by Tanith Lee
At the corner she glimpsed the welcoming glow of pub lights. The noisy trickle gave way to the low murmur of conversation as she pushed through the door. She was expecting, however, the loud drone of a crowd, or, better still, the deafening beat of live music.
She stood dripping over a barstool as a barmaid, with almost adolescent curves and far too much makeup on her thin face, laughed with several regulars. They were older male bikers, grey-haired and heavily bearded. The woman attended to one of the few younger men that came across, but still failed to notice Anne.
As Anne was finally handed a refreshing vodka and lemonade, she took a quick sip and struggled to keep the barmaid’s attention.
“Is the Skeleton Krew Rebellion starting late?” she enquired.
“The Skeleton Krew Rebellion was on last night,” said the barmaid, “and tonight’s band cancelled. The list of gigs is over there.”
Turning, Anne saw a chalk board by an empty stage where the band should have been.
The conspiracy against her seemingly complete, she slipped back from the counter and wandered towards the stage, knowing that this belated attention to detail would not make any difference. Childcare was arranged for tonight. She took another sip, too much, too fast, spilling most of the drink down her chin. Stumbling forward, she almost banged into a man slouched in the corner beside the board.
He looked startled
“Sorry,” Anne choked.
His dark eyes grew wide.
“I said sorry,” Anne reiterated defensively.
“Good God,” the man said, “you can see me.”
There was a momentary silence in which Anne stared at the man, and the man stared back. A young man, who almost brushed the low ceiling as he stood slowly upright. His hair was dark and tied back in a ponytail. His solid jaw line softened by a neat beard. He wore a shapeless white shirt with sleeves turned back above tanned arms. Green and red dragons swirled in combat down his muscular forearm. Beneath the tattoo, a sharp red and grey motif livened up his sleeveless leather jacket. Details on the jacket were shadowed, but they could be skulls or American symbols that suggested this lad was part of the biker crowd.
“Come again,” Anne said, sure she had misheard.
“You can see, and hear me.” The man smiled. “I’ve been here since the May bank holiday. Two weeks, and I’ve not managed to get served yet. The large lass at the bar could see me at first, I think. She gave me some very strange looks before totally ignoring me.”
Anne took another quick sip, and began to move away. Attention from a young man was flattering at her age, but drunks could be unpredictable.
The man moved smoothly to intercept.
Not a drunk, then: worse; the pub nutter.
“Have you any idea how lonely it is,” he continued, “with no one to talk to, and people trying to walk through you? If you’re worried people might stare because you’re talking to yourself, then we can go over here.”
She was reluctant to follow. She looked around for pub security, or at least some burly biker annoyed by the noisy entertainment.
Everyone was deep in their own discussions. No one even noticed her there, cheeks suddenly dried by flushed humiliation.
They might not be able to see him but she couldn’t stop seeing him, no matter how much she willed him to disappear. Conceding defeat, she sat down in a dingy alcove, and stared silently into her drink.
He took a seat opposite.
“Do you see ghosts?” he asked.
Anne shook her head.
“Good.” He seemed relieved, “that gives me one less theory to work on. Of course, this could be your first time.”
Anne digested this information slowly. He had clearly thought long and hard about things, but she felt she should be shocked, or shivering, or something. She was not cold enough now to be shivering, and she just felt helplessly harassed. She took another sip.
“How did you get here… two weeks ago in… May?” she said quietly.
“I was following a girl.”
“Who?”
“Her name was Eleanor, I think.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“I don’t know. She seemed to have a prior engagement – off to meet some handsome soldier I could just see in the distance. She was angry at me and told me to go home.”
Harassing his ex maybe? He seemed the type.
“Why didn’t you go home?”
“I couldn’t remember where home was. It’s a big house, I think, with a big garden in a small village. A place where you can hear the sea and see white cliffs.”
Not Northampton then.
“What’s your name?” Anne asked.
“The only names other than Eleanor that come to my mind are Davey, Duke, William and King Billy.”
“The King Billy would be the name of this pub,” Anne pointed out, and took another sip.
“That leaves Davey, Duke or William,” the young man said.
“Or how about King Willy,” Anne giggled suddenly. This was absurd.
The man pouted. “Not Willy, you can have Davey, William or Duke.”
“I choose Duke, Duke.”
His shapely mouth curved up at one corner, revealing a dimple just visible above the beard.
“I can see you’re a cheap date, flirting after just one drink.”
“Flirting?” She was certainly tempted. One drink and he was not bad looking for an invisible man. “Was I flirting, Duke?”
From this point on the evening became much more relaxed, if a little disjointed. There was nothing to stop Anne flirting with an invisible stranger in a quiet corner. They had much in common. They had wandered into the King Billy for the same reason, to listen to live music. He could still hear the strum of a rock ballad, and the sexy squeal of an electric guitar. Her vivid imagination did not quite extend to this, but she could appreciate his enthusiasm. She bought another drink and one for him just in case. He did not attempt to drink any. She drank for both of them and then ordered another two.
Duke decided to escort her home.
“Under the circumstances,” he told her, “this is the gentlemanly thing to do.”
She bought two tickets from a bemused bus driver and flirted with Duke on the top deck. Teenagers in the seats behind moved downstairs.
After waving goodbye to the babysitter she invited him in for coffee. She forgot to put the kettle on, and apologised. He smiled. When she fell over a chair and playfully rebuked him for failing to catch her, he lost his smile. When she was attacked by smothering bedclothes, his handsome face hung above her, and his smile returned with a tantalising invitation.
Anne woke amid bedclothes in disarray, and with the father of all hangovers. She took some time to sort out her thoughts. Recollection of the previous night was somewhat bitty, like a badly edited B movie. Once she had her thoughts in some semblance of order she turned on the light and searched the room with a worried frown.
The limited space was cold and reassuringly empty. The small living room was equally empty, as was the tiny kitchen: the bathroom had to be small for her to get in through the door.
She gazed long and hard at her reflection in the bathroom cabinet. Summer office-grey skin had turned seamlessly to winter-grey, showing every drawn line. She self-consciously tucked a strand of greying hair back beneath the brown. Had she really spent all night talking to herself?
“Are you finished in there, Mum?”
Anne exited the bathroom, coming face to face with her leggy young daughter. Kelly was her youngest child, and only a small hop away from womanhood. A reminder of what she herself must once have been, when her husband had called her a pretty young thing. Unfortunately Anne was no longer a pretty young thing. Kelly, a late addition to an already fledged family, had been the end of Anne’s marriage.
Anne had not seen much of her ex since. He, his latest young girlfriend, and what little money he had not spent on this latest bit of totty, had moved to Australia. Anne had struggled valia
ntly with the mortgage until redundancy this year. Unable to get a decent replacement job and still in negative equity, she had lost their home. Belongings had to be given to charity and the dog re-homed when she and Kelly were reduced to emergency council housing, then tenancy of a second floor flat on a rough town estate. Life was very stressful at the moment.
Kelly tilted her head, the cheeky grin on her face revealing the full sparkle of new braces, a cheap purple gem for every tooth.
“Did you enjoy yourself last night, Mum? Can I go out with you next time?”
Anne drew breath before returning the smile.
“No, it would cost too much in Coke, which your orthodontist says is bad for your teeth, and it’s embarrassing for a child to have to steer her drunken mother home from the pub. Now, don’t you have school this morning?”
Anne was relieved that the day appeared to be progressing in a normal fashion; mislaid school kit and gloves, burnt toast, doorstop sandwiches that were stuffed into Chinese takeaway containers, that wouldn’t stuff into overfilled school bags, and spilled out on the back seat of Anne’s old banger.
Kelly re-stuffed her bag at the school gate, and gave her mum a peck on the cheek.
Anne tutted. “Go on, you’ll be late.”
Kelly’s new school was grey and impersonal. Life was stressful here too, although Kelly put on a brave face. She took a few quick steps and then turned back.
“Will Duke be there when I get home, only I forgot to say goodbye?”
Anne felt she had been hit by a cannon ball. Her jaw dropped.
“It’s all right,” Kelly shrugged. “He’s nice.”
Back at the flat, Anne pushed open Kelly’s bedroom door, and then checked every room twice. No one could have avoided her, but she could not rid herself of the feeling that Duke was there. If he had been part of her imagination, then how could Kelly have seen him?
You can’t see me now?
The voice, if it was a voice, was disappointed and remote.
She threw her head back against the door she had closed behind her.
“No,” she said to the empty room.
What had Duke said about the barmaid being able to see him, and then not see him? Perhaps this had happened with her, and would happen with Kelly too.
Anne felt a surge of hope and relief for the thought, and then a guilty sadness. They would be leaving Duke alone again.
“Do you want some music?” she said brightly.
She lifted a Jethro Tull CD and hoped Duke liked folksy poetic lyrics with his rock music.
Over the next three weeks Kelly kept up a constant dialogue with their invisible lodger.
Anne was at a loss. She had introduced this imaginary companion, so how could she rebuke her daughter for talking to him. To do so would be hypocrisy and an acknowledgement of a problem she felt inadequate to deal with for many reasons and on many levels. She had no one to talk to. Her friends were already worried about her in a pitying ineffectual way while getting on with their own uneventful lives; her elderly parents had retired to the Lake District; her youngest son was at college in Exeter while his older brother hiked down to see their father in Australia; and her GP was the latest name in an ever changing line up at her local health centre. Anyway, perhaps her daughter needed an imaginary companion when she had so few real friends at her new school.
In the fourth week things seemed to come to a head. Kelly began to call Duke, quietly to get his attention at first, then more impatiently. Her calls quickly became urgent with frustration and concern. She was becoming stressed, and Anne knew she had to say something.
“One of the mums at the school gate says you’ve begun to make friends in the netball team, Kelly,” she said. “It’s quite usual to stop seeing invisible companions when we no longer need them.”
“Then why don’t you still see Duke?” Kelly asked reasonably. “You needed a friend too. Anyway, it’s not that I don’t see him. He can’t see me. He seems to be… lost. And he’s really upset. There must be something we can do.”
Anne was always amazed how children could believe their parents were invulnerable to stress, had never-ending supplies of money, and could solve anything. Anne had failed to live up to expectation in at least two of these categories recently and was feeling increasingly inadequate as a parent.
“We’ll think of something,” she replied weakly.
Friends in the netball team proved not to be such a blessing when Kelly confided in one of them. Her Mum’s invisible boyfriend became the talk of the team, then the class. Sensible girls no longer befriended her, and she became a target for bullies.
Anne did not notice at first. She was so grateful that the in-house one-sided conversations had ceased that she failed to realise her daughter was far quieter than normal. Eventually there was a call from the school. Kelly had attacked one of her tormentors.
Anne collected her. There were bruises and blood where Kelly had torn her lip on the braces. One of her nails was ripped back and there was a deep cut above her brow where she had banged heads with her adversary.
“You should see the other girl,” Kelly muttered as they sat in casualty.
“I’m hoping we won’t see her in here,” Anne said. “I’m sure we’ll see enough of her and her parents when we go to your school disciplinary meeting.”
But Kelly was not listening. Her eyes were wide. She tugged excitedly on Anne’s arm.
“Mum, that’s Duke. He’s here.”
Anne rubbed the side of her face uneasily.
“Shush, darling,” she whispered, “this is a hospital. Sick people won’t want to hear you yelling.”
People in the waiting room were beginning to turn towards them, and toward the empty corridor Kelly was pointing down.
“Let’s follow him,” Kelly said.
Anne had no idea when Kelly would be seen by the doctor, so the idea of escape from a now curious waiting room held some appeal.
“Yes, let’s.”
Anne would have stopped Kelly once they were beyond sight of the waiting room, but her daughter was already well ahead. She seemed to know her way in the maze of long corridors and echoing stairs. By the time Anne caught up, Kelly was outside a closed door peering through one of the windows onto the ward.
“He’s in there,” she said.
Excitement was causing her to bounce up and down, and Anne could not help laughing as she grabbed hold of her arm.
“All right, calm down. Where is he exactly?”
“On that chair.”
“Which chair?”
There were several very empty chairs by sleeping patients.
“That blue one at this end.”
Anne was about to turn away and have words with Kelly, but something caught her attention. In the bed beside the chair was a sleeping man surrounded by complex machinery. A sensor was strapped to an arm that lay across the sheet. There was a tattoo on the arm.
“Green and black dragons…?” she said in wonder.
“Yes, fascinating, isn’t it, but you can’t stand around in this corridor unless you are a close friend or relation.”
Anne almost jumped out of her skin, and turned to find a young nurse standing behind them. She stammered an apology.
The nurse nodded acceptance. She looked very professional in a clean uniform and neatly collected auburn hair, but she had a kindly face. Anne became brave.
“I had a friend once who had a tattoo like that. His name was…,” she put on a forgetful expression. “Duke?”
The nurse smiled politely, but was otherwise unimpressed.
“No… Davey, Will? He lived somewhere on the coast.”
The nurse raised a brow. “Suffolk?” she queried.
Anne had never seen any white cliff in Suffolk.
“Dorset, or thereabouts,” Anne guessed. “We were at a rock concert on the south coast.”
The nurse drew breath and relented. “His name is David Williams. The Duke was apparently the name of his b
ike, although I guess he may have picked up that nickname because of the bike.”
“Big… manly thing, a bike,” Anne said vaguely.
The young nurse sighed in exasperation. “A dangerous thing, a bike. Judging by his injuries I imagine The Duke was a write-off.”
Kelly tugged at the nurse’s sleeve.
“Does he get many visitors? Can we visit him?”
“Not many visitors,” the nurse said sadly. “I think a few of his biking friends came at first, but he’s been in a coma for a year. There are visiting hours, and it’s not as if he will notice, but you’d better tell the duty nurse that you are more than a passing acquaintance.”
Kelly had finally been seen and neatly butterfly-stitched by a doctor, and now, much against Anne’s better judgement, they stood with other visitors in the corridor outside the ward where Davey lay in a coma.
“We’re not going to get away with this,” Anne hissed. “We’d be lying if we said we were his friends.”
“You lied earlier,” Kelly argued, then smiled winningly at the older nurse who was walking towards them.
“We’ve come to see my mum’s boyfriend, Davey Williams,” she said.
The nurse frowned. “Would this be the first time you’ve visited?”
Anne could feel her underlying disapproval. The age gap, probably, as well as the fact that she had not visited before. She felt obliged to make some suitable excuse.
“Davey and I had a silly tiff last year. I was drunk.... Anyway, I assumed he wasn’t talking to me. Man-pride, you know… I didn’t hear about the accident until recently.”
The nurse nodded and went about her business. Breaching ward security with shades of the truth was much easier than Anne had imagined. She still felt guilty as they walked over to Davey’s bed.
This David was far older than the Davey Anne had met, probably several years older than her, in his late forties. The ponytail was gone and his receding hairline was flecked with grey. Lined pale skin was sunken around his cheeks. Paler areas round his jaw suggested a large beard had been shaved off, probably by the hospital.
On the sinewy arm the dragon tattoo was darkening, losing definition and colour. Rough, wel- used hands with long fingers lay limp against thin thighs beneath the blankets. Deep lacerations on his bony shoulders had been left unbandaged and already healing to white scars.
