Ghost MacIndoe

‘It was Mr Beckwith I came to see really. In case I could help out, that’s all. It’s not important.’

‘Well, you’re here now. Come on in,’ said Mrs Beckwith. She was sitting in an armchair, facing the empty grate and brushing at a lapel of her navy blue dress. A sliver of sunlight cut across the arm of the chair, on which Mrs Beckwith’s hand was curved around a glass of clear liquid with a cube of ice in it.

‘How are you, Alex?’ she asked, pushing herself up on her elbows to look at him. Her mouth was darkened with lipstick and she was wearing ruby-coloured studs in her ears, as if she were about to go out.

‘I’m well, Mrs Beckwith, thank you,’ Alexander responded.

‘Sit down, why don’t you?’ said Mrs Beckwith, pointing at the armchair beside the chimney breast.

Next to the chair in which Alexander sat was a cabinet with sliding glass doors and a tea service on the lowest of its three shelves, below two rows of books. Aware that Mrs Beckwith was watching him, he began to read the spines. ‘The Day of the Triffids,’ he said, at the first title he recognised.

‘Megan’s the reader in this household,’ said Mrs Beckwith.

‘My dad’s the reader in ours. I think he’s read that one.’ Mrs Beckwith stirred the ice with a little finger and did not speak. Alexander completed his reading of the higher row; upstairs a toilet flushed. ‘I’m in your way,’ said Alexander. ‘There wasn’t anything special.’

‘No, Alex, wait for her,’ said Mrs Beckwith softly. ‘She’ll be glad to see you. We’re always glad to see you.’

Eking it out for as long as he could, Alexander read the lower titles; the churning of the water pipes was the only sound.

‘How’s school?’ Mrs Beckwith asked.

‘It’s OK, Mrs Beckwith.’

‘Do you like school?’

‘Not much.’

‘Neither did I,’ said Mrs Beckwith, with a rueful smile at the grate.

In the room above them Mr Beckwith coughed; a thrush sprang across the piece of paving that Alexander could see from where he sat. He twisted in his chair so that Mrs Beckwith could see him look at the ship’s-wheel clock. ‘I should be going, Mrs Beckwith. My mother will be expecting me back soon.’

‘Your mother and I,’ said Mrs Beckwith, and she paused for so long that Alexander thought she had finished her sentence and he had misheard. ‘We were at school together. You knew that?’

‘Mum said, yes,’ he replied.

‘She was gorgeous. A stunner she was. We used to go out together. To the cinema. Very popular with the boys was your mother. I was the invisible girl when I was with her.’

The talk of his mother’s schooldays made Alexander uncomfortable, and from the way Mrs Beckwith took a sip from her drink he sensed that if he stayed he would hear something he should not know. He cleared his throat, but she looked at him and spoke before he could get to his feet.

‘She could have been a singer, I reckon. A professional singer. On stage. Had the looks, had the voice. You’ve heard her sing?’

‘Yes.’

‘Of course you have. Silly question. Wonderful voice. It’s a waste, Alex.’

‘I don’t know, Mrs Beckwith,’ replied Alexander.

‘Not the worst waste in the world, I grant you,’ said Mrs Beckwith, but suddenly her eyes became lustreless. ‘My brother went somewhere in France and never came back and his wife has gone looking for him and won’t ever come back now.’ She scratched at the lapel of her dress as if something were stuck to it. ‘Harry gets taken into some godforsaken jungle halfway round the world and comes back half-starved and half-cracked,’ she said, forcing a laugh.

‘Mr Beckwith doesn’t seem cracked to me, Mrs Beckwith.’

‘You’re sweet, Alex,’ she said. ‘Half-cracked, not cracked all the way.’ She took another sip. ‘Harry’s very fond of you. You know that?’

‘I like him a lot.’

‘So do I,’ she smiled, turning to look at him. ‘He thinks you’re like him. You’ve got patience, he says.’

‘That’s kind of him.’

‘And respect. A respectful young man, Harry calls you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Not many young ones have that. Respect and patience, either of them.’

‘No, Mrs Beckwith,’ Alexander replied.

Mrs Beckwith took a final sip of her drink. ‘He was a handsome one, too.’ She put the empty glass on the floor and stood up for a moment, before sitting back on the arm of her chair, facing him.

‘I should be going, Mrs Beckwith,’ he told her.

‘Megan will be here any second,’ she said. She folded her arms on her stomach and, bending forward, looked at him as though to press the anxiety out of his mind with her gaze. ‘You’re such a beautiful boy, Alex. One day my girl will fall in love with you, I wouldn’t mind betting.’ The fabric of her dress hung away from her skin in a hammock shape, exposing to Alexander the swell of her breast.

‘She thinks I’m stupid,’ he said.

‘She thinks we’re all stupid sometimes, Alex.’

Alexander meshed his hands together and clenched his fingers on his knuckles.

‘You’re a fearful lad, aren’t you? Don’t be. You don’t want to have lots of regrets when you’re older. They eat you up, regrets.’

‘I don’t think I’m fearful, Mrs Beckwith.’

‘Don’t be. Because nothing lasts, Alex. The whites of my eyes, look at them. They’ve gone all mucky now. But they used to be like yours once. Look here,’ she instructed, and she pinched up a ridge of skin on the back of her hand and watched it subside. ‘I was a slender girl. A slip of a thing, my mother used to say. But nothing lasts,’ and she leaned over him. She kissed him lightly on the lips. Her lipstick pulled at his skin and he caught the sweet fume of her breath. Sitting on the arm of the chair once more, she breathed out as if exhaling smoke and gave him a look as if he had done something foolish but endearing. A key rattled angrily in the lock of the front door. ‘The princess returns,’ said Mrs Beckwith. ‘That you, Megan?’ she called out.

‘Who else?’ asked Megan from behind the opening door. ‘Hello, Eck,’ she said upon seeing him, and then she went out of the room, closing the door.

‘Sorry, Alex,’ said Mrs Beckwith after a minute. ‘Megan’s in a mood, it looks like.’

‘I’ll go then.’

‘Yes, OK,’ agreed Mrs Beckwith cheerfully, as if what had happened had been instantly forgotten.

12. The Diet of Augsburg (#ulink_16ec9453-eb74-5279-9c95-54adb7dae6e4)