Broken Ghost

by Niall Griffiths

  —Mam.

  Tomos is tugging at my sleeve. He’s paused the game on the screen.

  —What is it, bachgern?

  —What’s this place?

  I realise that we’re at a bus stop in a village.

  —Llangwyryfon. Why?

  —Is this where I went to church that time?

  —What time?

  —Think it was Easter time once.

  I remember. Things repeat themselves. I can’t help myself.

  —I think so, aye.

  —Will Taid take me to church again this time?

  —I don’t know. Why? D’you want to go to church again with your taid?

  There’s a man walking up the bus. I see his face beneath the peak of a baseball cap. He’s wearing oily overalls, baggy except where the cloth is straining at his shoulders. He sees me looking at him then glances at Tomos by my side and sits down a few seats in front of me. I see the hair curl at the nape of his neck. The big hands on him. Things repeat themselves.

  —Who’s that man, Mam?

  —What?

  —That man.

  —Just some man.

  What were we talking about, me and my son? He just asked me a question. What was it? Or was it me who asked the question?

  The bus rumbles and pulls away.

  —Are you not playing your game anymore?

  He’s not, no; he’s gazing out the window. There’s a big dark church up on a hill. He looks at it then turns his blue eyes like lamps on me. Again, I know that his eyes are beautiful; but that’s just a description, just a word.

  —Mam.

  Here it comes. —What, cariad?

  —Why do people go to church? Why do they believe in God? Why does Taid believe in God?

  —Don’t you, then?

  He doesn’t answer, just looks down at the screen, but doesn’t resume his game. The bird-balls are suspended, still, on the display.

  —Well, people need things to believe in, I say. —Like, a power? Something bigger than them. A faith.

  —A face?

  —No, a faith. F-A-I-T-H. It’s like, well, something to believe in, a bigger thing than them, it keeps them going. Like, gives them something to live for?

  How do you explain this to a little boy?

  —I mean, for some people it’s the sea.

  —People need to believe in the sea? And all the fishes?

  Oh God.

  —Well, yeh, sort of. Cos it’s bigger than them. It’s where life comes from.

  —I came from the sea?

  —Yes. Long, long time ago. Well, I mean, you came from me, and I came from your nain and taid, but. People. Humans, like us. Long long time ago we came from the sea.

  The man in the overalls is texting on his phone. Who’s he sending a message to? Wonder if he’s married. Has a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. Someone he grabs with them big hands.

  —I came from you? I used to live inside you?

  —When you were a tiny baby you did, aye. Before you were born.

  —Will people live inside me one day?

  —No, cos you’re a man. Well, you’ll be a man, when you grow up.

  He thinks about this.

  —When I grow up, do I have to believe in God?

  —You don’t have to do anything. You’ll be able to decide for yourself.

  —I’ve been in the sea.

  —You have.

  —So have I been in God?

  —Some people would say you have, yes. Because everything is God. The sea is God. So some people would say that you have been in God. And that God is still in you.

  —God’s in me?

  He says this with a little bit of panic. My little boy.

  —He’s in everyone, not just you. Because he loves you and he wants to keep you safe. That’s what some people would say.

  —At school he’s called Father. Is God my dad?

  Soon this hole will be too deep to climb out of. —Some people would say he’s everybody’s dad. Like the sea. Yma, let’s have some celery sticks, aye? And see if you can get to the next level of Angry Birds. You’ve never been on Level 3, have you?

  Ah, there we are; soon as your child starts asking awkward questions, distract them with things that flash and bleep. Fuck’s sakes.

  I take the box out of the sack and take the lid off and dip a stick in the hummus and give it to Tom.

  —Mmm, nice. You must be hungry. Hurry up now, cos we’ll be getting off soon.

  He licks the hummus off the celery stick like other kids would lick an ice cream and I press the button on his phone to start the game again and immediately he’s absorbed. He’s trying to play with the celery in his hand and hummus is getting smeared all over the handset. But he’s distracted, and I should, really, be feeling a bit of shame here. But I feel nothing.

  The man gets an incoming text. I watch him read it and I see him smile. He sends a reply. I can’t imagine his life.

  I suddenly remember the Mormons who called at my door last month; two of them, young smart fellers in suits, handsome, with sexy accents. We can do jahbs for you, ma’am. I’m sure you can, I remember thinking, and then getting a burning in my face. Thank God that heat didn’t trickle down to my fanny.

  He needs a dad, Tomos does. More than anything else in the world. As do I – not a dad, I mean I’ve got a dad. But the man who would be a dad to Tomos, my litle boy – that’s what I need. I really, really need that.

  And where are you? Where are you? That’s what I said to myself, over and over again, looking out of Mr Humphreys’ kitchen window. And I have no fuckin idea who I was talking to. Sometimes I feel like only Tomos is real to me.

  Now there are wind farms – the thin white columns and the thin white blades. Seems to be a lot more of them than there was when I was last here. Mynydd Bach, the Little Mountain, altho to Tom it’s fuckin huge. Cairns up there. Standing stones. Lakes – Llyn Eidowen and Ffynnon Drewi. I know this area, aye. It should feel like home, if anywhere should; I mean I went to school here. Formative years. But it’s just a place, a handful of scattered houses in the hills, a chapel. Dull as fuck to a restless child. I remember being bored shitless up here, I do, but then I probably would’ve been bored anywhere. I am bored anywhere. Anywhere can bore the soul out of you, the same as anywhere can be exciting – it all depends on what you’re carrying around inside. But if what you’re carrying is fuckin Johnny and Carlos and the knowledge that you’ll soon be thrown out of your house and, around it all, a giant big black fuckin hole, if that’s the kind of stuff you’re hauling around with you wherever you go

  then

  oh fuck it. I know what I need. It’s Saturday; Tregaron will be heaving tonight. A burning in my skin and a weight on me and bodies to discover, scratch – like stepping off a plane in a country you’ve never visited before. Fill me.

  —Yes!

  I turn to Tomos. —What is it?

  —Level 3!

  —Good boy.

  —Poo.

  —What?

  —I’m out.

  —That was quick.

  —It’s hard. They go too fast.

  I see the screen light up again. —Don’t start another game, cariad. We’re getting off at the next stop.

  I gather up our stuff and take T’s hand and lead him down the bus. I glance at the man in the overalls, see his phone tiny in his hands, get a faint whiff of the fields coming off him but he doesn’t look up. Not even when I stand there at the side of the road as the bus pulls away. He’s absorbed in his phone. I’ll never, ever know.

  It’s hot. There are birds singing and I hear some sheep in the field behind me and somewhere down the valley I hear a power tool, a chainsaw or something. The sky is light blue and there are no clouds. I wait for something to come to me, some feeling, a sense of homecoming or something, even just some kind of remembrance, but nothing does.

  —Why are we standing here? T asks, squinting up at me. I just give him a smile and we walk along t
he road, holding hands, over the little bridge, past the chapel. My mam is waiting for us there and her face lights up and Tomos runs to her and she opens the gate and squats down to give him a great big cwtch. Squats down, at her age; she’s more bloody nimble than I am, aye.

  —Oh bachgern. How happy I am to see you, she says.

  We do the hugging and greeting thing and go into the kitchen. It’s cool and shady and full of the smells of baking and Waldo the dog gets up all slow and waggy from his bed. I bend to pat his head.

  —Careful with him, love. Had an operation on his hip last week, he did.

  —What for? Is he alright?

  —Something to do with his arthritis. Don’t know what they did to it but it seems to have made him a bit happier. Back on his food now. Just getting old, he is, that’s all.

  I pat him again. —Where’s Dad?

  —Down in the garden. I’ll shout him.

  She goes to the kitchen door and screeches ‘HYWEL!’ so loud that it makes Waldo jump. I fuss him behind one ear and Tom fusses him behind the other and then he’s had enough and he waddles back into his bed in the corner by the Aga. Waldo the waddler. The waddling dog. I remember when he was a pup and he would bounce everywhere.

  —You hungry? I’ve got some scones fresh out the oven.

  —Na. Could go a paned, tho.

  She puts the kettle on. Truth is that what I could really do with is not a cup of tea but a shower and a spruce and a taxi into Tregaron, all in the next five minutes. But she’s my mam.

  She sits at the table and starts drawing things with Tomos in a sketchbook and I go upstairs to the spare room and put the clothes I’ll wear later on the bed to air, the vest top and the skirt. Want to get them on now, I do. Want to feel them all tight on my shapes. I go back downstairs and my dad’s there and so there are more hugs and stuff and T wants to watch Tracy Beaker so my mam gets him settled in the front room with the telly on and then me and her and me dad sit at the table with our tea. I’m itching to get out and fuckin do something. Have something done to me. Feel something.

  —So, my dad says. He laces his fingers together on the tabletop. They look old and bent and knobbly. —What’s going on, cariad?

  —With what, Dad?

  —Your mother was speaking with Mrs Harrison the other day in the post office. Said that you’re something of a name online now, according to her daughter.

  —Oh, that. I sip me tea and it tastes of dust. —It’s nothing. I wrote a blog and it—

  —What’s a blog?

  —It’s like a kind of online diary, Mam. And it—

  —Is it private?

  —Well no. It’s online, so no. It’s a public forum.

  —So anyone can read it?

  —Suppose so, aye. And comment on it like.

  She looks at my dad then back to me. —What’s the point of a diary if anyone can read it? People you don’t even know, DuwDuw.

  —Well, you don’t write anything dead secret in it or anything like that. Or at least I don’t. It’s just a, a log of your life, kind of thing. What you’ve been up to. Just like, this is what I’ve been doing kind of stuff.

  —And everybody has one of these, do they?

  —Not everyone, no. But a lot of people do. And they tweet, as well.

  —Tweet? My dad makes an exasperated noise. —I don’t even want to know what that is. What’s all this about a vision?

  —A vision?

  —This is what Mrs Harrison said. That you told everyone on your, your blog, that you saw something and it’s caused this big palaver online. Everyone’s going on about it, she said.

  I drink me tea. Could do with a smoke to go with it. —It’s nothing, really. A load of fuss about nothing. Sometimes this happens, y’know, you say one thing and it gets taken out of all proportion. What happened was—

  —Have you been seeing things?

  —I’m about to tell you, Mam. I was on top of a mountain and—

  —Which one?

  —Does it matter? Pendam.

  Me dad nods.

  —And it was in the morning and there’d been a party and I’d been up all night so I was dead tired. And, I don’t know, I climbed onto a ridge and I saw this thing and I thought it was something it wasn’t and that’s it. I wrote about it online and it’s took off, for some reason. Not much more to it.

  It feels strange, saying these words to my folks. Like I’m talking about somebody else, or making up a story. Telling lies.

  —I don’t understand. What did you see?

  —It was just like a, a shape in the sky. Looked a bit like a woman. But it was just a shadow in the clouds or something, that’s all. Nothing to it, really. It’s been blown up out of all proportion.

  —So you have been seeing things.

  —No, Mam. I’m not hallucinating. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it?

  —Weren’t there some words? my dad says. —Mrs Harrison said there was something about some words.

  —Now she’s been hearing things too.

  My mam looks at my dad with her eyes all huge. Like Tomos does when he sees a tall building.

  I thought I heard some words, aye. But there was a feller messing around with an iPod and—

  —A what?

  —It’s like a personal stereo. And I’d had no sleep and I was sort of dreaming but still awake. Like what happens when you’re dead tired? It’s nothing to worry about. That’s what it’s like, these days; online is like another world. Things take on a life of their own. To be honest with you I’ve lost interest in it all and I haven’t even gone online recently. So I don’t know what’s being said now. Nothing happened. It’s like when people see UFOs but it’s just a bird or a plane. I shouldn’t’ve said anything. It’s a big fuss about nothing.

  Me mam turns her big eyes on me. —Are you still taking the pills, cariad?

  —Aw Mam. You don’t have to worry about anything on that score. I’m okay, now.

  Except someone came along when I was asleep and shoved a Hoover up me fanny and sucked out everything inside me. That’s what I feel like. This fucking nothingness.

  Christ almighty this itch. I am one gigantic itch. I need to get out.

  —We think you should move back in, my mam says, kind of blurts, like, and immediately looks all guilty across the table at my dad who shakes his head at her then turns to me.

  —We’ve been talking, Em. Your mam and I. We think it might be best for the two of you if you move back in with us for a little while.

  —Really? And why’s that, then, Dad?

  —Just have a rest. Take some time off. Recuperate.

  —From what?

  He goes all serious. —You tell us from what, love.

  I almost laugh. —Dad. There’s nothing to worry about, honest. Tomos is doing great at the school.

  Another blurt from my mam. —The boy needs a father, Emma.

  My dad gives a big sigh.

  —Mam, I say. —D’you think I don’t know that? But unfortunately there’s no good dad shop I can go to and pick one off the shelf, is there?

  —What would be the harm?

  —Of what, Dad?

  —Moving back in here for a bit. Just for a bit.

  —I have me own life, Dad. And I don’t think it’d be good for T. What about the school?

  —Summer holidays, is it not? You’d be back in Aber before term starts.

  I shake me head. —There’s not much for him to do out here. Least in Aber he’s got his friends. And the beach n stuff. Imagine it? We’d drive each other up the wall after a few days. You know we would.

  Me dad gives a little smile. Mam doesn’t, tho.

  —And anyway, that’s where I’m going tonight. To meet a feller, I say.

  —Here in Trefenter?

  —No, Mam, in Tregaron. Met him online.

  —So you haven’t actually met him yet? Not even seen him?

  —No. We’ve been talking online, like. Seems nice. From Cardiff
he is.

  I’m surprised at how easily these fibs are coming to me. As if I’ve rehearsed all this.

  —So he could be an axe murderer or anything.

  —Why would he want to kill axes? She doesn’t smile. —Don’t worry, I’m meeting him in the Talbot. He’s got two kids. It’ll be fine.

  —How do you know?

  —I don’t, do I? Not a hundred per cent, like. But at the first sign of anything dodgy I’ll get a taxi straight back. It’s nothing out of the ordinary these days, Mam, to meet people online. It’s called Match dot com, the one I joined, but there’s loads of them around. Dating websites. Everyone does it these days. Sure, where am I gonna meet a nice bloke in Aberystwyth? I’ve—

  I snap me gob shut. Was about to say that I’ve already shagged anyone half decent in the town and many who were not decent in the slightest and Christ wouldn’t that have been a bad thing to say. Got to watch meself. Control. Fibs take on a wild life, of their own. This is your mam and dad you’re talking to here, woman. Don’t forget that. Or yourself.

  —You worry me so, my mam says, but I just turn to me dad.

  —Has Tracey Tacsi still got her car?

  He nods. —I’ll give her a ring.

  —Ta. Half an hour, tell her.

  —Into Tregaron?

  —The Talbot, aye.

  He reaches over and gives my mam’s hand a squeeze and I do the same and then I go upstairs and jump in the shower and wash everything. I take the loofah to me legs and belly and back and tits but the itching will not be scrubbed away. I put the smellies on and paint me toenails and then in me bra and knickers hang out the back window and smoke a fag. The hill rises up behind the house, up towards the lakes, and the sky is starting to go a bit pink as the sun sinks. One last chance, then. You’ve got one last chance to stop it happening. If you value me. If I mean anything to you. By the time I’ve smoked this cigarette.

  Only the trees in silhouette. Night-time soon. So black out here, away from light pollution as it is. I let the filter fall. I put me clothes on and look at meself in the mirror. I’d fuck me. There’s a double beep from outside so I put me coat and boots on and leg it downstairs. Great big hugs all round and a pat on the head for waddling Waldo and oh this fucking itch. Whatever’s going off in the virtual world can stay there cos I am not interested. This is me. This is me. Burning fucking itch. There was no floating woman and there were no words. Coincidences have no deeper meaning. The itch is not in my cunt it’s somewhere inside, above the womb, and at the back of my brain. Coming apart again.