The Last Word

The first time Arthur saw his dead wife, he was burning eggs. 

Margaret stood beside the fridge in her blue dressing gown, arms folded. 

“You’ve got the heat too high.” 

Arthur dropped the spatula. 

“You’re dead,” he said. 

“Yes.” 

“I buried you.” 

“Yes.” 

The eggs began to smoke. 

“Turn the hob off, Arthur.” 

He did. 

After that, Margaret appeared often. 

Not dramatically. She never rattled chains or whispered secrets from beyond. She simply continued being Margaret. 

“You’ve loaded the dishwasher wrongly.” 

“There is no wrong way.” 

“You’ve spent thirty-four years proving otherwise.” 

She corrected his film quotations. 

She told him his shirt didn’t go with his trousers. 

She reminded him that roses were not to be pruned in February. 

Sometimes Arthur answered aloud. 

Sometimes he only heard her in his head. 

He stopped caring which. 

His daughter, Hayley, noticed. 

“Who are you talking to?”

Arthur glanced towards the empty doorway.

“No one.”

Margaret’s voice came at once.

“You’ve always been a dreadful liar.”

Arthur smiled.

Hayley didn’t.

At first, Margaret appeared almost every day.

Then less.

Three days would pass.

Then a week.

Arthur began making mistakes deliberately.

He microwaved tea.

He put the floral cushion on the wrong end of the sofa.

Nothing.

So he began misquoting films.

“Play it again, Sam.”

Silence.

“He never says that,” Arthur whispered in Margaret’s voice.

He smiled.

Then realised what he had done.

The smile disappeared.

One night, weeks later, Arthur sat alone watching Casablanca.

He had left the lamp on beside Margaret’s chair.

He always left it on now.

“Here’s looking at you, babe,” he said.

He waited.

Nothing.

“It’s ‘kid’,” he said quietly.

The room remained empty.

Arthur looked at the armchair.

“I know.”

His voice broke.

For a long time he sat without moving.

Then he said, “I don’t remember what your voice sounds like any more.”

That was the worst of it.

Not that she was gone.

That she was going.

Little by little.

The smell of her hair.

The exact shade of her eyes.

The way she said his name when she was happy.

He could still summon her if he concentrated, but lately she sounded more and more like him.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur said.

He imagined her asking what for.

“For keeping you here.”

He closed his eyes.

In his mind Margaret sat opposite him.

Not young. Not beautiful. Just Margaret.

The woman who had shared his bed, stolen his chips, corrected his grammar and once refused to speak to him for two days because he forgot their anniversary.

“I miss you,” he said.

He imagined her answer.

I know.

“You left me.”

I know.

“I’m angry with you.”

I know.

Arthur laughed softly.

“That’s all I can make you say now.”

Silence.

He switched off the television.

Then, before going upstairs, he moved the floral cushion back to Margaret’s side of the sofa.

He stopped.

“No,” he said.

And moved it to the other end.

Wrong.

Deliberately wrong.

He stood there for a moment, hoping.

Nothing happened.

Arthur went to bed.

In the morning, sunlight filled the sitting room.

Arthur came downstairs, put the kettle on, and stopped in the doorway.

The floral cushion was on Margaret’s side of the sofa.

He stared at it.

There were dozens of explanations.

He had moved it and forgotten.

Hayley had visited.

Perhaps he had done it half-asleep.

He was getting old.

Arthur knew all of this.

He walked over and touched the cushion.

Then he smiled.

“You always did have to have the last word.”

The house said nothing.

But Arthur made two cups of tea anyway.

A Potato in Transit

When I was a child, someone promised me a jacket potato. 

It was Bonfire Night. There were sparks in the dark, damp grass underfoot, adults shouting contradictory instructions about fireworks, and the smell of smoke getting into everyone’s clothes. Somewhere in the middle of it all, several potatoes had been wrapped in foil and buried in the hot ash at the edge of the fire. 

This was explained to me as though it were a miracle. 

“You wait,” someone said. “When they’re done, we’ll send one over to you.” 

I believed them. 

Children believe promises made beside bonfires. 

I waited. 

At first, not for long. 

Ten minutes, perhaps. 

I wandered about kicking at clumps of grass and watching other people eat sausages from paper plates. Occasionally I looked towards the fire. 

The potatoes remained unseen. 

“Are they done yet?” 

“Not quite.” 

Five minutes later: 

“How about now?” 

“Nearly.” 

Nearly is a dangerous word to use with a child. 

Nearly means the thing already exists. 

Nearly means it is approaching. 

Nearly means somewhere in the workings of the universe, your potato is becoming yours. 

People began folding chairs. 

Someone extinguished a sparkler in a bucket. 

Cars started leaving. 

I asked again. 

“Oh, don’t worry. We’ll send it to you when it’s ready.” 

That seemed fair. 

I went home. 

The potato did not arrive. 

I assumed there had been a delay. 

Perhaps the foil had become stuck. 

Perhaps the potato was unusually large. 

Perhaps the fire had cooled more quickly than anticipated. 

There were plausible explanations. 

I went to bed. 

The following morning, I thought about it again. 

Nothing.

Days passed.

I remained optimistic.

Every sound at the door seemed potentially potato-related.

The postman arriving became exciting.

A knock at six in the evening produced a brief surge of hope.

Sometimes a car slowing outside was enough.

Childhood moved on.

Christmas arrived.

Then birthdays.

School terms.

New shoes.

New disappointments.

At eighteen, I left home.

As I packed, my mother asked whether I had everything.

“Yes,” I said.

Then, after a moment:

“Except that potato.”

At university, people spoke about ambition.

What did you want from life?

A career.

Travel.

Marriage.

Money.

Purpose.

I listened to them and thought: I would quite like to see some follow-through on the jacket potato situation.

People laughed.

They thought I was telling a joke.

“Still waiting,” I’d say.

They laughed harder.

I didn’t.

By thirty, the story had improved with age.

The potato had become legendary.

Friends would ask for updates.

“Any sign?”

“Nothing.”

Occasionally someone would suggest I simply buy a jacket potato.

This completely missed the point.

I have had hundreds of jacket potatoes.

Lovely ones.

Butter.

Cheese.

Beans.

Once, inexplicably, prawns.

None of them was the potato.

The potato had a history.

The potato had been promised.

The potato was, by now, less food than destiny.

Technology advanced.

Online shopping.

Next-day delivery.

Same-day delivery.

One-hour delivery.

Humanity developed the ability to locate a taxi to within six feet, watch films instantly, and order Japanese noodles from a stranger on a bicycle at midnight.

Still no potato.

Sometimes I wondered whether it was travelling by older means.

Horse.

Canal boat.

Carrier pigeon.

A potato is a difficult object to expedite.

I imagined warehouses.

Depots.

Processing centres.

A small foil-wrapped object passing silently from one generation of postal workers to the next.

Nobody quite sure what it was.

A label fading on the side:

URGENT
JACKET POTATO
FOR THE BOY

The boy, meanwhile, had grey hairs.

Then one November evening, decades after the original bonfire, there was a knock at the door.

I was at home.

It was dark outside.

Cold.

Bonfire weather.

I opened the door.

There was nobody there.

I looked down.

On the step sat a small parcel.

No stamp.

No address.

Just my name.

I stared at it.

For a long time.

Then I carried it inside.

My hands were shaking.

I placed it on the kitchen table.

There are moments in life when the universe seems to narrow to a single point.

Weddings.

Deaths.

Births.

A mysterious package that might contain a root vegetable promised decades ago.

I opened it.

Inside was foil.

I peeled it back.

There it was.

A potato.

Blackened skin.

Cold.

Slightly shrivelled.

But unmistakably a jacket potato.

Beside it was a note.

Sorry for the delay.

For several minutes, I could not speak.

I sat at the table looking at it.

All those years.

All that waiting.

And now it was here.

I touched it.

Stone cold.

I laughed.

Then, to my surprise, I felt like crying.

Because I could suddenly see the child who had waited for it.

Standing beside the bonfire.

Watching the sparks rise.

Absolutely certain that adults meant what they said.

I wrapped the potato back up.

I did not eat it.

I put it on the windowsill.

It stayed there for three days.

On the fourth morning, my wife threw it away.

“There was a horrible old potato in the kitchen,” she said.

I stared at her.

“You what?”

She stopped.

“What?”

I looked in the bin.

Empty.

Already collected.

I ran outside.

The bin lorry was turning the corner.

For one wild moment, I considered chasing it.

Then I stopped.

I stood in the road in my slippers, watching it disappear.

My wife came to the door.

“What on earth is wrong with you?”

I looked at the empty road.

“It’s fine,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

I went back inside.

After all, I knew how this worked now.

It’ll come back.

Eventually.

The Nightmare Needed a Hobby

I have been chased by the same monster every Thursday night for eleven years. 

It is always Thursday. 

I don’t know why. 

You’d think my subconscious might occasionally mix things up. A Monday nightmare. A festive Christmas special. Perhaps something experimental on a bank holiday. 

But no. 

Thursday. 

The dream begins in a forest. 

The trees are black, the moon is enormous, and somewhere behind me something howls. 

I run. 

I have always run. 

That is the arrangement. 

The monster crashes through the trees behind me, snapping branches, roaring, breathing like an asthmatic furnace. 

I sprint towards an old house at the edge of the forest. 

I reach the front door. 

Locked. 

I search my pockets. 

No key. 

The monster gets closer. 

I bang on the door. 

Nobody answers. 

The monster appears behind me. 

I turn. 

It raises its enormous claws. 

And I wake up. 

Every Thursday. 

For eleven years. 

There have been minor variations. 

Once the house was a bungalow. 

Once I was wearing roller skates. 

Once the monster had my old geography teacher’s voice. 

But essentially, the dream has remained faithful to the original format. 

Until last Thursday. 

Everything began normally. 

Moon. 

Forest. 

Howl. 

Running. 

I was halfway between the twisted oak tree and the suspiciously theatrical patch of fog when I noticed something was wrong. 

The monster wasn’t chasing me. 

I stopped. 

In eleven years I had never stopped. 

I turned around. 

The monster was sitting on a fallen tree. 

It was enormous: eight feet tall, black fur, horns, claws, glowing red eyes. 

It was also hunched forward with its elbows on its knees. 

It looked miserable. 

“Come on,” I said. 

The monster sighed. 

I stared at it. 

“Are you chasing me or not?” 

It looked up. 

“Do we have to?” 

“What?” 

It rubbed its face with both claws. 

“Can we do something else?” 

For a moment neither of us spoke.

A wolf howled somewhere in the distance.

The monster shouted, “Oh, give it a rest, Trevor.”

The howling stopped.

I walked cautiously towards it.

“You’re supposed to chase me.”

“I know.”

“You’ve chased me every Thursday for eleven years.”

“I know.”

“You’re terrifying.”

“Thank you.”

I sat down at the other end of the fallen tree.

The monster stared at the ground.

Up close, I noticed things I had never seen before.

Its fur was thinning slightly around the horns.

One claw was chipped.

There were dark circles beneath its glowing eyes.

“You look tired,” I said.

“I’m exhausted.”

“Well, you do run quite a lot.”

“So do you.”

“What would you rather do?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re the monster.”

“That doesn’t mean I have hobbies.”

“Surely you must do something besides chase me.”

“No.”

“Nothing?”

I felt unexpectedly guilty.

“So for eleven years you’ve just been waiting in this forest every Thursday?”

The monster shrugged.

“Well,” I said, standing up. “Fine. Let’s do something.”

The monster looked suspicious.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. What do monsters enjoy?”

We stood in the moonlit forest considering our options.

“Cards?” I suggested.

“Don’t have any.”

“Chess?”

“Don’t have a board.”

“Football?”

The monster raised one enormous, clawed foot.

“Ball problem.”

“Charades?”

“There are only two of us.”

“Trevor could play.”

From somewhere in the forest came a faint, “I’m not doing charades.”

We started walking.

Without the chase, the forest seemed considerably smaller.

The terrifying path turned out to be about two hundred yards long.

The abandoned house was practically next door.

For eleven years, I had desperately tried to enter it.

Now the monster opened the door.

“You have a key?”

“Obviously.”

“I’ve spent eleven years searching my pockets for that key!”

“You never asked.”

Inside was a sofa. A small television. A kettle.

And a kitchen table covered in mugs.

I stared at the monster.

“You live here?”

“Between scenes.”

“You have a kettle?”

“Of course.”

“You’re an ancient creature of darkness.”

“Ancient creatures of darkness still drink tea.”

Fair point.

The monster filled the kettle.

“What do you take?”

“Milk. No sugar.”

It nodded approvingly.

“Same.”

The kitchen cupboards were almost empty.

Tea bags.

Biscuits.

A jar labelled EYEBALLS.

I opened it.

Buttons.

“Budget cuts,” the monster said.

We drank tea at the kitchen table.

“So,” I said. “Do you have a name?”

The monster hesitated.

“Malcolm.”

That was not quite what I was expecting, but I made no comment because I did not want to offend my host.

We finished our tea.

Then I tried to entertain him.

First we played I Spy.

“I spy with my little eye,” I said, “something beginning with T.”

“Tree.”

“Yes.”

“My turn. Something beginning with M.”

“Moon.”

“Yes.”

I looked around.

“This game is terrible.”

Next, we tried making shadow puppets.

Malcolm had six fingers on each hand, so most of his shadow puppets looked like medical emergencies.

Then we attempted karaoke.

The television had only one channel.

A weather forecast.

Malcolm sang along anyway.

“LIGHT RAIN ACROSS THE MIDLANDS,” he bellowed.

Trevor appeared at the window.

He was not, as I had imagined, a wolf.

He was a middle-aged man wearing pyjamas.

“Could you keep it down?” he said. “Some of us are trying to haunt people.”

Malcolm closed the curtains.

“He’s unbearable.”

“Who does he haunt?”

“Accountants.”

We eventually went outside again.

The moon had moved slightly.

I was beginning to worry.

“I should probably wake up soon.”

Malcolm nodded.

Neither of us said anything.

Strangely, I didn’t want to leave.

For eleven years I had feared this creature.

Now he just seemed lonely.

“Same time next Thursday?” he asked.

I smiled.

“Sure.”

His eyes brightened.

“What shall we do?”

I thought about it.

“Bowling?”

“Claws.”

“Cinema?”

“Maybe.”

“Mini golf?”

Malcolm gasped.

“You’ve got mini golf?”

“Not here.”

His face fell.

“But it’s my dream,” I said.

He looked at me.

“So?”

“So perhaps we can make one.”

For the first time in eleven years, I realised something important.

This was my dream.

I closed my eyes.

I imagined windmills.

Plastic castles.

Tiny bridges.

Artificial grass.

When I opened my eyes, the forest was gone.

We were standing beneath a glowing sign.

NIGHTMARE MINI GOLF.

Malcolm stared at it.

“Oh,” he whispered.

His eyes filled with tears.

“Are you crying?”

“No.”

“You are.”

“I’m a terrifying monster.”

“You’re definitely crying.”

“Shut up.”

We played eighteen holes.

Malcolm was terrible.

On the seventh hole, his ball disappeared into a plastic volcano and never came back.

On the eleventh, Trevor appeared and asked if he could join us.

Then I heard my alarm.

Malcolm heard it too.

His smile faded.

“Well,” he said.

“Next Thursday.”

“Next Thursday.”

The world began dissolving.

The golf course vanished.

Trevor vanished.

Malcolm vanished last.

And just before I woke up, I heard him shout:

“BRING SNACKS.”

The following Thursday, I fell asleep early.

The forest appeared.

The moon rose.

I waited.

Nothing.

Then Malcolm stepped out from behind a tree.

He was wearing sunglasses.

“Right,” he said.

“Right.”

“No chasing?”

“No chasing.”

“No screaming?”

“Definitely no screaming.”

He grinned.

“Good.”

Beyond the trees stood a rollercoaster.

Trevor was already strapped into the front seat.

“I hate this dream,” Trevor said. “I’d just like it noted that I voted for bowling.”

Malcolm climbed aboard.

I sat beside him.

The safety bar came down.

The carriage jerked forwards and began the long climb.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Higher and higher above the forest.

Malcolm looked over the side.

His smile disappeared.

“You all right?”

“Fine.”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I’m an ancient creature of darkness.”

Another click.

“Ancient creatures of darkness aren’t frightened of heights.”

We reached the top.

For a second, everything was still.

The forest stretched beneath us.

The moon hung enormous in the sky.

Malcolm gripped the safety bar with both claws.

“Why have we stopped?”

“We haven’t.”

The carriage tipped forwards.

Malcolm looked down.

“Oh.”

Then we dropped.

Malcolm screamed.

“AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”

And for the first time in eleven years, it wasn’t me who was screaming when I woke up.