by R. J. Gadney
The man’s head crashed back against the door. He collapsed onto the tiles, his bloodied face lowering into the pool of his companion’s pee.
He hurried through the hotel to where Sumiko was waiting by the main exit. The two remaining men made an exaggerated show of gallantry, opening the door for her.
One raised his hands as if hoping to receive The Sacrament of Communion and asked for a tip.
Hal led Sumiko to the car.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He told her about the confrontation with the drunken racist. “You hit him—you left him lying there unconscious?”
“He’ll survive.”
“You shouldn’t have done it on my behalf. Suppose he’s seriously injured?”
“He’s lucky I didn’t have a bayonet.”
“Oh, Hal.” She shook her head. “Wherever you go there’s danger. It’s best to walk away. And look—” She was staring at his knuckles. “They’re bleeding. You’d better let me clean you up.”
“I should’ve punched him harder.”
“You shouldn’t have punched him in the first place.”
“Others can judge.”
“I judge you’ve had too much to drink.”
“I lost my temper. These days it flares up suddenly. Never used to.”
“That’s one of the things I loved about you.”
Loved. He wondered if the past tense was intentional.
“Your level head,” she said. “I love your level head. You mustn’t cause yourself unnecessary stress, Hal. In your condition …”
“Let’s not talk about my condition.”
Outside her cottage the snow lay deep.
Leaving the car, he saw one of the Range Rovers draw up at the end of the street. Its headlights were raised and the light dazzled him.
The headlights were suddenly turned out. The Range Rover stayed put.
Sumiko’s Jack Russell terrier began to bark and Sumiko was fiddling with her keys. He decided not to alarm her, to say nothing about the Range Rover. Its lights came on again and it began to drive slowly toward the cottage.
Once inside he slipped the chain lock in place. Sumiko had walked through the living area to the small kitchen at the back. She was talking rapidly to the yelping Jack Russell. “Takahiro. Takahiro. Good dog. Out you go—and you sit down, Hal. I’m going to make some tea. Then I’ll see to that hand of yours.”
“It’s nothing.”
“If you’d been on your own it wouldn’t have happened. It’s my fault.”
“It’s not your fault, Sumiko.”
She smiled. “You shouldn’t have done it on my account. Anyway, you can’t drive anywhere tonight. Put some logs on the fire.”
He called National Rail Enquiries. There were innumerable cancelations and the chance of services tomorrow was slim. He decided to make arrangements with the hire car firm to drive north in the morning.
He parted the window blinds. The road was quiet; the snow still, and there was no sign of the Range Rover.
Sumiko returned with tea. “How long will you stay up there?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Until I get a hundred percent fit. Sometimes, like now, I feel fine. Then I get tired for no apparent reason. I get cold in the legs. The fracture may have healed but it aches. My head spins. I think it’s the medication. The morphine has ugly side effects.”
She cleaned his grazed knuckles and dressed them with bandages. “It’s a pity The Towers is so far away from anywhere. Don’t you find it lonely?”
“It’s the only home I know. The fact is—if the Army doesn’t work out—when Mother dies … The Towers is what’s left. I’ll be there alone. The reality is that, in Mother’s case, that day’s fast approaching.”
“You’ll be happy up there alone?”
“It’s fine in spring and summer. Autumn’s okay too. It’s only in the winter the whole place seems so isolated. The silence can be disturbing. I’ve been thinking, perhaps I’ll get myself a housekeeper.”
“Why not a Romanian girl? I get endless e-mails from Romanian girls asking for domestic jobs.”
“Maybe. You once said you’d love to live there with me and with Yukio too.”
She sat looking at him straight in the eyes. “Things have changed, Hal, haven’t they? That’s the truth. You and me. Things have changed. Anyway, Yukio couldn’t bear to be parted from Takahiro.”
“Then bring Takahiro. There are plenty of rats and rabbits for him to hunt.”
“It’s too far removed from civilization. And there are the voices your mother hears. Don’t you remember how frightened Yukio was? We lay together, you and me, listening to the wind whispering. Don’t you remember? We heard the rain talking. And in the morning you took photos of me standing by the window. ‘Two girls in silk kimonos,’ you said. ‘Both beautiful, one a gazelle …’ I was jealous of the other one.” She paused. “What happened to those photos?”
“They’re in my bedroom desk drawer along with strands of your hair. Under lock and key.”
“You’ve never shown them to anyone else?”
“Of course I haven’t.”
“My husband showed me photos of his previous lovers.”
“I haven’t got any of mine. And there isn’t another woman.”
“Promise me, Hal.”
“Cross my heart.”
“Swear to God?”
“Swear to God.”
“Has your mother seen them?”
“The photos?”
“I’m naked in them.”
“I know. Beautiful.”
“Are you sure she hasn’t seen them?”
“Sumiko—of course she hasn’t seen them.”
“Aren’t you frightened of her anymore?”
“Frightened of her?”
“She frightened me,” Sumiko said.
“She only took against you because you’re not an English rose. You know her sort.”
“Old English ladies who believe in ghosts …”
“Lonely souls are the only people who see ghosts.”
“Isn’t that what you want—to be alone?”
“Perhaps. I might, well, I might fear being alone for the rest of my life.”
“Isn’t that what you want?”
“If I can’t have you, Sumiko, there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“I know. And you are special to me, Hal. You always have been. Ever since you bumped against my arm in that restaurant in Kensington and spilled the cranberry juice over my white dress and offered to pay for it to be cleaned.”
“I did pay, didn’t I?”
“I can’t believe you don’t remember.”
“Of course I remember.”
“And you wrote down your address on the menu. Stirling Towers, Moster Lees, Carlisle, Cumbria.”
“And you spent a very long time looking at it.”
“My husband took the menu and tore it up.”
“Even then you never mentioned him by name.”
“Because I don’t like him.”
“A month later you were in my bed.”
“Two months later.” She took his hand and held it against his cheek. “You used to say you’d dreamed things about me.”
She stared at the wood fire and as if listening to the silence, she frowned. “I can’t hear Takahiro.”
“I’ll go and find him.”
He left the cottage by the back door. The snow had stopped and the night sky was clear. When he breathed in the cold air it hurt his lungs. He thought he heard footsteps, a distant squeal of rubber on ice, the crunching of frozen grit, a departing car. The light in Sumiko’s bedroom went on. He looked up and saw her close the curtains.
The effect of the alcohol had lessened yet his throat was dry and he felt his heart beating. He gave a low whistle. “Takahiro? Come. Come …” He gazed into the dark, shivered and called out: “Takahiro” one last time. To no avail. He went back into the warmth of the cottage locking the door afte
r him.
“Come upstairs,” Sumiko called.
The lights in the living area had been turned out and she had lit a candle in her bedroom and wore the white silk kimono, the one he had given her as a birthday present two years before. “When the fire burns low the house gets cold,” she said as if it were a proverb. She drew back the duvet.
“There’s no sign of Takahiro,” he said.
“Don’t worry. He often wanders off into the night. He’ll have found somewhere safe to sleep.”
7
Sunlight woke him.
She was whispering. “I’ve run a bath for you.” She was dressed in the white silk kimono. “There’s coffee, toast and marmalade for you. Then—you must go. Yukio and her father will be here in an hour from now.”
She stood by the window silhouetted against the sunlight. He saw she’d folded his clothes. A familiar sign, something she did when she wanted him to stay. Without another word she went downstairs.
As she went he thought she has no feet. Traditionally, Japanese ghosts have no feet. Western ghosts have feet and they are transparent. Japanese ghosts are shadowy things.
He had frequently asked her to explain the reasons for things she did and she’d laugh at him and shake her head and look at him with amusement. The one thing predictable about Sumiko was her unpredictability. He loved her for it. Sumiko the Unexpected. He looked at the windows edged with crystalline frost patterns.
*
After he’d bathed and dressed he joined her for breakfast in the kitchen. “No sign of Takahiro?” he asked.
“He’ll have gone to my neighbors. They spoil him.”
“What made you change your mind, Sumiko?”
“Sorry?”
“About last night?”
“Taisetsu.”
“What’s that?”
“It means you’re precious.”
“Does that mean you’ll come and stay?”
“It depends on your mother, doesn’t it?”
“It depends on me.”
“We’ll see. We’ll see.”
Which equally meant Yes or No.
Wrapped in her cashmere coat, she stood by the door to watch him leave. “Telephone me … tell me when you’ve arrived there safely. Promise?”
“I promise.”
The snow and ice creaked beneath his feet. The car was covered in snow and there was a white mound on the car’s hood.
He brushed away the snow and his fingers touched the animal’s open mouth.
Takahiro’s throat had been slit from ear to ear.
As in summer, as in winter.
The arrangement of her garden consisted not so much of the snow-covered rocks, trees and plants. The space between them also counted like the silence between her words. The winter shapes matched the flower arrangement inside the house.
She didn’t protest against the inevitable. “Even when things can’t be helped,” she used to say. “Things can be helped.” So the death of Takahiro made her smile. Not that she wasn’t profoundly upset; rather she exhibited no emotion. The smile was a smile. Just that. “The absence of emotion causes no nuisance.”
He helped her bury the corpse at the end of the quiet garden. Given the frozen earth, no easy task.
His first reaction was to go back to the hotel and establish the identity of the men who’d been in the restaurant. He wondered if they intended to return. But any minute now her husband and daughter would show up and Sumiko insisted he leave.
“I’m very sorry,” he said.
“It’s not your fault. I’ll tell Yukio that a car hit Takahiro and I buried him. You must go. You’re not going to drive the whole way to Carlisle? Go by train, Hal. Please.”
“If you promise to visit me. There’s always Christmas. If the sun shines it’s beautiful at Christmastime.”
“I’ll have Yukio with me.”
“It’s not as though I’m short of guest rooms. Bring her too. And I have a plan. I’ll get her a puppy as a Christmas present. A Jack Russell puppy.”
She smiled. “I hope you get a train.”
“So do I. I’m sorry, Sumiko …”
“Hurry up and call the station. Perhaps there are trains still running.”
He followed her inside the house and called National Rail Enquiries. The train timetables had been thrown into chaos. Few trains were running. There might possibly, he learned, be a midday train from Cambridge via Euston to Carlisle. Service couldn’t be guaranteed.
“Now go, Hal. Please.”
“I seem to bring you bad luck,” he told her.
“I don’t believe in the wheel of fortune,” she said. “You must go home to your mother. Call me once you’re safe at home—promise?”
8
Promise echoed in his head throughout the journey.
The wheel of fortune Sumiko disbelieved determined that the rail system had not entirely ground to a halt. By now the battery of his cell phone was running very low. It was only when he changed trains at Peterborough during the long wait for the Leeds train that he succeeded in making a call home from a public telephone.
The line was poor and he could barely hear the whispery voice of his mother’s nurse. “This is The Towers,” she said. She spoke very quietly with a genteel Yorkshire accent.
“Sister Vale?”
“Oh, Hal. I didn’t recognize your voice. We’ve been trying to reach you.” He could tell from her quavering tone that something was wrong. “Please, Hal, you must come home.”
“I’m doing my best. I’m at Peterborough. I’ve been delayed. Waiting for the Leeds train. How’s my mother?”
“She’s very weak, Hal. The doctor’s with her. He thinks the end is nearing.”
“How near?”
“She’s sinking. Francesca and me have stayed at her bedside around the clock. She’s drifting in and out of consciousness. She’s been asking for you, Hal. For your father too. She thinks he’s seated by her bed. She can see him. He talks to her.” Her voice grew tearful. “I don’t think she recognizes me anymore. We’re so looking forward to having you back. There’s a lot to be seen to before Christmas.”
“Be sure to tell my mother I’m on my way.”
“She thinks you’re here already. She’s seen you playing outside in the snow. Building bonfires and snowmen …”
“If it makes her happy then don’t disabuse her.”
“She asks—‘Is Hal talking to me from beyond?’ She thinks you’ve passed over.”
“Put her right.”
“Francesca and me will make your room nice and comfy.”
“That’s very kind,” said Hal impatiently. “We can talk in the morning. Don’t wait up.”
He stood on the platform watching two teenagers seated on a platform bench: the boy with a harmonica, the girl with a battered guitar.
They were singing: When you walk through the storm—Hold your head up high—
It took him back to Helmand. He tried to shut his ears —Walk on, through the wind—And you’ll get shit in your eyes. Walk on, through the piss and you’ll die of pneumonia …
Snowflakes whisked about, settling on his face, and the cold burned his skin.
The sky lowered like a trap. He felt completely alone and loneliness inflamed the sense of impending loss: fear that he might lose Sumiko.
Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart …
He felt a rare stab of homesickness, longing for a home possessed of warmth, friendliness and unconditional love. Things he’d never known.
He glanced at the rail tracks, yellow light flickering, silken, shining, the rails creaking with the train’s approach.
The voice on the loudspeaker announced: “The train now approaching Platform One is …”
The train rolled and juddered its way slowly north through Grantham, Newark and on to Retford, Doncaster and Wakefield.
For most of the journey he was the sole passenger in the carriage. His cell phone, its battery drained, was of no use.
The outlet for charging it provided by the rail company was out of order.
Catching sight of his reflection in the window he saw his face now bore few signs of his time in Afghanistan. In his dark gray overcoat, black silk scarf and worn leather cap there was, he thought, the look of a stateless person about his appearance that gave no indication of his profession.
He wondered—as lately he often had—if his military career might be at an end, quite what the future held in store. As now seemed inevitable, if his mother had only a short time left, he told himself his indefinite future lay at The Towers. That’s where he’d have to get a life.
It was a daunting prospect. The whole place was in need of repair. It would require an extensive structural survey and the cost of essential building works might prove prohibitive.
On the other hand, there were, if only reputedly, paintings and tapestries and furniture of considerable value and he had always supposed that their sale might yield enough capital to carry out the necessary works. He was far from clear how the place could ever produce an income.
It had been his mother’s wish, also indeed his solemn promise, that he would live there throughout his lifetime. In so far as he hadn’t actually set eyes on a copy of her Will, he was unclear what might happen if he were to sell up—except she’d said, with stern conviction, that “the person or persons responsible for its sale will”—not “would”—become “insane, be struck down, committed to eternal damnation and hell-fire.”
Naturally, he gave slight credence to this view, except since his return from Afghanistan she had perceived, possibly even actually seen, malignant spirits. Reasonably enough, he’d put these sightings of hers down to the wanderings of her mind.
In truth, they’d occurred with greater regularity since his father died, frequently during his mother’s deranged outbursts inflamed by the structural deterioration of The Towers.
One of the more painful nightmares that visited him was the sight of her open mouth, separated from her face like a pair of false teeth set in rubber, moaning The Towers The Towers The Towers like Poe’s bells: How the danger sinks and swells, by the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells of the bells of the bells, bells, bells, bells, bells.