The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir (3 page)

Nana always cooks them supper when they come back from seeing a man about a dog. She makes bubble-and-squeak from cabbage and potatoes. It lasts forever and she heats it up the next day and the day after that. You can even have bubble-and-squeak for your birthday supper.

“Cabbage and potatoes? That’s not much of a birthday treat,” Dad said.

“Aye, that’s right. And you didn’t put your hand in your pocket for a single thing for their birthdays!” Nana replied.

“It needs something to spice it up!” Dad said.

So he put sugar and mustard and treacle and brown sauce and pepper and strawberry jam and vanilla essence on it and I helped him. He said I was a good boy to help him like that. And Pop even came out of the corner, which he never does, to watch Dad putting all those things on his bubble-and-squeak.

“Choo-choo! Stand back! Stand back!” Pop shouted and he put his hands over his face when Dad put the syrup on top of it all.

“A meal fit for my children’s birthday!” Dad shouted.

And Dad added a little salt for extra flavor. Emily thinks that you put salt on your dinner to cool it down but it is actually the draft that comes from the gap at the top of the window. You just have to wait, and it will cool down. I keep telling her that but she still thinks it’s the salt, which is why she always burns her tongue on her food.

Dad ate the birthday dinner in two bites but you mustn’t gobble your food down or people will think you are a glutton. And that’s a deadly sin. But he doesn’t care because most of the time he doesn’t eat.

“Tomorrow I will mend that bike!” Dad said and told me to come and sit on his knee.

And Emily sat on his other knee and Margueretta looked at me with that smile, which means she is going to lock me in the cellar again as soon as she can.

Here we go loopy loo, here we go loopy light,
Here we go droopy-doo, all on a Saturday night!
My droopy-doo! My droopy-doo!

Daddy swung Emily around and lifted her little feet off the ground and she squealed.

“Do it again, Daddy. Do it again!”

“Do you love your daddy?”

“We do! We do!” we cried.

“Choo-choo! Choo-choo!” shouted Pop and wet himself, which was the second time today.

Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to you!
Happy Birthday dear Emily, John, and Margueretta!
Happy Birthday to you!

And Emily danced, holding hands with Dad, singing.

“And tomorrow, my wee Johnny, you will go for a ride in a police car!”

“Can I go too?” Emily asked and jumped up and down.

“No. It’s man’s work. Little Johnny is a man.”

And Emily cried because she wasn’t a man.

And I cried too because it wasn’t a police car. It was a milk float.

6

T
hat’s why we had to get up so early this morning. It was freezing and dark when we loaded the milk onto the back of the float and Dad said I could help but the crates were too heavy and we pretended I was lifting them but everyone could see it was just my dad. And the man at the depot said I was a good boy to help my dad like that and then he asked what happened to my hair.

Dad never said anything about the fleas or Tony Curtis. He said I wanted it cut that way, which was not true at all. Why would anyone want to have all their hair cut off so you can see scratches all over their head from where they had fleas?

The milk rattled as we went up the street and Dad made siren sounds and said we were chasing baddies in our police car. And even though it was only a milk float, I made my fingers into the shape of a gun and blasted at the baddies through the open door.

“Faster, faster!” I shouted.

“We will be able to go faster once we have delivered all this milk,” Dad said.

“Bang, bang! Bang, bang!”

“They’ll never get away!” Dad shouted.

But they did get away because we were not in a real police car and we kept having to stop to deliver the milk.

“Did you know that your dad had tea with the Queen of England?” Dad asked.

I have heard this story before and I have checked with Mum if it is true. And even though he sometimes tells lies, it is true that my dad went to tea with the queen.

“The king died suddenly. That’s how it all started, and she was a princess when the king died. She was beautiful, it goes without saying, and I was a very young man. She was going to be the Queen of England. And I had tea with her!”

“Did you cry?”

“Why would I cry? Och, you say the funniest things.”

“The pussycat went to London to visit the queen.”

“That’s right! And what did the pussycat do?”

“She frightened a mouse from under a chair.”

“She did. Very good! Well, let me tell you the story. The princess was sad, and she wanted someone to play the organ at the king’s funeral. The king was her daddy.”

“Her daddy died? Did she cry?”

“I’m sure she did. She loved him very much. Anyway, the Royal College of Music told her about me. Daddy has a gift. A gift from God. That’s how I can play the organ. I found out one day when the choirmaster gave me a lesson in the church. I was a wee laddie like you. And that’s how a poor grocer’s son got to go to the Royal College of Music and have tea with a princess who was about to become the Queen of England.”

“Can I play the organ?”

“Perhaps. But perhaps God gave you a different gift. We all have a gift from God.”

“Mum said I am a gift from God.”

“Well, that’s right enough, Johnny.”

“She said my name means ‘Gift From God.’”

“It does.”

“But there are a lot of people called John so are they all gifts from God?”

“You ask too many questions.”

“Your name is John too. So are you a gift from God?”

“We’re all gifts from God.”

“If I am a gift from God, I would like to be a lamb. Can I be a lamb, Daddy?”

“You are a blessed lamb, wee Johnny. A blessed lamb.”

“What happened to the princess?”

“She chose someone else. There was another princess called Margaret. I forgot to call her a princess. I just said, ‘Hello, Margaret.’ So they never asked me to come back.”

“Then did you cry, Daddy?”

“I did, Johnny. I did. I cried for all that could have been but never was. I could have played at the king’s funeral in Westminster Abbey. I could have played but for my own stupidity. Don’t make the same mistakes, wee Johnny. Don’t make the same mistakes as your old dad. Well, all this talking has made me thirsty!”

“Have a pint of milk, Daddy!”

“No, Johnny, your daddy needs pints of a different kind. You guard the milk like a Scottish soldier!” Dad said and stopped the milk float to go inside the Fitzroy.

I think he must have been really thirsty because he was gone for a very long time. That’s why I climbed over into the driver’s seat and pulled at the steering wheel. When I am a grown-up I will go to see a man about a dog. Or I might be a policeman and kill baddies.

“Bang, bang, you’re dead!”

But it’s really tiring shooting baddies and anyway Dad was gone so long that I ran out of baddies to shoot so I lay down on the seat and fell asleep.

He was still gone when I woke up. And I thought he would never come back from being so thirsty and seeing a man about a dog in the brown room. And I would have to stay there forever with the milk and the baddies. If he was so thirsty, I don’t know why he didn’t have some milk. There was lots of milk.

I don’t know who that woman was who asked me why I was crying. She looked very worried about something.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Waiting for my dad,” I answered but I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.

“Where is he?”

“He’s in there.”

“Dry your tears. And wait here. It’s a disgrace. A disgrace, I say.”

She came back out of the pub with Dad and wagged her finger at him and he blew a raspberry at her and she shook her head the way that people do when you have done something very bad but he was only getting a drink because he was thirsty. Dad laughed and made his voice sound like hers but I didn’t laugh, even though it was funny, because that lady looked even more angry. I don’t like it when people get angry.

Dad drove much faster in the afternoon. We weaved in and out of the white lines and a crate of milk fell off the back and two men shouted at us but we kept going because we were in a speeding police chase.

And when we slowed down, Dad started singing. I like it when he sings.

She was lovely and fair as the rose of the summer,
Yet ’twas not her beauty alone that won me.

I could see him looking down at me, snuggled under his arm.

“Och. Dear wee Johnny. My dear, wee boy,” he said and he started to cry and I watched the tears trickle down his rosy cheeks.

“What is it, Daddy?”

Oh no, ’twas the truth in her eyes ever dawning,
That made me love Mary, the Rose of Tralee.

“Who’s Mary, Daddy?”

“Och, it’s just a song, Johnny. Just a sad song.”

“Why are you crying?”

“It’s a sad song.”

“Are we going home soon?”

“Just as soon as we deliver all the milk.”

“I’m tired, Daddy. And I’m hungry.”

“Well, just close your eyes, wee Johnny. Close your eyes and pretend you are in a police car.”

So I closed my eyes and fell asleep again on his arm while the bottles went chink, chink, chink behind us.

Chink, chink, chink.

Dad was fired when we got back to the depot. And when we got home, Dad kept falling over. Usually he falls over because I hold onto his leg but I wasn’t holding onto his leg this time and Mum was shouting at him but I don’t think you should shout at someone just because they fell over. You should help them get back up. I tried to help him up but he’s too heavy.

“You are an irresponsible good-for-nothing! A useless piece of…and how are you going to get another job when you keep getting fired?” Mum shouted.

She lit a cigarette, but she still didn’t help him get back up so he got back up on his own, which he can do sometimes.

And Dad laughed and said, “There’s no demand for pipe organ players, except in churches. And horror films.”

And he laughed so much he fell over again. And still no one helped him get back up.

“You are drunk!”

“Och. Don’t be like that, my sweet rose. Come here and give me a wee kiss.”

He sat up on the kitchen floor and held out his arms.

“A kiss? A kiss? That won’t put food on the table. How could you do that? You’re drunk…” She lowered her voice so that me and Emily couldn’t hear her. “And, with Johnny there too. How could you? A five-year-old boy. Seeing his father like this.”

“Help me up, Johnny.”

“If your dear father was here now, he’d turn in his grave!” Nana said.

“The front of my trousers. Someone has sewn up the front of my trousers!” Pop screamed. “My trousers! Sewn up my trousers!”

I could see Pop had his trousers on back to front but I never said anything and then he wet himself and hid in the corner. And everyone slammed the door when they left, Dad first and then Mum and Nana chasing after him.

I pulled Emily by the hand and we sat under the kitchen table and picked at the piece of Dundee cake that Nana made at Christmas. It’s stuck to the floor behind one of the table legs. I managed to pull a sultana out of it. It looked like a dead fly. But I didn’t eat it. Then I made tracks with my fingers in the cigarette ash on the floor.

Margueretta came over and grabbed me by the neck and dragged me to the cellar door and pushed me in. Normally she would pull me by the hair but I don’t have any. She strangled me a little bit before she pushed me in. Strangling is when you put your hands around someone’s neck and squeeze so hard that they can’t breathe and then their eyes nearly pop out like marbles.

I don’t always curl into a ball. So I’m pulling my knees up to my face and rocking back and forwards on the stone floor. Backwards and forwards. Backwards and forwards. Backwards and forwards in the dark.

And the thing in the corner goes drip, drip, drip. I don’t know why it makes that sound.

Drip, drip, drip.

I’m shivering now. But I’m keeping my teeth shut tight so they don’t make a noise. Tight like my eyes. I don’t want that thing to know I’m here. But it knows I’m here. And it’s not very nice.

7

T
oday did not start well. Just after I arrived at school, my best friend Tommy dared me to climb over the wall of the knackers yard which is right across the road from our school. Everyone knows that the knackers yard is haunted, and they take dead horses and their headless riders in there and boil them down into glue. It’s a terrible place.

Then the others joined in with Tommy and dared me, so I had no choice but to climb up the wall. There’s a bomb site beside the knackers yard so we piled up some old bricks against the wall, and I climbed on the bricks and pulled my head over the top to look.

That’s when I saw it. It was the skeleton of a horse’s head with no body. So that proves it.

“There are skeletons and dead horses and dead men with no heads! Aieeee! Aieeee!” I screamed.

And Emily screamed and then the other girls screamed. Everyone turned and screamed and ran so I had to let go of the wall and the pile of bricks gave way and I slid down on the front of my shoes and now they are ripped and I know for sure my mum does not have money for new shoes, so my toes will be sticking out the bloody ends for God knows how long because there is no way I am going to show her what I have done to my shoes.

And then things got worse when we ran across the road to the school gate. All the other children were gathered around the front window of the assembly hall because someone had set fire to it. It wasn’t still on fire but the big window was smashed and the wall was black.

Daisy was lying there on the ground all broken with one of her eyes hanging out and her hair was matted down on her head like a swimming cap. And her lips were on the wrong side of her face. It made her look like she was trying not to kiss someone. She was beautiful before she was burned like that and the girls took turns to brush her hair. There were lots of toys and books lying beside her, black and burned. But Daisy made the girls cry.