Chapter 19
Mr Parkin
The man at the door was tall and slim and was wearing a smart suit and an expression of stern indifference.
The Ghost instantly recognised him.
Mr Parkin, the landlord.
Back in those days, he had owned all the houses on Glossop Road, and many beyond.
And since the war he had been raising rents to account for the houses that had been destroyed by bombs.
Which seemed to Wilbur’s mother doubly unfair.
Because not only had he killed her husband – taking the main income with him – but now, from beyond the grave, Hitler was raising her rent too.
And just then Wilbur’s baby self began to cry again from across the room, and cry so hard that it took the Ghost a moment or two to hear a shrill but distant whistle, and the mechanical chug of a train.
Wilbur heard the sound of the train and saw it arrive on the street behind an oblivious Mr Parkin. Plumes of steam headed to the sky. As invisible to the living as it was vivid to Wilbur. But he stayed watching the scene.
‘Is your mammy there?’ Mr Parkin asked. There was a soft creep to his voice, or at least that is how the Ghost had always thought of it. Like a panther treading through undergrowth.
‘No. She’s working.’
Dougie’s face was defiant. The Ghost thought about how it must have been for him, feeling he had to be a protector while still a young lad.
‘Well, it’s Friday. Did she leave the money for me?’
Dougie shrugged. ‘Don’t think so.’
Mr Parkin raised his eyebrows. ‘You don’t think so …
It’s very important, little Douglas, for people to keep their promises …
And I am afraid your mother is very bad at that.
You must not follow in her footsteps. God said that when a man takes a vow he must not break his word. That is there in the Holy Bible.’
‘I don’t like the Bible much,’ Dougie said with a familiar fearlessness. ‘Apart from the story of the Ark. I like that Noah saved the animals.’
‘I like the story of the Ark too,’ smiled Mr Parkin, for a moment looking almost kindly.
The Ghost certainly had never remembered him as kindly.
He had always been just a strict and unscrupulous, evil landlord, but you can’t live for over eight decades without realising people were always complicated.
Or that there was something internal that pulled against the external perception.
‘I like that Noah rose to the challenge and got the Ark done on time. And speaking of being on time, tell your mother that I am a generous man, but my generosity runs out. And I will return tomorrow morning … I am not a charity, tell her.’
And with that, he turned on his heels and walked two mere steps to the house next door, where he knocked again, after another rent payment.
Dougie shut the door, and Wilbur saw the worry on his brother’s face – nine-tenths fury, one-tenth fear – and he wanted to soothe him.
‘It’s all right, Dougie.’
It sounded hollow, even to a ghost.
Then came another voice.
‘Oh dear, Old Bean. Falling at the first hurdle …’
She was right there, beside him, as unseen by the living as the train.
‘Agnes.’
‘You promised to head to the train the moment you heard it …’ Agnes was exasperated. ‘Don’t dilly-dally. Hop on board.’
Wilbur took one last look at Dougie and said a goodbye before walking back through the bricks and climbing the metal steps of the front carriage.
As he did so, he noticed there were no visible rail tracks.
Not like what he had seen back at the ghostly station.
And yet, as the train started to chug away from that day, it did so smooth and straight and with a tightness that suggested the tracks were there.
‘I saw me.’
‘That’s what it’s all about.’
‘No. I mean, the baby version of me could see …’ He made a flapping gesture to himself.
Agnes nodded nonchalantly. ‘Well, that’s quite possible. Babies are the biggest of all the mysteries in the universe, and no one understands them.’
‘So, when I see my older self, will they see me too?’
She looked stern for a moment. ‘No. And in the unlikely event that they could, you don’t try and get their attention.
You don’t meddle, Wilbur. You accept. That’s the way to eternity.
The only way. There are rules. You get on and off the train as required.
You never try and speak to yourself. And you must never be there when you fall asleep. One, two, three. Do you understand?’
He didn’t. Nor did he understand why her tone was so forbidding.
‘Look, I am grateful you chose to be my guide. But I don’t know why it has to be like this.
I am already dead. Why the need to be so strict?
You were kind to me in the bookshop, when I was little.
You talked to me about stories I should read … ’
She looked at Wilbur like he was missing the point.
‘It would be unkind of me not to be a little strict, Wilbur. Now, you brought up stories. What is a story if not the product of following the rules? Even my favourite author, the great Mr Raymond Chandler – known more for his style than his plots – well, he said that his style was “the product of discipline, of a carefully trained sensibility”. Actually, that might have been my mother. But as with stories, so with life. And even – no, especially – death. Without discipline you will never understand your own story, without discipline you will not stay the course, without discipline you will not make it to the eternal destination at the end of the line. Following the rules is a bore. But it is also the only way.’
‘But a writer changes things. A writer edits.’
Agnes was confused by this and pouted a little to contemplate it. ‘I must admit you have a point. A very small one, but a point nevertheless. But the fact of it is that I am trying to look after you here.’
It sounded strange, to have someone looking after him.
After all, he was dead. Yet he had to admit he quite liked it.
He liked Agnes’s antiquated and rather unyielding manner.
His last few decades of life had been quite structureless, and lonely.
He had floated to earth like a sycamore seed.
And he imagined that to navigate something as wild as death needed someone who knew the rules.
Especially as train travel was involved. And yet, a question remained.
‘But what if there are things that I did wrong?’
Agnes’s face abruptly softened. A smile emerged, accompanied by a tender laugh. ‘That, Old Bean, means you have lived.’