The Man in Black: A Ghost Story (2 page)

If the horror had a beginning, then it began on the second weekend I moved in. It was Sunday, and the snow had fallen harder than usual. Outside, the morning sky was black and the smell of cooking was strong. Before then, I’d never seen the elderly couple who lived above me. I assumed they were of old age because of how quiet they’d been. I first saw them in the yard together, shoveling a pathway in the snow. They both had hair of the purest silver and wore matching brown cardigans. I decided to help. I put on my coat and my boots and pulled a scarf tight around my neck, grabbing a dustpan on the way out of the back door.

The snow had made its way into the alleyway already. I scraped through the thick of it with the toe of my boot and met the back of the old couple outside. The sky was pregnant with more snowfall, and so I decided to cough up first, not missing an opportunity to get my greetings firmly over and done with.

The old man turned around first.

“Wey look at you, ‘ere,” he said, a smile on his face. “The young lass from upstairs, is it? You do look lovely.”

“Alright there?” I asked, nervously.

“Aye, aye.”

The old woman next to him turned around a little slower, as if it took her longer to process. She smiled all the same.

“Eee, howa’ you, pet?”

“Not bad, thanks. I thought you needed a hand so I - ”

“These old hands canny’ do a lot these days, sweetheart. Come ‘ere and give us a hand,” the man said.

I started to shovel and heap up the snow with the dustpan. A cold sweat poured.

“Hopefully we don’t get anymore, ey?” I said, breathless.

“Wey, hopefully not. What’s your name?” the old man asked.

“Anne,” I replied. “Anne Davies.”

“Name’s John, and this is Violet,” he said, nodding to his wife.

“You’re not from ‘round ‘ere are you? Far too well off for that,” John said. “Out from Durham, aye?”

“Aye, but I’m not all that; I still call mam, mam, and I live ‘ere, so it’s not all good. Shouldn’t complain, though.”

“Nar, shouldn’t complain,” he grunted.

Violet stopped shoveling and threw down her spade.

“Eee, the dog,” she said. “I’ll go get ‘is food out the pan.”

She wandered off up the steps to the door above mine. There was no rail to hold onto, and so she grabbed the brickwork with her hands and made the best of it. Her hands looked cold; thin and bony, like tissue paper. They reminded me of my dad. how his hands had softened as he grew more tired and weary with illness.

“She’s just off to get the bowl an’ the food for the old’un who comes,” John said, growing more and more tired of breath. “We do our best to keep the yard clear for ‘im.”

“You have a dog?”

“Nar, but one does come ‘ere.”

“What’s its name?”

“Don’t ‘av one, but you’re welcome to name ‘im.”

I thought about Red, how his final moments had been ones of both catharsis as well as of fear. It took him a while to die, apparently. The gunshot wound hit deep, and I still remember seeing his bloodied white coat after his passing, his eyes tightly shut and his fur stinking. We buried Red in the back garden of our cottage, coffin and all. A circle of grey pebbles marked his resting place. My dad never wanted him replaced.

“I had a dog once,” I said, John now resting against the yard wall. “He was called Red, shot down by a farmer.”

John shook his head, disgusted.

“No way to treat an animal, shoulda’ shot the farmer,” he said, looking up at the sky and its heavy belly.

“My dad did,” I said. “Shot him later on, but no one knew.”

He nodded his head and smiled, clamping his lips together. I wasn’t sure why I told him that. John made me feel comfortable, and I thought that perhaps it was his old age. The elderly have that way about them. In some ways he reminded me of my dad. A calmness surrounded him and Violet, like they’d seen too much to care anymore. I liked that.

I kept on shoveling the last of the snow. Most of it was now just a heap at the bottom of the yard, dirty and grey.

Violet came back down, a red bowl in one hand and a white plate in the other. The plate was heaped full of goodness, bits of fat and gristle, probably pork, potatoes and veg, and even gravy. Water splashed about in the bowl.

“An’ ‘ere we go,” Violet said. “For the little boy an’ ‘is little belly.”

She bent down and placed the food and the water down by the gate.

“So he comes every day for it?” I asked.

“Just Sunday’s,” John replied. “Without fail, every Sunday.”

“He comes in through the hole,” Violet said, pointing at a small hole in the wall on the other side of the yard. “Little’un, a terrier.”

“Where does he come from?” I enticed.

“Just a stray,” John replied. He put his sleeve to his mouth and coughed.

Violet looked over, concerned. She walked to him and patted his back a little, but he shrugged her off and calmed down.

“He’s not that good these days,” she said. “A bita’ cold in ‘im.”

“Am alright, lass, just abita’ cold, nothin’ some bacon wouldn’t harm.”

I was going to mention my work down at the butchers, but -

“None for you, an’ that’s it,” Violet said, a tone of insistence raw and pure in her tiring voice. “Stew’ll do.”

John grunted.

“Takes me back to me youth it does, good food an’ bacon ‘an that,” he said. “Me childhood was all that an’ nothin’ more, just honest food.”

“Does you no good these days, love,” Violet said. “A warm belly of tea’ll do, now shut it up.”

The pair laughed. I grinned and was about to wrap up our conversation when I heard a rustling behind me.

There was the dog, small and thin and soaking wet. His little ears were down and his tail stood stiff in the air, shaking beneath the harshness of winter. He was hesitant before me, but John and Violet threw out their arms and enticed him close, bending down and patting their thighs.

“Come on, you,” they both said, smiles as wide as I’d ever seen before.

The terrier eased forward, his shaggy ginger coat brushed against the breeze. His tail wagged slightly as he approached and his nose hung upon the air, sniffing at the smell of food. He spotted the bowls instantly, familiar of their place.

“Water first,” Violet said. “Always water.”

She was right. The dog lapped up the water first, almost drinking the whole bowl. Then he went for the food, swallowing it fast without biting. The poor lad was starving. His skin barely stretched over his protruding ribcage. Sores collected around his knees and his ears, crisp with dry blood. Mud clung to his tail.

“We’d take ‘im in, but he doesn’t want to be upstairs,” John said. “He likes to be out, but he does sit outside your door sometimes.”

“Does he not have a home? How old is he?” I asked.

“No idea, lovely,” muttered up Violet. “We do our best.”

The dog tucked his tail between his legs and finished up his food. He turned around to look at me, then peered behind me at the back door. His tongue flopped out and he panted, sitting back for a pet. I walked forward, fist out first, and stroked his little head, running my hands through his thick coat. He loved it, and even John and Violet stood back and smiled in admiration.

He just wouldn’t stop staring at that door.

“Shame you canny’ take ‘im in,” John laughed.

“I can’t. I’m working through the week, and food is a bit expensive,” I said, feeling guilty. “If only, though.”

They both accepted it, nodding.

Once the dog had gotten his fuss over and done with he went off through the hole in the wall. His hind leg limped as he pranced off, I noticed. It was his left.

I probably could’ve taken him in, but with his coat so dirty and his temperament so nervous I didn’t want to risk it. Plus, I didn’t have enough to look after his injuries, let alone feed him well. I felt ashamed, but if what John and Violet had said was true then he’d be back the following Sunday. What he got up to in between, I didn’t want to think about too much.

“An’ he’s off,” they both said.

The sky above started to blacken and the evening began to spill in eerily. Somewhere afar a thunder roared, and it was moving in fast. I felt some rain hit my face, and then a premature snowflake.

“Time to get in,” John said. “Have to wrap up them cold shoulders, aye?”

I smiled. “Aye.”

John turned away and made for the steps. He looked back one time.

“Lovely seeing you,” he said. “Lovely.”

He disappeared above.

Violet moved in closer, placing her old hands on my arm.

“An educated girl with a bright future, you are, love,” Violet said, almost sympathetic looking. “I can tell, so get out an’ live life as you meant it.”

She turned away and joined her husband above, slamming the door shut, shutting out the oncoming storm with it.

I had questions in my head. Some about the dog, some about John and Violet. I put them aside and looked up at the cumulus clouds, floating lazily. I thought about the dog. Where would it shelter? How would it keep dry? Perhaps someone took it in come the darkness of night. Perhaps not.

I was about to go back inside when I felt a shiver run down my neck, sharp and precise like the scratching of a fingernail.

Behind me, watching.

I turned around but there was nothing, just a swirling, grieving wind and a heap of snow. The hole in the wall stared down at me like some guilty reminder. I looked into the alley but only the spades left behind by John and Violet stood, wet with the melting snow.

I went inside, locking the back door and pulling down the nets behind me, lighting some pillar candles on my way into the sitting room. Outside, the storm kicked up and the wind howled full of sound for the very first time. The spades collapsed with a
clash.

That same evening, once I’d undressed down to my underwear and soaked my cold feet in a warm bucket of water, I lit the stove and fried up some supper. Though the walls and the ceilings of my flat were cold, made colder by the lack of soft floors and hung-up painted vistas, the warmth from the stove grew big and fierce and warmed the room well. The smell of bacon fat circulated, and I couldn’t help but smile to myself at the thought of John and Violet soaking up the smell of their childhood from upstairs, grin-faced and warm with tea. I thought I could smell their cooking, but perhaps not. The elderly rarely eat late.

But then, after the food was gone and the warmth had stooped, the night crept in a little darker than it had been at twilight and the room suddenly felt a little colder. I decided to turn in. I slipped out of my bra and pulled some blankets over my shoulders, then settled into rest.

The night came as silent as it always did. No wind blew. The storm had disappeared as quickly as it had stirred up.

I slept through the night and into the next evening, undisturbed.

I awoke to bitterness. Outside, the snow had fallen again, and the walls and ceilings of my room had grown moist with damp and droplets of water. I wrapped the blankets around my naked waist and lit the stove. It was Monday, and I’d missed a shift at the butchers. I didn’t think much of it, but thought more of the state of the kitchen. Pans lay scattered across the floor, cupboard doors were open, and the lightbulb above the front door swung. It was as if someone had rearranged my life overnight, as if I had meant to sleep for so long. I gathered the pots up off the floor and put them away, then turned around to face the kitchen window.

It was then that I saw Him for the first time.

A face at the pane, undefined and ageless, but very much that of a man. His elderly face, cut deep in wrinkles, stared firmly. Blood foamed at the sides of His lips; I could see clearly that something had cut Him, it was deep and unmistakably a gaping wound. His thin, bony fingers pressed at the glass and His eyes looked sunken in His skull, dark and buried. His black collar blew, but there was no wind. Everything was silent. It was as if He was One with nature. Snowflakes fell around Him like ash. He looked like the centerpiece of a poorly taken photograph; hazy and out of focus, nothing more than a chill in the air, an immovable aura.