by Alex Shearer
‘I’m touching your shoulder, Eggy. Can you feel my hand? Can you? It’s me, Harry. Don’t be afraid. I’m just touching your shoulder, that’s all.’
But she went on reading the history book, and then paused, and took up one of the pencils, and made a few notes about Henry the Eighth and all the wives he once had and why he had them.
‘Eggy – it’s me.’
It was no use. There was no way I could make contact. When I thought of Alt and how just the sight of me had made all his fur stand on end, I did wonder why cats could be so sensitive and humans so thick-skinned. But if that’s how it was, there didn’t seem a lot I could do about it. A cat’s a cat and a person’s a person, and it’s not as if you can turn one into the other at the touch of a button or the wave of a wand.
‘Eggy . . .’
Nothing.
She looked up from her book, daydreaming maybe, like you do in the middle of your homework. Her eyes fell on the photo of her and me at my fourth birthday party. Me getting ready to blow out all the candles. Her getting ready to help me in case I ran out of puff.
‘Oh, Harry,’ she said. ‘Oh, Harry.’
And she reached out and touched the photo, just like it was flesh and blood and not just paper and chemicals.
I saw the pencil lying on the desk. I remembered the leaf on the tree, Jelly’s biro, and Arthur with the fruit machine. I could do it. I knew I could. I had to.
I focused my thoughts on the pencil, all of them, every part of me. I tried to shine my thoughts upon it as if they were the beam of a torch.
‘Please,’ I thought, ‘please, please, please . . .’
And then I did it. It moved. The pencil moved. I moved it up on to its point, and it balanced there in the air, just as if some ghostly hand was around it, which – in a sense – it was.
‘My god!’ Eggy gasped, and she pushed her chair back. I wanted to think at her, ‘Don’t worry, Eggy, don’t be afraid,’ but I had no thoughts to spare. Everything of me was concentrating on that pencil, on holding it upright in the air, and then on making it move towards the paper of the A4 pad.
Eggy remained in her chair. Frightened and yet – yet not frightened. Just waiting. Waiting to see. She had her hands on the edge of the desk, and was leaning back in her chair, almost as if she was trying to push the desk away.
But she didn’t scream, she didn’t run, she didn’t shout for Mum and Dad, she just sat there, stiffly watching as the pencil began to move towards the paper. And as it did, she said, ‘Harry? Harry? Is it you?’
I moved the pencil to the paper, and I made it write the word, Yes.
She didn’t turn, she kept her eyes on the pencil and the writing pad.
‘Harry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, Harry, I’m so sorry for what I said to you. I’ve thought about it ever since. Every second of every day. I’d do anything to undo it, Harry. I wish I could turn the clock back. I’m so sorry, Harry, I am.’
And I made the pencil write, I know. I’m sorry too, Eggy.
The writing was like my writing had been when I was alive, only it was very faint and spidery. I didn’t have the mental strength somehow to put much pressure on the pencil. Just making the pencil write and keeping it in the air was taking all the strength I had and I didn’t know if I could hold it there for much longer. I already felt exhausted, as if there wasn’t much of me left.
I thought at the pencil, as hard as I ever could. And you know, making that pencil move across the paper was the most difficult thing I’d done in my entire – well, life.
Forgive me, Eggy, I wrote. Please. For what I said.
For a moment, she didn’t say anything, she just sat, staring at the words on the paper, but then she swallowed hard and she said, ‘Of course I forgive you, Harry. Of course I do. Forgive me too, won’t you, Harry. You know I didn’t mean it, don’t you? I was angry. I said a stupid thing. Forgive me, Harry. I love you.’
My strength was all but gone. I tried to force the pencil over the paper, to make it write down what I wanted to say. I tried, I really did try, you can’t say I didn’t try, no one could say that. And I almost did it too, I almost did.
I love you too, Eg—
And then the pencil fell before I could finish her name, and I couldn’t write any more.
‘Harry? Are you still there?’
She turned and looked around the room.
‘Harry?’
And course I was still there, but all my strength had gone. And there was no more left to be said or to be done. There was no more that I could say to the living. And little use in them saying anything to me.
And I felt that it was time for me to go now.
To go, and never to come back.
But I felt at peace at last. Sad and sorry, but at peace. I’d made it up with Eggy, and that made me feel as if a great weight had gone from me. And I remembered something that our headmaster, Mr Hallent, had said once, during one of his boring assemblies, when he’d read this bit out from the Bible about ‘Never let the sun go down on your wrath’, meaning that you should never go to sleep still angry and enemies with someone, especially someone you loved. Because one of you might not wake up in the morning. And then where would you be? Well, I’ll tell you. You’d be stuck with a whole big plateful of unfinished business, just like me.
Only my business was finished now. I’d said I was sorry. I could go now, move on, to whatever lay there beyond the Other Lands, to whatever lay at the margins, past the eternal sunset. I could go off into the Great Blue Yonder.
‘Bye, Eggy,’ I said. ‘Bye now. Have a good life. Don’t worry about me. I’m OK. It happens to us all sometime. It happens to us all eventually. It just happened to me a bit sooner than I expected. But don’t worry. Don’t be sad for me. I’m OK. I’ve made some friends. I’m not alone. Bye, Eggy, bye.’
‘Harry,’ she said, standing looking around the room, ‘are you still there? I love you, Harry. I always did. Even when we fought each other. I’m sorry about the notice on the door. You were welcome in my room any time. And to borrow my pens and my pencils and all my crayons and anything. Really, honest, you were – Harry?’
And then I kissed her on the cheek, and gave her one of my ghostly hugs, and I hurried out through the door. I didn’t look back, I didn’t hang around, I can’t stand those long goodbyes. I think it’s best to get it over with quickly myself. I know it might seem a bit abrupt and callous even. But I think it’s all for the best.
I went down to the kitchen and I said goodbye to Mum and Dad, and I hugged and kissed them both and I told them that I loved them and missed them, and how I wished that they could see me one last time.
But I didn’t stay long there either.
You see, I wanted to remember them as they were. As they had been, when we had all been together. Happy, and not sad and sorrowful like they were now, probably just as they wanted to remember me.
I left the house and went on down the road without a backward glance. I’m not such a tough person really, but I can be tough when I have to be, when it’s what’s needed. Sometimes you have to be tough like that, you see. Even hurt yourself a little bit, so as not to hurt even more later on.
As I passed through the playing fields, I spotted Alt the cat again, perched halfway up a tree, as if he’d decided to be a bird for a while.
‘See you, Alt,’ I called to him. ‘Maybe see you around.’
But his fur stood all on end again, and his paws went shooting off in all directions, and he looked like one of those flying squirrels that you see on nature programmes as he launched himself into space, fell to the ground – probably losing a good four and a half of his nine lives in the process – and then he was off across the football field at a million miles an hour.
And that was the last I saw of him.
And then it started to rain. I took shelter under a tree. Not because I was going to get wet or anything, but just for the pleasure of watching the rain come down, and of doing an ordinary thin
g, just like I was still alive.
It was quite a downpour, but you could tell that it wasn’t going to last for long. The sky was already clearing in the distance, and the grey was giving way to blue. And after about ten minutes the rain stopped and the sun came out.
And then there, at the far end of the football field was what I had been hoping for – a huge, glorious, magnificent rainbow.
I hurried towards it, as fast as I could go, intending to make my way back to the Other Lands, as soon as I possibly could.
The Great Blue Yonder
It was a bit like going on an escalator. Or maybe more like riding a roller coaster. Only instead of gathering speed on the downhill stretch, you gathered speed on the uphill one. And that was how I felt as I soared up along the rainbow, going so fast I went dizzy. And just as I got to the peak of the curve, I parted company with it and sailed on through a long dark tunnel of blackness and stars. And the next thing I knew, I was back in the Other Lands, standing at the far end of a very long queue for the Desk.
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Can I get by?’
Most of the people waiting in the queue were twice my size, and most of them were over fifty years old at least. A lot of them looked cross, or baffled, with a Why me? look on their faces, and they all seemed impatient with the time the queue was taking to move. They maybe felt that they had waited in enough queues and traffic jams to last them a lifetime, and didn’t want even more of them now that they were dead.
‘Oi!’
‘Where’re you going?’
‘Hey, watch him! He’s pushing in.’
I ducked and darted along, squirming by them, crawling under their legs sometimes. I thought I’d be able to walk through them, but I couldn’t. It was odd that, the way you could walk straight through something that was solid, but you couldn’t walk through another ghost.
‘Oi! Get to the back of the queue, you!’ a large lady said. And she made a grab for me, but she was too slow, and I hurried on my way.
Not everyone tried to stop me. Some just tut-tutted to register their indignation.
‘No manners,’ they said. ‘No manners at all. Kids today, pushing in everywhere and not waiting their turn.’
Someone even called after me, ‘Hey! What are you doing being dead anyway! You’ve no business being dead, young lad like you!’
But I felt that I had no time for explanations, and I couldn’t be bothered to give them anyway. I’d done all the explaining I wanted to. I wasn’t going to do any more.
‘Excuse me!’ I said, ‘excuse me,’ as I wriggled towards the front. ‘I’m not pushing in, I’ve been dead quite a while. Honest. I’ve already registered. I have.’
‘Registered? What do you mean, registered?’ one of the newcomers said. ‘What’s he on about?’
I pushed on. A man called after me.
‘Hey, you there – boy!’ he said. ‘What’s at the end of the queue? Is there anyone in charge here? Because if there is, I want a word with them. There’s been some mistake, you know. I shouldn’t be dead at all.’
But I hurried on.
‘I shouldn’t be dead either,’ I heard someone say. ‘I left a pan on the stove. I ought to get back to switch it off, or it’ll boil over.’
‘What about me?’ another voice wailed. ‘I was due to go on my holidays. I’d saved up all year for that, and now I won’t get to go.’
Then I heard another voice, thin and reedy and very frail. It was the voice of an old, old man.
‘I wouldn’t go back for any price,’ he said. ‘I lived a long time and I had a good innings. But come the end, I’d had enough of it and all my friends had died. So I enjoyed it, but I’m glad it’s over now. It was getting to be a burden there, come the end. So I can’t say I’m sorry.’
I left them all to their arguing.
‘Excuse me!’ I said. ‘Can I get past? May I squeeze by, please. Sorry to bother you.’ The end was in sight. I could see the Desk now. There were just a few more people to go. ‘Excuse me! I’m not pushing in. I’ve already given my name.’
‘Then how come you’re still in the queue?’ a lady asked.
But I just went on. I didn’t feel up to answering their questions. I still had a few to ask myself. Like what happened when you reached the far horizon, where the sun was always setting, and what – if anything – lay beyond the Great Blue Yonder.
I was almost level with the Desk now. The same man was still there with his books and ledgers and his computer.
‘Next!’ he said mournfully, to the next person in the queue as he shuffled forward.
‘Here.’
‘Name!’
And so it went on.
I ducked down so as he wouldn’t see me, and scurried past the desk. He looked up from his computer terminal and spotted me though, and he let out a great cry.
‘Oi! You!’ he shouted. ‘I know you! Where have you been? Have you been back down there paying visits? That’s against the rules, I’ll have you know. Oi, you there! Oi! Come back!’
He stood up as if he might leave his desk and come after me, but plainly he couldn’t, not with all those people standing waiting to give him their names, and more on the way every second. So I hurried on my way and I ignored all his bellowing for me to come back so that he could give me a good ticking-off.
And there I was, back in the Other Lands. Back in the dim, half lit Other Lands. And there was nothing for it now but to head for the distant sunset and to find the Great Blue Yonder, and to do whatever needed to be done.
So on I went. I didn’t feel too bad. I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t happy, I wasn’t anything really, just neutral. I certainly didn’t feel alive, and yet I didn’t feel particularly dead either. I didn’t feel lonely, and yet I didn’t feel not lonely. I could think of Eggy and Mum and Dad and I didn’t feel upset any more. I mean, I was upset, but not like I had been before I’d gone back and said goodbye to everyone and tried to make things right.
I think that’s important somehow, being able to say goodbye and being able to make things right. It doesn’t seem so bad if you’ve said goodbye. You feel you can cope with it then, you feel you can manage.
I walked on. Not going too slowly, yet not in any hurry either. I wouldn’t have minded a bit of company, and though there were plenty of people going the same way as me, I didn’t really know or recognize anyone. I could have started up a conversation, I suppose, but it seemed a bit late to be making new friendships, and I longed for a familiar face.
I went on for a while, and as I turned a corner I saw Ug, the caveman. He was still wandering around the Other Lands, just as when I’d last seen him, still searching for whatever or whoever he’d lost. Maybe it was his long-dead pet dinosaur, maybe it was a sabre-toothed tiger he’d once known, maybe it was a woolly mammoth. Maybe he’d had a pet dodo, back before they became extinct. Maybe it was Mrs Ug he was looking for, or Grandma Ug, or all the baby Ugs, who wouldn’t, of course, be baby Ugs any more. They’ll all have been big strong cavemen and cavewomen themselves, and dead for ten thousand years.
It seemed a long time to be searching for someone, ten thousand years.
He came up to me, as if I could maybe help.
‘Ug!’ he said, and he waved his arms around. And then he said it again. ‘Ug! Ug! Ug!’
But I couldn’t understand a word of it. There was no use in saying Ug to me. Ug just meant Ug as far as I knew, though I was sure that it meant something else to him.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But I can’t really help. I wish I could. Sorry.’ And maybe the way he heard it, what I’d said sounded like a load of Ugs too, a load of Ugs he didn’t understand. And I really wished that I could speak fluent Ug and that they’d maybe taught it at our school. But they hadn’t, and I didn’t and there was nothing I could do to help.
‘Sorry, Mr Ug,’ I said. ‘I only wish I could help. But I hope that you find what you’re looking for. I really do.’
And he gave me a sad, wistful look, and
he shook his head, and he went on his way, still looking for whatever he’d lost, still trying to settle his unfinished business. So he went on his way, and I went on mine.
The sunset was getting nearer. I didn’t have so far to go. I mean, in a way, time doesn’t matter once you’re dead, in some ways there’s no time at all. But just the same, things do seem to take time, even when there isn’t really any time to take.
I turned another corner and I started to think about Arthur and whether he’d found his mum yet, and whether I’d ever see him again, or whether he’d popped back down to Earth, or maybe he’d fallen off his rainbow, or maybe he’d decided enough was enough, and he’d gone off to the Great Blue Yonder.
Or maybe he’d decided to move in with Stan, and spend the rest of eternity sitting in a flower basket, dangling from that lamp-post in the precinct, keeping an eye out for Winston the dog.
Then I saw him. He wasn’t that far ahead of me. He was sort of slouched over and moping along. His top hat wasn’t as jaunty-looking as usual and his hands were stuffed in his pockets, and though I couldn’t see his face, even the back of him looked pretty glum.
‘Ar—’
I was just about to call his name when something stopped me dead in my tracks. And it had stopped Arthur too. Walking towards him was a woman. Quite a young, pretty woman, dressed in an old-fashioned costume, wearing one of those old dresses with a bit of a bustle at the back, like you see in those things on the telly.
She was walking slowly, and she looked sort of sad – sad the way Ug had looked, sad the way Stan had looked, sad the way Arthur’s back looked – like she had some unfinished business that could never be resolved.
But then she saw Arthur, and she stopped. She stopped right there. And Arthur stopped and I stopped too. Neither of them was aware of me, and I was afraid to move. I just stood there, just like a statue of myself.
Arthur was fumbling in his coat, searching frantically through his pockets, getting all agitated, like he might have lost what he was looking for.
But I knew what he was looking for. He was looking for that button. The ghost of the button. The one he’d been given when he was only a baby. The one that was supposed to have come off his mum’s blouse. His mum, who had died when he was born. The mum he had never known.