I wish you had. Then you might still be alive.
Alex attempted a smile. “Oh well! I’m sure everyone else will have brought lots of records. Don’t suppose you still want to go out for that drink?”
Alex had to ask, even though he knew the drink would never happen. And in that moment Alex seemed to see through the haze of the years as if he was looking through a telescope. Joe had hitch-hiked on this road all those years ago and had never got to the party. He was trapped between the place where he’d got into a car and where his journey had ended.
“Yeah, I’d love that. You know, there’s a really good pub I’ve heard about. Where, well, where we can have a drink uninterrupted.” Joe winked at him, and Alex knew what he meant. A pub that didn’t mind men who were interested in men, as his mother would put it.
“Great.” Alex gazed at Joe. He was beautiful. Trapped in time and beautiful.
Joe glanced away, embarrassed. “Why do you look at me like that?”
“Sorry. That was rude of me. I won’t.” Alex stared down at his shoes. “You have lovely blue eyes, Joe. That’s all I wanted to say.”
Joe didn’t reply at once, and in the silence Alex heard distant traffic, the call of birds on the marshes and the clang of a church bell. He looked up, and through the trees he could see a church tower.
But Joe didn’t seem to hear the bells. He wasn’t there on a Sunday. He was there on a Saturday evening forty years ago. But a bell somewhere had rung for Joe in the end, as he was carried through the lychgate and into the church.
Joe beamed at Alex. “Best get moving, if we’re going to have this drink before the party!”
“Yeah, time to get moving.” But Alex was rooted to the spot. Because he knew what would happen as soon as they reached Gallows Hill. “Look…are you sure? We could take the scenic route into town, miss out Gallows Hill.”
Joe took a step towards him. For the first time, Alex was aware of his scent. Beyond the fresh smell of the rain and the countryside, Alex smelt sandalwood and bergamot, vanilla and tobacco. A 1970s cologne, he supposed.
“Come on, Alex—it’ll take ages in the rain if we go the scenic way.”
Alex lowered his head. Could he really do this?
Joe’s cold fingertips lifted Alex’s face and he was staring into those large blue eyes again. “No one’s watching.” With a cheeky smile, Joe leaned towards him and brushed his lips over Alex’s. “A promise for later.”
He winked, then climbed into Alex’s passenger seat.
Alex stayed where he was for a moment, his nerves tingling as the sense of those lips over his returned to him again and again.
Can ghosts kiss?
He got into the car, and before he turned the ignition on, he stroked Joe’s icy cheek. “You’re lovely.”
“And so are you,” Joe whispered, slipping his cold hand around Alex’s neck and bringing him close for another kiss.
Lightly at first, their lips brushed, then Joe’s mouth parted under Alex’s and all he was aware of then was the softness and surprising warmth of the kiss. As it deepened, a soft moan in Joe’s throat told Alex that this could easily go on, that they could—
Alex drew back.
You’re not real.
Joe stared at him with wide blue eyes, confusion clouding their depths.
“Alex? Don’t you want to…? I know it’s not easy being a gay man, but it’s cool these days. You don’t have to worry about the rozzers anymore. Unless you want to be saucy in your car. Which I wouldn’t mind, by the way, just so you know, but we’d need a quieter spot.”
Rozzers? Then Alex realised. He meant the police. Bloody hell, what an old bit of slang that is.
“It’s not that. And I’d be happy to be saucy in my car with you. But…let’s get to know each other a little better first, yeah?”
Joe stroked Alex’s shoulder. “Okay, okay, you’re right. Shall we go out on dates and stuff? I’d like that—we’ll make a really cute couple.”
Alex caught his own reflection in the rearview mirror. “Seriously? I’m hardly a catch.”
He started the engine. His stomach tightened and a dull ache began to consume him—all too soon, Joe would vanish again.
“You’re gorgeous, Alex! And like I said, I bet you look amazing in a suit.”
Alex laughed. “Then the next time we meet, I’ll wear one. How about that?”
“Yes please!”
Alex smiled at him. He saw now, where Joe had unzipped the top of his anorak, a long, pointy shirt collar. The fabric’s pattern wasn’t as loud as he’d been led to believe was the fashion in Joe’s time, but still, that collar was unavoidably 1970s. As was, he realised, Joe’s hair. What Alex had taken to be overly long hair in need of a trim had been fashionable at the time when Joe had been alive.
And while Alex could drive along the road again tomorrow evening in a suit, Joe would always be in the same clothes. The ones he had been wearing for over four decades while never growing old.
Joe sang along to ABBA on the radio and Alex joined in. They sang all the way down the hill, over the underground stream and up towards Gallows Hill. Seconds before reaching the spot where Alex knew Joe must disappear, he turned and told him urgently, “I’ll see you again soon. I promise. I’ll see you again very soon.”
Just as he expected, Joe vanished and the radio returned to static. Alex wiped away a tear, and had no choice but to continue on his way home.
* * * *
At lunchtime the next day, Alex left the office and headed to the library. He waited at the local history desk again, and the librarian he’d spoken to before appeared. This time, Bela Lugosi in Dracula garb reared out of her T-shirt at him.
“How were the ghost stories?”
Alex sucked air through his teeth before replying, “Annoyingly short on references.”
She laughed. “You sound like my old tutor at uni!”
“I’m just wondering…there’s a phantom hitch-hiker mentioned in the book, who started to appear sometime in the 1970s. So I suppose that particular ghost came about as a result of something that happened in the 1970s, on Gallows Hill? An accident, something like that?”
The librarian tapped the edge of the counter in thought. “Yeah, could’ve been.”
Alex closed his eyes for a moment, picturing Joe, all the life in him gone on a wet, dangerous road. “How would I find out?”
She grinned. “Newspaper archive. We’ve got local newspapers on microfilm—you’d just have to spool through them and look.”
“Ahhh…”
“Could take a while, though. They’re not indexed, unfortunately.” She pulled a comical grimace, then came out from behind the desk and waved Alex over to some metal drawers. “Tell you what. You get started now, and if you fill out this enquiry request form, I can get on it for you. Ten pounds an hour.”
“Really? Oh, that’s a relief. Take as long as you like!”
“I’m glad you’ve said that. Normally when I say ten pounds an hour, all I hear is the sound of screaming and hurried footsteps as they run away.” She opened one of the metal drawers and started to take out box after box of microfilm. “I’m Sarah, by the way.”
“I’m Alex.” He smiled.
Sarah loaded up the first microfilm into a huge machine that looked as if it, too, was a relic from the 1970s. “I don’t suppose you’d mind telling me why you’re so fascinated by this hitch-hiker? You said the other day that you’d seen something odd, and I was just wondering—you’ve seen the hitch-hiker?”
“Erm…” He’s gorgeous and I’m dating him a few minutes at a time in my car. “Oh, it’s just that I drive that way quite a lot as my mum lives out on the island. And I hear about weird stuff happening on that road, and…and I was wondering if something I’d seen was connected with the hitch-hiker. That’s all, really.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard stuff about that road too. Then again, we had someone in here once who’d seen a load of Roman soldiers marching through
a basement in town—from the knees up!” Sarah laughed at that, then twiddled a dial that brought the image on the screen into focus. “There we are! The Standard, January 1970. May as well start right at the beginning. I’ll bring you over a request form and you can get started.”
She let Alex sit down, then pointed at the machine. “This button goes forwards and this one goes backwards.”
In the time left to Alex in his lunch hour, he found no reference to Gallows Hill in the old newspapers. He tried to avoid falling down the rabbit hole presented by random stories of recorder concerts at his former school, fetes in the village where he’d once lived and fascinating old adverts for products that no one nowadays would want to buy.
At least by the end of it, he’d got more of a feel for the decade Joe had known, which was over before Alex had been born.
“I’ll email you when I’ve found something,” Sarah told him as Alex buttoned up his coat to leave. “I’ll go all the way up to 1980, and send you everything I can find about hitch-hikers or accidents on that road. Is that what you’re looking for?”
“Yes, that’s perfect.”
“It’ll take a few days,” Sarah told him, “but I will find your hitch-hiker!”
* * * *
Rather than head home straight from work, Alex attempted Joe’s road again. He smoothed down his suit, took the back way and joined the lane just after the causeway. He wound down the window a little and let the oldies station play, hoping that Joe would hear the music and that it would somehow summon him into being. Just as Alex had hoped, Joe materialised on the verge up ahead.
He ran to the car as Alex pulled up, and with a leap that showered raindrops around the inside of the car, Joe got in. “Alex! You handsome sod, you’re here again!”
“I most certainly am! And I’m wearing…” With a grin, Alex gestured toward his slim-cut, dark blue suit.
“I was right, you do look smashing in a suit.”
“I’m pleased you think so.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“This? John Lewis, I think.” Alex grinned, a ridiculous swagger in his manner that he couldn’t repress. “Do you like it?”
“It’s really out there. A bit sixties, isn’t it? You’re not a fan of big collars, then?”
Alex laughed, recalling the menswear adverts in the newspapers he’d been looking at earlier. “I’m not sure they’re really me. But they suit you.”
“Thanks. It’s my party shirt. I don’t want to go too loud, but it’s tempting!”
“Best get you to that party.” Alex smiled, even though it broke his heart to think of the party that Joe had never reached, and would definitely never reach now. As he pulled out onto the road again, Alex wondered when the people at the party had realised that Joe wasn’t coming. Maybe no one had known until the next day. When had his parents found out?
“What are you thinking about, Alex?” Joe asked. He drummed on the car door in time to the Aretha Franklin song on the radio.
“Nothing much. Other than how much I want to kiss you.”
They had just passed the dip in the road. Gallows Hill was up ahead, and Alex drove onto the narrow verge before Joe could vanish. “Say no if you’d rather not. If you want me to drive on and take you to the party instead.”
“Of course I want to kiss you. I’ve been standing there by the side of the road waiting for you to kiss me!” Joe stroked his thumb down the side of Alex’s jaw. “You’re really handsome. And you’re great, really, giving me a lift like this when I’m soaking wet.”
“Don’t mention it.” No, don’t mention it. Please don’t.
Joe looped his arm around Alex’s shoulders and brought him down towards him. Alex didn’t resist, and playfully brushed his lips over Joe’s before their kiss became heated and deep. Joe was real, as solid and as present as any lover Alex had known. It made no sense that Joe was a ghost, that Joe had died on this road years ago. Alex drew his hand between their bodies and felt the thud of Joe’s heart under his palm. Joe was alive.
At least for now.
In answer, Joe slipped his fingers through Alex’s over his heart and drew him down farther. Alex wished they didn’t have to be in a car. The gearstick was digging into his leg, the steering wheel was catching his hip, and anyone passing by could—
Someone tapped on his window.
Alex looked back over his shoulder. It was the rozzers, as Joe would’ve said.
And Joe vanished from his arms.
Alex opened his window a crack. Gnawed by emptiness and frustration, he tried not to grit his teeth as he spoke. “Good evening, officer.”
“Evening.” The police officer, a youngish man with a dimple in his chin, peered into the car. “You alone?”
“Erm… I appear to be.” Unfortunately.
“Only I thought I saw…must’ve been a trick of the light. Can I ask what you’re doing parked up on the side of the road? Car trouble?”
“No…no, I…” Alex had absolutely no idea what to say. He grinned, hoping the police officer would assume he was a harmless eccentric and leave him be.
The police officer prompted him with a raise of his eyebrow. “You…?”
Then it came to him. “Just doing some research, actually. Local history, you know the sort of thing. Heard there was a ghost of a hitch-hiker on this bit of road, and was wondering where they appear. Don’t suppose you’d know anything about that? You must come up and down here a lot.”
The police officer narrowed his eyes before replying. “I’ve heard a lot of nonsense about ghosts and ghouls on this bit of road, but let me tell you, this is a dangerous incline and you shouldn’t park here like this. It’s not safe.”
“Ah, I see.” Alex nodded. “Best be on my way, then.”
Alex drove away into the darkening evening, defeated and alone. How could he carry on a relationship—if this was a relationship—with a ghost who only existed on one stretch of road? He couldn’t. It was ridiculous. Madness.
Even though he could still feel the memory of Joe’s lips against his own.
* * * *
Alex skipped visiting his mother in order to avoid the road. And to avoid Joe. She came into town, meeting Alex at a café during his lunch break instead, keen to tell him about her boyfriend.
“You don’t mind, do you?” She wound her napkin around her finger, unravelled it and wound it around again. “I don’t want you to think that I’m betraying your father, but—”
Alex topped up her tea from the china pot. “I don’t think that at all. It’s great you’ve found someone else. I was surprised, but I suppose I shouldn’t have turned up at your house unannounced like I did.”
She patted his arm. “I did feel a little naughty that you’d caught me out, but…as long as you don’t mind.”
“Mum, I don’t mind at all. And even if I did—you have to live your life.”
His mother nodded, then took out her phone to show him the photographs of her friend’s son again. Alex smiled politely.
The following morning, Alex received an email from Sarah. Her message was brief—she’d finished her rummage through the newspapers and had found a report from the 1970s about an accident involving a hitch-hiker on Gallows Hill.
Rather than wait for his lunch hour, Alex hurried out of the office, saying he had business to attend to. The only person who showed any concern was Tora, but he assured her there was nothing to worry about and headed off to the library.
On his arrival, he was greeted by Sarah, who was ready with a printout from one of the microfilms. Before he’d even read the headline, he saw the photographs on the front page. Two young men. And one of them was Joe.
Alex swallowed as he took the printout to a quiet seat in the corner.
The article was from the Standard, from early September 1976. It reported flooding that had hit the area on the August Bank Holiday weekend after the heatwave had broken and ended the drought. Alex touched Joe’s photograph with his fingertip. It was
blurred and black and white, streaked with lines from scratches on the microfilm, but it was Joe. Alex couldn’t have mistaken that smile.
Underneath the photograph, he read, Victim: hitch-hiker Joseph Seaborne, 26.
There was another photograph on the page, a young man with a shock of dark hair that made his image almost impossible to see. Survived: driver David Burchley, 28.
Alex read through the report. Despite his injuries, David had somehow got to a nearby farmhouse to report the accident, and by pure chance it had been the Seabornes’ home. Joe’s parents had therefore known almost at once that their son had been injured. They had rung for help, then followed David across the field, back to the wreckage of his car where it had crashed into a tree. The ambulance had arrived and Joseph had been pronounced dead at the scene. The newspaper discreetly told readers that Joseph was to be buried that Friday at the church near his parents’ farm.
Alex hid his face in his hands and wept. A hand gently squeezed his shoulder, and he looked up to see Sarah next to him, offering him a tissue.
“Sad, isn’t it?” she said. “He’d only wanted to go into town to see his mates.”
“Thanks for finding this.” Alex wiped away his tears and reached into his pocket for his wallet. “Let me know the damage.”
Sarah glanced away down the room, then gave Alex a conspiratorial smile. “It’s free.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course.” Sarah grinned. “Do you want me to look into this any further? Could run it past the Family History team.”
Alex shook his head as he furled the printout and tucked it inside his coat. “No, this was all I needed to know. Thank you.”
He pulled his coat tightly around him, trying to get warm. He was cold, so bloody cold, shivering in every limb. He went back into the office and told his line manager that he was going home ill, then got into his car.
His father had always said to him, ‘Don’t drive if you’re feeling under the weather’. But it wasn’t a long drive home.
The Low Road Page 3