Ghoster Read online

  “Why’s that?” I ask, innocence personified.

  He thinks this over. “Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I’ll find myself scrolling through, you know, whatever, and I’ll catch myself… and I’ll wonder what the hell I was even doing. It ends up being just… mindless. It’s like you get sucked in, you know?”

  Oh, honey-bunch, trust me – I know all too well.

  “I did an offline January this year,” he goes on, “and it was harder than any dry January I’ve ever done. My hand kept going to my pocket.”

  My brain wants to fire back a dirty joke, but I can’t quite get there, so I stay quiet, nod and listen some more.

  “For the phone!” he adds with a laugh, having read my face. “Drag your mind out of the gutter.”

  “No idea what you mean,” I protest, with a trace of a smirk. Oh yeah, my smirk brings all the boys to the yard.

  All the boys with low standards. You don’t stand a chance with this one.

  Maybe, brain, maybe not. We’ll see tonight, won’t we, when it’s time for everyone to go to bed. That’s when I’ll bring out my killer seduction moves.

  Possibly.

  IZZY

  has he txted u back yet

  KATE

  Jesus, are you all still in the pub? It’s half-one.

  IZZY

  yeah trevor’s v drunk… he just tried to have a piss against the bar so we called him a taxi… has scott txted yet

  KATE

  Has he fuck.

  IZZY

  try not to worry babe and get some sleep… everything’s gonna be funeral

  KATE

  Funeral?!?

  IZZY

  fuckin autocorrect… *fine… everything’s gonna be funeral

  IZZY

  FFS! FINE NOT FUNERAL!!!!!

  KATE

  You should probably get some sleep too.

  CHAPTER SIX

  3 October

  Somewhere north of twenty-four hours since Scott was in touch, my sleep isn’t so much broken as shattered.

  I’ve made the classic schoolgirl error of keeping my phone by my pillow, so I keep checking it. This I do, despite suspecting that even the screen-light of this old Nokia messes with the melatonin that controls sleep.

  To make things worse, I keep dreaming the buzz of incoming texts from Scott. When I wake up and check the phone, of course, there’s nothing.

  Ghost texts, received via the dream world.

  When Izzy texted me just now, I had a brief joygasm, thinking it was Scott.

  How very pathetic.

  Before bed, I sent my first aggro-text to Scott. Feels so weirdly formal, calling him by his actual name. “Scott, I’m moving in tomorrow. We haven’t agreed a time for me to turn up. Where the hell are you?”

  My first draft had simply read, Where the fuck are you? but restraint prevailed.

  An entirely unfiltered text would have read, I AM FUCKING PETRIFIED. Stop being weird and shutting me out, because I am horribly head over heels with you and I don’t want to be left all alone. Also: please, please, please don’t be dead.

  One o’clock has slowly become two.

  Two o’clock merges into three, with only shallow pools of sleep in between.

  Somewhere around four, love no longer feels like a positive force in the universe. Love feels like some pernicious disease to avoid at all costs.

  Come seven, a couple of hours before I wanted to wake, there’s no way any further sleep will happen. Bleary-eyed, I stumble towards the bathroom to splash cold water on my face, toppling a whole stack of my moving boxes on the way.

  The Beardie Boys are booked to collect all this stuff later and ferry it down to Brighton. What happens then? What if me and my hirsute hipster removal guys all arrive outside Scott’s place and he’s still nowhere to be seen? I don’t even have the bloody keys to his flat.

  Should that have been a big red flag, the fact that he didn’t actually give me keys? Maybe I don’t have keys yet because he forgot to give them to me, or I haven’t really needed them, or he’ll simply be there when I arrive. I need to stop being such a damsel in distress, pull myself together and think hard. I need to blow all this negative fog away and act.

  Okay, then. Yes. I’m going to have breakfast. Then I’m going to leave the keys to this flat with the removal guys and drive down to Brighton, way ahead of them. When I find that handsome idiot Palmer, I’ll punch him on the bicep and everything will be dandy again.

  Must start my day as I always do, with three gratitudes, inspired by various life coaches. So, what are today’s three?

  I’m grateful that I have my health. Not fitness, exactly, but at least I can see and hear and move and all those rather useful things.

  I’m grateful that I have Izzy, my best friend, even though I haven’t always repaid her kindness, to say the very least.

  Lastly, I’m grateful that, despite the weirdness and uncertainty of this situation with Scott, I have a plan. I will face this situation with strength, dignity and courage.

  My God. Does this flat feel bigger than it once did, or do I feel so very small?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  1 June

  Crunch time. Will we or won’t we?

  Scott and I are climbing the grand staircase of Grayson Manor, an imposing building whose outer walls are choked with ivy and lichen. As we make our way towards the residential floor where everyone has their own room, there’s something in the air between us. We’re still dancing the dance… or are we? For a guy with such open and hopelessly blue eyes, Scott’s proving hard to read.

  The night ended with everyone drinking organic wine on the manor’s back patio. Could it have been sheer coincidence that Scott and I ended up on the sole two-seater bench? In fact, I’m pretty sure we made a beeline for this thing, which was small enough for our upper thighs to just… about… touch.

  Come on, Kate. Best not to assume this guy fancies you. There’s a reason why your default relationship status is single.

  Scott may be the politest gent on Earth, but he did seem genuinely into the snatches of chat we managed to grab when we weren’t forced to humour dull, jabbering people. We established we’re both vegetarian, which is very cool – and have I only imagined us stealing ever-longer periods of eye contact? Especially now we’ve had a few glasses of red, it seems we’re holding each other’s gaze for as long as we can without our mutual attraction becoming completely blatant.

  Dear OKCupid dating app: I’m afraid that when I answered the profile quiz question Would you be prepared to sleep with someone on the first date? with the response No, I lied in order to weed out the fuck-boys. Sorry, not sorry.

  By the time Scott and I reach the top of this enormous staircase, finally alone together, my killer seduction moves have forsaken me. I need some flimsy pretext for intimacy, but nothing springs to mind. Why isn’t there any tempting booze in my room? No one wants coffee at 2 a.m., unless they live in Soho or New York… do they?

  We arrive in the long corridor dotted with the doors to people’s rooms. Here we are in Last Chance Saloon, but we’re chatting total small talk, about how fun and interesting the day’s been – conversational ground that we’ve covered before. We’re locked into a holding pattern, but who knows where we’ll land? Time to find out.

  Scott chuckles. “This corridor reminds me of The Shining.” Gazing along the length of it, I briefly imagine those creepy twins from Kubrick’s film and fail to suppress a shudder.

  “Reddd rummm,” I croak. Our laughter peters out, and then we’re slap-bang in that moment when it’s time to either say goodnight or carry on in my room or his.

  Fuck it. You only live once and then you’re dead forever.

  My cheeks flush, even as I say the words. “Weirdly, I don’t feel all that tired. Do you?”

  Scott breaks our precious eye contact, and a certain awkwardness in his smile concerns me. Shyness? I didn’t have him down as shy, but people can be shy in many different ways. Ther
e are probably names for different types of shyness, as there are for phobias. This year, for instance, I learnt the word nomophobia: the fear of losing your phone. How appalling that the word even needs to exist.

  “I must admit…” he begins, as I resign myself to my friend-zone fate, “I had such an early start today, I’m fading. I’d rather we carried on talking when I can give you the best of me.”

  As brush-offs go, this is actually pretty nice. Talking, though. Is that really all he wants to do? Oh, relax and go to bed, Kate. What will be, will be.

  “That’s absolutely fair enough,” I say, cursing these rather stiff words. Then I move in for an air-kiss and wince as I make the exaggerated Mwah! sound.

  Jesus! Definitely bedtime for me.

  To my surprise, Scott doesn’t go along with the air-kiss. Instead, he kisses me tenderly on the cheek. Tingles envelop my whole head, then fleetingly migrate south.

  Convinced that my entire head has become a beetroot, I pull away and wonder if he might lean in for more. When he only smiles and steps back, I manage a painfully bashful Goodnight, before sloping off to my room.

  By the time I roll onto the bed, I discover that I’m genuinely not tired. My thoughts race and I actually feel a touch giddy. I should enjoy this feeling and this moment, regardless of whether there truly is any connection between me and the intriguing wolf who’s loped into my life from the bewildering… wilderness.

  The bewilderness.

  So! Kate, Kate, Kate. Here you are again, back in the darkness. Alone.

  I wonder if other people internally heckle themselves. Surely this can’t be normal. Thinking back, I suppose I developed the habit of self-criticism so that Mum never had a chance to get in there first. She never even knew, but she was robbed of the advantage of surprise.

  As usual, this rabbiting voice of negativity takes some silencing, but eventually I drift away towards sleep.

  The sound of scratching jerks me right back out of myself.

  What the hell? Something is scratching at my window.

  My fourth-floor window.

  Should I be glad the curtains are closed or feel even more weirded out?

  Could be anything out there. Anything at all. One of the floating vampire kids from Salem’s Lot, for instance. Why don’t you take a look? Prove to yourself you really aren’t afraid.

  I scrunch the bed covers around my head in the vain hope that the scratching will stop. Finally, pissed off with my own fear, I sweep them aside and head over to the window.

  I inflate my chest with air, grip one curtain in each hand, then wrench them apart.

  Two shiny black eyes stare in through the grimy glass.

  As the squirrel races back off along the tree bough, I can’t help wondering which of us had the bigger fright.

  2 June

  The early afternoon sun cooks the back of my head as Lizzie hands back my Nokia. Here’s that familiar rush of grim excitement as I wonder how many calls and texts I’ve missed over the past two days. And here’s the balancing downer of remembering how few real-life friends I have left. Everyone but Izzy and select social media pals backed away slowly in March, during The Great Rudolpho Trauma.

  Historically, I’m Johnny-No-Mates anyway. From the playground of my first school onwards, I’ve developed an abrasive attitude that creates a lousy first impression and drives people away… because of course that makes total sense for someone who’s terrified of being alone. Bravo, Kate, bravo. Keep on rejecting people before they have a chance to reject you.

  Time for the grand parting of the ways. We’ve all done the morning nature ramble and worshipped the sun, both of which only exacerbated my hangover. The real night owls among us have eyes like piss-holes in snow.

  We’ve had the farewell vegan lunch, so here’s the crunchiest crunch time of all, given that Scott and I haven’t exchanged contact details. What if he walks off into the sunset forever, like some desperado gunslinger who only ever works alone?

  As Scott receives his phone back, he eyes my Nokia with amused respect. “You really weren’t kidding. Old school.”

  I nod at his slick, black smartphone, housed in its protective case. “Feel relieved to get your baby back, do you?”

  Shit. His baby. What if he’s married with kids, and just fancied a harmless flirt this weekend? I’ve assumed so much here.

  His brow dips as he considers my question. “Yes and no. I reckon you’ve made me think about a few things.”

  Have I, Scott? Have I, indeed…?

  “Oh yeah?” I say. “Good things, I hope.”

  “Definitely,” he says. “I’m going to strictly ration my usage. Heard about this app that tells you how often you use your phone every day.”

  I can’t help laughing. “What does it say about us all, that we now need an app to tell us that?”

  “I know, it’s proper deranged.”

  Everyone else is saying goodbye, thanking Lizzie profusely and heading to their vehicles. Scott’s shrugging on his faux-fleece-collared jacket. Say something, Kate.

  “So,” I say, the absolute epitome of nonchalance, “did you mention that you’re going to be in Leeds at some point?” I fake a puzzled frown. “Was it you who said that?”

  That killer grin blinds me as he says, “Yeah! We should get together and celebrate being back in the city.”

  I can’t help but notice that he says this as a statement, rather than a question. I like that. Confidence is hot and arrogance is not, but Scott has so far shown no trace of the latter. This feels refreshing in such an objectively good-looking creature.

  My nod is breezy, easy, bordering on bored. “Yeah, perhaps we should.”

  “Are you on Facebook?” he says, then remembers. “Ah, no, you’re not on anything.”

  “I do have this brand-new, experimental thing called SMS texting,” I offer. “Also, the ability to project my voice over this device known as a telephone?”

  “That sounds a bit cutting-edge for me, but I’m happy to give it a spin. What’s your number?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  3 October

  The cinnamon-sugar tang of fresh-cooked doughnuts collides with salty sea air. This heady brew wafts in through my window as I hit the roundabout in front of Brighton’s Palace Pier.

  Driving down here was easy enough. Once you’ve steered an ambulance at top speed through major cities, a steady flow of motorway traffic feels like small potatoes, but how I longed for the magic siren that makes everyone fuck off out of the way.

  With my brain, hands and feet on auto, my mind has been free to get on with the important business of worrying itself sick. I became mentally absent on the M1, and during my lunch rest-stop, I questioned how much I really know about Scott Palmer.

  Surely I know enough, don’t I? I know how we connect so well. I know we have lots in common and our conversation never falters. I know we have the kind of sex that makes me fret about his neighbours complaining. And yet…

  And yet…

  Dark zones lurk outside our airtight bubble – huge areas of Scott’s life that I’ve yet to fathom. The more I think about this, I realise he does evasiveness very well whenever I broach certain topics. It’s like he senses what I’m about to ask, whether the question concerns friends, family, his past or… Jesus, practically anything personal at all.

  I don’t even know where he was born.

  If the Kate-and-Scott bubble is Planet Earth, then the rest of Scott’s life is the galaxy, vast and unknowable.

  Shit.

  Shit-fuck.

  Shit-fuck-shit.

  I know next to nothing about the man I’m supposed to be moving in with.

  Traditionally when I arrive at the Palace Pier, my stomach does a happy flip. This is partly because I’ve always loved piers and seagulls and doughnuts, but mostly because it means I’m about to see Scott. This afternoon, my stomach flips through raw nerves.

  I had already come to think of Brighton as my new home. Now that Scott’
s fallen out of contact, though, this city feels weirdly forbidden. Why do I feel like such a madwoman? I’m doing nothing wrong here. My boyfriend and I agreed I’d move in with him today, and here I am, albeit early. Surely my Stalky Psycho Rating has to be pretty low at this point. I mean, I’d estimate a mere three out of ten. It’s Scott who’s either being a useless dick, or is trapped under heavy furniture, or… or…

  … is stone-cold dead.

  Apparently, I now have my own parking space in the lot beneath Scott’s apartment block, but of course he’s not around to show me where it is, or how to get in. So I park up on the seafront and pay the meter. I cross Madeira Drive, heading for Marine Parade, where the Van Spencer building awaits me.

  All curvy chrome and glass, this big sea-facing brute reminds me of a 1930s cruise ship. Despite having been here many times, I still have no idea which of the building’s front windows and balconies correspond to Scott’s place. Most of these flats are in darkness, but there are a few patches of light.

  Guess I’ll have to try the front entryphone, like every other random visitor.

  Hello, moment of truth.

  CHAPTER NINE

  17 June

  The third time I see Scott Palmer, his face is hideously distorted.

  Having bagged us a table on the outside terrace of the River’s Edge bar, he’s draining the last of his ale from one of those old-fashioned jugs with handles. Because his face is all but obscured by the panelled glass, I recognise him only by his fleece-collared jacket.

  This brick-walled warehouse-conversion struck me as a potentially romantic venue for our date, without being outrageously so, just in case this isn’t actually a date. The River Aire lazily wends its way past the terrace, making for pleasant views. Admittedly, I could have chosen somewhere closer to my flat, not least because I might have crossed Leeds faster and actually got here on time. So now I’m wearing a thin film of sweat to complement my best date-jeans and somewhat low-cut top.