The Great Blue Yonder

by Alex Shearer

  Then he said, ‘I’ll come again tomorrow, Harry, same as usual.’ And at that – wanting to spare him from getting so upset every day – I said, ‘It’s all right, Dad, don’t feel you have to come here every day. Once a week will be fine, Dad, honest. Or once a month even. Or just come and see me on my birthday. I won’t mind. That’ll be fine, Dad, really. Or if you want to go off on holiday and can’t get here for a while, I’ll understand. Or you could send Mrs Morgan next door along instead, if you want to. I’ll understand. I’d rather you did it that way, Dad, than get upset all the time.’

  But of course he couldn’t hear me.

  ‘Bye, Harry,’ he said. ‘Bye.’

  And he turned on his way and walked up the cemetery path. I ran after him to catch him up. He wasn’t going very quickly, not like he usually did, not sort of bouncing along all cheerful and swinging his arms. Quite the contrary, he just shuffled along, his arms by his sides, lost in whatever he was thinking.

  ‘Hang on, Dad!’ I shouted. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  On he went, heading for home. I soon caught up with him. And, you know, the way I felt, you’d have thought it was him who’d died, not me.

  ‘Are you off home now, Dad?’ I said. I assumed he was. Where else would he be going? ‘We can go together,’ I suggested.

  On he went. I reached out and took his living hand with my ghostly one. And we walked along the path together, hand in hand, me and my dad.

  Recently, just before my accident, I’d started feeling that I was getting a bit big to be seen out holding my dad’s hand. You know – the way you do. Same as when you don’t want your mum to kiss you any more, or at least not while other people are looking. But I didn’t feel like that then. I didn’t care who saw me. I didn’t care if the whole world saw me out holding my dad’s hand. I only wished they could. I only wished I could.

  I didn’t bother waiting for Dad to open the door when we got home, I just walked in straight through it and immediately headed for the kitchen, where Mum would more than likely be getting the tea on, and where Eggy would be, still in her school uniform, stuffing her face with biscuits.

  And right enough, the instant I came in through the wall, I found them there. But you should have seen them. Talk about miserable! You’d think that somebody had died. In fact, for a moment there, I maybe thought that somebody had died. Somebody else, that is, not me. Maybe Alt the cat had died from grief at me not coming back from my bike ride. I hoped he hadn’t. I’d have been really upset about that. I mean, I know he was only a cat, but all the same you can get very attached to your pets. You only had to look at Stan up his lamp-post to see that. Not that you’d be able to see him though, not even with 3-D specs.

  But then Dad opened the door and came in, and they both looked up at him. No ‘Hello’, no ‘Had a good day?’ no ‘Is the traffic bad?’ no ‘Did you get a paper?’ no nothing. Just a look. A look each. And Dad nodded to them and said, ‘I went round,’ and then he sat at the table.

  ‘I went round myself this morning,’ Mum said.

  ‘I went round on my way back from school,’ Eggy said. ‘I must have just missed you.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dad said. ‘You must.’

  And then the three of them just sat there, looking like a wet week at the seaside. In fact they looked so miserable, I almost left. I mean, I’m not saying that they’re all a great cheery bunch up in the Other Lands, but there’s miserable and there’s miserable. And say what you like about Arthur, at least you could have a bit of a laugh with him, even if he had been dead for a hundred and fifty years.

  But this lot – you wouldn’t believe it. Faces that long! Expressions that miserable! It was enough to get anyone down seeing the three of them sitting at the kitchen table looking like they were all about to top themselves.

  I had to do something to cheer them up. Only what? I sat down on my old chair and wondered what I could do to take their minds off things. Then I got it.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Let’s have a game of Monopoly!’

  Nothing. No response at all. They just sat there as if they hadn’t heard a word.

  ‘OK,’ I said, trying again, ‘how about Scrabble?’

  Nothing. They looked right through me.

  ‘Trivial Pursuit then?’ I suggested. ‘Me and Dad against Mum and Eggy. That all right? OK. You lot wait there then and I’ll go and get the box.’

  No. Not a flicker. Not a blink. I might as well have been dead. Well, yeah, I was, I know, but what I mean is – oh, never mind. I’m not going into all that again. You’ll find out for yourselves some time. Let’s just leave it at that.

  Well, I didn’t know what to do. How could I cheer them up? What could I say? What was there? I couldn’t even make them a cup of tea. All I could do was to stand there, haunting the kitchen, an invisible presence.

  Then I had an idea. Not for cheering them up, but on a different matter. It was another of my brainwaves, really. What I thought was that I could haunt the place for ever! Move back in, on a permanent basis, and it would be just like old times. I could have my old room back and life could go on as before and things would be the same as ever, the only real difference would be that I was dead. But that didn’t mean that we couldn’t go on living together. We could be a family again. Me and Mum and Dad and Eggy. And if I could somehow make myself visible to them, they’d be able to see me just like I could see them. And we could still do things together, we’d just have to warn people in advance, and be a bit careful, that was all. Like, if we went to the zoo, when Dad got the tickets, instead of asking for two adults and two children and one old-age pensioner if we brought Gran along, he’d just need to ask for two adults, one child, one old-age pensioner and a ghost. I was sure they’d have concessions for ghosts. Or maybe they’d even let you in for free, as long as you didn’t spook the animals.

  I was sure it would work. It would be OK. And when we went out for meals, I could just sit and watch them eat, I wouldn’t mind, as long as I was there.

  And yet, on reflection, I wasn’t so sure. Not sure at all. Not when I thought about Eggy growing up and Mum and Dad getting older and the years going by and me always the same. Older, but no older, a boy for ever, like Peter Pan.

  No, I thought, that would be too sad. I wouldn’t be able to bear it. I mean, to be a dead person for the rest of your life, what sort of an existence was that? And anyway, who’d want to spend the next fifty years or so with a miserable lot like this?

  ‘I think I’ll go up,’ Eggy said, ‘to my room. Maybe read for a while.’

  ‘OK, Tina,’ Mum said (they all called her that apart from me). ‘I’ll start the tea in a bit.’ And she sort of patted Eggy on the shoulder, and Eggy patted her hand in return, then she went over and gave Dad a kiss on the head and patted him too, then she went up to her room. They’d obviously taken up patting each other in quite a big way since I’d been gone. They never used to pat each other before. Not a lot.

  I was on my way to follow Eggy up to her room and to try and somehow settle the unfinished business when Dad turned to Mum and said, ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I wonder sometimes if maybe we should have had more children. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad then somehow, maybe it would be easier to bear. Maybe – do you think?’

  But Mum just gave him a sad sort of smile, and she reached across the table and took his hand and said, ‘You know it wouldn’t have made any difference, Bob. It wouldn’t have mattered if we’d had a hundred children. We’d still miss Harry just as much, every single little bit as much. You know we would.’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘I know. You’re right. No one could ever replace Harry. No one. He was a one-off. He was such a character. I know I got mad with him sometimes, but he did make me laugh. I did love him. I miss him so much.’

  And there were tears in Dad’s eyes and tears in Mum’s and she said, ‘Me too, me too, I miss him so much too.’ And then she pulled her chair around the table so she was sitting next to Dad, and she put her ar
m around him, and he put his arm round her – and they both started to cry.

  I felt that bad. I don’t mind telling you. I had to do something to stop it, it was that upsetting.

  ‘How about a game of I-Spy?’ I shouted as loud as I could. ‘It’ll take our minds off it for a while and then we’ll all feel better!’

  But my shouting was as silent as the tomb, and a bit more silent on top.

  ‘How about doing the crossword, then,’ I said. ‘The difficult one. It’ll give us all something else to think about. Probably keep us occupied for hours.’

  I thought this at them as hard as I could, with that really tightly squeezed sort of thinking, when you scrunch your thoughts up as hard as you possibly can. Maybe it did the trick, or maybe they just got fed up with being miserable. Either way, Mum went and got the kitchen roll and they had a bit each to blow their noses on, and then another bit for dabbing at their eyes. Then Mum got all sort of busy and businesslike, as she did when she’d made her mind up about something, and she went to the fridge and said, ‘Well, this won’t do. I’d better get the tea on. Want to or not, we still have to eat.’

  And Dad pulled himself together and bucked up a bit too, and he said, ‘I’ll maybe go out, run the lawnmower over that lawn.’ And Mum gave him a look at first and then nodded and said, ‘Yes, why don’t you do that, Bob? That would be a good idea.’

  So out Dad went to mow the back garden lawn. Though you could see it certainly didn’t need mowing. The whole garden was practically bald. He must have been out there mowing it every night. There was as much sense in him going out mowing that lawn as there was in a fish turning up at the barber’s and asking for a haircut. But he went and did it anyway, and I’m sure he had his reasons.

  ‘Hello, Mum,’ I said, now that I was left on my own in the kitchen with her. ‘It’s Harry, Mum, come back to visit you.’ It felt so strange to be there alone with her, watching her put the spuds on, and her not able to see me. ‘I’m a ghost now, Mum,’ I said. ‘I know you can’t hear me, but I can’t just stand here and not talk to you. I have to say something or else I’ll just feel like a right lemon.’

  She went and got the fish fingers out from the freezer compartment.

  ‘Thanks for the nice headstone, Mum,’ I said. ‘It’s a lovely colour. I hope you didn’t spend too much on it. Though then again, on the other hand, you won’t need to give me any pocket money now, so maybe that’ll help a bit, to, you know, defray expenses or whatever it is and stuff.’

  I regretted saying that immediately. I was glad then that she couldn’t hear me. I knew she’d have given all the pocket money in the world and all the wages too, just to have me back and give me a cuddle. And so would I. So I was sorry I’d said that. It was stupid. It had just come out. I hadn’t meant it.

  I thought of Eggy again, and of what I’d said to her, and what she’d said to me just before I’d set off on my bike. Only we had heard each other that time. And that was why I’d returned, why I’d come back – as they say – from the grave.

  ‘I’m just going to go up and see Eggy now, Mum,’ I said, as she put the peas in a pan. ‘I’ll come back and see you before I go. OK?’

  She went and got the knives and forks and started to lay the table. She laid four places. Yeah, that’s right. One, two, three, four. And she put out four glasses too, for the drinks. Then she remembered that I wasn’t there – at least not in any way that she could know me. And she muttered, ‘Oh no, I’ve done it again,’ like she was always doing it and that it made her angry with herself.

  She looked out of the window to the back garden, where my dad was going up and down mowing the lawn with no grass, like she was glad he hadn’t seen her mistake, or it would only set him off again. She went and took my knife and fork away and put them back in the drawer, and she put my glass away in the cupboard. Then she stood there, and looked straight at me, almost as if she could really see me, and she said, ‘Oh, Harry. Oh, Harry. Oh, Harry.’

  And I said, ‘Oh, Mum. Oh, Mum.’ And I ran to her and put my arms around her and hugged her as tight as I could.

  Only I couldn’t. And nor could she. So she went back to making the tea. And I left her there in the kitchen, and I went on up to Eggy’s room, to try and somehow make my peace with her, to somehow forgive her and be forgiven. And then I wouldn’t have to be a restless ghost any more. I wouldn’t have to stalk the earth or live up a lamp-post in a basket of flowers or spend my days in the multiplex cinema, moaning at the living whenever they came in to see the films.

  I could be at peace. I could move on to – to who knew where? To a new life, maybe? To some different kind of existence. To whatever lay beyond the horizon of the Other Lands. To the shores of the Great Blue Yonder.

  Upstairs

  The stairs didn’t creak like they usually did. And the number of times I’d cursed them for that. It would always happen just when I was planning on getting Eggy and was working on something really sneaky. And there I’d be, tiptoeing up towards her room with a nasty surprise for her, when Creeeeek!, I’d put my foot on that floorboard and it would give the whole game away.

  But this time, nothing. Not a sound. Just the faint crackle of music, coming from Eggy’s room. She always had her radio on, even when she wasn’t really listening to it. She just kept it on, soft and low, as a kind of background to her thoughts or to whatever she was doing.

  On I went, up the stairs. I realized that I was tiptoeing, from force of habit. I stopped and walked normally, heavily even, stomping my feet down on to the stairs – but of course, they didn’t make a sound.

  I was on the landing now. I remembered how the carpet used to feel as you walked on it barefoot from the bathroom to your bedroom. I remembered how it tickled the bottoms of your toes, as you dashed to get your pyjamas on and as you heard Eggy shouting, ‘I can see your willy!’ and rude stuff like that. And you’d tell her to belt up and be quiet and threaten to get her next time – whenever that was.

  Of course the carpet didn’t tickle now, but with an effort of memory, I could almost bring the feeling back. And yet with each step, it seemed to get a little harder to recall the feel of the rough wool in between your toes. Yes, step by step it was getting harder and harder to remember what it had felt like to be alive.

  Eggy’s door was closed. But her usual sign wasn’t up there. It had been there so long that the paint on the rest of the door had faded around it, leaving this little whiter-than-white patch, in the shape of a square.

  She’d put the notice up after I’d walked into her room once too often without knocking. She’d spent a couple of hours on it, putting a squiggly border around it and doing it in her best handwriting.

  The notice had read:

  ‘On no account whatsoever enter this room without knocking. This especially applies to all boys. Especially any boy going under the name of Harry. Improperly dressed callers will be refused admittance. No jeans. No trainers. No stupid little brothers. Ties must be worn at all times. Enter this room without permission and you DIE! Signed, the management.’

  So she went and put the notice on the door then, and so to retaliate, I went and put one up on mine. And my notice said:

  ‘Get lost pig-face. You can’t come in. This applies to sisters ONLY!’

  But the only trouble was that Eggy didn’t want to come into my room much, so it was no real hardship for her to stay out of it, so I wasn’t gaining anything by forbidding her to enter. And my mum made me take the sign down anyway, as she said ‘pig-face’ was rude. But she let Eggy keep her sign up, which I didn’t think was fair.

  So I soon got bored after that, especially as I couldn’t go into Eggy’s room to annoy her any more, and I had to find some other way to keep myself amused. So what I did was to keep knocking on her door in all these different outfits to ask if I was properly dressed to come in yet.

  The first time I went in my Hallowe’en mask. The next time I went with nothing on at all. The third time I went with my swim
ming trunks on over my head and wearing Mum’s old slippers, the ones that look like big fluffy bananas. The fourth time I knocked, Eggy just shouted at me to get lost without even opening the door. And the fifth time I went to call, I saw that another line had been added to the notice on the door. It said, ‘Harrys will not be admitted under any circumstances whatsoever. Harrys who persistently knock at this door will get their teeth loosened and will be given a punch in the gob to play with. Thank you for your cooperation, the management.’

  So I didn’t bother knocking then, and decided to leave things to cool off for a while.

  Eggy did start letting me back into her room after a time, but the sign always stayed up on the door, sort of like a caution, I suppose, a warning that I was only there under sufferance. But the notice wasn’t there now. She must have taken it down. She probably felt bad about that line in it – ‘Enter this room without permission and you die.’

  And you know, it’s a funny thing, but when people annoy you all the time, you wish more than anything that they’d just buzz off and leave you alone. And then one day they do buzz off, and they do leave you alone, but instead of feeling pleased about that, sometimes all you feel is lonely.

  Still, door closed or door open, door locked or door unlocked, it was all the same to me. There was nothing that could keep me out of anywhere now. I could walk into the vault of the Bank of England and admire all the gold if I wanted. Not that I could have done much with it, but isn’t that always the way, by the time your dreams come true, they’re not your dreams any more, and you’re already dreaming of something else.

  So I made my way along the landing, a plan half forming in my mind, but then, as I passed the door to my bedroom, I couldn’t resist the impulse to just pop inside and to see the old place again, and to see what had changed. So I walked in through the door.