The Ballerina and the Revolutionary

by Voiez, Carmilla

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I whispered.

  ‘She wanted to be free. That house was filled with ghosts and terrors ... she told me. She wanted me to heal her, but before we really started she changed direction and wanted to be me. I warned her, what I do would take time and needed a healthy mind, but she wouldn’t listen.’

  I listened and as I did pictures formed in my mind - my mother, foolish girl, rushing from one thought to another in a whirlwind of madness. I nodded to show Scott I understood, but he remained on his knees before me, holding my face; so I asked him to continue.

  ‘Well, maybe she wanted to fail, I don’t know, but she tried to initiate herself. It’s intense stuff, Crow. Only strong minds can get through the trials.’

  There was no pride or arrogance in his words, only simple explanation. Where his words led I tried to follow, but they were misty, obscure and I found myself lost in a labyrinth. Frustration built inside me as I saw how his use of language concealed the truth rather than revealing it. It reminded me of the diaries and my frustration grew into an intense heat.

  Through gritted teeth, I growled at him. ‘What the fuck are you talking about, Scott?’

  He released his hold and stared at me in shock. His natural calm wavered against the onslaught of my anger. ‘Your mum felt she should be a shaman. She took psychedelics and buried herself in her garden. She wanted to visit the spirit world.’

  ‘Buried herself?’

  ‘It’s what the ancient shamans used to do. I guess she read it somewhere. Perhaps she lost her mind.’

  ‘There wasn’t much left to lose,’ I told him.

  Scott nodded. ‘When she clawed her way out of the hole, who knows how much later, she grabbed her spade and ran into the road. A car hit her then ricocheted into a wall. A fourteen year old passenger died – a girl.’

  ‘That’s why they locked her up?’ I asked. I wondered why Tomas had never told me this story.

  ‘They did a psych assessment. But ... she ... she also told them she’d killed before.’

  ‘Who?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know. Maybe they’ll have a record at the hospital.’

  Scott’s arms hung limply at his sides. Having broken eye contact, he stared at my feet. My legs did not quite touch the floor and swung to and fro under his gaze. For reasons I could not fathom I felt suddenly ashamed and held them still.

  ‘What do you know about the ghosts?’ I asked.

  ‘She didn’t say much really. Just that she was afraid, but it feels like a house full of painful memories,’ he told my boots.

  I looked at the crown of his head and the dreadlocks starting to form at the roots of his matted blond hair. Rage and a strange, unwelcome, desire bubbled inside me. I wanted to stretch out my leg and use it to push his face up then I wanted to slam my heel into his mouth. My feet started swinging again. ‘I see them too.’ I waited for a reaction, but he hardly moved. He looked serene like the statue of a saint, folded neatly into a posture of prayer or supplication. He wasn’t praying though. ‘Stop looking at my damn feet! What’s wrong with you, Scott? You seem ... fuck I don’t know - spaced out. You’re supposed to be consoling me, not the other fucking way around. Explain it to me. Why am I seeing ghosts?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I guess I’m ... shocked. Your mum, I dunno, but for some reason I thought she’d outlive us all. The ghosts though, I don’t know why you see the ghosts Crow, don’t you?’

  At last he looked at my face. I felt like crumpling under the weight of his sad eyes and I wished he’d look at my boots again, but didn’t voice the request. ‘I think they’re trying to show me something. I’ve seen my Nanny, but ... then again, that might have just been my memory. I saw Vivienne beat up my granddad in the shed and Granddad hanging from a noose in the attic. And I’ve felt, god I’ve felt some weird and frightening things. I know why she was scared. I’m scared too, but what can I do?’ I nibbled the tip of my thumb, tearing back thin strips of skin with my teeth. Scott reached for my hand to stop me, but I pulled it away from him, violently. ‘What should I do?’

  ‘I can bless the space. I should have done it before. I was going to the other night, but you ran away. I could sweep it clean. I’ll do it tomorrow if you want.’

  ‘Will it work?’ I asked. ‘I don’t mean to diss you, but ...’

  ‘It will work, but it might not solve everything. How’s Chrissie doing there? Does she see them too?’

  ‘She’s gone.’ I looked at him, wondering what he was thinking about. I counted seconds of silence then broke it myself. ‘She missed her girlfriend.’

  ‘I understand,’ he said.

  It felt like a lie.

  He tried to embrace me again. I wondered whether he expected me to cry again. I didn’t. My tear ducts had dried up over the past twenty years, my grief barren and only extreme rage or desperate sorrow could moisten them. I pushed him away, feeling confused. His closeness made me feel safe, but his touch threw me off kilter.

  ‘So you’re alone again?’

  I looked at him askew. I had never been anything but alone. Why would he ask such a question? ‘I like being alone, but I’d like to be alone without ghosts watching my every move.’

  ‘Ghosts aren’t like that. They’re memories. They can’t see you.’

  ‘Believe me, these fucking can. They interact with me ... speak to me.’

  ‘Sounds like hallucinations.’

  ‘Fuck off!’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I’m not schizophrenic,’ I shouted then wondered whether I was trying to convince him or myself.

  ‘No you’re not.’ He nodded and touched my cheek.

  ‘So why would I have hallucinations?’

  ‘Perhaps you’ve connected to the dream world. Maybe you need to travel with these ghosts and learn what they want to teach you. Do you have many unanswered questions?’

  ‘Oh yes ... thousands.’

  ‘Would you like me to guide you?’

  ‘Like you guided Vivienne?’

  He blushed. ‘No. I told you, she did that alone. I had no part in it and would never suggest you follow in her footsteps, but this is a landscape you can traverse. You will return changed, but stronger, when you accept the truth.’

  ‘Okay,’ I answered. ‘Yes. I’d like you to guide me.’ It felt like a big deal, accepting his help.

  Everything I did, I always felt I did alone, but doing things alone put Vivienne into hospital and Scott seemed to know more about what was happening than I did. Strangely, I felt lighter as though some burden had been lifted from my shoulders and was now shared between the two of us. I smiled.

  We sat, like statues, searching for a conversation light enough to allow us to skim across the deep waters beneath. As if struck by inspiration Scott rose to his feet like a Jack in the box.

  ‘Lunch?’ he asked.

  I smiled again, wider this time, eager to communicate my appreciation. The perfect answer - feed the animals and keep the cages to their minds locked for a while longer.

  34

  After lunch we sat in silence again with steaming cups of green tea clutched in our hands. My body felt weird, as if by indulging one animal need others were nudging me to get my attention. I thought of Vivienne - that would be her answer - a quickie to restore balance. An alien heat burned between my legs and I wondered if I needed to pee, knowing this couldn’t be desire. I never felt desire, only unease and bewilderment when the thought of sex flitted through my mind, flirting with my senses was something I ought to try one day. As always, I pushed and squeezed the thoughts away before they could take hold and make me nauseous, but they refused to leave, settling there, spreading fingers outwards, making my stomach tingle and my bound breasts strain against the swaddling bands beneath my shirt. I sipped my tea, focusing only on the taste and warmth. When I looked up at Scott’s face, he had turned away and was staring out of the kitchen window. My eyes traced the curve of his ear beneath his hair and saw the light fl
utter of his pulse in his throat. Closing them, I breathed deeply and took another sip of tea.

  ‘How’s Madala? I’ve not seen him today,’ I said, trying to break the tension.

  ‘Hmm, sorry I was thinking. He’s good thanks. Probably out hunting.’

  He turned towards me and I felt his body ache as if he fought a desire to touch my face. He looked down at his cup then back into my eyes. My thoughts betrayed me and I imagined him doing it, reaching out to stroke my cheek, brushing his lips against my mouth. I trembled and realised I wanted to be in his power. I wanted to shirk all responsibility for a minute, an hour, a day, a year, or perhaps forever. He held back, perhaps as frightened and confused as me. I realised if he did caress me I wouldn’t resist, or at least would try not to push him away, try to stay calm and in the moment. I didn’t want to resist. In fact I wanted to be unable to resist. If I could do this, things would be clear again and we’d stop bumping into each other like dodgem cars at a fairground. We could move on.

  I saw a question form on his lips and wondered what he wanted to say. ‘What is it?’

  He looked confused and embarrassed.

  ‘Penny for ‘em.’

  ‘You don’t have a path,’ he said.

  My eyes widened and all the strange tingling, burning sensations fled from my body. ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to insult you.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. If it was an insult it missed its target.’

  ‘Your life, all those things, terrible things, you went through in your childhood, they’re all here.’ He moved his hands around my face and shoulders, inches away from my body. ‘Your aura.’

  ‘Okay.’ I scowled at him.

  ‘Everything has led you here: back to Bristol, to your mother and that house.’

  I nodded and felt my scowl dissolve.

  ‘But there is no path away from the house. I’ve tried to see one, but it hasn’t formed yet. I’m, I’m worried about you.’

  He looked at me. Did he think I would end up like my mother - alone and insane or dead? I knew that wouldn’t happen. I would return to London, to my friends and the cause, my fight for justice, peace, equality, but first I wanted to read those diaries and take my journey through the dream world. I wanted to understand my past before I faced my future.

  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t go back there,’ he said. ‘At least not until I’ve smudged it for you.’ He seemed to sense my question before I asked it. ‘Cleansed it,’ he added by way of an explanation.

  ‘I have things there I need to do,’ I told him. ‘Anyway, where else would I stay? Here?’

  He looked away.

  I grunted and fidgeted, awkwardly shifting my weight in the chair. My body felt heavy and cumbersome. ‘Maybe we should get one thing straight. I don’t want to have sex with you any more than you want to have sex with me.’

  He looked at me and smiled. ‘You think I don’t want to have sex with you?’ A laugh stirred in his throat. ‘I’m celibate. I don’t ... it’s because I’m a shaman. I’ve been celibate for years. So long I can hardly remember any other way. It helps the magic, but don’t think it’s easy around you. I’ve loved you in dreams, before the first time we met. I thought that was understood.’

  In dreams?

  ‘You too? You were there? I fucking knew it.’ My cheeks glowed with warmth at his words and I felt free, knowing I could love him and be unafraid. He could be my brother or my friend, but he would never be my lover. I could be myself, laugh wildly and let my body move the way it wanted to move - without fear and with only the faintest kernel of sadness.

  He noticed the change in me, stood up and stepped backwards to give me space. Filling it, I unfurled like a fern reaching from the shadows towards sunlight. Stretching and moving around the kitchen, I felt light on my feet. I wanted to dance and spin, for a moment, in an awkward pirouette then grinned at Scott. Never before had I revealed this side of myself, not to him, not to anyone - the child and the prepubescent - full of love, pure, whole, sexless love.

  I talked without a break, checking every now and again I still held his attention. He sat cross-legged on the cool vinyl, his chin resting on his arched fingers and watched me, silently. His eyes wide open, he saw me now, really saw me. To be seen for the first time felt exhilarating and I told him about my life as a child, how my concern for my mother had later become hate and resentment, how I had felt trapped and controlled and how I had escaped to London. I told him about each of my London friends in loving detail, making their faults into virtues then I described Tomas’s obsession with our mother and his increasingly dramatic letters as he pleaded with me to come back to Bristol. I detailed my arrival and my meetings with each ghost in turn, starting with my shameful mother. I even told him about my dreams: the stag, him and the woods. He looked as though he wanted to ask about the dream, but I couldn’t stop talking and cut him short before his words were articulated. I explained about Chrissie and about our mixed up feelings for each other that led to her leaving for London, and I told him how powerless I felt sometimes, a problem for my adult self, but my child self comfortably acknowledged the feeling and was able to accept it. I described the discovered birth certificate and my unknown sister, the way Tomas would not listen when I tried to tell him about both and my sense of wonder at the possibility of another sibling. I didn’t know if she was alive or dead and I desperately wanted to meet her. Finally, I told him about the last time I saw my mother and those words of love expressed on what was to be her death bed, her insistence I read her diaries and my fear about what I might find inside them. Vivienne knew Tomas would not be able to handle the truth inside those pages, but would I be any stronger?

  At the end of my fast-paced soliloquy I paused for breath. Scott was still watching me, entranced and unmoving. Was he expecting more? There was no more? Or was there? I smiled, so wide I thought the pressure might split my cheeks. ‘So here we are: the shaman and the anarchist, two unfashionable souls who find something precious in each other to love. I love you too, Scott. I can admit it now that I’m no longer running away from you.’

  He stood up and stretched out his body. As I watched him the sexless child shrank back to make way for the woman, but our choice had been made and accepted. I left him with a chaste kiss. He asked me not to go back to the house, but I insisted it was where I had to be.

  The diary lay open on my bed. I picked it up and started to read. “I knew something was wrong even before I opened the front door. I shouldn’t have left them with him, but they are so young. Much younger than I had been and I thought they should be safe. As I walked into the drawing room I saw him in his usual spot. His head tipped back and licking his lips. The sight of him made me shudder - the leery, old wolf.

  “I heard the children sobbing. They were hiding under the dining table - my old spot. They wouldn’t tell me what happened, but as I walked towards him I saw his hand still lingering in his lap.

  “I know what I have to do. I will protect them.”

  I heard footsteps in the attic, something heavy being dragged across the floor, and the chink of glass hitting the boards. It’s not real, I told myself, but it was real - a memory replayed, not understood then, but fully realised now. Oh mummy!

  It was after midnight, but I ran to him anyway. I wondered whether I locked the front door - fuck it, I wasn’t going back. The diaries in my backpack weighed me down. Perhaps I should burn them, but I decided to take some time to think about it first. The streets were quiet, incessant drizzle keeping marauders in their homes and those few bodies who were leaving the late-night lock-ins slouched quietly towards home, heads bowed. I ran, unimpeded by any other living person.

  Scott looked sleepy as he led me to the kitchen and offered me tea. I asked for somewhere to sleep and he showed me his room.

  ‘I’ll sleep on the couch,’ he said.

  I realised that wasn’t what I wanted. Not tonight. Not with this dark memory
curled up inside my soul. I wrapped my arms around him, pinning his arms to his sides. I couldn’t reach his mouth, the difference in our heights too great, but stretching up I kissed his shoulders and throat. For a moment he remained still: frozen into the statue of gatekeeper then he bent over and fixed his lips to mine and I managed to lose myself for a few blissful moments before teeth clashed together and he pinched my nipple too eagerly while fighting with the fly of my trousers. I moved in a daze and before I realised what was happening we were on the bed. I wrapped my legs around him and he filled my emptiness at last for a few brief moments until it was over and I sat up, feeling soiled and ashamed. He gathered his robe, staring at the floor while I lay back on the bed and turned away from him. I listened to his forlorn footsteps as they receded from me.

  When I was certain I was alone, I grabbed my knife from my bag and pricked my thighs with its point, sucking breath between clenched teeth. Blood slipped and slid between my thighs, but my wounds stung less than my pride. Eventually I fell asleep. The stag visited my dreams, but I threw stones at it to chase it away.

  That morning, I lay awake listening to Dorothy and Scott’s movements around the house. Hearing the dull blah, blah, blah of an edge of conversation, I assumed I was the subject at hand. I didn’t want to get up; getting out of bed would involve seeing them. I just lay there, cursing my choices. Why had I forced myself on Scott? I knew his reasons for celibacy; he had explained them to me quite clearly, so what right did I have to make him break them? I had raped him or as good as. I felt ashamed, torn between a need to apologise and a need to escape. I reached for the knife again, but my hand wavered above the backpack as I wondered whether I could, should face this in a different way and talk to him. My stomach rebelled as fear and nausea gripped me.

  There was a hesitant knocking at the bedroom door. I remained silent, hoping to be left alone, but the door inched open and Dorothy’s face peeped around the edge. I watched through the veil of my eyelashes as the woman frowned and closed the door again and I was left alone with my shame and self-pity. I grabbed my knife and started cutting. One step forward, two steps back.