Aria Remains
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

#

‘Hello,’ Ruby said as she opened the door, looking and sounding surprised. Her hair was tangled and dishevelled, her face flushed. Her dressing gown, its red silk glistening in the sunlight, was tied loosely around her, revealing one shoulder and the suggestion of an endeavour not yet completed.

‘Oh, god, I’m so sorry,’ Aria said. ‘I didn’t think you might be… Look, I’ll come back.’

Ruby gently grabbed her arm as she turned to leave.

‘No, no, it’s fine,’ she said, and even though it wasn’t really, she would never turn her best friend away, especially not now. ‘We’ve just, well…’ She looked to the stairs behind her, sighed with a small degree of regret at the unfinished enterprise, then smiled at Aria. ‘I’m all yours. What’s up?’

She let Aria inside, then followed her to the kitchen, pulling the gown tighter around her body, clicking on the kettle and wiping the insides of two mugs that had been upturned on the draining board since the day before. Aria sat at the table, still feeling slightly embarrassed that she hadn’t called first. It was unusual for her to arrive anywhere unannounced, something she usually tried to avoid as she wasn’t keen when people did it to her, not because she was ever doing anything she didn’t want anyone else to see or intrude upon, but because she had always thought it rude. This morning, however, despite knowing that Ruby shared similar misgivings, she just couldn’t wait. She had slept better than she’d recently managed, stirring at her desk an hour or so after she had laid across it and then falling immediately back to sleep as soon as she got into bed. But, as soon as she had awoken, she had to see her friend, had to ask her about something she knew she had experience of. They exchanged brief reviews of the ongoing oppressiveness of the weather, Aria apologised again for her interruption and told Ruby that yes, she was feeling a good deal better than she had the last time they had been together, that she had slept quite well and was feeling refreshed. Then, watching Ruby fill the mugs with boiling water, stirring it in with the granules, she said, ‘Ruby?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Remember when you did all that yoga and meditation and everything?’

Ruby sat at the table opposite her, placing the mugs between them and looking at Aria with interest.

’Yeah, I remember. Why? You wanna do some yoga? That might not be such a bad idea, though I am probably a bit rusty. It has been a while.’

‘Not so much the yoga,’ Aria said, blowing gently into the mug and taking a small sip of the coffee, watching the sole surviving granule circle its ocean bitterly. ‘It’s more the other stuff, the meditation. I was thinking; would you be able to give me some advice? Some, you know, pointers?’

‘Sure - what kind of things do you want to know? Do you think it might help you sleep better?’

Aria nodded. She wasn’t sure if she should tell Ruby exactly why she was interested, but then wondered whether she may not get the information she needed if she wasn’t completely honest with her.

‘There are several different things you can do, if I remember correctly,’ Ruby explained, catching sight of her reflection in the glass door of the microwave and trying to flatten her hair. ‘First of all, it’s about knowing why you want to do it, being clear in your mind what you want to achieve. Then it’s just about replaceing a quiet time, a quiet place, maybe starting off with setting a timer for, say, five minutes, and then you start thinking about your body.’

‘My body?’ Aria asked, looking down at herself, wondering what she might replace even remotely interesting about it. She noticed a new stain at the top of her jeans and briefly wondered from where it might have originated, decided it must be from the pot of noodles she had eaten the afternoon before and sighed.

‘It’s just about relaxation,’ Ruby continued. ‘Thinking about any aches and pains you might have. Then you concentrate on breathing, taking long, deep breaths and then, strange as it sounds but, trust me, it’s true, you’ll replace that your mind will kind of go in its own direction. It’ll help you focus on what the issues actually are so, in your case, it’ll tell you why you’re not sleeping and how you can sleep better.’

Aria nodded again, then took a few more sips of her coffee. She wasn’t sure this would help her, that it was exactly what she needed in order to be able to see what she wanted to see, to get to where she wanted to be. She bit lightly into her lip.

‘What about,’ she began, leaning forward, trying to sound casual, ‘if someone wanted to, you know, leave their mind, to travel to another plane? Do you know what I mean? I don’t know exactly how to describe it, but…’

‘You mean, like, a higher plane of awareness?’ Ruby asked.

‘Yes, I think so.’ She shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Just to escape from things for a bit.’

‘There are ways to, like, isolate yourself from your thoughts so you become more of a witness, above all the day-to-day problems. I remember, when I was really into all this and used to go to those classes, that someone described it as like being in your house, but you travel to another floor, like a higher floor. Up there it’s perfectly silent and tranquil, and it allows you to open your mind to discovering all kinds of new things.’

‘Yes,’ Aria said, sounding eager. ‘That’s exactly it, that’s what I want to do - discover new things.’

‘I think that might be pretty advanced,’ Ruby said, frowning slightly, ‘but, if you like, I can try to dig out some of the books I have somewhere. They go into a lot more detail than I can give you now.’

‘That would be great,’ Aria smiled, already thinking about going home, replaceing a quiet place and freeing her mind. Still, however, there was something she wanted to ask, despite being nervous about what Ruby’s response might be. She didn’t want her to think it dangerous, to try to talk her out of it, and that was if she didn’t simply think her crazy which, she presumed, was the most likely outcome.

‘Do you think’, she asked carefully, looking at the table, trying to sound casual, ‘you could use this kind of meditation to, you know, break through to other worlds?’

’Other worlds?’ Ruby asked, already sounding uncertain, focusing her attention on Aria with a little more concentration.

‘Yes, I mean, so that I might be able to see what else is there. What lies beyond.’

Ruby regarded her warily, her eyes narrowing.

‘You mean, like, a seance? Like communicating with the dead? Oh, Aria, I don’t think…’

’No, no,’ Aria said, raising her eyes and holding up her hands. ‘I just mean, is there a way for a person to make themselves more open, more sympathetic to whatever else there may be out there?’

Ruby stood from the table.

‘Look, sweetie, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but if this is to do with Robert and Sam, I’m really not sure it’s something you should be…’

’No,’ Aria said again. ‘It’s got nothing to do with that, nothing to do with them at all.’

’So, what is it?′ Ruby asked, and then an idea came to her. ‘Is it about this place you want to replace? Do you think you might be able to replace it if you use some kind of meditation?’ Her voice grew louder, sounding slightly exasperated. ‘Because if that’s what you’re thinking, I’m really not sure it’s something you want to get too far into.’

Aria breathed deeply.

‘Look, Ruby, I’m really having a difficult time right now, really struggling with things.’

Ruby softened her tone, saying, ‘I know you are, I know, and I do want to do whatever I can to help you.’

She sat down at the table again, reaching out to take Aria’s hand.

‘Listen, I know it’s been a terrible time, a dreadful time, and I know it’s really taken its toll on you. I’m just concerned that you might be thinking about trying to make things better in the wrong way, that you might end up doing yourself more harm than good. Do you know what I mean?’

Aria nodded and squeezed Ruby’s hand.

‘I just don’t know what else there is that I can do,’ she said sadly. ‘I have all these strange things running around in my head, all these dreams and, well, I suppose you might call them visions, chimeras, and sometimes I’m just not sure what’s real and what’s just something that’s in my imagination, and so I just thought some kind of meditation might help, might let me work out which is which.’

‘I think,’ Ruby said thoughtfully, ’that it might be an idea for you to tell me everything, to explain to me what you mean by ‘visions’. You know you can tell me anything, we’ve always been able to tell each other every little thing, every secret, every worry, and I really think we should start with that. Just by talking about it might help, and if you can tell me all the things that you’ve been dreaming about, the things you haven’t already told me, since it seems as though there is more going on, then I think that, between us, we might be able to make sense of it all. And then, if you decide you still might want to do some meditation, then of course we can do that, get you a programme sorted out. What do you think?’

Aria remained quiet for a time, taking a few sips of her coffee as she pondered the idea. Half of her agreed, knew that what Ruby was saying was probably right, but the other half, the tired half, the impatient and disoriented half, wondered whether merely talking about everything would bring her the answers she needed. It would mean letting Ruby into her head, trying to explain everything, trying to put it all into words when she wasn’t even sure which words she could use. She worried again that Ruby would think she had lost her mind, just as she thought she had, and that she was insane, a basket case who needed medication, not meditation.

It was true that they had shared everything, ever since they had become friends, replaceing shelter together in the empty back room of a party hosted by someone they didn’t know, at a place where they didn’t want to be. They had liked one another immediately and had consequently talked for hours, had shared their similar tastes for music and books, had laughed and joked and then, realising that they were amongst the last few people there, that it was the early hours of the morning, they had shared a taxi home, arranging to meet up again the next weekend.

They had provided each other with wine and sympathy, had shared and celebrated every success, had been agony aunts and psychiatrists, physicians and fortune tellers, had shown one another the worst sides of themselves as well as the best and yet, despite all of this, Aria still temporised her response, still wondered if this might all be a step too far.

Ruby, reading her mind as she often did, eventually said, ‘Honestly, just tell me what it is and, together, we’ll be able to sort it all out. We don’t have to do it now, I can always call round later or tomorrow.’ She paused, examining the minute movements of the muscles in Aria’s face, trying to interpret them, then asked, ‘Would it be a coffee thing, or a wine thing?’

At last Aria smiled.

‘Remember when that guy you really liked,’ she said, ‘what was his name, Rufus? Remember when you found out that Rufus was seeing someone else, that he’d be coming round yours a couple of days a week, then going round hers for the rest of the time?’

‘Ah, yes, Rufus,’ Ruby said, looking to the ceiling, her lip curling slightly.

’Remember we drank so much rum that night, the night you found out about it, that we decided to call ourselves ‘rumdums’ for the next few weeks?’

‘I do recall such a thing,’ Ruby laughed, trying to look innocent of all charges.

‘Well, if we are going to do this, if I am going to be dragging you through the less-then-salubrious side streets and back alleys of my mind, then it is probably time for the rumdums to make their return.’

‘Then rum it is,’ Ruby said, her several gold rings clicking against the table as she placed her palms upon it decisively, a note of triumph in her voice.

At that moment Josh appeared in the kitchen doorway and Aria noted, with interest, that his usually unkempt curly hair had become much flatter, much more under control, in almost complete contrast to Ruby’s.

‘Rum?’ he asked, pulling his tee shirt further across his stomach and looking up at the kitchen clock. ‘At this hour? Count me in!’

‘No, you idiot,’ Ruby grinned. ‘I’m going to go and see Aria…’ She paused, looking to Aria for confirmation. ‘Tonight?’

Aria nodded.

‘Going to go and see Aria tonight for a bit. You’ll be okay here for a while, won’t you?’

Josh nodded, opening the cupboard door and bringing out a loaf of bread.

‘Will you bring me back something nice?’ he smirked.

‘I’ll bring myself.’

‘What more could a man ask for?’ Josh replied, kissing her on the top of her head before busying himself with the bread, twisting the polythene packet at great speed so that it would open. ‘Toast, anyone?’

It was a little before seven-thirty that evening when Ruby arrived at Aria’s door, holding up a bottle of dark, room temperature rum and two litres of cheap, refrigerated diet cola as she invited her in. They sat in the lounge, where Aria had drawn the curtains, lit a handful of candles and set two glasses on the coffee table.

‘You sure you’re not planning a seance?’ Ruby asked, handing over the bottles and watching Aria pour their drinks. Two thirds rum, one third cola.

Aria shrugged as she passed a glass to Ruby.

‘I just thought it might be good to be totally distraction-free, just so you can pretend to concentrate while I bore you rigid for a bottle or two.’

Ruby smiled, shaking her head.

’So, where do you want to start?’

They sat on the sofa and Aria took two large mouthfuls of her drink.

‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘I should start with the man.’

’The man? There’s a man?’ Ruby asked, sounding excited, then apologised as Aria gave her a half-smiling scowl. ‘Sorry, I promise I’ll keep quiet.’

‘Yes, a man, a man I’ve been seeing everywhere, but he never seems to see me. I suppose it started a few weeks ago, and I’m not sure exactly why I noticed him in the first place, why he should have stuck in my memory. And before you ask, no, I don’t think he’s attractive or anything, it’s not that kind of thing. It started seeming strange to me, that I would see him all over the place, that’s all.’

She took another large mouthful of the rum before continuing. It tasted good to her. Tasted like salvation.

‘I’m not sure I’ll get everything in the right order, but it was around the time I first saw him, or that I realised I’d seen him more times than would probably be usual, that you set up the non-date date with Robert, and I think it was after… It was after the things that happened to him that I started to have these strange dreams. But the thing is, with a lot of these dreams, they haven’t seemed like dreams at all. They were more like memories. It was like I was really there, that I was looking back on something that had really happened.’

‘Really where?’ Ruby asked, adding more rum to both their glasses.

‘I don’t know,’ Aria told her. ‘I don’t know exactly where it is, but I’m starting to think that it might be the village we’re going to try and replace. Easthope.’

As she said the name all of the candles in the room stuttered and flickered.

‘Well, that was weird,’ Ruby said, looking around as the flames righted themselves again.

Aria bit her lip, feeling an odd, cold sensation, a frozen finger tracing the length of her spine. Suddenly she became uneasy, feeling that they were no longer alone and that there was someone, some person she couldn’t see, in the room with them.

‘Do you feel that?’ she asked, her voice much quieter.

‘Feel what?’

‘Like there’s someone else here with us?’

Ruby looked around again.

’No,’ she said. ‘Well, no, I didn’t, but now I kind of do.’

They both studied the dark edges of the room, the candlelight dancing all around them, casting fluid shapes and contours. A strange shape revealed itself amongst the shadows, a shape that appeared to Aria like the twisted branches of a tree growing, it seemed, directly from the wall. She felt that she had seen it somewhere before, that it was more than just a shape but that it was a symbol, that it represented something. And then, as she watched, she lost sight of it again.

Listening and waiting, after several seconds it seemed that everything had returned to normal and, although Aria still felt restive, she asked, ‘Shall I carry on?’

Ruby drained her glass, then said yes, she thought she should.

‘So, I met this woman, this strange old woman called Alice, and she had a dog, called Dog.’ She paused, pursing her lips, giving a small shrug as if to say, well, what better name could there be? ‘She lived in this smelly little hut, her and Dog, and it was like it was a million years ago. Or, at least, hundreds of years ago, the Dark Ages or something. I didn’t know who I was, didn’t know my name, and it really upset me. I had no idea how I had got there, and I was naked on this rocky beach, and there was man who I think was looking for me. And then, one night, I found her doing all these strange chants, like she was doing spells or magic.’

She took a breath and looked around the room again.

‘I think that part might have been after, you know, Sam and everything. And still I was seeing the man in the street everywhere, and when I saw him in the park I tried to catch up with him. I thought I should speak to him, just to say hello, because… well, I don’t want this to sound weird, but it was almost like he’s become something I can rely on, someone who’s always been there throughout all this. I just wanted to speak to him, although I wasn’t entirely sure what it was that I wanted to say.’

‘And so you think,’ Ruby said, having listened carefully, ‘he’s got something to do with it? I mean, I’m not saying he’s responsible for Robert and Sam or anything, but do you think he’s related somehow? Was it the same man you saw in your dream, when you were naked?’

Aria shook her head as she drank more of the rum.

’No, I don’t think so, I think it’s probably just coincidence or something, although I didn’t see his face. In the dream, I mean, not really. And no, don’t think the fact that I was naked means it actually is some kind of subconscious desire. It wasn’t that kind of naked, not the fun kind. It was more that I was…exposed. Like, literally laid bare. Or, maybe, like I was a newborn, like a baby, like I was being born again.′

She paused once more, wondering why the thought hadn’t occurred to her before, that her meeting with Alice and Dog, or the dream in which it had happened - or whatever it was - that it was some kind of signifier, a metaphor for her having a new life, a different life. She wanted to follow the idea, to allow it to develop so that she could examine it, but then another one took its place.

‘Oh, and then, I had this dream where I was in this village, but it was completely deserted, and there was an old church but it was in ruins. And then, suddenly, I was in, like, this Victorian house, with people who were wearing clothes from the fifties, and they were listening to a really strange story on the radio. And the woman said something about the house being haunted, and it turned out that I was the ghost. I think,’ she paused, frowning, ‘I’ve probably told you a lot of this before.’

At this she became quiet, trying to think if she had remembered everything, hoping she hadn’t sounded too unstable. Ruby, too, said nothing, refilling their glasses once more and then draining hers with great speed.

‘Do you think,’ Aria then said, ’that the man I keep seeing is even really there? I mean, do you think I dreamt that I was a ghost because he really is one?’

‘Well, I don’t know. That might be a bit of a leap. I mean, do you believe in ghosts? Do you think there really can be such a thing? We’ve never really spoken about it before.’

‘Do you?’ Aria asked.

Ruby considered her answer, then said, ‘You know, I’m really not sure. I’d like to think there is something more, something to look forward to after we die, but then you know I’m not religious or anything, so I guess I can’t have it both ways.’

‘I think I feel the same, or at least, I did. Now I’m not so sure.’

Ruby stretched her back and, smiling, pushed away from the sofa and excused herself.

‘Be back in a sec,’ she said, leaving the room. ‘You know what I’m like with cola.’

After she had gone Aria looked slowly around the lounge, at the table by the window at the far end, at the bookcases and framed photos and reprints on the walls. The candlelight gave everything a golden warmth yet she couldn’t escape the feeling that, for the first time in weeks, she was feeling cold. She heard the toilet flush and, moments later, Ruby returned.

‘I was thinking,’ she said, pouring them both another drink, ‘about which part of all this you think we should concentrate on. What I mean is, do you think this strange man who you absolutely do not have any desirous feelings towards at all is the main part of it, or is it the dreams?’

‘I’m serious, Ruby,’ Aria said. ‘He may as well be a woman or a child or a cat or something. It’s got nothing to do with the fact that he’s a man, it’s just that he seems to show up everywhere, and he always seems like he’s busy, that he has something important he really has to do.’

‘Okay,’ Ruby said, smiling and holding up her hands. ‘Not an attraction thing. But, do you think it is him we should focus on?’

Aria thought about the question. Everything that had happened, all the things she had experienced had become jumbled together in her mind, and now that she tried to replace the part she wanted to learn more about, to see whether it might help her, she couldn’t be certain where to start. It was making her head hurt, as though she had been using her brain for so long, trying to understand what was happening, to make sense of it all, that it had suddenly seized, as the muscles of an athlete might spasm through overuse. The cogs had caught, the wiring overheated.

‘I just don’t know,’ she said with a heavy sigh. ‘Maybe we should try to replace this village. I just have this feeling that, once we get there, all of this stuff will become a lot more clear.’ She slapped her hands on her thighs, began to stand and said, ’Right, I have to go pay a visit, now. Set ‘em up, I’ll be back.’

As she sat on the toilet she thought she could hear some motion in the lounge, that Ruby was moving around. She also became aware of something outside, amongst the failing light, just beyond the small rectangular window above her. Not quite a breeze, not quite the rustling of leaves or the delicate tap of a light rain, but something. She thought of the night she had been disturbed from her sleep, of returning to her room and replaceing the strange stone bottle beneath her pillow. Ah, she thought, standing and flushing the toilet, that’s something I didn’t tell her. She quickly rinsed her hands and then went back to the lounge before the notion slipped away.

What she found as she returned was the most horrifying of things.