Chestnut Cottage is a
rather quaint Tudor thatched dwelling with its white walls and black oak
timbers, its rose covered lych-gate and a wishing well in the garden.
It is very much the
stereo typical “chocolate box” image of an English country cottage.
It’s a fairly remote
cottage situated at the end of Vicarage Lane some half a mile from the Church
and about a mile from Appleby village itself.
My name is Harry Tyler
and I lived in the cottage for more than twenty years and by the time summer
came to an end I had been in residence another eight months after I died.
Not in a physical
sense, my body did not lie undiscovered, decomposing in my armchair, I was
found and dealt with in the proper manner.
At the time I was
happy enough to die, though I took no hand in it I hasten to add, I died of
natural causes.
The last year of my
life was a mere existence after the death of my dear wife Rose.
We had no children of
our own and what other family that were left we were not close to.
Rose and I had been
happily married for 47 years and we retired to Appleby village and we had such
a nice life together.
She was my conduit to
the world, she was the interface that connected me to people, so after she was
gone it was like being stranded in a foreign land without a translator.
To find myself alone
in the world at the age of seventy-four filled me with dread so I withdrew into
the safety of the cottage and became very reclusive and only ventured out when
I had to.
So, when I died I naturally
thought I would be reunited with my Rose again, but I remained in the cottage
and she was nowhere to be found.
I spent every day
confined to the cottage and garden the same prison I confined myself to before
I died.
In many ways it was no
difference to when I was alive except I didn’t have to eat or drink.
Nor did I have to wash
or comb my hair or trim my beard and of course I didn’t feel anything.
I was exactly as I was
when I died, a fat, old man with white hair and a beard, wearing the same
clothes I had on when I breathed my last.
I hoped to God I
didn’t have to spend eternity wearing that awful red jumper, I hated that
jumper and the only reason I was wearing it at all was that my favourite one
was still damp, and I didn’t want to catch a chill.
If I had realised I
was going to pop my clogs anyway I would have worn the other one.
So, there I stood a
fat white bearded old man wearing a red sweater that made me look like an off-duty
Santa Claus.
I didn’t understand
why I was still there, I didn’t want to be there I wanted to be with Rose.
I thought there must
be something I had to do in order that I could move on, but at that time I had
no idea what that something might have been.
On the first of
September I thought to myself, today is not like any other day, today things
are going to change.
I was standing in what
used to be the bedroom Rose and I shared, and I was looking out through the
window at the unfolding scene below.
A removal truck had
just come to a stop in the lane and a small blue car parked a suitable distance
behind it.
The driver of the of
the car slowly got out and walked towards the gate, pausing briefly to speak to
the removal men who were lowering the tail board, then she walked through the
gate and down the long winding path.
She was an attractive
young woman, late twenties or probably early thirties, petite with shoulder
length black hair that shimmered with a hint of blue like a raven’s wing and
she walked awkwardly with a stick in her right hand.
I recognised her at
once, as one of fifteen or so prospective buyers who viewed the cottage during
the summer.
I thought to myself
that it would be nice to have company, even if there would be no conversation,
it would be a bit like watching a soap opera on TV.
I would have preferred
it to be a man; after all spying on a young woman would make me feel a bit like
a peeping Tom, but I figured that beggars can’t be choosers.
Then as I watched her
slow progress down the path something terrible occurred to me what if she was
one of those awful naturist types who go about the house naked, where would I
look?
Then I laughed at the
stupid question I had asked myself, it was obvious where I would look, I might
be dead, but I was still a man.
So, I watched her discreetly
over the next week or so as she went about her unpacking and arranging her
furniture, but due to my gentlemanly disposition I declared her bedroom and the
bathroom as off limits.
As I was in my ninth
month of limbo I was desperate for knowledge of the wider world and I was
bitterly disappointed that she didn’t have a television, I really missed the TV
and she didn’t listen to the radio either.
I had hoped she might
at least take a daily paper but no, the only paper to come through the door was
the local freebie.
She did have a
computer and I did look-over her shoulder while she was using it, very rude I know
and under normal circumstance I would never have done such a thing, but I
thought to myself, needs must.
By the end of September,
the computer had taught me a lot, I had established that her name was Juliana
Molesworth and she was a workaholic who lived on the computer, in fact the
computer was her life, it was her work, she shopped on it, she banked on it, it
was her library, it was her music collection and it was her only friend.
Apart from her visits
for physiotherapy she never went out and her only visitors were delivery people,
oh and a hairdresser.
This young woman was
making the same mistake that I had, she was cutting herself off from the world
and making the cottage her prison.
Though I didn’t know
why she was withdrawing from the world I now knew what I had to do to move on,
I had to save Juliana from my own fate.
I know that strictly
speaking as I was dead I couldn’t actually live with her, but after living with
Juliana for five weeks it had become clear that she had gone to Chestnut Cottage
to cut herself off from the world and I knew from bitter experience that that
course of action was pure folly.
So, it became clear to
me that my job was to show her the error of her ways, but I had absolutely no
idea how I would achieve that.
For a start I was dead
and invisible, although I could make myself visible without any difficulty, the
problem was not if I could make her see me, but when and how, and would it make
her freak out.
If she didn’t freak
out at having a resident ghost, then she almost certainly would when she
discovered she had been sharing the cottage with an old man who could make
himself invisible.
I decided for the mean
time to just maintain a watching brief just to keep an eye on her until I could
figure out the best course of action.
I did allow her the
odd glimpse, a reflection in a mirror, a shape in the corner of her eye just to
test her nerve, but she seemed un-phased by it or would dismiss it with a
shrug.
She seemed at least on
the surface anyway, to be quite a strong character she was clearly in a lot of
pain from her hip, for which she took strong pain killers.
Juliana got around
some of the day without her stick but towards the end of the day she couldn’t
walk without it and she would rub her hip and you could see the pain etched
into her face, and it was a pretty face when it wasn’t screwed up in pain, and
she had hypnotic green eyes and a sensual mouth.
It was getting towards
the end of the month and I was out in the garden, it had been a glorious late
summer / early autumn day, the sun would have felt quite warm had I been able
to feel it, and I was watching the sun set as I had so many times with Rose.
I missed her so much
and I was feeling sorry for myself, so I stayed until the sun disappeared
behind the trees then I went back inside.
Juliana was sat
perched on the edge of an armchair and in front of her on the coffee table was
a large glass of wine and a pile of pain killers, and I feared the worse as I
sat in the empty armchair opposite her, to my mind booze and pills meant only
one thing.
Her hand was shaking
as it moved towards the tablets.
“Don’t do it” I said
“What?”
She looked around the
room.
“Who said that?”
“I did” I said as I appeared,
and she went stiff and white in response and said in alarm
“Where did you come
from? How did you get in here? get out before I call the police”
Then she grabbed the
empty pill bottle and threw it at me, but it went straight through my chest and
hit the back of the chair before bouncing back on to the floor and came to a
halt by her feet, by which time she had managed to pull herself to her feet and
was wielding her cane, but when she saw the pill bottle come to a stop by her feet
she flopped down into the chair and said.
“Damn I’ve taken too
many and now I’m hallucinating”
“You’re not
hallucinating” I said quietly “I’m really here”
“No, No, that’s not
possible” She said and drained the wine glass then instantly refilled it.
“I’ve over dosed” She
was trembling, and she held out a hand in front of her and watched it shake.
“Oh God now I’ve got
the tremors” She closed her eyes tight for half a minute then opened them and
stared at me.
“And you’re still
here”
“You’re really not hallucinating”
I said quietly “I’m really here, please don’t take your own life”
She took a double take
and was suddenly calmer as she considered what I had said.
“Take my own life?”
she said quizzically, then she glanced down at the pile of pills and the glass
of wine.
“I’m not going to kill
myself” she said, and I looked at her and nodded and said “good” but I didn’t
believe her, and she could tell.
“I tipped them out to
count them because my leg is hurting so bad I thought I must have missed taking
one, but I haven’t damn it, and I can’t have another one for two hours” She
said impatiently.
That made sense to me,
and then I felt foolish and I had exposed myself for nothing.
“I can see you believe
me now” She said, “So now tell me who you are or what you are?”
“My name is Harry
Tyler”
“I know that name this
was your house wasn’t it?”
“Yes”
“But you’re dead, you
died here” She said and took a large gulp of wine “Are you a ghost or an
angel?”
“I think I’m just a
ghost, I haven’t been anywhere to become an angel”
“So why are you here?
Why haven’t you gone to where dead people go?” she said before she drained her
glass and filled it again quickly.
“I not really sure” I
lied
There was silence for
a few moments before she asked
“Is there a heaven?”
“I don’t know if there
is a heaven or not, I’ve always believed that there was” I replied and paused
for a moment
“My wife Rose died in
this cottage and she has obviously gone somewhere”
“God how many people
have died here? Is it cursed or something?” She asked and had another glug of
wine, then a look of panic came over her face.
“Have you been here
all the time, ever since I moved in I mean?” Then she flushed deep red.
“You haven’t been
letching at me in the bath?”
I laughed and said.
“No, it’s alright
don’t worry, I haven’t been letching at you even though you are a very
attractive young woman”
She looked doubtful, so
I continued.
“I am painfully aware
that this is not my home anymore and as such there are areas that I have made
off limits, I am a very discreet ghost”
She sighed and looked
reassured and then we sat in silence for a while, then she fell asleep in the
armchair.
For the next two days
I didn’t show myself to her, partly because I thought it might be better for
her to digest the knowledge of my existence for a while before I spoke to her
again and partly because I was angry at myself for misreading the situation the
previous evening and alerting her to my presence unnecessarily.
I had acted on the
spur of the moment, but in truth it hadn’t upset my plans in anyway, chiefly
because I didn’t have a plan to upset.
Of course, there was
always the possibility she might think she had imagined the whole thing as a
result of the wine and painkillers.
I looked in on her
from time to time and apart from the obvious signs of a hangover and her limp
she seemed ok.
Although she did tend
to suddenly look over her shoulder for no apparent reason.
