Phantoms

by Marie O'Regan

  Each night, before she tumbles into scorched sleep, she tries to relive it, to work out what she did wrong, and each night she knows the answer. She turns over on the pillow, draws her knees to her chest. Face it, she thinks. Face the thing that she dreads, the error she made, the turning in life she took that led to this limbo of low-level terror that hums in the background of her life like an electric fence penning her in.

  She shouldn’t have bought the photo.

  She can watch that day in fast forward now. Picking it apart used to take longer. These nights it lays itself out chronologically like a storyboard. This night, it feels different. The story feels alive. She gets out of bed and walks to the darkened sitting room. Pressing back into the hard, worn sofa, a single table light burning low in the bedroom she left behind, she lets her chin fall to her chest and the playback commences.

  Jill talking. You’re only forty once. Travelling. A package to Orlando, Florida. All four of them. Just the girls. A theme park birthday. Disney, Universal, SeaWorld; the greatest roller coaster rides on earth.

  Forty and fat. Forty and a smoker. Forty and making drinking alone a habit. Forty and never having taken a risk, or climbed a mountain or run a marathon. Forty and never having been properly in love. At least never loved back. Never ridden upside down in a chair on rails at forty miles an hour. Shorthand: forty, never really lived.

  The girls gabbling. Shouting advice. Make it change. Make it happen. Turn-your-life-around time. Do those things. Stop watching time tick by. Start living, why don’t you, gal?

  * * *

  Details of the holiday, now just fragments of memory in a blender. Laughing, drinking, neon lights and the faux antique wooden booths of cheap, themed restaurants. The girls cackling, ruby red lips open in constant shrieking mirth in their tireless quest to catch the attention of incurious Americans while she cowers in embarrassment. Look at us. Look at the time we’re having. Highways crawling with slowly moving oversized cars. Outsized people, outsized food. You must feel like a supermodel here, laughs Jill. She laughs too, but wants to cry. Jesus Loves You, sky-written in vapour from a tiny plane, the disintegrating words floating against an azure Floridian sky. She photographs it. Wishes it were true.

  All leading towards the moment. The decision.

  Her heart couldn’t beat any faster in the queue. The Hulk. The fastest, hardest ride in the park.

  Libby makes them stand in line for the front row. Keeps barking statistics. World’s tallest cobra roll: 110 feet. Launch lift that shoots you from zero to forty miles per hour in under two seconds. Stop it, she thinks. Stop it, stop it, stop it. Front row seats have a bigger queue. Worth the wait, says Jill. Forty-five, maybe fifty minutes. Every one a hundred hammering heartbeats of panic. She sweats. She trembles. And then, the bitches. The rotten, lousy bitches see a gap for three people, two rows back, and dive for it. Squealing with delight. Waving to her as they strand her in that front row line. Shouting and guffawing. Roaring that they’ll see her at the bottom. She’s alone. Made to wait for the next ride. It takes a thousand years to come by, arriving, clunking into place like a mechanised abattoir. A couple of sullen Americans behind push her roughly forward onto the row, the seat at the far side already filled by a young man, staring ahead, calm, like he’s waiting in a doctor’s surgery. Must have boarded from the fast pass queue on the other side.

  It’s him.

  Alone and waiting.

  Ahead, a mountain of rails. A metal serpent waiting to receive its sacrifice.

  She hugs her knees tighter. It’s time to play the next frame again in her head. Again. Again. She plays it until she knows it by heart, because she knows this matters. Somehow it does.

  She’s shaking. Nearly crying. She’s tried speaking to the American couple, her voice too high, too hysterical to sound casual. But Americans don’t make small talk. They tell you to have a nice day if you pay them to, but to those without a name badge on their shirt you might as well be invisible. The big man grunts when she giggles the truth that she’s scared. The girl stares ahead, chewing gum like it’s a chore.

  The coaster car jerks up and then down, bouncing as the automatic harnesses lower, pinning her to the back of the seat. She starts to cry. Silently. More alone than she could ever remember.

  She can see his face now, still clear, remembering every detail as he turns slowly to look at her, savouring the memory of his irresistibly sympathetic gaze that follows the fat tear coursing down her cheek until it lands on the restraining bar of the seat. She can see that wide, friendly face, a shadow of stubble around the jaw, round hazel eyes, and a head of thick brown hair cut tight to tame the curls. Of course she looks at this face every day in the photo by her bed, but the memory, the real sweet memory is more vivid than the picture. He was English. She thinks she knows that now. She swallows, climbs back into the moment.

  He’s smiling. Comforting, gentle. He reaches out his hand, places it on the bloodless, tightly clenched claw that’s hers, and speaks, a laugh just beneath the voice, but a kind one. Not Jill or Libby’s broken glass laugh, full of taunts; his hints of mischief and joy.

  “You’re going to be fine. Just fine.”

  Then nothing. A void of suffering. Screaming. Pressure. Held back, upside down, body pinned in a vice. Forces working on her, stealing her breath, twisting her gut. But somewhere in the maelstrom of pain, his hand has found hers again, a warm, kind hand, squeezing and reassuring.

  And then it’s over. She’s walking, slowly, like in a dream, weaving unsteadily, sick and sore, to the air-conditioned little booth where a bored Hispanic woman is presiding over photographs of the ride. So dazed she feels she’s the only customer, though the ride was full, and the woman leans on her elbow and points with long acrylic talons up at the screens showing digital snaps of every row just disembarked.

  There she is. Mouth open in a silent scream, eyes clamped shut, hair flying back, hands gripping the harness. The couple pictured on her left are stony-faced.

  And then there’s him. He’s not looking ahead. He’s in profile looking directly at her. What she can see of his face is full of concern. His hand is cupping hers.

  There’s no hesitation. She buys it. She buys it and now she lives with it. Day and night. On her bedside table from then until now. His face the most familiar in her universe.

  A man who isn’t there.

  * * *

  The first time she saw him after returning home was like a miracle. It was the best time. Close to joy. Stole her breath away. Oxford Street. A Saturday. His face, unmistakable in the crowd. He looked haggard. World-weary, but it was him alright. Her heart in her mouth, she ran, and waved, and ran again, but he’d gone. And oh, the thrill of that moment of recognition. The excitement of that chance sighting. An opportunity to thank him. Who knows? Maybe more than that. A coffee? A reminisce? A laugh? Would he remember her? Did he buy the photo too? Is she somewhere in his life? Maybe not on his bedside table, but – dare she hope – perhaps, on his office desk, or propped up on some shelf full of books? All over the world people cherish their roller coaster photos taken with strangers they will never see again. Faces glimpsed once, then preserved forever. Why not hers? There she would be. The stranger he rode the front row with. She had never wanted anything so much in her life as to catch up with him and put her hand on his arm. But he was gone. His curls lost in the bobbing sea of heads that flowed along the street. She stood for a long time, alone again. Then she went home.

  * * *

  The second time. In the cinema. Too good to be true. Another chance. It must be fate. He left before she could reach him. Then the third. He was on a boat on the Thames. She was on a bridge. When was it? The twentieth time? The fiftieth? The hundredth? When did she wake up and realise that not only can he not see her or hear her when she shouts, screams sometimes, but that maybe, actually, genuinely, he isn’t really there at all? Too frightened to call up the theme park, to try and find witnesses to that day, to maybe track down the
digital trail of the photo. Too scared in case what she fears turns out to be true. What is he? A spirit? A demon? Worse. A figment of her imagination? She has been beaten. There is no part of her left now that wants to see an alternative photo of her front row ride. A photo in which she is sitting next to an empty seat. So she lives with it. Deals with it.

  But tonight she feels different. Tension has been building in her like the close summer air outside. This must come to a conclusion. The burden on her heart is too heavy and tomorrow it will end. She will make it end. She is going to face him, whatever the consequences. She walks back to her bed and curls into her roller coaster sleep.

  * * *

  Come morning, she waits outside a shop, staring into its dusty window displaying foreign newspapers and bottles of sweet drinks, still and passive, knowing he is coming. No need to look. She keeps her back to the street, and shudders against the cold as she feels him pass by.

  A deep breath. This time he won’t get away. It’s now or never. She walks quickly, weaving in and out of the rush hour crowd folding over his wake. He can’t outrun her today. Today her feet have wings. He turns and enters King’s Cross Station. She breaks into a half-run. He’s through the turnstile. She has no ticket. She jumps the barrier. Back behind her, maybe someone shouts. Maybe not. She’s not sure. She carries on. He’s on the escalator. She pushes forward, lightly tripping down the metal stairs, commuters twitching away in dreamy irritation as she brushes by. He turns into the tunnel for the Circle Line. A train is just leaving. The set of his body registers exasperation. He’s missed it.

  It’s the moment. It’s now. There’s nowhere to run. In just a few moments this will be over. She closes her eyes and sighs. Deep, satisfied. Her eyes open and she calms herself as she walks slowly and deliberately towards him, her breath cooling in the hot, stifling underground air. Everything around her has slowed. The movement of the crowd has been quieted as though caught in treacle. The platform is an eddy in this sluggish human stream, the passengers at rest, self-absorbed, patient, waiting. His back is to her as he faces the rails, his body tightly flanked on his left by an expressionless man with a rucksack, and on his right by a bespectacled woman, laden with parcels yet attempting to read a book. A train is screeching from the tunnel, its lights beginning to bathe the rails. The crowd shifts and pushes behind her in anticipation and she glides forward.

  She takes a deep breath, turning it to icy vapour on the exhale, as her heart beats calmly and steadily now. The train stops and the doors open. He shuffles forward, penned between the man and the woman. She moves towards him. Her hand comes slowly, slowly, gently, up from her side. She lays it on his shoulder and the touch is like an electric shock. He halts, his head turns and he looks her straight in the eye.

  * * *

  He’s trying to piece together what’s happening, but his breath has been punched from his body and he’s gasping like a beached fish. Everything has slowed. The noise of the train, the people pushing past him, even the hot, brisk wind of the underground has turned to sluggish, still cold air around his head. The noises of the station sound like a clockwork music box that’s wound down.

  He’s not ill anymore. He knows he’s not ill. Dr Sutton has told him he’s not ill. Today is a big day. The interview is at ten. He’s left himself enough time to get there and he’s calm, prepared. There’s no reason for a panic attack. Especially not today. In fact, there’s no reason for an attack at all. He’s worked hard, he’s focussed and he’s not anxious. He tries to breathe. Breathe like Dr Sutton showed him. But he can’t. He feels faint.

  It’s not her. It’s impossible. He knows it’s impossible, and yet the icy chill of terror is spreading through him like black ink poured into a beaker of water. He wants to look away from those eyes, to tear this freezing hand from his shoulder. But he’s solid with fear, immobilised and breathless.

  His brain works feverishly to rationalise. It’s his fault. This is entirely his fault. He should never have accepted, let alone kept the photo they sent. It’s the familiarity of her face that’s making him recreate her so perfectly now in this madness. It has to be. He might have forgotten how she looked if he’d just binned it. It was nearly two years ago. But they meant well, the family. It was loving, not ghoulish, hunting down and retrieving the photo from the theme park after what had happened. They wanted to honour her last great thrill. To remember her. Remember her not as the fat, lonely, quiet girl they raised, but as a risk-taker. Someone who lived large. A front row rider.

  And they wanted to thank him for all he did. What did he do? How did that go again? What order did Dr Sutton say he should remember it in? Her screaming. His laughing. Her screaming again, and again, too much, too shrill, too long, too gurgled for an outburst of joyful abandonment. Then her jerking, and gasping and slumping. His screaming for help as the ride stopped, and no-one coming to help. Screaming more and more as the harness didn’t lift, then when it finally loosened grunting and heaving to get the bulk of her big, sweat-slicked body out of the chair onto the hard concrete. Still screaming for a doctor, with everyone standing, watching as though it were an act. Then putting his mouth to hers, and blowing, and pumping her chest with his palms, and crying and still shouting for help.

  And then slumping himself, realising she was gone and he hadn’t helped, hadn’t saved her. This poor, frightened, lonely stranger. His was the last face she saw. The last hand she held. And now he was here, recreating it all in his crazy brain, just as he was about to start afresh. Sabotaging himself. That’s what Dr Sutton calls it.

  His anxiety has won. He blinks as he watches his guilty creation lower her hand and he listens, numb with horror, as she speaks. She is stern. Almost angry.

  “If you follow me onto this train, it won’t be fine. It won’t be fine at all.”

  He stays perfectly still. She holds his horrified gaze for a beat then walks past him, steps onto the train, and sits herself gracefully and serenely next to the man with the rucksack. The doors close. The train begins to move away, and as he watches her through the glass she smiles, an expression of release playing in her darkened eyes. She turns her head away from him, lifts a hand and lays it gently over that of the woman with the parcels. She disappears with the train into the darkness of the tunnel.

  His chill is gone now. He’s sweating. His fevered imagination has made him miss the train that today, at 8.50 a.m., could have taken him to a new job and a new chance and a new life. He has no stomach to wait for another.

  He weaves slowly and shakily off the platform and heads for the stairs.

  He should feel defeated. He should feel insane, a failure, a casualty. But right now as he jostles through the crowds pushing in the opposite direction, he feels strangely elated, light of heart, released and invigorated. Baffled, he takes a breath and gives himself over to the emotion. In the months and years to come, he will recall that this instant, these precious few moments of confused elation were to savour and not to fear.

  In four and a half minutes’ time the man with the rucksack in the train will detonate his bomb.

  A HAUNTING

  John Connolly

  The world had grown passing strange. Even the hotel felt different, as though all of the furniture had been shifted slightly in his absence: the reception desk moved a foot or two forward from its previous position, making the lobby appear smaller; the lights adjusted so that they were always either too dim or too bright. It was wrong. It was not as it had once been. All had changed.

  Yet how could it be otherwise when she was no longer with him? He had never stayed here alone before. She had always been by his side, standing at his left hand as he checked them both in, watching in silent approval as he signed the register, her fingers instinctively tightening on his arm as he wrote the words “Mr & Mrs”, just as it had done on that first night when they had arrived for their honeymoon. She had repeated that small, impossibly intimate gesture on every annual return thereafter, telling him, in her silent way, tha
t she would not take for granted this coupling, the yoking together of their two diverse personalities under a single name. She was his as he was hers, and she had never regretted that fact, and would never grow weary of it.

  But now there was no “Mrs”, only “Mr”. He looked up at the young woman behind the desk. He had not seen her before, and assumed that she was new. There were always new people here, but, in the past, enough of the old had remained to give a sense of comforting familiarity when they had stayed here. Now, as his electronic key was prepared and his credit card swiped, he took time to take in the faces of the staff and saw none that he recognized. Even the concierge was no longer the same. Everything had been altered, it seemed, by her departure from this life. Her death had tilted the globe on its axis, displacing furniture, light fixtures, even people. They had died with her, and all had been quietly replaced without a single objection.

  But he had not replaced her with another, and never would.

  He bent down to pick up his bag, and the pain shot through him again, the impact so sharp and brutal that he lost his breath and had to lean on the reception desk. The young woman asked if he was all right, and, after a time, he lied and told her that he was. A bellhop came and offered to bring his bag to his room for him, leaving him with a vague sense of shame that he could not accomplish even this simple task alone: to carry a small leather valise from reception to elevator, from elevator to room. He knew that nobody was looking, that nobody cared, that this was the bellhop’s purpose, but it was the fact that the element of choice had been taken from him which troubled him so. He could not have carried the bag, not at that moment, even had he wanted to. His body ached generally, and every movement spoke of weakness and decay. He sometimes imagined his insides as a honeycomb, riddled with spaces where cells had collapsed and decayed, a fragile construction that would disintegrate under pressure. He was coming to the end of his life, and his body was in terminal decline.