Grave Stepping by Steven French

Warning – Content that some readers may find upsetting – refer to tags on the bottom of the page

***

What do you say to a person who tells you, when they get one of those shivers-running-up-and-down-the-spine feelings, that not only is someone really walking across their grave but that they can tell who it is …? Well, I can state for the record that what you absolutely do not do is laugh. I learned that the hard way. So, when he sat bolt upright in his armchair, rolling his shoulders and glaring at me as if it were somehow all my fault, I knew better than to look up from my ironing.

“Motherfucker!” he muttered. That did cause me to raise my eyes from the shirt I was carefully folding.

“What is it?” I asked, warily.

“It’s that same disrespectful little shit as last time. I’ll fuckin’ do for him if I ever see him ….”

Honestly, I thought all this Mystic Meg stuff was bullshit. All that bollocks about how his great grandmother was some famous witch or other, how she could read what the day held in the morning’s clouds, as if that was ever a thing, how she would curse anyone who she felt disrespected her … And how he’d inherited her ability to tell not just that someone in the future was walking across her grave but also who it was or would be, like their footsteps could echo back through the shivers somehow. What possible use there was for any such supernatural skill, well, I never quite understood.  Anyway, this time my scepticism must have shown on my face, if only for a second.

“What? You don’t believe me?!” he demanded.

“No, I do, of course I do …” I replied, placatingly, draping another shirt across the ironing-board

“Yeah, right.” he said, settling back in his chair. “I know what you’re thinking. And what you’re up to, don’t think that I don’t … And iron those fucking sleeves right. Not like last time. Useless bitch,” he added, for good measure, before turning his attention back to Match of the Day.

Frankly, I reckoned it was all just another excuse to batter someone. Like, one time we were coming out the pub and he just laid into this poor bloke who was walking past. Afterwards he told me that he had heard the man’s footsteps and recognised them from one of his spasms. I mean, what the actual …?! So, this guy got slapped for something he hadn’t even done yet, that wasn’t even something serious, just walking across someone’s grave, supposedly. Madness, right?

That nasty bit of business got him a caution from the cops and he was lucky to get away with just that. As for me … well, let’s just say that I paid for it, in the end.

Anyway, with his attention back on the game, I could focus on getting the cuffs on the shirtsleeves exactly right, the way he liked them. But then a few minutes later he suddenly jolted upright, again, half out of his chair this time.

“You!” he cried out, “You fucking bitch.”

“No, no, I haven’t done anything, I haven’t …” I pleaded, as he launched himself across the room and grabbed me by the hair. As he yanked me across the ironing board the clothes basket tumbled to the floor and I remember thinking that now I was going to have to iron his shirts all over again. I also remember the tug on the iron’s electrical cord, before the plug popped out of the socket down by the skirting board. That made me realise I still held it in my hand, and so I swung it round and pressed that hot iron onto the side of his face. The roar of pain that came out of him as he fell to his knees made me stumble back and I hesitated for a second. But I’d watched this scene in countless movies and tv shows, where the woman knocks her attacker down but instead of finishing the job, runs out the door, or tries to and … well, as we all know, it never ends well. So, this time, as he looked back up at me, fury in his eyes, I didn’t drop the iron and run off, I finished the job. And afterwards, when I looked at the mess I’d made, well, honestly, all I could think was, “They’re going to have a job getting all that blood out of his shirt …”

Mitigating circumstances they said, which was true. I didn’t mention all the mystic crap, or what had led to him attacking me, because that would make him seem like just another eccentric who had snapped, for some reason, and he wasn’t that. Prison itself wasn’t so bad. Kept my head down, as they say and coasted along on whatever respect the other inmates felt I was due. I even took some courses, improved myself, as they also say.

And you know the first thing I did, after I walked out those gates? You fuckin’ bet. Took the bus over to that graveyard, found that family plot, with his ugly bloody headstone still bedding in and well, I think I nearly gave the vicar a heart attack when he saw me dancing on that grave, screaming “Can you feel that you miserable prick, can you …?!”

Steven French

Image: Google images – black and white picture of a steam iron.