The Word Ghost
Page 23
‘You let her in now you must let her speak,’ said Algernon.
All that time Algernon was here, he would not let me go, he believed in the goodness of my heart.
‘Algie?’
‘What she says is true.’
But still I could not speak, words too hard to say. And he grew cold with me. So cold.
A strand of hair made its way to Algernon, winding through his fingers. She was trying to make things better. Oh Augusta, my black wild creature of the soul. She was here with Algernon. She was here for love. But who was going to give her that?
‘What happens now? Algie? Augusta? What the hell happens now?’
None of us knew.
My mother called up the stairs, ‘Rebecca, come with me into the garden. Flora’s gone. It’s lovely outside. Make the most of it. Come on.’
‘Algie? Look at her, she’s all right.’
‘You disregard my words,’ he said, and slumped on the floor.
Augusta went and perched on the balcony. Your mother is right, she said. The day is beautiful.
By the Light of the Moon
I couldn’t sleep; I kept thinking of Wild George March. I sat at my desk, scribbling in my journal.
‘Algie, can you hear me? Listen, Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart, ’Tis woman’s whole existence. Byron wrote that.’
‘I know,’ his muffled voice in the wardrobe.
‘That was true for Augusta then, wasn’t it?’
Round and round went my pen on the thin lined paper. No noises, no drop in temperature. Everything was as it should be when the house sleeps. Finally, the wardrobe door creaked open.
‘Algie, wake up.’
‘I am awake, I am talking to you.’
‘Have you forgiven me, Algie, for letting her in?’
‘There is nothing to forgive. It was a choice you made. Help me now, Miss Budde. I am, as you say, in a pickle.’
He looked frightful, a mess, dishevelled, jacket half on, leaves and twigs everywhere, eyes rolling in his head like a wild horse. He buried his head in his hands.
‘What’s wrong, Algie?’
‘Can we stop talking about her? We have so little time.’
‘We have all the time in the world, don’t we?’
‘If only that were true. Come, Miss Budde, I have you to myself now.’ He held out his hand to me and this time there was no fog, no sign of Augusta, no other energy getting in the way, and I could see him clearly, everything he was to me. ‘Walk with me,’ said Algernon.
The moon whispered in my ear. Dark and beautiful. The path to the woods was sweetly scented with spring and Algernon changed as we walked under the eye of the moon.
He lengthened in his bones, pulled his jacket on properly, put one boot in front of the other.
That’s better. You just needed some fresh air.
Algie shone in the pale light. I had never seen him look more lovely. The silver world we walked through was full of secrets, tiny wrapped-up night-time buds, the brambles’ twisted shapes and scratching thorns lit up by the moon, so we didn’t brush against them. Daisies and buttercups folded heads in prayer; the burdocks, tall and unaware, were sleeping. A flowery fragrance wafted around growing stronger as we walked. Was it the jasmine drifting through the air? I didn’t know which was which, moonlight or Algie.
‘What are you, Algie?’
‘I am whatever has made me.’
A collection of bones, of energy, of spirit, of thought. I didn’t want him to be unmade, I wanted to know he was always going to be there, sitting at my desk, waiting for me in the wardrobe, waiting with the right words to say. My skin tingled. I felt like an animal padding softly through the night.
‘Why are we here?’
We left the trees and walked along the lane at the top of the field.
‘Miss Budde, follow me, please.’ He strode across the field and I followed.
He flung his arms around. ‘This is not just grass, this is the ground we walk on.’
‘I know that, Algie, the ground.’
‘This is not just night, but this is the darkness we inhabit.’
‘Uh-huh, I’m with you on that one. Wait for me, you’re going too fast.’
He was running now, dragging me along with him. Was I dreaming this? It couldn’t be real.
‘These are not just stars, but they are fragments of ourselves. I have seen them in the black reaches of space, I have seen these stars.’
The donkeys were at the far end of the field, taking absolutely no notice of us, me and Algernon Keats, shining like the moon, trying to show me heaven and earth at the same time. His hair blew around his face, every part of him was coming alive. ‘I want you to see everything I see. I want you to feel everything I feel. I want you to write everything I could not write.’
And I wanted this to be our great moment together, him and me shining together under the moon entwined in something like eternal love, but it wasn’t coming out like that.
‘Algie. Algie. Algie, I have to feel things for myself. I can’t know something because you tell it to me.’ And besides, you are not real. The longer Algie stood there the older he looked.
He held out his hands. ‘Take these from me now,’ he said. ‘Unburden me, Miss Budde.’
‘What are they?’ I could see something in the palm of his hand.
‘Take these then my job is done.’
I opened his palm, very gently, uncurled his long fingers, I knew what was waiting for me, small stones trickling through his fingers.
‘I’ve told you before, Algernon, they’re stones, they are stones. Look.’ I took a handful of them and let them fall to earth.
‘Take them.’
‘I don’t want them.’
But it appeared I was having them whether I wanted them or not. He threw a handful of them up into the sky and they fell over me, glittering and weightless like tiny falling stars.
He stood there, face turned to the sky. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Are you listening?’
We sat down on the grass, surrounded by each other. ‘Algie, I am always listening to you.’
‘I have been writing this for the last couple of days.’
FOR YOU
‘My best things know no other
the last days I have spoke
the last unsung horizon
the last defying choke
that issues from the body
the only selfhood I have known
the last defeated sunrise
my last words still not grown.’
I took his arm. Together we walked through the strange night.
Here I Go Again
I could see the vicar of Brightley and his wife down at the bottom of the garden growing more at home in the peace and quiet of the countryside. I knew my mother was happy tending to the tomatoes running rampant among the grass. The Queen was the same age as my father and had just celebrated her official forty-eighth birthday. Dad and the Queen shared the same month, but not the exact date, thank goodness. I decided against gardening with my parents. I had to get out of the house. Daylight. No coat. I was walking to the house of Him.
It had been a few weeks since I’d seen Alex March, not since the Brightley Lights. England was firmly in the grip of summer now, the oak trees’ bright green leaves bobbed greetings to me as I walked. The manor house gate was open, a red car in the driveway and good old Jojo dozing by the car. As soon as he saw me his tail wagged madly; he thought we were going for a walk. I patted his shining coat and stroked his ears. I loved him, but wasn’t as in love with Jojo as he was with me. He was a dog. A lovely brown dog. His master was finally home. Same swagger, same hand through the same dark curly hair.
‘Good timing, Rebeccah Budde,’ he said by way of a greeting, and I followed him out of the kitchen as he carried crackers and cheese and a bottle of plonk balanced on the tray I’d never collected. Amanda had stopped asking for it. I was beginning to feel sentimental about that tray.
‘They’re all right. How’s Lucy?’
‘She asked after you the other day, actually. She has a new boyfriend, he’s keeping her out of mischief. She gets a bit silly sometimes. Who doesn’t?’
Definitely not me.
‘You don’t much like her, do you? She’s all right, old Lucy, when you get to know her,’ he said. ‘Wine?’
‘It’s only twelve o’clock.’
‘So? Who’s counting?’ He poured me half a glass of the deep red stuff. ‘That’s the way.’
The wine raced down my throat. It was too early for wine.
She’s around here somewhere and she still thinks you’re someone that you’re not.
‘Have some cheese, fabulous stuff.’
‘Thank you.’
Jojo was sniffing around the cheese with his usual enthusiasm. ‘Not you, Jojo, get down.’
‘You know. That night. In the field? What did you think?’
‘About what?’
‘All the weird stuff.’
He sat there sipping wine, looking uninterested. I had no idea what he thought about anything, what he thought of me, watching shapes in the fog, rain on the muddy ground, talking to people who didn’t exist.
‘Rebeccah, about that night . . . Look, the way I see it, it’s an experience that we don’t need to talk about. Some things are like that. You don’t have to lay everything out all the time.
Keep the mystery. Mystery gets lost when you talk about it.’
‘Why the big secret?’
‘If you went blabbing about ghosts and apparitions in Brightley three hundred years ago, you’d be accused of witchcraft and they’d duck you in the pond and drown you. Villages are places that keep their secrets.’
I thought of Flora tending the graves, head bowed low like a flower heavy with secrets. It’s what you do with them that matters.
‘So I should keep mine to myself?’
‘Exactly. No one else needs to know, do they? And stop moving your head.’
He picked up his sketchpad and started drawing. Always busy with his hands, moving, moving.
‘Why do you think I paint? It’s because something in me makes me want to do it. We don’t need to say it all the time, do we? What is this and what is that? That’s the question I try to answer without asking it when I paint. It’s just what happens. I see things in a certain way, like you do. The trick is what you do with all that observation.’
I nodded. I see things in a certain way. It’s what I do with them that matters.
‘Don’t nod, keep your bloody head still. D’you know how Michelangelo carved David? Have you seen it? Ever been to Italy?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve really never seen it?’
‘No. I’ve really never seen it.’
‘That is a cardinal sin. It is magnificent. A flawed piece of marble, and Michelangelo found the mystery in it. And not only the mystery, but the whole damn outrageously perfect body of the man. The hands are a work of art in themselves. You have to see it one day.’
Light flooded the room. The house sighed in the warming air. I thought of the last time I was here, hiding under the bed. What would he think about that if he knew? Another mystery. Lucy must have said something to him, surely?
‘Mysteries are mysteries, Rebeccah. They don’t have to be defined. No one holds a brush in their hands to please anyone.’
The curtains rustled. Here’s another mystery for you. Any minute now Augusta would step into the room shining with love. Jojo sniffed the air, barked, hoping for a crust or a piece of cheese for his ever-hungry chops. Every painting in the room tilted its head in agreement with its master. Where was she? She was somewhere.
‘Now, Rebeccah, I have something to ask you. Next week I’m going to be in town; your job is to stay beautiful and look after my dog.’
‘You haven’t paid me for the last time yet.’
‘Sophie will take him for the summer, I’ll be away, but next week, can you look after His Lordship here? Or shall I ask Lucy?’
It didn’t occur to me to ask where he was going or who he was going with or why he was going. None of my business was it. Was it? Mysteries don’t have to be defined, but why didn’t I ask?
‘Perhaps I should say no.’
He tilted my face towards him. ‘I’d like it very much if you said yes.’
I felt a stab of excitement. ‘If you said yes that would be a good thing. Now don’t fidget.’ He tilted my face towards the light. ‘Hold that. Just like that. Still as you can.’ He breathed a huge sigh. ‘Why do I always want to draw your face? Why is that?’
‘Mysteries cannot be defined.’
‘Too clever for your own good, you are. Stay exactly like that.’
I lay on the old smelly chaise longue with the springs sticking into my legs. I wanted him to kiss my face. He is entirely himself, Augusta, if you’re watching from the shadows, nothing like old George—but, then, I never knew him, did I?
‘Your face like this reminds me a little bit of Modigliani,’ he said, sipping his wine, replacing the glass on the table beside him. ‘A little bit of Botticelli and perhaps—perhaps—a little bit of the da Vinci.’ He stared at me again. ‘You know the one I mean?’
‘No.’
‘You’re pursing your lips. Don’t. Please. It ruins the whole shape of your mouth. Relax, that’s better. Not seen da Vinci? I am going to have to take you to the National Gallery and show you.’
‘Can I see?’
‘When it’s finished. Not before.’
I watched him from the safety of the chaise longue. My arm muscles started to ache. I was getting pins and needles.
‘I have to move. My arm is going to sleep.’
He stood up and rubbed his back. ‘It’s only been ten minutes. Go on then. If you must.’
Jojo wandered over to me and sniffed my feet. They hadn’t been anywhere interesting but dogs didn’t care about that. The skin on my legs was purple with cold. Alex left the room and came back in carrying a large overcoat. ‘You look cold. Put that on.’ He threw it at me and I put it on and waltzed around the room in his extra-large coat.
‘Hi!’ a voice called from the front door. ‘Anyone home?’
He looked at me. ‘No peace around here, is there?’
In they came, Sophie and Lucy, into my secret world with him. They had no right to be here. Lucy, standing in the doorway, propped herself against the wall with one leg, and Sophie, her blonde hair swinging, was surrounded by shopping bags.
‘Hello, Rebecca, how nice to see you again.’ Lucy was a good English girl. Lying came easily to her in social situations.
‘Nice to see you.’ I, too, was English.
‘I’ve bought a few things for you,’ said Sophie.
‘The new life model, are you?’ asked Lucy, wandering slowly around the room with Jojo sniffing at her heels. ‘You like drawing odd things, don’t you, Al?’
He made a face at Lucy. ‘Well I’ve drawn you often enough so I must do, mustn’t I? Sophie.’ He gave his sister a kiss on the cheek. ‘This is a nice family occasion.’
‘Aren’t you going to offer us a drink?’ Lucy ran her fingers through her hair. A family trait. She picked up an empty wine glass and waggled it at Alex. Sophie sat down in the old green chair with the shopping bags at her feet.
‘There’s a very nice white in the kitchen, which you could bring if you wanted to.’
‘Can I have a look?’ Lucy nodded at the painting with its back to everyone.
‘No.’
She mimicked him speaking, ‘That’s because it’s not finished yet. It’s the creative process. Isn’t it, Al?’
‘Shut up, Lucy.’
Yeah, shut up, Lucy.
The coat was dragging my shoulders down to the floor except nobody could see that. The room was getting hotter.
Sophi
e sighed. ‘Stop it, you two.’
‘If you want to see it you’ll just have to wait.’
‘You can’t make people wait for too long.’ Lucy stared at me as she spoke. ‘Otherwise they just get bored.’
‘You get bored anyway, don’t you, Luce?’
‘When did this poor doggie have a walk?’ asked Sophie, making a fuss of Jojo. I was desperate to leave the house, take the coat off.
Alex nodded at me. ‘That’s Rebeccah’s job.’
A sickly smell of perfume filled the room. I was itching to get away, unspoken words sliding between them. The atmosphere in the room felt thick and heavy.
‘Come on, Jojo,’ I said.
‘Where are you going?’ said Alex.
‘Lead?’ I asked.
I was going to put it around my own neck and take myself out of that house as quickly as I could.
‘She likes Jojo more than me,’ I heard him say on the way out. It was true. I preferred his bloody dog to him. I flung the stupid coat over the back of a stupid chair. Jojo gazed up at me adoringly.
Out, I was out, I was out. The sky was brilliant blue and wide, I was free and walking, I didn’t want to be curled at someone’s feet like a dog.
I walked around the corner past our driveway. Look, Father, I am walking the dog and nothing more. Our whole house was tilting slowly down a wooded slope into a forest. I ran down the path through the woods into the clear air.
No one else around for miles. A voice in the far-off distance. I wasn’t interested in any more voices. I ignored it as best I could. Jojo raced off. I kept walking. A voice was calling.
‘Rebecca! Rebecca!’ A figure was waving to me. ‘Wait!’ And there was the informal Mrs Sophie Rutherford trotting along behind me. ‘Such a lovely afternoon. Do you mind if I join you?’
Jojo was rummaging in the hedge and we walked and I watched her blonde hair in the breeze. ‘We spend so little time here, really, it’s such a shame; it is so lovely here.’
Jojo was grinning back at me, nose and mouth in perfect harmony. He was barking and barking and barking.
‘What’s the matter with Jojo?’ asked Sophie. She threw him a stick.
Someone was trailing me through the trees. Was it her? I hadn’t seen her for days. I thought she’d be happy in the manor house. Alex March didn’t even know she existed. What is it now, Augusta? Are you still after Wild George? Are you still after me?