‘What’s happening?’ repeated the Dreamer, his worry raw and real.
‘Maggie lost the baby,’ the Ghost said. The Dreamer’s mouth fell open in shock.
‘Where was I when she needed me?’ said the Ghost.
‘Are you saying it was my fault? Jesus. Was it my fault?’
‘No. I’m saying that she has just spent the last hour on her own cleaning blood off her skin and the new bathroom floor, and I’m here four thousand miles away, preparing a speech I didn’t need to give in a hotel room with a plush carpet and embroidered dressing gowns …’
‘But I wouldn’t have known. How could I have known?’
The Ghost shook his head, as if he was missing the point. ‘It was just a pointless business trip. I didn’t even need to go. I don’t know. If this was isolated it would be silly to beat myself up, but I found it easier to head away than be home. We didn’t have any Budd Books in America. Yes, I thought I might be able to expand there eventually, but that wasn’t why I went. I went because I was flattered to be asked. The North American Book Business Convention 1980. All expenses paid. Maggie never told me she didn’t want me to go – she would never have done that – but she hadn’t had an evening with me for weeks. Maybe months. She wasn’t against me being in New York, if that was all it had been. It was just yet another thing. An utterly pointless thing. And I knew it. She wanted me with her. It was like she knew … But I had a choice, I had a choice, and, look, here I am making the wrong one …’
Meanwhile, Wilbur was trying to reason with Maggie and was only making things worse. ‘Look, Maggie, yes, I know. I know. I remember what we said about the elephant mural …’ He began to cry. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie. I wish I was there with you …’ A long, considered pause. Then: ‘I can’t fly back till Thursday … I’ve committed … The speech is tomorrow … I can’t not be there … I wish I could hug you too … I love you …’
The two unseen watchers looked on in silence. One staring at his future, the other at his past.
Love was the thing that hurt, and business was the opposite. It was an addiction. He had lost sight of Maggie. She was there, but at the periphery. Life was more bearable that way.
The Ghost sighed. ‘I was a fool. I realise it now. You may well be one too …’
‘I don’t want to be.’
‘Good,’ said the Ghost. ‘I suppose that’s a start … At the time, you weren’t being honest with her. You didn’t know if you wanted children. Not really. You were scared. So you were unable to say the right thing. No matter what words you used, they couldn’t ever sound right because you didn’t feel the loss that she was feeling.’
‘But that’s not true,’ said the Dreamer, scratching his sideburns.
‘It is by 1980.’
‘I want kids.’
‘Now you do. Asleep on that bed in your honeymoon in Venice. But things change.Youchange. And the amount you are away, and the amount you are home late, it becomes increasingly improbable anyway …’ The Ghost thought about this. ‘Maybe, Dreamer, you are right. Maybe I still did want kids, deep down. But I was also terrified of being a dad. I mean, I’d had no template. And all I’d seen was Mam struggling with money and then me and Dougie fighting and then Dougie getting into trouble and dying. I mean, it wasn’t the best advert for bringing children into the world. And as I said, I just didn’t want more people to care about.’
The Ghost paced the room for a little while, trying to work out his own past. ‘And I’m glad in a way it never happened.’ He stopped and stared out of the window, at the yellow cabs shunting along Park Avenue. ‘I mean, in my life. The life I lived. The person I became. I don’t think I’d have been much more there than Dad was. And at least he had the excuse of being dead.’
Meanwhile, the Wilbur of 1980 was saying goodbye. ‘Yes, I love you too.’
And he walked over to a cabinet beside the TV and picked up a decanter to pour himself a whisky.
He looked at the book beside his bed. One he had bought at the airport. One he never read. And then went and switched the channel to a quiz show,The Price Is Right. He sat on the edge of the bed and tried to concentrate on the screen as though there was nothing else in the world except three contestants guessing the price of a refrigerator and some reclining chairs.
He swigged back the whisky.
‘I think I got quite drunk that night,’ said the Ghost. ‘If I remember correctly, I was hungover for my speech. I had a presentation involving slides and a projector and I got it all wrong. I remember eating a hot dog in Central Park and watching a dad with his kid and I was nearly crying, as though that deep true me who felt like Maggie was still there … I don’t know. But I just tried to get on with things. So when I eventually flew back I never told Maggie any of these feelings. And that distance stayed, even when we had dinner together. The kitchen table became its own Atlantic Ocean.’
The Dreamer saw the golden windows of the Midnight Train in the distance, rising through the sky. A ribbon of shadow and light, heading towards them, defying physics as only dead things can.
‘I think,’ he said softly, ‘it’s time to go.’
And he placed a hand on the Ghost’s shoulder, as though he was the elder and the Ghost in that moment was the one with the most to learn.
Once in a Lifetime
London. Three years later.
A flash pizza restaurant somewhere in Pimlico. The Italian Stallion. White and red décor. There was the scent of garlic and the sound of Lionel Richie and the feeling of fresh money. The place was full of men in suits, and women with big hair, and boozy chatter.
And there with the Ghost was the Dreamer, both standing in their flared trousers and sandals. The Dreamer was staring in disbelief at the sight of Charlie Applewood as he sat talking to Wilbur and eating lunch.
