‘I’m not questioning the credentials of the researchers, just the sanity of the British public,’ he says drily.
‘But if so many people believe, then there must be something in it.’
‘No, Emma, remember the double-decker Brexit bus. Things that are believed don’t have to be true.’
I start to read from the site. ‘Forty-four per cent of respondents have even had a personal paranormal encounter of their own. A third of respondents said they’ve felt a vague “unexplained presence” in their home, whether it was due to flickering lights or strange smells.’ I look at him with hope. Surely he’ll admit we’ve had our fair share of inexplicable encounters. Exactly as described here. ‘Remember the lights in the grounds going on and off that night a few months back.’
‘A fault with a bulb, that’s all.’
‘And the smell. I’m always telling you about the smell that I detect after each incident.’
‘I bought a new candle.’
‘We’ve had objects moving around the house.’ Matthew doesn’t say anything; he just stares at me slack-mouthed. I continue. ‘A further twenty-three per cent of respondents said they don’t believe in the paranormal but admitted that they still wouldn’t want to “provoke” anything.’
‘Those numbers don’t add up.’
He’s right, they don’t. I’ve read the report a few times and still can’t get to the bottom of it, but I assume it’s unclear journalism rather than a problem with the research results.
‘I’ve provoked Becky by marrying you,’ I conclude sadly.
Matthew shakes his head. ‘I’m bewildered, Emma. This is insane.’
I agree it makes no sense that I am even entertaining the possibility that ghosts exist, but I have started to believe exactly this. When I first began researching ghosts online, it embarrassed me that so many people believe in them. They all sounded unhinged, and I fought the idea of throwing my lot in with them, these irrational nutters who don’t have a decent grasp on reality. I started reading bonkers sites that giddily declared, Don’t wait for Halloween to use a ghost-hunting app. It’s a thrilling thing to do at any time, alone or with friends.
Creepy basements are a great place to talk to spirits.
Dark woods are the spot to look for apparitions. Who knows what you’ll find lurking there.
Ghosts can be company, if you don’t have a pet.
I laughed out loud. I was glad that my first foray into entertaining the possibility of something paranormal was so ludicrous, because I wanted to dismiss the idea. I like being rational, clear-sighted. Believing that I’m being haunted isn’t very me.
But then nor was falling in love aged forty-seven, and that happened.
The more I researched the paranormal, the more convinced I’ve become. It’s the only answer. ‘I think she’s haunting me,’ I continue. ‘I think she did all the disruptive things around the house, but now it’s escalating. She shook me from the ladder and then threw the ladder on top of me. She wants to hurt me. I’m really scared, Matthew. I think she wants me dead.’
Slowly, sadly, Matthew shakes his head. ‘Emma, don’t you see, if you think that’s a rational explanation, there really is a problem. I don’t know if this is connected to your drinking.’
‘What?’
‘I just don’t know what to say to you.’ He said he’d help. He said he wouldn’t judge, but now he says, ‘I’m sorry, I’m going to sleep in the spare room tonight. It’s a lot to process, you know. My new wife accusing my dead wife of trying to kill her.’
And with that, he gets out of bed and strides out of the room.
I bet Becky’s ghost is laughing.
28
Becky
She’s lost it. His text is stark and to the point. No kisses, I notice. We don’t do that. They do. I’ve seen her phone often enough to know as much. There’s always at least one, often a string of them. It’s pretty infantile. Mortifying, considering her age.
I type my response. That was the plan.
I wait. He is online. I can see that. I wait for the word ‘typing’ to appear. It doesn’t. Fucking WhatsApp. It’s hell on earth. If he was standing in front of me, I could read him. I could make him elaborate, answer me. I hate the fact that the whole world can hide behind devices now. We’ve cultivated new levels of passive-aggressive polite deception. True, I know I sometimes use it to my advantage, but fuck, it’s frustrating. I send a single question mark to nudge him. He knows me well. I’m not someone who likes to be kept waiting. I don’t like being on the outside of the action. He better give me details, quickly. He does.
She thinks you’re haunting her.
I mentally punch the air. What?!!! That’s perfect. Batshit crazy is better than alcoholic.
Again I wait, sighing my impatience out through my nose. God, he really is annoying recently. I think he actively enjoys making me hang around, stay on the periphery. It’s more than damned rude, it’s a power kick. And it was never this way before. The problem is, he doesn’t think about what it’s like to be me in all of this. I decide I’ll count to ten and then I’ll … well, I don’t know. I’ll call him, I suppose, or send another text, or switch off my phone so he can at least see that I’m not waiting about for him. I’ll do something, that much I’m sure of. I’m not having this.
When I’m at nine and three quarters, he sends another message. Can’t talk now. She’s right next to me. See you tomorrow.
I snap off the phone and throw it against the wall, aggravated by the thought of the two of them lying in bed together. I’m developing a taste for throwing things, smashing things. The phone bounces and lands on the bed. I don’t check to see if it’s broken; if it is, I don’t care. Soon I’ll be rich. I’ll buy the latest iPhone. I won’t have to put up with this crappy out-of-date one. I won’t have to put up with anything. Money guarantees that. I’ll get everything I’m due. Finally.
Spoiler alert. I’m not dead.
I’m not a theatre set designer either. I’ve never lived in America. My parents are not from South Africa. I’m not even married to Matthew Charlton. I never have been.
I know, right, you can’t trust anything anyone says these days, can you? Especially men who seem too good to be true. Take note, they always are.
The being married part is the smallest lie. We are engaged. More or less. We’re going to get married soon. As soon as he isn’t married to her and the money comes through. We’re practically married on many levels. We’ve been together forever. Sixteen years, almost my entire adult life, and as I don’t count my childhood as actual living, you can call this forever. We did meet at work, that much is true. At a fashion show. I was modelling, so was he. Although I called myself a model, he called himself an actor and said he was just doing the modelling to make some money between jobs. He made it clear that modelling was a bit beneath him. I didn’t take offence. I admired what I believed to be his ambition.
It took me a little while to discover that he was often between jobs; in fact he hadn’t even finished drama school. It took me longer still to understand that his ambition was not so much admirable as delusional. He rarely got acting parts, and if he did, they never paid much. The modelling job was one of the better fill-ins; more often he worked in bars and restaurants. However, I was nineteen, he was twenty. Babies. You don’t think so at the time, obviously. Our worlds seemed so sophisticated and powerful, full of sex, drugs, hip bones, incomes and agents. He was breath-stealing hot. We looked incredible together, and we were inseparable from the day we met.
I was of no fixed abode; I’d go where the work took me. Back then it was Paris, Milan, New York. Most of the time he came with me. I liked that. Coming back to the hotel to find him (and a line of coke he’d sourced) waiting for me felt like the closest I’d ever had to a stable routine. Mattie often commented that the life he was leading was light years away from the one his parents had led. They couldn’t comprehend his world and therefore couldn’t offer him any guidance; they didn’t try to. My parents were out of the picture. So there was no one to tell us that we were just kids, no one to advise us that we should slow down, calm down, save up, sober up. Even if there had been, I probably wouldn’t have listened anyhow. I don’t take advice well.
