‘Listen,’ soothed Agnes. ‘The train is still on its tracks. So don’t worry too much.’
‘The thing is,’ said the Ghost, ‘I spent our whole life never really waking up. Now you’ll get a chance to.’
Agnes sighed. ‘He actually has a point I suppose.’
She started to read a bit of her book. And the Ghost remembered reading it himself when he was younger, though before the wisdom of Chandler’s words could really sink in.
He thought about how Chandler wrote about death, and of broken hearts. And he looked at the Dreamer – and he longed for him to keep his lightness.
Away
Outside the window their unlived life continued to speed by. Wilbur in his office, working. At an airport, staring up at a board. In a hotel in Edinburgh, ignoring a view of the castle as he scribbled business plans on a sheet of paper.
The Dreamer was trying not to think too deeply about his possible death at the end of the journey, so he focused hard on what he was seeing.
‘I don’t understand …’ said the Dreamer. ‘Why am I seeing myself on my own all the time?’
Agnes was reading her book. ‘Oh, I think that’s a question for your ghost. He has lived all this, after all.’
The Ghost considered. ‘Because your work takes you away. I suppose, now I think about it, that was the whole point. Look, there we are in Edinburgh, at the first Scottish branch. And there on Concorde to New York …’
Days went by. Weeks. Months. Years. Faster and faster. Brief flashes of Maggie, but otherwise just prolonged stretches of offices and hotels. Never a sight of his mother, or Alfred, or any friends except Charlie, but only ever in the office. No cemetery visits any more. No reading anything but business reports and papers now. The dullest and most repetitive landscape of the whole journey was passing the windows. But then the sight of Wilbur on the phone, crying, as he heard his mother had been rushed to hospital.
The train slowed.
The view became darkness.
‘What is happening?’ wondered the Dreamer.
‘The future,’ said Agnes. ‘The past. Both at once.’
The Ghost nodded mournfully. ‘And I’m afraid it’s going to get worse.’
In Her Own Way
They were at Edith’s funeral. There weren’t many people there.
Wilbur, at the pulpit, was giving a speech he had cobbled together on the train up from King’s Cross while Maggie had compiled a list of things she planned to help her father with while they were in Sheffield.
Maggie, Alfred, Charlie, Claudette. A few red-faced regulars from the pub. Jim, the landlord, wearing a suit he’d had since the Queen’s coronation. And, of course, Mr Parkin. He was sitting on a lonely front pew across the aisle from Wilbur, Maggie and Alfred. Wilbur had walked past him on his way to the pulpit without even a glance in his direction. He was now an old man with white hair and a stoop, today dressed in a smart new black suit. He had his long umbrella that he used as a walking stick.
The Ghost and the Dreamer were standing at the back of the church watching their thirty-four-year-old self give a speech from the pulpit. If anyone had seen them, they would have noted that they were not only wearing the same outfit, but that the clothes they were dressed in were not entirely appropriate attire for their mother’s funeral. This hypothetical observer would also note how different their expressions were, despite their identical faces. The Dreamer was in shock, but the Ghost was squinting as if regret was a shard of glass that dug deep.
‘She died of an aneurysm three years after we moved to London,’ said the Ghost.
The Dreamer looked forlorn. ‘Poor Mam.’
Then they stayed silent to listen to the Wilbur at the front of the church.
‘My mother had a challenging life …’ he said, staring at his scripted notes. He took a breath to compose himself. He hadn’t had a proper conversation with her since the ill-fated Sunday dinner.
‘She suffered more than most could bear, losing a husband, and a son,’ he managed, speaking out to the church. ‘She was tough. But when she was able to enjoy life, she enjoyed it well. She loved working in the pub. And even in the hard times she used to take me and my brother to the cinema. The Palace … It’s where she and my dad had always gone when they were courting.’
He looked at Maggie on the front pew and smiled at her.
‘Musicals. That was her thing.South Pacific. White Christmas. The Sound of Music. An American in Paris. She had a thing for Gene Kelly. But she liked all sorts … “Singin’ in the Rain” was her unofficial anthem …’
‘This,’ commented the Ghost, as the Dreamer sobbed a little beside him, ‘is a terrible, terrible speech … Isn’t it bad? I was so used to public speaking by this point. I probably did more speaking in presentations and boardrooms and at crowded shops than I actually did normal conversations. But it was one thing talking about net profit projections and another talking about anything real. Anything emotional. Look at me. Look at us.’
