Every Touch (9 page)

   Denny yelped in surprise and fell backwards onto his behind, startled.

   The old man was staring straight at him as if he’d seen a ghost which, apparently, he had.

  “
Denny?
” he gulped.

   Denny pushed himself upright.  “Mr Duncan?” he said, as shocked as his neighbour looked.

   “Am I hallucinating?”

   “I don’t think so.”

   “Am I dreaming?”

   “No.”

   He paused.  “Am I dying?”

   Denny regarded him in sorrow.  “Yes, Mr D, I think you are.” 

   In four years of being dead, Denny had never been visible to anyone living.  That his neighbour was close to death was the only explanation for Mr Duncan’s sudden ability to see beyond the physical world.

   Mr Duncan stared at him for a few seconds as he processed the situation, then he nodded.  “I knew it was coming.” 

   He didn’t seem fazed by the idea.  Maybe, Denny thought, he had reached the point where dying seemed like a better option than living. 

   Mr Duncan’s face shifted into a smile.  He reached out a wizened hand and touched Denny’s cheek.  “It’s so good to see you, boy.  I’ve missed you.  It hasn’t been the same without you here.”

   Denny smiled.  “I’ve missed being able to talk to you too.”

   Mr Duncan dropped his hand back onto the arm of the chair, as if even that movement had been exhausting.  He looked around the room. 

   “Is Jeanie here?”

   “No, Mr D, she’s not here.”

   He sighed and nodded.  “What’s it like, death?”

   Denny paused briefly before answering.  “It’s wonderful,” he said, “beautiful.  You’ll be young and happy and see Mrs D again.” 

   He didn’t see any point in telling him the truth. He’d find that out soon enough.  But maybe it
was
the truth, maybe it would be wonderful, for him.

   A dreamy expression passed across Mr Duncan’s face.  “To see Jeanie again.  And young.  She was quite the hottie when we were younger.  So was I, truth be told.  Had my pick of the girls, but I only ever wanted her.”  He smiled.  “So, young Denny, how are you?”

   “I’m dead, Mr D.”

   His instant laughter gave way to coughing and he clutched himself, the spasms wrenching his frail body.  Denny knelt beside him in consternation, holding the arm of the chair and wishing he could help.

   “Can I get you anything?” he said when the coughing finally subsided.  “Water?  Something to eat?”

   Mr Duncan slumped back in his chair, looking drained, and shook his head.  “No, thank you.  I’m just so tired.”

   “Maybe you should have a sleep.”

   “You’re right, Denny,” he said, “but I’m a bit afraid every time I fall asleep that I won’t wake up again.  Silly really.  I’m ready to go, but I’m not.”  He chuckled softly.

   “Well, how about I stay here with you while you sleep and watch over you?  Would that make it easier?”

   Mr Duncan smiled weakly.  “That would be nice.  You’ve always been good to Jeanie and me.”  He patted Denny’s hand on the arm of his chair.

   Denny smiled.  “No, it was always the two of you who were good to me.  I never got the chance to tell you how much I appreciated it.  But I did, very much.”  He looked down, wiping at a rogue tear.

   “I want you to have something,” Mr Duncan said, struggling to rise.

   “No, Mr D,” Denny said quickly, “you stay there.  Tell me and I’ll get whatever you want.”

   He nodded, relaxing back into the chair.  “In the bedroom, top drawer of the dresser, the small wooden box.”

   Denny quickly found the box and returned to Mr Duncan’s side.  It was only a couple of inches long, inlaid on the top with the shape of a heart in a contrasting wood.  He handed it to Mr Duncan and knelt back down on the floor next to the chair.

   “Everything else in this place had its use in my life,” Mr Duncan said, pulling the lid of the box open, “but these are the only things that really meant anything.  And they meant everything to me.”

   He emptied the contents of the box into his hand, a gold wedding band and a diamond engagement ring. 

   “Jeanie’s,” he said, gazing at them fondly.  “I was paying these off for years after we married, but it was worth it, just to see them on her hand.” 

   He smiled then removed his own wedding ring.  It slipped easily from his shrunken finger.  Placing it with the other two rings, he closed his hand around them for a few seconds, then tipped all three back into the box and closed it.  He took hold of Denny’s hand and placed the box on his palm, closing his fingers around it and then wrapping both hands around his.

   “I don’t know what you can do with these,” he said, “but you are the only person I want to have them.  They’re yours now.  If you ever get the chance, give them to the woman who makes you the happiest man on earth, like Jeanie made me.”

   Fighting back tears and unable to speak past the lump in his throat, Denny simply nodded.  He didn’t tell the old man the truth, that it was too late for him.

   Mr Duncan smiled and let Denny’s hand go, leaning back and closing his eyes.  “I’ll just rest for a while now.”

   Denny swallowed.  “That’s a good idea,” he said.  “I’ll be right here if you need me.”

   Mr Duncan nodded without opening his eyes and within seconds his breathing evened out as he fell asleep again.

   For the next few hours, Denny sat on the sofa and waited.  Mr Duncan slept for the most part, occasionally waking, opening his eyes a little and smiling when he saw Denny, then falling back to sleep again.  Eventually his breathing became shallow.  Denny went back to sit next to him and took his hand, watching as each breath came further and further apart, sporadically stopping and then restarting.  Finally, he stopped breathing altogether. 

   Tears slid down Denny’s cheeks.  He placed Mr Duncan’s hand into his lap, stood and leaned down to kiss his forehead.  Then he stepped back, waiting. 

   After a minute or so, Mr Duncan’s body began to shimmer.  Denny watched in amazement as a grey, transparent form separated from the corpse and stood, becoming solid.  He recognised the eyes, but this wasn’t the Mr Duncan he knew.  This man was young and handsome, standing straight and tall in a way the older James Duncan hadn’t in years.  The ghost looked at him and smiled, holding out a hand.  Denny reached towards him, but before their fingers could touch, he shimmered again and was gone. 

   Denny stared at the place where Mr Duncan’s ghost had been.  It wasn’t anything like his waking had been.  He took a deep, shaking breath, let it out and nodded.  For that he was glad.

   He dialled the emergency services and left the phone off the hook, knowing they would be able to trace where the call had come from and come and find Mr Duncan’s body.  He didn’t want him to be one of those people who died and didn’t get discovered for days or weeks.  Denny didn’t want anyone to think no-one cared about him.

   He waited for the police to arrive, then slipped out the door with the box.  He didn’t go back to flat seven for a long time.  He wanted to remember it as it had been, full of love and laughter and kindness, the home of two remarkable people who had treated him like a son.

e He

Denny stood on the balcony of his flat, leaning against the railing.  Taking a deep breath of the cool morning air, he gazed at the tops of the trees in the park two streets away, just visible above the surrounding buildings.  Birds fluttered amongst the branches, courting, building nests, mating.  The whole flurry of spring activity. 

   He missed his local park.  He used to walk in it often when he was alive, enjoying the changing of the seasons, the birds and squirrels in the trees, the ducks and geese on the lake.  He had never been a tree hugging nature freak, but he did like the outdoors.  And now, for over four years, all he’d had was his tiny balcony to stand on.  He missed being able to walk outside, especially in the spring.  Oliver would sometimes tell him about whatever was happening in the park where he slept, when the trees started to change to their autumn colours, the geese arriving on the lake from wherever they spent the summer, the first swallows of spring, the well tended flowerbeds bursting into bloom. 

   Denny was happy to be stuck in his own building, with his neighbours, where he had TVs to watch and books to read and a piano to play, but sometimes he envied Oliver being able to move around outside. 

   His eye was drawn to a small truck pulling up outside the building on the street below.  Two men jumped down from the cab and opened the back.  A blue car that had been following them turned into the parking area at the side of the building and disappeared from view. 

   Denny caught a glimpse of furniture in the back of the truck and sighed.  They were here, the new interlopers.  He knew they had to be moving into his flat, all the others were occupied.  Since the Coopers had moved out a month ago he had been enjoying having his own space again, where he could do whatever he wanted and sleep on his own bed.  Now he was going to be reduced to wandering around the building trying to find some peace. 

   He didn’t know who was moving in.  Mr and Mrs Clapper, the people who had rented the flat to him and who still owned it, had shown several people around, but he’d always made himself scarce when they did.  He couldn’t do anything about whoever moved in so he preferred to not know until it was absolutely necessary.  Maybe this time whoever it was would be nice and quiet and out a lot.  If they were really terrible, he could move things around, slam a few doors, just enough to freak them out sufficiently to leave.  It wouldn’t be the first time.  He had felt slightly guilty about it, but Ian had been loud and rude and blared techno at all hours.  He had also smoked, in a non-smoking flat, and Denny hated the smell of cigarette smoke.  He had done the neighbours a favour by getting him out.

   He heard the front door opening and wandered through the window and back into the bedroom.  He might as well get this over with.

   “Oh, this is a nice size,” he heard a woman’s voice say as he walked through the door into the living room.

   “Yeah.  I’ll easily get my two boxes of stuff in here,” a second woman replied.

   Two young women were standing in the middle of the room, one blonde and one brunette.  Two very pretty young women.  Denny grinned.  Things were looking up.  He hadn’t seen who had spoken so he didn’t know which of them was moving in.  He would have been happy with either, but he hoped it was the brunette.  She was stunning.

   “You’ll be cluttering the place up in no time,” the blonde said. 

   “Yes!” he said, performing a delighted fist pump. “Score!”

   “Just like back home,” she continued.

   “What do you mean, just like back home?” the beautiful brunette said.  “My room was perfection.  It was yours that was always a tip.  Mum and dad were always telling you to tidy up.”

   “I think you have selective recall,” the blonde said, smiling.

   The brunette laughed and the room suddenly felt a little brighter.  It was the most beautiful laugh he’d ever heard. 

   So they were sisters.  Now Denny knew, he could see the resemblance, despite the difference in their hair colour.

   “What’s the bedroom like?” the blonde said, walking to the door to the bedroom and opening it.  The brunette followed.  “Oh, not bad.  Ooh, a balcony.”

   Denny followed them, watching as they walked out onto his balcony.  He hoped she didn’t decide to fill it with potted plants like the appropriately named Mrs Greene had.  It made it so awkward to enjoy the one bit of outside space he felt was his own when he had to walk through a miniature jungle.  And he couldn’t lie down and look at the sky, as he sometimes liked to.  It just felt weird, with branches poking out of him in all sorts of awkward places.

   His gaze dropped to their jean-clad behinds as they leaned on the railing facing away from him.  They were both very fine, but the brunette’s was sensational, just the perfect shape and size.  He was in trouble with an ass like that.  Not to mention a body like that and a face like that.  He turned away quickly as his natural responses threatened.  What a cruel thing death was, he thought, not for the first time.  Leaves you with a raging libido and takes away any chance you have to use it. 

   He rolled his eyes.  He could at least let the poor woman move in before he started having lascivious thoughts about her.

   “Excuse me?  Miss?” 

   Both women turned at the sound of the man’s voice calling.

   “In here,” the blonde called, walking back to the living room. 

   The brunette lingered on the balcony.  Her eyes were closed, her face turned toward the sun as she took a deep breath and let it out slowly. 

   Denny studied her face.  She was absolutely beautiful, her long, dark hair framing model features, large green eyes, a slim nose slightly turned up at the end and full, pink lips.  But the thing he noticed most about her as she stood on the balcony, something he hadn’t seen before, was the expression of sadness on her exquisite face.  A melancholy tinged with, was it fear?  Something broke in his heart at the sight.  He couldn’t look away.  He felt a completely unexpected, but utterly overwhelming urge to take her into his arms and comfort her, to somehow take whatever burden she was carrying onto himself and restore her happiness.