The Ghost

the desk beside me.
    “Not at all, no. I’m not sure my father even voted. He said they were all as bad as one another.”
    “Tell me about him.”
    “He was a builder. Self-employed. He was in his fifties when he met my mother. He’d already got two teenage sons by his first wife—she’d run off and left him some while before. Mum was a teacher, twenty years younger than him. Very pretty, very shy. The story was he came to do some repair work on the school roof, and they got talking, and one thing led to another, and they got married. He built them a house and the four of them moved in. I came along the following year, which was a shock to him, I think.”
    “Why?”
    “He thought he was through with babies.”
    “I get the impression, reading what’s already been written, that you weren’t that close to him.”
    Lang took his time before answering. “He died when I was sixteen. He’d already retired by then, because of bad health, and my stepbrothers had grown up, married, moved out. And so that was the only time I remember him being around a lot. I was just getting to know him, really, when he had his heart attack. I mean, I got on all right with him. But if you’re saying was I closer to my mother—then yes, obviously.”
    “And your stepbrothers? Were you close to them?”
    “God, no!” For the first time since lunch, Lang gave a shout of laughter. “Actually, you’d better scrub that. We can leave them out, can’t we?”
    “It’s your book.”
    “Leave them out, then. They both went into the building trade, and neither of them ever missed an opportunity to tell the press they wouldn’t be voting for me. I haven’t seen them for years. They must be about seventy now.”
    “How exactly did he die?”
    “Sorry?”
    “Your father. I wondered how he died. Where did he die?”
    “Oh. In the garden. Trying to move a paving slab that was too heavy for him. Old habits—” He looked at his watch.
    “Who found him?”
    “I did.”
    “Could you describe that?” It was hard going, far harder than the morning session.
    “I’d just come home from school. It was a really beautiful spring day, I remember. Mum was out doing something for one of her charities. I got a drink from the kitchen and went out into the back garden, still in my school uniform, thinking I’d kick a ball around or something. And there he was, in the middle of the lawn. Just a graze on his face where he’d fallen. The doctors told us he was probably dead before he hit the ground. But I suspect they always say that, to make it easier for the family. Who knows? It can’t be an easy thing, can it—dying?”
    “And your mother?”
    “Don’t all sons think their mothers are saints?” He looked at me for confirmation. “Well, mine was. She gave up teaching when I was born, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for anyone. She came from a very strong Quaker family. Completely selfless. She was so proud when I got into Cambridge, even though it meant she was left alone. She never once let on how ill she was—didn’t want to spoil my time there, especially when I started acting and was so busy. That was typical of her. I’d no idea how bad things were until the end of my second year.”
    “Tell me about that.”
    “Right.” Lang cleared his throat. “God. I knew she hadn’t been well, but…you know, when you’re nineteen, you don’t take much notice of anything apart from yourself. I was in Footlights. I had a couple of girlfriends. Cambridge was paradise for me. I used to call her once a week, every Sunday night, and she always sounded fine, even though she was living on her own. Then I got home and she was…I was shocked…she was…a skeleton basically—there was a tumor on her liver. I mean, maybe now they could do something, but then…” He made a helpless gesture. “She was dead in a month.”
    “What did you do?”
    “I went back to Cambridge at the start of my final year and I…I lost myself in life, I suppose you could say.”
    He was silent.
    “I had a similar experience,” I said.
    “Really?” His tone was expressionless. He was looking out at the ocean, at the Atlantic breakers rolling in, his thoughts seemingly far away over the horizon.
    “Yes.” I don’t normally talk about myself in a professional situation, or in any situation, for that matter. But sometimes a little self-revelation can help to draw a client out. “I lost my parents at about that age. And didn’t you find,