Chapter Eight
 

 Josep's ghost was in the living room having fun teasing the cat.

"Well you can see us alright, like Isidre said," he confirmed to the animal, as it watched the curious dance he was doing around the sofa.  Isidre was his father.  Josep's re-union with his long lost parent had hardly been what you would call an emotional one.  His fellow ghost had objected to being called `Dad' by a man he barely knew and who, in appearance at least, was older than himself.

 "That's not very loving, is it, Dad... er Isidre?"  Josep had objected.

 "Love?" Isidre had inquired.  "Ah yes, emotions.  You'll find that emotions are very different here on the other side."

 Back in the present Josep's attention wondered back to the cat and he asked it silently:

 "Now why is it you can see us, and they can't, eh?"

 The cat lost interest in him and went back to preening itself.  Isidre came through the living room wall.  It was something Josep knew he could do himself, but he still found it unnerving to witness.

 "Your good lady is crying her eyes out up there," the older ghost told his fellow phantom.

 "Better go and see what's up then I suppose," Josep answered neutrally.

 "Aye, I suppose so," his father agreed dispassionately.

 Josep closed his eyes and thought himself into his wife's room; when he opened them again he found her there weeping with a letter held limply at her side.  Luckily he was able to float upside down and read it; there are one or two advantages to being a phantom.  The name on the letter heading rang vague bells and the threats outlined there seemed somewhat alarming.

 "I wonder why she hasn't paid it off with the insurance money," Josep asked himself as he put an invisible arm around her shoulders.

 Something else tugged gently at the corner of his mind, something that had been waiting months to surface.  He called out to Isidre who popped up out of the floor.

 "What's up then?"

 "Something to do with an unpaid bill," Josep responded, already forgetting the details.

 "What did you call me for then?" the old ghost grumbled.  "I was playing with the cat."

 For a moment the vagueness cleared from Josep's mind:

 "What am I doing here?" he asked.

 "I don't know, do I?"  his father complained.  "I've told you before, you'd be the best judge of that."

 "No, I mean what am I doing in this house?  What are my wife and kids doing here?  We have our own little flat in the centre of town.  What could have possessed them to move in with mother?"

 "You mean you didn't live here when you were alive?"  Isidre asked, incredulously.

 "Do you remember us living here?"  his son asked, slightly confused.

 "Well, now you come to mention it, I don't.  Leastways not since you were a boy."

 "We didn't, that's why!" insisted Josep, trying to fight the cloudiness of his thoughts.  "So why are they here?  What has happened to the flat?  Why is she crying over a bill she should be able to pay ten times over?"

 "Emotions!"  Isidre said, dismissively.  "They're always behind everything they get upset about.

 An island of clarity appeared again in the swirling sea of competing memories that Josep still called his mind.

 "Oh no, it can't be," he said with as much fear as a ghost could muster.  "I don't believe it, she hasn't found my document case, that must be it, there was everything in that my... my..."

 The clouds were hiding the island from view again and exactly what was in the case became less and less clear.  By an effort of concentration he managed to remember at last the principal contents of his folder.  He looked around the room and was surprised to see it empty and lit by the low angled sunlight of an autumn afternoon.