his heart, thinking how fear always holds at its throbbing centre that little, thin, unquenchable flame of pleasure.

  ‘Why have you come here,’ he said.

  Felix blew a big stream of smoke and shook his head in rueful amusement.

  ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘The captain was drunk, our boat ran aground. We are castaways!’ And lightly laughed. ‘It’s true, really. A happy chance. Are you not pleased to see me?’

  The Professor continued to fix him with a dull glare.

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’ he said.

  Felix clicked his tongue in mock annoyance.

  ‘Really,’ he said, ‘I don’t know why you won’t believe me!’ He chuckled. ‘Have I ever lied to you?’

  At that the Professor produced a brief bark of what in him passed for laughter. They eyed each other through a swirl of lead-blue smoke. The Professor raised his eyes and Felix touched a hand shyly to his dyed hair.

  ‘I thought you’d never notice,’ he said and put on a coy look and batted his eyelashes. ‘You know me, Professor, mutability is my middle name.’

  ‘What do you want from me?’ the Professor said.

  ‘Want? Why, nothing. What did I ever want? Amusement. Diversion. The company of a great man.’

  Felix turned away smilingly and put his face close against the window and peered down at the garden. The wind swooped outside, the sunlight flickered.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘how is the art market behaving these days? Volatile, is it?’

  There was the sense of something beating in the air, as if after the tolling of a bell.

  ‘I think I’m dying,’ the Professor said.

  He heard himself say it and took a step backwards in surprise and a sort of gulped dismay, as if from the windy edge of a high place. Felix at the window glanced at him absently over his shoulder.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘Dying? Yes, well.’ He turned to the window again and smoked in silence for a long moment. ‘This truly is a grand spot,’ he said. ‘I really do like it. In fact, I like it so much I think I’ll stay for a while.’

  Again that bell-tone beating in the air.

  ‘No,’ the Professor said.

  Felix was peering hard out at the hillside where a bedraggled figure was sitting under a tree in blossom. ‘Montgomery!’ Felix cried out softly, ‘why has your man got pointed ears?’ He turned to the Professor smartly, with a bright smile. ‘No, did you say?’ he said. ‘My my, that’s not very hospitable. I only mean to stay for a little while. Until I find my feet again – I’ve had a few reverses lately. Nothing serious, you understand; nothing on the scale of some I could mention.’

  They stood and contemplated each other, Felix with his meaning smile and the Professor grimly staring.

  ‘You can’t stay here,’ the Professor said.

  ‘Oh, come,’ Felix cried, ‘we shall fleet the time carelessly as we did in the golden world – oops!’ He clapped a hand to his mouth and raised his eyebrows high in mock dismay. ‘What have I said? – dear me, Professor, you’ve grown quite pale.’ He put his head on one side and contemplated with pursed amusement the old man standing hunched and scowling before him. ‘By the way, I went down to Whitewater the other day,’ Felix said pleasantly. ‘The daughter is in charge there now – quite the chatelaine. You pay a pound and they let you wander around at will. Very trusting, I must say – but then, they always were, weren’t they. I wanted to see if the gilt was still on the Golden World. What an amazing work it is – never ceases to surprise me. It’s so –’ his voice sank softly ‘– so convincing, I always think.’ His cheroot had died; he placed the butt beside the spent match on the window-sill. ‘I spoke to the lady of the house. She was most kind, most helpful.’

  The Professor nodded grimly.

  ‘She told you where I was,’ he said. Felix only smirked. The Professor heard himself breathing and felt that silken ripple in his breast. ‘You can’t harm me,’ he said.

  Felix reared back with an astonished smile.

  ‘Harm you?’ he cried. ‘Why would I want to harm you? No: you are going to be my golden goose, after all.’

  He winked then and turned briskly and set off down the stairs, skipping swiftly; halfway down the flight he paused and turned back. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I hope you appreciate how discreetly I’ve behaved here, though you wouldn’t even condescend to shake my hand.’ He wagged his head reprovingly and chuckled and went on down the stairs.

  When he was gone, the Professor stood motionless, suspended for a moment, as so often these days, waiting for something that did not come. Idly he tried the bedroom door. It was locked.

  CROKE, NOW, try Croke, he is the real thing, the homo verus of myth and legend. He stepped out on the sunlit porch and stopped with a sour look and sniffed the day. Sea stink and the thick pungency of drenched grass and a sort of buttery smell that he supposed must be the smell of gorse. He did not much care for the countryside, trees and weather and suchlike. He was a city man, born and bred. A walk by the canal of an October morning, swans gliding on their own reflections and the sun on the gasworks and the air delicately blued with petrol fumes, that was enough of outdoors for him. He descended the porch steps and turned right along the flagged path past the rose bush and the rain barrel and the bluebottle-coloured mound where the coal-ash from the kitchen stove is dumped. Stunted apple trees grow here, standing in lush grass, and there are fruit bushes and a thick clump of nettles jostling greenly to attention, their webbed ears pricked up. Smell of roses, then of lilac, then of something sweetly dead. A cloud abruptly palmed the sun. Water was dripping nearby, or was it a bird, making that plip, plip noise? He arrived at the iron gate that led from the corner of the lawn into the yard behind the house. The cobbles were still wet in patches. He watched his hand grasp the bar of the gate and for a moment he was held, staring at that withered claw h. could hardly believe was his. Nowadays he avoided looking at himself too closely, not caring to see the dewlapped neck and grizzled chest, the sagging tits, the quaking, varicosed legs. The years had worn his skin to a thin, translucent stuff, clammy and smooth, like waxed paper, a loose hide within which his big old carcass slipped and slid. He would not need a shroud, they could just truss him up in himself like a turkey and fold over the flaps and tie a final knot. He smiled grimly and the gate opened before him with a clang. A wash of sunlight swept the yard and as he stepped forward falteringly into this sudden weak blaze the god unseen anointed him and he felt for a moment an extraordinary happiness.

  A hen was picking over bits of straw, sharp eye agleam, looking for something among the slimed cobbles. It paused thoughtfully and dropped behind it a little twirled mound of shit, chalk-white and olive-green. Croke stared in mild disgust: what in the name of God is it they eat? The dog emerged from its bed under the wheelbarrow and advanced lopsidedly a pace or two and halted, gasping. ‘Here, old fellow,’ Croke said and was startled at the loudness of his voice, how hollow it sounded, how unconvincing. He saw himself there, a comic turn, in his candy-stripes and sopping shoes and ridiculous straw hat. ‘Here, boy,’ he said gruffly. ‘Here, old chap.’

  The dog, a black and white spaniel with something awful coming out of its eyes, turned disdainfully and waddled back to its lair.

  Croke walked on and came to another, wider iron gate. Beyond it were the fields sloping up to the oak ridge. He took off his hat and looked at it, feeling the air suddenly cool on his forehead.

  What is it called, that thing, that gold thing?

  Under the gate there was a patch of churned-up mud (are there cows?) with little puddles of sky-reflecting water in it like shards of glass. He stepped across the mud-patch shakily but the ground beyond too was boggy and the wet grass clutched at his feet alarmingly. He kept going, though, clambering up the uneven slope and treading on his own squat shadow lurching along in front of him.

  Unless to see my shadow in the sun,
r />   And something on mine own deformity.

  Not that he was ever let play the king. All he ever got to do was stand around in sackcloth trews and a tunic that smelled of someone else’s sweat, trying not to yawn while a fat queer in a paper crown strode up and down, ranting. Pah. In his heart he despised the whole business, dressing up and pretending to be someone else. It was a pity no one did revues any more. He used to like revues, the old-fashioned kind, before everything got smart and smutty. He had been a great straight-man, because of his size, probably: a big, slow, shiny-faced gom with slicked-back hair standing up there in suit and tie with his brow furrowed while the little fellow ran rings around him, what could be funnier? Strange, he had never minded looking foolish like that. The funny men thought they were the ones in control; wrong, of course; that was the secret. Nasty little tykes, the lot of them, jealous, tightfisted, throbbing with grievances – and chasers too, God, yes, anything in a skirt.

  He found himself thinking of Felix. He did not trust that joker, with his dyed hair and his dirty smile. Very sallow, too: was he a jewboy? Got his hands on the girl straight away, of course. They always do. That girl, now –

  Oh!

  He reared back in fright as a bird of some sort flew up suddenly out of the grass with burbled whistlings and shot into the sky. A lark, was it? He stood with his head thrown back, leering from the effort, and watched the tiny creature where it hung above him, pouring out its thick-throated song. After a minute it got tired, or perhaps the song was finished, and it sank to earth in stages, dropping from one steep step of air to another, and disappeared into the grass again. Croke walked on. Long ago, when he was a child, someone had kept a canary; he remembered it, perched in its cage in a sunny window. Who was that, who would have kept a singing-bird? He could see it all clearly, the cage there, and the net curtain pulled back, and the window with the little panes and the yellow light streaming in. He sighed. Melancholy, thick and sweet as treacle, welled up in his heart.

  He went on, up the slope. This last part was steep and there was mud and dead leaves to make the going treacherous. He smelled wet smoke. Above him the trees were making a troubled, rushing sound. He paused to rest for a moment, leaning forward with his hands on his knees and breathing with his mouth open. His lungs pained him. What was he doing, climbing up here, what craziness had got hold of him? He could die like this, keel over like a tree and die, be here for days and no one would find him. He turned his darkening gaze to the fields falling away behind him, to the house down there, to the beach and the distant sea. White clouds sailed above his head. He seemed for a moment to be airborne, and he felt light-headed. Behind him someone started to sing.

  Oh

  He came off twice

  In a bowl of rice

  And called it tapioca

  It was one of the boys. He was squatting in the middle of a clearing beside the remains of a fire, poking at the smouldering embers with a stick. He looked up at Croke without surprise. His no-colour hair was wet and plastered to his skull. His eyes were an eerie, washed-out shade of blue.

  ‘Which one are you?’ Croke said, still wheezing from the climb. ‘Are you Hatch?’ It occurred to him he should carry a cane, it would lend him authority, pointing with it and so on. Hatch went on looking at him with detachment; he might have been looking in through the bars of a cage. Croke, disconcerted by the child’s unwavering regard, tried another tack and pointed to the fire. ‘Go out on you?’ he said.

  Hatch shrugged. ‘Pound pissed on it.’

  ‘I did not,’ Pound said, stepping out of the trees. Pound was the fat one: glasses, cowlick, shoes like boats. ‘He pissed on it himself.’

  Unnerved, Croke grinned weakly. He opened his mouth but could think of nothing to say, and stood irresolute, feeling exposed and somehow mocked. He was secretly a little afraid of these two. Hatch in particular alarmed him, with his pixie’s face and violet eyes and pale little clawlike hands.

  Pound came and stood by the fire and kicked at the ashes with the toe of his shoe. He cast a sidelong glance in Croke’s direction. ‘He must be gone,’ he said to Hatch. ‘I can’t see him.’

  ‘Gone to ground,’ Hatch said and laughed.

  A gust of wind blew across the clearing, lifting dry husks and the lacy skeletons of last year’s leaves. In the silence Croke had a dreamy sense of slow, weightless toppling.

  ‘Someone up here, was there?’ he said.

  Hatch stuck his stick into the ashes.

  ‘That fellow,’ he said.

  ‘Which fellow?’

  ‘Tarzan the apeman.’

  This time Pound laughed, a fat bark. Croke looked from one of them to the other, the fey one squatting on the ground and fatty with his swollen cheeks and infant’s pasty brow. He tried again to think of something to say that would confound them, something harsh and funny, but in vain, and turned instead with an angry gesture and walked away, willing himself to saunter, the back of his neck on fire. Children and animals, children and animals: he should have known better.

  He came to the edge of the trees and had to scramble down the first few yards of the slope at a crouch. He felt odd: wall-falling, his father used to say: I’m wall-falling. The ground seemed more uneven than it had when he was coming up, and the grass hid holes in which he was afraid he would twist an ankle (there must be cows, then – or horses, perhaps there are horses, after all). The house was clear to see below him but somehow he kept listing away from it, as if there were a hidden tilt to things, and when he got down to level ground the roof and even the little turret sank from view off to the left behind a steep, grassy bank riddled with rabbit burrows and he found himself toiling along a broad, sandy path with high dunes on either side.

  The sea was before him, he could hear it, the hiss and rush of it and the gritty crash of the waves collapsing on the shingle. The sun shone upon him thickly. He stopped and stood there dully in the sun, his head bowed. What had happened to him? He could not understand it. A minute ago he had been up there on the ridge and now he was down here, sunk in this hot hollow. He looked about. The boys were behind him, standing on a dune, watching him. He could not see them very well; were they laughing? He felt dizzy again and something was buzzing in his head.

  He went on. Sweat dimmed his sight. The band of his hat was greasy and hot and there was sand in his waterlogged shoes, hard ridges of it under his arches and wedged against his toes, making his corns pain him. The way grew steeper, the smooth slope rising before him like a wall; up there on the crest of the rise the wind was lifting fine swirls of sand and the sky beyond was a surprised, dense blue. A thick stench assailed him. A dead sheep lay crumpled in the sand, the head twisted sideways and the dainty black hoofs splayed. It must have lost its footing and tumbled down the dunes and broken its neck. Something had eaten out the hindquarters; the empty fleece, still intact, flapped in the wind, so that the dead thing seemed to be shuddering in pain and struggling to yank itself to its feet. He passed it by, trying not to breathe the smell, and caught the shine of a glazed muzzle and the black hole of an eye-socket. He coughed, spat, groaned. He hardly knew where he was any more, there was only this slope and the dazzling glitter of sunlight and the burning sand squirming under his feet. He wanted to get to the sea; he would be all right if only he could get to the sea. He heard the music the island makes, the deep song rising out of the earth, and thought he must be imagining it. He stumbled on, his heart wobbling in its cage and the salt air rasping in his lungs. After a dozen paces he halted again and turned. The boys were still behind him, keeping their distance. They stopped when he stopped and stood impassive, watching him. He shouted and shook his fist at them. Why would they not help him? Surely they could see he was in need of help. He was frightened. He thought he was going to cry. There was sand in his mouth now. What is that word? Anabasis. No. Descant. No, no, that thing, that gold thing, what is it! As if in a dream he watched his leaden feet slog through the sand, one sinking as the other rose, then that
one sinking in its turn. How had he come to this, what had gone wrong, and so quickly? He saw the canary again, the light in the window of the cramped front room and the old man in the big high bed. Yes, yes, that was it, she had bought the bird for him at the end, to keep him company – To pipe me out! the old man would shout, laughing and coughing, amused and furious. He heard again the harsh laugh and the voice weary with contempt: My son, the comedian. Down the narrow stairs, the years falling away and suddenly he was a child again, the hall with the lino gleaming and that worn quarter-circle inside the door where the flap dragged, and out into the square, hand in her hand, the drinking trough and the cherry trees in blossom in their wire cages, and then the big, wide, echoing corridor ablaze with grainy light and the tall nun’s rapid step on the bumpy tiles – never see their feet – and her thin, high voice saying something about prayers and being good.

  Mother! Hold me!

  He gained the crest of the slope and stood for a moment swaying, looking out in slack-jawed amazement over the beach and the blue-green vasts of water, smelling the stink of sand and wrack. The wind blew his hat off and bowled it down the slope behind him. He set off across the beach at a stumbling run, yearning towards the ocean, his long arms swinging and his knees going out sideways. At the margin of the waves he halted. Above him the sun was a wafer of white gold shaking and slipping at the centre of the huge blue. He stretched out his arms. He was laughing or crying, he did not know which.