Eleven New Ghost Stories (20 page)

He was hiding under his duvet
talking to someone, but only he was there. I called out his name
and he threw himself from under the blankets, like I’d walked in on
something secretive.

“Who were you talking to
sweetie?” I asked him.

“No one,” he said, with a sly
little smile.

“Oh,” I said. “I thought I heard
you.”

“No” he said, and dived back
under the duvet without saying another word.

Kids have their games; I didn’t
think much about it at the time. Things were happy again, I didn’t
want to dwell on the bad times, I’d put them to the back of my mind
as much as I could.

You know how it is; you
sometimes choose not to believe things you don’t want to face. It
was happy families again. Everything was supposed to be fine.

We went almost a year playing
happy families. Things were truly blissful again. Me and Peter had
started to connect again, we even talked about having another
child. It seemed like such a good idea, now that everything was
back on track again.

It couldn’t last though, could
it? One day, he announced that ______, the band he’d helped go big,
they wanted him for their new album. It was a big deal, could be
worth a fortune. But they were recording in America – not England.
He’d be gone for six weeks at least, maybe longer. I was livid;
just as everything was settled he wanted to take off again.

We had this horrible row. He
denied promising that he’d said he’d never go away again, that he’d
just agreed not to do it for a while. The opportunity was too big
to miss. He approached me as if this was already a done deal and
there was no negotiation. We had such a slanging match, it was so
bad, but he tricked me into agreeing to it, providing it was one
last time.

I can’t believe I let him leave
us. He should’ve stayed. This all wouldn’t have happened if he’d
stayed…

Quickly things started to go
back to how they were before. It was term time, so when Benjamin
was away I never really felt alone. And then when he was there, his
quietness, he was so quiet I wanted to scream. I felt alone when he
was there and watched when he wasn’t.

Sometimes he felt like a ghost,
barely even there with me. I’d hear his creeping footsteps
upstairs, just sparsely, like he was creeping around. It would
drive me crazy. I kept it all back, I never went crazy mad at him;
he seemed so innocent, so serenely in his own world. But when
parent’s night came around at school, I went to see his teachers
and they commented with concern about how detached he was and
wanted to know where his father was.

I could see how their minds were
working. They were thinking he had a horrible home life, that his
father was violent and that I was a drunk and that he had withdrawn
from the terrible life he had. The questions they asked, the
insinuations, I couldn’t take it. I wanted to get up and throttle
that woman; that look of fake sympathy and understanding. I did
everything I could for that boy, my boy!

I was planning to take him to a
therapist, to hell with what Peter thought. This just wasn’t
natural. At least if I got a therapist to bring him out of his own
little world he might not come to hate me.

Then there was this one day I
saw him out in the garden. We had these two trees growing, and he
was running around them, and I could see him talking to someone. I
watched him for a while; he was having a private little game with
someone who wasn’t there. Was that it? Did he have an imaginary
friend? A friend so good that he didn’t even need me?

I asked later that day. He was
eating his tea and I was doing the washing up. He was quiet again,
so I said to him: “Who was that you were talking to?”

He didn’t answer, so I asked him
again: “Who was that you were talking to outside?”

After pushing some food around
his plate, he said: “Wasn’t talking to anyone.”

“I heard you. I saw you talking
to someone outside. Who were you talking to?”

He didn’t answer again. I got
angry.

“Benjamin who were you talking
to?”

“I wasn’t talking to anyone!” he
shouted. He slammed his knife and fork down, his food half-eaten,
and just left. He stormed off upstairs and disappeared.

I was flabbergasted. My
too-good-to-be-true, good little boy just didn’t do things like
that. I felt so guilty, I made myself feel ill. I shouldn’t have
shouted at him.

That night I really decided I
was going to find a therapist for him. I was upstairs in the
bedroom, looking through names on my laptop, writing down names,
when suddenly, Benjamin was there in the doorway, in his pyjamas
ready for bed – he was always so good about that too.

“I’m sorry I shouted Mum. Neil
said I wasn’t to tell you or anybody his name and I thought he
would be upset with me. But now he says it’s ok and I can tell you
that his name is Neil and that he’s my best friend and that we play
all the time.”

He grinned at me and I looked
back at him speechless.

“He thinks you’re funny,” he
said. And then he went back to his bedroom. I sat silently on the
bed. I didn’t know what to think now. Was I overreacting? Was I
going mad? I looked it up online, imaginary friends. Apparently
they weren’t a bad thing, but a boy of Benjamin’s age should be
growing out of it.

I went to put him to bed. As I
knelt beside him, I said I was glad that he’d told me about Neil.
But I asked him, I said “Don’t you think you spend too much time
playing with Neil?” I said that he needed to be making friends with
other boys and girls and that playing with them would be so much
better than skulking around at home with Neil.

He suddenly got so angry. His
perfect pretty face creased up into an angry, fierce little scowl
and he cried: “Neil’s my best friend, my best friend in the whole
world. I like him better than I like you!”

He rolled over. I yelled at him.
I screamed at him: “Don’t you ever say something like that to me
again. Don’t you ever.” I tried to roll him back over but he
wouldn’t move. I gave up, slammed the door and went back to my
computer. I was going to find someone to talk with him. This
couldn’t go on.

The next morning I was adamant
that I was going to call one of the names on my list. But early in
the morning I got a call from Peter. He was happy, enthusiastic.
Recording had been going so well, there wouldn’t be any extra time
needed. He’d be home within a week.

I wanted to tell him, wanted to
raise hell with him. But I was so lonely; I just wanted to hear
someone else’s voice. And he was in such good spirits, I just
couldn’t tell him. I felt such shame, a mother who couldn’t connect
with her son… I couldn’t bear the thought of being judged like
that.

I just spoke calmly and nicely;
he could tell I wasn’t completely fine, but I just let it go that
time, I didn’t want to row. I just wanted him back home. It’s
horrible to admit you’re going mad to someone.

I decided to put off calling
someone for just a little longer. If Peter would be home in just
over a week, I could discuss it with him. He wouldn’t like it, but
I wasn’t taking no for an answer. He was going to hate me for it,
but he’d hate me more if I didn’t at least talk to him about it.
God knows what he’d think about Neil – but of course Benjamin was
all smiles and sunshine when he was there. Peter was so damn
perfect; it was just me who was all wrong.

The next day was a Saturday,
just me and Benjamin in the house. He was sulking, not talking to
me out of anger and spite rather than his usual pretending I wasn’t
there.

I started to question him about
Neil; he didn’t give answers very willingly. I asked him about what
he’d said the night before and why he wasn’t supposed to tell me
about Neil.

He said: “Neil said that you’d
try to split us up. That you wouldn’t understand.”

I told him I wasn’t trying to
split them up, that I just wanted to understand. I asked him where
Neil was now. What he looked like.

Neil was apparently a normal boy
just like him, although he had blonde hair and freckles. I asked
him how long he’d known Neil. Where Neil had come from.

“He’s always been here. He’s
been here for years but only I can see him,” he told me.

He skulked away into the living
room, leaving me with a horrible thought. That damn feeling, that
ominous fear that I wasn’t alone. That someone was watching me.
That maybe I wasn’t just being stupid and paranoid and going mad,
that maybe something was there in the house watching me.

The thought creeped me the hell
out, oh God, I can’t tell you. But I told myself it couldn’t be
true, that it was all stupid and that everything would be fine once
Peter got home. And then maybe after we’d got Ben some help, maybe
I should get some help too.

I had to get out of the house. I
needed to do some shopping so I dragged Ben along with me, although
he didn’t want to come and made a sulky nuisance of himself the
whole afternoon. Was it this imaginary friend that was keeping him
so well behaved? I didn’t know what to think, I was so confused; I
was in hell.

One of the shops we went into
was a charity shop. It was after I’d done the main shop; I’d
dropped some old clothes off. I was looking through the clothes and
the shoes and Benjamin was looking at the toys and the books. He’d
been such a pain I was glad for once that he was quiet. Then
suddenly he tugged my sleeve and said “Mum, have you seen
this?”

He was all smiles and perk
again. He pulled me towards this toy chest. It was about a metre
long, painted white with clowns and balls and streamers – hand
painted. Good in its way, the clowns were jolly, not frightening.
It looked like something that might’ve come from a fairground. It
had certainly been knocked around quite a bit though; the paint was
starting to peel off. It wasn’t new by any means.

“It’s nice isn’t it? I could fit
all my toys into there and keep my room tidy. Can I have it please
Mum?”

The old ladies behind the
counter cooed. They loved that; a little boy who wanted to keep his
room tidy. They thought he was an angel – I smiled awkwardly,
unable obviously to tell them what a nightmare I was in.

The chest was ten pounds, but
they said I could have it for eight. Benjamin stretched the word
“Please” as long as he could and I… I just ended up being pressured
into buying it. He didn’t need it, I didn’t really like it much.
Kids can manipulate you like that, can’t they? It was just a stupid
chest, it shouldn’t have meant anything. But that was the
beginning, the beginning of the end…

…No it’s all right, I want to go
on. I just want to get it all out…

A few days later, just a few
days before Peter came home, I was upstairs putting my clothes
away. I knew Benjamin was in his room, I’d seen him. But when I
came past his door a few minutes later, he wasn’t there.

His room was empty, but I was
sure he couldn’t have gone back down the stairs. Even Benjamin,
with his creepy quiet behaviour, wasn’t able to shift around that
silently, not up and down those creaky old stairs.

Some of his toys were scattered
across his floor, so much for him being tidy! Then I noticed that
some of his toys had been dumped right out in front of the chest.
As if they’d just been emptied out. I had the sudden instinct to
look inside.

I opened up the lid, and inside,
half buried in stuffed toys, was Benjamin. He was lying on his
back, his arms folded across his chest like a body in a coffin.

I cried his name: “Benjamin”.
His eyes flicked open.

“What are you doing in there!” I
pulled him up by the arms and hoisted him out.

“We were playing hide and
seek.”

“Playing hide and seek, with
who?”

“With Neil.”

“Oh for God’s sake,” I said. I
lifted him out and put him down on the floor.

“It was just a game,” he
shouted, getting defensive.

“Benjamin…” I said, trying not
to shout myself. “You could’ve suffocated in there. Do you know
what that means? Air can’t get inside and out, you can’t breathe.
You know about breathing don’t you? They’ve taught you this at
school?”

He looked at the floor, which
meant he had learnt about it. Then he ran away, down the stairs. I
found him hiding in the garden. He refused to come back in, even
when it started to rain. I had to physically drag him inside
kicking and screaming. He went to bed without his dinner that
night; I wasn’t afraid to punish him even if Peter was.

The next few days went by so
slowly. Ben just had this face on him all the time, like there was
a bed smell in the room. He hated me. My son hated me. I couldn’t
bear it; I never touched him, never laid a bad hand on him.

But I thought I could strangle
him. I wanted to strangle my own little boy; what had I done to
deserve this?

I just had to wait till Peter
came back. His timing couldn’t have been better. That day I had
been to the doctors and had got caught in traffic on the way back.
I called him and he agreed to get Ben from school. He was glad to
and everything seemed fine.

Then, when I got home, I noticed
something: the chest I’d bought Benjamin was sticking out of the
top of the wheelie bin. There was a piece of it lying in the
driveway. It had been smashed to pieces and then stuffed into the
already overflowing wheelie bin.

I went in confused about what
had happened. As soon as I was through the door, Peter came
marching towards me ranting and raving. I asked him what the hell
was wrong and took him into the living room, closing the door
behind us, hoping Benjamin wouldn’t hear.

I thought maybe he’d found the
list of child therapists and thought I’d gone ahead and contacted
one. But it was much stranger than that. He asked me, yelled at me,
what the hell I thought I was doing buying that toy chest for
Ben?