| THE DOOR THAT OPENED |
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| Ray* and I had been dating for a while � I can�t say we were the ideal couple, but we had our reasons for sticking together, and neither of us wanted to �rock the boat�. Maybe we were stuck in a rut� maybe staying in the relationship was easier than accepting change or (worse still) life alone. Ray hated my flat � a poky little two bedroom, ground-floor apartment with damp problems. He didn�t appreciate the view we had from the lounge window � a great expanse of park area that had ducks in summer, foxes in spring and a rolling mist over the grass every dewy morning. Okay, I admit the flat was pretty dire� the damp was truly awful, and it was so cold. Strangely though, I felt safe there. Nicola* was a friend who had often visited, who claimed that I had a guardian spirit � a spirit of a man who was looking over me, protecting me and my children and keeping us safe. This was, Nicola said, why I felt safe in that damp, poky flat. She called this guardian spirit my �personal ghost�. Summer was just rolling in, and the days were getting longer and warmer. Often, Ray and I would sit on our balcony, looking over the parkland and just chatting about life, the children and what we were going to do about the state of our home. As it got late, we would carry on our conversations indoors� but we�d have to close the balcony door and the windows because of the bats. Seriously� bats would fly around the blocks of flats, and I was always worried about them coming inside (too many horror films, I suppose!). |
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| * ALL NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED |
| One evening, Ray had invited his friend over to chat about decorating the flat� Ben* had been a painter and decorator for two years, and was willing to help us out for a few weeks. We were chatting about what rooms needed decorating the most (all of them!) and discussing colour schemes, when Ray decided to start making jokes about a conversation he had overheard. The conversation was the one between Nicola and me, concerning my �personal ghost�. Ray was a firm non-believer in anything spiritual� and stated his views on ghosts, and the people who thought they were real, quite categorically. He just didn�t believe at all. As he sat, hunched over spluttering with laughter, the door behind his chair clicked open. Ben sat stock-still, mouth open as the door slowly started to open� Ray stopped laughing, and turned his head to look at the moving door. It was opening so slowly, as though someone were stood behind it slowly pushing� but there was nobody stood there at all. Nobody said a word as the door opened fully up� nearly touching the back of Ray�s chair. It was Ray who then broke the silence� �It�s just the wind� he said with a nervous laugh. �No it isn�t� I replied, �There isn�t a breeze at all.� I looked towards the door, �Please be kind enough to close the door after you� I calmly spoke to the �nothing-at-all behind the open door, �Ray doesn�t think that you exist� this is your chance to prove him wrong�. I really didn�t expect anything to happen, and Ray just sat there looking at me as though I had finally gone completely mad. Ben started to laugh, Ray had a look of total smugness, and just said �Ha!� at nothing happening after my polite request. At that comment, the door started to shake as though it would fall off its hinges� and then it slammed shut with such speed and force, I thought the wood would splinter. Ray leapt from his seat � I can�t write the words that he used, but suffice to say, he wasn�t going to spend a moment longer in my flat. He ran across the room, but realised that to get out of the flat, he would have to open, and go through, the door that had just slammed shut. Luckily we lived on the ground floor � as I dread to think what would have happened had we lived any higher� Ray headed for the balcony door, threw it open and vaulted over the balcony. He didn�t even stop to grab his wallet or his jacket� he just kept running. He came back five days later. I knew he had stayed at his grandmothers house � she had phoned me when he turned up three hours after he had run (almost screaming) from my home. He told her what had happened, and she scolded him for �poking fun at the dead�. He never mentioned it again to me� though Ben tried to poke fun at him for a while afterwards (Ben called him the �flying grunge�). Ray and I didn�t last much longer� and the flat never did get redecorated whilst I lived there. |
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| Two years later I moved to the house I still live in today, and the flat was modernised by the council � fully decorated throughout. Two families had lived there since and neither of them liked the flat at all. The neighbour two floors up always complained about noise coming from my flat � claiming that she often heard a man shouting and a woman or child screaming. No woman screamed in my flat whilst Ray and I lived there. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ I�ll let you all into a secret� Before Ray and I lived together in that flat, a married couple lived there. The wife was often at the painful end of beatings by her husband, and when she had their daughter, the beatings became much worse. The husband didn�t believe the child was his (with no grounds at all� the wife was totally innocent) and the wife would often feel she had to protect her children from her husband. So many times she would scream in terror, beg not to be hit or kicked as his fists came towards her. On a few occasions, she would sit and scream at the top of her voice� begging for someone to hear her and stop her husband from hurting her yet again. Nobody ever came. The wife would scream, the husband would shout� and the children would cry. But still nobody came. When I asked the complaining neighbour about this, she claimed she never heard a thing when that family lived there� the husband was �a wonderful man � so kind and polite� she had said. Strange then, that she never heard a sound when all those terrible fights were happening� and yet she claims she heard all manner of terrible happenings when the flat was occupied by quiet residents � well, except for the time when Ray vaulted the balcony, running away from my very own �personal ghost�� |