Ghosts in the Morning

Chapter 3



‘Are you alright, Simon, are you eating okay, have you made any more friends?’

‘Yes, Mum, don’t fuss, it’s all fine. And yes, I’m eating well- a lot of pasta, to be honest, it’s a bit of a staple for most of us students. Quick, easy and cheap. And actually, yes, I’ve met quite a few people. I’ve been hanging out with some friends of John’s – you know John, I mentioned him before, he’s on the same course as me, really nice guy – anyway, we’re going out tonight for a few beers, maybe go to a club.’

‘Well, you be careful, the town can be a bit rough at night.’

‘I know, Mum, I know, look you don’t need to worry, I’m not a kid anymore.’

‘I know that, Simon, I’m just checking everything’s okay, that’s all.’

‘Look, Mum, I’d better go, the lads will be round soon, I’ll speak to you soon, yeah.’

‘Okay, Simon, just be sensib – ’. The dial tone buzzed. I put the phone down on the table and sighed. It rang.

‘Simon?’

‘No, it’s me.’ Graham sounded tense, impatient, but I could detect a hint of hesitancy mixed in with the gruffness. I knew Graham well enough to know that meant a lie was coming, he was never very good at lying. ‘Listen, don’t worry about dinner for me tonight, I’m going to be a bit late.’

‘Do you want me to do something and leave it for you? You can microwave it lat – ’

‘No, no, no, I’ll just grab something from the vending machine at work, I’m not too hungry anyway.’ That meant he was going out for dinner with Nikki. Or she was cooking for him...maybe not, she was too young, too precious to cook, young people didn’t seem to cook so much these days; it was all supermarket convenience meals, with fancy boxes and posh-sounding descriptions trying to disguise the fact that they consisted of cheap factory-processed meats. So, a takeaway maybe, he would find that safer, eliminate the risk of being spotted in a restaurant by someone he knew, Jersey was so small after all...he would keep the takeaway plain – no Indian food – he wouldn’t want to risk the smell of curry on his clothes, on his breath.

‘Okay, well –’ I said, but he’d rung off.

I stood in the centre of the kitchen and looked at the potatoes shivering in a pan of water on the hob. It had taken me over half an hour to peel them. I had thought that Graham and Daniel would be home for tea, but I should have known better than to make that presumption. Daniel was often out these days – with friends, girlfriends, it was hard to know. He didn’t communicate much with me these days, sometimes just an occasional grunt- and Graham was rapidly becoming just as unreliable.

I hadn’t minded peeling the potatoes. I never did. I found it therapeutic, slicing into the thick, leathery skin, shucking off the earthy blemishes that looked to me like liver spots on an old man’s hands. Another pan stood on the hob; carrots and peas floating on a sea of salted water. I had planned to do a home-made chicken kiev, to go with the vegetables and the potatoes. I had been trying to decide how to do the potatoes – roasted whole, or cut into chunky wedges, or maybe even lightly sautéed. I had cut into the cold knobbled skin of the chicken breasts, folding it back and stuffing in the herbed garlic butter. Extra garlic, it was a touch of vindictiveness on my part, to send Graham to the office, stinking of garlic, I had hoped he would breathe it all over that bitch.

I could feel chives under my fingernails...I stared at the raw chicken breasts and reached for a knife. I slowly pierced the greasy skin and watched as the butter seeped from the hole like a suppurating wound, and I thought again of the blood dripping down the man’s face.

Then I carefully picked up the chicken breasts, squeezed them hard, and threw them in the bin.



***



The local evening news did not mention the man’s death. The presenter did talk about a finance company that had closed, with the loss of eighty-four jobs, so perhaps that was more important. They still had time for the weather, though, they always had time for that. The weather forecaster said that tomorrow would see a lot of rain, indeed a heavy storm was ‘very likely’ but they weren’t usually very accurate, so...it wasn’t the usual weather forecaster, instead it was a man called Colin Flood, which I thought was a good example of “nominative determinism”. I had heard about nominative determinism on a game show – one of those erudite BBC2 ones – whereby your name can have an effect on the job that you end up choosing. There had to be some truth in it as I remember flicking through the yellow pages of the phonebook once and spotting a gardener called Matthew Weed.

The usual weather forecaster was a woman called Catherine. Maybe she was on holiday again. She always looked tanned , like she went on a lot of sunny holidays, and she had deep blue eyes that twinkled in her honey-dewed face. Although it could be fake tan I suppose, a lot of women did that these days, though most of them went too far - why anyone thought the colour orange was a good choice of skin colour was beyond me. Catherine seemed very nice, she smiled all the time, and it didn’t look fake, it looked like she really meant it when she said ‘that’s all from me, I hope you all have a lovely evening’.

I didn’t like this forecaster. His smile looked forced, it didn’t reach his eyes, and there were too many teeth in that smile. He reminded me of a cartoon cat leering over a trapped mouse. He was handsome, but in a smug, bland way. Over-confident. Maybe he thought he was famous, being on the TV, and it had gone to his head.

I sighed and looked at the clock, even though I knew what time it was, as if I needed the reassurance of the clock face for confirmation. The daily grind of soap operas was about to start. Sometimes they would be on in the background, but most times I would press mute. I didn’t watch any of them. I couldn’t deal with all of the arguing, all of that noise that afflicted the kitchen sink dramas. I flicked on the electronic programme guide and scrolled to the movies listing. We had the full Sky package – all of the films, sports, and hundreds of other channels full of repeats, and teleshopping, so much teleshopping. I often watched these, fascinated that people actually bought these magic mops that promised to clean your entire kitchen within seconds, or those clever trowels in case you fancied yourself as a builder, or the miracle paint rollers – I mean, people must buy these things, the same adverts would run for month, the presenters endlessly asking the same questions - ‘have you often wanted to point your wall like the experts do’. There must be thousands of people disappointed that their purchases didn’t suddenly turn them into an expert painter and decorator, or Bob the bloody Builder.

Our Sky package had a subscription to some adult channels too. They were PIN number protected by Graham. He thought I didn’t know about it, the subscription came out of his current account. I think Graham thought I was stupid. I knew the PIN number too – Graham had set it as his birthday, but backwards, which I assume he thought was brilliantly devious and clever. Sometimes I would flick to those channels and watch the young girls writhe about on tacky beds covered in crinkled shiny plastic, their red-lined mouths contorted in fake ecstasy. They didn’t wear much; G-strings clinging tightly to their shaven fannies, and pulled tight up behind into their shadowy backsides. It was strange to think that men found this convoluted posturing to be a turn-on. What was so attractive about a woman crooking her finger in a preposterous come-hither manner, whilst shaking her bosom from side to side, or flapping her buttock fat up and down?

It was hard to tell if the girls were in any way exploited by it all. Maybe they were students trying to alleviate the pressure of the large debts that university attendance seemed to bring, or perhaps they were just girls who needed or wanted the money. It was better than selling their bodies on the streets, I guess. I wondered how much they were paid to bare their young bodies, and I wondered how they felt about the men who watched, all those sad middle-aged men beating off in front of a television whilst a girl who was half their age pranced around in front of a camera. Perhaps they felt nothing at all, perhaps it was just an easy way of earning money.

I caught Graham watching one time. It was late at night and I had come downstairs for a drink of water – I had a pounding headache, I used to get a lot of migraines. I still get them, just not so often these days. But they’re bad when they happen. Like a rusty screwdriver being dug into my forehead, then slowly twisted around, and then pushed in some more. Anyway, I needed a glass of water and some painkillers. The tablets didn’t ease the pain that much, but I was grateful for the smallest respite.

The television was on and I assumed Graham had fallen asleep in front of it, like he usually did, he would sprawl his head backwards with his hairy nostrils flaring and snorting. But he wasn’t asleep. He was sat upright on the sofa, his fading, grey jogging bottoms pooled around his feet - the ones with a large ragged hole on one knee. They should have been thrown out ages ago. He was staring at the screen, where a willowy blonde was pushing up her surgically-enhanced breasts and licking her own nipples. Graham was stroking himself and I could see a box of tissues next to him on the sofa. He turned slowly towards me, a look of bewildered fear on his face, and I turned away sharply towards the sideboard. I pretended to ruffle in the drawers, muttering ‘now where are those pills’ as if I didn’t know he was there, as if I thought the pills that were always in the kitchen would suddenly magic themselves into the lounge sideboard, as if I couldn’t hear him pulling up his jogging bottoms and thrusting the tissues under a cushion. I waited another second, hearing the click of the remote control.

‘Oh, right, oh, I must have fallen asleep. Huh, well I guess I’ll blame that on Newsnight,’ he said. His face was bright red.

‘Well, you will insist on watching those boring programmes,’ I replied, and I could hear Graham coughing nervously. We both knew I had seen what he was doing, but neither of us was prepared to admit it. We both felt the cringing embarrassment, although it didn’t seem fair that I did. We never spoke of it again, and now, whenever I had to come downstairs late and Graham wasn’t in bed, I would step loudly on the stairs, and I would yawn or cough.

I scanned the movies and settled on a romantic comedy. Light and fluffy, it would pass the time, and it didn’t go on too late. I wanted to be in bed before Graham came home.



***



The sound of Graham brushing his teeth woke me. I swore silently into the pillow, knowing that I would remain awake for a few hours now. Once Graham had started snoring, I would flick my bedside lamp on and read for a bit. Graham always brushed his teeth too vigorously, the noise was like cat scratches down a post. Worse still was the antiseptic mouthwash. I could hear the glug as the cap of the mouthwash bottle was filled – he was annoyingly precise about the measurement of the mouthwash, and I had never understood why, it’s not like a little bit less or a little bit more was going to make any difference – then he sucked it in through his teeth. I hated that sound. Uncle Peter used to make that sound, he used to suck back the saliva when...I closed my eyes and tried to get back to sleep.