Ghostwriting (3 page)

I tried to say something, but my throat was too dry. At last I managed, “What did you show her?”

He looked at me for a long time. “I don’t think I could explain now, and anyway you wouldn’t understand.”

I was about to press him, accuse him of patronising me, and ask him again what he had done to drive Sabine to kill herself – but at that second the phone rang, startling me.

It was a friend from the village, asking if I fancied a pint at the Fleece. The thought of a change of venue, of the chance to escape from Beauregard, was a life-belt thrown to a drowning man.

I replaced the receiver and explained that I had arranged to meet someone. “You could always come along,” I said, knowing full well that he would excuse himself and remain in the house.

“Then I’ll show you to your room,” I said, but he gestured to the sofa.

“Simon, I’ll be fine here. I’ll see you in the morning.”

I nodded, feeling obscurely guilty as I pulled on my coat and said goodbye. The look in his eyes, as he watched me go, told me that he understood my need to get away.

Only as I pushed into the glowing, welcome fug of the tap room did I recall something Beauregard had told me, over twenty years ago: in a rash moment of drunken
bonhomie
he had said that all his life people had wanted to get away from him, though what had struck me as tragic about this revelation was his admission that he understood their reasons.

For the next couple of hours, with the help of the Tuesday night crowd and five pints of Taylor’s, I tried to forget Beauregard, and the fact that he was resident in my study for an indefinite period. The effort was too much: from time to time my thoughts would stray. I attempted to recall how long he had stayed the last time, ten years ago. It might only have been a day, though in retrospect it seemed longer.

It was midnight when I made my way back through the snow and let myself into the fire-lit warmth of the house. I looked in on Beauregard in the study.

He was sleeping soundly on the sofa, still wrapped in his greatcoat, illuminated by the orange light of the standard lamp.

I was about to close the door when I noticed the paperback, open and lying face down on the carpet before the sofa. It was a copy of my second book, published almost fifteen years ago – a collection of crime stories which I considered my best work. Something made me cross the room and pick it up, gratified that Beauregard should have chosen this volume from the hundreds of others.

As I flicked through the pages, I became aware of marginalia scribbled in biro on each page. I carried the book towards the lamp, sat down and studied the tiny handwriting. It seemed that Beauregard had closely read almost a hundred pages, and every one of them was crammed with questions, exclamation marks and bold underlinings.

Simplistic rationale, read one note, and another: This simply doesn’t work – why would she react like this, when on the previous page she agrees to accompany him? I turned a few pages and read: The characters of this story are manipulated by the author to propel the improbable plot.

At the end of each story was a neat summation. In one quick reading Beauregard had seen through the artifice of plot to the tale’s fundamental weakness. It was a humbling experience to have the faults of one’s hard labour so expertly dissected. At the end of one story, on the remaining blank half page, he had written:
Why the compulsion to achieve such artificial completeness? If art is to reflect life, then in literature a story should not be wholly resolved; there should be threads left which beguile the reader’s intelligence and imagination with tantalising and inexplicable possibilities. Charrington’s work is yet another reflection of his crass, obsessive-compulsive materialism...

I returned the book to the floor, my face hot with a strange mix of emotions. Beyond rage at the desecration was the beginnings of a shame I found difficult at first to admit to, for while Beauregard’s marginalia might have been cruel, not to say callous, it also approached an unpalatable truth.

I retired to my room. It was a long time before I felt myself drifting into sleep, my mind considering Beauregard’s words. I hoped that he would not bring up the subject of my literary failings in the morning. I had survived for years with the knowledge of my inadequacy: I told myself that my work was not literature, but entertainment, and that it was popular. For a long time I had salved my conscience, and excused my laziness, with the fact that my work sold, and I enjoyed writing it: I would leave literature to minds finer than my own.

I was awakened in the early hours by a sound emanating from the study. I regained consciousness slowly, wondering if I had indeed been woken by a scream, or if I had been dreaming. As I listened, I made out the occasional raised voice. I climbed from bed and pulled on my dressing-gown. As I left the room and descended the stairs, I made out a pulsating blue light leaking from beneath the door to the study.

Still half asleep, I moved towards the door. I paused and listened. I had not been mistaken: I made out two voices. One was a woman’s, the other a man’s – Beauregard’s, I guessed, though he was speaking in so low a tone I found it hard to recognise.

I could only make out the occasional word.

“Then...
here
... impossible!” said the woman. I could not discern the reply.

I reached for the handle and turned, meaning to open the door a fraction and peer inside. However, though the handle turned, the door would not open: it appeared to be prevented from doing so by something placed against it on the other side. Frustrated, I considered knocking and enquiring what was going on. However, something stopped me – some inchoate fear that I would not like what might be revealed if he answered my summons.

Presently the voices ceased, the blue light diminished. I stood for a time, undecided as to what to do next, and finally retraced my steps to bed and soon fell into a deep sleep.

I awoke at eight, as usual, and it was some seconds before I recollected the events of the night before. I recalled finding my book covered with Beauregard’s caustic comments, and then I remembered getting up in the early hours... But had I? In the cold light of day it came to me that the voices, the blue light, had been nothing more than the products of my dreaming mind. For the life of me I could not decide if I really had overheard voices in the front room.

I dressed and made my way downstairs. I reached out to the handle of the study door, and it turned and opened without hindrance. I stepped into the room, expecting to find Beauregard and perhaps his lady friend – but he was not there, and nor was there any sign of a woman.

Then I saw his rucksack on the chair before the dead fire, and stuffed inside it the copy of my desecrated book. At least, then, he planned to steal it rather than have me read his criticism – and this evidence of his dubious charity made me feel irrationally pleased.

I moved to the window and opened the curtains. The snow had continued to fall during the night, and my homebound footprints had been all but obliterated. However, leading from the front step, a fresh trail of prints showed darkly in the thick covering. They moved down the garden path, up the hillside and off towards the horizon.

I sat at my desk and for the rest of the day worked on the final chapter of the novelisation, pleased that I was free to finish the work without Beauregard around to distract me.

I took a break at mid-day, made myself a sandwich and ate it at my desk. More than once I contemplated his rucksack: it had worn well in twenty years, considering the extent of his travels. I recalled how possessive of it he had been in his student days; it was as if because it was his only possession, he therefore had to guard its contents all the more.

I finished my lunch and looked through the window. There was no sign of Beauregard. I moved to the armchair and picked up the rucksack, guilt already pricking my conscience.

I sat on the sofa and, the rucksack on the carpet at my feet, I went through its contents. A baggy jumper, a fetid pair of socks; three books, ancient, leather-bound volumes in Latin. My hand came upon something else, a small pair of Tibetan cymbals which produced, as I lifted them out, a high clear chime. In the bottom of the bag was a folded map on old and jaundiced parchment.

The map was covered in a script strange to me; I thought I recognised the shape of one of the countries, the rectangle of Nepal. To the north was drawn a series of triangles to represent the Himalayas, and beyond that the plain of Tibet. This expanse was covered in Beauregard’s small, precise hand, and threaded with a winding route in the same blue biro.

The route seemed to have taken him from monastery to monastery, the length and breadth of the ancient land. At each monastery, represented on the map by a high-sided, blocky building, Beauregard had written his comments.

Rimpoche Udang v. informative. He suggests I try the phrontistery at Manchang Bazaar. He says my suffering is common, but that Rimpoche Thangan is practised in the ways of relief. He gave me a simple mantra which should provide me with brief respite.

Intrigued, I read on. Beside the northern-most monastery, Beauregard had written: Rimpoche Thangan listened to my story. He performed a ceremony, with many bells, much incense and chanting. The ceremony involved his cutting my chest, the letting of bad blood requisite if the rite was to be successful. Only time will tell.

I read the other notes on the map, but learned nothing new. I thought of Beauregard in his ridiculous greatcoat, trekking across the face of Tibet, petitioning lamas and monks, to what end I could not tell. I wondered what ailment he had been suffering from, and if the ceremony ministered by Rimpoche Thangan had proved successful.

I returned the contents to the rucksack, afraid that he should return and catch me going through his possessions. For the rest of the afternoon I worked at the computer, my mind only half on the job of novelising the appalling TV script.

~

It was dark by the time Beauregard returned.

I had cooked a hot chilli to warm him after his long walk, and at eight he knocked on the door.

His face was blue with cold and his eyes, as they stared into mine, seemed haunted. He brushed past me and moved to the study, where he bent before the open fire and massaged his outstretched hands as if washing them in the heat of the flames.

“I’ve prepared a meal,” I said. “You must be hungry.” I hesitated. “Where did you get to?”

He looked up, as if only then registering my presence. He shrugged. “I don’t know, Simon. Walked for miles. You’re certainly isolated out here... Yes, I’m ravenous.” He hesitated, then said: “I hope I didn’t disturb you last night?”

“What? Oh, I did hear voices...”

He smiled and pointed to the television in the corner, buried beneath piles of books and papers. “I’m sorry. It was a long time since I last tuned in... I hope it wasn’t too loud.”

I smiled, shrugged. “Not at all,” I said. Of course, the blue light, the murmuring voices...

But why, I asked myself, had he found it necessary to blockade the door and prevent my entry?

Uncomfortable, I said: “We’ll eat, shall we?”

He looked at me. “Simon, it’s good of you to put me up like this.”

I shrugged, embarrassed, and retreated to the kitchen.

We ate in silence on the coffee table before the fire, Beauregard’s hand shaking as he ferried the fork from the plate to his mouth. He emptied a liberal measure of whisky into a mug of black tea and sat back with it clenched in his fist, staring into the dancing flames.

At one point his hand strayed to his rucksack, on the floor beside his chair. His eyes found mine and he said: “I was telling you about my travels last night. I suppose I was always really heading for Tibet... At least, when I arrived there it seemed that way – I knew that this was the place.” He lapsed into silence, cradling his mug, regarding the flames with bloodshot eyes.

“Have you ever heard of the
Bardo Thadol
, Simon?”

“Isn’t it some kind of Tibetan religious book?”

“The Tibetan Book of the Dead.” He nodded. “I’m translating it.”

I looked up, surprised. “I thought it had already been translated.”

He smiled, a minimalist, sardonic twist of his thin lips. “It has. Badly. There were things missed out. Things that the translator didn’t or couldn’t understand... I’m attempting to correct that. My version will be definitive.” He said this with such fierce conviction that I could only nod my head in passive agreement.

He looked at me, and his gaze seemed to peer into my very soul, summing me up and finding me worthless. “I feel sorry for those of you who apprehend only...” He gestured with a long, thin hand, “only this. Oh, there are realities out there so strange and bizarre, if only you could allow your mind to see them.” He shook his head bitterly. “But you’ve all been conditioned by the modern world, the crass information media which doesn’t allow for any historical perspective other than the immediate. The difficult thing is to decondition oneself, to see beyond what is only superficially apparent.” He paused, then shot me a glance. “But it’s frightening, Simon... Believe me, when you begin to see these other
realms
, at first you are lost, with nothing to guide you, no prior experience to make sense of things... Sometimes I am terrified.”

I was aware of my heartbeat. I poured a stiff measure of whisky into my mug and drank. Beauregard seemed on the edge of a revelation. I felt that now he would tell me something that might explain the enigma of himself, but as the silence stretched it came to me that he had said all that he was able: that it was my very lack of ability to comprehend anything other than the here and now that would render his explanations futile.

I opened my mouth to speak. What I had to ask him seemed relevant and yet profane.

“Is that...” I began. “Last night, you were about to tell me what happened... I mean, you told Sabine, you showed her
something
...”

He turned his head from the flames, his expression devastated. “I showed her, Simon, and I tried to help her cope with her new understanding, but she wasn’t strong enough. She could not bear the knowledge.”