‘Would you like a drink?’ I ventured.
‘No, there isn’t time,’ she replied in that matter of fact voice of hers. ‘Drink up, or we’ll miss our chance.’
My composure stopped glimmering. Was I being chatted up at all or was this actually something to do with ghosts, or none of the above? My head wasn’t sure but my libido, awakened from long slumber, knew where it was putting its money. So I set about demonstratively finishing off my pint, but not too fast; I wanted to slow things down in the hope that my brain could catch up.
My companion was striking, but not conventionally good-looking. Her face was a little too sharp; defined by the strong lines of her nose, cheekbones and ever-so-slightly protruding chin. These were all covered tautly by thin, pale skin that gave her an ethereal, not-quite- there-ness in the cool light. Her hair was blonde, almost white and swept unfussily back behind her ears and down the long nape of her neck. I’d sat at these benches pretty much every Saturday night all summer, and I’d clocked every vaguely pretty girl to pass through the beer garden, but I didn’t remember seeing her this or any other night until that moment.
‘Where are we going?’ I asked between long, slow lifts of my glass.
She gestured with her head. ‘There. The church.’ With that, she stood up and held a slender hand towards me. This time I drank deeply, finishing my drink in one final gulp and rose to accept the invitation. Her hand was bony and cold in mine, but this was already more intimate than I’d been with a woman for months and it felt good.
Instead of leaving through the pub and walking down the road to the nearby church, she led me instead to the hedge behind our table, where she slipped effortlessly through a tiny gap in to the dark beyond. Was that where she had arrived from? Now, she may have been skinny but I wasn’t, and I wasn’t at all certain I could get through. A brief vision of me stuck in the hedge, with all the regulars gathered round to laugh, flashed through my mind. But her voice from other side, saying ‘Come on, we must hurry’, urged me on. I pushed and pushed while the stiff little branches of the hedge pushed me back, but eventually they gave up and I stumbled through in to the world beyond.
We were in the graveyard of the church. Once a country parish, now swallowed and submerged by the city, I knew that the church was old and had a sprawling and ancient cemetery attached. There were trees everywhere, creating a dark canopy that jostled in the breeze to thwart the moonlight, letting in only glimpses here and there. At ground level creeping plants tended the rain-worn headstones of forgotten lives. The place is rambling and atmospheric by day, but in the black of night it was a forbidding maze.
My companion, with her silver hair, pale skin and plain white dress somehow caught what little illumination there was, shimmering like a starlight candle. She set off at pace, forcing me to hurry along after her or be left in darkness. She floated effortlessly this way and that, while I tripped on roots, bounced off tree-trunks and stumbled over gravestones, chasing her will-o-the-wisp.
‘Where are we going?’ I called out breathlessly.
She stopped and turned, allowing me chance to catch her up. ‘The lych-gate. You have to kiss me there at midnight. We only have a couple of minutes, so hurry up.’ With that she turned and set-off again and I raced after.
The lych-gate, a traditional covered gateway, is normally and naturally found by the road. But this church is unusual in having its gate not on the street but on the entrance from the church grounds to the cemetery, from which it is otherwise divided by an old, high stone wall.
As we got closer, the trees and the weeds became thinner, the moonlight brighter and the church steeple stood reassuringly proud against the night sky. The graves in this section were newer and more regularly arranged; polished and upright, they were much easier to dodge than the older ones and I caught up with my companion just as we arrived at the ancient stone gateway.
We stood facing each other, waiting for the moment, me panting to catch my breath, her all stillness. I was about to kiss this girl that I’d met only a few minutes before and I realised I didn’t even know her name. Light-headed from the alcohol and running, excited by the enigma and adventure, I felt like I had passed in to another world when I pushed through that hedge. I was charged full with anticipation.
Then the bells struck. Whoever she was, she stepped forward, pressing herself against me, placed a hand around my neck and pulled me into a deep kiss. The universe was reduced to nothing more than that moment, that sensation, that incredible kiss. And echoing through it twelve chimes, twelve pounding heartbeats that reverberated through the world that she had pulled me in to.
And when the bells stopped, so did the kiss. She stepped back, leaving me embracing only the cool night air.
‘So … ’ I was intoxicated by the moment and wanted to carry on. And I wanted to kiss her again. And more.
‘We wait.’
‘Wait for what?’ ‘For ghosts.’
Her face flickered with a brief smile. ‘Come on. I know a great place where we can lie low and wait.’ She gave the word ‘lie’ a little seductive emphasis and turned back towards the graveyard with a girlish skip. Then, looking back at me over her shoulder, she added ‘It’s a little den that’s just made for two bodies. Literally.’
I started after her. It seemed like there was going to be more than just that kiss to be had tonight and nothing was going to come between me and it.
Except ... an insistent sensation in my abdomen reminded me that I had not yet emptied my bladder of beer.
‘Hang on.’ I called. ‘I need to pee. Wait there.’
‘Well … just … be quick!’
There was some kind of shrub border to my right, separating the different sections of the newer graveyard. I ducked behind it and after struggling to free myself through the zip of my jeans began to pee on its lower leaves.
While I was relieving myself I could no longer see my companion and all was black and quiet except for the sound of splashing on leaves. But then there was another sound; a man’s voice, laughter and then bursts of loud singing. He sounded young and drunk and he was coming this way.
It was pub chucking-out time and the city had chosen to spew its gruesome mundanity into my little world. I didn’t know whether this was going to affect my night’s adventure, but instinctively it seemed to threaten whatever delicate spell had been woven. But for the moment, I was unable to move.
The singing continued, now sounding close by as I started to squeeze out the last drops. Then a young man appeared to my side and started to piss on the shrubs, as though we were stood side by side at the pub urinals.
‘Alright, mate.’ He spoke with the exaggerated friendliness of drunkenness and even having spent the evening in the pub myself, I could smell the booze on his breath. He must have had a skinful. His forehead was gashed and one eye swollen from a fall, or maybe from fighting.
‘Alright.’ I replied, reaching for my zip.
‘She’s pretty, your girlfriend, eh?’ He thrust out an elbow to give me a playful ‘know what I mean?’ nudge to emphasise his ‘Eh?’ but overbalanced, sending piss arcing everywhere and getting my shoes wet.
‘Oh fuck. Soz mate.’ Then, as though thinking some sort of explanation was required, added ‘I’m a bit shit-faced. ’
I really wanted to tell him to get lost, but years of pub-going had taught me the etiquette of drunkenness and the importance of observing it with people who in other circumstances might put a fist to you as soon as talk to you.
‘No worries, mate.’ I adopted a self-consciously working-class tone. ‘I’m Danny,’ he said.
‘Good to meet ya, Danny.’
I started back to where I had left my companion, but she must have moved further down the path so I set off after her. Danny followed me.
‘Fucking ’ell.’ He said. ‘This ’ere looks just like your bird!’
‘What?’
He was stooped down in front of a gravestone. It was a recent one. Shaped like a
cross, dark, but highly polished, it caught the moonlight. It was one of those that included a picture of the deceased. In a rush, all the strange details fell into a terrifying pattern, the mysterious girl, the cold hands, the intoxicating kiss and the strange, enticing invitation of a beautiful stranger. I didn’t need a closer look, I ran, leaving the sound of a drunken ‘Danny Boy’ receding in the air behind me.
Two months later, I saw her in a nightclub, talking to an acquaintance. Too dumbstruck to approach her, she soon slipped from view. But I asked my friend about her.
‘Oh yeah, that’s Polly’ he replied. ‘Known her for years. Nice girl, but a bit crazy. She has this thing about hunting for ghosts.’
The next day I returned, for the first time, to the cemetery next to The Bell and retraced my steps from the lych-gate. There was the path; there was the long border of shrubs and there was the large cruciform gravestone. It was twelve years old and it read:
“Here lies Daniel McDonnell, taken from this world by tragic accident. May his laughter and song that lit up this world ring out for ever in the next.”
And the picture: no bruises, no bleeding, but unmistakeably him.
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Tales from the Dead of Night Page 23