The Eidolon

by Libby McGugan

  There’s a pop and a pink bubble explodes over the teenager’s face. She peels it off, then stuffs in back in her mouth and carries on chewing.

  I select Cora’s number and my finger hovers over the dial button.Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say. Whoever they are, I hope they are right. I suspect, though, that all absence does is give you time to forget the stuff that pissed you off before. I cancel the number and it disappears from the screen.

  THREE HOURS LATER I’m standing outside our flat in the drizzle. There are no lights on, at least none that I can see from outside. My heart picks up pace as I climb the stairs, and not just from the exertion. What if she’s home? God, I don’t know if I’m ready for another round. It would be easier if she wasn’t.

  The pansies have wilted. Their purple heads are drooped over the edge of the pot and the soil is dusty. I turn the key and stand in the dim doorway. The flat is empty; I don’t have to go inside to know. It feels like a shell, like I did before I left. I flick on the light as I walk inside. The photo still sits on the hall table, like someone else’s memory. The living room seems bigger than it did before, barer. Some of her books and the Buddha have gone from the bookshelf, along with the tapestry. Something else is missing too, but I’m not sure what. I walk over to the computer and draw my index finger along the top of the keyboard, collecting a small pile of dust. That’s what’s missing. There’s no scent. No incense.

  She’s left me a note in the kitchen.

  I’ll pick up the rest of my stuff in a couple of weeks when I get back from the pottery. Hope you had a good trip.

  Hope you had a good trip.

  I stared at the scrap of paper in my hand. If she were here now I’d tell her what happened on the mountain, and she’d believe that it did. She’d believe that it wasn’t the cold, it wasn’t the dehydration or the altitude. Part of me wants to hear her say that I didn’t imagine it, but that’s the reason she’s gone, because I couldn’t deal with her thinking like that.

  No. It’s for the best. But it was never going to be easy.

  I make myself a coffee and turn to read the feel-good quote on the kitchen calendar, but she took that too. I could use one of those quotes just now, even if it is all just bull.

  I go back to the living room. It feels like I’m in someone else’s house – someone who just died. It’s too quiet. Not just normal silence; it’s the kind of silence you get when life isn’t there anymore. Maybe coming back here wasn’t a good idea. I flick on the TV and lie back on the sofa, pulling the blue rug that’s draped over its back across me. My fingers close round Cora’s ring. The sound from the TV is just noise, so I turn it down. But the changing lights add some warmth, and although I’m not really watching it, it’s company. Sometime after that it blurs out of focus and I forget.

  THE ROOM IS a haze of shifting lights from the TV, dancing with the shadows of twilight. Through the softness between waking and sleeping, I feel it, like a cool breeze. Someone else is here.

  She’s standing in front of the window, silhouetted against the night. She looks just like she used to. She’s smiling at me, her head inclined a little to one side. Slowly, she lifts her hand towards me, a strong, healthy hand, not wasted and thin like it was before she...

  Cold fear rushes at me and I sit bolt upright, breathing heavily, sweat gathering in the nape of my neck. The hairs on my forearms prickle and rise. The TV spills its silent colours onto the walls and the window where... I’m on my feet, waiting as a chill slithers from my neck to the back of my knees. She was there, by the window.

  Shit, Robert. Calm down. Just a dream, that’s all. A dream.

  I take control of my breathing. It’s dark outside – I must have slept for hours. I reach for the lamp beside the TV and turn it on. Then I turn on all the other lights, including the bulb hanging from a cord in the ceiling, the one we never got round to finding a light shade for.

  Another coffee and a large whisky. I spend the rest of the evening trawling the internet for jobs, and finish working on the Packit Up webpage – anything to avoid sleeping.

  At two in the morning, I give in and go through to the bedroom. Most of her clothes have gone and the wardrobe sits half empty. It feels like there’s a stone in my chest. It feels like I could almost cut it out, but I wouldn’t want to. It’s all that’s left of her in me. I crawl into bed and sleep.

  In the middle of a dream about snow and lakes I feel it again – a trickle of cool air on my neck. The snow dissolves and the lakes melt into the stillness of the room and a gentle glow from a streetlamp outside. I don’t know if my eyes are open or not. I don’t know if this is part of the dream, but she’s there again, her hand rising towards me. This time I reach out, I can’t help it, and she’s still smiling with her eyes, soft and unblinking as she looks at me, into me, pleading. As our fingertips touch, the lights go out.

  “Sarah!”

  I’m sitting bolt upright, entangled in the sheets, sweat dripping into my eyes. I snap on the light and see myself – alone – in the mirror against the wall. My eyes have a crazy look about them and my hair’s plastered to my forehead and I’m breathing like I’ve run up a Munro. I slump back on the pillow and rub my hands over my face.

  I need to call Cora. She’s the only one who would understand.

  My fingers fumble with the keys on the phone, shaking like an old man, hovering over the dial button. What am I going to say at five-fifteen in the morning? I’ve had a bad dream? I’m scared of the dark? She’ll think I’ve lost it. Maybe she’d be right.

  I LAST FIVE more days in the flat, surviving on pasta and Dolmio sauce, Coco Pops and whisky. I’ve taken to sleeping with the light on, but it doesn’t make any difference. She’s there, the same dream every night, where she reaches out and takes my hand until I wake up in a breathless panic.

  I never used to dream much, not as an adult. But I remember a dream that used to come to me when I was young, maybe five or six years old. It was always the same: I was walking in a wood at dusk, the crows cawing, unsettled in the branches above. I’d come to a bush and stop as I caught sight of a bare foot protruding from its base, and I’d pull back the branches, slowly. There was a man underneath, who looked up at me, and I knew he was frightened. There was blood on his leg and he was breathing too fast. Then the thud of hooves on the ground coming closer. The man shook his head and raised a finger to his mouth. I let the branches fall back and stood up. When the horseman came I never told him.

  It was unsettling, but not like the dreams of Sarah. The feelings they leave linger for hours before they lift. It’s a low feeling: flat, lifeless, uneasy.

  I call Cora a couple of times, but she doesn’t answer and I don’t leave a message. In a way I’m relieved; I don’t know what I’d say if she picked up.

  I call Chris. He’s still looking for a job and hasn’t heard anything from Zimmer. He comes round to see me and the first thing he says is, “You look a mess.” I tell him I’m not sleeping, although I leave out the details, and he says I should see a doctor. God, do I really look that rough? “You’ll never get a job on three hours’ sleep a night,” he says. “Not if you look like that.”

  On the fifth day I see the doctor. He sits in his swivel chair behind the desk and bounces a little back and forth as he listens to what I’m trying to tell him. He’s middle-aged, overweight and despite the sharp smell of alcohol wipes in the room, he still smells of fags. Two babies are having a bawling competition in the waiting room as he checks my blood pressure and shines a light in my eyes. He asks me if I have any family history of any mental health issues. Not as far as I know. Why, am I going mad? He suggests I take some time off, before I tell him I don’t have a job anymore or a partner. “Ah,” he says, leaning over the desk to scribble, “that explains it. Stress.” He hands me a prescription for some pills to help me sleep and tells me to get some fresh air and some exercise. I look at his belly and think about saying the same thing to him. When I leave I find a dustbin outside
and drop the prescription into it. I don’t know what I expected him to do, but pills aren’t it. I go home and pack.

  I GET TO the station just before eleven and call from there. “Hi, Mum.”

  “Robert! How are you?”

  “I’m fine. Got back last week.”

  “So, how was it?”

  “It was great – glad I went. Listen, I thought I might come up and see you.”

  “That would be great! When were you thinking about?”

  “Now, if that’s okay with you. Might as well, while I have some time on my hands.”

  “What time’s the next train?”

  “Eleven-forty – I could be up by late afternoon.”

  “Fine. I’ll see you when you get here.”

  “Eh... Mum?”

  “Yes?”

  “Have you seen Cora?”

  “I saw her last week.”

  “Oh.”

  “Listen, Robert, Jessie’s waiting for me in the car, so I’ll have to go just now, but I’ll talk to you when you get home. Can’t wait to see you! Have a safe journey.”

  “Okay, see you soon.”

  SOME THINGS NEVER change. Kildowan station is one of them. It hasn’t changed since the ’seventies, apart from the newly purchased digital announcement board which hangs from the ceiling of Platform One. Two chipped wooden benches clinging to the stone walls get a new coat of white paint every few years, and it’s overdue. A few red begonias struggle in their pots against the harsh north-easterly wind. There’s a wire rack nailed to the wall displaying pamphlets advertising visitor attractions for the odd one or two tourists who end up here, usually by accident. Today, it’s only me who disembarks.

  The station is empty. As I step out into the street, I zip up my fleece and pull on my woollen beanie. It’s late April, but it might as well be January. Or Siberia. I set off up the street for home. I still call it that, even though I’ve been away for years. Somewhere that holds in the fabric of its bricks and mortar the memories and changes and constancy which made me, even though I’m someone else now.

  The sun is dipping in the sky. It slices between the buildings, dazzling brightness through the shadowy gaps. The cool, crisp air is just what’s needed after the muggy train trip, and after years of working in an underground lab, I relish any time outside. Fresh air reminds me of what’s real, what’s tangible. Fresh air and Danny Mitchell. It makes me smile thinking about him. No doubt still bumming about in Tibet.

  The road leads up from the station into the village, where the post office and bakery doors are bolted shut to mark the day of rest. Lining the street on one side are low terraced houses with small doors and even smaller windows set in thick stone walls, some whitewashed, some coloured, some grey. They look like they’re huddling from the biting wind themselves. Opposite is the small museum which sits in carefully tended grounds and next to that, the kirk, built four hundred years ago, with its imposing spire and modest cemetery, now the resting place for some very old people. I’ve seen headstones in that graveyard which have been there even longer than the church, with their symbols of the sun and the moon faded, but still discernible, echoes of a forgotten age.

  I cross the street towards the orange glow spilling from the lamps in the deep window sills of the Stone Circle pub. A familiar wave of chatter and a beery waft greets me as I approach. I glance at my watch. Time for a quick pint. Just one. The heavy oak door groans as I push it open, the chatter swells and my face tingles in the blanket of warm air. Tam, the proprietor of the Stone Circle, a rotund individual with red cheeks just visible over his large greying beard, nods to me with as much expression as he applies to everything, which isn’t much.

  “Robert,” Tam says in his usual cursory manner of greeting.

  “Tam,” I reply in kind. I don’t take this personally; Tam addresses all of his customers with equal indifference. Behind the bar, Tam continues to dry a glass with a cloth, inspecting it every so often against the dim lights that hang from the ceiling. An open fire crackles under the large stone mantle, spitting and hissing. Four hill walkers, in muddy boots and waterproof clothes, huddle around a small table, recounting tales of their various experiences of the harsh Scottish wilderness and unpredictable weather. Sitting on a stool and leaning over the dark wooden bar is Angus, the retired postman. Angus drinks unashamedly now that he has little else to occupy his time. His son, Alasdair, has followed in his father’s footsteps and delivers the letters and parcels to the people of Kildowan, but he has seen what drink can do to a man and so he doesn’t touch the stuff himself. Angus hugs his pint glass, frowning as he tries to focus on it.

  “Hello, Angus,” I say as I reach the bar. “A pint of bitter, please, Tam.”

  Angus sways a little as he looks up and his bushy eyebrows try hard to meet his hair as he registers his surprise. He claps me affectionately on the shoulder, but struggles to say anything coherent by way of conversation. I haven’t had a pint since I got back. Plenty of whisky, but no beer. Nectar. Worth three days of butter tea for this one moment.

  “Would that be Robert Strong?” I turn towards the voice.

  “It would, Casimir. Good to see you.” I join him at the table by the fire. Michael Casimir gets to his feet and I clasp the hand he holds out towards me. He’s thinner than the last time I saw him, almost a year ago now, his bones more pronounced in his wiry frame, but his grip’s just as strong.

  “And how is it these days at the cutting edge of science?” asks Casimir, his green eyes twinkling. His voice is steady but weaker than it used to be. God, he’s aged. A ripple of something in me, regret flickering. He won’t be around forever. He’s more stooped than before, the little hair he has left whiter and wispier, and deep lines now etch his square face, which, despite this, still shines with the strength of his character. He leans across the table and, with a voice just above a whisper, says, “Did you find it?”

  He’s followed the research every step of the way. In fact, he’s the reason I ended up in physics. He has a telescope, and when I was young, and whenever I wasn’t helping him with his bees, I’d spend hours stargazing, listening to all he knew about the cosmos, which was a vast amount for a man who never had enough money to go to university. It didn’t stop him learning, though. He had books on all kinds of things – astronomy, particle physics, archaeology, philosophy. A real thinker. The idea of finding dark matter always intrigued him. A hunch, he said, that it would change everything. I wish I’d something more to tell him. “No, not yet. We came close, though. They pulled the funding at the last hurdle, so my services are no longer required.” I take another gulp of beer, as bitter as my mood.

  He looks crestfallen. “The bastards.”

  “The bastards.”

  “Why did they do it now?”

  I shrug. “I’ve no idea. We were so close, Casimir. I reckon we’d have found it, if we’d had a bit more time. We had some provisional results – encouraging results – I mean, we were onto something concrete for the first time in years. We just needed to verify what we found. That was the last phase.”

  He rubs his thumb across his chin, his habit when he’s thinking. “Maybe they didn’t want you to find it, after all.”

  “Who knows how these things work.” I turn back to my pint. I’ve stopped asking that question. All it does is wind me up. “Anyway, how have you been? You’re looking well.”

  “You’re lying,” says Casimir. “Ach, you know, getting on with it. I’m on a health kick at the minute – you see?” He fumbles on the table to find his glass of tomato juice and holds it up.

  “Where’s the fun in that?”

  “Aye, but the doctor says I’ll live to be a hundred if I keep off the drams.”

  “And is it worth it?”

  I don’t know what he’s thinking as he looks at me. Finally he says, “Life’s too sweet, Robert.”

  “Aye.”

  He lets out a sigh. “And what’s this I hear about you and Cora?”

  T
he mention of her name turns the stone in my chest. “Och, I don’t know. We’re just too different.”

  “Are you?”

  “Well, she’s into all this New Age hippy crap and I’m... well, you know me.”

  “She’s a free spirit.” Casimir raises his eyebrows. “Maybe you could do with a little more of that.”

  “Oh, don’t you start.”

  “You might see things differently when you get a bit older.”

  “Oh, come on, Casimir. You’re a man of science. You can’t buy into all that shit.”

  “Layman’s science. Maybe science isn’t the whole story.” He sips his juiced tomatoes.

  I lean back against the hard curve of the chair. “When did you start thinking like this?”

  “It’s always been there, I suppose.”

  “You’re not going all religious on me, are you?”

  “No, I’m not going back to that. Too many of man’s opinions muddy the waters and obscure the point, if you ask me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in something else.”

  I’ve never heard him speak like this. He was always comfortable in a world without a God. In his lifetime of prolific reading, he found too many other things to take its place. “Like what?”

  Casimir leans forwards, his elbows resting on the table. “Well, that’s the Big Secret, isn’t it? If I find out first, and I probably will, given that I’ve got a good few years on you, then I’ll let you know.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.” I raise my pint to him.

  “Aye.” Casimir nods, lifting his glass of red sludge. “You know Cora’s minding the pottery just now? I bumped into Frank not long ago – they’re away to Barcelona for a holiday.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Hmm. Have you seen your mother yet?”

  “No, I’m just off the train, but I should be getting home soon.”

  “It’s her birthday tomorrow. Did you remember to get her something?” I rub my forehead. Every year. Why is it so difficult?