ridges for his sleek black eyebrows, fine bones framing his eyes, making them all the more vivid as they peered out at her. A man’s jaw, giving force and shape to the lustrous close-cropped beard.
“I want you to leave now,” she said. It sounded so nonsensical, so helpless. She pictured the gun in the closet. She had always secretly longed for a reason to use it, she knew it now. She smelled the cordite in her memory, and the dirt of the cement-walled shooting gallery in Gretna. Heard Mona cheering her on. She could feel that big heavy thing dance upwards as she pulled the trigger. Oh, how she wanted it now.
“I want you to come back in the morning,” she said, nodding emphatically as she said it. “You must leave my house now.” She even thought of the medal. Oh, God, why hadn’t she put the medal on! She had wanted to. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle.
“Go away from here.”
“I can’t do that, my precious one, my Gifford,” he said as if singing to a slow-paced melody.
“You’re saying crazy things to me. I don’t know you. I’m asking you again to leave.” But when she went to step back, she did not dare. Some bit of charm or compassion had left his face abruptly. He was staring at her warily, maybe even bitterly. This was like the face of a child, all right, mobile and seductive, and endearing in its quick and abandoned flashes of feeling. How smooth and perfect the forehead; such proportion. Had Dürer been born so perfect?
“Remember me, Gifford I wish I could remember you. I stood beneath the trees when you saw me. Surely I did. Tell me what you saw. Help me remember, Gifford. Help me weave the whole into one great picture. I’m lost in this heat, and full of ancient hates and ancient grudges! Full of ancient ignorance and pain. Surely I had wisdom when I was invisible. Surely I was nearer the angels of the air, than the devils of the earth. But, oh, the flesh is so inviting. And I will not lose again, I will not be destroyed. My flesh shall live on. You know me. Say you do.”
“I don’t know you!” she declared. She had backed away, but only a step. There was so little space between them. If she had turned to run, he could have caught her by the neck. The terror rose in her again, the absolute irrational terror that he would put his long fingers on her neck. That he could, that no one could stop him, that people did such things, that she was alone with him, all of this collided silently inside her. Yet she spoke again. “Get out of here, do you hear what I’m telling you?”
“Can’t do it, beautiful one,” he answered, one eyebrow arched slightly. “Speak to me, tell me what did you see when you came to that house so long ago?”
“Why do you want me?” She dared to take one more step, very tentative. The beach lay behind. What if she were to run, across the yard over the boardwalk? And the long beach seemed the empty deserted landscapes of horrid dreams. Had she not dreamed this very thing long ago? Never, never say that name!
“I’m clumsy now,” he said with sudden heartfelt sincerity. “I think when I was a spirit I had more grace, did I not? I came and went at the perfect moment. Now I blunder through life, as do we all. I need my Mayfairs. I need you all. Would that I were singing in some still and beautiful valley; in the glen, under the moon. And I could bring you all together, back to the circle. Oh, but we will never have such luck now, Gifford. Love me, Gifford.”
He turned away as if in pain. It wasn’t that he wanted her sympathy or expected it. He didn’t care. He was anguished and silent for a long moment, staring dully and insignificantly towards the kitchen. There was something utterly compelling in his face, his attitude. “Gifford,” he said. “Gifford, tell me, what do you see in me? Am I beautiful to you?” He turned back. “Look at me.”
He bent down to kiss her like a bird coming to the edge of a pool, that swift, with the heady beat of wings, and the inundation of that fragrance as if it were an animal smell, a warm scent like the good