Ghosts and Other Lovers (19 page)

Rather to my surprise -- although I knew he had played competitively when younger -- Angus won the game.

"Name the stake," said Midhir.

Angus frowned in thought. I wondered if I should remind him that we'd been meaning to put a new ceiling in the kitchen, or suggest repainting the entire house. I wanted a job that would bring Midhir back here day after day -- and surely the young man wanted the same. But then Angus said that the spare room's light fitting needed replacing.

"I'll do it now," said the young man.

I gave a cry of disappointment, and when they both looked at me I had to fumble for a reason. "You can't -- not now. You shouldn't fool around with electricity; not when you've both been drinking."

"For goodness' sake, woman, it's only a light fitting," said Angus. "I'm not asking him to rewire the house."

He was done in a quarter of an hour. I had the brandy bottle and three glasses out by then.

"Another game?" said Angus.

"Stakes to be decided as before."

"Aye."

I drank two glasses of brandy and then heard Midhir say, "Checkmate." And suddenly suspected that in spite of my husband's skill at chess Midhir could have won the first game as easily as this one, if he'd wanted to. Looking at him, I could see Angus thinking the same thing. The room was very quiet as we waited to hear the forfeit.

"I want your wife in my arms and a kiss from her lips. This is all I ask."

"That's not fair! I mean, you can't ask me for something that isn't mine to give."

"Then I ask you to give her permission to give herself to me."

I felt a fluttering deep inside, as if it were the butterfly my mother had swallowed. I didn't dare look at Midhir, afraid my desire for him would be too blatant.

"Elaine doesn't need my permission. She's not my property; she's a free woman. Ask me for something else."

"There's nothing else I want."

"Then it's Elaine you should have challenged, not me."

Both men were watching me. I felt a childish fury at Angus for making this so difficult, yet knowing I would have been even more furious had he dared to treat me as his property. And much greater than any anger, discomfort, or embarrassment was the powerful longing I felt to give Midhir the kiss he wanted, to be held in his arms, to be his, however briefly.

I went to him and he put his arms around me. As we kissed, I became aware of a sound like a great beating of wings around us, and I felt myself begin to rise.

And then I was standing on the floor of the sitting room, looking at Midhir, who was backing away from me. He looked confused; for a moment I thought he was going to stumble, but he recovered himself and sketched a brief, courtly bow to Angus.

"Thank you for your hospitality. I must go now."

"I'll show you out," said Angus. I saw by the careful way he held himself and didn't look at me that he was hurt but wouldn't make an issue of it. Least said, soonest mended. That was one of his sensible mottoes, and his dislike of emotional postmortems had been very attractive to me after involvements with men who'd insisted on analyzing every disagreement or hurt feeling throughout our affairs.
Yes
, I thought,
you're hurt now but you'll soon get over it; we'll both recover and our marriage will go on as before. After all, it was only a kiss.

When Angus came back we began to clear away the dishes and the empty bottles and he said, "We had a lot to drink."

"Too much," I agreed. Then, impulsively, "Angus, I'm sorry--"

"Don't," he said swiftly. "It's all right."

I was on the point of reassuring him but couldn't, as I understood that I had already left him. I had ended our marriage when I walked into Midhir's arms.

But as quickly as that insight came it left me. Common sense bustled up importantly. What nonsense. Of course our marriage wasn't over; of course I hadn't left Angus. Here we were in our home, about to do the washing-up together, like any other night. Brandy on top of wine and sexual intoxication had made me silly. A kiss was just a kiss, not a binding promise, not an irrevocable step, not the destruction of a marriage, not unless you wanted it to be.

But I did want it to be.

Common sense lay down and died. Love had me in its grip. I'd tried to pretend I didn't believe in it, that it was just an illusion, that peace and contentment and all sorts of other things were more important, but I'd only managed to stave it off for a few years: this desire, this disease I had in me.

Angus was a good man, and he had been good to me. I didn't wish him any sorrow. But even if Midhir was mad or a liar, he was the one I wanted, he was the man I'd already gone after in my heart.

I left Angus while he was washing the dishes. He thought I was going to the bathroom, but I went out of the house by the front door, saying nothing, taking nothing with me, not even my handbag or a cardigan against the chill. I didn't say goodbye or leave a note because I knew this was madness, what I was doing, and if Midhir wasn't nearby, waiting for me, I would have to go back. Then I could say I'd just been out looking at the moon. I could go on being the wife of Angus and try to forget I'd ever wanted anything else.

I wonder what Etain really wanted, which man she really loved? Perhaps neither. In the story she's simply dutiful, giving her loyalty to the one who owns her, simply an object, like Helen of Troy, for men to fight over. But what about the real woman, if there ever was one? What about me?

The moon was full and the night clear, so I had no trouble seeing my way. As I reached the bottom of our drive I saw a man waiting on the old stone bridge where the forestry track leading into the hills splits off from the paved road, and my heart and stomach clenched in a way more like fear than joy. I ran to him anyway, as if I had no choice.

We kissed, and I shivered with passion and fear in his arms.

"I thought you'd forgotten me," he said. "When the magic didn't work, I thought I'd lost you forever, that you'd been blown too far out of our world ever to return."

I understood what he meant, because I'd felt it, too. When we'd kissed, it should have happened then: the roof should have opened, and we should have flown away together then, like in the story. But that kind of magic didn't work in this world.

"Your magic did work," I said. "Look, here I am."

"You'll live with me forever," he said. "We'll never grow old. Come."

"Where are we going?" I looked up and down the dark, empty, tree-lined road. "Where's your car?"

"We're going to my palace. Come, it's not very far." Holding my hand warmly and tightly in his he led me up the forestry track, deeper into the forest on the side of Sliabh Gaoil, the lovers' hill.

What did I think, as I went with him?

I thought maybe he'd parked his car out of sight of the house, a little way into the forest. I thought maybe he was taking me to some isolated spot where we could make love -- I was eager enough, abandoned enough, to have done it with him right away, in the wet grass, anywhere. I thought maybe he was a fairy prince whose palace looked to ordinary mortal eyes like nothing but a grassy hillock, and when we reached the Sidh Ban Finn it would be transformed -- that with my hand in his I would be able to walk through a newly opened door into another world of unimaginable splendor.

I thought that no matter what happened at least I would be with him, and that would be magic enough.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

Before long we left the road. I remembered a short, stiffish climb from my daytime visit to the mound with Angus; at night, the bracken, brambles, and uneven ground were all far more treacherous, as threatening and mindless as a bad dream. I clung to Midhir, who more than half-carried me over the roughest ground.

Then we stopped. We were on a hillside, in a treeless space where the bracken grew as high as my head. No lights showed in any direction, although I knew we must be less than a mile, as the crow flies, from my own house. I felt my orientation shift until I had no idea where we were, no notion how one bit of this wilderness fit with any other. I looked at the man beside me and knew him even less than I knew this moonlit territory. For a moment I recognized my own insanity in allowing him to take me here, and then I embraced the madness. This was what I wanted, this crazy love, this stranger. I shivered and leaned against him.

"You see it," he said softly.

I frowned into the darkness, wanting to please him. "What . . . ?"

"My
sidh
. The entrance to my world."

A particular massive darkness detached itself from the general gloom, and I realized it was a standing stone. "This is the Sidh Ban Finn."

"You can see!" He sounded so joyful I didn't have the heart to confess I had only guessed. "Oh, my darling, I thought perhaps you'd been away so long, and come so far, I might never get you back. Magic hardly ever works in this dreadful world."

"I never believed in magic before I met you."

"Come, let's not linger out here, while the gates to my country are open."

I let him lead me forward, his arm around my waist. "Tell me where we're going  . . . describe it to me. I can't see very much in the dark."

"It won't be dark for long, my love -- surely you see the light ahead?"

Did I see a light at the end of a dark tunnel, or was it only imagination, fueled by the desperate need to see something? I decided it didn't matter. The will to believe would be enough.

I went with my love into the darkness, eyes fixed on the dim light I'd willed into existence. We went into the side of the mound.
That
I didn't imagine: there was an opening, an entrance of some kind that had not been there when I'd seen it in daylight with Angus. A door opened for us, and we went through.

For a brief moment I knew I was in another country. I could feel warmer air moving against my face, a spring breeze, scented with apple blossom; and above me an open, starry sky -- or were those torches?

I paused to look up and I stumbled -- or he did -- and his hand slipped away from my waist, and suddenly I was in pitch darkness and alone. Everything changed in an instant. The air was still, close, stale and damp, and smelled strongly of earth. There was not even the hint of a light anywhere, and my lover had gone.

"Midhir -- where are you?"

My own voice came back to me, loud and flat, words spoken too loudly in a small enclosure, and as I stretched out my arms to reach for him my fingers touched cold, damp stone.

Where was he? Where was I? Why couldn't I see? Where was the moon?

Panic threatened and I struggled for control, exploring my surroundings by touch. It didn't take long. Stone walls perhaps six feet apart on either side, extending maybe ten or twelve in length; a stone ceiling a few inches above my head. I was inside a rectangular chambered cairn, inside the Sidh Ban Finn.

There had been a way in, so there must be a way out. But no matter how I pressed, pulled, and prodded at the stone slabs, I couldn't find it.

And where was Midhir, who had been beside me until a moment ago?

He had gone into that other country -- close at hand, yet closed to me. He must still be beside me, pleading with me to open my eyes and see, casting his useless magical spells.

It was so dark that it made no difference whether my eyes were open or shut, so I shut them and tried to convince myself that Midhir was standing beside me, that I could feel his lips on mine, and that when I opened my eyes I would see him smiling at me, his handsome face illuminated by the thousand fairy-lights decorating his palace. I had believed enough to come this far; I must be able to push myself further. I concentrated on Midhir and opened my eyes.

Nothing. Blackness, stale air, the approach of a lonely death. The will to believe was not enough. I could not believe in Fairyland, not even to save my own life.

To Midhir this was a fairy palace and the entrance to another world. To me it is a grave. It was always my grave, and now I am in it.

Soul Song

 

A
ll that summer I listened to Craithe's last symphony. I'm not a great fan of classical music, and especially not the modern, atonal stuff, but Craithe's final work was an exception, and I had a soft spot for it that was purely personal. The CD had been a present from an ex-lover who was very knowledgeable about music (unlike me), and the symphony had been playing on his car radio the first night I went home with him; in some way, I felt, the achingly sweet swell of the third movement was a factor in deciding me to spend the night.

 

But our love affair had ended, leaving me with a few regrets, with memories good and bad, and with Craithe's last symphony, to which I listened in the long, lonely evenings with a masochistic pleasure.

Because I liked his last symphony so much, I tried his earlier works, too, but I couldn't like them: they seemed cold, monotonous, inhuman. I could hardly believe they'd been written by the same person. But, as I would readily admit, I knew nothing about music. That I should have set out to make a film about the Scottish composer Edward Craithe might seem unlikely, but the truth is that we don't always choose our subjects -- sometimes they choose us.

After a stint as a researcher with the BBC I'd written a reasonably successful short series about the depiction of drug abuse and drug culture in art and literature down the centuries, and I was trying to figure out what came next. I'd pitched a couple of ideas but hadn't managed to rouse the enthusiasm of anyone with money.

And then I got the letter from Maggie Price about Flora Abernethy.

Maggie is a social worker in Edinburgh who helped with my research into post-
Trainspotting
drug culture. We became friendly and kept in touch via e-mail. She was always sending me no-hoper ideas she thought would make brilliant TV, and so far my lack of enthusiasm had not put her off.

Her latest suggestion was for a program about a composer called Flora Abernethy, who supposedly had never been properly valued because she was a woman (Maggie didn't realize that feminist rediscoveries were way past their sell-by date), and because she'd been mad at one time, but who might actually have been the real composer of Craithe's last symphony.