The Ghost Who Fed Them Bones (11 page)

“But that could take hours, days.”

“You’l think of something. Then what?”

“What if he doesn’t react at al ?”

“Provoke him until he does. I wil give you some clues as to what to say. There is one thing about my Papa – he is very easy to provoke.”

“And what if he reacts so strongly that he takes us al hostage and locks us in, maybe knocks me out. It sounds like he is a pretty beefy man.”

“He is. He can pack quite a punch. I saw him knock M. Philips out once. Bam! It was so funny. M. Philips lost three teeth and couldn’t afford to replace them, so he walked around with gaps between his teeth for about five years.”

“That’s encouraging!”

“But he can’t hold you hostage forever. Sooner or later he wil have to release you, then you simply fol ow the rest of the plan.”

Clearly for Alice that is now it.

“There is perhaps one more thing that I can contribute,” I offer.

“What is that?”

“My friend Fiona up at the Château … ”

“What does she look like?”

“Blond, about thirty, very pretty, about your height.”

“Do you like her?”

“Yes, she is lovely.”

“How much do you like her?” (Obviously ghosts do not lose their female intuition).

“She is married, Alice, to two men in fact, John and Peter.”

“OK.” (But they can be fooled).

“Have you ever seen her?”

“I am not sure that I have. There are always lots of pretty blonds tripping around that Château. The English seem to col ect them for trophies. Anyway, you were saying …. ”

“Fiona says that she can talk to her father, the Earl of Affligem, who owns the Château, and he can address himself directly to the new commissaire who is in charge of your case now, except that it is closed, and demand that he search for your body near Montauban.”

“Do you think that the commissaire would listen to him?”

“Fiona is certain that he would. That is why he was brought in on the case – to keep the Earl happy.”

“That could be useful, then. Good idea. When Uncle Jean goes to see Capitaine Herbert, Fiona’s father can make contact with the commissaire. That wil fix everything.”

“OK.”

Alice clasps her hands with glee in thin air. “Are you ready to draw the map?” she proposes enthusiastical y. “I think I know how we can do it.”

* * *

I return to pick Mike up from Valflaunès to ferry him back to Freyrargues. It seems a stupid journey – over an hour of driving to get back to where I was in the first place.

This puts me in a bad mood which has nothing to do with Mike, but that does not stop me taking my frustrations out on him.

Mike initial y ignores my spikiness but after a while he begins to punch back.

“Why are you in such a bad mood?”

“I’m not.”

“Sure you’re not. Why does your outstandingly good mood involve beating me up?”

“Leave it out.”

“Exactly.”

“You are annoying me.”

“Exactly.”

“Stop saying ‘exactly’.”

“Exactly.”

“I said stop saying ‘exactly’.”

“Precisely.”

Stony silence, al the rest of the way to Freyrarques.

We arrive at the Château to find not a single car on the drive way. The place has been evacuated, at least momentarily.

The doors are open, of course, and the staff are there, but no family, no friends, and only one hanger-on, a guy cal ed Albert who is carrying an apple in his hand.

“Where is everybody?” Mike asks.

“They went to Montpel ier.”

“Everyone?”

“Yes, they went early. Even the Earl and Countess.”

“They went out too?”

“Yes. It is some kind of event, fol owed by lunch at Le Jardin des Sens. Two Michelin stars. Too much chocolate, in my opinion.”

“You can get too much chocolate?”

“They obviously don’t think so.”

“And who are you?”

“Albert.”

“A friend of the family’s?”

“No, a friend of Neil.”

“Neil?”

“Yes, Neil is a friend of Peter, and Peter is a friend of Gerri’s, and Gerri is a friend of Sarah. It sounds a bit tenuous, doesn’t it?”

“Wel , yes, in a way.”

He holds his apple in the air. “But it stil gets me an apple. And you?”

“We are friends of Fiona,” I reply.

Albert pul s a face. “Second degree. Very impressive. I bow to you.”

At which point he bows. Neither Mike nor I quite know how to react to this. It must be an English thing.

“Can you get me to Montpel ier?” Albert almost demands of us.

“We’ve just arrived,” Mike protests.

“There is nobody here,” Albert assures us.

“Does there have to be?” I ask. “I rather like the space.”

“But you are going back into Freyrargues,” Mike fires at me.

“So?”

“So what is the space to you?”

“I would very much appreciate a lift into Montpel ier,” Albert insists.

“I am not gate crashing Le Jardin des Sens,” Mike declares.

“Why not?” chal enges Albert. “It isn’t that bad.”

Mike is silenced. We both stare at Albert as if here is a slug in need of a humane pel et.

Albert affects a smarmy grin and turns towards the back stairs and Mme. Paladin in the kitchens, down in the basement. “Suit yourselves,” he jabs over his shoulder. “I am sure that I can persuade them to cook us something here, unless that is against your consciences too.”

“Not against mine,” Mike cal s triumphantly.

“Nor mine,” I add.

Albert disappears from view firmly convinced that we are novices and ingénues.

* * *

Alice is somewhere here in the park but virtual y impossible to see. At least, I assume that she is here. She cannot have much to detain her and she is pretty pumped up about nailing her dad.

The park is empty, which is a relief because when I do meet up with Alice I am going to look like I’m talking to myself.

I turn 360 degrees cal ing “Alice” through rigid lips like a ventriloquist. “Alice ‘ave you got a got a gottle o’ geer?”

“Comment?” Alice whispers from behind me – wel she may have been in front of me at one point in my circuit.

“You’re here!”

“Ssssh!”

“There’s nobody here.”

“We need to practise. Speak in a whisper. Sit down on the bench and pretend to read something.” She has obviously noticed my book. “What is it by the way?”

“It’s a book about what happens in a post-apocalyptic world. It’s cal ed ‘The Road’.”

“Sounds fun!”

“It’s very good, but it isn’t fun.”

“My Papa should be out in about twenty minutes.”

Alice is sitting beside me but I can stil barely identify even her outline. It is more as if there is a heat wave distorting the air and refracting it. It being summer in the South of France, there is a heat wave anyway, at 35 degrees today, but the air looks different where I assume Alice is perched. For the first time, I get a rushing impulse to hug her, which of course I can’t do, even if she would let me. The impossibility of it aches in my stomach. I don’t know why this has suddenly happened to me – perhaps because we have nothing better to do and always, in the past, when I have been with a girl and there is nothing happening, I have tended to start playing with her to pass the time. That option is not available here, so now I do not know what to do with my hands, my chest or my time.

“Alice, I want to hug you.”

“I was thinking the same thought a second or two ago.”

“Were you?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a real pain your being dead, isn’t it?”

“We would probably not have met if I had been alive. I wouldn’t have bothered with an English boy. We may not even have met each other.”

“But now that we have …. ”

“We wil have to conduct a purely spiritual relationship.”

I get a bit daring. “Do you stil have urges?”

“What sort of urges?”

“To hug people, or kiss them, or whatever.”

“Yes, of course. My soul is stil functioning normal y.”

“Do you feel them like you used to feel them, in your body?”

“Yes, I stil feel as if I have arms and legs, everything in fact, but especial y arms and legs.”

“How strange.”

“Wel , you get it if you have a limb amputated. You get phantom sensations. I am a phantom and I get those sensations.

It al figures.”

“That must be real y frustrating.”

“Most of the time I don’t think about it, but I have wanted to hold your hand once or twice, and to real y kiss you on your cheek, and now I want to hold you too. That is frustrating. It helps that you are understanding.”

“We’l have to treat it as a handicap between us, just something we have to work our way around and not get too upset about. What is, is.”

“Yes, thanks to my Papa. He can stil do anything physical he wants, that is for sure. He is doing it right now with Mme.

de Bel etier, and very annoying it is too. Poor Maman, she has been devoted to him al his life, and I bet you that he has been playing around al their lives too, pretending to be making sales cal s and picking up women where he can find them.”

“Is he a salesman or does he have his own business?”

“He is a salesman for a piping company. He covers the South-West for them – Aquitaine, Midi-Pyrenées and the Languedoc-Roussil on. He is always travel ing and no doubt always fucking too. That is how he knew where to bury me. He wil have explained being there as a sales cal . Picking me up wil have been another one. I now realise exactly how he works. He doesn’t care a damn for his family. Maman and I are just there as people he can cover himself with when he has not got a better adventure to distract him. Fuck them and move on, that’s him.”

I haven’t heard Alice swearing before although I have recognised her almost manic passion at times, so I am not real y surprised. I like her swearing. It makes her feel more alive to me. And ghosts certainly swear, especial y the older, more jaundiced and embittered ones. They grumble ceaselessly like turkeys, replacing gobble-gobble with fuck-fuck. When I come across them, usual y in older houses, I always expect them to be smoking too.
Fucking this and fucking that, puff-puff. Never understand, puff-puff. Here we are totally stranded, puff-puff. It’s fucking horrible here, puff-puff – a fucking
disgrace
(scrunch the cigarette butt into the carpet). Wander off.

Alice is already transforming into one of these. I fear that she is destined for a two hundred or more year vigil on this earth. This frightens me. I must find a way of saving her, of driving her into the light, even if I lose her. It may be fun for me at the moment, but it is not wise to become a swearing ghost. They remain too attached to the earth. They cannot tear themselves away. They complain that they are not al owed to leave to enjoy their eternal rest, but the truth is that they real y want to linger here. They have an unfinished life, one which they hardly ever enjoyed, but they need to resolve it in some way. That is what I conclude anyway from what I have experienced. Happy souls move on, unless they feel that they have a sacred or devotional duty to stay with and protect someone special. That happens, especial y between mothers and children. They don’t usual y swear; they simply love. The rest are angry, very angry, and stil very here, chained to the life they used to lead.

I have to recognise and admit to myself that Alice is one of these in training. She has remained here because she is very, very angry herself, not because she wants to protect her mother, however much she loves her and is horrified by how her father treats her. She wants revenge, which she is at least now admitting to herself, so that is progress. If I can persuade her to get this father thing over and done with, and then to feel love for anyone, even for me, then she may natural y drift towards the light and away. At this moment I real y want to love her, and to have her love me, and it feels like an unselfish act, something that in the end wil save her. That is why I want to hug her and to feel her against me. It is not merely habit.

Al of which makes it very confusing with Fiona. I felt a terrible pang when she wasn’t there at the Château this morning. I wanted to drag her into the shadows of a darkened room (and there are plenty there), and to hug and kiss her and to feel her against me too. I feel a physical craving for both of them, and it doesn’t feel like I am cheating either, although I fear that Alice might think so and, as I wil be staying so close, she may wel find out. She may wander up to the Château to see what I am doing, al loving and cheerful, only to discover me doing what her father is doing, engaging in a random act of betrayal.

The trauma of that discovery could imprison her here for aeons. What do I do? For the moment I must park it. I must concentrate on what I am here to do and hope that a solution miraculously appears, knowing that a disastrous, tragic showdown is much more likely. Two-timing is difficult, especial y when I am mostly trying to do both of them a favour – to act as a disinterested semen donor on the one side, and as a liberator on the other.

It’s hard to be good.

“He’l be out soon,” Alice says.

I don’t think she is troubling her soul over me at al . She is al wrapped up in her own vendetta, intense and cosy.

I can sense Alice holding her breath (although she isn’t), hyped up with excitement and anticipation. She is a hair-trigger starting gun. When her father appears, I have to cross the road like a greyhound. As she says, it should be anytime now.

Is the door moving? No. Now? Stil not. Come on, come on.

“Are you sure he is in there?” I check.

“Positive. I was watching him earlier.”

“Doing what?”

“Talking to Mme. de Bel etier.”

“How do they talk?”

“Like Maman and Papa talk – not real y listening to each other, each subject as boring as the last, or the next. They are not remotely animated. It wil soon be time for Papa to move on. Perhaps that is what they are discussing now. That wil be an irony. What’s that?”