The Ghost

outstretched. Her head came to rest against my chest and I thought for a moment she might have fainted, but then I realized she was clinging to me, holding on so fiercely I could feel her bitten fingertips through the thick material of the robe. My hands hovered an inch or two above her, moving back and forth uncertainly, as if she was giving off some kind of magnetic field. Finally, I stroked her hair and tried to murmur words of reassurance I didn’t really believe.
    “I’m afraid,” she said in a muffled voice. “I’ve never been frightened in my life before. But I am now.”
    “Your hair’s wet,” I said gently. “You’re drenched. Let me get you a towel.”
    I extricated myself and went into the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror. I felt like a skier at the top of an unfamiliar black run. When I returned to the bedroom, she’d taken off her robe and had got into bed, pulling up the sheet to cover her breasts.
    “Do you mind?” she said.
    “Of course not,” I said.
    I turned off the light and climbed in beside her, and lay on the cold side of the bed. She rolled over and put her hand on my chest and pressed her lips very hard against mine, as if she were trying to give me the kiss of life.

TWELVE
    The book is not a platform for the ghost to air their own views on anything at all.
    Ghostwriting
    WHEN I WOKE THE next morning, I expected to find her gone. That’s the usual protocol in these situations, isn’t it? The business of the night transacted, the visiting party retreats to his or her own quarters, as keen as a vampire to avoid the unforgiving rays of dawn. Not so Ruth Lang. In the dimness I could see her bare shoulder and her crop of black hair, and I could tell by her irregular, almost inaudible breathing, that she was as awake as I was and lying there listening to me.
    I reclined on my back, my hands folded across my stomach, as motionless as the stone effigy of a crusader knight on his tomb, shutting my eyes periodically as some fresh aspect of the mess occurred to me. On the Richter scale of bad ideas, this surely had registered a ten. It was a meteor strike of folly. After a while, I let one hand travel crabwise to the bedside table and feel for my watch. I brought it up close to my face. It was seven-fifteen.
    Cautiously, still pretending I didn’t know that she was pretending, I slipped out of the bed and crept toward the bathroom.
    “You’re awake,” she said, without moving.
    “I’m sorry if I disturbed you,” I said. “I thought I’d take a shower.”
    I locked the door behind me, turned the water up as hot and strong as I could bear, and let it pummel me—back, stomach, legs, scalp. The little room quickly filled with steam. Afterward, when I shaved, I had to keep rubbing at my reflection in the mirror to stop myself from disappearing.
    By the time I returned to the bedroom, she had put on her robe and was sitting at the desk, leafing through the manuscript. The curtains were still closed.
    “You’ve taken out his family history,” she said. “He won’t like that. He’s very proud of the Langs. And why have you underlined my name every time?”
    “I wanted to check how often you were mentioned. I was surprised there wasn’t more about you.”
    “That will be a hangover from the focus groups.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “When we were in Downing Street, Mike used to say that every time I opened my mouth I cost Adam ten thousand votes.”
    “I’m sure that’s not true.”
    “Of course it is. People are always looking for someone to resent. I often think my main usefulness, as far as he was concerned, was to serve as a lightning rod. They could take their anger out on me instead of him.”
    “Even so,” I said, “you ought not to be written out of history.”
    “Why not? Most women usually are. Even the Amelia Blys of this world are written out eventually.”
    “Well, then, I shall reinstate you.” I slid open the door of the closet so hard in my haste it banged. I had to get out of that house. I had to put some distance between myself and their destructive ménage à trois before I ended up as crazed as they were. “I’d like to sit down with you, when you have the time, and do a really long interview. Put in all the important occasions that he’s forgotten.”
    “How very kind of you,” she said bitterly. “Like the boss’s secretary whose job is to remember his wife’s birthdays for him?”
    “Something like that. But then, as you say,