Ghosts and Other Lovers Read Free

me once and never since altered or denied -- the one, great, passionate love of his life. I wondered why he loved me, if he did, when we argued so much and had so little in common.
    It was Jane who brought us together, and Jane who came between us. I knew too much about her, that was the problem. He didn't have to talk about her or mention her name for her presence to be summoned. The things which were connected with her in his mind also, as if by telepathy, called her to mine. I don't think he realized quite how much he had told me about her, how many small details I still retained. There were a few songs -- "Jealous Guy" by John Lennon and "Trouble Again" by Karla Bonhoff are the ones I still remember -- which I knew had been special to him and so now carried a particular emotional freight for me. I couldn't sit on his couch (loose covers sewn by her own fair hands), raise a wine glass (set of six, a present after she'd managed to break his last two), or turn on the kitchen light (the art moderne fixture was one they'd found together on a weekend trawl through Camden Lock) without being reminded of the woman whose place I now filled.
    He still wore the large, square signet ring she'd bought him for his thirtieth birthday. I wished he would stop wearing it, but he was unresponsive to hints. Once, when we were making love, he hurt me with it very slightly, but even then he didn't remove it, he was only more careful, which in turn made me even more aware of its importance.
    No matter what he said or did, no matter how much he claimed to love me, there was always the memory of Jane in the background, in my mind if not in his, keeping me on edge or off balance, bitterly aware that she had been here before me, and that no matter how much he said he loved me, once upon a time he had loved her more.
    Almost from the beginning we quarreled a lot, petty disagreements, but they added up. I didn't like his friends and he could tell that mine didn't much like him, so we gave up socializing with other people and just went out to dinner, to concerts, or to movies with each other. That was all right, but when it came time to go home we always argued about whose home. By any objective standards, his flat in a mansion block off Oxford Street was more comfortable and more convenient than my bedsit in Chiswick with the drummer next door, but my place wasn't haunted, and his was.
    I'm not speaking metaphorically. There was a ghost. I saw her twice. The first time was very late at night. I was coming back from the bathroom and saw a naked woman just ahead of me in the hall, going into the bedroom. I screamed. When David turned on the light, I made him search the room with me. He was first worried, then puzzled, then cross. He refused to listen to any nonsense about a ghost. I must have been dreaming with my eyes open.
    The second time I saw her she was fully clothed, a beautiful, dark-haired woman in profile by the kitchen window early one morning as I stumbled in to make coffee. I didn't scream that time, not even when I saw her vanish.
    Although I'd still never seen a photograph of her, it seemed obvious to me that the woman was Jane. I thought it very possible that David saw her, too, and took those sightings for brief, powerful memories. I wondered if it was his regret or undying love which summoned her spirit, or if Jane's was such a powerful personality that she left small traces of it behind in places which had been important to her.
    I'd once read about a theory that ghosts were not spirits at all but simply powerful impressions left behind by particularly strong emotions felt in that place. If you take that as an explanation of haunting, then there's no reason why it should be the prerogative of the dead. The living should have just as much psychic energy and just as many reasons for using it, consciously or not.
    I felt very glad that Jane didn't know me, or where I lived. I could get away from her. I've heard people argue that ghosts