458

VI

The day of her funeral dawns. Finn is not present, nor is there any reply from him. I feel angry with him for failing to share the burden of grief, for his decision to desert us when we are vulnerable. I feel angry with the damned Galapagos postal service, which has no doubt left my transcribed telegram idling in some sack; yet I feel relieved too, wanting to protect my boy from tragedy, hoping the news never reaches him.

The weather is vicious. The sun dazzles in a sky of endless smiling blue. The Vicar conducts the service with a cold, snivelling all the way through, and overpronouncing the last syllable of her name with a nasal twang. In the graveyard is a six-foot by three-foot hole. Autumn leaves, tossed on a nonchalant breeze, skit into its depths. The Vicar begins his ‘ashes to ashes’ speech, his handkerchief fisted in his hand at the ready.

The voice comes suddenly. It is female, a soprano. It sings a song about Chicago. I glance at the other mourners, convinced that they are making a mockery of me. Their heads are all low in prayer, their lips crimped tight in piety. The voice grows more optimistic, attempting to convey a musical accompaniment to the lyrics about how all things go, and yet all things grow. Tears stream down my cheeks, 459wetting my beard. The Vicar speaks of God’s mercy and I want to punch him.

WELL, IT’S A NICE DAY FOR IT, ISN’T IT? the voice cuts in, the song seemingly finished.

As my head jerks up, the Vicar falters. I resist the urge to run through the graves, to try and escape this snake that hisses madness in my ear.

IT’S ME! It is unmistakable. It is her, though she sounds younger, before age inflected her voice with gravel and stutters.

If I reply, the last thread of my sanity will surely snap. Silently, I urge the Vicar to finish, quick, quick now. Sweat seeps over my body; my tears dry in rivulets on my neck; a dizziness assails me.

I AM NOT DEAD.

I THOUGHT YOU SHOULD KNOW.

The coffin is lowered in fits and jerks and starts, as though the earth is an animal receiving a feed.

MIND YOU, I’M NOT SURE THAT I AM ALIVE EITHER. I THINK I AM … I THINK, THEREFORE I AM!

She laughs and it is all so absurd that I cannot help it – a howl of laughter escapes my lips. The mourners all start. It evolves into more tears. This is life without her: my mind broken, the world lost to me.

IT IS ONLY A BODY IN THAT COFFIN.

A clod of earth strikes its lid.

I MISSED YOU, YOU KNOW, WHEN MY BODY WENT. I FOUND THE WHITE CORNERS OF THE WORLD. I HAD TO FIGHT TO STAY. I FOUGHT A MAN TO RETURN TO YOU. 460

The birds sing, the Vicar sneezes, and the service is over.

I barely stayed five minutes at the wake. It was held in the Vicar’s home and hosted by his wife; I appreciated their kindness, and so I feel sorrowful that I shocked her with my hasty departure. But the voice kept commenting on the other mourners, declaring that they never liked her much anyway and were only there for the free food, advising me that the cook spat in the ham sandwiches because they underpaid him. On the way home, her voice became more solid, like a breath hovering on my neck, a tickle in my ear.

I storm into her studio. The paintings stare at me, mock me. Stained red rags on the floor, which she used to clean her brushes. I finger the stack of books on the small desk by the window: a mixture of technical titles, describing the thinning and mixing of oil paints; Ruskin’s essays and the biographies of painters; Vedic texts. Vasistha’s Yoga is a thick tome, encyclopaedia-vast, and I flick through it aggressively, tearing the odd page, coming upon random phrases: ‘Fate is fictitious … fate is none other than self-effort of a past incarnation. There is constant conflict between these two in this incarnation, and that which is more powerful triumphs …’ ‘Bah!’ I slam it shut, thump it back on to the pile, which teeters, and books begin thumping on to the floor, spines broken, pages splayed. I grab a canvas, my heart yelling protest, but my rage too strong to resist, my fingers ready to— 461

DON’T. YOU. DARE.

I pause, gripping it tightly, glad that this extraneous voice is at least one of reason.

THAT’S IT. DON’T PUNISH MY PAINTINGS FOR MY DEATH. IT’S NOT THEIR FAULT.

I position the painting so that it is hung perfectly once more.

YOU COULD AT LEAST TALK TO ME. I THINK YOU’RE BEING VERY RUDE.

But if I begin answering, where will it all end? With me in the asylum, no doubt.

I leave the study, closing the door behind me with care. In the kitchen, I brew myself some Grand Kuding tea.

I WOULD NOT DRINK THAT IF I WERE YOU.

I hum loudly – Beethoven’s ninth – and recall the clods of earth scattering over her tomb and imagine the tightening of rigor mortis, her skin taut against her skull, and I gulp down the cup of tea, burning my tongue.

In the parlour, I kneel down in front of the fire and prod the half-burnt chair legs. They will have to suffice. I take a newspaper from the stack –

MR THOMAS TURRIDGE IS PUTTING NEWSPAPER ON THE FIRE. THE HEADLINE READS ‘LOS ANGELES TIMES BUILDING DYNAMITED’—

‘I am putting the newspaper on to the fire,’ I interrupt, because if someone is damn well going to narrate this story, then it will be me. ‘I am striking the match. It is eating through the paper.’

WHY ARE YOU NARRATING?

‘Why were you narrating?’ 462

MR THOMAS TURRIDGE QUESTIONS WHY HIS LIFE IS BEING NARRATED BY THE GHOST OF HIS DEAD WIFE—

‘Good God, enough!’ I sit on the chair and form a lattice with my fingers and bury my face in it. ‘It cannot really be you, can it, Rachel?’

WHO ELSE COULD IT BE?

‘I think you are a projection of my mind, a madness of grief.’

A pause.

SO ARROGANT! I AM TRULY CROSS NOW. A PROJECTION OF YOUR MIND?

‘The thing is, Rachel, you know as well as I that there is no such thing as ghosts.’

GHOST, SPIRIT, SOUL, JIVA – CALL ME WHAT YOU LIKE, BUT HERE I AM.

‘Prove it to me,’ I say, ‘prove who you are.’

GLADLY. WE MADE LOVE A MONTH AGO, HAVING SMOKED OPIUM, WHILE BEETHOVEN’S FIFTH WAS PLAYING. YOUR COCK WENT SOFT.

‘Dear God.’ My tongue was still throbbing from drinking the burning-hot tea.

I REMEMBER BACK WHEN I WAS A GOVERNESS AND YOU WERE A BOY OF FOURTEEN. YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO MARRY ME AND IT MADE ME LAUGH, BECAUSE YOU HAD A LIST OF PROS AND CONS –

‘This is utterly embarrassing,’ I say, covering my eyes with my hand in shame.

I THINK THAT ONE OF THE CONS WAS ‘RACHEL MIGHT BE MAD’.

‘I was a boy, Rachel – a boy!’ 463

I THINK THAT WHEN I GLIMPSED THAT, I SWORE NEVER TO MARRY YOU, EVER.

‘And you should have honoured that promise.’ My voice shakes and I struggle to keep my chin steady. ‘It is my fault that you died.’

NO, MY LOVE, NO …

‘If you follow the chain backwards, then it is so – you could say it was the fault of the farmer because he shook your hand while afflicted with the germs, but he was only there because of the calf, and we heard the calf wailing because we were at the fair, and whose idea to go to the fair was it? Mine. You even told me that you did not want to go, you wanted to stay in and paint, and I persuaded you. I failed you—’

NONSENSE. I MADE THOSE CHOICES TOO. I COULD NOT HAVE DONE ANY PAINTING THAT DAY, I WAS TOO CLOUDY.

‘Because I forced opium on you …’

DO NOT WEEP. I AM HERE. I AM WELL. NO MORE CREAKY JOINTS. I CAN REMEMBER THINGS! MY MIND IS SO CLEAR, IT IS AS THOUGH I AM TWENTY AGAIN!

‘I don’t understand how you can be real.’ I blow my nose deep into my handkerchief.

I FELT VERY STRANGE WITHOUT MY BODY, AT FIRST. IT WAS AS THOUGH I WAS WALKING AROUND NAKED, OR HAD LOST MY SKIN. I CURLED UP INTO A BALL. I SEEMED TO BE DRIFTING, LIKE A CLOUD, INTO MARGINS OF WHITENESS, AND THEN SOMETHING SUDDENLY CAME DOWN TO SKEWER ME, IT LOOKED LIKE A GIANT PEN. A NIB OF BLACK 464INK. BUT IT COULD NOT PIN ME DOWN BECAUSE HOW CAN YOU PIN DOWN A SOUL? I HEARD HIM – THERE WAS A CURIOUS MALE VOICE WHO SEEMED TO HAVE OWNERSHIP OF THE PEN – SWEARING AT ME. IN FIGHTING I FELT STRONG, I EVEN BEGAN TO TEASE HIM, DARTING ALL OVER THE PLACE, SINGING CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, AND HE COULD NOT.

‘That makes no sense, Rachel.’

OH, I AM SORRY – SHOULD I HAVE MADE UP SOME STORY OF HEAVEN? MY SINS AND GOOD DEEDS WEIGHED ON SCALES OF JUSTICE? DID YOU WANT A BEDTIME STORY?

‘You think you’d have a place in Heaven?’

I CAN’T HIT YOU! THIS IS MOST UNFAIR! STILL, WHAT I CAN DO IS …

I chuckle as I feel her breath hot against my ribs, in that tender place where I am most ticklish.

‘Stop, stop, you cruel vixen!’ I laugh, and something erupts in my heart, for in that moment I truly believe that it is her, for only Rachel would know to torment me in that very spot, and with the absurdity of the revelation, the confusion and the hysteria, I burst into tears again. ‘How could you have left me … You were always the one who walked away …’

I FOUGHT TO STAY IN MY BODY. I FOUGHT TO STAY WITH YOU. I TRIED SO HARD, BUT IT WAS BEYOND ME.

AND SO I FOUGHT TO RETURN.

I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU. I LOVE YOU AND WILL BE HERE, ALWAYS. 465

The door creaks open. Finn the cat enters and bounces on to my lap.

OUR FINN DID NOT COME TO HIS MOTHER’S FUNERAL.

‘I have not heard from him,’ I whisper. ‘I will have to write to him again.’

MY POOR BOY, she says, as I stroke the cat and he shudders with purring pleasure against my hands. MY POOR DARLING BOY.