50. HALFWAY HOUSE

The ghost of Curt Finks is communing with a rather more successful author at Halfway House. Ian MacPherson, author of Wild Harbour (1936) has travelled here on foot from a den close to Dalwhinnie, where he has been waiting for the “all clear” to sound. His feet are completely dry. He does not remember where he parked his motorbike. He has forgotten that he, too, is a ghost. They have met here before, gathering when authors come to this cottage for their “retreats”.

The current “solid” resident is an author who we would count as substantially more successful than Curt Finks. He has had a few books published. They were well received, but didn’t shift many copies. Others were commissioned but then the publisher folded. The story of his life. He is staying at Halfway House for a month, taking advantage of the cheap winter rate, while the owner takes the hit for the extremely expensive White Meter heating.

Curt Finks and Ian MacPherson watch their shadowed guest with interest (and envy) as he uses the new tools of the trade. There is a notepad and pen, but they’re rarely used. The keyboard he types into is almost silent. There is no dictionary. This has been the pattern of things over recent years. They rarely see the finished results. At night, the writing done, he sits with a handheld device on his knee, engrossed, occasionally jotting ideas in his notebook.

For this visit, however, there is a new substantial presence in the room where he writes. It appeared after he was away for a few days. Immediately before this departure he had fumblingly inserted things into his ears, talked earnestly into thin air, and shouted to stop. Finks and MacPherson thought that they had been spotted. Indeed, they thought that they had seriously spooked him when he ran out, returned fleetingly for his car keys, and then sped down towards Dalwhinnie.

Days and nights pass unnoticed when you’re dead. The two ghosts were first aware of the author’s return when they heard him ranting at the front door. “Pulp them indeed” he was panting as he dragged two large cellophane wrapped packages into the house. Slicing one open carefully he pulled out copy after copy of the same book, placing a few copies on a shelf and reading another through in a single sitting, nodding sagely at each well-turned phrase.

This piece was kindly contributed by the ghosts of Ian MacPherson (who considers himself just as much of an influence on the Roberta Antonia Wilson character in The JAMs’ book 2023: A trilogy as George Orwell or anybody else), and Curt Finks (who dislikes fake versions of himself on skateboards) 12/11/2023

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