Carol spent two nights at Jack’s place. Given her habit of mentioning his name in every conversation, it made sense to keep her close. Jack’s name barely came up elsewhere during that time, so he couldn’t escape Carol for long. The more he sloughed Carol off, the more she clung. When the movers called and said the house was ready, Jack was relieved.
“I’m going to be out of town for a week,” Jack said as he walked her to her new house. The sun made halos of the summer horseflies, and distant gardens laced the air with scents, now that Jack had his freedom. Carol walked up the steps to her house and waved shyly before closing the heavy door. Jack returned a token wave and walked away.
* * * *
Jack’s absence lasted two weeks before Carol fretted. She planned a housewarming party, but her friends proved difficult to reach. Even when she paged Mary, who usually called back within seconds, there was no answer. She left messages for dozens of people about her party, but ended up eating salt and vinegar crisps alone in her massive sitting room.
Bereft of distractions, she pined for Jack. She went to old haunts and just missed people. She went to concerts. She caught up on her investments. She re-read Women Who Love Too Much. Jack had gone from being around all the time, the occasional jutting of his misshapen cheekbones a reassuring sight, to being invisible.
“I can’t tell how much of this is missing Jack and how much is just being alone all the time,” Carol told her therapist.
She looked up to see her therapist staring out the window, his bald spot gleaming at her. He turned and registered her presence. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What were you saying?” She repeated herself, only to have him pick up the phone and make a lunch reservation in the middle of her sentence. Then he noticed her again. “Please do go on.” Finally, he dozed off. She resolved to find a more responsive therapist.
Months went by without any meaningful human contact. The only person Carol could reach was her investment manager at the bank, so she called every day until the manager started putting her on hold for long periods. She would go to Chinatown and simply stand on Wardour street—gambling machines blaring to the left of her and crispy ducks hanging by their legs to the right of her—and weep for the world.
She decided she wanted her death to garner attention. She considered jumping off a tall building, or throwing herself in front of a train, but neither seemed sufficiently flamboyant. She read a wedding planner for inspiration, and learned about a new craze for hot air balloon weddings. Instantly, she visualized a suicide they’d talk about for weeks.
Despite her difficulties getting the attention of her instructor, let alone her fellow students, Carol felt her scalp shiver the first time she learned how to control a balloon’s altitude using the supply of hot air. Mastering the great envelope above and the air currents shaped by contours below fascinated Carol. She was still alone, but she had a horizon for company.
Still, Carol welcomed the approach of her first solo flight and her dying day. She had learned enough about what not to do with the balloon’s propane supply to make a fatal mishap easy to arrange. But she bought some fireworks in the post-Guy Fawkes rush to ensure nobody would believe her death an accident. She hoped it would look spectacular; she almost asked her chase crew to bring a camera with a telephoto lens to capture her last moments.
That morning, Carol started shoving her fireworks and an extra propane cylinder into her picnic basket, then paused at a sudden rustling sound. She glimpsed crinoline out of the corner of her eye, and smelled musk and whalebone. When she turned, she could see nothing but her sofa in the predawn gloom. As soon as she had turned back to the fireworks, the rustling started again. “Who’s there?” Carol asked.
“Perceptive,” a voice said from the dim corner. “You’re the first to see me in a hundred years. Most mourn their solitude so intensely they take no notice of mine.” Carol squinted at the source of the voice, but could only see a pair of pince-nez glasses. “Before you kill yourself, young woman, you might care to learn something about your man, and the house he’s sold you. I wouldn’t bother, but he reminds me of my husband.” Carol put down the fireworks and listened in the dark.
* * * *
Jack heard the ground sing a shrill welcome as he fell from the red balloon. He saw his own shadow swell to meet him. Then the aroma of lilacs and the feel of the basket underfoot. He looked at Carol and screamed.
“I had a nice chat with Hepzibah,” Carol said. “She told me all about you, and her house. She couldn’t lift the curse, so I had to move out. A dozen suicidal squatters and a few lethargic rats probably live there now. The one thing she didn’t know was where you got your little ability.” She kept her foot poised on Jack’s chest.
Jack considered rushing her, but he could barely breathe and she outmatched him in brawn, even if she hadn’t strapped herself down. “It came with the membership in my property agents guild,” Jack rasped. “Everyone gets one of the Devil’s attributes. The gilded tongue was in use, so I chose nomenlocation. I thought it would be fun.” He tried to spit, but nothing came.
“I don’t believe you. It must be a punishment!” Carol kicked Jack again for emphasis, and once again the hills leapt towards him alarmingly. Jack remembered the psalm about hills skipping like lambs—fitting, he thought, that his last thought be something Biblical.
Then Carol and the basket reappeared. “What—” Air came with difficulty to Jack. “What did I do to deserve this?” Carol’s only response was to hold her foot against his chest threateningly.
“OK,” Jack said. “So that batty old ghost fed you a line and you believed it. And it gave you an excuse to blame me for all your problems. Do you really think it’s fair—” She kicked him again, and this time he came closer than ever to his shadow before she said his name.
She didn’t wait for him to speak this time. “I’m still obsessed with you, Jack. But I’m afraid it’s turned into something rather nasty.”
“That sounds unhealthy.” Jack tried to sidle around the basket, out of range of Carol’s leg, but she kept it trained on him. “You can’t let these things eat away at you.”
“You remember what I said about obsession, Jack?”
“You like to work through it.”
“Very good. So this is actually therapeutic. For me, at least. For you it might be stressful.” Carol beamed at Jack and drew her leg back in preparation for another kick.
“Wait!” Jack put one hand out protectively, nearly losing his balance in the process. “So you know. But that means you can choose not to have me around at all. Just stop saying my name, and I’ll disappear forever. I promise I won’t seek you out. It’s not quantum physics.” Jack tried to look dignified cringing at the basket’s edge. “Please.”
Carol had stopped beaming and had her leg back in its resting place. After a moment, she nodded. “It’s not that simple. I’ve never had anyone do as much to wreck my life, in as many ways, as you. Now please go away. My chase crew would ask questions if I landed with an extra person.” Carol handed Jack something which he recognized, after a moment, as a parachute, and gave him another kick, this time a fairly playful one.
Jack barely wriggled into the parachute and found the ripcord in time to land painfully but not fatally. He found himself trudging through endless hills. He saw no houses or cars along the road, and he cursed Carol for not giving him a cell phone along with his parachute. At last the lilac-scented flash came and the hills dissolved into a cafe in Balham that smelled of raw yeast.
Carol put a mug of cocoa into Jack’s frozen hand and he nodded gratefully. “I’m trying to look on the bright side,” she nearly whispered. “I have learned to fly a balloon. I have had my faith in the goodness of humanity bludgeoned, which may spare me pain in future. I now own a house in which I don’t live, which must be some sort of Thatcherite status symbol. Help me out. What else good has come of this?”
“You have the power to mess up my life any time you want to.”
“Ah yes. Thanks for reminding me. Sign this.” Carol put a letter on the table. It was folded twice, and Carol’s thumb kept the top two thirds folded over, so that Jack could only see the space for his signature. He started to protest, then thought better and signed.