The Ghost Who Fed Them Bones (13 page)

“We have the tower to ourselves. John and Peter sleep in the top room. I have the room below. You wil have this bedroom here which is the one in the main house nearest to mine, not that you wil use it except for appearances. Your stuff is already there.”

She takes my hand. “Come, I’l show you my room.”

Fiona’s bedroom is classical y decorated with stiff drapes and formal y patterned blues and yel ows. There is a birds-in-a-golden-tree-of-life motif along one wal , and a door which leads to either a closet or a bathroom.

“Come.” Fiona leads me to sit down on the bed beside her, and pushes me back so that she can kiss me resting on top of me.

“I rather like you with your gap tooth. It makes you look more approachable – less austere.”

“I look austere?”

“Very. As ascetic as a monk. ‘Don’t touch me unless I al ow you to’. Like that.”

“That’s strange. I don’t see myself that way – I’m just normal.”

Fiona scoffs. “Paul, I doubt that there is a single normal thing about you. How do you see me?”

“Blond. Loving. Beautiful. Self-sacrificing. Tender. Determined.”

“That’s how I see myself.”

“No surprises there, then.”

“That must make me a bit boring, mustn’t it?”

“I would never have said that.”

“So … ”

“ … so?”

“So, what does a blond, loving, beautiful, self-sacrificing, tender, determined woman do to welcome back her wounded hero?”

“Wel , usual y they live happily ever after.”

Fiona pul s a saddened expression. “I am afraid that I cannot offer you that. I’m sorry. I would very much like to.”

“It’s OK, Fiona. I was being unfair. I’m sorry too.”

She pul s a brave smile that twists into playfulness. “But I can offer you everything else.”

She lifts herself back onto her haunches and starts to unbutton my trousers. I stop her and she reacts with surprise.

“What?”

“Fiona, I am a bit worried.”

“About what? Nobody wil interrupt us. Nobody comes here except John and Peter, and they don’t mind. The only other person who is likely to come searching for you is Mike.”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it?” She is frowning with concern.

“Alice.”

“Alice?”

“I need to go and find her. If I don’t, she’l come looking for me, and if she finds us together she wil be real y upset.”

“You are concerned that you are two-timing a ghost with me? That is absurd, Paul.”

“It is not that. I have told her that I wil do what I like, but this is a very important day for her. She has lived years and years of abuse, both of her and of her mother; she has fought through the realisation that she preferred women to men; she has been murdered. Today is the day that she triumphs over al that, and I don’t want to spoil it for her. Today she is a returning wounded hero too.”

“So you feel you should be with her?”

“Yes, at this moment. Wel , not immediately. She is probably stil looking after her mum, but in an hour or so.”

“That leaves us an hour or so.”

“True. It’s not that I don’t want to be with you, Fiona. I real y do, but I want to celebrate Alice’s big day too, and especial y not to wreck it.”

“What would happen if she got real y upset?”

“She would be real y upset.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“She might become stranded here for a holding a grudge against me.”

“So she could imprison herself here, in effect?”

“Yes.”

“Anything else?”

“She could blow the tower down.”

Fiona raises her eyebrows. “She could?”

“Not literal y. She could go berserk and throw tantrums and whip up quite a gale for me. You probably wouldn’t even notice.”

“Would that be dangerous for you?”

“No, just frightening, and maybe troubling.”

“How frightening? Do ghosts frighten you?”

“Not normal y.”

“Are there any ghosts here now?”

“In this room?”

“Yes.”

I scan the room. “Not as far as I can see. Nobody is watching us from ethereal realms either.”

“Wel , if we are truly alone, and seeing as we have got nearly an hour … ”

Fiona gets up and goes through the door we didn’t come in through and turns on the light. It is a bathroom. She rummages around in a drawer or something, turns off the light and places a plastic syringe on the table next to the bed.

“What’s that for?” I inquire, fearing that she is going to suddenly introduce drugs into our intimacy. I don’t do drugs. I am high enough from my own adrenalin.

“When I have finished, I need you to rush to the bathroom and warm it up under the hot water tap for about a minute so that it reaches blood temperature. Don’t place it under the tap immediately. It takes about thirty to forty seconds for the water to get hot. Then you bring it back to me.”

“Why?”

“I need to transfer your semen in its fertile state. If it drops below blood temperature, the sperm wil die.”

“You’re joking! You are using me as a sperm bank?”

“That is what I am paying my £1 mil ion for, isn’t it? I cannot waste an opportunity. I am sorry to bring it up. I don’t want to rub it in.”

“OK. I’l do what I can to help you.”

Fiona smiles slyly. “I think you may enjoy it.”

She returns to unbuttoning my trousers. “Come on. Strip off.”

She starts to undress herself. There is a minute of struggle as we reveal ourselves.

“Lie back.”

I don’t know if I can do this. My emotions are leaping al over the place, and I’m pre-occupied with thoughts of Alice and whether she wil have come looking for me, and with the fight, and with my injuries – my throbbing lip and my missing tooth.

Besides, I don’t usual y come with fel atio. But as Fiona is working hard down there, I had better do what I can.

I fantasise that we are making love properly, and I stretch myself as long as possible and clench al of my muscles solidly throughout my body. That makes it easier for me to come. I can feel that it is going to be possible after al . The symptoms show up faintly and disappear again. Wil ing harder. Tensing myself further. They return and disappear again. It happens like this, in waves that get to a momentum when they suddenly dive over the cliff and then nothing can stop them pumping out whatever there is. I normal y try to avoid that moment as long as possible to sustain the pleasure both for me and for the woman I am with, sometimes too long. Some women believe that if you do not come together with them, things are not working between you.

It is going to happen. I feel relief. I am going to come. In a second it wil be unstoppable. I breathe faster and heavier to warn Fiona that she is about to get a mouthful and she increases her pace in response.

I come.

She keeps me coming for about thirty seconds, then slides her mouth off my penis and goes “Ummm. Ummm,” pointing towards the door of the bathroom.

I leap off the bed, grab the syringe and dash into the bathroom. I run off the cold then warmish water from the basin tap, and rotate the syringe under the hot water as it emerges. I suppose that it shouldn’t be too hot either. Al the time I think about Fiona trying to keep her mouth closed, to breathe, and to avoid swal owing.

The syringe is hot now. I hold it in my palm to keep it warm, and rush back into the bedroom. I hand it over to her.

“Um!” (Thank you).

Fiona eases the syringe between her lips, covers the shaft with her left palm and slowly draws back the plunger with her right hand. When the plunger is three-quarters retracted, she pul s it out rapidly, moves to a semi-crouching position on the floor and slips it up between her legs until it virtual y disappears, pushing the plunger home again with as much force as possible to drive my sperm up her channel. She keeps her mouth closed al the time until she returns the syringe between her lips to draw off any traces remaining which she again injects between her legs.

It is like watching a girl douche herself. Only Denise ever did that in front of me. She was neurotic about germs and pregnancy equal y. She would always insist that we shower first in extremely hot water, scrubbing me and herself down with a very bristly brush (she took her own medicines too). She would then examine me out in the open for any signs of venereal disease or even fungi. She insisted on my wearing a condom (she was on the pil ), then immediately afterwards she would douche herself with a spermicidal wash. Then she would kiss me precisely and say “thank you”.

It was like a laboratory procedure, but it was her. After the initial sense of insult the first time we made love, I soon came to terms with the inevitable, and even managed to appreciate its professionalism, not that she was a professional in that sense, should you be wondering. She just had a business-like attitude to everything.

Fiona swal ows. “Al done.”

“Is there a shower?” I ask.

“Afraid that she wil smel sex on you?” Fiona teases me. “You are quite clean.”

“I just fancy one.”

“I fancy one with you too. Yes, it is over the bath, so you have to draw the shower curtains. I wil be with you in a second. I am just going to clean my teeth.”

* * *

I drive down to the barn to save time, forgetting to ask Mike whether he wil need the car. Never mind, there are plenty of other people to give him a lift.

Alice is not there. I don’t think I can intrude on her aunt and uncle, so I wait. The sunshine is finishing up its day in deepening gold. I watch it covering the fields of grapes with low-trajectory silhouettes and shadows. Then night descends, bathed in moonlight.

And stil no Alice.

I should have organised myself when it was light. There is very little of comfort in the barn to lie on – stone floor, mechanical implements large and smal , blades, ropes. I discover two old smel y coats and lay them on a trailer that is stil hooked up to its tractor. I lie down and wil myself to ignore the repugnant odour. The floor of the trailer is unforgiving.

Against al odds I fal asleep and am woken by Alice’s voice sing-songing over me.

“Paul? You came to find me? What a day!”

“Hel o, Alice. How is your mum?”

“Maman is OK but in shock. She has been expecting this to happen for some time. Dreading it, I suppose. For the moment she is blaming herself for Papa’s arrest, saying that she should never have mentioned her fears that he murdered me. She kept moaning, ‘Why did I do it? Why did I do it?’ and she blamed you for going to the police, and the police for arresting him, and Auntie Lil iane reported that the police believed that he may be a serial kil er, that he may be responsible for the disappearance of a lot of young girls, and Maman said, ‘That is absurd. That is absolutely absurd. I know Léon and he would never do anything like that. I know him better than anyone. I would know if he were a kil er.’ And Auntie Lil iane said, ‘But you said he was a kil er. You al eged that he kil ed Alice.’ Maman dismissed the idea. ‘I was angry. I should never have said that. I could not believe that Léon was hitting me in front of a stranger. Lil iane, Jean, you know that Léon would never kil anyone.’ Auntie Lil iane said, “Maybe, but he can be extremely violent. You have received a lot of injuries over the years, you have to admit that,’ and Uncle Jean nodded his head and repeated, ‘A lot of injuries, a lot of injuries,’ until Auntie Lil iane added, ‘I don’t know why you put up with it, Simone.’ And so on. So Maman is in denial and Papa is disclosing nothing to the police. He answers their questions curtly and repeats how outraged he is to be under arrest just because his wife got angry and became spiteful, and the English tourist man wanted to make a name for himself, despite the fact that he, Papa, had literal y picked him up off the street and taken him to his house to offer him a petit cognac so that he could recover from his fal . That is the last time he wil help a tourist. They have no sense of gratitude or decency. So I returned to Auntie Lil iane and Uncle Jean’s house and it was the same old conversation going round and round and round for hours. I was so bored and frustrated that I nearly went up to the Château to come and find you, but I felt I couldn’t leave Maman. So what did you do?”

“I went back to the Château where everybody knew already what was going on … ”

“ … that would have been Louis … ”

“ … Louis?”

“One of the gendarmes. He spreads news faster than forest fires.”

“Ah. Anyway, I was given a hero’s welcome, I had some quick supper, and then I came here to find you, realising that you would probably stil be with your mother.”

Alice beams at me, at least I am guessing that she does. Her voice is al affectionate in the dark. “That was wonderful of you, Paul. So kind. So considerate. You are the best friend I've ever had.”

And I am sure that if she could have done she would have kissed me, maybe even on the mouth.

Alice comes up beside me on the trailer and lies level with me as if in my arms.

“So what do we do now do you think, Paul?”

“About what?”

“How do we guide the police to discover my body near Montauban?”

“We have the map that I drew under your instructions yesterday. I have it here.”

I turn over to fish it out of my back pocket without thinking that I might be bumping Alice in the process.

“Sorry,” I say.

“Sorry for what?”

“I moved without warning you.”

Alice laughs indulgently. “I am a ghost, sil y. You cannot hurt me.”

“True.”

Alice continues. “The question is how we get the map to the police in a way that they wil believe it. I was going to ask you to take it to Maman believing that she would be ready to come clean, but she would simply tear it up in her current mood.”

“How were you going to explain how she had the map in the first place?”

“Maybe that it was Papa’s map and she found it in his drawer, or that he had talked in his sleep and she had drawn the map based on what he said.”

“I think that the drawer story is better.”