Broken Ghost

by Niall Griffiths

  Be honest with yourself at all times. More words that are inside me now. So do it, lad; is that really why you’re bored? Is it? Be dead fucking honest. Pure heart.

  I move the camera back to the promenade. And then I get another jolt as I twitch the handle to the left and see who’s sitting at a bench outside the Glengower pub; I’d recognise that mad red hair from Mars. Looks like he’s got a drink in front of him. I take me phone out but realise I don’t have his number so I leave the building and, fuck, the sunlight knocks me back, makes me lean against the curved wall of the obscura while I get me shades out me pocket. I can’t see clearly for a few seconds and I have to wait for the eyes to adjust. The next funicular down off the hill isn’t for another fifteen minutes so I leg it down and when I get to the Glen I’m sweating and panting and I can hardly fucking speak and I have to just stand there with me hands on me knees feeling like I’m gunner be sick. Ebi speaks first anyway:

  —Adam, boy. Duw, look like you could do with a drink. What you running for, then? Not fuckin good for you.

  I stand up and swallow. Christ I’m so fucking unfit.

  —Ebi …

  —Deep breaths, now.

  —You’re in a pub, man.

  He looks around in mock surprise. —Is that what this is?

  He’s not shouting like he usually does. In fact, he’s speaking very softly.

  —The fuck you doing, tho, man? You’re in a pub, I say again.

  —Aye, well. Nowhere else to go is there? Getting next train up the coast, I am. Leaves in an hour. No Rhos anymore, see.

  I sit down opposite him. His face, his face – there’s something gone from it.

  —So what you saying, that you’ve been sacked?

  —No no. Place’s been closed.

  —What has?

  —Rhos. Receivers came in this morning.

  —You’re fucking kidding me. Rhos closed down? You’re fucking kidding me.

  —Don’t I fockin wish I was.

  He tells me that all the funding was withdrawn. That the public funding went first, quickly followed by all the money from the private benefactors, or nearly all of it; what was left wouldn’t support the chickens. The administrative staff fought long and hard and presented the relevant boards with all the stats and figures to prove that Rhos was cost-effective but that made no impression whatsoever and the money was gone. Overnight.

  —So that’s it, Ebi says. —Fuckin finito. Out on your arses. Austerity, boy. Brexit fuckin Britain. Taking back control, innit? Or covering your own hoop more like.

  —All the rezzies. What’s happened to them? Where’ve they gone?

  —Can’t tell you. Think they’ve been carted off to somewhere else, back over the border. I dunno, mun, I didn’t stop to find out.

  —Sally and Suki. What are they gonna do?

  —I don’t fockin know, mun, told you. Gave em a hug, said tara an I was on me way. Place’s gunner be emptied soon – furniture, the lot. Tellin you, it’s gonna cost one fock of a lot to reopen. If it ever does. They’ll be takin the fockin works.

  I look out at the sea, expecting to see it rising towards me in a giant fuckin wave just so this day could be made a bit worse. But no, no – how could it be made any worse? A great big fucking wave, smash everythung down, wash it clean. Start all over again.

  I look back at Ebi. —And what the fuck are you gunner do now?

  My hand moves out and picks up Ebi’s glass with the greenish liquid in it. It gets raised to me nose.

  —It’s fockin J20, Ebi says. —Apple and kiwi fruit.

  He takes it back.

  —What, think Am running straight back to the fockin booze, aye? Think more of me than that, cont.

  He’s right, and I feel a twinge of shame.

  —Sorry Ebs. Just worried is all.

  He hides his face behind a swig at his drink. I get a whiff of it – the fruitiness. Even Ebi’s hair, usually so mad and sticky-up, seems to have deflated and has flopped down over his forehead and over each ear like the ears of a spaniel or something.

  —So what are yeh gunner do? Back up north, is it?

  —I see no reason to stick around. One-way ticket back up to Cric. Take up me old job. See the old boys. It’s what I know, innit? Got some family left who still wanna talk to me. Support up there if I need it, see.

  I see him again, his head thrown back and lit by flames, offering the words about the pure heart to the night sky. And as sure as I’ve ever known anything I know that, back up there on the north coast, Ebi won’t last a year. He’ll drink, and either his body will collapse with the shock of it straight away or he’ll punish it until it just gives up. I know it, I can see it; the yellows of his eyes in a year or so. Like Colman’s mustard. Ruination for him up there.

  —Come with me, boy, he says. —Stop at me mam’s for a bit with me until we get set up in a flat, aye? Got some savings I yav. Get yew some site work or factory work or something. Serious, now; follow me up in a couple of days. I’ll have a camp bed set up in the shed. Serious.

  I shake me head. —Ebs, I can’t even afford the fuckin train fare, lad. I’m fuckin skint. Got sanctioned this morning, didn’t I? Y’know all them times I was up at Rhos? Cunts said I shouldna been there, that I shoulda been out looking for work. No fuckin tellin them, is there? Honest to God. And there’s me cat.

  Speaking these words I realise, properly, and for the first time today, the depth of the hole I’m in. I could ask Sion or Benj for a lend or see if anyone can help me out at AA but, realistically, I’m fucked. There’s not even the polytunnel at Rhos to doss down in any more. Suppose I could track down Suki or Sally but the thought of doing that … well, the idea makes me feel a bit sick; I mean, it’s so close to bad memories, of scrounging and scamming, of using people, that it makes me feel a bit queasy inside. I’d never rip off Sal or Suki but just the act of asking them for help … I’d be afraid of what might be set in motion. Pure heart. Keep it that way. You’re on your fuckin own, man.

  —Don’t need the conts, boy. Fock em. Fock em. No fockin charity anymore. No fockin welfare state anymore. All gone.

  He’s holding a bundle of notes out over the table. A slight breeze has risen and the notes are slightly ruffling in his hand because he’s holding them at one end and the other ends are loose like tongues. Like they’re kind of talking.

  —I can’t take that, Ebi lad. You’re gunner need it. Ta and everything like but—

  He’s stuffing the notes in the breast pocket of me shirt. —Yew fockin well can take it an take it yew fockin well will. An yew’ll settle what yew need to settle down here, you’ll buy a carry box for the cat and you’ll buy a ticket to Cricieth and that’s where I’ll meet yew in a few days. Alright? Hear me? I can spare it. Sure what have I been spending me wages on up at Rhos? Not one overhead I had. What was I gonner do with the money? Spend it in the pub?

  —Ebi, man …

  —It’s a fockin loan. You’ll get off the train at Cric an walk straight into a job. There’ll be one set up. Know a few builders up there whoer always on the lookout for a new pair of hands. You’ll pay it me back. An if yew don’t, I’ll get some boys to break your legs with a cricket bat.

  He laughs, and for a flash there’s the old Ebi sitting across the table, the loud one, the constant firework burst of energy. But it lasts only a second.

  —I’ll need the number. For your moby.

  He tells me his number and I store it in me phone. Then I stand and put a hand on the nape of his neck and press me face to his and I feel sharp bristles and I smell oil in his hair. I tell him that I’ll see him very soon and he tells me that he knows I will and then I walk away along the promenade past the magistrate’s court which has fellers in cheap short-sleeved shirts outside of it, standing, smoking, and all of them, all of them it looks like, has ‘only God can judge me’ inked into their necks or forearms. I feel something in the atmosphere, in the molecules of the air and in the body cells of the smokers and in
my jawbone and in my fingernails and in the spit that has suddenly gone from my gob, and it is fear and it is anger and it is something as horrible and as destructive as shame. Up the coast, far away to the north, I see the distant headland jutting out into the sea, the peninsula on which Cricieth is. I remember one of the north Walians I used to know in Liverpool – Mad Ernie we called him. Used to inject Pernod into his big toe. He did this even when he was on trial with Tranmere, although obviously that didn’t last long. I wonder what happened to him. Wonder if he’s still got ten toes. I can’t do anything. I don’t know anything. Here I am, fucked again.

  There’s evidently someone in the town who fancies himself as a Welsh Banksy – a Bancsi – cos on the gable end of a terrace is a spray-painted stencil of a sheep holding a machine gun. As I’m standing there looking at it I get an incoming text that reads: No c for time. U good? If u r thinkin it dont do it. Alwys here 4 u bruv. It’s from my sponsor. I turn the phone off. ‘No c for time’. The man’s a knob. Got ‘clean and serene’ tattooed on his neck. Fancies himself as a Hackney gangsta and he was born in fuckin Tre’r Ddol. I walk on, towards home.

  It doesn’t come on like need suddenly taken to an unbearable level. I mean, it doesn’t scream inside. It’s just a simple decision.

  I’m hoping Quilty will be waiting for me in the flat but he’s not, although he has left me a present on the bed; half a dead mouse. The arse half. Tiny pathetic feet. I wrap it in newspaper and put it in the bin. Take me clothes off and get in the shower. Wonder how long I’ll have hot water for. Wonder how long I’ll have a flat for.

  I soap everywhere. Sole to scalp and every millimetre of skin in between.

  No, it’s not like it howls or shrieks. It’s just a simple decision, no holy show, like I’ve calmly and objectively weighed up all the options, studied the balance sheets and reached a conclusion: I will drink today.

  I dry meself and put on all the nice smells. Clean clothes.

  And I’m surprised at how easy it is, really, how undramatic, or I would be surprised if my emotional state allowed for anything other than this massive acceptance. So big it fills the world, is the world; I will go out and I will get drunk like normal people do and then tomorrow I’ll sit down and work out what to do. Buy me ticket up to Cricieth. Track down Suki and Sally and say goodbye. Sion and Benji too. Maybe have one last walk up to Rhoserchan, just to say goodbye to that as well. Even if it is only a building.

  I put some food and water in Quilty’s bowls. What would you do, Quilty, my marvellous cat? You’d lick yeh balls and go out in your mystery and kill something, that’s what you’d do. I check myself for baccy and lighter and keys. Gulp some water from the tap cos my mouth is as dry as a desert. Simple decisions. I am in control. I take one last look around the tiny flat as if I’ll never see it again and then I emit a horrible little vinegary frimp of a fart and I go out to the pub.

  TWO SHOCKS

  THE BARMAID WEARS a knee-length skirt and a white vest top and these garments are tight and they highlight the curves and cambers of her body. She leaves the stout to pour into the glass and turns to the optics and the man at the bar sucks the shapes of her in through his eyes then, when she turns back to face him with the ball of molten gold in her hand, he turns his gaze inwards and finds himself regarding, with shock, a pool of black despair. He’d forgotten not the fact of it but its depth and its darkness and how unreflective is its surface.

  The barmaid tells him what he owes her for the drinks. The height of the price startles him, the increase since he last bought alcohol, but he pays it nonetheless.

  THE LOWS

  I SEE TOM look up all worried at the transmitter as we go through Blaenplwyf. Them blue eyes of his go all big and he starts licking his lips, which is what he does when he gets worried. Like dogs do. Strange little boy.

  —You don’t have to go up there, I tell him. —Don’t worry. No one’s going to make you.

  He just can’t forget the time he went on a school trip to Harlech and he ran away from the group, went up the steps and found himself on the battlements, dead high, and he couldn’t move for the fear of falling off. His teacher had to carry him down. Had bad dreams about it for ages, he did.

  —Why’s it so high?

  —Well it has to be. So it can transmit the radio signals over a wide area.

  —What’s transmit?

  —Kind of, like, give out? It’s cos of that tower that you can watch CBBC.

  He turns his neck over his shoulder to watch the tower through the back window get smaller as the bus moves further away from it, down the coast.

  —It’s okay, I tell him. So many things to reassure this little boy about. —You’re not going to go up anywhere high. There’s no need to worry about the heights.

  —I’m more worried about the lows.

  I laugh. —Worried about the lows? Where’d you get that from?

  —It’s just what I think.

  —Well it’s alright. Where your nain and taid live, that’s not up high, is it? It’s safe there.

  —There’s the mountain.

  —You don’t have to go up it if you don’t want to. Nothing to worry about. Yma, have a snack.

  I take the Tupperware box out of the rucksack with the celery sticks and the tub of hummus in it. —Want some?

  He shakes his head. —Not yet.

  I put the box back in the sack. —Just let me know when you’re hungry, then.

  He does that thing where he kind of withdraws into himself. I’ve seen him do it so many times before; his eyebrows kind of come down and a glaze comes over him. He taps at his phone and I see the Angry Birds app come up on the screen. That wicky music starts.

  —Put it on silent, cariad.

  He doesn’t hear me. Or he ignores me.

  —Tomos. Put it on mute, I said.

  —But it’s not the same.

  —I don’t care, it’s irritating for other people. Put it on silent and be a good boy.

  He does. An old dear across on the other seats gives me a smile and I smile back. The ground falls away in a great big swoop on my side of the bus, down from the road and towards the sea, dead blue, bright, light blue at first then darker blue further out where it gets deeper. I see a boat way, way out, probably the Irish ferry from Fishguard, and closer in I see a kite just hanging in the air, his wing feathers all goldy-red in the sun, a couple of crows bothering him. I go to point this out to Tom but he’s absorbed by his own angry birds. I see the kite turn on his side to flash his talons but the crows carry on harassing him and he zooms away, down the dingle and out over the ocean. The bus turns inland, towards Llangwyryfon. Fields, here. And hedges and trees and hills. It’s all 10,000 shades of green. The bus goes over a little stone bridge above the Afon Wyre. I know this area, I do.

  So that’s it, then – the old feller probably drowned. That’s what I read. The poor old boy taken out to sea and his body hasn’t been found. I was worried that something like that would happen – that word ‘bridge’. I’d been told, hadn’t I? Warned, like. I should’ve pitched a camp on that bridge, to make sure no one crossed it. I should’ve become like the troll in the fairy tale and let no one across the bridge. That’s what I thought, yesterday.

  And it’s not what I think today. It’s all crap. The word ‘bridge’ – I mean, what fuckin bridge? Could’ve been any bridge. Tower Bridge, the Severn Bridge, Sydney bloody Harbour Bridge. The card game. Dental work. The metaphorical bridge this country’s burnt with the continent. It was just a word which wasn’t even a word it was just the sound of the breeze in the reeds because if it’s all true – if what the nutters and the conspiracy theorists and the off-their-friggin-heads online ranters are all going on about – then why didn’t she say more? Why didn’t she say more, that morning after the rave, and why didn’t she appear again? Dig and bridge and wild. Just three random words. That feller with the dragon on his neck kept farting about with that iPod and the sun was coming up and there was a breeze b
lowing in the reeds and I’d taken some kind of pill and I hadn’t slept. And the old feller fell in the river and the world is full of coincidences. They mean nothing. The way the world is today, with everybody connected to everybody else, it’d be more fuckin amazing if coincidences never happened, wouldn’t it? There’s nothing going on, here. This is not a, a visitation from God. The voices online are just the sounds of people searching for meaning, aye. That’s all they are.

  Another bridge, now, an old stone one. This must be the Afon Beidog. I look down into the little river as we go over it. There are rocks in the water and tree branches hanging down. It’s dead clear, the water is. I only get a glimpse of it, two seconds, three.

  It’s beautiful around here, I know that – the landscape, this is what they call ‘beautiful’, and I know it is, in my head like, but in my heart, in the bit where it counts, there’s nothing. I could be anywhere; there could be anything outside the windows of the bus and I’d feel the same way. It’s just the physical bits of the world. It’s just, what, fuckin green – that’s all it is. Things called flowers. Other things that are called trees. They mean nothing. An old man fell off a bridge. Once there was blackness in me and now there is this flatness without colour and recently there was what? When I came down off the mountain. What was it? Whatever it was, it allowed me to send Johnny out of my house with a penis sprouting out of his stupid head. Which I remember being brilliant. But then there was that cunt Carlos and now there’s this.