The Ministry of Ghosts

by Alex Shearer

  The Ministry of Ghosts, the document read, is hereby established under instruction of Parliament, for the investigation into the existence or otherwise of those paranormal bodies known in the vernacular as ‘ghosts’. The duties and responsibilities of the Ministry of Ghosts will entail investigation, regular reportage of such investigations, and ultimately the reaching of a conclusion – one way or another – as to the existence of such paranormal entities and activity.

  It will further be within the responsibility and domain of said Ministry – should conclusive proof of such supernatural entities be found – to investigate the manner of their coming into being, the means of their continuing existence, their wants, needs, intentions and purposes, their ultimate fate, and – in the case of bothersome ghosts – their possible eradication. (Subcontractors may be used in this field, subject to the usual approvals, competitive quotations, authorisations and budgetary constraints.)

  ‘Hmm,’ Mr Beeston said. ‘So the place was set up over two hundred years ago to find out if ghosts actually exist, and if so, how to get rid of them?’

  ‘When they need getting rid of,’ Mrs Peeve said. ‘I mean, if they aren’t bothering you, why should you … ’ She lapsed into silence, aware that Mr Beeston was regarding her with a disapproving eye. ‘That is,’ she picked up, determined not to be browbeaten by her superior, ‘live and let live.’

  ‘Maybe so,’ Mr Beeston said. ‘Only ghosts aren’t alive, are they? I thought they were supposed to be dead.’

  ‘Well, the people they belong to are certainly dead, I suppose,’ Mrs Peeve said. ‘But maybe, in a sense, their ghosts … live on.’

  Mr Beeston gave a snort. ‘It seems to me,’ he said, ‘that these people round at this Ministry of Ghosts are onto a cushy little number, and have been for quite some time. How many work round there?’

  ‘Four, I believe,’ Mrs Peeve said, consulting the records. ‘Four, plus a cat, as far as I can make out.’

  ‘A cat? You mean a cat is down as an employee?’

  ‘Well. It’s an expense,’ Mrs Peeve said. ‘It keeps the mice down, apparently.’

  ‘And it gets paid for that?’

  ‘No, but it gets a food and bedding allowance.’

  ‘Food and bedding!’

  ‘And all vets’ fees paid.’

  ‘Extraordinary,’ Mr Beeston said. ‘Why couldn’t they just buy a mousetrap? Be an awful lot cheaper.’

  ‘You’d still have to buy the bait,’ Mrs Peeve pointed out.

  ‘Even so. Sheer extravagance, employing a cat. That cat’ll be out on its ear, if I have anything to do with it. This is taxpayers’ money we’re responsible for. What would people think if they discovered that their money was going on cats?’

  ‘It could be going to worse places,’ Mrs Peeve muttered.

  ‘So who do we have working round there?’ Mr Beeston asked. ‘Do we have a record? I assume we must.’

  ‘Well,’ Mrs Peeve said, thumbing through the file, ‘apparently there used to be seventeen people working there.’

  ‘How many?!’ Mr Beeston demanded. ‘Seventeen? Seventeen people on full-time wages, just to find out whether or not ghosts exist!’

  ‘Plus the cat, of course.’

  ‘Seventeen people and a cat! Sheer waste and extravagance!’

  ‘But staffing numbers have been trimmed over the years,’ Mrs Peeve told him. ‘So it says here. Apparently the staffing levels were intermittently reviewed, firstly in 1876, when they were reduced to twelve, then in 1916, when they were reduced to four –’

  ‘Probably the war effort,’ Mr Beeston said.

  ‘And have remained at that level since. Four plus the cat.’

  ‘Presumably not the same cat?’ Mr Beeston said.

  ‘I imagine it would be more like a succession of cats,’ Mrs Peeve said. ‘The staffing at the Ministry has now been at the same level for decades, comprising one senior civil servant, two junior and a secretary.’

  ‘And a cat.’

  ‘Just so,’ Mrs Peeve said.

  ‘And in all that time, and all those cats, and all those people, and all that money, what have they found?’

  ‘One moment,’ Mrs Peeve said, rummaging again through the file. ‘Ah, here we are. The quarterly progress reports.’

  ‘And?’

  She flicked through them.

  ‘It would appear that investigations are still underway –’

  ‘Huh!’ Mr Beeston gave vent to another of his snorts.

  ‘But, as yet, no firm conclusions have been reached one way or the other.’

  ‘Let me see that!’

  Mr Beeston took the file and spun it around.

  ‘There are several other boxes down in the archives,’ Mrs Peeve said. ‘If you want to see them. In longhand, some of them. Dating right back to the 1790s.’

  ‘No thank you,’ Mr Beeston said, picking up the most recent report, which despite its relative newness, already seemed be impregnated with the odour of must and decay. ‘Four quarterly reports for over two hundred years – there must be getting on for a thousand of them down there.’

  ‘True,’ Mrs Peeve said. ‘If the rats and beetles haven’t eaten a few.’

  ‘All saying the same thing too, no doubt. That investigations are “ongoing”, that evidence is “being collected”, that the results are “being weighed up and considered” and that “conclusive proof one way or the other is still lacking – but being diligently pursued”. You know what they’re doing round at this so-called Ministry of Ghosts, Mrs Peeve?’

  ‘What is that, sir?’

  ‘They’re taking the mick. That’s what they’re doing. They’re swinging the lead. They’re pulling a fast one. They’ve got themselves a nice little cushy number and they’re hoping it’ll go on forever, until they can retire on handsome pensions, after a life spent on a wild goose chase –’

  ‘More of a ghost –’

  ‘Ghost chase, goose chase, same difference, Mrs Peeve. These characters are taking the taxpayer for a ride and it’s time it stopped. Because if you can’t prove, after two hundred years’ worth of investigations, that ghosts are real, then there’s only one possible conclusion.’

  ‘And what is that, sir?’

  ‘They’re not real. They don’t exist. They’re all in people’s heads.’

  ‘But what about –?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I know all about people who swear they’ve seen them, Mrs Peeve. I also know people who swear they’ve seen flying saucers, and that they’ve been abducted by aliens. The sad and the deluded are always with us. But I tell you this – these skivers and time-wasters won’t be round at the Ministry of Ghosts for much longer. I’m going to issue an ultimatum, and then I shall shut the place down.’

  ‘But sir –’

  ‘Oh, I shall be following the proper procedures, Mrs Peeve, don’t you worry about that. I shall be doing it by the book – by every letter of the book. I shall give them their chance to justify their continuing existence, and when they fail to do it, which I have no doubt they will, then the department will be closed down and they can be redeployed to more productive work.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Four civil servants, plus a cat, plus cost of premises, heating, lighting – we could easily save the taxpayer hundreds of thousands, Mrs Peeve. If not millions – or at least that’s what the costs could mount up to if this is allowed to go on.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘We must all tighten our belts, Mrs Peeve, and pull up our braces.’

  ‘I don’t actually wear –’

  ‘First thing next week, I shall commence my investigation.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I’ll need to start by visiting the place, obviously.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Would you wish me to let them know … ?’

  ‘Let them know I’m coming? Give them a chance to look busy? Certainly not. I shall turn up unannounced and unexpected. I shall probably catch them all napping – if they�
�re there at all – and find the cat idling on a cushion somewhere. No, Mrs Peeve, stealth and surprise are our weapons here in the Economies Office. I shall go forth first thing next Monday morning and see what they’re up to. And if I discover that they aren’t up to anything at all, and are just sitting there drinking tea and doing the crossword, then the fur shall fly, Mrs Peeve. Rest assured of that. The fur shall most definitely fly! And that includes the cat.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Is that all for now?’

  ‘Yes, you can take those files away for the moment, thank you.’

  Mrs Peeve did as asked and carted the files back to the archive. As she left her superior’s office, she heard the sound of a final snort.

  ‘Ghosts, indeed!’ Mr Beeston said disparagingly. ‘Ghosts. I never heard such nonsense. Not in all my born days.’

  Mrs Peeve walked away, wondering if perhaps Mr Beeston was right after all. Maybe there were no such things as ghosts. Maybe there was no spirit world, just the overwrought imaginations of the living, and their desire to see their lost loved ones again, even if only fleetingly, as wraiths in the night, or as tremulous mirages, briefly glimpsed in the shimmering heat haze of some sunny afternoon.

  3

  The Art of Looking Busy

  Four civil servants and a cat.

  The cat was called Boddington. He lived half his life in the basement, and the rest of it out in the streets. For he had his own cat flap and could come and go as he pleased.

  Although Boddington was – at least theoretically and technically – employed to keep the mouse population down, his activities in this area were meagre and casual, and usually inconclusive.

  It is possible that his presence deterred mice from lingering, but Boddington rarely caught any, seldom chased any, and – due to a congenital eye defect and the effects of age – seldom saw any. While he occasionally got the smell of them, it wasn’t usually pungent enough to rouse him from his constant slumbers – it being in the nature of cats to spend most of their lives asleep.

  Moving up the hierarchy of employees to the very top, the most senior of those engaged to run the Ministry of Ghosts with efficiency, was old Mr Copperstone. Not that he was ever called ‘old’ to his face. He was simply known as old Mr Copperstone to his underlings – and usually when they and he were not in the same room. Old Mr Copperstone was of an ancientness that spoke of missed opportunities for retirement, and of major slip-ups round at the Personnel Office. (Or Human Resources Office, as it was now known.) Not only did Mr Jeremiah Copperstone look ancient, he dressed the part too, with stiff, starched collars, with cufflinks in his sleeves, with a suit of antique cut and an overcoat that could have been taken from a costume museum. Then there was his bowler hat, and his furled umbrella, which never seemed to be unfurled, not even at times of rain. And then there was his antique leather briefcase, with his name in faded gold lettering upon it: j. j. copperstone, esquire. The case had seen good service, as had Mr Copperstone, and both were old and faded now. Yet it was the work that kept him going. If old Mr Copperstone hadn’t had his work at the Ministry of Ghosts, he would scarcely have known what to do with himself; he would have been quite bereft.

  Next in command was Miss Rolly. Miss Virginia Rolly was a woman not in the first flush of youth, but arguably still in youth’s second flush, and her complexion matched her situation, being also very flushed, as though she were permanently embarrassed – which she was not, for Miss Rolly was as good as unembarrassable.

  Miss Rolly just had one of those countryside kind of complexions that seemed the result of the outdoor life: of strong winds and severe temperatures and gales blowing up the estuary. Yet that was misleading too, for Miss Rolly was a product of the suburbs and the inner city. She had been the first in her family to go to university, and she was a strong-minded woman and a staunch feminist.

  ‘We must never give up the fight for women’s rights. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,’ she sometimes asserted, and it was undoubtedly true.

  Miss Rolly had come up through the ranks of the Civil Service to head her own department at a relatively young age. True, the department was small, and the only other person in it – junior to and answerable to Miss Rolly – was one Mr Arnold Gibbings.

  The Ministry’s general secretary, Mrs Olive Scant, was really in a department of her own – not to say a world of her own. Mrs Scant had her own little room at the end of a long corridor, and here, when not typing out documents or firing off letters or dealing with telephone enquiries and ‘putting you through now’, she spent quiet moments reading romantic novels, in which ladies of a certain age finally found the men of their dreams – having first suffered considerable heartache, and having encountered several unsuitable types with big moustaches and dishonourable intentions along the way.

  In terms of titles, old Mr Copperstone was Ministry of Ghosts (Head of); Miss Rolly was Ministry of Ghosts, Detection and Executive Department (Head of); Mr Gibbings was Ghost Liaison and Counselling Officer (and Assistant to Miss Rolly); and Mrs Scant was Secretary to the above. Boddington was, presumably, Cat to the above. But his formal title had never been written down, so his exact status was unspecified. In the monthly petty cash expenditure, he was simply listed as ‘Cat’.

  A typical day at the Ministry of Ghosts would take the following form:

  First Mr Copperstone would appear in his office – for, as he was the most senior in rank, he felt it his duty to set a good example and high standards through punctuality, even earliness.

  Next, invariably arriving almost together, but somehow not quite, Miss Rolly and Mr Gibbings would enter their offices. They would exchange small talk and pleasantries regarding the weather, then they would sit at their desks and deal with such paperwork as had come in.

  There was often no paperwork at all, in which case Miss Rolly would delegate Mr Gibbings to undertake ‘further research’ into ghostly matters, and he would apply himself to studying old volumes, or to reading the latest reports and the news of fresh sightings of ghosts.

  Mrs Scant would have been at her own desk for half an hour by then, sorting out the post – assuming it had already arrived, and, if not, she would wait impatiently for it – or rereading one of her bodice-rippers (as her romantic novels were popularly known).

  Old Mr Copperstone, meantime, might hang a notice on the outer handle of his door, informing his staff that he was not to be disturbed as an important meeting was underway. But they all knew this meant that he was having forty winks in his leather wing chair, and just conferring with himself.

  So all in all, there was little to do at the Ministry of Ghosts except try to look busy – which was quite an exhausting business in itself. Few things are more tiring than having little to do while being compelled to appear as though that little is a lot.

  There were crosswords to be discreetly done, of course. There were letters to newspapers to be written on the pertinent affairs of the day. Miss Rolly regularly fired them off to the dailies, giving them the views of the liberated woman. She was always forthright in her expression of those views and seldom held back. But the letters rarely made it as far as the newspaper editors. For the letters were first passed on to Mrs Scant …

  ‘When you have a free moment, Mrs Scant, if you could type these up. Though obviously Ministry business must take priority … ’

  Yet, even when there was no Ministry business that day, the letters somehow never got dealt with. They remained in Mrs Scant’s in tray, until the pile grew so large that they had to be transferred to Mrs Scant’s wastepaper basket, and from there to Mrs Scant’s shredding machine – an old, non-electrical, mechanical contraption, operated by a winding handle.

  But Miss Rolly seemed unperturbed by this. She did not appear to wonder why her letters never showed up in the newspapers. Maybe she thought that the editors found them too radical to publish. So she went on writing them, more than anything else because it gave her something to do.

  Every afternoon, when the m
inute hand was at the ten and the hour hand at the two, old Mr Copperstone would summon his staff to his office for a report on how things were going and on general work in progress.

  ‘And so,’ he would say. ‘What news, Miss Rolly? Anything conclusive yet?’

  Miss Rolly would point at her assistant, Mr Gibbings, and say, ‘I delegated matters to Mr Gibbings, Mr Copperstone. I am sure that he will be able to give you a full report of our work and activities to date.’

  The eyes of his superiors would peer expectantly at Mr Gibbings, who would clear his throat and smooth his thinning hair – for though he was still a young man, he was no longer as young as he once had been at the very start of being young – and he would indicate Mrs Scant and say, ‘Mrs Scant has been kind enough to rustle up my report for me, which I dictated to her earlier. Mrs Scant, if you would be so kind … ’

  And Mrs Scant would read from a sheet of typing paper and invariably recount as follows:

  ‘Investigations are continuing into all credible reports of apparitions, ghostly manifestations, and visitors into the material universe from the world of spirit. As yet no conclusive proof has been produced as to the existence of so-called “ghosts”. The search, therefore, goes on, in a diligent and timely manner, and it is hoped that the Ministry will soon have sufficient evidence and material at its disposal to compile a thorough and conclusive report. Meanwhile, no lead remains uninvestigated and no stone unturned. The Ministry of Ghosts continues to maintain its customary high standards and benchmarks.’

  Mrs Scant didn’t really need to read from the paper, for she knew what to say off by heart. She had said the same thing every working day for umpteen years.

  She also knew that as soon as she had said her piece, Mr Copperstone would thank her; he would nod with satisfaction; he would verbally express it; he would indicate his desire that the good work should continue; then he would dismiss his staff. Once they had gone, he would hang his important meeting underway – do not disturb sign on his door handle, and soon the sound of deep snoring would resonate through the premises.