The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir

by John Mitchell

  “Aye. That’s right enough,” Nana said. “I have no use for them now. I’m giving away all ma worldly possessions before I meet ma Maker. Possessions imprison you! It will be easier for a needle to go through the eye of a camel than for me to enter the gates of Heaven wi’ ma possessions. That’s right enough. You mark ma words, laddie! All this talk has made me thirsty. A wee dram is what I’ll have. Och, aye.”

  “For God’s sake, Mother. You’re not going anywhere!” Mum replied.

  “You’ll all be fighting over ma things before I’m even cold. I’ll be lying there in ma bed, waiting for one of the archangels, hopefully Gabriel, while someone is measuring my tallboy to see if it will fit in their recess.”

  And even if it is my birthday, I am still very upset that Nana has made me wear a kilt because it is obviously not a Scottish soldier’s kilt and is in fact a girl’s tartan skirt. She said you can’t find kilts in Portsmouth and it is a soldier’s choice whether or not to wear any underpants. Obviously I am wearing my underpants or Margueretta will lift up my kilt to show everyone my willy.

  And so that I will look extra handsome in my kilt, Mum took me to get my hair cut really short like a movie star even though I only had it washed yesterday.

  “You shall have a crew cut for your birthday. You will look just like Tony Curtis.”

  I do not ever want to look like Tony Curtis, whoever the bloody hell he is, because now there is a white patch on my forehead where my fringe used to be and my ears stick out like they aren’t part of my head. I do not look like a movie star. All my hair is gone.

  So Nana gave me a sherbet lemon to cheer me up. And I was only halfway through sucking it when I swallowed it by mistake and it stuck in my throat. It was a good thing that Nana was there because she could see I was about to faint because you always faint if you can’t breathe. So she thumped me really hard on my back and the sherbet lemon shot across the room and landed in some dirt by the fireplace so I left it there, even though I was only halfway through it. Nana said she saved my life. But she was the one who gave me that sherbet lemon in the first place.

  Margueretta thinks it’s very funny that I have no hair and I’m wearing a girl’s tartan skirt and she said I had fleas and that’s why they cut off all my hair. My mum lied. I am not going to forget that she lied to me about looking like a movie star. I know what a lie is. A lie is saying I have a tummy ache so that I don’t have to go to Sunday School and can stay at home to watch Bill and Ben the Flower Pot Men. But Bill and Ben only comes on during the week. And Mum said that was God’s punishment for lying.

  Mum says that all boys tell lies.

  “Oh, yes, m’laddo! You can’t believe a word your father says. Your father told me he was a pilot in the air force during the war. But you know what? He was nothing more than a NAFFI cook in the army kitchen. A pilot, indeed! The only action he saw was peeling potatoes. And brussels sprouts.”

  I do not like brussels sprouts. And I’m sure Mum is wrong because Dad showed me a picture of himself in his uniform with a cap and everything. I’m sure it was his air force uniform but when I told Mum she said that he got his first job working on the buses in London and when I asked Dad for another look at that picture, I saw there was a bus in the background and not a bomber plane. So it is possible that Dad is lying.

  But I don’t think Margueretta was lying about the fleas because I have been scratching my head like a dog for weeks. Now you can see the scratches because all my hair is gone.

  There are nine candles on the birthday cake but Emily and me are only five. We are sharing the cake with Margueretta, who is nine. And anyone can see it’s not a birthday cake. It’s bread pudding.

  “I will mend that bicycle for your birthday!”

  Well, Dad’s not going to mend it right now because he has to go and see a man about a dog. He was going to mend it for me for Christmas but he had to see a man about a dog. He always has to see a man about a dog. I think it’s in a brown room. I don’t know that for sure because when I go with him to see a man about a dog, he makes me wait by the door outside the pub. And when he comes out to go home, I have to hold his hand to make sure he doesn’t fall over. It’s easy to fall over after you’ve been to see a man about a dog. Especially in the dark.

  I don’t like the dark. And Margueretta knows that I don’t like the dark and it’s completely dark in the cellar with the door closed. That’s why she has locked me in the cellar. She waited until the grown-ups went out to the pub for a birthday drink and left us with Pop. And Pop is useless because he just makes noises like a train and then stands in the corner and wets himself and screams. So he doesn’t care if she’s locking me in the cellar.

  I’m curling up into a ball. I’m biting my lip. Now I’m counting to a thousand. It’s so dark down here that I don’t even know if my eyes are open or closed. But I’ve screwed them up tight because I don’t want to see the thing that lives in the corner. I’m sure it has eyes that bulge like my big green marbles. It makes a sound that goes drip, drip, drip.

  Drip, drip, drip.

  I’m holding my hands over my ears so I can’t hear it. And I’m curling tighter and tighter into a ball. One day, that thing in the corner is going to come out of the cellar in the night and come into my bedroom. And it will hide under my bed and reach its arms up under the blanket and strangle me until I am dead.

  Now I’m whispering the Lord’s Prayer.

  Our Father, which art in Heaven. Hello be thy name. Thy king done come.

  Now I’m crying. But no one can hear me.

  5

  She let me out when she heard them coming. Dad was the first one to come into the kitchen so I held onto his leg with both arms, which I do quite a lot, and it made him fall over and Mum shouted at him even though he only fell over because I was holding onto his leg.

  Nana always cooks them supper when they come back from seeing a man about a dog. She makes bubble-and-squeak from cabbage and potatoes. It lasts forever and she heats it up the next day and the day after that. You can even have bubble-and-squeak for your birthday supper.

  “Cabbage and potatoes? That’s not much of a birthday treat,” Dad said.

  “Aye, that’s right. And you didn’t put your hand in your pocket for a single thing for their birthdays!” Nana replied.

  “It needs something to spice it up!” Dad said.

  So he put sugar and mustard and treacle and brown sauce and pepper and strawberry jam and vanilla essence on it and I helped him. He said I was a good boy to help him like that. And Pop even came out of the corner, which he never does, to watch Dad putting all those things on his bubble-and-squeak.

  “Choo-choo! Stand back! Stand back!” Pop shouted and he put his hands over his face when Dad put the syrup on top of it all.

  “A meal fit for my children’s birthday!” Dad shouted.

  And Dad added a little salt for extra flavor. Emily thinks that you put salt on your dinner to cool it down but it is actually the draft that comes from the gap at the top of the window. You just have to wait, and it will cool down. I keep telling her that but she still thinks it’s the salt, which is why she always burns her tongue on her food.

  Dad ate the birthday dinner in two bites but you mustn’t gobble your food down or people will think you are a glutton. And that’s a deadly sin. But he doesn’t care because most of the time he doesn’t eat.

  “Tomorrow I will mend that bike!” Dad said and told me to come and sit on his knee.

  And Emily sat on his other knee and Margueretta looked at me with that smile, which means she is going to lock me in the cellar again as soon as she can.

  Here we go loopy loo, here we go loopy light,

  Here we go droopy-doo, all on a Saturday night!

  My droopy-doo! My droopy-doo!

  Daddy swung Emily around and lifted her little feet off the ground and she squealed.

  “Do it again, Daddy. Do it again!”

  “Do you love your daddy?”

 
; “We do! We do!” we cried.

  “Choo-choo! Choo-choo!” shouted Pop and wet himself, which was the second time today.

  Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you!

  Happy Birthday dear Emily, John, and Margueretta!

  Happy Birthday to you!

  And Emily danced, holding hands with Dad, singing.

  “And tomorrow, my wee Johnny, you will go for a ride in a police car!”

  “Can I go too?” Emily asked and jumped up and down.

  “No. It’s man’s work. Little Johnny is a man.”

  And Emily cried because she wasn’t a man.

  And I cried too because it wasn’t a police car. It was a milk float.

  6

  That’s why we had to get up so early this morning. It was freezing and dark when we loaded the milk onto the back of the float and Dad said I could help but the crates were too heavy and we pretended I was lifting them but everyone could see it was just my dad. And the man at the depot said I was a good boy to help my dad like that and then he asked what happened to my hair.

  Dad never said anything about the fleas or Tony Curtis. He said I wanted it cut that way, which was not true at all. Why would anyone want to have all their hair cut off so you can see scratches all over their head from where they had fleas?

  The milk rattled as we went up the street and Dad made siren sounds and said we were chasing baddies in our police car. And even though it was only a milk float, I made my fingers into the shape of a gun and blasted at the baddies through the open door.

  “Faster, faster!” I shouted.

  “We will be able to go faster once we have delivered all this milk,” Dad said.

  “Bang, bang! Bang, bang!”

  “They’ll never get away!” Dad shouted.

  But they did get away because we were not in a real police car and we kept having to stop to deliver the milk.

  “Did you know that your dad had tea with the Queen of England?” Dad asked.

  I have heard this story before and I have checked with Mum if it is true. And even though he sometimes tells lies, it is true that my dad went to tea with the queen.

  “The king died suddenly. That’s how it all started, and she was a princess when the king died. She was beautiful, it goes without saying, and I was a very young man. She was going to be the Queen of England. And I had tea with her!”

  “Did you cry?”

  “Why would I cry? Och, you say the funniest things.”

  “The pussycat went to London to visit the queen.”

  “That’s right! And what did the pussycat do?”

  “She frightened a mouse from under a chair.”

  “She did. Very good! Well, let me tell you the story. The princess was sad, and she wanted someone to play the organ at the king’s funeral. The king was her daddy.”

  “Her daddy died? Did she cry?”

  “I’m sure she did. She loved him very much. Anyway, the Royal College of Music told her about me. Daddy has a gift. A gift from God. That’s how I can play the organ. I found out one day when the choirmaster gave me a lesson in the church. I was a wee laddie like you. And that’s how a poor grocer’s son got to go to the Royal College of Music and have tea with a princess who was about to become the Queen of England.”

  “Can I play the organ?”

  “Perhaps. But perhaps God gave you a different gift. We all have a gift from God.”

  “Mum said I am a gift from God.”

  “Well, that’s right enough, Johnny.”

  “She said my name means ‘Gift From God.’”

  “It does.”

  “But there are a lot of people called John so are they all gifts from God?”

  “You ask too many questions.”

  “Your name is John too. So are you a gift from God?”

  “We’re all gifts from God.”

  “If I am a gift from God, I would like to be a lamb. Can I be a lamb, Daddy?”

  “You are a blessed lamb, wee Johnny. A blessed lamb.”

  “What happened to the princess?”

  “She chose someone else. There was another princess called Margaret. I forgot to call her a princess. I just said, ‘Hello, Margaret.’ So they never asked me to come back.”

  “Then did you cry, Daddy?”

  “I did, Johnny. I did. I cried for all that could have been but never was. I could have played at the king’s funeral in Westminster Abbey. I could have played but for my own stupidity. Don’t make the same mistakes, wee Johnny. Don’t make the same mistakes as your old dad. Well, all this talking has made me thirsty!”

  “Have a pint of milk, Daddy!”

  “No, Johnny, your daddy needs pints of a different kind. You guard the milk like a Scottish soldier!” Dad said and stopped the milk float to go inside the Fitzroy.

  I think he must have been really thirsty because he was gone for a very long time. That’s why I climbed over into the driver’s seat and pulled at the steering wheel. When I am a grown-up I will go to see a man about a dog. Or I might be a policeman and kill baddies.

  “Bang, bang, you’re dead!”

  But it’s really tiring shooting baddies and anyway Dad was gone so long that I ran out of baddies to shoot so I lay down on the seat and fell asleep.

  He was still gone when I woke up. And I thought he would never come back from being so thirsty and seeing a man about a dog in the brown room. And I would have to stay there forever with the milk and the baddies. If he was so thirsty, I don’t know why he didn’t have some milk. There was lots of milk.

  I don’t know who that woman was who asked me why I was crying. She looked very worried about something.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Waiting for my dad,” I answered but I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s in there.”

  “Dry your tears. And wait here. It’s a disgrace. A disgrace, I say.”

  She came back out of the pub with Dad and wagged her finger at him and he blew a raspberry at her and she shook her head the way that people do when you have done something very bad but he was only getting a drink because he was thirsty. Dad laughed and made his voice sound like hers but I didn’t laugh, even though it was funny, because that lady looked even more angry. I don’t like it when people get angry.

  Dad drove much faster in the afternoon. We weaved in and out of the white lines and a crate of milk fell off the back and two men shouted at us but we kept going because we were in a speeding police chase.

  And when we slowed down, Dad started singing. I like it when he sings.

  She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,

  Yet ’twas not her beauty alone that won me.

  I could see him looking down at me, snuggled under his arm.

  “Och. Dear wee Johnny. My dear, wee boy,” he said and he started to cry and I watched the tears trickle down his rosy cheeks.

  “What is it, Daddy?”

  Oh no, ’twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,

  That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

  “Who’s Mary, Daddy?”

  “Och, it’s just a song, Johnny. Just a sad song.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “It’s a sad song.”

  “Are we going home soon?”

  “Just as soon as we deliver all the milk.”

  “I’m tired, Daddy. And I’m hungry.”

  “Well, just close your eyes, wee Johnny. Close your eyes and pretend you are in a police car.”

  So I closed my eyes and fell asleep again on his arm while the bottles went chink, chink, chink behind us.

  Chink, chink, chink.

  Dad was fired when we got back to the depot. And when we got home, Dad kept falling over. Usually he falls over because I hold onto his leg but I wasn’t holding onto his leg this time and Mum was shouting at him but I don’t think you should shout at someone just because they fell over. You shoul
d help them get back up. I tried to help him up but he’s too heavy.

  “You are an irresponsible good-for-nothing! A useless piece of…and how are you going to get another job when you keep getting fired?” Mum shouted.

  She lit a cigarette, but she still didn’t help him get back up so he got back up on his own, which he can do sometimes.

  And Dad laughed and said, “There’s no demand for pipe organ players, except in churches. And horror films.”

  And he laughed so much he fell over again. And still no one helped him get back up.

  “You are drunk!”

  “Och. Don’t be like that, my sweet rose. Come here and give me a wee kiss.”

  He sat up on the kitchen floor and held out his arms.

  “A kiss? A kiss? That won’t put food on the table. How could you do that? You’re drunk…” She lowered her voice so that me and Emily couldn’t hear her. “And, with Johnny there too. How could you? A five-year-old boy. Seeing his father like this.”

  “Help me up, Johnny.”

  “If your dear father was here now, he’d turn in his grave!” Nana said.

  “The front of my trousers. Someone has sewn up the front of my trousers!” Pop screamed. “My trousers! Sewn up my trousers!”

  I could see Pop had his trousers on back to front but I never said anything and then he wet himself and hid in the corner. And everyone slammed the door when they left, Dad first and then Mum and Nana chasing after him.

  I pulled Emily by the hand and we sat under the kitchen table and picked at the piece of Dundee cake that Nana made at Christmas. It’s stuck to the floor behind one of the table legs. I managed to pull a sultana out of it. It looked like a dead fly. But I didn’t eat it. Then I made tracks with my fingers in the cigarette ash on the floor.

  Margueretta came over and grabbed me by the neck and dragged me to the cellar door and pushed me in. Normally she would pull me by the hair but I don’t have any. She strangled me a little bit before she pushed me in. Strangling is when you put your hands around someone’s neck and squeeze so hard that they can’t breathe and then their eyes nearly pop out like marbles.