Jack said, between numbers, between swigs of red rough wine, as if casually, but I know by now it was not, ‘Someone in town was looking for you.’
‘Who?’ I asked, alarmed.
I wanted us to go to bed but the party was still going on. It was past three. We had to be up by seven. Nobody seemed to care. Jennifer stifled her yawns and smiled brightly. She knew it was no use protesting. The Band was winding down from its night’s performance. Nothing a musician despises more than a party pooper, someone who can’t stand the pace, puts earplugs in their ears, hides the drink, departs, or stands between him and the girl of a passing, drunken dream. Frances had gone to sleep over the table: well, that was allowed. Her red hair spread over a surface dark with spilt wine, dirty plates, sodden labels, bread crusts and broken glass. (Jennifer had had beans soaking all day. She’d cooked them up when the Band returned. She put salt in the boiling water. Salt should never go near beans. It toughens the skins: makes them more indigestible, more fast-food. Never mind. Who was I to say? I am a lady astronomer. They will forgive me if I keep my knowledge specific to my trade, and profess ignorance of nearly everything else, from how to keep a man to how to find my way to how not to cook beans.) Frances’s delicate white hand curled in her sleep, around the encrusted cup used as a serving ladle. She had not lost her virginity to Douglas, only her heart. He was married, and had foolishly told her so. I was proud of her: not because she was virtuous, but because her will had triumphed over her inclination. I felt somehow it was my doing. I had shown her it was possible to get by without being too agreeable.
The instruments were out. Pedro was playing folk, Jack New Orleans, and Karl something that sounded like the Birdie Song. Glasses were filled from mammoth plastic containers that looked like petrol cans, and whose interiors were corroded, I was convinced, by the crude red wine they contained, of the vinegary kind Jesus was no doubt offered on the cross. Thirst quenching, pain deadening. Much of it got spilt: flung away with cries of disgust, and then more, optimistically, poured. Jennifer did not clear up, though I knew she longed to. The sight of a dishcloth would have offended. The talk was mostly of why all were playing in different keys and how this could be remedied. It was not. Sandy was convinced Pedro’s guitar was a banjo. Pedro became angry. When he was angry he moved his crowned tooth with the tip of his tongue, and glared, gat-toothed, but it did not stop him playing. Strands of his long greasy hair fell into his wine: he tossed his head back in his rage and splattered the room. I was glad I was wearing my black T-shirt and not my white. There was some familiar talk about how the Band was being billed by the Festival Organisers: fists and feet were banged: murders and rapes planned. Bente sat patiently smiling as if nothing untoward were happening. Suddenly she began to cry, and left the room. Hughie followed her. Deprived of one of their number, they contented themselves with agreeing amongst themselves that he was a rotten player anyway, and no loss to anyone.
It would have been difficult in such circumstances for any ghost to materialise. I wouldn’t if I were it, not if my ears were in any way responsive. I wondered if I was in the right company, and thought perhaps I was. I preferred this to gliding amongst Matthew’s friends, in my little black dress, answering questions about the Planet Athena or discussing the property boom, and drinking Muscadet, or in Godfrey’s world, in my Laura Ashley smock, discussing ley lines and listening to nonsense about birth signs, or with my academic friends, in skirt and sweater, agitating about university appointments, the achievements of children, the vintages of wine. Different worlds, different parties.
Though frankly I would rather be in bed with Jack, and was hurt that he was somehow pushing at the borders of our unspoken spheres of influence – like Russia invading Afghanistan, the US establishing its bases in Turkey – and claiming these late hours for the Band, not allocating them to me.
Jack’s idea to get out the wine: Jack’s idea to start playing. Jack’s idea to keep everyone out of bed as well as himself. Jack was angry. Someone was looking for me. Well, what made me think I could just disappear, that I was of so little interest to the world they’d just let it happen? Was I not a kind of fulcrum, that present point where the past and future balanced, where the dead met the living, not to mention heaven and earth: they wouldn’t let me go so easily.
‘Who was looking for me?’ I asked again, after Jack had finished playing ‘The Red Flag’ (or ‘Maryland’, depending on who was paying for the gig) while Pedro played ‘Strawberry Fair’ and Karl a fandango. Oddly, it sounded rather good.
‘Man or woman?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘It was just a note with your name on it, on the Festival noticeboard.’
‘Written or typed?’
‘Handwritten, in green ink. Some lover, I expect.’
‘Why would I have a lover who used green ink?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I don’t know anything about you.’
‘If it seemed urgent,’ I remark, ‘why didn’t you bring it back for me?’
‘Because it’s nothing to do with me. If that’s how you want to live, lovers leaving you urgent messages all over France, that’s your business.’
Karl has taken up ‘Hindustan’. Jack can’t resist playing too. And Pedro. They manage a fair rendition. I give up and go to bed, on my own. No ghosts appear.