by Mark White
Sam opened his mouth but was lost for words. The morning had started so well – the sun was shining, his head was clear and he’d slept like a baby – but it was rapidly descending into a surreal, parallel universe. Not only had Stephen Gilchrist decided for some inexplicable reason to hurl himself from a concrete tower block, but the woman who’d looked after Max for over ten years had kindly chosen to inform him that his dad was back from the dead. What next? Maybe Sarah would suddenly appear and attempt to convince him that a threesome with her and Tom would be the perfect tonic for getting their marriage back on track. The way the morning was heading, anything was possible.
All the same, he couldn’t deny his curiosity. And to be fair to Gracie, in spite of her weird and wonderful extra-curricular activities, she had always come across as level-headed and sensible. She certainly wasn’t prone to sudden outbursts such as this; if that had been the case, then both he and Sarah would never have entrusted Max into her care in the first place. But what on earth did she mean? His father? Back from the dead? It was impossible.
‘This better be good,’ he muttered, closing the front door and joining her in the kitchen.
Two minutes later they were seated at opposite sides of the kitchen table, a freshly-brewed pot of tea and a plate of biscuits separating them.
‘Thank you,’ Gracie said, accepting a cup from Sam.
‘I would say you’re welcome,’ Sam replied, ‘but given the circumstances, I’m not entirely sure I’d be telling the truth.’
‘Look, Sam,’ she said, declining the offer of a biscuit. ‘How long have we known each other?’
‘I don’t know. Ten or eleven years?’
‘Exactly. And in all that time, have I ever spoken to you about anything else apart from Max?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, have you ever heard me talk about what I do when I’m not looking after your son.’
‘The psychic stuff?’
Gracie nodded.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘I know so. I’ve always kept that side of my life separate from my child-caring responsibilities. Apart from anything else, I prefer to keep it that way; the two areas don’t mix, and nor should they.’
Sam sighed. ‘Look, Gracie…I’ve just been given some distressing news that I wasn’t expecting. I know you mean well, but can we please do this another time?’
‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ she replied, shaking her head, ‘but I’m afraid time is something we don’t have. Believe me, I wouldn’t be here if we did.’
‘I don’t understand! What on earth is all this about? I’m sorry, but if you don’t tell me what’s going on I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’
‘Fine. I’ll come straight to the point. For about a week now, there has been someone coming to see me.’
‘One of your so-called spirits?’
‘Yes, only this particular spirit is not like the others. At first, he refused to show his face, and then-’
‘How do you know it’s a he? If it refused to show its face, I mean.’
‘By the way he dresses, and his build. I know times have changed since I was a young woman, but even now you don’t come across many six foot ladies wearing men’s suits and hats.’
‘What kind of suit?’ Sam asked, his skin becoming cold as he made the connection.
Gracie looked at him and nodded. ‘You’ve seen him too, haven’t you?’
Sam ignored the question. ‘What kind of suit?’
‘A grey suit. Quite baggy, like the young men used to wear back in the sixties and seventies. Believe it or not, I can still remember those days. Men used to dress so smartly back then. But the suit he was wearing was worn and tattered, as if whoever was wearing it had been dragged backwards through a hedgerow.’
Sam felt the blood drain from his face. ‘And the hat?’
‘Why don’t you tell me?’
He closed his eyes. ‘The hat was brown,’ he said, ‘and old fashioned. The kind of hat you’d see Humphrey Bogart or Cary Grant wearing back in the day. Not like a bowler hat. More of a-‘
‘It’s called a fedora,’ Gracie said. ‘Very popular at the time, although I would never have put grey with brown. A strange choice.’
‘I’ve seen him. Not his face, but the rest of him. He was exactly as you describe.’
‘I thought as much. That’s why I came. Anyway, as I was saying, to begin with I couldn’t make out who he was, and he wasn’t much of a talker, so I had no idea why he was there. However, one thing I did notice was that he often appeared whenever Max was in the room. Initially I thought it was merely a coincidence, but not anymore. I think he has something to do with your son.’
‘Max?’
‘Yes. I haven’t said anything to Max, of course; I wouldn’t dream of it. But I’m convinced it’s not a coincidence. Spirits of the dead never appear without good reason.’
‘But why say he’s my father? How do you even know about him?’
‘I remember once asking Max about his grandparents; he mentioned that his grandfather – your father – had died when you were only a young boy.’
‘Not exactly hard evidence, Gracie.’
‘No, but when you and Sarah came to collect Max yesterday, you told me you wanted to talk to me. The way you said it…I had a hunch something was wrong. Why else would you want to see me in private?’
‘This is ridiculous,’ Sam said, standing up and walking to the sink. ‘Do you realise how insane this is?’
‘Sit down, Sam. Please.’
He turned around and looked at her. ‘Why? So you can fill my head with more of your voodoo bullshit?’
If Gracie was offended, she didn’t show it. ‘I don’t blame you for feeling angry and confused. It’s hardly surprising.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just…it’s just that this is beginning to freak me out. I can’t even remember what my father looked like, let alone how he dressed. It was all such a long time ago. After…after what happened, my mother destroyed every photo we had of him.’
‘After what happened, Sam?’
Sam’s head dropped. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. It’s been so long since I told anyone. Apart from a handful of therapists, Sarah is the only normal person I’ve ever told, and even she didn’t get the whole story.’
‘I think you’ll find I’m a good listener,’ Gracie said. ‘And whoever this spirit is, I honestly believe we should talk about him. Trust me. I only want to help you.’
Sam looked up from his cup and their eyes met. Her face was kind and open, there was no hidden agenda behind her smile. Even if he didn’t believe in what she did, he could appreciate why people came from far and wide to seek her advice. She had a comforting aura about her, a reassuring presence that suggested things weren’t really as bad as they seemed.
What harm would it do in talking to her? he thought. If there really is something going on, surely it would be beneficial to have somebody on your side that supposedly knows what they’re doing…whatever that means.
He removed the tea-cosy from the pot and refilled their cups before sitting back in the chair and beginning his story.
‘When I was a little boy, I lived with my parents and younger sister, Lucy, in an old terraced house in Cranston, a small industrial town in northeast England. My mother still lives in Cranston, although not in the same house. As with many men in the town, dad worked in a nearby coal mine. He was a pitman, living his life by the sirens that rang out through the town calling the men to work in the morning. Mother raised us and looked after the house, earning a little extra cash by helping out with some of the elderly residents down at the local nursing home. Laundry, ironing…that type of thing. Sometimes dad would be fine with us all – there were even times when he had us in stitches with his ridiculous jokes and far-fetched stories – but most of the time he was a heartless, selfish bastard who treated us like we were shit on the sole of his shoe. He
was a bad man, Gracie. Rotten to the core. To begin with I thought it was the drink that made him so mean, but years later I came to realise that alcohol was only part of it. He was one of those people who thought the whole world was against him, and he would grasp any opportunity to lash out with both hands. His shift down the mine would finish at three in the afternoon, but he wouldn’t be home until at least eight. Instead, he’d head straight down to the pub with some of the other men and piss away most of his wages on beer and whisky. And he wouldn’t consider his afternoon to be a success unless he’d had an argument or punch-up with someone or other.
‘Anyway, as I said, he’d roll in around eight every evening, demanding his dinner on the table. Whenever we could, Lucy and I would make ourselves scarce upstairs, desperate to stay out of his way. More often than not we would sit at the top of the stairs and listen in as he screamed at our mother for some minor thing not being right with his dinner, or for how she hadn’t put sufficient milk in his tea. She never said anything, and she certainly never talked back at him. She knew that as soon as he finished eating he would collapse into his chair by the fire and pass out, so her best chance of avoiding a beating would be to try and keep the peace. Now and then he would flare up and strike her, or push her up against the wall, but most of the time he was too drunk to see straight, let alone stand up.’
‘Did your mother ever consider leaving him?’ Gracie asked.
‘If she did, she never told me,’ Sam replied. ‘She was a proud woman, and a staunch Christian. I guess she had the mind-set of for better or for worse, although at the time it couldn’t really get any worse.’
‘Did he beat you and Lucy too?’
‘More times than I can remember. He went along with those two misguided Victorian parental guidelines that children should be seen and not heard, and that if you spare the rod, you spoil the child. He certainly didn’t spare the rod.’
‘So what happened?’
Sam took a deep breath. ‘It all came to a head one night. November 19th, 1984. I was eight and Lucy was six. I remember the date because it’s carved into my sister’s headstone in the graveyard of Saint Cuthbert’s Church.’
Gracie opened her mouth to say something but Sam cut her off. ‘I woke up in the night…I think I’d had a nightmare. At the time, I shared a room with Lucy; she slept on the top bunk and I was on the bottom. Usually, if either of us was scared about anything, we would wake the other one up and talk about it. But that night, when I went to wake her up I realised that she wasn’t in bed. To make matters worse, the door was open. One thing you never do if you have an abusive father is sleep with the bedroom door open. You keep the door closed and pray that he doesn’t come knocking.
‘The next thing I knew, all hell broke loose in the hallway. Shouting, screaming, running…it was chaos. At first I stayed put – I was too terrified to move – but eventually I couldn’t help myself. Especially when I heard my mother scream.’
‘What happened?’ Gracie asked.
‘I ran into the hallway to find my mother on her hands and knees at the top of the stairs. Only to begin with I wasn’t completely sure it was my mother. She was wild, more animal than human. I’d never seen her like that before. I walked slowly towards her, and I could tell from where she was looking that something had happened downstairs. When I reached her, I turned to see what she was looking at…’ Sam felt himself choking up; it had been a long time since he’d talked about this out loud. He sensed that Gracie wouldn’t mind if he cried – no doubt she had seen it a thousand times before with her clients – but he didn’t want her to see him that way. Instead, he took some deep breaths before continuing.
‘Dad was lying on one of the steps about half way down the stairs; a stream of blood ran from his forehead down his face and onto the carpet. He’d obviously taken a tumble. Pretty bad, but I couldn’t understand why my mother was reacting so strangely. It wasn’t as if he’d never fallen over when drunk before, and apart from a cut to the head he seemed okay. It was only when he hauled himself to his feet that I understood why she was screaming. It was then that I saw Lucy. She was lying in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs, and she wasn’t moving.’
No amount of controlled breathing could hold back the tears now. He began to cry; gentle sobbing at first, until eventually the pain grew too much for him and he broke down, burying his face in his hands as he tried to block out the memory of that night. No matter how hard he tried to think of something else – anything else - he couldn’t stop himself from picturing his sister lying at the foot of the stairs. One of her legs had been bent double under her tiny body, her white nightie with a frilled hem pulled up far enough so he could see the bruising down her thighs. The only saving grace was that he couldn’t make out her face; her long hair having mercifully covered her features. Lying beside her was Tessy, the scruffy teddy bear that she’d carried around with her since birth. Her best friend in the whole world, right by her side as always.
‘It wasn’t until I was ten that my mother told me the truth about what happened that night,’ Sam said, trying hard to compose himself. ‘Lucy had apparently got up in the night to go to the toilet, which was the last room at the end of the hall. To get there, she needed to pass by my parent’s bedroom door. In the darkness, she must have tripped over and fell against their door, because she ended up falling into the room. The door banged against the wall, and the next thing my mother knew, dad woke up in a drunken stupor and lost his mind. In his alcohol-riddled state, he probably though that somebody had broken into the house and was trying to rob us, because apparently he leapt from the bed and chased Lucy screaming and shouting down the hallway. She fell down the stairs and he fell down after her, and that was how mum and me found them. It all happened so quickly; by the time we knew what was going on, Lucy was dead. She’d broken her neck in the fall. One of the neighbours must have called the police, because they arrived not long after and took dad away. He protested his innocence, but when the police asked mum for her side of the story, she screamed at them that dad was responsible and that she hoped he would rot in hell. I’ll never forget the look on his face as they led him away: he turned to mum and called her a lying fucking bitch, before telling her that if she didn’t tell the truth he would strangle the life out of her. That was the last time he spoke to either of us. Apart from Lucy’s funeral, it was also the last time I ever saw him.’
‘What happened to him?’ Gracie asked. ‘Did he go to prison?’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? That’s certainly what the police wanted. They tried to charge him with involuntary manslaughter, but the prosecutors were having none of it. Somehow dad managed to convince them that it wasn’t his fault Lucy had fallen down the stairs; that she’d most likely been sleepwalking and had tripped. Naturally, mum tried to tell them the truth, but they wouldn’t listen. They said there was a clear lack of evidence. The best they could do was grant a restraining order preventing him from coming within two streets of our house until he’d completed a government-sponsored alcohol addiction course and convinced a panel of experts that he was committed to becoming sober.’
‘Did he?’
‘Did he hell. Sure, he attended the course during the day, only to hit the bars again at night. He wasn’t ready to be sober; as if chasing your six year old daughter to her death wasn’t a good enough reason to ditch the bottle.’
‘Did he adhere to the restraining order?’
‘Yes, but more through good luck than good management. He was dead within a month.’
‘How come?’
‘After Lucy’s death, word quickly spread as to what had really gone on that night. You know how it is in a small town; it’s impossible to keep anything secret for long. One night – two or three weeks after Lucy’s funeral – dad was staggering out of a bar when a group of men from town set about him. By the time they’d finished with him, he’d been beaten so badly that he was practically unrecognisable. He was dead long before an ambul
ance was on the scene.’
‘Did the police catch whoever was responsible?’
‘No, and if you want my honest opinion, I don’t think they tried very hard. Apparently there were no witnesses and nobody was prepared to testify. After what he did to Lucy…well…there wasn’t a soul in town willing to fight his corner. Everyone agreed he had it coming. And then, in spite of numerous calls for them to change their minds, the authorities stupidly decided to bury him in a pauper’s grave in Saint Cuthbert’s Church; in the same cemetery where Lucy now sleeps. Talk about rubbing salt into the wound.’
‘I’m sorry, Sam,’ Gracie said, placing her hand on his. ‘I can’t imagine how awful it must have been for you and your mother.’
‘It was. Still is, sometimes. I don’t think either mum or I will ever get over it. They say time is a great healer, but I’ll never forget what happened that night, and I’ll never forgive that bastard for what he did to my sister. I hope he’s burning in hell as we speak.’
‘Can you remember what he looked like? How he dressed?’
‘You’re asking me if he used to own a grey suit and brown fedora.’
‘Yes, I suppose I am.’
Sam shrugged. ‘I remember very little about him. We never really bothered with photos; I’m not sure we even had a camera. Anyway, after Lucy passed away, mum took everything that had anything to do with him into the back yard and set fire to them. My memories of him are very vague now, thank God.’
‘You must be able to remember something?’
‘I remember he was tall and thin. Back then, if you were six feet tall you were practically a giant. As to his clothes…no…my mind’s completely blank. Being a miner, he always seemed to be dirty and greasy, but that’s all I can recall. I certainly can’t remember seeing him in a grey suit and brown hat.’
‘Will your mother know?’
‘Perhaps, but-’
‘It’s crucial we find out, Sam. I know you’re sceptical, but the fact remains that a man who I’m convinced has something to do with you and your son keeps visiting me and threatening that something bad is about to happen. You might not believe in what I do, but trust me, Sam, I’m not making any of this up. And I know that you’ve seen him too.’
