Goodnight, Beautiful: A Novel (19 page)

I know there’s more to life than we can see. I’ve known since I was eight years, eleven months, and twenty-one days old.

Mal, Cordy, Victoria and I were meant to stay in the garden, to play outside while all the adults were inside, talking quietly and seriously and drinking tea.

I needed to use the toilet, and now we had an inside toilet and a new bathroom, I didn’t want to use the one outside anymore. Mum said our new bathroom color was called avocado, like the thing she and Dad ate.

I finished, wiped, stood up, pulled up my panties and pushed the handle on the toilet. I was still fascinated that pushing the handle on this one did the same thing as pulling the chain on the outside loo, and watched the water swirl around the bowl and disappear for a few seconds. After I watched fresh water fill the bottom of the bowl, I turned to leave, but stopped suddenly and stared.

Standing in front of the door was Uncle Victor, Mal’s dad. It was unusual that he was in the bathroom whilst I was there, but even more so because I—along with everyone else who knew him—had watched his coffin being lowered into the ground a few hours earlier. I had been sure he was in it at the time.

I stared at him.

He stared at me.

I closed my eyes, wondering if I was imagining things. Like Mal said when sometimes a fish finger would disappear from my plate, then come back again when I wasn’t looking.

In those moments I’d stared at him before closing my eyes, he had looked real. Just like I did. He was wearing a black suit, with a white shirt and black tie. His hair was slicked and combed down with a side parting on the left; his skin was as pale and yellowy as it had been the last time I’d seen him before he died.
Which hadn’t been for a while. He’d been “away” for most of the time since Mal and I had been born, then came back for a year or so when we were five, had stuck around to see Victoria born, then had gone away again. This time only coming back every six months or so for anything between a few days and a few weeks.

I opened my eyes and he was still there. He was leaning against the door, his arms crossed over his chest. I’d seen him in his coffin by accident. I had gone into Mal and Victoria’s front room where the body was, so I knew he was dead. I had run out again and hid in Mal’s room, scared of what I’d seen. Scared because I’d never seen Uncle Victor looking so still. Even when he fell asleep in his chair beside the fire after dinner. But I knew he was dead. And yet, he was standing in front of me. He was probably a ghost.

“I never liked your name,” he stated. His voice still rolled with his accent—Mum said it came from Yorkie-shire.

I stared at him.

“So violent. Imagine naming your child after a star that is dying—exploding,” he said. “It could be argued that the earth started with the big bang, an exploding star that started all life as we know it, but I don’t see it that way. Stupid thing to name a child.”

I wasn’t scared. It was Uncle Victor, after all.

“But then, not as stupid as ‘Malvolio,’ ” he went on. He raised a thin finger, wagged it at me. “She did it for me. Imagine, a Yorkshire man going back to his roots and telling everyone that his son is called Malvolio. I might as well tell them I was … you know,” he said, jerking his head to one side. I didn’t know, but I was fascinated. What might he as well have told the Yorkie-shire people he was? “It was the first play I took her to see when we were courting. I said I felt sorry for that poor lad, Malvolio, he got a rough deal. So she names me bloomin’ son after him.

“But at least he can shorten his name. Mal. Not so bad. You, on the other hand, have no such luck. You know your name is ‘Avon’ spelled backwards? You’ll probably end up selling the stuff.” I stared at Uncle Victor, wondering why he climbed out of his place in the cool, wet earth that he’d been lowered into earlier that day to be nasty to me about my name. Is that what happened after you did this thing called being dead? You came back to tell someone exactly what you thought of their name? “That would serve your parents right if all you ever amounted to was selling Avon.”

His eyes raked over me, from my two neat cornrows tied at the ends with yellow ribbon, to the shiny black shoes with white socks Mum had made me wear. “Well, lass, say something,” he said.

My heart leapt in my chest. He wanted me to talk to him. Up until this moment, it wasn’t necessary for me to say anything to ghost Uncle Victor. Even though he was a ghost and he wasn’t being very nice to me, he was still a grown-up, in other words, one who must be obeyed.
Say something. Say something.
“Our bath’s green,” I said.

His face creased up with a deep, slightly frightening frown. “Your bath is green,” he said. “Your. Bath. Is. Green.”

I nodded.

He shook his head. “I didn’t want you,” he said, with that tone of voice Mum used when she’d tried to make do when baking a cake without some ingredient and the cake turned out to be only fit for the bin. I, clearly to Uncle Victor, was a cake fit for the bin. “I’ve been trying to talk to Hope and to Frank, but no, I get you. And your green bath.”

I started to bite on the inner lining of my cheek, while drawing small circles on the brown lino with the toe of my right shoe. I wondered if anyone would think it odd I was being told
off by my Uncle Victor who everyone had thought was dead. When dead meant you were never going to wake up. Ever again.

“Stop fidgeting,” he said. “Did you always fidget this much?”

I stopped drawing circles and stood up straight, stopped biting on my cheek and thought about his question. Did I always fidget that much? I knew what fidgeting was, of course, but did I do it more than anyone else? I didn’t know. I had a feeling that if I said that to Uncle Victor, it might make him crosser than he already was.

“I suppose you aren’t so bad. You’re the only one who noticed me, after all,” he said, looking me up and down again. “Very skinny though. You need to eat more.”

I could do that. I nodded. If it meant he’d be nicer to me, I could eat more.

“What are you, eight? Nine?”

I nodded.

“Well, which one is it, lass, eight or nine?”

“I’m nine in ten days. So is Malvolio. He’s nine in eight days.”

“Oh. Yes. Well, I knew that.” I thought Uncle Victor wasn’t being very honest about that. I guessed he didn’t know that at all. Especially since he had never once, not ever, given Mal a birthday card or a present. Not ever. Even though Aunt Mer pretended they were from his dad, we knew they weren’t.

“You’re a bit young, but I suppose you can see me for a reason, so it must be all right. Now, I want you to do something for me.”

It seemed a funny way to ask someone to do something for you, say you don’t like their name, say they’re too skinny and tell them to stop fidgeting. But I was all ears, eager and willing to do anything I could because I knew grown-ups were odd creatures. They could say one thing and mean something completely different and then didn’t seem to notice that they had done that.

“You’re to take care of Malvolio, you hear?”

Take care of Malvolio. Take care of Malvolio? Mum was always taking care of Aunt Mer when she was sick. And when Mal had measles and all of us got chicken pox, Mum took care of us then. “Is he ill?” I asked.

Uncle Victor’s eyes widened for a moment, then he shook his head again, as though I was that cake only fit for the bin but he’d dropped it on the way to the bin, meaning his workload had been doubled by something that was disappointing in the first place. “No, lass. I want you to take care of him from now until he doesn’t need taking care of anymore,” he said. “And even then, you’re to look out for him. That means making sure he’s all right. That he’s happy.” I must have looked confused, because he said, “As you get older you’ll understand what I mean. But right now, just remember that I want you to take care of Malvolio. I didn’t do a very good job of it.”

“But that’s because you were never here,” I said to reassure him. To let him know I was more grown up than he thought because I knew that if he was around, he would take care of Mal. And Victoria. And Aunt Mer.

“Aye, thank you, lass, I know.” He didn’t sound very reassured. He sounded, if anything, crosser. “He’s a good lad—yes, I know that, even though I was never here—and he’s going to need someone to take care of him.”

“What about Victoria? Won’t she need someone to take care of her?”

“She’s a girl, someone will always take care of her.”

How did he know someone would always take care of her? No one had really taken care of Aunt Mer until she moved into our street, as far as I knew from what Mum said. She was a girl.

My thoughts must have shown on my face, because he added, “OK, lass, take care of them both. You’re just making life
difficult for yourself. I was only going to ask you to take care of Malvolio. Now I want you to take care of Malvolio and Victoria.”

“OK,” I said with a happy shrug. I generally did whatever grown-ups told me to do. It was easier that way.

“ ‘OK’? Is that it? I say something profound and important and all you can say is ‘OK’?”

Oh, have I said something wrong?
I wondered. I thought that was what he wanted. “OK, Uncle Victor?” I added.

“I expected some questions about how to do it. Maybe a bit of a fight, but all you can say is ‘OK.’ I should have been given someone older to ask this of, I knew it.”

“But I said OK,” I said quietly. I didn’t understand why he wasn’t pleased that I was going to do what he wanted me to do. Generally, I found that grown-ups got cross because you
didn’t
do as they said, because you argued back. It seemed Uncle Victor was getting cross because I
would
do as he said. I was starting to get the impression that Uncle Victor was just a cross man. Maybe being dead had made him even crosser.

“Aye, I suppose you did. Well, I’ll be watching you.”

“From where?”

He blinked at me again. “What do you mean from where? Just everywhere.”

“At the same time? You’re going to be everywhere at the same time?”

“Yes.”

“Are you God?”

“What makes you say something like that?”

“God is everywhere at the same time, watching us. Are you God?”

“Don’t be so bloody stupid.”

“Oh,” I said. “Are you going to be watching me when I go to the toilet?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Or when I have my bath?”

“No, of course not.”

“So you won’t be watching me all the time?”

“I suppose not,” he said, very cross again.

“But how will you know if you’re not watching all the time when I’ll be using the toilet or having my bath?”

“This is why I didn’t want you,” he said, sounding as cross as he looked. “You ask too many questions. I’ll just be watching you. That should be enough for you to believe.”

I had been told I asked too many questions. Mum was often sending me to Dad to find out the answer to things I asked. Dad would send me to a dictionary. Or bed, if the dictionary didn’t answer me. “OK, Uncle Victor.”

“Now run along,” he said, waving me aside with his bony hand.

“Thank you, Uncle Victor,” I said.

“Thank you?”

“For visiting me.”

He looked surprised. “Aye, well …”

I smiled at him, glad for having the chance to speak to him again. That the last time I saw him wasn’t him being dead in the coffin.

“Wash your hands, lass, there’s a good girl.”

“Oh, OK.” I turned to our new green sink and rubbed my hands together under the water, neglecting the soap that sat on the side of the bath. When I turned back, Uncle Victor had gone.

I sneaked outside to resume the game I’d been playing and never told anyone about seeing Uncle Victor. I didn’t doubt for one minute that I’d seen him, that he’d spoken to me, but I knew enough about grown-ups to know that they wouldn’t like me saying it. Aunt Mer had been crying all the time since Uncle
Victor had died, and the doctor had to keep “giving her something” to make her sleep. Mum and Dad were with her all the time and they wouldn’t like me saying it. I couldn’t tell Mal and Victoria, because they wouldn’t like to know their dad had visited me but not them. And Cordy would just tell Mum and Dad.

I saw Uncle Victor a few times after that. He didn’t speak to me. He was just there sometimes, I’d catch a glimpse of him reflected in the dark kitchen window when I was washing up. Or I’d see him standing at the end of the garden. One time he was sitting on the edge of the bath when I went to go to the toilet, but disappeared just as soon as I opened the door a bit wider (I hadn’t been able to use the loo for a good few hours after that). It was a reminder, I suppose, of what I’d promised him.

As I grew up, I became more and more interested in “out there.” What lay beyond the ken of everyday experience. What we couldn’t see or hear or experience but was still going on around us. What we might see or hear or experience if we learned to tune in to it.

My interest was about uncovering what else lay around us, in the spaces between this world and wherever we went to after we died. It was about finding out what else lay within us. What else you could perceive if you knew what you were looking for, what people could tune in to.