Ghost House (Soul Mate - Book One)

by Richard Crawford

  All I want is another chance with Suki.

  I look at Simon's twenty. It gives me an idea. I can't mess with Simon, but perhaps I can put his generous donation to good use. I fold the twenty and slip it in the pocket of my jeans. I have another plan. It won't be enough on its own but suddenly there are ideas buzzing inside my head. It's easy when you know what you want. Since the moment I saw her I've known. I just need a new plan.

  If I can make a plan to get Suki back, then I can deal with the ghosts. That's what I tell myself. Start with Suki; if she's in my life I can do anything. Sounds nuts but it's the only way forward I can see. If I have a life then the ghosts don't own me. Well, they sort of do but I have to find a way to work round that. I know Suki will be cool once she understands. There's a worry in the back of my mind, a shadowy place where I don't want to go. So I ignore it.

  It's hot out of the garden, the sun starting to burn on the streets. Beneath the watching gargoyles, tourists wander around carrying umbrellas and peering at maps. I head for town, past the colleges and museums with the snake queues of Chinese tourists and the crocodiles of foreign kids blocking the pavements. I shove my way past them. For once I don't mind too much. Today I'm glad to see flocks of tourists.

  I start with the easiest bit of my plan. I go to see Lucy and use Simon's money to go and buy a small bunch of flowers. Lucy's a friend from the old days. She works part time on a flower stall in the covered market. She's blond and gorgeous in a Sloane Ranger meets Ethnic Chick way. Way out of my league and always has been.

  "Tom," she grins, actually pleased to see me. "How many days now?" she asks.

  "Three months, nine days sober!" We high five, I don't admit to the ghost related fuck up and the thing with the cops, and if she's heard, she doesn't say anything. We've known each other years but things have changed a bit. She's still studying, doing research for her DPhil. It didn't work out like that for me. Lucy knows everything about me, well nearly everything. She's a real mate. I try to pay her for the flowers and she refuses to take the money.

  "Don't be silly, Luce."

  I offer the money again and she shakes her head. Sometimes I do a bit of proper lifting and carrying for her and she pays me. Even then I'm sure she could get someone else to do the stuff for free. I shove the money at her until she takes it.

  "What are you up to, Tom?"

  "Just hanging."

  She gives me an apologetic smile. "I can't ask you back to supper, Rich's home."

  Richard is her boyfriend and he doesn't like me hanging around. I can't really blame him. Luce lets me come round when he's not about, to get a shower. She's hoping I'll get a job and get my act together, and I wish it was that simple, or that I could tell her the truth. I wish: the stupidest words. I love seeing Luce but I don't want her to feel obligated.

  "No, don't worry," I shake my head and try not to make this awkward. "I've got stuff to do." She doesn't look convinced. I edge away a bit and blow her a kiss. "See you, Luce."

  "See you, Tom." She's got that look. The one people get when they feel bad for you. I wonder how long before that will be all there is between us.

  So now I have the flowers, nothing too flashy. I still have money left. I jog out to the boat and get lucky. No one's home. I put the flowers on the little deck propped up in a bucket of water. I attach the note that just says, Sorry, love Tommy. I bail before anything can go wrong. Hopefully Suki will find them, but I figure even Jess isn't going to chuck someone else's flowers away.

  It's past lunchtime now and so I head back to town. The cab office is down a dingy back alley. The sort of place you can imagine Jack the Ripper doing his murders. I go into the office and there are a couple of guys sitting waiting for cabs. One of them is curled over, asleep, with puke on his shirt. I can't help wincing when I look at him.

  I don't know the guy in the control room.

  "Is Zach in?" I ask. I figure it should be late enough. You won't catch Zach any time in the morning, not unless it's the night before.

  The guy looks me up and down but I'm pretty smart, showered and shaved, in Mickey's nice blue shirt.

  The guy nods, "Who's asking?"

  "Tell him it's Tommy T."

  I hold my breath while the guy gets on the phone. I'm pretty sure last time I saw Zach it was cool. On a bad day you can lose friends and not even remember. But Zach's different; he's a good guy. I'm not too worried.

  When the guy unbolts and opens the door for me, my palms are sweating. I go through to the back. Zach's office is small and dark. There's an old safe in one corner piled high with pizza boxes, and alongside it a pile of beer and coke cans. Zach is huge, hot air balloon huge, but under the fat there's plenty of muscle. His short blond hair curls around his head, along with his round face it makes him look like a monster cherub. A baseball bat nestles in the corner. This is one dangerous cherub. I know for a fact he has a shotgun hidden somewhere in here.

  He doesn't get up. "Tommy, good to see you, man. It's been too long."

  I go over and we clasp hands. Zach looks up at me waiting. I literally can't remember the last time we met. I suppose he wouldn't have let me in if I'd fucked up too badly. I can't figure out how to get started. My whole plan stands or falls right here.

  "Do you want a coffee?" Zach asks. When I nod he waves me towards a tray. It takes a lot to get Zach out of that chair.

  "You want one?" I ask and fiddle about with the kettle and a jar of instant coffee. There's milk in the fridge, a couple of pizzas and a tray of beers. I guess this is Zach's lunch. I snap the door shut on the beers. I bring the coffee over. There's one other chair. It's pretty much split and knackered from years of holding Zach's supersize ass. I could sit in it twice over. I sit myself down without waiting to be asked.

  Zach's watching me. "How's it going, T?"

  "I had a few bad days." There's no point BSing Zach. And blaming stuff on the ghosts won't get me very far with him. "But I'm getting there."

  Zach nods once. "I heard some weird shit about you, T."

  I shrug. "People like to talk crap. I haven't hurt anyone." I nearly ask who he heard it from but I can work it out. Max truly is an asshole. My life is full of them.

  "So, T?" He's says it as if he's on a meter.

  Zach's not being a jerk; he's a busy man.

  "Thing is, Zach, I need a job."

  He doesn't start straight in with the objections like some people would. Zach just nods and waits, flipping a pen between cigar fat fingers.

  "I could work one of the rickshaws for you." Alongside the cabs, Zach runs the bicycle rickshaws in town. Makes a fortune, everything from tourists to weddings, I figure to do some of the tourist stuff and the local trade. I know I don't have the right image for weddings. But in the summer Zach can always use an extra rider.

  He drops the pen on the desk and leans back until his chair creaks in protest. I can't tell which way it's going to go.

  "I'm dry, Zach, I swear, but," I'm going to be straight with him. "I'm not going to be able to make it in every day."

  His eyebrows climb into greasy blond hair, but he doesn't say anything.

  "I don't expect to be paid if I don't show." It's hardly the offer of the century but Zach's a really good guy. He helps people get dry: it has something to do with his mum. They say she died yellow from jaundice and withered up like a dead tree. He's offered me work before, and I've been on the rickshaws but I never kept it up more than a few days; never really had a reason to until now. It doesn't make me the best bet when you look at it from Zach's point of view. I hope he'll give me another chance.

  "So you're dry, T?"

  "Three months," I say. "But I slipped a few days ago." It's best to be honest. Zach hears about everything.

  "And you want to work; you're going to stick at it this time?"

  "Yes, sir," I say it like it's a bit of a joke then wish I hadn't. But Zach's not fooled. He knows how hard it is to ask for stuff.

  "Okay," he says. "But you're not o
n a wage, T. You get a cut on what you earn, and it all goes through the books. The guys who have been here longer get priority. You get a share of the tips too, but you won't be taking much home, 'specially if you don't show regular."

  He's a good guy but he's a shark too. He'll have me riding up and down the town's damn hills for nothing. But there's a chance this is a job I can hang on to. I grin at him, "Yes, sir."

  Zach sort of shakes his head as if he's being a soft fool. "When you going to start?"

  "Now?"

  He gives a grunt of laughter; he's seen it all before. "Go on then. Ally will sort you out with a rickshaw and a T-shirt and all the other stuff you need to know. And, T, listen to him. We run a clean business, so you be polite and you be straight out there."

  "You got it." I get up and hold out my hand. "Thanks, Zach."

  "Make me proud," he says with an evil cherub grin. "Don't give me no problems. That's all I ask."

  It's pretty stupid but I feel like I won the lottery.

  There's a huge shed out back. Ally is there mending a bike. He's a half size scrawny Scot with a foul mouth and a mean temper and a head for booze that you wouldn't believe. He's a genius with engines. And he's okay if you don't piss him off. I may or may not have pissed him off. I really can't remember, and so I'm a bit nervous as I head over to him.

  "Hi, Ally, how're you doing?"

  He turns round to see who it is bothering him. For a moment he looks daggers then he grins. "Hey, T. What d'you want, man."

  I tell him the deal and he looks a bit dubious, but it's Zach's call and so Ally doesn't say anything. In five minutes he's sorted me out with a dark blue, 'Ride in Style', T-shirt a list of safety instructions and a mobile phone.

  "Zach'll take that out of your wages. Keep it topped up and turned on." He takes a look at me. "You can charge it in the office." He's a good guy too.

  He goes back to working on the bike but keeps lecturing me. I know better than to remind him that I've done this before. When he's done with the bike he gets me to take the rickshaw out for a spin around town. When I get back he sends me out north to take some old lady shopping.

  I get used to the bike pretty quick but I'm not that fast. The old lady is waiting when I get there. She looks a bit scared when she sees me. I go and introduce myself and keep talking until she settles down. She's dressed real neat even though she's just going shopping, her hair perfect blue rinse permed, lipstick and makeup done, her clothes beige and pink, elasticated waistband old lady style. She's one of the regulars and so I wait while she goes round M&S. I sit in the rickshaw in the sun and watch people go by and I feel pretty good.

  The old lady's called Mrs Stokes. I help with her trolley and shopping bags when she comes out. Then I take her home. She lives in one of the blocks of retirement flats that are sprouting round here like weeds, full of lonely old people waiting to die. The place makes me nervous, but I carry the shopping in for her. Inside her flat it's all neat as a new pin but somehow too neat. All the life tidied out of it. It freaks me out a bit.

  She keeps me talking a few minutes. I don't mind but it's hard to concentrate in this dead person's room. She starts showing me her photos. There are dozens of them in silver frames, all over every surface, most of the people in them are dead. So many dead people. I look at a few and start to feel weird. I tell her I have to get back or I'll be in trouble. First day and all. She tells me I look a bit peaky. That I should eat something.

  I charge her a special regulars' rate, five pounds, and she gives me a two pound tip and a donut. I eat it as I cycle slowly back to town and it's all nice, apart from the buses thundering by and the stink of diesel. I remember that Zach didn't say what percentage I'd make and I didn't ask. I figure I probably earned a pound or something but I still don't care. At this point I don't have huge overheads. I've made the first step on my plan and I'm pretty pleased with myself right now. I know the next steps are going to be harder, but I don't think about that yet.

  ####

  A couple of days later I'm on the rickshaw touting for business along Broad Street. It's a good place for tourists with the colleges of Baliol and Trinity on one side and on the other the Sheldonian theatre close by the Bodleian Library. It's hot so I park outside Blackwell's for a rest: across the street the bearded Emperors' Heads stare down at me from their pillars in front of the Sheldonian. The huge heads look appalled, as if something bad is about to happen.

  When I look down, there she is. Barbie Deb, the girl the ghost followed all morning, the girl with the psycho boyfriend whose friends gave me a kicking. I recognise her straight off. She gets up from a table outside the King's Arms pub and starts walking towards me, talking on her mobile. The call ends and she looks straight at me. We're about six feet apart. Something prompts me to get off the rik. She stops, clutching her handbag and mobile, as if she thinks I'm going to rob her.

  "What do you want?" she asks.

  "I want to know what happened to him?" The words are out of my mouth before I think. I'm not even sure they are my words.

  She hunches her shoulders, the anger drains out of her. "Who," she asks, but it's like she knows the answer already.

  "The guy you were seeing when you hooked up with Kev." It's a guess but by the look on her face I'm on the right track.

  "What business is it of yours?"

  I shrug. "Kev seems like a nice guy."

  She frowns, clearly not big on irony. "What business is it of yours?"

  "You could do better." I wonder if this is what the ghost wanted, or if there is something more to the story. "Dump him, before anyone else gets hurt."

  She swallows like there's a lump in her throat. Beneath the spray tan her skin is clammy. "What do you know?"

  Right up to that moment I knew nothing, but now I'm sure that Kev's somehow responsible for whatever happened to the ghost. And I'm pretty sure that what the ghost wanted was to make sure she'd be safe, though I'm not sure she's worth the effort.

  "Dump him, if you know what's good for you." I make it sound like a threat.

  She edges back a step, glances over her shoulder towards the pub. Some of her friends are still sitting at the table. "Fuck off," she says and turns to run back to them.

  I watch her go. There's a strange feeling inside my head. For a moment I think the ghosts are calling, but it's not that. Barbie Deb is standing by a table in front of the pub talking to several girls. She looks over her shoulder at me, and I wave. It's not the smartest thing to do, the girl has a psycho boyfriend, but it feels like the right thing. Perhaps I owe the ghosts more than a last visit. Perhaps I need to help them when they're gone.

  I don't altogether like this train of thought. And some of the ghosts there's nothing much I could do for them. But some of the others…

  I can see that Barbie Deb and her friends are working themselves up to come over here. Not in the mood for half a dozen screaming girls, I get back on the rik and head off under the Bridge of Sighs and down Queen's Lane, between high college walls swarming with gargoyles.

  All afternoon the thought stays with me that I should do something for the ghosts. Look out for the people they left behind. I could go and see Mr Edwards, maybe my voice would mean something to him after his wife's visit. I could check on Maggie, see if she's doing better. But of course it's not that simple. I check on Maggie and find it's not good, what then? Do I make good on the ghost's threat to Marv. And there's psycho Kev, do I want to mess with a guy like that? I get a sinking feeling, and wonder if that boat already sailed.

  ####

  The next afternoon I end up out near the car lot. It's a weird coincidence. The urge to see how Maggie is doing is too strong. I just need to know what happened; did it work out for her. I stand in the reception area and everything looks the same. The office door is open and I move closer. I can hear voices. Maggie and a girl are sitting at the desk. The mountains of paper are still there but they're in neater piles. Nothing's that different but Maggie looks better, less pin
ched in her face, more together. It seems like things are going better for her. I start to back away but she looks up. Behind the glasses, her eyes go wide. I head for the exit.

  "Wait." Maggie comes out of the office before I get the door open. "Wait, please," she says.

  I freeze with my hand on the door. She just stares at me.

  "How's it going? Is Marv looking out for you?" I ask.

  She nods. "And I got the money."

  "Good," I say, wondering what sort of idiot I am to be getting deeper into this. But I'm glad it worked out for her.

  "Stay there," she says. "Please." Then she heads back to the office. She comes back real quick with her handbag. Before I know it, she's fishing out a wad of cash.

  "Here." She shoves it at me. "I don't know how you," she gropes for words and then shakes her head. "But I'm so grateful." I don't think she's talking about the money. I can see tears behind her glasses. "Just take it," she says and pushes the cash at me.

  "No!" It's hard to get the door open with her shoving the money at me. She's freaking me out. The door crashes into my foot and she backs off a bit. "No, really," I say. "But thank you."

  She stands at the door watching me.

  I can feel she keeps watching me but I don't look back. The visit didn't go quite the way it was supposed to, but at least she wasn't too freaked. I feel good knowing that things are going well for her. The nursing home is on the far side of town, but I decide to go and visit Mr Edwards.

  ####

  A week later, the next ghost takes me way across town and then stands staring at a butcher's shop.

  That's it; for an hour we stand across the street just staring. The shop has little chains hanging down over the door to keep the flies out. We hear them rattle every time anyone goes in or out. The shop's busy. It has a counter to sell stuff for lunches hot sausage rolls, pasties and sandwiches. It's so busy there are three young guys working behind the two counters. And one older guy. A big guy with a florid face, deep-set eyes and thick dark hair. From time to time we hear him roaring with laughter or yelling at the lads. The ghost gets a bit twitchy when the big man shouts. One time when the shop's empty we see him raise a hand to one of the lads. The ghost takes a step into the road when that happens. Luckily there are no cars coming.