Bob stayed a little while longer. They drank a cup of tea and Pete played his band's demo. Bob nodded along and seemed to approve; he promised to come to Pete's next gig. They all knew he wouldn't. Then he thanked Pete and told Nathan it had been good to meet him.
Bob said, 'See you later, then.'
Nathan thought: Not if I see you first. But he said: 'You must have an idea -- you must have an opinion.'
'On what?'
'On what they are. Ghosts.'
'They're any number of things. Illusion, delusion, hallucination.
Electromagnetic phenomena dicking around with the temporal lobe.
Infra-sound. All of the above, and more. Not many people know this, but most ghosts are spectres of the living. The ghost of a living person is called a fetch.'
'A fetch.'
'A fetch.'
'Yeah, right.'
'It's true,' said Bob, with the briefcase in his hand.
He said goodbye, and they heard him stomp down the stairs - then the creak and slam of the front door.
'Fuck me,' said Nathan. 'Where did you find him ?'
They laughed.
On the bass, Pete banged out the riff from Ghostbusters. Nathan said, 'Is it true? What you told him?'
He didn't see Bob again for four and a half years.
That September, Maple Road's tolerant old landlord died, leaving the house to his daughter, who put it straight on the market. Unprotected by tenancy agreements, the housemates drifted off and away.
After Pete's band, Odorono, split up, he moved to a squat in London. A couple of years later, Nathan saw a small picture of him in Melody Maker. Odorono had become the Odorons. They released one independent album before succumbing to musical differences.
Nathan was one of the few who bought the CD; it was called The Malibu Stacey Sessions. Nathan played it three times, and tried each time to like it but never could. He filed The Malibu Stacey Sessions at the back of his collection, where it couldn't shame him with his indifference.
Now
it was Christmas, 1997.
For three years, Nathan had been employed as a researcher on a late-night local talk-back programme called The Mar Derbyshire Solution. The presenter, Mark Derbyshire, was paunchy and balding - with a neatly shaped beard which failed to obscure his close physical resemblance to a beaver. He wore satin shirts in primary colours, open to the third button.
Usually, The Mark Derbyshire Solutions lonesome audience could be relied upon to trumpet their opinion on the day's news stories.
When those stories weren't conducive to late-night chat, Nathan had to dig up some current issue that involved paedophilia, satanism, immigration, child murder, miracle cancer cures, political correctness gone mad, or European integration. This was called research. Mostly, it consisted of reading the Daily Mail.
When this think-tank of the lonely was in proper, eye-rolling form, Mark Derbyshire and the show's producer (a louche and florid ex-Fleet Street hack called Howard) kept Nathan around simply to have someone to humiliate.
A great deal of Nathan's job, therefore, involved popping out to the local twenty-four-hour garage or supermarket to buy tampons, extra-strength condoms, laxatives, or K-Y Jelly. Sometimes all four.
Sometimes, if Mark was feeling especially beneficent, Nathan might be sent to get the Jag washed instead. Sometimes, he was sent out with a pocket stuffed full of five-pound notes; in the early hours of the morning, he was required to approach strangers -- in the street, on late-night garage forecourts and in taxi queues whereupon he would ask them for that evening's code word, which had been decided by Mark: it might be simply big brassieres, or it might be Nule Saddam, or it might be Mark Derbyshire is a Sex Donkey!
Slowly, this occasional item became a semi-regular feature.
Eventually it was given a name: A Fistful of Fivers, in Association with Infinity Motors, Ltd. Mark would send Nathan on to the street at 2
a.m. with 2,000 pounds in his pocket, cash. Nathan would hang around waiting to encounter some lucky member of Derby's Crew, which is what Mark called his listeners.
It didn't take Nathan very long to learn how to distribute the cash safely and quickly. Mostly, he handed wads of it to minicab drivers filling up at the twenty-four-hour garage round the corner - it was not terribly far from the police station.
Many of the cab drivers were regular listeners to The Mark Derbyshire Solution - although many of them, being immigrants, were also part of The Mark Derbyshire Problem.
Nathan was twenty-seven and at the fag end of a relationship with a girl called Sara, with whom he had once, not very long ago, believed himself to be in love. Now the sight of her nettled and demoralized him.
Sara didn't much like Nathan, either - so probably it was fortunate they barely saw one another. The Mark Derbyshire Solution was broadcast from midnight, which meant Nathan left for work shortly after 9 p.m. Sara worked in an office and didn't get home until 7.30. This left about ninety minutes for them to get through.
Nathan was pretty sure that Sara was sleeping with her boss, who was called Alex and looked like that kind of man.
There were hints. She'd taken to showering when she got home, as well as when she got up. She no longer wore her slightly tattier, more practical underwear to the office and her lingerie at the weekends; that behaviour pattern had suddenly (and neatly) reversed itself.
Nathan sometimes saw the flickerings of deceit in her face: the sidelong glance, the secret smile for a private allusion.
'Are you okay?' he would say.
'Fine,' she'd say - and smile that dreamy, knowing smile.
Nathan felt bad for her.
Now he'd decided the time had come to finish it with Sara; one of them had to do it. This is why he'd accepted that year's invitation to Mark Derbyshire's Christmas party. It was to be a kind of parting gift, and a kind of unspoken apology.
Sara didn't listen to The Mark Derbyshire Solution - it was on too late - but she'd always been impressed that Nathan worked for Mark Derbyshire, who had once been famous. And she'd always wanted to go to his party. But every year Nathan found an excuse not to.
The Christmas party had been written into Mark's contract when he still meant something, which was a very long time ago indeed.
But the radio station still paid for the drinks, the canapes and a miserable local wedding DJ to play some Boney M. records. Most of the senior management and a number of the station DJs and newsreaders felt compelled to attend. Many of the junior staff actively looked forward to it and so, apparently, did the communities local to Mark's house.
Before leaving for work on Wednesday evening, Nathan told Sara, 'So. We've been invited again.'
'To Mark's party?'
'To Mark's party.'
She froze, like a fawn in woodland.
Nathan was putting on his plaid jacket, the one he wore to work during the winter. He said, 'It's probably best if we don't go. There'll be a lot of drugs around, I expect.'
Ordinarily, Sara disapproved of drugs. But now exasperation flickered round the edges of her face. This was Mark Derbyshire's Christmas party, and the presence or absence of drugs was of no interest to her.
She grew demure. 'But I'd really like to.'
She said this every Christmas. And every Christmas, Nathan said, 'Maybe next year.'
Now she simpered a little, half playing, half meaning it, stroking his upper arm with the back of her fingernails, saying, 'Pretty please?'
And Nathan said, 'Okay, then. Why not?'
