Awake and Dreaming

by Kit Pearson

  Theo’s voice finally worked properly. “Then you’re a ghost,” she shuddered. She tried to make her legs run away, but they were rubber.

  “I suppose so, although I prefer the word ‘spirit’ to ‘ghost.’ But there you are, I’m just being particular about words as usual.” Her expression was yearning. “You’re the first person who has ever seen me—imagine that! I haven’t talked to a living soul for forty years! Why don’t you come and sit down, Theo?”

  She didn’t look like a ghost. She wasn’t transparent or white or any of the ways ghosts looked in movies or comics.

  Cecily looked exactly the same as she had the last two times. She was wearing the same pants and baggy coat, her hair was still messy and her eyes were still sad. Theo’s skin crawled with fear, but she couldn’t help feeling curious and excited as well. She stayed where she was, but she dropped to the grass, clutching her trembling legs.

  “How do you know my name?” she whispered.

  Cecily sat down on the step and smiled. “I heard your mother call you Theo on the ferry. It’s a good, strong name—it has a real ring of individuality to it.”

  “I saw you watching us.”

  “You saw me there as well? I wondered, because you kept looking at me, but I wasn’t sure. If you could see me I apologize for staring at you like that. I often travel on the ferry and watch people. It used to be my best place for getting ideas.”

  “Ideas?”

  “Ideas for books. I was a writer.” Her expression became even sadder.

  “I know,” said Theo. “I’ve read both of your books.”

  “I hoped you would. That’s why I put one where you’d find it.” Cecily looked eager. “Did you—what did you think of them?”

  Theo stopped trembling. “I loved them! My favourite characters were Edward and Gwyneth.”

  “I’m so glad,” said Cecily warmly. “That’s the best part of writing—hearing the reaction of my readers. Or at least, that was the best part.”

  She stood up and paced the grass. Theo tried to keep still. When Cecily moved, she did seem like a ghost. Her feet hovered slightly over the grass instead of touching it.

  “You can’t imagine how utterly frustrating it is, Theo, to be cut off from your vocation in the middle of it! There were so many books I wanted to write! My head was bursting with ideas, especially since I started so late. And then to die. To die at age forty-one, just when I had begun to master my craft!”

  “I’m sorry,” whispered Theo.

  “If only I hadn’t waited so long to start,” continued Cecily. “I always wanted to write, but I didn’t have much confidence in myself and it certainly wasn’t something my parents would have approved of. When Father died, I looked after Mother for four years. After her death I changed my whole life.” Her face lost some of its anguish. “There wasn’t much money—my parents weren’t rich, although they took care to associate with people who were. But I was left the house and enough to live on. First I sold all my fancy clothes. Mother had always dressed me, even as an adult. I only wore comfortable slacks after that—I’ve never given a hoot about clothes. Then I finally got started on my first book. What a relief it was! All I did those last years was write and garden—I was perfectly happy. Until I began to feel sick …”

  “Couldn’t you still write?” asked Theo timidly. Then she felt her face redden. “I’m sorry—that was a stupid question.”

  “It’s not stupid,” said Cecily sadly. “I tried. I went into my house and found a pen and tried to write words on paper—but the paper was blank. That was my most despairing moment, looking down and seeing that paper full of nothing.” She sighed deeply. “I can still read, at least. I’ve read most of the books the families who’ve lived in my house have owned. The Kaldors have the best collection.”

  Theo smiled—so that’s why Dan’s books were always misplaced! Smiling made her braver. She tried to ask Cecily what she most wanted to know—but the question was so hard to put into words.

  “Why … why are you here?” she whispered.

  Cecily understood at once. “You mean why haven’t I really died? Why am I not at rest, as I should be?” She sighed again. “It’s because I haven’t written the book I was meant to write. The first two were perfectly adequate—but they weren’t me, they weren’t my story. All the time I was ill a new idea was forming in my mind. I knew it would be my best book.”

  “What was it?”

  “It was about being a lonely child. Being an outcast and yearning for a different kind of life. All the children in my books were so happy, so confident. They hadn’t much inner life. I wanted to write about a child who was true to the child I once was.”

  Cecily began pacing again. “I couldn’t flesh it out, though. I wanted the story to be a fantasy and set in the present time, since I’d written so much about the past. I needed to find a real, modern child to trigger it—someone to inspire me to turn my glimmerings of an idea into a solid story with a beginning, a middle and an end. I looked for that child for years. Every once in a while I’d travel on the ferry and look there. And it gave me something to do. I’d simply go back and forth on the ferry from Victoria to Vancouver, sometimes for months. The last time I did that I saw—”

  “You saw me,” breathed Theo.

  “Yes!” Cecily looked excited. “I saw you and your mother and I moved closer to listen.”

  Theo remembered that terrible argument. Some of the anger she’d felt when she’d first noticed Cecily returned. “I don’t think it’s polite to listen to other people’s conversations,” she said. Then she shrank at her boldness.

  But Cecily laughed. “You’re absolutely right. It’s very rude—but I’ve always done it. I’m incurably nosy. And as soon as I started listening I knew I finally had my story.”

  “What was it?” whispered Theo.

  “I noticed how unhappy and lost you seemed, and I knew from your conversation that you were going to Victoria to live with your aunt—and that you didn’t want to.”

  “No,” whispered Theo.

  “You also looked so dreamy—as if you were off in another world. You were making something up, weren’t you? Fantasizing.”

  “Yes,” said Theo. “I always did, then.”

  Cecily clapped her hands. “I knew it! I did exactly the same when I was a child. My parents were very correct and cold. I was lonely but I led a vivid fantasy life inside. When I grew up I turned my fantasies into stories. You’re supposed to stop pretending when you’re an adult—but some of us never do.”

  Theo wished she’d go back to her—to Cecily’s idea about her.

  “I’m digressing, aren’t I? As I was saying, watching you gave me the clue to my story. I thought that you needed a proper family. There’s a family that I’ve watched a lot. You know them. They live in my house.”

  “The Kaldors!”

  “Yes. John and Anna and Lisbeth and Ben. I’ve enjoyed observing their antics and listening to their conversations over the years—they often play in here. I’ve always been drawn to large, happy families, since my own was neither. So I decided you were probably fantasizing about being in such a family—and then you found one!”

  Theo couldn’t speak. She listened tensely, half-guessing what Cecily would say next.

  “In my story you would meet the Kaldors on the ferry and play with them. I knew the sorts of things they did, since they were once on the ferry when I was. Then you’d make a wish on the new moon and be in the family. While you were there you’d be healed. It was going to be a very satisfying story. And I’d set it here—in my childhood home and neighbourhood.”

  The excitement left Cecily’s face. “The trouble is, I couldn’t work out the dynamics in my head. It was easy to imagine all the things you’d do while you lived with them—how they’d buy you clothes, how secure and loved you would become. But there were so many flaws. The transition to the family was too easy. It wasn’t believable that you’d just wish for something and get it. You
r time there was too happy. There wasn’t enough conflict, although I tried to create some in an incident when you got into trouble for going downtown. And I couldn’t figure out what happened to your mother, or how—or if—you’d go back to her.”

  Cecily gazed at the sea. “It was the story I’d wanted to write all my life. You seemed so much like me as a child. I recognized your yearning so much.”

  When she turned around, her expression was despairing. “But it was just an idea! It was only in my head. It will never be a real book. I could have worked it out on paper. It would have changed a lot if I’d been able to write it down. But of course I can never do that.”

  Theo had trouble breathing. “Cecily …” she croaked. She stood up and faced her. “Your idea did work. I did go into the family.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Everything happened just like you said! I was always thinking about families, ones with four children and a mother and father. And I met the Kaldors on the ferry and they were perfect—exactly what I wanted!”

  Cecily looked astonished. “They were on the ferry? You talked to them?”

  “Yes! I wished I could live with them and I did! I belonged to their family until Easter. It was wonderful. The most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me! But then I started not to be there … to sort of fade … and then I was back on the ferry with Rae.”

  “Well, I’ll be … that’s incredible, Theo! It’s hard to believe.”

  It was hard to believe she was standing in the cemetery talking to a ghost, too, thought Theo.

  “But how did it happen?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. There’s no point in trying to explain these things,” Cecily said slowly. “I think your time with the Kaldors must have been a combination of both of our fantasies—mine and yours.”

  “It did seem weird that I just wished to be there, and that they accepted me so easily. I couldn’t decide if it was a dream or magic,” said Theo.

  Cecily mused on this. “I think it was both. An idea is like a dream—a dream of what could be. Your fantasy of being in a family was a dream—a wish, a daydream. And stories are magic. I’m so glad it happened, Theo, that you really belonged to such a special family for a while.”

  “But I couldn’t stay!” burst out Theo. That seemed Cecily’s fault.

  “No … You faded away just as my idea faded away—when I couldn’t solve the main problem of the story, that your time in the family was too perfect. Real life isn’t perfect, and good fiction has to seem like real life.”

  “I liked it being perfect!” protested Theo.

  “But you found the Kaldors again, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but it’s not the same! They aren’t perfect any more and I don’t belong to them—I’m just their friend, not their sister.”

  “Friends are very valuable,” said Cecily. “Like gold. I never had many—you’re lucky. I was so surprised to see you with those four children, Theo. To see you again! I watched you playing here with them and I saw you looking out of the window of their house last week.”

  “I saw you, too,” whispered Theo. “Did you cover me up?”

  “Yes,” said Cecily gently. “I don’t usually go upstairs, but I couldn’t resist getting a longer look at you. Then I wished you could read my books, so I put one in the living-room.”

  They exchanged smiles. But then Theo glanced at the plot and shivered as she tried to reconcile Cecily being buried there and Cecily sitting across from her.

  “Are there other ghosts here?” she asked in a wavery voice.

  “I haven’t seen any. It’s a myth that cemeteries are full of ghosts. If people linger on after they die, they linger in the places that meant the most to them. But this was my place. I came here every day of my life. At the end of it, it soothed me to know I’d be buried here.”

  She stood up and beckoned Theo over to her grave. “Do you like my inscription? I left instructions for it in my will. An open book … that’s all that will save us, I think.”

  Sometimes Cecily was hard to understand. “Save who—from what?” asked Theo.

  “I think an open book symbolizes imagination. Only imagination will save people from their narrow, cramped expectations of life—like those my parents had.” She chuckled. “But enough of my philosophizing. When you’ve done nothing but think for forty years you get pretty pedantic.”

  They stood there in silence, Theo as close to Cecily as she dared. Something told her it wouldn’t be right to touch her.

  Beyond the plot brilliant yellow broom tumbled down the bank. The warming sun drew out its bitter odour. “I should go back,” said Theo. “They’ll wonder where I am.”

  “I’ll come part of the way with you,” said Cecily. She glided beside Theo as far as the entrance, her feet making no sound on the pavement. Theo’s shadow stretched in front of her in the slanting morning light—but Cecily had no shadow.

  Theo turned at the hedge. “Will I see you again?”

  “I don’t know,” said Cecily. “I hope so. Perhaps you will if you really need to.” She smiled sadly. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be here now, Theo. I found the story I was looking for—and I’m so amazed and delighted that it touched you. Now there’s only one more thing I need to find.” She looked intently at Theo. “It’s been extremely pleasant talking to you, dear child. Thank you for listening. Go on now, before the Kaldors get up.”

  “Goodbye,” whispered Theo. She ran across the street, then she turned around to wave. But Cecily had gone.

  20

  Theo sat in a daze at breakfast. She had got back just in time to slip into bed before Ben wandered in and ordered someone to give him some cereal.

  Had the incredible time she’d just spent been a dream? Had Cecily been a dream? Theo could still hear the angular woman’s musical voice and see her long hands emphasize her words as she talked. She knew she’d been real.

  Well, not real … a ghost. A ghost writer! Theo told herself gleefully.

  She yawned for the rest of the day, glad that Dan took them to a movie and she didn’t have to talk much. She had no idea what the movie was about. She went over and over Cecily’s conversation, trying to remember every word.

  When she said goodbye after dinner, she surprised the family by giving each of them a hug. The Kaldors seemed like characters that Cecily had created. Of course they were real—more real now than they had been in that magic time. But if it wasn’t for Cecily, Theo would never have met them.

  Late that night the apartment buzzer wakened Theo. She heard Sharon struggle out of bed to answer it. “Who is it? Oh! Come right up!”

  The light went on in the living-room. Theo floated in and out of sleep as the door opened and someone came in. “You’re soaked!” she heard Sharon say. There were whispers and shushes and quick footsteps. Theo sat up as Sharon began to close her door. “I’m awake.”

  “You are? Then you may as well get up. It’s your mother.”

  “Hi, kid,” said Rae. She was rubbing her hair with a towel. Her bare feet were red; sopping socks were heaped beside them. Her backpack and a battered suitcase stood by the door.

  “I’ll make some cocoa,” said Sharon. She began heating up milk while Theo continued to stand and stare at her mother. When Rae babbled about how hard it was raining, Theo sat down beside her aunt, as far away from Rae as she could get.

  “I’m glad you’ve finally come to visit, Mary Rae,” said Sharon, her voice chilly. “We haven’t heard from you for so long.”

  Rae looked at them, her wet curls making her head look small. “I’ve left Cal,” she said bluntly. “I had nowhere to live so I quit my job and came here.”

  Sharon looked shaken. “Oh … but the last ferry gets in at 10:30. Where have you been all this time?”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d want me. So I sat in a restaurant on Douglas Street until it closed, then I walked over. Can I stay for a while?”

  Some of Sharon’s coldness melted. “Y
ou shouldn’t wander around alone at this time of night—it’s dangerous! Of course you can stay.”

  Rae fumbled with her cigarette package. “I’m not living with that pig any more. I can’t believe I ever saw anything in him.”

  Sharon glanced at Theo. “We can talk about it later. You go back to bed, Theo. I’ll get out the foamie.” Her voice was exhausted.

  Theo tried to listen to Rae and Sharon through the closed door, but all she could hear was the roll of foam being dragged out of the cupboard, then silence.

  Rae. How long was she going to stay? Would she make Theo go back to Vancouver with her? Angry tears began to slip down Theo’s face. Just as she’d found the Kaldors—just as she’d found Cecily—her mother had to come along and spoil everything.

  CAL HAD STARTED DRINKING too much; that was all Theo knew. Rae would have told her more, but Sharon stopped her every time she tried. “That’s not suitable for a child to hear,” she said. Theo was grateful; she didn’t want to hear more. She shut her ears to the long whispered conversations Rae and Sharon had after she was in bed.

  The only thing she wanted to know was how long Rae was going to stay. Every day Theo and Sharon arrived home to find the apartment filled with smoke and Rae sprawled in front of the TV. They waited tensely for her to tell them her plans. Sharon acted more and more irritated with her sister. She no longer tried to please her, as she had when Rae had first brought Theo here.

  On Friday they were sitting on the couch after dinner when Sharon stood up and switched off the TV. “What are you going to do, Mary Rae? You can’t stay here forever. This apartment is too small for three people.”

  Rae looked apologetic. “I know, I know. Just give me a bit more time.”

  “Do you want to talk to a counsellor? Karen at work knows someone who—”

  Rae took out a cigarette. “I’ll figure this out on my own, okay?”

  Sharon took a deep breath. “You don’t seem to be figuring anything out! All you do is watch TV and smoke. I’ve been figuring some things out, Mary Rae. From now on I want you to only smoke on the balcony. It’s not good for Theo to breathe secondhand smoke. And while you’re here I think you should pick her up at school every day. It would save me the cost of after-school day care.” Her voice became even shriller. “And you could contribute something for food. You must have some money. Don’t you realize I’ve been supporting your child all this time?”