It is a bright spring morning and a
plump middle-aged woman is standing in her kitchen, looking out of the window
down towards the sea. She has her hands on her hips. On the kitchen table is an
envelope which she has had in her bureau drawer since the autumn before, when a
visiting writer left it for her the night before he disappeared. She looks at
it, looks away, then looks at it again. This time for a period of several
minutes. Finally, decisively, she steps forward, opens it, and reads.
THE
STORY WHICH IS THE STORY OF FREDERICK GALVIN'S GHOST.
So it turned out that he was shacked
up with a certain Mrs Molloy who lived in Swansea, but that she could forgive
as they had fought and fought. And finally, one day he said "well that's it for me,
Catherine, I'm off to live with a certain Mrs Molloy" but not as if he
wanted to, more as if it was something he had to do, she thought.
There had
been no joy or release in his expression as he'd packed his brown bag with
clean underwear and toiletries, no look of relief as he'd got into his blue
Vauxhall and driven off into the winter night, stopping off at the end of the road to pick up
a certain Mrs Molloy. His face had been the face of a condemned man, he looked
thoroughly unhappy, so she could forgive him that, she knew he'd be home before
long, and properly contrite, and after a period in the doghouse she'd let him
back into her life, and all would be as it was before
So it broke her heart when, driving
back up the road in his blue Vauxhall a tanker slewed on it's side, its driver
blinded by the lights on water, and Mr Galvin's car crashed into it and Mr
Galvin died, right there and then. It took her heart and it broke it into a
jigsaw of pieces, which she was in no state to start putting back together for
quite some time.
As for Mr Galvin, after the initial shock he was having a
strange time of things in the afterlife. When he came to he had been put up in some sort of
hotel which was, he fancied, on the seafront at Reigate (where he had once
enjoyed a dirty weekend with Hilary from the post office, though he never went
out to see if this was the case). He never felt the need to go out, really. All
of his curiosity was pretty much satisfied now he had this answer to what
happens after you die, so he didn't mix much, mostly laid on his bed which
smelt faintly of disinfectant, his hands behind his head, looking up at the
cracks on the plaster in the ceiling and drawing pictures with them in his head. Occasionally, feeling the need for company he'd nip down to the hotel bar
and while away an hour or two chatting to the other residents; but on the whole
he found them a dull and lifeless crowd and would normally retreat back to his
room before long. Anyway, the alcohol didn't seem to have the same effect as
before. He still had the memory of drunkenness, but all too often in the hotel
bar he felt that he was relying purely on the memory, and convincing himself that he
was drunk. He'd moved from beer to wine in an attempt to recreate the buzz, and
then from wine to the hard stuff, spirits haha they always said, by now
he was up to drinking half pints of whisky before he could get his vision to
blur the requisite amount, and could retire to his bed happy with a job well
done, as of course the upside of all this was no hangovers, though he found
himself enjoying the memory of them.
Back on earth his widow had put all
her affairs in order; she was now a woman of slightly better than modest means,
and contemplating moving house in order to further realise some funds. She felt
like moving away, the house carried too many echoes of him for comfort, she
often found herself grumbling about his not being home, and worried about it,
wondering aloud if she wasn't turning into a mad old biddy, and before her
time, too. But it was a comfort to complain of Mr Galvin's absence, and she
often did to the guests who stayed in their Bed and Breakfast, if they pressed
her further she'd say
"He's a salesman, that's what
he does. I keep the house and he makes the sales. It's a blessing really, him
being away all the time, he gets under my feet something awful when he's
here" it was nice to talk of him in that way., it made him seem closer to
her somehow.
But nevertheless she was determined
to sell, which is why she was in the solicitor's office the day her phone rang
and she was told that her father had fallen down and broken his leg.
This made the topic of her moving
house something of a moot point, as she was obliged to take her father in and
look after him for a period of several months, her mother not really being up
to the job these days, and also "glad to get rid of the old gasbag for a
bit". Her father's convalescence was lengthy, he had not been in
the best of health before his fall (which was in fact occasioned by a violently
hacking coughing fit which had unbalanced him) and the effort of making his
bones knit back together was telling on him. He'd looked drained for a number
of weeks, and barely spoke above a whisper, though he still loved his telly,
and would querulously point at the screen whenever she changed it from the
programme he enjoyed, which was most likely to be horse-racing. His one vice
was making imaginary bets on the outcome of horse races.
He reckoned that over the period at his daughter's house he'd accrued over
eighty-three thousand pounds starting from an initial ten pound bet, a cautious
each way on a three year old gelding at Kempton, with an unfanciable track
record but a history of doing well in muddy conditions. which were what he
anticipated would be the ones on the day of the race, given that this was
February, and rain was likely.
"Why don't you do it for real then,
dad?" the d of "dad" very soft, almost silent.
"Oh I'd never step foot in a
bloody bookies Cathy love. Den of bloody heathens they are" then he'd sink back into his chair, look at the television and make
a few notes in the big black ledger he always kept at his side now.
As time wore on though, her mother
began to resent her father's absorption in his hobby, and took up painting in
watercolours, partly in retaliation, but also because it "did her good to
get out of the house." These paintings, enthusiastic efforts at landscapes
and seascapes, she'd press into Catherine's hands over cups of tea, and
Catherine would accept them, and dutifully hang them up in guest bedrooms,
sometimes with hopeful price tags attached.
Once a young honeymooning couple,
caught up in the moment, had bought one for fifteen pounds and she'd treated
herself and mother to lunch at the pub, where she drank a bit too much white
wine and ended up making eyes at the landlord who smiled at her so nicely and
she thought she went to school maybe with him perhaps, what was his name again?
Evan, was it? He seemed so nice, and quite handsome actually, in his leather
waistcoat and blue shirt, grinning expansively, while her mother resolutely
sipped her half pint glass of medium brown bitter and affected not to notice.
No, he seemed lovely.
ii
Meanwhile back in the afterlife Mr
Galvin was getting bored. He'd fallen in with a crowd of fellow salesmen who
regularly played cards through the long afternoons, getting through enormous
amounts of alcohol and pretending to be drunk. The conversation was generally
fairly stilted. The weather was a moot point as none of them ever went outside,
and generally they talked of their living lives, though to delve too deeply
into personal details was subtly frowned upon, small shifts of the body away
from the questioner signifying the faux pas.
There was Trevor, who had lived in
Warrington, and travelled the country selling fans for bar fridges. He was an
expert on the topic but confided "I always wanted to be a stonemason, I
never really wanted to be a salesman, my dad was a stonemason and he always really
enjoyed it. But there wasn’t much call for stonemasons." Then (as he was a
long-term resident) he'd drink deeply from his pint glass of gin, and call for
another.
"You never think of leaving
then, Trev?" this from Alan who, on earth had been an itinerant salesman
for industrial insurance.
"Where is there to go?"
"Oh there's all sorts of
places, you go where ever you most want to be." This from Terry, an ex
salesman of cleaning products"
"How do you know?"
"Reincarnation innit? Stands to
reason. I've had two goes at being a salesman, so I remember this place, don't
know where I went back to, but I remember being here, then not here, then here
again. You go where you want to go, you sort out what it is you want to sort
out, then you move on, reincarnate. Course, if you come back doing the same job
as before, you land up where you were last time. In my case " he gestured
around him "here?"
"So why don't we all just leave
then?" Alan replied.
"Because you've got to be ready
to leave, is what I reckon. Takes a lot out of you, haunting. That's why you
don't get any memory of past lives or deaths, the haunting drains it right out
of you, unless you come back the same, then the memory's too strong. But you've
got to build your energy right up before you go, that's why we stay here so
long, we're always getting ready to leave.”
"Speak for yourself"
replied Mr Galvin "I'm in no hurry to leave."
"Sorry Fred, I'm speaking for
all of us. And when you leave, you'd better get your haunting right, or else
you'll be back here in jig-time."
As time passed some of them had
left. Putting on their hats and raincoats after breakfast and saying
"right, well that's it for me then lads, I'm off, expect I shall be back
shortly though, so nobody steal my chair", before opening the front door
into a blinding white light in which their silhouettes remained clearly visible
for what looked like miles as they walked away slowly, before disappearing with
a slight wink of light. They never returned, so Mr Galvin presumed that they'd
accomplished whatever it was they set out to do.
After a while it was only him and
Terry left, of the original group, though they'd been joined by a couple of
recent arrivals, both of whom seemed thoroughly disinterested in everything, so
it was hard to make conversation, generally it was Terry who'd hold forth, with
Mr Galvin sitting quietly, and watching the other two shift in their seats as
if in slight disbelief of their surroundings.
"of course" Terry said
"it stands to reason that if you've got unfinished business, which I'm
sure we all do, then you have to sort it out before you can go anywhere. You
have to get, what is it the yanks call it? Closure, that's it, you have to get
closure. If you don't get that you're buggered."
It seemed to Mr Galvin that all the
lads that had left had achieved closure, as it were, and he managed to find it
within himself to be glad for them. He worried quite a bit about why it was the
felt in no hurry to leave, and once or twice even talked him himself into
thinking that he was ready to leave, and packed his bags and stood in the
hallway, only to find that his mind was a partial blank, he had no real picture
of where it was he wanted to go, he had an idea, but no sharply defined
purpose, and he'd sat down again to much amused comment from the other guests.
Sometimes the old numbness would
descend and he'd stop worrying about it, but he found that he preferred the
periods of worrying, they kept him thinking. The sharp anxiety was a reminder
of what it felt like to be alive, though a hollow and pale one.
After a while he found that his
dreams started to become more vivid. They started off one night with a dream of
childhood, he dreamt being stood in the hallway, watching his Dad get ready for
work
"See you tonight son" he
said, then ruffled the young Mr Galvin's hair before leaving. He dreamt the
smell of pipe smoke with a sharp intensity, though the rest of the detail was
less clear, it was more a jumble of images, his mother washing up with her back
to him. He dreamt his old classroom, and felt snug in his place at the back of
it, conjugating verbs with disinterest.
After a week or so he began to dream
of his young adulthood, selected highlights, he thought, a heady whirl of perms
and perfume, whispered promises and dawn escapes on his bicycle. He dreamt of
saving up to buy his first car, a Rover of which he was immensely proud.
It was around this point that Cath
started appearing in his dreams. He dreamt firstly of her as the young beauty
he first fell in love with when she worked in the sweetshop, and he'd popped in
for a quarter of rhubarb and custard, her long dark hair framing a sweet, heart
shaped face with bow lips which pouted prettily when he suggested going to
dinner. He dreamt of the dinner, and the subsequent evenings in pubs, drinking
his bitter slowly lest he get too drunk and blow it.
He discussed these dreams with
Terry, who seemed to be an authority on the subject.
"Your life is passing before
your eyes" he said. "It happens
while you're here. Your life passes before your eyes, and when you see the bit
that needs sorting, then it's time to go"
"I could have sworn my life
flashed before my eyes when that lorry hit me."
"Oh yeah, I've no doubt that
happened. Natural reaction in time of extreme stress, innit? Your life flashes
before your eyes because all your memories know that you're about to die, and
they're jockeying for position so your soul can sift through them easier. Makes
life easier, so to speak."
"So why am I dreaming my life
all over again then?"
"I'm thinking you're getting
ready to leave. That's what I reckon." Something bothered Mr Galvin about
his pat analysis.
"How come you know so much
about it?" Terry shifted in his seat and swirled the whisky round in his
glass, looking at it pensively.
"Now that I can't tell you, as
I don't rightly know meself. As far as I can work out the fact that I've got
memory of here means I've got some idea of how it all works."
"Cosmic feedback" said
John, a furniture salesman in life who had only recently checked in, and had
joined Terry and Mr Galvin, he seemed a bit more enthused by everything than
the other residents, and Terry and Mr Galvin eyed him mistrustfully.
"What?"
"It's like you're in a loop.
You said yourself you've been a salesman two times out running, so you have a
memory of here. You're in a loop, and the memories don't disappear until the
loop is broken. You're meant to come back as something different, is what I
reckon."
"There could be something in that"
Terry conceded, swirling his drink around in its glass some more. "There
could be something in that." John sat back in his chair and eyed Mr Galvin
amiably.
"So it looks like you're
getting ready to go then, Fred. Best of luck to you I say. Don't come back as a
salesman though, when you're done. This place is just too depressing."
"Reckon I've got a choice what
I turn out as, do you?"
"There's always a choice, Fred,
there's always a choice."
For a while longer Cath dominated
his dreams, and he thought he could feel her calling to him from beyond the
door. Some nights he could hardly sleep for his body telling him to get up, put
on his coat and leave, but he wasn't sure yet.
Then one day he was sure, he felt an
overriding certainty that it was time he was off. Over breakfast in the drab
dining room he told Terry, who raised his mug of grey tea in salute.
"Best of luck Fred. See you
around maybe"
"We won't know each
other."
"No, but we might see each
other."
"Maybe." Then Mr Galvin
stood up, went to the coat-rack and got his big brown overcoat, jammed his hat
firmly on his head, picked up his overnight bag, opened the front door and
stepped out, leaving it open as he had seen all the others do.
When he stepped outside it was into
a sheet of blankness. He turned to look at the hotel and it looked precisely as
he had imagined it would, three stories, a handsome Edwardian façade somewhat
chipped and faded, with curtains hanging limply in each window. Given that he
had a lack of options, and realising that he could hardly stand around here all
day, he began to walk, forward, into the mist.
Back on Earth Cath Galvin carefully places the manuscript back in its envelope, then places it back in the bureau. Humming a verse or two
of Bread of Heaven she goes and plumps up the pillows in bedroom number three. Valentine's Day is on the way, and that's always a busy one for honeymooning
couples. She's done a deal with the chef at a restaurant down the road whereby
she recommends him to her guests in return for the occasional meal on the
house, one for every twenty she put his way. There was a man who sold wine to
the restaurants who'd stopped with her for a weekend and asked shy and
faltering questions as to whether or not there was a Mr Galvin. All in all, it
wasn't turning out too badly, she thinks as she fluffs the pillows. Not too
badly at all.
