The Word Ghost

by Christine Paice

  Vandals and Thieves

  ‘Bob! Bob!’ My mother was calling for my father all over the house, but there was no response.

  ‘They’re coming, they’re coming!’

  I threw a piece of toast at Emily but nothing was going to shut her up.

  ‘He was in his study a few minutes ago,’ said Mum.

  ‘Perhaps he’s gone visiting? Maybe he’s down the bottom of the garden?’ I said.

  ‘Then we would have seen him walk through the kitchen.’

  ‘He might have gone the other way.’

  ‘Whichever way he left we would have seen him. Rebecca, go and find him, please. Some fresh air will do you good.’

  There are so many different ways of walking. Strolling when your mind is all blue sky and singing lah di dah, and everyone’s happy and free. I wasn’t walking like that. I had once but wasn’t now. Walking fast to get to the train, to get to college on time, to get to school, to get to an appointment, determined that no one and nothing will get in your way. That wasn’t me either. There was another way of walking. When you’re accompanied by ghosts and spirits, poets and owls. That was the walking I had been doing. Now I wanted to find my father. Where on earth was he?

  By the time I reached the churchyard I could see the flashing lights of a police car at the manor house. Then my father came hurtling around the corner on his bicycle and nearly crashed straight into me.

  ‘Watch out, Rebecca!’ He was braking and dismounting at the same time. ‘What are you doing in the middle of the road? Traffic can’t see you there. Are you all right?’

  ‘I was looking for you. Mum wants you.’

  ‘Well here I am.’

  ‘What’s going on at the manor house?’

  ‘I cannot believe people would be so destructive without reason.’ He wheeled his bike along beside me. His sleeves were rolled up and he was wearing one of his summer shirts, light grey, with his white dog collar tucked in around the top.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘The police are calling it wanton vandalism. Vandals have broken in, taken some paintings and smashed up some things. They’ve certainly made a mess of the place. Alex and his fiancée are there now, trying to sort it out.’

  The spokes of Dad’s bicycle ticked rhythmically along beside us as we walked. Smashed the place up? She couldn’t have done, she surely wouldn’t have done. Not Augusta.

  ‘Have they caught whoever did it?’

  ‘No, not yet, but I’m sure they soon will. A great pity these things happen at all, but nothing we can do about it now.’

  ‘At least Emily has some exciting news.’

  ‘Oh, has she now? She’s finally managed to teach one of the bullocks to speak.’

  ‘It’s much better than a talking bullock,’ I promised.

  ‘Well, I’m looking forward to hearing it, whatever it is. Oh, I’ve a message for you from Alex. He says he’ll be along to see you later, when he’s sorted this mess out. He’s coming to say goodbye, I think.’

  ‘Is he?’

  Around by the village pond we walked. A big black crow sat on the gate, as if it was waiting for us to pass.

  ‘Crows are beautiful birds, really,’ said my father. ‘They don’t deserve their bad reputation.’

  The crow dug its strong claws into the old decaying wood. It seemed as if the moment lasted for hours. I stared into the crow’s own staring eyes, sleek black feathers glinting in the sun. I saw how beautiful and dark and endless the eye of a crow could really be.

  Tea with Everything

  ‘Knock, knock, it’s only me, dears. The hens have gone mad with laying, so here’s six lovely eggs for tea.’

  Mum and Dad were in the garden chatting over the flowerbeds and Emily was playing outside somewhere when Flora poked her head into the kitchen. The eggs really were beautiful. She left them sitting in a white bowl on our kitchen table.

  ‘Tea?’ I offered.

  ‘If you have the time, dear.’ She knew I had the time, knew that college was over and time was something I had in abundance.

  ‘Feeling better?’

  ‘I had my little magic pot of better rub and used it every day. It’s lovely stuff, Flora, you should sell it.’

  ‘Oh no, dear, once you start down that slippery road there’s no stopping.’

  ‘Exciting news about the fete, isn’t it?’

  She snorted. ‘Yes, a right old palaver, all that lot coming. I suppose you have to hand it to your sister. She did ask.’

  ‘She’s good at asking, is Emily. Flora, will I ever see him again?’

  I filled the kettle and plugged it in. All the most important conversations of my life were punctuated with tea.

  ‘As far as I know—and I can only go so far, can’t I, dear?—you won’t be able to see him again. Now it’s all up here—’ she tapped the side of her head ‘and in here.’ She patted her hand against her heart. ‘The only places that really matter, aren’t they?’

  I decided to use some of my father’s precious loose-leaf Darjeeling tea, two large spoonfuls (don’t let Dad see how much tea I’m using) into one of my mother’s best non-dribbling teapots.

  When it had brewed, Flora sipped it and said, ‘Ooh, that’s nice tea. Thank you, dear, lovely. Too many people nowadays want too many things. Look at that lot over the road.’ She nodded in the Rutherfords’ direction. ‘They haven’t stopped unpacking things since they moved in and they’re only here for the weekends. They do clutter the place up.’

  ‘Did you hear about the manor house, Flora?’

  ‘Yes, dear. Terrible. Fancy doing something like that.’ She stared at me over the rim of the cup. ‘Fancy a walk, dear?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘It’s a lovely afternoon.’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t feel like it today.’

  ‘Come and feed the donkeys with me. A nice walk in the sunshine will do you good. By the way I saw him, I saw Mr Alex March packing up his car. Not that you could get much in that.’

  I stood up and pushed away the chair, half of me fighting back tears, the other half wanting to run away into the woods and hide under the moss.

  Flora patted my arm and I grabbed her small birdlike body in my arms and hugged her.

  ‘Well now,’ she trilled, ‘well now. Thank you, dear. Mind you have an egg for tea, my eggs always do you good.’

  Even in summer she wore her tatty old jacket, her cardigan with holes in it, sometimes green wellies on her feet, sometimes her sturdy brown shoes. A small countrywoman with light practical hands. The woven threads on her basket were starting to come undone, a slow unweaving as she carried the basket on her arm. I’d never noticed that before.

  Days grew hotter. Other people, but not the Budde family, went abroad for their summer holidays. Friends of my parents went to visit family in Australia and sent us a postcard of the Sydney Opera House. My mother stuck it on a kitchen cupboard and admired it when she was cooking.

  Morning after morning brought another beautiful day. At breakfast my father snapped the newspaper open in his customary way, then folded the pages and looked over the top of his paper at us all.

  ‘What a crook Nixon turned out to be.’

  ‘No one cares about him, Dad.’

  ‘I don’t know how a man in his position could behave like that,’ said Mum.

  Emily wasn’t interested in politics. ‘Let’s not talk about nasty things. Not now. We have to practise our curtseys.’

  ‘I am not curtseying to anyone,’ I said.

  There was no sign of rain. The forecast said we were in for a long dry spell, and my parents spent ages watering the garden in the long summer evenings. Everyone was a little in love again except me.

  ‘If the bullocks ever broke through the fence our whole garden would be ruined in seconds,’ Mum fretted.

  Dad put his arm around her shoulders. ‘But that’s not going to happen is it?’ He shook the top wire of the fence that separated our garden from t
he bullocks. ‘See? Unbreakable wire fence.’

  ‘That’s what they said about the Titanic. Unsinkable.’

  Every night I opened my wardrobe door. It was full of clothes and nothing else. Where are you, Algie? Where have you gone? I listened for his gentle voice, but heard only a deep un-answering silence.

  Shadows

  Alex March and I walked in the sweet air of the summer evening. We walked along the top of the road that led along the ridge. He was dressed in his casual summer clothes—white open-necked shirt, old pair of jeans—and was running his hand through his dark curly hair. Like Byron he took lovers. For one bright moment I thought I had been his. Now, like Byron, he was leaving with someone else. What a shit.

  ‘Rebeccah?’

  ‘That’s what they call me.’

  Swarms of midges buzzed furiously round our heads. The road felt harder and harder. Something odd sat on my shoulders. I leaned against an oak tree at the side of the road.

  ‘I think you’re amazing, you know that?’ Hand through his hair.

  ‘You have a funny way of showing it.’

  ‘Look, about what happened . . .’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it. It happened. Maybe it shouldn’t have. That’s all.’

  He stared at me, and dragged heavily on his cigarette.

  My heart felt strange, my body about to fall through the earth. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were engaged? I would never have done anything.’

  ‘What difference would that have made? I believe in a passionate life. And I know you do too, Rebeccah. That’s what makes you so compelling.’

  ‘You should have told me.’

  ‘Look, she knows what I’m like. We spend every summer together. She’s Italian, she likes being engaged. At least promise you’ll sit for me again. You’ll do that, won’t you?’

  He was so sure of himself. So sure I would return to him. I shook my head. ‘I don’t think I will.’

  ‘Sometimes, Rebeccah, you have to know what you want in life and be prepared to take it.’

  ‘What if you don’t know what you want?’

  ‘Then find out; work hard, discover it. Did you like the painting, by the way?’

  I nodded. ‘Who’s the girl?’

  ‘That’s your mystery, I think.’

  We carried on walking. The midges didn’t know who to pester more, me or him.

  ‘I suppose you know someone’s nicked a couple of paintings and messed up the place?’

  ‘My father told me.’

  ‘He’s a very decent man, your father. Lucy said she thought you might be involved, but you know Lucy.’

  Yes, I knew good old Lucy.

  ‘It wasn’t you, was it? You do get a bit carried away sometimes.’

  I thought of Augusta. ‘No matter how pissed off I am with you, I wouldn’t do something like that.’

  ‘No, I don’t think you would.’ He took another drag on his cigarette. He blew the smoke up into the cloud of midges and away they flew into their madness. Little black dots in the sky. ‘I’d like to know who did, though.’

  I shrugged. ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘Sophie’s taking over, says she’ll do the place up for me while I’m away. Gives her something to do I suppose, over summer.’

  There went his hand, up through his hair again. He was so close to me, I could smell his body, that dark scent of confidence and love. He ran a finger down the side of my face and spoke, but they weren’t his words.

  ‘So, we’ll go no more a roving

  So late into the night,

  Though the heart be still as loving,

  And the moon be still as bright.’

  I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry.

  ‘For the sword outwears its sheath,

  And the soul wears out the breast,

  And the heart must pause to breathe,

  And love itself have rest.’

  He sighed. ‘One of my favourite poems.’

  ‘Mine too.’

  ‘Good for Byron,’ he said.

  He kissed me on the cheek. My heart somersaulted in my body. I wanted to leap forward into him and never be parted from his cool dark skin. Then he kissed me properly, and I kissed him. The way I remembered it. The way I wanted it. He ran his finger around the outside of my lips, tracing the shape of my mouth.

  ‘Have a great summer with your fiancée.’

  He smiled. ‘I will. Take care, Rebeccah. See you when I’m back.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  His body became one long shadow striding away.

  I knew the way home now, the short cut back across the fields, the narrow path winding through the wheat. I ran, my legs on the hard earth, pounding the sense back into me. My lungs grabbing the air, my arms punching him away, everything in me flying through the evening sky, running back to myself.

  My whole body gathering itself, back into me. Faster and faster becoming myself again, I know who I am, I know who I am, and she was there, beside me, running effortlessly over the fields. Dark hair falling and falling.

  Augusta. I was panting, out of breath. ‘Where have you been?’

  She stopped in front of me, swaying in the evening air. The wind raced through the field, throwing the stalks of wheat around.

  ‘It was you? In the house?’

  Of course. Do you think you can stop me?

  ‘Maybe. If I need to. Do I need to?’

  Little Buddey girl. I have what I need.

  ‘You have to let go of Wild George March. He’s gone.’

  He is here with me. Now death has toughened me up.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Find out.

  ‘Am I going to have to watch out for you again?’

  She laughed but she really shouldn’t have laughed. Laughter didn’t suit her. She was the end of things and the beginning. She was the dark girl, the mystery in the field, the place deep in myself I didn’t want to know. She was working things out, picking herself up from the heavy ground. She was upright, searching for love as all of us do. She was Algernon’s sister showing me the darkness. She was all the things she needed to be. Alive or dead. She was toughening up. She was everywhere and nowhere.

  I turned for home. Augusta’s hair curled around me, but she didn’t need me now. Whatever had happened in the past didn’t matter now. She was setting herself free.

  Algernon? Can you hear me? Algernon Keats? Algernon Keats! Everything is going to be all right.

  I ran and I ran and I ran through the golden fields of summer.

  Cleaning Up

  The village green was covered with canvas and pegs and tables and people. My father wore his old panama hat pushed back on his head as he stood squinting in the sun with a contingency of other Brightley men. There was Sebastian Rutherford, being a good part-time citizen of the village, hat also on, so no one could see his balding head. Rolled-up shirt-sleeves proliferated on the village green. This was my father’s first summer fete and he was determined to get it right.

  ‘Vicar! The marquee always goes here. This is the right place for it.’ The village echoed with the sounds of hammers banging in the iron pegs. From where I stood on the village green I could see the gate to the manor house was open. No car.

  ‘I can’t wait to see Maggie,’ said Emily. ‘She says she’s got a surprise for us.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A surprise. Maggie said to tell you.’

  I decided I would go one last time, to take a look, to say goodbye. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  ‘Rebecca, I’m going to tell Dad you’re not helping.’ Emily and I were meant to be helping set things up.

  ‘Emily, Princess Anne is coming to Brightley to open this pathetic little fete and you’re the one who invited her so you’re the one who has to make sure everything is ready.’

  I walked off.

  ‘I hate you,’ Emily called after me.

  ‘I hate you too. I won’t be long.’

&nb
sp; Sebastian Rutherford was straightening the wooden legs of folding chairs as I walked past. ‘Exciting, isn’t it, having the royals coming to Brightley?’

  ‘Very,’ I said.

  ‘Still reading the poems?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Might try writing some.’

  ‘Excellent. That’s the way.’

  Through the gate, the sun warm on my back. I knocked on the front door. It was open. No dog—poor Jojo, in a kennel somewhere in quarantine. Why didn’t Sophie have him? The kitchen was a mess. How could he leave it like this? Jojo’s dog bowl, half full of biscuits, had a trail of ants crawling over it. Red wine stained patches of the lovely kitchen floor. The kitchen was a different place now. I tried not to think of what we’d done under the table.

  ‘Hello?’

  My voice echoed in the empty house. The living room door was ajar. A deep silence pressed against the walls.

  ‘Anyone home?’

  Little Buddey girl.

  ‘Augusta. I knew it.’

  Welcome to my new home.

  I have done the place over.

  As you say.

  ‘I can see that. Now what are you going to do? He’s not here anymore.’

  I have him.

  She was very pleased with herself.

  He is with me now.

  He lies with me in meadowsweet and clover.

  ‘What do you mean? Are you talking about Wild George March?’

  She inclined her mad old head to the window.

  ‘I have no idea what you’re on about and I don’t want to know. You’ve proved your point. Are you staying here now?’

  Why not?

  She and I walked through the house. There wasn’t so much damage in the living room. One upturned chair, the one I’d sat in. His large easel stood in its normal place over by the window but there was no canvas and no palette, no paint. The velvet tablecloth still lay over the table but there was no fruit, no rotting apples or lemons, no jug, no dead rabbits. There was no Jojo padding across the room towards me, sniffing and wagging his tail. I raced upstairs. In each room the beds were made, curtains half pulled across the windows. The wardrobe doors in his bedroom were open and most of clothes were gone. A few shirts still hung there and I recognised his Christmas suit, the showy expensive velvet.