Mortal Ghost

by Lowe, L. Lee

  For the first time one of the girls spoke, the one holding Gavin’s skateboard. ‘What did he mean about your boyfriend, Gav?’

  ‘Ask Mick, why don’t you?’ Jesse said.

  He moved to Sarah’s side and rested a hand on her shoulder. She stiffened under his touch. There was an odd expression on her face. He delved into the back pocket of his jeans for his cigarettes, shook one out with a flick of his wrist, and brought it up to his lips in a smooth one-handed movement, then pocketed the packet again. After lighting up with the handsome Zippo Finn had given him, he blew a perfect smoke ring. Then he cast an insolent glance at Mick.

  ‘As for you, you don’t learn very quick, do you? Maybe you need another dancing lesson.’

  Enough. No matter how much Sarah would love to see those two bastards cut up and ground into mince, fried, smothered in ketchup, consumed, there was something unsettling about the way Jesse was behaving. What had got into him? She’d never seen him take pleasure in humiliating someone quite like this before. At first she’d thought his bravado was an act. Those mannerisms—those lines—exaggerated to the point of self-parody. But even Jesse wasn’t that good. He was liking it. Liking it a whole lot. And what did that make him but another one of them?

  Sarah slid from under Jesse’s grip with a twitch of her shoulder and regarded the two girls who were slowly edging into the background. The one with the blond quills looked as dumb as cheese. But both of them should have known better. Yeah right. Had she? Maybe if another girl had warned her . . . a dram of an idea, first a single drop, then a trickle, then a noisy splash . . . yes! Her mouth turned up at the corner in a way that Katy would have known all too well. Payback, Sarah thought. With a sense of elation—was she really going to do this?—she straightened her shoulders, ignored her pounding heart, and framed the words carefully in her mind. It probably wouldn’t do any good, but it would feel great trying.

  She addressed the girls. ‘Listen to me. You really need to keep away from these losers. Have you got any idea what they do? They’re rapists. Believe me. I know, because they raped me a few weeks ago. That’s why my friend here is so upset.’ An even better idea erupted in her head, gushing a fountain of lovely prickly champagne. She added, her eyes raking Mick, ‘And I intend to make sure that every girl in school knows about it.’

  The rush was better than she could have ever imagined.

  Everyone was stunned into immobility, but Sarah didn’t wait to gloat. A performer knows instinctively how to time the perfect exit. She tossed Jesse’s skateboard at his feet, picked up her own, and strode off in the direction of the bus stop. Go to the police, Jesse had urged. How wrong he’d been. This was much, much better. She grinned, then laughed aloud, then did a quick jazzy run of ball changes and flick kicks in sheer exuberance. Mick was just about pissing himself. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? There wouldn’t be a girl at school who’d go near him, not if handled right. A hint here, a whisper there. Nothing that sounded like he might have dropped her. Like jealousy. Jesse wasn’t the only one who could fan a few flames. It would spread like wildfire. Mick had been just a little too cocksure that she would keep quiet, that she wouldn’t dare, that she would be crushed/demeaned/terrified/ashamed/intimidated/dirtied—and she had been, hadn’t she? All of them.

  What was it her mum always said? Victims often participate in their own victimisation.

  ‘Sarah, what’s going on? Why did you run off?’

  Jesse caught her by the wrist and spun her round. They were near the clover bowl. She snatched her arm from his grasp, dropped her skateboard, and stood facing him while she brushed back her hair. Abruptly she tugged off the thick elastic.

  ‘Sarah?’

  The smug look was gone from his face. His forehead was creased, and a familiar shadow darkened his eyes: the wariness of a dog which didn’t know if it were about to get a bone or a blow. He touched her hesitantly on the arm. When she swayed back, she might as well have struck him across the face. He looked down at his feet.

  ‘It’s bad enough that you haven’t trusted me. That you’ve kept all sorts of important stuff from me. But you’d better understand one thing from the get-go,’ she said. ‘You don’t own me. I’m not a bone to be snarled over by a pack of dogs.’

  ‘You know I don’t think that.’

  ‘Do I? It looked a lot like ownership back there.’ She pitched her voice in a fair imitation of his cool menace: ‘Keep away from Sarah. She’s off-bounds. She’s mine.’

  His lips tightened. ‘I was just trying to protect you from—’

  ‘Protect me?’ Her voice rose. ‘Protect me? Did I ask you for help? Did I look so desperate that I needed some wannabe cowboy to come riding over—on a skateboard—to rescue poor helpless little Sarah?’ She stopped to take a breath. To stoke up enough heat to go on, because a nasty little voice at the back of her head was beginning to make itself heard. She knew that voice. She ignored it. ‘You’re just like one of them, aren’t you. One of the boys. Just a bit smoother, a bit more exotic with your bag of fancy tricks. Bloody great magic tricks to be sure. But no different from any other bloke I’ve ever met when you come right down to it. Always looking for yes, and taking damned good care that no one else gets a piece of your yes. Jesus, it’s all about sex and ego, isn’t it. And mostly sex.’ She threw a contemptuous glance at the relevant part of his anatomy, making sure he saw it. ‘I ought to feel sorry for you. Must be real hard to think straight when you’re walking round in that state all the time.’

  Jesse tried to smile. A brave attempt, which died almost as soon as it had begun. He laid his skateboard and helmet at Sarah’s feet, pivoted, and walked away. After a few paces he stopped and looked over his shoulder. ‘I was very proud of you back there,’ he said quietly. ‘Take care of Nubi, will you?’ He broke into a lope before she had a chance to reply.

  She watched him go with a tight feeling in her chest.

  ~~~

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Thomas asked, concern on his clever ugly face. He’d just finished work, an off-the-books cleaning job with long hours and low wages that he barely managed in between stints at the gallery, but he needed the money for next year. His family wasn’t well-off, and there were four other kids in the family. He’d come round as soon as he heard the tears in her voice.

  How easy it would be, Sarah thought, if only you could fall in love with your best friend. She remembered the years of bullying Thomas had put up with till he’d learned a trick or two. Then he’d started to dance and it got better, especially when he found out he could soon outjump and outrun and outkick just about any of them. When they found out he could. Now he volunteered in the school’s buddy system, teaching younger kids how to get help.

  ‘Jesse hasn’t come back yet. Hasn’t rung.’ Sarah said. ‘We had a row.’

  She prodded the candle with a finger while Thomas watched her, his pizza growing cold. Some of the wax spilled through the indentation in the softened rim and ran into the glass candleholder. She scooped it up and kneaded it in her fingers, rolled it as it hardened into a tight little ball.

  ‘I said some vile things to him this evening. I feel awful.’

  ‘Look, we all do it sometimes,’ Thomas said.

  ‘Tommy, I opened my mouth and these stupid hateful hideous words just poured out. It was like there were two people inside me—the real Sarah and the other one, the one that wanted to see how far I could go, how much I could punish him.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For being strong and male and so sure of himself.’

  ‘Jesse? Sure of himself? Are we talking about the same person?’

  ‘OK. Sometimes sure of himself. And sometimes so fragile that I’m afraid he’ll dissolve like rice paper if I so much as touch my lips to his skin. That’s why it’s so terrible what I did. Punish him, test him, call it what you want. All for being the kind of person he is. For being what he is. For being Jesse.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘For making me terr
ified of losing him.’

  ~~~

  Jesse thumbed a lift with a farm lorry as far as the junction to Matthew’s lane. He desperately needed to talk with Matt. As he plodded through the wood, he could feel signs of the Red’s presence, although it didn’t address him directly. He felt sick about Sarah. Again and again he asked himself how to build a bulwark against this insidious cohabitation, which he could no longer pretend was disinterested.

  Maybe there really was a puckish force operating in the universe, Jesse reflected. Magnificent treacherous Loki, who with a snigger of mischief snatched up the dice and replaced them with a thirteen-sided pair. Or else a truly malign god, who offered him Sarah and her family with one hand, and Red with the other. Neither prospect consoled Jesse unduly.

  A sudden stir in the undergrowth. Daisy appeared, blood beading from a fresh scratch on her muzzle, a tangle of twigs and dried leaves draped over one ear. She came to a halt in front of Jesse, fixing her eyes on him. Her hackles rose, and she bared her teeth, then began to growl. ‘Daisy, it’s me,’ he said, but she didn’t seem to recognise him. ‘Come on, girl, take it easy, you know me, Matt’s friend.’ Slowly he retreated a few steps, she looked ready to tear out his throat. ‘Daisy?’ Snarls, meaty and guttural, pursued him. Nasty useless brutes, he heard Red say. Then frantic barking sawed through Jesse’s head. ‘Stop!’ he cried but the agony continued—loud, rabid, frenzied—until he raised his arms and cried out once more. There was a short whine followed by the relief of silence.

  Jesse had crossed the cattlegrid and was laying his hands on the gate latch when he looked behind him up the private lane towards Matthew’s cottage. He jerked back as if the metal had branded his skin. How had he got here? He had no recollection of . . . of what? He’d been heading towards the cottage. And why did he seem to remember Daisy?

  You don’t want to bother with that stuff, said Red. It’s a waste of time.

  What the fuck are you talking about?

  No call for profanities. I’ve only got our best interests at heart.

  Is that so? Then what just happened to my memory?

  Jesse noticed an unpleasant mustard-coloured hue to Red’s silence.

  ‘You’d better tell me what you’re up to!’ Jesse shouted.

  Calm down. All that petty muddle, life’s fitful fever. Fine for your Shakespeare but a little irrelevant for us, wouldn’t you say?

  Feelings aren’t irrelevant. Sarah’s not irrelevant.

  We’ll get to her another time.

  Angry now, Jesse jammed a clenched fist against his teeth. A sweet odour beset him, a metallic taste. Slowly he held out his hand, then the other. He stared at them for a long while. They were scratched and streaked, and his fingernails caked with a reddish-brown, sticky substance. He raised his hands to his nose and sniffed, first in puzzlement, then in growing dread.

  ‘What have I done?’ he whispered.

  There was no answer from his companion.

  He sprinted back along the track until he came upon Daisy. For a moment he thought she was merely dozing in the bracken and called out to her, but then he noticed the odd angle of her head and the blood seeping from her mouth and nose. And the flies. He dropped to his knees and laid his ear against her chest. Nothing. He waited, though for what he couldn’t have said. Or maybe it would simply take too much energy to lift his head. The only thing he heard was the thick sap of the trees, suppurating—even his thoughts moved like silent wraiths through a blank and suffocating cloud of ash.

  Twilight returned along with the sensation of itchy wetness on his cheeks. He raised his face from the large patch his tears had dampened on Daisy’s beautiful creamy fur. Sarah, he thought, help me. How do I tell Matthew? Her fingers brushed the nape of his neck, her lips. He dragged himself to his feet, lifted the heavy dog in his arms, and began the long trudge to the cottage.

  Chapter 33

  Sunday before dawn. It must have rained earlier—the air was damp and chill, with the raw green-tea smell of more to come. Sarah checked her alarm: five o’clock. No point tossing and turning any longer. She donned a fleecy jumper and tried reading; she tried listening to music; and finally, gazing out the open window, she tried listening for the first drops of rain but heard only the birds, the wind, the house, her fear . . . listening for footsteps.

  ~~~

  ‘Where’s Jesse, by the way?’ Meg asked. ‘Still sleeping?’

  Sarah looked at her father in alarm. He read the appeal in her eyes.

  ‘He hasn’t come home,’ Finn said quietly.

  Meg looked up. ‘What do you mean? Where is he? At Matthew’s?’

  Finn shook his head. ‘We don’t know,’ he said. ‘I rang Matthew. He doesn’t seem to be feeling well. He didn’t want to speak. Jesse was there last night but left after a short while.’

  Meg studied Sarah’s face, then poured another cup of coffee, her eyes falling on the late roses Jesse had cut yesterday. ‘I like their smell,’ he’d said when teased about his fondness for flowers, and gardening.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Meg said. ‘He’s all right. He’ll be back.’ She smiled an odd smile, one which Sarah didn’t recognise. ‘Jesse can look after himself.’

  Sarah pushed back her chair. The air in the kitchen, despite the open window, was suddenly stifling. She walked to the back door and opened it, breathed in the smell of unshed rain. Nubi slunk out into the garden. The sky was grey, a bleak liverish sky. The letter had arrived under just such a dark ceiling of cloud two years ago. Had time suddenly twisted out of shape like those incomprehensible hypercubes they’d done in maths?

  The phone rang. Sarah spun round, then sagged against the doorframe when she realised it was the signal for Finn’s private line. Finn popped a piece of bacon into his mouth and turned the gas low under the frying pan.

  ‘I’ll get it, then we can eat,’ he said.

  He snagged another piece of bacon, licked his fingers with a wink at Meg, and left the room, shutting the kitchen door behind him.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ Meg said. ‘It’s probably one of those interminable discussions with New York. Those people seem to keep hospital hours, they even work on Sundays.’

  ‘You don’t think it could be Jesse, do you?’ Sarah couldn’t stop herself from asking.

  ‘Not that line. Sarah, about Jesse, I hate to lecture you but—’

  ‘Then don’t!’ snapped Sarah, gesticulating and sloshing some of her coffee. She fetched a sponge from the sink. After mopping up the spill, Sarah opened the newspaper to the film reviews. Meg knew better than to sigh. A recent issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry on hand for such contingencies, she flipped to an article on antidepressant use among psychiatrists.

  Both Sarah and Meg looked up from their reading when Finn returned. His face was grim and set, ashen. Meg moved quickly to his side and laid a hand on his arm.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked gently.

  ‘A fire,’ Finn said. He turned his eyes on Sarah, who rose abruptly, knocking over her chair, who wanted to look away but couldn’t. ‘A fire,’ he repeated. His words came to Sarah from a great distance. A rushing sound, the roar of a furnace door opening, of flames rising, swaying no she felt the hot wind tearing at her, tearing away her skin her flesh her . . . ‘Jesse,’ someone cried, and her mother was holding her and she was fighting her fighting to remain upright to remain conscious, she had to hear, to know . . .

  ‘I need a cup of coffee,’ Finn said. He sat down stiffly, like an old man, and stared into the mug Meg placed before him on the table without drinking.

  ~~~

  Ayen had spoken in a tight cracked voice, so different from her usual cultured vowels that he needed to ask twice who was ringing. At first Finn thought her angry, but soon realised that it was fear distorting her speech.

  ‘Is Jesse there?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he replied cautiously, ‘he’s gone out.’

  ‘Where was he last night?’
<
br />   ‘Ayen, just what is this about?’

  ‘The research complex.’ She took a deep breath which he could hear catching in her throat. ‘It burnt down about three a.m.’

  ‘A fire? How? You must have superb safety systems in place over there.’

  ‘We did.’

  ‘Look, maybe you’d best start at the beginning.’

  ‘Finn, it’s gone. Everything. Every last—’ She stopped, and Finn listened to the hiss while she got her voice under control again. ‘The alarms worked, and we were able to get everyone out in time. But then—it was as if a nuclear device went off. Total meltdown. I mean it when I say nothing’s left. Nothing. I’m not even sure a recovery team will be able to get inside. From what little we can tell, all the passages have collapsed and everything has fused.’

  ‘Jesus. I’m sorry to hear that. You must have records of your research elsewhere, though.’

  ‘Some, not much. But there are going to be problems, mammoth problems, until we find out what caused this.’

  ‘I can imagine. But why are you ringing me?’ He shifted the phone to his other ear. ‘And why are you asking about Jesse?’

  ‘He was here last night just before everything went haywire.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘Impossible. How would he get there? He doesn’t have a clue where it is. Or did you send someone out for him?’ His voice hardened. ‘Without asking me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it’s impossible. It’s a high security installation. The highest.’

  ‘No longer. It’s a solid mass of melted plastic and twisted metal and rubble hardened to something like volcanic rock.’

  ‘OK. I get the picture. But why do you fancy Jesse was there?’