Ghosts and Other Lovers

by Lisa Tuttle

  I willed myself to be happy, and I was. We both were. Our new life together was different and satisfying, and even though, after three years, there was no sign of a child and I was nearly forty, I was determined we would be happy ever after.

  So I felt no intimations of danger when I noticed the stranger in the bar of our local hotel that August evening, even though he was looking at me. I thought marriage, contentment, and age all protected me from romance. There were lines on my face, gray in my hair, and my body had thickened with the passage of years. So I looked back at the stranger, feeling quite safe, and accepted his offer of a drink. Angus was just the other side of the room, playing billiards. I was friendly in the way you can be when you expect everyone to know you’re married.

  He was handsome: gray eyes in a lean, clean-shaven face; fair hair pulled back into a ponytail; a long, strong-looking body. He had the sort of self-confidence that expects, and gets, a warm welcome wherever it goes, and he must have been at least ten years younger than me. I was flattered by his attention, no longer the young woman who would have taken it as her due.

  I can’t remember the first thing he said to me, how we got started, but before very long he was telling me a story. There was a lilt to his voice, the trace of an accent which made me think he might have grown up speaking Gaelic, and it was as much a pleasure to listen as to look at him.

  “Long ago,” he said, “and far away, in the land of the ever-young, a great prince by the name of Midhir fell in love with a woman so beautiful, so fair to look upon, that she was known always as The Fair Woman. But when he took her back to his palace to be his wife there was another woman there who was jealous and turned The Fair Woman into a butterfly and summoned up a magical wind which blew her about the land for seven times seven years, never allowing her a moment’s rest. It blew her finally out of the land of the ever-young, into the world of mortal men, and then across the sea, and then at last into the garden of a house where a woman sat in company, eating and drinking beneath the trees. The butterfly was blown into the woman’s cup and the woman saw this but was unable to stop herself from swallowing it with her drink. Some months later this woman, whose name was Rona, gave birth to a daughter and named her Elaine. And Elaine grew up to be as fair as The Fair Woman, yet never knowing her true origins — except as she might glimpse them in dreams — and with no idea that her husband, Midhir, loved and searched for her still.”

  The man stopped speaking and watched me. I was confused and upset and didn’t like to show it. Anyone could have told him — although I hadn’t — that my name was Elaine, but only Angus, in this company, knew my mother’s name. And not even Angus knew my mother’s story — one of the embarrassments of my childhood — about swallowing a butterfly in a glass of beer and then imagining, when she felt my first movements in her womb that same day, that it was the butterfly trapped inside her. I looked into my wine, smiling vaguely. “Nice story. Did you make it up?”

  “Of course not. It’s true.” His eyes met mine and I felt a warm, intimate tingle accompanying the certainty that we really did know one another, were already lovers on some other level, in some other time and place… . Uh-oh. I knew what that meant, although I hadn’t felt it in years. That unexpected, unwilled response made me nervous, and I was gracelessly abrupt.

  “I’m married.”

  “You’re married here. In the land of the ever-young you were married to me.”

  “Ah, but that was in another country, and, besides, The Fair Woman is dead.”

  “Not dead. In that country no one ever dies; everyone is young and strong, without blemish, sin, or guilt. Fair Woman, will you come with me there to reign beside me as my queen?”

  If he was crazy, it was a most attractive madness. But if this was his usual pickup line, surely he could see I was too old for fairy tales. I wondered what he’d do if I said yes. Take me up to his room? Row me out to his yacht, at anchor in the harbor? A little devil inside urged me to accept, just to see what excuse he’d come up with for not being able to take me to his magical country this instant. But I knew too well how affairs got started, and how they always ended. Flirtation with this man was too risky. I knew I wouldn’t be tempted if I wasn’t seriously attracted. I couldn’t even think up a teasing refusal, just shook my head and repeated, “I’m married.”

  “Would your husband give you to me?”

  I nearly choked on my wine. “We’re not that sort of people!”

  “If he sold you, would you leave him?”

  “He wouldn’t. He couldn’t. Women aren’t bought and sold here — I don’t know what it’s like in your country.”

  “My country is your country. There is no buying or selling there, no thine or mine. Please, won’t you come with me there?” I felt such yearning for him as he spoke — for his fantasy or for his body was something I couldn’t distinguish — that I could only cope by walking away.

  “Sorry,” I said, brusquely, getting up. “I’m flattered, of course, but you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

  I couldn’t get Midhir or his story out of my head. I remembered my mother’s story of how she became aware that she was pregnant with me after swallowing a butterfly, and I wondered if she’d read the same book Midhir had plundered for his chatup line. I went to our little local library the next day and told Maire Mackenzie the story that the stranger had told me.

  ” ‘The Wooing of Etain,’ ” the librarian said. “It’s an old Irish story.”

  “I’d like to read it.”

  I expected her to fill out a card — most books I’d expressed interest in had to be requested from other libraries — but she went straight to the shelves. “Here’s a version for children, and it’s quoted in a couple of the local guidebooks.”

  “Local? You said it was Irish.”

  “So were the Dalriadan kings. We share a common culture, and we’re close enough for there to have been lots of sea-crossings in the old days. When Deirdre had to get away, it was to the west coast of Scotland that she came. Do you know how Sliabh Gaoil got its name?”

  “I don’t even know what it is.”

  “Of course you do; your house is in its shadow. Sliabh is the Gaelic for mountain. ‘Sliabh Gaoil’ means ‘the lovers’ mountain,’ and the lovers who are remembered in that name might well have been Etain and Midhir. Ah.” She pulled a shabby green volume from the collection of books about the area. “Etain and Midhir are connected, by local tradition, with a chambered cairn in the Achaglachgach Forest.”

  My stomach constricted with surprise. Angus and I lived in the Achaglachgach Forest. “Is that the cairn called the White Lady’s Grave?”

  Maire wrinkled her nose. “Who calls it that?”

  “One of our neighbors. She’s lived on the edge of that forest forever. Angus and I noticed there was a chambered cairn marked on the map, and wondered if we’d be able to find it, and she said there was a stone sticking out the side of it that the locals called the door, and supposedly if you rapped on it after moonrise on a night of the full moon the King of the Fairies would open and give you your heart’s desire. Anyway, Angus and I walked up there one afternoon. It’s quite an easy walk. But except for the standing stone there’s nothing much to see. If I hadn’t known what it was I would have thought it was just a hillock.”

  “You wouldn’t have recognized it as an entrance to Fairyland?”

  “Is it? Gosh, imagine having it so close!”

  “Oh, it’s not unique. They all are, all the old tumuli. That’s why the fairies were called the sidh, or the people of the mounds — the mounds themselves are sidh. That term isn’t as common here as in Ireland, but your cairn is called, Sidh Ban Finn. Is there something wrong?”

  Her calling it “your cairn” had made me shiver, but I shrugged it off. “Goose on my grave. What does ‘shee baan finn’ mean?”

  “Well, it doesn’t mean ‘white lady.’ It’s the sidh of The Fair Woman.”

  Midhir, according to the children
’s book, is the King of the Fairies. After losing his wife, he finds her dwelling, reborn as a mortal woman, wife of the High King Eochy. She refuses to go away with the stranger unless her husband gives her to him. Midhir challenges Eochy to a game of chess and, losing, performs a number of magical tasks for the king until, finally, Midhir wins a game, and asks as his reward a kiss from Etain. Although unwilling, Eochy can see no honorable way out and so agrees. As soon as Midhir has his arms around Etain the two rise into the air and become a pair of swans flying away.

  The children’s story ended there, but one of the guidebooks gave more of it, complete with variant endings.

  Eochy now searched everywhere for his wife, just as Midhir once had done, and eventually learned from a druid that she was being held in Midhir’s royal palace, which appeared to human eyes as the Sidh Ban Finn. Eochy took his men and they began to dig it up, but whatever they dug up one day would be filled in again the next, so they made no progress. Yet the battle took its toll upon Midhir, too, and after nine years he appeared and offered to give up Etain. He then sent his wife, with fifty handmaidens, back to the king, magically making them all look exactly alike. In one version, Eochy was able to recognize his wife because she gave him a sign; in another, he mistakenly chose his own daughter, and made her pregnant before he learned the truth.

  It was all more complicated than the simple love story the stranger had told me. It was not exactly a huge shock to discover that the jealous woman at the fairy court who cast the first spell was actually Midhir’s first wife.

  *

  Now I knew more about the story, but nothing about the stranger, or why he’d told it to me. Could it be that he’d thought I’d recognize it? It wasn’t impossible that someone might have told him where I lived, recommending us for B&B, and a glance at the map would have shown how close we were to the Sidh Ban Finn. Tourists always expected locals to know everything about the area, not realizing we had other things to do than read guidebooks and explore ancient monuments. Maybe he’d expected me to correct him, and was waiting for me to say, “But I’m Elaine, not Etain,” so he could put out his hand saying, “And I’m Mather, not Midhir; Peter Mather, from Donegal.”

  It could be that he wasn’t even attracted to me at all, that he was just one of those attractive young men who flirts, as a matter of course, with anything female. That thought gave me a terrible, hollow sensation, and I knew I must not see him again.

  When Angus next suggested going out for a drink I had too much to do in the house, or there was something on television I particularly wanted to see. He stayed home with me the first two times, but on the third night he went out alone, and came home looking both puzzled and pleased with himself. He told me the story:

  A stranger had challenged him to a game of pool, winner to declare the stakes. Angus, when he won, tried to laugh it off, saying he never played for money.

  “Nor I,” said the stranger. “But ask me for something, anything I can give you. Surely there must be some task you want done?”

  “He wouldn’t be put off,” Angus told me. “When I tried, you’d have thought I was insulting him. We were that close to a fight. So I said there was something I could use a hand with, if he really meant it — our garage needs a roof. Well, you know we could wait half the year before Duncan gets around to helping me with it, whereas this Mither, or whatever his name is, will be here tomorrow. So what’s the harm? It might turn out he’ll let me pay him something in the end, or I could find some other jobs that want doing and pay him for those. Could be he’s really looking for work.”

  “Could be he’s looking for something else,” I said.

  “What do you mean? He seemed honest to me.”

  Seeming honest was the con man’s stock in trade, of course. Away from the city, how quickly we’d forgotten. But a man who presented himself as a prince from another world was not someone to be trusted. I said nothing of my own emotions, but now I told Angus the story Midhir had told me.

  “So you’re saying it was all a ploy on his part to get another look at my wife? It would serve him right if you stayed in the house all day and never showed your face … or, better yet, went away to Glasgow shopping.”

  The little, internal lurch of disappointment I felt at the thought of doing that told me how much I wanted to see Midhir again. It was a warning I disregarded. “No, I’m not saying that. Why would he tell me that story? He couldn’t expect me to believe it.”

  Angus shrugged. “He’s Irish. The gift of the blarney, and there’s something fey about him … maybe he believes it’s true. He’s young… .”

  “At least ten years younger than me, maybe more. That’s my point. Why chat me up?”

  My husband put an arm around me. “You were the most beautiful woman in the bar that night, as you are every night. Ten years from now you’ll still be inspiring young poets like him to flights of fancy. And I hope you’ll still be mine.”

  “Of course.” I thought I could will it to be true.

  The first glance from Midhir’s gray eyes when I opened the door to him next morning pierced me with sweet pain and I began to smile. My hands and feet felt very far away. I was full of bubbles, lighter than air. Angus came through and took Midhir out to show him what wanted doing to the garage and I said, “I’ll make the tea,” and grinned and grinned like an idiot in the empty kitchen.

  I felt wonderful. I realized that before I met Midhir, I had scarcely been alive, just surviving. All day, I kept singing to myself as I started one task and then abandoned it for another, unable to concentrate, unable to care, not worried about a thing. Life was grand. All day I scarcely saw him, but was aware of him, the way you’re aware of a warm fire in the corner of a room, or the sun in the sky. He was there, the most important thing in my world.

  I managed to cook a meal — not one of my better efforts — and served it in the evening, and as the wine flowed, so did my feelings, overflowing into the looks I could not stop exchanging with him. I wanted to touch him but could not, not with Angus there between us. At first his mere presence was enough, but as the evening wore on I began to feel restless, wanting more.

  After we’d eaten, Midhir challenged my husband to a game of chess.

  “I suppose the stakes are the same as before?” asked Angus. “Winner to name the forfeit?”

  “If you agree,” said Midhir.

  “Oh, aye. There’s lots of odd jobs that want doing around here. I’d be happy to pay to have them done.”

  “Some things can’t be bought or sold, they can only be won or lost.”

  “As you wish,” said Angus, and went to get his chess set.

  I said nothing while he was gone, and Midhir gazed at the tabletop and not at me. We were in suspense. The air was heavy with anticipation. As if we were listening to a story, there was nothing we could do to hurry it along or change the eventual outcome.

  Rather to my surprise — although I knew he had played competitively when younger — Angus won the game.

  “Name the stake,” said Midhir.

  Angus frowned in thought. I wondered if I should remind him that we’d been meaning to put a new ceiling in the kitchen, or suggest repainting the entire house. I wanted a job that would bring Midhir back here day after day — and surely the young man wanted the same. But then Angus said that the spare room’s light fitting needed replacing.

  “I’ll do it now,” said the young man.

  I gave a cry of disappointment, and when they both looked at me I had to fumble for a reason. “You can’t — not now. You shouldn’t fool around with electricity; not when you’ve both been drinking.”

  “For goodness’ sake, woman, it’s only a light fitting,” said Angus. “I’m not asking him to rewire the house.”

  He was done in a quarter of an hour. I had the brandy bottle and three glasses out by then.

  “Another game?” said Angus.

  “Stakes to be decided as before.”

  “Aye.”

 
I drank two glasses of brandy and then heard Midhir say, “Checkmate.” And suddenly suspected that in spite of my husband’s skill at chess Midhir could have won the first game as easily as this one, if he’d wanted to. Looking at him, I could see Angus thinking the same thing. The room was very quiet as we waited to hear the forfeit.

  “I want your wife in my arms and a kiss from her lips. This is all I ask.”

  “That’s not fair! I mean, you can’t ask me for something that isn’t mine to give.”

  “Then I ask you to give her permission to give herself to me.”

  I felt a fluttering deep inside, as if it were the butterfly my mother had swallowed. I didn’t dare look at Midhir, afraid my desire for him would be too blatant.

  “Elaine doesn’t need my permission. She’s not my property; she’s a free woman. Ask me for something else.”

  “There’s nothing else I want.”

  “Then it’s Elaine you should have challenged, not me.”

  Both men were watching me. I felt a childish fury at Angus for making this so difficult, yet knowing I would have been even more furious had he dared to treat me as his property. And much greater than any anger, discomfort, or embarrassment was the powerful longing I felt to give Midhir the kiss he wanted, to be held in his arms, to be his, however briefly.

  I went to him and he put his arms around me. As we kissed, I became aware of a sound like a great beating of wings around us, and I felt myself begin to rise.

  And then I was standing on the floor of the sitting room, looking at Midhir, who was backing away from me. He looked confused; for a moment I thought he was going to stumble, but he recovered himself and sketched a brief, courtly bow to Angus.

  “Thank you for your hospitality. I must go now.”

  “I’ll show you out,” said Angus. I saw by the careful way he held himself and didn’t look at me that he was hurt but wouldn’t make an issue of it. Least said, soonest mended. That was one of his sensible mottoes, and his dislike of emotional postmortems had been very attractive to me after involvements with men who’d insisted on analyzing every disagreement or hurt feeling throughout our affairs. Yes, I thought, you’re hurt now but you’ll soon get over it; we’ll both recover and our marriage will go on as before. After all, it was only a kiss.