Glad You Aren't Here

Caitlin opened her front door and sighed at the stack of brown and white envelopes on the mat.

Coming back was always the worst part of going away – the return to paper reminders holidays weren’t real and what was – bills, invoices and school forms for Joe – might be evaded but could not be avoided.

She settled Joe in front of the TV, which she felt guilty about.

Then she felt guilty for feeling guilty because there was no other way she’d get on top of the unpacking and all the washing and guilt helped nothing.

She sighed again. Before all that a cup of tea and sorting the post.

Caitlin threw the fliers into the bin and then arranged the letters into three piles – urgent-official, official-that-could-wait and personal. She’d drifted away from her school and university friends since settling into single-motherhood and there wasn’t much in her third pile – just a letter from her godmother and a postcard. She decided she’d save both to look at properly once Joe was in bed and she could swap her tea for wine.

All the other stuff could wait until the next morning.

Later that evening, Joe bathed and asleep in bed with the shiny stuffed lizard her parents had bought for him from the holiday camp shop, she found an undemanding nature documentary and opened the letter. It was a cheery two pages of news, finishing with a lovely sentence that said, “I know it isn’t always easy for you but try not to worry – you’re doing just fine and we’re all so proud of you.”

Caitlin smiled, put the letter down on the coffee table and picked up the postcard. It was thick and heavy between her fingers and had a coloured drawing of a penguin enclosure in a zoo watched by a crowd of men, women and children on it. The red text below it said “Vancouver, BC, Canada, Stanley Park, the Penguins.”  On the other side was the address of her house written in faded blue-black ink in joined-up writing, but there was no name and no message.

She ran her fingers over it again and realised the card was actually an envelope, its flap folded discretely just over the heads of the people watching the black-and-white penguins. She looked more closely and realised the card was old – the paper was yellowed, and the picture’s colours were darker than she suspected it had been when new and were coming away at the edges, as if it had been bought a long time ago.

But then the writing on it was faded too.

Caitlin wondered who it was from and whether it was really meant for her. She put it down, took a sip of wine and thought for a moment.

She had a vague understanding that opening post sent to someone else was illegal. But she was also curious about the card, and with no name on it and no way of knowing who sent it, there was no way of finding out who it as for without opening it.

Also, she thought, it wasn’t addressed to anyone else, and it had come to her house.

She paused the documentary and fetched a knife from the kitchen to open it up.

To her surprise and delight the envelope unfolded to almost A4 size with six other pictures arranged around a postcard sized panel filled with the same joined-up handwriting on the front of the envelope. It was hard to tell if the pictures – cityscapes, buildings and parks - were photos or drawings. They were sharp and pin-prick clear, but the colours were too muted and looked just slightly off – as if they’d been somehow added later.  In the centre was a blank panel marked “correspondence” filled with the same joined up writing the address had been written in. It too was faded but it was neat and easy to read.

“Dearest Frank

I took the holiday you said we’d never take, because holidays were always just the way fools wasted money. It’s lovelier than I even imagined, and I’m sure most of that’s because you aren’t here to put me down. I do have nightmares about what I did but in them I lost my nerve and didn’t do it, and I’m there stuck with you in the house in Willerby you had to be practically crow-barred out of.

You have no idea how much time I spent staring out of the window at the sunset and wishing I could be somewhere – anywhere – else.

Well now I am.

Today I went to the zoo on the front of this card book, had a big expensive steak dinner with a glass of wine, and then I went for a walk in a park under a sky so big it was like being beneath an ocean. There’s dancing at the hotel tonight. I’m looking forward to watching all the young people enjoy themselves and I’ll pray they all make better choices than I did.

I hope I get a few more years. I’ll use them like this, with all the money we wasted by doing nothing with it at all.

I’ll be writing regularly to tell you all about it.

I’m glad you’re aren’t here.

With no love at all.

Judy.

Caitlin gasped and dropped the postcard on the floor. She stood up, her heart pounding, suddenly both too hot and too cold.

She went to check on Joe, hoping to use his steady breathing to calm herself. After a while it worked well enough for her to find a train of thought.

She would go back to the living room and throw the card away in the outside bin.

It was just a letter, she reassured herself, and it couldn’t hurt her.

It was freezing on the landing between Joe’s bedroom and the upstairs living room and when she went back in there was the dark figure of a man under the lamp sitting right where she’d been sitting just minutes before.

It turned to her as it got up, a featureless silhouette in the shadow of the late evening gloom and held up the card like an accusation.

“This was for me you nosy bitch,” it said, “didn’t they teach you manners in the kennel they brought you up in? Now get out of my house or you’ll regret it. Take that bastard brat of yours with you - you aint the only nosy parker and I know all about him. You aint welcome here.”

Then all the lights in the village went out at once and in the dark Caitlin ran to get Joe.

The ghosts in Willerby are like ghosts everywhere.

Most mean the living no harm.

But some do.