Read Online The Ghost Who Fed Them Bones by Tim Roux - Free Book Online Page B

barn where Alice is probably hiding is a derelict one, however, I am stil cautious as I open the rickety door in case I am chased out again by a pitchfork or an Alsatian, or even by an aggressively suspicious farmer wondering what I am doing poking around his property. No such thing occurs. Instead I immediately see Alice perched on an old broken tractor.
    That would be an interesting statistic. How many old broken tractors are there in France?
    “You are on time,” Alice observes appreciatively, greeting me with the three-cheek-kiss. “Noblesse oblige.”
    “I said I would come, and ghosts do tend to be touchy.”
    “Not this ghost,” Alice responds turning on the charm and twirling slightly as she did last time. Coquettishness is built into the genes of French women, even when they don’t have them any more, which reminds me ….
    “You have the whole of the French police force baffled,” I report.
    “Why?”
    “They cannot isolate any DNA in the parts you keep leaving around.”
    “I told you, they are simulacra.”
    “Very convincing ones, apparently, otherwise.”
    “Of course.”
    “Presumably that is what you want, so that your father cannot be implicated.”
    “Exactly.”
    I sit up on the tractor next to her. “What shal we talk about?”
    She frowns. “It has been such a long time since I have had the opportunity to talk about anything. I am completely out of practice. What do friends talk about nowadays? How about ‘Can a relationship between a man and a ghost ever be entirely platonic?’.”
    “Can it?”
    “I would have thought if it was between a rosbif and a lesbian ghost there might be a good chance.”
    “I’m not a rosbif. I haven’t lived in England since I was four.”
    “Perhaps a steak americaine, then. Do you eat that, by the way?”
    “No. My Dad likes it, though. He likes liver too, and andouil ette. Anything smel y. I don’t think that Mum and he have had sex in years. She cannot cope with his odours, which are usual y topped off with beer and wine. I drink beer and wine too. I am a beer and wine fiend, like my dad.”
    “I never did.”
    “What do you miss most, then?”
    “People. Friends. Laughing. Sex with Mary.”
    “Not food?”
    “No, strangely, food doesn’t mean anything.”
    “But sex does?”
    “Yes, it must be more spiritual than food, must it not?”
    “Certainly the way Mike eats.”
    “Does that mean he eats very slowly or very fast?”
    “It means that he worships food, so long as he does not have to make it himself, and he cannot rely on me either. I think he wil end up marrying a woman for her food, which perhaps explains why he goes for the uglier ones. They are good cooks. I hadn’t thought of that.”
    “So he wouldn’t go for me?”
    “He wouldn’t see you, Alice, but, if he could, no he probably wouldn’t. The only thing you would have in your favour is extreme unavailability.”
    “I can be available anywhere,” she protests.
    “Yes, but not enough for him. He doesn’t have a psychic bone in his body.”
    “So how did you get yours?”
    “I haven’t a clue. It was something I had from the moment I was born, I think. Certainly since I can ever remember. I would refer to people I had seen, and find out that everybody else hadn’t seen them. I would describe entities, and merangels, and star travel ers, and strange green beings standing in the corners of rooms, and everyone thought I simply had a fanciful imagination which I wasn’t able to check, except Mum who knew exactly what I was on about because she has some of it too. Nothing like as much as me, but she gets inklings and premonitions, and sometimes she can move herself into higher states and explore people at their different psychic levels.”
    “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
    “It’s normal. I suppose it is probably beautiful, but it is just what I see, that's al . I suppose grass is beautiful if you have been brought up in a desert. I find it more annoying