The Word Ghost

by Christine Paice

  ‘Thank you, ah, Rebecca. Done the preliminary reading?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Anyone else?’

  A few others put up their hands.

  ‘Good, good, but we won’t be studying Childe Harold, because that is not the set text for us.’

  Mr Treadwell grimaced, rolled up his shirtsleeves and grabbed a piece of further education college chalk. The blackboard ran the entire length of one wall, and I could see it was a patient thing listening to the silence.

  ‘In less than twelve months you will be sitting there with an exam paper in front of you, so come on—effort, please.’

  Mr Treadwell wrote in big loopy letters, George Gordon Byron, LORD BYRON, born England 1788, died Greece 1824. ‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know.’ He underlined this phrase and walked up and down in front of his unwilling class.

  Gusts of rain threw themselves at the window.

  ‘Can anyone tell us about this phrase?’

  ‘Lady Caroline Lamb, his lover, said that about him.’

  ‘Thank you, James. I love it when you do actually read the notes I gave you at the start of the term, which was two weeks ago.’ He continued, ‘Context, context, context. Why will I always be banging on about context?’

  ‘Because it gives you background and circumstance. The who, the what, the when, the where of the poet’s life.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you, Rebecca Budde. The social and political influences are important for us to know when discussing any work of litterarrtture, particularly this remarkably fertile period in the early nineteenth century. So from the late eighteenth century to the early part of the nineteenth century, as well as Byron, we have William Blake, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats in the period known as . . . yes, James?’

  ‘The Romantics.’ James grinned at me. He liked to be called Jimmy but didn’t bother to correct Mr Treadwell. He was in my English and sociology classes and he liked me but I wasn’t sure about him. He was too short for his own good.

  And besides, I had other things to think about. According to Mr Treadwell, in the late eighteenth century painting and poetry meant something in England. Remember, he said, there was no television and no radio. People read by candlelight, played the piano if they had one, and if they didn’t, they went to bed when it was dark and blew out their candles. It was a different, darker, slower world.

  ‘It was also a world in revolution,’ said Mr Treadwell. ‘First the French Revolution, guillotines and equality, then the Industrial Revolution with the spinning jenny and the mule—machines, not animals, of course—and then the Romantic Revolution: the response in litterarrtture to this turmoil. They didn’t want to write about machines, they wanted to write about nature and landscapes and what they saw and how they felt. Remember what I said earlier? Anyone?’

  ‘Context,’ said half a dozen sixteen year olds who wanted to be in front of the vending machine considering the drinks and crisps.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Mr Treadwell. ‘We will see that Byron created his own romantic hero in his characters, and in himself. The great John Keats didn’t think much of his work, but that’s for later.’

  I wanted to ask about Keats, but not in front of everyone else.

  ‘Byron was dramatic, exciting, plus he had a good head of hair. He was not the sort of man to take home to meet your mother, even if your mother said she wanted to meet him, which she might have done. He was the original rock star poet, the nineteenth-century equivalent of Mick Jagger.’

  ‘Did he have big lips, Mr Treadwell?’

  ‘Possibly, James. Let us not forget “mad, bad and dangerous to know”. Marianne Faithfull could easily have said that about Jagger.’

  ‘Mr Treadwell, do we have to read all of Don Juan? It’s a very long poem.’

  ‘Certainly is—six years of work, sixteen, almost seventeen cantos and still unfinished, so, no. We are looking at the Dedication to Don Juan, and not the whole poem. You all should have copies to take home.’

  ‘Mr Treadwell, what’s the point of reading words I don’t understand?’

  ‘That is the point of litteraratture—to understand and make sense of the world. I would like you all to read the Dedication so we can start that next time. Your brains can do a lot more than you think.’

  The class groaned.

  ‘Poetry encourages us to make sense of ambiguity and to read in a different way. Thus we develop strong and vigorous brains.’

  ‘So, Mr Treadwell, does that mean that anyone who doesn’t read poetry has a lesser mind?’

  ‘Possibly. Yes. But I didn’t say that. Now any more questions? No? Good. See you next week.’

  I waited until everyone else had shuffled out of the class.

  ‘Mr Treadwell?’

  He picked up a large bundle of papers. ‘Yes, Rebecca, what is it? I only have five minutes before my next class.’ He looked at the clock on the wall.

  ‘Do you know if John Keats had a second cousin?’

  ‘Not as far as I know. But he may have done, why?’

  ‘Have you ever heard of someone called Algernon Keats?’ I felt odd saying the name out loud.

  ‘Algernon Keats? No, never heard of him, but that doesn’t mean to say he didn’t exist. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just interested in Keats, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, he’s a pretty good poet to be interested in. You’ll have to put up with Byron first, though.’

  ‘Byron looks interesting but I don’t like long poems.’

  ‘Good job we’re not doing the whole of Don Juan then, isn’t it?’

  ‘Thanks, Mr Treadwell.’

  ‘Actually, Rebecca, there is a book in the college library if you’re interested. Blackstone and Weaver, The Great Romantics. Should find something of interest in there. Ask Mrs Johnson in the library, she’ll know it.’

  The college library was just about to close, but Mrs Johnson relished the search. It was easy.

  ‘Ah yes, I know the one,’ said Mrs Johnson, marching along the aisles with her helpful wide hips. The book was a bit old and a bit scruffy and well read—rather like Mr Treadwell himself.

  ‘There you are.’ Mrs Johnson stamped the book and smiled at me.

  I liked the look of the librarian. She had such wealth in her hands every day at her disposal and gave it out freely to anyone who joined the library. ‘Anything else I can help you with?’

  ‘Do you have any books on Brightley? The village?’

  ‘Brightley is such a lovely place; my sister and brother-in-law run the pub there. Do you know it?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve just moved there.’

  ‘Lucky girl.’

  ‘We had lunch at the pub a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘Lovely. Lovely. She’s older, I’m younger.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t know why I said that. Now let me have a look, it’ll be under historical, I think.’

  Such a lovely place.

  Back down the library aisles she went, returning with one small pamphlet in a dull brown cover. ‘It’s all I could find I’m afraid. Brightley: A Short History, courtesy of the Brightley Historical Society. Should be fascinating reading.’ She laughed again. She had the same hair colour as Amanda but hers was longer and it swung as she walked.

  ‘Thanks for your help.’

  ‘Pleasure, anytime. Let me know if you need anything else, won’t you?’

  ‘Sure will.’

  Outside, I flicked through the slim volume. The booklet was stapled together and contained, in typed letters on the back page, a list of all the previous incumbents of Brightley Vicarage. The list started in 1789 and continued until 1969. One pair of names caught my attention. Reverend Augustine and Mrs Constance Keats, 1802–1829. No mention of sons or daughters. There was a sketch of the original vicarage and the house still looked like it was the wrong way round.

  A history of the annual Brightley fetes, riveting stuff, and a photo of cricketers on the village green, all with moustache
s and well-controlled hair. And there he was, Thomas Lark, wearing long white trousers with a long-sleeved shirt and a hat pretty much like the hat I’d seen him in. The real Thomas Lark, alive and well. Exactly as I’d seen him but I couldn’t say to that anyone now could I? I was snooping on the past. Found your parents, found Thomas, but nothing about you so far, Algernon. Or the other one lurking around. Your sister.

  I tried to read as much of The Great Romantics as I could on the way home but the print was small and the bus was stuffy. There were more pictures of Byron in the book than anyone else. Oil paintings and sketches showed a dark and moody face, a noble nose, wavy hair, big brown eyes and a full sensuous mouth. That was why he was a poet, because then that bad boy could pretty much say anything he desired.

  Byron. Looked familiar. Hadn’t I met him? Large dog, strong hands. In the pub playing chess with my sister. All right, maybe an older brother, but definitely from the Byron family. Byron meet Rebeccah. She’s studying you in college. How advantageous and wonderful for you, Rebeccah. Artist. Always using his hands. I could see I had better keep my distance from those hands.

  Keats looked like a pretty decent chap. Kind, open face, no dark glowering. Was there a family resemblance between him and Algernon? Maybe. Maybe not. There they are. Oh, my good men, you shouldn’t have! Algernon and John Keats and Byron are waiting for me at the vicarage gate, arms folded, consulting the time on large silver watches. Byron steps up to the bus in a vaguely threatening manner. I say, my good man, you’re running terribly late this afternoon. The bus driver doffs his hat and tries to make amends. Yes, sir! I am! Sorry about that.

  Come, Miss Budde. John Keats offers me his hand, but is consumed by a fit of coughing.

  A coach and six horses ran off the road before the bends and this little miss here insisted we stop and help.

  Algernon is light and grace. Algernon is taller, and interested in me. I take his hand. John Keats finally stops coughing and Byron stomps off into darkness.

  Atoms and Stones

  Upstairs, the house creaking and groaning with the sound of the oil-fired central heating starting up. I unpacked my bag, threw The Great Romantics on my bed, went to grab a jumper and there he was, lying in the bottom of my wardrobe. How did he manage that? As I opened the door he tumbled out. Oh, Algernon. Over his green jacket he had wound a red scarf around his scrawny neck and he was wearing a pair of brown sheepskin gloves on his long thin hands.

  ‘Those, Algernon Keats, belong to my father. How did you get them?’

  ‘I picked them up from the hall table. I will return them in the morning, I assure you, but for now,’ he said, snuggling up to the rapidly warming radiator, ‘they are keeping me warm.’

  ‘No. What I meant was, how did you pick them up? You can touch things?’ I patted the bed. ‘Sit with me.’

  He sat, barely making a dent.

  I held up his gloved hand. ‘I can touch you but no one else knows you’re here. Is that right?’

  ‘That is the glory of transmystification, if you must know.’

  ‘Which I must. That’s a very long word.’

  ‘The unaccountable mystery of things I can and cannot do.’

  ‘You’ve just made that up.’

  ‘Quite so. It is one of the perks of being in my position.’

  ‘And your position, Algernon Keats, is, shall we say, dead, but still alive? Right?’

  He sighed and sat back on the floor by the radiator, warming his other-world bones. ‘I am, you might say, in a state of permanent flux. Oppositional, I think, but nevertheless true.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about, Algernon?’

  ‘My particles are made of thoughts, depending on the energy, but I can change. Rearrange my atoms depending on who I am with. With you, Miss Budde, I become real. With others, less so.’

  ‘And if I change, what happens then?’

  ‘I will change also.’

  ‘How will that happen?’

  ‘Energy is not limitless here. A time will come,’ he said.

  ‘When what?’

  The radiator creaked and gurgled.

  ‘What time, Algernon?’

  ‘It will come,’ he said. ‘It will simply come.’

  I didn’t really grasp what he was saying. ‘More riddles, Algernon. Tell me, do you throw things around if you’re angry?’

  ‘No I do not.’ Algernon Keats, resident ghost, sat stiffly against the radiator. ‘But others may.’

  ‘Can you actually walk through walls?’

  ‘What would be the point of that? Transmystification has its limits.’

  ‘There are others here like you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘In the church, the girl, long dark hair . . .’

  He held up his hand. ‘Please do not continue.’

  ‘But, Algie—can I call you Algie? You said she was your sister so I know you know her.’

  He paced up and down in my small room. He straightened his back, clicked his shoulders into place. Was he thinking of the darkness, of the damp disturbing earth? The rustle of leaves above him, faint voices he once knew crying in the wind?

  ‘What are you all? Spirits? Phantoms? Poltergeists? What are you all doing here?’

  His face tightened with effort. Perhaps he did not want to remember the past. He wanted to leave it there unspoken, covering him like earth.

  ‘There are two of us, Rebecca. I may call you Rebecca, Miss Budde?’

  The way he said my name so softly and gently calmed me.

  He sat on my bed and held my hands in his. I didn’t care that they were cold and pale. ‘I must apologise for her, but as you now know, she is my sister. She does have certain peculiarities.’

  ‘You’re alike in different ways then.’

  Algernon sighed deeply.

  I felt a shiver of cold, of long-ago breath. He was here and I could see him and touch him but he wasn’t quite flesh and he wasn’t quite bones. What he saw I could not see. I saw only the night, black against the window, but he was leaning into his past, retrieving memories.

  ‘Listen.’ He folded his arms and spoke. ‘My mother told me she laboured for five days. October, yes autumn, it was autumn. My father prayed on his knees for all of those long days. He prayed we would both be saved and we were. We arrived in Brightley when I was three weeks old and still barely heavier than an empty basket. Two years later my sister was born. My mother said love was the only thing she wanted. My father said the Lord had saved me for great things. I did not end up doing great things. Teaching in the village school. I was not doing great things like my dear cousin Mr John Keats. He barely had the time to know his wonders. At least I had some years to see how truly great he was. But still I did not do great things.’

  ‘Oh, Algie. I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Miss Budde I have heard you say many things. Speaking in your mind. To Jane.’

  ‘To Jane? Jane Eyre? But she’s a character in a book.’

  ‘I heard your voice. I knew you were the one for me. Your father chose Brightley like my father chose Brightley. They brought us both here. It was right. And so I came, through the darkness. To find you.’

  In the distance of my present life my mother called up the stairs, ‘Rebecca? Dinner’s ready. Come and lay the table, please.’

  ‘Look, Algie, Algernon, Al, whatever you are, I’m fine with you being here.’

  Leaves and earth and twigs and tiny stones dropped occasionally from his sleeves. Small stones trickled through his fingers.

  ‘Algernon? What are you doing?’ I grabbed an old shoebox from the wardrobe and held it under him. I scooped up as many stones as I could with the lid.

  ‘There,’ he said. ‘Transmystification. I am adjusting.’

  His little stones covered the bottom of the shoebox. I ran my fingers over them. Some were coloured, some like quartz, some brown and dull as earth. ‘These are stones, Algernon. And you’re making a mess.’

  His eyes were
fixed somewhere I could not see and he was scarcely listening to me.

  Was this because I took the turquoise stones from Wye? Did I cause some mad disturbance of the dead?

  An autumn leaf fell from his hair.

  ‘These stones are making a mess in my room.’

  I put the lid on the shoebox and shoved it under my bed, running my fingers over the carpet for any tiny stragglers.

  ‘Your sister. When do I meet her properly?’

  ‘One of us per house only.’

  ‘Oh, there are rules,’ I said. ‘Who writes these rules?’

  ‘I try, but sometimes things just happen. It is hard to know,’ he said.

  ‘Algie, I have to go and eat now.’

  I tried to give him a hug but there was almost nothing to hold on to. My hands smelled of long ago. His jacket really did have the most ridiculous lapels.

  My mother found me staring at the carpet, wardrobe door wide open. ‘Everyone is waiting for you and we are not waiting any longer.’ She closed the wardrobe door with a bang. ‘Dinner is ready.’ She marched out of the room.

  ‘Bye, Algernon,’ I whispered.

  ‘One thing is certain,’ he whispered back. ‘Everything is dark without the light.’

  Mum marched back in and pulled me out of the room.

  ‘You’re worse than your father sometimes,’ she said, ‘and he’s bad enough.’

  KITCHEN, BRIGHTLEY

  I follow her down.

  Love is blazing in the kitchen

  One stove, one shining water kettle

  Eating talking laughing.

  How do I convince her of my words?

  Through the darkness she came to me.

  Now what do I see?

  Mouthfuls and mouthfuls of potato.

  Great Danes and Disconnections

  The Yom Kippur War started and ended in October 1973, but its effect on us was more significant than the Cod War. My father explained it was to do with the Six-Day War, Rebecca, which took place in 1967.

  ‘Everything always winds back and is connected to something else,’ he said. ‘You can’t disconnect things from each other.’