The Possession of Mr Cave (20 page)

I saw him, in my mind. I saw Denny, with the others, on
East Mount Road. He was looking at me. 'Don't do it,' he
said. 'You don't have to do it just 'cos of Tully.'

And my mouth began to whisper Reuben's words. 'I'm not
doing it 'cos of Tully.'

And Andrew Tully himself, laughing and looking around
at the other boys, and their laughter scorching me the way it
must have scorched Reuben.

And Denny shaking his head at me. 'You'll kill yourself.'

I shook the memory away. It was false, I told myself. It
was as false as all those other hallucinations. It didn't
happen. Denny was as responsible as the rest of them. Of
course he was. Yet I could feel it happening, the changes
inside me.

I was about to lose myself again, my soul destroyed by those
fires raging inside my mind, at the worst possible time.

'Stay strong, Terence,' I told myself. 'Stay Terence.' My name
sounded hollow, as if it meant no more to me than it did to
the surrounding plants and trees, yet I still had clarity.

Denny was going to hurt you. I could not question it.
At some future place and time he was going to reveal his
true and hideous colours and do to you what he had done
to Alison Wingfield. Reuben was playing with my mind.
He wanted Denny to hurt you. Of course he did. Reuben
himself had been trying to hurt you, through his various
methods, since he had died. I followed the horse and it had
led me to him – that had been the first sign. And then the
Higgins incident. He had found ways to get inside their
minds, as he had found a way into my own. His jealous
spirit couldn't settle while you were still with me, so for you
to run away with this violent rogue would have been most
desirable.

I had to act fast, as Reuben was still pressing in.

I stood up and walked onto the plain.

The moment I was out there, treading across that ancient
earth, I was no more than an empty vessel. Reuben would
have been able to come at any moment and steer me away,
but he didn't. It was just me, watching myself, this Terence
with his pistol down by his side, trying to stay out of view
from the window.

Terence picked up speed and tried to think away his own footsteps,
and the pain that throbbed through his left leg.

He could see the door. A dark rectangle of wood swinging
slowly away from the side of the shed. He stood still. He raised
his gun. He stayed there, silent as the waiting wolf. He felt
the bushes and the low trees retreat behind him, sensed the
river sliding further to his right. The boy appeared, wearing
his padded jacket. A silhouette that seemed too small for the
distance between them, as if perspective was melting away.

Had the boy seen him? Terence didn't know. All Terence
knew was the pistol in his hand, the pistol he now raised
and fired.

He had missed. He was sure of it. For a moment the boy
was still standing, and made no sound of pain.

Terence was searching his pocket for another cap when the
boy fell back, holding his shoulder, and his scream came. Then
there was someone else, another silhouette. A boy the same size
as Denny. No, bigger. A man, crouching over the fallen body.

*

It was so confusing in the dark. Terence, whom I can see
falling into myself again, began to panic. Who was this other
man, dragging Denny behind the door, out of my sight? I
didn't know. I had to leave. A thousand black flies swarmed
up my body and buzzed their angry murmurs around my
head.

I heard something else. A baby crying, screaming, somewhere
behind, within the copse. I turned and walked – jogged,
hobbled, stumbled – towards the sound, the crowd of flies
keeping speed. Behind the bushes but before the trees: two
babies lying, writhing, on a bed of nettles. He was wailing
like he always had done, and you were silent by his side.
'Shhh,' I told Reuben. 'Shhh. Please. Shhh.' I went to pick
him up, closing my eyes and mouth against the flies. The
buzzing stopped. And the crying. There were no babies.

It was then I headed home. Through the low wood and
towards the footpath, feeling the silent scream of nature from
every tree, every insect, and every living thing.

You are sitting down, aren't you? Are you at Cynthia's? I can
see the look on your face, I can see it as if you were here with
me, frowning as if looking at a piece of music. Something
you'd never played. Your eyes narrow. Flinching, almost.

Please don't be scared. I can't cope with the idea that I have
become something else to be scared of, even from my grave.

My grave.

Oh, I feel it already. I feel the daisies growing above me,
as Keats did in the days before he died. It's so strange, you
know, sitting here. Writing in this car, straining to see in the
dull light. Knowing that tomorrow I will be nothing, knowing
there will be no more to add to these words, knowing I will
not be knowing. Or maybe gaining a different kind of knowledge.
Reuben's kind.

No.

I must stop this, right now. This pathetic weakness. This
fear that –

Never mind.

Imagine my panic. Imagine, for a moment, how you made
me feel when I came back, opened the attic door, and discovered
an uninhabited room and an open window.

It was in such horrendous desperation that I searched behind
the door, under the old sleigh bed, among the boxes, hoping
that this was just another delusion. A reverse hallucination:
your presence masquerading as an absence. Then I noticed a
torn page on the floor.

'Advice from a Caterpillar.'

Other pages too, ripped apart, lying on those old green-painted
boards like a foreign map, an unfamiliar archipelago
of text and tea-party illustrations.

'Bryony? Where are you? Petal? Petal? Petal? Where are you?
Bryony? Show yourself.'

It must have been at this point that I walked over to the
open window and began to contemplate your only route of
escape. I still do not quite understand how you managed it.
To have risked your life climbing out of that window and
onto those loose tiles, your feet teetering on the gutter rail,
the awkward hang down to the roof of your bedroom, the
horseback shuffle along the ridge, getting tangled up with
the ivy as you descended the trellis. The mad and blinded
action of your love.

For a moment, I was convinced you must be dead. I saw
a missing roof tile and imagined it slipping under your foot,
causing you to fall. As the adrenalin flooded into me I ran
down those flights of stairs. I picked up the keys I'd left in
the shop, again catching my hip against the chest and nearly
losing the Girl with a Tambourine.

Outside I saw your wet footprints treading away from the
puddle, fading as they left the passage. Relief you were alive
was quickly swallowed by concerns as to where you had gone.
The street held no clues. The park, the street lamp, the growl
of indifferent traffic. I strained my eyes in every direction
but it was clear that I was too late. You had disappeared out
of the scene.

And then, the faintest of sounds. The telephone, the shop
line, at that late hour.

My ears were at a high hum from the gunshots, but there was
no mistaking the dread ascending with each ring.

'Yes?'

At first nothing.

'Yes? Hello? Hello?'

The fuzzy sound of breath.

'Yes? Who is this?'

And then his voice.

'Mr Cave?'

I looked around me, at the objects in the dark – the
figurines, the vases, the drawing tables, the longcase clocks.
They were closing in on me. It was an ambush. I was General
Gordon at Khartoum, besieged by the Mahdists.

'Yes, this is Mr Cave. Who is this?'

I knew the answer before he spoke.

'It's Denny.'

I took the receiver away from my ear. 'Mr Cave? Mr Cave?

Mr Cave?'

Perhaps my shot had killed him and this was another ghost.

First Reuben, now Denny. The manifestations of guilt,
nothing more.

'No,' I said. 'No, you're not Denny.'

I picked up the nearest figure. The Girl with a Tambourine.

'It's Bryony. She's been . . . someone's . . . she's been
shot.'

I said nothing. Images flashed in my mind. The empty
attic. The torn-up
Alice
book. The sinking swan. The figure
in Denny's coat, falling to the ground. The man over the
body. The babies lying on the nettles.

'She's . . . in hospital.'

He was crying, this ghost.

'She's in hospital. They're operating . . . We were there. At
Rawcliffe. At Rawcliffe Meadows. Ah had the money you
gave us and we were going to run away. Ah'm sorry . . . But
someone shot . . .'

'Someone . . . someone . . . someone . . .'

'George Weeks. Ah think it was George Weeks. He attacked
Bryony. That's why ah –'

'No,' I said. 'You're the attacker.'

I remember George standing upstairs, on the landing, and
your frightened face. What had he done to you? And why
hadn't you said anything? Didn't you think I would have
been able to sort it out? Did you think that running away
with Denny was going to be the answer?

I hung up, and telephoned York General Infirmary for a
weary night-shift voice to put me on hold. A tinny Mozart
serenade tried to calm my nerves.

I remembered George in the shop, his bruised and damaged
face staring at the figurine. My heart beat at tremendous speed
as I tilted the figurine in my hand and looked at the base.

Alison Wingfield, 1932.

It slipped from my grip, and smashed. I cowered down, to
the waltzing strains of Mozart's river music, and surrendered
to the ambush.

And then it came. The cacophony:

I saw the ghost walk come to an end. I saw that blond yeti
turn his head and nearly see me. I saw him shrug to himself
and carry on his way, beyond the walls, and on to the quieter
streets. I saw him take a short cut through the bowling green
and towards the library. I saw the bottle in my hand. I jogged
past the library, getting ready to meet him on the other side.
One strike in the dark and he was on the floor, his face in
the grass, as quiet as the dead.

I was staring at the water. The drops, falling down over all
the petrified objects. It was the middle of the night. I had
driven miles and climbed over two fences to get here but I
still couldn't see it. I walked further along, passing the top
hat and the tea towels and the wellington boots until I was
at the wristband. I held out my hand and felt a kind of relief
at the touch.

The cold water that could defy time running over my fingers.
'Look, Dad,' I whispered. 'I'm –' A dog barked, somewhere
in the distance. I saw a torchlight flicker through the trees.
Two male voices, getting closer. An unpeggable wristband. It
dropped and I lost it in the pool. I reached my arm in but
the cold stones all felt the same.

I held your Handwerck doll. I gazed a moment at the delicate
stitching on the cape, at the intricate floral pattern
on the dress, and felt the rage that wasn't mine. I twisted
off the bisque head and left her body under your bed. I
walked in quiet, small steps towards the kitchen and placed
the head inside the bin, those eyes looking up at me as
she lay on the carrot shavings. 'Goodbye, Angelica.'

I saw Denny in that living room, on the day Reuben was
forced to drink that revolting drink. I saw him walk across
that toy-filled carpet and slam Aaron Tully against the
wall.

'Leave him alone,' Denny said.

'Tea-stain's all right, aren't you, Tea-stain?' said Tully laughing.

'He's called Reuben, you ——.'

The fight started as the boy on the keyboard kept on playing
his random music. A toy castle was crushed as Denny swung
Aaron to the ground. He slammed his fist into his face and I
saw that small boy called Cam saying 'Stop! Stop!' and then
my Reuben self just sitting and looking at the empty bottle
in my hand.

I stood there, at night, alone in the park. I turned towards
the flames. The plastic bottle that had contained ammonia
dropped by my side and I stepped closer, shielding my face
with my hands, and felt the same heat that was devouring
your cello. And I stayed there, listening to that wild, crackling
music, until there was nothing but a large black teardrop
scorched into the grass.

I saw the gun pressed into Aaron Tully's sleeping head. I heard
my voice telling him to wake up. I saw the fear in his young
eyes as I delivered the threats.

The jar of pills by his bed. Blue pills, like my mother's
barbiturates.

'Who are you?' he asked. He didn't make the connection.

'You know me,' I said. Or my voice said. 'I'm Tea-stain.'

'What? What? What?'

I saw him getting out of that bed, in his T-shirt and underpants.

'Me mam's –'

'Your mum's on her night shift.'

I saw him take the pen and paper I had taken from the
sideboard. I heard me giving the words. 'I'm sorry. I can't live
with myself.' His hand trembling, slow to shape each letter.

I held the pillow and gripped it tight. I stared down at your
perfect, sleeping self and felt what he felt, that yearning to be
with you, that desire to be with you alone, away from your
father. To be as you once were. Together. Equal. At peace.

And then the cacophony faded and I was on the floor. Strange
dark forms surrounded me, in the ticking quietness. Tiny figures
stared down from wooden cliffs, working out their next move.
I was a giant in an unfamiliar land, a fallen Gulliver, waiting
for Lilliputian armies to take me hostage.

I couldn't move. I lay there, not asleep and not awake, not
Reuben but not quite Terence, as the darkness outside the
shop made its slow concessions to the day.

Just then I looked in the mirror and found not Gulliver but
Robinson Crusoe staring back at me. 'What has happened to
you?' I pondered.

I came from a civilised place and now I'm an ignoble savage.

I used to believe in this world. I used to treasure its old
objects. I repaired fine things, made by human hands.

I believed this was the essence of our species. This desire
to preserve what has gone before, to restore the past and
then to learn its lessons. This is what makes us human, what
separates us from all the other animals. Ever since Neolithic
times we have been building something up, a kind of moral
ladder that takes us higher and higher away from the apes
and sharks and wolves we share this planet with. Yet it is we
who have got it wrong, isn't it?

There is no difference, is there? At the bottom of it, we
are the same as every other animal. The only difference is
this tragic need we have inside us to understand this world,
to represent it in art and to dissect it in science, and then
to compensate for our lack of true understanding with material
possessions. The clocks and dolls and inkwells that kill
our true selves as surely as pistols.

Oh yes, I see it now. As I face that infinite sea of infinite
souls, I see all our errors.

I see that we have lived the biggest of lies. We collectors,
we restorers, we foolish fathers. We search for an understanding
that forever slips our grip. We believe we have that understanding,
and that this understanding separates us from the
rest of life, as we like to believe our minds are separate from
each other. And I believed it more than most. But I was wrong.
We are all together, all of us, in the same boat, sailing the
same infinite sea. There is no high and low. No them and us.
No you and me. Our friends and enemies are all inside us, as
we are inside them. We know this as babies, as I know this
now, but we lose this understanding. We topple, and fall apart,
like Babel towers.

Born civilised, we come to understand how knowledge
makes lonely primitives of us all.

Before I left this morning I went to visit George.

Poor Mrs Weeks looked most confused when she answered
the door. 'I thought you were the postman,' she told me.

I imagined, briefly, another life.

I imagined I had done nothing to hurt you.

I imagined I wasn't coming to talk with George, but to see
Mrs Weeks.

I imagined my author had another narrative for me.

In this story I would look into her sea-blue eyes and ask
if she wanted to accompany me to the theatre. Cynthia had
told me about a production of
The Cherry Orchard
, coming
to the Playhouse. We would go along, myself and Mrs Weeks,
and we would dissect the performances, and nod and agree
about the bold stage direction. We would arrange to see each
other again, for a meal this time, and I would dab the side
of my mouth with a napkin and tell her how lovely she
looked. Intimacies would be shared. I would call her by her
first name and she would tell me how comfortable she felt
in my presence, how safe. Over time, we would tell our children
that the relationship was serious and you would be
pleased for us. We would all live together. You and George
(who was the George I had once imagined, not the real
George) would fly the nest, but Mrs Weeks and I would
attend all the fairs together and she would paint her portraits.
And slowly, through the shortening days, we would restore
each other's happiness.

But alas, I got the narrative I deserved.

'Mr Cave? Are you all right?' Her eyes scanned me up and
down.

'Yes,' I said, slowly, returning to my task. 'I am here for a
word with George, if he's home.'

She looked quite lovely, standing there, her golden hair
and pristine white shirt lending a heavenly lightness to her
appearance. 'Yes,' she said, 'he's here. Please, do come in.'

She opened the door and I stepped inside, into the tiled
hallway. I could smell coffee. Music was playing in the background.
There was a portrait on the wall. A blond boy with
a fringe and glasses, five or six years old, a large careless smile
across his broad face.

'George? George? Mr Cave's here to see you. George?'

A heavy footstep creaked the Victorian floorboards above
me. I had kept my nerve, up to that point, but when I recognised
the music I cracked.

'Beethoven,' I said, and couldn't help but laugh as I realised.
'"Moonlight Sonata".'

'Yes indeed,' she said, giving a glimpse of that rare smile of
hers. 'I love the first movement.'

'Oh yes, the first movement is wonderful, isn't it?' I said,
my words gaining sudden speed. 'The first movement is
sublime, I would say. Of course, Beethoven didn't think so.
In his mind he had created an unfathomable monster. It had
a will of its own, packing out concert halls across Europe, and
Beethoven had no comprehension why it should be his most
popular piece.' I struck an exaggerated but philosophical pose,
my index finger resting on my chin. 'But that is the thing,
isn't it, Mrs Weeks? That is our tragedy, isn't it? We all want
the world to be bent to our own image. We want things to
be seen the way we see them. We want to have control over
what or who is loved when really we can't even have control
over our own minds.'

Mrs Weeks' smile had been usurped by a twitchy frown.
'Mr Cave, are you all –'

My raised palm blocked her enquiry.

'And when we realise this we begin to wobble,' I went on.
'We begin to feel the "hot terror" poor Ludwig felt. As though
our own souls are caving in, giving way. A lot of the great
poets felt something similar. Keats, for instance. An annihilation
of the self. Not a lack of identity as such but rather an
absorption of other identities, Mrs Weeks. An absorption that
stretched beyond the realms of empathy into . . . ah, George,
there you are.'

Mrs Weeks turned to see her son standing behind her on
the wooden staircase. Raised above us, on that third step,
he cut a colossal figure, his equatorial midline marked by
the tight brown towelling of his dressing-gown belt. Judging
that he was still in his pyjamas, coupled with the state of
his hair, it was clear he had just hauled himself out of bed.
Yet he instantly seemed aware of the significance of my visit.
Indeed, the bruised eyes behind those thick lenses viewed
me with what I can only describe as a lethargic dread.

'Hello,' he said, in his faraway voice.

I cleared my throat, and tried to speak calmly. 'Yes, George,
I'd like a word. I think we should have a little chat. On our
own.'

Mrs Weeks turned to me, mouth agape. 'What is it you
would you like to speak with him about?'

I took a breath, then announced it. 'About a certain Alison
Wingfield.'

George went pale, and seemed to shrink before my eyes.

'I'm not sure that now is a very good time, Mr Cave,' said
Mrs Weeks. She noticed my trembling hands. 'You seem like
you need some –'

'It's all right, Mum.' His tone was sheepish now. 'I'll talk
with him.'

'George, I don't think it's –'

He closed his eyes. 'I'll talk with him.'

Mrs Weeks seemed taken aback by her son's insistence, and
most concerned about my own. I wondered what lie George
had given her, to explain his bruises. Eventually though, Mrs
Weeks stood aside and I followed George into the living room,
which was stuffed with familiar antiques bought in the shop.
The pine mule chest was there, and the Arabian Dancer was
positioned on a small side table next to the sofa along with
Barrias' Winged Victory.

Mrs Weeks disappeared into the garden, but kept peeping
in through the rear window as she hung out her son's laundry.

'You lied, George.' My voice was quiet, quieter than his
breath as he began to panic.

'Please, I know. Please, I can explain. I'm sorry, Mr Cave.'

'Who are you, George?' I asked.

His waking dread. 'What?'

'I mean, who are you? Who are you? A loyal Horatio? No,
I don't think so. Iago is nearer the mark. I'm just trying to
see where everything fits into place, that's all. What do you
want with her? With Bryony?'

'I don't want anything,' he said, his palms facing me in
surrender.

'Then why did he attack you? Why did Denny attack you?'

'I don't know, Mr Cave. He's mad.' He couldn't look at me.

I remembered something else. 'That day I came back to the
shop. I found you upstairs. What had you done to her?'

He was wheezing now, looking around at the old furniture.
The chest I had helped carry out of the shop with his father.

'Nothing,' he said. 'Honestly . . . I didn't . . . I . . .'

'That's not what Denny told me, George.'

I caught Mrs Weeks' sharp glance as she pegged George's
checked shirt to the line. I gestured to the French sofa, out
of her sight.

'Sit down,' I told him, above the delicate piano music.
'Catch your breath.'

He descended onto the sofa in a slow and careful movement,
which still seemed to exhaust him. I stayed standing,
but turned so Mrs Weeks wouldn't see the rising anger marked
on my face.

'I need my –'

'You wanted to work in the shop to be close to her, didn't
you? You hurt her, didn't you? She was your Alison Wingfield,
wasn't she?'

'No,' he said, holding his chest. His eyes bulged with panic.

'No . . . I didn't . . . please . . . I . . . my inhaler . . . I can't
breathe. I need . . .'

'What?'

A limp point upwards, like Plato's in
The School of Athens
.
(I see your face in Rome, viewing the one artwork that truly
impressed you on our visit to the Vatican museums.)

'Bedroom,' he said, between desperate breaths, the scraping
sound of each inhalation getting louder all the time. He began
to change colour, the speckled pinkness in his cheeks spreading,
turning purple.

'Be quiet, George.' I remember saying it, over and over, as
I moved closer. 'Be quiet, be quiet.' As I reached for the cushion
and pressed it over him. As he grabbed at my sides and tugged
desperately at my clothes.

'Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet.'

So easy, now I couldn't see George's face, to ignore what I
was doing, to cancel out the pathetic crumble of his glasses
as I pressed further. A hundred quiets and she was there behind
me, screaming like the animal we all are, ripping her hands
like claws into me, pulling on my collar, drowning Beethoven.

My arm swung back and caught her chest with my elbow.
She fell and landed against the corner of the chest as I let go
of the cushion.

I knew what I had done. The dark act I had committed
through my blind possession. Terence Cave. Myself. Alone.

'Mrs Weeks? George?'

But it wasn't them. It wasn't them, Bryony. I tell you I
couldn't see them.

I looked on the sofa and saw your brother, lying precisely
where George should have been. The same glazed eyes that
had stared up at me from the pavement. I could see the
blood leaking down his face. Not a fading ghost but a
solid form, creasing the fleur-de-lys pattern of the fabric.
And as I turned to the body on the floor I didn't see Mrs
Weeks, but your mother, wearing the blue shirt with the
rolled-up sleeves she had worn when the intruders came,
lying in the same awkward pose she had died in fifteen
years before.

*