by Tim Roux
“And your daughter, Julia?”
“Julia was a city trader by profession. Very cool, very intelligent. Pretty. Evasive. You never really knew whether she was telling you the whole truth or not, or even a sliver of it. Not that it mattered. I still loved her. I would have done anything for her, for both of them. I still would if they were here now.” He looks up. “Julia, I love you,” he calls out to the walls, “if you are anywhere here.” He turns back. “You must think I am going soft in my old age.”
We both shake our heads. “Not in the least,” Mike assures him. He smiles. “Julia, we love you too,” he calls out, and smiles again.
Inspector John places his right hand on Mike’s knee. “That was a lovely, generous gesture, Mike. Thank you. Now what are your stories?”
We do our best but, in comparison, we have very little to say. Well, I might have a bit more if was willing to come clean, but I’m not. I want this speculation about my being clairvoyant closed down with maximum prejudice. Must brief Mum before she blows in, and it.
In fact, our story is so boring (nothing to do with the way Mike is telling it) that I decide to go for a walk. I excuse myself, pretending to be in search of the toilet. “Left and left, you cannot miss it,” Inspector John advises me.
Instead I climb up some fairly rickety stairs to snoop around the house. I have just reached the landing at the top of the stairs when I walk straight into her. She must have been preoccupied herself because she doesn’t seem to have noticed me approaching.
So we both suffer from a moment of shock and panic.
“Who are you?” she asks in French, clutching at her heart rather over-dramatically and, indeed, ineffectually.
“Paul.” I look at her. She is almost like another Natalie, except that she is fuller yet more transparent, in several meanings of the word. “You must be Alice,” I venture.
“Yes, I am. How do you know?”
“We have just been talking about you downstairs.”
“I heard you talking, but I cannot speak English very well, so I could not understand much of whatever you were saying.”
“I think we met the other day,” I suggest.
She almost blushes. “That was you, was it? I am so sorry … ”
“ … that’s all right.”
“I was in such a temper!”
“I noticed.”
“It was that stupid man, really stupid man. I couldn’t get him to hear me. I was even prepared to try my English on him, but he must be completely deaf.”
“No, but you are a bit different.”
“I know. It’s annoying. I realised immediately that you could hear me, but I was so worked up by then that I couldn’t stop myself. My emotions were overwhelming me. Still, I did manage to stop in time for you to sit down. You can thank me for that.”
I nod graciously. “I thank you for that.”
She giggles. “So what are you doing here?”
“I think I have been asked round to look for you, or possibly Julia.”
“Julia is not here. She left at the very beginning, with Mary, after my father tried to burn the house down.”
“OK.”
“It’s a shame. I would like to see her again – apologise to her.”
“She is dead too,” I explain.
“Is she? Oh dear. That is really hard to believe. She was so strong.”
“She committed suicide.”
She stands back. “Are you sure? Are you sure that nobody killed her? I cannot imagine her ever committing suicide.”
“That is what her father says – the guy downstairs.”
“He is her father?”
“Yes.”
“I never knew. Will you apologise to him for me for my cruel thoughts. I didn’t mean to hurt him, but now I know that he is Julia’s father … ”
I pull a face. “I am sorry. I am afraid that I am pretending not to be able to speak to ghosts, but I’ll try to get the message to him somehow, perhaps via Mike.”
“Is that Mike downstairs?”
“Yes, he is my brother.”
She grins. “He seems really lovely.”
“He is.”
The conversation stalls for a second.
“So,” she says, twirling slightly, “you found me.”
“So I did.”
“And what do you think?”
“You are very beautiful.”
“Thank you. Do you like ghosts?”
“No, mostly they really annoy me. They’re usually mean and cruel.”
She mouths a 'boff'. “It is very frustrating being a ghost, I can tell you. I keep wondering what is happening to me, and nobody knows, or they pretend not to know, and there is nobody to ask. Do you know?”
“No. I can’t say that I do, except that you are probably loitering around for a bit until you are released into the light. I can try to do that for you, if you wish …. ”
“I’ll think about it. How long would I have to stay around in order to disappear naturally?”
“I can’t tell you. The ghosts I have met haven’t had it happen to them yet, and the ones to whom it presumably has aren’t around for me to meet them. Most of them only seem to linger for a year or two, but I’ve met a couple who have been stuck for hundreds of years on the earth. They tend to be really tense. Actually, I thought you were one of those the other day.”
She frowns. “I have already said that I am sorry. What more do you want?”
“Are those your body parts that keep turning up?”
She hesitates, embarrassed. “Yes. I had to get the old man’s attention somehow. I have tried being nice to lots of tenants, but none of them has noticed me, so I thought I would make a less ambiguous gesture.”
“Where are they coming from?”
“They aren’t real body parts. They are simulacra. The real ones are still buried in the Tarn et Garonne, in a wood near Montauban, where my father buried me.”
“So, it was your father who killed you, was it?
“Yes, Papa killed me.”
“Why?”
“He lost his temper. He was angry with me. He didn’t like me being with Mary, the woman I ran off with. Didn’t like lesbians. So I retaliated by taunting him, saying how much I was enjoying it; that sex was much nicer with women than with men who are all clumsy and arrogant and pushy and messy. Why would I want that? I went on and on, and he got crosser and crosser. He always got cross, did Papa, usually at Maman, but sometimes at me too. I was fed up with his physical and emotional bullying of us because when he lost his temper entirely, it usually ended in a beating for either Maman, or me, or my brother. I knew I was pushing him too far, but it all came out. How I hated the life in Freyrargues, how I knew all about his sordid affair with Marguerite de Belletier, and that Florent is my step-brother, and it was time Maman and Thibault, my brother, learnt all about that, not to mention M. de Belletier and the whole village. He said ‘You wouldn’t do that, Alice,’ and I sensed his fear so I said ‘Yes, I will, I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll phone Maman to tell her, and then we’ll see what a self-righteous prick you are.’ So he grabbed me, only to make a point, I think, but I goaded him again, saying, ‘That’s right, hit me, like you always do, use your brains - your fists or your dick.’ I think he thought that I was challenging him to fuck me, and he got really mad and grabbed my throat instead, and he found he couldn’t stop. He kept throttling me until I was dead.”
“That must have been really frightening.”
“Towards the end, yes, because I couldn’t breathe, but I was also in a fight with my Papa that I had really wanted all my life, and I was enjoying my power over him for a change, so I was concentrating on that. Then, yes, I couldn’t breathe, so I was panicking, then frantic, then desperate, and I evacuated everything out of my bowels. After that it was all right. I was dead. That really crucified my Papa when he realised that I was dead. He cried and cried, and picked me up and kissed me over and over again, telling me how much he loved
me, and had always loved me, and would always love me, and he was so, so, sorry for what he had just done, and he hadn’t meant to do it, and what could he do to undo it? Then he lifted me into the passenger seat of our car and drove me to Montauban, which took hours and hours, and all the way he apologised to me, and prayed for my soul, and worried what would happen to me, what he would say to Maman, whether she would ever find out. I was terrified he would have an accident. He wasn’t in any state to concentrate on the road at all. He nearly drove into several cars and even a couple of trees, swerving around. It was a miracle he wasn’t stopped by the police. Perhaps he wanted to be stopped by the police, but I didn’t want him to be. I wanted him to get away with it. After all, it was more than partly my fault, and he is still my papa. So we got to this copse near Montauban, and he pulled over, and he carried me out, and he dug my grave with his bare hands. Luckily for him it had been raining, so the ground was softer than usual, but I am sure that he would have done the same even if it had been all rocks. He didn’t care. He just wanted to give me a true burial, with love. He apologised all over again for killing me, and for the fact that I was not being laid to rest on sanctified ground near my ancestors, and he hoped that my soul would rest in peace. Then he said that he was going back to kill Mary for what she had made me do. That sort of spoiled the effect. I prayed very hard that he wouldn’t, and in the end he didn’t because I saw her again here, but he did try to lay the blame on her and Julia, got the whole village marching up here to take revenge, worked everyone up around their prejudices against women first and foremost, and then about the disgusting sexual practices of lesbians. Then Julia and Mary hit them in the crutch with boiling oil, and Julia rather unexpectedly pulled out a gun and gave every impression of knowing exactly how to use it and where, and all the stupid cowards of the village ran home again, back to the wives they despise, and the daughters they really want to fuck themselves (except the plainer ones, and even them sometimes) but know they aren’t allowed to, and back to their miserable bigoted lives, ready to plan to do something to Mary and Julia the next day, except that they packed and fled. And I have been alone here ever since.”
“Do you have to stay in this house? I have never met a ghost outside.”
“No, I can go outside. I can go anywhere I like. It is just that you cannot really see us out in the sunshine. We are too faint. I go to see Maman quite often. She is very sad. She remembers me every day, and she cries every day too, often several times. Poor Maman. And Papa prays for me too, and tells me how much he loves me, and wishes we could start again. It is tragic to watch, it really is. If I could cry, I would too. I wish Julia and Mary would come back to find me. I am so lonely. I have nothing to do except to watch people, and I cannot sleep. I see a few interesting things wandering around Freyargues, lots of things I am never meant to see, lots of secret affairs and dishonest deals, the odd fight, but it gets less and less entertaining, and more and more tedious. I am so bored. I really need a friend. Will you be my friend, Paul?”
I smile. “Of course I will, Alice. I’ll call round every day, or you can come over to Valflaunès.”
“Thank you, but I would rather stay here. I belong here in this village.”
“Where can I meet you? I cannot really come to this house all the time and, if I do, I cannot get away too easily to meet up with you.”
“Do you know the barn down the lane, here - the next barn, leaving the village – the derelict one?”
“I am sure I can find it.”
“Meet me there. What time would be best?”
“Shall we say at 10:00 in the morning, or is that too early for you?”
“No, that would be good.”
“I’ll see you then, then. I cannot offer you anything more than friendship, naturally, and I probably wouldn’t have done even when I was alive.”
“Were you really a lesbian …. ?”
“Paul, where the hell are you?” Mike shouts up the stairs, interrupting us.
“Coming in a second,” I shout back.
“You have been up there for hours!”
“I’ll be with you. I’ve been looking around for ghosts.”
“Did you find any?”
Alice winks.
“No. They must all be out for the day,” I quip.
Mike returns to the main room.
“Alice,” I continue, “could I ask you a favour?”
“Naturally.”
“Can you conjure up these body parts of yours at will?”
“Yes, anything I like.”
“Can you do the same thing twice?”
“Yes, I am sure I can. They aren’t real, except in appearance. Why?”
“The people up at the Château …. ”
“ …. oh, that lot. They make me sick …. ”
“That lot. They have been betting on which part of your body will turn up next …. ”
“That really makes me sick. They must be psychos …. ”
“ … no, just bored, like you …. ”
“I would never think of that.”
“Anyway, do you want to punish them, and help me, and have a good laugh as well?”
“D’acc.”
“This is my idea. I will find out today what parts everybody is betting on, and I will join in and bet on a different one. Then, tomorrow, when we meet up, I will tell you which one I am backing, and you produce it. I’ll get Mike to do it too, so it won’t always be me. What do you think?”
She laughs. “I think that would be pretty funny. I’ll do it. You must go now,” she adds, and then she kisses me three times on the cheek, without actually touching of course. “Until tomorrow.”
* * *
After a sort of lunch, it is time to look around the garden to search for the rest of the remains of whomever it is Inspector John keeps finding the parts of.
“Can the police laboratories here do any kind of DNA match?” I ask, interested suddenly.
“They have tried,” replies Inspector John. “They haven’t found anything of Alice’s to match the DNA in the forearm and foot – the Picards are searching high and low for one of Alice’s stray hairs – but they could, in principle, compare it with the parents’ DNA and at least calculate a level of probability as to whether or not they could belong to their daughter, but the strange thing is, and this is exceedingly strange, they cannot extract any DNA from the forearm and foot whatsoever, try as they might. This has never happened to them before, they say, and I can believe it. DNA matching has become extremely precise recently – the techniques have come on in leaps and bounds even in the last five years. One pathologist in Manchester told me that progress has been the equivalent of going from the first car ever built to the Space Shuttle in five years, and I cannot imagine that France is any less advanced than we are. If anything, they are probably more advanced but, in this case, they cannot get a read at all. They say that it is as if these body parts aren’t really real at all, although obviously they are.”
“Spooky!” Mike declares, intuiting the truth without realising it.
“That is strange,” I add.
“Isn’t it? So they have no clue whatsoever whose body I am finding. Maybe the next piece will reveal something more.”
“Where should we start looking?” asks Mike, eager for instructions.
“You sound as if you are really looking forward to finding something, Mike,” I comment.
“I have money on it,” he explains.
Inspector John looks shocked. He evidently hasn’t heard about the William Hill syndicate which has been set up at the Château. “What do you mean, Mike?” he asks.
“It’s a bit revolting,” Mike starts to explain with sudden embarrassment, “but we have been betting on what parts of the body would turn up next.”
“How disgusting! Have you lot not got anything better to do?”
“It reduces the shock, I suppose,” ventures Mike by way of self-exculpation.
“It adds to my shock,
” counters Inspector John.
“Yes, I can imagine it would.”
“Well, out with it, what are you betting on?”
“A rib.”
“Any specific one?” I throw in.
“No, I am the only one with a rib, so I don’t need to be specific yet.”
“And you, Paul?” Inspector John challenges me.
“I haven’t taken part.”
“Good for you. Please don’t.”
“I might tomorrow.”
“For God’s sake, why would you want to do that?”
“To win.”
“How do you know that you will win?”
“Yes, how do you know?” Mike chimes in.
“I always win when I place a bet.”
“That is usually because you have come up with some sneaky way of discovering the outcome in advance. Paul is a spectacular cheat, Inspector. Never play games with him, and definitely not for money, whatever you do. He is right. He always wins. It’s not a boast; it’s a criminal confession. So how are you going to fix it, Paul, this time? Are you hoping to find something here today, bet on it, then rediscover it in a couple of days’ time. Is that your plan?”
“It’s a good plan,” I confirm. “I may just do that.”
“Well at least you will be taking this search seriously then, Paul,” smiles Inspector John, “so we had better get started.”
For about two hours we scour this really quite small garden as if playing Grandmother’s Footsteps without Grandmother, although still expecting something to turn round and say boo. In fact Mike and I boo each other a couple of times, and it occurred to me that it would be great if Alice could make an impromptu appearance and boo Mike on her behalf too, but she must have had other plans.
Needless to say, we found nothing at all, not even a dog bone.
* * *
We came directly from Inspector John’s garden to the Château, in fact we walked which seemed a healthy idea at the time except that it took us much longer than we thought it would, knowing that we would have to go and get the car later again in the dark.
