Nobody True (15 page)

The digression was quickly over with and my thoughts returned to the house’s emptiness. And that was when at last I heard the small sniffling sounds, then the murmur of a soft, soothing voice. Andrea’s voice, Prim’s sniffles. I hadn’t heard them until now because I was too out of my mind with anxiety to take in much else.

I moved fast. I walked or glided, I don’t know which, through the open door to my left, following the sounds. They were sitting cuddled together on the long sofa in the lounge, arms entwined round each other, Prim’s small head buried into her mother’s chest. It was such a heart-rending sight that my own eyes stung with tears.

I rushed to them and tried to smother them in my embrace, but of course, there was no contact, only an unintended sinking into their flesh. I pulled away, startled, even though by now I should have known what could happen. But I’d been caught off guard and I guess, under the circumstances, it was understandable. I backed off: the utter misery I’d partially absorbed from them was even worse than my own. I could only gaze at them.

While journeying through the streets, and even as early as back there in the hotel suite, I’d been aware of a kind of fuzziness around individuals, shallow halos that had not quite impressed themselves upon me enough to give them any thought—let’s face it, I’d had plenty to think about at the time. When I inadvertently got too close to people (and remember I was doing my best to avoid them) I could see those halos more clearly, softish, but often bright vignettes surrounding each figure. I had accepted that these were each person’s aura* and I had neither the time nor inclination to give it further consideration. Now I was witnessing it around my wife and daughter, a miserable dull grey that was dense in places. At this time I was not strongly attuned to the phenomenon, but it was definitely present and somehow it revealed their depths of misery even more clearly than Prim’s sniffles and Andrea’s tears. Obviously they’d been told the dreadful news and by the state they were in it must have been some time ago, because there was no hysteria in their grief, and no denial either, only resigned, sorrowful acceptance. It seemed they had come to terms with the reality of my death already, although I suspected that the full, unexpected horror of it would crush them again and again over the next few weeks, perhaps the next few months. If I’d had a heart, it would have bled for them, but as things were, I could only join in their pain.

*You’ve probably heard of Kirlian photography, by which rays emitted by any living thing are recorded on film. The process reveals that we are all surrounded by a kind of high-frequency electric field whose colour range or level of brightness can indicate a person’s state of health or wellbeing. Tumours and diseases, as well as damage to certain parts of the body, can be detected by the dullness or unhealthy murkiness of certain patches in the field. This “halo” can also be influenced by moods and imbalances of the mind.

Andrea was repeating the same soft mantra to Prim: “It’s all right, baby, Daddy just passed away, he didn’t feel a thing.”

It seemed that, wisely, the whole story was being kept from Primrose, and I was grateful for that. I mean, how do you tell a little seven-year-old girl that her father was murdered and mutilated in the worst possible way by some sick maniac? Which words do you use? I prayed right there and then that she would never be told the full truth, not even when she was a grown woman.

I dropped to my knees on the plush carpet and whispered that I loved them both and that I had not left, I was still around, that I’d find some way to let them know.

What? Haunt my own family? Had disembodiment driven me crazy so soon? I’d seen the mangled state of my corpse. There was no coming back. But there had to be a way of making myself known. It happened in movies didn’t it? What was that big hit several years ago, the one with Whoopi Goldberg and the two actors whose stars never rose as high again? The one where the husband or boyfriend is murdered but comes back and contacts his girlfriend through a medium. Ghost, that was it. Yeah, big hit at the time, but hardly rated at all in retrospect. Okay, that was pure Hollywood, but grieving widows and widowers visited mediums all the time, searching for some word from their lost loved ones. I’d always thought that that kind of thing was hokum, sheer nonsense, the greedy feeding off the needy, but hey, today I was clutching at straws. I’d try anything to make my family aware that I was okay, not the same, but generally okay. I know it was desperation, but I just could not bear their suffering. I had to do something.

I knelt my hands touching but not feeling their shoulders (I was already learning ways to make my condition just a little more tolerable: I’d reach out and touch, and although I made no physical contact by leaving my hands where they would normally have rested on the other person, I imagined I could feel. It was better than nothing).

“Don’t worry for me,” I said as if they could hear. “I’m fine, really. I didn’t feel any pain, I didn’t even know I was going to die.” Maybe it wasn’t helping them, but in a strange way it was helping me. What better way to go than when you’re not there? No suffering, no fear—just, well, just oblivion. Only it wasn’t quite oblivion, was it? No, it was discovery, then fear, this followed by all kinds of angst.

I was about to blubber, so I forced myself to snap out of it. Withdrawing my hands, I got to my feet and made a resolution. There was a reason for my condition and I was going to find out what it was. I was an enigma, a mystery to myself, and I determined to find the answer. And while I was at it, I’d discover a way to contact my precious wife and daughter. Hell, spirits spoke to the living through mediums all the time, didn’t they?

Unfortunately, it was precisely at that point that Andrea gently nudged Primrose away from her and said: “I have to phone Nanny True, darling. I have to let her know about Daddy.”

And my new resolve crashed.

While I hadn’t felt close to Mother for many years now (if ever, in fact), the grief I knew my sudden death would cause her almost overwhelmed me with sadness. What’s the old Chinese saying? The torment of the gods is for your children to die before you. It goes something like that. Anyway, that day I understood the adage perfectly. Despite her detachedness, she would be devastated at losing a second man in her life, my father being the first (despite her apparent disdain of him, there had to have been some love at the beginning). She had no close friends—she’d never courted friendship, for that matter—and although there was still Andrea and her granddaughter Primrose, she hardly ever saw them before my death, so I was pretty certain she wouldn’t after.

I sat with Prim and tried not to listen to the one-sided conversation coming from the phone. Fortunately, Andrea kept her voice low, only the gravity of its tone reaching Prim and I on the sofa. My daughter had slumped with one cheek pressed against the back of the sofa, her brown eyes glittering with tears. Small catches of breath jerked her chest and shoulders every few seconds and her solitary sobs had become dry with repetition. I’d have given anything to hold and reassure her Daddy was okay, he was right there beside her and feeling no pain—no physical pain, at least. But I had nothing to give. What could a bodiless person possibly possess to give? Even a future was in serious doubt. So I used the new trick I’d learned: I put my arms around her and imagined they were making contact. I whispered loving things into her ear and hoped they would, in some mysterious way, get through to her. Oh God, I could feel her hurt and it was terrible to bear.

Andrea returned and her face was ashen. I saw that she was going to sit in the place I already occupied and I moved away, reluctantly relinquishing my imagined hold on Prim, but just as unwilling to undergo the added trauma of being “invaded” by my wife.

Prim snuggled into her mother’s arms once again and looked up into Andrea’s face. “What… did… Nanny… say?” Each word had had to be forced.

A child’s question and perhaps the only way she could express concern for her grandmother.

Andrea’s reply was as grim as her face was pallid. “Not much,” she said.

Kneeling on the floor in front of them, I let go a deep sigh. No, it was more of a silent groan. I should have known Mother would deal with my death in her own remote way. Any wayward emotion would be kept in check in another’s presence. Maybe she’d burst into tears once she put the phone down. Maybe. I wondered if she had even enquired how I’d died. Well, could be I was judging my mother too harshly, but it had taken a lifetime for that judgement to be formed. Let it go, I told myself without bitterness. Mother was Mother. Her self-preservation took its own line. I returned to my wife and daughter, who had no such hang-ups.

I don’t know how long we remained there in that gloom-laden room, all of us weeping and scarcely moving—it could’ve been an hour or half an hour—but finally it was the sound of a car door slamming on the drive, then the doorbell ringing, that roused us.

Andrea gave Prim one last hug before rising and walking right through me as she went to answer the door. Briefly I felt that now-familiar disorientation as her psyche mixed with mine and misery piled on misery. But I’d also caught a curious hint of anticipation, a kind of reflex lightening of her mood which, while hardly shifting the grief, at least interrupted it for a moment.

I heard the front door open, then a loud sob that came from Andrea. The silence that followed was broken only by a few more muffled sobs. Rising smoothly—at least I had acquired a certain grace of movement in my new state—I went through to the hallway.

Andrea was in Oliver’s arms, one of his hands in her hair, holding her head against his shoulder. His eyes were closed and there was nothing in his expression.

19

I hung around the house for three days—I think (time continued to baffle me)—full of self-pity and anguish for my family. Outside, the weather had turned grey and drizzly, suitable for the general mood, I suppose.

I think I must have been afraid to leave everything that was familiar to me; somehow the contact helped maintain my own reality. Nothing could be mundane for me anymore, but at least the familiar offered a kind of sanctuary.

It was terrible to witness the suffering of my family and I searched for ways of letting my presence be known to them (I wasn’t yet ready to leave the house and find a spiritualist). I tried to move objects, anything from ornaments on the mantelpiece to lace curtains; I spoke directly and loudly into Andrea’s ear; I tried writing my name on a steamed-up bathroom mirror; I willed cups to rattle in saucers; I tried rapping on table-tops, kitchen counters, any hard surface that came to hand. Nothing, though. I made no sound, I caused no disturbance. I could only watch as a stream of visitors offering condolences came to the house—friends, neighbours, and of course my business partners, Oliver (again) and Sydney. Surprisingly, it had been Sydney who had formally identified my body, I learned—eavesdropping was a cinch when you couldn’t be seen. Or maybe it wasn’t surprising after all. It would have killed Andrea to view my mutilated corpse and my mother was out of the question. Oliver? To be honest, I’m not sure how he would have handled it. Badly, I’d guess, given his reaction when he arrived back at the hotel suite to see what was left of me on the bed. Underneath his bravura persona, he was quite a sensitive soul. Despite police suspicion he’d have been an awful choice of murderer. In fact, I think he would have been a disaster as a murderer.

The police came twice, asking the same old questions about dodgy acquaintances and outright enemies, but Andrea had nothing to give. The worst were the Press and television journalists who rang the doorbell night and day—how does it feel to know that your husband was the fourth victim of a serial killer, are you satisfied that the police are doing their job efficiently, do you fear for your own life knowing that the murderer is still at large, do you have photographs of your husband we could take copies of? It was intrusive and it was cruel. I would have done anything in my power to keep them away, but of course, I was helpless. The frustration and the sense of inadequacy were hard to bear.

Eventually, I became restless within myself. I don’t feel I’ve ever been one for self-pity (never much cause before anyway), but I’d indulged too much in the aftermath of my death. Okay, maybe I had good reason, but basically I’ve always been an optimist and it seems to me that death should not necessarily erase the character you’ve developed during your lifetime. It wasn’t exactly optimism that got me moving, though, more like curiosity, a compelling urge to discover more about myself and this dimension in which I existed. Also, I felt the need to find my murderer, and certain ideas were pushing their way through this great fog of misery and woe that had engulfed me.

First things first, though. I had a duty to call in on Mother. All right, it was more than duty—I wanted to see her, she was my only parent, after all. Yes, and I did love her. How can a son not love his mother? I made up my mind to leave my house and visit her. Besides, arrangements for my funeral and kind eulogies from well-meaning visitors (my canonization was due any day, I began to feel) were unsettling. I needed to get into the world again before I turned into a morose, reclusive ghost.

So I bade silent farewells to Andrea and Prim, whom I’d followed around during the day just to be near her (understandably she was being kept away from school for a while), sitting on the floor beside her bed at night when she slept; later I’d drift off to my own bedroom and lie down next to Andrea, throwing an arm over her, imagining I was real and could feel her. Purposefully, I set out into my strange new world.