Ghosts by John Banville Page B

reason laughed. ‘Lovely prospect. Those trees.’
    He came towards her, and his reflection, curved and narrow and tinily exact, slid abruptly over the rim of the polished brass ball on the bedpost beside her. She sat without moving and looked at him and a pleasurable surge of fear made her throat thicken; it was like the panicky excitement she would feel as a little girl when in a game of hide-and-seek some surly, bull-faced boy was about to stumble on her in her hiding-place. She saw that Felix was going to try to kiss her and she stood up quickly, lithe as a fish suddenly, and twisted past him.
    ‘It’s hot,’ she said loudly. ‘Isn’t it hot?’
    Her voice had a quaver in it. He would think she was frightened of him. A voice said mockingly in her head, You are, you are. She leaned down and tried to open the littlewindow. He came up behind her and tapped the frame with his knuckles.
    ‘Painted shut,’ he said. ‘See?’ She could feel him thinly smiling and could smell his grey breath. He reached up and deftly plucked out a hairpin and her hair fell down; he took a thick handful of it and tugged it playfully and put his mouth to her ear. ‘Poor Rapunzel,’ he whispered. ‘Poor damsel.’
    She closed her eyes and shivered.
    ‘Are you frightened?’ he whispered. ‘You must not be frightened. There is no danger. Everything is safe and sound. We have fallen flat on our feet here.’
    In the yard the chickens scratched among the cobbles, stopped, stepped, scratched again. The dog was gone from under the wheelbarrow. Felix breathed hotly on her neck. Everything felt so strange. Her skin was burning.
    ‘Hmm?’
    ‘So strange,’ she said. ‘As if I …’
    He let fall her hair and, suddenly full of tense energy, turned away from her and paced the little room, head down, his hands clasped behind his back.
    ‘Yes yes,’ he said impatiently. ‘Everyone feels they have been here before.’
    She heard the dog somewhere nearby barking half-heartedly.
    ‘That man,’ she said. ‘I thought he was going to …’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘That old man.’
    He laughed silkily.
    ‘Ah, you have met the Professor, have you?’ he said. ‘The great man?’
    ‘He was standing on the stairs. He –’
    ‘Do you know who he is?’ He smiled; he seemed angry; she was frightened of him.
    ‘No,’ she said faintly. ‘Who?’
    ‘Ah, you would like to know, now, wouldn’t you.’ He glanced at her slyly. ‘He is famous.’
    ‘Is he?’
    ‘Or was, at least,’ he said and laughed. ‘I could tell you a secret about him, but I do not choose to.’
    She pressed her back against the window-frame and folded her arms, cradling herself, and watched him where he paced. Yes, he would do anything, be capable of anything. She wanted him to hit her, to beat her to the floor and fall on her and feed his fill on her bleeding mouth. She pictured herself dressed in white sitting at a little seafront café somewhere in Italy or the south of France, where he had brought her, the hot wind blowing and the palms clattering and the sea a vivid blue like in those pictures, and she so cool and pale, and people glancing at her, wondering who she was as she sat there demurely in her light, expensive frock, squirming a little in tender pain, basking in secret in the slow heat of her hidden bruises, waiting for him to come sauntering along the front with his hands in his pockets, whistling.
    Then somehow she was sitting on the bed again looking at her bare feet on the blue and grey rug on the floor and Felix was sitting beside her stroking her hand.
    ‘I can give you so much,’ he was saying fervently, in a voice thick with thrilling insincerity. ‘You understand that, don’t you?’
    She sighed. She had not been listening.
    ‘What?’ she said. ‘Yes.’ And then, more distantly: ‘Yes.’
    What was he talking about? Love, she supposed; they were always talking about love. He smiled, searching her eyes, scanning her face all over. Behind his