Ghosts

Chapter 1

Violet Shaydes practically shook with anger as she stared Uncle Ben in the face. He knew what was coming and smiled sweetly back at his niece. 'Don't...do not say a word,' snarled Violet. 'I mean it. I've had a gut full and I just don't even want to look at you right now.' 'There's no need to...' 'Later. And there will be a later.' She ran to the open front door and tried to catch up with the middle-aged couple who were already getting in their car. 'Mr and Mrs Bailey. If we could just talk about this, I'm sure we can...' 'Get us away from here, George. NOW!' George gave Violet an incomprehensible look and they drove off, leaving her standing on the pavement, watching her best prospects in ages disappear in a little cloud of road dust around the first corner. Then she stormed up the crazy paved path to the open front door. She glanced up at the bedroom window, and could clearly see Aunt Daphne staring down at her. 'Later. You hear me, you two?' Not waiting for a reply, she slammed the door shut, spun on her heels and stomped back along the path, stopping to kick the for-sale signpost, hurting her big toe in the process. 'Shit!' She walked quickly up Crabtree Lane and turned right into Victory Crescent . 'Hello, Vi. Looking hot.' 'Piss off, David, and don't call me Vi. You know it winds me up and I'm already so wound up I'm about to snap.' David Chambers was hacking the hedge with his shears, his exposed, hairless pigeon chest puffed up between his trouser suspenders as if in his deluded animal kingdom ideology, that was going to have her jump over his picket fence to ravish him on his gopher infested excuse for a lawn. 'I only meant the weather,' he lied. 'Not now, David.' Her home was number fifteen, at the end of the dirt track lane, and that was where she had to be, more than anywhere else on the planet. She pushed open the gate, which finally gave up after years of abuse and neglect, and fell off its hinges onto the ground, shattering into several termite infested pieces. Grandma was on the porch, swinging on the double swing seat, rusty chains threatening to disintegrate at any minute to send Grandma crashing down in a pile of broken hips. She had a joint in her mouth. A child of the sixties, according to legend. She looked a hundred and ten, but rumor had it she wasn't a day over sixty nine. The one eyed ferret on her lap seemed as stoned as she was, and it opened its one eye, sniffed at her as she passed by and went back to sleep. 'I had Mick Jagger.' 'No you didn't. Only in your dreams.' Violet braced herself and opened the fly-screen door with the hole big enough to let Racket, their three legged Alsatian in and out. Like a hole that big was not going to be an open invitation to the flies. Violet entered and of course the first thing she saw was her mother, cross legged and naked on the cushions on the living room floor, her pendulous, blue veined breasts resting on her cellulite encrusted thighs, a large bourbon in one hand, a cigarette in the other. Deep Purple was playing on the original vinyl, loud enough to create a small tsunami in the fish tank where something was decomposing on the surface. The poor excuse for the transcendental meditation phase was lasting longer than Violet had expected, unfortunately. Averting her eyes to everything on display, Violet asked, 'Dad. Where's Dad?' 'In the shed, shortening his leg.' 'Again?' 'What can I say? The man's a perfectionist.' 'The man's an idiot.' Violet stormed through the house to the back door, stepped over Racket, the three legged Alsatian, who never batted an eyelid, out into the yard where a sixty nine Chevy was home to their free range hens, to the very leaning lean-to shed adjoining the garage, which had long been the source of many beer sodden barbecue debates as to which held which up. On the faded, once white wall of the garage, was a sweepstake based on the date, give or take three months, as to when the whole edifice would collapse and if it was the shed or garage that would give way first. Billy Vickers was top of the list and according to him, the historic event would happen any time soon, and if the shed were the first to fall over, it would net him the respectable sum of forty five dollars if he was within the ballpark. From the shed came the sound of hammering and swearing. It is a universal truism, man can not hammer without expletives. The actual language used was irrelevant. Hammer, swear. Violet barged in. 'Dad.' 'They did it again,' he said, belting his leg with a hammer. 'Sure they did. Told you the bastards would.' 'Yes, they did. Will you put that thing down, Dad. We need to talk.' 'I think I have it this time. It was bent too far to the left before.' 'Bloody hell, Dad. We have to get you a new leg.' 'Nothing wrong with this one. Just needed adjusting a bit.' 'With a hammer.' 'Whatever works.' 'I nearly had them, Dad. The Bailey's were a lovely couple. He's got a new job in Fairmouthe, but didn't mind the commute if the price was right. Rip out the bathroom, he said, modernize the kitchen...' 'Nothing wrong with that kitchen.' She helped him strap the leg on. 'Apart from the idiots who installed it. Sorry.' There was an awkward silence. 'It was Uncle Ben's idea...' 'Heard it a million times, Dad. Put in the new kitchen yourselves. Save a packet. Yeah, right.' 'It looked great when we finished it.' 'Oh, right. Just a minor detail of carbon monoxide poisoning killing them off because of the useless way you fitted that gas boiler. Nice one, Dad.' 'Violet...' She let the jeans fall over the artificial leg. 'Dad. I could have sold that house today, and at a fair price, too. Then they started ...playing up. We have to get them out of there.' 'That's their home, Violet.' 'Dad. They're dead.' 'Thanks for reminding me.' He stomped out of the shed, slamming the door so hard it looked for a moment like Billy Vickers would be claiming his money; past the Chevy with the smell of the well rotted straw and chicken poop, over the Alsatian with the three legs, lying across the back step too lazy to even try to move, and into the lounge where Deep Purple was telling the world about smoke under water, where his wife lit another cigarette, and outside on the porch the rusty chains threatened to drop Grandma through the dry rot porch. 'How's the leg?' his wife asked, rattling her bourbon and ice. It was her third and it was only ten forty five in the morning. 'A bit too far to the right.