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Shades Of Home
The Pattersons left their mock 1960s bungalow in April. The Lumleys arrived at the beginning of May. But the household spirits of the Pattersons had not yet snapped out of their winter sleep and lingered in the empty house. They were roused by the intrusive auras of the Lumleys.
Mrs. Daisy Patterson had been a frail, inoffensive woman, who barely left an impression on the atmosphere. There was ample space for the hauntings of petulant Sydney Patterson and his shrill daughter Juliet. The spirits had been in residence with the family for nine years, working their way into corners, behind skirtings and between the gaps of floorboards. Being an authentic reproduction, the bungalow retained in the year 2,096, every discomfort of the twentieth century.
Since the spirits were a direct reflection of themselves, the Pattersons had been unaware of their existence but other people calling at the house sensed their presence, prominent in places the family had just vacated. Now the spirits awoke, no longer the dependent shadows of a harassed household.
The Lumleys brought with them their own spirit shadows; the implacable wraith of Reginald, the father, the discontented aura of his wife Winifred and the flirtatiously feminine essence of Emily, their only child, growing into her teens.
After dark, the spirits of both households converged; Reginald squeezed in the wastepipe of the bath, since Sydney was occupying the floor space, Winifred whined in a work basket, unable to oust Daisy who might be frail but clung to the chimney breast, then slithered restlessly down the sides of copious armchairs.
Juliet huffed around the picture rails, while Emily tried to move lightly along the hall but Juliet was there too, bearing down, prohibiting her freedom.
The Lumleys were restless on their first night, oppressed by the sudden silence of the country, but perturbed too by some indefinable activity that had no sound, no movement, yet which persisted.
When the owners of a house die, such spirits, too weary to compete with the newly released aura of the dead, lift into the stratosphere to join other quarrelsome auras, also defeated by the death of those on whom they depended and forced to leave their four walled sanctuaries. But neither the Pattersons nor the Lumleys had yet expired and their earthly auras had no choice but to remain housebound.
"Why don't you move in with the Pattersons?" Reginald called down the wastepipe to Sydney next morning.
"Don't know where they went!" retorted Sydney.
So the spirits tried to interweave or claim allotted corners. Winifred left her work basket, only to shiver in an ice bucket. Daisy tried to slither up a tap but was almost washed away when Mrs Lumley came down for a drink in the night.
Attempts at integration were doomed. The ghosts disputed, and those of the Pattersons, who knew every cold nook and cranny of the house, grew dominant. The Lumleys almost imperceptibly started to change. Reginald began to bicker, with bursts of tyranny, as Sydney's aura hovered over the dining table, trying to penetrate the spout of the coffee pot.
Winifred, whose moans about deliveries, neighbours' noise and cats' excrement on the lawn, barely ceased from noon till night, shrank, and like Daisy, put up her feet from two to four in the afternoon, ceasing her monologue. But the behaviour of Emily was distressing. Like Juliet she grew shrill.
Throughout the night, the Lumleys dreamt of a past they had not lived. Reginald and Winifred capsized in a “skimmer” pleasure boat off Gibraltar, which happened to Daisy and Sydney in 2,076.
The following year, to their alarm, they separated for six months, dreamt Winifred and woke with a start. Emily dreamt she was on a political rally, was arrested and locked for the night in a cell. Since Juliet, restless as usual, had passed only briefly through Emily's dreams, she had not entirely infiltrated and many of Emily's whims remained.
The Lumleys woke, jaded, and anxiously exchanged dreams over breakfast. "I felt it was definitely me but I was carrying on like another person," said Winifred, "My head's splitting, I must lie down."
Reginald, irritated, watched Emily bump about, devoid of her customary grace, yet wistfully flipping through a woman's magazine as though dimly recalling some past pleasure.
The Pattersons, having exchanged their bungalow for the Lumley's smart town house, had moved in without their ghosts and felt at a loss. They could not define the cause, so attributed it to the upheaval of moving.
Frail Daisy felt that even her remaining strength was being depleted. Sydney did not give vent to occasional outbursts but simply sat, his features coldly sealed. Even Juliet slumped disconsolately in a corner.
Two weeks later the Pattersons had still not unpacked. They barely slept and since they could not find the box with their cooking utensils, seldom ate. Some heavy hand of fate might be holding them fast to the faded chairs left by the Lumleys. One week later Daisy took to her bed.
Sydney sank into a coma where he sat on the ancient chintz chair and Juliet crawled into the sleeping bag she once used for political rallies. The family was roused by the few tradesmen they had used, banging on the windows demanding their debts.
Very slowly, with the air of a badly programmed robot, Sydney rose and riffled through his pockets. He turned out only a few loose coins and cast about without success for his cheque book.
“Come back tomorrow and I’ll pay you without fail,” he promised.
Reginald sought the help of a psychiatrist trained in the symbolism of dream, but received so many alternative interpretations he walked out before the end of the consultation.
Winifred, growing frailer, was seen by a physician but he was baffled by her depletion, prescribing iron pills and muttering about willpower. Emily had entirely succumbed to Juliet’s brashness. Winifred and Reginald thought of sending her to stay with a restraining aunt. But she talked them out of it and, with brazen deliberation, proceeded to seduce the men of the village.
Through their somnolence, the Pattersons sensed some distinct compulsion that might be borne on the west wind winging from the countryside they left, they now suspected, without sufficient forethought. They felt some vital aspect of themselves to have been abandoned in the home they resented for its solitude, overlooking the solace of astroturf laid where the fields no longer contained the nutrients for grass or crops and the simulated birdsong piped along the power lines.
One morning, as though acknowledging some hidden directive, Sydney and Juliet drove to their old home in the heart of the country. As they drew up by the gate they heard raised voices within.
Reginald was objecting to Emily's behaviour and she, like Juliet, screamed her defiance. Juliet shivered. She might be listening to herself. Sydney recognised one of his outbursts in Reginald and wondered how his family had tolerated him; stricken to think of Daisy, self sacrificing and now immobile.
He and Juliet knocked on the front door. There was a lull in the loud voices, and heavy footsteps in the hall.
"We want to move back," stated Sydney, the words rising from some insistent source within. Reginald was surprised but unaccountably relieved.
The move was completed; both families in a daze, as though still in dream. The Lumleys, accompanied by their shades and no longer influenced by those of the Pattersons, regained their respective implacability, discontent and - in Emily's case - femininity. The Pattersons retrieved their bungalow and their household spirits breathed sighs of relief that wafted like draughts down the hall.
But Sydney and Juliet, having seen their mirror images, were unaccountably changed and Daisy was delighted by Sydney's amiability and wondered what good ghost had subdued Juliet. The shades, seeking their customary corners, looked on benignly.
~~~~~END~~~~~
AUTHOR'S NOTE
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