Laying a Ghost

by Jane Davitt

  John sighed. “I wouldn’t be holding your breath.” He turned to walk away. “It could take you years to work your way through them all, and by then I’ll probably be lying there with them and you can sort me out as an encore.”

  After a crack like that he really expected Nick to get angry with him, and rightfully so, but Nick didn’t say anything. Just followed along behind him silently; when John glanced back at him, Nick’s arms were still wrapped around himself, his eyes on the ground.

  “Nick ‑‑” John came to a halt and reached out his hand before letting it fall back, not sure Nick would want anything from him but an apology. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped at you like that.” Nick didn’t look up and John waited a moment, the darkness lifting with every moment as the sun edged higher towards the horizon. “I’m sorry,” he repeated helplessly. “I’m just not used to this. Any of it. And it’s not that I don’t want it ‑‑ I want you ‑‑ it’s just that I can’t catch my breath somehow. You’ve had years to get accustomed to the ghosts, and being in love, and I’ve had ‑‑”

  He stopped, hearing what he’d just said lie between them, feeling naked and exposed. You didn’t do that. You didn’t tell a man you’d known for less than two days that you loved him. Not when he’d buried his partner weeks before. Not when he wasn’t going to be around for long, no matter what he said. Not when he was risk and temptation wrapped up in a body John couldn’t keep his hands off.

  Nick hunched his shoulders, keeping his head down. His dark hair stood out like negative space as the world of shadows around them melted away. “I was never in love with Matthew. So we’re on equal footing as far as that’s concerned, anyway.” His eyes met John’s so briefly that John thought he might have imagined it, but before he could even make sense of the words, let alone react, Nick began to walk again, passing John and continuing on toward the house.

  “Wait!” John went after him, stumbling over the same bramble that had caught him before. The small, viciously sharp thorns stabbed through his sock and tore at his ankle, doing nothing to improve his temper. He freed himself and caught up with Nick, who hadn’t even turned to look back, grabbing at his arm. “Will you tell me what that’s supposed to mean?” he demanded. “You were with him for years and you didn’t love him? What kind of a way to live is that?”

  The prick of thorns was nothing compared to the sting of Nick’s words when he spun around, shoving John’s hand away from his arm. “Don’t you dare say that I didn’t love him!” Nick snarled, his good hand curled into a fist as though he were tempted to punch John. “I loved him since we were sixteen years old! He was my best friend, and if you think I didn’t do my damndest to fall in love with him then you don’t know anything about me. And I don’t know where you get off thinking you can criticize the way I’ve lived when you’ve never had anything but quick fucks with people who didn’t even know your name.”

  If there’d been anything to say to that, John still wouldn’t have been capable of replying. Anger, sick with shame and dark with hurt, stripped him of speech, and left him trembling with the force of it.

  John tried to speak, got as far as saying, “No ‑‑” and then shook his head to clear the buzzing, roaring sound that was making it impossible to think.

  “No.” He made a better job of it this time. “You know it, and if it’s slipped your mind, I’ll remind you, shall I? It’s John. John Robert McIntyre and you don’t fucking work at falling in love, you stupid fuck, it just happens. And now I’m wishing to God it hadn’t happened to me, for I’m hating you right now and I don’t want ‑‑ I don’t ‑‑ oh God, Nick ‑‑”

  “Shut up.” Nick grabbed onto the front of John’s shirt, pulled him in close, and kissed him, so hard that after a moment John tasted the sharp, salty tang of blood and knew that Nick must have split his lip. “Shut up,” he repeated, more gently now, one arm slipping around John’s waist and the other up into his hair, and the next kiss was gentle, too. Warm and gentle, and John felt his anger melt away. “Don’t hate me,” Nick murmured. “I know I’m ... God, John, I’m a mess, I know that, but don’t hate me.”

  John shook his head, unable to meet Nick’s eyes. “I’m the one should be saying that. You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true and we both know it. And of both of us, you’ve got more excuse for being fucked up than me.”

  “I’m not sure we need excuses.” Nick leaned his forehead against John’s, his hand still on the back of John’s neck. “But I still shouldn’t have said that. This is your life, here, and if it wasn’t ... if I hadn’t met you ...” He sounded sad. “Don’t hate me.”

  “I don’t.” John couldn’t make that sound anything but desperate. “Nick, I don’t. I ‑‑” He looked around them, wishing they were still hidden by the darkness or within the blind walls of the house. Wishing even now, with Nick’s face hollowed out by tiredness and hurt, he wasn’t thinking that someone could be watching them, standing here in view of the road and the manse as they were. “Can we just go?” he asked. “Back to your house? Talk about this there?”

  “Sure.” Something shuttered closed behind Nick’s eyes as he very deliberately let go of John and stepped back away from him. “Yeah. Let’s just go back to the house.”

  Miserable, John couldn’t do anything but walk beside him. Couldn’t say anything, which seemed to be fine with Nick, because he wasn’t saying anything either. By the time they reached the house, the silence had gone from awkward to something a bit emptier, a bit bleaker.

  They walked into the kitchen and Nick went over to the kettle, switching it on without looking at John who stood, irresolute, in the middle of the room.

  “Will you tell me something?” The words burst out of him and he didn’t wait for Nick to answer, just carried on talking into the dead air that surrounded them both. “Will you tell me why you couldn’t love him when you let me get this close, this fast? Just because I believed you? Just because I can see them too?” He lifted his hand to touch his lip, swollen where Nick’s teeth had cut it. “Would you have still wanted me if I couldn’t?”

  “I don’t know.” Nick stood with his back to John, and it was terrifying how those three words made John’s heart feel like ice before Nick went on and made it clear that he was talking about Matthew and not answering John’s last question. “I wanted to be in love with him. I tried, but I never could. Maybe it was because there was some part of him that thought I was crazy. I don’t know.”

  “I can see how that would hurt you. What I can’t see is why you stayed with him. I’ve spent years settling for the best I could get ‑‑ and it wasn’t much ‑‑ but you didn’t need to.”

  Nick turned around, leaning against the countertop. “I don’t know. Partially because of the work. Partially because I did ‑‑ do ‑‑ love him, even if it was never the way he wanted me to. And he took care of stuff.” He ran a hand over the back of his neck as if it were sore. “Sometimes I’m not all that together. Especially after. Can you imagine what it would be like to be alone and have something like that happen?” It was clear that it was something Nick had imagined many times, and probably experienced a few times as well.

  John still didn’t get it ‑‑ wasn’t sure he ever would ‑‑ but he felt a certain sympathy for Matthew. Being in love with someone who loved you, but wasn’t in love with you, slept with you because why the hell not, stayed with you because you were useful ‑‑ it must have been frustrating as hell. On the other hand, years of knowing the person you were closest to thought that you were crazy couldn’t have been much fun either.

  “No, I can’t.” John made an effort. “I’m glad you had him. I just feel ‑‑ sorry for him, I suppose.”

  “I tried to tell him that he should go.” The kettle began to boil, the mundane sound a sharp contrast to the events of the last hour, and Nick moved to a cupboard and got out some mugs. “That it wasn’t fair to him. He wouldn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t have gone either,” John told hi
m. “Not if I thought there was a chance I could change your mind.”

  “I did try. That has to count for something.”

  John nodded, not having any trouble believing him and finally appreciating the trap the two of them had been in, with Nick loving Matthew ‑‑ needing Matthew ‑‑ too much to push him away with any conviction, leaving Matthew hoping, always hoping.

  Nick made some instant coffee, and they sat down at the table sipping it in silence. The hostility that had flared up between them had drained away, but it had left John feeling cautious, even a little wary.

  “Can I get you some breakfast?” Nick asked. “Toast, or there’s some cereal ‑‑ well, you know what I’ve got as well as I do.”

  He smiled, and John answered it, but he shook his head. If he was going to leave and stand any chance of getting home without being seen, he had to go now. Early though it was, there would be people waking soon and five miles out of town wasn’t enough to guarantee privacy.

  “I’d best go. I don’t want to, but it’s nearly six and ‑‑” John didn’t finish his sentence. Didn’t need to. “Look, why don’t you try and get some more sleep and I’ll be back later? Start on the roof, maybe, so the next time it rains it stays outside the house?” He drained his coffee and stood up, walking over to the sink to rinse his mug.

  When he turned Nick was still at the table watching him.

  “I’ll come back.” It was all John could promise right then.

  “You’d have to sooner or later. It’s not a big enough island that you could avoid me forever, even if you wanted to.” There seemed to be a lot behind the words that Nick wasn’t saying.

  John looked at him, seeing the strain on his face, and shook his head. “I don’t. There’s a lot of things I want to do when it comes to you, but avoiding you isn’t one of them.” He paused with his hand on the door knob. “It can’t have been easy for you, what you just did. With her being family and all. I’m sorry I made it harder for you.”

  The early morning air struck cool against his face as he walked across the fields to his house. Walked without looking back at the gray stone of Rossneath House or over to the graveyard. Right now he just wanted to go home.

  Chapter Eight

  After John left, Nick did go back to bed for a while. He slept heavily and woke groggy and out of sorts, feeling like he didn’t belong. A long shower did some good ‑‑ not to mention it demonstrated exactly how much hot water was in the tank, which was probably important to know ‑‑ and a quick breakfast did more. He’d finished washing the dishes and gone back into the sitting room and was attempting a second go at sorting through everything in the desk when he heard a knock on the door. Frowning, Nick went to answer it.

  “Mr. Kelley?” The man on the doorstep was about fifty, dressed in a neat, dark suit and with graying hair brushed smoothly back from his forehead. He looked ... official, Nick thought, taking in the man’s air of confidence. He summoned up the energy to smile politely. “Yes? Can I help you?”

  The man smiled, his brown eyes warming slightly. “My, but you’ve a look of your uncle about you! I’m sorry to disturb you; I know you must be very busy settling in, but I just wanted to welcome you to the island.” He nodded his head in the direction of the churchyard. “I’m Andrew Sinclair, the minister. I knew your uncle well.” He held out his hand. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

  Nick shook the other man’s hand and glanced over his shoulder into the house. “Hi; it’s nice to meet you. I’m Nick Kelley. Would you like to come in for a cup of tea? The place is kind of a mess ...”

  “If it wouldn’t be putting you to any trouble.” That immediately had Nick thinking about John, who’d used those exact words, but meant them.

  By the time Andrew Sinclair was sitting at the kitchen table, insisting with a smile that he was fine there, Nick could feel the start of a headache. It wasn’t that the man was unfriendly, because he wasn’t. It wasn’t because in the space of time it had taken to boil a kettle and make a pot of tea he’d asked a steady stream of questions, because they hadn’t been intrusive, not really. No; the headache was down to the fact that the minister was assuming one hell of a lot and setting him right wasn’t going to be easy without giving away a lot more about himself than Nick had intended. Lying wasn’t something he felt comfortable doing, but he was being gently maneuvered into a tight corner.

  He’d never planned to hide the fact that he was gay, because it wasn’t something that he was used to seeing as a secret, but he hadn’t thought that it would be an issue given that he hadn’t ‑‑ really hadn’t ‑‑ planned on John. Now he was left floundering, wondering what was best; not for him, but for John. If he agreed that yes, it’d be nice if he met a nice girl on the island, and the next church social event would be the ideal opportunity, would that be a smart move, or would it lead to more problems than he could deal with?

  “I’m planning on leading a very quiet life here.” The silence was getting a little awkward and he felt he had to say something. “Writing and ‑‑ researching. I’m interested in tracing my family tree.”

  He was only somewhat interested really, but it would give him an excuse to ask about people who’d lived and died on the island. If he was going to be dealing with more ghosts, it’d be handy to have some idea of what their problems were.

  “I suppose I’m connected to a lot of people on the island.” He gave Sinclair a smile and passed him the sugar. “I’m getting some renovations done on the house, and it turns out the man who’s doing them is some sort of distant cousin. What’re the odds?”

  “Ah, yes.” Sinclair stirred two spoonfuls of sugar into his tea with a meditative look on his face. “John McIntyre. Good worker and well thought of on the island. His mother’s a fine woman and one of my parishioners. You’ll have heard, perhaps, that she’s a recent widow? Tragic, but the Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” He sighed and sipped his tea. “John’s not one for the church going though, I’m afraid. His mother’s expressed some concern to me about his state of mind; when you have a loss to deal with and no spiritual support ‑‑ well. And of course, he’s not married, so he has no family of his own to lift his spirits.”

  Nick tried to think of what he could say that would make it sound like he didn’t really know John all that well, and then he realized that he really didn’t know John all that well. There was something between them, something powerful ‑‑ or maybe it was just that they both wanted there to be, that they were caught up in the newness and intensity of it. NRE, Matthew had called it. New Relationship Energy. “He said something about some friends of his who are married to each other? It sounded like they were pretty close.”

  “Michael and Sheila Stewart.” Andrew Sinclair nodded, again with that slightly questioning look flickering in his eyes, as though the facts he knew were warring with what his instincts told him. “Rumor has it ‑‑ and when you’ve been in a place like this as long as I have, you soon learn to take rumors with a wee pinch of salt ‑‑ that Michael and John were rivals for Sheila’s affections when they were younger, but I think she made the right choice myself. There’s something a bit strange about a man of John’s age who doesn’t make any effort to find himself a young lady, wouldn’t you say? I don’t know where I’d be without Mrs. Sinclair, that’s a certain fact!”

  Nick sipped at his own tea and thought quickly. “I think some men are just happier on their own. Maybe there’s no one on the island who’s available and ready to settle down? It must be hard, being fairly isolated. Difficult to meet people, and even the ones you meet might not be interested in living here?”

  Andrew Sinclair pursed his lips and gave a reluctant, slightly grudging nod before attacking ‑‑ and it was starting to feel like that ‑‑ from a different angle. “It’s sad to see the way the young people can’t wait to move off the islands.” His eyes narrowed. “I just hope they don’t regret turning their backs on their heritage and responsibilities. Your mother never
came back here, did she?”

  “No. She never got the chance.” It was calculated to create an assumption that she might have, and Nick was gratified to see Sinclair’s face express what might have been at least a hint of regret. “But I’m here now, and I plan to stay.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear,” Sinclair said heartily. “It’s all going to seem a little different to you, I suppose, but it’s a beautiful place and the fishing’s good.” He looked at Nick a little dubiously. “Or would you be one of those vegetarians, then?”

  Nick laughed. There was nervousness behind it, sure, but it was good to be able to answer a question honestly and without worrying how it would be taken. “No, I’m not a vegetarian. Not much of a cook, either, I’m afraid. I was actually thinking that I might try to find a course, a cooking class. I guess there wouldn’t be anything like that here on Traighshee, but maybe on Mull?” He’d just thought of it now, but he did like the small amounts of cooking he knew how to do, and since he’d have the time and his own kitchen now, it wasn’t a bad idea.

  Andrew Sinclair stared at him as if he’d just said he planned on taking lessons in Ancient Egyptian. “Cooking? Well, there’s a small community center on the island here and some of the, uh, artistic types run classes on pottery and such, but cooking, well, I’m not ashamed to admit that I stay out of the kitchen myself. That’s Mrs. Sinclair’s territory, and you know what the ladies are like!” He chuckled and then shook his head. “Maybe you should think about getting someone in to cook and clean for you? I could ask around the congregation and see if there’s anyone available?”

  “I appreciate the offer, but let’s give it a few weeks?” Nick hoped he wasn’t being impolite without realizing it. “I think I might be able to do it on my own. But if you thought there might be someone who’d be willing to give a man a chance in the kitchen, that would be great. I can use all the help I can get, there, and I would like to be able to be self-sufficient.”