The Hungry Ghosts - Anne Berry

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Now his hair was all mussed up and a shiny pink patch of scalp exposed. ‘Luckily I just happened to look upwards and I saw them. I saw them come flying out of a window from your flat, Ralph. I leapt out of the way just in time. Imagine that! You simply do not expect onions to start raining on your head on a fine afternoon. I could have been hurt, Ralph, seriously hurt, not to mention the damage done to my orchids.’

      I nearly burst out laughing when Mr Everard said this. I imagined Mrs Everard wailing to Mother that her husband had been minding his own business, when he had been flattened by two onions and rushed to Queen Mary’s Hospital.

      ‘I’m sorry, Peter,’ Father said, wisely in my opinion opting for brevity.

      Mr Everard looked down dejectedly, first at his flowers, then at the onion mush. Mother appeared, walking blearily up to the front door.

      ‘Hello, Peter,’ she greeted our neighbour, her words just a touch thick and sticky. ‘To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?’ She smiled graciously, dipping her head. Her bun had come undone and her plait was beginning to unravel. Her hands went automatically to her hair and deftly she pinned it up again.

      ‘I was gardening, Myrtle, when two onions landed in my garden, just inches from my head,’ Mr Everard said without preamble, his tone piqued. A drip of sweat made its way slowly down the side of his face. It trembled on his lower jaw before falling.

      ‘Really!’ exclaimed Mother, not batting an eyelid. ‘How dreadful for you, Peter.You must have been very shocked.’ Father looked as if he had been winded. He caved in slightly, and I saw that his cheeks were suddenly glowing.‘I do hope you weren’t hurt?’ Mother asked solicitously.

      ‘Luckily no, Myrtle. But I might well have been,’ Mr Everard reported peevishly, while Mother gave her appearance a quick once-over in the hallway mirror.

      ‘Well, thank goodness for that,’ Mother declared fervently, her expression one of immense relief. She snatched a little look heavenwards, as if touching base with God, and expressing her personal thanks to him for looking after her people.As her gaze left the celestial sphere, and returned to the tarnished world of mortals, she became aware of Mr Everard’s hands, held aloft and brimming with onion paste and petals.

      ‘Peter, won’t you join us for a drink?’ she invited smoothly. ‘It’s a wee bit early I know, but after all it is a weekend, and you’ve had a terrible scare.’ She gave her most beguiling smile and winked at Mr Everard. Mr Everard hesitated. ‘Ralph, tell Peter I shall be desolate if he doesn’t join us.’

      My father, lost for a moment in Mother’s consummate performance,roused himself and reiterated her invitation.Mr Everard wavered a second longer and then gave in. The day was won.

      ‘Do let me show you to the bathroom, Peter, to wash your hands,’ Mother said, leading the way, Mr Everard, now fully tamed, trotting after her.‘Ralph,be a dear,and fix the drinks.’She paused and waited for Mr Everard to come alongside. ‘Don’t tell me, Peter…let me see, if my memory serves me right your poison is G and T, ice no lemon.’ Mr Everard was duly flattered. ‘When friends are important to me,I make a point of remembering these things,Peter,’she breathed. Then, as I watched, she tucked her arm through Mr Everard’s, careful to avoid contact with the squashed onion, and they ambled down the corridor towards the bathroom. Pausing outside the door Mother leant in to him, and whispered in achingly manicured tones,‘This is such an unlooked for pleasure, Peter.’ She was magnificent.

      Father never spoke of the matter again. And the next time Jillian returned to England, I went with her.

       Harry—1966

      Mr Beecham carried me in his arms, holding me like a baby.Although I felt woozy and my eyes kept closing, there were little flashes that I recall, like going to see a play and not watching it all the way through.That’s it, each time they opened I found myself in different scenes.

      In the beginning there were his curls, the grey of the clouds moments before the rain comes, and the tips of his upper teeth, tinged with a yellowy-brown, digging into his lower lip, and the specks of sweat breaking out on his large nose. I could feel him panting as well, with the effort, feel his lungs pushing against the weight of me. And the jolt, jolt, jolt, of my body held in his arms as he went down the steps, the several flights of them that ran from the playing field to the school building. But mostly I remember his eyes flicking down at me and what was in them.You see, it was fear, I’d recognise it anywhere. We were old friends.Then, in the middle, there were the blocks of blue sky that seemed to go on and on, and the glitter of the sun making my head throb and my skin prickle. And lastly there was the medical room, and me being laid down so carefully on the bed, how firm it was, how solid. You knew, just knew, that bed wasn’t going to let you down. It was cool in there after the scalding sun, and quiet too. Like walking into the St John’s Cathedral on a hot morning.

      ‘Harry? Harry? It’s Mr Beecham.You’re going to be fine, Harry. You’ve had an accident but you’re going to be fine.’ Mr Beecham’s the deputy head. He takes me for English. He’s kind, doesn’t make me feel stupid when I can’t answer the questions, the way some of the teachers do. He smoothed my brow as he talked. I could feel his fingers tickling back my damp hair, smell the faint trace of tobacco that clung to them.

      And the way he said it, I knew it was true. I was going to be fine. Then he said the doctor was coming and that was alright too. He said the doctor would make it all better, make me well again. I wanted to believe him, that someone, anyone, really had the power to do that.To make it all better. Only when he told me my mother would be here soon, I laughed. Of course it was in my head. I couldn’t let it out. It would have hurt too much with my head pounding so hard. Besides, that would have been telling on Mother, on them. I’d never do that, not even if I was dying.

      You know what I thought then, in that cool, still room, where other faces were appearing now, like masks hung on the white walls. I thought that if I was really lucky it might be true. I might be dying and then it would be over. I wondered if Alice would come and join the other masks, but then I remembered that she’d had an upset tummy that morning and stayed home. Sometimes my sister Alice doesn’t eat for ages. Mother says that’s why she gets stomachache so much. Mother said she does it to get attention, starving herself. But I’m not so sure. Still, imagine being able to go without food for an entire day. Amazing!

      ‘Fatty! Fatty! Blubber boy! Harry is a blubber boy! Nah, nah, sweaty Harry! Nah, nah, smelly Harry!’

      It was Keith, Bobby and Andrew that morning. Following me around the playing field. They’re like the wasps you get on picnics that just won’t go away. Every few seconds one of them would dash forwards and push me, or try to grab the roll of fat that shows when my shirt rides up, or they’d run ahead of me, spin round and poke me in the tummy. It isn’t so bad. It doesn’t really hurt. Sometimes I even like it, because…well…because it makes me feel alive, the pain.Anyway, they usually get bored after a while and go away. I can read the signs, clear as the time on a wristwatch.The jeering is loud as can be to start with, like a football flying in the air and everyone screaming cos they think it’s gonna be a goal.Then, after a bit, their voices start to drop, as if they know this next shot is going to miss. I name it ‘the game-over slump’, wait for it, cos I know it will come, eventually. After that, with a few more feeble taunts, they slouch off.

      Nah, I don’t mind them really, the boys. It’s the girls that make me go burning red, and want to cry so bad that it takes everything I have to hold it in.They never touch me.They don’t have to.Their bright eyes slide over me, over my pockets of fat, over my thick arms, my wobbly tummy, my plump legs, my big bottom.Then they snatch little sneaky glances at one another and smirk. It’s like a knife going in, that shared smirk.

      I used to imagine it you know, a knife sliding into a slab of my flesh. I used to watch Ah Dang in the kitchen slicing the fat off some huge piece of dripping, bloody meat, and I used to dream that someone could do that for me. Lie me down on a chopping board and trim the oily fat off me,

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