Burial

33

He left the garage door hanging open like a broken limb; perhaps Bob would suspect local kids of breaking in. He threw the bolt cutters into the thick bushes and walked back to the car. He started the engine then spun the wheels up to 60 miles an hour, screeching to a halt at the lights.

He tapped the steering wheel, waiting for people to cross the road.

Pulling away, he drove less aggressively. He didn't want to get arrested. He drove around the corner to Bob's flat and parked outside, across the road. Then he walked to the pub.

Outside, he paused to straighten his tie. Then he walked into its familiar fug, convincingly flustered and breathless.

Bob was hunched over a table, reading The Times.

Nathan sat down, saying, 'Blimey.'

He loosened his tie.

'Fuck have you been?'

'I've got a life, Bob. I've got a mortgage to pay.'

Bob nodded at a pint of lager sitting on the table opposite him. 'I got them in.'

Nathan watched bubbles unlatch themselves from the base of the lager glass, leaping for the unknown surface. He took a sip. He wanted to smash the pint glass on the edge of the table and grind the remains into Bob's face.

He said, 'Look. We can't talk here. Let's go back to your place.'

'I thought my place scared you.'

'Not at all.'

Bob grinned, knowing the lie.

'Shall we finish these?'

'Fine,' said Nathan, and downed his pint in seven or eight gulps.

Bob watched him, then raised his glass.

'One more. Same again. Your round.'

So Nathan got them in.

After the pub, they stopped off at an off-licence. Nathan bought a bottle of whisky, eight cans of Guinness, cigarettes. Then he and Bob trudged home.

They paused in the stone doorway of the Victorian mansion block, overgrown with weeds and wet, black trees. Bob dangled his house keys from an index finger: made them dance.

'Are you sure?'

'About what?'

'Going inside.'

Nathan tutted and followed Bob into the mouldy, darkened hallway.

The light was on a timer; halfway down to Bob's flat, it turned off. Nathan and Bob stood while their eyes adapted to the sudden dark. Sounds of their breathing, the clinking of the whisky bottle in the carrier bags.

Bob went down. He found his keys and opened the door. Pale light sneaked into the stairwell. Nathan went down, into the bedsit.

He walked straight to the kitchenette and broke the seal on the bottle of Macallans.

Bob told him, 'Use water. I finished the ice.'

So Nathan poured whisky into two cloudy tumblers. Topped them up with a dash of water from the tap.

They sat down.

Bob nursed his glass. 'Can you feel her?'

Nathan said, 'No.' Swirling the whisky, he said: 'For years after it happened, I thought she was there. But she wasn't, Bob.'

Bob drained his drink and stumbled to the kitchenette to pour himself another, no water. He wandered back to his seat, clutching the bottle. He looked blue-jowled and exhausted.

Nathan glanced at the reel-to-reel tape recorder and said, 'You're going through exactly what I went through. You're just going through it a bit later, that's all. You were able to cope with . . .'

His voice fell. He was too aware of the way it echoed from the low ceiling.

'.. . you were able to cope with it first time round. I don't know the proper word for it, the doctor's word for it. But you buried it. Do you know what I mean? You buried it. And now it's all bubbling to the surface.'

'To haunt me.'

'Yeah.'

'So, it's all in my mind?'

'It's all in your mind.'

Nathan watched Bob struggling to light a cigarette, then went to examine the books, as if it were a CD collection. Breakthrough! Life After Death: the Truth. Whispers From Beyond. Grave Secrets.

'I thought you'd've given this stuff up years ago.'

Bob grinned secretly into his glass.

'No.'

Someone whispered into Nathan's ear.

He stepped away from the bookshelves, away from the reel-to-reel recording machine.

'What does that mean - no ?'

Bob's smile widened into a grin, and the grin widened into a leer.

'Come on.'

Nathan had a feeling in his stomach.

'What?'

'The dark woods,' said Bob. 'The running water. Lovers' lane.'

'Bob, I'm not sure what you're telling me here.'

'The thing about ghosts; you go looking for one, you're already contaminating the data - by looking here and not there, choosing this site over that one. You're not being objective.'

'Ghosts aren't real, Bob. They don't exist.'

'One of your most common forms of haunting, it's actually the roadside ghost. In England, anyway. Usually it's the shade of a young woman. She died violently, after sex. She's been buried on unhallowed ground. Usually between a road and a river.'

The strength drained from Nathan's legs.

Bob was saying: 'For years, I thought I'd cocked it up. I used to scan the papers, to see if something had been reported by the road Way. Phantom hitch-hiker. Anything like that. I used to drive down the lane - twice a week, in the early days. But there was nothing.'

I don't think I understand what you're saying.'

"I thought she'd haunt the woods.'

'Who?'

'But it was us. She stayed with us.'

'Bob, what did you do ?'

They stayed like that for a while. Until Bob said: 'I was trying to make a ghost.'

Nathan dropped his glass.

It rolled on the carpet. Its base described an arc. Nathan and Bob fixed their eyes on it and watched until it had stopped.