Ghosting (13 page)

‘Sure.’

‘Thanks. I’ll meet you at the van in twenty minutes.’

‘Cool,’ he says. And then he is gone.

‘Van? What van?’ Gordon says, flustered, unsure how to act in the presence of this woman he barely recognises. He can see plainly that she is not herself. That is, he cannot see she is becoming herself, and daily casting aside that fictitious self that people assume like a garment in which to appear before the world.

‘I’m leaving. I told you, I want a divorce.’

‘But we have to talk about this! Where will you go?’

‘I’ll ring you in a few days.’

‘I’m your husband and I demand to know where you’re going with that man!’

She turns to face him. ‘I’m going for a shower. Please be gone by the time I’m finished,’ she says, walking over to the bathroom door. He follows her and she wonders briefly whether he will try and physically stop her leaving.

And how hard would she fight to get away?

‘You can’t just disappear with a total stranger without telling me where! For heaven’s sake, woman, think about what you’re doing! And what the hell happened to his face – has he been in a fight?’ He’s desperate again. She is about to close the bedroom door on him when he looks her in the eye and says, ‘Why did you marry me, Grace? You didn’t love me.’

‘I did.’

‘No, you didn’t. Not really. Oh, you tried, I’ll grant you that. I could see you trying your best.’

She says nothing, can say nothing, for he speaks the painful truth, the truth they have both spent their time together avoiding, and upon the denial of which they tried to secure some happiness.

‘And that’s OK, I gave up on you ever loving me a long time ago, but we get along, don’t we? We muck along. What else are we going to do, at our age?’ His voice is plaintive now. ‘Don’t go. Have a word with yourself. What on earth will you do if you leave? Where will you go?’ He shakes his head. ‘Who else will want you, at your age?’

‘Goodbye, Gordon,’ she says, closing the door on his baffled, frightened face.

Her whole body is straining to tremble. She just has to get away, and then everything will be all right. She needs to leave this life; it left her a long time ago. She removes her wedding ring and puts it inside her toiletries bag before stepping under the shower.
Is this what it amounts to?
she thinks as she dresses afterwards.
Two
sons I never see and a husband who’s a stranger?
There is an empty sorrow where her life should be. And her life had fitted so neatly into one small case that it makes her want to cry.

When she steps out of the bathroom, she’s relieved to see Gordon has gone.

In the bedroom, Hannah’s diaries lie on the floor beside the case. She doesn’t want to take them, but nor does she want to leave them for Gordon to read. He doesn’t even know they exist; they are hers, hers and Hannah’s. She carries them into the kitchen and over to the empty sink. She tears out a page and holds the flame of her lighter to the corner of it, then drops it into the sink to watch it blacken and reduce. Page by page, she destroys each book in turn, reducing them to a scatter of ash.

She lights a cigarette from the last page before dropping it, and it makes her remember someone she hasn’t thought about in years: one of the patients at Parkside whom she befriended, a sixteen-year-old girl who would set fire to her bed once a week. Each time, the nurses would haul her off and confine her, but no sooner was she back on the ward than she was starting another fire. She said they locked her in one of the underground cells everyone talked about with consummate fear, though not all the patients believed her, as she was the only one who claimed to have seen the cells. Grace recalls how they’d all have to huddle in the clock tower until the fire brigade had gone, every time Jane managed
to get her hands on a match. Watching the diaries turn to cinders, Grace finally understands why she did it: it feels good to watch things burn.

JANE ADMITTED
to Grace that she started the fires because she liked it in solitary; it was the only place she felt safe. She said her parents had her put away because of her violent mood swings and inappropriate sexual behaviour. ‘When they caught me getting something other than milk from the milkman it was the last straw,’ she said. She was pretty and well-spoken, and flirted with any man who came near her.

Jane was the first person Grace spoke to, after that first week of not uttering a word. Grace sat next to her in the day room and said, ‘There’s been a terrible mistake and I shouldn’t be in here at all.’

‘Me too,’ said the girl, scratching herself all over as if she had fleas.

‘But I don’t want to be among mad people,’ Grace remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said Jane; ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’

‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Grace.

‘You must be,’ said Jane, ‘or you wouldn’t have come.’

Most of the time Jane was placid and sweet, and Grace enjoyed talking to her, but at other times a feral rage would ignite unexpectedly, and she’d attack anyone who came near: mad as the sea and wind when both
contend which is the mightier. During one of these fits she walked up to Jane with open arms, slowly reassuring her she meant no harm and calming the girl down enough to let herself be embraced, until she was finally closing her arms around Grace, who held her while she cried, and five burly nurses stood there and watched. This crazy mad girl and this crazy mad woman sobbing embracing sharing a world of grief, Grace wishing the girl in her arms were Hannah, and dying a little because it wasn’t; could never be.

And their gaolers looking on, devoid of all pity and fear.

REMEMBERING NOW
, feeling once more the beat of the girl’s heart against her, Grace knows, with a knowledge that somehow sets her free, all there is to know about life; which is, nothing. The vertigo of unknowing rushes through her.

When the flames die down she gives the ash a quick blast of the cold tap before collecting her case and locking the boat up for the last time. Pam appears and asks her if everything is OK; she couldn’t help hearing raised voices earlier.

‘It was Gordon. He came back early and we had a fight. I’m leaving him.’

‘Fucking ’ell, Grace! I didn’t see that coming.’

‘Neither did he.’

‘Have you got time for a coffee?’

‘I haven’t, love. I’ve got someone waiting.’ Grace smiles when she realises how that must sound, and adds, ‘It’s not what you think. I’m not running off with another man. Well, I am, but it’s far more complicated than that. I’ll call you in a day or two and explain.’

As she approaches the van, the sight of Luke – looking at his phone and smoking – relaxes her a little; at least she won’t be alone just yet. He opens the passenger door and says, ‘Your carriage awaits,’ taking her suitcase and stowing it inside. Out of nowhere, Gordon appears, begging her to come back to the boat so he can ‘talk some sense’ into her. ‘I’m going to call the police,’ he says, holding up his mobile phone. ‘This is an abduction.’

‘Go
away
, Gordon,’ she says, climbing into the passenger seat, busying herself with the seatbelt to avoid looking at him. ‘No one is being abducted.’

Luke shuts her door and walks around to the driver’s side with Gordon at his heels, trying to assert an authority he no longer possesses, if he ever did. ‘Where are you taking her? Where are you taking my wife? If you don’t tell me, I’m going to report you to the police.’

Pedestrians stop and stare at the scene. Luke shuts the door and looks at Grace as Gordon taps on the glass, still shouting.

Vertiginous, she wavers. She could ask Luke to let her out; go back to everything; stay. Or she could go along. For the ride. She looks at Luke, at Pete’s profile, trusting nothing but her own instinct to flee. This is the day, the moment; she feels nauseous. ‘Just drive,’ she says.

As they turn on to Warwick Avenue, he says, ‘So that’s Gordon!’

‘I’m so sorry about that.’

‘I thought for a second there he was going to punch me!’

She looks at his glorious profile.

‘Gordon would never do that,’ she says, adding, ‘Pete would have, though.’

‘So you’re leaving him for good?’ Luke says.

She pauses. ‘What’s that Liz Taylor film where she says to Paul Newman, “We don’t live together, we just occupy the same cage”? It’s been a bit like that with Gordon for a while now. But we were muddling along fine till I clapped eyes on you. Now my life feels like a jumper worn the wrong way around.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

‘Don’t be; I’m not. All this is long overdue, believe you me. Have you ever daydreamed about just packing up and sodding off somewhere? Not telling anyone where you’re going? Escaping your life. Starting again. That’s how I feel. Like being someone else for a change.’

‘I feel like that most of the time,’ he says. ‘Actually,
all
of the time.’

‘I used to dream about running away to some small country village and working as a barmaid or a waitress or something like that.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘The kids, I suppose. You can’t do that when you’ve got a husband and kids, can you?’

‘So do it now,’ he says, making it seem so possible. ‘I can understand why people go missing. That desire to remove yourself entirely. Absolutely fucking understand. Personally I’d like to fake my own death, because I do like to put on a show.’

They both laugh, breaking the tension. That he understands her and doesn’t think she’s gone completely off the rails relaxes her. She runs through all the people she knows, wondering if any of them would be so accepting of her walking out on her marriage like that.

‘Do you still love him?’ he says.

The question stumps her, but it has to be answered. For herself, more than anything.

‘I don’t think I was ever in love with him. Not like I was with Pete. Perhaps you only get to love like that once; I don’t know. I’ve certainly never felt it again. But he’s been a good provider, and I’m thankful for that.’

It’s surreal to be talking about her feelings for Gordon with this replica of his nemesis – a betrayal and a liberation; necessary and uncalled-for. A luxury afforded.

Luke says, ‘I can’t imagine what it must be like to take those vows, to make that kind of commitment. I’m not sure I’d ever want to. And yet I’d love someone to ask me. How fucked up is that?’

‘Be careful what you wish for,’ she says, and he laughs, momentarily childish and bright.

‘With Gordon, even on the actual wedding day I didn’t feel excited at all. I remember thinking to myself as I walked down the aisle,
You shouldn’t really be doing
this
, you know you don’t love him
. Not the best way to start married life, is it?’

‘So why
did
you marry him?’

‘I thought I had to have a husband, and the kids a dad. It sounds mercenary, doesn’t it, put like that? But I was more grateful than lovestruck, if I’m honest.’ She lets out a quick laugh and says, ‘He must have had a bloody shock seeing you there just now, in the flesh. He thought I was going mad, seeing ghosts.’

‘I feel like a ghost,’ he says. ‘I feel like you could pass your hand straight through me.’

She taps a finger against his arm and says, ‘No, you’re real enough.’

‘Sadly,’ he says, and begins to cry.

‘He’s not worth your tears, love,’ she says, patting his leg.

His mobile begins to ring. He presses ‘end call’ before throwing it over his shoulder, into the back of the van, where it lands on the bedding without a sound. ‘So where do you want a lift to?’ he says.

‘I was going to stay with my youngest, Jason, in Macclesfield,’ she says, ‘but now I’m not sure. I don’t want Gordon knowing where I am, and I think Jason would tell him. I don’t want to see him for a while. But that’s about all I do know right now.’

‘Well, I’ve decided I need the healing power of the Highlands, so I can certainly give you a lift to Manchester if you’d like, or I can drop you off at Euston.’

‘If it’s no trouble, Manchester would be great.’

‘No trouble at all.’

‘I’ll give you money for petrol. I’d have had to pay for a ticket anyway.’

Grace allows herself to relax a little, now that at least the next few hours of her future are accounted for. What she’ll do in Manchester is anyone’s guess.
When what you are doing is not what you want to be doing, what do you do?

‘I’ve never been to the Highlands,’ she says. ‘Always wanted to but never got around to it.’

‘You’d love it,’ he says. ‘The remote wildness of the glens is just what I need right now.’

‘Your dad lives in Scotland, doesn’t he?’

Grace wonders how she would respond if he invited her to go there with him now.

‘Yes – near Inverness. I’m thinking of calling in to visit. I haven’t seen him since I told him I was gay five years ago and he threw me out of his house.’

‘I wouldn’t stop loving a child of mine for something like that,’ she says.

‘That’s because you’re a decent human being, while he’s a homophobic arsehole. I decided then I never wanted to see the bastard ever again. But he rang me last week – first time in five years – to tell me he’s got fucking lung cancer.’

‘How far gone is it?’

‘I don’t know. He won’t tell me. When I ask he says, “What do you care?” And we end up arguing until one of us hangs up. Usually me.’

‘I’m sorry, love. And
do
you care?’

‘Sure – he wasn’t the greatest dad in the world but I love the old bastard. Anyway, I’ll go and see him. Him and Mum haven’t spoken in years so I’m really all the family he has left. He never remarried. Loves the bottle too much.’

They fall into silence again and she starts reading the road signs and shop-fronts to stop herself from thinking.
Won’t someone please teach me how to be in this world?

At a red light she stares into the window of a pet shop, reading a sign for a self-cleaning fish tank above a tank of dirty green water, brief flashes of orange appearing and disappearing against the filthy glass. At another red light they watch someone bellowing into a megaphone about how much Jesus loves everyone.