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.‘Not sure yet.I think he fancies himself a little bit.’‘Mr Darcy, Pride and Prejudice,’ said Mum.‘Not that you’d know, Rebecca.’Flora glided over and joined in.‘Talking about him?’ She nodded over to Alex March.‘Unstable, if you ask me.Thirty-seven years old and already married and divorced.’‘People make mistakes, Flora,’ said Amanda.‘Yes, and they should learn to live with them.’‘Oliver Reed?’ said Amanda.‘Only he hasn’t a moustache.I like moustaches.’‘He reminds me of Lord Byron,’ I said.‘Oh no, dear,’ said Flora.‘Byron was a poet, dear, not an artist, and he had a limp.Too many words weighing him down, I expect.’ She helped herself to a small sausage roll from a tray of small sausage rolls.‘Mr Rochester?’‘Who?’ asked Flora.‘Jane Eyre’s Mr Rochester.’‘There’s no one mad in this one’s attic,’ she said.‘Not as far as I know anyway.’ She looked at me, sipped her champagne.‘These are good,’ said Mum.‘Did you make them, Amanda?’Amanda shook her head.‘Not this time.’I’d drunk four champagnes, which was a personal record.I was beginning to think of poor Algernon Keats stuck at home alone in my room.‘I’m going home,’ I said to my mother.‘I’m going home,’ I said to the listening walls.They appeared a little unsteady.I grabbed my coat and accidentally brushed against Alex March, who was lounging against his own front door, blowing smoke rings into the air.‘Rebeccah! Not leaving surely? The party’s only just warming up.’‘I’m going home.’‘What are you going to do there?’‘Talk to my friends.Sleep.’‘Exciting life.Why don’t you stay, enjoy yourself here?’ He was so very sure of himself.I shook my head.‘Don’t think so.’‘If she must, she must.Come on then, I’ll walk you.’His jacket made small swishing noises.He stuffed his hands in his trouser pockets and pulled out another cigarette and a lighter.Offered one to me.‘No thanks.’He cupped one hand around his cigarette, flicked the lighter with his thumb and stared at me over the top of his burning cigarette.The sky was extra black, with masses of twinkling stars.A plaintive crow called out in the night, an eerie, melancholy sound.‘I don’t normally leave my own parties,’ he said.‘No one’s making you.’‘True, but I couldn’t let you wander off by yourself now, could I?’Shadows rose and fell, the church said nothing.I could hear a short ragged breath behind me and the hairs on the back of my neck bristled.Oh no.Not her again, not now.Alex March didn’t notice anything.A thread of black hair crept around my neck and as soon as I felt it on my skin I screamed.‘Shiit!’‘What the hell was that?’‘Oh—oh, it was a bat or something.It just—just brushed past me.’‘A bat? Don’t think Brightley has bats.It’s a pretty old place, though, don’t you think?’ He took a long drag on his cigarette.The gate to the vicarage stood like a sentinel, waiting.‘Come over in the New Year.Pop in and say hello.’‘Thanks for walking me.’‘Good night, Rebeccah.’The cold night air had sobered me up a little.He chucked his cigarette on the driveway, ground it out with his boot, leaned forward and pecked me on the cheek.His skin smelled of cigarettes and wine, which I thought was a sophisticated combination.The silence of the Brightley night was deafening.The crow called again, closer this time, the same mournful sound.‘Sure you’re all right?’‘Yes.Thank you.’‘See you then.’I fell against the door, hello, door.No one pushed me, did they? It was my own stumbling self.Algie? Algernon? You there?His footsteps over the driveway, my key in the lock of the door.‘Me again,’ he said.‘I thought perhaps I should do this.’ He pulled me towards him with his strong hands, my face inches from his.He was studying me closely and seemed to like what he found there.He kissed me, hard, no tongue, mouth against mouth, I-mean-this kiss.The strength of his body surprised me.I pulled back from him, gasped, wiped my mouth, didn’t know what to say.‘Merry Christmas,’ he said, and walked off into the darkness.I stood there for a few seconds, head swimming, mouth tingling.I could taste his confidence, his cigarette smoking inside me.The crow called again, the melancholy in its voice growing louder.Through the house I walked.Up the stairs I climbed to the pale unearthly light waiting there for me.Like the Night She ComesMy brain hurt from all that champagne.I must have fallen asleep and then woken with the sounds of everyone returning home.Tap tap tap.‘Miss Budde, it is me, Algernon.’I moaned and grumbled and turned over in bed.Go away and let me sleep please, Algie, we’ll talk tomorrow.Or the next day.Or the one after that.‘Miss Budde?’‘Oh please, Algie, it’s five o’clock in the bloody morning.’ I propped myself up on one elbow.It was still so dark, so cold.‘Why do ghosts have to be cold, Algernon? Why can’t you be warm like a hot-water bottle?’Tap tap tap against the window.I was grumbling and pulling on odd socks and my jumper and maybe a scarf and a hat and gloves.I didn’t put the light on, it might wake the parents, and Algernon was standing there faintly glowing.A few tiny little stones on the bed like sand, like grit, like stones, away, brush them away.‘Miss Budde?’‘Oh, Algie, please call me Rebecca.I mean we’re practically living together, aren’t we?’ He was all business tonight.He was waving around my book from college.‘Byron,’ he said.‘We will make a start.Unreliable as he is.’‘Algie, you sound like a schoolteacher.Do we really have to do this now?’‘Time is short,’ he said, then he and began to read.‘I would to heaven that I were so much clay,As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling—Because at least the past were pass’d away—’‘The past has passed away.’He stopped for a second and carried on reading.‘And for the future—(but I write this reeling,Having got drunk exceedingly to-day,So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling)I say the future is a serious matter—.’He repeated the lines in an exaggerated voice: ‘.having got drunk exceedingly today.’‘How do you know I had anything to drink?’‘I am not saying this.Byron is.’‘Did you follow me? To the party?’‘No.I did not follow you.’‘How did you know then?’‘Your energy is different.There is one more line.’‘Go on then.’‘And so for God’s sake—hock and soda water!’‘What’s hock? The poem is good, I like it, but you really didn’t have to wake me up to read this, did you, Algie?’‘Hock is dry white wine, since you ask.Also, that is my job, Miss Budde: to wake you up.Now listen, please, this is one of mine.’It was the lateness of the hour and Algernon’s soft voice which soothed me and floated under me so the words carried me along with them.‘I know not what I say or why I speakunless you’re close or standing cheek to cheekmine is the language of the night through death’s cold doorand all the years I lived I hoped for more.’As he spoke I felt something shift and move.A door opened in my mind.Unless you’re close or standing cheek to cheek.I walked through the door under a bright blue sky, everything was clear and shining.I could see every single thing as closely as I dared to look—and I dared to look.We were in the middle of a field, emerald grass blown sideways in the wind.Glasses full of wine stood on tables laid with billowing white tablecloths like the sleeves of my father’s robes
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