He was looking into the drawer, full of dusty buttons and treasury tags, when the doorbell rang. His heart leapt: the removal van was early. Pushing past the piles of boxes in the hall, he opened the door instead to an empty front garden, a parcel on the step, a letter balanced precariously on top. The postman’s cheery whistle had already merged with the birdsong on the suburban street.
The parcel was for the kids, the letter addressed to him. Lucky timing, he thought. Ripping open the envelope, there was an unexpected smell of perfume and he glimpsed old-fashioned writing in faded blue biro:
“My dear Paul”, he read,
“Listen carefully. I didn’t die in the accident. Someone came for me. Your loving Aunt Rose.”
He stood there at the open door, gazing past the privet hedge into the street. A lawnmower had started up somewhere. A kind of coldness began to rise from the soles of his feet; folding the letter, he tucked it into a box of books. Aunt Rose. He hadn’t thought of her for years. Early-onset dementia, he remembered. Hadn’t she died in that nursing home? Well, according to the letter, she was dead, only it appeared that she’d somehow taken her pens and paper with her to the grave. He put his hands to his temples. A headache: it had been a stressful week. This was clearly a prank; one of the batty old dears in the home, pretending to be Aunt Rose. Let them have their fun, he smiled wryly.
He sat cross-legged by the shoe rack in the front hall, thinking it over. It was silent in the house. His wife had taken the children away, to allow him to pack and move out: ‘‘easier that way’’, she’d said. He hadn’t disagreed. For years it had been just the four of them; the exhausting early phase of parenting had led them to batten down the domestic hatches. Now a wider circle of relations and old friends had begun to emerge into their lives, like weeds pushing stealthily through paving stones. For a deranged moment, he wondered if this letter was just a figment of his tired imagination. But no, there it was.
His nostrils picked out an acrid smell. Glancing over at the shoe rack, he saw the corner of a child-sized pink trainer covered in dogshit. In his new place, they’d have a shoes-off rule, he decided. The sound of a van drawing up; that shoe was no longer his responsibility, he thought, thank god. Soon he would be gone.
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Paul pushed open the glass door of the letting agency and the air conditioning slapped him around the face. Jaz got up from his desk, grinning, holding out the keys, like a dog owner with a treat. “Welcome, my friend’’ he said, teeth bared. Jaz had been a constant presence in Paul’s life for the last month or so, his immaculate suits and grooming in stark contrast to the disgusting flats which he’d presented to Paul as ‘desirable’. Hopefully, this would be their last ever meeting.
‘‘Take a seat’’, Jaz said, dealing out the papers like a pack of cards. ‘‘Just these to sign’’, another grin, ‘‘and the place is yours’’.
The inventory seemed endless. An idea came into Paul’s head: ‘‘do you believe in ghosts? I mean, have you ever…?’’
Jaz looked up suddenly, slack-jawed, tired-eyed: ‘‘what do you mean? Seen one?’’, he shrugged, ‘‘you got issues, my friend?’’.
Paul struggled to suppress a giggle. ‘‘Not exactly’’. He kept his voice calm: ‘‘I just had a letter from an aunt, who I thought was dead, that’s all. Nursing home joke or something’’.
Jaz put down his phone: ‘‘you know what’’, he lowered his voice conspiratorially, ‘‘nursing homes are weird places. Properly weird. We sold one, like, five years ago. Totally empty. I kept on… looking behind me. Freaky vibes. And, you know’’, Jaz leaned in, minty breath not quite masking the coffee and nicotine, “the weirdest thing was, I had to take my suit…this suit…straight to the dry cleaners the next day. Damp”, he wrinkled his nose. “Nearly mouldy. Totally weird, man”.
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He awoke with a jolt, limbs twitchy and sweating under the scratchy duvet, and craned his head to look at the time: 03:02. The flat was bathed in street-lamp orange; he’d order curtains later.
Paul gazed over to the kitchenette, where the letter lay among empty takeaway boxes. At least the words “someone came for me” made more sense. After all, the defining moment of Aunt Rose’s life had been Finding God in middle age, “like he’d been hiding under the table all along” as Mum had said sourly. One Sunday, he and Mum had gone to fetch Aunt Rose from church, to take her home for lunch. He must have been around ten. “She gets lonely”, Mum had sighed as they drew up in front of the glass and brick building. They’d been early, he remembered, so he’d got out of the car, following faint sounds of music, and had pressed up against the stained glass, watching the people inside sway and sing. And there she’d been: blonde perm haloed by the summer sun, gazing ecstatically into the air; no longer flat-footed Aunt Rose, but someone exotic and mysterious. Comic, too, holding her tambourine.
He leapt up from his mattress. All this junk needs organizing, he thought impatiently. He’d spent hours packing his possessions for the move but suddenly most of them seemed only fit for the dump. I’ll sleep better, he thought, if I make a start. A symbolic start. Grabbing a pen, he scrawled RECYCLING on an empty box, and thrust the letter inside.
—————————————————————————-
Later, Paul dreamt that he was an angel, descending to earth. Aunt Rose was there, arms outstretched: “My dear Paul” she called. He grabbed her coat lapels and they flew up towards the stars.
