Back in early summer it had been cold, the promise of a scorcher that a few warm spring weeks had hinted at long gone. Day after day of rain kept him cooped up inside the cottage, wallowing round the place, the gloom more to do with his mood than the fact he had the curtains drawn.
There had been a knock, knock, knock on the door. Rap, rap, rap at the entrance to his very soul.
‘Hello, Matthew. It has been a long time.’ Two figures stood outside in the drizzle sheltering beneath a large umbrella, each wearing cheap tourist-type translucent yellow waterproofs and thin smiles.
Harry stumbled back from the door, shocked at the apparitions. Ghosts weren’t supposed to appear in broad daylight.
‘You bastards!’
‘We need to talk.’
‘Too right we do. Get the fuck inside.’
Once inside they talked and Harry listened. Like always. They explained, reasoned, apologised, pleaded. Finally they grovelled and begged for the absolution which Harry knew they had come for. Selfish as ever.
Their words and moans and sobs blended into a cacophony that drilled down through his skull and into his brain. An egg whisk went to work in there, mixing and blending and churning until the only thing remaining was a uniform mush that meant nothing. Harry couldn’t take it anymore so he left them in the house and went outside. The earlier rain had stopped and now the air was still, the smoke from the chimney rising in a vertical column. Up in the heavens a formless grey mess hung like a suffocating blanket; no cloud shapes, no sun, only bleak sky.
And that was how he felt. Empty and cold. But he also knew he could be full again. Like Mitchell said, you had to grasp the moment and then you could be free. Problems, problems, problems, he thought to himself.
He trudged round to the barn at the side of the cottage, went inside and knelt in the dirt. With his eyes screwed shut he prayed to God to do something, to show a sign, but he knew God would remain silent. God wasn’t merciful and the meek did not inherit the earth: they got fucked while tied to a little wooden bed in a cold attic room.
Harry opened his eyes and stood up, soggy knees the only sign God had sought fit to give him. Then he noticed a beam of light coming through a hole in the rear wall. The light danced across the space like some sort of primitive laser, illuminating motes of dust in the air on its way. Where the beam hit the far wall it shone on a rusty six-inch nail struck in there at a weird angle. Hanging on the nail was a long piece of chain and a couple of padlocks.