Mia turned off the living room right and headed for the front door. She smiled to herself, it had been a successful day, several couples had viewed the property, and she felt certain an offer would be coming in first thing tomorrow. She reached for the hallway light switch and then noticed a light coming from one of the bedrooms upstairs.
"Could've sworn I turned them all off," she muttered and gripped the wooden handrail to start climbing the stairs. A dull thud from a room above stopped her in her tracks. Could one of the couples still be upstairs? The noise has sounded like someone dropping something hollow onto the bare floorboards. She listened for the sound of talking or movement, but the house was empty and still.
"Hello, " She called up the stairs, "Is someone still up there? I'm just locking up now. The open house day is finished." Her pulse was racing, and she was aware that the only sound she could hear was her own heavy breathing.
From the corner of her eye, she saw a movement on the top stair, and backlit by the upstairs light was an elderly man, quite tall, wearing glasses and a puzzled expression. But something was wrong. As she scanned the figure, the agent realised that she could see that the light shone through the old man. There was a translucent quality to him.
She stumbled backwards and then made for the front door, dropping her remaining property brochures on the bare hallway floor. She fumbled with the lock, not daring to turn around in case the old man, the ghost, had started moving towards her. Once outside, she slammed the door behind her and ran.
"You saw me? Come back, I know you saw me." Herbert called after her, then started to follow her and then stopped where he stood at the bottom of the stairs. Did he really want to frighten the poor woman any more than he just had? Despondent, Herbert Lonsdale realised he was once again alone.
He walked through the empty shell that had been his home, once filled with furniture, family, and laughter, now filled only with memories of all those things. He looked at a lightened patch of carpet in the living room, remembering his old brown leather armchair that once sat there, the chair he had sat in for so many years. Sat on with all four of his children, all daughters, reading to them, their faces full of imagination. So long ago now though.
He touched the discoloured patches of wallpaper where photos of his wife and family had once hung. He would give anything to see those photos again.
But his mind kept returning to the estate agent. How had it happened? How had she seen him?
Herbert waited patiently on a bench close to his house the next morning, the house he had lived in for forty years, and had left to die at the hospital just six months before.
He was in a state of shock and had met Mike outside the hospital shortly after his death. Mike has taken him under his wing and tried to help him come to terms with his new existence and show him the things he had learned since his own death. Mike explained that not everyone was there waiting for them after they passed over, he did not know why. Mike had never seen a family member or friend since the day he died, just the occasional fellow spirit who seemed as lost as he was. Herbert had met Mike most days since, or every day he could remember. Herbert did not sleep, but there were blank spaces in his consciousness. Some days felt like a full day. Other times were moments of alertness, snatches of sunlight, or darkness.
Mike arrived around twenty minutes after Herbert. As he approached, Herbert could see Mike's usually cheery face was looking glum. Unlike Herbert, Mike had not succumbed to old age but had been in a car accident, and one side of his face still showed the damage from the accident. It had taken Herbert a few times of meeting before he could stop feeling like he was staring or trying too hard to avoid looking at it. Mike had shown Herbert such kindness when he needed it most.
"You're always so early, Herbert." Mike smiled, "For people like us, all we have is time."
"It's part of who I am, I suppose, like also still wearing glasses?" He pointed to the grey frames on his elderly wrinkled face, "I don’t suppose I need them anymore, but It's just part me." Herbert smiled.
They sat on the bench together, Herbert was itching to tell Mike his news, but Herbert sensed Mike had something pressing to talk about too.
"I saw my wife the other day," said Mike finally, the sad look returning to his face, "Well, she's not my wife now, till death us do part and all that. She's his wife now." Mike spat the last few words out.
"How long has she been remarried?”
"Two years, and I guess I've been gone for five now. I know I should let it go. Let her go. But I’m just not ready. I just thought it would take her longer to move on," he sighed, "Never mind me, Herbert, what's new with you?"
"Someone saw me yesterday; the estate agent saw me!" Herbert was still surprised.
"That's incredible!” Mike looked stunned too, “I don't think anyone has ever noticed me. What happened?"
"Well, she ran away. I scared her, I suppose." Herbert sighed. "I'm used to not being seen, but I never expected I’d scare anyone. That’s hard to take."
"I bet it is. If only the living knew we are scared too, of never being seen again, and of other ghosts, present company accepted," he nodded at Herbert, “but mostly of still not having all the answers. At every stage of my life, I thought I would eventually find a meaning for it all. When I was a boy, I thought I would have the answers when I grew up to be a man. Then I thought maybe when I had experienced more of life, I would gain wisdom. Then, if there was something after life, maybe I would finally find all the answers there. But here we are, and there are no answers, and no wisdom gained, just the relentlessness of carrying on."
"I've never looked too hard for answers. My girls were always my reason, which was enough for me. But the point I was trying to make was that if the agent could see me, then maybe my Sally could see me too."
"Maybe she could. But, if you go to see Sally, you may have to face you-know-who again," Mike had a fearful look on his face.
Since his death, Herbert had only seen a few other ghosts. A lady walking her dog around the duck pond in the park, who would not talk to him, a young boy who sat alone on the swings at the park, his new friend Mike, and the one ghost he did not like to think about. A dark presence on the stairs outside his daughter’s flats that had made him turn and run the only time he had tried to visit his daughter. He has never intended to visit again due to the fear he felt before, he had hoped that Sally would eventually come to find him, or see the house, but now he knew it was possible for him to be seen, even if meant facing that ghost again, he knew he had to try.
After he died, his children gathered at his house, sorting through the furniture and ornaments that were the remains of his life. As Herbert watched them bicker over the smallest items, he wanted to scream, "Look after each other. None of those things are important."
All his children had come to the house except Sally. He heard her other siblings say that visiting the house would be too much for Sally, that she was not ready for a final goodbye to the house she had grown up in, Herbert thought about this as he pondered his next move.
Herbert set off early the next day, Sally’s flat was across the other side of the town in a self-contained block. On his journey, he passed a couple of people, a mother and a baby, and Herbert noticed the baby was looking directly at him. This filled Herbert with joy and further motivation to try to see Sally.
By the time Herbert reached her block of flats, though, he was filled with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension.
He walked through the glass-panelled block entrance door, and towards the stairs cautiously. Walking up the first few stairs, though, he could already sense the spirit’s oppressive presence up ahead, a weight hanging in the air. He continued onwards, his footsteps growing heavier with each step.
On reaching the third floor and turning onto the walkway, he saw her. She was the size of an average person, but where the defined edges of her body shape should be, was a blackness, a density. Her eyes were burning, a swirling red mass that Herbert felt could see through him, see into his very existence. Herbert tried to move his feet, but they seemed rooted to the spot. Was this fear? All he knew was that the pressure building inside of him was becoming unbearable. The ghostly figure started to move towards him the pressure building in his head with every step she took, and Herbert cowered against the concrete walkway with his hands over his face and whimpering,
"Please don't hurt me, please. I just need to see my daughter."
He braced himself to feel an impact or pain and felt a rushing wind swirling around him like a tornado, and then it was silent. Herbert opened his eyes cautiously and found he was alone.
Slowly, he got to his feet and climbed the last few flights of steps, the feeling of an impending attack now gone.
As Herbert passed through Sally's front door, he stopped for a moment and saw on the sideboard a photo of him and Sally taken at Brighton beach when she was eight, eating ice creams, both with the same grins on their faces. Nothing had mattered in that moment.
From the kitchen, he could hear his daughter talking, he assumed on the phone, as he could not hear another voice. She was laughing.
“I’ll be there. Look, if my sisters are cooking for me, I’ll be there.” She laughed, and the phone beeped as she ended the call. Herbert turned the corner and saw her, 40 years older than she had been in the photo, but still his little girl.
As she started to turn around, Herbert felt nervous. What if she could not see him? What if she could see him but screamed? He did not want to scare her, just to see her, just to say goodbye. He had not realised how much he needed to say goodbye until that moment.
He saw that she was looking directly at him. She did not scream or run. But simply said “Dad.”
She walked over calmly and reached out her hand to where his face would have been. He could almost feel the warmth from her skin against his cheek, and her looked into her eyes as she smiled.
Herbert felt a tingling sensation building inside him from his core. Was this feeling acceptance that he knew suddenly that Sally, that his family, would be ok? Was this feeling love? he knew that both things were true. He realised that the most important thing was that his girls were not alone, they all had each other. He did not know where, if anywhere, he would be going next, but as he started to slowly dissolve away Herbert Lonsdale felt totally at peace.
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