The Word Ghost

by Christine Paice

  I was trying to find Maggie. She was home for Christmas and said she would see us at the manor house when we arrived. ‘Alex has invited me for pre-drinks.’

  ‘What’s a pre-drink?’ asked Emily.

  ‘The drink you have before the drink you have,’ I said. ‘It’s just a drink.’

  There stood Alex March in front of the fire, surrounded by people, chatting. Same curly dark hair. Did I expect that he would suddenly have had it straightened? Expensive shirt on expensive shoulders. He had that swagger of entitlement that so many people had in Brightley. This is my magnificent house, and this is my wonderful car and all this magnificence belongs to me. He reminded me of Simon, Dave’s brother, strong and inescapable.

  Two large rings glittered on his right hand, each set with a striking stone, and I could barely take my eyes off them. I knew from the way Alex March stood, back straight, confidence slung over his shoulders, that he didn’t care what anyone thought of him.

  Tables covered with trays of food and glasses full of wine and champagne were scattered around the room. There was a rich fruity smell of perfume, wine and wood smoke converging in my nostrils and Alex March was beckoning me over.

  He ran a hand through his hair. ‘We meet again, the second Miss Budde. Hope you’re enjoying yourself.’

  A large bejewelled hand shook mine, dry and strong. My arm held firm in its socket. We both stood there, champagne bubbling in our glasses. ‘Help yourself. Anything you fancy. Glad you could come,’ he said, with a voice that was utterly sure of itself, full of the good things of life. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you from your sister.’

  I groaned inwardly. I could guess what Maggie had said.

  ‘Excellent things then.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ He laughed.

  I laughed too but didn’t really know what was funny.

  ‘Where’s your dog?’ I asked.

  ‘Having a holiday. My sister’s got him. He gets in the way and eats all the food.’

  ‘Aren’t you meant to do that at parties?’

  ‘If you’ve a good enough excuse.’

  ‘He is a lovely dog.’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Have you seen Maggie?’

  Right on cue my beautiful shining sister walked across the room.

  ‘Maggie! Maggie! Come here, gorgeous girl.’

  Maggie came over, laughing, and kissed Alex March on the cheek. He kissed her back. The logs on the fire spat and hissed.

  ‘Abes!’ Maggie was wearing a tight knee-length black dress with a choker around her neck. The dress was new, and so was her jewellery, which I had never seen before. Her hair was all swept up and she was the loveliest-looking girl in the room. She hugged me. ‘Abes, where have you been? Your face is all red. Glad you two are making friends. Why haven’t you come to see me yet? Oh, Abes, I’ve missed you.’ She hugged me again, finished her champagne and grabbed another glass for each of us. It was my third glass.

  A man dressed in a dark velvet suit and large tie—he was all black and velvet—came up to my father who was standing there checking the buttons on his jacket and shook his hand. He had a sheen of wealth over him like a piece of glazed fruit. ‘Lovely to meet you again, Vicar,’ only it came out ‘VICAAHHH’.

  My father was peering over the man’s shoulder and caught sight of me with my mouth full of sausage rolls. Mum sidled up to me.

  ‘Mum, where have you been?’

  ‘Upstairs—Alex said we could look round,’ said Mum. ‘Have you seen the rest of the house? It’s lovely. A devil to keep clean though.’

  Alex March waltzed over and offered Dad another glass of booze, which he was trying to hold with one hand while shaking hands with the other. ‘This is my brother-in-law, Sebastian Rutherford, but I believe you’ve met already. Sophie’s around somewhere, I’ll see if I can find her.’

  Then Dad was introducing me. ‘. . . And this is my middle daughter, Rebecca. She’s started at Hartley College. This is Mr Rutherford, Rebecca.’

  ‘Hello, please do call me Sebastian.’

  When he spoke it felt like someone was trying to pour treacle over me. No one in Wye would dare to be called Sebastian. I couldn’t help but stare at his hand as he shook mine. His handshake went on and on. I stood there like a plum pudding having treacle dripped on my head.

  ‘You’ll have to meet Lucy, she’ll be down in a few days. Can’t drag her away from the boyfriend. Sophie, darling, come and say hello.’

  Lucy. The name jarred in my mind. I hated that name.

  A flamingly pretty woman with blonde shoulder-length hair came and stood by her treacly husband.

  ‘Sophie, Sophie Rutherford, Alex’s sister.’

  ‘You’re looking after his dog.’

  ‘Yes, poor Jojo—he’d much rather be here eating everything. You must come over after Christmas and meet Lucy.’

  ‘Darling, we’ve already had this conversation.’

  Her hair swung from side to side. ‘Goodness, I can’t keep up,’ she said. ‘How are you liking Brightley, Rebecca?’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I lied, smiles all round. I excused myself and went to find my younger sister. She was kneeling by the fire loading up her chestnut roaster, a flat piece of iron with a long twisted handle.

  ‘One for you, seven for me,’ she said. ‘I love chestnuts. Why can’t we have them at home?’ Emily had so much tinsel in her hair with her red shift and white frilly blouse we could have decorated a Christmas tree with her.

  ‘We do have them,’ I said.

  There was Flora, meandering through the throng, not in the same clothes, but wearing a sleek grey dress, her hair all shiny and combed back. An otter fresh from the water.

  Amanda Armitage came up and said hello, hello to everyone and Happy, Happy Christmas, and Brian was coming over when he could as the pub was full and she couldn’t stay long.

  ‘What do you think of him, then?’ She stared at Alex.

  ‘Not sure yet. I think he fancies himself a little bit.’

  ‘Mr Darcy, Pride and Prejudice,’ said Mum. ‘Not that you’d know, Rebecca.’

  Flora glided over and joined in. ‘Talking about him?’ She nodded over to Alex March. ‘Unstable, if you ask me. Thirty-seven years old and already married and divorced.’

  ‘People make mistakes, Flora,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Yes, and they should learn to live with them.’

  ‘Oliver Reed?’ said Amanda. ‘Only he hasn’t a moustache. I like moustaches.’

  ‘He reminds me of Lord Byron,’ I said.

  ‘Oh no, dear,’ said Flora. ‘Byron was a poet, dear, not an artist, and he had a limp. Too many words weighing him down, I expect.’ She helped herself to a small sausage roll from a tray of small sausage rolls.

  ‘Mr Rochester?’

  ‘Who?’ asked Flora.

  ‘Jane Eyre’s Mr Rochester.’

  ‘There’s no one mad in this one’s attic,’ she said. ‘Not as far as I know anyway.’ She looked at me, sipped her champagne.

  ‘These are good,’ said Mum. ‘Did you make them, Amanda?’

  Amanda shook her head. ‘Not this time.’

  I’d drunk four champagnes, which was a personal record. I was beginning to think of poor Algernon Keats stuck at home alone in my room.

  ‘I’m going home,’ I said to my mother. ‘I’m going home,’ I said to the listening walls. They appeared a little unsteady. I grabbed my coat and accidentally brushed against Alex March, who was lounging against his own front door, blowing smoke rings into the air.

  ‘Rebeccah! Not leaving surely? The party’s only just warming up.’

  ‘I’m going home.’

  ‘What are you going to do there?’

  ‘Talk to my friends. Sleep.’

  ‘Exciting life. Why don’t you stay, enjoy yourself here?’ He was so very sure of himself.

  I shook my head. ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘If she must, she must. Come on then, I’ll walk you.’


  His jacket made small swishing noises. He stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets and pulled out another cigarette and a lighter. Offered one to me.

  ‘No thanks.’

  He cupped one hand around his cigarette, flicked the lighter with his thumb and stared at me over the top of his burning cigarette. The sky was extra black, with masses of twinkling stars. A plaintive crow called out in the night, an eerie, melancholy sound.

  ‘I don’t normally leave my own parties,’ he said.

  ‘No one’s making you.’

  ‘True, but I couldn’t let you wander off by yourself now, could I?’

  Shadows rose and fell, the church said nothing. I could hear a short ragged breath behind me and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled. Oh no. Not her again, not now.

  Alex March didn’t notice anything.

  A thread of black hair crept around my neck and as soon as I felt it on my skin I screamed. ‘Shiit!’

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘Oh—oh, it was a bat or something. It just—just brushed past me.’

  ‘A bat? Don’t think Brightley has bats. It’s a pretty old place, though, don’t you think?’ He took a long drag on his cigarette. The gate to the vicarage stood like a sentinel, waiting. ‘Come over in the New Year. Pop in and say hello.’

  ‘Thanks for walking me.’

  ‘Good night, Rebeccah.’

  The cold night air had sobered me up a little. He chucked his cigarette on the driveway, ground it out with his boot, leaned forward and pecked me on the cheek. His skin smelled of cigarettes and wine, which I thought was a sophisticated combination. The silence of the Brightley night was deafening. The crow called again, closer this time, the same mournful sound.

  ‘Sure you’re all right?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘See you then.’

  I fell against the door, hello, door. No one pushed me, did they? It was my own stumbling self. Algie? Algernon? You there?

  His footsteps over the driveway, my key in the lock of the door.

  ‘Me again,’ he said. ‘I thought perhaps I should do this.’ He pulled me towards him with his strong hands, my face inches from his. He was studying me closely and seemed to like what he found there. He kissed me, hard, no tongue, mouth against mouth, I-mean-this kiss. The strength of his body surprised me. I pulled back from him, gasped, wiped my mouth, didn’t know what to say.

  ‘Merry Christmas,’ he said, and walked off into the darkness.

  I stood there for a few seconds, head swimming, mouth tingling. I could taste his confidence, his cigarette smoking inside me. The crow called again, the melancholy in its voice growing louder. Through the house I walked. Up the stairs I climbed to the pale unearthly light waiting there for me.

  Like the Night She Comes

  My brain hurt from all that champagne. I must have fallen asleep and then woken with the sounds of everyone returning home.

  Tap tap tap. ‘Miss Budde, it is me, Algernon.’

  I moaned and grumbled and turned over in bed. Go away and let me sleep please, Algie, we’ll talk tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the one after that.

  ‘Miss Budde?’

  ‘Oh please, Algie, it’s five o’clock in the bloody morning.’ I propped myself up on one elbow. It was still so dark, so cold. ‘Why do ghosts have to be cold, Algernon? Why can’t you be warm like a hot-water bottle?’

  Tap tap tap against the window. I was grumbling and pulling on odd socks and my jumper and maybe a scarf and a hat and gloves. I didn’t put the light on, it might wake the parents, and Algernon was standing there faintly glowing. A few tiny little stones on the bed like sand, like grit, like stones, away, brush them away.

  ‘Miss Budde?’

  ‘Oh, Algie, please call me Rebecca. I mean we’re practically living together, aren’t we?’ He was all business tonight. He was waving around my book from college.

  ‘Byron,’ he said. ‘We will make a start. Unreliable as he is.’

  ‘Algie, you sound like a schoolteacher. Do we really have to do this now?’

  ‘Time is short,’ he said, then he and began to read.

  ‘I would to heaven that I were so much clay,

  As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling—

  Because at least the past were pass’d away—’

  ‘The past has passed away.’

  He stopped for a second and carried on reading.

  ‘And for the future—(but I write this reeling,

  Having got drunk exceedingly to-day,

  So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling)

  I say the future is a serious matter— . . .’

  He repeated the lines in an exaggerated voice: ‘. . . having got drunk exceedingly today . . .’

  ‘How do you know I had anything to drink?’

  ‘I am not saying this. Byron is.’

  ‘Did you follow me? To the party?’

  ‘No. I did not follow you.’

  ‘How did you know then?’

  ‘Your energy is different. There is one more line.’

  ‘Go on then.’

  ‘And so for God’s sake—hock and soda water!’

  ‘What’s hock? The poem is good, I like it, but you really didn’t have to wake me up to read this, did you, Algie?’

  ‘Hock is dry white wine, since you ask. Also, that is my job, Miss Budde: to wake you up. Now listen, please, this is one of mine.’

  It was the lateness of the hour and Algernon’s soft voice which soothed me and floated under me so the words carried me along with them.

  ‘I know not what I say or why I speak

  unless you’re close or standing cheek to cheek

  mine is the language of the night through death’s cold door

  and all the years I lived I hoped for more . . .’

  As he spoke I felt something shift and move. A door opened in my mind. Unless you’re close or standing cheek to cheek. I walked through the door under a bright blue sky, everything was clear and shining. I could see every single thing as closely as I dared to look—and I dared to look. We were in the middle of a field, emerald grass blown sideways in the wind. Glasses full of wine stood on tables laid with billowing white tablecloths like the sleeves of my father’s robes. Byron was striding in his boots somewhere on the far side of the field.

  Crows wheeled and called overhead and Algernon was standing there, mine is the language of the night through death’s cold door, his hair maddened by the wind. He was shouting to me over the wind, over the grass, this was his poem to me and I was listening. I could hear the words tumbling from his mind, all the years I lived I hoped for more. Algernon raised a glass to me and I raised one back to him.

  I rubbed my eyes. Algernon was sitting on my bed shining like a second bedroom light, his skin whiter and more vivid than before. I laid back on my pillow. I know not what I say or why I speak unless you’re close or standing cheek to cheek.

  The first strains of sunlight filtered weakly through the window. He sat at my desk writing, the curve of his velvet jacket glowing in the slow morning light.

  Someone come and save me, save me, for I am full of ghosts.

  Poets and ghosts and I knew it was only going to get worse.

  Christmas Eve

  Mum was bustling us along out of the house in the darkness. Down the road the four Buddes walked. ‘Hurry up, Rebecca. You too, Maggie. We are all going to the five o’clock service to say thank you to God for all our blessings and to support your father. And we are not going to be late.’ Maggie was happy to be home for Christmas and even though Maggie spent less time in Brightley than any of us, everyone knew her and said hello. People were trooping through the gate to the church.

  ‘Maggie, you’re looking very well today. Merry Christmas.’

  ‘Hi Ted, hello Roger, Jeremy, Mrs Foxglove, Mr Churley, Mrs Churley, all the Churleys, hi, how are you?’

  They nodded their heads to me and to Mum and to Emily, decked out
in her Christmas scarf and new coat and finery. My father received a shake of the hand and a hello, Vicar. Some people called my mother Mrs Vicar. This made my mother’s top lip curl very slightly.

  ‘I do hate being called that,’ she said.

  Emily nudged me in the ribs. ‘That’s her. The Rutherford girl.’

  A girl with shining blonde shoulder-length hair shimmied into view and stood beside Mr Sebastian Rutherford, looking bored with everything. She had bright blue eyes out of which her prettiness shone and a small, neatly turned up ski-jump nose. No one in our family had one of those. I knew at once I hated her.

  ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’, ‘Away in a Manger’, ‘Once in Royal David’s City’: the sound of voices young and old filled the church. My father blessed his congregation in his Christmas robes, white with gold to celebrate the advent of the baby Jesus after all those stars, angels and shepherds. Finally Jesus had been born. Down the aisle he went—my father, not Jesus—beard bristling, eyes twinkling. The Christmas tree in the church was radiating loveliness and the fresh smell of pine needles managed to overwhelm the usual churchy smell of pews and polish. I had to admit it was lovely.

  After the service my father stood at the church door, sheltered from the cold, wishing his departing congregation all the best, shaking hands with everyone. He hoped that they’d be his regular parishioners, not just glowing Christmas faces.

  I could hear the deep fruity voice of Sebastian Rutherford as I approached the throng. He had wide hands that somehow reminded me of oars, the way he turned them. He had thin hair which he’d purposefully crossed from one side of his head to the other. ‘Heellow again. Nice to see you, Rebecccahh, you must come and have supper one night. Where’s Lucy? She was here a minute ago.’

  Only the way he said supper was suppah. I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do less.

  ‘I’m sure she’d love to,’ said my mother.

  Then my father shook hands with everyone else and the exchange of Christmas pleasantries continued. I poked my head around the corner by the vestry door, don’t want to see anything weird now, just to take a few breaths of cold air. Cigarette smoke drifted through the evening air. The tip of a cigarette glowed by the vestry door. Miss Lucy Rutherford stood there smoking. She took a quick couple of puffs then ground the butt into the church path. My father would be thrilled. I went back inside.