Epilogue.

         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.