Flying the nest

A short story by Iris Costello

- Iris Costello

When I first heard the tapping, I assumed it was the ancient water pipes finally giving up the ghost but now, as I lie in bed staring up at the ceiling, my heart playing in time to the staccato beats, I wonder if this is John making good on his promise to come back and haunt me.

"So, what's it to be, my love?" I whisper. "A call to the plumber or the priest?"

Though I have no desire to exorcise my beloved husband, I know that he would appreciate the joke. It was our shared dark humour that carried us through 40 years of marriage and helped us cope with that final year, the year of chemo and will-writing and planning for the end. It's all that I have left. That, and the tapping.

It is there as I crawl out of bed the following morning, a steady rhythm soundtracking my routine of shower, coffee and breakfast for one. It is as though this house, once so full of life, has now, in its emptiness, revealed its pulse.

Do houses have heartbeats, I ponder, as I wash up my cup, bowl and spoon and place them on the draining rack. And if they have a heart, can it get broken? Like mine.

A clattering sound heralds the arrival of the morning post. For a nanosecond, I feel a surge of excitement, recalling the days when my daughter Clara was a preschooler and we would race to the door to see what the postman had left for us. There would always be a little jewel amid the sea of boring brown envelopes. A birthday card. A letter from Grandma Bridget in Ireland with a £10 postal order folded neatly inside. Tickets to the pantomime. Clara's World Wildlife Fund magazine with its pullout posters of snow leopards and baby pandas.