Staying at Penny’s house always makes me feel uncomfortable. There is an interminable and unsettling consciousness of alien intrusions. Unseen slippers slide across floorboards; a breath of wind from a crossing body wafts eerily against my cheek. From upstairs comes the sound of a door closing silently. Perhaps it’s not the house itself; it could be me. I’ve been hyper-sensitive since I died, all my senses wound up to fever pitch, mind and body responsive to the merest iota of change in the physical and emotional environment.
As ever, it was all Ramsay’s fault. We were visiting his mother for her birthday and he was in a rush. He was always in a rush. ‘Get up an hour earlier,’ I’d say to him, ‘then we can leave in plenty of time’.
‘No point,’ he would reply. ‘Leave too early and we’d only be caught in the traffic. Catch the right moment and we can zoom straight through.’
Which is right in theory, but doesn’t allow for holdups: for accidents or animals on the road, not to mention urgent calls on one’s bowels or bladder. Many’s the time I’ve ended up squatting behind a hedge at the side of the road because Ramsay refused to pull in to the nearest petrol station. Well, this time we set off exactly to the minute, Charlotte safely tucked away in her carry cot on the back seat, held in with three firm straps, hooked in to the stantion points like the over-height loads on the top of an HGV.
All went well until we hit the motorway, or what was left of it after the previous night’s six car pile-up. Three lanes became two, then one, then a single immobile mass of frustration and exhaust fumes. Ramsay sat and mixed his own fumes of exasperation in with the petrol and diesel. Once we were free, we were a good forty minutes behind schedule; a situation not to be endured.
I did the sensible thing, rang Ramsay’s mother and told her we’d be a bit late. ‘Never mind, dear, I’ll be delighted to see you any time of the day or night. Give Charlotte a big kiss for me.’ Not that I could; Charlotte was sleeping enveloped in safety strapping on the back seat.
Undeterred by the mangled wrecks being removed from the hard shoulder behind us, Ramsay did what he always did in these situations. He put his foot down hard on the accelerator. At a steady seventy we would have caught up at least half of the time we had lost. Ramsay had us bucketing along at something over ninety, weaving from lane to lane like a supersonic shopping trolley.
I never knew exactly what happened, whether he lost control or smashed into the back of a slower vehicle unwilling to give him way. By the time I came round three weeks later, the exact details had been lost in the speculations about whether I would die or not. As it was, I did die. Not for long, a couple of minutes, they tell me, two minutes out of my life, or out of my death, depending on whichever way you look at it.
I was a terrible patient, always have been, and dying made me worse. For hours on end I screamed for Charlotte, until the police ran an emergency service, all blue lights flashing, bringing her to me curled up in the arms of Ramsay’s mother. We didn’t talk about Ramsay on that occasion, and very rarely since, the ensuing emotional devastation always reducing me to a howling wreck.
Which is why I don’t mention my fears about the ghost in Penny’s house to anyone, not even Penny. I have thought about it. Surely she should know her home is haunted? On the other hand, if it doesn’t bother her to live with a spook, who am I to worry her?
Charlotte says I am ‘emotionally ultra-sensitive’, an expression she has picked up from her school, which is a big one for low-grade psychoanalysis. I’m more inclined to think of myself as a trainee medium, picking up on invisible auras. Whichever way, it annoys the hell out of Charlotte. She’ll come home from school all blithe and beautiful and plonk herself down in front of the television, as usual.
‘How was school?’ I ask.
‘Fine. Same as. Nothing special.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure.’
‘Something has upset you. Was it the boys being rude, or have you fallen out with Tracey again?’
‘Aw, mum.’
So on we go until it turns out that Miss Waldegrave has told her she is the stupidest girl in the class, if not in the whole school. We finish curled up in one another’s arms and eating far too much chocolate ice cream. Think how annoying it must be not to have any emotional secrets from your mother. If it had been like that with mine, I would have left home five years earlier than I did.
Charlotte has grown used to my x-ray interrogations, which is why today she comes straight out with her problem. ‘Hannah has asked me for a sleepover at hers at the weekend.’
Hannah is Penny’s elder daughter, the sort every mum wishes her son would bring home on his arm one day. ‘Darling, that’s wonderful. You know I like to see you making lots of friends, and Hannah is such a charming, well behaved girl. Of course you can go.’
‘But I don’t want to, mum.’
‘Why ever not? I thought you liked Hannah?’
‘Hannah is loveliest girl in the whole world and my bestest, bestest friend.’
‘Then why don’t you want to go there? Is it Julia?’
‘No, Julia’s fine. A noisy pest, but no worse than Andrea. Little sisters are always a pain. You said you and Aunt Celia never got on with one another when you were growing up, and now you can’t see enough of one another. It’s not Julia who’s the problem, and her mum let’s Hannah stay up as late as she likes when she has a sleepover. I just don’t like the house. It’s creepy. I come over all goose bumps when I’m there, as if someone’s watching me all the time. You know, like in those horror movies, where apparitions ooze out through the walls or a zombie grabs you while you’re not looking. What if I fell to sleep and a vampire swept in and bit me? I’d become one of the living dead.’
One thing our kitchen is never short of is a plentiful supply of chocolate ice cream. We finish off a whole tub while I try to explain to Charlotte that zombies are a Hollywood invention and only exist in Caribbean folk law. And vampires sprang out of Bram Stoker’s imagination. And there are no such things as ghosts. Tomorrow I must talk to Penny. And buy another tub of chocolate ice cream.
The one place I didn’t want to have the conversation with Penny is at her house, which, of course, is where we end up, but only after a couple of glasses of red at the local wine bar. Whether it was the preceding day’s chat with Charlotte or the wine, I’m not sure, but Penny’s place seemed even weirder than usual. The air is misty with threat, strange noises break in at irregular intervals, every object looks as if it were in the wrong place.
Even Penny herself seems dislocated, not certain where to put her glass or if the cushions on the sofa are where they should be. A door closes silently upstairs, a presence whisks across the floor boards in the hallway, the cat scurries downstairs as if in fright at some fierce, ghostly dog. I shift uncomfortably in my seat, gulp carelessly at the fierce Rousillon red wine, spluttering half of it on my blouse.
Much fussing and drying later, we settle back into the comfort of the living room, neither of us sure how to resume our conversation. ‘You seem nervous,’ Penny begins.
‘Well, I’ve something difficult to talk to you about.’ We both jiffle uncomfortably in our padded seats. I put my re-filled glass carefully in the centre of the coffee table. ‘You know Hannah has invited Charlotte for a sleep-over at the weekend?’
‘Of course. Partly my idea. I know the two of them are virtually inseparable, and Charlotte is such a nice girl.’ Do I catch the hint of a squirm in Penny’s manner? Whatever; she is avoiding eye contact, her mind elsewhere, fidgeting with one of the tassels on her cushion.
I am not renowned for my tact. Even then, I can hardly say: ‘my daughter doesn’t want to come and stay in your house because she thinks it is creepy.’ Now, can I?
‘Did you know the kids at schools have been trying to scare one another, making up ghost stories? They have come up with the idea that this house is haunted.’ I sit back, waiting for the explosion.
‘Whatever gave them that idea?’ Penny throws back her head, sits ramrod straight, eyes glittering, cushion tassels clutched firmly in each hand as if she is trying to strangle them. ‘There was never any such suggestion when we bought it, and it’s no more than a hundred years old, so it can’t have much of an history. Is that why none of them ever want to come round? I always thought it was because I don’t have the right accent.’ She stifles a sob, deliquesces back into the sofa.
‘Darling, it’s not that. Everyone adores you. And Hannah. Your accent is no worse than anyone else’s round about. But you must know, there are always strange things happening here. Listen! Hear that bump? What do you think it is? We are the only people in the house, it isn’t raining and the plumbing is behaving perfectly correctly. Then there’s the shuffling and strange gusts of wind. A while ago there was a clicking, like death watch beetle and a shuffling sound. There! Another bump! Charlotte is scared to death and I’m uneasy here most of the time as well. Whenever I visit you I’m expecting to walk into the Ghost of Christmas Past or some poor soul who was murdered in your bath tub.’
Do you know what it’s like to be told somebody you heartily dislike has died suddenly? Laugh? Cry? Offer condolences? Make a stupid joke? Penny has that look about her, splutters through clenched teeth, clutches her hands firmly in her lap, which reminds me she used to be a school teacher at one time. Her shoulders relax. At the sound of another bump she titters.
‘It’s Vincent,’ she says at last.
‘Vincent? Your ex? I thought you were long rid of him. When was the divorce? Two years ago?’
‘Two years and three months. The divorce was the most amicable part of our whole marriage. I got to keep the house and custody of the children; he keeps his hefty civil service pension. Then it turns out he hasn’t got a penny in the bank. Spent it all on those loose women he was fornicating with. Serves him right, silly old fool. But I couldn’t just turn him out onto the street, now could I?
‘I said he could stay here living in the spare room for a short while until he sorted himself out, as long as he came nowhere near me or the girls. Which, to be fair, he hasn’t. Good job, too, or we’d be back screaming at one another like we did when we were married. For the last twenty-seven months he’s been a good boy, kept well out of sight, only used the loo here when no-one was around, showered at work, ate out or in his room. Except he can’t be completely silent, of course. Like everyone who learned to type on a typewriter he’s got a heavy touch on the keyboard, knocks the mouse off his desk now and again, shuffles up and down in his slippers when work isn’t going well. Nothing gross, but enough to remind you he’s there.
‘But you can always tell when there’s another person around, can’t you? The air seems to move, the central heating magically comes on or goes off, the post collects itself in neat piles, the cats always have food and water.’ Penny completely relaxes, slides her legs under her, leans sideways like a kitten curling up for sleep.
Only to be brutally disturbed.
Two things happen simultaneously. Heavy steps descend the stairs, to the accompaniment of a prolonged ringing of the doorbell and rude voices in the background. ‘Free at last!’ cries an exultant Penny. ‘There’s the removal men come to ship his stuff out. Now, what time will Charlotte be here on Friday?’
About the author
Tony Warner lives in Norwich, Norfolk. He has published a novel based on the fictional meeting of Vincent Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso, a book of short stories, several poems and short stories. He moonlights as an art critic and is renovating a thirteenth century church as a scriptorium.
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