The sun emerged slowly through the woodland, a crimson glow behind silhouetted top branches. It climbed free of the trees and became a brilliant yellow, backlighting the bushes in the garden with golden outlines, casting long shadows on the glistening dewy grass. Birds sang.
Finally, Adam was ready. He floated in through the bedroom window. In their king-sized bed, Julie was fast asleep. Alone, thankfully.
He hovered by her antique dressing table, which he had canvassed repeatedly to get rid of, but failed. It had been Julie’s mother’s and she had loved it since she was a child. Random bits of make-up littered the embroidered cloth that covered and protected the polished mahogany.
He twiddled his spectral fingers like a yogi. His fingers! What was happening? Until now he had just been a presence, nebulous, insubstantial. Now, looking down, he saw legs, his legs – and wearing the dark blue Boss jeans he habitually wore at home. Very slowly and carefully, he got to his feet, which were, he realised, clad in his favourite brown Camper Pelotas. He tiptoed over to the long mirror behind the door. There he was. Almost as solid as when he’d been alive. Exactly the same shape, unfortunately. His face still had the same telltale lines, crinkling his forehead, spreading from his eyes to his upper cheeks. Those almost-sixty jowls were still all too grimly prominent. His bald patch unchanged. Even the belly he had fought so hard to keep trim over recent years had survived the shift into the supernatural. You might have thought that a ghost would be allowed to shape their own image; but no, it seemed that, even on the ether, he was stuck with himself; styled by God knows whom.
Adam approached the wall by the bathroom. He paused for a moment and shook himself like a dog. Then, experimenting, he walked straight at it. Amazing! The solid mass failed to stop him. He was through, without feeling a thing. Looking round at the familiar taps and units and mirrors, he felt exhilarated, but also disconcerted. He turned slowly and sailed back through. On the other side again, he found that he was laughing. This was like scuba diving or something: completely unreal.
Julie was still sleeping. Adam sat down on her favourite little yellow chair and watched her. You would think that if you were able to float through walls, sitting on a chair would be impossible. You would sink to the floor, maybe even drop through that too. But no. Adam found he was easily able to perch. The chair held him. How, he didn’t know.
She was still beautiful. Twenty years on from their first encounter at L’Arbre Bleu in Chelsea, at a client lunch. ‘I’ve been sent to flirt with you,’ she had told him, and he, silly man, had found her honesty refreshing. Or so he had told himself.
After a while, he coughed.
Julie stirred, grunted and rolled over. Surely she hadn’t heard him? Tentatively, he coughed again, a little louder, like some Jeeves-style butler.
Julie sat up abruptly. She scanned the room like a nervous cat. So she had heard him, even if she couldn’t see him.
He coughed again.
‘What in God’s name…’ she muttered. She shook her head and got to her feet. She walked over towards the door, then pushed it back and looked out into the long upstairs corridor. She stood stock-still, listening. Then she turned, walked slowly back across the room and sat down on the bed.
Adam gave her a minute of peace. She was nodding to herself, even starting to smile. Then: ‘It’s me,’ he said in a loud whisper.
She jumped, visibly.
‘What… the… fuck?’ she squealed.
Adam hated to admit it, but he was enjoying himself. He let her stew in the silence for another minute. Then: ‘How are you?’ he asked.
She was frozen like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights. ‘What?’ she repeated. ‘Who? Where?’
‘It’s Adam. I’m over here.’
She turned to look in his direction, then, ‘No!’ she cried. She leapt off the bed and ran back towards the door.
‘Julie!’ he called after her. ‘It’s okay. I’m not going to do anything to you. I can’t do anything.’
She paused, as if realising that she had nowhere, really, to go. Then, very slowly, she turned round. She was breathing heavily, he saw; in and out, in and out, that calming mindfulness technique that she routinely recommended to her more anxious clients.
Now she was staring at him.
‘What… what… what are you?’ she asked, eventually.
‘It is I, Adam – your former husband – whom you and your painter-decorator boyfriend did away with for your own gain. Admit it all, you scurvy varlet!’ A gothic fantasy span through his head. Maybe he should run at her, waving his arms madly to freak her out. But no, he didn’t need to.
‘It’s me, Adam,’ he said quietly.
‘Adam,’ she repeated, as if in a trance. ‘But you’re… you’re–’
‘Dead, I know. Nonetheless, here I am.’ He heard his own voice, measured, unthreatening.
‘Is that… is that… really you?’
‘You can see me all right?’
‘What are you?’ Julie had sat back on the bed now. She was visibly shaking. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’m not sure. In some netherworld, I think.’
She was nodding, taking him at face value. This was the thing about Julie. She was never one to panic. ‘But you’re speaking to me,’ she went on, ‘so you’re not like some sort of ghostly image. You’re conscious.’
‘So it seems.’
It was extraordinary. They were talking, man and wife, as if he were still alive. How long would that last? Would he suddenly vanish or fade away? Would his voice become inaudible to her again? He had no idea, other than thinking he had better get on with it, grill her before anything changed.
‘How did I die, Julie?’ he asked.
‘What?’
‘You heard.’
‘I… I… you,’ she muttered, oddly. Then: ‘You must know. Adam, don’t you even know?’
‘Tell me.’
‘You… you killed yourself,’ she said softly.
‘How did I do that?’
‘Can’t you remember?’
‘No,’ he replied, honestly enough. ‘I can’t. Perhaps because it’s not the sort of thing I would have done.’
‘But… you did… do it. It was horrible.’ She was suddenly in tears. ‘It was me that found you. In the garage. In the car.’
‘The Alfa Romeo?’
‘No. The Disco. For fuck’s sake, why does that matter?’
She was angry now, though why he deserved that wasn’t clear. Because he’d had the gall to ask about his own death? If anyone deserved to lose their cool it was him.
‘You had the hose fixed up through the window. From the exhaust. You were in there, head on one side, mouth open, drooling, the skin on your face and neck blotched with bright pink, vomit on your chest. It was horrible,’ she repeated.
‘Which hose did I use?’ Adam asked.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Which hose? I’m just interested, because I don’t imagine the garden hose would fit the exhaust, would it?’
‘It wasn’t the garden hose. It was a black one. A wider one. That you must have got from somewhere. You tell me. There was a special adapter thing on one end.’
‘To connect to the exhaust?’
‘Yes.’
‘I see. And when was this, exactly? That you found me.’
‘In the afternoon. It was a Saturday. I’d been in Tempelsham, shopping, and having lunch with Claire.’
‘When was this?’
‘Weeks ago. There’s been an inquest, Adam. We couldn’t bury you before that was all concluded.’
‘I thought as much. So why were you lunching with Claire? It’s hardly something you do regularly. And on that day of all days.’
‘We didn’t know then that it was “of all days”, did we?’
‘Not unless you were meeting her to set yourself up with a nice little alibi.’
‘Don’t be silly. It was Claire’s idea to meet.’
‘Guess what, Julie. I have no recollection of any of this. Certainly not of going out and buying a special hose. Or an adapter. Odd that, isn’t it?’
‘Maybe you blanked it out?’
‘D’you know what my last memories are? Of my life on earth? Having dinner with you. On the Friday night. After I’d driven back down a wet and windy motorway from London. At first, when I realised I was dead, I thought I might have been in a crash. But then I remembered crossing the gravel, crunch, crunch. Letting myself in. You cooking me steak. Almost as if you wanted to soften me up for something.
‘Then, in the morning, after breakfast, Serena came by to talk about Leo’s wedding arrangements. You shot off into town, so you missed a pleasant chat over coffee, during which I agreed, as expected, that I would pay for pretty much everything, Abby’s parents having no money to speak of, and the alternative being one of those ghastly occasions where you get a single welcome glass of Prosecco and then there’s curly sandwiches and a pay bar.’
‘You snob. I’m glad I wasn’t there.’
‘My only son. Having punched seriously above his weight in his choice of bride, the least I could do was fund a decent meal and some champagne. You also missed an excruciating conversation about a ridiculous idea Serena had that Walter might want to publish a collection of my poems with his silly Bullfrog Press. As if!’
‘So Walter was there too?’
‘Walter is always there too. He hangs around. Like a bad smell.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘They finally buggered off after a second coffee, and I fixed myself some lunch.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes. I was looking over this file of poetry that I’d lent to Walter. To see if there was any way, going forward, that I might actually do a collection. Obviously not with Walter, though.’
‘What did you eat?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘It does if you can’t remember.’
‘Actually, yes, I can. A sliced baguette and some cheese and salami and salad you’d left out for me. A bottle of Doom Bar. Beethoven’s Violin Concerto on the Sonos. I was enjoying myself.’
Eva had called him too, just as his first wife was vanishing up the drive, and they had ended up having phone sex, though he didn’t mention that.
‘Are you sure they left?’ Julie asked.
‘What are you suggesting?’
‘Just that when I came back late afternoon, there you were, dead in the garage. By this account, Serena and Walter were the last people to see you alive.’
‘I waved them off. They were going to look at antiques in Fowlton Bennett. Hideously lovey-dovey. Surely the inquest would have covered all that?’
‘It did. They were as shocked as anyone else, they said. You’d been in good spirits about the wedding, apparently.’
‘I’d been in good spirits, exactly. And then, guess what, as soon as they’d gone, I topped myself. It makes no sense, Julie. What was the coroner thinking?’
‘So you have no memories after that: your boozy little poetic lunch?’
‘It wasn’t boozy. I had one beer. But no. The next thing I knew I was at my own funeral. Some weeks later, it seems.’
‘You were at the funeral?’
‘Very much so. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but I was impressed. Extremely well organised, I have to say.’
‘Thank you. But… I mean… God… so you heard… all those addresses?’
‘And the rest! Roland crapping on, about himself as usual. Gideon Bloomberg was a bit over the top, didn’t you think? My moral choice and all that. So what did you do when you found me?’
‘Found you?’
‘In the garage, Julie. Drooling, blotchy-faced…’
‘I phoned an ambulance.’
‘And they came, quick enough?’
‘Super quick. They were here in twenty minutes. They tried to resuscitate you. But it was too late. Then I had to call the police.’
‘And who else?’
‘It was just the police.’
‘No friends? Rod, for example.’
‘Rod?’ she spluttered. ‘Why would I call him?’
‘Why indeed, Julie?’
He sat there on her chair, watching her closely. She had swung her legs around now, and was sitting forward.
‘Or perhaps he was already on site,’ he added.
‘What the heck are you talking about?’ Her tone was brisk, but she looked rattled.
‘The interesting thing about being in this state that I’m in,’ Adam went on, ‘is that you’re not always visible. Most of the time you’re not.’
He continued to smile at her. Her eyes, big and blue, the colour of cornflowers, he’d once told her in a loved-up moment, were trying hard to appear innocent. But guilt shone out of them.
‘And you can control that, can you?’ she asked.
‘Not at all. I’ve got no idea why I’ve suddenly appeared to you now. But I was invisible yesterday. When you were in the studio, binning all my stuff. And afterwards…’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘You and Rod. I saw you. Yesterday. Here. In our bedroom.’
‘What! You mean…?’
‘Not really a spectator sport, sex, is it? Still, I managed to hang around for a bit. I gave up when he started spanking you. You never told me you liked that, in twenty years.’
‘You’re a fine one to talk,’ she replied, defensive as ever.
‘Meaning?’
‘Don’t think I don’t know about your little friend in London. Eva or whatever she’s called. Don’t think I didn’t guess months ago, Adam. When I phoned you at the flat and you were never there. When you stopped telling me about the lonely calamari in Côte or the boring queue for takeaway at the Taj Mahal.’
‘It’s over,’ Adam replied.
‘Of course it’s over. You’re dead.’
Painful though it was, Adam had to laugh at that. And this was the odd thing about his second marriage. The passion had long gone, the mutual frustration and scorn was there, almost inevitably it seemed, on a daily basis, but he and Julie could still, sometimes, make each other laugh. Had they both wanted it, there might even have been a way back; to some kind of loving relationship. But they hadn’t wanted it, had they? Even before Eva.
‘Why didn’t you say anything then?’ he asked. ‘About that – Eva?’
‘It might have been a bit hypocritical, mightn’t it? To be frank, I didn’t give a shit. I was hoping it would go somewhere. Then I could have this place and Rod too.’
‘At least you’re honest. But here’s the thing, Julie. I didn’t kill myself. You know me well enough. Am I the suicidal type? No. As I’ve often joked, to you and others, if anything I’d like another life. To do all the things I haven’t had time to do in this one.’
‘Like shag a few more women.’
‘Very funny. So it seems clear to me that someone did me in. The only question is who. As my wife, my widow, wouldn’t you like me to find out?’
‘Adam, do stop being so self-righteous and ridiculous. You left a note.’
‘Did I?’ So Jeff had been telling the truth.
‘I have it here.’ Julie walked over to her dressing table, reached behind the oval mirror that formed that piece of furniture’s elegant focus, found her little tarnished brass key, and unlocked the top drawer, the one in which she kept all her most precious stuff, her passport, her jewellery box. ‘Here,’ she said, unfolding a white piece of A4 covered with typescript. ‘Can you see it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you hold it?’
He reached out for the paper, but his fingers slipped through, gaining no purchase.
‘Put it down on the dressing table, please,’ he said.
He hovered above it. Good God! This was no suicide note. It was the typed-up version of a poem he had written after poor Lionel had hung himself in Norfolk, three years before. ‘Suicide Note’ was the all too appropriate title. It was full of angst and emotion about that horrid tragedy. Awful to admit it, but he had, at the time, been rather pleased with it.
‘This isn’t a suicide note, Julie.’
‘What is it then?’
‘It’s a poem I wrote. About Lionel. Leesome. My lawyer friend, who killed himself. Remember?’
He read out the title.
‘Why’s it in the first person?’ she asked.
‘Because… it is. That’s how it’s structured.’
‘I wasn’t to know,’ she replied, giving him a pouty and unconvincing look.
‘I showed it to you, after… all that.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yes. You claimed to like it. You thought I should show it to Roland.’
‘Did I? Did you?’
‘Yes. Amazingly, he quite liked it.’
‘So why’s it signed then? By you?’
‘Is that supposed to be my signature?’ Adam looked closely at the scrawl at the bottom of the page. He wasn’t in the habit of signing poems, as if they were paintings or something. Had he ever put his name to a poem, even in a manuscript? No. And though this wasn’t a bad copy of his signature, there was something about the trailing-away ‘bury’ in Albury that wasn’t right. Too laboured, too flowery.
‘It is your signature,’ Julie insisted. Then: ‘The inquest was perfectly satisfied.’
‘I bet they were. If you told them this was a suicide note. Where did you tell them it was left?’
‘Where was it left?’ she replied, her musing question almost an echo, and one, moreover, that was playing for time. ‘Next to you, on the car seat.’
‘Hm,’ Adam grunted, studying it some more. On the left-hand side of the page were two tiny telltale half-moons, duplicated hole punches. ‘This isn’t even a typescript,’ he said, ‘it’s a photocopy. A bogusly signed photocopy, Julie. All I can say is that whoever did me in had the whole operation very well planned. And knew me well.’
‘Unless it was you, Adam, and you’ve somehow just blanked it. Horrific near-death shocks do sometimes cause amnesia.’
‘But this wasn’t a near-death shock,’ he pointed out.
She didn’t laugh.
He sat there, staring at her. With his non-existent but seeing and visible eyes. ‘Was it you?’ he asked bluntly. ‘Who murdered me.’
‘Oh come on! Why would I want…?’ She looked down, then slowly up again, almost unable to meet his gaze. ‘That’s a horrible accusation, Adam. D’you really think I’ve got it in me to do that?’
‘I don’t know, Julie. You’ve certainly started cleaning me out of the house fast enough.’
‘You know I hate mess. I’m sorry, Adam, but you’ve been dead for eight weeks and it’s time to move on. That studio’s been a tip for years.’
‘Going to move Rod in, are you? Hunky Rod. With his little business?’
‘Rod and I are very casual, as it happens.’
‘Handyman with benefits, is that it?’
She didn’t answer.
‘It didn’t look that casual to me,’ he went on. ‘I haven’t seen that look on your face since, God, 2007.’
‘Ha ha. Perhaps that’s why it is casual. Perhaps I like having a bit of no-strings action without all the crap that came with it with you.’
‘What crap? I always enjoyed sex with you. In the days when we used to have it.’
‘You enjoyed it, yes. That was part of the problem.’
‘Oh right, so handyman Rod is a more considerate lover than me, is that it? Spankety spank.’
‘Fuck’s sake, Adam! It’s a little pathetic for a ghost – or whatever you are – to start feeling jealous about sex. I’m a widow now. I’m allowed a lover.’
‘Within a few weeks! Some widows keep their dead husband’s stuff around for years. They cherish it. Sniff their old shirts.’
‘Yuk. You won’t catch me doing that.’
‘Mum still has all Dad’s old suits in a cupboard.’
‘Tragic.’
‘I find it touching.’
‘You never said that when you were alive. You were always going on about what a sentimental pain in the arse she was about Philip. Why couldn’t she let him go? Et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam.’
The house phone was ringing. Which, ironically, could only mean one thing. ‘The only person who ever calls on the landline is Patricia,’ Adam had often complained. ‘Why do we bother with it?’ It was either his mother or a scam caller.