Perfectly Pure and Good (25 page)

Facing the mirror, he could feel it with her. Malcolm had been ashamed of his own furious ineptitude, but it was nothing like her shame. He should have made her talk. No-one earns a future by repressing the past, and pain like that, he saw clearly now, never goes away. He had merely done the equivalent, he supposed, of treating a wound with a bandage when only surgery would do.

The dullness of logic prevailed. Tomorrow was a full day's work. Also the day after. He could rearrange his life to go and find her, a quest fit for a man who professed to love, rather than merely possess.

When he was calmer. When he could think of her not as what he wished she would be, but as what she actually was. Imperfectly pure: good by her own standards only, indelibly scarred.

Edward came home shivering. The almost tropical dampness made him long for foreign territory and a bath, but he could not bring himself to go indoors. All morning he had sat in the estate agent's office where he worked, unable to get the white-haired man out of his head. If he looked out into the street, all he could see was white-haired men. Even his white-haired boss seemed threatening instead of contemptuous.

Edward hated working in the estate agent's, hated working full stop. This latest of jobs, a sinecure, was one he liked least, reminding him all the time of what his family owned in property and making him incubate the worst of his dreams. The Pardoes did not own a single beautiful building, he explained; nor was there one he could see in the village Otherwise he might have cared about his work. The place needed pulling down, how could a man of taste love it?

Today, both his aggression and his defensiveness seemed to have disappeared. He felt naked, vulnerable and mean. It made no difference, working in an office which the Pardoes virtually owned. Conscience could always undermine money.

Edward knew he should have been able to identify the white-haired ghost by at least a name, but it had never been important when all they were doing was playing games. He should have been in control of the trespasser he had found, but he was not. With his estate agency knowledge, Edward had housed, sometimes fed, the malevolent spirit for three months. All in the interests of fun and the somewhat malicious, somewhat romantic dreaming which fed his own daily existence and made it worthwhile.

It had made him walk taller but now made him want to hide. He had meant mischief, but the reality, the look of hatred on the man's face, somehow extended it further than his own cowardice allowed. Edward might have hit his own silly mother from time to time, he might have detested his brother, but wanting them to disappear was not quite the same any longer as wanting them dead.

The discomfort, which had begun when he heard about Miss Gloomer's burglary, increased somehow because of the mere presence of Sarah Fortune and solidified into an indigestible lump after this morning's conversation, like much of Jo's cooking and all of Mother's playful cakes.

Increased threefold when his two colleagues came back from a makeshift lunch at the pub which the Pardoes also owned, talking about the ghost. Above the cheese-and-onion which Edward could smell as they spoke, the pungency overcoming the waft of a pint of lager between them, he learned all about how Stonewall Jones had met the ghost in the dunes and had his head caved in with a stick. The lady behind the bar worked in the surgery up until noon, then moved sideways into a less sterile atmosphere. Best gossip around, she was, with her dual sources.

Edward's blood ran hot, the slow digestion of the news creating a sweat under his cotton shirt, once perfectly ironed by Joanna and now a mass of wrinkles. The news made him itch all over, as if bitten by insects and carrying poison. Edward had never been anywhere where he might catch malaria: he had never dared, no money, no courage and no stamina, preferring the sneering discontent of home. Sitting outside his own house, he longed to go as far away as any aeroplane would take him. To any other kind of jungle where no-one knew him.

There were cars lined up outside the front door as usual, Jo's, Julian's, the visitor's, plus another, the house apparently the scene of a conference. The rain was easing Edward felt allergic to them all, especially Joanna. On the wet grass of the lawn, another ghost, that of naked Sarah Fortune, still travelled, pale and tantalizing, in smooth circles across the green, the only thing of objective beauty he had seen in weeks. Oh, come on, he told himself, as the rain drizzled mildly against the windscreen of his car, come on. Be manly or something.

A man should be able to fish, like his father, a man was not ashamed to be whatever he was, even if that made him idle, artistic, self-seeking, incestuous. A man should be large, not small, indecisive and afraid. Edward looked at his own neat hands in a hot flush of realizations he wanted to avoid. The hands shook, more than they had shaken when he lost his temper and hit his mother last evening. A man should achieve control of his actions. He should also have someone to tell.

Wavering lights, out there, as he sat looking over the marshes towards the sea which he wished would come closer, even though its proximity made him afraid, as well as the house itself, lit like some ugly Christmas tree. One thing he knew now, above all others: he had loathed this place for as long as he remembered. Squinting through the glass, he could see two things. First, the strange car belonged to PC Curl, their only full-time member of Constabulary; second, from the near distance, the light outside Sarah's cottage beckoned like a flickering star.

Nine-thirty, he read on his watch; the mere beginning of a summer night. Closer, the light shone more like a keep-out sign than a welcome, a warning, a weapon against this early dark created by the long, mocking storm. It was ironic, he thought, beneath the lingering anxiety, that he should follow his brother's footsteps so meekly, treading the same route with similar humility. He knocked loudly on the door, making a tune out of it, rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, instead of just banging once, something to prove he was a nonchalant son of a bitch who would go away whistling if there was no response, waiting all the same.

She answered after a long delay, less winsome than before, still beautiful. A woman with a fierce look on her face as she looked out of the window first, then said, 'Come in,' with a purely neutral friendliness.

`To what do I owe the pleasure?' Sarah said coldly. 'I've been visited here by all members of your family. You give me the impression you're more comfortable out of your own home than in it.

Sit down.' The charm and the warmth was back, the teasing note uppermost, some of the edginess gone.

`Have you been home yet?' she asked in that steady, reassuring, conversational way. Edward, in common with his colleagues after lunch, smelled slightly of the pub where he had gone and sat for an hour or more after an abortive and hesitant search of the caravan site and the dunes had revealed nothing of the white-haired man. Emptiness and sunset had ended the search: Edward was secretly afraid of the dark. He shook his head.

Ì went to look for someone,' he muttered. 'Why?'

‘Ah, you might not know then. The village ghost took human form this afternoon. He came up here and attacked your mother. She's all right,' she added, watching him closely, standing away from him, arms crossed. Edward sat heavily, rubbed his eyes with a pathetic gesture which made him look like an overgrown baby.

`Not the first time he's been here, though, is it?'

Edward did not answer, his silence an affirmation.

Ì was present, you see,' she went on, 'when this non-ghost arrived. Your mother said to him, and I quote, "You're a friend of my son Edward, I've seen you before." She sees a lot, your mother. I suppose I imagined from that that it was you who acts as his liaison officer. Difficult to see how any man, even one as resourceful as Charles Tysall, could stay alive in secret when he's supposed to be dead. Not without assistance. Not much, perhaps: he likes to move alone.'

`What do you mean?' Edward was suddenly angry. 'Charles Tysall? He was drowned, last year.

My . . . acquaintance said he was sent by the family, the wife's family, that is. Maybe the wife's brother. He was having a long holiday, he said, experimenting with living rough. He said he wanted to know—'

`Who had buried Elisabeth Tysall in the sand,' Sarah finished for him.

`Yes,' Edward said, dumbfounded. 'How did you know?'

Èdward,' Sarah said, 'I'm beginning to think you're an idiot. Not the genuine article maybe, but a very good pretence.' She unfolded her arms. He looked up at her like an animal waiting to be whipped. She smiled slightly. It scarcely lessened her intimidation.

Ì offered your brother a drink, so I suppose I'd better do the same for you.' It was grudging.

Watching her move about, Edward was paralysed with the sense of his own weakness and an awful physical desire which he knew, even then, was going to loosen his thick tongue.

Ì knew Charles Tysall,' she was saying. 'I also know he was obsessed with the fate of his wife.

There's no doubt about identity, so where do you come in?'

`He hit Stonewall Jones this morning,' Edward burst out, ignoring the question. 'I can't believe he did that. I can't think why. He's not a ghost, he's a monster. The boy's badly injured. Oh God, I never meant this. Honestly, I never meant this.'

Sarah's hand flew to her head with a brief cry. She felt along the side of her face where the pain had been, tears welling in her eyes.

Òh, poor boy, poor child. Oh, I wish I knew how to pray.'

Edward sipped his drink, wondering if he should respond to that since he felt nothing for Stonewall Jones, could only see in his mind's eye the relative sizes of tall man against small, helpless boy. Julian would have liked sitting here, sipping excellent Glenfiddich, he thought by way of distraction. The thought came upon him without a trace of bitterness. Jealousy merely lingered.

Ì shouldn't play games, should I?' Edward asked. 'I found him squatting in the cottage next door to this.' He jerked his head to the right, winced. 'It seemed amusing not to report him. I didn't want tenants in the place this summer, hate them, kids, buckets and spades, cars, spoiling the view. So Charles, if we must call him that, started a small fire for me. Nothing too drastic.

Nothing which would spread.'

She inclined her head, as if understanding completely.

`There were also a few of my paintings in there. Joanna in the nude. Didn't want her to see them if she spring-cleaned, didn't know how else to get rid. They were a bit . . . suggestive.

Watercolours, easy to burn. Painted from imagination, of course. Wishful thinking.'

Àre you in love with her?' A gentle question, without criticism or condemnation. He was grateful for that.

Àm I? I don't know any more.'

`Jealous of other men, though?'

`Yes.'

`Jealous of Julian?'

`Yes! Yes! Yes!' he shouted. 'He's so dependable, so bloody adult, so sodding disciplined and my father loved him. He doesn't even need to learn to fish!'

He subsided as suddenly as his voice had risen, flung himself back against the plaid-covered sofa, petulantly. His own native defences of self-justification surfaced. He looked at her unforgiving eyes, looked away.

Ànyway,' he mumbled, 'owning a ghost was good sport for a while. I'm so bored, most of the time. Then he began to ask about Julian, how well he'd known Elisabeth Tysall. Well, I knew all about that. Julian just about lost his mind over that bitch, I watched him. The ghost wanted proof that Julian had something to do with her death. I pretended it existed but I knew it didn't. Julian's too soft to hurt anyone.'

Èlisabeth Tysall was a victim,' Sarah said sharply. 'Don't dare call her a bitch. You don't know what she was.'

`No,' Edward conceded. Guilt was corrosive, it caught in the throat like a fishbone.

`So,' Sarah said, 'you played make-believe with Charles as your creature. Thought you had the upper hand. Where is he, Ed?'

Ì don't know,' Edward whispered. 'I just don't know I gave him the key to an empty caravan. He isn't there. Maybe a beach hut, somewhere on the beach, he likes the beach.'

She was so powerful, she seemed to draw the words from him, like a fish on the line with no power to escape. Still standing in front of him, Sarah pulled her shirt over her head. A pretty colour, russet silk, Edward noticed, thinking at the same time, Christ, she's mad; she's going to strangle me with it. She pulled the shirt as far as her shoulders, left it bunched round her neck and turned her back on him. The gesture was shocking and bizarre; made him recoil with a small, half scream.

`Please look at my back,' she commanded. 'Go on, look. With your artistic eye. Look closely, report what you see.'

He wanted to avert his eyes, escape from this threatening action, but he stood awkwardly and looked. A graceful spine, curving into a tiny waist, the silky flesh criss-crossed with scars, three or four larger gashes, the majority small pit marks, white against the brown of her skin, ugly. She pulled the shirt back over her naked torso abruptly, leaving him relieved, shivery, revolted but aroused

Ì just wanted to make a point,' she said wryly. 'Cuts like that are what you get for playing games with Charles Tysall. He makes you roll in broken glass He holds you down among the fragments of a broken mirror. And when you've finished bleeding, although you never really do, he'll leave you thinking it was all your own fault.'

Edward had stared. With his eye for colour, he could imagine the vibrant blood welling from those wounds, flesh and skin mashed in ritualistic flogging. He could see the cool smile of the man this morning, the precision of his movements, the air of efficiency.

'He did that?'

Òh yes. Slowly.'

Edward stumbled into the kitchen and retched into the sink. Bile was all he could produce, the residue of a day without food, no sisterly sandwiches to fill the gap, nothing but two pints, three sips of whisky and a diet of anxiety. He drank some water, looked out into the dark, recovered himself, came back with a mumbled apology.