I pull myself into that inner space I’ve perfected specifically for journeys on public transport. The town centre slowly rolls past, punctuated by the stops and starts of arrivals and departures. I have a long way to go yet.
‘Here,’ says the woman sitting next to me. She’s holding out a pen.
‘Pardon?’
She points at my hands. I’m still holding the leaflet, but I’ve folded it once, down the centre, to reveal its clean white reverse. It looks like it’s waiting to be written on.
‘Did you need this?’ she says. Then she looks past me, out of the window, and jumps up to push the stop button on the vertical bar. She leaves the pen – a cheap biro – on the seat, and walks away. I watch her descend the stairs and emerge on the pavement. The bus jerks, and moves on.
So there are signs, when it comes to writing. I’m not strong enough to resist them.
My ghost is an old man.
He’s not a kind old grandfather type. He’s annoyed and bitter and he sees the funny side of being stuck in those emotions forever when he thought they would switch off. The cigar habit probably killed him – that rasping edge to the laugh gives it away – so now he smokes them ironically, no longer needing the nicotine but wanting to make a point of not giving up because it keeps him human, even in death.
I bet he got offered the chance to go to the afterlife. I bet there was a long tunnel, white and swirling, and he felt the pull of it at the moment of surrendering his corporeal form. It opened up above the armchair in which he was slumped (in a cheap-end-of-the-market nursing home, with the skeleton of a half-formed jigsaw puzzle on a small wobbly table beside him) and he looked up at the afterlife to see relatives waving at him, beckoning him in. Then he thought: No thanks very much, I’ll hang about at the fish and chip shop and scare generations of bloody students instead.
Who knows how long he’d been doing exactly that before I came along? Perhaps I was the first one who didn’t shiver or scream at the whiff of tobacco and the throaty laugh. I’d imagine my lack of interest in his tricks piqued his interest. It touched him in a way he hadn’t been touched in a long time, metaphorically speaking, because he obviously hadn’t been touched at all. I stayed with him and he got to know me, and when I moved out he decided to follow. He thought: I’ll stick with you, girl. You’re all right.
We’re happy together. Sort of. He hates my boyfriends because not one of them has been worthy of me yet. He chases them away and he will continue to do so until Mr Right comes along and then he’ll disappear up to heaven, job done, and this is turning into a ridiculous fairy tale and I have no idea who my ghost is or what he wants or even what I’m writing about and now I’m at the bottom of this piece of
I look up. The road is unfamiliar. I’ve gone past my stop and run out of paper. We pass a road sign: Uneven Road Surface Ahead.
I’m sick of signs.
When you visit Skein Island you write a declaration. It is the story of your life. You give up your declaration to be stored in the library along with the stories of the thousands of other women who have visited. This isn’t about your story being read, or appreciated, or turned into a thrilling adventure for all the family. It’s how it has to be enough to know your story exists because that’s all there is.
Susan wrote her declaration, then came back to this town to discover she had been set free from it. She could move on and create a new story. There was more to her.
I sit at my kitchen table, before my open laptop that displays Skein Island’s official website, and I make a phone call to their administrative office before I can change my mind.
The woman on the other end of the line is polite but regretful. No, they can’t accommodate me just because I’ve discovered the burning need to write a declaration right now. No, I can’t get a place without filling in an application form, and no, it won’t make any difference if I just turn up at the dock to see if anyone else drops out at the last minute. Sorry.
So I pour myself a glass of wine and fill out the online application, and all the writing I’ve been doing makes it easier to reach into myself and find some strange new twist of truth in the Other Information That May Influence Your Application box:
The ghost of an old man visits my bedroom at dawn each day. He sits on the edge of the bed and smokes a vile cigar. He chuckles to himself. I want to go to a place where he can’t reach me because I have no idea who am I without him, and I’m scared that I no longer want to find out.
Everyone knows men aren’t allowed on Skein Island. Can the same be said of ghosts? Will my ghost obey your rules?
An open-plan kitchen and living room. A sofa and an armchair, a microwave and a fridge. Behind a thin partition wall I find a bedroom with two single beds positioned as far away from each other as possible, which isn’t far. There’s the same amount of space as I’d have in my flat. Do I feel at home?
But it’s the view outside the window that matters. A ragged expanse of green grass and weeds, wild and tufted, leads my eyes to a cliff edge, and the blue sea beyond. Late summer on an island. It’s the feeling of being held in position as the giant world turns and the tide sweeps in and out according to its own rules.
I waited four months for this, and got lucky with a cancellation. I’m not sure whether it’s serendipity or not. I’m still attempting to believe in that concept.
I choose the bed nearest the window and put my case on it. I find my thick socks within and slide them over the socks I’m already wearing. The floorboards are cold, and there’s a strong draft at ankle-level; the main door has a thick gap at the bottom through which I can see daylight. This place is not well-built, it seems. It’s a flimsy shelter with its makeshift walls and breeze-admitting gaps. How is it meant to keep out a ghost?
The light at the bottom of the door is blocked. Then the door swings back with a creak.
For a moment I expect my ghost, made flesh.
‘You all right?’
No. No, it’s a woman. Of course it’s a woman.
‘There’s a draft,’ I say. ‘Hi. I’m Min.’
‘I suppose we’re sharing this cabin. I’m Katie. Is this my bed, then?’
‘I’ve put my case on this one,’ I say. ‘I hope that’s okay.’
‘It’s fine. Why wouldn’t it be fine?’ She shakes her head and frowns as she shrugs off her small rucksack and places it on the other bed. I don’t know whether she’s annoyed or not. Her dark hair is cut very short, threaded with white, and she’s dressed entirely in red of varying shades of stridency. I’d guess she’s at least twenty years older than me but wearing it very well. She looks complete, comfortable, finished. I still feel like a work in progress.
‘A single bed,’ she muses. ‘I haven’t slept in one of those for a long time. I’ve got a king-size all to myself at home. I’m difficult to live with at the best of times so I should probably apologise up front. I’m sorry you got me as your companion for the week, Min.’
‘Why are you so difficult to live with?’ I ask.
‘I can see right through everyone’s bullshit,’ she says, and gives me a hard stare. I feel my innards shrinking away from her.
‘I’m just messing with you,’ she says. ‘Sorry. I’m not good with people. It’s also probably why I became an estate agent. Dicking people around on the topic of the most expensive purchase they’ll ever make appealed to me. Again, just messing.’ She sits on her bed and removes her leather boots, pushing down the long zips from her knees to her ankles so they slide from her feet to land on the floor. She’s wearing scarlet socks, too. ‘What do you do?’