Ghost

Sundays were always quiet in the city. Sundays during holidays were particularly peaceful. Between the hours of 2–5am, Sundays in the city during the holidays rarely saw more than three of four people on the streets, this in contrast to an average working week day, when those same streets thronged with many thousands.

Valentine pulled on fleece-lined hiking trousers. On top of his layers of thermal gear, he shrugged into a thick ski jacket, the hood of which slid neatly over his substantial scarf and warm hat. Finally, he stepped into sturdy hiking boots. All the items he wore were black, which helped him to blend into the dark-veiled night moments later.

He wandered unseen and ghostlike around the city streets. They were a minefield of memories, of times past which had been so happy, but were now such a long way out of reach. Valentine threw himself into these memories. He needed to stare at them face-to-face and realise that what he once had could never happen again.

A train pulled out of St Pancras station as he drifted past. The 00:05 Caledonian Sleeper. Valentine always imagined the train resting and re-gathering strength after the exertion of breaking the city’s bonds. Instead, it slid valiantly on into the night over plains, through forests, and up into the Highlands of Scotland.

Along this street once walked Romans, then Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Stuarts, Tudors, and Victorians. 425 years ago, Shakespeare pondered the plotline of A Midsummer Night’s Dream over there, and over there once stood the famous Hanseatic League’s Steelyard. But Valentine’s mind projected other events onto that ancient byway.

He reached St Paul’s at exactly the same time that the temperature hit zero. The effectiveness of his insulating clothing, and the protectiveness of his hood, made him feel as though he were not actually here. Only the ache of his legs which had carried him to this spot reminded him that this was not some showreel being projected into his mind.

A river, long-since buried by the city and forgotten, rushed unseen under the heavy iron grating beneath his feet. But Valentine didn’t hear it. He was entirely absorbed in that happy occasion which occurred here years ago. And that was exactly why he was here, why he roamed the city like a spirit of the streets; to directly confront the unreachable. Too long had he been haunted by these memories, by instead haunting them he hoped to permanently evict them from his memory.

The starting gun of dawn heralded the resumption of activity. It was as though energy had been coiling up on itself during the night, before suddenly released itself in a burst of bustling business. None of the people filling the streets knew about the night-time visitor. Valentine had drifted home hours ago. The living ghost rested before returning to the city for tonight’s haunting, and to attempt another confrontation with his tortuous memories.