Suzerain: a ghost story

by Adrian John Smith

  "So," Billy said, "where to?"

  "Don't fret it Billy," Moira said, "Just follow my directions."

  So there it was, a magical mystery tour with Billy in the role of obedient factotum; worse, Billy reduced to mere function: Drive the fucking van, Billy. All he knew beyond this was that his job, his function, when they got to wherever they were going, was to dig a hole. Three hundred quid to dig a hole. His back had been troubling him a little lately - a twinge at the base of his spine, a dull ache which sometimes insinuated its way into his testicles - but three hundred was three hundred, right?

  Moira lit one of her long cigarettes. She made Billy so restive he had to keep both hands on the wheel to keep them from trembling. There was something about her, a kind of vibe. When he'd glanced at her - the streetlights illuminating her face, which was the pale face of a ghost, crossed with the back and forth shadow of the swishing wipers - he saw her bite her lip in some secret and anticipatory relish which she emitted not so much in waves but in spikes and edges, needling a current through Billy's nerves and setting off a hopeless yearning in his cock.

  And then they were in the blind-sided lanes carving out into Dartmoor, the rain bouncing off the road in the glare of the headlamps, Moira, as promised, giving directions without the aid of a map. No small talk. Nothing. Drive the van Billy. Out into open country, the rain coming in swells, in black and silver maelstroms, the force of it rocking the van and the wipers barely able to keep up.

  "Here," Moira said. "Drive into those trees."

  It was a passing place off the narrow road and when Billy turned into the trees the van had displaced a grudging family of ponies which then dissolved into the rain-lashed nothingness either side of the head-light beams. When Billy turned off the lights there was just the rattle of rain against the side of the van and the creak of a branch overhead.

  Billy lit a cigarette. He wasn't going anywhere until he'd had a smoke because he hadn't had one since entering this sub-B road labyrinth, what with trying not to miss a bend or drive into a swollen brook in this zero fucking visibility while all the time watching out for the half-wild sheep which could spring out of nowhere. He'd had enough of this silence too. "So why are we sneaking around in the dark on the filthiest night of the year? What is this, Captain Kidd's buried treasure?"

  "Something like that," Moira said. "You'll see. I'm about to show you the power of research. Are you ready?"

  "When I've smoked this," Billy said. Okay, he thought, fuck you, don't tell. One thing's for sure, they weren't there to dig for worms.

  "I don't want to be here all night, Billy."

  "You know what?" Billy said, "I don't want to be here at all."

  They crossed the road, Moira leading - a dark and sexless form in the oversize slicker she'd just pulled on - Billy carrying all the tools himself you fucking notice, the backs of his hands already smarting from the rain, his fingers numbing, wishing he'd had the foresight to bring a pair of work gloves. He had to pause to wipe the rain from his eyes with his sleeve and he only succeeded in depositing oil from his sleeve into his left eye, which made it sting and run even more than the rain had. When his feet sank into the mossy ground, he felt already the cold ingress of water in his cracked work boots.

  They hadn't travelled more than a hundred yards or so from the road when Moira halted and waited for Billy to catch up. She relieved him of the spade which she pitched into the ground like a spear and said: "Okay Billy, dig."

  Billy turned his back to the rain and it rattled off his waxed coat like birdshot. "Who am I?" he said. "Mesmo the fucking mind reader? How big? How deep?"

  "A grave. Think of it as a grave. Just," Moira said, demarcating the edges of the proposed hole by walking around the spade, "here. Okay? So, here's the MO. You dig the fucking hole, I'll tell you when to quit. Does that suit you Billy?"

  "That suits," Billy said, thinking how much he'd like to introduce the flat side of the shovel to the back of grockle Costigan's head.

  Instead, Billy dug for his money. Rain entered his collar and formed an icy stream which ran down his back and rain pooled in the hole, rushing in behind the spade. He sweated beneath his coat and tried to ignore the protestations pulsing from the small of his back while he tried to stave off the growing impression that he might be digging his own grave. Which would be some joke. When he paused for rest all he could see - the rain stinging his face into a squint - was darkness, and in that darkness Moira, a hood-cowled figure in the black slicker.

  He dug until Moira said: "That's enough, Billy." The hole was three feet deep, six feet long, and Billy was so slathered with mud he was like some portrait figure rendered in impasto. "Get out of there and light the lantern."

  Ah yes, the lantern. The lantern which Moira would not let him light back at the van when it would have been easier, nor since when he could have done with it to warm his hands. That lantern. Billy saluted sarcastically and boosted himself out of the hole. He shielded the lantern from the rain while he lit it. The mantle popped and a yellow light streamed out with a low roar and the light was filled with stinging, silver rain drops and the rain hissed off the quickly-heating glass.

  Moira produced some gloves from the pouch of the slicker and pulled them on and then dropped into the darkness of the hole like a fallen being. Billy moved the lantern closer to the edge of the hole and shielded the glare from his eyes with closed fingers. Moira was on her knees, scraping at one end of the hole with her gloved hands. She grunted like an animal as she worked, muddy scrape after muddy scrape. Then she stopped. She plucked something from the mud just as Billy became aware of a sweet, mulchy kind of smell. She held the something up to the light. A piece of muddy cloth. It was so rotten that when Moira rubbed it between her fingers it became just a smear mixed into the mud caking her glove. Then she was back down, working more frantically now, scraping, finding more cloth, scraping again and then …

  Fucking Jesus!

  Billy almost kicked the lantern into the hole. Because yes they were cracked and brown, yes they were crooked and muddy and half-submerged in muddy rainwater, and yes they were like some image slipped loose of a nightmare; but what they also most definitely were, grinning up at Billy after being revealed in a single stroke with the peeling away of the last rotten piece of cloth, were teeth. Human teeth, grinning out of a human skull.

  Moira slipped back her hood to wipe her forehead. "Hey Billy," she said, "don't shit your pants. OK?"

  "Shit my pants be fucked. Are you going to tell me what-"

  "Shut up Billy. Just shut up okay. Don't you dare spoil the moment."

  Billy shut up.

  Moira spoke again, but not to Billy. "Well, Alicia honey," she said. "I see the years have not been kind. You fucking stink too. You know that? Ah, but what have we here?" She thrust her hand into the mulchy press of rotten cloth at the skeleton's breast and pulled something out like she was producing some post-mortal foetus from a putrescent womb. She held it up to the light. She wiped away some of the mud with a single finger, enough for Billy to see - and only by virtue of the fact that there was a string or a chain (hard to tell) hanging from it - that it was an item of jewellery. Some charm. Some necklace. Some locket.

  "Mine, I believe," Moira said. "You know something Billy? Sometimes life is just too damn peachy for words." But there was a crack in the façade which Billy could hear in her voice, could see in the trembling of her hands.

  Driving off the moors she'd been quiet again, but it was a different kind of quiet. She had removed the gloves and rain-slicker and she sat with her knees drawn up, the locket pressed to her mud-streaked cheek. There had been an aura of sadness around her then. This is a secret, she said, which must never be told. Which Billy hadn't needed telling. Which is why he'd taken care to set the turf on the back-filled hole. Alicia, he thinks, her name was Alicia. He makes an effort to hold onto it.

  "You'd better come home with me," Moira said. "Get cleaned up. Jesus I could use a drink. How about you?"


  For once they were in total agreement.

  So it was back to the mansion on the hill. Billy had never been to Frank's house - to Moira's house - but it was a house which he'd always been aware of. You could see its red brick facade, pick out the white painted sashes, from as far away as the Yarlmouth embankment; could see it if you passed on the river; had to drive past it to get to the Rockway ferry if you wanted to use the pub across the river, which Billy had done on occasion. The high black security gates were new, and the garden, according to Billy's memory, had turned to shit since Frank's occupancy had begun, but otherwise there were no surprises. Not even the fact that entering the house, the dark, wood-panelled lobby, was like entering a fucking great tomb. Frank had told him that Moira was restoring the house to its original state - that she'd got a thing about heritage colours and all of that World of Interiors bullshit - but Christ, all the money at the grockle Costigans' disposal they couldn't fit a few wall lamps to help out the single electric candelabra or chandelier, or whatever you called it, way up there above the open landing?

  Moira went off to shower, something which Billy declined to do. He had no change of clothes so he couldn't see the point. He just washed his hands and face in a strange little toilet in the corner of the lobby - one of the rooms (judging by the hard tile floor, the penal-facility look of the shower cubical) which still bore testament to the house having been used, pre-Costigan, as a youth hostel. There was no towel in there and he was still shaking his hands dry when he entered the living room, which was where Moira told him to wait. The walls were a dark green (a heritage colour alright), with cream wood work and egg and dart coving (also cream), and he just bet they called it the Green Room. He un-stopped Frank's decanters one at a time, taking a good sniff of each. Detecting port, sherry, scotch and brandy he settled on scotch, pouring generously. Then he lit the fire (as he'd been asked to do) which had been readied in the hearth. He was blowing a good roar into the fire when Moira entered the room, wearing a blue dressing gown, still towel-drying her hair.

  "Frank say anything about your eye?" Billy said, standing. He'd half expected Frank to mention it, but, to Billy's relief, he hadn't. He'd simply asked him if he could make a priority of getting the yacht's deck stripped.

  "I told you I could deal with Frank, didn't I? Besides, as you can see, I'm all healed up now," Moira said, which was no answer at all. "Time for that drink," she said, and poured herself a neat scotch. She took a sip. "Hey," she said, "you want to watch a movie?"

  Unbelievable. "I want to get out of these clothes is what I want to do," Billy said.

  Moira hung the towel on the back of a chair and teased up her hair with her fingers. She sipped at her whiskey and eyed him over the rim of the glass. "You know," she said, "you don't have to go home. There's just the two of us. Let's get drunk or something. Christ Billy, look at this place. I need some goddamned fun. Hey look, I'm sorry I was such a bitch. This thing … it's been difficult. This story." She took another sip and smiled. "So," she said, "you want to help a girl have fun?"

  Billy didn't mind. He'd done worse. Hitting her was worse. And Frank was at least a plane ride away, in that non-specific land of "the business trip".

  Moira on the sofa, right there in the living room, Billy on his knees, lapping at her like a dog. When he fucked her she was hot to the touch and she squirmed wildly around his cock. It was a lot to take and Billy came quickly, but not before Moira let out a cry of a volume and intensity that Billy heard in his head for days afterwards. Before she came she said: Call me Martha. What? Billy said. Call me Martha you fucker. So he called her Martha (which he later supposed was someone from her book) and when he said it, she came. He felt it start in her belly - and she clawed at his neck and slapped his face, leaving a scratch from her nails. Which was fine, except that when she'd showered she'd cleaned the mud from the locket and it hung between her breasts like a shrivelled walnut (the broken chain tied in a crude knot, the heart-shaped metal lumped with corrosion) so that when he tongued and bit at her nipples, he could smell it. It smelled of the grave.

  Later, Billy had fucked her again in Frank's bed. He didn't think about Frank at all. Didn't notice his own back-ache either. They were drunk now. High on coke too. Which meant that when Moira made a proposal (which, despite the fact that it was a proposal wrapped around three grand, Billy would not have hesitated to decline as recently as three hours ago) Billy thought it was a wonderful idea. I don't want to kill him, Moira said. I just want to feel his pain.

  "Can you tell me anything she's written?" Caroline says.

  "No," Billy says. He has no intention of perpetuating a conversation about Moira Costigan.

  "Not one thing?"

  "Nope."

  "How can anyone be a famous writer, when no-one knows anything they've written?"

  "She's not famous. She's what they call well-regarded."

  "Ooooh Billy; quite the Melvyn Brag."

  "Not you too," Billy says. "Can I not say one fucking intelligent thing?"

  "Sorry. Graham's always saying I patronise people."

  "He's right."

  "Sorry."

  "It's alright. Leave it."

  "She seems to have plenty of money. But then she is American."

  Billy feels like putting her straight on the economic demographics of the USA, but he knows what she means: you don't get too many homeless crack-heads from Watts buying a fucking great mansion over-looking Yarlmouth harbour. "That's mostly her husband's," he says instead.

  "Which is the same thing. Do you sleep with her?" Caroline says.

  "She's married you fucking hare-brain."

  "Wrong answer Billy."

  "No. I don't sleep with her," Billy says. He's telling the truth. Of course he's telling the truth because if he was still fucking Moira he wouldn't be making the most of this pre-expansion woman beside him. He hadn't fucked Moira since that night back in February. In some respects, he's glad; fucking Moira is a dangerous enterprise. Just ask the kid, if he's sufficiently reconstructed to talk - which he won't do anyway. Moira had visited him in hospital, just to make sure he understood, which was a move Billy couldn't help but admire. So no, he's not fucking Moira. Not any more. Even so, she keeps him as taut as a fucking piano wire. Not fucking Moira, Billy has to admit to himself, is not necessarily a choice of his own making.

  "They say that you trot like a dog. It doesn't sound like you."

  "She's got something I want," Billy says. "That's all." Says it just to make it sound like he's in some kind of control.

  "Are you in trouble?"

  "Caroline, my sweet paramour, as per usual I'm up to my fucking neck in it."

  "People say she's dangerous."

  "People?"

  "Okay. Me. I'm saying. She used to come in here with that young lad from Oxford. Good-looking kid. Did you know about that?"

  "You mean did I know that he was carted out of his house and into an ambulance? I told you, it's that kind of town."

  "He almost died was the way I heard it. His skull was fractured."

  "Well it had fuck-all to do with me."

  "Christ Billy, I wasn't accusing you. I know you wouldn't do a thing like that."

  "You fucking liar. You know damn well I would. You also know that I slapped the shit out of him in the Baxter. But I didn't do the other." He's telling only a half-lie. Because, okay, it had been Billy who'd immobilised Romantic Boy with a couple of blows to the legs, but it was Moira who'd done most of the batting, while Billy (as arranged) went back downstairs where he sat and drank the kid's wine from the bottle and read bits and pieces of the manuscript he'd found on the table - which wasn't bad. After five minutes or so he'd gone back up to the room, still drunk and buzzing from the red pills he and Moira had taken. He'd begun to fear murder, or to fear the consequences as far as they pertained to him. He was also worried about the neighbours. There'd been screams and shouts from both Moira and the kid and it had begun to sound like madness up there. Th
e blood on the walls and bedding he'd been expecting. Likewise the lump of smashed meat and bone, hair and teeth, which was now a stand-in for the kid's head. What he hadn't expected to find though, was Moira straddling the poor bastard (who had somehow found the strength to sit up) the two of them kissing, blood drooling from the kid's mashed lips down both their chins, Moira's face and body smeared with blood, the kid holding her wrists as if he actually wanted her to stay right where she was, as if his passion for her could survive any outrage, holding her so tightly that he'd left marks there. And the look on her face when they broke apart - Moira into some awful post-coital reverie, the kid falling back into near-death oblivion, a whimpering growl bubbling from his lips.

  "Did she?" Caroline probed. "Did Moira have anything to do with it?"

  "If she did then she hasn't mentioned it," Billy said. Except to say: Oh Billy, you've no idea. I was in so deep. I felt it all. All the pain in the world….

  "This is all wrong Billy. I just know it. She's all wrong."

  "She pays well. That's all I'm interested in. We might need some money."

  He turns to look at her, checks that his choice of word hits home. It does. A light in her doe eyes. We?

  "Is there any way I can help you, Billy?" She says. "If you're in trouble, then I want to help."

  "There's nothing wrong that I can't handle. Just the usual bullshit. By which I mean life."

  They dress in silence. A perfunctory atmosphere. Then a perfunctory kiss at the top of the stairs.

  "I've never been called a paramour before," she says. A bitter-sweet smile that even Billy feels.

  "It's not a word many people use nowadays," Billy says.

  "You know, you can be sweet when you're not angry with me Billy. I don't claim any hold over you. You're as free as the wind. Everyone knows that."

  "Free as the wind," Billy says. No more.