Burial

And how old were you -- when David died?

Twelve, I suppose. Twelve, going on thirteen.

What happened?

It was stupid, really. He was helping our dad fix the bailer. It was Friday afternoon and he was in too much of a hurry. He got his arm caught, then it was ripped out of the socket. Our dad was with him. He ran off to call the ambulance, but by the time it gets there, our David's dead. And how did you feel about that?

I don't know how I felt about it, really. It was all a bit weird.

Shock, or whatever. Our mum was crying and our dad was drinking, and all these aunties and uncles and neighbours and Granddad and Grandma were round. It was sort of like I wasn't there. What happened next? Well, they buried him. Did you attend the funeral?

Yeah. But I didn't think that much of it. I'm sitting on this bloody pew in a suit, all tight round the collar. And nobody's said two proper words to me about him. It's a really hot day. You remember that summer -- they had all the riots, St Paul's, Toxteth, Brixton and wherever.

So anyway. On the way home in the car, I'm not speaking. I don't cry or nothing; I just don't speak. And as soon as the car pulls up outside the farm, I run inside. Our mum's got this big spread laid out. Sandwiches and that -- pork pies, this massive ham.

Our dad comes up to me and says, Don't do this to your mother, not today of all days.

So I start crying and run upstairs. I'm so pissed off, I don't know what to do. So I start looking round for something to smash. I want to break something -- something I really care about. Does that make sense? It's very common.

Anyway. I'm standing in the middle of my bedroom, fists all clenched, and I think: the Specials.

Our David had been to see them -- in Bristol, at the Locarno, in 1980. He'd hung round outside and got the album signed. Not Terry Hall - but Neville had his name on there, and Roddy Radiation. It was David's most treasured thing, and I'd always wanted it. I used to nick it, hide it among my records. I only had about five - Top of the Pops and Disney songs and that - so he always found it, easy. So anyway. I go to David's bedroom and I kneel down, and there it is - the most precious thing in his world, the first Specials album, signed by Neville Staple and Roddy Radiation.

I had it in my hands, I was going to snap it - when I see something in the wardrobe mirror. I look up, thinking it must be our dad and I'm in deep shit. But it's not our dad. It's our David. Your brother David? My dead brother David, yeah. What was he doing?

Just sort of sitting there. Smiling at me. Did he speak?

He didn't need to. It was the kindest smile I ever saw. Like he knew exactly what I was doing, and why I was doing it. The funny thing is, the first thing I thought to do was to put the record back where it belongs. So I do that, and when I look up, our David's gone.

What happened next?

I sit there on the edge of the bed, next to where David had been.

Then go down to the wake and say sorry to our mum and dad. They were all right about it. Did you mention seeing David? No need. Had anything like this happened to you before?

No.

And since?

No.

One last question. What was David wearing?

[Pause]

I don't know. I can't even remember. How weird is that?

Bob sat back on the sofa, pocketing the Dictaphone.

Pete relit the skinny joint he'd allowed to go out.

Nathan said, 'Blimey.'

Pete puffed and exhaled, saying, 'Freaky or what?'

The door creaked loudly and Nathan's heart exploded in his chest.

He looked over his shoulder, at the door, saying, 'Christ. I'm getting the fear.'

Bob told him, 'Sometimes, telling these stories acts as a kind of evocation.'

'Evocation

of what?'

'I don't know. Whatever.'

Nathan's feet were cold. The worn carpet was bitty on his soles. He said, 'What are you talking about?'

'I'm doing ghosts.'

'Doing ghosts.'

'Studying them.'

'Yeah, right.'

'Absolutely. I'm two years into a PhD. Psychology.'

'But there's no such thing as ghosts.' He cast a quick, guilty glance at Pete. 'Sorry, mate.'

Pete shrugged, unbothered.

Bob began to pack up his briefcase, saying: 'So, is Pete lying?'

'Of course he's not.'

'Is he mad?'

'No.'

'Was he seeing things?'

'No.'

'Then what happened?'

'I don't know.'

'Nor do I. That's why I'm studying it.'

Bob stayed a little while longer. They drank a cup of tea and Pete played his band's demo. Bob nodded along and seemed to approve; he promised to come to Pete's next gig. They all knew he wouldn't. Then he thanked Pete and told Nathan it had been good to meet him.

Bob said, 'See you later, then.'

Nathan thought: Not if I see you first. But he said: 'You must have an idea -- you must have an opinion.'

'On what?'

'On what they are. Ghosts.'

'They're any number of things. Illusion, delusion, hallucination.

Electromagnetic phenomena dicking around with the temporal lobe.

Infra-sound. All of the above, and more. Not many people know this, but most ghosts are spectres of the living. The ghost of a living person is called a fetch.'

'A fetch.'

'A fetch.'

'Yeah, right.'

'It's true,' said Bob, with the briefcase in his hand.

He said goodbye, and they heard him stomp down the stairs - then the creak and slam of the front door.

'Fuck me,' said Nathan. 'Where did you find him ?'

They laughed.

On the bass, Pete banged out the riff from Ghostbusters. Nathan said, 'Is it true? What you told him?'

He didn't see Bob again for four and a half years.

That September, Maple Road's tolerant old landlord died, leaving the house to his daughter, who put it straight on the market. Unprotected by tenancy agreements, the housemates drifted off and away.

After Pete's band, Odorono, split up, he moved to a squat in London. A couple of years later, Nathan saw a small picture of him in Melody Maker. Odorono had become the Odorons. They released one independent album before succumbing to musical differences.

Nathan was one of the few who bought the CD; it was called The Malibu Stacey Sessions. Nathan played it three times, and tried each time to like it but never could. He filed The Malibu Stacey Sessions at the back of his collection, where it couldn't shame him with his indifference.

Now

it was Christmas, 1997.

For three years, Nathan had been employed as a researcher on a late-night local talk-back programme called The Mar Derbyshire Solution. The presenter, Mark Derbyshire, was paunchy and balding - with a neatly shaped beard which failed to obscure his close physical resemblance to a beaver. He wore satin shirts in primary colours, open to the third button.

Usually, The Mark Derbyshire Solutions lonesome audience could be relied upon to trumpet their opinion on the day's news stories.

When those stories weren't conducive to late-night chat, Nathan had to dig up some current issue that involved paedophilia, satanism, immigration, child murder, miracle cancer cures, political correctness gone mad, or European integration. This was called research. Mostly, it consisted of reading the Daily Mail.

When this think-tank of the lonely was in proper, eye-rolling form, Mark Derbyshire and the show's producer (a louche and florid ex-Fleet Street hack called Howard) kept Nathan around simply to have someone to humiliate.

A great deal of Nathan's job, therefore, involved popping out to the local twenty-four-hour garage or supermarket to buy tampons, extra-strength condoms, laxatives, or K-Y Jelly. Sometimes all four.

Sometimes, if Mark was feeling especially beneficent, Nathan might be sent to get the Jag washed instead. Sometimes, he was sent out with a pocket stuffed full of five-pound notes; in the early hours of the morning, he was required to approach strangers -- in the street, on late-night garage forecourts and in taxi queues whereupon he would ask them for that evening's code word, which had been decided by Mark: it might be simply big brassieres, or it might be Nule Saddam, or it might be Mark Derbyshire is a Sex Donkey!