After the Dance

‘When the wood is raised at the Corner wills will crash.’ Or rather ‘will clash’. Suddenly in a moment of perfect illumination such as must have been granted to the prophets I realised that the words could also be ‘walls will crash’. But even before I had assimilated that meaning another one so huge and comic and ironic had blossomed around me that I was literally staggered by the enormous terror of its implications and sat down with my head in my hands. For I now knew that I could not stay in the village. My time there had come to an end. I was ready to start afresh. My retreat had ended. I must return to the larger world and continue with my work. But then the final revelation had come, as I shivered suddenly in the suddenly hostile day. I thought of my discussion on predestination with the schoolmaster. I thought of his casual remarks about the prophet. I thought of how I had been led to this particular village to learn about the prophecy and this prophet. I thought of the hundred years the man had been dead. I thought of the last meaning of all which had just come to me and I laughed out loud at the marvellous joke that had been perpetrated on me, rational psychologist from an alien land. There the words stood afresh in front of my mind’s eye as if written in monstrous letters, luminous and hilarious, in the sunny day of clear blue. It was as if the heavens themselves cracked, just like my hut, as if the vase, elegant and beautiful, had shown a crack running right down its side, as if I could see the joking face, the body doubled over in laughter. For the words that came to me at that moment, the last reading of all, were these: ‘WHEN THE WOOD IS RAISED AT THE CORNER WELLS WILL CRASH.’

Do You Believe in Ghosts?

‘I’ll tell you something,’ said Daial to Iain. ‘I believe in ghosts.’

It was Hallowe’en night and they were sitting in Daial’s house – which was a thatched one – eating apples and cracking nuts which they had got earlier that evening from the people of the village. It was frosty outside and the night was very calm.

‘I don’t believe in ghosts,’ said Iain, munching an apple. ‘You’ve never seen a ghost, have you?’

‘No,’ said Daial fiercely, ‘but I know people who have. My father saw a ghost at the Corner. It was a woman in a white dress.’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Iain. ‘It was more likely a piece of paper.’ And he laughed out loud. ‘It was more likely a newspaper. It was the local newspaper.’

‘I tell you he did,’ said Daial. ‘And another thing. They say that if you look between the ears of a horse you will see a ghost. I was told that by my granny.’

‘Horses’ ears,’ said Iain laughing, munching his juicy apple. ‘Horses’ ears.’

Outside it was very very still, the night was, as it were, entranced under the stars.

‘Come on then,’ said Daial urgently, as if he had been angered by Iain’s dismissive comments. ‘We can go and see now. It’s eleven o’clock and if there are any ghosts you might see them now. I dare you.’

‘All right,’ said Iain, throwing the remains of the apple into the fire. ‘Come on then.’

And the two of them left the house, shutting the door carefully and noiselessly behind them and entering the calm night with its millions of stars. They could feel their shoes creaking among the frost, and there were little panes of ice on the small pools of water on the road. Daial looked very determined, his chin thrust out as if his honour had been attacked. Iain liked Daial fairly well though Daial hardly read any books and was only interested in fishing and football. Now and again as he walked along he looked up at the sky with its vast city of stars and felt almost dizzy because of its immensity.

‘That’s the Plough there,’ said Iain, ‘do you see it? Up there.’

‘Who told you that?’ said Daial.

‘I saw a picture of it in a book. It’s shaped like a plough.’

‘It’s not at all,’ said Daial. ‘It’s not shaped like a plough at all. You never saw a plough like that in your life.’

They were gradually leaving the village now, had in fact passed the last house, and Iain in spite of his earlier protestations was getting a little frightened, for he had heard stories of ghosts at the Corner before. There was one about a sailor home from the Merchant Navy who was supposed to have seen a ghost and after he had rejoined his ship he had fallen from a mast to the deck and had died instantly. People in the village mostly believed in ghosts. They believed that some people had the second sight and could see in advance the body of someone who was about to die though at that particular time he might be walking among them, looking perfectly healthy.

Daial and Iain walked on through the ghostly whiteness of the frost and it seemed to them that the night had turned much colder and also more threatening. There was no noise even of flowing water, for all the streams were locked in frost.

‘It’s here they see the ghosts,’ said Daial in a whisper, his voice trembling a little, perhaps partly with the cold. ‘If we had a horse we might see one.’

‘Yes,’ said Iain still trying to joke, though at the same time he also found himself whispering. ‘You could ride the horse and look between its ears.’

The whole earth was a frosty globe, creaking and spectral, and the shine from it was eerie and faint.

‘Can you hear anything?’ said Daial who was keeping close to Iain.

‘No,’ said Iain. ‘I can’t hear anything. There’s nothing. We should go back.’

‘No,’ Daial replied, his teeth chattering. ‘W–w–e w–w–on’t go back. We have to