The Single Dad’s Handbook

‘Yes, they were her favourites. She liked to wear them when she was going out dancing.’

A smile tugs at the corners of Violet’s mouth and she rubs at her eyes.

‘Are you ready to go in?’

There’s a brief pause and she nods. I place her down on the ground, take her hand and walk her into the building. This marks the first step in a new chapter of Violet’s life. She’s off to become the person she’s destined to be.

And it all starts with her first day at school.

Can a place miss a person? Our house misses Claire, I’m sure of it. Her memory is carried in every room and sometimes, I swear I can hear the whole building creak and sigh under the weight of its grief. It’s not hard to see why; she picked it out in an estate agent’s window not long after we got married and fell in love as soon as we walked through the door. It needed a lot of work, but Claire was determined to bring it back to life and she did. She’s everywhere in here, from the cherry-red kitchen units to the sunny yellow sitting room and polished wooden floorboards. There used to be flowers everywhere when she was alive, but not anymore. If she were here now and saw the large jardinière in the hall was empty, she’d go mad. Every time I walk past it, my chest tightens. It’s a swift kick in the guts, reminding me that the love of my life is gone.

The shoes are still in the kitchen, their vibrant red popping against the hardwood floor. For a short, painful second, it’s as though she’s still here.

Her absence sneaks up on me again, pressing down on my already weary shoulders and making my bones ache. The grief books piled up at the side of my bed said this would stop after a while, that I would somehow learn to consign her to a memory. ‘A while’ hasn’t happened yet.

I catch my reflection in the hall mirror as I walk past. I look as exhausted as I feel. There are dark circles under my eyes, my face is pale, drawn and covered in stubble, and my hair is like a haystack. I was too busy rushing around this morning to notice, but now I can see how much of a state I’m in. I’ll have to fix myself before I go to work; I might be in the business of scaring people for a living, but I usually leave that up to my business partner James.

There’s a small avalanche of stuff littering my bedroom floor. Violet’s had a good rummage, by the looks of things. This must’ve been where she found the shoes; half the wardrobe is still packed with Claire’s things. I should probably take them to the charity shop and keep some bits for Violet, but I can’t. How could I banish her from the house she loved so much? Remove all traces of her as if she never existed?

I take a moment to look through some of it. Her favourite summer dress, the delicate cream fabric sprayed with pretty, colourful flowers. The red coat she’d wrap round herself on cold mornings, along with its matching scarf. Her purple wellies, still sprayed with flecks of mud from our final family day out. Crammed on the top shelf near her handbags is her collection of beautiful headscarves that she loved to wear during her treatment. I haven’t dared to touch them since the day she died, as though she might come back and tell me off for moving them.

So many memories packed into a tiny space. Our painfully short story told in a series of bright primary colours and patterns.

Fuck, I miss her.

‘And here, on Victoria Street, we have Thomas Weir’s house, reported to be the most haunted house in Scotland. He was known as the Wizard of the West Bow and was executed for witchcraft in 1670. Legend has it that a phantom coach roams the street late at night, pulled by headless horses and ridden by the devil himself. Some say the devil’s looking for Thomas Weir. They say he wants to take him back to the underworld, where he truly belongs.’

The crowd doesn’t look very interested and to be honest, I don’t blame them. My delivery is a flat, soulless monotone, devoid of any kind of passion for my subject. I’m privileged enough to be able to walk around the most beautiful city in the world, telling ghost stories, yet here I am sounding like I’m talking about the history of the root canal.

This isn’t how I want to do things, and it certainly isn’t how I was when I started my ghost-tour business ten years ago. When Monsters, Murders and Magic Tours burst onto the scene, I came alive when I talked about the city’s murkier history and my presentations zinged with passion and enthusiasm. Now, I run my tours on autopilot and it shows. I’ve become like the tour guide who inspired me to do this, whose disinterest in the subject and dull delivery made me turn to James and say ‘I could do better.’ I give my groups facts and stories, but nothing of myself because I don’t have anything left to give. The shred of the old me that’s still hanging around in the hope I get my shit together screams at me to get my act together.

Today, the added distractions of wondering how Violet’s getting on at school and the reason behind Hannah’s sudden return are taking my mind even further off the task at hand. As much as I try not to let them overrun my thoughts, they do and I can barely concentrate on what I’m saying. Not that it matters, judging by the group’s collective lack of interest.

I soldier on with my story, even though I lost them about three stories ago. I’d give anything for even one murmur of curiosity or a question, but none come. The group is talking amongst themselves and completely ignoring me. Only a few of them arrived together so if nothing else, everyone has made a new friend. They don’t have a clue about Thomas Weir and his phantom coach – which was once my favourite story to tell.

My mind throws up an image of Violet, curled up in the corner of her classroom waiting for me to come and get her. I shake my head as I try to dislodge it.

‘If you’re ready…’ I point in the general direction of where we’re headed next. ‘We’ll continue.’

I suspect the only reason they’re following me is because they don’t know the city very well. If we pass a Five Guys or a cosy-looking pub, I’m fucked.

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