The Possession of Mr Cave

by Matt Haig

  My ears were at a high hum from the gunshots, but there was no mistaking the dread ascending with each ring.

  'Yes?'

  At first nothing.

  'Yes? Hello? Hello?'

  The fuzzy sound of breath.

  'Yes? Who is this?'

  And then his voice.

  'Mr Cave?'

  I looked around me, at the objects in the dark – the figurines, the vases, the drawing tables, the longcase clocks. They were closing in on me. It was an ambush. I was General Gordon at Khartoum, besieged by the Mahdists.

  'Yes, this is Mr Cave. Who is this?'

  I knew the answer before he spoke.

  'It's Denny.'

  I took the receiver away from my ear. 'Mr Cave? Mr Cave?

  Mr Cave?'

  Perhaps my shot had killed him and this was another ghost.

  First Reuben, now Denny. The manifestations of guilt, nothing more.

  'No,' I said. 'No, you're not Denny.'

  I picked up the nearest figure. The Girl with a Tambourine.

  'It's Bryony. She's been . . . someone's . . . she's been shot.'

  I said nothing. Images flashed in my mind. The empty attic. The torn-up Alice book. The sinking swan. The figure in Denny's coat, falling to the ground. The man over the body. The babies lying on the nettles.

  'She's . . . in hospital.'

  He was crying, this ghost.

  'She's in hospital. They're operating . . . We were there. At Rawcliffe. At Rawcliffe Meadows. Ah had the money you gave us and we were going to run away. Ah'm sorry . . . But someone shot . . .'

  'Someone . . . someone . . . someone . . .'

  'George Weeks. Ah think it was George Weeks. He attacked Bryony. That's why ah –'

  'No,' I said. 'You're the attacker.'

  I remember George standing upstairs, on the landing, and your frightened face. What had he done to you? And why hadn't you said anything? Didn't you think I would have been able to sort it out? Did you think that running away with Denny was going to be the answer?

  I hung up, and telephoned York General Infirmary for a weary night-shift voice to put me on hold. A tinny Mozart serenade tried to calm my nerves.

  I remembered George in the shop, his bruised and damaged face staring at the figurine. My heart beat at tremendous speed as I tilted the figurine in my hand and looked at the base.

  Alison Wingfield, 1932.

  It slipped from my grip, and smashed. I cowered down, to the waltzing strains of Mozart's river music, and surrendered to the ambush.

  And then it came. The cacophony:

  I saw the ghost walk come to an end. I saw that blond yeti turn his head and nearly see me. I saw him shrug to himself and carry on his way, beyond the walls, and on to the quieter streets. I saw him take a short cut through the bowling green and towards the library. I saw the bottle in my hand. I jogged past the library, getting ready to meet him on the other side. One strike in the dark and he was on the floor, his face in the grass, as quiet as the dead.

  I was staring at the water. The drops, falling down over all the petrified objects. It was the middle of the night. I had driven miles and climbed over two fences to get here but I still couldn't see it. I walked further along, passing the top hat and the tea towels and the wellington boots until I was at the wristband. I held out my hand and felt a kind of relief at the touch.

  The cold water that could defy time running over my fingers. 'Look, Dad,' I whispered. 'I'm –' A dog barked, somewhere in the distance. I saw a torchlight flicker through the trees. Two male voices, getting closer. An unpeggable wristband. It dropped and I lost it in the pool. I reached my arm in but the cold stones all felt the same.

  I held your Handwerck doll. I gazed a moment at the delicate stitching on the cape, at the intricate floral pattern on the dress, and felt the rage that wasn't mine. I twisted off the bisque head and left her body under your bed. I walked in quiet, small steps towards the kitchen and placed the head inside the bin, those eyes looking up at me as she lay on the carrot shavings. 'Goodbye, Angelica.'

  I saw Denny in that living room, on the day Reuben was forced to drink that revolting drink. I saw him walk across that toy-filled carpet and slam Aaron Tully against the wall.

  'Leave him alone,' Denny said.

  'Tea-stain's all right, aren't you, Tea-stain?' said Tully laughing.

  'He's called Reuben, you ——.'

  The fight started as the boy on the keyboard kept on playing his random music. A toy castle was crushed as Denny swung Aaron to the ground. He slammed his fist into his face and I saw that small boy called Cam saying 'Stop! Stop!' and then my Reuben self just sitting and looking at the empty bottle in my hand.

  I stood there, at night, alone in the park. I turned towards the flames. The plastic bottle that had contained ammonia dropped by my side and I stepped closer, shielding my face with my hands, and felt the same heat that was devouring your cello. And I stayed there, listening to that wild, crackling music, until there was nothing but a large black teardrop scorched into the grass.

  I saw the gun pressed into Aaron Tully's sleeping head. I heard my voice telling him to wake up. I saw the fear in his young eyes as I delivered the threats.

  The jar of pills by his bed. Blue pills, like my mother's barbiturates.

  'Who are you?' he asked. He didn't make the connection.

  'You know me,' I said. Or my voice said. 'I'm Tea-stain.'

  'What? What? What?'

  I saw him getting out of that bed, in his T-shirt and underpants.

  'Me mam's –'

  'Your mum's on her night shift.'

  I saw him take the pen and paper I had taken from the sideboard. I heard me giving the words. 'I'm sorry. I can't live with myself.' His hand trembling, slow to shape each letter.

  I held the pillow and gripped it tight. I stared down at your perfect, sleeping self and felt what he felt, that yearning to be with you, that desire to be with you alone, away from your father. To be as you once were. Together. Equal. At peace.

  And then the cacophony faded and I was on the floor. Strange dark forms surrounded me, in the ticking quietness. Tiny figures stared down from wooden cliffs, working out their next move. I was a giant in an unfamiliar land, a fallen Gulliver, waiting for Lilliputian armies to take me hostage.

  I couldn't move. I lay there, not asleep and not awake, not Reuben but not quite Terence, as the darkness outside the shop made its slow concessions to the day.

  Just then I looked in the mirror and found not Gulliver but Robinson Crusoe staring back at me. 'What has happened to you?' I pondered.

  I came from a civilised place and now I'm an ignoble savage.

  I used to believe in this world. I used to treasure its old objects. I repaired fine things, made by human hands.

  I believed this was the essence of our species. This desire to preserve what has gone before, to restore the past and then to learn its lessons. This is what makes us human, what separates us from all the other animals. Ever since Neolithic times we have been building something up, a kind of moral ladder that takes us higher and higher away from the apes and sharks and wolves we share this planet with. Yet it is we who have got it wrong, isn't it?

  There is no difference, is there? At the bottom of it, we are the same as every other animal. The only difference is this tragic need we have inside us to understand this world, to represent it in art and to dissect it in science, and then to compensate for our lack of true understanding with material possessions. The clocks and dolls and inkwells that kill our true selves as surely as pistols.

  Oh yes, I see it now. As I face that infinite sea of infinite souls, I see all our errors.

  I see that we have lived the biggest of lies. We collectors, we restorers, we foolish fathers. We search for an understanding that forever slips our grip. We believe we have that understanding, and that this understanding separates us from the rest of life, as we like to believe our minds are separate from each other. And I belie
ved it more than most. But I was wrong. We are all together, all of us, in the same boat, sailing the same infinite sea. There is no high and low. No them and us. No you and me. Our friends and enemies are all inside us, as we are inside them. We know this as babies, as I know this now, but we lose this understanding. We topple, and fall apart, like Babel towers.

  Born civilised, we come to understand how knowledge makes lonely primitives of us all.

  Before I left this morning I went to visit George.

  Poor Mrs Weeks looked most confused when she answered the door. 'I thought you were the postman,' she told me.

  I imagined, briefly, another life.

  I imagined I had done nothing to hurt you.

  I imagined I wasn't coming to talk with George, but to see Mrs Weeks.

  I imagined my author had another narrative for me.

  In this story I would look into her sea-blue eyes and ask if she wanted to accompany me to the theatre. Cynthia had told me about a production of The Cherry Orchard, coming to the Playhouse. We would go along, myself and Mrs Weeks, and we would dissect the performances, and nod and agree about the bold stage direction. We would arrange to see each other again, for a meal this time, and I would dab the side of my mouth with a napkin and tell her how lovely she looked. Intimacies would be shared. I would call her by her first name and she would tell me how comfortable she felt in my presence, how safe. Over time, we would tell our children that the relationship was serious and you would be pleased for us. We would all live together. You and George (who was the George I had once imagined, not the real George) would fly the nest, but Mrs Weeks and I would attend all the fairs together and she would paint her portraits. And slowly, through the shortening days, we would restore each other's happiness.

  But alas, I got the narrative I deserved.

  'Mr Cave? Are you all right?' Her eyes scanned me up and down.

  'Yes,' I said, slowly, returning to my task. 'I am here for a word with George, if he's home.'

  She looked quite lovely, standing there, her golden hair and pristine white shirt lending a heavenly lightness to her appearance. 'Yes,' she said, 'he's here. Please, do come in.'

  She opened the door and I stepped inside, into the tiled hallway. I could smell coffee. Music was playing in the background. There was a portrait on the wall. A blond boy with a fringe and glasses, five or six years old, a large careless smile across his broad face.

  'George? George? Mr Cave's here to see you. George?'

  A heavy footstep creaked the Victorian floorboards above me. I had kept my nerve, up to that point, but when I recognised the music I cracked.

  'Beethoven,' I said, and couldn't help but laugh as I realised. '"Moonlight Sonata".'

  'Yes indeed,' she said, giving a glimpse of that rare smile of hers. 'I love the first movement.'

  'Oh yes, the first movement is wonderful, isn't it?' I said, my words gaining sudden speed. 'The first movement is sublime, I would say. Of course, Beethoven didn't think so. In his mind he had created an unfathomable monster. It had a will of its own, packing out concert halls across Europe, and Beethoven had no comprehension why it should be his most popular piece.' I struck an exaggerated but philosophical pose, my index finger resting on my chin. 'But that is the thing, isn't it, Mrs Weeks? That is our tragedy, isn't it? We all want the world to be bent to our own image. We want things to be seen the way we see them. We want to have control over what or who is loved when really we can't even have control over our own minds.'

  Mrs Weeks' smile had been usurped by a twitchy frown. 'Mr Cave, are you all –'

  My raised palm blocked her enquiry.

  'And when we realise this we begin to wobble,' I went on. 'We begin to feel the "hot terror" poor Ludwig felt. As though our own souls are caving in, giving way. A lot of the great poets felt something similar. Keats, for instance. An annihilation of the self. Not a lack of identity as such but rather an absorption of other identities, Mrs Weeks. An absorption that stretched beyond the realms of empathy into . . . ah, George, there you are.'

  Mrs Weeks turned to see her son standing behind her on the wooden staircase. Raised above us, on that third step, he cut a colossal figure, his equatorial midline marked by the tight brown towelling of his dressing-gown belt. Judging that he was still in his pyjamas, coupled with the state of his hair, it was clear he had just hauled himself out of bed. Yet he instantly seemed aware of the significance of my visit. Indeed, the bruised eyes behind those thick lenses viewed me with what I can only describe as a lethargic dread.

  'Hello,' he said, in his faraway voice.

  I cleared my throat, and tried to speak calmly. 'Yes, George, I'd like a word. I think we should have a little chat. On our own.'

  Mrs Weeks turned to me, mouth agape. 'What is it you would you like to speak with him about?'

  I took a breath, then announced it. 'About a certain Alison Wingfield.'

  George went pale, and seemed to shrink before my eyes.

  'I'm not sure that now is a very good time, Mr Cave,' said Mrs Weeks. She noticed my trembling hands. 'You seem like you need some –'

  'It's all right, Mum.' His tone was sheepish now. 'I'll talk with him.'

  'George, I don't think it's –'

  He closed his eyes. 'I'll talk with him.'

  Mrs Weeks seemed taken aback by her son's insistence, and most concerned about my own. I wondered what lie George had given her, to explain his bruises. Eventually though, Mrs Weeks stood aside and I followed George into the living room, which was stuffed with familiar antiques bought in the shop. The pine mule chest was there, and the Arabian Dancer was positioned on a small side table next to the sofa along with Barrias' Winged Victory.

  Mrs Weeks disappeared into the garden, but kept peeping in through the rear window as she hung out her son's laundry.

  'You lied, George.' My voice was quiet, quieter than his breath as he began to panic.

  'Please, I know. Please, I can explain. I'm sorry, Mr Cave.'

  'Who are you, George?' I asked.

  His waking dread. 'What?'

  'I mean, who are you? Who are you? A loyal Horatio? No, I don't think so. Iago is nearer the mark. I'm just trying to see where everything fits into place, that's all. What do you want with her? With Bryony?'

  'I don't want anything,' he said, his palms facing me in surrender.

  'Then why did he attack you? Why did Denny attack you?'

  'I don't know, Mr Cave. He's mad.' He couldn't look at me.

  I remembered something else. 'That day I came back to the shop. I found you upstairs. What had you done to her?'

  He was wheezing now, looking around at the old furniture. The chest I had helped carry out of the shop with his father.

  'Nothing,' he said. 'Honestly . . . I didn't . . . I . . .'

  'That's not what Denny told me, George.'

  I caught Mrs Weeks' sharp glance as she pegged George's checked shirt to the line. I gestured to the French sofa, out of her sight.

  'Sit down,' I told him, above the delicate piano music. 'Catch your breath.'

  He descended onto the sofa in a slow and careful movement, which still seemed to exhaust him. I stayed standing, but turned so Mrs Weeks wouldn't see the rising anger marked on my face.

  'I need my –'

  'You wanted to work in the shop to be close to her, didn't you? You hurt her, didn't you? She was your Alison Wingfield, wasn't she?'

  'No,' he said, holding his chest. His eyes bulged with panic.

  'No . . . I didn't . . . please . . . I . . . my inhaler . . . I can't breathe. I need . . .'

  'What?'

  A limp point upwards, like Plato's in The School of Athens. (I see your face in Rome, viewing the one artwork that truly impressed you on our visit to the Vatican museums.)

  'Bedroom,' he said, between desperate breaths, the scraping sound of each inhalation getting louder all the time. He began to change colour, the speckled pinkness in his cheeks spreading, turning purple.

 
; 'Be quiet, George.' I remember saying it, over and over, as I moved closer. 'Be quiet, be quiet.' As I reached for the cushion and pressed it over him. As he grabbed at my sides and tugged desperately at my clothes.

  'Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet.'

  So easy, now I couldn't see George's face, to ignore what I was doing, to cancel out the pathetic crumble of his glasses as I pressed further. A hundred quiets and she was there behind me, screaming like the animal we all are, ripping her hands like claws into me, pulling on my collar, drowning Beethoven.

  My arm swung back and caught her chest with my elbow. She fell and landed against the corner of the chest as I let go of the cushion.

  I knew what I had done. The dark act I had committed through my blind possession. Terence Cave. Myself. Alone.

  'Mrs Weeks? George?'

  But it wasn't them. It wasn't them, Bryony. I tell you I couldn't see them.

  I looked on the sofa and saw your brother, lying precisely where George should have been. The same glazed eyes that had stared up at me from the pavement. I could see the blood leaking down his face. Not a fading ghost but a solid form, creasing the fleur-de-lys pattern of the fabric. And as I turned to the body on the floor I didn't see Mrs Weeks, but your mother, wearing the blue shirt with the rolled-up sleeves she had worn when the intruders came, lying in the same awkward pose she had died in fifteen years before.

  *

  Your face was so pale and smooth, lying on that thin hospital pillow. I prayed for a frown, for a chip in the vase, for life to fracture your beauty.

  'Please, Bryony,' I begged you, as I had once begged your brother.

  A thin slab of light shone across the blankets, curving as it acknowledged your presence underneath.

  'Please.'

  Denny was somewhere else, talking to the police.

  I was unwatched, except by the nurse. The nurse who had asked me if I wanted a drink. I had said 'No', despite my dry mouth. It seemed a crime beyond all the others, to sustain my body as yours lay so helpless. The nurse gave me a soft, undeserved smile and she trod in quiet footsteps back to her desk and the paperwork that awaited her.