by Shaun Allan
"Cyril died, you know."
Cyril was her husband. I would say long suffering, as anyone married to Wendy Carpenter must be, but he spent so much time in the Oak Tree pub, drinking pints of bitter with his nicotine stained fingers and his little coven of drinking buddies, enveloped in their impenetrable cloak of cigarette smoke, I don't think he really noticed anyway.
"That's a shame," I said.
"Yes," she said. "It was. He was a good man."
I didn't know why she was springing this little snippet of information on me. I hadn't seen her in something like two decades. Saying 'Hi' then jumping in with news of her deceased husband seemed a little random to me. Maybe it was because I was the only person along this street whom she hadn't told. Or because she'd spent so long in my company when I was a child, she felt a weird motherly connection and just wanted to share. Either way, I feigned interest, just hoping this encounter would be over with quickly so I could escape with my equally deceased sister to wherever she wanted to take me.
"Was he ill?" I asked. Yes, I know. Why lead the conversation on when I wanted it over and done. I couldn't help it. My dislike for the woman was not as strong as I seemed to want to think. I did try to say that I wasn't all bad.
"No," she said. "It was a quick death. He slipped on a patch of piss in the Oak Tree toilets, and hit his head on one of the urinals. They said he wouldn't have known a thing."
If I'd been eating something at that point, I think I would have choked on it. If I'd been drinking, then there was a good chance that Wendy would have been wearing it.
"Really?"
"Yes. The Oak Tree were brilliant after. They didn't charge me for the broken urinal, and they let me hold the wake there after his funeral. They even paid for the first drink for everyone."
Such generosity, I thought. I couldn't help but feel for this poor woman. She seemed just a step up from pathetic. Lonely. No one to share gossip with and no one to complain to. Still wrapped up in a life that had left her behind, cocooned in its memory to avoid facing her empty house. She'd sit in Cyril's favourite chair, with its worn arms and dirty patch on the seat where he'd drop his ash from his cigarette, rubbing it in rather than brushing it off. She'd have the television on, but not be watching it. She'd stare out of the window but not be seeing, her eyes as vacant as her life.
"Are you ok?" Joy asked.
Wendy jumped slightly. Her eyes blinked and she looked at Joy as if only just seeing her.
"Sorry love," she said. "I hardly even noticed you. I must need these glasses checking."
I felt like telling her that it wasn't her glasses at fault, nor was it her eyes. It was her ability to see ghosts that, perhaps, wasn't quite as good as it might be. And no optician had a lens for that. I didn't though.
"That's OK," Joys said smiling her smile.
You could almost have seen the candle that had remained extinguished in the depths of Wendy's gut for all these years suddenly ignite, a flame dancing into life and banishing the darkness. The change to her stance and her features was immediately obvious. She straightened, the slouch that had dragged her forward and down - in more ways than one - vanishing. Her eyes defogged and had the beginnings of a sparkle.
"Well," she said, her voice having lost the quiver that hadn't been noticeable until it wasn't there. "I have to be going. Things to do, you know."
"People to see?" asked Joy.
"Who knows," Wendy said. "I haven't seen my grandson in months. He should know his nanna."
"That he should," I said. "How old is he?"
"He's four. He's a bundle of energy with a mouth to match." Wendy laughed and I ignored the way her stale onion breath misted the air and seemed to float, semi-solid towards me. I suppressed the urge to swat it away like an annoying wasp.
"Sounds wonderful," said Joy. I could almost see her voice wrapping its velvet cloak around Wendy's shoulders.
"Yes, doesn't it," said Wendy. Her own voice had dropped an octave and had lost its splintered glass in your ears feel. "Take care, the pair of you."
"We will," Joy and I said.
I reached out and held her hand and she gripped mine back. I would never have suspected that Wendy Carpenter might have a human, or humane side, or that I would voluntarily touch her hand. I could only ever have envisaged her with a knife in her hand, spying out who's back she was going to bury it in. That she might have feelings or be worthy of sympathy - not that sympathy necessarily required someone to be 'worthy' - was something I would have bet I'd never consider. It was a warm moment, made all the better because it was unexpected.
"Come on," said Joy. "Let's go."
We turned and crossed the road.
"You did a good thing there," I said.
"Thanks." She sounded sad or wistful.
"See," I said, "it's not all bad."
"No," she replied, looking at me pointedly. "It's not."
I was sure more meaning was hidden in that statement that I could immediately see. She was telling me something without telling me. I wasn't going to work it out though. It was, I thought, something that would come to me as time went on, dragging us with it.
"You can still do it then?"
"It seems so, doesn't it?"
"It doesn't stop when you..." I couldn't make myself say it.
"Die? Kill yourself?" I nodded. "No. As long as you're here, it's there."
"So..." I began, but she stopped me with a hand on my arm.
"So I didn't need to do myself in. It didn't stop." She dropped her hand and turned away. "It's different now. I don't feel such a need. I'm not suffocated by their problems. And anyway, I'm not here all the time. I'm only here now for you."
"For me?"
Joy nodded but didn't say anything. She pointed ahead of us and I knew the subject was closed, at least for now.
"Come on then," I said. Either all would become clear, or it wouldn't. If the hood stayed over my head, tied tightly at my neck, blocking everything out, then there was nothing I could do to untie the knot or cut the cord. I'd simply have to wait to see if Joy, or somebody else, would remove it for me. My life, their hands. I just hoped 'They' didn't drop it.
The low metal fence glowed in the street light and flashed in the beam of the cars that passed. Beyond it was a blackness that felt all consuming, as if it had eaten the land and the air and was waiting for us to cross so it could devour us too.
"Get a grip!" said Joy, shaking her head. "Life is allowed to be more mellow than drama, you know."
"Will you stop doing that! It's rude!"
"Well, stop thinking such crap then."
"If you stopped reading my thoughts, you wouldn't have any crap to complain about!"
"Nernerner," she said in a whine that a two year old would have been proud of. I didn't have an answer to that, but at least it managed to break the beginnings of tension. Joy's suicide might have been a complete waste, but perhaps it wasn't. If it was better for her then did that make it OK? Were we given these lives to do with as we wished? And if that wish included ending them, disposing of them, was that still fine because free will dictated it was up to us?
Of course that was if we were given these lives. If some Higher Power was running an assembly line of souls to populate the Earth and maybe the Universe (who knew?). Or Life could well have been an accident and we were just here. Living. No purpose or direction, just BEING. In which case, I don't think anything mattered, did it?
But hey-ho daddy-o, it's off to hell we go. Free will - or was it Free Will, Will being William, or Bill to his friends, a man locked up in prison for the past ten years for a crime he didn't commit? Anyway, free will was looking to be pretty scarce at the moment. My will certainly hadn't been free whilst in the mental home (maybe it had been locked up with Bill) and it had been hijacked by my sister since then. I felt as if I was just along for the ride and wished I'd had the foresight to strap myself in.
Still, whether I was being dramatic or not, I had to take a deep breath a
nd steel myself before stepping over. I'd been in there more times than I could remember when I was young. The Hills were an adventure and a dare for a kid, and I'd had plenty of both. My courage, or innocence, had faded with the passing years, however. I could tell myself that it was only a sense of the danger in walking on such uneven ground in the darkness that was making me wary. I could tell myself that, but I didn't necessarily believe it.
Something else waited for me and I was letting the ghost of my dead sister lead me to it. I was walking into a cellar, with a light that didn't work, and I was ignoring the streaks of blood on the walls and the sinister scratching sounds from below.
* * * *
Chapter Thirteen
History doesn't relate whether Jonah, Gepetto and Pinocchio sat around a table eating pizza, sharing stories of prophecy and puppetry while in the belly of the whale, but I thought that I could relate to being swallowed whole. It wasn't quite in the realm of my hand disappearing as I pushed it into the visceral blackness, reappearing again when I pulled it out. I could still see my body and I could still see my sister. When I turned around I could still watch cars drive by and the dog sniffing at the lampost. But I wasn't sure whether they could see me. It felt like I was looking at them through glass, as if they were exhibits in a museum. Or perhaps I was the exhibit. No. I was Alice stepped through into Wonderland - a dark, eerie, hollow Wonderland inhabited by all manner of ghosties and ghoulies and horrible beasties.
As long as Joy wasn't the crazy Queen of Hearts.
"OK?"
Joy was looking at me questioningly. Had she read my thoughts just then? Did she see the glimmer of distrust? I couldn't help it. The situation... I was being led blindly. I was accepting of so much. Ignoring the things I could do and had done, this was my sister! She was dead! I'd attended her funeral, scattered her ashes. Yet here she was, large as life and twice as wonderful. Cryptic conversations and unknown destinations. I doubt I would have trusted the Pope or a second hand car salesman if they'd have been here instead of Joy. But what could I do? Walk away? To what? No. I had to follow through like a wet fart. See what came of it and clean up the mess afterwards.
This was my sister. If I had to place my trust, however blind it might be, in someone it could only be her. In the absence of that second hand car salesman anyway.
"I'm OK," I said. "Just a bit nervous."
I'd presented Joy with the perfect opportunity for her to put my mind at rest. Ease my fear. Calm my nerves.
"I know," she said.
No "It'll be fine" or "Don't worry."
Great.
"This way."
She started off towards the centre of the Seven Hills and I, as quickly as my slowly adjusting to a distinct lack of light eyes would allow, followed.
The Hills of the Seven were all around the outer boundary. A ring of guardians protecting an inner treasure, or maybe a circle of judges presiding over a central court. In some cases the slope down to the middle was gradual, the odd pothole or dip the only blemish on the smoothish surface. In others, a sharp incline, broken by gashes and crevices, led a perilous path that only a mountaineer or a twelve year old could confidently descend. Far over to the right, towards the end of Chelmsford and its intersection with the middle of Yarborough a group of trees huddled, afraid to venture forth into the Hills themselves. The Copse. Or the Corpse as some called it. The rest of the area was, in some places sparsely, in others more densely, covered in patchy grass and low bushes. Certainly the odd tree sprouted here and there, but they were lonely figures and struggled to keep their footing in this naturally hostile domain.
I could see none of this. A greyish, off white glow surrounded us as we walked - or Joy walked and I stumbled. At first I thought it was nothing more than my eyes becoming accustomed to the dark, but it seemed off. It seemed artificial. And I noticed it flickering at the edges.
"Are you making this light?" I asked in a hushed voice. I wasn't necessarily afraid of being heard, but the setting and circumstance seemed to command a level of respect.
"Yes," Joy whispered. She felt it too, then. "I wouldn't want you to break your leg or kill yourself."
I assumed that was a private joke amongst suicide committers. What did you call someone who killed themselves? A suicider? Suicidalist? Did they have their own private Comedy Store in the hereafter? Comedians standing up on a stage telling death jokes?
"I'm half the man I used to be," says Eddie, who threw himself under a train.
"Guess which instrument I am," says Denise, who dined on a three course meal of paracetomol, washed down by a bottle of the finest triple distilled vodka. "Maracas!" She shakes herself so you can hear the rattle.
Barry, who led a piece of hose from the exhaust pipe of his car into his window while he left the engine running and listened to Barry Manilow, goes one better. "And they say smoking will kill you!"
Hilarious.
"But we'll be seen," I said. The isolation felt so complete, we could have been alone in the world, the last survivors of the Human Race wandering the Earth in search of scraps of food, some shelter, or a tanning studio. Priorities, people. But we weren't. During the day, the Seven Hills were creepy. At night, especially this night, with this companion, they were Creepy. We were so completely not alone, I almost felt crowded, hemmed in by persons or creatures unknown, always dancing just outside the circle of light that Joy was creating.
"No, we won't," she said. She stopped and turned to me. "We're not in Kansas anymore, Sin," she said.
"Not in...?" I frowned. "Pardon?"
"Don't worry about it," she said. Well that was easy, wasn't it? OK, I won't worry. Just like that. "Nobody will see us."
It wasn't somebody I was worried about. It was something. But not in Kansas? I assumed she meant Grimsby. So where?
"Where are we?"
"Just somewhere else," she said. "I don't know how... It's difficult to explain."
"And this light? Have you swallowed a 40 watt?"
"Oh," she said gesturing. "This is nothing. Practically a parlour trick. You'd be surprised Sin. So surprised."
"At what?"
"At what a person can really do."
"A person? Anyone? So it's not just the two of us? And it's not just because you're dead?"
"Well, maybe not then."
"Not what? Dead or us."
"Both." She took a step towards me and I barely stopped myself taking a step back. "I don't know if it's just us. It might be. We could be an accident or we could be a design. I don't know."
"And you couldn't tell me if you did, I suppose."
"Probably not. But I don't. But this light, yes. It's because I'm dead. It's like... ectoplasm or something."
I laughed and my voice sounded empty, as if someone had turned my bass right down, and still had their hand over the dial marked Treble.
"Ectoplasm? This isn't Ghostbusters, you know!"
Joy laughed then and she didn’t sound flat. She sounded her usual vibrant self.
"No, I know, but I don't know what else to call it. It's like I'm the light. It's part of me, and I'm just... spreading it out."
"Well that makes sense," I said. Of course it didn't, except in a weird way, it did.
"Does it?"
"No. Not really."
Joy laughed again. The laugh was full of body and vigour, like a fine wine, but the magic she'd always had was missing. I wasn't suddenly uplifted. I didn't shine inside at the sound of it, as if I'd swallowed a box of Christmas decorations and someone had switched them on. She was right.
We weren't in Kansas anymore.
I shivered.
Joy had set off again. She was heading, as far as I could tell, towards the centre. Of course she was. Where else? The big nasty Thingy in films or books was always there. An altar had to be in a clearing in the middle of the forest. Clearings naturally didn't exist anywhere else. A pentagram to summon your friendly neighbourhood Djinn would be in the centre of the attic room. Not in a co
rner. Not etched in the floor of the downstairs toilet. Granted it could be painted (in blood, most likely) on the floor of a cellar, but if you didn't have one (and I didn't think many - if any - houses in Grimsby did) then the attic, loft or whatever you wanted to call it, would do. But the middle of the floor or no more. Why? Why not in front of the TV? You could catch Top Gear or Doctor Who whilst dripping blood from your self-sliced palm into a chalice to call your favourite hellish minion to do your bidding. Nope. It probably had something to do with the heart. The core. The centre of the Universe. The centre of the soul. Or even the centre of a ring doughnut, where all knowledge is alleged to exist, at least so says the Gospel According to Homer J. Simpson.
So down and in, down and in. I didn't remember the climb down being so steep or treacherous. I didn't remember gashes the size of a small car being rent out of the ground. Were they clawed by whatever beastie lay in wait below? Had it tried to escape once and the ground I now scrambled across had suffered the consequences?
Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts. Flowers and fairies and pixie dust. Hey ho, it's off to certain death I go. If the Great Green Oogly-Boogly wanted a piece of me, then it looked as if I was serving myself up for dinner. Don't you just hate it when you haven't got any condiments to hand. A little salt. Maybe a sprinkle of paprika. I didn't want to taste too bitter. Didn't want Oggle-Boogle-Schmoogle to be any greener than he already was.
The light Joy was creating, ectoplasm manifest, moved with us as I hurriedly tried to catch up. It flowed over the rocks and dirt like lava down a mountainside, solid become liquid, lifeless become living. It felt as if we were in some sort of dome of luminosity, protection from the darkness haunting the area beyond its reach. Did it hurt? Was it like an energy she was releasing, the discharge draining her of strength? Or was it more like wind? One long, satisfying fart that just keeps on going and earns a round of applause once it's finished rooting and a-tooting?