The Word Ghost

by Christine Paice

  ‘Maggie says hi.’

  ‘Tell her hi back. Do we have a deal? I need your face in front of me, Rebeccah. Now.’

  He sketched with charcoal and after a while his fingers were black and smeary. If he threatened to touch me I screamed. Not with those, not like that.

  ‘If you can’t draw the human body, then you can’t . . .’

  ‘Can’t what?’

  ‘Can’t paint. You have to know what’s underneath everything before you paint. The human body has every line and curve and angle.’

  He had a beautiful way of sucking and biting his lower lip as he drew.

  ‘Tilt your head, bit more, hold that. I said hold it.’

  ‘Did you go to art school? Or college?’

  ‘The Slade. Probably doesn’t mean much to you.’

  ‘London?’

  He nodded. ‘Left after two years. Ran away to Florence. Best place in the world to learn.’

  Jojo sat beside me. I ran my fingers over his sleek light brown skin, over the tiny rolls of fat at his shoulder. I couldn’t imagine what Italy looked like.

  ‘Where’s Lucy then?’

  ‘With the boyfriend. She’s got a new one, so I hear.’

  She’s chucked him. I didn’t want to know.

  ‘Sorry, just have to move a bit.’

  ‘You’ve only been sitting there for five bloody minutes.’

  Tucked away in the corner of the room there was a portrait I hadn’t noticed before. Small painting, large frame. A man with one of those high-necked jackets (how well I knew them). His body ended at his thighs, his solid hand rested on a dog, runs in the family then. Underneath the painting in fine black letters: George Percival March, 1801–1837.

  George March had dark hair combed into the most snug style possible around his head and down around his ears, longer on one side than the other.

  Look at you, George—bad hair and bad behaviour.

  ‘Wild George, they called him. Love them and leave them. Half of Brightley probably has George’s blood in them.’

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Fell off his horse, found in a field with his neck broken. Lived hard, died young.’

  ‘You don’t mind that though, do you?’

  ‘There has to be an achievement in there, Rebeccah. George March did nothing except spend family money and make people miserable. You probably think the same about me, don’t you?’

  ‘Maybe. Don’t know yet. How do you make your money?’

  ‘I sell my paintings. Mostly.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘More money than you’ve ever seen.’

  ‘How do you know how much money I’ve seen?’

  He laughed, not altogether pleasantly. ‘Well your father’s a clergyman. I presume he doesn’t command a huge salary, or does he?’

  ‘He gets a massive amount of money.’

  ‘’Course he does. That’s why he drives that car.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with our car. Are your parents alive?’

  ‘No they are not and please sit back down again, Rebeccah. You’re a lousy model. Your mind is always somewhere else.’

  ‘What happened?’

  He sighed. ‘This is like twenty bloody questions.’ He studied my face for a few minutes without speaking. ‘You’d think my father would have remembered where the bloody tree was. He drove past it every day of his life. Sophie was twenty-three, I was twenty-five. Everything came to us.’ He sighed again, as if there was a heavy weight attached to each word. ‘My mother, she painted some of these. I get it from her.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. They lived a good life. They were happy. As far as I know.’

  ‘As far as anyone knows anything about anyone, really.’

  ‘Very profound, Rebeccah.’ He looked at me, back to his paper, looked up at me again. ‘So I am lucky to have had a good inheritance. Plus, as people have told me many times, I am the reincarnation of England’s most romantic poet.’

  ‘John Keats then?’

  ‘Not him.’

  ‘Only you don’t actually write poetry.’

  ‘It’s all bloody poetry, Rebeccah. All of it. Artists translate the unknown. The form it takes doesn’t matter.’

  I watched the veins on the back of his hands. Blue, pounding, alive, alive, always doing something. A cigarette, a pencil, a paintbrush, a wine glass between the fingers. Artists translate the unknown. I wondered how long I could sit in front of him and not want to kiss him.

  Moss, Scarf, Vitamins

  Soon it would be Easter. Mum wore her favourite yellow silk scarf with lots of tiny brown horses jumping all over it. I don’t know why she liked it. She tied it under her chin in that annoying way. Her hair was flattened and the whole look was very unbecoming. The Queen wore her scarves like that and I didn’t like them on her or my mother.

  Sometimes Algernon and I stood at the window and watched as the Rutherford-Fuchs (as I affectionately thought of them) arrived at their cottage for the weekend. Sometimes Lucy was with them when they came to Brightley, sometimes not. When she was, she couldn’t simply pick up a bag and carry it for her mother. She had to kick it about a bit first and then put it down after two steps and stand rummaging around in her pockets for a cigarette, which she made a huge fuss of lighting and puffing.

  On Saturdays, if my parents said yes—and mostly they did—Emily had a girlfriend over for the day, Linda Burnley, as dark as Emily was fair. Two noisy long-legged girls like colts, rushing around all over the house and giggling. Poor Algie. He looked like he wanted to go over the road to the Rutherfords when Linda came to play. Emily and Linda played all kinds of noisy games with a piece of long elastic Mum gave them from her sewing box. They spent hours making homemade microphones out of cardboard. They wrapped them in paper and sticky tape and sang David Cassidy songs loudly everywhere they went with their microphones. Heads down, fiddling with each other’s hair, they pored over pictures of Donny Osmond and David Cassidy and argued over who they liked best.

  ‘They’re all rubbish.’

  ‘No one asked you, Rebecca.’

  It was time to gather moss for the Easter garden. Mum stood under the oak trees gazing up at the leaves. It was still cold under the trees out of the sun. ‘Well, a very sad ending,’ said Mum, to no one in particular.

  ‘What’s sad?’ I asked.

  Emily shrugged. ‘It’s sad that Linda couldn’t come over today.’

  ‘Anna Karenina. I’ve just finished reading it. What choices did she have in the end?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t read the book.’

  ‘We all make our own choices, I suppose, but it’s hard to stay sad in a place like this, isn’t it?’

  Emily was digging into the moss with the pointy end of a twig she’d found. I tried not to think of anyone. I just wanted to dig in the ground like Emily, but there was so much green in the woods I thought I saw Algernon everywhere. I watched Emily’s face tense with concentration. Dig dig poke. Small bits of moss came flying up from the ground.

  ‘No, no, Emily, not like that, you’ll ruin the moss. We want a whole piece, not little bits . . . I said don’t dig like that, darling, please.’

  Mum had her special moss knife and showed Emily how to slide it under the moss and lift it out so it still had damp soil clinging to its underside. The moss was so soft and green I wanted to lay my head on it.

  ‘Tell me about your book, Emily. The Weird Stone of Weirdyness? What’s it called?’

  ‘The Weirdstone of Brisingamen. It’s about a girl who has a bracelet and the stone in that bracelet is the weirdstone and there’s a woman who changes into things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Trees and animals. And the trees actually chase people.

  It’s really good.’

  ‘Do you think people can change into things, Em? Do you think that could actually happen?’

  I half expected Augusta to leap out at me from behind a tree. Her arms fo
lded, hair curling, pale face.

  ‘It’s just a story—things don’t happen like that in real life, do they, Mum?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Mum.

  ‘Not really?’ said Emily, almost falling backwards and digging herself into the ground.

  Mother, do they or don’t they? Tell us, please, do strange things happen in real life? I wanted to take that scarf from my mother’s head and bury it in the woods. No, no, no, you will not go to the ball like that. It was spring—spring, for God’s sake. You don’t wear scarves like that in spring.

  On the front lawn of the vicarage there were buttercups and daisies. ‘Do come and see this, Bob, the place is full of mouse ears and early little Johnny Jump Ups. We didn’t have those in Wye, how beautiful to see them.’

  ‘Shows how much rain we’ve had,’ said Dad.

  Along the driveway and embroidering the lanes was good old cow parsley, the ubiquitous white lacy heads nodding at the warmth and light bestowed upon them. New life was springing from the ground and I wanted to get among it.

  On some Saturdays Alex simply disappeared. I didn’t ask where he went. He gave me the key to his house and asked me to make a big fuss over Jojo. That was easy. Jojo and I were friends; he was a large boisterous dog and he raced round excitedly, knowing a walk was coming his way. Sometimes I cleaned and tidied his master’s filthy house. I made the beds, had no idea who slept in them and didn’t ask. Alex had a face full of secrets. I took one step towards him and two steps quickly back. I was wondering where he went as I stood in the burgeoning woods.

  A small figure scurried along the road just visible through the trees. A purposeful walk, perhaps a basket on one arm.

  ‘Flora’s everywhere these days, she’s like a bee, buzzing about the place,’ said Mum.

  ‘She’s all right,’ I said, kicking at the leaves under my boots and breathing the damp smells that the birches and oaks offered up to me. There were so many leaves under my feet. So many dead things I was trampling.

  ‘What’s the matter with you?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong.’

  ‘I think you need some extra vitamin C.’

  I wasn’t going to say no to vitamin C, but it wasn’t vitamins that I needed. Algernon, run with me through columbine, on butterbur we’ll roam, Herb Robert on the wall, our feet on meadow foam. Algie? Come on. Through all the bluebells in the world. Algie! Run with me. Would he ever come out with me and enjoy the sunshine and the flowers?

  Emily carefully placed her special piece of moss into the Marks and Spencers special plastic moss bag.

  ‘That is a lovely piece of moss, Emily Budde,’ I said.

  ‘You’re just jealous, Rebecca, because you haven’t found any.’

  ‘As if I care about moss, Emily.’ She tried to whack me with her moss bag.

  ‘Careful,’ said Mum, ‘you don’t want to ruin it.’ Mum and Emily would make the Easter garden at the front of the church. Linda Burnley could help if she was allowed over. The stone in front of the tomb was a hefty rock that Mum found on the path. The Angel of the Lord needed mighty powers to roll that stone away so Jesus could step into the light, resurrected and reborn.

  I accepted chocolate rabbits and resurrections. I accepted vitamins, screech owls, voices in the night, dogs, books, poems, trees and clouds. I rejected never knowing when Alex March was around.

  Graves, Ghosts and Flora

  I dumped my bag full of books and pens and a half-eaten sandwich in the living room. Algie? Algie? Where are you? Afternoon shadows danced over by the curtains, shafts of sunlight filtered through the windows. Friday afternoon, a whole weekend stretching before me.

  Dart pop dart pop. ‘Woo hoo! Anyone home? Mind if I come in, dear?’

  ‘Mum’s not back from work yet.’

  ‘No matter.’

  I filled the kettle and popped two slices of my mother’s homemade bread in the toaster.

  ‘Now, dear, how is everything? Does your sister fancy another ride then?’

  I’d forgotten completely about saddles; I was thinking of soldiers and artists and ghosts and spring.

  ‘Flora, the other night, I was out walking . . . ’

  ‘Lovely night, the moon was very bright.’ She dipped the knife into the jam then spread it right to the corners of her toast. Her little sharp teeth ground the toast down as she sat there eating and thinking and staring at me with her bird-like eyes. Dart dart wink blink.

  ‘You be sure and tell your mother I said this was excellent jam.’

  ‘I saw you. By the war memorial.’

  She finished her toast, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and sipped her tea.

  ‘I often go out walking at night, dear, same as you.’

  A busy silence swung between us.

  ‘I’ll leave these here for your mother.’ She put half a dozen eggs on the table and a jar of green liquid with leaves floating around in it. ‘Nettle tea. Seeing as you liked it so much. Boil it in the saucepan and don’t forget to strain it, otherwise you get a mouthful of bits. Fancy a walk, dear?’

  As usual, Flora was taking me along a narrow winding path. Flora gripped my arm. ‘No one’s making a nuisance of themselves?’

  ‘Everything’s fine.’

  She kept hold of my arm and marched me to the old long graves.

  ‘If they are, you just have to tell me, dear, and I’ll see what I can do. Now then, have a good look and tell me what you see.’

  ‘I’ve seen these before.’

  ‘Not properly you haven’t.’

  ‘There was a boy here last time, I saw him.’

  ‘It’s the Brightley air. You see all sorts here, my dear.’

  I peered closely at the stones. Grey dirty streaks covered the stones after another winter staring at the sky. Faint letters inscribed in the stone were covered with green lichen.

  ‘Look closely, dear.’

  ‘What am I meant to be seeing?’

  She rubbed at one old grave with her sleeve and stood back from it. ‘There. That’s better.’

  Rest In Peace, Faithful Servant of the Lord.

  Algernon Keats. Beloved Son

  1st October 1802–24th July 1827.

  My knees went shaky. ‘That’s an odd name.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it? Not a name you hear much these days.’

  I wondered if she knew how well I knew that name.

  ‘He was the son of the Reverend and Mrs Keats. I do believe he was related to John Keats, you know, the actual Mr Keats.’

  ‘I know the one.’

  ‘He wrote, you know, poems and suchlike. His parents never recovered from his death. They stayed here with the daughter. Some scandal with Wild George March, I do believe. Mrs Keats was heartbroken. Lost her son. Lost her daughter—well, she didn’t leave, the daughter, but she wasn’t all there apparently. When Reverend Keats died, Mrs Keats moved into Church Cottage and lived there until she herself died.’

  ‘How do you know all this, Flora?’

  ‘Ah well, now, living in Brightley dear, for as long as I have, you get to know all kinds of things.’

  ‘He was only twenty-four.’ I trailed off. I was feeling hot, cold and in between. Why hadn’t I asked Algernon when he died? I couldn’t really think.

  ‘He would have left his mark, if he’d had the chance. We just don’t know why some things happen, do we?’

  I said nothing. All my words were confused and jumbled somewhere inside of me.

  ‘Anyway, we all have our little secrets, don’t we, dear?’

  I nodded, feeling more and more miserable.

  ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘it’s what you do with them that matters.’ I didn’t know what to do with any of it, not with him, not with her. Maybe everything would just sort itself out and all the ghosts would be happy and it would have nothing to do with me.

  ‘How did he die?’

  ‘Fever. His mother thought the bricks were damp. One day fine, the next, well, you either recovered or
you didn’t. A lot of people died from fever that year. His sister went half mad with grief, after all the business with him down the road.’

  We sat side by side on the grass by the graves. ‘They said when he died he still had his pen in his hand. Very messy, in those days. Still, that’s how it was. A poet was an honourable profession back then, you know.’

  ‘I know. We’re doing Byron at college.’

  ‘I expect you are. I never liked him much. Always preferred Wordsworth—all that lovely nature. And Keats, of course. Not this one, never read any of his. John Keats. How does it go now? There’s a lovely one I learned at school. Let me see if I can remember it.

  ‘The poetry of earth is never dead:

  When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,

  And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run

  From hedge to hedge about the new mown mead . . .’

  ‘Something about the grasshopper takes the lead. No, I’m sorry, dear, I’ve forgotten how the rest goes. Anyway, that’s Keats for you. And he’s right, dear, the poetry of earth is never dead. It’s just different these days. No one has time to sit in a corner chewing a piece of grass. It’s all rush rush rush.’

  ‘Not in Brightley it isn’t.’

  ‘You’d be surprised, dear, at all the things that go on in Brightley.’

  I was staring at Algernon’s grave. ‘I think I’ll go home now, Flora.’

  ‘You’ll be all right then?’

  Never finer in my entire life. Didn’t being dead mean you were beyond noise, beyond life, beyond words? Wherever you were? Wasn’t that the whole point of being dead? You lay down in your grave once you were dead and accepted it. Algernon was meant to be in there. His grave. Only one grave.

  ‘Flora, there’s only one grave here. For Algernon.’

  ‘That’s right, dear, his father isn’t buried here. His mother’s over there, at the end.’

  ‘Where’s Augusta’s grave? His sister?’

  She shook her head. ‘Well, dear, I don’t know the answer to that. P’raps she’s in an unmarked grave—but we can’t dig up the whole lot of them to find out, can we? I think you’re the first person who’s ever asked me that. Well, you would be, wouldn’t you?’