The Waiting Room

by Michael White

  It was without doubt a long time ago but it is a lesson never forgotten, for if you do then the bullies will always return, and once they find you weak then it would take extreme measures to break their circle of intimidation. No, “swift and decisive action” my father had said, and although I had never had great need of his advice, I cherished it now.

  I shot from my chair like a bullet from a gun, and grabbing Apollyon by the throat threw him onto the table. The Earl shouted out in protest as my fist struck him the first time, though when I hit him again his expression was one of curiosity rather than outrage or indeed, pain. I threw myself upon him as the three other gentlemen pushed themselves away from the table, calling out in outrage as I dragged the Earl’s face close to mine. I saw also that Gabriel Moon had turned to face me once again, although this time he was smiling. No words passed his lips however.

  “Enough Apollyon.” I spat at the Earl. “I may have placed my entrance to your club in jeopardy now by my actions but I will not be taunted. Not by you or any other man.” To my surprise, the Earl simply smiled but his eyes held me once again. In them I was surprised not to find fear; nothing at all. In fact, as I looked at him I saw something in him that was old; so very old and yet very far away as well. It seemed to me then that I could never place fear into this man’s heart, for he had no concept of it at all other than in an abstract manner. Yet I did see something in his eyes that to him was the precise antithesis of fear, yet to him it was an anathema, for I realised then that when he looked into my eyes he saw doubt, and it appalled him.

  I released him and took my seat once more as Farrager and Rothering fussed about the Earl, straightening his shirt and fussing over him; assisting him down from the table where I had thrown him. As they fawned over Apollyon I saw that the engineer still sat in his seat however, over-looking the proceedings that had occurred with disinterest. Moon had also turned his face away from me once more. The Earl waved the two men away and stood at the side of the table, patting himself down. To my surprise he ignored my assault altogether.

  “Come, Mister Radley.” He finally smiled as the two doors behind him swung open once again. “It is time for you to enter my club!” Cornelius Radley stood, a grin upon his face and passed behind me to reach the Earl on the far side of the table from him. As he passed me I noticed a distinct smell of two things; blood and oil. I reached for my handkerchief as Apollyon shuffled through the doors and as they closed again I saw the red light within increase, even stronger this time. There was no doubt in my mind this time that what I saw inside that room were definitely flames. As I replaced my handkerchief to my pocket Apollyon took his seat once more. Now there were seven empty chairs, and the two last remaining men sat at the head of the table, to the Earl’s right, Moon unnoticed to Apollyon’s immediate left. Then there was just myself, alone and isolated at the foot of the table. As the three men sat there regarding me I felt as if I were in an interview of some sort, or in some form of negotiation or appraisal.

  “Who is next?” said Apollyon, and Byron Rothering stood, placing his ticket on the table. It was at this point that I realised that if both of the remaining men were accepted into the club then when it was time to tell my story then it would be just Apollyon and I, and Gabriel Moon of course, but it would appear that only I was able to see him!

  The thought that it was just to be the Earl and I filled me with despair, for I had just attempted to throttle the man, but by now the revelations that Moon had forced me to consider were coming home to roost, and I was not even sure if I wanted to join the club any more anyway. There were also the stories, and they were about to continue.

  “I call it, “Farewell My love””, said Rothering, “And it is mostly concerning my damned wife…”

  Farewell My Love

  "Farewell My love!" said the ghost hovering over the end of my bed, floating like a nimbus cloud, glowing white. Through her shadowy form I could see the window behind her as she wailed and moaned one more time.

  "Farewell My love." she said, arms thrust out towards me as if in supplication.

  "Now look here!" I said in exasperation, "This is really quite enough!" The ghost of my somewhat persistent dead wife did not pay any heed however. She never did.

  “Farewell my love!” said the ghost again in a piercing shriek and I hid my head under the bedclothes.

  It is important for me to state quite categorically here and now that by hiding my head under the sheets I was not doing so because I was afraid by my wife’s apparition by any stretch of the imagination. I merely required some respite from the seemingly endless wailings of the phantom of my wife that had plagued me for every single hour of every single day since I had murdered her just six days before.

  It was so ruddy typical of her I have to say, for she seldom seemed to remain quiet when she was alive, her mouth moving all the time, talking without engaging her reason or intellect. It certainly appeared that in death she remained exactly the same. It had been a reasonable decision on by behalf to murder her I felt, seeing as how it soon became apparent to me when making certain discrete and circumspect enquiries that she was worth rather more to me in financial terms dead than she was alive; in truth I looked forward to a little peace and quiet as an added benefit too.

  Sadly however, this did not seem to be the case for she continued to haunt me from the second she breathed her last after I had pushed her down the stairs to the present moment where she floated over the end of my bed wailing at me like some moonstruck animal. This is just the measure of the woman I must say, for she appears to as much a nuisance in death as she was in life.

  I had examined the stairs closely many a time for they were long and steep, considering as I had muttered under my breath that anyone taking a tumble down there would almost certainly arrive at the bottom with at least a broken neck; and so it had been with my wife. The insurance money I had undertaken on a policy ensuring her continuing corporeality on the other hand would certainly come in extremely useful. The upkeep of Rothering Hall, my ancestral home, was swallowing money as if it did not exist. Without a fresh infusion of funds, I would no doubt lose the battle to prevent the building from collapsing altogether.

  Extreme measures to take no doubt, but I was equal to the task for my family have lived in these halls for the past four hundred years, and I was not going to be entered in the annals of the Rothering family as the man who lost it all, and so down the stairs she had gone. As to why she was now following me about day and night was a total mystery to me, though it was rapidly losing its novelty very quickly indeed.

  “Farewell my love!” I heard from outside of the blankets that now covered my head, and I found myself tutting in the dark of the night.

  “Away with you, you mammering hedge-born strumpet!” I roared, for my humours were at best unbalanced by both lack of sleep and irritation that my dead wife should continue to plague me so. “Strumpet!” I shouted angrily and from outside the blankets I heard her again.

  “Farewell my love!” she called and I sighed deeply.

  She never changed her expression or aspect however, for she seemed to be frozen in time at the exact second that she had met her demise on the rather ornate main staircase that led down into the main hall, her mouth opening only to mouth her somewhat frequent goodbyes, her arms reaching out to me. She was like an ever present and somewhat bothersome statue. Unfortunately for myself the statue as it were also had a voice.

  “Farewell my love!” I heard from beside the bed once again, and removing the covers from my head I stared at her frozen form. She just floated in the air, arms reaching for me as if in appeal for some form of deliverance that I had surely already given her.

  She was not alone of course. Oh no.

  Standing directly behind her as if gazing over my dead wife’s shoulder was the ghostly form of Molly my ex-maid, frozen in time forever, face showing outrage, her eyes bulging, spectral feather duster upraised as if in protest. And yes, she had protested. Especially
when I had sprung upon her as she stood slack jawed at the sight of my dead wife at the foot of the staircase, her head at a very unusual angle, and therefore had found I had no choice but to take the maid and strangle her.

  I would be the first to admit that while I had nursed the thought of murdering my wife with the aim of being in receipt of the remuneration from the previously mentioned insurance policy, when I had actually pushed her down the staircase it had been completely on impulse. Nobody was more surprised more than I as she had clattered down the stairs, a final crack indicating exactly why her head was in such a strange position when she eventually came to a stop at the foot of the stairs.

  Well nobody more surprised with the exception of Molly of course, who had seen everything from the hallway. I had therefore descended the stairs like a madman and strangled her on the spot, the maid feebly battering me with her feather duster until the life left her. I took the opportunity to stash the maid’s body in the cellar for later disposal. One corpse was bad luck, two was definitely a recipe for disaster!

  To my horror however, shortly after my ex-wife’s shade had appeared, the ghost of Molly the maid had blinked into existence to haunt me as well, waving her ghostly feather duster at me as if in an attempt to dash my brains in.

  “What is this, you churlish boil brained harpy?” I seemed to remember exclaiming, though thankfully the maid seemed to remain silent. My dead wife did not however.

  “Farewell my love!” she said and Molly had waved her spectral duster at me from over her shoulder as well.

  The first night had scared me, I am not afraid to admit. I feared the spectral forms that floated at the end of my bed as to my mind they were an unnatural abomination. Yet the next day when the police arrived after the discovery of my wife’s body at the base of the stairs and all of the resulting fuss and endless questions had taken place the novelty began to wear off. The constant feather duster waving was but a distraction of my wife’s almost constant pleas to say farewell. What on Earth did she want? Come to think of it, what did the maid want as well?

  The police however seemed reasonably satisfied with my explanation that my wife must have risen in the night and fallen down the stairs accidentally. Mayhap she tripped over the cat who was of course prone to nocturnal wanderings. Just to make sure I embellished this explanation somewhat by stating that my wife was also a frequent sleep walker. This was a complete lie of course, but it seemed to make their minds up and they left soon after. I was pleased by this point to discover that only I could see the ghosts of my dead wife and her maid fluttering about wheresoever I placed myself. Nobody else seemed to be able to see them at all. Curiously the two spectres were balanced on the police inspector’s head at one point, a distraction that I commended myself on ignoring altogether, the maid’s feather duster thumping the policeman’s head as he asked me delicate questions about the state of my relationship with my wife.

  Yet I prevailed and was left with the impression that they believed my explanation and were taken in by my crocodile tears. I spent the rest of the day trying to dodge the two shades to no avail, but having failed to achieve this I made arrangements to visit my solicitor the next day to set the insurance arrangements in place. I also had a funeral to arrange of course, but the money was more important. The main roof was in a terrible state of repair and would certainly not last another winter. That was of paramount importance to my mind.

  On the fourth day when my temper was beginning to fray at the constant braying of my ex-wife and attendant maid the funeral took place. I could not help but give a small smile as my wife’s coffin was lowered into the grave, my wife’s spectre now balanced perfectly on the priest's head as it did so.

  “Farewell my love!” she implored and I looked at the people gathered about the grave to ensure they had not seen my smile. The relatives gathered there were completely oblivious but amongst the staff I thought I caught sight of the cook looking at me very suspiciously. I decided to keep a very close eye on her just in case. In the meantime, the dead maid continued to wave her spectral duster at me as well.

  I entertained the family and hangers on back at the house for as long as I could reasonably be expected to before settling down to checking the returned insurance claim documents for one more time. I felt that it was always a good idea to proceed with great caution when dealing with these villainous hedge born moldwarps that pass themselves off as legal experts, and so I ensured that every “I” and “T” were well and truly dotted and crossed accordingly.

  The next day was a whirlwind of activity; a concept that I struggled to hide from my ever dwindling household staff as I was keen to play the role of the inconsolable bereaved husband. So I took the insurance claim forms to the postal office myself, ensuring their posting to none other than I. Before that I remembered that I had the rather unfortunate luck to have a dead maid’s body concealed in the cellar, and I had of course leave to ensure that this was disposed of as quickly as I was able. I had considered burying her in the cellar but it was rather close to home and I was not entirely convinced that it was a hygienic proposition, and so I decided to feed her to the pigs down in the pig pen instead.

  So I rose as dawn broke, taking great care not to disturb the few remaining staff still deep in their slumbers for another thirty minutes or so. I tiptoed down to the cellar and uncovered and bundled up the maid’s body and made my way back up the stairs, her corporeal remains concealed under what appeared upon examination to be an old dusty curtain. I had unlocked the front door previously and so now carefully balanced the dead weight of the servant on my shoulder and pushed the door toward me with my foot. I exited into the cool morning air with the maid over my shoulder to be greeted by the postman standing on my front door step looking at me curiously, letters in one hand outstretched towards me.

  “Letters for you, sir!” he said as I huffed and puffed on the doorstep before reaching out to take the letters from him. As I did so however I lost grip of the dead maid and she fell to the floor, the curtain falling from her as I dropped her. I looked down at the grotesquely twisted features of my ex-member of staff and then up to the white face of the trembling weedy urchin snouted coxcomb of a postman, the letters still outstretched before me.

  “Farewell my love!” called a voice from behind me and I grimaced slightly, a small twitch making my face tremble.

  “Uh…” managed the postman finally as we both regarded the dead maid at our feet and with a deep sigh I realised that there really was nothing else I could do, and so strangled him too.

  I now had very little time left before the rest of the household rose and I reflected that I was currently standing on my front doorstep with two corpses, the maid having been dead for some time, and the postman having been recently dispatched. Seizing the initiative, I dragged the bodies out of sight around the back of the house and hid them in the bushes. After that I carried the postman down to the pig pens first, followed by the body of the maid. I had of course given the member of staff who supervised the pig pens the task of running some fool’s errand to town that would no doubt engage him until nightfall, by which time the two bodies would be completely eradicated by the pigs.

  As I had tipped the dead maid into the pen I was sure to avert my eyes, such was the sounds of squealing and snuffling pigs rising from therein. I am sure it was not a sight for a gentleman such as I to view, that was for certain! So I strode back towards the house, my retinue in tow.

  “Farewell my love!” I heard from behind me, and I turned to look over my shoulder to see my wife floating along behind me, quickly pursued by the maid who was still rattling her duster at me as if in search of vengeance with the edge of the ghostly household implement.

  At that point I heard what seemed to my ears like a sharp popping sound and then the spectral figure of the postman appeared behind the maid, holding his ghostly letters outstretched as if imploring me to accept his delivery, though of course I could have been sorely mistaken and perhaps he was merely tr
ying to thrash me about the head with the phantom envelopes instead.

  I sighed to myself and strode off to the rear the house, checking the bushes where I had previously hidden the bodies in case there were any traces of my nefarious activities within the foliage. Satisfied that indeed there was indeed no evidence remaining I emerged from the leafy borders just in time to notice the kitchen curtain falling back into place, as if someone was watching me from within. Letting myself quietly into the house I crept into the kitchen but the house was quiet and the room empty, though I did notice that the curtain to the window overlooking the garden seemed out of place as if it had been moved. Nevertheless, the room was empty, and the curtain could have been displaced that way for years for all I knew and so I crept back to my room, satisfied with a job well done.

  I lay in bed for an hour or so, listening to the household coming to life before rising from my bed, bathing and heading for breakfast. I would like to say that prior to this I had time to take some rest and mayhap a nap but the craven cook pated clack-dish dead wife, maid and postman seemed to be determined to ensure that I did not do so.

  “Farewell my love!” implored my ghostly wife as the maid waved a duster and the postman thrust letters at me. It really was terribly inconvenient. I felt a headache forming behind my eyes as they continued their grim charade, never deviating in posture or imploration. I had by now decided to ignore them of course despite the recent addition to my spectral travelling circus of the postman, but in truth it was somewhat difficult to do so.

  “Be gone, you pox marked giglets!” I roared in vain for they did not seem to hear or even notice me at all.

  “Farewell my love!” repeated my wife and I retired to my study to await lunch. I was therefore surprised some hours later as I attempted to ignore the ghostly forms before me to hear a small almost timid knock on the door.

  “Come!” I yelled, for a knock on the door was almost certain to be down to some trifling household matter at this time and I was not at all surprised therefore to see the cook entering my study and closing the door behind her.