Page 60 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
“Hello.” My voice is barely above a whisper, so broken and quiet.
He smiles, a small tug on the corner of his lips. “Hello.”
“If you want me to go, I can,” I say because I guess it’s better for both of us if I offer to leave?
He shakes his head, licks his top lip. “Stay.”
I nod, swallow, clear my throat, walk into the kitchen. I shiver but not because of the bitter chill seeping in through the open patio doors. I think I’m nervous. I haven’t felt this uncertain about anything in years but I don’t know why. Everytime I’m with him, be it then or right now, I’m never feeling anything straight forward. It’s always opposite ends of the spectrum, twisted up, fucking sunshine in the middle of thunderstorms.
Arthur leans against the island, hands hanging limply at his sides. He opens his mouth to speak but I don’t hear whatever it is that he says. I’m still in quite some disbelief at how well he looks. Jumper, jeans, trainers—so common, so not his title, so not his name, so not what everyone says about him but so him. The him I knew as a child and have longed for ever since.
“What are you doing here?” He asks, sniffs, glancing away from me. Nervous, too.
I shrug. “I actually don’t know.”
He lifts his eyes, stares at me through his lashes. “Did you know I was going to be here?”
“No.”
“If you did, would you still have come?”
“Yes.”
“And Digby?”
“He doesn’t know I’m here.”
The presence of my boyfriend hangs in the air between me and the only boy I have ever loved.
Arthur’s only been back three months and already I feel the same as I did when I was a teenager—that’s the only feeling I’m sure of when I'm around him. This nostalgic, magic, childhood, dreamy kind of love that not many people experience at all in their lifetimes. It feels a little like standing hand-in-hand in a bubble while the entire world is on fire.
He’s always been a safety blanket for me, though. This safe haven of a person I could always go to even when he was searching for that security elsewhere.
“Okay.” Arthur moves around the island. “Well, I’m gonna put these out.” He nods to the vase.
I follow him, hoist myself up onto the counter and swing my feet. “Do you remember that time we were all up here and Theo lit the firework indoors before throwing it out and we all had to run for our lives?”
He laughs and I replay it in my head because it’s my favourite song. “Yeah, I remember that—Ev was so scared she pissed herself. Mum went mad.”
“Oh!” I slap his shoulder. “Did she ever find out about the statue we—you—broke at your party? Do you remember? It was your eighteenth?”
“The fancy dress one? Yeah—yeah, she found out. Called me downstairs and asked me why the cherub was missing a penis.” He shakes his head, trying so hard to contain himself.
“That’s so funny,” I smile, jumping down when he heads into the garden.
We walk against the wind, out to the back of the garden, behind the maze and through a little gate where the moss covered conservatory sits. A big glass dome that I’ve only ever been inside of twice. Arthur walks in, his hand strangling the flowers he’s holding. Theo obviously isn’t buried here or anything, it’s just a memorial of sorts. A lot of dead flowers scatter the floor, old canvases covered by drapes leaning againstthe walls. In the middle is an old chest with a gramophone on the top, stacks of vinyls building up next to it.
Arthur lays his flowers against the chest on the floor, stays crouched down there for a minute or so. I step back. My chest feels hollow. It’s so strange. Death is so weird. You can almost smell it sometimes. This stale stench that just never seems to rid no matter how hard you scrub. He’s all over this room, Theo.
I think death hurts the most when it’s unfair. The way he was snatched was so cruel. It was avoidable and that’s what still haunts Arthur. The what if’s aren’t unrealistic. There’s a reality, somewhere out there, where he is alive. I just know it. Someone like him wasn’t meant to die so early on.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Arthur when he stands back up.
“What for?” He frowns, brushes the tip of his nose.
“For Theo dying.”
He takes a deep breath, his shoulders bunching all the way up and then nods, pulls me under his arm and presses his lips into my head.
