Ghosts in the Morning Read online

  A saucer dropped to the floor. An unforgiving floor - natural stone flooring, top quality, Graham had insisted on it, despite it costing twice as much as the tiles I had chosen - so the saucer smashed. I sat down and glanced at the clock on the microwave. It was far too early for a glass of wine but still...

  The man that I killed had been cycling. His bike had lights but they were small, ineffective, pinpricks in the curtain of the night. The lane was narrow, unlit, there were no street lights in the island’s smaller lanes. The man had all that silly cycling clothing on, but it must have been designed for the daytime as the clothes were black. Or perhaps a very dark grey, but there only a very faint white trim. I didn’t see all of that at first. I just felt a slight bump as my bumper clipped his back wheel. I braked hard and quick, but only after my bumper had clipped him. It didn’t take too long to stop, I hadn’t been travelling that fast. I didn’t like to speed, I thought of myself as a very careful driver, and besides, I was wary of being breathalysed. Not that I’d had that much to drink, but you never knew...

  The bike had wobbled violently in front of me, then kissed the verge. It tumbled forward and I saw the man tumble forward with it, a blur, like a smudge on a photo. He flipped and somersaulted into the old stone wall at the side of the road. It was a low wall, a bit ramshackle, but attractive in a rustic way, full of age and character. There was a field behind the wall, a farm maybe, or maybe just countryside, a rambler’s paradise. The man was unlucky, the wall was low enough for him to have gone right over, landed in soft grass maybe, but he didn’t. Instead, he struck the wall. It looked awkward, nasty. I got out of the car.

  The man’s leg was at a funny angle and his cycling helmet had flown off. It lay next to the wall where some of its stones had been dislodged, probably as a result of his fall. I could see the torn strap of the helmet. I looked down at the man. He wasn’t moving. I stared at his face and he stared back at me, with his eyes wide open and unblinking. A glassy stare, and for a moment it unnerved me. I remember shivering nervously, but I shrugged it off. He couldn’t hurt me. There was blood trickling down his forehead, pooling on his eyebrows, spilling into those open eyes. I saw that the man was completely bald, but he had very bushy eyebrows. His mouth was stretched, gaping in a silent scream, and the headlights of my car reflected the glints of mercury fillings. There seemed to be quite a few of them, maybe he should have chosen white fillings, or brushed more often, or eaten less sugar.

  I shivered again. Winter was coming and I should have put on a coat, or at least a thicker cardigan. I looked around me. The lane was silent, a slight rustle of branches in a gathering breeze.

  And then I got back in the car and drove home.

  ***

  ‘Mum, is there any bacon? Can you do me a bacon sandwich?’

  I stared at Daniel and cupped a hand to my ear.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Thank you, Daniel. Anyway, what did your last slave die of?’

  ‘Disobedience, Mum.’

  I smiled at our old joke and took some bacon rashers out of the fridge. I had nothing else to do, anyway. ‘So, let me guess, Daniel. You’ve got another hangover, is that right?’

  ‘No, actually, it’s not. I had a few drinks around at Paul’s, it was only a few beers or so. I’m just hungry, that’s all.’ Daniel’s tone was snappy, it always was when he had a hangover.

  ‘Look, you want to keep an eye on your drinking in the week, take it a bit easy. You can’t be drinking every n – ’

  ‘Oh give it a rest, Mum. Look, forget the bacon sandwich, I’m going out, I’m not going to stay here while you nag me.’

  The door slammed again. It really did need looking at. I went back in the kitchen and opened the fridge. The bottle of Chardonnay stared back at me from the shelf. Well, one glass wouldn’t hurt. I looked at the rashers sitting raw in the frying pan, and I thought of the man, and how his head had looked; shards of red and white oozing down his head, down his face. A spark of nervous excitement skittered across my shoulders, and I wondered if he had a wife, children perhaps. No, maybe not children, I mean, they say that too much cycling isn’t good for men’s fertility. I guess those stupid, skinny little bike seats aren’t too good for the testicles. I started giggling to myself and then found I couldn’t stop, until tears were pouring down my cheeks.

  Chapter 3

  ‘Are you alright, Simon, are you eating okay, have you made any more friends?’

  ‘Yes, Mum, don’t fuss, it’s all fine. And yes, I’m eating well- a lot of pasta, to be honest, it’s a bit of a staple for most of us students. Quick, easy and cheap. And actually, yes, I’ve met quite a few people. I’ve been hanging out with some friends of John’s – you know John, I mentioned him before, he’s on the same course as me, really nice guy – anyway, we’re going out tonight for a few beers, maybe go to a club.’

  ‘Well, you be careful, the town can be a bit rough at night.’

  ‘I know, Mum, I know, look you don’t need to worry, I’m not a kid anymore.’

  ‘I know that, Simon, I’m just checking everything’s okay, that’s all.’

  ‘Look, Mum, I’d better go, the lads will be round soon, I’ll speak to you soon, yeah.’

  ‘Okay, Simon, just be sensib – ’. The dial tone buzzed. I put the phone down on the table and sighed. It rang.

  ‘Simon?’

  ‘No, it’s me.’ Graham sounded tense, impatient, but I could detect a hint of hesitancy mixed in with the gruffness. I knew Graham well enough to know that meant a lie was coming, he was never very good at lying. ‘Listen, don’t worry about dinner for me tonight, I’m going to be a bit late.’

  ‘Do you want me to do something and leave it for you? You can microwave it lat – ’

  ‘No, no, no, I’ll just grab something from the vending machine at work, I’m not too hungry anyway.’ That meant he was going out for dinner with Nikki. Or she was cooking for him...maybe not, she was too young, too precious to cook, young people didn’t seem to cook so much these days; it was all supermarket convenience meals, with fancy boxes and posh-sounding descriptions trying to disguise the fact that they consisted of cheap factory-processed meats. So, a takeaway maybe, he would find that safer, eliminate the risk of being spotted in a restaurant by someone he knew, Jersey was so small after all...he would keep the takeaway plain – no Indian food – he wouldn’t want to risk the smell of curry on his clothes, on his breath.

  ‘Okay, well –’ I said, but he’d rung off.

  I stood in the centre of the kitchen and looked at the potatoes shivering in a pan of water on the hob. It had taken me over half an hour to peel them. I had thought that Graham and Daniel would be home for tea, but I should have known better than to make that presumption. Daniel was often out these days – with friends, girlfriends, it was hard to know. He didn’t communicate much with me these days, sometimes just an occasional grunt- and Graham was rapidly becoming just as unreliable.

  I hadn’t minded peeling the potatoes. I never did. I found it therapeutic, slicing into the thick, leathery skin, shucking off the earthy blemishes that looked to me like liver spots on an old man’s hands. Another pan stood on the hob; carrots and peas floating on a sea of salted water. I had planned to do a home-made chicken kiev, to go with the vegetables and the potatoes. I had been trying to decide how to do the potatoes – roasted whole, or cut into chunky wedges, or maybe even lightly sautéed. I had cut into the cold knobbled skin of the chicken breasts, folding it back and stuffing in the herbed garlic butter. Extra garlic, it was a touch of vindictiveness on my part, to send Graham to the office, stinking of garlic, I had hoped he would breathe it all over that bitch.

  I could feel chives under my fingernails...I stared at the raw chicken breasts and reached for a knife. I slowly pierced the greasy skin and watched as the butter seeped from the hole like a suppurating wound, and I thought again of the blood dripping down the man’s face.

  Then I carefully picked up the chicken breasts, s
queezed them hard, and threw them in the bin.

  ***

  The local evening news did not mention the man’s death. The presenter did talk about a finance company that had closed, with the loss of eighty-four jobs, so perhaps that was more important. They still had time for the weather, though, they always had time for that. The weather forecaster said that tomorrow would see a lot of rain, indeed a heavy storm was ‘very likely’ but they weren’t usually very accurate, so...it wasn’t the usual weather forecaster, instead it was a man called Colin Flood, which I thought was a good example of “nominative determinism”. I had heard about nominative determinism on a game show – one of those erudite BBC2 ones – whereby your name can have an effect on the job that you end up choosing. There had to be some truth in it as I remember flicking through the yellow pages of the phonebook once and spotting a gardener called Matthew Weed.

  The usual weather forecaster was a woman called Catherine. Maybe she was on holiday again. She always looked tanned , like she went on a lot of sunny holidays, and she had deep blue eyes that twinkled in her honey-dewed face. Although it could be fake tan I suppose, a lot of women did that these days, though most of them went too far - why anyone thought the colour orange was a good choice of skin colour was beyond me. Catherine seemed very nice, she smiled all the time, and it didn’t look fake, it looked like she really meant it when she said ‘that’s all from me, I hope you all have a lovely evening’.

  I didn’t like this forecaster. His smile looked forced, it didn’t reach his eyes, and there were too many teeth in that smile. He reminded me of a cartoon cat leering over a trapped mouse. He was handsome, but in a smug, bland way. Over-confident. Maybe he thought he was famous, being on the TV, and it had gone to his head.

  I sighed and looked at the clock, even though I knew what time it was, as if I needed the reassurance of the clock face for confirmation. The daily grind of soap operas was about to start. Sometimes they would be on in the background, but most times I would press mute. I didn’t watch any of them. I couldn’t deal with all of the arguing, all of that noise that afflicted the kitchen sink dramas. I flicked on the electronic programme guide and scrolled to the movies listing. We had the full Sky package – all of the films, sports, and hundreds of other channels full of repeats, and teleshopping, so much teleshopping. I often watched these, fascinated that people actually bought these magic mops that promised to clean your entire kitchen within seconds, or those clever trowels in case you fancied yourself as a builder, or the miracle paint rollers – I mean, people must buy these things, the same adverts would run for month, the presenters endlessly asking the same questions - ‘have you often wanted to point your wall like the experts do’. There must be thousands of people disappointed that their purchases didn’t suddenly turn them into an expert painter and decorator, or Bob the bloody Builder.

  Our Sky package had a subscription to some adult channels too. They were PIN number protected by Graham. He thought I didn’t know about it, the subscription came out of his current account. I think Graham thought I was stupid. I knew the PIN number too – Graham had set it as his birthday, but backwards, which I assume he thought was brilliantly devious and clever. Sometimes I would flick to those channels and watch the young girls writhe about on tacky beds covered in crinkled shiny plastic, their red-lined mouths contorted in fake ecstasy. They didn’t wear much; G-strings clinging tightly to their shaven fannies, and pulled tight up behind into their shadowy backsides. It was strange to think that men found this convoluted posturing to be a turn-on. What was so attractive about a woman crooking her finger in a preposterous come-hither manner, whilst shaking her bosom from side to side, or flapping her buttock fat up and down?

  It was hard to tell if the girls were in any way exploited by it all. Maybe they were students trying to alleviate the pressure of the large debts that university attendance seemed to bring, or perhaps they were just girls who needed or wanted the money. It was better than selling their bodies on the streets, I guess. I wondered how much they were paid to bare their young bodies, and I wondered how they felt about the men who watched, all those sad middle-aged men beating off in front of a television whilst a girl who was half their age pranced around in front of a camera. Perhaps they felt nothing at all, perhaps it was just an easy way of earning money.

  I caught Graham watching one time. It was late at night and I had come downstairs for a drink of water – I had a pounding headache, I used to get a lot of migraines. I still get them, just not so often these days. But they’re bad when they happen. Like a rusty screwdriver being dug into my forehead, then slowly twisted around, and then pushed in some more. Anyway, I needed a glass of water and some painkillers. The tablets didn’t ease the pain that much, but I was grateful for the smallest respite.

  The television was on and I assumed Graham had fallen asleep in front of it, like he usually did, he would sprawl his head backwards with his hairy nostrils flaring and snorting. But he wasn’t asleep. He was sat upright on the sofa, his fading, grey jogging bottoms pooled around his feet - the ones with a large ragged hole on one knee. They should have been thrown out ages ago. He was staring at the screen, where a willowy blonde was pushing up her surgically-enhanced breasts and licking her own nipples. Graham was stroking himself and I could see a box of tissues next to him on the sofa. He turned slowly towards me, a look of bewildered fear on his face, and I turned away sharply towards the sideboard. I pretended to ruffle in the drawers, muttering ‘now where are those pills’ as if I didn’t know he was there, as if I thought the pills that were always in the kitchen would suddenly magic themselves into the lounge sideboard, as if I couldn’t hear him pulling up his jogging bottoms and thrusting the tissues under a cushion. I waited another second, hearing the click of the remote control.

  ‘Oh, right, oh, I must have fallen asleep. Huh, well I guess I’ll blame that on Newsnight,’ he said. His face was bright red.

  ‘Well, you will insist on watching those boring programmes,’ I replied, and I could hear Graham coughing nervously. We both knew I had seen what he was doing, but neither of us was prepared to admit it. We both felt the cringing embarrassment, although it didn’t seem fair that I did. We never spoke of it again, and now, whenever I had to come downstairs late and Graham wasn’t in bed, I would step loudly on the stairs, and I would yawn or cough.

  I scanned the movies and settled on a romantic comedy. Light and fluffy, it would pass the time, and it didn’t go on too late. I wanted to be in bed before Graham came home.

  ***

  The sound of Graham brushing his teeth woke me. I swore silently into the pillow, knowing that I would remain awake for a few hours now. Once Graham had started snoring, I would flick my bedside lamp on and read for a bit. Graham always brushed his teeth too vigorously, the noise was like cat scratches down a post. Worse still was the antiseptic mouthwash. I could hear the glug as the cap of the mouthwash bottle was filled – he was annoyingly precise about the measurement of the mouthwash, and I had never understood why, it’s not like a little bit less or a little bit more was going to make any difference – then he sucked it in through his teeth. I hated that sound. Uncle Peter used to make that sound, he used to suck back the saliva when...I closed my eyes and tried to get back to sleep.

  Chapter 4

  For once, the weather forecast had been spot on. The storm had hit with a vengeance, unleashing its wrath across the island.

  I was standing on a large rock to the west of the Corbière lighthouse. The lighthouse had stood proudly on the southwest corner of Jersey for over 130 years, its concrete shell proudly withstanding the battering of four daily tides. I remembered a teacher, on a school visit, told us that Corbière translated as ‘the place where crows congregate’, which always seemed ironic given that the place was dominated by seagulls. There was a flock of seagulls now, sat imperiously on the rock, arrogant in their ability to withstand the fierce wind. I tried to think what you called a group of crows, it wasn’t a c
ongregation of crows...maybe a parliament...

  This was one of my favourite places in the island. I loved it here, especially on a windy day, when the swells lifted the white horses proudly into the air, and the raspy sting of seawater blasted my face. There was no better spot in the island to view the power of the sea as it flexed its salty muscle. It made everything else in life seem so small, so insignificant, the ocean put things in their rightful perspective. There were powerful people littered through history who believed themselves to be strong, superior, masters of the universe, gods even. But they were nothing, nothing when compared to the monstrous majesty of the sea. It was at its brutal finest right now.

  Spray soaked my face, and I licked my lips. Wind flapped viciously at my coat and pushed at my back, threatening to topple me from the rock into the foamy scum below. I breathed deeply, relishing the loneliness. The weather was unpleasant to most, and it was a weekday, so everyone was at work or at home, tucked into their cosy, heated boxes, missing nature’s show.

  Then I noticed a man clambering across the rocks nearby. I squinted behind him, at the direction he had come from and saw his car parked at the side of the road. At the beginning of the number plate was a red ‘H’, signalling that it was a hire car. A solitary tourist. H e was walking towards me, but he wasn’t looking at me. A pair of binoculars swung from his neck and he was gazing up at the foreboding sky. A birdwatcher then...a twitcher. People laughed at them sometimes, pigeon-holing their hobby alongside trainspotting, but that was wrong. ‘Please don’t put the birdwatchers in a pigeon-hole’, I said to myself. My laugh was whipped away by the wind. I liked birds, I loved to watch them as they soared on the swirls and eddies of thermal currents, they always seemed to embody the ultimate freedom. I wished I was a bird sometimes.