The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir

by John Mitchell

  “The past is the past, and we are starting a new life now,” Mum said.

  “But how will Dad know where we are?” Emily asked.

  “Don’t worry. He’ll know, right enough. He’s like a dog, your father. He’ll come home when he’s hungry.”

  “My father is not like a dog!” shouted Margueretta.

  “You’ll understand one of these days,” Mum replied. “Your father is your father, and that’s all I will say on the subject. It’s entirely his fault that we are in this God-awful mess.”

  “I’m going to search for hidden treasure when we get to the new house!” I announced.

  “Well, don’t get your hopes up,” Mum replied. “It’s a council prefab from just after the war.”

  “Does it have a cellar?” Margueretta asked and looked over at me and smiled.

  “Actually, no. It’s got a coal bunker by the back door. But no cellar. Why do you ask?” Mum replied.

  “Oh, no reason.”

  I will never be locked in the cellar again. Now I am really excited about our new house. I’m not sure what a coal bunker is, but it can’t be as bad as a dark cellar with that thing in the corner that goes drip, drip, drip. And I’m sure that the thing can’t follow us to our new house. It will stay behind in the old cellar and maybe kill someone who goes down there to take a look. They won’t find anything. But the thing will be in the corner, waiting.

  Drip, drip, drip.

  But even though I am glad the thing will not follow us to our new house, I have been crying a lot lately because I miss my dad. And because I kept crying for my dad, Mum gave me a robot. She got it from the Methodist Church jumble sale. It has scenes of alien planets on its chest, and they move from left to right while the lights flash. Its legs don’t work anymore but its arms swing up and down. I will keep my robot with me at all times, especially in the dark. At night, I will turn it on and frighten away anyone who comes near me. Ghosts are frightened of robots because you can’t scare a robot.

  I expect Dad will be angry that Mum gave all of his clothes to The Irish, but at least he will still have his underpants. He needs to come home soon because it is very scary being the man of the house.

  I have not told Tommy our new address. He has a box of matches, and he says he will burn down our new house with us still in it. He’s still jealous about the shed. And that bright red fire engine that went clang, clang, clang.

  And I’m glad I never showed him my robot.

  The Attic

  The Garden City of the South, England

  July 1965

  25

  My robot has run out of batteries. I have also taken it apart and I should have known that I could not get it back together again. I cannot expect to get another robot. So I am therefore hiding under the blanket because there is always something to hide from in the night.

  I am not in my new bedroom because Mum found some small creatures making their way across my bed when I was down on my knees, trying to say my prayers. She caught them in a matchbox and I will have to sleep here on the sofa in the front room until the man comes round with the special poison to kill the other creatures that are still running loose.

  I don’t like this new house. The toilet is just as scary as our old one but now it’s right next door to my bedroom and I have to run past it when the door is open otherwise I will see that green rubber handle that’s swinging and twitching on the end of a rusty chain. And then I will see a dead man hanging there with his eyes bulging out like my big green marbles. I know it’s just my imagination because that thing is still back in our old cellar where it will stay forever, I’m sure.

  But the worst thing is that door on the ceiling above my bed. I don’t know how my mum can say there’s nothing in the attic when she hasn’t even been up there to have a look. And it’s easy for her to say I should ignore any stories my big sister is telling me about an evil murderer who has left a child up in the attic. It starved to death and now it’s trying to get out through that door. Mum told me not to stare at the attic door or it will give me nightmares.

  Then there’s that madwoman next door called Joan. She came round with a pot of tea this afternoon because Mum has lost the kettle.

  “Ooo-er! Don’t mind me. There are some things you should know about this place. I’m not sure where to start really. Let’s see if there’s another cup in the pot,” Joan said.

  “What is it? What should I know?” Mum replied.

  “There were twelve of them. And they were filthy. They left in the night. At least that’s what we think because we didn’t see them go, and we haven’t seen them since.”

  “Twelve? All in this house?”

  “Gypsies. Should never have been given a real house. They don’t know how to treat it unless it’s got wheels and a horse at the front. When the men from the council came to open up the place after they had gone, I don’t mind telling you—it was terrible.”

  “What was it?”

  “Well. They let me in to take a look, and the place was full of rotting food and dead things and flies and the smell…well, I had to hold my housecoat up to my nose. And do you know what they found in the scullery?”

  “What?” Mum said, moving closer, and dragging on her cigarette.

  “It was dead, poor thing!”

  “What was dead?’

  “A cat. A dead cat, for the love of God!”

  “A dead cat?”

  “You heard right. A dead cat. It was flat and hard like it had been dead for weeks.”

  “How did it die?”

  “No one will ever know. The men from the council said those gypsies probably left it in there, poor thing. It took them weeks, cleaning this house out and repainting it. And wallpapering every room. Those roses on that paper are quite nice though, aren’t they? A beautiful red.”

  “That explains it!”

  “Ooo-er! What’s that?”

  “The man from the rent office implied that I brought those lice with me.”

  “Lice?”

  “Yes, lice! I found them in his bedroom. I’m not having it, Joan. They’re sending a fumigator round tomorrow to deal with it. It’s an infestation.”

  “Ooo-er! I don’t like the sound of that, but it’s no surprise really, is it? So they’re sending a man round? Where’s your husband, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Och. It’s a long story.”

  “Ooo-er! Is there a short version?” Joan laughed.

  “He went out for a packet of Woodbines and never came back.”

  “And left you with three kids?”

  “And left me with three kids.”

  “They’re all the same. Men. Well, Fred isn’t. He’s my husband, but lazy? I should say he’s lazy. He painted my kitchen, and he didn’t even clean off the cobwebs first. He just painted right over them. It’s a shame about that one,” Joan said, nodding at me.

  “What about him?”

  “Well. A boy needs a father. There are more things you need to know. The woman opposite has four children and no husband. Those children run around naked and poop in their front garden. The man living next door to her says he drilled a peephole right through the bedroom wall. It wasn’t difficult. The walls are paper-thin. Anyway, he spies on her to see what she’s up to and lets us all know. Do you know she sleeps completely naked! Imagine that! I could never sleep with no clothes on. It’s not healthy. Ooo-er!”

  “Go on,” Mum suggested, lighting another cigarette.

  “He says she lets the children play on her bare bosom! Imagine that! What else? Oh, yes, behind us is a German woman. Her husband is a bus driver. She met him when he was stationed as part of the Frontier Control Service on the German border with Belgium. Ooo-er, do you know something?”

  “What?”

  “She undresses some nights with the light on and no curtains. I’m always telling Fred to stop watching her. Ooo-er, it’s not right, is it? He should not be watching her.”

  “Why is she undressing i
n the window, for God’s sake? Doesn’t she have any curtains?”

  “Oh, she has curtains right enough. But the Germans are like that. No shame.”

  “I suppose.”

  “And just up the road are the Dumbys. Old Man Dumby is deaf so don’t bother talking to him. Although he does say he can lip-read. He keeps rabbits, but he had too many so he tried to gas them, but we have all been converted to natural gas. It’s not poisonous, you know. So don’t go putting your head in the oven if you want to kill yourself because it won’t work!” Joan laughed. “Anyway, he held them underwater until they drowned. We all went to watch. Their little mouths were wide open as they tried to get air, poor things. And their eyes bulged out of their sockets. Ooo-er!”

  “He drowned them?”

  “Yes. And if you see someone on the back of a Vespa scooter with a big bum, excuse me, hanging over the back—that would be me. And I do have a problem with my housecoat on the Vespa. It catches the wind. Like a sail. Imagine that! And that can be dangerous because it makes the scooter very difficult for Fred to control.”

  “That sounds really dangerous.”

  Joan Housecoat is completely bonkers if you ask me. But at least she’s not spying on us.

  26

  Being nosy is not the same as spying but it is very similar. Mum should never have told Joan that we’ve lost the kettle. That’s just the excuse a nosy woman needs to keep coming round with a pot of tea and stick her nose into business that should not concern her, especially when she’s got nothing better to do. And especially when there’s a van outside our house from the council and a man with buckets and hoses is coming up the path.

  “Are you the woman with the lice or the blocked drains?” the man asked.

  “Blocked drains?” Mum replied.

  “Lice or drains?”

  “Ooo-er! She’s got lice!” Joan replied.

  “Lice,” Mum replied.

  “OK. Lice it is, then. Did they tell you I have to spray this brown liquid over the floors and halfway up the walls and you can’t stay in the house afterwards because it’s toxic?”

  “No.”

  “They never tell anyone. Don’t know why I bother asking. I’ll make a start then.”

  “We don’t have anywhere else to go,” Mum said.

  “No one does. You know this is going to make a mess of your lovely new wallpaper, don’t you? Those red roses will be brown by the time I’ve finished. It would be better if you had blocked drains.”

  “Ooo-er! She doesn’t have blocked drains. She’s got lice!”

  Mum told Joan to go home. Enough is enough and you have to be firm with a nosy person or before you know it they’ll know all your business and they’ll be telling everyone in the street.

  I followed the man from room to room to watch him spray everything and he was right because there was a brown stain halfway up the walls when he finished. And he was having a cigarette with Mum when we heard the screaming.

  “Aieeee! Aieeee!”

  “What’s she screaming about?” he asked.

  “What’s wrong, Joan?” Mum asked.

  “Lice! Lice! They’re crawling all over my airing cupboard!”

  “That happens. They’re running away from the poison. Quite intelligent really,” the man replied.

  “Get rid of them!” Joan shouted.

  “Not today, love. I’m down to do one case of lice and one case of blocked drains. That’s my lot for today. You’ll have to go to the office and see when they can fit you in.”

  “But there’s lice in my airing cupboard!”

  “Like I said, if you had blocked drains I could help you,” he replied and pulled out his notebook. “Look. Blocked drains and a case of lice. And I’ve already done this woman’s lice.”

  “But I can’t sleep with lice!”

  The man came back the next day to do Joan’s lice. I’m glad it’s the summer holidays and I don’t have to go to my new school yet or there would be a lot of explaining to do. Mum has put chamomile lotion on the bites on my face and body and that’s just to be expected because some of those lice don’t die the first time you spray them. But they will die eventually now that both houses have been sprayed and we are semi-detached.

  My face is very white. Margueretta says I look like a ghost.

  27

  Mum found the kettle in the oven. No one knows how it got in there but it’s obvious to me. Something is going on. If Dad was here, we would get the metal stepladders from the scullery and go up into the attic together. I’m sure Margueretta’s right. There’s something terrible up there and that’s why Mum keeps saying she will go into the attic but never does. Something really bad is going to happen.

  And another thing. I’ve been staring out of my bedroom window every single night and not once have I seen that German woman getting undressed in front of the window. Mum says you can’t believe a word that Joan says and I’m beginning to think she’s right, although I have met Old Man Dumby and he let me stroke his rabbits. But I can’t be sure if he drowned any of them. You have to speak very slowly to his face so he can lip read. Now that I know he can read my lips, I might ask him about the drownings and the bulging eyes next time I see him. Then again, I might not.

  Mum has to leave the house a lot because we have black floors downstairs. That’s the thing with black floors. You can’t be around them for too long or you will go stark staring bonkers and anything could happen. If we had the money, we would cover the floors with yellow lino because yellow is my mum’s favorite color. Yellow would remind her of the sun and she would be happy every day instead of sad. Orange would also be good.

  I don’t get sad because I am a happy boy. That’s why people rub my hair and smile at me, especially when we are at the launderette and I am helping Mum put the dirty clothes in the washing machine. As soon as I am bigger, Mum says I will be going to the launderette all on my own and that will be a big help for her when it comes to the weekly wash.

  Margueretta beat me again today. She waits for Mum to go out. It’s the same every day and I should know that just because we don’t have a cellar for her to lock me in, I still should not have been born and everything would be better if I was dead.

  She gets me down on the floor and sits on me. I’m very small for my age and I only have myself to blame because I stopped drinking milk, except on my cornflakes, and I can’t expect to grow up big and strong if I don’t drink my milk. She sits on my stomach and digs her knees into my shoulders. Then she twists the little bit of hair that’s right above my ears until my eyes water but I never cry. And she makes a big glob of spit on her lips and slowly lets it fall into my face. I screw my mouth shut tight. I don’t want my sister’s spit in my mouth. I don’t like the way it smells. And when she lets me get back up, I run and hide. The coal bunker is the best place to hide because no one knows I am in there. But it’s very dark in the coal bunker and there are spiders and beetles and slugs in the corners. One day I am going to clean out all the dirt and insects and make the coal bunker into my secret house. And I will put my robot back together and get some new batteries.

  I want to be happy tonight. I should be happy tonight but I am sad. I had to come out of the coal bunker eventually when Mum kept calling my name.

  “Oh, there you are. It’s your dad! I’ve been looking for you. Your daddy!”

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes! For you!”

  “Where is he?”

  “Oh, he’s not here. He sent you something.”

  “What is it?”

  “A postcard. Addressed to you! From your daddy!”

  “A postcard?”

  It’s a postcard with a picture of Scottish Soldiers in their kilts.

  POSTMARK: July 21, 1965

  Dear Wee Johnny,

  Trust you are looking after Mum, as you are the man of the house now. Are you doing a good job? Yes! I thought you would.

  Lots of love and good luck, and I hope to see you soon. Keep your ch
in up.

  Your loving Daddy

  XXXXX

  Mum says that I am the man of the house how because I am seven years old. I’m going to keep the postcard under my pillow. I’m going to keep it there until Daddy comes home. It has five kisses. Five is a lot. Five is more than four. I will give him five kisses when he comes home.

  28

  It is best to hide under the blankets when there’s a thunderstorm and press your pillow round your head as hard as you can. Thunder makes your blood pound in your ears like the ocean. The problem with thunder is you can’t see it and it makes things shake and feels like it’s right over your head and will suffocate you like a giant black cloak of seaweed. And lightning makes your bedroom light up suddenly in the dark and you might see something that should not be there. I’ve seen lots of things that shouldn’t be there.

  Thunderstorms make you want to go to the toilet in the middle of the night. And it was a huge thunderstorm in the middle of the night that made me want to pee. That’s how I ended up in the toilet, pushing out the pee as fast as I could and looking at that green rubber handle and waiting for it to twitch and turn into a face dangling there. And the lightning flashed through the window and lit up the toilet and made a long shadow of something that was bigger than me, something that shouldn’t be there. And I stared at the rubber handle and the thunder cracked and made my legs wobble and I never waited to finish peeing when the lightning came again.

  I just ran. I didn’t even flush the toilet. I ran back into my bed and put the blanket over my head and waited. I waited and waited under the blanket but there was no more lightning and no more thunder. Just the rain coming down against the window and the wind blowing in the tall weeds in the garden below.

  And that’s when it began.

  It started like a small dog whining and getting ready to howl. Then it howled long and high and cried and the howling turned into a scream. And the scream came again and again. I think it was a girl’s voice. Yes, a girl. And I knew where it was coming from. Anyone would know.