THE PLUG HOLE

It is what it is...

Connie Templeton stood at the foot of her husband’s grave and stared unseeingly at the stone which marked his passing a year earlier. Mark had been a b*****d, everyone knew that, but he’d been her b*****d and she missed him like a portion of battered cod might miss salt and vinegar. It was a contradiction that not even she could really understand.

Mark had been an alcoholic: there were no two ways of remembering him. It hadn’t mattered what it was, if it contained alcohol he’d down as much as he could before falling into the gutter and vomiting. Or dripping into a cess pit if there happened to be one anywhere near with enough space left in it to hold the contents of his stomach. Or he might stagger into anything vile and smelly. And it had been that addiction that had killed him, but not by doing obvious mischief to anything inside his body. No. He had been mowed down by a drunk in a car when he was on his way to an alcoholics anonymous meeting, and killed outright.

When he’d been sober he’d been so loving her flesh tingled when she remembered romantic hours spent in endless tight clinches. When he’d been drunk the will had been there but the flesh turned weak and rebelled against its master. Even then he had acknowledged it was his fault and went on to beg her forgiveness. The b*****d!

He had, of course, left her nothing but a fistful of debts and the house. Selling Number 43 might have sorted the rest of his debts and left her with a bit of change, but not enough for her to even buy a decent tent to live in. And she didn’t even like camping, so she’d ignored the queue of grumpy creditors demanding payment and put up a personal barricade. And that seemed to work because, as time passed, that queue got to be shorter. Now, after a year, it had shrunk to almost nothing.

But, she thought, there wouldn't have been a queue at all if he hadn’t been a b*****d.

“I was, wasn’t I?”

Crikey! She’d know that voice anywhere. It was Mark’s down to every cadence he’d put into four words. Her imagination must be playing her memories over time like well worn vinyl!

“Behind you,” it said.

Now that was spooky. His favourite trick had always been sneaking up behind her and, drunk or sober, grabbing whatever part of her that happened to be convenient, and the horrible truth was she enjoyed every self0sh moment of it as he cooed or spluttered “Guess who”.

She couldn’t help it but she turned and looked. And her heart nearly stopped when she saw him standing there, sober Mark (she could tell that) as well as being a naked one.

“Where have you sprung from… and you’ll get arrested like that!” she flound herself hissing.

“But only you can see me, darling,” he said with mock seriousness. She could tell by the way his eyes flickered just like they always had that he wasn’t really teasing her, though. If he said only she could see him then only she could.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, meaning how on Earth had he climbed out of a solid coffin.

“I got bored and missed you,” he said.

“And what do you want?” He’d always wanted something back in the days before he died.

“I thought maybe… a cup of tea in my own kitchen?” he suggested.

“And nothing stronger?”

“I’ve done with that nonsense. A cup of tea. And maybe a bath would be nice”

“A bath?”

“It’s dusty down in that coffin. You know all that crap the Reverend said about Heaven and Hell after you’ve died? Well, it’s all nonsense. I’ve seen some old timers who’ve been here a century or more, waiting to be taken to the pearly gates, and nothing. They’re most peeved. There was talk of a rebellion the other night!”

“Rebellion, and you want a bath?”

“And a cup of tea. Probably.”

“And I’m the only person who can see you?”

“Yes. I’m sure of that.”

“Then come along! It’s not so far to home and I could murder a cuppa myself after this shock!. By the way, are you a ghost?”

“Sort of, I guess. I can move out of wooden boxes, but I’ve not tried walls yet.”

“I think I’m in for trouble…”

“Not you, darling. Not you. Now come along. We can’t hold hands because…”

“Because of what?”

“Because I’m not flesh and bones, silly. You’ll soon latch on. Samantha did.”

”And who might Samantha be?”

“Oh, nobody. Just a girl I knew before you.”

“And this nobody was so important to you that you met her before you met me?”

“Now don’t be silly, darling. I made it out of my box and who should be crying as she looked at my gravestone but Samantha. I just had to put her straight on a couple of things…

“Like you’re married?”

“Now don’t let’s quarrel, sweetheart. Come on, I’ll race you home.”

And he did, and to Connie’s chagrin he beat her by an unreasoanable distance.

In the kitchen, she switched the kettle on, which seemed to make him irritable and when she asked what the matter was he said he’d forgotten just how long it takes a kettle to boil.

“I tell you what,” he said, “I’’ have my bath first. It’s so long since I had a good soak…”

“If that’s what you want, oh my lord and master,” she growled, and she led the way up the stairs.

It was she who filled the bath because he said he couldn’t quite manage taps any more. And it was she who stripped off, ready to share the luxury of a good hat bath with him. And them it was she who climbed into the bath first.

Mark followed, and as soon as what passed for his feet touched the water he screamed so loud she was sure the neighbours would race round to see what was wrong.

“It’s water!” he shouted, “get rid of it! It’s like fire, burning me!”

“It’s you who wanted a bath,” she muttered, “and I only got in to join you for old time’s sake, and it’s not even that hot!”

But because she was a good wife and could see how much he was suffering, she climbed out and suggested he joined her in the dry.

He tried, of course he tried, he scrabbled and scrambled but didn’t seem to be able to get any purchase on anything, and all the time he was shouting that he was dying.

“That’s odd,” she said grimly, “I thought you were dead.”

It was he who managed to pull the plug from its hole and he who seemed to melt into the water as it surged down the plug hole as if he was part of the warmly steaming water.

Connie watched, at first in fascination and then in horror as the bath emtied, taking Mark, if that’s who the apparition was, with it until in the end there was just one eye left stuck in the plug hole and looking desperately around and beseeching her for help, it’s blue iris like she’d always remembered, azure and loving and desperate to stay where it was but glaring wildly around as it joined the last trickle of escaping water, and finally disappeared.

© Peter Rogerson 20.08.23

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