The Monument: a ghost story Read online

foot of the eminence seemed close, and crushing.

  Afraid of being late, Niamh rushed into the small clearing at the summit where the monument stood. There was nothing to see; the stone monolith itself was black and invisible against the sky, the foliage around a mere obscure mass, and any view was lost in shadow. Jamie took her arm sternly as she stepped uncertainly forward, lest she should stray too near the sheer edge that descended to the water. He was more familiar with this place than her, and so was less willing to partake of its romance and mystery— which he told her at once.

  She bid him be quiet, however, and called querulously to know if they were alone. The silence seemed to confirm it; but Niamh shivered nevertheless, and asserted: ‘She’s here.’

  ‘Where?’ he asked, frowning.

  ‘She’s standing under the obelisk— look, there’s a shape against the stone.’

  He peered forward, unable to distinguish anything, but called too, as she had done.

  ‘Be careful! Don’t go any nearer!’ she panicked. ‘Please, stay still.’

  ‘I can’t see anyone.’

  ‘She can see us.’

  ‘God, Niamh, this is mad!’ he snapped, and, letting her go, strode towards the place she seemed to be indicating, with his hand stretched forth.

  His wife cried out, and he turned to shush her, all the time walking and reaching, expecting his fingers to graze the rough stone at any moment. Then she gave an actual scream as, in a few paces, the night took him from her view, which increased his annoyance as he felt towards the masonry.

  ‘Niamh, I’ve told you—’

  He stopped.

  She held her breath, hearing nothing further— no more than if she were alone.

  ‘Jamie?’ she attempted.

  He did not reply.

  She tried again, and with increasing distress again, without result. The tide roared deep below, and a slight wind over the pinnacle of the monument caused a whistling note; but no voice.

  She was incapable of moving, forbidden by an almost mortal horror from attempting the four or five steps to find him. Her voice became strangled as she spoke his name, and she began to shudder, but every ‘Jamie’ went unanswered.

  She had stood long enough to decide, in a kind of stricken desperation, to remain in that same spot until dawn’s light should reveal to her what had happened; but in the midst of this idea a hand touched her arm, suddenly enough to nearly jolt her from consciousness. She fell forward, and was caught at once; her husband held her upright and said, quietly, that they had better return home.

  ‘Where did you go? What happened?’ she gabbled.

  ‘Nothing,’ he returned, in a low, troubled tone. ‘Let’s get back.’

  With his arm around her shoulder he propelled her quickly down the path— she was too shaken to resist, but not to protest: ‘Why didn’t you answer me? Where did you go? Jamie— Jamie, did you see her?’

  ‘I told you, I saw nothing,’ he retorted. ‘This was a waste of our time.’

  He was so stern and final, and she felt so weak and unsettled, that she did not object further, and submitted to his rule; and soon they were back in familiar lanes, beneath unsuspicious street-lights, and in their own rooms again. However, the next morning, Jamie’s words were proved wrong— their nocturnal journey had not been an entire waste of their time after all.

  While he stood before the bathroom mirror shaving, he began to whistle some melody or other, and halted in surprise when his wife’s startled face appeared abruptly in the reflection.

  ‘What’s that? What are you whistling?’ she demanded.

  He gaped at her in astonishment. ‘I don’t know,’ he stumbled. ‘It’s just—’

  ‘Whistle it again!’

  Disconcerted, he breathlessly sounded a few notes. She required more, and he, curious, engaged himself to recite the tune. He paused, however, when she began to cry.

  Eager to console her, he reached around, and soon found that her tears were mixed with equal parts of wondering smiles.

  ‘That’s it,’ she cried, ‘that’s it!’ —and, amazed, he stared at her, before beginning to whistle slowly again, listening attentively to his own performance. Recognition broke, and soon laughter made it impossible to continue— they had remembered the tune— the long-forgotten song that had brought them together.

  He rushed at once to scribble down the notation, while she rehearsed it over in a hum to try to recall the words; these were imperfect and childish, but between the two of them they patched the entire song together. He set to work in a fever to polish and perfect it, prune, play and revise it until he was satisfied. She listened, and was astonished: it was better than she remembered, improved by his musical experience and increased expertise.

  Without delay he made a recording, and within days it was posted to the usual agents; within weeks these were requesting interviews, within months contracts were signed, and within a year the song was playing everywhere, a tremendous success, and everyone was singing it in spite of themselves.

  The success really was as abrupt and overwhelming as I’ve described it; had a tremendous wave, from some formidable oceanic current, ungulphed and swept them away, they could not have felt the difference in their lives more extremely than they did on the discovery of that song. I suppose you know the one I mean— that strange little ballad, which so unaccountably sprang up from its folk roots to flourish in popular opinion. It was not to everybody’s taste, for certain, as nothing popular ever is; but it was one of those tunes that arrive from nowhere and never go away: like it or loathe it, for sure you know the words to the refrain.

  The verses, however, are usually only recalled in bits and pieces, and I’ve sometimes overheard a group of idle friends attempt to put the whole thing together, with impartial correctness— it seems to be a ditty both prone to sticking in the mind, and slipping out of the memory. Overall, though, the tale of it runs as follows: in the opening, a beautiful lady loves a brave captain, but he must set sail the next day; nevertheless, he vows to remain ashore, and says: ‘I’ll always be where / You reach for me, my love’ —which, of course, is the line that everybody knows to sing along to. You may be sure that Jamie and Niamh were delighted as well as surprised to find that this lyric was so similar to their wedding vow; and they concluded that it must have been lurking, hidden, in Jamie’s thoughts when he wrote the conjugal oath.

  In the second verse of the song, the beautiful lady goes to meet her captain on a cliff top, with the news that she’s expecting his child; but once there she sees his ship sailing away in spite of her, and she rebukes him with his own perjured words: ‘I’ll always be where / You reach for me, my love.’

  The third and fourth verses are played as a sort of unit, so the words are most often misremembered here; in verse three the child is born dead, and she sends its spirit out, like a fury, into the sea, to bring its father back, because: ‘You’ll always be where / I reach for you, my love.’ Then in the fourth verse a terrible storm sinks the ship to the bottom, but the lady wills her erstwhile lover to survive and return to her, this time because: ‘I’ll always be where / You reach for me, my love.’

  The last verse is slow and sad— an opportunity for drunken carollers to throw their arms about each others’ necks and wail like cats: the lady waits, and waits and waits on the cliff top, till her gravestone’s laid upon her, and she’s forgotten forever, except for her sad cry on the wind: ‘I’ll always be where / You reach for me, my love.’

  Jamie was often asked the origin of the narrative— whether it was some family story or local folktale, but he was always evasive with his replies; seeing as he and his wife seemed to have recalled, rather than invented the tale, neither could exactly explain where it came from.

  Well, in any case, you may well believe that Jamie was as elated as possible with his breakthrough, and finally began to feel appreciated and understood. What a fulfilment for a struggling artist! What a reward for those years of battle and r
ejection! Some people know their own genius when others are blind to it; but when the blind see at last, no genius can resist the thrill of being told as news what they already knew.

  Almost immediately he was summoned abroad to promote his work and meet those influential people who were able to build a career for him; and accordingly he packed his bags to go; but Niamh determined to remain at home. She knew that she had no part to play in the negotiations and creative discussions to come, and instead bid him a cheerful goodbye. The prospect of this, their first separation, was galling to them both, but in the midst of the excitement, and because his dream of musical fame predated even his love for Niamh, it was accepted with more equanimity than it might have been. For her part, she was content to do without him for a while, because she had an inkling, in her most secret heart, that what she longed for was about to come to fruition also. She dwelled daily on her dream of the ancient crone, and more and more she apprehended that, having done what the vision had demanded, they would both be rewarded: Jamie with his triumph, and she— well, she would have her son back.

  This expectation grew to be so central, so fundamental to her, that in the solitude of Jamie’s absence, it became less of a wild hope, and more of a definite, inevitable truth. She not only believed in her son’s restoration, but was actually shocked and outraged that it had not happened at once. And the