Eleanor

by RA Williams

  ‘Clever I am,’ she teased. ‘That I am American is incidental.’

  ‘It’s not important. Never mind then,’ he replied.

  ‘You were my memory,’ she told him without shame. ‘I tried to hold on to you for twenty-seven years. I forgot your face. But not the bottomless twilight in your eyes. I could not forget that. And now, here you are. Here we are. And I realise I know nothing.’

  He looked down to his white summer brogues.

  ‘A fragile façade.’

  Was he talking about himself or her?

  ‘Never mind.’ She found she didn’t have the courage to say what she wanted to. Not yet. Seeing him now, feeling her relief in having found him, she also felt pained by his refusal to come to her in those lost years. She thought she might even carry an elusive bitterness within. Most women wanted to be pursued, not do the pursuing. Climbing to her feet, she turned.

  ‘Fancy something from the Wall’s man?’

  ‘Can’t say I’ve tried one.’

  ‘You’ve never had a refreshing Snofrute? Not a wafer biscuit? Nor a frozen Choco Bar?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Well. You haven’t lived, Mr Buster Hadley.’

  Leaving him at the bench, she approached Wally. He was just handing over a wafer biscuit to a little boy, his mum admonishing him to say thank you.

  ‘You’re welcome, me lad. Be good to your mum now,’ Wally said, tucking a twopence into his pocket.

  ‘Hi, Wally.’

  ‘Ah, hello, Yank. Settled in, have you? Looking smart.’

  ‘I was out of sorts yesterday.’

  Glancing in Balthasar’s direction, he quipped, ‘In all sorts today.’

  ‘Would you believe he’s never tried a Wall’s?’

  ‘Blimey!’ He rubbed his hands on the towel tucked into his belt. Opening the lid of his Warrick box, he asked, ‘You’re not still passing off Jerry Reichsmarks?’

  ‘Pleased to say I’ve raided the Bank of England.’

  ‘What shall it be, then?’

  ‘Um,’ she mused, looking through the fog of dry ice to the contents within. ‘I fancy one of your lemon Snofrutes.’

  She looked towards Balthasar. ‘What do you give to a man who’s never had the pleasure of a Wall’s?’

  Wally pushed the cap back on his head, scratching his neatly parted grey hair. ‘I, myself, am mad on the wafer biscuits.’

  He glanced at Balthasar too.

  ‘A choc ice never fails to bring a smile, though.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more.’

  ‘Snofrute and a Choco then,’ Wally said, removing a triangular Snofrute for her and a frozen Choco Bar for Balthasar. ‘Mixing with Folkestone society, are you? You look a proper English lady, you do,’ he added, handing her the bars. ‘Twopence, please.’

  ‘Promise you’ll keep schtum?’

  ‘I’ll never let on.’

  ‘God bless,’ she said, producing a pound note. ‘Afraid I’m short of coins.’

  ‘Hang on then,’ he replied, fishing into his waistcoat pocket.

  ‘No,’ she said, gripping his hand. ‘You’ve been so kind. Give your missus a nice bundle of flowers. Besides, I haven’t a pocket to keep coins in.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ he replied. ‘It’s far in excess.’

  ‘Look at it like a down payment against future ice-cream treats.’

  ‘Planning to stay on in Folkestone, then?’

  Elle did not reply, but parted with a smile. Returning to the bench, she handed Balthasar the frozen Choco Bar. She sat. Closer. Unwrapping the end of the Snofrute, she pushed at the other end, forcing out the frozen fruit. The sweetened lemon juice was closer to heaven than Folkestone.

  She watched him unwrap his Choco. Curiously he looked over the chocolate-coated ice cream bar pressed between two wafers.

  ‘Go on then. Tuck in.’

  Hesitantly, he took a nibble. After a brief chew and a larger bite, his hard exterior melted.

  ‘I saw that,’ said Elle.

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘No use hiding it. I saw you smile.’

  ‘I never,’ he replied, going at the melting chocolate.

  ‘It wouldn’t be scandalous, you know.’

  ‘It’s not at all bad, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘When I was a kid in Detroit, I’d go mad for Snofrutes. Eat five at a go,’ she said, savouring every divine lick. ‘I directly attribute my bitterness in life to consuming so many lemon Snofrutes.’

  Her comment elicited a genuine smile out of him.

  ‘There you go. See what you’ve been missing out on for seven centuries?’

  They sat quietly for a time, enjoying the evening and their Wall’s treats.

  ‘The place you found me,’ said Balthasar, breaking the silence. ‘Where I lay dormant.’

  ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘The necropolis.’

  ‘That the hollow is within a Roman necropolis is incidental.’ He bit off a great chunk of the chocolate bar. ‘I know I am old. Just not that old.’

  He turned then to the Channel. And so did she, watching the last shades of orange glinting off the calm dark-blue waters.

  ‘You were telling me you fancied those lemon Snofrutes when you were a child?’

  ‘Yeah. I adored them. Still do. Summers in Michigan can be stifling hot. When I was a kid, I’d lay in bed at night, my bedroom windows wide open, and I’d listen to the freight trains on the other side of Woodward Avenue, wondering where they were off to as I waited for the morning.’

  ‘When I was a child, I fancied hunting deer with my father on the very Heights you crossed to reach the Drop Redoubt. It was different then, covered in hawthorn. In summer, orchids bloomed across the slopes.’

  His voice was different. Gentler; almost romantic.

  ‘It’s a nice memory,’ he added. ‘I have few.’

  Leaning back, he rested an arm on the back of the bench. Probably without even thinking, he’d placed his arm behind her. Elle, however, was acutely aware of it.

  ‘On the highest point of the Heights was once a pharos.’

  ‘Pharos?’

  ‘A lighthouse. Romans built it. It went centuries ago, but when I was a boy, it was a hundred feet tall. My father told me tales of Roman legions camping on the hillside. They built an earthwork up there to defend Dover. My father had no knowledge of a necropolis. By his time, it had already been lost for eight hundred years.’

  ‘How does a Roman necropolis become a hollow?’

  ‘The banshee came for me,’ he said laconically. Lowering the remains of the Wall’s bar, he averted his gaze.

  ‘Siobhan?’

  He turned to her, a hint of surprise on his otherwise stoic face.

  ‘I’m an ethnologist, Buster. I discovered your calling card.’

  His look of surprise became curiosity.

  ‘Sekr,’ she said.

  ‘Expect you know what Sentinels are as well?’

  ‘Like Mahmoud.’

  ‘Yes. But it was the banshee’s Sentinel that led me to the hollow. By the time I arrived there, she had gone.’

  ‘Why do you slumber with them during dormancy?’ she asked, the memory of his desiccated face just hours before still fresh in her mind. How could it be the same person?

  ‘It’s not born of choice,’ he replied, as if the statement had been rehearsed a hundred times over. ‘When poorly, I’m drawn to them. I find comfort with them.’

  ‘But you’re not like them.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘No,’ she replied confidently. ‘You are different.’

  ‘The only difference is that I am not strong enough. The very thing to make me stronger, I must deny.’

  ‘Rest?’

  ‘No,’ he said, turning to her, his arm sliding away. ‘The flesh of man.’

  The notion of what he said made her feel sick. ‘You need it?’

  ‘Need?’ he countered pointedly. ‘I need it, yes. But I reject what I need. And for that, I am
outcast. For rejecting it, I am spared the banshee’s most vile hex. And, as a consequence, I become as sickly as to be unable to prop myself up. My hunger is greatest then.’

  ‘Dormancy renews you though?’

  ‘Unrighteousness is sin. And there is a sin not unto death.’

  Elle wondered what exactly his statement meant.

  ‘My dormancy is nothing less than a period of brumation. And there is consequence to it. Enough to be worth fighting it off.’

  She laid her hand on his. His skin was deathly cold. Neither spoke. Instead, they watched people go about their lives: strolling along The Leas, children playing. Elle realised how ordinary she and Balthasar must look. Just another gentleman and lady taking the evening air. Even if the moment was illusionary, her heart was content.

  But something was nagging at her, and she couldn’t let it go.

  ‘Cubby Smyth,’ she blurted, not without malice. Balthasar withdrew his hand. ‘Strange you should have such a colleague.’

  ‘I wouldn’t describe him as a colleague,’ he replied unconvincingly. ‘We serve the needs of one another.’

  ‘Oh? So, what need did he serve when he was given the order to beat the hell out of me?’ Elle snapped back, loud enough for Wally to raise an eyebrow. Even she was surprised by her sudden lack of restraint.

  Balthasar crushed the empty chocolate bar wrapper in his hand. ‘He was not meant to harm you, Eleanor.’

  ‘I’d say your directive was not properly heeded.’

  He said nothing in reply. No shrug. No pursing of the lips. Nothing.

  ‘That publican gave me a damn good beating for someone who was “not meant to harm me”. If not for Mssr Gaele, I believe your colleague would have killed me.’

  ‘He was meant to dissuade you.’

  ‘Dissuade?’ Her voice trembled now, such was her disappointment in Balthasar. ‘Something was lost in translation, clearly.’

  He took a cautionary look round. A man enjoying a cigar on a nearby bench looked away.

  ‘I don’t want you hurt, Eleanor,’ he said, voice hushed.

  ‘You were with Mahmoud that night, weren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘What? Which night?’

  ‘At St Dunstan’s. Ten years ago. The night you came for your amulet.’

  He said nothing in reply, his eyes empty of remorse.

  ‘You came for your amulet, but you didn’t come for me.’

  ‘I did come for you,’ he replied tonelessly. ‘Clearly, you didn’t understand the message I left.’

  ‘Oh, I got the message all right. The night you saved my life. On Titanic. Why would you tell me I had a long road ahead of me only to return years later and take away the signpost?’

  Balthasar rose from the bench and took a step away from her, tossing his wrapper into a wrought-iron bin. He turned to her, eyes clear, if dark. ‘There are many ways to butter a parsnip,’ he said enigmatically.

  ‘For Chrissake,’ she cursed, rankled by his avoidance of the obvious. ‘Do you know what a half-truth is?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘A half-lie.’

  After an uncomfortably long silence, he said, ‘Follow me.’

  Leaving The Leas, they walked along the secluded towpath above the Road of Remembrance, his pace giving no hint as to where they were going. Distant music and laughter lingered in the trees. Turning onto the church grounds, they ducked under a willow tree, its wispy branches scattering the moonlight on the grass. Bypassing the vicarage, they paused under the church porch.

  ‘Crimen are here,’ she remarked, more statement than query. ‘Last night my compass dial went barmy. It’s them, isn’t it?’

  He nodded, unhinging the church door. It swung inward with a creak. ‘He’s never sorted that.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The vicar,’ Balthasar clarified. ‘Rusty as these hinges.’

  ‘And Irish as Redbreast whiskey.’

  ‘Crossed paths with old Duigan, have you?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘He didn’t land such a plum calling by chance,’ he said, closing the door slowly behind them. Elle could not help but notice Balthasar sliding the bolt across the door jamb, locking them in. She followed him towards the chancel, lit candles showing the way. At the end of a row of pews sat a candle altar, a tatty donations tin beside it. Fishing a bundle of notes from his trouser pocket, Balthasar stuffed the lot into the tin. Then he took hold of an unlit candle and lit the wick off another, adding it to the altar. Taking a step back, he lowered his head, clasping his hands together.

  ‘Won’t you let her rest?’ he whispered. A moment later he raised his head. ‘It’s this way.’

  Following him to the high altar, they paused before the brass hatch containing the remains of the parish’s patron saint.

  ‘She is here.’

  ‘Emiliana?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sadness tainted his voice.

  Grasping the grille, he gave it a tug. It came away with a grating sound that echoed across the church’s cavernous ceiling. Gently laying the hatch on the floor like a newborn baby wrapped in a blanket, he retrieved two altar candles from their sconces, handing one to her. Holding a candle to the gaping hole behind the grille, he invited her to go in.

  Elle peered into the void. An old, dusty vault. Crouching, she warily climbed in. Balthasar followed.

  ‘This was part of the chancel ages ago,’ he said, raising his candle to reveal pillar foundations supporting the upper arches of the chantry. The floor underfoot was dirt, the vault closed off a long time before. They turned a corner. At its end rested a rough-cut chalk sarcophagus. It was not elaborate, and certainly not befitting a patron saint.

  ‘Your compass was drawn to her wild signs.’

  ‘She is Crimen?’

  He said nothing in reply.

  ‘The vicar,’ she said, working something out. ‘He cursed your name up and down this church.’

  ‘He drinks.’

  ‘There is oft truth to a drunkard’s rantings. He told me to get out. I didn’t understand then. I do now. He didn’t want me to leave this church. He wanted to keep me away from you.’

  ‘I tried to warn you away, Eleanor,’ he said. ‘I tried.’ All at once, he shifted the sarcophagus lid. It slid off, landing on its side in the dirt with a deep thud.

  Hesitantly, Elle stepped closer, the now familiar smell of mouldy fabric filling her nostrils as a desiccated creature was revealed in her candlelight. Tawny solidified skin shrunk around a skull devoid of tissue, mouth locked open in despair, shrieking eternal misery. Bony hands grasped for a dull spike protruding from its chest.

  ‘Emiliana?’ Elle whispered.

  Balthasar tenderly adjusted the gold fillet holding her frizzled hair in place. ‘Yes.’

  Looking to him, she asked, ‘Siobhan did this?’

  ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘I did this.’

  He slowly raised his face to Elle, and she looked for the sadness in his eyes, the remorse.

  There was nothing. It should have scared her. Instead, she felt pity, for both Emiliana and Balthasar.

  ‘Emiliana did not deserve this fate,’ she said.

  ‘Nor do you.’ His voice was a brooding whisper.

  ‘This isn’t going to happen to me.’

  ‘This is what happens to anyone who gets close to me. I mustn’t permit this to be your fate.’

  ‘You mustn’t permit it?’ she snapped. ‘I’ve been making my own decisions my entire life, thank you.’ She stood closer to him. ‘You’re making a mistake, Buster, if you think you can decide my fate.’

  He backed away, nudging the sarcophagus. Truth be told, she didn’t believe her own words. Balthasar had determined her fate from the very night Titanic sank, but she wasn’t about to admit it to him.

  ‘You think I’ll end up like her?’

  He turned to the remains.

  ‘I won’t see this happen to you. If it did, I would have to put you down with a spike.’

  E
lle didn’t question the truth of his statement. She knew perfectly well by the coldness of his eyes he was capable of it.

  ‘This is why you must stay away from me.’

  ‘I won’t leave,’ Elle replied tonelessly. ‘I won’t.’

  Tearing a strip of velvet lining from within the sarcophagus, he wrapped it around his hand.

  ❖❖❖

  Although every window in the Priory Arms was left open, it remained sweltering inside, the low ceiling trapping the fading day’s heat. Mahmoud took in the evening air, awaiting a bench and table to clear on the street. He hadn’t seen dusk for a month. Nor a cooked meal.

  Raising a pint of Whitbread Pale Ale, he drank off the head, mindful of a pair of porters from the Royal Pavilion Hotel counting out the day’s tips. They dropped a few coppers beside their empty pint glasses before they headed off down The Bayle.

  Mahmoud removed his bowler, hair an uncontrollable mess of black waves. He sat at the vacated table. Gently pulling away a scarlet bloom from a mature rose bush beside him, he remembered when he had planted them. He had bought them as rose hips a century before from a merchant in London, back when Persian roses were rare and exotic. Taking in the new bud’s fragrance brought back memories of home, and of family long dead.

  ‘Mssr Hajian.’

  He turned. The Belgian was just coming along The Bayle, his summer suit looking as though he’d slept in it. Puffing on a cigarette, he sat on the bench across from him.

  ‘Hello, me old china,’ Mahmoud replied, tucking the rose bud into the buttonhole of his lapel. Squeezing his thumb against his forefinger, he watched a bead of blood form.

  ‘Thorny little things, rose bushes,’ said Gaele with a smirk.

  ‘Hm,’ Mahmoud groused, watching the bead of blood getting reabsorbed into the puncture before it closed up, his flesh healing. ‘The most beautiful of things are often the deadliest.’

  ‘I cannot begin to explain to you how many times I have heard that,’ replied Gaele. ‘I called in at Number 1, The Bayle. No one was at home.’

  ‘I expect Buster has gone off with Eleanor,’ Mahmoud said, rubbing his thumb across his fingers, almost disappointed the wound had healed up already. ‘Beauty is perfection and a curse,’ he added, taking a long, satisfying draw from his glass.

  ‘You do not approve?’