Ghost MacIndoe

‘That’s Nelly’s cat,’ said a girl’s voice. ‘His name’s Willow, but her dad calls him Zeppelin. I’m Liz. Who are you?’

‘I’m Alexander,’ he said. ‘Megan’s friend.’

‘Only got one, has she?’ Liz replied. The gap where a tooth had come out at the side of her mouth increased the jollity of her smile, and there was something amusing, too, about the way her hair was done, in ringlets that bent on her shoulders, like the hair of a much younger girl. The collar of her blouse was sticking up, as if she had pulled it over her head. Awaiting Alexander’s answer, she tucked her thumbs behind the big rectangular buckle of her belt. Her missing tooth and this buckle, covered with grass-green hessian, would be what Alexander would continue to remember of her appearance that afternoon.

‘She’s got a lot of friends, I think,’ said Alexander.

‘You think?’

‘No, she does,’ said Alexander. ‘Don’t you?’ he asked Megan, who had left her group and was coming towards him.

‘Don’t I what?’ Megan asked.

‘Have lots of friends.’

‘What are you talking about, Eck?’ said Megan. She gave the cat’s head a quick scratch then looked impatiently at Alexander. ‘Come over here if you want anything to eat,’ she told him, hauling him by a shirt-sleeve.

When the food was finished they all went indoors to play games. In the hall Liz Gatting jabbed him in the small of his back and demanded: ‘We too boring for you, then?’

A girl in a pink cardigan rested her chin on Liz’s shoulder to stare at him. ‘Yes. More fun with your Megan, is it?’ asked the girl.

‘Stick with his Megan,’ said Liz to her companion, smugly.

‘Alexander’s Megan’s friend,’ said the girl in the pink cardigan, putting on a haughty face.

‘Goodbye, Megan’s friend,’ taunted Liz.

The two girls went into the living room, but Alexander stayed in the hall until Megan joined him.

‘You know Liz?’ he asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t you get on with her?’

‘Sort of,’ said Megan.

‘So you don’t?’

‘So I do.’

‘So why are they being like that?’

‘Like what?’ she asked, and Alexander repeated what they had said. Megan looked at him for a moment, searching for something in his face. ‘You don’t know?’

‘No. If I knew I wouldn’t ask you.’

Water filled the inner corners of Megan’s eyes; she put her right hand firmly on his shoulder. ‘Eck, sometimes you really are slow, you know that?’

‘What do you mean?’ Alexander asked.

‘I mean, there is a mirror in your house somewhere, isn’t there?’

‘Of course there is.’

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

‘Good grief, Eck. It’s perfectly simple. She wanted you to sit with them, not with me.’ She raised her hands to her face in mockery of his surprise.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Alexander.

‘No, Eck. “I don’t think.” That’s what you should say.’

‘She doesn’t even know who I am,’ he protested.

Megan pulled her socks up tight to her knees. ‘What a nit,’ she said to her shoes, and she left him in the hall.

For an hour or so they played charades. Embarrassed by the perpetual blush that he could feel on his skin, Alexander sat on the floor in a corner of the room, trying to hide behind the other two boys, who sat upright on adjacent straight-backed chairs. ‘One of the boys should have a go,’ the mother decreed, and the two on the chairs simultaneously looked back at Alexander, as if passing the blame for something.

Encircled by the girls, Alexander could think of nothing except his awkwardness. Megan was sitting under the keyboard of the piano, her chin on her knees, waiting for him. ‘Do The Cruel Sea,’ the mother told him. Alexander ground his teeth on the mouthpiece of an imaginary pipe and made a visor with his palm. Heroically he scanned the room’s horizon, facing the terrible waves. Decisive as Jack Hawkins, he gave wordless orders to his men and directed their efforts. Nobody guessed what he was doing.

‘That’s not how you do it, you nit,’ said Megan after he had given them the answer. With a mad grin she flailed at the carpet, then serenely made wave shapes with a fluttering hand. ‘That’s how you do The Cruel Sea. You do “cruel” and then you do “sea”.’ She smiled at him for a long time, however, and it was Megan who took the satin scarf to blindfold him for the last game of the party, and spun him around three times. ‘Behind you, behind you,’ she murmured. ‘Behind you, behind you.’ Shoeless feet made a constant shuffling all around him, and the springs of the armchairs groaned as they were trampled. Alexander’s fingers fell into the pleats of a puffed sleeve. He could distinguish the pitch of this girl’s breathing and the minty smell of her. As Liz Gatting’s hip touched his a girl shrieked, ‘Sandy MacIndoe, beware!’

‘Oh, shut up,’ said Liz. Her eyes were levelled at his when he slipped the scarf off. ‘Take no notice,’ she said, and she touched his hand as he pulled the knotted blindfold over her hair.

‘That’s right,’ said Megan, ‘take no notice.’ She sat down on the edge of the settee, where she remained, with her arms crossed, while Liz Gatting fumbled along the curtains and groped broadly at the air. ‘Over here,’ instructed Megan, and then she walked on her toes to the door, stealthily pushed its handle down, and closed it silently behind her, as if this were part of the game. She had left the house before Alexander could think of an excuse to follow her.

Three days later he went to visit Mr Beckwith, hoping to see Megan. He went to the back of the house without knocking on the front door. Mr Beckwith was not in the garden and the padlock was clasped on the shed. The lilies Alexander had planted with Mr Beckwith were in bloom. He picked a snail shell from the soil of the flowerbed and lobbed it over the shed, but his throw was too weak and the shell bounced on the roof and fell back on the lawn.

Until he heard Mrs Beckwith’s voice he had not seen that the French windows were open. ‘Who’s that?’ she called from somewhere inside the back room. ‘Is that you, Megan?’

‘It’s me, Mrs Beckwith.’

‘Alex?’ she responded in a strange voice, as if he were someone who had been away for years.

‘Yes, Mrs Beckwith.’ Alexander stood on the edge of the grass, stranded.

‘He’s asleep, if it’s Harry you’re after.’

Alexander approached the windows. The curtains were three-quarters drawn, obscuring everything except one end of the table and a rectangle of wallpaper to which was attached a calendar and a clock in the form of a ship’s wheel. ‘Sorry to have disturbed you, Mrs Beckwith,’ said Alexander, speaking into this segment of the room.

‘And Megan’s down the shops,’ she said, as though conversing with someone right beside her.

‘Oh well,’ Alexander replied. ‘I’ll be going.’ He had moved closer and was standing on the crescent of irregular paving stones in front of the French windows. Still he could not see where Mrs Beckwith was.

‘She’ll be back in a little while. Come in and wait for her.’ Alexander placed one foot on the metal strip at the threshold.