Uncanny Tales – (005) – Chapter 02 – The House Guest Exposed

Three days after, for want of a better phrase, I exposed myself to Juliana, was one of those wonderful early autumn days that lifts your spirits but can also take you by surprise when you step out into it as the sun can deceive you into thinking the summer hasn’t quite surrendered and then the bitter October wind stings you.

I couldn’t tell which it might be as it looked like it might be quite warm, but I couldn’t tell, firstly as I was inside looking out and secondly because I was dead and couldn’t feel anything. 

Juliana had been upstairs dressing as it was one of her physio days and she was just hobbling her way downstairs and I was beginning to think that she had indeed passed off our encounter as a hallucination but as she picked up her car keys and opened the front door she called back behind her without turning around.

“Bye Harry”

I didn’t reply because it caught me by surprise, but I don’t think she was looking for an answer though it was difficult to tell as there was no feeling behind the words.

Was it a “Bye Harry” see you later or “Bye Harry” I can’t live in a house with a ghost?

Or perhaps “Bye Harry” are you really there?

She was gone all day and I was beginning to think I had scared her away as it was unusual for her to be quite so late and it had been dark for some time when her car pulled up outside the cottage.

It was a little after seven when she came in through the door her face was tired and strained and she moved uncomfortably.

I had seen that pained look before in the weeks I had been observing her.

It was as a result of her physiotherapy sessions where they worked her hard and she suffered for it, but it was working, and she was getting better.

I had seen the change in her over the weeks and she was getting better, becoming stronger and less reliant on her stick, but her sessions left her exhausted and in a lot of pain.

She moved slowly over to the armchair and collapsed into it, after a few moments she rummaged in her bag and brought out a bottle of water then she reached onto the table and picked up her pills, her hand was shaking as she opened the bottle, she put one in her mouth and took a long drink of water then she leaned back and sighed.

She closed her eyes and was drifting off to sleep, so I sat in the chair opposite her and spoke to her.

“Juliana!”

She didn’t respond.

“Juliana!”

“What do you want?” she said without opening her eyes. “And don’t call me Juliana, only my Mother calls me Juliana”

“What should I call you then?”

She opened her eyes and looked straight at me.

“Julie is fine, but never Jules, I hate that”

“Ok” I said

She closed her eyes again.

“Julie”

“What?” She responded impatiently.

“You need to go to bed”

“I can sleep here, its fine now leave me alone”

“Julie, you need to go to bed”

“Leave me alone or I’ll call Ghostbusters and they’ll come and Hoover you up”

“They don’t exist” I said

“Nor do you” she replied

“But I’m here though, and I’m not going to shut up until you go to bed” I stated, and she opened one eye.

“That’s really unkind” she said with surprise.

“It’s for your own good” I said sagely

She looked unconvinced but struggled to her feet muttering under her breath, then she started slowly towards the stairs.

I felt guilty because it was clearly painful for her to walk but I knew it would be so much better for her to get a good rest in bed.

I wished I could help her, but I was unable to, I hadn’t mastered any of the physical stuff when I was in the cottage on my own it didn’t seem worth training myself to open a door when it was easier to walk through it.

Since I had had a house guest, or perhaps landlady would be more precise, as I was actually the house guest, I had been practising with some small success but propelling a person, even a small person, up a flight of stairs was beyond my capabilities.

“I can’t believe that I’m being haunted by Casper’s Granddad and he is making me do this” She said as she struggled up the stairs.

As she reached the top she paused briefly to catch her breath then she headed for her room.

“Tomorrow I’m calling an exorcist” she shouted.

A few minutes later all was silent, and, in an instant, I left the sitting room and transported myself to her bedroom.

It was the first time I’d been upstairs since she moved in and she had made the room very nice.

She was lying on her back fully clothed and sleeping peacefully on her bed.

On the trunk at the foot of her bed was a throw, which with a great deal of effort I managed to cover the lower half of her with it, and I was just about to continue when her hand reached down and pulled it the rest of the way up and she turned onto her side with the throw wrapped round her shoulders.

That left me with the simple task of flicking the light switch something that I had mastered.

 

The next day was a dull and dreary early October day and it was raining hard, the rain beating against the window glass like someone was throwing handfuls of gravel.

Julie didn’t come downstairs until 11 o’clock, I had heard her moving about upstairs from about ten then I could hear the bath running so after more than twelve hours sleep and a hot bath she made her way down the stairs in a good deal less pain than her ascent the night before.

She was bright and breezy and had real vitality about her such as I had not seen in her before, she was so alive, so vibrant, and she was smiling!

“Harry?” she called as she headed for the kitchen, but I said nothing.

“Harry?” She called again as she entered the kitchen

“Where are you?”

I appeared suddenly in front of her.

“Oh” She exclaimed and jumped, then she laughed.

“I’m here” I said, “What’s all the noise about?”

“It’s enough to wake the dead” I said and smiled.

“Yes, very funny” She said and was smiling too.

I studied her face, it was a very pretty face when you removed the pain that was normally etched into it, what a difference from the night before.

It was nice to see the beauty of the person when the bitterness and pain were removed or at least masked temporarily.

The girl before me today was nothing like the one I had been observing for the past month.

It was clearly only a type of euphoria which would undoubtedly wear off.

“I hated you last night” She said looking straight into my eyes “Making me climb those stairs”

“But today I feel the best I’ve felt since before the accident”

She had not mentioned the accident before.

“I could kiss you” she continued.

“Well that would be lovely but there is nothing to kiss, you’d fall straight through me and head butt the cooker” I pointed out, so she blew me a kiss instead.

“I’m glad you are feeling better”

“I know that it won’t last all day but for now I feel terrific”  

“You’ll be dancing by Christmas” I said

“Don’t spoil it by talking about Christmas, I hate Christmas”

“Why?”

“I will tell you another time I don’t want anything to spoil my mood”

 

The pain did return later that day though not as severe and the next morning the bitterness was back and for the rest of the month she did battle with her demons,

Julie had good days and bad days but overall the demons won.

She still kept herself to herself only leaving the house for physio appointments, which were paying dividends, and her only visitors were delivering one thing or another.

The majority of her time was spent on the computer which she used for her work, something involving pages and pages of gobbledygook, and as her window on the world, a world in which she did not have to participate but could merely be a spectator.

Unless she called on me I chose my moments to appear trying to gauge the right time in between her black moods.

It was while Julie was on the computer, on one of her good days that I chose to show myself.

She was ordering her groceries online when I dropped in.

“Don’t forget the sweets for Halloween” I said

“Oh God not Halloween” She replied.

“Don’t tell me you hate Halloween as well”

“Of course, I hate Halloween, why wouldn’t I, all those ghastly trick or treaters begging door to door”

She was bordering on rant mode and I was beginning to think I had picked the wrong time to call.

“Then there are the implied threats of violence and vandalism”

I looked at her and raised my eyebrows and she stopped and laughed

“You’re such a happy soul” I said

“Well why do you like it then?”

“I don’t really”

“So why do you want me to buy sweets? Did Rose like it? is that why?”

Neither Rose nor I were fans of Halloween before we moved to Appleby, but it was just part of living in the village.

The thing about Rose is that she was a community person and being part of the community was important to her.

We liked the way it was done, it was so different from our past experience, all the children would meet at the church hall and would go around in small groups each group being accompanied by adults, then they would all go back to the village hall and have a party with all the traditional Halloween games and there were prizes for the best costumes.

“No not exactly” I didn’t elaborate.

“You’re so odd” She said and turned back towards her computer.

“I was mean to them last year” I blurted.

“Who?”

“The children, I wasn’t very nice to them” I confessed and looked down at the floor

“I think I made one little girl cry”

“Oh”

“I feel ashamed of my behaviour, Rose would have been so mad”

“Well there’s nothing you can do about it now” She said.

“Hopefully the kids will remember their bad experience and not come knocking this year, so no sweets required”

She punctuated the end of the sentence with an Oliver Hardy style nod, then she smiled and got up and headed towards the bathroom.

I moved over to the computer I looked at the screen and observed that she was at the checkout.

Due to much practise, after all, it’s not as if I have anything else to do, I had mastered moving and manipulating things over the preceding weeks.

So, I sat down and took hold of the mouse, I quickly returned to where Julie had been shopping and found a large tub of Halloween sweets and clicked quantity required 2 and then “add to basket”, then returned her to the check out just as I heard the toilet flush.

I went and sat down again feeling rather pleased with myself, I was not totally unfamiliar with computers, but I had never shopped on line, but I had watched Julie enough times to pick up what to do.

When she returned she completed her shopping transaction and was none the wiser.

 

The next day when the shopping arrived, the driver unloaded the bags onto the step and Julie signed for the delivery and the driver left.

It was only after she had carried the bags into the kitchen and began to unpack them that she noticed the 2 large tubs of Halloween candy.

“HARRY!” she shouted and thumped one of the tubs onto the counter.

“HARRY!”

“You bellowed milady”

“Was this you?” she said pointing at the sweets.

“You ordered them after all” I said acting surprised “That’s really sweet”

“No, I did NOT” She corrected me.

“Well it wasn’t me” I said “I wouldn’t know how, you must have done it subconsciously”

“I am not the sort of person who would buy sweets for the little….”

I interrupted her

“Well obviously subconsciously you’re a very nice person” I said and disappeared.

 

I stayed out of her way for the next couple of days and I spent my time practising, I had mastered the fine manipulations such as flicking switches, unfolding a handkerchief and picking up a pen, I could even write, though my handwriting was still a bit shaky.

What I wasn’t very good at was moving large or heavy objects, so I was in the back garden trying to move the wheelbarrow, unfortunately when I eventually succeeded in moving it I managed to frighten a passing dog walker who was startled by the sight of a wheelbarrow moving along the path under its own power. 

So, I went indoors, where I found Julie was sat in her chair reading some documents, I was considering whether it was safe to appear when I noticed the tubs of sweets were stood on a chair next to the door in readiness for the evenings visitors.

I knew that beneath that thick veneer of bitterness and cynicism there resided a good human being.

I deduced that the fact that the sweets were now sitting on a chair and not in the dustbin meant that she was in one of her brighter moods.

I decided I would appear but that I wouldn’t mention the sweets just to be on the safe side.

“Hello”

She looks up from her papers then set them on the table in front of her.

“So, you’ve decided to show yourself”

“What do you mean? I’ve been busy” I said feigning an indignant attitude.

“Just because I’m dead doesn’t mean I don’t have demands on my time”

“Yes, I saw you playing with the wheelbarrow”

“So, did Mary Rudd” I said sheepishly

“Who’s Mary Rudd?”

“Retired postmistress”

“And she saw you?” She asked smiling.

“No, she saw a self-propelled wheelbarrow, she’s probably having a large gin to recover as we speak” he said, and she was laughing now.

“Has anyone else seen you?” Julie asked.

“No and I only revealed myself to you because….”

“You thought I was going to top myself”

“Yes”

“I hope you think better of me now?” she asked, and I nodded.

“I do have low moments, and the world is a shitty place, but on the whole, I prefer life”

“I wish you’d start living it then” I said

“What do you mean?”

“If you prefer life why don’t you go out into the world and live it” I suggested

“You’re just jealous that I’m still alive and not dead like you” She said viciously

“No, you’re not dead you’re alive but you’re not living”

“You live your life though a computer screen” I continued

“You never meet people, you never interact with other human beings, you have everything delivered to your door”

She was about to interrupt but I pressed on before she had the chance.

“And if you could cut your own hair you would never see anyone at all”

“I have physio” she corrected me

“And what happens when you don’t need that anymore?” I said, and she snatched up her papers and scowled.

“I don’t need life tips from a ghost” she snapped, spitting out the words like venom, then she turned her back on me.

“Please don’t do what I did, don’t imprison yourself in this cottage” I pleaded but she ignored me, she was angry with me but not as angry as I was at myself.

I blew it, I pushed too hard and she pushed back, I could have got my point across with more subtlety, I was making progress but now I’d gone backwards.