‘That’s really interesting! And heartening, in a way. I was beginning to think I was losing my mind.’
‘Janet once said, “A creative artist needs to keep sanity in check”.’
‘Did she? Oh, bless her!’
‘I used to be more sceptical myself, when I was young and not easily impressed, but I have a clever little sister who’s a particle physicist. Believe me, by the time you’ve had String Theory explained to you, ghosts seem really quite mundane and the existence of time travel only a matter of - well, time.’
I unlocked the back door and stepped inside. ‘You’ve given me such a lot to think about.’
‘Likewise, I’m sure. It’s been a real pleasure to talk to you, Ruth.’
‘So you think you’ll come over then? In December?’
‘I certainly shall. Term ends on December 7th so I’ll fly over some time after that. The following week probably, if I can get a flight.’
‘I’m home now, so if you like, I can ring you back on the landline. This call will have cost you a small fortune.’
‘And worth every cent. No, I won’t prattle on, much as I’d love to spend more time talking to you. I’ll email later when I’ve checked available flights. Thank you again for your kind invitation. To spend Christmas on the Isle of Skye with Janet Gillespie’s niece - and a ghost! Well, you know, for a sentimental Canadian musicologist who dreams of the Old Country, it doesn’t get much better than that. Goodbye, Ruth. I’ll be in touch. Take good care now.’
‘You too. Bye, Stan.’
He hung up and I put my phone down on the kitchen table, feeling strangely exhilarated. It wasn’t just the sea air and exercise. I’d finally done something. Wheels had been set in motion, though Heaven knew in what direction they were travelling. But I had plans. I even had a guest for Christmas. Two, if you counted Hector.
Absurdly cheerful, I made a large pot of coffee and sat down with my laptop by the Aga to thaw out. I decided I would spend the day drawing up a draft outline for a documentary about the history of Tigh-na-Linne and its occupants, including a composer and gardener - no, two gardeners - who had sensed the presence of the past.
I must have sat at the laptop for hours, recording my ideas and memories of Janet, things she’d told me over the years about my dead relatives. I made notes on Post-its of all the things I needed to research. Who had built Tigh-na-Linne? Had anything stood on the site previously? Who’d designed the three memorial windows? There might be photos of the other two somewhere, so I made a note to sort through the family albums and shoeboxes of photos Janet had hoarded. I made another note to contact the Local History Society.
I also wanted to know what and where Hector had taught before he enlisted and, much as it might distress me to know, I needed to find out how he’d died, so I noted queries about his regiment and the battle of Loos. Janet’s study was lined with books, not all of them related to music and gardening. There might be some military history. Or there was always Google.
As I surrounded myself with sheets of paper and Post-its, it seemed clear there was enough material for a programme of some sort, possibly a book, depending on the quality of the pictorial material I could find. Fortunately Janet had recorded the development of the garden over the years and in all seasons, but none of her shots had been taken on a digital camera. I made a mental note to start taking photos myself in the spring.
But would I be here in the spring?...
Pushing this troubling thought to the back of my mind, I got up to switch on the light and realised I’d missed lunch. It was already mid-afternoon. Suddenly hungry, I made some toast and spread it with peanut butter. I didn’t want to stop, even to make myself a hot drink, so I poured a glass of milk, sat down at the table again and began to sort through my notes.
I really needed to know about Frieda. She was the link between Hector and Janet. Hector had been distraught about the “bad business” and Janet had dedicated a major work to her, so Frieda had to be important. When had Janet begun work on In Memoriam? The autograph score was undated, but it had been published in the late 1950s. Was Frieda still alive when Janet dedicated In Memoriam to her? If she’d been an adult when Hector knew her, (a reasonable assumption if she’d sent a disturbing letter to a soldier at the Front), then she would have been in her sixties at least, possibly even seventies. Did In Memoriam refer to Janet’s dead uncles (including Hector) or was it written for Frieda, who by then was also dead? Clearly, there was still a lot of research to be done before I could tell the story of Tigh-na-Linne.
I carried on Googling and making notes until, stiff and tired, I forced myself to stand up and stretch. The table was now covered with bits of paper and some had drifted on to the floor. As I bent to retrieve them, I realised I was getting hungry again and had nothing prepared for dinner. Yet another supper of tinned soup and cheese on toast, I supposed. My spirits plummeted at this dismal thought, so I headed for the larder and withdrew the remains of last night’s red wine and a packet of crisps.
I poured a glass, ripped open the crisps and sat down again, feeling rather sorry for myself. Self-pity was superseded by irritation when I realised I was sitting there, like some damn medium at a séance, trying to conjure up Hector.
Because I was lonely. Because I enjoyed his company. Because - paradoxically - I felt safe when he was around. Because - oh, just because.
When the music started, I assumed it must be the radio. A neighbour’s radio. Then I remembered I didn’t have any neighbours. So I concluded it must be a CD player that had somehow switched itself on. Except that the sound seemed to be coming from the direction of the music room, where there was no CD player.
I stood up and made my way to the music room. When I turned on the light, I found Hector seated at the Bechstein, playing a piece I recognised as one of Janet’s compositions. There was no sheet music open on the piano and I wondered in passing when Hector had learned to play it, let alone so well. But playing complex music from memory, in the dark, was presumably no great feat for a ghost.
Hector didn’t stop, nor did he acknowledge my presence, so I sat in an armchair where I could observe. Looking at him in profile, I was aware of the military straightness of his spine, the angle of his tilted head and the ease with which his white hands seemed to drift over the keys, as if he barely touched them.
The music came to an end, but only when the last chord had died away completely did I allow myself to speak.
‘You play.’
‘Aye. In a manner of speaking.’ Hector didn’t turn to face me, but continued to stare at the keyboard.
‘Did you play when you were alive?’
He nodded, but still didn’t look at me.
‘You said you were a teacher. What did you teach?’
‘Music. I also taught piano privately.’ He laid a hand tenderly on the polished rosewood. ‘This was my piano. My parents bought it for me. For my sixteenth birthday. After I left home, I never had a room big enough to house it, so it was always a great joy to come home and play. Especially when I was on leave... There wasn’t a great deal of music in the trenches. The lads sang, of course - some of them very well. And we had pipers. But there was no piano. My fingers used to ache for the touch of the keys. They’d yearn for the feel of the ivory, the way you might long to touch a woman’s skin...’ He laid a hand high on the keyboard and depressed a few keys, making a pretty tinkling sound, like water trickling from a fountain.
‘What was it you were playing just now?’
‘In Memoriam.’
‘Yes, of course. I didn’t recognise it without the words.’
‘There was a wordless version first. The lyric came later.’
‘Do you know who wrote the words?’
‘The ones that weren’t taken from the Requiem Mass were from a poem by Andrew Marvell. The Definition of Love.’
Hector finally swivelled round on the piano stool and looked at me for the first time since I’d entered the room. He fixed h
is sad gaze on me and began to recite.
.
‘My love is of a birth as rare
As ’tis, for object, strange and high;
It was begotten by Despair,
Upon Impossibility.’
.
His mouth curved then, twisting into a mirthless smile. He shook his head and said, ‘I was surely born under an unlucky star. I loved but once in my life and it was—’ He shrugged. ‘An impossibility. Then once again. In death.’
For some reason, my heart began to pound, almost as if I were afraid. ‘Hector, what do you mean?’
Ignoring me, he turned back to the piano again, spread his hands over the keys and played an eerie discord. ‘And still... an impossibility.’
‘Hector, who was Frieda?’
He didn’t move, but his hands froze above the keyboard. Without looking up, he announced, casually, ‘You have a visitor.’
As he finished speaking, there was a loud knock at the back door. Despite the warning, I jumped, then glanced nervously at my watch. It was only seven o’clock. There was no excuse to ignore the caller. I stared helplessly at Hector’s expressionless face, unsure what to do. Then there was another knock, louder this time. I got up and hurried from the room, closing the music room door behind me in a futile gesture, as if it would somehow ensure Hector would be there when I returned.
Chapter Ten
I wasn’t dressed for visitors.
When I’d got up, I’d thrown on an old pair of tracksuit bottoms and an Aran sweater, originally David’s, which was two sizes too big for me. I wore no make-up and my hair (due for a wash) was scraped back into an elastic band. On my feet I wore what I referred to as my “Himalayan Wellingtons”. As soon as I’d set eyes on these slipper-boots, I knew they must be really warm. Why else would anyone wear anything so ugly?
It was this vision of loveliness that opened the back door to my unexpected caller. Or rather, Tom.
Not just Tom, but Tom clutching a bottle of wine and a bunch of chrysanthemums. Tom in a suit. Not just a suit, but a smart blue-grey number that fitted in all the right places. Tom, with newly-washed hair that formed a cloud of fluffy blond curls that settled on his forehead and into which his perfectly arched brows shot when he took one look at me.
I put my hand up automatically to smooth my hair, then remembered it was scraped back into a high and unflattering ponytail, the kind Scots call “a Gorbals facelift.”
‘Hi...’ Tom said, with a kind of sighing, downward inflection, like a punctured tyre. He looked me up and down. Clearly unimpressed, he said, ‘You weren’t expecting me, were you?’
‘You’re right. I wasn’t. Should I have been?’
He stared at me, his expression stony. ‘Well, it’s Friday. It’s seven o’clock. You said come for supper. With low expectations,’ he added. ‘I think maybe I didn’t pitch mine low enough.’
Squealing, I clapped a hand over my mouth and bent double, pole-axed by embarrassment.
‘Oh, Tom! I am so sorry! God, I’m such an idiot! Is it really Friday? Already? I had no idea... Oh, God, come in. Really, I am so, so sorry!’ As I closed the door behind him, the full extent of my incompetence hit me. ‘Oh, bugger... I haven’t got any food in either.’
Tom thrust the flowers into my arms, set the bottle down on the kitchen table and strode over to the fridge. He opened the door and examined the meagre contents. After a moment, he said, ‘Jesus...’ in a really depressed voice, then, ‘Have you got any spaghetti?’
‘Only dried.’
‘Eggs?’
‘Two. I think.’
‘Right, you’ve got three rashers of bacon. Some longlife cream. And what looks like an antique lump of Parmesan.’ He withdrew his head from the fridge and said, ‘I assume you’ve got white wine?’
‘Oh, yes!’
‘No problem then. It’s spaghetti carbonara and I’m cooking. Now get upstairs and put some decent clothes on.’
I approached and looking up into his unhappy face said, ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve had a really weird week. And I lost track of time. I had no idea it was Friday.’
He was looming over me, his face close to mine and I could smell something delicious. His aftershave, I suppose. Pointing to the tissue-wrapped bottle on the table, he said slowly, as if addressing a not very bright child, ‘I’m opening that in fifteen minutes.’
‘No!’ I was aghast. ‘Twenty! You have to give me twenty. Please!’
‘All right, twenty. But the champagne gets opened in twenty minutes, whether you’re down or not.’
‘Champagne? Oh, Tom, you shouldn’t have!’
‘No, clearly, I shouldn’t,’ he replied with a withering look. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a fire lit in the sitting room?’
‘No,’ I replied in a small voice.
‘I’ll see to it,’ was his terse reply.
He removed his jacket and slung it on the back of a chair, then started to roll up his shirtsleeves. Fixing me with a look, he said, ‘Go on. Get a move on. My shattered male ego is unlikely ever to recover, but you can at least try to make it up to me.’
‘I will. I’ll try very hard. Back in twenty minutes.’
‘Nineteen now.’
‘I really am sorry!’
‘Up. Stairs. Now.’
I padded over to the door, then turned back and said, ‘You look terrific, by the way.’
‘You don’t,’ he replied, filling the kettle. ‘So scram. Go and do that transformation thing women do. I’ve seen the Before. Now I want to see the After.’
‘Oh... So no pressure, then?’ I called out cheerfully as I left the kitchen.
I’d just set my yak-booted foot on the first stair when I heard a roar of laughter from the kitchen. Relieved beyond measure, I took the stairs two at a time.
Nineteen minutes to dress, apply make-up and rescue my hair. It was not unknown for me to spend nineteen minutes choosing what to wear. Which shoes to wear. In those nineteen minutes I also had to come up with a really good reason for my absent-mindedness that didn’t include ghosts. I hadn’t just forgotten my invitation, I’d forgotten Tom, adult Tom anyway, who, only a few days ago, had occupied my thoughts to an embarrassing extent, even invading my dreams.
Eighteen minutes. My clothes lay discarded on the floor and I stood naked in front of my open wardrobe, surveying its contents. Something that didn’t need ironing was required, so I reached for a red jersey wrap dress that would cover my arms and legs and keep off the Tigh-na-Linne chill. Yet it still looked glamorous, revealing a certain amount of cleavage and, depending on how you sat, a certain amount of leg.
My choice of dress reflected my confusion about dinner with Tom. I certainly wasn’t out to seduce him (though to judge from the champagne, he might be out to seduce me) but I did want to look seduction-worthy. As a matter of principle. I also felt I owed it to the poor guy to make an effort.
Seventeen minutes. I’d put on my prettiest underwear (as a morale boost, not because I thought it would be making a public appearance) but, as I tied the belt of the dress, I decided I wouldn’t bother with tights. I’d already put my thumbs through one pair in my haste to dress and, in any case, my legs were still a bit brown from the summer. So that just left shoes. Strappy sandals? My nude toenails looked dispiriting, so I opted for shiny red killer heels, the ones I’d bought to wear to a TV award ceremony, to demonstrate that my feet and ankles weren’t actually shaped like Wellington boots. They’d made me taller than David, but I wouldn’t have that problem with Tom. (And that thought, I noted, caused just a little flutter in my tummy.)
I sat down at the dressing table, cursing the dingy light and tried to remember the last time I’d applied makeup. Janet’s funeral? Dear God, was it really that long ago?... I brushed my hair and stared critically at my reflection, then I remembered Hector and how he had none. Did he know what he looked like? Could he actually remember after nearly a hundred years?... Hector couldn’t ever have been considered handsome, bu
t he was striking. Rather beautiful in a peculiar, vivid way. I certainly couldn’t imagine forgetting what he looked like.
As I tipped the contents of my make-up bag on to the dressing table, I realised with something akin to shame that I was thinking about Hector while Tom was downstairs preparing the dinner I’d offered to cook for him. And Hector wasn’t even real. Or if he was, he wasn’t a man, so I should stop thinking about him as a man. With twelve minutes to go, I should stop thinking about him altogether.
I put the finishing touches to my make-up, applied mousse to my hair and blow-dried it, then I selected silver earrings and a matching necklace David had bought me in Orkney. I sprayed myself with perfume and - voilà! - I was ready. With two minutes in hand, I considered my reflection in the full-length mirror.
Not bad.
Grief had caused me to lose weight this year and the heels meant I was now super-model tall. I hadn’t thought of getting my hair cut in months, so it now hung long and heavy around my face, lending me a certain shampoo-commercial allure. The red dress was good with my dark hair and showed I still had a waist, despite my tendency to live on toasted cheese and red wine.
I had no idea what Tom would think and told myself I didn’t really care. He would have to admit I’d made an effort and there’s only so much you can achieve in nineteen minutes.
I blotted my lipstick and turned away from the mirror. David’s old sweater lay discarded on the floor and I had a sudden vision of him lying in a heap in the snow, looking like a bundle of old clothes. The memory knocked the wind right out of me. I badly wanted to sit down and compose myself, but I feared if I did, I might cry, then I’d have to re-do my make-up.
Ignoring the heap of clothes on the floor, I sailed out of the bedroom, slightly unsteady on my heels. There was a smell of wood smoke in the hall and I could hear the comforting sounds of a log fire crackling in the sitting room below. Tom had been busy. Just before I turned to go downstairs, punctual to the minute, I looked back along the corridor at the memorial window. It was dark of course, so I couldn’t see Hector’s figure clearly, only a collection of glass shapes separated by meandering strips of leading.
The Glass Guardian Page 11
