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Authors: John Mitchell

Tags: #Parenting & Relationships, #Family Relationships, #Child Abuse, #Dysfunctional Relationships

The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir

BOOK: The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir
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This memoir is based on my experiences over a ten-year period. The events occurred over forty years ago and, as is the case with works of creative non-fiction, many details have had to be imaginatively re-created. This is a story of childhood, as observed, interpreted or imagined by the child, and as recalled by the adult who experienced them. Some names and other identifying details have been changed. Some characters are not based on any one person but are composite characters.

Text copyright © 2013 John Mitchell

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

          ISBN-10: 0615793207

          ISBN-13: 9780615793207

          eBook ISBN: 978-1-63003-079-7

For Margueretta
and Emily

and all children who
sleep without
a nightlight

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

The Cellar

     
Chapter 1

     
Chapter 2

     
Chapter 3

     
Chapter 4

     
Chapter 5

     
Chapter 6

     
Chapter 7

     
Chapter 8

     
Chapter 9

     
Chapter 10

     
Chapter 11

     
Chapter 12

     
Chapter 13

     
Chapter 14

     
Chapter 15

     
Chapter 16

     
Chapter 17

     
Chapter 18

     
Chapter 19

     
Chapter 20

     
Chapter 21

     
Chapter 22

     
Chapter 23

     
Chapter 24

The Attic

     
Chapter 25

     
Chapter 26

     
Chapter 27

     
Chapter 28

     
Chapter 29

     
Chapter 30

     
Chapter 31

     
Chapter 32

     
Chapter 33

     
Chapter 34

     
Chapter 35

     
Chapter 36

     
Chapter 37

     
Chapter 38

     
Chapter 39

     
Chapter 40

     
Chapter 41

     
Chapter 42

     
Chapter 43

     
Chapter 44

     
Chapter 45

     
Chapter 46

     
Chapter 47

     
Chapter 48

     
Chapter 49

     
Chapter 50

     
Chapter 51

     
Chapter 52

     
Chapter 53

     
Chapter 54

     
Chapter 55

     
Chapter 56

     
Chapter 57

     
Chapter 58

     
Chapter 59

     
Chapter 60

     
Chapter 61

     
Chapter 62

     
Chapter 63

     
Chapter 64

     
Chapter 65

     
Chapter 66

     
Chapter 67

     
Chapter 68

     
Chapter 69

     
Chapter 70

     
Chapter 71

     
Chapter 72

     
Chapter 73

     
Chapter 74

     
Chapter 75

     
Chapter 76

The Darkness

     
Chapter 77

     
Chapter 78

     
Chapter 79

     
Chapter 80

     
Chapter 81

     
Chapter 82

     
Chapter 83

     
Chapter 84

     
Chapter 85

     
Chapter 86

     
Chapter 87

     
Chapter 88

     
Chapter 89

     
Chapter 90

     
Chapter 91

     
Chapter 92

     
Chapter 93

     
Chapter 94

     
Chapter 95

     
Chapter 96

     
Chapter 97

     
Chapter 98

     
Chapter 99

     
Chapter 100

     
Chapter 101

     
Chapter 102

     
Chapter 103

     
Chapter 104

     
Chapter 105

     
Chapter 106

     
Chapter 107

     
Chapter 108

     
Chapter 109

     
Chapter 110

     
Chapter 111

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

 

My wife, the beautiful Michelle, dug me up after I had been buried alive. She encouraged me and cajoled me to write. She found a way to keep our daughter quiet.

Sophia, you can be noisy again.

My editor, Laura Burns, inspired me. She helped me realize that the best stories are the ones that make people care.

The Cellar

 

Portsmouth, England
December 1962

1

I
live in a haunted family, in a haunted house, on a haunted street. One day I will live in a place where there are no ghosts but right now they’re everywhere. Some people don’t believe in ghosts but that’s alright. Those people have orange nightlights glowing in their bedrooms after dark, reflecting little moons and stars on the ceiling, and cups of hot chocolate to make them sleepy before their blankets are tucked in cozily around them by their mums. I don’t think my mum believes in ghosts. If she did, she would not turn out all the lights when she puts me to bed at night.

I am almost five years old and I was born in our front bedroom with my twin sister Emily. It was on the Twelfth Night. That’s the night when the Three Wise Men visited the baby Jesus with their gifts. It was also my sister Margueretta’s fourth birthday. So we are three gifts for the baby Jesus. If I am a gift, I would like to be a lamb. Animals don’t go to Heaven but I am sure there is a lamb up there. I think there is also a donkey.

Margueretta hates me because I was born on her birthday and now she has to share it with me and Emily, so she locks me in the cellar in the dark. And there’s something scary down there in the corner that goes drip, drip, drip. If I die down there I will go to sit at God’s feet because Dad says God suffers all the little children to come unto him. And Jesus loves dead children the most because they will never grow up to become sinners.

God wears brown sandals and no socks but Jesus doesn’t wear anything on his feet and he washes God’s feet for him because there is a lot of sand in Heaven and it gets between God’s toes. Dad says Heaven is a warm place and
you are never hungry in Heaven because you can have as much bread and jam as you want to eat. So you shouldn’t cry if a little boy dies, having been killed by his big sister who locks him in the cellar in the dark.

Nana says we will all go back to God one day so long as we are not sinners. Because if we are sinners, we will go to live with the Devil and we will scream and burn as we catch fire in a lake for all Eternity, which is a very long time. And Nana knows what a long time means because she is very old, which is also why she has hair that comes down to her knees. She ties it in braids on top of her head but I mustn’t see my Nana’s hair when it is down or that will mean I have been in her bedroom and a little boy should never go into his Nana’s bedroom or she will hit him on the back of his head with her hairbrush.

2

I
can hear those people inside my bedroom walls, whispering and knocking in the night. Nana says they are waiting for someone to die and when that person dies they will stop their knocking and it will be quiet until someone else is going to die and then they will start knocking again. Nana knows all about dying.

Mum says it is very silly to think that there are people living inside the walls of my bedroom and they are actually deathwatch beetles. I don’t know anything about deathwatch beetles but it’s true that they are waiting for someone to die. And then the house will be very quiet because we will all be dead.

This afternoon, we were in the hospital waiting for Great-Auntie Maisie to die. She’s Nana’s sister and it took all afternoon for her to go. Boots is already dead. Mum said it was her time but Dad said it was a bus. They found her last week in front of the library where Mum gets her books. Dad brought her home and Emily cried even though Boots was very flat. She didn’t even look like a cat. And Dad buried her under the wall in our backyard next to Judy. Judy started having fits and running around in circles and we all knew that soon enough she would bite me or Emily in the face and that would be the bloody end of it. I think Dad killed her with the coal shovel but we weren’t allowed to watch.

Pop will be dead soon. This is because he thinks he is a train. He looks right at me and shouts, “Choo-choo goes the train! Stand back! Stand back!” I always run under the kitchen table with Emily and the cat. But now it’s just me and Emily because the cat is dead.

Pop also wets himself and his tongue no longer fits in his mouth. And he hides in the corner of the kitchen and screams if you come near him. The only one who knows what he is screaming about is Nana and so far she has only told me that it has something to do with my Auntie Beryl and a pack of playing cards with pictures of naked ladies. Also from spending a lot of time on his own in our garden shed, doing God knows what.

They always make me stand by the hospital bed because there are never enough chairs and if I stand on one leg Mum cuffs me round the ear, even though I’m just trying to rest my other foot. And I have to keep my hands in my pockets at all times or Emily will try to hold my hand and I am not holding hands with a girl. Mum says I should take my hands out of my pockets and show some respect. And Mum will be even more angry if I keep my hands in my pockets and try to stand on one leg at the same time, because then I will fall over.

I also try to hold my breath in hospitals because they smell of boiled meat and disinfectant. And old ladies who are dying smell of perfume and onions and pee. But Great-Auntie Maisie smelled of sick. There’s only so long that you can hold your breath. And her lips were all gray and sagging and covered in brown spots with little bits of slimy spit in the corners, making tiny creamy bubbles that didn’t pop. So there was no way she was getting a kiss from me, even if she was going to sleep for all Eternity.

BOOK: The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir
12.73Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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