Grave Refrain: A Love/Ghost Story (24 page)

They said little on the ride home. Andrew had claimed lunch had waylaid him and sat next to her on the MUNI shivering, his arms wrapped around his waist, causing her to worry even more. By the time they reached the foyer of their house, she walked him into his flat and waited until he was in bed before she left. It wasn’t until later that night, when the house sighed and settled around him, that he heard a soft knock on his bedroom door.

Emily entered with a smile and a tray of broth and tea. Andrew realized it was the first time she had entered his room, and he smiled back up at her, uncharacteristically self-conscious. After placing the tray on his bed, she walked to his window and ran her fingers along the ledge. She turned and surveyed the walls, the wrought iron chandelier. An empty wine glass sat on his nightstand, sheet music lay strewn across the bed, and a pile of dirty clothes was heaped in the corner. She stared at the floor before looking into his eyes.

“You feel better?”

“Yes, better. I never had the chance to ask you, but what did the rest of the obituary say?”

“Well, it’s strange. There was no listing of next of kin, nothing, and no mention of Nora of all. How could that be? She was his wife, yet it’s like she didn’t even exist. The only thing I know is that Nora’s ashes are somewhere in the Columbarium.”

“You still plan on nicking them?”

She shuddered slightly. “Would you go with me? I’ve never been there, but from what I know, I don’t…I don’t much care for closed up spaces. I’m a bit claustrophobic.” She glanced up at him, embarrassed.

“Of course I’ll go with you.”

She blew a piece of hair out of her eyes in relief and glanced across the room, strangely nervous. “Is that yours?” She nodded toward an old violin case propped up in the corner.

Andrew had unearthed it from under his bed after he had returned, driven by the nostalgia awoken in him after hearing the classical instruments.

“No. It’s my father’s, actually. He gave it to me.” He went to the case and opened it. The musty scent brought up a wave of melancholy. He felt Emily stand next to him, and he took a breath before he continued.

“John Hayes only believed in classical music. To him, only the masters mattered. He played them constantly. ‘Technique,’ he used to say to me, ‘it’s all in the technique, son.’ Somehow phrasing and feeling didn’t count as much. Well, until I showed him otherwise.” He took out the bow.

“Did he like your music? He must have been proud.”

Andrew tensed. His relationship with his father—how could he make her understand? How his father had the desire but not the ability, and when he discovered he had a son with the ability but not the desire, it had devastated him. “My father’s dream was for me to become a classical pianist or violinist. I was equally skilled in both, you see. He didn’t approve of my ultimate choice of professions. We weren’t on speaking terms at the time—when he died.”

“Oh, Andrew, I’m sorry.”

“It’s strange, you know. Now that we’re having some success, I feel like I need to prove to him that it’s justified—that there’s honor among thieves, that we’re just not some loud, ridiculously-dressed burden on society.”

“Is that what he used to call you?”

“Pretty much…It’s hard when you love someone, love someone like I loved him—he was the world to me. Him and Mum. And he was so much larger than life that I just believed everything he said was gospel. How could I fancy myself a rocker? It was absurd. But that’s how my music came to me. Here.”

He led her to sit on the bed and took some time tuning the violin. She eyed him in surprise as if he had begun speaking a different language. He studied the strings for a moment and rested his hand on them. “My father loved this.”

He began to play, reliving the sorrow hidden in the music. When he finished, he closed his eyes and took a labored breath. The last time he had played Bach’s
Chaconne
had been for his father when he was still alive, when he was still proud. He placed down his bow and looked to Emily. A silent tear fell along her cheek.

“I could never let that leave my music, Emily. But I need to…I need to scream too, to get it out of me. That’s why I play the music I do, why I’m not in some philharmonic somewhere. I just wanted to scream loud enough and long enough so someone would listen, someone would understand, that somehow I could finally find a way to reach…” He faltered.

“To reach what?”

The only sound in the room was the light rain that had begun to splatter on the windows.

What could he say to her? How could he explain to her that she had possessed him since he was a child, that he had been institutionalized, had a break down not once but twice, all because of her? No, she would run, leave him. And now these horrid visions had made him doubt his own sanity again.

“So tomorrow, it’s a school day, yes?” he went on matter-of-factly. “What then? Going to the water department, the historical society? By the way, I never asked you, has that shite approved your paper yet?”

“No, but I’m sure he will—he said that any topic covered this semester was fair game. Hauntings were covered, end of story. Andrew, are you all right?”

“So, when are you going to see him?”

She seemed startled by his tone and cleared her voice. “Soon.”

“I want you to promise me something. Would you do that for me? Would you promise me that you’ll let me come with you?”

“You don’t have to worry. I’m a big girl—he’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“Some battles shouldn’t be fought single-handedly.”

A strained silence hung between them. Moments passed without either saying a word.

“I’ve put in a call to the secretary at the Columbarium to see if Nora’s ashes are there.”

“Remember, I’m going with you there, as well,” he told her.

“If I haven’t mentioned it, I love it when you’re like this—it keeps that Byronic hero image alive.”

He grimaced at her and chuckled bitterly. “Let me guess, Simon told you about the article. ‘Mad, bad, and dangerous to know.’ Is that how you see me?”

“You’re too handsome and too tall to be Mr. Rochester, but you’re dark like him, all that Spanish swarthiness of yours,” she said wryly in an attempt to humor him, but his face remained fixed. His walls were flying up around him faster than she could ever hope to block.

“Is that how you see me?” he repeated.

His reticence must have intimidated her, and she pushed back. “I know for a fact you don’t have a dead wife hidden in the attic. And I’m sure you would have told me if insanity runs in the family, or you have some deep dark secret that would cause me to run away and nearly starve to death on the moors.”

Even in the darkness he could see her forced smile.

“Andrew, I’m only joking. It doesn’t matter. I’m more like Jane Eyre than you’re like Mr. Rochester. Although I don’t think I’d do well with strange people stalking me.” She caught herself. “I mean ripping apart my clothes and all. No one wants to be stalked. You of all people must know that.”

She looked miserable staring at him now, her hands plaited in her lap.

Before she could open her mouth to say anything else, he looked her straight in the eye. “No. Stalking someone, tracking them like that? It would be disgusting.”

It was the voice of a man he hardly recognized. In that instant, he wondered if Emily calling him a “tortured Byronic hero” hadn’t been far from the mark. Years of studying literature had made identifying the hallmarks easy—he could almost recite them: intelligent, mysterious, and charismatic; socially and sexually dominant; brooding; a troubled past; and…riddled with self-destructive secrets. All these secrets, secrets he had not yet told her, may never tell her. There was a Bertha Mason alive in an attic of his own making.

Love was anarchy, chaos.

That night he lay in bed, his violin cast aside, Emily long gone. The radiator, unable to be turned off, was pumping torrents of heat into his room. The ghastly temperature had forced him out of all of his clothes; he was covered only in a loose pair of cotton running shorts and a thin layer of perspiration.

He glared at the clock. One a.m. He closed his eyes and imagined what she might be doing right now. Was her mind as wracked as his? She had left bothered and with few words. But what of her body? The bond between them that the bloody fortune-teller saw told of concubines and mistresses and slaves. Now, here at night, his want and need for her came together into something so primal that if he ever gave in to it, he feared for her safety.

He shoved off the shorts till he lay completely naked on the bare sheet and grasped a hold of himself hard, the dim light of the moon washing him in silver. He had never wanted anything like he wanted this woman. His body ached to the point of agony, and it felt like raw anger in his fist. He needed release—he had to have it.

He closed his eyes and imagined her glorious body lying underneath him, spreading her legs, tasting every inch of her, making her scream his name over and over as he licked a line along her hips, the arch of her ribs, the warm curves of her breasts. Gazing down into her gray eyes he would take her, feeling her clench tight and wet around him, both of them covered in sweat and joy.

He tightened his grip, raging in desperation. He groaned; in his mind he lost himself in the cascade of her hair and gouged his fingers into the hot skin of her bare back and made her his. Over and over until there was no end and no beginning, till there were only lovers. Till he was pounding so brutally into her she could only arch her back and submit.

“Fuck, I love you.”

His head twisted to the side to muffle the cry as he came, hot and wet through his fingers. His body battled like a strangled thing. In his longing he swore he heard her gasp his name and could feel her near, the palpable presence of love.

“Stay!” he gasped into the darkness, his body still tense from the force of release. “Stay.”

He slammed his arm over his eyes in bitter agony and exhaustion. “Stay…just…please. I love you.”

Eventually too tired to fight any longer, sleep pulled him into its darkness. But as he closed his eyes the last time, he swore he heard the sound of ghosts passing in the night.

12

E
MILY
R
ESTED
H
ER
F
OREHEAD
against the driver’s side window of her car the next morning, letting her breath fog the glass. The sun cast its rays across their street.

I love you.

She had heard him utter those words, all those words, every one of those fiercely tender, evocative words. Words she wished she could gather up in her hands at this moment and hold to her cheek to feel their warmth; her car was so cold. Had Andrew known how she had captured those words and others even more elusive, he would be livid. She had stood in the darkness of the passageway gazing at him in secret, watching his exquisite naked body twist and writhe as he raged against himself, all sinews and sweat, and the words he had cried made her need him with a hunger that made her feel inhuman.

“I love you.” She whispered the words out loud, setting them free.

He had told the night only; she knew that, but she was part of the night, part of the shadows. And she knew that some would think she shouldn’t have been there. Privacy was already in short supply in a crowded house with snooping ghosts. But when she saw him strip, she couldn’t look away.