Muriel Spark - The Complete Short Stories

‘Does his aunt see him?’

‘Yes. And she sees nobody else.’

We were, in fact, approaching the house where Miss Geddes lived. I suggested we call on her. I had known her well.

‘No fear,’ said my friend.

I decided to go in, all the same, and my friend walked on to the town. Miss Geddes had changed, more than the landscape. She had been a solemn, calm woman, and now she moved about quickly, and gave short agitated smiles. She took me to her sitting-room, and as she opened the door she called to someone inside,

‘Johnnie, see who’s come to see us!’

A man, dressed in a dark suit, was standing on a chair, fixing holly behind a picture. He jumped down.

‘Happy Christmas,’ he said. ‘A Happy and a Merry Christmas indeed. I do hope,’ he said, ‘you’re going to stay for tea, as we’ve got a delightful Christmas cake, and at this season of goodwill I would be cheered indeed if you could see how charmingly it’s decorated; it has “Happy Christmas” in red icing, and then there’s a robin and —’

‘Johnnie,’ said Miss Geddes, ‘you’re forgetting the carols.’

‘The carols,’ he said. He lifted a gramophone record from a pile and put it on. It was ‘The Holly and the Ivy’.

‘It’s “The Holly and the Ivy”,’ said Miss Geddes. ‘Can’t we have something else? We had that all morning.’

‘It is sublime,’ he said, beaming from his chair, and holding up his hand for silence.

While Miss Geddes went to fetch the tea, and he sat absorbed in his carol, I watched him. He was so like Johnnie, that if I hadn’t seen poor Johnnie a few moments before, sweeping up the asylum leaves, I would have thought he really was Johnnie. Miss Geddes returned with the tray, and while he rose to put on another record, he said something that startled me.

‘I saw you in the crowd that Sunday when I was speaking at Hyde Park.’

‘What a memory you have!’ said Miss Geddes.

‘It must be ten years ago,’ he said.

‘My nephew has altered his opinion of Christmas,’ she explained. ‘He always comes home for Christmas now, and don’t we have a jolly time, Johnnie?’

‘Rather!’ he said. ‘Oh, let me cut the cake.’

He was very excited about the cake. With a flourish he dug a large knife into the side. The knife slipped, and I saw it run deep into his finger. Miss Geddes did not move. He wrenched his cut finger away, and went on slicing the cake.

‘Isn’t it bleeding?’ I said.

He held up his hand. I could see the deep cut, but there was no blood.

Deliberately, and perhaps desperately, I turned to Miss Geddes.

‘That house up the road,’ I said, ‘I see it’s a mental home now. I passed it this afternoon.’

‘Johnnie,’ said Miss Geddes, as one who knows the game is up, ‘go and fetch the mince pies.’

He went, whistling a carol.

‘You passed the asylum,’ said Miss Geddes wearily.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And you saw Johnnie sweeping up the leaves.

‘Yes.’

We could still hear the whistling of the carol.

‘Who is he?’ I said.

‘That’s Johnnie’s ghost,’ she said. ‘He comes home every Christmas. But,’ she said, ‘I don’t like him. I can’t bear him any longer, and I’m going away tomorrow. I don’t want Johnnie’s ghost, I want Johnnie in flesh and blood.’

I shuddered, thinking of the cut finger that could not bleed. And I left, before Johnnie’s ghost returned with the mince pies.

Next day, as I had arranged to join a family who lived in the town, I started walking over about noon. Because of the light mist, I didn’t see at first who it was approaching. It was a man, waving his arm to me. It turned out to be Johnnie’s ghost.

‘Happy Christmas. What do you think,’ said Johnnie’s ghost, ‘my aunt has gone to London. Fancy, on Christmas Day, and I thought she was at church, and here I am without anyone to spend a jolly Christmas with, and, of course, I forgive her, as it’s the season of goodwill, but I’m glad to see you, because now I can come with you, wherever it is you’re going, and we can all have a Happy…’

‘Go away,’ I said, and walked on.

It sounds hard. But perhaps you don’t know how repulsive and loathsome is the ghost of a living man. The ghosts of the dead may be all right, but the ghost of mad Johnnie gave me the creeps.

‘Clear off,’ I said.

He continued walking beside me. ‘As it’s the time of goodwill, I make allowances for your tone,’ he said. ‘But I’m coming.’

We had reached the asylum gates, and there, in the grounds, I saw Johnnie sweeping the leaves. I suppose it was his way of going on strike, working on Christmas Day. He was making a noise about Christmas.

On a sudden impulse I said to Johnnie’s ghost, ‘You want company?’

‘Certainly,’ he replied. ‘It’s the season of…’

‘Then you shall have it,’ I said.

I stood in the gateway. ‘Oh, Johnnie,’ I called.

He looked up.

‘I’ve brought your ghost to see you, Johnnie.’

‘Well, well,’ said Johnnie, advancing to meet his ghost. ‘Just imagine it,’

‘Happy Christmas,’ said Johnnie’s ghost.

‘Oh, really?’ said Johnnie.

I left them to it. And when I looked back, wondering if they would come to blows, I saw that Johnnie’s ghost was sweeping the leaves as well. They seemed to be arguing at the same time. But it was still misty, and really, I can’t say whether, when I looked a second time, there were two men or one man sweeping the leaves.

Johnnie began to improve in the New Year. At least, he stopped shouting about Christmas, and then he never mentioned it at all; in a few months, when he had almost stopped saying anything, they discharged him.

The town council gave him the leaves of the park to sweep. He seldom speaks, and recognizes nobody. I see him every day at the late end of the year, working within the mist. Sometimes, if there is a sudden gust, he jerks his head up to watch a few leaves falling behind him, as if amazed that they are undeniably there, although, by rights, the falling of leaves should be stopped.

Harper and Wilton

In the afternoons there was seldom anybody about except for the young cross-eyed gardener. He was so cross-eyed that if you stood talking to him with a friend it was impossible to know which of you he was addressing. And when alone, it was almost as if he was conversing with the nearest tree if not with myself. I meant to summon courage to ask him if there was no corrective treatment, or special eye-glasses, he could have, but I never got round to it. The house was not mine. I was merely house-sitting for a month for my friends, the Lowthers. It was an arrangement which suited me well. I had a book to finish and this house in the depth of Hampshire was ideal for my purpose. In the morning Harriet, the part-time daily came and tidied up. She cooked my meals for the day then left me to myself about midday.

I worked hard, and I slept well. Nothing disturbed me during the night. It was about two in the afternoon that I felt uneasy. An oddness in the house. This went on for some weeks. The spring weather was capricious.

But it was not when the wind whistled round the house and moaned in the eaves that the house felt weird. The weather and sound effects in fact normalized the old edifice. It was on clear sunny days, spring rain sprinkling and spraying the windows, that something was decidedly odd. Under the need to work I determinedly shook off the feeling, often sitting in the garden or else the garden room to apply myself to my work. I began to notice that Joe the gardener often stood under the great cedar tree on the lawn looking up apparently at a window of one of the two guest bedrooms to the left above the front door. They were divided by a drainpipe which I felt rather spoilt the aspect of the house. It was impossible to say which of the windows he was paying attention to because of his squint.