Ghost Music (15 page)

“No . . . they're devoted.”

“Do they run and up down their apartment in the middle of the night?”

“Not that I know of.”

“All right, then. London it is.”

Kate kissed me again. “You're an angel, do you know that?”

I stroked her hair. It was so dark that I couldn't see her at all, but I could feel her breathing. I thought about what my life had been like, before I met her. Could I really go back to it?

“I'm not an angel,” I told her. “I'm just a musician. But I don't want this to end, that's all.”

The next morning I slept late again. I didn't open my eyes until a quarter after nine, and when I sat up I felt as if I had a hangover, with a hammering headache and a mouth that felt as if it had been carpeted. I climbed out of bed and drew back the drapes. There were low gray clouds hanging over the harbor, and the smaller sailboats were jumping up and down at their moorings as if they were trying to break free.

I pulled on my navy blue chinos and my white turtleneck sweater and went through to the kitchen. There was nobody there, so I went along to the living room, calling out, “Kate?” But there was nobody in the living room either. No Kate, no Westerlunds. The whole apartment was deserted.

I went back into the kitchen and opened up the blue ceramic coffee jar to make myself a mug of coffee, but the jar was empty. I opened up the fridge, to see if there was any orange juice, but the fridge was empty, too—just as it had been when I first arrived. There was no food in any of the overhead cupboards either. Not even a can of beans.

I stood there for a long time feeling as if I had woken up in a parallel universe. Maybe I needed to go back to bed, fall asleep and try waking up a second time.

A seagull landed on the ledge outside the kitchen window, and tapped on the glass with its beak, as if it were trying to warn me to leave. It stared at me beadily for a few seconds and then it flapped away.

I returned to the bedroom. It was then that I saw the pale blue envelope lying on the floor. It must have dropped off the quilt when I climbed out of bed. I picked it up and tore it open. There were two Yale door keys inside, and a handwritten note on deckle-edged paper.

Darling Gideon—

Your flight AY5927 leaves Arlanda at 11:45
AM
. Collect your ticket at the Finnair desk. We are staying with David and Helena Philips, 37 Wetherby Gardens, London SW5. See you there later!

Love,

Your Kate

I sat down on the side of the bed. I leaned over and smelled the pillow that Kate had slept on, but it had retained none of her fragrance at all, as if she had never been there.

I always used to wonder if people who were going mad
knew
that they were going mad. But at that moment, I seriously felt that I was losing my sanity. I felt as if the carpet were sliding away from under me, and the whole room was shrinking like a dollhouse. What gave me the deepest sensation of dread was the knowledge that there was no turning back. If I was going to find out what was happening to me, and why I was seeing two Elsas and two Felicias, and a drowned girl dragged out of the harbor, and visions of Tilda hurtling down the stairs, I would have to follow Kate to London, and face whatever visions she wanted to show me.

Maybe “David and Helena Philips” would scream at each other in the middle of the night, and run around their apartment breaking lamps when in reality they were still in bed? Maybe I would find
their
children floating in the Thames?

But I urgently needed to be reassured that I wasn't suffering from some kind of breakdown. Kate had told me I was capable of seeing things because I had “resonance,” but what did that really
mean? Maybe it simply meant that I was mentally exhausted and out of my emotional depth, and that I needed a long rest, and a course of diazepam.

Most of all, though, I had to see Kate. I had to talk to her, and touch her, and hold her close to me. She had left no perfume on her pillow but she had left the memory of her perfume in my mind. Without her, this apartment seemed cold and completely empty; and outside the window, the city of Stockholm seemed as two-dimensional as a picture postcard. I had never felt such a physical need for another person's presence.

I looked at myself in the dressing table mirror. I looked tired, and foxy-eyed, and different. I thought: what if I didn't follow her? What if I simply flew nonstop back to New York? I wasn't sure that it would finish our affair, not immediately; but I would be letting her down in the meanest way possible; and I would either be showing her that I was lacking in nerve, or that I wasn't really interested in helping her friends, or both. I doubted that our relationship could survive for very much longer if I treated her like that.

I admit it, yes, I
was
lacking in nerve. Wouldn't you be? But I loved her too much to risk losing her, no matter what she asked me to do. How could I go on seeing her every day at St. Luke's Place, if we broke up? How could I sleep at night, knowing that she was directly underneath me, in bed with the hairy, orange-tanned Victor?

I packed my shirts and my sweaters, and left the Westerlunds' apartment, closing the shiny black door behind me. Outside, on Skeppsbron, it had started to rain, and it was so gloomy that it could have been evening, instead of morning. I managed to hail a taxi, and ask the driver for Arlanda airport.

Along route E4 the serrated pine forests looked even darker and lonelier than ever—forests where even your happiness could get lost—and as I sat in the back of the taxi and stared at them through the rain, I promised myself that I would never come back.

But if you make a promise, you're making a prediction. And when you wake up in the morning, you can never tell for sure what the day is going to bring you, or even if you'll still be alive by nightfall.

* * *

It was raining heavily in London, too, as the black taxi inched its way over Hammersmith Flyover and into Earl's Court, with tall Victorian apartment blocks on either side. But I was feeling less depressed. I had flown to England with a men's choir from Helsinki that had sung boisterous Finnish folk songs all the way. I had jotted down two or three of the choruses for possible TV jingles, especially “Isontalon Antti”—“Big House Andy.”

“This is it, mate,” said the taxi driver. He pulled into the curb outside a massive tawny-brick house with white-painted pillars and a porch that looked only slightly smaller than Washington Square Arch. I paid him and probably tipped him too little because he stared down at the coins in his hand as if I had spat on them.

“Isn't that enough?” I asked him.

“No, mate, that'll do. Wouldn't like to see you go short, would I?”

I had never understood British humor (if that's what it was) so I said, “No, I guess not,” and left it at that. I climbed the steps of No. 37 and peered at the doorbells. There were four of them: one for each apartment. Three of them carried neatly written name cards, except for the first-floor bell, which I assumed was the Philipses'. I pressed it, and I could hear it ringing: but just like 44 Skeppsbron, there was no reply.

Taking out my two Yale keys, I opened the front door and let myself into a high-ceilinged entrance hall, with black-and-white tiles. On a gilded Regency-style side table, there was a fan-shaped vase containing a huge arrangement of orange gladioli. At the
far end, a tall mirror showed a wet American jingle-composer wearing a black raincoat.

The door to the Philipses' apartment was on the left, just past the spray of gladioli. I let myself in, calling out, “Hi! Hello? Anybody home?” as I did so. I knew that British people weren't legally allowed to be armed, but it was better to be circumspect than have your head blown off.

Inside, there was a smaller entrance hall, with doors leading off it on all sides. Two of the doors were open. Through one of them I could see a library, with rows of bookshelves and foxhunting prints on the walls. Through the other, a large yellow-painted kitchen, with a long pine dining table, and French windows that looked out onto the garden, where two stone cherubs stood dripping under a leafless pergola.

I put down my case in the hallway and took off my raincoat. I opened the double doors right in front of me, and found myself in the living room, which was vast, bigger than my whole apartment in St. Luke's Place. It was decorated in varying shades of brown, with thick beige carpets and chocolate velvet drapes.

It was almost silent inside this apartment, except for the faintest swish of traffic on the wet road outside, and the sound of somebody upstairs trying to play the violin, and constantly faltering and stopping after the first six or seven bars.

Despite the quietness, or maybe
because
of it, I felt a dark wave of unease pass over me. I can't describe it exactly, but it was almost as if somebody invisible had walked through the room, and even walked through
me
. I had an irrational urge to put my coat back on, pick up my suitcase and quickly leave.

When I had first entered the Westerlunds' apartment in Stockholm, I had felt like a trespasser—simply because there was nobody home. But here, the apartment itself made me feel unwelcome. A stern portrait of a woman in a brown dress was staring at me from over the fireplace, and the look on her face said,
Who are you? We don't want the likes of
you
here.

I crossed the silent carpet to the window, where I could get a good signal on my cell phone, and I tried calling Margot. Right then, I badly needed to hear a friendly voice.

She answered almost at once. “Lalo? Is that you? How's Stockholm?”

“I left Stockholm this morning. I'm in London now.”

“I thought you were going to stay in Sweden for at least two weeks! What the two-toned tonkert are you doing in London?”

“I'm not sure. Kate hasn't arrived here yet. But I had some really freaky experiences in Stockholm. That's why I left.”

“I've tried to call you a couple of times.”

“Really? At what sort of time? Remember that Stockholm is six hours ahead.”

“I know that. I called you once around four in the afternoon and once around nine in the morning. But both times I got this terrible rustling noise like somebody crumpling up tissue paper. I could hear voices in the background but I couldn't hear what they were saying.”

“Must have been some kind of technical glitch. You can hear me okay now, can't you?”

“Pretty good. I can still hear some voices in the background, though. Are you in a bar or something?”

“No. I'm in somebody's apartment, and there's nobody else here.”

“Well, I can definitely hear somebody else. They sound like they're arguing, or crying. No—I can definitely hear somebody crying.”

“Like I said, I'm all on my own. You must be picking up interference.”

I was still talking to her when I caught sight of something out of the corner of my eye. A small white shape running across the kitchen, and then disappearing behind the half-open door.

“Margot, can you hold on for just a moment?” I asked her.

“You sound odd, Lalo. What's the matter?”

“I've seen something. I just want to check it out.”

“What have you seen?”

I went into the kitchen and looked under the table. At first I couldn't see anything at all, except chair legs. Then I saw the white shape sitting in the corner, motionless, and it was staring at me.

I circled around the table and approached it slowly.

“Here, kitty cat. Don't be afraid.”

The cat remained where it was, still staring at me. I hunkered down close to it and I could see then that it was Malkin.

“Margot? Are you still there?”

“Yes . . . but you're breaking up. I'm getting that rustling noise again, and I'm still hearing those voices.”

“Margot, Kate's cat is here.”

“What did you say?”

“Kate's cat! It's a white Persian. It's here, in the kitchen, in London.”

“I'm sorry, Lalo. I really can't hear you. I'll try calling you later, okay?”

“Margot! It's Kate's cat, Malkin! How in
hell
can it be here?”

“I'm sorry. I can't hear you at all.”

I closed my cell phone. Malkin kept on staring at me, but not moving.

“What are you doing here in London, Malkin? Come on, cat, I know you can speak if you want to.”

But Malkin only yawned, squeezing her eyes tight shut.

Eventually I stood up and went back into the living room. I stood close to the window and tried to get through to Margot again, but all I got was a recording of a snotty British woman saying,
“Sorr-ee! The number you have dialed is not recawgnized.”

A large gilded clock on the mantelpiece struck five. There was still no sign of Kate, or of David and Helena Philips, so I decided to take myself out for a drink. I was feeling tired and lonely, a stranger in yet another strange land, and I needed better company than a cat who couldn't possibly be here.

Before I left, though, I looked into the kitchen, and Malkin was still there, still sitting in the same position, still staring at me. For some reason, I thought of what Margot had said to me when she had consulted that Tibetan fortune-teller.
“A white memory is watching you.”

* * *

I walked out in the rain, along streets crowded with black taxis and red double-deck buses. A few minutes from Wetherby Gardens I found a triangular corner pub called The Duke of Clarence. Outside it looked more like a ship than a pub, but inside it was bright and airy, with a high ceiling and comfortable couches and plenty of mirrors. All the same, there were only five people in there, including me, and one of them was asleep, with her head tilted back and her mouth wide-open. I ordered a glass of wine and sat in the corner on my own. I looked so exhausted in the mirror next to me that I had to move, where I couldn't see myself.