Chapter 4

The people on the tour were drifting back to a misty square near the harbour. Ruth was looking for her sister. “Sadie! Over here.” Sadie didn’t rush over, she was holding Lottie’s hand and she turned and hugged the waif promising to see her next year. (Ruth thought ‘over my cold, dead body’ even though she already knew she’d be there with Lottie). Lottie kissed her on the cheek, returned her coat, turned with a wave and walked away.

The other father was the next to appear. He looked like he had been fucked every way sideways; which was probably not a bad description of what had happened. He would be slightly incontinent for a day or two; but he had also been encouraged to make use of the cabin boy as others had. He had found that not as unpleasant as he thought. In a few months time, he would be arrested in some men’s toilets, but that is not part of this story.

Their father turned up next, he looked exhausted, and was walking very oddly. He had a smile though. Ruth looked away. She would need to spend some time thinking about her father before realising that he had, on this night, been freed from normal laws and promises. A normal promise was that once you were dead, you stayed dead. Here, on this night, that did not apply. Nor did forsaking all others; for one night only having your dripping dick deep inside a woman not your wife was allowed.

The eighteen year old was returned by the good reverend. Peabody had failed to resist the temptation again, he promised himself every year that this year he definitely would try to start on the road to redemption. But each year, the sight of an attractive boy’s buttocks, his unhairy chest (Peabody hated the sight of an hairy chest almost as much as the sight of breasts), his rosy complexion all disarmed him; and he would promise that next year he would try harder. The boy was conflicted ... not unlike his father.

Two boys turned up, their arms still round the shoulders of the young women who had led them away; one boy’s hand was having a last fondle of the girl’s tit. They had had an unexpectedly good time on this ghost walk; which was good since one of them would later fall, drunk, in front of a non-stopping goods train as it passed through the station. He would be horribly mangled and disfigured, only recognisable from the phone in his pocket that identified him. He would join the cast next year as a result of having introduced his younger brother to drugs.