by Michelle Morra
For the ghost-themed concert by the Toronto Choral Society, director Geoffrey Butler hired several writers to create a book, Civic Spirits, for the occasion. We were each to choose a local ghost and write his or her story through a combination of research and imagination.
Don’t fear me. But don’t you dare ignore me. I heard you just now, telling tales about me. This part is true: I died here, in Christie mansion, by my own hand. Sinful yes, but would you not have done the same, you there with the laughing eyes? I, too, had laughing eyes, once. They lured Robert, who in turn lured me here to simply exist, like a cameo brooch in a box, while he got to live.
How long have I been here, ten years or a thousand? They say I am part of the “local lore.” I am not lore. I am Lizbeth.
Madness voided my senses but not my memory. I recall a life before Robert. Childhood in our home on Bloor when Papa was alive, picnics at Bull’s Creek. I later worked as barmaid at the Rossin, though Mama did not know. She thought I was supporting us as a cleaner at the hospital, a job I should have taken instead of serving scotch to Mister Christie and falling in love.
Love. A silly word meant to describe a tenderness of heart between two people. As the kept woman of a bakery baron my heart was not tender. To me, even his soft brown eyes soon resembled the corroded wheels of a coal cart.
Robert smelled of privilege (or, more accurately, lemons and cedar bark). He was unlike my first beau, a common boy who worked on the wharf. Mama did not approve of him, though now I would choose a fish-scented Irishman over a sweet-smelling Scot any day.
When I asked, “Why must I stay here?” Robert’s response was, “Because you are lovely.” He found my red hair lovely. It grew so long I could have hanged myself with it instead of using that bed sheet.
Oh, but Robert did not think all of my hair so lovely. Once, along with my tea, the butler brought a razor and a magazine advert about “objectionable hair.” It claimed that, with the arrival of sleeveless dresses, the skin under a woman’s arms must be as smooth as the skin on her face. I never learned how to use that damnable implement that cut more skin than hair. Did Robert find the sores under my arms lovely? Funny, he did not say.
Today, I would say this. To Hades with loveliness. I’d have grown warts on my eyelids for a chance to see the sky again.
I wondered about the wife. Was she proud of Robert? Did she find him warm or did she come to see, as I did, a soul as black as his father’s Oreos?
Oh, wait! Goodness, don’t go. Do not be alarmed but I must close the door. There now, stop your shouting. Someone will unlock it from outside. Someone always does. But do you see that I am here? I am not lore. I did live and die here and only wish to enjoy your company.