The Monument: a ghost story

  by Benjamin Parsons

  Copyright 2011 Benjamin Parsons

  * * *

  There is a mountain that stands beside the sea, and at the top of it is a monument, raised to commemorate someone who nobody now remembers. Coarse gales blowing in off the water, and the coarse hands of the young and no-longer young, have between them entirely effaced the letters of the inscription, leaving the stone column mute, and the person it was intended to immortalise, forgotten.

  But I believe I know who that mountain-top obelisk was intended to recall, and why it was set up to gaze forever out at the winds and tide; however, I’ve no intention of recounting some tale of long ago. Suffice to say that, sometimes, a modern history will carry such a flavour of the past, that to tell the new is to tell the old at the same time; so I will begin by saying that there is a small harbour at the base of this mountain, and in the town there lived a very lonely young man— lonely on account of the fact that he felt misunderstood. That is, he felt that his work was misunderstood— for you should know he was a poet and composer, and was always writing new songs.

  When his confidence was high, he would play his latest composition to some relative, or companion he had cultivated for the purpose, and they would sit patiently and listen, and afterwards applaud, and say that it was very good. But this would not do enough for the artist; he would ask them for more, for their reactions, their interpretations of what they had heard. Then the hapless audience would stumble and stutter, until at last they would remark that it reminded them of— or was very like— or had a flavour of— some other tune they knew, which they would eventually be brought to confess they never really liked in the first place.

  At this, the composer would toss aside his instrument and papers with a smile, say ‘nevermind’, and start up some blithe new topic. The relations or friends would gladly catch at the change, and dissipate their embarrassment in indifferent chat; but afterwards, the disappointed young man would withdraw, hide himself from all company, and despair at his failure. Nothing would console him, and his heart would break and bleed.

  During such times as these, he would walk up the wooded mountainside to be alone, and stand at the summit, glowering over the sea, bitterly protesting to the wind about both the paucity of others’ appreciation, and his own lack of ability; and of these two, he would always finally force himself to acknowledge the sad truth, that his meagre talent was much more painful to bear, than anybody else’s recognition of it.

  On one such dark afternoon he was stood, with his back against the monument, outwardly staring outwards, but actually staring inward, while a light rain blew into his face —when a slight noise at his side distracted him, and he realised that another person was leaning, in a similar manner, against the old stone. He glanced to that side, and immediately made to walk away. The person was a young woman, very beautiful, with long black hair swirling from her face in the wind; but he did not move on account of her looks— he was handsome enough himself to have no cause to be intimated by them— rather, his intention had been solitude, and the surprise of company disconcerted and annoyed him a little.

  He stopped at once, however, and turned again, when she said: ‘Jamie,’ and touched his arm gently. He stared at her— she was a complete stranger— but she followed with: ‘You are Jamie David?’

  He was naturally intrigued, and studied her more closely— but gathered no clue to recognition, and so remained silent.

  She smiled awkwardly, no doubt embarrassed by her own boldness, and began to explain herself. ‘I’ve often seen you— we have mutual friends I think— but we’ve never really met.’

  He required more information than this, of course, but since her sudden appearance and purported knowledge of him was so disarming, he felt more inclined to retain something of his personal mystery at the expense of interrogation, and only returned: ‘Well, we’ve met now.’

  Perhaps his tone was a touch too forbidding, however, because she gave a bashful laugh, apologised, and made to withdraw. So now it was for him to hold her, as his curiosity was pricked, and he demanded to know her name, since she already had his. But her courage had failed, and she merely excused herself again, and stepped from the block of the monument to gain the shelter of the wooded path nearby.

  He protested: ‘Since you’ve taken the trouble to follow me up here, won’t you even say your name, and tell me why?’

  ‘You’ll think I’m mad,’ she returned. ‘I probably am— I shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘I do think you’re mad —but I still want to know your name.’

  With that she hesitated, seemed to renew her resolve, approached him again, and told it: ‘Niamh.’ Then she paused once more. ‘This is the mad part,’ she conceded, ‘at least, it’s been driving me mad. I believe we have met— a long, long time ago, when we were children.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘I forgot myself— it’s taken me ages to realise it was you— but now I’m sure it was.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘Well— well, you sang me a song, and I loved it— I used to sing it to myself all the time, for years.’

  This flattered him into a less haughty manner. ‘Which song was it?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s what’s maddening— I can’t remember! You made it up, then and there, and it was wonderful— but it went out of my head one day, and I’ve been hunting for it ever since —but I can’t catch a single note. Then I thought of finding you— I hoped you’d be able to help me.’

  Now, this proposal was of course extremely interesting to his vanity, especially as it was being made by such an attractive suppliant; and for her part, it was doubtless much easier for her to appeal to an attractive man like Jamie David (who already happened to suit her taste) than to a less lovely troubadour; and therefore they were both inclined to find the conundrum of this missing song mutually stimulating.

  The next suggestion was to pursue the conversation in a more congenial place, to which end they descended the hill, and continued to discuss, on more and more comfortable terms, elsewhere. He began to recall the childhood encounter, and the fact that he had invented a tune at the time; but though he tried humming and reciting various of his older compositions, none of them were the right one, and his new companion shook her head again and again in optimistic frustration.

  It was not marvellous that they should eventually stray from this single subject, however, and attempt to cultivate a friendship; and who will it surprise to learn that from this episode another soon followed, and as many as were necessary to make them lovers.

  Their relationship was very intense from the beginning; neither owned many friends, and so they quickly became all-in-all to each other. She was an inspiration to him, and encouraged his song writing as far as possible without becoming insincere; and though he never attained any degree of originality, his failures were so softened by her continued faith and re-affirmations of affection, that he was able to bear the depression rather better than formerly.

  For her part, she had always been something of a misfit, and so it suited her to have found a man who was not cut in the common pattern— that is, he had no money or prospects (on account of his musical perseverance) —and this was refreshingly different from the run of smart, rich, vacuous fellows her family had so often set up for her. But it does me no good to try to explain why or how they liked each other, since there is no penetrating such thickets of emotion; everyone will judge from their own affections, so I will say no more than that they loved each other closely and firmly. It needs must be added, however, that the founding fault on which their partnership grew— namely, the song she so wanted to remember— was never resolved. Try as he might, that childhood memory and its lyrics always eluded him as completely as it did her.

  Well, after some two or three years together, she discovered that they were accidentally going to become a family, and this inspired them to marry. They each wished to become inseparably bonded, since neither had found such understanding and sympathy in another before, and as if to make themselves still more extremely united, and free of all other affections, they settled on marriage in spite of their parents’ wishes, and were glad to be disowned by their respective relations— perhaps rather more glad than the relations were to disown them.

  The couple arranged a ceremony (intimate on account of this, and their few and scattered friends), and composed vows for themselves. However, since the bride-to-be found that she had no talent for such a thing, she deferred the responsibility to Jamie, who wrote out some words that they agreed on. And so it was that on their

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