It Was Never Them

A short story by Zara Caulfield O'Dwyer

I don’t believe in ghosts. I’ve wanted to, but they’ve never revealed themselves to me. Driving at night, I still keep my eyes peeled for a white shadow or a figure between the trees. I look into the darkness of my bedroom corner, hoping that the black blots will clump into something that resembles a being. But I have failed in my search every time, and how can I believe in something I’ve never seen?

That’s a lie. I wanted to believe, I treated it as a fun story to entertain myself. My Nanky, on the other hand, was an adamant believer in the afterlife and all its tenants. I suppose it’s because of her that I began to let my gaze linger a second longer on the edges of those tall, poorly painted walls. Her blind belief made me curious, and endless ‘what-if’s’ would flood my mind as I lay in bed at night.

I never knew whether it was the lack of insulation or some otherworldly sentiment that left a chill on my neck in that house. My father built it by hand, back during the Celtic Tiger when large, open rooms were in fashion, despite not having enough furniture to fill them. Our home was big, but no matter the amount of people we entertained in the open kitchen-living room, I couldn’t escape that empty, cold feeling.

I loved that house.

The stables, the sand arena, the hedge over to my neighbors house. There were a million places to hide, which made hide-and-seek awful taxing but wild and exciting. In the summer, we would have barbecues and pool parties on the patio, and I would try to tan on the fold-up lawn chair. In the winter, we would light the fire, and after a bath I would dash in front of it, a towel draped over me, trying to find some warmth. The paint job was poor, the tile floors were freezing, tracked by dogs’ muddy paw prints, and even my own footprints are remembered in the cement by the back door.

I loved our house.

At least until that rotting smell began to waft in through those stubborn front gates.

The large, wooden gates to the house were insanely annoying, and being the youngest, I was always the one looked at to open and close them. It was “my job” I was told or more like the tax I paid for getting a life, as I wasn’t the one driving. But while irritating, they were apparently necessary, not to keep anything out, but to keep us in.

On the other side of these gates was a busy, straight road connecting the Dunmore and Airport roads, ultimately the only roads to get from the village to the city. I didn’t know that a long, straight road with no stop signs, crossings, or footpaths meant reckless fast driving. When I myself started driving on the country roads, my mother had told me to always expect a pregnant woman with a pram around the corner, an image created to make sure I was careful. But without corners, there is no reason to slow down. It’s hard to tell whether it was because of those drivers or because I was too lazy to get and close the gates, but I think the rotten smell began when our dog Poppy got knocked down on that road.

She wasn’t the only one. Other dogs and cats we owned lost their lives on that pavement. Even after Poppy when I diligently made sure to close the gates, going out in the night to check the lock, even then, the concrete’s body count increased. I used to wonder what drew them to the road. Was it the adrenaline rush of going out into unexplored bounds and new smells? I used to imagine a ghost sat on the other side, clicking her tongue, calling our pets to her just as she heard the faint hurry of an oncoming car. In my mind, she had lost her own pet, and overcome by loneliness she would claim ours as her own in the afterlife. Beside her, our dead animals would sit on the wall opposite our house, waiting for their next friend to join them. I never saw her, but I would imagine her long flowing white silk dress and unkempt hair, her legs dangling off the wall, swinging as hummed. I hated her and would glare through the gates, hoping that my narrow but fierce gaze might scare her away. That’s when I think she got angry.

The first person that was taken away was my grandfather, a day before my birthday. I remember having to cancel my birthday party to attend his funeral. I was livid, crying and whinging, but because my party was postponed, not for any selfless, grief-stricken reason. I remember being told he just collapsed while bringing in firewood, and my uncle found his body on the amber tiles in their house. We held an open casket wake. I was curious what a real dead body looked like. I thought his skin would look closer to a bruising peach, but instead it was pale and smooth, with a foundation to smooth out the wrinkles. He looked like a doll, peaceful, his hair done as if going to Sunday Mass. But no matter how elegant he was dressed and regardless of how many incense sticks were burned, I could still smell the molding of decay. My Nanky didn’t enter the room. She sat outside for 2 hours. I never even saw her cry.

I think it was her clinging to the afterlife that gave her some condolence. Years later, while watching some country music show beside me, she said she felt someone walk behind her. I twisted my neck but nothing was there. She wouldn’t even turn around, and acted as if it was an everyday occurrence. I was shocked, how could she not be terrified of some presence lurking in the space behind. I imagine she believed it was her husband, still working hard as a ghost to bring in sticks and keep her company. But I didn’t feel the same warmth and figured she just said that so I wouldn’t get scared. It was always in the space behind, that fleeting icy chill, working in the darkness, hiding from me. It was a coward.

Death has always smelled like an empty church, a sewage of sins decomposing in one space. It’s musty and damp, carrying with it a cold, stale breeze. Until I was 11, that odor kept a distance, only greeting me in old rooms or my Nanky’s house. And then it came too close and it took my father. Too young to die, how unfair life was, all comments made by people not even close to know him. That’s the moment when death walked through the gates and entered the house, and I was no longer safe.

He died in his bedroom. A brain tumor in an awkward place, they said, too far along to do anything so they let him die naturally. Our family gathered around the bed, and I watched the life leave his yellow, crusting lips. Unlike my grandfather, he was what I expected a corpse to be like. Grey, sullen skin, a limp and stiff body, smelling of sweat and unbrushed teeth. He was no longer my father.

My mother slept there the same night he died. She said she was comforted by his lingering presence. But I grew scared of that room where he once slept. Whatever comforting presence my mother felt did not make itself known to me. Instead, a cold entity had moved in. Even in my own room, I felt like those black dots in the darkness were clustering together, forming something intangible. I could feel the shift. The air was stale and warm, as if being shared by a crowd instead of one little girl. Yet, if I was sitting down at the table or at rest, chilling air would move past my neck. Always behind me. That fear grew to include the whole house, I refused to go upstairs or into certain rooms. My mother worked until 7:30pm, and once the sun set in that large house, loneliness was replaced by fear that I wasn’t alone. I would check behind those red and yellow checkered curtains, and peek across the road, worried the animal snatching ghost would be on my side of the gate, moving closer. The worst was when the dogs would bark. Silence filled by fearful howls of the unknown. I was worried they would awaken something within the house.

I told my mother and Nanky I was scared. I didn’t want to be alone in that house, because that’s when the air changed. It was a coward, scared of adults but brave enough to follow a young girl. My mother began to burn sage and rosemary. My Nanky came down and flicked holy water in each of the four corners of every room in the house. But the house was big, and there were many cracks to hide in. They, believing in ghosts, did everything they could to remove the negative stain death had left. My Nanky in particular was worried, and tried to get me to sleep at her house for a while. I couldn’t tell her the smell lurked in the darkness of her walls too.

She strongly believed in spirits, and so I think to help her sleep at night, she believed in God too. I wonder which came first, the belief, or the fear of the alternative? She would light candles for me, as if the flame would haunt the darkness away, replacing the smell with aroma instead. It didn’t last.

I started sleeping with my mother, and staying with my Nanky until my mom finished work. When alone, I played loud music, sang, and turned on all the lights. I did everything I could to ignore the not-so empty space. I refrained from moving too much from room to room and mainly stayed in my bed, for what if I walked around and disturbed it. I remember taking everything I needed, snacks, water, and laptop, lured the dogs to my room, and then remained there until my mother returned and it was safe again. I didn’t think I was physically in danger, but there was a deeper, humane fear that paralyzed me.

A year later, we moved. The house was beautiful, but too big for just my mother and I. I was on holiday in France when they moved everything out. I remember the photos of the skip outside, furniture now on the gravel. My mother packed my clothes, threw out my rubbish, and when I returned, my new room was prepared for me in my uncle’s old house. My childhood had been packed up into plastic containers and transported, and I couldn’t even decide what was worth keeping or not. The new house was smaller. 3 bedrooms instead of 5, 1 bathroom instead of 2, and only one floor. There was less space to hide. My sister moved in too with her 4 dogs, and suddenly, I was never alone. There were no dark corners, never any silence, and somewhere I along the line began to forget about that uncomfortable presence.

Once, my sister said she saw a male ghost walk around the house. She said she thought it was our grandfather. But I never saw him or felt him either, and I never returned to my old house.

I never even had a chance to say goodbye. Not to the yellow walls or the wooden floorboards. I no longer had a gate to open and close and curse my frustrations out on every day. And I never said farewell to whatever had joined me in that house. Now we drive past, peek in and see if the new residents changed anything. My family is nosey like that. But we can’t see much. The wooden gates are higher now and always shut.

I sometimes wonder why it didn’t follow me. Perhaps it thought I would return after my holiday, and didn’t know where to find me afterwards. Perhaps it was a coward that had found a nest and wasn’t brave enough to leave. Either way, it’s been a long time since my nose has picked up that unique, rotting odor and I haven’t felt any cold chills run down my back. That, which I have never seen, has disappeared from my life. I never saw its face or shape, but I know that it belonged there, at the back of my heels, clinging on to my shadow.

Now I am in a new country. Death has quietened. I have still never seen a ghost.

But sitting here, surrounded by others, I can feel you behind me. Your unnaturally icy breath on my neck, lifting the hairs. Your finger almost touching my shoulder, your hesitation. The familiar smell that overpowers my perfume.

But it’s not Poppy, or my grandfather, or even my father. They have not returned.

So I don’t turn around.