‘Uncle Gus, wouldn’t it be better if I climbed up the ladder?’ Lily asked, afraid that should the ladder give way, Uncle Gus would come tumbling down to crush her like a giant human landslide. ‘It feels a bit rickety—’
‘A real man is never afraid to get his hands dirty,’ Uncle Gus called over his shoulder, briefly leaning backwards, the ladder flexing. Lily, heart in her mouth, feared she was about to experience a moment straight out of a slapstick movie, and glanced over her shoulder to see where he was likely to land.
Right on top of a stone statue of a fox in the middle of a ring of bushes: ouch.
‘Please be careful up there—’
‘Don’t worry, I’ve done this a million times,’ Uncle Gus said with a chuckle, reaching up and scooping a handful of leaves out of the drainpipe and attempting to deposit them into a bucket hanging on a hook by his side. While some made it, others didn’t, showering Lily with a cascade of wet, decomposing leaves. She managed to duck away from some, but one struck her right in the middle of the forehead.
‘There are people you can hire to do this kind of thing.’
‘It’s just this little bit where that sycamore hangs over. I should cut it back, but it’s a pretty tree, isn’t it? I remember you climbing up there and getting stuck once. I was all ready to start hauling the old mattresses out of the shed so you could jump, but someone went up and got you.’
Lily frowned, the ghost of an old memory slinking into focus. She hadn’t thought about that day in years, but now that she did….
‘I was trying to spy in through an upstairs window,’ she said, smiling. ‘There was that guy off children’s telly staying and I wanted to spy on him. Oh my god, I haven’t thought about that in … years.’
‘Andi Peters,’ Uncle Gus said. ‘He was opening the new restaurant up at Wright’s. ‘You kids were thrilled.’
‘I got his autograph in the end,’ Lily said, the memory flowing back like a river into a dry lake bed. ‘He signed my old Barbie Annual because that was all I could find.’
‘You were stuck in that tree for ages,’ Uncle Gus said with a chuckle, dropping another handful of leaves in the general direction of the bucket, making Lily duck to avoid another cascade of gunky leaves. ‘We thought you’d never get down.’
‘Who was it who got me down? Dad?’
‘It was some kid. I don’t remember his name now. The son of one of the guests. You were always over here in the summer, playing with the kids staying at the guesthouse. We had a lot of regulars, and you all knew each other. It was one of them, I expect.’
‘It was … oh, god.’
‘No, it definitely wasn’t him,’ Uncle Gus said, as he started to climb down the ladder. ‘That lazy old sod might have sent down a lightning bolt or whatever, but I can’t imagine he’d go to the trouble of climbing up a tree.’
Lily remembered now. The little boy in the photograph.
‘Michael,’ she said, as Uncle Gus reached the bottom of the ladder, then jumped down the last two steps, making it wobble and threatening to overbalance the whole thing.
‘You mean, Vicky’s boy?’
‘Yes.’
Uncle Gus shrugged. ‘I suppose it could have been. All looked the same to me. Right, that’s a job well done. Just got one more spot to do round the back.’
‘I think I’m falling in love with a ghost,’ Lily said, looking at her parents across the dinner table, a couple of glasses of wine having loosened her tongue.
‘Well, probably better than falling for a human,’ Sarah said, giving Pete a wry grin. ‘I imagine they smell better. As in, not at all.’
‘And eat less on dates,’ Pete said. ‘Got to save your pennies when you can. Which ghost will this be, out of interest? Not old Harry, who haunts the bridge down by the Moor Cross tunnel?’
‘Who?’
Pete laughed. ‘Don’t worry, I made him up. Are we going to have to guess?’
‘Dad, do you remember when I got stuck up the sycamore tree up at the guesthouse, and Michael Borton climbed up and helped me down?’
Pete shrugged. ‘Vaguely. I was at work. I remember Angus mentioning it offhand once or twice, but it wasn’t a big deal. You were only up there for five minutes.’
‘That’s not what he said.’
‘Ah, you can’t have been more than eight or nine. I imagine you kids got up to way worse than that. Do you remember the time you and Mary fell in the river and the police came out?’
Lily grimaced. ‘I was seventeen, and Colin’s older brother had been sneaking us drinks in The Crown’s beer garden. We stole a canoe and then capsized it. I remember the policeman laughing.’
‘You were such a tearaway in your teens,’ Sarah said. ‘I thought you were heading for a life of crime.’
‘I wasn’t that bad,’ Lily said, remembering a couple of other drunken escapades, and feeling glad her parents had no idea what she’d got up to at university. ‘Do you remember much about Michael?’
‘The boy?’ Pete shook his head. ‘Not really. Angus and Gert used to look after a bunch of you while we were at work. We’d send you over in the morning and pick you up in the afternoon. Most of the time you’d just play out on the grass outside, or go through Angus’s stack of board games if it was raining. It helped us out a lot.’
‘Do you remember me playing with Michael?’
Pete shrugged. ‘I wouldn’t have known any of their names.’
‘Actually,’ Sarah said, leaning forward. ‘I think I do. I picked you up a few times, and there was always a boy about. Sweet little thing. A little … weedy. Like he’d end up selling insurance or something.’
‘Selling insurance … right.’
‘And he was always sick. His mother would come running over with a tissue as soon as he started sniffing, grab the back of his head with one hand and squeeze the tissue over his nose with the other, like she was trying to put him out for an operation or something.’
‘His mother … did you ever talk to her?’
Sarah shrugged. ‘Not really. Didn’t really get a chance. She wasn’t particularly conversational. The boy seemed nice. Always polite. A shame he always looked either sick or about to get sick. And his sleeves were always crusty from wiping away the snot.’
‘Grim.’
‘So, is this boy the ghost you’re talking about? Did he die or something?’
Lily shook her head. ‘No, I think he’s still alive. Unless ghosts have learned how to use computers.’
She decided to go to bed before she could embarrass herself any more, but alone in her room she opened her laptop, pulled up her social media and stared at Michael’s latest message. His profile picture was unchanged, just a blank circle, and when she clicked on his profile page there was nothing to display except a few uninteresting memes. His friend list was hidden and he had no pictures to display.
‘So,’ Lily whispered. ‘You’re weedy, always sick, and probably an insurance salesman. Not so promising, is it?’
Still, she was drunk enough to type a quick message.
Dear Michael,
I tried to ask Victoria about you today, but she deflected my attempt. Did something bad happen between you? I think it might help if you could come up and see her. Can you take time off from your insurance job?
Kind regards,
Lily
She sent the message before she could chicken out, wondering if the deliberate mention of insurance would compel him to correct her. No one would want to be associated with a job in insurance unless that really was their job. Surely some time tomorrow he would respond, telling her that—
A message flashed up in the box. Lily stared. He was still awake, and had replied.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
Hi Lily,
Thanks for your message. I’ll see what I can do. It sounds like she doesn’t want to see me. Thanks for trying. I should be able to come up soon, if all goes well. I really appreciate you being so kind to my mother.
By the way, it’s pretty late. You should get to bed!
Thanks,
Michael
The message was just as mature as the others, without any of the silly emojis or punctuation characters she sometimes got even from her old workmates. And Michael sounded so kind … Lily slid down in the bed, her laptop on her tummy as she swooned at the ceiling, then abruptly forced herself to sit up. She was being an idiot; she wasn’t sixteen anymore, and he hadn’t corrected her on the insurance thing, so her mum’s guess must have been true. However, telling her she should go to bed had been a little let down of the formality guard he had hitherto kept in place.
If he could do it, so could she.
Michael, I hope I didn’t wake you up! You’re right, I should get to bed. By the way, do you remember a little girl you rescued from a sycamore tree outside the Willow River Guesthouse? It must be fifteen years ago now. That was me.
Lily
She sent the message, then immediately regretted it. They had been so formal, but now she had crossed the line into borderline flirtatiousness. She didn’t even know what he looked like now. He could be thin and weedy or the size of a house. He might be bald, or cross-eyed, or walk with a limp. Not that she believed she was shallow, of course, but a boyfriend was about a total package. You could be mates with anyone, and she liked Michael’s personality enough that she would be mates with him even if he had an elephant’s nose, three legs, and farted when he walked, but she wouldn’t want to go out with him. After her experience with Steve, she had found herself craving some kind of relationship, one that was more than downing tequilas in the pub or throwing high-fives after a skittles strike.
No reply. She really had pushed it too far. Even if he looked like a TV actor, there was no way she had a chance now. She had crossed the line—
A message appeared, and Lily was so desperate to open it that she nearly dropped the phone.
Hi Lily,
Yes, I remember that day. I hoped it was you.
Goodnight,
Michael