Ghost Money
a novel by Paul S. Davey
Chapter 1
T
Pain, both sharp and dull, swirls in through his nerves in its futile quest for relief. Instinctively, he tries to raise a voice from his throat but produces no more than a choking grunt, swamped by a mouthful of water that flows into the opening. He bites down at once, desperate not to let in any more. That single mouthful of water suddenly becomes an ocean. Water is everywhere; in his nose, ears, eyes; flowing over his face. His brain has sensed this new danger and he revolts, trying to pull himself up, but his muscles take him nowhere; his whole body is pinned down, in water, wet, immobile, soaked to the bone, inside and out. The dull pounding on the crown of his head is water, crashing down upon him.
It is still there on his tongue, fresh and sweet, soothing the inside of a bitter mouth, while the rest of him burns. He tries to swallow, hoping to quench the fire. But his neck is stretched, and the swallow pushes the water into his windpipe. He coughs it back up, writhing with the pain that the exertion causes, holding tenuously to consciousness.
Blood; he tastes the warmth of his own life as it wells up to meet his palette.
His stinging eyes come into focus as the water momentarily leaves his face: he has managed to raise his head forward or the water has stopped; his mind won't tell him; it is confusion. A chance to see what has befallen him. He forgets the filmy, hot fluid bubbling up in his mouth and strains his eyes; they narrow, but all he sees is a new crescent moon, sitting back proudly in a starry sky.
His ears distinguish something above the roar of water; voices. Then voices in his head.
'Go with it, Mister Blye, follow it wherever it takes you.'
His consciousness jolts forward, as if kicked awake. It pieces together an image of a serene old man, smiling face, flowing robes-his master.
'What you perceive is not what-is; clear your mind to break the illusion.'
The young man is here again. He follows the pain with the alertness that he has practiced many times, not concentrating, no longer trying to escape from it. Thought does not separate him from it; he does not hope for its cessation. He knows that he is doing the right thing, becoming the pain, but he does not congratulate himself. There is no more illusion. His mind begins to function normally, aware of itself, aware of himself. He is there in the moment.
He rests his head back in the flow; the pounding returns; he becomes the pounding. He disappears.
Chapter 2
The faint, silver glow of a new moon and the iridescent starlight of a million sparkling points soak through the translucent lace curtain, bathing the sleeper on the bed. Deep in the secure womb of sleep, she is at peace; the rhythm of distant chanted mantras wafts in with the gleam of the night sky, helping to hold her with her dreams. The wind outside blows through the bamboo stands, bringing more music to her window. Without waking, her right arm moves across her body allowing the fingers to take hold of a small charm attached to a red thread around her neck. Her slender fingers caress a cameo of a man's smiling face. Her mandalla.
The man of the house sees no more, his eyes have taken their last look at the world-he wheeled himself to the bay windows one afternoon and squinted out at the swaying bamboo. Now, all he perceives are shades, as the sun passes its fingers across the drawn curtains of his dim room that is to be his first tomb.
Unseen, the woman is quick to sense her freedom. She runs and jumps, up and down the stairs. She dances through steps of her prime, a dance of freedom, a dance of joy. She rummages through the dark forgotten drawers of her youth and finds the necklace, the smile, the mandala.
Hours later, long after the moon and stars have taken back their silver threads and sunk into the twilight, the woman on the bed uncurls herself. She pushes back the light cotton sheet, rolls over onto her back, and stretches out her long limbs. Languidly. Her skin is cooled in the down-draught of the ceiling fan, lighted by shafting sunlight. The muffled sound of a bell coming through the wall doesn't seem to disturb her. The bell stops and the woman opens her eyes. She glances at the glowing red numbers of the clock to her left, an eight, a three, and a zero, but makes no reaction to them. She has woken neither early nor late. The bell starts again; still she doesn't respond, just stares up into the humming blades of the ceiling fan, as if she is far away, not wanting to return. Sleep has taken away many of her years and she looks serene and youthful; a soft white pillow cups her head; a mass of silky black hair surrounds the smooth skin of her face. The bed looks made: the crisp sheets and fluffy pillow belie the fact that someone has lain on them for many hours.
The bell stops, gives one more single chime, and then ceases again, at which the woman rolls over, arches her neck slightly, extracts the pillow and puts it over her head. If she has been annoyed, she hasn't shown it.
The man of the house hears no more. His ears have drained their last sound from the world. Weakening for a month, they failed completely a week ago during a storm. He heard it begin, heard the bamboo start to sing then wail and cry as the whole hill rose in fierce sympathy with the wind and rain. But the crescendo lost its power, before it had reached its climax and it died in a faint muffle. Now he hears not the curses of the woman as she runs in and out, her tongue flicking out venom like a viper.
By the time the woman stirs again the red eight on the clock has become a nine and the shafting sunlight fills every corner of the room. Rising from the bed, she shuffles over to the widow, where she pulls aside the translucent lace curtain. The morning haze restricts her view, but she can still make out parts of the city below. Her imagination fills in the details.
Before letting the curtain drop back, she tries to peer around the hill to the right, where the only other inhabitants of this wilderness live, but she sees nothing out of the ordinary, just a plume of blue smoke rising above the bamboo forest. Unusually, the wind is weak this morning, allowing the smoke an undisturbed ascent, and preventing the bamboo from singing to her.
'What are they up to today?' She directs her question towards the rising column of smoke, and briefly recalls the rhythms of the night, unsure where reality has displaced dream. A kite screeches from high above, but she doesn't seem to notice.
She turns suddenly at a noise from the next room; her name? Has she just heard her own name. It sounded like a 'Mei' to her, but that is impossible. She is aroused at once; the peace of the night slips away as the beating fan pushes into her consciousness. Her face is no more the surface of a dream-world; it contorts as the rigours of the day ahead push in.
The man of the house has lost his voice. It whispered its last words many days ago-a 'thank you' to the nurse who had given him his last pill before she vanished forever from his life.
Coming out of her room, Mei sees a black handbag sitting upright on a small box-like piece of furniture; it is shiny and cheap-looking, out of place among its polished and expensive surroundings. 'Yi Ching's,' she says, cursing at the stupidity of that woman who has spent so long with them. 'How could she have left it behind?' She will see to it later; she doesn't want Yi Ching coming back to the house any time soon.
The room next to hers is unlit: a gloomy darkness confronts Mei at the door and it takes a few moments for her pupils to dilate. Her nose, however, is quicker than her eyes to perceive the different surroundings-she winces at the mustiness. She walks towards the bed, but her motion is arrested when her slippered foot kicks a hard object; it clangs as it skids over the polished floorboards, coming to rest against the skirting board. The hand-bell that has permeated her dreams this morning. Regaining her composure she speaks to the figure lying on the bed:
'Darling, you've dropped your bell.'
No reply comes from the bed.
'But don't worry yourself about it; you won't be needing that any more. Yi Ching has gone away now. She went off yesterday, darling. We won't be needing the bell again.'
Mei follows the bell to the wall where she bends to pick it up.
'Let's see if the monks need another bell to play with.'
She walks the few paces separating her from a large window, the heavy drapes of which she pulls asunder with an ungainly movement from the shoulders. Daylight pours in as she lifts up a handle and swings open one of the frames.
'Here, take it,' she screeches, hurling the object vainly towards the plume of smoke, their distant neighbours. The two kites circling above the villa must have spied the movement below-one of them gives a fierce cry.
Mei tries to close the window but it sticks on something; she heaves, but it won't move. She gives up and covers the open window with the drapes, then turns back into the regained darkness.
'That's better isn't it, darling,' she said, calm once more, as if nothing has happened. 'No more ding-dong in the morning.'
She approaches the bed and lays her hand on the occupant's forehead.
'Not feeling so good I see. You really must take your medicine on time; you know how particular the doctor is about that. You can stay at home but you must take your medicine on time.'
She pulls back her hand and touches the mandala hanging over her chest; she seems to be lost in thought for a moment but soon gives her attention back to the figure on the bed.
'Stay home!' she scoffs, 'Home? This is your home, not mine. It isn't my home, it's my prison; you keep me trapped here like a prisoner. "Mei, you don't need to go down into the city; Mei, don't get a job; don't learn to drive, Mei; don't keep in touch with those terrible friends of yours, Mei; don't, don't, DON'T."'
The figure doesn't move, makes no sign that it is aware in any way of the outburst.
Mei flashes her unbrushed teeth as she grins down at the bed; her eyes start to flicker as she scans the scene of decay before her, as if looking for something which she doesn't want to find. She wheezes and coughs, then stands back, her eyes still beyond her control.
'Do you feel better this morning, darling. Do you feel better,' she says from her new position, tempting the figure to respond.
The woman stiffens suddenly and looks around towards the door, as if she has heard something enter, then jerks back again to face the bed.
'Free,' she murmurs with a quivering voice, 'I'm going to be free. Freeee,' she raises her pitch, sustaining the word as she starts to sing:
'If you need anything, darling, just ring your bell,' she says without turning back, as she passes out of the gloomy room.
In some way, the body without senses is brought out of its stupor by the slamming door, which seals it once more in a tomb of darkness. Something gurgles in its throat, an eyelid flickers-unseen by anyone.
Mei begins to roam the spacious house, running and jumping, her loose, white night-clothes fluttering in the breeze created by her motion. Black, tangled hair. She searches: peering into rooms through hastily opened doors, pulling at drawers and cupboards, gazing along hallways, up and down stairwells. She slides on the well-polished parquet floor at each sudden change in direction.
At last, like a tired gull coming in from a windy ocean, she alights on a step at the foot of the staircase opposite the occupied room. Perched. Her eyes fall on the closed door and she stares, as if penetrating through it and into the dark room beyond. Slowly, she dispels all movement, replacing the frenzy of the preceding flight with a statue-like stillness. Now, after some minutes, not even her beating heart can ruffle the surface. She is perfectly still. Watching. Suddenly she moves; first her head nods forwards like a slow-motion peck, back, forwards again; then her shoulders join in, barely perceptible at first, but soon her whole body is rocking, back and forwards, moving off the bony fulcrum of the base of her spine. She pulls her bent knees into her chest and folds her wings around them tightly. Back and forwards. Beady eyes stuck to the shut door.
The warble of a finch's mating song fills the lighted hallway where the woman rocks on the wooden step at the foot of a grand staircase. Three full verses of courtship. Abruptly she flings her black tresses away from her face and stands up. The finch has flown. She turns and screeches up the stairs in three or four long jumps. She races to the end of a long hallway and skids into a door at the end. She forces the handle with swift jerks but it is locked; and even the fierce look she attacks it with cannot scare it open. Releasing the handle as if it has suddenly become hot, she backs up to a glass-panelled cabinet. One of the windows slides open at the push of her eager hand, which then dives in and fishes out an iron key. But the window sticks when she tries to close it with the same hand, which now clutches the retrieved piece of iron. She pushes, unwilling to leave it open; it must be closed. Once. It doesn't move. Twice. It creaks, but still doesn't give. Anger overcomes her and there is no third push; she simply pulls back her fisted hand and drives it into the glass door. Broken shards and blood, but no sound from the injured woman. She turns and brings the key to the locked door, red drops of blood splattering on the polished tiles.
The thrust key, the twisted handle, and the door opens, swinging back on un-oiled hinges. She shuffles in quickly and closes it behind her, leaning back against it with her back-turned palms stopping her from slipping to the ground-more blood drips down the paint-work. It is as if she has just eluded a pursuer by scurrying into a secret chamber and is now praying for the danger to pass by outside without noticing her retreat.
Her eyes begin to flicker again, bouncing around the room, from cobweb to cobweb, without resting on anything, without disturbing the dust. At last they settle on the one small window in the room, attracted by the cries that seep through it. Beneath the window stands a chest, old and dusty. Mei walks over to it and drops to her knees; her arms go up to its sides, embracing; her head drops, prayerlike. At once, her back straightens and her hands grab the bottom drawer; she jerks it open with too much strength and it falls out of its runners and onto the gritty floor. A frantic rummage uncovers an old folder, which she extracts and places on her knees. The kite cries again as her smoothing hand smears a grape-red line on its faded surface. She opens the folder and pulls out a glossy photograph with her right hand, holding it up before her in the shaft of light coming from the solitary window. Her left hand caresses the mandala hanging from her neck. 'Abbot Fang,' she mouths, as a trickle of blood runs down the side of his smiling face.
Mei leaves the door unlocked and bounds back along the hallway, down the staircase, and into the darkened room. The mustiness has increased and she smarts on the sharp edge of sickness. Holding the photograph to her bosom, she paces over to the bed. The mandala swings forward as she bends over the figure. Her sticky right hand moves to the forehead but swiftly shoots back-she has felt coldness. She bolts upright, sending the mandala thumping back into her chest; she swallows and looks over her shoulder to the door. Blocked windpipe, coughing. Her chest explodes and the bloodied photograph of the smiling Abbot Fang falls onto the stiff corpse of her husband.
Mei turns and flees the room, leaving the door ajar. Her swift bare feet take her along the corridor to a dining area, next to the kitchen. She slides to a halt at a long wooden table, onto which she leans, angling her body, the ends of her long hair tickling the eating surface, her mandala playing with a cup. Raising her head, she sees a calendar, hanging on the wall from a pin. She seems to struggle with the numbers but soon realises that today's date is circled in red. Her elbows bend and her arms fold, releasing the weight of her slight body. She goes down, scraping her chest against the side of the table. The mandala loops around the cup and pulls it after her; it shatters into a thousand pieces as her sobs quickly give way to cries of anguish and terror.
Outside, the sun has hardly begun its day's work, but already it has caused enough convection to generate power for half the city below. Some of that energy suddenly discharges to earth in a cracking thunderbolt. Seconds later it starts to rain.
© Paul S. Davey, 2002
Chapter 3
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'Bright lights of the city, I'm coming to see you.
No more house on the hill.
No more ....'
She stops and turns her head to face the door again-this time her body follows her gaze and she rotates. With three long strides she is at the exit.
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Miles Off (home)
Paul S. Davey is a freelance travel and fiction writer. He started life in the UK but now turns up in the strangest of places around the world -- usually with his notebook handy
short stories:
Kanch': A Bridge on the River Home
The Collector
Loek. A Tale from a Lagoon
O'Keefe's Dog Day
The Enema
travel:
Tryin' to Get to Mexico
Freedom in Cambodia
Saigon Gary
Pedalling Taipei
Tofu Culture
Urban Betel Adventure: Sex, Drugs, and Spitting
Hawking Carrot-Cake and a new President
Cambodia, Freehand