CALL ME IN THE MORNING

The tapping that woke him was too irregular and distant to be threatening, so he concentrated instead on the pain in his head and the taste in his mouth, both of which were unpleasantly familiar, though he had not experienced them in the eighteen months since he sold his Dublin practice, retired from medicine, and moved to the West Coast. His daily intoxication now was the feel of the wind and the sound of the waves.

At least, it had been until yesterday. Fergus had told him how he found him, though it seemed improbable. Did everyone have a cousin who had studied at St Joseph's in the early seventies? And who had then become an estate agent? But the real clue had been the telephone. He should have had it taken out at once. He didn't need it. He didn't want it. He couldn't understand why the previous owner had wished to be linked to the world, with an answering machine, too, so that simple absence wasn't enough to protect him from intrusion. But then the previous owner had been foolish enough to sell this place, and even when he owned it had seldom lived here. He had kept the phone when he himself first moved in because he still needed to make arrangements about building work and removals, and even when he was still a doctor he had drawn the line at an instrument of torture you could carry with you.

Was he still a doctor? Did you ever stop? Was it like being a Catholic? You could never be an atheist or a Muslim, a Protestant or a Buddhist - only a lapsed Catholic. Maybe there was a special service they held at St Joseph's where they prayed for lapsed physicians to return to the fold. Well, they'd be adding Fergus's name to the list.

He wanted to shake his head, to stop the treadmill of thinking. It was as bad as when he was still in practice: the excuses, the rationalisations, the need for the telephone, the lines drawn that were never quite kept to - he thought he had finished with all that. But shaking his head was the worst thing he could do. And there was still that tapping noise to ignore.

He had to admit that Fergus's voice had made him young again. Had it always had that husky, brandy-soaked quality? Probably. Fergus came from a family of doctors, and they'd have trained him up from early days on the little medicine glass with the clear brown liquid in it. Like most things in life, you didn't find it pleasant at first, but after a while you couldn't do without it. He was thankful he'd been hooked on women as well. It made giving up a little easier. For Fergus it had always been the drink. And the craic. And the fun.

Those nights in the pub. Those days in the pub. He knew that scientifically speaking you couldn't drink yourself sober, but it always seemed to happen. And even if it didn't quite work, you could smell the stuff on the breath of the consultant taking the ward round, nine times out of ten. And the tenth was a curmudgeon - or a woman, which was worse - but nobody paid any attention to what they'd say about you, because they were known to be enemies of fun.

And it was fun. No. It had been fun. It had been fun, because it wasn't serious, and there was always someone else to get you out of trouble, and sometimes they were drunker than you were. And the reason was very simple: because nobody could really face all that and stay sober. The ones who did, had just severed a vital nerve, and didn't feel anything any more. The ones who still felt, believed in a local anaesthetic that they drank in their local. Drinking at home, on your own, was different. It was cheaper. It was more desperate. It took away that sense of comradeship. There was nobody to help you if you got it wrong.

He'd stopped before he got it wrong. He'd stopped before he got it very wrong. He'd known, but nobody else had. And he'd had many years of persuading himself that things were different from the way they were. He was very good at it. Perhaps he should have gone into advertising. Or politics. But maybe he was his own best audience, and it wouldn't have worked on other people.

Had it worked on Fergus? He didn't know. Fergus was always convincing. He was more a poet than a doctor. You believed whatever he said. Hard to tell if he believed it himself, though. One of those people for whom the whole of life was a performance. And he didn't distinguish between actors and audience. He involved everyone.

The way he'd come in when he arrived out of the blue last night - stopping in the doorway, looking round, darting out again to make sure that no one was following him, that nobody could see him. "Sean," he'd said, "I hate you, because your telephone doesn't work. On the other hand, I love you for the same reason."

"I never paid the bill. It's the simplest way. If you ring 'em up to have it taken out, they never come, but if you just don't pay them, they cut it off."

"Sancta simplicitas! I wish I'd thought of that one now! It might have solved all me troubles!"

"I can't believe it would have solved all your troubles, Fergus!"

"Well, now, you're right there. I do exaggerate, I do exaggerate. Always me fatal flaw, exaggeration. But also the source of me charm - wouldn't you agree?"

"How could anybody contradict you, Fergus? It's not in human nature!"

"If I was to say I had two pints of whiskey with me now, I'd be exaggerating. It's only a litre."

No questions, no queries, no hesitations, only glasses. And reminiscences. Impersonations. Conversations recalled verbatim. Confrontations. Discomfitures. And always laughter. Fergus's rendering of the staff nurse had given him hiccups for half an hour. Then he'd suddenly woken up and found Fergus sat by the open window, staring out at the darkness and the ocean. It'd been a moment when he might have asked him what he was doing here. After all, though both in practice in Dublin, they'd not seen each other for five years. Longer, really, since that isolated meeting on Stephen's Green had been pure chance, even if it was followed by more drink than either of them could possibly remember and a Sunday morning sunrise on Howth Head.

He'd said he was cold, and Fergus had closed the window. It was the serious time of night, and they'd talked about their plans for the future. Fergus was envious of his decision to throw it all over and get back to what was real - but Fergus had always talked like that, and never done anything about it. There still wasn't a woman in the case. Just Fergus's wit and his frenetic energy, and the sense that he didn't like being alone with himself.

He must have fallen asleep again, because the next thing he knew, Fergus was helping him to bed. He was out of practice with the drink - either that, or he didn't have the sorrows to drown and it took his head sooner. Anyway, Fergus made sure he was all right, and went back to the remaining four fingers in the bottle. And now it was morning. And now he knew what the tapping was. He struggled out of bed and went into the main room.

Two open casements were swinging idly to and fro. Normally he kept them closed - it was a long and sheer drop to the rocks and the beach - but he needed the fresh air this morning. He sat on the sofa, with his back to the window, and massaged his forehead and temples. Something, somewhere just out of his vision, was disturbing him.

It was the flashing light on the answering machine, that relic of the previous occupant's mania for communication which he had disconnected at once. But since it worked as a tape-recorder, and he didn't trust his shaky doctor's writing, he had used it to leave messages for the builders when he first moved in and didn't want to see anyone. Now it was saying it had a message for him. He considered simply pulling its wires free and tossing it through the open window into the sea. Fergus might have done that. But he wasn't Fergus. And besides, his head hurt too badly for violent exercise. So he took the easy way out and pressed the Play button.

"Sean, Sean, Sean! I should have told you last night - but we were having too much fun - it was just like the old days, when nothing mattered. Then, it didn't matter in a good way. Now, nothing matters in a bad way. I don't think it's the drink - well, of course it's the drink - but - not in that way, if you see what I mean, and you won't see what I mean, because I haven't even begun to tell you."

There was a disturbance, a noise on the tape, a noise in the background, it almost sounded like the telephone ringing, only of course it couldn't have been, and the recording broke off, and then it started again.

"Sorry for the interruption. I assume you heard it. If you heard it, then it's not just me, though that's what I thought it was at first - just me. Just my conscience - that piece of elastic that had finally snapped. Perhaps this isn't the time for jokes - but it's never stopped me before.

"You remember that punch-line we had for everything: take two aspirin and call me in the morning? Well, over the past couple of years I've taken to using it for real. I've not been much good for doctoring after about half-past four in the afternoon, and some days it's been earlier. I don't know why - oh sure, of course I know why, but I'm not going to spell it all out now. You'll understand, anyway. You always did. That's why we didn't keep in touch - because we understood each other too well. Too much like looking in a mirror. Until I found your face wasn't there any more. And mine hadn't been for quite a while.

"There was nothing special about this patient. I swear to you, there was nothing special about him. Except he had a very distinctive voice. County Westmeath. Very flat a's. Like John MCormack, the Count himself. He called me three times at night, and each time I gave him the same answer. When he called me in the mornings - well, I fobbed him off somehow. I don't remember how. I'm not sure it matters. Then the Garda came - dead body found in a house - they wanted me to see him - a patient of mine -found by the phone - no family, no nothing - Well, you'll have guessed, won't you, because you were always very smart.

"Of course, I didn't recognise his name - I was never very good at paper-work - but when I got out his records, I saw he was from Westmeath. He'd been dead forty-eight hours. Could he have been saved? Well, maybe. How do I know? How do I know anything any more? All I know is that he's kept on phoning me every day, ever since. I recognise his voice. I always give him the same answer. I don't know what else to say to him. At first, I stopped drinking completely. I thought it might be that. But he still called me - night and morning - so I started drinking again. And he kept on calling. Have you ever listened to a dead man's voice? It doesn't sound any different, but you imagine it must do.

"No threats. No menaces. Nothing unusual. Just this constant request for help that I can't respond to. Because I need it myself. So I ran away. Who do I know, I thought, that hasn't got a telephone? And it was you - I hoped it might be, but then I found you in the book, and that was a blow. Then I tried to ring you, and I was saved.

"Only I'm not. I've got to go on further. A pity, because it was good here with you. It might even have been good without the drink."

There was a rustle, and a click, and then only the hiss of the empty tape.Then the phone rang. He let it ring for five minutes. For ten minutes. Until the message-tape still playing on the answering machine reached its end, squealed, and turned itself off. Then he lifted the receiver and listened.

"Can I speak to the doctor, please?" the voice asked.

"There is no doctor here," he replied, firmly.

"Can I speak to Doctor Fergus, please? He said I should call in the morning."

"Doctor Fergus is not here."

"Is there another doctor I can speak to, then?"

"No. I'm sorry, there is no doctor here."

The silence seemed to last forever. Then the line went completely dead. He pumped the cradle a few times and listened to the receiver to make sure, then he wrenched the wires clear of the wall, gathered up telephone and answering machine and went to the open window. As he watched them tumble over in the air, he saw the incoming tide far below slowly bringing in a man-shaped object.

Back to Ghost Stories