A Superior Spectre Read online

  A SUPERIOR SPECTRE

  First published in 2018 by Ventura Press

  PO Box 780, Edgecliff NSW 2027 Australia

  Copyright © Angela Meyer 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any other information storage retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  Song lyric excerpt from ‘Surf’s Up’ by The Beach Boys. Words and Music by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks. © Copyright 1971 Brother Publishing Company and Safe and Sane Music. All Rights for Brother Publishing Company administered in Australia & New Zealand by Native Tongue Music Publishing Pty Ltd on behalf of Wixen Music with Print Rights administered by Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd ABN 13 085 333 713 www.halleonard.com.au

  ‘Surf’s Up’ words and music by Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks

  Copyright (c) 1971 (Renewed 1999) Brother Publishing Company and Crow Cries Music

  All Rights for Crow Cries Music Administered by BMG Rights Management (US) LLC

  All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

  Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard LLC

  Quote from The Journals of John Cheever by John Cheever. Copyright © Mary Cheever, Susan Cheever, Benjamin Cheever and Federico Cheever, 1990, 1991, used by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited and Penguin Random House LCC. The quote is determined to be fair use in the US, PI, Canada & Open Market (incl. EEU).

  Every effort has been made to trace the original source material contained in this book. Where the attempt has been unsuccessful, the publishers would be pleased to hear from the author or publisher to rectify any omission.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  ISBN: 978-1-925183-91-7 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-925183-92-4 (ebook)

  Cover design: Design by Committee

  Internal design: WorkingType

  A

  SUPERIOR

  SPECTRE

  ANGELA MEYER

  One need not be a chamber to be haunted,

  One need not be a house;

  The brain has corridors surpassing

  Material place.

  Far safer, of a midnight meeting

  External ghost,

  Than an interior confronting

  That whiter host.

  Far safer through an Abbey gallop,

  The stones achase,

  Than, moonless, one’s own self encounter

  In lonesome place.

  Ourself, behind ourself concealed,

  Should startle most;

  Assassin, hid in our apartment,

  Be horror’s least.

  The prudent carries a revolver,

  He bolts the door,

  O’erlooking a superior spectre

  More near.

  Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

  ‘Those whom their nature keeps away from the community … need no defence because incomprehension cannot affect them because they are dark, and they find love everywhere. Nor do they need any sustenance, for, if they want to remain truthful, they can draw only on their own substance, so that one cannot help them without first doing them harm.’

  Franz Kafka in Kafka: A Life in Prague,

  Klaus Wagenbach

  I am not afraid of the dark. I have missed the complete darkness of the Highlands, and the quiet. But there is a drip somewhere. And the more I look into the darkness the more I notice that it is not absolute. There are blotches of light, of colour. Even when I close my eyes.

  I yell, and then feel impolite, and then yell again. I brought myself here; should I not play by the rules? But then this is unnatural, to lock a person up.

  Time moves slowly. Has it been minutes or an hour? Will I be here all night?

  The blotches become shapes.

  Round, draped, thatched.

  A full image, painted. A basket of ripe, verdant fruit, and browning leaves. White folds of robe. A muscled shoulder and deep collarbone crease. Trace the neck to a tilted chin and parted peach lips, to bite to the seed. Heavy-lidded eyes. Dark curls in just-woke tufts. Shadows at his shoulders like wings. The image is delicate but strong.

  I gasp. I fear this vision but it is breathtaking. I have stared at this painting for a long time. Somewhere.

  I feel warmer. My mouth is open; I pant almost like a dog. Ecstatic light in my chest, to the tips of my nipples. Time, in my chest. I am not sitting in the dark.

  When the woman opens the door the image shatters. I realise I cannot feel my legs; I have been sitting on them. There is drool on my chin, my eyes are dry. I can’t see beyond her candle flame though I think she is studying me. She holds out her hand and helps me up.

  I knock the pins and needles out of my feet as we walk through to the room with people in it. The cold descends upon me and I shiver. She hands me a cloak, silently, and I sit on a wooden chair, joining a circle of shadowy figures.

  ‘Everyone welcome Miss Duncan,’ she says firmly.

  ‘Welcome, Miss Duncan,’ is a chant.

  ‘Good evening, thank you,’ I say. The warmth of the image is departing, and this chamber holds an aged, mossy cold that seeps into my bones.

  A t the back of the cottage she sat, skirts tucked up between her knees, swapping the limp animal from hand to hand to push her sleeves back. Smell of peat smoke and sweat. She pulled off her bonnet, one-handed, and placed it on a squared-off stone. She slicked back a stray hair, getting a little blood on it.

  The young woman worked quickly and calmly, jutting her jaw in concentration, taking short breaths to not draw in too much of the sweet, permusted smell. Once she had removed the hide from both legs it hung down like a pair of dirty socks.

  She reached her juice-slicked hand beneath the rabbit’s genitals and in under the warm skin of the belly, loosening it gently to pull it off. She then worked her hand in above the tail – the moment that always caused a brief sad stirring in her breast, that small puff of fur – and drew across the back, lifting, separating, and then moving up to the arms.

  She busted the thin skin between the arms and neck with a pinch, and as she pulled the fluffy suit up, catching the sleeves, a hollow cramp moved across her lower abdomen. She stopped for a beat, two, and sighed. And then cracked the rabbit’s spine beneath its head.

  Her old cairn terrier, Duff, came out the back door behind her, followed by her father, in his work clothes. He’d had a job up at Knockallan, Mrs Grant’s place, fixing the wooden frames of the windows.

  ‘Did ye not hear me talkin’ tae Moggach just now, Leonora?’ he asked.

  ‘No, Father, I was at my task, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right, Lae, just thought ye might’ve said hello.’

  ‘I’m feeling a little poorly.’

  ‘Ye did hear him then.’

  Leonora stood, and Duff yipped and leapt at the rabbit carcass.

  ‘Go catch ye’self one,’ she said to the hairy mutt, and Duff turned her eyes on Leonora for a moment before padding off down toward the woods.

  ‘I’ll prepare supper,’ she said, and smiled warmly at her father.

  He returned the smile, his red beard fanning out. ‘Oh, Lass, I forgot tae tell ye, Miss Cruikshank will be coming by at e’en. I bought some of the tea she likes from Tomnavoulin yest’rdy.’

  Leonora nodded at her father. Miss Cruikshank had been visiting more regularly this past month. And her father always washed with the good soap, humming ‘Ae Fond Kiss’ before she arrived. He always offered her a dram of the better malt, which sat on a higher shelf as though Duff might think it were a piece of meat. He’d not yet offered Leonora a taste.

&
nbsp; As Leonora cooked the rabbit in the pot hooked above the fire, heating some bannocks alongside it, she thought of her mother. She often did when she was cooking, or cleaning – wondering if she was doing it right, wondering how her mother would have done it. And had Isabella felt this way at this time every month, too? The moon high but her heart sunk, fluttering, like a bird fallen from its perch. And her lower belly swollen, with something inside it pinching and then pulling and then clawing. Soon the bleeding would come. So much of it, and by the end her head would feel full of heather, her temper would be quick and she would want to sleep well past dawn for almost a week, with not many good days before it began all over again.

  Had it been the same for her mother? And was it the reason Leonora was feeling unreasonably angry all of a sudden towards her father?

  Luckily, her friend Abby had gone through it first, and had passed on her own mother’s advice about coverage and washing, and lady-of-the-meadow tea to relieve pain and ease stomach upsets.

  Miss Penuel Cruikshank arrived in a pretty, soft yellow dress. Leonora was not good at guessing ages but she figured Miss Cruikshank to be five and thirty or perhaps forty at the oldest, but a young forty. It was the lines at the neck when she turned her head that gave her to be older. The ‘Miss’ indicated that she’d never married, and Leonora didn’t know the exact circumstances. Leonora had spent the first years of her childhood, to almost the age of four, away from Chapeltown. And she knew her grasp of social mores was rudimentary: she’d read some of the novels of Jane Austen and George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens. And there were the poets, such as Lord Byron: ‘Vice cannot fix, and virtue cannot change/The once fall’n woman must forever fall.’ But the lives described in these books seemed grander, more complex and, quite thankfully, far removed from her own.

  ‘Leonora, this is a fine fair spread, this is,’ said Miss Cruikshank, as Leonora added the butter and salt to the table.

  ‘It’s not much,’ she said.

  ‘But it’s always enough,’ said her father.

  ‘How are the berries getting on, John?’ Miss Cruikshank asked. Leonora noted the switch from ‘Mr Duncan’ that had recently occurred.

  ‘Too delicious tae last ’fore the other creatures get at ’em.’ He grinned. But Leonora knew he’d picked and put some aside for tonight. His garden was a source of pride to both of them, as old as their residence here when he’d carried a wee lass and three small sacks of seeds back from Edinburgh after Leonora’s mother’s death. He didn’t often speak of it but Leonora knew of the threads to his regret: that he’d left the Highlands in the first place; that he’d lost his wife in Edinburgh; that despite learning a trade that may have saved his own father’s life, he hadn’t come back sooner. His mother – Leonora’s gram – was left alone at Aignish but still he did not return until Leonora’s mother had passed away. He’d once told Leonora that her mother couldn’t get the kind of treatment she needed in Chapeltown.

  Her father had been able to put his trade to use and soon became a known joiner and carpenter in the village, and further afield, as well as contributing to the food production. He worked well in the harvest, as did Leonora, once she was old enough and allowed. And they had a fine garden from which they could swap: perfect cream tatties, big juicy strawberries in summer, and a selection of herbs for taste and medicinal purposes.

  It was strawberries they ate after supper. Outside it was moony and dark. Inside, candles burned sedately. Miss Cruikshank’s face pinkened in the soft light when she bit into one of the berries. She smiled at Leonora’s father, and it made Leonora feel strange, as though she’d lost her appetite.

  Her father cleared his throat. ‘Now, Leonora, ye’ve finished at the schoolhouse these past two years. Penuel has discussed with me an opportunity …’

  Oh dear, Leonora thought. Miss Cruikshank will have a long-lost cousin come to Tomintoul, someone about my age.

  ‘Aye, Leonora, my brother, he’s keeper of an inn up in Tomintoul,’ said Miss Cruikshank, lips wet with strawberry juice. ‘Your father agreed with me that you might think about working there a few days in the week. It’s good experience if …’ She looked at Leonora’s father.

  ‘It’s good for your prospects, Lae.’

  This was not exactly what Leonora had expected. She felt hot. She tugged at the ruched fabric at her wrist, wanting to draw up her sleeves. ‘Would I stay there, in the hotel?’

  ‘For half the week, yes,’ said Miss Cruikshank. ‘A coach be doubling weekly from here to there, and in good weather it’s really not sae far to walk.’

  ‘I know,’ said Leonora, too quickly, ‘I’ve done it before. But Father, I’ve work to do for you. And the harvest is soon.’

  ‘There are hands enough for the harvest. We need tae think about your life ahead.’

  ‘My future.’ The words shook up an image of her hands slick after having reached inside Dona, the cow, to shift and deliver a calf; the brown and white calf taking breaths, wobbling on thin legs. If Leonora had thought about herself in the future she pictured her hands dirty and pressed against life. The fast-beating hearts of animals. Or roots deep in the soil.

  She wanted to express this, but she was polite, and Miss Cruikshank was a guest. Leonora had to control this burning. So she told her she would certainly consider it, while not looking the woman in the eye, and her father nodded his assent. The topic was done with for the night. Miss Cruikshank rose from the table first, insisting on cleaning up, which made Leonora feel embarrassed – had she stalled too long? The guest shouldn’t have to clean. Another part of her, which she tried to damp down, understood the gesture as Miss Cruikshank taking a step toward making herself at home.

  The woman perturbed her thoughts on this too-bright night, as Leonora gathered a sheet in her fist and fought the burning in her throat. From the inside of a dirty inn in Tomintoul to what? Was her father aware of Miss Cruikshank’s motives? Did he really want the best for Leonora? How could he not know what that was? At least, at least, it was only half the week. She would try to let that thought sustain her.

  I came up slowly out of the trip, into a dark, unfamiliar room. I gasped, as from a sob, or as though someone had been holding my head underwater. I tried to take a proper breath, as I reached over and flicked on the lamp. Leonora’s dread, and melancholy, were lodged inside of me. I, too, loved her father, and dreaded the thought of life moving in a direction away from the place she called home. And what was incredible, I thought, as I sat up and took a sip of my whisky, which sat on the bedside table, was that I had felt what it was to have menstrual cramps. Not just cramps, but this entire bodily sensation of bloat, and heaviness, and the emotional overwhelm.

  I then slept, worrying Leonora’s worries, occasionally realising I was doing so and realising how powerful this technology could be for someone like me, who no longer has any interest in self. Who can experience being someone else before dying.

  By the morning, though, while I thought of her and wondered about what she was now, in the past, seeing and thinking – what her tastes were, if she would fall in love – I was returned to my own cumbersome, aching body, and I experienced my own cravings: for the book I was reading on Caravaggio, for fried eggs; my own lusts, my own shame, in the bathroom before breakfast. A man I was and am.

  It was about three hours to Edinburgh on the bus that day, cash paid. We drove by sheep under windmills, rolling fields and vertical farms, patches of moorland, and purple-grey rocks jutting through grass. Often the road was elevated and the bank beside it would drop down and then roll up into a hill, patched with dark green pines. Castle ruins materialised on riverbanks, and often I’d see a lone house or cluster – a small village – in the elbow of a mountain. I looked out the window the whole time. I felt at home, but I interrogated that feeling. Though I have Scotland in my blood, from my mother, can you really recognise a genetic connection to place, to land? The feeling of ‘belonging’ was more likely due to the conscious knowledge
of your bloodline, which then settled in your unconscious and presented as a feeling of comfort, of being at home. After all, my family was actually driven away, in the time of the clearances, when landlords moved their tenants off in favour of having sheep on their land.

  I didn’t know yet if Leonora was in an area where this happened, or indeed what year it was that I had come across her. Dickens had cropped up in her thoughts, so it would be beyond the mid-1800s. The clearances were certainly widespread, long-lasting and tragic. People were forced out violently, and many others died or suffered greatly when they tried to make a new life in coastal areas, with less arable land. Some went south and tried to find work in cities. Many, like my ancestors, were shipped off to Australia, America, Canada.

  Real suffering. With black lungs and blistered fingers, empty bloated stomachs, and grief. Nothing like the pains my middle-class friends would complain about now. The worst you could suffer with illness was a waiting list. Well, not for me. Suffering was something I was determined to experience. This pharma – a kind of anti-inflammatory – would last long enough to get me to my island and then I would be weaned, slowly, from chemical health.

  When I left Melbourne, it was one of those sickeningly hot days, where metal turns to liquid, and a breeze feels like a blast from a hair dryer. One of those days where people without regulation systems built into their underclothes drop dead in the street. I arrived at the airport with a large bag full of clothes, toiletries and just a couple of personal items: a few postcards from art galleries, a pod full of music, a couple of books. I hadn’t cleaned up the flat; the buyers could have the rest: the oak bar, the retro olive-green couch, the half-drunk bottles of gin and Scotch. I do wonder sometimes what they might have done with the photo albums, or the printout of the family tree that Uncle Dave gave me when I was in my twenties and trying to work out if I was the only one. Not that you can really tell from a family tree. I never managed to find out much about Mum’s side, the ones originally from Scotland, except that there were some drunks. That’s all Mum would tell me. So perhaps there is some genetic anomaly. Her own father stopped drinking just before I was born, my dear old pa, but I don’t know much about what he was like before that.