Haunts

by Stephen Jones

  He prepared the funeral numbed, was numbed as he organized flowers and arranged a nice buffet for the wake; he was really quite spectacularly numb as he wrote a eulogy to Janet. He wanted to tell the world how he felt now she’d gone forever, but he didn’t know how he felt, that was what he was still trying to work out; “I’m in shock,” he said, to reassure himself, “it has to be expected, I’m in shock,” but it had been days now. How long could you be “in shock” for?

  *

  The words of his eulogy did the right things on the page, all sad and regretful, but even as he plucked them out of his brain (from God knows which part) they didn’t seem much to do with him, or with Janet, or their seven-year-old marriage, or their however-many-years-long marriage that they ought to have had.

  I’m a fraud, he thought. Friends said he shouldn’t deliver the eulogy himself, he’d be too upset, let the minister do it. And the minister was a nice old man, and he talked a lot about God, and he had a kind face and kind eyes and a white beard, he was pretty much what David thought God looked like, maybe he was God—except David didn’t believe in God, and neither had Janet, so wasn’t this all a bit pointless?

  Wasn’t it pointless? With her there in the coffin (and the coffin was so expensive, and they were only going to use it the once!), and he couldn’t even see Janet inside, it might have been stuffed with old newspaper. And David looked at Janet’s parents, and they were crying now, their numbness had broken, they’d snapped right out of it, “Why not me?” I’m a fraud, I feel nothing, shout it out, dare you, maybe I never loved her enough to feel, I’m a fraud.

  The minister read the eulogy, and he got the emphasis wrong, he made all the funny bits too serious, and all the serious bits, the bits about loss and pain and whatever else David had managed to dredge up, all the serious bits just sounded trivial. And David thought, it should have been me after all. And he supposed that meant, I should have been the one who read the eulogy, but now the thought was in his head, he thought, I should have been the one in the car crash. It should have been me. It should have been me.

  But not hysterical, not upset. No. Numb.

  *

  The collision had been head on. Both drivers were killed. The other woman had been drinking. They told him Janet wouldn’t have known anything about it, she’d have died instantly. David supposed that was better, right? To die in ignorance.

  She hadn’t left a will, and so hadn’t put any funny conditions in it.

  He didn’t know where to scatter her ashes. He did it in the park. It wasn’t especially obscure, but, so.

  At the wake he was told, by a series of well-meaning but irritating people, that he should see the doctor and get himself some sleeping pills. “Why?” So he could sleep, of course! But sleeping really hadn’t been a problem, there was so much to do, so much to plan (so many well-meaning people to navigate), that he’d fall asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

  He didn’t have nightmares. He didn’t have dreams, actually, when he slept he was (ho-ho!) dead to the world. In fact, David was only ever going to have two more dreams, and only the first he thought of as a nightmare.

  It happened just a couple of days after the funeral was done and there wasn’t anything to plan any more—and David welcomed it, he’d been expecting something, this would be a release—and annoyed too, because it turned out to be entirely the wrong sort of nightmare altogether. No dead wife. No car crash. Nothing like grief at all, no grief in which his unconscious state could relax in, and kick back, and say, yes, this, this, is what I’ve been waiting for.

  This is what he dreamed.

  He couldn’t close his eyes.

  It wasn’t even interesting at first, and hardly distressing, and it took him quite a while to work out anything was wrong at all. He was— somewhere, anywhere. He was—standing, sitting, it didn’t matter. Nothing was going on. There was nothing to be concerned about. He was just himself, his ordinary self, who else might he be, and he was content, and a little bored perhaps, waiting for the action to start.

  It occurred to him that he hadn’t blinked for a while. That was just how engaging this dream was—it gave him time to count his blinks.

  And now he registered it, of course, he decided he wanted to blink. That would feel good. Just a little blink, thank you, he deserved one of those. And he wasn’t able to.

  This was silly. The brain wasn’t sending the right message to the eyes. He sent a message to his brain, from another part of his brain, telling it to pull its socks up. The brain told the eyes to close. To do one of those blink things they were so expert at. David felt the muscles at the sides of his eyes squeeze—just a little, complacently, this wasn’t a problem, the eyes knew they could do this (ho-ho! again) in their sleep. And then, when that didn’t work out, the muscles putting a little more effort in, straining.

  Nothing. The eyes stared open, resolutely fixed.

  David was quite surprised by this. So much so that he raised his eyebrows, and the brows pulled the eyelids ever upwards. David couldn’t relax his face from that surprise. He now found he couldn’t even lower the eyelids back to where they’d been before, back to where this whole stupid non-blinking problem had started.

  “It’s all right,” he told himself, but it wasn’t all right, it was a nightmare, and his eyes were stuck, and he’d forever look like an idiot, some stupid boggle-eyed staring idiot. And where the hell was Janet, shouldn’t she be showing up soon, wouldn’t dealing with that particular trauma be a bit more useful?

  Now he thought of blinking, naturally enough, there was nothing he more wanted to do. His body was screaming at him to blink. It was like thinking of an itch, and then in the thought of it needing to scratch. Except, no, don’t think of itching, keep away from that.

  Too late. Because now David was beginning to panic. And panic over such a ridiculous thing—and he felt that itch now, his eyes were itching. They were tingling, God, he’d have to scratch them, he’d have to reach up his hand, reach out his nails, and scratch them, hard, scratch away that itch, scratch until the eyeballs were shreds.

  And he knew the eyelids wouldn’t even shut down, the little bits of protection those fragile flaps of skin could offer wouldn’t be there. Because the eyelids only moved upwards now, didn’t they? And at that, oops, he raised them further, he opened his eyes as wide as they would go, and they locked tight into that position. Fixed, bulging, and so very, very ticklish.

  David knew he was asleep. And because of that he knew that in real life his eyes must be closed. He wanted to wake up, get out of the dream. Before he did something terrible, before the fingernails did their work. But he couldn’t. He felt himself hit out at the bed, he was struggling, he was crying out. This other self of his, the one he could detect faintly in the waking world, he was useless, wasn’t he? If only he could get his eyes opened for real, he could shut the ones in his fantasy. But neither eyes were willing to help. Staying right where we are, said the dream eyes. So are we, said the ones sleeping in David’s bed. And he thought for one merciful moment, it’ll be okay, with all this commotion I’ll wake Janet, and she’ll wake me, she’ll look after me, I’ll be safe—but, oh, shit—and he could feel he was really screaming out now, no one beside him could have slept through that, but there was no one beside him to hear.

  He tried to remember what blinking was supposed to achieve. It was to moisturize the eyeball, wasn’t it? Give it a little spray of water.

  Why would the eye need that? Why would we need to blink so often, did we need that water so very urgently? He thought perhaps we did. He thought perhaps it was essential. And they were raging with itches now, his eyes were blazing raw in their sockets—give us some water, we’re parched!—and his brain was sending down messages to the fingernails, go to it, lads, scratch away, scratch hard until the eyeballs pop, but (thank God) it seemed the fingernails weren’t listening, they stayed right were they were, it seemed no one was taking orders from brain tonight.

 
David’s eyes were so large now, so wide-open, he could feel the pressure on his forehead. And they were hardening too, all the water was gone, they were tightening up like old mud, and then the cracks would appear, and the cracks would break into bigger fissures, and his eyeballs would splinter, wouldn’t they, they’d shatter all over his stupid stupefied stupid face.

  And he was sweating with fear, and he suspected this was both in the dream and out of it, and maybe that’d be good, all that sweat might run into his eyes and give them the liquid refreshment they needed—except, wait—wouldn’t it be very salty? That’d sting, that’d burn, and he was screaming different messages at his eyes, no wonder they were getting confused—”Open up!” “Shut down!” —and no one was obeying him, someone else was in control, someone else giving instructions to both eyes inner and outer, someone wanted him to hurt. He threw himself out of bed. His eyes snapped open in shock. He fought off the duvet, still wrapped around him, and yes, he had been sweating, the duvet was drenched.

  In his panic he thought that even in real life he wouldn’t be able to close his eyes, that he’d be trapped forever looking at this poor empty bedroom that ought to have had two people in it and now only had one—but no, they closed, and again, and again, and again.

  He went to the bathroom. Stared in the mirror. Already he was calming down, it was all right, he was all right. He saw reflected back at him not the terrified man of the dream, but someone who was tired, and confused, and so sad, and slumping back into the numbness. But he watched himself blink some thirty or forty times, one blink after the other. Deliberately, enjoying it. Enjoying the sweet sensation of it, and the freedom that he could do as he wished. Enjoying himself, so it seemed, for the first time since Janet had died.

  His lips felt a bit thick. He’d probably hurt them when he fell out of bed, maybe he’d bitten them or something. He prodded at them, but they stayed rubbery to the touch. It took him going downstairs and making himself a hot cup of coffee before he got any proper feeling back.

  *

  Pretty soon, David realized, people were getting bored with him. This struck him as rather unfair. He wasn’t the one who kept on talking about the death, he mentioned it as little as possible. Everyone was sympathetic, but sympathy was so tiring.

  He’d gone back to work, but the boss soon called him into his office. “I don’t think you should be here yet,” he said. “I think you should take all the time you need.”

  “I want to be busy,” said David.

  “And you can be busy at home, I’m sure. Don’t you worry, we can survive without you!” And then the boss looked embarrassed, looked away; people kept doing that.

  So by the time the man from the gas company knocked on the door, David hadn’t seen a living soul for three days. “Suspected gas leak,” he said. “I’ve come to check your meter.”

  “Oh, all right,” said David.

  “I’m not disturbing you, then?”

  David thought that maybe he was still in his pajamas, sometimes he didn’t get out of his pajamas all day, it depended on whether he’d remembered to get dressed. He looked down, and saw that he was actually pretty smart today, presentable. “No, no.”

  “I’ll come in then.”

  David showed the man where the meter was.

  “Nice house,” said the meter reader.

  “Thank you.”

  “Big.”

  “Yes.”

  “You live with someone else, a wife, perhaps, or…?”

  “No, no, it’s just me.”

  “Pretty big, just for you on your own.”

  “Yes,” said David. He watched the man take the meter reading. He showed him out.

  About half an hour later, the phone rang. David answered it. On the other end he heard someone in tears.

  “Hello?” he said. “Hello, who is this? Are you all right?”

  “I’m sorry,” said the voice. It was a man’s voice. He didn’t recognize it.

  “Who is this?”

  “I didn’t need to read your meter. I just wanted to see you.”

  “Hello?” said David. He didn’t know why, it just seemed as if the conversation might make more sense started from scratch.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” said the voice. It stuttered in between the sobs. “You must hate me. I’m sorry. It was. My wife, she. She was the one in the car. In the crash.”

  “Oh,” said David. “I don’t…”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yes.”

  “I just had to … oh, shit, can’t… The words won’t. Sorry. See you. See you were okay.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “See what I’d done.”

  “That’s okay,” said David. “Really.”

  “Could we meet?”

  “What, you mean, come here? I…”

  And the voice sounded shocked, angry. “To your house? I wouldn’t presume. That I should … I wouldn’t deserve it. No.”

  “Okay.”

  “But in a pub? I’m in a phone box. Just down the road from you. There’s a pub opposite, do you know it?”

  “Well, yes, but…”

  “The King’s Arms.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I’ll be there. Thank you. You’ve no idea how much this means to me.” And the man hung up.

  Had David still been in pajamas, he might not have bothered going out. But all he had to do was put on a pair of shoes, a coat. They’re such easy things, shoes and coats.

  *

  He’d never been inside the pub before, though he passed it most days on his way to work. There wasn’t much of an afternoon trade, and the woman behind the bar raised her head to him in dulled acknowledgement.

  The man in the gas company uniform wasn’t crying any more; he sat on his own, nursing a pint of thick dark beer, and when he saw David he smiled as if recognizing an old friend. He stood up to greet him, and it struck David how short he was, all bullish and tightly squeezed into those blue overalls. “Can I get you a pint?” he said.

  “Well, it’s a bit early.”

  “Please, a pint, it’s the least I can do.”

  He bought David a pint, as thick and dark as his own.

  “I’m sorry about that stunt with the meter,” said the man.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Bit of a mad thing to do.”

  “It’s okay.” There was a pause. The man wouldn’t look at David, stared at his pint instead. David said, “So, what do you really do? You know, for a living?”

  “I work for the gas company. I read meters.”

  “Oh, right. I thought that…”

  “You thought I was in disguise? That I’d, what, rent a costume as a meter reader, and come to your house under false pretences?” And for a moment David thought the man was angry, but he wasn’t, he was just appalled at the idea; he laughed at the absurdity of it. “Disguise,” he chuckled. “That’s a good one. That really would make me mad, wouldn’t it? How’s the drink?”

  “Okay.” David sipped at it. It was too hoppy for his taste. He hadn’t had beer in years. He and Janet had never bothered with pubs, their perfect evening would be a bottle of nice wine in front of the telly.

  “Good. Well, there’s more where that came from. I owe you. I don’t drink much either. Just so you know. I mean, under the circumstances. Inappropriate. But we couldn’t just sit in the pub together without a pint. That’d be gay.”

  David supposed that it would.

  “How are you feeling? How are you holding up?” The man looked him directly in the face, and it was the first time he had. David tried to frame the usual bland reply, but the man continued. “Bet you get a lot of that. I do. Gets pretty annoying, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said David.

  “They should mind their own fucking business.”

  “Yes,” said David, with feeling. “They should.”

  “God knows how I feel,” said the man. “I keep crying. In front of strangers. I mean,
it’s bad enough Tracey’s dead. But knowing she took someone with her, that’s what makes it hard. You’re lucky. You’ve no idea how lucky. I mean, not that lucky, of course, sorry.”

  “Well, no,” said David.

  “D’you bury or cremate her?”

  “Oh,” said David. “Cremate.”

  “Tracey didn’t want to go with cremate,” said the man. “She didn’t like getting burned. And besides, she’d say, what if they found a cure? Afterwards we could just dig her up. Couldn’t be brought back if she were just ashes. Mind you, I don’t suppose they’ll ever find a cure for car crashes, but you know, it’s what she wanted.”

  “I never knew what Janet really wanted,” said David.

  “She drank a lot, Mr. Reynolds. I won’t tell a lie. I used to ask her to stop. And over the years, I just gave up. And I think, if I hadn’t, maybe she’d be alive today. Maybe you’d still have your Janet. Maybe she wouldn’t have suffered.”

  “They say that she died instantly she wouldn’t have felt a thing.”

  “Yeah, they always say that. But how do they know, eh? I mean, when Janet’s head smashed through that sheet of glass. At forty miles-an-hour. And, what, her skull got pulped. How could they know?”

  “Well,” said David. “I ought to be going.”

  “Let me get you another pint.”

  “I haven’t finished this one.”

  “Tracey didn’t drink in the beginning,” said the man. “So I wonder. Did I drive her to it? Was it something about me? Because I loved her, you know, I really did. But maybe my love wasn’t enough? Or too much? I drove her to suicide, because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? It’s my fault. And murder, I killed your wife, it was down to me.”

  “Not murder,” said David. “If anything, manslaughter.”