The Black Halo

by Iain Crichton Smith

  A prisoner, carrying his shaving gear, walked past, wrapped in a grey blanket.

  ‘You see,’ said Joe, ‘they don’t have nice bright dressing gowns in this place. There is nothing to be envious of here.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Robert, and it seemed as if for the first time he really understood.

  Biblical reference: Genesis chapters 37–45

  Do You Believe in Ghosts?

  ‘I’ll tell you something,’ said Daial to Iain. ‘I believe in ghosts.’

  It was Hallowe’en night and they were sitting in Daial’s house - which was a thatched one - eating apples and cracking nuts which they had got earlier that evening from the people of the village. It was frosty outside and the night was very calm.

  ‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ said Iain, munching an apple. ‘You’ve never seen a ghost, have you?’

  ‘No,’ said Daial fiercely, ‘but I know people who have. My father saw a ghost at the Corner. It was a woman in a white dress.’

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Iain. ‘It was more likely a piece of paper.’ And he laughed out loud. ‘It was more likely a newspaper. It was the local newspaper.’

  ‘I tell you he did,’ said Daial. ‘And another thing. They say that if you look between the ears of a horse you will see a ghost. I was told that by my granny.’

  ‘Horses’ ears,’ said Iain laughing, munching his juicy apple. ‘Horses’ ears.’

  Outside it was very very still, the night was, as it were, entranced under the stars.

  ‘Come on then,’ said Daial urgently, as if he had been angered by Iain’s dismissive comments. ‘We can go and see now. It’s eleven o’clock and if there are any ghosts you might see them now. I dare you.’

  ‘All right,’ said Iain, throwing the remains of the apple into the fire. ‘Come on then.’

  And the two of them left the house, shutting the door carefully and noiselessly behind them and entering the calm night with its millions of stars. They could feel their shoes creaking among the frost, and there were little panes of ice on the small pools of water on the road. Daial looked very determined, his chin thrust out as if his honour had been attacked. Iain liked Daial fairly well though Daial hardly read any books and was only interested in fishing and football. Now and again as he walked along he looked up at the sky with its vast city of stars and felt almost dizzy because of its immensity.

  ‘That’s the Plough there,’ said Iain, ‘do you see it? Up there.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ said Daial.

  ‘I saw a picture of it in a book. It’s shaped like a plough.’

  ‘It’s not at all,’ said Daial. ‘It’s not shaped like a plough at all. You never saw a plough like that in your life.’

  They were gradually leaving the village now, had in fact passed the last house, and Iain in spite of his earlier protestations was getting a little frightened, for he had heard stories of ghosts at the Corner before. There was one about a sailor home from the Merchant Navy who was supposed to have seen a ghost and after he had rejoined his ship he had fallen from a mast to the deck and had died instantly. People in the village mostly believed in ghosts. They believed that some people had the second sight and could see in advance the body of someone who was about to die though at that particular time he might be walking among them, looking perfectly healthy.

  Daial and Iain walked on through the ghostly whiteness of the frost and it seemed to them that the night had turned much colder and also more threatening. There was no noise even of flowing water, for all the streams were locked in frost.

  ‘It’s here they see the ghosts,’ said Daial in a whisper, his voice trembling a little, perhaps partly with the cold. ‘If we had a horse we might see one.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Iain still trying to joke, though at the same time he also found himself whispering. ‘You could ride the horse and look between its ears.’

  The whole earth was a frosty globe, creaking and spectral, and the shine from it was eerie and faint.

  ‘Can you hear anything?’ said Daial who was keeping close to Iain.

  ‘No,’ said Iain. ‘I can’t hear anything. There’s nothing. We should go back.’

  ‘No,’ Daial replied, his teeth chattering. ‘W–w–e w–w–on’t go back. We have to stay for a while.’

  ‘What would you do if you saw a ghost?’ said Iain.

  ‘I would run,’ said Daial, ‘I would run like hell.’

  ‘I don’t know what I would do,’ said Iain, and his words seemed to echo through the silent night. ‘I might drop dead. Or I might . . . ’ He suddenly had a terrible thought. Perhaps they were ghosts themselves and the ghost who looked like a ghost to them might be a human being after all. What if a ghost came towards them and then walked through them smiling, and then they suddenly realised that they themselves were ghosts.

  ‘Hey, Daial,’ he said, ‘what if we are . . . ’ And then he stopped, for it seemed to him that Daial had turned all white in the frost, that his head and the rest of his body were white, and his legs and shoes were also a shining white. Daial was coming towards him with his mouth open, and where there had been a head there was only a bony skull, its interstices filled with snow. Daial was walking towards him, his hands outstretched, and they were bony without any skin on them. Daial was his enemy, he was a ghost who wished to destroy him, and that was why he had led him out to the Corner to the territory of the ghosts. Daial was not Daial at all, the real Daial was back in the house, and this was a ghost that had taken over Daial’s body in order to entice Iain to the place where he was now. Daial was a devil, a corpse.

  And suddenly Iain began to run and Daial was running after him. Iain ran crazily with frantic speed but Daial was close on his heels. He was running after him and his white body was blazing with the frost and it seemed to Iain that he was stretching his bony arms towards him. They raced along the cold white road which was so hard that their shoes left no prints on it, and Iain’s heart was beating like a hammer, and then they were in the village among the ordinary lights and now they were at Daial’s door.

  ‘What happened?’ said Daial panting, leaning against the door, his breath coming in huge gasps.

  And Iain knew at that moment that this really was Daial, whatever had happened to the other one, and that this one would think of him as a coward for the rest of his life and tell his pals how Iain had run away. And he was even more frightened than he had been before, till he knew what he had to do.

  ‘I saw it,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ said Daial, his eyes growing round with excitement.

  ‘I saw it,’ said Iain again. ‘Didn’t you see it?’

  ‘What?’ said Daial. ‘What did you see?’

  ‘I saw it,’ said Iain, ‘but maybe you don’t believe me.’

  ‘What did you see?’ said Daial. ‘I believe you.’

  ‘It was a coffin,’ said Iain. ‘I saw a funeral.’

  ‘A funeral?’

  ‘I saw a funeral,’ said Iain, ‘and there were people in black hats and black coats. You know?’

  Daial nodded eagerly.

  ‘And I saw them carrying a coffin,’ said Iain, ‘and it was all yellow, and it was coming straight for you. You didn’t see it. I know you didn’t see it. And I saw the coffin open and I saw the face in the coffin.’

  ‘The face?’ said Daial and his eyes were fixed on Iain’s face, and Iain could hardly hear what he was saying.

  ‘And do you know whose face it was?’

  ‘No,’ said Daial breathlessly. ‘Whose face was it? Tell me, tell me.’

  ‘It was your face,’ said Iain in a high voice. ‘It was your face.’

  Daial paled.

  ‘But it’s all right,’ said Iain. ‘I saved you. If the coffin doesn’t touch you you’re all right. I read that in a book. That’s why I ran. I knew that you would run after me. And you did. And I saved you. For the coffin would have touched you if I hadn’t run.’

  ‘Are you sure,’ said Dai
al, in a frightened trembling voice. ‘Are you sure that I’m saved?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Iain. ‘I saw the edge of the coffin and it was almost touching the patch on your trousers and then I ran.’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Daial, ‘that’s something. You must have the second sight. It almost touched me. Gosh. Wait till I tell the boys tomorrow. You wait.’ And then as if it had just occurred to him he said, ‘You believe in ghosts now, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I believe,’ said Iain.

  ‘There you are then,’ said Daial. ‘Gosh. Are you sure if they don’t touch you you’re all right?’

  ‘Cross my heart,’ said Iain.

  At Jorvik Museum

  We enter the small chair, we glide along the rails. The faces of the present disappear. We are in a room: it stinks, I hear voices, they are talking Norse. There are leather skins, the face of a dead fox, needles, women knitting, men hunting. This is a rank rank room with the smell of grain, of blood. There are hens, chickens. Two women gossip in a strange dialect.

  Who is that in the helmet with the nosepiece protecting him? He is saying, perhaps, We shall stand to the end in the ring, till it fades like the moon, till we are bones among the cans of Coca-Cola, till the workmen emerge out of the dust with shovels, till they beat at our heads.

  See, we are bargaining. The city walls protect us. We bring vases, ornaments, we bring the sniff of the future. They cannot protect themselves from that, from everything else but that. The wind is shrieking through the walls, it is changing the fashions; after it has been there there will be no more farriers, no more fletchers, no more guilds.

  The children are playing a game that we do not understand. Look, their heads are thorny. The side of one head is shaven, the colours of the other are orange red and blue. They are punching at computers in the dung, with the dead stinking oxen beside them. The dog raises its head, lowers it again: the cat comes in with a rabbit.

  What are they saying to each other, these two with the portrait of the Queen beside the television set? The war has ended. There is shouting, there are helmets, there are horses, leather skins, their wireless is beating out a great Norse victory against the English. In their ring of iron they lasted till the end. The women rush out to meet them, they are reading newspapers covered with dirt, dung. They are holding iron coins in their hands. There is a sermon whose words are unintelligible. It blows like the wind.

  The boat is covered with skins. There are dead rotting fish on the shore.

  Sigurd has died. The men are drinking lager and above them is an advertisement. The words are written in Norse. It is a Norse code. It flickers on and off, banks of lights.

  I have brought you this gift, my beloved, it is a deer, it is meat from the butcher’s. Sit down and eat it, my beloved, though the worms are dangling at your mouth and the spider’s web hangs and quivers. Eat the deer, my beloved, we are safe from the animals, from the shouting hooligans with their flags of red white and blue painted on their bald heads. We are safe from their language. We can hide. Their thorny heads, their shaven heads, are not ours.

  Among the new ones we watch the television motor cycles chase each other, charge at bony chariots. The helmet lowers, I have come back from the war. They fought well but we burned their books and ornaments, their saints, their coloured pages and threw them into the sea, we burned their house and smashed their windows. Their trains were attacked with arrows and catapults. But still the trains are bringing new fashions, new luggage.

  We cannot avoid them. There is a fresh air coming in here.

  It must be the workmen with their shovels. One of them is smoking, spitting on the floor where you are sitting, my beloved.

  I have walked among the blossoms. I have seen the litter. I have seen the leather shoes, the fragments of leather left over. I have seen the brooches curled like snakes. I have seen the moon on which men in armour clumsily walk and jump. Bend down, touch the can, I do not understand it, it has writing on it. What is it, a gift from the gods?

  You are standing among the women, my beloved. You are wearing leather, a fresh blouse. You are wearing a hat with flowers on it. Your bone needles are in your hand. The dog sniffs at them. Something is attacking us which cannot be defended against by walls. There are people making gaps in the walls, they are standing at the gates, they are holding out new jewellery, stunningly beautiful. We fasten watches on our hands below the iron ringlets, circlets. They have the faces of the gods on them.

  You are not dying, my beloved. No one dies. I kneel by your bed in this crowded dungy room. You are reciting words to me that I cannot understand. They are not Norse. Are you feverish? Your face changes, it becomes narrow and then your body changes, it becomes like an arrow pointing in one direction. Your smell, my beloved, is of perfume. The dog has disappeared, where has the cat gone?

  Astronomy of night, sound of engines, the owl blinking with a mouse in its claws. The hens rush hither and thither, and there I see the eggs in the straw.

  My beloved, you shall not die, not ever. I know it. I shall follow you towards the light where the shovels are, where a man is leaning smiling. Who is he? Does he think he is immortal? I have seen the dead talking on television, I have seen a camera showing blankness; faces slowly coming on the screen; where have they come from, filling the whiteness? We are here. Listen to us. We are all together in the stink, the perfume, the dung.

  We talk in the salons with the bone needles in our hands. Our eyes glitter and flash, we are intelligent. The fox stands at the window looking in. So does the wolf. So does the beaver, the badger. And they all stink beyond the tiny coffee cups.

  We slide on the rails. You in front of me, why are you wearing a helmet, why are you so joyous? Has a battle been won? You turn towards me. Your nose-piece is long and dark. You are my enemy, you are saying, I shall kill you, kill you, kill you. In the ring that will not die, that will not break, in the circle that will not break, in the circle that is decorated with the face of the god.

  You, my beloved, are sitting, sewing. In the sunset that will not fade. I see your body under the skins. It is white and pearl-like. I have wished for you for many years and then suddenly you were there. In the doorway. You are coming towards me. You are removing your blouse, your tights, your legs are clear to me. They have the trace of leather on them, of thongs.

  We meet in the darkness. I hear the cries from outside. The thorny-headed ones are shouting, are rioting again. Their hair is like needles, there are holes in their trousers, they are dancing.

  The Ship

  In her senility she would say to him, ‘Who are you? I don’t know you. Where did you come from?’

  He didn’t like this one little bit though their daughter would sometimes find her mother’s odd statements amusing. Of course she was a nurse and had worked in geriatric wards: but he wasn’t used to this sort of thing. And he didn’t like it.

  Most of his days he had been a sailor, and had travelled all over the world, Singapore, Sydney, Auckland, you name it, he had been there. And now he was seventy years old. All those years he had been away on voyages she had waited and waited, and he would send her postcards and bring her gifts. His children had grown up without him: he had hardly seen them.

  And now she had grown senile.

  ‘I used to live in a house with a name like that,’ she would say, pointing at the wooden plaque which read greenview. He had paid ten pounds for that sign. ‘But this isn’t the house. I don’t know why it’s here,’ she would say in her sombre almost girlish voice.

  Sometimes she would say, ‘I used to know Robert Mason. We would go to dances together.’ And Robert Mason was his own name. But she would say to her daughter, ‘What’s that man doing here?’

  Those sunny mornings; the ship racing through the sea leaving a white wake behind it. The immense illimitable distances. Those breezes.

  He couldn’t understand how he couldn’t convince her of her errors, but there was no way that he could, since they were now fixed in
her mind. He hated the fact that he couldn’t get through to her. It was like being a wireless operator who couldn’t make sense of the replies to his messages. Her mistakes infuriated him. His anger grew so large that it sank his pity. It was as if she was trying to irritate him. He was a ship in the middle of the sea not knowing where he was, without longitude or latitude. It was all wrong, obscenely wrong.

  Sometimes he felt like shaking her. But then she would look at him and say, ‘Have you seen Robert Mason? I would like to speak to him.’ Good God, he thought, this is terrible, this is awful. Here he was in the middle of the sea without sextant, without communications.

  ‘Don’t worry about it too much,’ his daughter would say to him. ‘She’s perfectly happy.’

  ‘How can she be perfectly happy?’ he would say. ‘How can she be perfectly happy when she doesn’t know what is happening.’

  Of course she wasn’t perfectly happy. She should be dragged out of her dreams into reality where other people lived. How could one be happy unless one was living in the truth, not in a chaotic dream.

  He was writing a postcard on the deck of a ship on a fine clear breezy day. ‘I miss you,’ he wrote. But the truth was that he didn’t miss her at all. No, he was perfectly happy sitting in a chair on the deck with the breeze whipping about his bare legs, for he was wearing shorts. The truth was . . . What was the truth? The postcard winged its way home over the blue waters. Did she sense that what he had written was not the truth? Did an odd instinctive sixth sense tell her that?

  The sea was all around him, there was not another ship to be seen on the blue sparkling expanse. And he was perfectly happy. At that moment it was a fulfilled perfect day.

  One night she said to him, ‘I can hear a baby crying. I can hear it in this room. You brute. Why aren’t you helping the baby? Robert Mason would help him, but I don’t know you.’

  ‘Go to sleep,’ he had told her, ‘go to sleep at once. Do you know what time it is?’ The illuminated clock at the side of the bed told him it was two in the morning. But she didn’t want to go to sleep. Not at all. She had to get up in her nightgown to find the baby. That voyage of hers through the dark. How strange it was. How lonely. Later she had come back to bed and had gone to sleep like a child, her hair grey on the pillow.