You’d Look Better as a Ghost by Joanna Wallace

Author:Joanna Wallace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
Published: 2023-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

16

The man buried next to Dad certainly packed a lot into his sixty-five years on this earth. From the tributes, floral and otherwise, left on his grave, I know he was a dad, a grandad, a brother, a son, an uncle, a friend, a football supporter, a darts player and a lover of Guinness. I think Dad would approve. There are worse people you could lie next to for eternity. Dad’s grave isn’t as decorated as Mr Charisma’s but, since developing an unlikely interest in plants and flowers, I ensure it always looks neat and stylish. Today I note that the pansies are enduring well but the daffodils are not surviving the elements at all. How disappointing. Tidying the grave, I make a mental note never to buy daffodils again.

‘I only put these roses here on Thursday. Look what the frost has done to them.’

I turn and see an old man standing at a recently dug grave. He’s holding a bunch of roses and pointing to the frost-covered petals, and I think I’m expected to care.

‘She shouldn’t be in the ground,’ he continues. ‘She only went into hospital with a cough. Three days later she was dead.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ I say before turning back to the job at hand: the removal of battered daffodils from Dad’s grave. I hear a shuffling noise and look up. Old man with the roses has made his way over and is looking at me.

‘Young people like you, you don’t understand grief,’ he says. ‘Not properly anyway. Me and my wife, we were married for sixty-seven years. Sixty-seven years!’ he repeats, staring at me through tiny, pink-rimmed eyes.

I notice for the first time that his skin is tinged an unhealthy blue. It’s not that cold today. Is that his natural colouring, or is he beginning to look ghostly? Should I kill him?

‘Can you imagine being with someone every single day for sixty-seven years?’ he asks, and his face is so close to mine, I can smell his breath. His teeth are yellow, and he definitely doesn’t floss. I’m not sure whether he even brushes.

‘Can you imagine waking up next to the same person every morning for sixty-seven years and then suddenly that person is gone?’ he asks.

With breath like that he should forget about the roses and hang a medal on his wife’s grave.

‘Young people like you, you’ll never understand what this grief is like,’ he says. Again. Hasn’t he already said that?

I turn my back and continue pulling dead daffodils out of the ground. I can’t be bothered to kill him. I can’t even be bothered to think of a cliché. This is a graveyard, and the rules of graveyards are quite simple. Everyone is expected to come and remember their dead in silence. There is no need for interaction and there is certainly no need for competitive grieving.

‘Excuse me, young lady, I’m talking to you!’

His voice is raised now and when I fail to respond, he grabs hold of my arm. Shrugging him off, I stand up slowly and turn to face him.

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