(published 'The Edge' 1989 )
He sat counting his money, placing the coins of each denomination in a neat pile. Their minting was so recent they gleamed in the meagre candlelight. A bead of body fluid dangled at each nostril and at the corners of his mouth as if frozen in time, hinting that he was but a corpse in unseasonable motion.
A sudden knocking at the door, fit to wake the whole house, increased the waxflame's flicker. His eyes, startled wide, were like two stoking holes freshly opened upon the fires of Hell. He swept the coins into the artfully hidden drawer under the tabletop as hastily as silence would permit.
]'Who is it?' His voice was more in the nature of tree bark than sound.
'It's me, Father.'
'Go away!' The look of scorn would have been too much for even a corpse's face to bear, the reputation of which for cold-heartedness is well known.
'No, listen, Father. Please let me in. Mother's come back - she's here with me.'
The head turned, but the wrinkled stack of his neck remained unmoved. Bones, somewhere deep inside his skull, cracked, as thoughts took unbidden shapes.
'But, your mother's dead.'
These words were spoken with an awed hush, each syllable spelled out in spittle. New glistening beads formed at the corners of his eyes - whether these were overflows from the rush-hour in his nasal ducts or genuine signs of remorse nobody, even he, could tell.
Somewhere at the back of his mind he feared he would have to give all of the money back to the insurance company. Nevertheless, he let the ghosts in....
