“Suppose so,” Adam said, “and I’m guessing you don’t? So why aren’t I freaked out? Why aren’t I running around doing the whole spooky oooooh thing and clanking chains like other ghosts? Why aren’t I scared stiff? I feel kind of . . . well . . . chilled.”
“I imagine that in life you had a somewhat pragmatic character, and that has traversed with you.”
Adam stared at D’Scover blankly for a moment. “Nope,” he said. “You’ve lost me, brainiac. What did all that mean? Prag what?”
“Pragmatic. It means that you were down-to-earth, practical, well grounded.”
“Oh yeah,” Adam grinned. “I was that, I suppose. Not easily scared, seen a few things that should have scared me, but I always figured that as long as I could always be quick on my feet, I could outrun most things. Mind you, not much chance of me outrunning death!”
“More jokes?” D’Scover asked.
“Not that you’d notice!”
They both sat on Adam’s bench and, for a number of quiet minutes, they did not talk and instead watched the park evolve around them. More people walked past and an ice-cream van jingled its noisy way along a narrow road dissecting the green field.
“The next issue is always a difficult one.” D’Scover broke the silence. “I will not deceive you on this. These memories are here to ease you through this state into the Passing,” he told Adam in a serious tone. “You must decide what you wish to see before you move on. Many of these memories will be lost to you for ever once they have played out here. It is important you discard any deep woes you may be harbouring as these can trap your spirit in one place.”
“The Passing? What’s that then? Is that the proper deadness kind of thing?” Adam asked.
“You could say that,” D’Scover replied coldly. “Grossly simplified but, basically, yes.”
“And what if I don’t want to go there? What if I just want to hang around the living and haunt someone?”
“Do you?” D’Scover asked.
Adam shook his head. “Nah, not really. I suppose I just don’t feel as though I had enough time to do anything, to really live. Like my life was over before it really got started and now I’m just going to fade away. D’you know what I mean?”
“I do.” D’Scover looked around at the verdant greens of the park and marvelled at the accuracy of this particular Memoria. “There is another way.”
“Another way?” Adam gripped D’Scover’s arm and was surprised that it was solid; somehow he had expected to pass through it. “Don’t mess me around here; if there’s something else I should know or do to stop from just . . . well . . . ending and me being proper dead, why don’t you just say it? I can handle it.”
“I will tell you, but you are not ready yet. The Memoria has not finished; you have more to explore.” D’Scover stood up and took a last look at the park. “Show me more.”
Adam stood up too and shoved his hands deep into his pockets.
“I don’t know what you want,” he shrugged. “How am I supposed to give you what you want if you don’t tell me? This is all way too much for my brain to cope with.”
“Just let your mind go, let the memories flow.” But as he spoke, the green of the park began to drift out of focus and was replaced with a dull red mass that wavered as though in a heat haze.
“I know where this is too!” Adam said as the image became clearer. “It’s the town centre, and that’s the library building.”
As he said these words, the building snapped into sharp focus. Again D’Scover was impressed with the detail. The Memoria was as clear and vivid as if they were standing on the busy street looking at the building. People streamed past them in a hectic flow to and from their work. The road ran with car after car in a steady river of motorised metal. Adam stepped out into the road and walked briskly towards the library entrance. The cars coming towards him just passed around him, as though engaged in an effortless and well-choreographed dance.
D’Scover watched this, pleased again at this boy’s seemingly natural ability to accept the Memoria and to understand its capabilities. He seemed to have no fear. D’Scover followed Adam into the entrance hall of the library and through its squeaky turnstile on to the main floor.
“I loved this place,” Adam said as he entered the building. “Always warm and safe. No one could try and rob you or sell you drugs in here. The librarians liked me and I could just read all day or use the computer, even have a bit of a kip if I wanted. Best place in the world. Look,” he said, in an almost reverential tone, “my favourite chair.”
He ran over and patted a low chrome-framed chair that stood tucked away deep in the maze of book-filled shelves.
“I’m gonna miss you, old friend,” he said solemnly to the piece of battered furniture.
“You will miss a chair?” D’Scover asked.
“I don’t have anything else to miss, do I?”
The library faded and was replaced with another building, the homeless hostel where Adam had spent Christmas. After this came the Salvation Army soup kitchen and the smiling faces of the Army handing out food and blankets. Then images of cold alleys and rainy nights fading into the doorway where he had spent his last night and finally the hospice and its quiet, darkened corridors.
“I have to show you something,” D’Scover told him when the Memoria settled once more. “I am afraid this may be painful for you.”
“Why do you have to show me?” Adam asked nervously. “Don’t show me if it’s horrible.”
“I must show you because it is important and because you have not shown it to yourself. It is a condition of the Memoria that you expel all emotional dead weight,” he explained. “I can sense that there is a memory long hidden deep in your psyche; you may not know you even possess it, but it presses on your consciousness and so must be seen.”
“You can see inside my head?”
“No, but you are still here in this Memoria, and so there must be something stopping you from releasing these images. I shall attempt to unlock them, if I may?”
Adam nodded and D’Scover lifted his arms and spread them wide as though opening curtains. The hospice whirled from view, torn away to be replaced with a small room full of sunshine. Dust motes hung in the afternoon sun, slowly spiralling in a fluid pattern in the languid air. Sunlight cut through the shadows above a desk where a young woman, no more than a girl, sat opposite an ashen-faced middle-aged woman. The girl clutched tightly at a chubby baby that lay sleeping peacefully across her tiny lap. His thick pink legs hung down over the edge, occasionally twitching gently in his sleep, deep in his innocent dreams.
“He should go to someone who can take care of him,” she pleaded as slow tears rolled down her cheeks. “You will make sure, won’t you? I just can’t look after him myself. He needs a proper family. I can’t be a mother to him, and I never even wanted him. It was an accident and his father’s no good. I can’t be with him and I just can’t have a baby – it’s not right. He should be with someone who actually wants him. He’ll be safe with someone else, someone who can feed him properly and give him everything he deserves, someone who’ll actually love him because I don’t. You will make sure of all that, won’t you?”
The older woman walked to a tall grey filing cabinet and pulled a file out of the top drawer. Slapping it down on the table, she pulled out a number of sheets of paper and pushed them across the desk towards the girl.
“You must sign this release for the boy, and the other paperwork is all just standard.” She smiled a grim smile. “And we’ll