Under a Watchful Eye(32)

That was part of Ewan’s strategy. Insults followed by cries for help, grandiose literary delusions swiftly augmented by a childlike vulnerability, drunken rages interspersed with an obliviousness to any injury inflicted upon the reluctant host. Ewan had never changed. The actual sight and scent of him was maddening.

His instability was also infectious. Seb knew this. It shook him up and then shook him apart. Ewan was loosening rivets in the scaffolding that kept him balanced. His own slide to despair was already in place. His entire existence was a construct of routines and activity born of self-discipline, of tight controls over his environment, counter-checks imposed upon apathy and listlessness, his potential for lazy thinking, persecution fantasies, paranoia, anxiety attacks and recourse to the drinks cabinet.

He hadn’t written a word in three weeks or addressed his correspondence. Had not shopped properly, slept much or eaten adequately. He’d lost the ability to relax since his first sighting of Ewan on Broadsands. The script of his life was being rewritten while he impotently monitored the edits.

‘Don’t even think about getting comfortable.’

Face drawn, the cast of his mouth doleful, the eyes pained, Ewan didn’t bother to defend his position. He was inside now. Try and move me was communicated by the collapsed posture upon the bed.

Seb entered the room and fought with the blinds, then angrily threw two windows open. Pitch black outside. Another night with him here.

Ewan’s sorrowful eyes watched Seb patiently, affecting innocence as if Seb were being unfair at an inappropriate time.

‘What happened? This afternoon, what was that? A fit? Are you epileptic?’

Ewan swallowed. His voice croaky, he whispered, ‘It takes a lot out of me.’

Ewan’s creepy appearances were not effortless miracles. They exacted a high price. Perhaps the processes were even life-threatening. Seb hoped so. ‘And you’re taking drugs in my house to facilitate your stalking.’

Ewan didn’t blink, but his silent admission of how difficult this awful trick was to enact encouraged Seb. For the first time since his arrival in the area, not everything was going Ewan’s way, and Seb saw his first advantage.

Until he regained his strength, or a modicum of it, Ewan would probably play the invalid card, in the same way that he’d played the poverty hand in London. Digressions until he’d regrouped and consolidated his baffling, controlling presence.

‘I want answers. You want to lie around in bed, then you’d better start talking, or you are bloody history, tonight. I don’t know who to call first, a doctor, a psychiatrist, the police, but you are out of here and this all stops, unless you start making sense.’

The threats made no impact. Ewan continued to study Seb’s face as if trying to understand why Seb would feel this way. He’d expected terror while craving awe and admiration.

The period of silence extended. Seb came close to shouting to break it. ‘Well?’

‘Do you have anything to drink?’

‘No!’ Seb slapped his hands against his thighs. ‘How can you even consider alcohol? I thought you’d died.’

‘Have you read my book yet?’

‘No, I haven’t even looked at it. Let’s just say I’ve had other things on my mind.’

Ewan attempted to shake his head, dismissively, upon the pillow that was looking unhealthily dark since his head had been upon it. He winced and kept still. ‘We can exist in another place.’

Silence resumed its frustrating command of the room.

‘And?’

‘If you’ve never sunk in the dark room and risen in white light, you won’t understand. Nor believe that it’s possible.’

‘Let’s just say my scepticism is on pause right now. So what is this? Some kind of . . . I don’t know, ritual magic, or hypnosis—’

Ewan didn’t like speculation, or any attempt at a definition that wasn’t his own. ‘This has got nothing to do with magic.’ He said magic as if the very word disgusted him. ‘What’s magic? Magic doesn’t exist. And I don’t have any time for any of your intellectualism either. Not for this. You don’t know this. It has nothing to do with religious dogma either. It’s different.’

‘So no magic, nothing spiritual –’

‘I didn’t say it wasn’t spiritual. It has nothing to do with organized religion, but it is spiritual. That’s exactly what it is. But the religious can’t handle it, not any more. They’re incapable of accepting the truth.’

‘This is a psychic thing?’

‘Hardly. That barely begins to explain it. That’s like one itty-bitty piece of an incredible fresco on a ceiling above us all, but one that no one can see, in the most beautiful cathedral. A tiny piece that has fallen to the floor of this . . .’ He looked about himself at the tastefully styled room, but in revulsion. ‘Do you remember any of the poetry you read, at uni? You did the same courses as me. He hath awakened from the dream of life! You know that?’

‘Shelley.’

‘No sudden heaven nor sudden hell for man.’

Seb shook his head.

‘Oh, dear, the writer . . .’ Ewan rolled his eyes and intended to continue in that vein, but noticed Seb stiffen. ‘Dearie, dearie me,’ Ewan muttered instead, and then said, ‘Tennyson. And the poets had more idea than anyone else, especially Blake. This has to be felt, deeply. There has to be faith.