Searching through a song

WordSmith

Gerard Smith

‘My father told me of a ghost he saw when he was young, and ever since I’ve searched for him when every spring is sprung. Over drumlin-high and lake-a-deep I called him to appear, for this old ghost I longed to find, I searched without a fear.’

My search began when I was just seven - a milestone that psychologists call ‘The age of reason’. My reason was simple: I wanted to discover the ghost’s identity to make Dad proud.

Whenever I asked Dad who he thought it was, he’d shrug, “That, I couldn’t tell you, son.” It was my uncle who spurred me on, “There’s many who’d like to know who that old ghost is,” he said. And with that I embarked on my summertime mission.

The ghost first appeared to Dad in the farmyard where he worked as a lad, so naturally that’s where I began my search. The farm was a hive of activity, and it didn’t take me long to realise the farmhands had little patience for a peculiar English child pestering them about ghosts while they were trying to manage cattle.

By the second week, I was no closer to finding the ghost. Then, one night as I lay awake in bed, something my sister Maria had said came back to me, “Ghosts only roam at night; I don’t think you’ll ever find him during the day.” So, in the dead of night, I slipped from bed and crept stealthily into the darkness, determined to break the deadlock and finally come face to face with the ghost.

Touching the rosary beads round my neck for protection, I switched on my torch and ventured up into the farmyard. In the middle of the yard I stopped and listened. The only sound was the beating of my heart, which increased when I saw something – a shape shifted in front of me; I primed, ready for fight or flight. A shadow floated over the roof of an outbuilding; I swung round to see what physical form cast the shadow – the torchlight revealed: no one, nobody, nothing. I spun back in time to see the shadow meld amongst trees. Then it was gone.

I wondered if it was the ghost? But my newly reasoned inner voice answered for me , “No, it’s probably the lights of a distant car.” I slumped, deflated – and crept back to bed.

‘Summers came and summers went, the spirit stayed unseen. I will resume my search one day, across the fields of green.’

On my 21st summer I returned to the farmyard. The farmhands had long since left; the place was descending into dereliction. All that remained were the shadows of its former self. The place was in decline, whilst I was stepping into my prime. The following day I was flying to London to live a new life under city skies. But I wasn’t ready to give up the ghost.

‘I will not say a last goodbye beneath a different sky; but for today I’ll rest my voice and let my search pass by.’

London life was a whirlwind. I burnt candles at both ends. There was sex, pubs, and rock and roll. I loved and lost. And while I continued to live, my peers constantly died. Passing from Aids was so commonplace I became desensitised to it; death was a fact of my life. My childhood search for the ghost was replaced by a search for meaning in the chaos of my early adulthood.

But my ghostly search did resume. Within this piece there’s a song I wrote, you may have noticed a lyrical cadence throughout the prose. I started with a verse, and herewith the final two: ‘My father’s trips around the sun stopped on a winter’s day. Beside his grave I knelt to speak, but sang for him to stay. I walked away with tearful eyes and bid my dad goodbye. That’s when I felt my searching, its end was almost nigh. Then that night I heard Dad call, “You’ve found the ghost my son.” Hello, I sang to goodbye, you’re the ghost that haunts us all.’

But I won’t end there, for I have a gorgeously uplifting epilogue.

Recently, a beautiful young lady gave me a large parcel. I unwrapped a painting from a young artist, it’s a wonderfully whimsical depiction of my childhood farmyard in full bloom. And there on the roof of an outbuilding, I finally got to see the ghost.

Once again I heard Dad’s call, “That’s him my son, hang him upon our wall.”

I hung him up on Father’s Day, and for as long as I live, that’s where he’ll stay.