Sometimes, the fact that there’s a ghost in the story is meant to be a
surprise. At other times, it is obvious from the outset; the latter type of
story can easily fit into an anthology of ghost stories; the former can’t,
since its inclusion alone spoils that surprise. Last week’s and this week’s
tales fall into the latter category. I have written a few ghost stories that
are not obvious, so if or when they appear here, you’ll get no warning.
I hope you like the humour – it was a difficult piece, to balance the
humour with a serious and tragic subject. And of course the title is a play on words...
TIERS OF SORROW
Nik
Morton
I never believed in ghosts. Until I became one.
After
a long holiday I returned to my old haunts. Or, rather, haunt – in particular, the renovated Victorian warehouse that
served as home to an artistic couple, Alice and Jeff. They talked about getting
married but never got around to it. Foolishly, they reckoned they had all the
time in the world. So much for Carpe Diem!
They’d owned the place about two years and had no idea I existed
– even in an ethereal sense. Some people – most people – just aren’t sensitive
enough. I don’t mean sensitive in a precious way. This is something to do with
the sixth sense, which, contrary to scientific pontificating, does exist. Cats
and dogs are notably very sensitive, and even horses can detect manifestations
of the spirit world.
Unlike my tenants, I seem to
have all the time in the world. In one form or another, I’ve been around for
almost 169 years. I was born on 25
July 1834, the day Samuel Taylor Coleridge died and I became a
ghost on 18th
December 1865. Ironically, on the day that America
abolished slavery I was chained to this ghostly existence, seemingly forever.
This
two storey building has large rooms with Turkish rugs covering the varnished
floorboards, a divan which wouldn’t be amiss in a bordello, a mahogany round
table and matching chairs, and the omniscient eye of a television – a magical
invention. The bathroom is enormous,
tiled with cork and mirrors, with a round bath and Jacuzzi.
The
place looked neglected. I’d been away about two months – one doesn’t precisely measure
time when there’s a surfeit of it. Cobwebs abound, the windows grime-laden. Daylight
hardly seeped through the high windows or skylight, making it a dark, sombre
place, in complete contrast to the time when I went away, when it was all
bright and cheerful, with their paintings adorning every wall. Alice painted
colourful landscapes while Jeff indulged in nubile maidens in lush jungles, the
flora vibrant with colour.
“Who
the hell are you?” It was Alice’s
voice, coming from the bathroom doorway. “What are you doing here?”
At
that moment a shaft of sunlight percolated through a smear on a high window. It
revealed Alice,
or the semblance of her. I recognised the long blonde tresses, the rather too
large mouth and furrowed brow. She was wearing a diaphanous night dress. I
could see the flesh beneath, and the bones beneath the flesh…
“My
God!” I exclaimed. “You’re a ghost!”
She
screamed, probably realising that I was one too.
***
I’ve never been haunted before. It was a strange
feeling. No matter how much you might empathise, until you’ve experienced it,
you don’t know what it’s like. I remembered the few previous tenants who had
been able to perceive me. This, probably, was what they felt at our first
introduction. Of course, I had quickly put them at their ease, but that first
feeling of shock was quite something, to use the modern vernacular.
I
held up a mollifying hand. Fortunately, it wasn’t attached to chains or
carrying my head. (Some ghosts seem to go over the top). “Don’t worry, I won’t
hurt you!”
“Where’d
you come from?” she asked.
“On
holiday. A break from here.”
“But
– but ghosts can’t – they’re – I’m tied to this place, where I killed myself!”
Oh,
dear. With everything to live for and she kills herself! “There are different
kinds of ghosts, and different tiers of sorrow, my dear.”
Her
face appeared angry. Not suffused with colour – which would be impossible in
her present state – but a darker hue of grey. “You
mean I’m stuck here while you can swan off anywhere you like?”
“I’ve
been around a while, picked up a few things. As the years pass by, you find you
can travel to any place you visited while alive. It helps break the monotony.”
“Can
you teach me?”
“Bored
already?”
That
dark grey look again!
“Well,
I suspect you’ll find it impossible until you move up a tier or two.”
“You
mentioned that before. What tier?”
I
shrugged. The more we spoke, the stronger we appeared to each other visually. As
if gaining substance because of belief in each other’s existence. I had noticed
this a few times – encounters with other
ghosts, good and bad – but nothing so
strong. Perhaps it was something to do with the place. There were echoes of my
death here, and now hers. “Time translates into tiers of ability. Unfortunately,
from your viewpoint, you’ve got some way to go. A kind of apprenticeship, if
you like.”
“I don’t like!”
“There’s nothing you can do
about it. That’s life – or, rather, the cost of being a ghost. That’s all.”
“That’s
all? That’s all!” She stood,
clenching and unclenching her fists. I could picture her throwing plates and
mugs at Jeff. Theirs had been a strong, passionate relationship. It broke my
heart to realise she must be twenty-eight and would always be that age now.
“Why
did you do it?” I asked, suddenly.
“What?”
She was taken aback by my change of tack.
“Take
your life. It’s so precious a gift, to be savoured in all its vicissitudes.”
“You
some kind of ancient mariner, a poet or something? Killed because your verse
didn’t scan?”
“No.”
I was surprised at her uncanny reference to Coleridge’s famous creation and a
little shocked at her waspish tongue. Of course, she’d not changed simply
because she’d died. “You’re naturally upset –”
“Upset?
I’m livid!” She stamped into the
lounge, looked around. “This place is filthy!”
“You
never seemed to care when you were alive.”
“How
would you know?” Then she realised: “You were here all the time, while Jeff and
I – “
I
smiled to myself and lied: “I didn’t look.”
Alice sat on the divan,
head in her hands – still attached to her neck, I hasten to add. Happily she
wasn’t that histrionic!
Slowly,
with an enchanting hangdog appeal in her eyes, she looked up. “Where is he?”
“I
don’t know, but I can find out. A few neighbourhood ghosts owe me.”
She
grinned. “You’re cute, you know?”
“I’ve heard the expression before – usually concerning
pets and other creatures.” I didn’t feel
cute – especially in my black frock-coat, breeches and buckle-shoes. I felt like
a fugitive from a Dickens novel.
***
“There are different tiers of ghosts. Like angels,
that sort of thing, a kind of hierarchy,” I tried to explain the next day. “The
tier a ghost belongs to depends on the circumstances of the person’s death, the
reasons for the spirit being trapped between life and after-life, roaming until
some blessed relief.”
“I
suppose I’m on the bottom tier, then?”
I
shrugged and caused cold air to waft the curtains: motes of dust danced in a
solitary sunbeam. “Some ghosts are so powerful, they haunt their allotted place
for centuries. Others, the majority, last merely a year or two and fade away,
neither here nor there, lost forever.”
“Is
that why there doesn’t seem to be many ghosts about?” she asked, gesturing
around with her arms.
I
smiled. “Right. The world would be pretty crowded, otherwise.” Just the
persistent ones survive, I thought, those terribly wronged. Like me.
***
The news didn’t take long in coming. “We’ve found
Jeff.”
Her
eyes lit up at mention of his name, then clouded over. “I suppose he’s at his
mate’s place. Dave’s. He ruined his
marriage with a one-night stand, the idiot!”
“Yes,
Dave did, but neither he nor his wronged wife committed suicide over it!” It
was out before I could prevent it.
And
she laughed, the familiar tinkling sound I remembered. “Touché, I think! Serves
me right.”
“He was at Dave’s, but they had a blazing
row.”
“What? They never argued –”
“Jeff
said Dave was a fool to throw away his marriage. Told him to crawl back to his
wife.”
“Jeff
said that?”
“Yes.
Then he packed and left.”
A
worried look came into her eyes. Concern. Even fear.
“He
walked the streets most of last night.”
Alice breathed a sigh of
relief.
“He’s
here now–”
The front door opened.
Jeff
was a shadow of his former self – not as much as Alice was, obviously – but these weeks of
bereavement, guilt and anguish had taken their toll. He slouched into the room,
dropping his rucksack.
“Can
he see us?” Alice
whispered.
“No,
he doesn’t have the gift. And he can’t hear us, either, so there’s no need to
whisper.”
“He
looks awful.”
“Yes,
he does. No sleep, no heart because it’s broken–”
“But
he betrayed our love –”
“He
regretted it the next morning, said he was sorry. He meant it, you know.”
“How
do you know all this? You were on
holiday!”
“Listen.”
We
could hear Jeff talking to himself or, rather, to dead Alice. “God, how I wish I’d been stronger, Alice. I shouldn’t have
stormed out and left you like that… I couldn’t reason with you, though, never
could when you got your temper up… I loved you, always will… And now you’re
gone…”
He sobbed.
I
glanced at Alice.
She was quite moved by his confession. Ghosts can’t cry, but I swear she was
blinking back non-existent tears.
“Can’t
I help him?” She paced in front of Jeff, eyeing me beseechingly. “I didn’t mean
for any of this to happen! It was a dreadful mistake. I’ll regret it to my
dying day – I mean, for all eternity!”
“You
can help him by being here, taking on his pain.”
She
stood in front of him as he poured his heart out and her ethereal form seemed
to waver and grow dim as the man’s tears ran. It was as if his words hit her,
she kept staggering back.
After
a while, she pleaded, “Jeff, stop torturing yourself! It was my life and I
wasted it! Don’t make me waste yours too! Forgive me, please!” She touched his
tears and they sparkled for an instant.
He shivered as with a sudden
chill.
Slowly,
he stood up and wiped his face.
He glanced around as he came
out of his cathartic reverie and saw a painting in a dark corner: it was a
landscape by Alice
over which he’d painted a nude sitting of her. As he went across to it, clouds
moved or the sky turned or the earth moved and light streamed through the
skylight and illuminated the picture. Alice’s
eyes in the picture seemed to glow, reflecting on his face.
He
held it up and said, “I can forgive
you for leaving me like you did. I guess I must get on with my life... But I’ll
always remember you.”
The
light grew quite intense and I turned to see the mere wisps of what remained of
Alice floating
up into the white light. That was quick – so much for working through different
tiers! Already, she was going on to a better place.
I
envied her such an early release.
Jeff
picked up his rucksack and walked out of the building, with the picture under
his arm.
I
wondered what the new tenants would be like.
***
Previously
published in Telmicro Media Magazine,
2007.
Copyright
Nik Morton, 2014
***
If
you liked this story, you might like my collection of crime tales, Spanish Eye, published by Crooked Cat, which
features 22 cases from Leon Cazador, private eye, ‘in his own words’.
He is also featured in the story
‘Processionary Penitents’ in the Crooked Cat Collection of twenty tales, Crooked Cats’ Tales.
Spanish Eye, released by
Crooked Cat Publishing is available as a paperback and as an e-book.
.jpg)
