Ghost MacIndoe

‘I like him a lot.’

‘So do I,’ she smiled, turning to look at him. ‘He thinks you’re like him. You’ve got patience, he says.’

‘That’s kind of him.’

‘And respect. A respectful young man, Harry calls you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Not many young ones have that. Respect and patience, either of them.’

‘No, Mrs Beckwith,’ Alexander replied.

Mrs Beckwith took a final sip of her drink. ‘He was a handsome one, too.’ She put the empty glass on the floor and stood up for a moment, before sitting back on the arm of her chair, facing him.

‘I should be going, Mrs Beckwith,’ he told her.

‘Megan will be here any second,’ she said. She folded her arms on her stomach and, bending forward, looked at him as though to press the anxiety out of his mind with her gaze. ‘You’re such a beautiful boy, Alex. One day my girl will fall in love with you, I wouldn’t mind betting.’ The fabric of her dress hung away from her skin in a hammock shape, exposing to Alexander the swell of her breast.

‘She thinks I’m stupid,’ he said.

‘She thinks we’re all stupid sometimes, Alex.’

Alexander meshed his hands together and clenched his fingers on his knuckles.

‘You’re a fearful lad, aren’t you? Don’t be. You don’t want to have lots of regrets when you’re older. They eat you up, regrets.’

‘I don’t think I’m fearful, Mrs Beckwith.’

‘Don’t be. Because nothing lasts, Alex. The whites of my eyes, look at them. They’ve gone all mucky now. But they used to be like yours once. Look here,’ she instructed, and she pinched up a ridge of skin on the back of her hand and watched it subside. ‘I was a slender girl. A slip of a thing, my mother used to say. But nothing lasts,’ and she leaned over him. She kissed him lightly on the lips. Her lipstick pulled at his skin and he caught the sweet fume of her breath. Sitting on the arm of the chair once more, she breathed out as if exhaling smoke and gave him a look as if he had done something foolish but endearing. A key rattled angrily in the lock of the front door. ‘The princess returns,’ said Mrs Beckwith. ‘That you, Megan?’ she called out.

‘Who else?’ asked Megan from behind the opening door. ‘Hello, Eck,’ she said upon seeing him, and then she went out of the room, closing the door.

‘Sorry, Alex,’ said Mrs Beckwith after a minute. ‘Megan’s in a mood, it looks like.’

‘I’ll go then.’

‘Yes, OK,’ agreed Mrs Beckwith cheerfully, as if what had happened had been instantly forgotten.

12. The Diet of Augsburg

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