I show him how I open the bag, how to sip from it like it’s an energy pouch, and then I clean the downstairs rooms of the house as much as I can while he feeds, sweeping and dusting and scrubbing until the surfaces shine, and the sting of tears in my eyes has faded to a dull scratch.
Then I sit down on the considerably less dusty sofa and talk to Albert. He tells me about his childhood, about Margot, the love of his life, and about how he thinks he may have been infected with the vampire cells.
‘It was a mugging,’ he says, ‘or at least that’s what we thought at the time. I was supposed to meet some friends in York one evening and a man accosted me in a side street. Afterwards, I couldn’t remember what had happened. Though it always seemed strange to me that none of my valuables were missing.’ His voice is clearer now, warm and steady. ‘Perhaps I had something else of more value to him.’ He gestures to the now-empty blood bag and I nod.
‘Not all of us can be trusted,’ I say. ‘There are bad apples in every bunch, but I think our kind is a particularly poor bunch.’
He studies me for a few moments, his cloudy grey eyes taking me in. ‘You’re not like that, though. You’re good.’
He doesn’t phrase it like a question. He’s telling me. The problem is that I’m not so sure he’s right. After all, didn’t I just abandon the man I love at his darkest hour? There’s nothing at all good about that.
‘You don’t believe me,’ Albert says, and that’s not a question either. He’s moving a little now and there’s some colour coming back into his skin. There’s a tremor in his hands I hadn’t noticed before. He tries to calm it by pressing his palms against his knees.
‘I did a bad thing,’ I manage to say eventually, and Albert’s face doesn’t fall like I expect it to. Instead, his thin lips pull into a smile.
He holds up the empty blood bag pointedly. ‘You did a good thing, too.’
Something dark and ugly tugs at the base of my throat despite his words. ‘Someone I love is hurt,’ I say quietly, ‘and I’m not there. I chose not to be.’
His brow furrows. ‘Out of spite?’
‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘Out of fear.’
Albert takes a heavy breath, and the exhale sends clouds of dust billowing out of him. I track one of the particles as it dances in the air, momentarily weightless, before it eventually settles on the arm of the sofa.
‘You don’t look to me like a woman who’s scared of much,’ he says, his voice a little stronger now.
I feel the first prickle of tears in my eyes, and I look away before Albert can see them. ‘I didn’t think I was.’
His laugh is a small thing– not much more than a rumble in his chest. ‘It takes you by surprise sometimes, doesn’t it?’ he asks, his tone warm and familiar.
My brow furrows. ‘Fear?’
‘No,’ he says, with another soft laugh. ‘Love.’
* * *
It’s late evening the following day when I get back to Whitby.
I stayed on Albert’s sofa last night, after he made it up to his bed for the first time in a decade. In the morning, I cleaned the upstairs rooms and started on the garden. I made a promise to him that I’ll go back and visit soon.
I head out of the station and down the hill, the night creeping in off the sea in shades of teal and plum. It’s been a warm day, but the clear skies have brought a chill with them now the sun has set. I’m still only wearing my T-shirt and jeans despite the nip of the air at my skin. I almost welcome it. It feels like a penance.
I can’t go back to my flat, not with the lingering reminders of Quinn I know will be there, so instead I climb the 199 steps in the lamplight and hike out on the clifftop path towards Saltwick Bay. It’s bracing up here, even on a summer’s night. The rush of the wind pummels at my cheeks and whips my hair into knotty clumps as I scream obscenities into the churn of the waves below.
I almost don’t notice Josiah beside me. Not until he screams out a few curses of his own, anyway. I nearly fall off the cliff when I spin around and see him there. Because, for the first time since I buried him, I canseehim there.
He’s not fully formed, not by a long shot, but there’s a faint glow that picks out his prominent features, the slightest suggestion of his body in the shadows. His lips pull into a smile as our eyes meet.
‘Hey stranger,’he half shouts, but I still only just hear him over the crash of the waves on the beach below us.
I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m going to have to reassess that belief, because there’s one standing in front of me right now.
Instinctively, I reach for him, but my arms slip straight through his form, goosebumps racing across my skin from the cold air.
‘Ha!’His grin widens.‘I didn’t know that happened. It’s like inGhost.’
I stop dead, my mouth falling open. ‘You sawGhost? You died a hundred years before it came out.’