Ghosts Know

by Ramsey Campbell

  Even his adopted accent infuriates me, since it’s part of his act. “Who’s going to do that?”

  “Anyone who asks them for the latest on their daughter.”

  “Why do you think I’d do anything of the kind?”

  Perhaps fury is confusing me—perhaps he didn’t mean I would. Christine strokes my arm and says “So what is the latest, Mr Jasper?”

  “I need you to keep this to yourselves just now.”

  “It’s okay, Frankie. It’s all right, Frank.” I’ve rephrased it to placate him and obtain the information, but I can’t resist adding “We aren’t on the air and I’m not recording you this time.”

  “We’re good at keeping secrets,” Christine adds.

  He seems bemused by the hint of a rebuke, but of course that’s aimed at me. My remark may have antagonised him as well. He lets us see that he’s making some kind of allowance before he murmurs “It looks like it wasn’t the canal.”

  “What wasn’t, Mr Jasper?”

  Perhaps Christine thinks the fake name is the best way to coax the details out of him, but I’m about to quiz him more vigorously when he says “How Kylie died.”

  “‘What are you saying it was then, Frank?”

  “It seems like she was dead before she hit the water.”

  Though I asked the question he’s still eyeing Christine, who clasps my arm as she says “Do they know what happened?”

  “I’m hearing she may have been knocked down. Just a single blow, it could have been. They’d have given her no chance to call for help.”

  Is it possible he’s claiming to have heard this from the afterlife? Apparently this doesn’t occur to Christine. “Who could have done something like that?”

  “It wouldn’t have taken too much strength. She looks like a delicate girl. Maybe he lost control for a moment. That’s all it would need.”

  Before I can enquire how the police know it was a man, Jasper glances at the chapel. “You’ll pardon me if I leave you to it. They’re going in,” he says and turns back to add “Remember I’m trusting you.”

  Christine takes a firmer hold on my arm as though to prevent me from lurching after him to grab him. Even if my rage is virtually indistinguishable from the heat that’s settled on my scalp, I was only making to stand up; I do know where I am. “I’m a hundred per cent more trustworthy than Mr Frankie Pattercake,” I mutter.

  “Are you sure you’re all right to go on with this?”

  ‘As all right as anyone is at a funeral,” I say and bring her to her feet as if I’m fishing her up.

  The last of the mourners are filing into the chapel, above which the vapour trails of an airliner doubly underline the emptiness that’s heaven. Wayne and Kylie’s father are standing by the hearse, and Wayne stares at me until I reach the chapel, where a pastor hands Christine and me a pamphlet each. Despite the stone walls, the heat feels as if it presages a furnace. Many of the small latticed windows are frosted, but however much they blind us to the world outside they can’t shut out the sun. Among the reasons I head for the back row is that it’s furthest from the rays that are advancing through the chapel.

  Music is hovering under the rafters—“Amazing Grace” performed by a young choir. According to the pamphlet they’re from Kylie’s school. The white letters on the pale blue cardboard cover say Kylie Goodchild: Celebrating Her Life. Some of the mourners seated on the straight-backed pews are using their copies to fan themselves, and I’m tempted to follow their example until Christine touches my arm. She’s showing me a poem in her copy, and I turn to it in mine.

  Life by Kylie Goodchild

  Life’s everybody who’s alive and everything that is.

  I’m a part of it and so are you, and we shouldn’t think we’re any better than the rest.

  Find out how you’re like other people and how they’re like you, and then we’ll all be more alive.

  We’re all the same before we’re born, and babies never fight, so why can’t we just remember how it was and be glad everyone’s alive?

  Apparently she wrote it when the English teacher asked the class to write an essay on the subject, but we’re told he’s glad she wrote it and stood up for doing so. I rub my right eye with the back of my hand, because a sweaty trickle is on the way to blinding me. The next page bears a tribute by her class—Kylie, you’re living in eternity. God owns our dear classmate. He’s incarnate love divine—and I’ve just worked out the secret of the words when the coffin noses its way into the chapel.

  I stumble to my feet, but Wayne seems to think I wasn’t swift enough. While he doesn’t turn his head, his eyes appear to redden as he glares sidelong at me, perhaps from the strain it takes. He’s at the rear of the wicker casket with Kylie’s father on the other side and two of the undertaker’s men supporting the front end. I can’t help wondering if Patterson offered a shoulder and hoping he was rebuffed. At least he hasn’t managed to talk his way into the front row, even if he’s directly behind Margaret Goodchild; I could imagine he’s poised to breathe some kind of message in her ear. The casket passes the empty rows in front of us and then brings rank after rank of mourners to their feet until it’s deposited beside the pulpit. Wayne and Kylie’s father mop their foreheads as they join her mother in the front row, and then the pastor climbs the steps to the pulpit. “We are here to celebrate the life of Kylie Goodchild …”

  This scatters sniffs throughout the chapel, and they multiply as the pastor continues. “She was devoted to her parents, and they were devoted to her…” I take this to mean she was an only child. “From an early age she was an individual with an imagination bigger than she was…” I’m already certain that the pastor never met her, any more than the priest at my grandfather’s funeral had met him. “Everything mattered to her, and she took care of her favourite toys just as much as her friends…” I can’t quite grasp this, perhaps because I’m remembering my grandfather’s funeral, my father looking as if some aspect of the situation is my fault, my mother giving the impression that she would like to apologise to me at a more opportune time. “She excelled at reading and writing, but she wasn’t one to boast about her achievements. In some ways she was a private person, but never an unfriendly one. You had the chance to be her friend no matter where you came from, and many people here today are glad they took that chance…”

  How different is all this from Jasper’s trickery? Some of it isn’t much less generalised, but at least the people who provided the information know they did. The pastor must have used it up, because she’s saying “Let us not dwell on the shortness of life but try to live it for others as well as ourselves. Kylie did, and that’s why she will live on in the hearts of all who were blessed with knowing her. Now her father would like to say a few words to us.”

  His wife and then Wayne rise to their feet out of respect, except that they’re making way for his bulk. He seems to have some difficulty with the steps up to the pulpit, unless he’s taking time over his words or steeling himself to speak. He grips the rail at the front of the pulpit and leans over it, then straightens up and hides his fists behind his back. By the time he opens his mouth I can’t help being put in mind of a man in a witness box.

  “Her mother thought she was a gift from heaven,” he says but doesn’t look at his wife. “I’m a liar, we both did. She’s the only one we’ll ever have. At least whoever blessed us gave us fifteen years of her. We had our arguments, but she was a teenager, so you’ve got to expect that.” He takes a breath so fierce that it echoes beneath the rafters and says “That’s all she’ll ever be now.”

  The effort to contain his emotions is clenching his face, which helps to set off another chorus of muffled sniffs. When he lifts a hand I’m nervous of seeing him claw at his forehead. He digs the hand into his trouser pocket instead, producing a handkerchief with which he dabs at the upper half of his face. “That’s all I can do, padre,” he mutters.

  Once he’s back in the pew Margaret Goodchild remains standing until the
pastor glances at her, which makes her hastily resume her seat. “Would anyone else care to speak?” the pastor says.

  For some moments there’s no response other than a sob I can’t locate, and then Wayne lurches into the aisle. He takes a step towards the pulpit before shaking his head violently and retreating into the pew, mumbling “I can’t.” As Kylie’s mother reaches out to comfort him, Jasper leans over her shoulder. “If it’s all right with you,” she says to the pastor, “Mr Jasper would like to speak.”

  “Anyone’s welcome so long as there’s time. I expect that’s what your daughter would have wanted, aren’t you?”

  It’s plain the pastor has no idea who and especially what he is. If anyone can speak, can’t I? They ask for objections at weddings—why shouldn’t one be raised at a funeral? I’m leaning forward when Christine looks at me and shakes her head. I didn’t realise I was so predictable, and the notion shuts me up while Jasper sidles into the aisle and ascends the steps to gaze down at us all.

  Perhaps even he feels he’s presuming too much. He turns his eyes towards the coffin and clasps his hands loosely together, but despite parting his lips with a small dry sound that reminds me of the action of a switch, he doesn’t speak. “Say whatever’s in your heart,” the pastor urges him.

  Jasper lifts his gaze to the Goodchilds, which Kylie’s mother seems to take as a sign. “Can you see her, Mr Jasper?” she pleads.

  All at once I know what he resembles most: an uncle at a children’s party, pretending to be reluctant to perform a trick until his audience persuades him. He stretches out his hands to the Goodchilds, widening his eyes as if to make room for extra sympathy in them. “She’s behind you, Margaret,” he says.

  His tone is almost reverential enough for a sermon, but it sounds like a pantomime to me. Kylie’s mother twists her head around to blink at the place he vacated, and her yearning or at least the way he’s playing on it almost brings me to my feet with rage. I clench my teeth while she turns to face Jasper. “How is she?”

  “She wants you to know she’s at peace.”

  Her mother’s question was barely audible, and I have to strain my ears at the next one. “Can she say what happened to her?”

  There’s an uneasy movement somewhere in the chapel. It may be the pastor who’s shifting her feet; she looks as if she’s having some doubts about Jasper. He gazes at the emptiness behind the Goodchilds, but his eyes appear to want us to believe he’s seeing further. “There was somebody,” he says with so little expression that his voice might be attempting not to sound like his. “There was a man.”

  I’ve given up wanting to intervene. The Goodchilds invited him, and they’re getting what they asked for; the pastor is as welL “Who was he?” Kylie’s mother begs.

  “The last person she saw.” Having explained this, Jasper reverts to the toneless voice that I’m enraged to suspect he intends to imply he’s quoting the dead girl. “He’s always arguing.”

  I should think that’s true of many people, even here, and Mrs Goodchild has reservations of her own. “What’s that to do with Kylie?”

  “He didn’t like where she went. He wanted to stop her seeing him.” Jasper seems uncertain which voice he’s supposed to be using. “Wait, I’m getting something else,” he says, perhaps to the pastor, who has turned to him. “Something he does.”

  The pastor glances at her watch and makes to speak. Before she can, Jasper says “He goes on the radio.”

  He isn’t looking at anyone; his eyes seem to be trying to appear sightless in the ordinary sense. It’s Wayne who hauls himself around on the pew, so violently that a creak of wood resounds through the chapel. He looks ready to speak if not worse, but the reddened glare he fixes on me is eloquent enough. I’d stand up to be prepared for him—my rage at Jasper’s performance needs to be acted upon—if Christine weren’t clutching my arm. Kylie’s mother takes Wayne’s arm in both hands, and he glowers a warning at me before facing the coffin. Even this infuriates me—the way Christine and Mrs Goodchild are treating us as though we’re similar—and I pull my arm free of the soft frustrating grasp.

  The pastor clears her throat, apparently only to make sure the psychic stunt is finished. “Thank you,” she says as Jasper descends from the pulpit, having rediscovered how to see like the rest of us. Once he’s back in the seat where Kylie was supposed to be the pastor says “Let’s be silent for a minute while we remember Kylie Goodchild.”

  All I can bring to mind is the bruised bedraggled head rising from the murky water, eyes squeezed shut as if they couldn’t bear the floodlight. My rage with Jasper is a good deal more immediate, and I sense fury elsewhere in the chapel. Far too eventually the pastor says a short vague prayer that puts a stop to all the muffled sniffs and earns a murmur of amens. Curtains glide shut in front of the coffin to signify the show’s over, and Wayne leads the Goodchilds into the aisle. The congregation is meant to leave in the order of the rows, starting at the front, but I don’t want any confrontation in the chapel. I hurry outside and have taken just a few steps in the pitiless sunlight when I hear Wayne at my back. “You’d better fucking run, but you won’t get far.”

  I swing around so fast that the gravel of the drive grinds underfoot, and a fragment clatters towards him. He’s stalking at me with his big fists raised, but halts just out of reach. Behind him Kylie’s parents and the pastor have emerged from the chapel. “I’m not running anywhere,” I tell Wayne. “I didn’t think this would be appropriate in there, that’s all.”

  “Wish you was down by the fucking canal again, do you, boy?”

  “Just what do you mean by that?” I demand before realising he has our previous encounter in mind. “Here is fine.”

  “Fucking right it is. They can all hear what you’ve got to say.”

  Christine hurries to stand by me as I murmur “Try and stop the language. Remember where you are.”

  “I know where I fucking am. At my fucking girlfriend’s funeral, and she wouldn’t mind.” His eyes seem to grow redder still as he snarls “And it sounds like I’m talking to the cunt who put her where she is.”

  Jasper is loitering beside the Goodchilds, and the sight of him helps me to focus my anger—even to control it, I hope. “Is that what you’d say, Frank? Is that what you want everyone to believe?”

  ‘Pardon me?”

  “Kylie’s boyfriend thinks you were pointing the finger at me.”

  “I didn’t name anyone.” For once Jasper looks wary; perhaps he thinks he could be sued. “I can only say what I hear.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that. Aren’t you responsible for what comes out of your mouth?”

  Before he can respond Wayne protests “He knew all about you the other fucking time.”

  The pastor holds up her hands, but I can’t wait to deal with Wayne’s remark. “If we’re talking about that photograph again—”

  “Not your photo. You’re too fucking fond of talking about that.” Wayne clenches his fists as if he’s imitating me and says “When he said about your dad hanging you off the balcony.”

  “Graham,” Christine murmurs, but whatever she’s trying to achieve, I haven’t time for it. “And how did you know about that, Frank?” I enquire. “Shall I tell them or will you?”

  He shakes his head while looking blank and glances sidelong at the Goodchilds. In the midst of their grief Kylie’s father seems even more bewildered than his wife, but Wayne and the faker have gone too far this time. “I’m sorry to be bringing this up now,” I tell Kylie’s parents. “Last chance, Frank.”

  Margaret Goodchild gives him a pleading look. “What does he mean, Mr Jasper?”

  He’s only starting to shake his head when I find I’ve had unbearably more than enough. “He knew about me because we were at the same school. That’s how I know about him.”

  Wayne’s inflamed gaze twitches and then fastens more fiercely on me. “So why didn’t you say on the radio? How come you’re only fucking saying now?”
/>   “It’s true,” Christine says, although as if she hopes Kylie’s parents may not hear. “I knew about it Graham told me.”

  “You’ve got to say that. You’re his bitch.”

  The pastor clears her throat and brings her hands together quite hard. She might be announcing a forceful prayer or calling unruly children to order. “If you’d care to make your way now,” she says, “we have another party waiting.”

  A hearse and its procession are indeed approaching up the drive with a prolonged discreet ratde of gravel. Wayne glares at them as if they have no right to be here and then turns his hatred back to me. “You wait,” he mumbles. “This isn’t fucking over.”

  As he tramps over to the Goodchilds, all the mourners who were watching the confrontation start towards me. I could imagine they’ve become a mob if I didn’t realise that they’re heading for the car park. “Come on, Graham,” Christine murmurs urgently and takes my arm. We wait in her car for the hearse and the other vehicles to leave, and at last she starts the engine. I don’t know why she’s making sure the others are out of sight—there’s no need to be scared of Wayne—but I wish the delay had let me think. I’m certain something happened at the funeral, unless it was afterwards, that it’s vital to remember.

  22: Searching The Air

  “Was there any actual violence?”

  “None of that. As I said, we were at the funeral.”

  “Was anybody threatened?”

  “He told Graham it wasn’t over, and the way he said it was certainly meant to be threatening.”

  “Do you remember his exact words?”

  “He said, I won’t say just what he said, but he said it wasn’t effing over. And he told Graham to wait, and he called me a bitch for no reason at all.”

  “She’s asking us to be precise, Chris. Actually, he called her my bitch, and I think that means—”