A brush with the afterlife or simply a close shave?
SOME years ago I had the unenviable task of clearing my old childhood home.
It was hardly a mansion but it took me forever to do. I’m horribly sentimental so struggled to part with the stuff I had grown up around and which had been such a big part of my life; the wobbly bookcase in the front room, the Shire horse ornaments, my dad’s old typewriter..
Eventually, though, the day came when the house was sold and the urgency to sort out the last few bits of my mum and dad’s lives in that little terrace became acute. So, with the heaviest of heart, I opened the old brown front door one last time.
The smell was overpowering. It hit me in the hall and followed me around every room downstairs. Woody and masculine, strikingly familiar and quietly comforting, it took me some minutes to place it. Then I knew.
It was my dad’s aftershave. This was odd. My dad had been dead for more than two years and while my mum hadn’t touched his wardrobe, she’d thrown away what she’d called his ‘shaving paraphernalia’ including countless bottles of Boots Cedarwood.
Perhaps an old bottle had exploded somewhere? But that seemed unlikely as most of the furniture – drawers, bedside tables – were gone and the bathroom cabinet was empty.
Upstairs, the scent was just as strong. Perhaps a bottle had overturned in the wardrobe?
But as I worked through my dad’s shirt and tie collection (extensive) and mum’s range of cardigans (equally impressive), putting them into bags for the charity shop, nothing emerged.
Finally, I came to my dad’s suit. He’d not long bought a new one before he died – a smart grey affair. By now, teary and with the overpowering aftershave smell giving me a headache, I stuffed it into a bag.
And then I thought I should check the pockets. It was unlikely there was anything in them – my dad’s mantra was ‘everything in its place’ so there was little chance of finding even an errant hankie. And my mum would have checked at some point too, surely?
But there, in the inside pocket, was £1,500.
And just like that – and I mean in an instant – the smell vanished.
This is not a ghost story. It wasn’t frightening or unnerving and there were no bumps-in-the-night or dark shadows. It’s very ordinary, in fact.
Some say my dear old dad was there, one last time, in the house he called home for 50 years and desperate to point his sometimes slapdash daughter to his cash.
Others that my over-wrought senses were simply playing tricks.
I have no idea. I do know that whenever I tell the tale jaws drop.
That, for me, is what Hallowe’en should really all about – not American gimmicks, egged cars or threats on your doorstep otherwise known as Trick or Treat – but stories.
Old ones or new, telling tales is an ancient art whether in a theatre, the pub or round your own fire.
And the best bit of all? We have at least one inside us all.