Hanging On

by Ray Cluley

James had been looking for ghosts when he went back to his old school, only he hadn’t really expected to find one. He’d been looking for the metaphorical kind, the ones of his past, trying to remember when life was simple. When difficult decisions were made using eeny-meeny-miny-mo, or rock-paper-scissors, or a thumb war. He hadn't expected to find Todd.

It wasn’t a particularly spooky school; the building was old, but it was in good repair. It was smaller than he remembered. The school was one storey high, red brick with green trim, its roof recently retiled at one end. It wasn’t menacing in any way (though some of the teachers had been). A single set of goal posts had been painted onto the wall of the bike sheds, but other than that it all looked exactly as he remembered. Only, you know. Too small.

It was the summer holidays: there was nobody around. Sometimes, back when James was a kid, he and his friends would come to the school in the holidays just to play on the swings. He was surprised nobody was doing that today, though he was glad; he’d hoped to have the place to himself. If he was challenged by anybody for being here then he’d have to slip into respectable adult mode, and he wasn’t very good at that. Behaving like an adult always felt like pretending, and not in a fun way. It also felt like giving up. Every adult is the corpse of a child, did somebody famous say that? Shakespeare, maybe? Probably. Wherever the idea came from, it was a grim thought, and one that troubled him more and more every day.

He crossed the worn surface of the playground, its lines and games circles needing a fresh coat of paint. The summer air was still and dry, hot in his nostrils, and somewhere in its thinness were the cries of “good shot!” and “out!” and “not fair!”, voices held forever in the air like names compassed deep into wooden desks. Groups of remembered children ran past him, one kicking a football, another reaching out to touch a fleeing friend – “you’re it!’ – and James watched them, his eyes closed. Children jumping ropes and swapping stickers and bashing toys against each other in mock combat, shouting and laughing from a past that grew more distant from him everyday. These were the ghosts he had come looking for; children long since grown up into professions and parenthood.

He stood with his eyes closed for so long that when he opened them again the sun dazzled him. He raised a hand to shield his face and stared at the set of swings near the playing field. He was glad they were still there. A set of monkey-bars. A slide. He would sit for a while and try to remember what it was like being young and carefree.

The swings in the playground didn’t fit him anymore, of course, and it depressed him more than it should. He let the chains bite into his thighs and pushed absently at the ground with his feet, rocking slowly back and forth.

What the hell was he doing here? More importantly, what the hell was he doing with his life?

“You gotta push hard if you wanna go anywhere.”

The voice startled him from his thoughts, and he looked up to see a young boy hanging upside down from the climbing frame, legs hooked around the monkey-bars. His arms dangled straight, small hands grasping at the too-distant ground.

“Hey,” James said. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Been here ages,” the boy replied. “How old are you? I’m six and a quarter.”

“I’m much older that,” James said. “Actually, today’s my birthday.”

“Bet you’re not as old as my dad, he’s thirty.”

I wish, James thought. “No way,” he said.

The boy seemed pleased. He righted himself and swung three rails forward in quick succession to reach the ladder end, but instead of climbing down he clambered higher. “Can you walk the plank?”

James laughed. They’d called it walking the plank when he was a kid, too; stepping along the top of the monkey-bars instead of swinging under them. “I used to.”

“Probably still can, then. You don’t forget walking the plank.” The boy walked quickly, arms out for balance.

But James had forgotten. He’d forgotten lots of things. Walking the plank was something he’d stored away with spot-ball and handstands and games of drain-cover marbles, things he’d come back here to remember.

He pushed himself on the swing. “What else do you play?” He was staring over at the playground where imaginary children, remembered children, still ran and shrieked and laughed.

“All I do is monkey-bars.”

The boy was walking over them, back the other way. James could hear the hollow ringing sound each bar made, the squeak of the kid’s trainers on the metal. When he looked up, the boy was already at the far end, turning to come back. “What job do you do?”

James shrugged, because he didn’t want to answer. And because his job didn’t matter all that much. It paid the bills, that was all. Surely there was more to life than that?

“My mum and dad are both teachers,” the boy said. “That means they have to go to school forever too, even though they’re grown up.”

“At least they get summer holidays.”

Not that summer holidays were probably as much fun for adults. The stretched-out infinity of days and days forever becoming, instead, a mere few weeks that passed too fast, or were filled with work and other obligations. He didn’t say this, though. The boy didn’t know it yet, and some lessons should not be taught, only learned. Let him find out later, on his own.

“So what do you want to do when you grow up?” James asked.

“I’m not going to grow up.”

James smiled. Teach me that trick and I’ll be your bestest friend, he thought.

The boy hooked his legs around a bar and swung upside down again. “Can you do this?”

“Not anymore. I’d crack my head.”

“Yeah, you gotta be careful,” the boy said, “it hurts if you fall. You gotta hang on.” Then, with a conversation change so quick it’s reserved only for children, he asked, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“Sort of. I have a wife.”

“Girls have fleas, you know, and if a girl kisses you you can get germs and die.”

Or kissing can lead to other things and then she’s pregnant and all of a sudden you’re definitely not a child anymore because you’re going to have one. Although maybe having one would give him an excuse to be one for longer? He still wasn’t sure.

“You might change your mind when you get older,” James said.

The boy reached out to the ground, waving his hands. Not even close to touching. “I told you, I’m not going to get older. I’m not just saying it because I’m a kid, you know.” He did a half sit-up to grab the bar above and dropped down to his feet, doing the exercise effortlessly like only the young can. This was a little body that still climbed trees and threw itself into roly-polies and ran just for fun.

The hair at the back of the boy’s head was matted thick with blood.

James stuck his feet down from the swing and skidded to a stop. He fell and scuffed two holes into the knees of his trousers, scraped the palms of his hands on the asphalt.

“You okay, Sir?”

The boy had slipped into pupil mode, addressing an adult that wasn’t his parent in the only way he knew how. He stood beneath the climbing frame, tensed, ready to come forward if needed yet seemingly unable.

“Your head,” James said.

“Oh. That.” The boy leapt for a grip and began to swing away to the far end of the frame. The back of his head was crudely dented, with a bloody crust that glistened like styling gel. “What I did in the summer.”

“We’ve got to get you to a hospital.”

“No point,” the boy called over his shoulder. Balanced on the railings, he said with something close to pride, “I was pronounced.”

“What?”

“Pronounced. Like a word, you know? Sometimes they’re different to how they look. Like reed can be red but isn’t always. My name’s Todd, T-O-D-D, and Miss Curshaw knows that, but she tells people I was pronounced dead. I used to think Miss Curshaw didn’t like me, but she cried loads.”

“You’re…?”

“Dead. Yeah.”

James looked around. The sun shone in a clear blue sky. Bright pictures, painted clumsily and all the more beautiful for that, decorated the classroom windows. Somewhere distant, an ice-cream van tinkled its tune.

Do I have sunstroke?

“I like it here, though. Or liked. Whatever. So I come back sometimes. In the summer. You know?”

James could understand that.

“But I do get a bit bored of the monkey bars.” Todd slid down the ladder and sat at the bottom of it, looking up at where James stood near the swing. “Are you scared?”

“Yeah.”

“Because I’m a ghost?”

“No, it’s not that.”

It’s my life, and where it’s going. Or not going. It’s not fair. And I know it’s the same for everyone, but dammit, it just isn’t fair. None of it.

“Everything’s different,” he eventually said. “It’s like I woke up one day and wasn’t a kid anymore. I never had enough time to live. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

“It’s okay. I come back to remember, too. But you can’t do it all the time.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno why, you just can’t. Not all the time.” Todd pointed at where James was sitting. “It’s like that swing. You can go backwards, but only if you go forwards, too.” He smiled up at James, shielding his face and squinting up at the sun. “Or like the monkey-bars. You know, how you have to let go to move forward.” He shrugged. “Something like that.”

James narrowed his eyes at the boy. “Are you sure you’re only six and a quarter?”

Todd grinned. “Of course I’m sure! But I’ve been six and a quarter for ages.”

James returned to the tight embrace of the swing.

“You gotta push hard if you wanna go anywhere, huh?” he remembered, then shoved back, leaning to build momentum.

“Yep.”

Todd picked up a small stone and began scraping it across the ground, drawing with it like chalk. He drew a wriggly-armed, squiggle-bottomed, ghost and added a speech bubble: boo! He looked up at James, serious for a moment, then erupted into a fit of giggles.

James couldn’t help but join in, swinging backwards and forwards and laughing like he had nothing to worry about. The two of them laughed until it hurt their faces and stomachs. Whenever it seemed to be winding down to a stop, one of them would sigh or snigger and it would start all over again. They weren’t even laughing at the drawing anymore. It was summer laughter, without a care in the world.

Finally, when they had finished, Todd sighed. He said, “I’ve gotta go now.” He was breathing hard and still smiling.

James’s looked over to the school gate and his car parked outside. “Yeah,” he said, standing, “me too.”

“Gonna come back?”

 James cast another look around at the school. He’d learned a lot here. “Sometimes,” he said.

Todd stood up. “Good. Me too.”

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Todd.” James offered his hand to shake.

The boy looked at it, grinned, and slapped it so lightly that James barely felt it. “Tag!” the boy said. “You’re it!”

And with that, the little forever-boy ran towards the playing field, fading. He passed through the bars of the climbing frame and was gone before his feet could reach the grass. His voice, though, lingered for a moment, calling back from wherever it was he’d gone: “Happy birthday!”

James smiled, looking down at the stone-scratched ghost at his feet. “Thanks,” he said. He reached up and held the monkey bars for a moment, no need to even tippy-toe, and then he let go.