“I didn’t mean it.”
“It took me so long to find her. Too long. There was nothing that could be done. The skeleton was gone. She’s just a piece of old leather now, my little girl. Or, more correctly, she was broken into a trinity: the body, the ghost that waits upstairs and the soul that lives in the mists outside, waiting.” I wipe away my tears. “Some just want to take their place amongst the heavenly host once more. But I couldn’t have cared less about that, about the wings. Ramiel didn’t come to me until I despaired, didn’t offer anything until I was in a place where I’d do anything to get my daughter back.”
I lean forward. “And I have done so much to earn my reward, Father McBride. I have hunted so many evil-doers, so many sinners whose very existence is anathema to the Godhead. I have been the instrument of punishment for so many years since you killed my Ariel, but finally I am told I have earned my reward.”
“I didn’t mean it,” he says again, plaintive as a boy who feels he’s wrongly punished, struggling upwards to pull his shorts back on, his shirt over his sweating torso. But he doesn’t run, doesn’t break for the door, as if needing the end of the story keeps him rooted. “I didn’t mean it, Sarai. I’m sorry. I was a different man, then, fearful of my freedom, my reputation.”
“And yet you never came forward. You hid in the priesthood as if you were somehow absolved, as if prayers and lip service might free you of all your sins. You never spoke of what you’d done, not even in the confessional booth.” I look at him, pitiless, and say, “It doesn’t matter. Whether you meant it or not, you did it. And you tried to hide it. Her. You did hide her. My little one.” And I can see in his eyes how I look. I wonder if I appeared like that when I had wings, when, Ramiel had told me, I made judgments and handed down wisdom and punishment.
“What will happen to me? What do you want?”
“Ah, you’ve made your own choices, taken your own steps, which is why I’ve not killed you myself.” I rise. “It’s time for you to leave. Away with you, then.” I open the door, feeling the wind lick at my bare skin; I point out to the terribly thick fog dancing just beyond the gate. “That’s the way you need to go.”
And he nods, befuddled and drunk on all that’s happened, all he’s learned, all that’s been taken from him even as it’s been given, drunk on the idea that he’s escaped consequences one more time. He walks with an assurance that surprises and angers me. He doesn’t notice even as he goes out the garden gate the creature in the mist, the one with wings such as I once had. Ramiel doesn’t follow him, doesn’t need to, just waits, as do I.
Waits for Gunn McBride’s feet to take the trail that’s irrevocably changed, that no longer goes towards his church and the tiny rectory beside it where he’d be warm and safe and comfortable. We linger expectantly, Ramiel and I, in the terrible cold until we hear the trickle of falling rocks, then a cry from Father McBride’s lips, a single sharp sound that breaks over my ears like shattering glass, and sets everything in motion.
I look towards the fog that takes a shape that is not Ramiel who has dominion over those who rise, but another, smaller form that shudders and shivers as if it too has wings or is being birthed. I feel a sympathetic tremor on my bare shoulder blades. A stream of mist breaks through the gate palings and shoots its way up the path, past me with the coldest breath of air, and into the sitting room where the display case lies. From the attic comes a cry.
I scramble to follow. A shape, pale and elongated, flows down the stairs, reaches the case just as the mist does; they mingle and, as I watch, find their way into the casket through cracks and crevices invisible to the naked eye.
The glass is icy beneath my fingertips as I flick the hidden latch and lift the lid. The vapour pours into the holes in my daughter’s body, up nostrils, into parted lips and seashell-curved ears. She slips inside herself once again, into her skin, into that empty shell I’ve carted from place to place for so long. She reaches for me, mouths Mama, as though she’s no voice left to her, as though it’s yet to return.
Ariel is warm and soft, her skin growing paler by the second, her limbs firmer as the bones are reinstated, as her head and face lay claim once more to a pleasing, recognisable shape. I can smell the vinegary whiff of the acid that preserved her and hid her so no one but those who watch would know what Gunn McBride had done. So I wouldn’t know where she’d gone until Ramiel at last decided it was my time, and told me where to look. Told me what I had to do to get her back, to earn her resurrection from the angel of those who rise; and I never questioned him, simply obeyed.
And here she is at last, breathing once again, and I feel as if each breath goes some way to filling all the absences in my life. My child, all I wanted, all I needed. Whatever memories were taken when the great scythe removed my wings have no value beside this restoration. I know one thing with utter certainty: my daughter was a worthy reason to fall.
TOM IS IN THE ATTIC
Robert Shearman
Young Tom is playing in the attic again. You call him Young Tom, of course, to distinguish him from the other Toms, though you doubt it’s his real name. Young Tom hasn’t appeared for a while, and you had wondered whether you’d scared him off. But, no, there he is, if you stand at the bottom of the staircase, right at the very point where it begins to bend around into a spiral, and you listen closely, you can hear all the sound from above funnel down – and you do that now, and there he is, it’s Young Tom, it’s unmistakable.
And you go up to see him. You take the flashlight, and turn it on full beam. He’s silent suddenly, but that’s because you’re there – you can never be sure whether the reason he hides in the shadows is because he’s frightened or whether it’s just another one of his games. But if you’re patient, and you can be patient, he’ll come out of hiding soon enough; he’ll play in front of you quite amiably. The games he knows! Sometimes it’s hopscotch. Sometimes he’ll spin around in a circle, laughing, until he falls down. Sometimes he plays musical chairs, even though there’s no music, and there’s no chairs – and yet you know that’s what he’s playing, you just know.
You can watch Young Tom play for hours. It’s more fun than television. In the summer, when the attic was baking in the heat, you would sometimes watch him stripped down to your undies, and take up an ice cream.
Today it takes him a while to come out of hiding. “Come on, I can see you,” you say, although you clearly can’t, and although Young Tom has never acknowledged you in any way, he never talks to you or looks at you, you’re sometimes not really sure he even knows you’re there. You train the flashlight on all the usual nooks and crannies, the little gaps between the cardboard boxes and the water tank, and at last he emerges. He’s got a new game today. “Varoom,” he says. “Varoom!” He’s on his hands and knees, and he’s playing with a toy car, he’s pushing it along the ground, he’s making it speed through imaginary traffic lights and jump off imaginary cliffs.
You’ve never seen him play with a real object before; he’ll just make do with his pretending. And you flash your light on it, and you see it isn’t a toy car at all. It’s a hairbrush. He’s running the hairbrush along the floor, and making out the bristles are wheels.
It’s your hairbrush, the one from your bedroom. You don’t know whether to be angry or amused. “Hey, hey!” you say. “Did you steal that?” Because the bedroom is out of bounds, Tom has never been in the bedroom before, not Young Tom. He’s crossed a boundary. It’s not really out of bounds, though, because you’ve never needed to set up boundaries before, you’ve never seen Young Tom outside the attic. “Hey,” you say again, though there’s really no point, it’s not as if he’s listening; “Varoom!” he says, and crashes your hairbrush into the side of a cardboard box. You consider taking the hairbrush from him, but think that would be a little mean. He’s enjoying himself, and it’s not as if you’re going to want to use the hairbrush again, not now it’s been scraped along the attic floor with all the dust and dirt and cobwebs.
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p; You have an idea, and having an idea is exciting in itself. “Stay here,” you say to Young Tom, and the child will stay there or he won’t, but the chances are he’ll still be around when you get back, once he starts playing he’s usually at it for hours. You get dressed. You put on your hat and your coat. You haven’t been outside for a while, the people come and deliver all of the shopping you need, but this requires the personal touch, a little expedition all of your own. You catch the bus into town. You look for a toy shop. They’re rather hard to find, don’t they make toy shops any more, not for all the children in the world, and at last you settle for a children’s department within a big supermarket. The sales assistant listens politely to you, and she’s little more than a child herself. You tell her you want a gift for a young boy. “How old is he?” you’re asked, and you don’t know, it’s hard to tell, sometimes he seems about two, other times he’s as old as nine or ten. The assistant shows you lots of toys, but all of them require batteries or computer cables or digital media players – “Don’t you have anything more old-fashioned?” you ask. At last you come up trumps in a charity shop off the high street. You find a toy car, a Rolls-Royce no less, not quite as big as your hand, and there’s a little smiling man sitting in the driving seat, and the paintwork on the chassis is a bit chipped. “Genuine antique, that,” you’re told, and they charge you a tenner, and a tenner’s outrageous, but you don’t care, you pay the tenner anyway, the toy is perfect.
You’re so thrilled as you climb the stairs, as you take the flashlight and wave it about. “I’m home!” you say. Young Tom hasn’t gone into hiding. But he’s standing on his feet now, stock still, and the hairbrush has gone. “I have a present for you,” you say, and this is new, you’ve never bought him a present before, you’ve named him and you’ve spent time with him and watched him play in your knickers, but it’s not as if he’s your responsibility, he’s not your child. “Here,” you say and you hold the toy out to him, and he looks at you, he actually looks at you, and he smiles, and your heart starts racing, maybe now you can be friends! He holds out his hand, and you think he’s reaching for the toy, but he isn’t.
You turn the flashlight on to his hand. You see he’s got a little tooth there, small and white and perfect. And you turn the light up to Young Tom’s face, and he’s smiling, and he seems proud, and the smile is with the mouth open, and you can see, yes, the little gap in the front where the tooth comes from.
You think he’s just showing it to you. But now he picks the tooth up between finger and thumb, gingerly, as if it’s some sort of specimen, as if it’s really nothing to do with him any more, and he offers it. Before you can think, instinctively, you open your hand out to receive it. You don’t want it – why would you want some kid’s tooth? – and he drops it on to your palm, drops it carefully, so his fingers do not touch yours. You’re welcome to the tooth but that’s all he’ll give you, thank you very much – and you clench your fist around the tooth, you don’t know why, you ball up your fist to keep the tooth safe. And he turns away. Goes back on to his hands and knees. Begins playing once more in the dust and the dark, this time cupping a pretend car in his hand, no hairbrush there now.
You put the Rolls-Royce down beside him. He doesn’t look up. “Varoom,” he says, he’s happy with the toy he can create out of thin air. And you feel as if you’ve been dismissed, and you leave him to it.
* * *
You go back to the attic that afternoon. And it’s not to see Young Tom, because you stand at the bottom of the staircase and listen hard and there’s not a trace of him. You go back because you want to see whether he took the present with him. And you know what to expect, but as the light makes out the Rolls-Royce, standing there on the floor, neat, precise, untouched, there’s still a pang of disappointment. You wonder whether to leave it there, or to take it down with you, try to offer it to the boy again later. And then you hear a cough in the shadows, just a little cough, well-mannered, quite polite, really – and you know you’re not alone.
Old Tom is the only one who speaks to you. He seems to enjoy your company. Young Tom’s age appears to fluctuate, sometimes even as you’re looking at him, but Old Tom stays the same. He’s a hundred years old if he’s a day. He’s thin and white and the skin around his face is pulled in tight so you can see the skull beneath poking through. But he’s not unkind, you think, and there can be a twinkle to his eyes, though you suspect that may be the flashlight reflecting off them.
“Hello, Rachel Taylor,” he says. Because he asked for your name when you first met, and you didn’t see any reason not to tell him, not then. And he remembers it, he remembers it every time.
“Hello, Old Tom,” you reply, and he never attempts to correct you, even though it’s a name you invented. Sometimes you think Old Tom is Young Tom, but a century later. Sometimes you think they’re two separate people altogether, and indeed Old Tom seems to know little of Young Tom and whenever you ask about his infant namesake the old man looks confused.
Old Tom is in reminiscent mood again. “Come here, Rachel Taylor,” he says. Oh, how he likes to use your name. “Come and look out of the window with me.” There is no window. But you do your best to look where he is looking anyway. “When I was young, this was all fields. Fields as far as the eye could see. And that’s where I worked, tilling the fields, from dawn to dusk, me and my pappy.” He starts to tell you the story of his life, and smokes a pipe as he does so – you don’t like it when people smoke, but it doesn’t matter, the pipe doesn’t make a smell, it doesn’t make any smoke either, and sometimes as he puffs away on it you see there isn’t even a pipe at all, he’s sucking on his thumb, it’s all just pretend. Old Tom often tells you the story of his life. Sometimes it’s this one, when he worked hard in the fields, in the sun and the rain and the snow, all to build a better life for his family. Sometimes he’s a mariner on the high seas, fighting naval battles against the French, or discovering new lands in the Indies. Sometimes he is a priest, sometimes a pirate. Sometimes he owns a shop.
You haven’t got time for this today. “Did you see the little boy?” you ask. “He left behind his toy car, look.”
But you know it’s pointless because he never answers your questions. You answer his. He’s polite, and sometimes seems genuinely interested, and over the months he has learned everything about you – your name, your childhood, your past loves and near-loves and never-really-loves, why you’re living in a house like this. He tells you things too, but never anything you want to know. What’s your name, where do you come from, why are you here. Are you dead.
You asked that only once, “Are you dead?” you said. And at that he looked almost offended, and he gripped you by the hand, and he said, “Do I feel like a dead man?” And you said he didn’t, but the truth was he might have done, a bit; there was something cold and unnerving about that grip, but only if you thought hard, only if you really concentrated on it – it was almost as if the sensation was trying to slip away from you, as if the sensation wanted nothing to do with you, as if, if you took your attention off it it’d seize the chance to escape you altogether and slip from your grasp like mist. So you didn’t ask him again.
“When I was young, all this was fields,” says Old Tom.
“I know that,” you say. “But the toy.”
“This was all fields. As far as the eye could see.”
“Yes, yes,” you say. “If you can pass the toy on, though, that’d be great.”
And he looks at you, and there’s a twinkle to his eye – and it is a twinkle, isn’t it! And he looks so kind. And you know that if he sees the kid, of course he’ll give him the toy, like a regular Santa Claus. He opens his mouth to speak. “All this was fields,” he starts. And then he coughs. A good spluttering cough too, and you’re not alarmed, you’ve heard it often before, it’s all that pipe smoking he may or may not really be doing.
But the spluttering goes on, he puts his hand over his mouth, he doubles over. And this is something new. “Ar
e you all right?” you say. And you’re going to clap him on the back, but resist the urge to touch him in time.
And he straightens up now, and he smiles. He opens his hand out, the hand he coughed into. He invites you to look. You recoil at that.
Sitting there on his gnarled palm are two teeth. Yellow with tar and brown with decay.
“For the tooth fairy,” he says, and smiles wider, and you can see his gums, and where he’s coughed those teeth right out of his mouth.
You don’t want to take the teeth, but there’s no choice – he’s taken your hand now, tightly. And once again it feels cold and insubstantial, and, yes, unearthly, and there’s something suddenly nauseous and too too sweet in your mouth.
The teeth feel real enough, mind. They weigh heavy.
“For the tooth fairy, Rachel Taylor.” Oh, how he loves your name. Because you don’t know his name, like this is some little power he has over you. Old Tom puts his pipe in his mouth, and it is a pipe this time, you’d swear it is. He turns back to his fields, looks out on them with a pride that is almost territorial.
Old Tom is the only one who speaks to you, but that doesn’t mean you like him very much.
* * *
You suppose the other Tom should be called Middle-Aged Tom, or Inbetween Tom, but you just think of him as Tom. No, in truth, you don’t think of him by name at all. You just wait for him there in the dark, hoping he’ll come. And often he doesn’t, and sometimes he does. The lights have to be off, he won’t come if there’s even a chink of light, not light from the room next door, nor light from behind the curtains. And so you don’t entirely know what Tom looks like. But you can always hear him coming. Because this Tom won’t talk to you either, he’s more like the little boy in that respect, but still he talks, how he talks, he never pauses for breath, it all comes out in one long mutter. You lie there in the bed, hoping he’ll be with you soon, and telling yourself not to be disappointed if he won’t be – though, of course, you can’t stop the disappointment, no matter how hard you try. And then, if you’re lucky, you’ll hear it, there’ll be the muttering – getting louder as he approaches, but never so loud you can make out what it is he’s saying really, it’s like a background rumble, it’s rather soothing. And you shift over to the edge of the bed to make room, but there’s really no need; he’s not going to worry about the space you’re taking up, you can’t even be sure he knows you’re there.
Phantoms Page 3
