I told Barb that I'd let Alison drift out of my life, but to tell the truth, I pushed her. I stopped taking her calls. I stopped calling her. I closed up my boat, and moved back in with Jude. I kept out of my office, and didn't answer the messages she left on my phone. The last time I saw her, we argued.
"You made me need you, Robert!" she screamed at me, and I was sure the entire university could hear her. "You insinuated yourself into my life, when I didn't want you, and you made me need you, and now you're just shutting me out!"
"The book's over, Alison." I said, staying calm, resisting the urge to get angry myself. Alison was almost the only person in the world who could make me lose my temper, and I resented the lack of control. I resented all the chaos she'd brought to my life. "We were just writer and subject, and yes, I admit we were friends for a while, but that's all. I need to concentrate on my life now, not yours."
"Screw you, Robert." she said, in that flat voice of hers, although her eyes were blazing. "Screw you."
And she left.
I was relieved when she was gone. Sometimes, when someone comes into your life, and makes you question and reexamine everything in it, when they change your perception of the world and your work and your friends, and your past and even yourself, it is much easier to walk away from that person. Just shut the doors that have been opened, and go back to that normal, safe, sane life you had before. Just forget.
And that was what I did. It wasn't until a year later, when I saw her on a late night chat show that I realised that walking away from Alison had left a gaping void in my life.
I didn't know she was on TV that night. I was sitting alone in the living room late one night, waiting for Jude to come home. I was reading, and shifted on the sofa, and I must have stepped on the remote control, because the television just came on. I looked up, and there she was and my heart stopped, for just a second.
It was one of those late-night discussion shows, taking about life after death. On the against side was a calm, reasoning professor who put forward good points and sane rational argument. On the for side was Alison, talking in her vague way, admitting she didn't have all the answers, twisting her hands in her old gold skirt, obviously nervous, stammering a little. Her argument wasn't as coolly intellectual as the sceptic's, but she was convincing in her absolute belief in ghosts. God knows how she had managed to get chosen for the show, because she had never exactly looked for fame. But then my name was mentioned, and my book, and I realised what I had written had made her into a minor celebrity. A voice for those that could not speak – not just the spirits now, but the believers.
She was trying so hard, trying to articulate what she knew, even as the sceptic quoted what I had written back to her. And then her voice trailed off, and I saw her stare off to the side of the camera., with that look I knew, that look beyond. The sceptic began to scoff, but she ignored him. She just looked, steadily, at the same spot. The camera swung round to follow her gaze, but nothing was there. Nothing visible to anyone but Alison.
"What do you see, Alison?" I asked softly, forgetting she wasn't in the same room.
"If you're not careful, you'll crawl right into that telly."
Jude's voice shocked me back to awareness. I'd crawled on to the floor, as up close to the TV as I could, and I was reaching out to touch the screen – touch Alison.
""What's so fascinating anyhow?" she asked, coming into the room to look at the screen.
"Nothing." I said quickly, and turned it off. I felt guilty, as if I'd been caught in infidelity.
"Hmm, late-night porn, I bet. Well I'm going to bed. Coming?"
"In a minute. Just have to clear up." I said, waving a hand vaguely at the papers scattered all around. She gave me a mock suspicious look, but left. As soon as I was sure she was upstairs, I switched the television back on, but Alison was gone.
I couldn't concentrate the next day. I just kept thinking of Alison. I'd thought she was gone from my life, but just a second of seeing her had been all it had taken to reawaken the old craving. Yes, I could admit it now, it was a craving. To be near her, to somehow, through her, touch the world beyond, to catch glimpses of a truth I'd never understand and could scarcely believe in.
And if I was truthful, to be needed by her. I had always been the one who needed – needed Jude, needed my work, even needed Josh. The only person who had ever needed me before Alison had been Josh, and he was gone. But Alison had needed me. Needed me to help her hang on to reality, needed me to guide her back to this world, to protect her from the darkness and death she had touched.
And she was right. I had caused that need. I'd made her go further, push harder than ever before, made her think I'd always been there to bring her back, and then left her alone.
When the day was over, I got in my car to drive home. I drove automatically, barely aware of what I was doing, and then I stopped, I wasn't outside Jude's house. Instead, I found myself outside Alison's house. I didn't knock on her door. I didn't even get out of my car. I parked my house across the street, under a broken street lamp, and waited.
I only had to wait until dusk. That was when she returned, wearily climbing the long hill path to her door, looking tired, and isolated. I didn't jump out of the car and greet her. I think I was afraid to, afraid of her anger, my guilt. Afraid of ...I don't know what. I never really knew what I was going to feel and do around Alison. I just watched her, walking as if the weight of all those grieving relatives who begged her for help was still on her shoulders.
At her door, she turned around and for a moment I thought she had seen me. But then I saw she wasn't looking at me, but at something else entirely. Something on the empty, half-dark street. Something as visible as the thing in the TV studio had been. I watched her, staring into empty space.
And then she screamed.
"Leave me alone." she shrieked, her voice carrying to me on the breeze. "I'm not ready. Leave me alone!" and she ran in, slamming the door. I could hear the bolts shoot home.
I was shaken. Alison had been afraid, but she'd been afraid before. She'd always been slightly afraid of what she could do, of the evil her gift could reveal. But it was more than that this time. She as utterly terrified. What had she seen?
I didn't stir. I sat there for a while, wondering if I should go in, knowing she'd push me away. The street was utterly silent, only the sound of one man's footsteps echoing though the street, walking towards me. A nosy neighbor, wondering what I was doing there. I looked up.
The street was empty. Completely empty. And still the footsteps echoed through the street with a slight tinny sound. I heard them walk towards me, past me, stop outside Alison's door.
They stopped for a second, and I sat there, thinking I imagined it, when there came a tremendous banging – no, more of a thumping on Alison's front door. The banging was so hard that I could see her door shaking, but still no-one stood on her front steps. I bolted out of my car, but hesitated. What if I ran up to the door? Would she think it was me banging on her door like that? Physical danger I could protect her from, just being there to support her I was brilliant at, but whatever was going on here was beyond my expertise.
While I was hesitating, all the lights in her house went on, one by one and I heard her thump back on the door and scream "NO!".
The banging stopped. Then I heard the footsteps come down the steps, towards me, past me. I may have felt a chill in the air as they passed me, or maybe I imagined it.
I went up to Alison's house, and peered though the window, where the lace curtain sagged and gapped. Alison had laid out a row of glasses, all different shades and sizes and styles in front of her, and she was methodically pouring wine into all of them. Once the bottle was empty, she began to drink the first glass. It had the air of a ritual, a private sacred ritual, and I knew I couldn't interfere.
I left.