The Haunting of Henry Twist

by Rebecca F. John

  As he turns again to the blackboard, Grayson hopes, abstractly, that his students think his face is flushed with anger at Thompson. One night last week, after he and Matilda had one of their quarrels, he had dreamt about Sally Emory. He had dreamt the messy, brain-swamping sort of dream he imagines artists know; the sort that induces them to work at smashing layer upon layer of paint over a canvas, or teasing lines of poetry from pen nibs only to ball up the sheet of paper and begin again. In short, a fantasy seeped into his head – as real and tactile in those sleeping hours as his wife was next to him when he woke – and he’s not sure he’s ever known that to happen before.

  If he were a wiser man, he thinks, he would not meet Sally Emory after school hours for any purpose. And yet, he knows he will.

  Grayson does not reach Monty’s until gone six o’clock. During his short walk from the train station, darkness plummets over the city, streetlamps flicker on and build to a steady blaze, the cold turns his nostrils to smoking chimneys. As he strolls along the pavement, dragging the back of one hand against the garden’s perimeter wall, he spots Henry coming in the opposite direction. They wave, nod a greeting, and, a few steps and a handshake later, push through the gate together to find Matilda already blind-drunk.

  Monty sits at her side, passing her glasses of water which she holds but does not imbibe. Over the top of her own coat, she wears one of his, but she shivers and it slips off and Monty is forced to keep wrapping it back around her. All about them, cream-coloured blankets and cushions are scattered, waiting to be settled onto, and at the centre of this familiar arrangement is a large basket full of dark, glinting bottles. Monty has provided again.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Grayson asks, confused by her state.

  ‘All day,’ she answers, flinging her glass in his direction so that much of the water slops out. Her eyes stay closed. ‘I was waiting.’

  Grayson does not ask what for. He knows. He is standing next to him. ‘Perhaps we should head home?’ he offers.

  At this, Matilda throws her arms out to embrace the air and smiles a long, slow, liquefied smile. ‘You’re here now,’ she declares. ‘You’re all here, all my beautiful men, all together, and I, and I, I –’

  ‘She’s really not as bad as she seems,’ Monty says. ‘The cold air must have got to her, that’s all. She hasn’t had a drink in hours.’

  ‘Shall I pour you one, Monty?’ Grayson sighs, lowering himself onto his knees and reaching for the basket Monty has always supplied, jammed with litres of this wine or that rum or some exotic concoction they’ve never cared to learn the ingredients of. He really ought to take Matilda home. But he’s tired and thirsty and home will be a lonely place tonight. Besides, he needs to drink, to flood his thoughts of Sally. ‘Henry?’

  He measures three glasses, ignoring Matilda’s pleas for another, and they sit to a habitual toast.

  Monty raises his hand. ‘To … To what? Anyone have an idea?’

  ‘To the abandonment of hope,’ Matilda slurs and the men smile indulgently at one another.

  ‘That’s depressing, Tilda,’ Monty warns. ‘How about, to the gathering of hope?’

  ‘Hope for what?’ Grayson asks.

  ‘The future,’ Monty suggests.

  ‘The future,’ Henry agrees quietly, and they clink their glasses and murmur ‘Cheers, cheers,’ as they settle onto the mounded material for the evening.

  ‘And to taking Ruby there with us,’ Monty adds.

  It is the first time since Ruby died that they have done this properly, the way they used to, with nothing but drinks and daft talk and soft furnishings. In the short silence that follows Monty’s words, they sip and swig and reposition their tired limbs, and Henry drifts towards the echoes of his wife the place holds. He sees ghostly strokes of her midway down the length of the garden: the flip of her hair as she tosses her head in frustration at her failure to hit a ball through one of Monty’s old croquet hoops.

  When they had arrived that day, Monty had the game already set up and was waiting for them amongst the hoops, spinning a ball skilfully between his fingers.

  ‘When I was a scrawny young lad,’ he’d said, by way of explanation, ‘I was something of a competitor. I thought we might give it a go.’

  And they had all done quite well, excepting Ruby.

  ‘Do you remember how bad she was at croquet?’ Henry says now.

  ‘Oh, no one could forget that,’ Monty laughs. ‘The way she growled and stomped and growled some more!’

  ‘And kept swinging the stick over her head.’ Grayson demonstrates, arcing his empty hand upwards. “You’ve done something to my stick!”

  ‘Really,’ Monty says, ‘it’s not a stick, it’s a mallet.’

  Grayson smiles. ‘That’s exactly what you said to her.’

  Henry draws the remembered lines of her onto the emptiness before him, colouring her dress in a deep, charcoal grey – though of course he can’t be sure any more what she wore that particular day. What he can be sure of is the scowl which burrowed further into her face with each miss, the way her shoulders rose higher and higher.

  ‘She wasn’t sold on your teaching, Monty,’ he says.

  ‘She certainly was not.’

  ‘She was as quick-witted as ever, though,’ Matilda offers, a little smile creasing her lips. ‘Remember, Monty was boasting on about being a croquet champion in ’65 or something –’

  Monty coughs. ‘Excuse me. It was ’66 and ’67, actually.’

  ‘And what did Ruby say?’ Matilda smirks.

  ‘“What about ’68?”’ Henry replies.

  ‘Everyone started playing tennis in ’68,’ Monty had returned, and all – bar Ruby – had laughed. An hour later, when Henry, Monty, Matilda and Grayson were enjoying their second drink, she was still chasing the little ball through the grass, scooping clumps of earth up with her haphazard mallet action and knocking down the hoops with her increasingly forceful hitting.

  ‘Ruby,’ Monty called. ‘You’re beaten, sweet girl. Give up. It’s just a game.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Ruby replied. ‘But then again, most things are. Doesn’t mean you should give up on them.’

  Matilda sighs. ‘I always wished I could quip the way she did.’

  ‘Ah,’ Monty replies, ‘no one could equal Ruby on that front.’

  They had attempted for long minutes to persuade her to sit to drinks with them, but Ruby had not capitulated, and Henry had dropped back onto his elbows and smiled as he watched his woman turn laps of the garden without even marginally improving her technique. When, eventually, a fluke ball rolled beautifully through a battered hoop and she yelped with excitement, he rushed over and lifted her and twirled her about like a child, because he knew it would keep her smiling. There was nothing that brought him more pleasure than to cause Ruby Twist to keep smiling.

  ‘Are you still with us, chap?’ Monty asks now.

  Henry nods.

  ‘Good,’ Monty continues. ‘I thought we’d lost you to the beard for a minute there.’

  ‘The beard really is becoming … something, you know,’ Grayson says. ‘Quite something …’

  ‘Something!’ Monty laughs. ‘Would you listen to him? He’s being polite, Twist. It’s a catastrophe, that beard. You look like a wild man. You look like you’ve been attacked by some mysterious hairy creature. In fact, I shouldn’t be surprised if moons started orbiting that beard. Have a shave, man, for God’s sake.’

  Henry touches his beard and smiles with just his lips. ‘I hadn’t noticed it was that bad.’

  ‘Oh, trust us,’ Monty says. ‘It’s worse.’

  ‘I can’t disagree,’ Grayson whispers. They are all whispering now. Matilda, propped against Gray’s shoulder, is sliding into sleep.

  ‘The little lady will think her father’s been eaten by a bear,’ Monty adds. ‘Where is she, anyway? With the old woman upstairs?’

  ‘That old woman,’ Henry answers, ‘is probably younger than you. Or a similar age,
at least.’

  Monty flaps a hand at Henry. ‘Everyone my age is old.’

  ‘Is that why you don’t bother with any of them?’ Grayson asks.

  ‘That’s exactly why,’ Monty says, though they all know there’s more to it than that. Monty needs something from the young people he surrounds himself with. He’s a man moved by nothing so much as desperation. ‘And if Henry’s going to become one of them,’ he continues, ‘sitting about in his flat every day, alone, I’m afraid I’ll have to ditch him, too.’

  ‘I haven’t been alone.’

  They turn to him for an explanation, two heads moving as one. Henry can see they’re afraid to ask if there is a woman. Yes, no – either way it would be uncomfortable for them: hiding their disgust if he has moved on this quickly; hiding their shame if they have mistakenly supposed he would. And they are right to feel torn. Despite his secret convictions about Jack, Henry is very much still mourning Ruby. After all, Jack does not remember Henry; he does not love him; he does not know how it feels to be loved by him in return. Meeting Jack, however much of herself Ruby has managed to leave with him, is like meeting someone new. And Henry has no idea how to explain it.

  ‘I mean, I won’t be alone. An old friend is going to be staying with me,’ he says, because he wants to believe it. ‘Jack Turner.’

  Last night, when Jack had finally appeared, Henry had been beyond anger. He had not attempted to stop him stepping through the front door, though. However angry he was, he still wanted Jack nearby. Making sure the curtains were properly drawn, he demanded an explanation with all the fury typical of any jilted lover. ‘So, are you going to tell me where you’ve been?’ he spat. Or something similar. He forgets now. Because when he reeled around, ready for his argument, Jack was sitting cross-legged on the bed, matching the sole of one foot to the other, just as she used to, and it was disarming.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I should have told you –’

  ‘Actually,’ Henry interrupted, slumping down onto the settee and rubbing at his forehead, ‘you shouldn’t have had to, should you?’

  ‘Why not?’ Jack shrugged. ‘I felt I should have, and so I should have. Let’s not quibble about it. And I haven’t been anywhere. I’ve just, well, I got myself a spot of work. Not a lot, considering this.’ He tapped his temple with a fingertip. ‘Just donkey-work really, down at the docks. You know, it’s surprisingly hard to find a trade when you’ve forgotten yours.’ Grinning, he pulled off his newsboy and jacket and flung them aside. He moved easier now than he had before. His arm did not stall as it bent.

  ‘You’re feeling better, then?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Much.’ Jack lifted both arms and flexed like a bodybuilder. ‘I’m like a new man.’

  There was no evidence of bloating muscle beneath his shirt sleeves – he is too lean for that – but Henry has not mistaken his trimness for weakness. He still hasn’t shaken the habit of measuring Jack as a threat.

  ‘And what sort of man is that?’ Henry asked.

  ‘A cautious one, I suppose,’ Jack answered. ‘Because, I’ll be straight with you here, Henry, I’ve been keeping an eye on you, on the flat.’ He lifted his hands in surrender, but Henry did not want an explanation as to why Jack had been watching. He wanted only to believe that Jack was feeling something of what he was, that Jack too had recognised that strange pull. ‘Now,’ Jack continued, ‘God knows that sounds creepy, but what choice have I got but to be careful?’

  Henry swivelled around and leant over the back of the settee so that he was pupil to pupil with Jack. The masked moonlight made a marble sculpture of his face – all carved angles and flattened surfaces. His usually tanned skin was milk-like. His dark eyes shone. His hair was a confusion of perfect kinks. If Henry were a woman, he might have known then that Jack was beautiful.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Henry smiled, ‘you’re an honest man, too.’

  ‘I’d like to think so. But do you know what I intend to be most of all?’ Henry shook his head. ‘A happy man,’ Jack concluded.

  ‘That’s admirable,’ Henry answered. He turned back towards the unlit fire, rubbing again at his forehead and the bridge of his nose. Behind him, he felt Jack shifting closer, then a touch on the point where his vest displayed his bare shoulder.

  ‘Tell me, then,’ Jack said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What you’re so worried about.’

  Henry hunched forward and, elbows pointed into his thighs, pushed his hands over his face. Exhaling loudly, he attempted to summon the courage to speak words he could not yet locate. The thought was there, fully formed in his mind, but he could not translate it into a sentence he could deliver to Jack. He was afraid. Not that Jack would attack him – he could bear that. He was simply afraid that if Jack left again, he would not come back.

  ‘What sort of man do you think I am?’ Henry mumbled. ‘I mean, do you think I’m a … you know, a … Because I’m not. I’ve never … It’s just, perhaps I know who you are better than you do, and perhaps that makes me feel …’

  For once, Jack was quiet. He waited patiently for Henry to stumble through his questions, hand unmoving on the smooth orb of his shoulder. But Henry could not say the word he needed to say.

  ‘Do you think I’m a … I’m not a …’ He cut out like a car engine.

  ‘Henry?’ Jack said, slowly. Without lifting his head, Henry nodded into his hands. ‘Do you know what I think? I think, given what you’ve told me, that maybe I remind you of Ruby. And I think maybe that’s all right.’

  When Henry felt Jack’s lips on his neck – a cool, firm contact – he remained still, bent into his own hands. He was not fearful, not any longer. How could he be now? With one easy movement, Jack had vanquished all his worries. But he did not want to show Jack the tears his lips were drawing from him, as steady and flowing as silk handkerchiefs being pulled from a magician’s sleeve. That joy, that shame, was his alone.

  ‘Jack Turner.’ Monty repeats his name. ‘Jack Turner. Do we know him? Whose circles does he run in?’

  Henry shakes his head. ‘No, you don’t know him.’

  ‘Then tell us more,’ Monty coaxes.

  ‘I can’t,’ Henry says, setting his drink down. It’s time he got home to Libby. ‘I’m not sure I know him myself yet.’

  THE CINEMA

  On the first dreary day of April, Henry Twist stands before the mirror in his hallway and listens to yet more rain drumming against his front door. The entire world is the same soft shade of grey. In his right hand, the heavy ball-end handle of his Gillette razor, which he rolls in his palm. On top of the wooden chest he leans against, a bowl of water, releasing wavering panes of steam which rise before him and make him look, in reflection, like an illusion. He dips the razor then slants it against his cheek and pulls it through the thickness of cream there, waiting for the rasp of removed hair. He matches the stroke on the other cheek.

  He got rid of the beard as soon as he returned from Monty’s a couple of weeks ago, and he feels better for it: a little more like himself. Perhaps, he thinks, these simplest acts – shaving, laughing, cooking – are what healing is made of. And he doesn’t feel so guilty now about that, healing, because he is sure that he will always wear the scars Ruby etched on him.

  Above, he hears Vivian wake and shuffle around her bedroom. Recently, Herb has been staying in bed more and more, and Henry, when he goes upstairs, sees the pain it causes Viv. It is under her skin: a moving shadow which lightens when Herb struggles to his chair and darkens again when he cannot conjure the fight to move his body across the width of two rooms. She does not talk about it. There are so many things Viv does not talk about, it seems, that Henry marvels at her not swelling up like a great balloon and bursting. He has still heard no mention of children, though he did catch sight of a medal one day when he collected Libby from the cot Viv has set up for her, so he believes now in at least one brave son.

  Henry includes him in his prayers – Young Moss – and holds Libby tighter
when he thinks of him.

  Recently, Libby is a different girl every day. She grabs at his fingers and, when he carries her against his shoulder, his earlobes. She directs her head shakily this way and that. Her eyes dash about in her heart-shaped face. Elizabeth Twist grows more like her mother minute by minute, and Henry is grateful for it.

  As he swills his razor clean, he peeps around the doorframe and through the slats of her cot, where she is sleeping deeply, her arms and legs stretched out into a star. She is turned away, showing him the silky-delicate back of her head, and Henry can’t help but imagine something sharp piercing the plump place where her neck rolls into her shoulders. He closes his eyes and shakes the image loose. He has been trying to learn from Jack what it is to be an optimist.

  There is still a warm dent in the bed sheets where Jack lay last night, sleeping as still as the dead. Before he had bounced onto the mattress and claimed his side though, he had waited, hidden behind the kitchen door, for nearly an hour for Yeoman to leave; hardly breathing at first, but then, as time plodded on, relaxing and causing the door to creak as it swung away from his fidgeting. In the next room, watching Yeoman sip a drink, Henry twitched at every sound. He told Yeoman he wasn’t coming back to the bank; he watched Yeoman play with Libby – so delighted by her every accidental sound that he called them ‘words’ and congratulated her on them; he stole sneaky glances at his watch, calculating how much longer Jack could stand on the same cold spot. And he grew tenser and tenser.

  When Yeoman finally stood to leave, the wide plates of muscle to either side of Henry’s spine were rippling, and he was struggling with simple pleasantries. He did not know how to explain who or what was concealed in his kitchen.

  ‘You’ll stay in touch, won’t you?’ Yeoman said from the doorstep. ‘Bring the baby over for the wife to meet her. She’d love that.’

  ‘I will,’ Henry answered. The two men smiled at each other, knowing it wouldn’t happen.