she could have been Lorna. It was impossible, but like a child clinging to the myth of Santa Claus, he had willed it to be true with all his heart.
He dutifully continued his lap around the room, showing interest in each of the interns he spoke to. This was the part of his job that he enjoyed; meeting people and getting to know them. He liked it when he got to be out in the community, speaking with people about their lives and how he, in his position, could help to improve them. Some people were more polite than others. In the past, some women had been downright crude to him, commenting on how attractive he was in person and what they would like to do to him in the privacy of their own bedrooms. That sort of talk made Charles most uncomfortable and he struggled to identify with women of the ‘ladette’ persuasion. Perhaps he was old-fashioned in his views, but he liked women to be, well, women; well turned out, polite and feminine. So many women were trying to push those boundaries and he never understood why.
Charles was ready to leave the interns when he saw her, and this time he was not mistaken. His body trembled as he realised that there was a ghost in his midst. He looked on in disbelief, his mouth agape, as Lorna appeared and walked across to the other side of the room. It was utterly impossible. It couldn’t be! Yet there was no denying it was her – the blonde hair, the delicate features, and her gentle, almost dance-like gait.
Charles’ entire body went cold as though he had suddenly been plunged in to ice. It could not be Lorna, it was impossible. But he had just seen her, he was certain of it.
Vomit threatened to escape from Charles’ mouth as he absorbed the shock. Everything seemed to be running in slow motion as he contemplated what he should do; fear making his actions erratic and clumsy. He hastily made his excuses and almost ran back to his office, terror gripping him as he moved.
‘Impossible, impossible,’ he muttered to himself as he hurried past Faye’s desk and gratefully closed his office door behind him.
‘Impossible,’ he said again, breathless from his frantic rush through the building. There was no logical reason why he could have seen Lorna but he did not doubt his senses. She had been there, amongst the interns. Charles tried to will himself to think rationally, to try and make sense of the senseless. Looking down at his hands he realised that they were shaking.
Why was Lorna there? Was she haunting him, punishing him for her death? Or had he gone mad, his mind completely lost beyond salvation and driven to the brink of insanity?
Charles feared that it was the latter. He sat at his desk and tried to calm down but his heart continued to thump like a crazed drum within his chest. He wanted to believe that he had imagined her; that he missed her so terribly that he had started to hallucinate that she was there. But she had seemed so real, moving amongst the interns as though she belonged there.
Charles let his head fall into his heads. Clearly, he was more disturbed than he had originally thought. And if it wasn’t that and if Lorna’s spirit was haunting him, he wasn’t sure if he even believed in all that. Charles was an atheist – the notion of an afterlife was ludicrous to him. But Lorna had haunted his dreams for all these months. What if she had now leapt out into his life?
‘Lorna’s dead.’ Charles said the words aloud, knowing that he no longer believed them.
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