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Ghost
In the end sleeplessness took over. I moved around the house followed by the ghost. When I looked out the window
of the back room, I saw lights across the harbour and then with a jolt my reflection in the glass, a pale man looking
at me from outside. The 6.50 passed by, late. In the hallway I found a strange hat near the phone and a bicycle with
a black saddle and black, metallic frame leaning against the hallstand.
When I went into the kitchen the normal breakfast things were waiting to be consumed; bread, jam, raisins, tea,
rain hissing in the trees, if not rain, wind, and the birds crying in the cold. What possibilities are open to
you now, the voice said? What is your destiny? Do you really want to live like this, already the ghost of
yourself? There was a napkin on the table with red flowers in it and a beer mat advertising Murphy's Irish Stout.
There were photographs on the back of the door and a framed print of a wild West Cork scene on the wall.
The place was shipshape though there was a dirty frying pan on the stove.
The house once throbbed with guests. The larder was full of drink to entertain them. Ring the bell and open
the door. There was talk of spinnakers and booms here, ladies from the tennis club. We had engineers and tax
inspectors. There was a barrister. He had a heated discussion with a union negotiator while making love to
the vol au vents. It was very civilised; drinks, crackers, cheese, olives. They spoke about trips to Portugal
and France. The barrister recalled an encounter with a puta, his mouth full of creamy mushroom sauce.
He repeated the words Geronimo and Eureka and the expression more power to your elbow when the wine kicked in.
I imagined him with the puta, a Portuguese lady, his hair all dishevelled shouting Geronimo.
Fish is cheaper than meat, the ghost said. The problem is I hate the way it sticks to the frying pan.
I remember Christmas, all the family for turkey. The children cycled around the hall on new tricycles.
There were women in every room. They controlled the kitchen and listened to Mr. Horlocks telling his tale
of woe in the dining room, a life more than touched by tragedy.
The ghost suggested that I buy a new frying pan. Maybe the fish wouldn't stick to it. The sky was clouded
over at the edges, a touch of vanilla in a light blue centre. The tide was in, the surface lightly corrugated
by the breath of an easterly beast. When the tide is out the birds make a beautiful racket on the mud flats
indifferent to the lonesome exhalation of the foghorn. A ship silently edges towards the ocean, the harbour in its wake.
These rooms where noisy females reigned, are still now. In the front parlour, people danced and cheered as
they welcomed in the New Year with party blowers and the pop of champagne corks. Ladies shrieked and men cackled.
I remember a lovely girl up on the shoulders of her boyfriend during the countdown. Everyone cheered and clinked
glasses. When I went into the kitchen to get ice, Mr. Horlocks was weeping quietly at the kitchen table and an
Andalucian visitor had her arms around him in a big, breasty embrace.
Time falls rapidly like rain into the tide. Two swans flew by the front window. It was a spectacular sight.
I felt in communion with them, out over the water on heavy wings.
I am in communion with swans, half here, half somewhere unknown, something from the heavens calling,
voices from space playing tricks on me. Do you know what a worm hole is? What is dark energy? These
are not questions the ant asks. He asks no questions at all. I don't understand quantum physics but
I wonder where every day and every minute goes, clutching at straws, entertaining the ghost and faces
looking in the window, gazing at the stars for some kind of signal, listening for a voice that might
impart a superior knowledge?
There is a room in the house where a child plays with an entourage of friends; one-eyed Blarney and split-sided Cobi,
Rodney Racoon and Aladdin, Jack Frost and a duck he calls Doland.
Not knowing what else to do I ask the ghost to come along the hallway to the under stairs closet,
help me rummage around in there to see if any of them are to be found, even Rodney Racoon or Doland
Duck would suffice? The ghost's laughter echoes around the house, resounds against the kitchen window
where the yellow face in the glass is also amused.
Edward Mc Whinney lives in Cork, Ireland. He has had stories published online most recently at Juked, Word Riot, Fiction on the Web
and Contrary Magazine where there is an index of his work.
Email: Edward Mc Whinney
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