Walking with Ghosts

by Baker, John

  ‘You said you were at the end of your tether, Mrs Dawson. What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s Mr Charles. Sorry, Mr Hopper. He’s not been home for a couple of days. It’s not like him to go missing. He always says, even if he’s just nipping out for an hour.’

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Friday. I look after the house for him. He was reading the newspapers when I went out to do some shopping. When I came back he’d gone, and I haven’t heard from him since.’

  ‘Friday,’ said Marie. ‘And it’s Sunday now. Have you informed the police?’

  ‘No.’ Mrs Dawson shook her head. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘I think you should tell the police,’ Marie told her. ‘They’ll check the hospitals, at least. If he’s had an accident, something like that...’

  Mrs Dawson began shaking, and Marie led her to a chair. ‘You’re sure he didn’t mention anything? Where he might have gone? If he had any phone calls or visitors?’

  Clara Dawson put both hands flat down on the surface of the table. She shook her head from side to side. She wasn’t listening any more. Now that she’d finally voiced her fears they came to the surface, hollowed out her eyes, and hung like gargoyles in the ploughed furrows of her lumpy face.

  William followed her. He watched Charles Hopper’s house, and he saw the woman arrive. It was as easy as that. He was wearing his lucky socks. Charles had said she was a private detective, but he hadn’t seen her, only spoken to her on the telephone, so he couldn’t describe her. William thought she looked like a journalist, but journalists and private detectives looked alike. They were snoopers. This one was thirty-five years old, something like that. A bit of a fatty. She wouldn’t be easy to overcome, except she’d be surprised. Usually they didn’t fight, anyway, they went to pieces, gave up almost immediately. Started begging.

  He tried to think of her sexually. Imagined that he found her attractive. But he couldn’t do it. William had never found women attractive. He’d told himself that Pammy was attractive, all those years ago. He’d told himself that he wanted to have sex with Pammy. But he hadn’t wanted to. Not really. And for a while there, when he was in London he’d thought that he might be gay. He’d tried looking at men, then, and young boys. But it was the same as looking at women. They disgusted him.

  They were weak. They let life and events overwhelm them. Humanity was like insects. William called them The hordes. He watched them every day. He had studied them for years. They queued up outside shops before they opened, and at the doors to theatres and cinemas. They formed orderly lines and they waited. They sat in stationary cars, and on buses. They sat there and they waited. They lived in their houses, little boxes, side by side, stretching like ribbons along drab or twee roads. Even their clothes were the same, their crimplenes and their nylons and mixed fibres. How could you pick one of them out and say you found him or her attractive?

  They weren’t attractive. Not at all. They were ugly.

  Ugly and pointless.

  Getting born, eating, fucking, and dying.

  Physical actions taking place in a vacuum, an impenetrable silence.

  She rang the doorbell a couple of times, then she stood back and looked up at the house. After a few minutes she went around the back. William’s first thought was to follow her. He could stride over the road and down by the side of the house. Charles Hopper wasn’t at home, he knew that, because Charles Hopper was in a chest back at William’s house. So the woman, the private detective, would be alone now around the back of Charles’ house. No one at home. The house deserted, quiet. He could come up behind her, take her by the throat, shake the life out of her. Punish her.

  But for what?

  William didn’t move. Why should he punish this woman? She wasn’t Dora. She was no one. Nothing.

  And yet, there was a reason. Otherwise William would not have followed her. Now it was like being in a dream. The day had set itself up around him, it had placed him at the centre of the scene, painted in Charles Hopper’s house provided the private detective. Somehow the opportunity had arisen to get rid of this woman detective, and deep within William there was a voice nudging him towards the conflict. Take her. Take the woman. Do it.

  And he would do it, too. If he could remember why.

  If she was Dora he wouldn’t hesitate. But something was wrong. Dora was a mother, and this woman wasn’t. Even that wasn’t clear in William’s mind. He didn’t know if this woman was a mother or not. And it was important to know that. If she wasn’t a mother there would be no point in taking out her eyes.

  The woman called Marie Dickens left Charles Hopper’s house. Suddenly she was back on the street and walking towards the town. William followed.

  He followed her home. He watched her take a key from her pocket and put it into the lock of the door of her house by the river. He sat on the grass verge about eighty metres away and waited, watching her house. After an hour a man arrived. A man with a raggedy beard. The man tried the door, but it was locked. The man knocked on the door lightly, twice, and Marie Dickens opened the door and let the man with the beard in.

  The wind came back again. Gusting along the river and the bank so that birds wheeled in huge arcs to maintain their positions. For a few moments William thought it was out of control, a tempest, a hurricane, he narrowed his eyes and grabbed hold of the sods of grass. But it blew itself out as quickly as it had arrived. There was a puff and a sniffle and a catching of the breath and the earth returned to its previous calm.

  William went home to his house in St Mary’s. While he’d been sitting on the grass verge by the river he’d managed to clear his head. Now he was tired, weary, and felt that if he got on to his bed he’d fall asleep. But he didn’t want to do that. He wanted to sort out what had happened to him this morning.

  There were two things he had to do. The first thing was to kill Dora. William smiled. Not literally, of course. If he killed his mother he would be arrested by the police and locked away. Everyone would know, the whole world would know that he had done it, and if there was a court case they would all know why he had done it. For his father. Revenge for his father. But then they would all forget. Within weeks, days even, the world would forget. William would be locked away, Dora and his father would be dead, and there would be no one to remember. The newspapers, the television, all the reporters would find another story. Reality would be swamped by illusion.

  So that was clear, then. That’s what he had to do. Kill Dora, over and over again. He had to find a suitable stand-in. She had to be similar to Dora, that’s all. Not identical. William was a make-up artist. He could take any woman and transform her into Dora. Provided she was around the right age, and that she had the right kind of experience. She had to be a mother.

  Theatre.

  All the world’s a stage.

  The play’s the thing. The play allows the artist to subjugate his desires. It is a safety valve. Dora can die a million deaths, and never know she has died. The violence that William feels towards his mother need never be given rein. Within the cosmic theatre it can find free expression. The violence is contained within the play, and Dora’s life is never threatened.

  That’s what William did. It was something he knew, something that was easy and clean and simple. His father was revenged. The formality of the operation, the twist of taking out their eyes, like she had taken out Arthur’s eyes, gave the play symmetry, the fatal gift of beauty.

  Between acts. Between the repetition of the same act over and over again. William could forget and relax.

  Almost.

  Anyway, that was the first thing. The main thing. The second thing that William had to do was connected to the first thing. It was the same with every production. In the theatre nothing was possible without finance. Many of the actors, the scene-changers, the little people associated with the theatre didn’t realize that. It was not their realm. But the producer, the writer, the director, they knew. Nothing happened without a b
udget. Every production needed money.

  That’s how the business with India Blake came about.

  She wasn’t a mother; she was a meal ticket. The plan had been to hold her there, in that garden shed, until her husband paid the ransom. Then she would be released. But it didn’t work out, because William realized that she would give his description to the police.

  When he got the money, William thought about killing her. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Just to kill someone like that, in cold blood. She wasn’t a mother, she wasn’t Dora. She didn’t fit into the pattern of vengeance, of revenge. She wasn’t suitable as a sacrifice. And anyway he’d done the sex thing with her. As an experiment. To see what it felt like. He’d brought her water and packets of crisps, and watched her eat and drink. He wouldn’t have been able to kill her. So it was good that she died eventually, of natural causes. That had solved the problem.

  And it would be the same with Charles Hopper. There was no way that Charles could be used as revenge for William’s father. He would have to live in the chest in William’s house until he died.

  All that was clear.

  The Dora stand-ins had to die; they had to have their eyes taken out. That was written into the script all those years ago. The others, India Blake and Charles Hopper, they knew too much, they would stop the play being performed if they had their freedom. They had to be imprisoned. They didn’t have to be killed. They had to be stopped.

  What had happened today, when he had felt impelled to kill the private detective woman, was that he had temporarily got the two categories mixed up. Up to now he had been able to keep them apart. He had understood from moment to moment exactly what was happening. He had been in control. Then suddenly, today, when Marie Dickens had gone to the rear of Charles’ house, he’d lost sight of who she was. He’d thought she was Dora. And she wasn’t, she was just someone who knew too much.

  And something else. In the instant that he’d mistaken the private detective woman for Dora he’d lost sight of himself. His self had slipped away from him. There was a moment there when he had almost taken her. A moment when he had been on the verge of becoming a common murderer.

  William scratched his head. The top of his skull was prickly. There was a dull ache behind his ears and behind his eyes. Tension in his neck.

  It was absolutely necessary that he keep a clear head about this. The issues were straightforward. There was no need for things to become confused. It was a matter of concentration.

  There was a loose end. The loose end was called Marie Dickens, the private detective. She was getting too close. William would have to get her inside his house, put her in the chest with Charles. They could be company for each other.

  That’s what he had to do. He had to remember that she wasn’t Dora. At all times he had to remember that. He would keep saying it over and over to himself. She isn’t Dora; she isn’t Dora. But when he’d said it five or six times he had to shake his head, because suddenly there was too much to remember, too many processes to control. And his head hurt, both inside and out.

  Felt like it might explode.

  35

  Diana comes in with a tray of drinks. Outside the wind is buffeting the windows. There may be a storm brewing and you wonder what it would be like to walk in a storm. To have that hard rain in your face; to watch the drops bouncing off the pavement; and return home dripping, your hair in rat’s tails, your neck and back sodden. You could ask Sam or Diana to open the window, but it would be a waste of breath. ‘Shall I lift you?’ Sam asks. He places his hand beneath your head. ‘Lean on my shoulder.’

  You shake your head. You do not want to disturb the iron bar. To lean on Sam’s shoulder would be good, but time is running out. You do not want more pain. He holds the glass to your lips and the liquid trickles into your mouth. ‘Not long, now,’ he says. ‘The doctor will be here soon.’

  The doctor. That’s what happens next. You are still here in the physical world. You lose track of time and space. Only one thing you know. As you get older less and less happens more and more often.

  Sam holds the glass to your lips, but this time the liquid trickles from your mouth. You hear yourself making a sucking sound, but this simple act, drinking, is beyond you. You catch concern in Sam’s eyes as he watches the droplets clinging to your chin.

  You’re dribbling, Dora.

  And Sam’s watching.

  Dribbling.

  Like Billy did after Arthur died.

  He began bed-wetting. He’d sit and look at you while he soiled his pants. Loss offers opportunities of maturity or regression. For you and for Diana the loss of Arthur meant a kind of maturity. But for Billy it was different. The death of his father revealed an unequivocal opportunity for regression. Because Billy didn’t grieve, Dora. You knew he should grieve, and you tried to make him.

  But he wanted to suffer. His father’s life had gone. Now Billy seemed to want a living death.

  ‘I want to give Daddy his eyes back.’ This child, this tiny son of yours looks at you from his bed, and he says that. I want to give Daddy his eyes back. You go to him. You enfold him in your arms, crush him to your breast. Because he is taking on more than his scrap of a soul will ever manage to carry. He has too much knowledge, Dora. The weight of it will swamp him.

  You watch anger, hostility, and guilt growing in the child. You explain over and over again that it is not his fault, that Arthur loved him, but that Arthur’s pain was too much to bear.

  Billy’s eyes glaze over.

  From time to time the child’s anger is directed against his dead father. He cries out in his sleep: ‘Daddy, don’t leave me.’ But when he wakes he is ambivalent about Arthur and Arthur’s death. He wants to carry the weight. And he wants to put it down.

  Ambivalence is guilt.

  As he grows, the guilt grows along with him, sometimes disproportionately. It is always there, in his eyes. He looks at the floor. He doesn’t engage your eyes or the eyes of his sister. In an end-of-term report his Geography teacher mentions this strange phenomenon. Throughout the length of the period I have had to teach this child, he has never looked me in the eye. It is as if the only eyes he engages are the eyes of Arthur, the eyes that have been eaten by the birds. He thinks about his father. He thinks about what was said, and what was not said. And he feels, increasingly, that he can only achieve relief for his guilt by paying restitution for the rest of his life. That’s what he means when he says: ‘I want to give Daddy his eyes back.’

  He has lost his father, and nothing will ever replace that loss.

  The best he can do is idealize the man. Idealize him and identify with him. And as Billy grows, you watch him become more and more like Arthur. Every day there is another facet of his father’s character being reborn in Billy.

  The child grows, and as he grows a kind of sickness grows with him.

  The only person in the world who could have stopped that happening, Dora, is you. And you failed.

  You failed because, as he got older, Billy wanted you to be clean, good, and hardworking, like the idealized version of his father, and he told you so. And you, Dora. God forgive you, but you didn’t want those things. You wanted to live. That placed you at a distance from your son. He couldn’t hear what you had to say. You weren’t a proper mother; you were greedy, bad, and sexual.

  You wished on the moon.

  What happened there?

  ‘You were sick,’ Sam tells you.

  There is that stench of vomit. You can taste it on your lips. Sam and Diana have changed the pillow and the sheet.

  Weary.

  You want to talk to Sam but you are too weary. Floating away to that dream state between living and dying. There is so little of substance in your world, Dora. You are like a spirit.

  When you began sleeping with Sam the world was still made of iron and steel. That inner smile fills you when you remember how he called you Donna in the mornings. When he was tucked in that space between sleeping and waking, you
would feel his arm snaking around you, pulling your body close to his. Then he would say, ‘Donna, Donna,’ and you’d snuggle up closer to him as if you were her. His dead wife from long ago.

  You didn’t mind, Dora. You knew he loved you. He could call you anything he liked, so long as love was there.

  You and your Sam. You were ravenous, voracious. Those first weeks and months you were always hungry together. Always eating, and yet never satisfied. What do they call it, that open-mouthed hunger and thirst which is unquenchable? For ever eager, burning, and yet for ever unsated?

  You couldn’t remember the word, because you’d never experienced it before. But Sam knew. Didn’t even have to think about it.

  ‘Lust,’ he said with a laugh your mother would have called obscene.

  36

  Dear Sam Turner,

  Just a note of thanks for allowing me to sit in on the investigation. I would have liked to thank you personally, but I understand that you are indisposed because of your wife’s health.

  The information I need for my next novel does not necessitate my spending more time on research, and I feel that I have been less than professional in allowing myself to become emotionally involved with one of your operatives.

  In the circumstances it is in everyone’s interest that I withdraw without further delay.

  If in the future I can repay you in any way for your kindness, please do not hesitate to contact me.

  Yours sincerely,

  J. D. Pears

  37

  Geordie picked up the phone and listened. ‘Yes, it’s me,’ he said. He listened some more, nodding as he did so, at the same time keeping his eyes fixed on Janet. If he didn’t know he wouldn’t have been able to tell she was pregnant. Not from looking at her, and not from running his hands over her stomach, or putting his ear right up close. Doctors could only tell because they had all the gear, and they could calculate when it would be born to the day, as long as the woman knew when was the last day of her period. And the other thing they could tell by sound waves and computers, was, they could tell if it was a boy or a girl. But Janet and him didn’t want to know.