Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story

by Glover, Sarah M.

  How at eight years old, the boy sat in his bed one night, fingers playing an imaginary keyboard on the fringes of his bedspread, when his mind began to race with the wild blur of her, this girl, like an unloosed spirit, as the music wove new and thrilling patterns before his eyes. And she was there, always, from that day on. This girl, this same girl with the reddish hair, speaking to him, running joyously through his mind. How at fourteen, the pulse of his music had changed, with furor and rebellion. How he didn’t understand it, and he could only feel and ache and need. And then there was sex. And suddenly everything was sex, and she was sex, and she was his. Especially at night, in the quiet stillness. How at eighteen, words of black wit and a newly tried-on sophistication invaded his manners, his lyrics, his being—and fit like a coat that was too large though perfectly comfortable. It became the armor he wore to this day to battle everything, except her.

  How could he confess that friends, family, and even sanity could slip away, but she was always there. For him. She would take one look at him and run screaming. Any sane person would.

  Right now he had to focus on a way to tamp down these emotions, the ones that were demanding that he confess, Yes, damn it, it’s true. All of it. Always you. Never another. There couldn’t be, there could never be—only you. In my very blood. That man is right. He is absofuckinglutely right! Don’t you feel it?

  They walked in silence to the bistro, their shoulders inches from each other’s. Their reflection in a storefront window caught his eye. Although she was tall, Emily fit perfectly against his side, and he imagined how her body would feel against his, how his arms would hold her. The cool breeze blew back her hair, and she wrapped her arms across her old-fashioned sweater to keep warm. He considered surrendering his leather jacket but hovered his hand near the small of her back instead as they crossed the street, not trusting himself to do more.

  The bistro proved to be like the countless others Andrew had hidden out in throughout his life. There were the familiar old art deco tiled floors, brick walls, a smattering of art and movie posters, and a lone little spiral staircase that led to nowhere. The air smelled of coffee and sugar and fresh cut flowers.

  An effervescent young woman escorted them to a small table where they slipped behind their menus. Ella Fitzgerald sang out to them from somewhere.

  Soon the restaurant filled up around them—students and professors by the looks of them, either intent on their companions or their laptops, a few tourists, and one couple that lay entwined on a sofa, kissing underneath a movie poster of The Maltese Falcon.

  “I’m sorry about what happened back there, to mortify you like that. I wouldn’t have brought you in the store if I’d had any idea how crazy he was.”

  “Mortified? No. It—I wasn’t mortified, though it isn’t something you hear every day, when you think of it—tied to someone through all eternity? Quite a commitment…” Andrew’s voice trailed off as he struggled to find something else to say in response to the look of earnestness on Emily’s face.

  “At least apologize to your girlfriend for me, please. I don’t think she’d appreciate all that talk of concubines, but I guess that’s better than being your slave.” She cringed at her words and bit her lip as though trying to stem the possibility of anything more escaping.

  Luckily, an old shuffling waiter took that moment to interrupt and take their order.

  “I’ll have a pot of Earl Grey, please.”

  “Make that two,” Andrew added, then dropped his voice to a more conspiratorial tone. “By the way, what is the exact definition of concubine? I forget. It’s Chinese, right?”

  “It’s from the Latin,” the waiter replied in a stage whisper, causing both of them to turn their heads. “Would you like anything to eat with your tea?”

  “Scones with lemon curd, please.”

  “Thank you, miss. You see, the word is found in Old French and Middle English too, with Chinese and Muslim variants. It’s a splendid word, isn’t it? Concubine. Always reminds me of hookah pipes and intrigue. And you, sir?”

  Andrew’s eyebrows rose. “I’ll have the same. Thank you.”

  They watched him trundle off, waiting until he was out of sight before they started laughing.

  “Well that explains it,” Andrew said. “I was rubbish at Latin, rubbish at most things, I’m afraid. No patience for it. It killed the philosophy major.”

  “You were a philosophy major?”

  “Philosophy, poetry, music, then—”

  “How many degrees did you get?”

  “None.”

  “None?”

  “I tend not to finish things. Except for pints and packs of cigarettes, but I’ve given them up—mostly—the cigarettes, that is.”

  She tilted her head. “You finish songs.”

  The look of sincerity on her face unnerved him. “It’s the only thing I can finish these days…But you never answered my question. What is the definition of a concubine?”

  “You seriously don’t know?” She leaned forward and dropped her voice, deepening their conspiratorial nature. “Well, it comes from the Latin verb concumbere, as in, ‘to lie together.’”

  Andrew devoutly wished for that cigarette. “I take it you’re an English major,” he said carefully.

  She nodded. “And psychology.”

  “Which is worse?”

  “Psychology. Without a doubt.”

  “No, which variant is worse.”

  “Oh. The Muslim. Definitely the Muslim.”

  “Which is?”

  She hesitated. “A woman residing in a harem and kept, as by a sultan, for sexual purposes.”

  His heart skittered like a rock down a cliff. The waiter appeared with their teapot. Andrew drummed his fingers, waiting for the old man to depart. At last, this was his chance. He finally had her alone.

  “As for my girlfriend,” he said with a deep breath, placing the pot down after pouring each of them a cup, “I believe she would not care as I do not have one.”

  “What?” Her eyes found his and blinked several times. Confusion and puzzlement passed through their gry depths until they settled on realization. “I’m so sorry. It must have been awful.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The break up must have been hard.”

  No, she couldn’t. No. Oh, bloody hell. This was turning into some drawing room farce. Emily thought he had endured some horrible break up with his muse, this suddenly very existent nonexistent woman, for which he was going to punch the piss out of Simon and Christian for bringing her up in the first place. And now Margot’s story would only corroborate the existence of a nonexistent break up.

  The heat of guilt swathed across his face. The more he struggled to come up with something witty, or at least truthful, the more he flailed and the more tortured he knew he looked. Emily seemed to be suffering along as well. Clearly, she didn’t know how to deal with him. Clearly, he didn’t know how to deal with himself.

  “It was nothing,” he ended up saying. “Truthfully, it was nothing.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No,” he said bluntly, his head reeling.

  “So…um, you’re a musician? That’s wonderful.”

  He nodded in relief. His fingers found the pair of little silver tongs and he began shoveling cubes into his cup until he glanced up at her. “Sugar?”

  “Just cream. But thank you.”

  He glimpsed about the restaurant. “It’s a rather interesting place.”

  “I like it. It refuses to change.”

  He placed the tongs down and sat back, trying to control his nerves. Why was this so difficult? He’d waited forever for her, and now he could find nothing to say. Maybe he’d answer the questions all women asked him after they played the “you’re a musician” card; it was always the same. What made you want to become one? Don’t you find life hard on the road? What’s your inspiration? What he was not prepared for was her response.

  “Andrew, do you really belie
ve in ghosts?”

  “Pardon?”

  “You promise you won’t think I’m crazy?”

  Oh, girl. I’ve built my life around the fantasy of you and am battling every nerve ending in my body not to lunge across the table and kiss you right now, so who’s crazy here? “I promise.”

  “It’s just that this morning, right before I left for class, I swore I saw something, heard something in my closet.”

  She had gone so pale at this that he leaned closer to her. “Were you hurt?”

  “No, that’s just it. There wasn’t anyone there. Just a voice and—oh forget it, this all sounds ridiculous. You must think I’m an idiot.”

  “Was it a woman? I mean, was it a woman’s voice you heard?”

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “Nora.” It was Nora; Nora had been there. Andrew hadn’t realized he’d said the name out loud. “No, Nora comes with your part of the house,” he added quickly, hoping to dispel Emily’s increasing concern. “Our flat has cursed lovers, apparently. They can’t haunt the same spaces for whatever reason. At least that’s what Neil told us.”

  “But you’ve never seen either of them, you said?”

  “No.” What was he going to say? I haven’t seen the dead man but he loves this woman Nora so badly I can feel it. Like it’s seeping into my very bones. “You asked me about being a musician. Any more questions regarding that?”

  She grasped her teacup, aware that she’d been warded off this line of questioning. “Are you—are you going to be staying in San Francisco long?”

  “I would like to, but it depends. You see, we’ve decided we needed some time off from the road. So much has happened in the past year, we’ve become so popular so fast, that when Neil offered us the chance to stay here we couldn’t say no.” He went on to tell her of what had occurred in London. “We just wanted to decompress or detox or whatever the hell Christian calls it. Plus, I’ve always wanted to write here—can’t tell you why.” Because it’s a lie, you idiot.

  “Again, I’m so sorry for disrupting your show. I knew I was going to be sick and I had to get out of there. But I enjoyed it, really, I did. You were incredible.”

  “That’s kind of you. So you’re telling me I shouldn’t quit my day job?”

  “No! Unless you want to disappoint half the female population of San Francisco. Not to mention the table of girls over there. I think they’ve caught on to who you are.”

  “Marvelous…So, Christian mentioned something about a dinner?”

  “Oh Lord.” Emily laughed, her face a blur of happiness. “Please cook. Promise me you’ll cook. Please. Or we’ll all end up dead.”

  Contentment stole over him. Her hair caught on her sweater buttons again, and he uncurled it, holding the strand between his fingers.

  “Stupid buttons, I’m going to chop all this hair off someday.”

  “No!”

  Emily looked at him in surprise and blushed, pink warming her face.

  “It’s lovely,” he stammered.

  “Really? The curls are hopeless, and it’s too short to let down a tower, you know.”

  For a heartbeat he did nothing but stare at her. “If you were in a tower, I wouldn’t need this to reach you.” He didn’t know what made him say it. It was juvenile and awful and cringe-inducingly awkward—yet absolutely true. And now it was just out there, hanging tremulously like that strand of Emily’s hair between his fingers.

  “Your check. No rush,” the waiter announced.

  Christ! He closed his eyes and silently cursed a blue streak, causing Emily to recoil from him as though she had been burned by a stove.

  Andrew knew he had scared her. She almost appeared panicked. He grasped for something to say but could come up with nothing.

  “Andrew?”

  He was wired so tight he cried, “Yes!”

  “What—what made you go into music?”

  His mind stuttered in a million directions. What could he say? You?

  “Trying to avoid a beating.” That seemed to take her by surprise, and he fumbled to recollect the essentials. “I was four or five years old, I think. My parents took me to a symphony. I was a royal bother according to mum. Dolor de cabeza, she used to say. She’s Spanish, and met my father when she was at university. Now, my father would have called me a royal shite, more likely. He is—was—from Oxford. He was ready to sell me at that point, so I decided to pay attention.”

  She smiled; it was all he needed.

  “They played Fanfare for the Common Man.” His hands inadvertently played the table as he spoke, and he hummed the beginning bars. “There are sounds that have such a transcendent effect when you first hear them that they’re near alive. No, they are alive. Hell, I know that sounds so pretentious, but giving up that control or being controlled by something with that much power—and to know that I could create that music, that I could spend my life losing myself in it—well…there was no going back. Even that young I knew that everything in the world wasn’t right, but I had an idea of what I was capable of after that. It changed me forever. It changed everything.”

  She stared at him. The whirl and hum of the restaurant became distant around them, her face remaining perfectly still. He knew her cheek would fit perfectly in the cup of his hand.

  “Oh Christ, sorry, I’ve been rambling. I tend to do that. Feel free to smack me or do something equally violent next time. Now what about you? Seems you fancy poetry and tolerate psychology.”

  “And if I don’t pass Vandin’s class, I’ll shoot myself.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s a writing conference at Squaw Valley this summer, a special one, and very few writers were invited. There’s this manuscript I’ve been working on, and I’ll have the opportunity to work on it with an agent. I’ve published articles and short stories before, but never anything this major. If I don’t pass, I can’t graduate. I’ll need to retake the class in the summer and that means no conference. So yeah, it’s hemlock for me if that happens.”

  “Why can’t you take the course in the fall? Just postpone it?”

  “I need to start working full-time by then. Scholarships only go so far, you know. I haven’t got much money.”

  He could tell by the look on her face that she knew he did. Another demerit, Hayes, he thought. Do not pass go, do not get the girl.

  “And your professor doesn’t seem like a reasonable sort of chap, right?”

  “Yeah, and if I don’t get ‘my head in the game’ as he says, I’m toast. But if I can find a subject for this last research paper that he doesn’t shoot down, I’ll be golden, I think.”

  He didn’t know whether she was trying to convince him or herself with that last comment. Either way, he didn’t want that man within ten feet of Emily. What kind of prick got off demeaning a woman like that? And what the hell was this about her having to get his approval…

  It was then that he had an idea.

  “The bloke fancies ghosts, so why don’t you research ours? Prove they exist?”

  “Dr. Vandin? He’s spent years trying to debunk the idea of ghost hunters, thinks it’s crackpot science—‘bullshit’ was the precise term he used during one lecture. He’d have me committed, or with my luck, the ghosts would decide to haunt another house the moment Pavel stepped over the threshold.”

  “Pavel?”

  “Vandin, I mean.”

  Why would she use his first name? She couldn’t be—no, that was ludicrous. But then, he didn’t know Emily’s history. In truth, he knew precious little about her. Emily Thomas was a complete unknown to him. Maybe she already had a boyfriend? Maybe they would have animalistic sex every night in that house for him to hear? Maybe he was just too bloody late?

  “The ghosts,” he said, startled by the passion in his voice. “They’re searching for each other. That’s why they moan—they can’t find the other, no matter how hard they try. Someone needs to discover why. Uncover their mystery, help them become reunited. Don’t you t
hink it’s worth a shot?”

  “But—”

  “Souls like that deserve to be together. Imagine loving someone so violently, so passionately, and not being able to touch them, to be with them, to hold them. And wanting that so fiercely.”

  His hand clenched his cup, adrenaline he couldn’t control coursing in his veins. “Emily, what’s worse than unrequited love?”

  She did not respond.

  “What’s more wretched, more horrible than that?”

  Her eyes lowered to her teacup; she studied its contents and gave a choked laugh. “Nothing.”

  She took a sip and said no more.

  Thoughts of Emily tortured Andrew the entire week long. Somehow, some way, he needed to make it up to her and recover from their disastrous lunch. But he had no clue where to begin. She must have thought he was mad, acting the way he did. The poor girl had said nothing the whole drive home. They parted ways in the lobby with stiff nods.

  Once he stepped through his front door, he steeled himself for the expected grilling from Simon and Christian. Running out of the house to chase after a girl you just met should elicit some form of rebuke. But nothing came. Perhaps they could sense his foul mood. Although when he told Simon he had run into Emily on campus, Simon couldn’t help asking if it was with the truck. Christian, as Andrew had expected, was a lost cause, his renewed friendship with Zoey making him ungodly cheerful. As a result, they were subjected to endless tracks from Little Feat under the reasoning that it was their favorite group growing up. There was only so much fucking Dixie Chicken a man could take.

  By the time Friday rolled around, Andrew was not only heartbroken but “Feated” out as well. Or as Simon said one night in the kitchen while banging his head against the refrigerator, “I bloody surrender. I am fucking de-feated!”

  Emily had proved as invisible as the ghosts. He wasn’t sure if she would ever speak with him again, sure she was living under the impression that he harbored some great unrequited love. Occasionally they would see each other coming or going. She would nod shyly but nothing more. Miserably wretched, he busied himself in trying to make some semblance of order in their flat, which proved challenging as they were living in a bleeding blueprint of a house.