The Possession of Mr Cave

by Matt Haig

  Never mind.

  The ghost tour was only metres away from me now. I held my breath as the man with the blond beard walked past. He was explaining about those twelfth-century Jews, suffering under the anti-Semitic practices of Richard I, who chose to burn themselves in the tower rather than face certain death at the hands of the mob.

  Then, just as I thought I was safely out of view, I heard another voice.

  'What's that? Is that some kind of ghost?' An American boy, pointing and laughing at me before his mother hushed him. It was too late.

  The guide raised his lantern and looked back in my direction. Recognition flickered with the flame. 'It's you,' he said, a smile pushing through his beard like a highwayman from the bushes.

  'No,' I said. 'No, it's not.'

  'Mr Cave?'

  'No.'

  'Mr Cave?'

  'Please,' I said. 'Just go. Just leave me.'

  'Terence Cave?'

  I felt so weak, so vulnerable, with my name bouncing off those medieval buildings. His voice was so loud I was sure you, and half of York, must have heard.

  It was Mr Weeks. George's father. Reuben's dreaded history teacher. I had seen him twice before. Once at a parents' evening, where he offered sympathy for my having such a difficult son. The other time was in the shop, with Mrs Weeks, when they had bought the pine mule chest your mother had died next to. The one I had only just put back on sale. I remember how quiet Mrs Weeks had been around him, too timid to show her usual interest. Such a strange pairing, I had thought at the time. The giant hairy yeti and the neat golden fieldmouse.

  They had separated, of course. I hadn't been surprised when Mrs Weeks had told me. Indeed, she had already given the occasional hint of his unreasonable behaviour – a bullying tendency towards both her and George – and there had been that undisclosed 'incident' that had caused him to finish working at St John's. Yet it was still a surprise to see him reduced to leading ghost-hunters around the evening streets.

  He leaned in, with the lantern, and I backed into the shop doorway.

  'Listen,' I said, 'It's great to see you, but you're obviously very busy and I don't want to hold you up.'

  He smiled at me, revealing a gap in his front teeth I had never noticed before. 'I hear you had a little trouble with George, Mr Cave.'

  'Oh,' I said. 'It was nothing. Honestly. Nothing.'

  'That's not what I heard, Mr Cave.' There was something bitter about his tone, a barely suppressed anger. I remembered the letter I had found in Reuben's bag.

  'Well, it's over with now.' I smiled meekly at the audience of tourists, who were watching the scene with confused interest.

  'It's not easy raising children, is it, Mr Cave? Especially boys. We understand them too well.' He tapped his forehead at this point. 'But of course, you know all about difficult boys.'

  I closed my eyes and tried to remain calm, but knew Reuben was pressing in. The changes were happening quickly. 'My son is dead,' I managed to say.

  'Yes, Mr Cave,' he said, as if my statement had been beside the point. 'I know.'

  As his smile retreated back into his beard, the black veil descended.

  'You useless, pathetic boy!' He was shouting, loudly, without even moving his lips. 'You hopeless child! Someone stole your homework but you can't tell me who? I'm meant to believe that, am I? What kind of idiot do you take me for? Sorry? Excuse me? Speak up, child! Speak up! You are a sorry case. A sorry case. Wipe that look off your ugly little face. Now, wait outside and I'll deal with you later. Class, stop laughing!'

  And then, with his lips: 'Goodbye, Mr Cave. Right, everyone, on with the tour.'

  I experienced one quick last wave of darkness and then he was back in view. The smile, the beard, the missing teeth. Reuben had left me, unable or unwilling to hold on.

  Mr Weeks said no more and, with a wild beckon of his arm, turned to lead his people towards the tower.

  'Bye, ghost,' the American boy said, as he passed.

  I said nothing. I took their curious glances and stayed exactly where I was.

  One foot forward and you might have seen me. Your gaze, surely, was now aimed in that direction. I had to wait quite a while before I could afford to peek my head past the wooden entrance and, when I did, the view was obstructed by the ghost tour making its way up the path towards the Tower.

  Between the flicker of walking bodies I saw you and Denny, sitting so close you were one formation. He was kissing you, I was sure. A roving hand probably somewhere upon your torso. His new-found land. I felt appalled, repulsed, but did nothing except watch. My eyes strained against the distance and the growing dark, the procession passed you, and he was standing, you both were, then walking down the slope.

  'Oh no,' I think I mumbled. You were crossing the road, heading for Tower Street. I felt the swell of panic and shot out of my hiding place, exposed like a fox on the pavement. I walked away from you, as fast as I could, then dived down a snickleway. My heart beat to an ominous rhythm and I heard your voices getting nearer.

  You were talking about boxing. He boxed. My daughter with a boxer. It was getting worse! At least you had the sense to say you didn't understand how he could enjoy it. I held my breath, as if visibility was a matter of exhaling, and you didn't turn to see me. You walked on, and I followed at a distance, watching as he put an arm around you, hearing your voices but not your words, down Spurriergate and through St Sampson's Square before you disappeared back inside the college.

  I went back to the car and sat there, still weary from the encounter with Mr Weeks.

  You came out, after a while, an innocent girl with her cello, and I was there to meet you. You lied to me, and I let you lie, knowing that if I exposed you I would have to tackle an even greater cunning. No. I wasn't going to let it happen. Reuben had died because I hadn't known enough. With you, I was going to know everything, so it hardly made any difference whether that information came from your lips or not. And what was I going to do when I acquired all the information I needed? Well, I was going to correct the mistake I'd made when your mother died. I was going to listen to her voice. 'Terence, do something.'

  Although, of course, I ended up doing far more than even I had intended.

  I remember standing in the rain, in the middle of the night, and not knowing why I was outside.

  It was five minutes after four, and my body was trembling from more than just cold. At first I had not the faintest clue of my whereabouts. I was at a corner, a meeting of unpeopled streets. I saw a sign. WINCHELSEA AVENUE. The street was familiar now. I knew it as our previous short cut to Cynthia's. But what was I doing there? Had I sleepwalked nearly a mile from my bed? I was fully clothed, but couldn't remember dressing.

  I noticed something cold against my stomach, something tucked inside my waistband.

  I pulled it out and held it in my hand: the antique percussion pistol I had bought after your mother died. The one I always kept behind the counter. Hastily, I hid it again, and jogged back home, taking the quiet streets. An ascending horror as I thought of the house which had caused me to feel so strange on our walk to Cynthia – number 17.

  What had I done? Or what had your brother done?

  I didn't know, but the question stayed with me for the rest of the week. I kept expecting policemen to enter the shop and take me down for questioning, but of course they didn't. Perhaps I should have gone back there, to 17 Winchelsea Avenue, and found the answer out. The only reason I never did was because I didn't trust myself to stay in control of my own soul. I didn't want to risk another blackout.

  And there was also an even stronger concern: if I had done something, if my hands had committed an act beyond my mind's knowing, I didn't want to risk incriminating myself. This was not a selfish fear, I assure you. It was a fear as selfless as they come.

  Without me, who was going to be able to look after my Petal, and keep her safe?

  Cynthia and I were having considerable difficulty moving the walnut dressing table to be clo
ser by the window.

  It was your grandmother's idea. You know what she was like about window displays. She'd stand back, pinch her lip, and analyse the whole layout with such a thorough intensity you'd think she was directing Chekhov.

  'Now,' she had told me that morning, 'we really ought to make it a bit more dynamic. Don't you think, Terence? It looks a bit flat at the moment, doesn't it?'

  'I don't know,' I said. After the exhausting confusion of the previous night, when I had found myself on Winchelsea Avenue, I had little more to offer. And besides, everything looked 'a bit flat' nowadays so it was increasingly difficult to compare one flat sight with another.

  'Well, it does, Terence. It does. The reason you're not getting any passing trade any more is because there is nothing to engage people with in the window. All you can see is that giant oak bureau which serves no purpose but to block half the light in the shop. Honestly, it's like being in a . . . in a . . .'

  'Cave?' I suggested, wearily.

  'Yes, Terence. A cave.'

  'Rather apt, then. For Cave Antiques.'

  'It may be rather apt but the point remains that no one wants to spend money on an item they cannot see. Now, I think we need to do more with the figurines.'

  So, this was her plan. Have the tall oak bureau swap places with the walnut dressing table, upon which she would choreograph a dynamic arrangement of figures. She wanted the Barrias to be the centrepiece. Nature Revealing Herself to Science was the name of it. A near-pornographic piece I had been reluctant to buy in the first place and had only done so upon your grandmother's urging. She had ringed it in the catalogue, along with the Arabian dancer, adding the small message: 'IGNORE YOUR PRUDISH TENDENCIES AND APPRECIATE THE BEAUTY!!'

  It is easier, I believe, for a woman to make such statements. Indeed, if women could see the world through a man's eyes they would understand that beauty can corrupt a male soul quicker than any drug or doctrine. Too much earthly beauty throws the male psyche towards insanity, as it reminds him of what he must one day leave behind, and men, as eternal children, can never cope with things being taken away from them.

  A man sees beauty and he wants to possess it, in the fullest sense, or otherwise destroy it, but never simply appreciate it. And so, where there is beauty there must also be violence, to correct the balance. We need to leave our ugly marks in the face of the earth in order to feel at home. We need to see palaces looted and ransacked in times of war, just as the beauty of Imperial Rome needed the murderous blood-house of the Colosseum and just as the gorgeousness of Helen's face necessarily led to the Trojan War.

  I had no idea at all what a bronze, voluptuous Nature forever slipping her robes for the delectation of Science would lead to, but I knew Cynthia did have a fine eye for such items so succumbed to her judgement.

  Her fine eye had also decided that full-bosomed Nature would be accompanied by two further nudes, albeit more modestly posed, and that they would all bask in the light of a gilt toleware candelabrum. Somewhere behind, as a themed backdrop, would be the old slipware dish featuring a fig-leafed Adam and Eve on either side of the Tree of Knowledge. The chest itself would be flanked by the satinwood wardrobe and that suggestively shaped art deco longcase clock, which brought further boudoir connotations to mind.

  I had advocated the inclusion of a fully clothed figure, the Girl with a Tambourine, but Cynthia insisted it be left on the high chest by the counter. I was too tired to argue, just as I was too tired to be heaving that blasted table over to the window. But anyway, there we were, halfway through the morning, halfway across the floor, when Cynthia cried out with a sudden pain.

  'Cynthia? Are you all right?'

  She bent over, wincing. 'I'll be all right,' she said, holding her left side. 'It's nothing. It's been playing hell for weeks.' She tried again to help direct the chest as I pushed it, but she had to stop almost as soon as she had started.

  'Oh, you silly woman,' she said, scolding herself. 'What's the matter with you?'

  Of course, the matter was the hernia she wasn't going to have properly diagnosed for another couple of days.

  'It's all right,' I said, before pushing the chest straight into a table and nearly toppling over a Doulton vase in the process.

  And it was then, at the precise moment the base of that vase settled on that flat mahogany surface, that the door opened and Mrs Weeks entered the shop. It seemed like years since I had seen her, since that day I had so upset her about her son's behaviour. I had thought I must have put her off coming into the shop for good. Through my delirious gaze she looked quite a vision, in her crisp blouse and pleated skirt and shopping basket. Indeed, the sight of her neat golden loveliness was such a tonic for the ugly chaos of my thoughts that it took me a good few seconds to realise she was with George.

  'Oh, Mrs Weeks, do excuse the mess,' I told her. 'We're just changing the window display.'

  At which she gave a sad, regal smile and said: 'Oh, I see. No, that's quite all right, Mr Cave. George is here to say something. Aren't you, George?' Her voice was delicate and her eyes, as they looked up at her son, contained a hopeful pride.

  I followed those eyes up to George himself and saw he looked wholly different from the last two times I had seen him. He was smartly dressed, with a dark blue shirt tucked into a pair of corduroy trousers. His blond hair, now free from its pink fringe, was flattened and side-parted. Indeed, only his glasses remained the same. Still, as I looked up at him I was instantly reminded of the previous evening's encounter with his father, and felt a coldness run through me.

  'I'm sorry,' he told the slipware dish. 'I didn't mean to trip you up. In the field. I was showing off to my friends.'

  Mrs Weeks smiled as she whispered to her son. 'Look at Mr Cave when you're speaking, George. Tell it to his face.'

  And he did tell it to my face, and my face did its best to show forgiveness. 'Well, George, don't worry too much. It's in the past. But you must realise that you can't go throwing your weight about. Not everyone would be quite as tolerant as myself.' A brief image of my hand pressing against Uriah's throat flashed guiltily in my mind.

  Cynthia, still wincing and holding her side, released an audible breath of laughter at the use of the word 'tolerant'.

  'He is truly very sorry, Mr Cave,' said Mrs Weeks, her pretty eyes wearing a sorrow of their own. 'Indeed, it was George's own idea to come around and apologise face to face. We've been away to the West Country. A lovely place near St Ives. It's done us a lot of good, hasn't it, George?'

  'Oh, St Ives is – agh – wonderful, isn't it?' Cynthia was saying.

  George offered an awkward 'yes' that addressed both enquiries.

  'I assure you he has changed a lot over the last month, Mr Cave,' added Mrs Weeks. 'He wants to make amends.'

  This fact, combined with George's altered manner and appearance, was truly impressive. Indeed, it gave me hope. If he could change so much in the space of a few weeks, then maybe you could too.

  'If there's anything I can do to make it up,' said George, the eyes behind the glasses looking so timid I almost felt sorry for him, 'I'll do it, Mr Cave.'

  'Well,' I said, weighing up the possibilities.

  Cynthia was quicker off the blocks. 'You could help – ow – move this dressing table over to the window,' she said.

  George agreed and was quickly put to his task, using his considerable weight to heave the table forwards to its intended position. All the while, Cynthia was using those pencilled eyebrows of hers to prompt me into gratitude.

  'Thank you, George,' I said eventually. 'That's very kind of you.'

  'We could do with a nice young man like you to help in the shop,' said Cynthia, looking in less pain than before.

  Mrs Weeks gave us a flash of her smile, as fleeting as a fish darting through a stream. 'Oh, George would love to, wouldn't you, George?' she said.

  'Yes,' he said, before sucking on his inhaler.

  I took a moment to signify my consideration of the matter but knew
it was impractical, given the state of the accounts. 'Well, unfortunately we're not looking for anyone at the moment. We simply can't afford to –'

  Mrs Weeks looked at me. The smile was gone. 'Yes, Mr Cave, we completely understand. Don't we, George? George?'

  'I'd work for free,' he said, to even his mother's surprise. He had his breath back now, and spoke in a more confident tone. 'It would be good experience.'

  'He wants to work in antiques,' said his mother, nodding her head in a small but rapid movement.

  'But, what about school? Doesn't he have to –'

  'He's sixteen,' said Mrs Weeks. 'And he's not cut out for A levels. He's never been an academic type.'

  She sighed and gave a distant look, and I felt a great pity inside me. I thought of her horrendous husband and their separation. I wanted to reach out to her, one stranded human to another. My glance switched between Cynthia, holding her side and wincing as the pain returned, and the dressing table, perfectly placed by the window.

  I thought of the effect he might have on you. The visible change in him might act as a signpost back to the old Bryony. After all, he was one of your tribe. Or had been. And perhaps he would share the secrets of that tribe. Perhaps he knew things about you that I didn't, things that would help me in my quest to restore you.

  'All right,' I said. 'We'll give it a try on Thursday. Come in at nine o'clock and I'll show you the ropes.'

  Mrs Weeks smiled in gratitude. 'Thank you,' she said. 'Say thank you, George.'

  George looked towards the hallway, towards the home that lay beyond the shop. 'Thank you,' he said, as I slid like a ghost across his glasses. 'Thursday. Nine o'clock.'

  So, the game continued. You kept up the pretence of adhering to the rules, and I kept up the pretence of believing you. In accordance with number 1, Imogen would sometimes visit on school evenings, filling the whole place with the smell of stale tobacco.