Walking with Ghosts

done it. But not starving someone to death. He wouldn’t do that. Not Eddy.’ She shivered. ‘Starving someone to death? That’s Creep City. I’ve met some weird fuckers in my life, but I’ve never met anyone who’d do a thing like that. Jesus and Mary, that’s worse’n Hitler.’
    There were lots of things Geordie could have said about Joni Prine, but he contented himself with one. As he walked along the street after leaving her house he glanced back once and shook his head. ‘She’s piss-poor,’ he said.
     
    The register office was around the corner in Bootham. Geordie walked up the steps and followed a short corridor round to the right. Behind the glass partition was a receptionist with a face like a vampire, about the same age as him. Peroxide hair, blue and cerise eye shadow, and freshly applied cerise lipstick to match. She gave enough of a smile to encourage Geordie to state his business, but not nearly enough to crack the stark white porcelain foundation which caked her face.
    ‘How do you go about getting married?’ Geordie asked. She glanced behind her quickly, then looked him in the eye. ‘First you get a girlfriend,’ she said conspiratorially. ‘And you take her out dancing, and buy her jewellery, and take her to fancy restaurants, and you tell her you’re earning about twice as much as you’re really earning, and that your boss is going to die soon and leave you the business.’ She smiled again and took a deep breath, obviously prepared to go on if no one stopped her.
    ‘Yeah,’ Geordie said. ‘Am I the first customer today?’
    She shook her head. ‘Let me put it like this - you’re the first customer today who looked like he could take a bit of fun.’
    ‘Only I’ve heard that more people live together, don’t bother getting married at all, even when they have kids. So I thought maybe you was bored. Not getting enough customers.’
    ‘It’s not true,’ she told him, leaning forward on her elbows. ‘The people who come in here, they nearly all want to get married, or register a birth or a death. This morning I’ve had five people registering deaths, six births, and you’re my first marriage. Who’s the lucky girl?’
    ‘Janet,’ Geordie told her. ‘We’ve been living together, but now we’re gonna have a baby, so we want to get married.’
    ‘Romantic.’
    ‘We wanna do it as soon as possible.’
    ‘'Very romantic.’ She consulted a calendar. ‘This year?’ Geordie shook his head. ‘This week.’
    ‘Oooh, la la.’ She clasped a hand to her breast. Silver nail polish. ‘I’ve gone all of a flutter.’ A door opened behind her and an older woman in a sober suit walked into the office. The vampire girl shuffled on her seat, then looked back at Geordie and came with an altogether different tone of voice. ‘The minimum notice is three days, sir. This is Wednesday, so the earliest we can do you is Friday. And it’s £72.50 for the special licence.’
    ‘Friday’ll be fine,’ he told her. ‘What time?’
    ‘You have to fill in this form,’ she said, passing it over to him. ‘And read the accompanying notes, which explain the procedure.’
    ‘Thanks.’ He picked up the form and walked away to a small table. He took his pen out of his inside pocket and began reading the questions, scratching his head from time to time in an effort to recall a date or the correct spelling of a word.
    When he’d finished the older woman had disappeared, and the vampire girl was alone again. Geordie handed her the completed form and leaned over the counter towards her. ‘What I’ve heard,’ he said, in little more than a whisper, ‘in the old days they used to have wives and concubines.’
     

17
     
    Diana is cross-legged on the carpet. She teases a lock of hair from the mass and pulls it forward, inspecting it myopically. She should wear glasses, but is too vain. You wonder if you should suggest contact lenses, but it would be of no use. She does what she wants to do.
    ‘I dreamt I got a letter from Billy,’ she tells you. ‘He sent his love.’ She continues to inspect her hair. She is not kind, Dora. Your daughter is not kind to you. If she says Billy sent his love in a letter in a dream, then Billy must have done so. Diana would not make it up. Diana would not say she’d dreamt that Billy sent his love if Billy had not sent his love. It is something you can rely on, this scrap of information. Something incontrovertible. Billy sends his love to you in a