The final house loomed ahead, adorned by truly vacuous strings of orange plastic pumpkin lights. They were large lights at that, their faces leering into the night. Jean’s place? No, Alan shook his head: this was Angie’s gaff wasn’t it? He was losing track, and Matilda was starting to grizzle again.
“If I had told you once, I told you a thousand times: don’t walk through those puddles! You know you’ve got a hole in that boot, so you’ve only got yourself to blame.” That didn’t help. “Why do so insist on wearing them?”
“They’re lucky!” said the sad face. They weren’t proving lucky this evening. They had only gone two stops into the schedule when the inevitable accident with the puddle happened, and ever since her joyous face had been a picture of sufferance. Even the eldest, Graeme, normally overly excited by trick-or-treating, was beginning to show some resentment.
“Lucky!” Alan said scornfully.
At least the earlier rain had eased off and what remained was an intermittent drizzle that would probably petter out just in time to get home. The cars squelched by, slowly recycling the rainwater as it reflected the lights of suburbia. There was one other parent in the tribe tonight - Carol, Gillian’s mother. What with Gillian’s two brothers that made seven in all: two serious-looking adults, two skeletons, a very cold-looking zombie, the requisite witch and something strange and inexplicable with a pumpkin on a boy’s head. At least it showed some inventiveness. Last year they had an E.T. of all things.
They reached the large wrought-iron gate, which had seen better days and could do with a paint. “Last one!” said Alan, feeling that there was nothing more to say. There again, in all honesty they had exhausted the latest in Alan’s job as weights and measures in the OFT, the latest cricket results, his most embarrassing kiddie mishaps of the past week and the importance clear thinking, all by the third house. Carol had also mentioned something or other. The large gate complained as it found a new place to settle. The halloween lights flickered for a moment. “Let’s get this done and get home.”
Angie came to the door and opened it up to reveal a long black dress with moon cut outs. Oh yes, he almost missed the false nose. Very creepy. A chorus of “trick or treat” dutifully met her. Lots of clucking and sweetie bags were distributed. When had that started to happen? It wasn’t so long ago that you had to forage far and wide to get a decent haul. It wasn’t so long ago that the children did all this on their own. That can’t be done now though. Everything is scrupulously planned out ahead - nothing to go wrong. Was something missing? Some edge? Perhaps it was better that logic prevailed. It was okay for the appearance of weird goings on, just as long as nothing did actually go on.
With the door now firmly closed behind them, the tribe retraced their steps to the gate at which point they split, Alan going left and Carol saying her farewells off to the right. Now alone with just his two devils, well one witch and one skeleton, they headed off with Matilda now really kicking off. They passed the old video shop on the left and the late night store across the road and turned left down the tree-lined avenue that rustled in the quiet of the late evening.
“Dad?” said Graeme.
“Yeees?”
“Do you believe in ghosts?”
“Ghosts?” the question had caught Alan on the back foot. “Why should I believe in ghosts?”
“Lots of people do.”
“Just because lots of people believe in ghosts, it doesn’t make it true. Lots of people need to believe in something. It’s a kind of weakness. We need to believe in something because the real world is not enough. In truth, the real world is plenty enough for those who really look at it.”
“Dad,” said the young one, her voice rising to penetrating heights, “Jason’s brother saw a ghost and he said it was the scariest thing ever.” The emphasis on “ever” left no doubt that this was a very profound moment.
“Lots of people say lots of things. You’ve heard this from your friend? Ever heard of Chinese Whispers? And people don’t always understand what they have seen. Our minds are tuned to seeing people because it is what we do, and we often see faces where there are none. Do you know what this ghost looked like? Don’t believe everything you hear.”
They walked further along the avenue, the weather finally drying up now, not too chilly for the end of October. Up ahead Alan spotted an old tramp on the other side of the road but chose to ignore him.
“So Dad,” continued Graeme, “what would you do if you like actually met a ghost?”
“That’s not going to happen.” That was obvious enough. “That’s the whole point of the scientific approach: you observe what happens, and from that you make predictions. The thing about scientific predictions is that they happen. So when I say that ghosts don’t exist, I can point to the lack of any real physical evidence for them and predict that I won’t see one. So, I’m really not going to worry about what-if.”
“Trick or treat! Ha! Ha!” The tramp had just noticed that they were there.
Alan gave him a quick stare and turned back to his kids. “Just ignore him.”
“Trick or treeeat!” The tramp wandered haphazardously across the road. “Ha! Ha! Do you want a trick or a treat Sir?”
“No thank you!” said Alan pushing past him.
“No wait!” said the tramp. He grabbed Alan by the arm, but Alan quickly shook himself free. Something fell to the floor. A pack of cards? Alan didn’t stop to find out, but briefly took a look backwards to see the tramp on hands and knees picking whatever it was up.
“What was that about?” he said under his breath. They skirted the corner to their road quickly and quietly with Matilda keeping the quiet of the unnerved. Soon the warm lights of home were flickering on and Katie opened the door and ushered the damp pair in.
“How was it?” she asked Alan.
“Oh just all the usual.”
“Dad got into a fight with a tramp!” exclaimed Graeme.
Katie looked quizzically at her husband, but Alan just slowly shook his head a sent his eyes skyward.
“I lost my sock!” sang Matilda to whoever would listen.
“How did you lose your sock?” queried Alan, not quite believing what he was hearing.
“It flew off.”
“Socks don’t just fly off,” he corrected. “Where did the sock fly off?”
“By the big gate.”
“That must have been Angie’s house,” he said to his wife.
“Do you mind? It’s not too far and I don’t understand how we get through so many.”
It’s a sock. For heaven’s sake, it’s just a sock. Maybe, somehow, in some way it’s a ‘lucky’ sock, but how lucky can a sock possibly be? Alan grumbled back off up the street. Ridiculous! He walked at a fair crack and before long was back at the corner with the avenue. Underneath a streetlamp there was a figure hunched up in grey rags. Here was the tramp once more, but this time he was seated at a fold-away table. That hadn’t been there before had it? Keeping a wide berth, Alan made his way down the street, trying not to look too self-conscious.
“I have a treat for you Sir.”
Although not too loud, the comment split the quiet of the night and stopped Alan in his tracks.
“You should treat the cards with respect, so you should. Treat them with respect and they will work for you.”
He watched as the scruffy man methodically shuffled and reshuffled the faded and grimy cards. He picked out a particularly muddy one, spat on it, wiped it on his trouser leg.
“They need a little love do the cards.”
“What’s your game?” asked Alan, a little too tersely. There was probably something more poignant to say, but the words didn’t arrive.
“Game, sir? Nay, no game here.”
He stepped closer as something caught his eye, turning to face the man, “What are those cards?” He was expecting tarot or angel cards, but these looked hand drawn if anything: indistinct scrawls for the most part.
“Mine!” said the vagabond with an exaggerated gleam in his eyes. “I draw them as what works.”
“How do you tell?” Despite himself, Alan was getting drawn into this fantasy world. The baseless illogic was as enticing as a freak show.
“I make new ones as seems sensible and I see what they say. If they say true things then I keep them.”
“How does a card say anything?”
“You listen to them Sir, you listen to them!”
Alan, shook his head slowly, but kept his eyes fixed on the man’s hands as the cards tumbled over each other and under one another. “So, what is this treat?”
“What-you-should, what-you-must and what-you-will.”
“Pardon?”
The man beckoned him closer. Hesitantly, Alan obeyed. To Alan’s shock the man grabbed his hand and thrust the pack into it. The tramp put his now free hand to his mouth, his raised finger indicating quiet. Taking his other hand away, he mimed holding the pack in both closed hands and Alan did so.
“Now Sir, indulge me please, and open yourself up to the cards.”
Alan only got as far as opening his mouth in response.
“Just open your thoughts and stand quiet, now, that should do it.” A pat on the table prompted Alan to put the deck down. He discreetly brushed his hands afterwards. The tramp picked up the cards and gave them another shuffle. He laid down a row of three cards. “What-you-should.” He laid another row under the first. “What-you-must”. Another row. “What-you-will. Now…” He lapsed into a some concentration.
“What-you-should do is clear. This first card, it says to me either search or lost. I think you must be searching as you don’t look lost to me. The second card says poor or worthless. I don’t think you are looking to be poor so I say you are looking for something worthless. The final card speaks of happiness or the contentment born of duty. You understand this is not the bliss of a lover’s caress, it is a quiet thing? Am I right? Yes, I am right. Alan hadn’t said a thing.
“What-you-must is slightly more complicated. This third card is a new one.” The man heavily tapped on a card with little more than a zigzag on it. “The first one is a violent card. It speaks of error. It says either you have made a mistake or you must change your ways. I think it says you must do the opposite of what-you-should. You see this second card, it says there is something you don’t know about, something is hidden. If there is an error and there is something hidden then I think you are doing something without understanding. This third card I would hope that it would cast some light… maybe… I think this card speaks of an energy, but I have only seen it a couple of times. Beware!”
The man drew back and his face became grave. “Now Sir, I must tell you of what-you-will. The first card is also a new one, but it is not this one that I worry about. The second is darkness and the third is silence. These are not good cards for what-you-will. I would normally hope for an action to be portrayed, but here is nothing. It is as if there is no future. So, what Sir of the first card?” It showed the outline of a box. “I have seen it once before. I never guessed what it meant but the life it described changed.”
“What was the man like?”
The tramp opened his arms wide, “It was me!” He laughed throatily and Alan distanced himself before any other word could be mistaken for conversation - he couldn’t get away fast enough.
Treat? What kind of trick was that? Alan fumed his way down the avenue towards the local shops. He seriously considered himself a right sucker. Call those cards? They weren’t even all the same size, the pictures were unidentifiable, their condition just dreadful. How are you supposed to make prediction when you don’t even know what the cards are supposed to mean? He slowed up a bit. There was that first bit about looking for something worthless, that had unnerved him. Maybe the tramp had followed him home? He thought that he would have noticed.
He passed the old video shop on the right and remembered the point of all this: the sock. It could be anywhere around here. It had ghosts on it. Alan remembered Matilda’s protestations in the supermarket when she had found them. At some point Matilda would discover some grace and style but that was still a long way off. Something then caught Alan’s eye, a flash of red. With all the colourful rubbish on the streets, a flash of red shouldn’t have made a difference, but the way it caught the street lighting made it stand out. There it was, in the middle of the pavement, a small red… it was a dice. Alan picked it up. It was a red, translucent dice with white spots. Games. Cards. That was weird about those cards wasn’t it? He absent-mindedly put the dice in his pocket and walked on. This guy, this tramp must spend his days accosting people with his pack of cards. The cards. What-must-he again? That’s right, he must not find this sock. He didn’t expect to find this sock. He could turn around right now and simply say it was nowhere to be seen. Could do. On he walked. How can a lost sock figure on the larger scale of things? The whole event when you stood back was as about inconsequential as you could imagine.
He arrived back at Angie’s gaff. The gate hung open where they had left it and the lights still jeered at the world in general. There was the sock, draped over the lighting cable as it hung from the branches of a tree. How on Earth had it got there? The iron gate stood in the way and so Alan grabbed the gate and pulled it back a little with his right hand. He stopped. Inconsequential. It’s a sock. He reached out his left hand towards the sock. He pulled it back. Sock. Cable. Gate. He looked at his right hand still holding on to the gate. His hand was a little grimy now. A feeling of deep suspicion crowded his mind. Standing back, he fought with the gate’s propensity not to move and gave it a solid shove. It’s propensity not to stop moving took the gate into tree and on until it met the cable, and the sock. There was a crack, a blue spark and the lights went out. Moments later and some shouted cries from within the house made Alan look around. The house lights had also gone out and from the shouts it was apparent they were looking for a torch. Alan grabbed the sock before they found one. He hesitated again, looking at the cable in the lamplight. He could see where the plastic coating had worn through, possibly on a branch, the naked wire ready to catch anyone else. He looked back at the house, listening into the commotion. In the other direction the quiet of the night beckoned. After a quick look back to the house, he grabbed the cable and worked it quickly back and forth on the gate until it broke. That done, he stood back and observed everything from the other side of the gate.
A kind of calm descended on the whole scene. Presently, the tripped fuse was dealt with and the house lights came back on with only half the halloween lights. They would notice in time. The gaps in the lighting made an eerie shadow as if a blanket of darkness had been wrapped around the tree, no, had been wrapped around the concept of electricity itself. Alan stirred himself and started to walk back home. The damp street fragranced the air with a mixture of smells telling of soil and leaf and brick. A car parked at the late-night store glowed inside as the driver sorted her purse, a warm oasis in the darkness. On the left, the old Blockbuster stood with its shuttered windows mute, in stark contrast to its former shouts over the latest releases into the night. A cat watched from a high wall, its elevated position adding to its smug sense of superiority. The avenue stood proud with its rows of trees offering some sense of grandeur in this suburban reduction of existence. The trees rustled, their leaves showing the first signs of obsolescence as the cool of the autumn wound its way into the year. Across the road, cars were parked soundly in their drives, safe from the vagaries of the open road. The wet, black tarmac of the pavement almost disappeared in the dim light, highlighting the grassy verge. Up ahead, the tramp was still at his fold-away table, his cards spread out, the tramp’s hands rearranging them as if they had a mind of their own.
Alan walked slowly, unself-consciously up to the table and looked down at the cards. Presently he spotted the first of the unknown cards and with his index finger pulled it out until it was separate.
“Electricity.”
“Much obliged to you Sir.”
Again, he looked through the cards, the tramp now quietly watching. He found the second card and tapped it.
“Chance.”