The Ghost Who Fed Them Bones (6 page)

“What a place!” Mike exclaims. “I didn’t realise that it had quite so much history.” He takes a sip from his glass, wishing that it was larger, and that there was a bowl of olives to raid. “So have you managed to make contact with the spirit of your daughter?” – a very bold question for Mike to pose.

Inspector John smiles. “Funnily enough, I do feel her al around me. It may be my imagination, but it does feel like she is here somewhere, sharing a glass of wine with me.” Both Mike and my eyes shift involuntarily to the empty chair alongside us. “It’s a bit fanciful, I know,” Inspector John continues, “but please humour an old man.”

“Not exactly old,” Mike chimes in on cue.

Inspector John turns to me. “So what do you think, Paul?”

“About what?” I reply, startled.

“About anything.”

“I don’t, real y. Obviously I am sorry for your daughter, and for you – maybe even for Alice if she isn’t dancing around Paris, strutting her stuff. We may even bump into her in Brussels. I’l look out for her.”

“So you don’t think she is dead?”

“I haven’t a clue. Why would I know that? I have never met her.”

“I thought you might have sensed something.”

“I thought that this house seemed a bit spooky, that is al . Now that I have heard your story, I am not surprised. It cannot be a very happy house.”

“Actual y, I find it has a very homely atmosphere, maybe because I sense Julia’s presence here. I only got to know her towards the end of her life because she was brought up by her mother, so I am desperate to get as close to her for as long as I can.”

“What about her mother?” Mike asks unwisely.

“She committed suicide too – many years ago. It must have been in the genes – not my genes, though. My ancestors were al rough and tumble dockworkers and their wives. One died in a loading accident on the docks, and another was lost at sea as crew on a merchant ship, and several were kil ed in the two world wars, but that is as dramatic as it ever got on my side of the family. Nobody ever died by their own hands or was even depressive, as far as I know. Good solid Lancashire types.”

“It must have been very difficult for you.”

It seems for a second like Inspector John might even let a tear escape his eyes. “It was. I liked what I knew of Julia very much – and her mother …. ” He smiles instead. “ …. her mother was a real y wild one. Total y untameable. Not the suicidal type either, you wouldn’t have thought, although otherwise hel -bent on self-destruction.”

“And your daughter, Julia?”

“Julia was a city trader by profession. Very cool, very intel igent. Pretty. Evasive. You never real y knew whether she was tel ing you the whole truth or not, or even a sliver of it. Not that it mattered. I stil loved her. I would have done anything for her, for both of them. I stil would if they were here now.” He looks up. “Julia, I love you,” he cal s out to the wal s, “if you are anywhere here.” He turns back. “You must think I am going soft in my old age.”

We both shake our heads. “Not in the least,” Mike assures him. He smiles. “Julia, we love you too,” he cal s out, and smiles again.

Inspector John places his right hand on Mike’s knee. “That was a lovely, generous gesture, Mike. Thank you. Now what are your stories?”

We do our best but, in comparison, we have very little to say. Wel , I might have a bit more if was wil ing to come clean, but I’m not. I want this speculation about my being clairvoyant closed down with maximum prejudice. Must brief Mum before she blows in, and it.

In fact, our story is so boring (nothing to do with the way Mike is tel ing it) that I decide to go for a walk. I excuse myself, pretending to be in search of the toilet. “Left and left, you cannot miss it,” Inspector John advises me.

Instead I climb up some fairly rickety stairs to snoop around the house. I have just reached the landing at the top of the stairs when I walk straight into her. She must have been preoccupied herself because she doesn’t seem to have noticed me approaching.

So we both suffer from a moment of shock and panic.

“Who are you?” she asks in French, clutching at her heart rather over-dramatical y and, indeed, ineffectual y.

“Paul.” I look at her. She is almost like another Natalie, except that she is ful er yet more transparent, in several meanings of the word. “You must be Alice,” I venture.

“Yes, I am. How do you know?”

“We have just been talking about you downstairs.”

“I heard you talking, but I cannot speak English very wel , so I could not understand much of whatever you were saying.”

“I think we met the other day,” I suggest.

She almost blushes. “That was you, was it? I am so sorry … ”

“ … that’s al right.”

“I was in such a temper!”

“I noticed.”

“It was that stupid man, real y stupid man. I couldn’t get him to hear me. I was even prepared to try my English on him, but he must be completely deaf.”

“No, but you are a bit different.”

“I know. It’s annoying. I realised immediately that you could hear me, but I was so worked up by then that I couldn’t stop myself. My emotions were overwhelming me. Stil , I did manage to stop in time for you to sit down. You can thank me for that.”

I nod graciously. “I thank you for that.”

She giggles. “So what are you doing here?”

“I think I have been asked round to look for you, or possibly Julia.”

“Julia is not here. She left at the very beginning, with Mary, after my father tried to burn the house down.”

“OK.”

“It’s a shame. I would like to see her again – apologise to her.”

“She is dead too,” I explain.

“Is she? Oh dear. That is real y hard to believe. She was so strong.”

“She committed suicide.”

She stands back. “Are you sure? Are you sure that nobody kil ed her? I cannot imagine her ever committing suicide.”

“That is what her father says – the guy downstairs.”

“He is her father?”

“Yes.”

“I never knew. Wil you apologise to him for me for my cruel thoughts. I didn’t mean to hurt him, but now I know that he is Julia’s father … ”

I pul a face. “I am sorry. I am afraid that I am pretending not to be able to speak to ghosts, but I’l try to get the message to him somehow, perhaps via Mike.”

“Is that Mike downstairs?”

“Yes, he is my brother.”

She grins. “He seems real y lovely.”

“He is.”

The conversation stal s for a second.

“So,” she says, twirling slightly, “you found me.”

“So I did.”

“And what do you think?”

“You are very beautiful.”

“Thank you. Do you like ghosts?”

“No, mostly they real y annoy me. They’re usual y mean and cruel.”

She mouths a 'boff'. “It is very frustrating being a ghost, I can tel you. I keep wondering what is happening to me, and nobody knows, or they pretend not to know, and there is nobody to ask. Do you know?”

“No. I can’t say that I do, except that you are probably loitering around for a bit until you are released into the light. I can try to do that for you, if you wish …. ”

“I’l think about it. How long would I have to stay around in order to disappear natural y?”

“I can’t tel you. The ghosts I have met haven’t had it happen to them yet, and the ones to whom it presumably has aren’t around for me to meet them. Most of them only seem to linger for a year or two, but I’ve met a couple who have been stuck for hundreds of years on the earth. They tend to be real y tense. Actual y, I thought you were one of those the other day.”

She frowns. “I have already said that I am sorry. What more do you want?”

“Are those your body parts that keep turning up?”

She hesitates, embarrassed. “Yes. I had to get the old man’s attention somehow. I have tried being nice to lots of tenants, but none of them has noticed me, so I thought I would make a less ambiguous gesture.”

“Where are they coming from?”

“They aren’t real body parts. They are simulacra. The real ones are stil buried in the Tarn et Garonne, in a wood near Montauban, where my father buried me.”

“So, it was your father who kil ed you, was it?

“Yes, Papa kil ed me.”

“Why?”

“He lost his temper. He was angry with me. He didn’t like me being with Mary, the woman I ran off with. Didn’t like lesbians. So I retaliated by taunting him, saying how much I was enjoying it; that sex was much nicer with women than with men who are al clumsy and arrogant and pushy and messy. Why would I want that? I went on and on, and he got crosser and crosser. He always got cross, did Papa, usual y at Maman, but sometimes at me too. I was fed up with his physical and emotional bul ying of us because when he lost his temper entirely, it usual y ended in a beating for either Maman, or me, or my brother. I knew I was pushing him too far, but it al came out. How I hated the life in Freyrargues, how I knew al about his sordid affair with Marguerite de Bel etier, and that Florent is my step-brother, and it was time Maman and Thibault, my brother, learnt al about that, not to mention M. de Bel etier and the whole vil age. He said ‘You wouldn’t do that, Alice,’ and I sensed his fear so I said ‘Yes, I wil , I’l do it tomorrow. I’l phone Maman to tel her, and then we’l see what a self-righteous prick you are.’ So he grabbed me, only to make a point, I think, but I goaded him again, saying, ‘That’s right, hit me, like you always do, use your brains - your fists or your dick.’ I think he thought that I was chal enging him to fuck me, and he got real y mad and grabbed my throat instead, and he found he couldn’t stop. He kept throttling me until I was dead.”

“That must have been real y frightening.”

“Towards the end, yes, because I couldn’t breathe, but I was also in a fight with my Papa that I had real y wanted al my life, and I was enjoying my power over him for a change, so I was concentrating on that. Then, yes, I couldn’t breathe, so I was panicking, then frantic, then desperate, and I evacuated everything out of my bowels. After that it was al right. I was dead. That real y crucified my Papa when he realised that I was dead. He cried and cried, and picked me up and kissed me over and over again, tel ing me how much he loved me, and had always loved me, and would always love me, and he was so, so, sorry for what he had just done, and he hadn’t meant to do it, and what could he do to undo it? Then he lifted me into the passenger seat of our car and drove me to Montauban, which took hours and hours, and al the way he apologised to me, and prayed for my soul, and worried what would happen to me, what he would say to Maman, whether she would ever find out. I was terrified he would have an accident. He wasn’t in any state to concentrate on the road at al .

He nearly drove into several cars and even a couple of trees, swerving around. It was a miracle he wasn’t stopped by the police. Perhaps he wanted to be stopped by the police, but I didn’t want him to be. I wanted him to get away with it. After al , it was more than partly my fault, and he is stil my papa. So we got to this copse near Montauban, and he pul ed over, and he carried me out, and he dug my grave with his bare hands. Luckily for him it had been raining, so the ground was softer than usual, but I am sure that he would have done the same even if it had been al rocks. He didn’t care. He just wanted to give me a true burial, with love. He apologised al over again for kil ing me, and for the fact that I was not being laid to rest on sanctified ground near my ancestors, and he hoped that my soul would rest in peace. Then he said that he was going back to kil Mary for what she had made me do. That sort of spoiled the effect. I prayed very hard that he wouldn’t, and in the end he didn’t because I saw her again here, but he did try to lay the blame on her and Julia, got the whole vil age marching up here to take revenge, worked everyone up around their prejudices against women first and foremost, and then about the disgusting sexual practices of lesbians. Then Julia and Mary hit them in the crutch with boiling oil, and Julia rather unexpectedly pul ed out a gun and gave every impression of knowing exactly how to use it and where, and al the stupid cowards of the vil age ran home again, back to the wives they despise, and the daughters they real y want to fuck themselves (except the plainer ones, and even them sometimes) but know they aren’t al owed to, and back to their miserable bigoted lives, ready to plan to do something to Mary and Julia the next day, except that they packed and fled. And I have been alone here ever since.”

“Do you have to stay in this house? I have never met a ghost outside.”

“No, I can go outside. I can go anywhere I like. It is just that you cannot real y see us out in the sunshine. We are too faint.

I go to see Maman quite often. She is very sad. She remembers me every day, and she cries every day too, often several times. Poor Maman. And Papa prays for me too, and tel s me how much he loves me, and wishes we could start again. It is tragic to watch, it real y is. If I could cry, I would too. I wish Julia and Mary would come back to find me. I am so lonely. I have nothing to do except to watch people, and I cannot sleep. I see a few interesting things wandering around Freyargues, lots of things I am never meant to see, lots of secret affairs and dishonest deals, the odd fight, but it gets less and less entertaining, and more and more tedious. I am so bored. I real y need a friend. Wil you be my friend, Paul?”

I smile. “Of course I wil , Alice. I’l cal round every day, or you can come over to Valflaunès.”

“Thank you, but I would rather stay here. I belong here in this vil age.”

“Where can I meet you? I cannot real y come to this house al the time and, if I do, I cannot get away too easily to meet up with you.”

“Do you know the barn down the lane, here - the next barn, leaving the vil age – the derelict one?”

“I am sure I can find it.”

“Meet me there. What time would be best?”

“Shal we say at 10:00 in the morning, or is that too early for you?”

“No, that would be good.”