Stalking the Grave

Sleep would not come for Colleen now; what were once pillows of sweet dreams and blankets of cosy recollections had become hard and brittle nightmares. Where once she had dreamt her dreams of Andrew ' what they had done and what they would do ' now there was nothing but a cold marble inscription chiselled into her heart. It had been that way for a month and she wondered if she would ever dream again.
Only that morning at the midweek service, Mrs Brownstone had remarked how troubled she looked. Dear Mrs Brownstone, she a widow for these past ten years and her body corrupted with arthritis, asking Colleen if anything was troubling her. They were good people at church, but my, how they would be scandalised if they knew the truth about Colleen and Andrew. What would they think about the mousy old spinster then? But she would never tell. She had promised Andrew, for the sake of his marriage, never to tell a living soul.
But now he had been dead this past month and she wasn't sleeping. At least, she never managed to sleep later than 1 in the morning; for it was at the stroke of 1, every night, that the scratching noise began.
At first she thought it might be rodents, but she had looked through her wardrobe, lifted up a few floorboards, peeked into the attic and found nothing; the traps she put down were still loaded in the morning.
How she wished Andrew was there to help her. When he got chance to slip away from Mary, he would've popped round and solved the problem in a flash, then he would have taken her in his arms and made the world a fine place to be again.
But he couldn't pop round now, for he had passed away this last month.
After the service she had bumped into Mary in the butcher's; it was the first time they had met since Andrew had passed. Mary was buying two pork chops, and Colleen wondered if it was out of habit or if she did have company. Andrew had never given Mary children.
They hadn't spoken since that fabled summer of '76, when Mary had caught them together and had threatened to kill her if she ever came within a mile of her Andrew. Her Andrew: Colleen laughed at that. Mary knew that Andrew had only stayed with her out of loyalty and pity. How long ago that was now ' had nearly 30 years passed so quickly?
But now that Andrew had gone, Colleen felt something should be said, so, in the butcher's shop that smelt of refrigerators, she reached out and touched Mary's widow arm. 'Mary, I am so sorry about Andrew. I feel his loss as much as you.'
Mary had begun to shake, the chops almost falling from her hands. She hadn't looked at Colleen, had paid Mr Fenchurch his money and had virtually run out of the shop.
Poor Mary, Colleen thought, as she turned to order sausages, she had really lost Andrew 30 years ago ' if only she had let him go then, maybe she would have met somebody else and been happy. As it is, she had let her bitterness destroy her.
That evening, after she had made herself a treat of toad-in-the-hole, she put on a Billie Holiday LP (a favourite of theirs) and took out the box from under her bed. As Billie sang the blues, Colleen removed the lid off the box and sniffed deeply. Yes, his aftershave still lingered there - an aromatic memory of physical closeness. Carefully, she took out each item and examined it with her eyes, ears or mouth, letting herself savour memory as one would a meal. Here was a ticket stub from the first film he had taken her to; here was the first present he had bought for her - a silly little pendant of a ladybird; here was a train ticket from their first holiday together; a postcard from Scarborough; a photograph of him with candy floss; a photograph of her blowing out her birthday candles; a blurred photograph of them together.
The needle that had picked out the vocals of Billie Holiday, now hissed and popped in the closed groove as Colleen lay on her bed, the pillow damp with tears, and waiting for sleep.
At one o'clock in the morning she awoke to the sound of scratching. It seemed louder, more insistent, tonight.
Colleen got up and stood in the middle of the room and raised her ageing frame to its full 5 foot 2 inches height. She had been thinking about the scratching and the thinking had put a thought in her mind - a thought that she hardly dare test. But she had to, she had to know.
'Andrew? Is that you?'
The scratching continued, with no audible change to its volume or rhythm.
'Andrew,' she said louder.
For a few seconds the scratching stopped. Then it came again, and Colleen was sure it was louder this time. She knew it; she knew he would come back to her. Her heart beat so fast she had to sit for a moment on the edge of the bed. And then she was sure she heard her name being whispered in the night - whispered between and inside the scratching, like an old dusty record of an old dusty blues song.
Col¦eeek¦leeeeen.
'Yes, my darling?'
Helpppppp meeeeeeeee
Colleen's throat went tight. Help him? Is that what he'd said? Yes, she heard it again ' long and drawn out, but she was sure of it.
'My love, my darling, what is wrong?'
But in response she just heard the scratching.
When the clock chimed 8 and the morning sun filtered through her thick curtains, Colleen collapsed on the floor amidst the ruin of her bedroom, her fingernails were bloody and caked with dirt.
'You aren't here, my love. You aren't hiding in my wardrobe or under my bed. But I know where you are and I know what you want.'

The graveyard lay in what was once a green valley but was now a concrete one. Colleen had walked this way many times before to visit her underground family and friends, and since dear Andrew had died she had made the journey once every other day, often to find her previous flowers in the rubbish. Poor bitter Mary. But she had never walked this way in the middle of the night.
Outside the locked gates she looked up at the lamp lights leading away and above her, going up to the sky to twinkle with the stars, and she thought of how she and Andrew would one day be the brightest stars in the sky. How typical of Andrew, that he even put off Paradise to wait for her.
Colleen took out some large pliers and broke the chain of the gates, and thus broke her first ever law. She took out a torch, and shone the stuttering light across the memorials. She passed over children, parents, grandparents and the lonely in life and buried alone.
Andrew's gravestone shone under the light of her torch. It galled her that Mary had not let her contribute to the cost of the stone or helped to choose the wording.
Beloved husband of Mary
The grave can never conquer true love
Colleen snorted. Beneath these words was a space that was reserved for Mary. It didn't worry Colleen that Mary would be buried next to Andrew, for she knew that she (Colleen) was buried in his heart.
She looked at her watch and saw it was ten to one. Colleen spread out a blanket on the grass above Andrew's grave and waited.
The scratching began at one o'clock on the dot.
Colleen smiled at the grave. 'You always were a punctual fool,' she said with tenderness. 'I'll have you out in a jiffy.'
Colleen was not overly fit, but she persevered at the task and blessed the good Lord that her back had always been strong. What kept her going was the knowledge that her beloved was under there, and with every spade full of dirt she removed, the scratching got louder.
At last she stood upon the coffin that she had last seen lowered into the earth this month past. The scratching was very loud now and in the shifting darkness she was sure she could see the coffin rocking slightly. Colleen jumped into the hole. The scratching stopped and the night fell to a hush. The neighbouring gravestones appeared to loom over the hole to see what desecration was going on.
Colleen clambered out, breathing heavily. From her hands slipped six long screws to the damp earth. 'You can come up now,' she gasped through heavy breath.
There was a scraping noise and then a thud.
'Colleen.'
Ah, how she had longed to hear her name spoken by those lips again.
There were hands gripping turf, then a head lurching forward and a torso clambering up, then, a little unsteadily, legs pushing upright. Andrew stood in the moonlight - his best suit now tattered and torn. His skin was pale and pockmarked yellow and brown, and in parts it hung like butcher's pork from his bones. Maggots and worms crawled through little holes in his flesh.
Ah, he was always a handsome fella, Colleen sighed. She moved towards him with her arms out.
'No,' he said, 'you can't touch me.'
She was reminded of Christ's words to Mary Magdalene after he had risen.
'Andrew, I knew you couldn't leave me.'
Andrew shook his head and the dust of the dead fell where once dandruff had. 'I knew this was going to be hard.'
She nodded her head. 'I understand. I've missed you so much and now, seeing your eyes, I see you have missed me as much.'
'My eyes!' exclaimed Andrew. 'These eyes are dead and see nothing.'
'You poor thing.'
'But I'm not blind, Colleen.'
She smiled coquettishly. 'If you're not blind, then aren't you going to say how beautiful I look?'
'Colleen!'
Colleen turned her face serious. 'You're right; plenty of time for that. I know why you've haunted me these nights ' it's because you can't face going to Paradise alone, can you? You had to hold on until I could join you. I understand, my love.'
Andrew laughed, and grave dirt fell from his mouth. 'Yes, you are the one who is keeping me here.'
The smile on Colleen's face could have lit London for a year.
Andrew sighed and moved over to his gravestone, tracing his name with a finger that shed skin, revealing the bone.
'Colleen, many, many times over the years I have told you what I'm about to tell you again: please, I beg you, try to listen this time.'
Colleen sat down on the damp grass, her thin legs hanging over the grave.
'Many years ago,' began Andrew, 'when we were both young, we met and had a short love affair. It was fun. It was nice. I cared for you very much, but I never loved you. After we stopped being lovers we tried to be friends but you carried on loving me and hoping. Then along came Mary and I fell head over heels. She was, and is, my world. I tried to keep you as a friend but more and more you resented Mary and you began to read things into my actions that weren't there. Colleen, you retreated into a fantasy world in which you imagined that you and I were having an affair.'
'No,' interrupted Colleen. 'I know what you are doing. It's what you always do. You feel so guilty about cheating on your wife that you are in denial. You just can't admit that you love me and that we are having an affair.'
'You know what makes me guilty? You! You make me bloody guilty. Every time I see you in the street. Every time I get a letter from you. Every time I get a phone call from you. I feel a guilt that burns my stomach. Guilty because I feel that I ruined your life, and guilty because I didn't love you. I prayed God every night that you would fall in love with someone else, but you never did, did you? And every time that I felt me and Mary were getting really happy and peaceful you would play some trick and put seeds of doubt into my lovely Mary's mind that I actually was having an affair with you. You couldn't leave me alone, could you?'
'I love you,' Colleen said, tears falling down her eyes.
'Then let me go,' Andrew said. 'You want to know why I called to you? It's because you are holding me back. Even beyond the grave you haunt me. I can't move on to the afterlife whilst someone alive holds on to me with such power. People think that ghosts are restless spirits who can't move on until something is resolved, but the reality is that it is those who are alive who hold us back. Colleen, I beg you, admit that you have been deluded and let me go.'
'You mean that my love for you is holding you back?'
He nodded.
'How romantic,' she gushed.
'Oh, for f¦'
'My poor baby. How can I leave you alone? I love thee with all my heart and soul,' she said, rising to her feet.
'I told you that she would never let you go.'
Colleen turned at the new voice and was hit full in the face with a spade. The last thing she saw, before falling backwards into Andrew's grave, was the determined face of Mary.
'O God, Mary,' Andrew shrieked, looking away.
'It was the only way,' Mary said matter-of-factly. 'Should've done it years ago.'
'I miss you so much,' he said.
'And me you, even if you do look like a reject from a John Carpenter film.'
He laughed at that and moved towards her. 'Thank you, Mary. Now I can move on and wait for you to join me.'
'I wish I could have one more kiss before you go.'
'Yes,' he sighed. 'But you know the living can't touch the walking dead.'
'When will you go? How will it happen?'
'Hadn't thought about that,' Andrew said. 'I just thought as soon as it was over that I would just sort of go - poof.'
'Silly you, how can you go without me by your side?'
Andrew and Mary turned. There stood Colleen, her face smashed in, arms reaching out.
'I always knew,' she said, floating towards Andrew, 'that our love was eternal.'