I got stung a few times. I made the mistake of idly diving the local baker one afternoon, and my mother began to wonder why I refused to eat sandwiches.
There was somebody else in Watson’s — a tenant in the attic room. I would sometimes hear him talking with my mother upstairs — hushed, animated voices punctuated by the occasional laugh or barked word. I only saw the man once, on a Saturday lunchtime when Henry had left me in charge and toddled next door to the Ship.
I was sitting in the empty shop, reading, when I heard a thump and a cry of alarm from upstairs, followed by silence. I went to investigate, creaking on the thin, steep staircase that led to the attic. The hatch was open, and through it I saw a tall figure bending over some papers. The room was dark, lit only by candles despite the sunny day outside.
‘Hello?’ I enquired.
The figure straightened, and a shadowy face appeared, gaunt and hollow in the flickering light. He caught my eye, straightened his glasses and slammed the hatch door. That was the last I saw of him, and I became used to the sound of his footsteps and shuffling.
Soon, the lives of my schoolmates were filling my head. The classroom provided the perfect environment for my sport: four walls, a closed door, and everyone either in deep concentration or deep boredom.
I wasn’t spying. The details of the lives of those around me were of very little interest to me, at least not for long. I will admit that the journeys my classmates were making through puberty provided a few eye-openers, especially amongst the girls, but the thrill was short-lived. And really, once you’ve humped one hairbrush you’ve humped them all.
No, the real thrill was in the flip; to see the world through a different set of filters. Memory, experience, intelligence, genetics, physiology — every dial turned to a new setting whenever I dived in. Memories of events, what they liked and disliked, who they liked, what they wanted to be or do, the places they had seen — none of these things formed the basis of my acquaintance with them. It was the colour and shape of their awareness that I used to build my understanding.
For example, Gregory Pike thought in blocks, ideas arriving with him like trains in a station — discrete, well-defined and flat. The world of his mind was clearly bordered, with a compass planted firmly in its centre. There was no grain or fuzz. He saw time streaming gently forwards, ahead of him, like a tunnel. Occasionally, if he thought of something that caused emotion, the feeling would arrive like a bright, sharp thing that he immediately dulled by halting, categorising and labelling it.
Kate Wellham, on the other hand, thought in streams that spun and twirled. She saw the shape of the year as a rising set of hills, drawing out into a yellow downward slope in summer and a deep, grainy plateau in winter. The only geometry was a hard, black line at the new year, which felt as if it had been drawn by somebody else.
Terry Gallagher’s mind was like running fast downhill with your hands above your head. Thoughts or memories didn’t stay long. Only sexual ideas were entertained for any longer than a few seconds, and with glee, exploding like fireworks. He tapped his feet to keep up with himself.
I dived into them all. All except Becky Fisher, with whom I had — excruciatingly — fallen in love.
She was in the year above me, with an easy smile, hips, boobs, makeup — more than enough artillery to break down my fourteen-year-old defences. I endured countless hours of fantasies, between half-glimpses through classroom windows, then face-to-face encounters like atomic bombs. If I saw her walking towards me, arms folded beneath those torturous breasts of hers, smiling that easy smile, the rest of the day was — boom — a wasteland, apart from that single moment of perfection, gleaming in the dust.
I set Becky Fisher off-limits. I would not dive into her, no matter how badly I wanted to see inside that glowing sexual temple of her mind to see what went on in there. I would treat her with respect — a decision which elated me primarily because it felt noble, but also because it proved how well I could already control my gift.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be long until I was proven wrong.
PASTIES & MILKSHAKE
IT IS MORNING AND I have been driving all night. Marshfields, and the sight of Sergeant Mercer’s terrified face as he locked himself and his two baffled officers (one of whom is now waving goodbye to his promotion) in a cell, is hundreds of miles behind us. He had no idea how I knew those things about him. How could he? He had told nobody in his entire life; barely even himself.
But I had had no more time to dwell on Sergeant Mercer. I’d had three prisoners to break out.
‘What did you tell him?’ Zoe had asked as I unlocked her and the others from their cells with Mercer’s keys.
‘The same thing I would tell anyone,’ was my reply.
And with that we had taken our van and fled Marshfields, into the night.
I have stopped the van. Zoe is in the passenger seat, and at some point during sleep her head has lolled against my shoulder. Her face is peaceful, and her eyelids ripple with dreams. Outside is a sun-filled, cloudless sky over a windswept beach and a dense blue ocean that heaves as if some giant machine churned beneath it. A seagull is perched on the bonnet of the car, feathers ruffling. It opens its mouth to caw, but then it freezes, ducks its head and departs.
I sense a shadow nearing, and two hands slam against the car. Heathcliff’s hideous face fills the window, fixing me with that same look of strain and horror as his fingertips nibble the black rubber of the seal. His head slowly tips to one side, and mucus begins to stream from his nose in a long thread stretching out into the wind. He says nothing, but the words are loud and clear.
You…you, you, you, YOU!
But I neither shriek nor reel. He no longer terrifies me, because I am starting to understand what he is saying, how hard he has been trying to say it and for how long. Everything is opening up to me, second by second, like a sun rising over a darkened page of writing.
Heathcliff looks back in the direction of the road. Morag arrives at his side and hands him a parcel. He looks down at it, takes it, and then shuffles off towards the beach, unwrapping it. Then Morag taps her knuckles on the window. I open it
‘Breakfast,’ she says, passing me two similar packages. They are warm and smell good. She leans in, looking at me long and hard.
‘Where are we, Elliot?’
‘I think you know very well where we are,’ I reply. ‘But I don’t know why.’
With that, she smiles and dances off after Heathcliff.
Zoe stirs and I watch the gentle process of her waking up, stretching with her eyes crossed and chin squashed into her chest. As she focusses, I turn away and examine what Morag has brought us: two soft, hot pasties and two fat bottles of banana milkshake.
‘What time is it?’ says Zoe.
‘Just after nine.’
I hand her a pasty. She looks it over for a while, then back at me. Her eyes narrow.
‘Were you watching me sleep?’ she says.
‘Yes,’ I say, getting out.
Zoe follows me and we stand there, leaning on the bonnet, chewing silently and looking out at the roiling sea. Heathcliff and Morag are on the beach, the sound of them lost beneath the roar of surf. He trudges along, dragging his dirt-caked cloak in the sand and nibbling his pasty as he goes. Crumbs flutter behind him on the salty air. His back is horizontal, matching the shoreline, as if he is an ancient black tree blown to one side by an endless westward wind. Morag follows him a few steps behind, marking his progress. Occasionally she stops to examine a shell or stop him from stepping too close to a puddle.
A wave washes onto the shore, and a shower of gulls dive-bomb the rolling tide. Heathcliff raises his arms, as if in applause, then lowers them as the surf retreats.
‘She looks after him,’ I say.
‘I hope someone does the same for me when I’m that age, don’t you?’
‘I hope I’m dead by that age.’
She rolls her eyes at this, and takes a bite of her pasty.
I shake my head. ‘He’s older than that.’
‘How do you know?’ She turns to me. Her eyes are soft and intent, and I’m glad they are no longer closed. I can smell her skin through the salt air. ‘You’re remembering something, aren’t you?’
‘I think I am. I know I am.’
Suddenly a car speeds by behind us, rocking the van with its tailwind and disappearing along the coastal road.
‘They’ll be looking for us,’ I say. ‘The police and…you know, that other guy. We should get going.’
I turn to leave, but she stops me.
‘Elliot, I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘I got you into all of this. It’s true; none of this would be happening if we hadn’t shown you that picture. You would have been perfectly OK if we hadn’t come along.’
‘I doubt it. Morag was right; things hadn’t been anything near OK for a long time.’ I turn to her. ‘I’m glad you came along.’
I look at the detail in her eyes, the retinal fractals colliding around the central black pools, entire worlds inside her that only she knows, barely, how to navigate, and I know that my own eyes are telling the same story to her. And for a few moments, we stand like that; a man and a woman beside the sea.
‘Either way,’ I say, ‘we’re here now and I want answers.’
‘So where are we going?’
‘To the place where we shall find them.’
Half an hour later, we pull up outside a towering, dilapidated old wreck of a house. The walls are ridden with vines, and the garden is a mess of weed and scrub.
I knock on the door and the old man opens it, unsurprised, wearing a ragged cardigan and Wellington boots. An old border collie appears at his side, wagging its tail.
‘Hi, Dad,’ I say, rain spattering my face
He takes a long breath through his nose, nods firmly and looks between the three figures beside me. He sees Zoe first, then Morag, at whom he seems to flinch. Morag looks back, expression caught somewhere between defiance and amusement. My father looks away, and his eyes twinkle when they land on Heathcliff.
‘Hello, old friend,’ he says. ‘You’ve been gone a long time.’
Heathcliff walks past me and into the house, laying a hand on my father’s shoulder as he passes. My father smiles and squeezes it, before looking back at me.
‘You’d better come inside,’ he says.
PART FOUR
WILLIAM
Lasswick, Present Day
I STAND IN MY father’s front room as Zoe parks the van outside. It is as I remember it—all books, blankets, cushions and dust. The light from outside is muted by the tarnished glass of the tall bay windows, their frames stripped and curtained by ancient red drapes. In the corner is my mother’s chair, unmoved since her death twenty years ago. Morag is sitting in it, hands folded over her stomach, eyes raised to the walls and the vast array of pictures that still hang upon them. Her face is still set with the same secretive expression she used to greet my father at the door.
Heathcliff stands before the giant oak bookshelves that take up one wall. He hangs his head askew as he shuffles between the spines. The dog looks up at him, unsure of the protocol, attempting the occasional tail wag.
‘Go to your place, Arthur,’ says my father.
Relieved of duty, the dog pads happily over to the mess of cushions and blankets in the corner, where he flops and watches us, chin on his paws.
My father shuts the front door on the gathering Atlantic squall outside. He is a tall man, remarkably straight-backed despite his years and the fact that a good portion of them have been spent over his desk. He doesn’t dodder, but his age shows in stiff steps. He stops next to me, giving me the same look he has always given me — impassive, cold, free of anything so useless as emotion. I have not seen this man for half a decade.
‘Why are you here?’ he says.
I tear myself from his empty gaze and glance around the walls. Swarms of pictures, hundreds and thousands of them, fill every space of whatever ancient wallpaper lies beneath them.
‘I see nothing’s changed.’
‘Why are you here?’
I turn back to him.
‘Do I need an excuse to visit?’
‘No, but it’s been five years since you last did.’
‘It wouldn’t have killed you to visit me as well.’
‘You’re a busy boy, Elliot. With your show.’ That word again, spoken like an unwanted taste. ‘I felt like my presence was unwanted.’
It was all I ever wanted, I think, you stupid old…
He looks away, distracted momentarily by Morag, who is now on her feet and drifting between the walls of pictures.
‘Curious child,’ says my father, watching her the way he watches everything — distantly and amused, as if all life was merely a curious, temporary distraction from his own more important thoughts. But as he glances again I see something else: a nervous, haunted suspicion in his eyes.
His smile flickers. I cannot see my father’s thoughts — never have done — but I don’t need to now. For the first time in my life, I get a sense that this manner of his, this distance, is not something that has been easy for him.
He hardens his face, picks up a folded newspaper from the coffee table and thrusts it at me.
‘You’re in the papers, it seems.’
The front page shows two images of my face — a rare, old portrait from my twenties and a blurred shot from somebody’s phone, no doubt another one of the crowd who pursued me in London. Beneath it is a freeze-frame inset of Hunt from his television interview that captures his fierce eyes as they meet the camera.
‘You’re missing. Why are you missing?’
‘You tell me.’
He hesitates.
‘Why are you here?’ he repeats.
‘All these pictures, all these people…’
‘Why are you here?’
‘They weren’t just a hobby for a madwoman. They were for me.’
He closes his eyes.
‘Why are you here, Elliot?’
I stand bolt upright, banging the table and sending a teacup clattering across it.
‘Because I remember.’
For a long time we balance upon the silence, saying nothing more. Hardly anything changes in my father’s posture. Perhaps there is a subtle incline in his chin, or a settling of his shoulders. Perhaps the sun has squeezed a little more through the windows to illuminate his face. But at that moment he looks like a prisoner released.
The door opens and Zoe enters.
‘I parked on the other side of the garage. You can’t see it from the road.’
My father frowns at this, but he doesn’t ask the obvious question. He stands and points between Zoe and Morag.
‘You two, what are your names?’
‘Zoe. And that’s Morag.’
‘And you, you’re like Elliot? You can remember too.’
‘Yes.’
My father nods and removes his spectacles, which he sets about cleaning with a handkerchief.
‘Gleaners do tend to find each other. Especially when they have help.’
My father turns to Heathcliff.
‘You got lost again, didn’t you, old friend?’
The old man turns from the shelf and allows my father to study his haunted face. His eyes dart about the books and pictures.
‘How do you know him?’ I ask.
‘He came to us when you were a boy. Do you remember?’
I see the dark image of a thin man in the attic above Watson’s, poking his head through the door. I recognise now the same line to his jaw, the same high hairline and pointed chin, both now worn by age.
‘The lodger at the bookshop. That was him?’
‘Yes, he was with us for three months. He wasn’t altogether there when he found us, bu
t when he left, well…he couldn’t talk properly, he couldn’t sleep or eat, he was restless, pacing all the time, searching for things endlessly. He disappeared in the middle of the night, left everything, upped and went with nothing but the clothes on his back and some copies of our pictures.’
I pull the photographs I took from the police station from my inside pocket.
‘He kept them,’ I say, passing them to my father. ‘That’s how I knew to come here. I recognised them from your walls.’
My father examines them, nodding, and looks up.
‘Do you know his name?’
‘We call him Heathcliff,’ says Zoe.
My father looks at me, eyes narrowing in the manner of one who is half expecting a result.
‘His name is William,’ he says.
And there is a result. The name is like fresh page turning, revealing an entirely forgotten chapter of a book. I see a face, a door, an outline in a bed, the sound of a little boy’s voice…
‘Are you all right, Elliot?’
The images fade, but the impressions remain.
‘Why did he come to you in the first place?’ I say.
‘To find your mother. And to help us with our research.’
‘Research into what?’ says Zoe.
‘Into Gleaners, and their memories.’
‘What,’ I say, a little awkwardly, ‘are Gleaners?’
My father shrugs.
‘You have to come up with names for things, don’t you? It was your mother’s term for people like you; ones who are connected, who can see as others.’
‘So you knew? My episodes at school; you knew I wasn’t imagining things?’
‘Quite correct, and we were sure that one day you would remember past lives, as all Gleaners do.’ He stops short. ‘That is what you meant when you said you can remember, correct?’
‘Yes.’
With some relief, he finishes cleaning his spectacles and replaces them.
‘Good.’
‘But I don’t understand how the two are related.’
The Other Lives Page 22