The Great Blue Yonder Read online

  It was all right though, that kind of stuff, all that imagining what it would be like when you’d gone. It did used to leave you sort of nicely sad. And no matter how upset the people you left behind felt, you yourself felt all serene and peaceful and far away above it all. At least that was how I pictured it. But that’s not how it really is. Not when you have unfinished business. You feel quite bad yourself as well.

  So anyway, there I was, strolling along through the Other Lands, admiring the scenery and wondering how those I’d left behind were getting on without me. I nodded to the other dead people I met and I went on thinking my thoughts, feeling bad about what I’d said to Eggy that few minutes before the lorry had got me.

  The people I met were all very nice on the main – apart from Ug the Caveman. I said ‘Hello’ to him and all he said back was ‘Ug’. But then, that’s all he ever says to anyone and he probably doesn’t really know any better. So I nodded to them all, and they all nodded back to me, and we strolled along on our way.

  ‘Hello,’ you’d say.

  ‘Hello,’ they’d reply – if they spoke the same language, if not they’d just wave and smile.

  Yes, they’re quite a friendly bunch really, all the dead people. which is quite extraordinary, when you think about it. Because when I was alive, I used to be a big horror fan, and I was always reading these books about the slime coming up through the plughole to get you, and about these ghastly apparitions from the underworld coming and grabbing you by the leg and dragging you down into the pit. And some of these books used to have titles like The Gruesome Dead, and The Cemetery Fiend and The Killer From The Creepy Coffin.

  But really, people aren’t like that at all. They’re just ordinary on the whole, and generally speaking they don’t want to get you by the leg and drag you down into the pit – although there’s maybe the odd exception. But most of them wouldn’t even know what the pit was. And neither do I, come to that. Because I must have walked miles and miles, all over the Other Lands, and I never saw any pits anywhere. Just sort of trees and hedges and fields, like you’d see at home, with the odd bench where you can pause and admire the view.

  But as for the gruesome dead and what-have-you, it’s not like that at all. And if you don’t believe me, well, you only have to think of your long-dead great-granny or somebody, who was probably a sweet old thing who wouldn’t harm a fly. And she certainly wouldn’t want to come back and get you by the leg and drag you into the pit. It she could come back in some way (which isn’t altogether impossible, as I shall tell you about in a minute) it would probably only be to tell you to wrap up warm and not to forget your scarf. But you could hardly write a frightening horror story about that, could you? – about your great-granny coming back from beyond just to tell you to wrap up warm and to do your scarf up and to put your gloves on as it was nippy out. That wouldn’t make much of a horror film, would it? Not that I reckon, anyway.

  But I mustn’t ramble. As I say, I was walking through the Other Lands wondering about the meaning of it all, wishing that I could just go back for a little while, just turn back the clock so that I could still be alive. I didn’t want all my life back, only the last ten minutes of it. I just wanted to change what I’d said to Eggy, to alter it to, ‘Bye, Eggy, I love you’ or ‘You’ve been a great sister, Eggy, even if we did fight a bit.’ something nice. Or at least something that wasn’t nasty. Even to say nothing – that would be something. Anything other than those awful last words, ‘You’ll be sorry one day when I’m dead.’

  So I ambled on through the Other Lands, not really sure where I was going, not really sure if I was going anywhere. Because the Other Lands aren’t quite like anything you see when you’re alive. They’re a bit like a walk through the country, like I said. Only there’s no destination. No picnic sites. Nowhere to really get to. When you’re alive and you go for a walk, you know that sooner or later the walk will come to an end. But the Other Lands aren’t like that. The Other Lands are all journey and no destination. There’s no real map, and yet you never get lost, but you never know quite where you are either. You can look for someone and never find them – like Arthur and his mum. Or you can not be looking for someone, and you meet them all the time. And the only real place there is to get to is the Great Blue Yonder. And yet my way never took me there. As if I wasn’t quite ready to go there yet.

  So anyway, there I am, strolling around wondering what to do next, and I can’t get Eggy or what I said to her out of my mind. I don’t know how long I’ve been walking – minutes, hours, days – but I decide to sit down on one of the benches provided and to admire the view of the sunset, to watch that wonderful twilight, which never quite turns into night.

  As I sit down on the bench, I notice that there’s a little ghostly brass plate on the back of it. Just like you get when you’re alive. Have you ever noticed? In parks and places and at the seaside. When someone has died, their relatives pay for a bench to be put somewhere for other people to sit on. And there’s a little brass plate on the bench which reads something like:

  In Memory Of Georgina

  Who Always Loved This View Of The Hills

  (Presented by her Family)

  Well, this bench I’m sitting on in the Other Lands had a little plaque on it saying very much the same kind of thing:

  In Memory Of All Those

  Who Let Go And Moved On

  (Presented by those who still wait and linger)

  And I start to wonder what that could mean ‘letting go’ and ‘moving on’ and where all these people had moved on to. And it all seemed such a mystery.

  So there I am, sitting on the bench on my own, when the next thing I know, I’ve got company. It’s Arthur again, all top hat and patches.

  ‘Wotcha,’ he says. ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Not so bad,’ I say. ‘Find your mum?’

  ‘No,’ says Arthur. ‘Saw several who might have been her. But when I got a look up close, they had all their buttons. She’ll be missing a button, see. I’m sure of it. I’m sure she’s here somewhere and she’s looking for me just as I’m looking for her. And I’ll know her by the button missing just as sure as she’ll know me by having the button. In fact that’s the only way we will know each other, come to think.’

  ‘But, Arthur,’ I say to him, ‘what if she isn’t here? What if she’s – you know – moved on, whatever that means.’

  He gives me a funny look then. He almost seems a bit angry.

  ‘No,’ he insists. ‘She wouldn’t do that. Not without finding me first. No. She wouldn’t. She’ll be waiting and lingering, till she finds me.’

  ‘Yes, but suppose—’ I begin.

  ‘No,’ Arthur says, quite definite like, ‘she wouldn’t. And I’m not letting go till I find her.’ And that seemed to be the end of the matter.

  So I don’t say any more. But I do wonder, about Arthur and his mum, and about me and Eggy, and about all the other people wandering around the Other Lands, all looking as though they had things left undone. And I wonder again about the little plate on the back of the bench, that said In Memory Of All Those Who Let Go And Moved On. And things begin to make a little bit of sense then. And I see that maybe the only way to move on was to settle your unfinished business, and then to leave the past behind you, and then—

  Well, then I’d just have to see.

  Suddenly Arthur leaps to his feet.

  ‘Tell you what, mate,’ he says, and he has a bit of a twinkle in his eye, and a bit of a grin on his face. ‘I know! Let’s go and do some haunting!’

  ‘Haunting?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah!’ Arthur beams. ‘You can’t be going round looking for people all the time! What’s the point in being dead if you can’t get a bit of fun out of it every now and again.’

  ‘But, Arthur,’ I say, ‘I’m not sure if you should—’

  ‘Course you should!’ he says. ‘Come on, I’ll show you how!’

  And he starts moving on down the path.

  ‘
Yes, but—’

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘But I don’t even know where to go – how to – I mean – are you saying you can – go back?’

  Arthur stops and turns.

  ‘Course you can,’ he says. ‘You’re not supposed to. But you can. It’s easy once you know how. Come on.’

  I stand up, but I still hesitate. going haunting, he’d said. I don’t much want to go haunting. I don’t like the idea of haunting at all. But going back. Well – yes. Maybe I do want to go back. It only to see how they are all getting on without me and what had happened to the world – or at least the small part of it that I knew.

  And yet still I hesitate. Arthur begins to get impatient.

  ‘Come on if you’re coming,’ he says. ‘Or I’ll go without you.’

  But I still can’t decide.

  ‘Come on, Harry! What’s to be afraid of? You’re dead, aren’t you? What can possibly happen to you now?’

  ‘But, Arthur, if we go back – I mean – doesn’t that mean – when we get there – as far as other people are concerned – we’ll be ghosts?’

  He laughs and grins and pushes his hat back so that it wobbles and nearly falls off his head.

  ‘Ghosts!’ he says. ‘Of course we’ll be ghosts! What else could we be, Harry? We’re dead, aren’t we, after all.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I suppose we are.’

  And I have to admit it. I don’t have much choice. But it is one thing to be dead with all the other dead people, here in the Other Lands. But to be dead back in the Land of the Living – to be a ghost . . .

  ‘I’m going then,’ he says. ‘Are you coming with me, or aren’t you? Last chance.’

  I hesitate still. He turns on his heel and makes as if to go. I suddenly think of Eggy, of Mum and Dad, of all my friends, of everyone who knew me. I suddenly and desperately want to see them all again. I can’t live without them. Or even be dead without them. So in that split second I decide. I run after Arthur, calling as I go.

  ‘Hang on, Arthur, I’m coming with you.’

  And he stops and waits for me to catch him up. Then we go on headlong down the path. Back to the Land of the Living.

  To The Land of the Living

  Now, as a rule, I’ve never really been in favour of haunting or any of that kind of stuff, and I’ve never much liked practical jokes either, as they all seem either cruel or silly.

  It’s not that I can’t see the fun in it all – I can, up to a point. Creeping up behind people and going boo! and that sort of thing, I’m sure it’s all right in its way, and as long as you’re in the right kind of mood there’s no harm in it at all.

  But you have to draw the line somewhere – at least to my way of thinking – and it seems to me that all this haunting can get a bit stupid sometimes and totally out of hand.

  I mean, say for example that you’re on the sofa watching the telly or just daydreaming and your brother or sister or someone tiptoes up on you and goes boo! right in your ear. Well, it gives you a bit of a start, doesn’t it, and it can even make you all but jump right out of your skin – just like you were a snake.

  So anyway, when they do that, you might take it all in good part, or you might get a bit understandably annoyed if you’re not in the mood. So you quietly resolve to wait until they’re daydreaming on the sofa and then you’ll get them by bursting a paper bag next to their ear or by sticking a hosepipe up their trousers and turning it on.

  But on the whole, there’s no harm done.

  But just say that you were doing your homework when someone startled you. Or you were maybe trying to build a particularly difficult model aeroplane, and you’d just got to the really tricky bit when you suddenly get the boo in the ear. Total disaster. Seriously unfunny. They mess up your homework, they ruin your model, and it’s not comical at all.

  Well, a lot of haunting always seemed like that to me, at least the haunting you read about in books with poltergeists breaking all the teacups and turning people’s hair white and that kind of thing – stupid way to behave if you ask me. I mean, what’s the sense in it? It’s all for no good reason. I don’t see what’s so funny about playing jokes on people and frightening them and making them look stupid. Seems to me you’d have to be pretty stupid yourself to even want to do things like that.

  In fact, I always used to wonder about ghosts who did that sort of thing, hanging around old houses whispering in people’s ears and making their hot-water bottles go flying out the window. I wondered if they’d maybe had a bad knock on the head at some point or they’d never grown up properly. Because, I mean, practical jokes aren’t so bad when you’re young and don’t know any better, but when you’re getting on for nine hundred years old or something, there’s no excuse. You ought to pack it in when you get to that age and take up something more sensible, like snooker or ten-pin bowling.

  But, as I was to find out, it wasn’t quite like that. Because a lot of haunting and going boo and frightening the living isn’t just to do with practical jokes and having a laugh at someone else’s expense. A lot of it is to do with all that unfinished business I was telling you about. And that’s usually why houses get haunted and people get spooked – it’s that unfinished business again. It’s people like me, who even though they are ghosts, seem to have ghosts of their own. And you might not think that ghosts could be haunted, but we can be, and some of us are. Haunted by the past. By the things we did and the things we said, by the things we never did say, by the things we meant to do, but didn’t.

  So as Arthur and me hurried along through the Other Lands, him just a little bit in front, me trying to keep up with him, I did hope – for all he’d said about haunting – that he wasn’t a practical joker. Because, as I say, I like a bit of fun and a good laugh as much as anyone, but practical jokes just turn me right off, as they always seem a bit cruel. I hoped I hadn’t misjudged Arthur, that was all. But I was no doubt soon going to find out.

  Arthur seemed to know the Other Lands like the back of his hand, and probably like the front of it too. So he should, considering the time he’d spent there – over a hundred and fifty years, as measured in the Land of the Living. You’d think though, after all that time, that there wouldn’t be any of it that he hadn’t explored. And yet, as we hurried along the wide road that led back towards the Desk, Arthur kept looking off to the left and right, and he’d spy new paths and new crossroads that he hadn’t seen before. And he’d say, ‘I haven’t tried that one yet. I must look down there,’ or ‘Maybe she’s down along that way, maybe I’ll find her today.’ And he’d take out the ghostly mother-of-pearl button from his pocket and rub it between his finger and his thumb, like he was rubbing it for luck. And you could tell he was thinking of his mum again, and wondering if he ever would see her.

  I thought it was funny when he said, ‘Maybe I’ll find her today,’ because there are no real days in the Other Lands, just that golden red glow of the sun that never quite manages to set, and the blue haze, shimmering away on the far horizon.

  As we continued on our way towards the Desk, I realized that almost all the people we saw were walking in the opposite direction.

  ‘We’re going the wrong way, aren’t we, Arthur?’ I said.

  ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘We’re just going a different way to everyone else. That’s not wrong. That’s just different.’

  And I could see he had a point there.

  I watched the other people stream by. They didn’t seem like us, they didn’t seem bothered with unfinished business, they seemed at peace and almost serene.

  ‘Where’re they off to, Arthur?’ I asked. ‘Anywhere in particular?’

  He looked at me as if I was a real ignoramus. But then he must have remembered that I was still a bit new at this being dead lark, and he shrugged and he said, ‘The Great Blue Yonder, of course.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, trying to sound as if that explained everything and I understood it all now. ‘Ah, right, yes. All off to the Great Blue Yonder. Right, A
rthur. OK.’ Though I didn’t really know what he was talking about or what that meant.

  But I wanted to find out, I really did. In fact, I’m on my way to do that right now, just as I’m telling you this – well, thinking about it – hoping someone will hear.

  That’s maybe the only way I can describe it really. It’s a sort of thinking. like thinking to yourself, but sort of broadcasting your thoughts out too, the way a radio station sends out a signal, and I’m hoping that someone out there will have the right kind of receiver to pick me up.

  Since being dead, I’ve had a lot of thinking time, and a lot of thoughts to fill it with. I’ve thought a lot about being alive, and about all the things I used to just accept and take for granted. Things I didn’t think were strange in any way. But now I’m not so sure.

  Take books and stories for example, and where they come from. Take the way people who tell stories say, ‘I had an idea. I suddenly had a great idea. It just came to me from nowhere, just like that. It was a gift. The story just wrote itself.’

  That’s what they say sometimes. And I’m sure that’s right. I’m sure that’s what they honestly believe, that it ‘just came from nowhere’.

  But it can’t just come from nowhere, can it? Only nothing can come from nowhere. Something has to come from somewhere. And I think that sometimes ideas come from people like me, over here in the Other Lands. From people like me with a story to tell, but who aren’t really able to tell it for themselves any more, as they don’t have the hands to hold a pen, or the fingers to tap at a keyboard.