Laying the Ghosts

by Catherine Thornton

The second encounter had been an even worse mistake than the first. Jennifer Avery had belonged to the same musical society as him and had clearly decided that he was attractive material for an extra-marital fling. His immediate response was to politely rebuff her amorous advances. Unfortunately his resolution was not as staunch as it might have been and a little determination on her part ensured that he eventually succumbed. However, he had acted against his better judgement and had no qualms about making it obvious that he wanted no more to do with her.

  Just when Alex had given up hope of finding Emma, he saw Claire walking down the corridor with some friends. He had been surprised to see her with Emma on Saturday as he had never thought of the two as having much in common. He had also noticed that Emma had seemed ill at ease and that there had been two boys with them. He wondered if one of them had been Emma’s boyfriend and if that had anything to do with her present problems. He had decided not to quiz Claire but to ask her to pass on a message saying that he wanted to see Emma as soon as possible. He then promptly dismissed the matter from his mind.

  Alex was working in his study when he was disturbed by the phone ringing. He was a man of steady habits and his son could be sure that at six o clock he would be sitting at his desk marking any essays that he had collected that day. Once he had completed his school work, Alex would retire to the comfort of the brown leather chesterfield which he had inherited from his father along with the mahogany desk and the other items which furnished the study. Then he would sit and read until nine, when he would pour himself a glass of port and smoke his only cigar of the day. Even when Rupert was a small boy the study had been his father’s special room and most of his time had been spent within it.

  Alex answered the phone, which was in the hall, and greeted his son without enthusiasm.

  “Hallo, Rupert. I’m in good health, thankyou.” His son had called to explain why he would not be home for Christmas. “To tell the truth, Rupert, I haven’t even thought about Christmas yet. If this girlfriend of yours, Linda, is it? ... Oh, Melanie. Well, anyway, if she wants you to go to her parents, then do so. You don’t have to babysit me for goodness sake... No, I’ll go to your aunt Mary’s ... Yes, I’ll be perfectly all right... There’s someone at the door, Rupert. Wait one minute...”

  He was somewhat taken aback to find Emma Tomlinson on the doorstep, her coat wet with rain. It briefly occurred to him that she had interpreted his message about wanting to speak to her with rather more urgency than he had intended. He indicated that she should go into his study, but she remained in the hall whilst he finished his conversation.

  “I’ve got a visitor, Rupert...No, of course not...Don’t forget to send me a Christmas card...Goodbye.” He replaced the receiver with a sigh and turned to face Emma.

  “Well, Emma! What can I do for you?” He noticed again how wet her coat was. “Take that off and come in. Did Claire give you my message?”

  “What message?”

  “She obviously didn’t. Still, you’re here anyway and we may as well talk now. Give me that.” He indicated her coat.

  With some signs of reluctance she took it off and handed it to him. She then followed him into the study. Two cats were occupying the chesterfield.

  “Just push them off,” said Mr Dowding.

  “They are Siamese aren’t they? They’re very pretty. I never imagined that you were a cat lover,” said Emma.

  “I’m not. They were a present from one of my son’s girlfriends. I hadn’t got the heart to drown them.” He picked up one cat in each hand and put them on the floor, where they yawned and stretched before stalking out indignantly to find solace in their food bowls. Emma didn’t seem to take the hint to sit down.

  “Look, Emma, if you want to talk you may as well sit down.”

  She obeyed without comment. He noticed that she sat uneasily on the edge of the settee and clasped her hands tightly on her lap. He thought she looked younger than her eighteen years. She wore blue socks and flat, slightly muddy shoes. It was only the curve of her breasts that suggested womanhood.

  “Now then Emma,” he said briskly, “what’s the trouble?”

  She looked at him with a curious expression. He waited for a moment to see if she was going to speak, but she just put her chin on her clasped hands as if thinking intently and then stood up suddenly, her cheeks suffused with pink.

  “I thought I’d better return this: that’s all!” She held out his watch in one hand, her eyes fixed on his face with an unflinching stare, her cheeks still pink. Her look seemed to him to be challenging rather than apologetic. He didn’t understand her attitude and was cross with her for being difficult when he wanted to help.

  “Don’t you think you owe me an explanation?”

  “Perhaps.” She still held out the watch towards him, but she lowered her eyes. There was silence for a minute and they both heard the logs shift and crackle in the grate.

  “Emma, that’s a valuable watch. You can’t just take it and then hand it back as if nothing happened.”

  “How do you know that I didn’t just find it?”

  “Did you?”

  “No.”

  Again they fell silent and he looked at her static figure, one slim arm held out, her hand shaking slightly and the watch ticking quietly in her palm. He felt that she would stand there like a statue forever, silently urging him to take the watch without any explanation.

  “Emma!” he raised his voice. She looked at him again, her eyes searching his face as if to read his thoughts by the set of his features.

  “I wanted it,” she replied at last, in a clear, unemotional voice, “because it was yours.”

  “Because it was mine! What do you mean?” Her response confused him momentarily.

  “Because it was yours and that made it...special.”

  “That’s ridiculous! I want a proper explanation.”

  “Have the damned watch!” She threw it towards him in a petulant gesture. It struck his neck and fell to the floor. She turned to leave, but he instinctively moved after her and took her by one arm. She turned around raising her other hand but, in a second, he held that too. He was about to speak again when he saw the look in her eyes. The desire they expressed was unmistakable. Shades of past dream enveloped him. He felt a sudden awareness of how close she was to him, and he thought he detected a movement in her body that brought her even closer. Rather than releasing his grip he tightened it. It was then that she lifted her lips tentatively to his. His overwhelming physical consciousness blotted out all other consciousness. He felt only the tautness of her body and saw only the changing expressions on her face.

  Alex barely recalled the sequence of events that overtook him. What he did remember was that once he had released her arms, she had raised her hands to his chest as if to push him away. But he had easily over-mastered her. He also recalled some of the things he had said. He wished he could forget them. They had not been endearments.

  One of the cats strolled nonchalantly back into the study. Emma was sitting on the settee pulling up her socks, which had bunched up around her ankles. Alex stood with his back to her looking out through the curtains which he had just parted.

  “What’s its name?”

  “Pardon?”

  “The cat.”

  Alex looked around. “That’s Dahlia. The other’s Daisy. The names came with the cats.”

  Emma put out her hands and Dahlia rubbed his head against it and purred vibrantly.

  Alex looked at her, wondering quite what it was that he had done.

  “Shall I make some coffee?” she asked, still stroking the cat.

  “I don’t drink coffee in the evening.”

  “Never mind.” She got up and went into the kitchen. He poured himself a whisky and then put it down untasted.

  “Leave the damned coffee!” he shouted down the corridor.

  Emma returned.

  “Would you like a drink?” He spoke quietly.

  “Port?”

  He pour
ed her a small glass of port.

  She tasted it carefully. “I’ve never tried port before.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have it now.”

  Emma made no reply. She seemed strangely relaxed and poised. He expected some sort of reaction, but none came. She simply sipped the port. At last he spoke.

  “Emma.”

  “Yes.”

  “You know that we mustn’t...”

  He stopped as her saw her raise that slim, white hand of hers.

  “Don’t say anything.” She drained her glass quickly. “Can I have another?”

  “No.”

  She smiled for just a second and then said, “My mother will be concerned.” She went to where the watch still lay on the floor and bent down to pick it up, “It’s still working.” She handed it to him and he took it and turned to put it on the mantel piece. He remained looking down into the fire until he heard the click of the front door shutting.

  Alex stayed in that room with the dying embers of the fire until the next morning. During that time he drank nearly half a bottle of whisky and reached none of the conclusions that he wanted. In the first flush of inebriation he tried to see Emma as cast in the same mould as Jennifer Avery. He knew the initial move could not have been his. Emma, with her dowdy clothes and pale complexion had never attracted him sexually. The first move must have been hers. Yet she was no seductress. She had clearly been totally inexperienced. Whatever Emma may have done to throw him off balance emotionally, the physical consequences had been entirely his own responsibility. In a court of law he could hardly defend himself on the grounds that he had been aroused by the look in her eyes. Alex was left with an unpleasant image of himself as the lecherous seducer of innocence.

  “You have to fall out of love with someone before you know if you love them at all,” Grace Tomlinson was saying to her daughter in a matter of fact voice. “Being in love is like being drunk. It can give you a wonderful feeling of elation – which, incidentally, some people get addicted to – but it is only when you sober up that your judgement is reliable. Once I stopped being in love with your father I realised that I didn’t even like him. By then, of course, we were married. You see, you fall out of love when you get to know someone properly and all the magic disappears. Your father was a difficult man to get to know, so it took me a long time to come to my senses. I was always fond of him of course.”

  At Emma’s request Grace often spoke about her husband and Emma never tired of hearing the same things said. The memories she had of her father were vague. She knew that he had been fair-haired with a boyish face and that he had laughed a lot. He had left before she was eight, but she couldn’t recall having seen much of him when he was there.

  “Were you sad when he left?” Emma had asked this question before and she knew the answer. Her mother replied in the same tone as before.

  “Of course. He was my husband, Emma. You marry for better or worse. Naturally one hopes for plenty of the better. Anyway, Peter was always charming company. He never lost that charm so it was difficult to dislike him. He was a silly man, that’s all. But I was silly for being taken in by him.” Grace pulled the blanket up onto her lap and looked at Emma. “Anyway, my girl, you should be at school, not sitting here talking to me all morning.”

  Emma shrugged her shoulders. “There’s nothing happening today anyway.”

  “I just don’t want you neglecting your work because of me. That wouldn’t be doing either of us any favours.”

  Emma didn’t reply. It seemed infinitely more worthwhile to spend time with her mother rather than sitting at school staring out of the window and ignoring the drone of Mr Mortimer’s voice. In the past few weeks her mother’s illness had manifested itself more clearly in the lines of her face and the shadows under her eyes. They both knew that her days were numbered and Emma didn’t want to waste any more time than she had to on the trivial pursuit of academic qualifications. If it hadn’t been for Alex Dowding she would have wanted to abandon school altogether, although she knew her mother would not approve of this idea.

  Grace Tomlinson’s illness had been diagnosed less than three months ago, but since then its progress had been fast and devastating. Emma suspected that her mother had known something was wrong for some time before she eventually went to the doctor. Even now she was unwilling to receive any treatment other than something to relieve the pain, although it was doubtful that much more could have been done in any case. Grace bore her illness with the fortitude and good humour that Emma had always so admired. Emma had the utmost respect for her mother, although the relationship between them was that of good friends. She had never before kept a secret from her. Even when she had done something she was ashamed of she would confess to her mother and with her firm but gently chiding receive absolution. Now she knew that it would not be fair to confide in her anymore.

  “What makes people married?” she asked suddenly, coming out of her reverie.

  “That’s a silly question!”

  “Well. Answer it anyway.”

  “The marriage service of course.”

  “What, in church or in a registry office?”

  “I expect either would do.”

  “Does it count if you don’t consummate it?”

  Her mother laughed at this question. “You do come out with some funny ideas, Emma.”

  “I thought that you could annul a relationship that wasn’t consummated,” persisted Emma. “Isn’t that what the Catholic Church says?”

  “I really don’t know. You expect me to know everything. You’ll need to get used to making up your own mind on these things.”

  “Well, if a marriage doesn’t count unless it had been consummated then doesn’t it mean that the act of consummation is the most significant thing?”

  “There is more to marriage than that.”

  “Oh, I know. But that’s what makes two people one flesh or whatever it says in the Bible.”

  “I don’t see what you are getting at.”

  “Well, just that the wedding service is not as important as the consummation. The service is just a formality. A sort of pre-consummation celebration with lots of champagne!”

  Grace Tomlinson laughed. “Or even a post-conception celebration! I’m afraid that consummation, as you so nicely put it, doesn’t always have anything to do with marriage at all. Still, they ought to teach you about these sorts of things at school. Don’t you get any religious instruction these days?”

  “I told you school was a waste of time,” Emma yawned.

  “You can’t possibly be tired. You’ve not done a thing all day.”

  “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  In fact Emma had lain awake for most of the night reliving the events of the day. She had sat in the park trying to ignore the cold until late afternoon, by which time it had started to rain lightly. For a while she had just watched the people who came there to walk their dogs, but it wasn’t long before she was thinking about Alex Dowding. Eventually she worked herself up to such a peak of emotional turmoil that she felt that she had to do something to stop herself going mad. Her obsession was so overwhelming that it even made her forget her mother’s illness. Her fear of evoking his contempt was pushed to the back of her mind. The point was that she loved him. How could feelings that were essentially good ever cause harm? Surely it was paltry to conceal these feelings simply because she did not wish to get her pride hurt? This masochistic desire to expose herself to his scorn was probably the inevitable result of the rather idealistic and self-sacrificial approach to love she had learnt from Grace.

  Emma knew where Mr Dowding lived because his house was in the lane that led to the park and she went passed it whenever she and her mother decided to go for a walk. She had actually seen him in the garden on one or two occasions. He also happened to have a particularly distinctive car and that car was in the drive when she approached his house this time. His presence within was confirmed by the gleam of light through the curtains. Her determ
ination carried her along like an automaton up to the point where she rang the bell and committed herself to the encounter and then it evaporated, leaving her to cope with the awesome prospect of explaining herself to Mr Dowding. She entered the house feeling a little bewildered. It was as if the emotional energy she had expended in reaching the decision to see him had left her dazed and faint and now everything was happening in a dream.

  The room she had been ushered into was pictured with astonishing clarity in her mind. She hadn’t seemed to notice it at the time, but now she could clearly visualize the big leather settee and the desk by the window strewn with papers and books. More books were stacked on the shelves that covered the whole of one wall. The room was disordered but it had a comfortable feel to it. Not that she had felt particularly comfortable at the time. She had only sat down because she was told to and didn’t have the presence of mind to do anything else.