The Invisible (I)

Between 1996 and 2000 I lived in an Edwardian terrace house in Cambridge. The front door opened to a small vestibule where coats and hats could be hung by the side. There was a door between the vestibule and the hallway. Down the hallway there was another door. This one opened on to the kitchen.

The moment I stepped into the kitchen with its stripped pine floorboards and the windows at the back that looked out on to the garden, I fell in love with the house. I could see myself cooking in that kitchen.

 

It was the summer of 1999. I was sitting in the kitchen one night, chatting with a friend G. It was about ten o’clock. I shared the house with two other women who were also postgraduate students. Both of them were not at home that evening. M usually came home late from the Physical Chemistry laboratory unless it was Wimbledon or cricket season, and F had gone back to London to see her father and brother.

 

Cambridge is a quiet town, except at pub closing hours in the town centre or during the time of the May balls. My street was especially tranquil.

 

Apart from G’s voice and mine, there were no other sounds. We were talking animatedly about something or other when suddenly there was the sound of a cough in the hallway. The door to the kitchen was closed. G looked at me and I looked at him.

 

“Did you just cough?” he asked. The look on his face showed that he knew as well as I did that it was a stupid question. I shook my head slowly.

“Has M come back?” he asked.

 

“I don’t think so,” I said. “We would have heard her coming in if she had come back.” M tended to stomp up the stairs.

 

“That was definitely a cough, right?” he said.

 

Yes, it was a cough, and neither of us had coughed.  

 

I was worried that there might be a burglar in the house. I wanted to look in the other rooms, including the ones upstairs, and I asked G to accompany me.  First we had to open the door to the hallway. There was no one in the hallway. Next we went to the front. The front parlour (which I used as my study) was dark, so I turned on the lights. It was empty. We opened the door to the vestibule, and then I examined the front door before opening it. The latch was not broken. We went upstairs and I went into every room, turning on the light, looking in the corners. Nothing seemed to be amiss.

 

We went back to the kitchen. G picked up his bicycle lights and said he had to head home. He asked me if I was going to be alright on my own until M came back. I was surprised he did not offer to keep me company until M’s return, but I said I was fine and he could go ahead. Perhaps that was the point at which I realized that G was not as cool and self-possessed as he tried to be. It is quite a different thing, critiquing ghost stories at literary graduate student seminars and finding yourself playing a cameo role in one.  

Looking back now, I suspect G probably wanted to cycle back to his house as fast as his legs could pedal. Funnily enough I did not feel frightened once I was sure the house had not been broken into. My sense of reassurance came from my love and yes, you could say, my trust of the house. I had always been comfortable in that house, it had the aura of a good and happy place, a nice vibe.

 

I remember thinking, if there was a spirit, he or she was a benign spirit. “You can stay here,” I said to the spirit in my head, “I guess you have been here for a long time. But please don’t cause any trouble. I have to finish my PhD.”

 

I told M about the incident. She said she too had heard sounds of someone coming into the house whilst she was in the kitchen and when she checked later, she realized she was alone. We agreed not to say anything to F because we thought she might freak out. We also did not think there was any harm in not telling her. She was very close to submitting her thesis and we did not want her to lose her focus.

 

A month or so later, on a late Sunday afternoon, it crossed my mind that I had the deeds of the house going back all the way to its first owner. If I look through them, I would be able to see the names of the people who used to live here, I remember thinking. I took out the small bundle of papers and untied the thin ribbon secured around them.

 

I was sitting on the carpeted floor of my study, close to the fireplace, and the golden light and warmth of the afternoon streamed in through the bay windows. I allowed my eyes to move slowly over the names. On some of the papers, the occupation of the person was listed. It was upon a pair of names that I paused, a brother and his sister, both of whom lived in the house for a good part of their adulthood, and as I gazed at the woman’s name, I remember thinking, this is the one.

 

I have a good memory but I don’t remember their names and their occupation. I don’t remember the dates either. This is probably the effect of an intention, either my own, or God’s. 

 

I tied up the bundle carefully and put it away. When the house was sold a few months before I left Cambridge, I asked the solicitor if I could keep the title deeds. He said yes, probably thinking I was being sentimental. I gave it quite some thought, perhaps I was being sentimental, and perhaps I wanted a memento. But in the end, something in my bones told me not to take them with me.

 

I did not know her. It is quite a different matter to encounter in this supernatural fashion someone you love and knew as a breathing bodily person. Someone you miss. I know I am not alone in having such experiences. Why do they occur? What do they signify?

 

(to be continued)