by Alex Shearer
Like ghosts.
‘I suppose we could maybe do a bit more haunting . . .’ I said casually, not wanting to sound too keen. ‘Just to keep our hands in. Is there anything else we can do apart from tinkering with one-armed bandits?’
Arthur thought a moment.
‘Apart from jack-potting?’
‘Nothing too wicked, mind,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t want to really upset anyone.’
‘No,’ Arthur said, ‘I wasn’t thinking of anything like that – come on, there’s somewhere I want to go.’
‘Hang on, Arthur!’ I said. ‘Just a second! I wanted to ask—’
But he was already away. And I had no choice but to go after him.
We had left my old school behind us by now and were walking along into town, going in the direction of the precinct and the pedestrianized shopping centre.
As we went along, I watched the people who passed us, looking for familiar faces and for those I once knew.
We shuffled along, Arthur and me, and had you been able to see us, you’d have thought we looked like anyone, just like any two boys on our way into town, maybe off to the Games Workshop to have a look at the latest War Hammers, or off to see what new computer games had come into the shops.
You might have wondered what we were doing out of school at that time of day, and probably would have concluded that we were off on the skive. Or maybe, from the look of Arthur and from the clothes he was wearing, you might have thought he was on his way to audition for the part of the Artful Dodger in a forthcoming TV series, and that I was going along to keep him company and to see that he didn’t get too nervous.
Yes, we looked as normal as anyone, really. Only nobody could see us, that was the thing, even though we could see them, clear as mud. And it was odd to walk along, with your feet not really touching the ground at all, just floating by like a low-flying cloud, half an inch above the pavement. And if you sometimes forgot to look where you were going, you’d find that somebody had gone and walked straight through you, or even ridden right through you on a bicycle, and you hadn’t even noticed, it hadn’t hurt at all.
It was odd too to see how everyone has two faces – a public one and a private one. One for when they think other people are able to see them, and for when they think they’re alone. And sometimes people make an effort to look happy and they say, ‘Good morning, how are you, lovely day!’ in a loud, cheerful voice, like they didn’t have a care in the world. But when they think they’re alone again, their smiles droop and their faces fall and they look miserable beyond belief.
Other times – which is ever more curious – people make an effort to look miserable. Yes, I know, it’s hard to believe, but they do. They meet someone in the street who says, ‘How are you? Are you well?’ and they say, ‘No, I’m terrible, awful, you wouldn’t believe how bad it is, I hardly know where to begin.’ But as soon as they part company, the person instantly cheers up and looks perfectly fine. In fact, it’s almost as if telling other people that they’re miserable is what makes them happy.
Anyway, on we went, Arthur and me, and he seemed to be heading for the shopping centre.
I saw a friend of my mum’s on the way; she had her youngest in a pushchair. Its handles were weighed down with carrier bags.
‘Hello, Mrs Fraser!’ I called. ‘How are you? It’s me, Harry.’
But she went on her way without a second glance. I didn’t know why I’d done it, really. I knew she couldn’t hear me.
We floated on into the town.
We were in the pedestrian precinct now and just walking along by Dixons. Arthur stopped to have a look at the computers in the window. He was dead interested in computers, even though they were a hundred and fifty years beyond him.
‘Amazing,’ he kept saying. ‘Amazing what they have these days. I was born a hundred and fifty years too early, that’s my trouble.’
‘My trouble,’ I said to him, ‘isn’t that I was born a hundred and fifty years too early, my trouble is that I died seventy years too early. That’s my problem.’
He gave me another of his when-you’ve-been-dead-as-long-as-I-have looks.
‘Harry,’ he said, ‘most people think they died too early.’ Then he looked back into Dixons’ window. ‘I wish I had the money for a Game Boy,’ he said. ‘Or a Dreamcast. Or a Play Station.’
‘Come on, Arthur,’ I said impatiently. ‘I thought we were off to do a spot of haunting or something.’
‘In a minute,’ he muttered, and he went on staring into Dixons’ window, dreaming about getting the latest gadgets for himself – anything as long as it was digital.
As I waited for him to prise himself away from the display, who should come along the precinct but Norman Teel – Dave Teel’s big brother. Dave Teel had been in the class above mine at school, and we used to play football together sometimes during break. He’d left school now, had big Norman, and had gone to work in a travel agent’s.
I wasn’t going to speak to him at first. What was the point, after all? But then sociability got the better of me, because I’ve always been the kind who likes a natter, and I find it hard not to say hello when I recognize someone.
So, ‘Hi, Norman,’ I said. ‘How are you doing?’
But instead of looking right through me like Mrs Fraser had, he stopped and he put his hand out and said,
‘Hello there, Harry, mate. How’s it going these days?’
‘Ahhhhhhh!’
Yes. I screamed. I screamed as loud as I could. Just as if I’d seen—
Well, a ghost.
‘I haven’t seen you for ages, Harry!’ Norman went on. ‘What happened? I thought you must have died.’
‘I have,’ I tried to say.
‘Where are you living now?’ he asked.
‘In the cemetery,’ I wanted to tell him. But I couldn’t utter one ghostly word.
I just stood there, rooted to the spot, not knowing what to do. I was absolutely terrified. I mean, there I was, dead, and Norman was chatting away to me, just like I was still breathing.
It was like being haunted. And he wouldn’t go away. He just stood there, nodding and smiling, like some kind of horrible fiend. I felt as if I was going mad. But then it all fell into place.
‘I’m dead too, Harry,’ he explained, ‘didn’t you realize? I went suddenly, just like that. It was something I picked up on holiday, some bug. Temperature of a hundred and four I had. And when I woke up, I wasn’t alive any more. I’m just down here tidying up a few loose ends, having a last walk down memory lane. But fancy seeing you here. I didn’t know you’d passed on. It’s a small world. Well, I must get on. Things to do. Have a good day.’
And he was off. He strolled away across the precinct, nodding to Arthur, as he stood there still drooling over the gadgets in the window.
I watched Arthur and I kept thinking about him, about what he’d done to the fruit machine, how he was able to manipulate things from – well – beyond the grave, and I wondered how far a thing like that could go.
Because to tell the truth, I had something in mind. You see, I had a scheme. There was something I was planning on, something I needed to do before I could ever be at peace with myself, before I would ever be able to make the journey to whatever lay beyond the Great Blue Yonder.
It was that unfinished business again, that thing I’d said to my sister Eggy, the terrible thing I’d said about her being sorry when I was dead, and then going off and dying, before we’d had a chance to patch things up.
I had to make my peace with Eggy before I could ever really say goodbye to the world and to move on. And if I didn’t, I’d just end up like Arthur, moping around the Other Lands, searching for someone he could never find, haunting his old haunts, moving among the living like the shadow of a shadow, like the ghost of a ghost.
But how could I ever say those words to her? How could I ever say, ‘Eggy, I’m sorry. Eggy, don’t feel bad. Eggy, please forgive me for what I said to you before I stormed off, never to
return.’ How could I when I had no words in me that any living person could hear?
I didn’t even have the ghost of a chance.
And yet I had a plan. But to make it work, I needed to know how you did it, how you could switch things off and on, and make them do what you wanted, like Arthur could.
If only I could control other things, the way I’d somehow made the leaf fall from the tree, the way I’d made Jelly’s biro leap from his hand. If I could do that, I could maybe pick up a pen and somehow make it write. If only I could still communicate with the living, if only I could say to Eggy all the things that were in my heart . . .
If only. If only.
If only I could have my time back to say a proper goodbye.
Maybe Arthur could explain to me how it all worked. Or maybe it was less a question of explaining and more a matter of trying it for yourself.
I turned to ask him.
‘Arthur,’ I said. ‘You know when you—’
But he was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t see him in the precinct anywhere. And then I spotted him, perched halfway up a lamp-post, sitting in a basket of flowers.
And he wasn’t on his own. There was someone else, sitting in another flower basket next to him.
‘Wotcha!’
I looked up, and half thought of saying, ‘Wotcha yourself,’ but I didn’t, because what I saw put it completely out of my mind.
There was another ghost up there, and going from the look of him, he must have been dead a good few years at least. He wasn’t exactly dressed in the latest fashions and had on one of those big, baggy suits that you see people wearing in news-clips of the old days.
‘Wotcha, Harry,’ Arthur repeated. ‘Come on up and join us.’
The other ghost looked down at me.
‘Yeah, come on up,’ he said, ‘room for a small one. There’s another basket here if you want it.’
And seeing as I really had nothing else to do, I hopped up and joined them on the lamp-post, and the three of us sat there, lounging about in the swinging flower baskets, just like we were all on our holidays. Which maybe we were, if you can look on being dead as a holiday, which it might well be for some people.
The other ghost turned to Arthur and said, ‘Who’s your mate?’
‘This is Harry,’ Arthur said, introducing us. ‘And Harry, this is Stan.’
We shook hands. That is we – well, you know what I mean.
‘How are you, Harry?’ Stan said. ‘Been dead long?’
‘Seems like ages,’ I told him. ‘Though it’s only really more like a few weeks.’
Stan nodded, as if he quite understood.
‘I know just what you mean, mate,’ he said. ‘Time nips by like nobody’s business. Yeah, it’s amazing how the time flies when you’re dead.’ Then he suddenly turned to Arthur and said, ‘Have you seen him yet?’
And Arthur said, ‘No,’ almost automatically, without even bothering to look around. ‘No, sorry, Stan, haven’t seen him.’ And Stan looked a bit disappointed.
I sneaked a closer look at him. He was quite old, maybe seventy or so, maybe even older. Why he was up the lamp-post, I’d no idea. I could only imagine that he had some unfinished business keeping him there and stopping him from crossing the Other Lands and heading for the Great Blue Yonder.
Arthur seemed to read my thoughts and to understand that a little explanation wouldn’t go amiss.
‘This is Stan’s lamp-post,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it, Stan?’
‘That’s right,’ he nodded. ‘It is.’
‘He’s been haunting it for years now, haven’t you, Stan?’
‘Yes,’ Stan agreed, ‘I have.’
I didn’t know quite how to respond, so I just nodded my head and said, ‘How interesting.’ I didn’t think it was though. I thought it was pretty stupid. I mean, of all the things you could come back and haunt, fancy haunting a lamp-post. You could have haunted the cinema, or a nice stately home, or a five-star hotel.
So I could see the point in haunting somewhere comfortable, where there was a bit of entertainment, but why anyone would ever choose to haunt a lamp-post, I couldn’t think at all.
No, I’d definitely have gone for the cinema myself. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Because it was a big cinema, the one near us, really huge, with twelve different screens in it and new films every week. You could have spent your whole life – I mean your whole death – in a place like that and never have got bored at all. And you could have got in to see all the films you’re not supposed to see as well, all the ones for grown-ups, the ones with all the blood and gore and the swearing and the naughty bits in them.
I was sorely tempted to do it. If I hurried over there straight away I’d just be in time for the afternoon performance and I could get down to some serious haunting right away. But then I remembered Eggy and Mum and Dad and all my unfinished business, and I felt it wouldn’t be right to spend the rest of eternity sitting in the multiplex cinema, watching all the latest releases until the time came when the cinema got so old they had to demolish it and I had to haunt somewhere else.
But a lamp-post! I mean, why haunt a lamp-post? Surely you could find somewhere a bit more interesting and a bit less draughty than that. Not that Stan would really be feeling the draught, but all the same.
Stan raised his hands to shield his eyes and looked out over the precinct.
‘Is that him, Arthur?’ he said. ‘Is that him now? You have a look. Your eyes are sharper than mine. Ask your mate too. Ask if he can see him. Is that him, Arthur? Is that him coming now?’
He pointed across the precinct. I looked and saw a small mongrel dog, which didn’t really seem to belong to anyone, scurrying about and nosing round in the bins.
‘Is that him, Arthur?’ Stan said. ‘Is it him at last?’
But Arthur just gave old Stan a bit of a look, as if he was totally crackers.
‘He’d be dead by now, Stan,’ Arthur said. ‘He’ll be dead too, remember. Dogs don’t live as long as people. And if you’ve been a ghost for fifty years, then he definitely has to be too. It’s the ghost of a dog you should be looking for, not a real one.’
But Stan didn’t seem totally convinced.
‘Not necessarily,’ he said. ‘He was always a very healthy dog. Very fit and active. He might still be alive. And he was only six when I passed on. So he’d only be fifty-six now. Which is no age at all for a dog, really. I’m sure there’s plenty of dogs still around just as old as that.’
‘Only stuffed ones,’ Arthur said. Which was maybe a bit callous of him, even if it was the truth.
Stan stood up in the flower basket to get a better view of the terrier.
‘Careful!’ I yelled at him as the baskets swayed in the wind. ‘Watch out! You’ll have us all out! We’ll all fall down and—’
And what? I didn’t finish the sentence, and Stan ignored me anyway.
‘It’s him, Arthur!’ he said, getting more excited by the second. ‘It’s him! I’m sure it is! It’s definitely him! It’s my old dog! It’s Winston, I’ve found him at last!’
But just as he said it, a man dressed in raggedy clothes came round the corner, with a tin of beer in one hand and a bit of string in the other, which maybe served as the dog’s lead. And he whistled to the dog and it ran after him, and they both went and sat down outside a shop front, and the man put his cap on the pavement and started asking people if they could spare him some change.
Stan sat back down in the flower basket. His face looked sad and old and disappointed.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not him. Someone else’s dog. Looked like him though. It did look like Winston. Slightly different markings though, now I see him closer. Looked like him though, very like him. I almost thought – well, never mind.’
I felt a bit sorry for him, and I could tell that Arthur did too.
‘Hey, Stan,’ he said, ‘Harry and me were just thinking of popping back up to the Other Lands now for a while. Why don
’t you come with us? Have a break from looking for Winston. Get yourself a change of scenery. Why not, eh? Come on!’
But no.
‘No thanks,’ Stan said. ‘I’ll stay here a while longer. He might turn up.’
‘But, Stan,’ Arthur said, ‘you’ve been haunting this lamp-post for fifty years now. Don’t you think that’s long enough? I mean, if you haven’t found Winston in fifty years, the chances are . . .’
Yes. Stan knew what the chances were. Who didn’t? But the thing was that I could have said the same to Arthur. I could have said, ‘Arthur, you’ve been looking for your mum for over a hundred years. If you haven’t found her in a hundred years, the chances are . . .’
But that’s always the way, isn’t it? It’s easy to be sensible for other people, but you can’t always be sensible for yourself.
‘No, I’ll stay on here a bit,’ Stan said. ‘Thanks all the same, boys. But I’ll just hang about a while longer. He might turn up.’
‘OK then,’ Arthur said. ‘We’ll probably see you again then.’
‘More than likely,’ Stan agreed.
‘Nice meeting you,’ I said. ‘I hope you find your dog.’
‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Nice meeting you, Harry. See you around.’
‘Bye then.’
‘Bye.’
Arthur and I hopped down from the flower baskets and went on our way. I didn’t really know what our way was, so I let Arthur go a bit in front, so that I could follow him and yet seem to be independent at the same time.
I looked back once, to see if Stan was still there. And there he was, halfway up the lamp-post, sitting in his flower basket, scanning the precinct for signs of his long-lost dog. He seemed like a look-out on an old sailing ship, the kind you see pictures of in books, like a sailor up in the crow’s nest, and it seemed as though any minute he would shout, ‘Thar she blows!’ and the whole precinct would sail off in search of his long-lost dog.
Arthur quickened his pace. He seemed ever more anxious to return to the Other Lands and to resume the search for his mum. I had trouble keeping up with him and almost had to trot along behind him. There was no time now to ask him about how he had controlled the fruit machine. I felt annoyed with him for going so fast, but I was too proud to ask him to slow down, and I certainly didn’t want to lose him, as I wasn’t too sure how to get back to the Other Lands on my own. And I definitely didn’t want to stay down here for ever, a ghost among the living – I mean, what sort of a life is that?