‘To Primrose, you will always be her father. No matter if she learns the truth when she becomes older, she will still consider herself your daughter. Don’t underestimate the child’s devotion to you.’
‘In time she’ll forget me.’
‘With time her love will only be more assured. She’ll grieve for you now, just as your wife grieves for you, but eventually the hurt will pass for them, to be replaced by a memory that won’t ever be spoiled.’
‘I just . . . I just don’t know whether I can believe you.’
‘Then go back home and see them once more. Only once, mind you. You wouldn’t want to haunt your own family.’ He smiled again, but it wasn’t catching. ‘If you stay with them, then their mourning will take longer to resolve itself. They won’t see you, but your presence will be there and they will sense something that they can’t understand. It will only make their pain harder to bear.’
‘I don’t think I can do that,’ I told him dejectedly. ‘I can’t just turn my back on them.’
‘You must. Go back once and it might help you accept.’
‘I don’t want to accept. I can’t accept!’
‘Before long you’ll grow tired of your own melancholy. That’s when everything will change for you.’
‘Okay. I still love Andrea and I’ll always love Primrose.’
‘And that’s precisely what will help you overcome your bitterness. In your present state you’ll soon begin to experience pure love. Love without jealousy or passion, without partiality or bounds, an unselfish love, because it won’t be burdened by need. Anxieties will soon disappear.’
‘I could never forgive Oliver for what he did to me.’
‘No, but sooner or later you’ll accept it. I hope for your sake it will be sooner.’
‘Forgive him?’
‘Forgiveness follows acceptance.’
‘You sound like a priest.’
He laughed aloud. ‘Where I come from we all do. It’s something we have to resist.’ He became serious again. ‘You mentioned one other person who deceived you.’
‘Sydney. Sydney Presswell. He was the agency’s business partner and accountant. Sydney did more than just deceive me though – he was the bastard that killed me.’
My father nodded as if he already knew.
‘He also stole money from the company and engineered a takeover bid that I was against. Seems he’s been fiddling the books for years.’ I breathed a resigned sigh. ‘I used to like him. Didn’t always agree with some of his methods and business proposals, but I always thought he was a stand-up guy. That’s the kind of idiot I am – was.’
‘Gullible?’
I looked at him, about to object, then thought better of it. Wryly, I said, ‘Yeah, that’s about it. Sydney had been cheating on us for years, but Oliver and I, well we didn’t have a clue.’
‘No wonder you feel nobody was ever true to you.’
‘Paranoid? Doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.’ An old joke that failed to raise a chuckle between us. ‘But you know what? I couldn’t care less about Sydney anymore. Weird, I know, because not only was he a crook, but he took my life away, too. I don’t feel hatred and I don’t feel forgiveness. I just feel kind of numb where he’s concerned.’
‘That might be because he’s dead.’
‘And I killed him. Retribution, I’d call it.’
‘Is that how you feel – you’ve avenged yourself.’
I thought about it for a short while. ‘Well – no. Like I said, I don’t feel anything at all.’
‘That’s good.’
‘Is it? Doesn’t seem right to me. He turned out to be a complete sham, who even tried to get someone else blamed for my murder.’
‘But you’ve accepted it.’
‘I don’t know, I wouldn’t quite say that. Let me put it this way: the murder and the embezzlement are bothering me less and less with each day that passes.’
‘You’re getting yourself ready.’
I looked at him sharply. ‘Ready for what?’
‘Ready to leave this all behind you.’
It didn’t come as a shock. ‘So I really am dead? There’s no reprise, no coming back, not even as someone else?’
He shook his head, and he seemed pleased.
‘You’ve lost your body.’
‘Couldn’t I . . . couldn’t I find another one?’
‘They’re all taken. You’d have to be born again to gain another and that would put you in a different time and place. You wouldn’t even remember this life.’
‘I could live with that,’ I assured him.
‘I’m afraid the choice won’t be yours. There’s much more to learn on the other side, you see. Much more.’
‘Oh.’ I didn’t bother to hide my disappointment. ‘So how do I get to this “other side”? I feel useless here.’
‘You’re making progress all the time.’
‘I am a ghost then.’
‘Not quite. In your present form, you’re a transient spirit.’
‘I thought that was the same thing.’
‘No.’
‘My body’s dead, so why do I have to hang about here?’ I protested.
‘You weren’t in your body when it died. Fortunately.’
‘Fortunately? How so?’
‘It enabled you to do something before leaving this world. Something important.’
‘Kill the killer.’
‘She was corrupted.’
‘But her face—’
‘Her soul was not deformed to begin with. Only her own resentment and wickedness changed that.’
‘Where is she now? I saw her soul leave her body. I was kind of hoping she’d become extinct, you know, become nothing.’
‘Not punished?’
I shrugged. ‘She was a woman. For her – I mean her soul – to be totally snuffed seems reasonable to me. She’d been punished enough in this place. I didn’t think she should suffer anymore.’
‘They were right about you. Gullible. Perhaps it’s no bad thing though. It shows a certain innocence of heart.’
‘So tell me.’
‘Alexandra Moker’s soul? Nothing ever becomes extinct. Let’s just say her soul won’t be around for a very long time.’
‘I see. No one’s punished throughout eternity.’
‘There are exceptions. Fortunately for poor embittered Alexandra, she wasn’t one of them.’
‘I don’t think I want to know what it takes to be totally cancelled.’
‘Very wise, Jimmy.’
‘Can we get back to me, my situation?’
‘Your departure will be a gradual process. You have the opportunity to learn more about the world you’ve lived in, and that gift isn’t given to many.’
‘Lucky me.’
‘It’ll be worth it. First though, you must follow my advice.’
‘Accept the bad things in my life?’
He nodded. ‘Go back. Be impartial. Learn.’
Right then, I couldn’t think of anything more to ask, so we just sat quietly.
47
I did some more roaming before I returned to my old home and my mother’s dismal flat because I was reluctant to follow my father’s advice immediately, too aware that being close to Primrose and unable to communicate would hurt and frustrate me even more. Aware, too, that I had to let them go, I shouldn’t haunt them, that it might be the last time I’d see Prim and Andrea. I knew how emotionally painful it would be.
So I drifted for a while.
Time began to mean less and less to me and I experienced those ‘blackouts’ more and more. I’d wake, if that’s how it could be described, usually in a different place to the one I’d occupied before the unconsciousness. At first, this was disorientating, but eventually I got used to it. I realized I had always become very drained just before it occurred even though I was only in spirit, and I assumed that the ‘blackouts’ were nothing more than falling asleep, unexpected though they were, and gave me t
he chance to replenish myself.
More than once I bumped into lonely ghosts on my wanderings, but they appeared either perplexed by me or frightened, as if I were the ghost and they were human. They scooted away, or evaporated, leaving me alone again.
I visited more churches, because I found their tranquillity was good for meditation, and I was meditating more and more as time went on. Night revealed some of its mysteries to me, the activity that continued throughout the sunless hours. I understood why ghosts, visible or otherwise, were more active when the land was dark: it was because at night the streets are emptier and generally people slept, so there would be minimal contact between the dead and the living. It seems ghosts are very shy and often, but not always, aware that they are in the wrong place. As I mentioned, none wanted contact with me and I began to feel like some kind of pariah as far as they were concerned.
Even as I examined, explored, or just observed, I could feel myself waning, not growing weak exactly, but feeling more and more dissociated with the world I knew, somehow growing disconnected from it. Still I delved, still I was interested in everything around me, but not as keenly as before.
I called in on hospitals, often visiting intensive care units to watch souls depart from recently deceased host bodies. Some were happy to go, while others were glum, perhaps confused or disbelieving, a few not even aware that they were dead. There was always a special joyous radiance about the happy ones who accepted their passing, as if they already knew they would find peace and contentment, whereas the souls of those who failed to realize their situation, or who would not accept their death, were dull, grey, listless, and lingered by their corpse far too long. But none of these latter egressions matched the awfulness of Moker’s.
Incidentally, never again did I attempt to insinuate myself into a freshly dead body. The idea was now abhorrent to me and I wondered how I’d managed twice before. (Early on, I considered usurping someone’s living body permanently, to share their life, to be of substance again, but had rejected the idea almost immediately for three reasons: one, having two minds in one head would surely lead to insanity; two, it would be extremely difficult; and three, it would be wrong, very, very wrong – it would be theft.)
I learned a lot during that period of discovery and assessment, reaching understandings I never thought possible. Life itself began to make some kind of sense to me at last.
And day by day (I judged time only by the activity before and around me, the risings of the sun and moon, the day’s lengthening shadows; if I were to stand inside an empty pitch-black room I’d have no idea of passing moments whatsoever; however, this wouldn’t be like my recurring blackouts, because my thought processes would continue to work and thoughts are no judge of time) I became just a little more detached from the world, gradually withdrawing, it seemed, from the existence I used to know.
I figured I should return home before it was too late.
I visited Mother first: I wanted to get it out of the way. It was daytime when I arrived, but only twilight in the front room because of the drawn curtains, with a gap of barely a couple of inches in the middle for light to infiltrate the room. She’d lit candles, five or six of them, two of those on the low coffee table before the lumpy armchair I seemed to have grown up with.
Mother sat in the armchair, leaning forward, the wrists of her clasped hands resting on her knees. Unlike the last time I saw her, she had made some effort to tidy herself up. Her grey-brown hair was brushed and heavily lacquered, the beige blouse she wore beneath a light pink cardigan was neatly pressed, as was the long, pleated skirt she wore.
There was sorrow in her eyes, but no puffiness around them and no redness to the eyelids; it seemed her crying was done. I moved round to her side and saw what she was staring at.
On the coffee table, propped up by something behind and with the two candles acting as sentinels on either side, was a colour photograph held together – it was in four rough-edged sections – with clear Sellotape. It was the picture of me on the day I’d left art college; my young, wide, smile was marred by the rip down the centre of my face, but you could still see the happy anticipation in my eyes, the eagerness to get on with the next exciting stage of my life. Lit by the candles’ soft glow, the assemblage resembled a small shrine in the restful gloom and it occurred to me that this might have been Mother’s intention. Certainly there was no anger in those sad eyes that were taking in my beaming image, nor could I detect any more self-pity. Instead, there was a softness I hadn’t noticed for many years; since I was a child, in fact.
Had her demons finally left her in peace after all these years? I wanted to believe so, but Mother had always been unpredictable. This might be a new, but temporary phase she was going through. I could only hope its influence would not be too short.
I felt my old, uncomplicated love for her returning, a child’s natural blind devotion, and I decided to leave before memories tarnished it. Aware she could never feel the touch, not even the whisper of a breath, on her cheek, I bent low and kissed her anyway.
Holding a mental picture of my house, I allowed myself to travel there by thought alone, which was a wonderful means of transport. Swift, too.
I’d expected to find Andrea on her own and had intended to wait for Primrose to return from school. When I found both of them there I realized it must be a weekend, probably a Sunday by the feel of it. Andrea was resting on our bed, and Prim was next door in her own bedroom, kneeling before the yellow and pink doll’s house we’d bought her for her last birthday. Prim was absorbed in organizing her ‘little people’ – small, plastic men, women, children and animals, who inhabited the make-believe world she loved to escape into – around the wooden building’s various rooms, her own imagination giving them life and story.
Having first established where they both were, I went back to my wife. I gazed down at her lovely face as she lay on the bed and saw that the large wad of gauze held by Elastoplast, which had covered her damaged nose when I had returned to the house after Sydney’s death, was gone. Her face was gaunt and her eyes were damp with unreleased tears. I hoped that they were the last, that she’d finally cried herself out and this was only a moment of weakness, the worst of the grieving having run its course. And yes, I knew she had grieved terribly for me; the dullness of her aura told me how depleted by sadness she felt and I could sense the wretchedness of her spirit itself (I’d become very adept at such sensing lately).
As I watched, she closed her eyes, not to sleep, but to lose herself in a memory. Somehow I knew it was of me.
I noticed what she clutched in her arms, pressing it to her breast. It was one of my old sweaters, its colour a deep blue. A framed photograph stood on the bedside table, a place it had never occupied before. A family shot, a fairly recent one; me with one arm thrown over Andrea’s shoulder and hugging her tight to me, my other hand resting flatly against Prim’s chest, pulling her close between Andrea and myself. All of us were laughing and, as I remembered, not just for the camera – we were at Disneyland, Paris, and had spent most of the day laughing.
Perhaps, before, some of the reluctance to return home was, in part, because I feared Oliver might be there. But he wasn’t. There was no impression of him either. Again, this came from Andrea herself. I sensed nothing of Oliver (and I told you that my perception, or if you like, my intuition, had become acute) and I hoped he was now absent from her life. Maybe the shock of my death had cleansed her of him; maybe guilt had made her realize how deceitful they had been together, and that love cannot flourish on guilt. Could be that Andrea had finally seen Oliver in his true colours – a lying, vain, cheating cokehead. Again, I hoped so.
And I also hoped that, in time, she would forgive herself. I wanted her to find happiness in the future, not misery or loneliness.
I leaned over and kissed her forehead.
Lastly, I went to see Primrose.
She was still playing with the doll’s house and her tiny plastic people when I entered her bedroom
and when she unexpectedly looked over her shoulder, I thought she could see me. There was no expression on her sweet little face though and, just as quickly, she returned to her game.
I went over and sat on the floor next to her. I watched her profile as she arranged her little fun world and spoke the tiny people’s lines for them. I used to be fascinated by the playlets she made them perform while I surreptitiously watched from behind a newspaper whenever she set up the whole production downstairs in the living room. Her inventiveness since the age of five had always amazed me, each performance turning into a simple morality tale – plastic children (the same size as the adults) becoming lost, those same kids stealing, then repenting and becoming good once more, the father figure arriving home late from work yet again and missing his dinner, but promising not to work so hard anymore (I wonder where she got that one from?). It’s always wonderful to watch your own child grow and develop physically and mentally, and I was a sucker for it.
And now this would be my last opportunity to be entranced by her (don’t ask me how I knew, I just sensed it was so, and as I’ve said, my perception was becoming pretty sharp). I was sure my father was right when he said that by hanging on, ‘haunting’ them, I’d interfere with their healing process, because part of them would not accept my death and subconsciously they would sense my presence. The mind sometimes absorbs ethereal elements that it will not always relay to the brain; such messages or unrealized perceptions are never lost though, and their influence can often be felt.
I noticed Prim, like her mother, had a photograph by her bedside. But this featured just the two of us, Prim and me, cheek-to-cheek headshots, our grins perfectly matched.
I sat with her for some time (I knew it had been a while, because when I glanced out the window, the sun was much lower in the sky). It had to be now, I thought. Staying any longer would only make it harder to leave.
Trying to dismiss the heartache that was threatening to undermine my resolve I bent forward on my knees and put my arms around Prim, careful not to encroach her small body, and touched her soft cheek with my lips.