Attached

A Willerby Story

If Alvin felt anything it was the lightest of taps on his shoulder and then the gentlest of kisses on his cheek as he left the graveyard after church.

If that had been the end of it, he’d have dismissed it as his imagination on the wind and a late autumn leaf and never thought of it again.

But things were soon to become very strange and later he became sure it was the tap and the kiss that began it all.

…

Alvin was not certain when he saw her first.

It was on the bus home – perhaps weeks later – that he first took more than a passing interest in the girl with the green eyes, tied up hair and old-fashioned clothes who was sometimes there and sometimes not.

She was sitting at the back in the corner by the window, smiling at him as if they knew each other.

Alvin could not remember ever meeting her, but she looked familiar.

Perhaps – he thought – they’d been in one of the same classes at college, maybe psychology, which he’d dropped after the first term.

He smiled and gave her a polite wave, then got off the bus at his stop.

As the bus pulled away, he looked through the window at the back, a bright yellow rectangle against the gathering November gloom, but she was gone.

Hers was the next stop, Alvin thought, and she’d got up ready for it, or she’d just moved seats.

As he crunched his way home through drifts of dead leaves, he wondered if she’d moved house, whether this was why she was on the bus on which he was always the last passenger.

He saw her again the following day in the canteen at lunch, sitting alone at a table easily big enough for a group of four or even five who didn’t mind squashing up.

As she had on the bus, she smiled at him.

Alvin almost went over, but then he saw some of his own friends sitting in the booth by the vending machines so again, he smiled back and half-waved and went on his way.

She was there at the end of the day too, on the corridor outside his maths classroom.

Alvin took a closer look.

She was wearing a long-sleeved frilled and pleated green dress with a high neckline and was in a wide flat-brimmed hat with a purple ribbon tied around it.

It was an elaborate outfit, but Beckworth College took a relaxed attitude towards student self-expression and sustained a healthy ecosystem of subcultures, which included a few historical cosplayers.

This girl’s vintage umbrella and leather satchel suggested commitment, but the cosplayers were feverishly competitive on Insta over accuracy, so this wasn’t unusual enough to be remarkable.

Once again, he smiled back and once again went on his way.

Maybe he’d talked to her at a party, Alvin thought, and then got drunk and forgotten it.

He decided he would talk to her when he saw her next, but this was harder than he expected because every time he tried something happened that stopped him getting close enough.

The first time she was sitting alone on a bench by the college pond, the ribbon of her hat fluttering in the November breeze.

It was cold but she wasn’t wearing a coat. Perhaps – Alvin thought – authentic vintage coats in the right style were too expensive or she thought fur was cruel.

She turned towards Alvin as he walked to her but as he drew near, a flight of ducks took off from the pond and rose above her in a thwacking and whirring of wings. Distracted, he looked up, and when he looked back down just a moment later, she had gone.

The next time was on a Friday after college. She was standing at the bar of the closest pub known to serve underage, sipping something expensive looking from a cocktail glass. Ordinarily a cocktail in the local dive pub would have annoyed Alvin as affectation but her costume was so on point it looked fine.

Even good.

Alvin left his mates playing pool and went to approach her, but she’d become hidden by an influx of shift-workers and when they’d bought their drinks and moved to their tables she was nowhere to be seen.

“What’s the name of the girl in the old dresses?” He asked Marvin.

Marvin took his shot, missed and swore.

“Who?” He asked, straightening.

“The white girl in the old dresses – always green,” Alvin repeated. “Leather bag. Umbrella. She was here just a minute ago by the bar.”

“Dunno who you’re taking about,” said Marvin. “Why? Is she fit? Do you fancy her?”

Alvin realised he hadn’t even thought about that.

“No? Maybe? I don’t know.”

Marvin moved to the other side of the table to get a better angle.

“Next time you see her, point her out,” he said.

…

Alvin saw the girl a handful more times – in a café, in the library and once more by the duck pond – before he saw her again while Marvin was with him.

They were playing basketball before Period 1 and as he turned to celebrate a perfect swoosh, he saw her lightly applauding from behind the grilled fence.

“There she is,” he said to Marvin, pointing, “the girl in the old dress.”

Marvin turned to look and then turned back to Alvin, half-grinning.

“Mate, there’s nobody there,” he said.

“Just there,” Alvin said, “behind the fence.”

Marvin tapped the side of his head with his finger.

“You’re losing it, Alvo,” he said and went to get the ball.

Alvin looked after him for a moment, then back to where the girl had been.

She was gone.

Soon Alvin realised he was the only person who saw her.

He worked it out from the way she was always alone, from the way there was never anyone else around her and he knew it because nobody knew who she was or recognised his description.

The girl was – Alvin finally accepted – only in his head.

This scared him and he filled his google history with late night searches on schizophrenia and brain tumours and other stranger prompts he wouldn’t have considered if had not been from Willerby.

He did not tell anyone, partially because he was scared and partially because of the polite, undramatic way the college community had ostracised Theresa Donaldson after the Dance Fever that began with her.

He did not want this for himself.

Maybe – he thought – if he ignored her, she would go away on her own.

But she did not.

Instead, the girl appeared more and more and before long Alvin found it impossible to escape her.

She was always on the college corridors when he was.

She was always in the canteen.

She was always in the pub.

She began appearing in his lessons where she always sat in the corner right at the back, smiling and waving with her fingers if he turned round, making it impossible to focus on his numbers, equations and formula.

The last straw was when he opened his front door at nine at night to put his trainers in the porch and she was standing under the streetlight opposite, satchel slung over her shoulder, her umbrella up against the light sleet, waving at him with the pale fingers of her free hand.

The next day Alvin called Beckworth surgery and made an appointment.

…

“What drugs have you been taking?” Doctor Edwards asked, a tall man in his mid-thirties in a creased shirt. “And be honest I’m not here to judge and I won’t be telling your school, the police or your parents.”

“I haven’t taken any,” Alvin told him. “It’s not something any of my mates do.”

Doctor Edwards looked at Alvin closely over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses.

“Hmm,” he said. “Say that again.”

“I don’t take drugs,” Alvin said meeting his eyes steadily.

“Right then – let’s assume you don’t,” said Doctor Edwards, shrugging as if he didn’t care that much either way whether Alvin was telling the truth or not, “how much do you drink?”

Alvin looked back at him steadily. “I get drunk at the weekends sometimes,” he said, “but never other than that.”

“Do you see her when you’re sober?”

“I see her all the time,” said Alvin.

“Is she here now?”

Alvin looked over his shoulder and around the room.

“No,” he said.

Doctor Edwards swivelled his chair to his computer and typed in something, then swivelled back.

“Any history of mental illness in your family? He asked.

“Not that I know about,” Alvin replied.

“Anything else odd going on? Strange smells? Odd sounds? Changes to your vision? Little memory blackouts?”

“No,” said Alvin, shaking his head, “just the girl that nobody else sees.”

“You’ve been scaring yourself shitless on the internet about this, right?”

Alvin nodded.

“It doesn’t sound like a brain tumour –too specific. It feels more a sort of psychotic event, but these don’t always mean it’s worse case scenario – often they fade and go away on their own. But to rule some things out I’m going to refer you to hospital. You’ll hear from them soon about an appointment but in the meantime – and I know this will be hard – the internet is not your friend especially at night when you can’t sleep.”

Then, just as Alvin was putting on his coat and about to go, Doctor Edwards turned from his computer again.

“Oh no. Stop there just a minute,” he said, sighing.

“Yes? Alvin said.

“I’ve just seen on your notes you live in Willerby. Is that right?”

“All my life,” said Alvin.

Doctor Edwards lent back in his chair, took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he said. “Do David and Mauve still live there?”

“Yeah – three doors down from us,” said Alvin.

“I’m going to hold off the referral. I want you to go and speak to her and tell her exactly what you’ve told me – word for word from beginning to end.”

“Mauve? Why?”

“I’m not going to explain. It’s too professionally embarrassing to say out loud, and please don’t go round telling people I told you to do this,” said Doctor Edwards, “but she’s helped people from Willerby with things that aren’t just like this but feel in the same lane. Go and talk to her. If that does no good come back and we’ll go ahead with the hospital plan.”

…

Alvin did not want to see Mauve – once when he was very young, she’d torn a strip off him after a football he was kicking round with the village tribe of children had taken the heads off the daffodils she kept in pots at the end of her drive.

Later, the older children told him Mauve was a witch who flew on a broomstick on Black Sabbaths and could turn people into frogs, and while he hadn’t believed them, he’d not not believed them either, because of what he’d overheard other villagers say about her, what she could do and what she had done.

She had a reputation.

It was Mauve he had first thought of going to see, but he was so afraid of her that a trip to the doctor to talk about tumours and insanity was – and he knew this was silly – less frightening.

He preferred to rule out those real-world monsters before facing up to the sorts of things he heard Mauve helped with.

But he’d tried that and now had no choice.

…

Alvin had not expected the cheerful Westminster bellchime doorbell or Stevie Wonder on the stereo when David, opened the door.

“Yes?” He said, “Is it a collection for something? Just to say we don’t really use cash these days so if you’re wanting more than a handful of coins, you’d be best to let us know what you’re collecting for and come back tomorrow.”

“It isn’t that,” Alvin replied, “Is Mauve in?”

“Mauve? She’s in the garden. What’s it about?”

Then he paused and took a closer look at Alvin’s face.

“Oh, I see,” he said. “Come in and sit down. I’ll go get her.”

As he turned to go, Alvin heard him muttering complaints to himself. “We’ll never get out for lunch now. Might have known. It’s all been too quiet to last.”

Mauve bustled in a few moments later smelling of the fresh autumn air and wiping her hands on her green John Deere overalls.

“I’ll be just fine here now, David,” she said to her husband. “Leave us to it – if you’ve a few minutes spare there’s a load of leaves I’ve just raked that want taking up to the allotment. Now, young man, what can I do for you?”

Having come this far Alvin saw little point in holding anything back. So, from beginning to end, he told her the whole thing.

When he got to the bit about Doctor Edwards, Maude threw back her head and laughed.

“Oh good!” she said, “I thought there was hope for him but it’s impossible to be sure. He was right to send you here and you were right to come. This aint anything he could help you with, this girl you’re talking about – Emmeline in case you’re interested – she aint no tumour or anything else medically wrong. She’s just taken a shine to you, that’s all – healthy good-looking boy like you – can’t blame her really.”

“How do you know her name?”

Mauve closed her eyes, lifted her right hand up and fluttered her fingers.

“I have sensed it in the Great Unknown” she said in a sombre tone. Then she laughed again. “Only joking. I just asked her.”

“When?”

“Just now,” said Mauve. “She’s sitting right beside you giving you the puppy-dog eyes. She has been since you got here.”

Alvin turned to his left and there Emmeline was in her long green dress, sitting on the rocking chair by Mauve’s white electric Aga.

She smiled at him and waved with her fingers.

Emmeline, Mauve explained over tea and biscuits, could not talk to him.

“It’s just the way it is for her,” she said. “I can only hear her because I’ve got a foot in her world as well as ours. She wants you to know she means you no harm – quite the opposite.”

At this, Emmeline laughingly blew Alvin a kiss.

“What does she want then?” He asked.

“Goodness, Alvin!” Mauve said, “Manners. She’s sitting right there. She can hear even if she can’t speak. Ask her, not me.”

“Sorry,” Alvin said, turning to face her place face and grey eyes, “Emmeline, how can I help you?”

Emmeline sat up straighter and frowned. She started to mouth something at him then, frustrated gave up and turned to Mauve, who sat with her head cocked to one side as she listened to words Alvin could not hear.

Mauve said something back, then Emmeline spoke again. Alvin caught nothing of it, as if their pitch was too high or low for his ears.

The back and forth went on for a couple of minutes.

At one point Mauve laughed, which made Emmeline pout for an instant. Then she too broke into a smile and laughed back as if also seeing a funny side.

“Right then,” Mauve said, still half laughing, “this is a little tricky because what she wants is for you to ask her something. She says it don’t work if it’s the other way around.”

Alvin looked at her blankly.

Mauve looked back at him.

“What?” Alvin asked.

Exasperated, Mauve shook her head. “Use your brain, Alvin,” she said. “What do young women who take a shine to young men want them to do?”

Again, Alvin stared blankly, first at Emmeline, then Mauve then Emmeline again.

“Good grief,” Mauve said. “I’m not going to spell it out. I’ll give you just this clue – the only reason not to do it would be if you were.. I don’t know what people your age say these days.. courting? Stepping out? Seeing someone else?

“She wants me to be her boyfriend?”

“Wow calm down,” Mauve said. “Is that how fast it goes these days? I pity you all then. Think about what might come first?”

“She wants me to ask her out?”

Mauve applauded slowly. “Finally got it.”

“But..”

Mauve flashed a quick look at Emmeline and then back at Alvin. “Emmeline,” she said, “give me a moment in private with this boy.”

Emmeline shrugged and then vanished.

“Alvin,” she said, speaking low and fast, “there’s two ways I can do this. If you want, I can detach her from you easily enough – send her packing back to the graveyard – like burning off a leech. But she aint a leech, it’d hurt her and she’s harmless – there’s really no need. She says this is all she wants, and I believe her – she’s not silly – she aint after marrying or anything – she knows she can’t stay long. She just wants a night out with a boy about her age. You do this and you’re beyond forgiven for the daffodils, and I promise never to turn you into anything.”

“Could you actually do that?” Alvin asked, despite himself.

“Ha!” Mauve said. “Maybe, maybe not. Its best you think I might and best you not try me.”

Alvin thought for a moment and then decided a date with a ghost was better than a brain tumour.

In a weird way, he realised, it might even be something he’d enjoy.

Emmeline was pretty and now he knew she wasn’t a threat to him he liked the way straightforward, confident way she was smiling at him.

Maybe Marvin was even right about him fancying her.

He cleared his throat.

“Emmeline?”

She appeared back in the rocking chair and nodded encouragingly.

“I was just wondering,” Alvin said, “if you’d like to go out with me sometime?”

To Alvin’s surprise, Emmeline frowned and shook her head.

“That,” Mauve interrupted, “is the worst opening line I’ve heard in a very long time by some distance. You need to do better than that. Where are you going to take her? What are you going to do?”

Alvin shrugged helplessly. “We just usually go and hang out in the pub or at someone’s house.”

“Emmeline he’s hardly worth the bother,” said Mauve. “Pub and go to someone’s house? I’d find someone else if I were you.”

She softened her voice.

“Alvin – come on boy. This girl’s been dead a hundred years and she only asking for a night. For whatever reason she’s decided it’s you she wants to take her out – make it special for her. Don’t waste her time.”

…

Alvin collected Emmeline from the gate of the graveyard at seven the next evening.

She was wearing a gold and black ball gown with silver earrings and necklace. Although he’d worn his best suit – the one his parents had bought him for the Year 11 prom – he felt underdressed in comparison.

Then, her arm like an iron cold breeze in his, he walked her to the bus to Beckworth.

The waiter at the desk in the entrance of Castellis – the fanciest restaurant in town - checked off his name and then looked up quizzically over fashionably heavy glasses. “Is the other diner arriving later?” He asked.

“I think so,” Alvin said looking straight at Emmeline, “but she might be late.”

They sat down and Alvin put his earbuds in so he could talk to her without looking like he’d lost his mind. He opened the menu and was immediately out of his depth.

He only recognised spaghetti bolognese and a couple of the pizzas but ordering those felt a cop out.

He thought about asking the waitress who’d poured the wine to give recommendations but didn’t know enough about eating out posh to know if this were appropriate.

In the instant unsure and self-conscious, Alvin looked down at his menu hoping for inspiration that did not come until he looked up and saw Emmeline folding her hands open and closed at him.

Understanding at once he reached over the table to slide the menu to her.

Emmeline showed him what to order by pointing at dishes on the menu– antipasto, pasta, rosemary and anchovy pork chops, and then gelato and coffee.

She could not eat the food but used mime and sign language to tell Alvin to taste everything and describe it to her.

The food was fabulous, and she was delighted he enjoyed it all so much by smiling broadly and clapping her hands.

After the meal they went on to a bar serving cocktails where for want of anything else to say he told her about his family and friends, his favourite subjects and the sorts of things he might want to do when he was finished with school.

After that he took her to Utopia, the only nightclub in town.

Alvin regretted taking Emmeline to it at first. It was dingy, it smelled, and the low ceilings and thin carpets warped the acoustics so badly it was hard to tell one song from another.

Emmeline did not seem to mind any of it though – she was fascinated by all the people, by the thump of the speakers and the strobe lighting.

She took Alvin’s warm hand in her cold one and, mimicking the moves of those around her, she danced with him, spinning across the dancefloor clearing space through the crowds wherever they went.

She probably did not know it was a dive, Alvin thought, wondering whether he’d know how to tell a high class from a low-class place if he were to go back a hundred years.

Then he decided if it didn’t matter to Emmeline it didn’t matter to him either and focused on just enjoying himself.

They left Utopia just before it closed and took an Uber back to Willerby. The night had turned cold and clear, and Alvin’s breath steamed in the frozen air as they walked from the car to the grassy path that went to the church

Emmeline beckoned Alvin follow her, past the naked spreading arms of the ancient horse-chestnut and past the thicket of holly, then past the youngest graves and into depths of the yard where the oldest graves had been sunk hundreds of years ago, where the frost was already hoaring the grass and furring the drooping ferns silver under the full moon.

Emmeline’s grave, in a thicket of tangled vine and creeper, yawned open for her beneath its headstone.

She pointed at it and shook her head sadly.

“I know,” Alvin said, “I’m sorry.”

Emmeline took both his hands in hers, then stepped forward and kissed him gently on the lips.

She mouthed “thank you” to him.

Then she let go and went back to her grave.