The Haunting of Ghosts - Elizabeth (the first...)
I've already posted about the second Elizabeth. [That which follows may or may not be true.]
What can I tell you about Liz? What has Charles E. told me? Well, that there are certainly no photographs!
“It was a time before mobile phones; a time of innocence.” It was impossible not to catch a trace of longing in his eyes - though whether for the time or for the girl, I wasn’t sure. “If it had been today, well, there would have been photographs everywhere. She was kind of girl who, I suspect, would have loved a selfie!”
He paints a picture of a quiet naïve teenage boy who was busy trying to be something else
“It was a time of adventure and exploration - even if we didn’t know what we were looking for. Or what we were doing, come to that! I’d always liked girls, or course, though never really knew why. Back then you were seduced by films and Ursula Andress and Raquel Welch, their bumps and hollows; you had a sense they were there for a reason, even if you didn’t know what precisely what that was.
“Not that Liz was built that way. Far from it. But she was - what shall I say? - precocious. She was forward; a kind of alpha-female: always the first to things. And so she was different, I suppose.
“Perhaps that’s what attracted me to her. But only briefly, as it turned out.
“We arranged to meet in a park one Saturday afternoon. I don’t know what I was expecting. Perhaps the thrill was all in the arranging, the planning, the anticipation. If I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for, it soon became clear that Liz had her own agenda.
“Perhaps she was an explorer above all. An adventurer who wanted to see what lie beyond the boundaries of things…”
And you weren’t? I asked him
“She petrified me. In the space of a few minutes I turned from an excited teenager to someone who was scared witless. She shook years from me; turned me back into a little boy with that first kiss.
“I’m almost ashamed to think of it now. How I was. How I behaved.”
Any yet?
“And yet? I suppose I feel guilty too. Not only for her, but in how I let myself down; scorned the opportunity to learn, move on, become someone different. I think I’ve always been a coward.”
When I begged to differ, he just smiled.
“I think Liz would have agreed with me…”
For Liz
fifty years since
years smuggled illegally across the border
disguising themselves
with incident accident crisis
and from nowhere I am reminded of
an effervescent girl
who laughed as if she were party to secrets
kept from the rest of us
who courted scandal with short skirts
the first to wear a bra
who took me to the park that sunny Saturday
and introduced me to my first wet kiss
I have felt guilty all these years
for the way I cast you aside
a twelve-year-old’s fear victorious over everything
how wistful is this
recognising at the other end of time
how much of life you owned
and how much of it you offered me