This post is a little different from usual. I’ve spent the last couple of months going through redundancy and then starting a new job, so I haven’t had much energy to write essays for this Substack.
In lieu of a usual essay, below is a piece I originally wrote for New Work, a London-based reading series I was invited to be part of earlier this year. It occurs every month and I would encourage you to go if you’re local - the readings are consistently good, short, and everyone goes to the pub afterwards. It’s not cliquey and you can go on your own and chat to people there if you’re brave. Keep an eye on the Instagram for their next event.
I read the piece below at New Work in January, and it’s sat in my Google Docs since. I thought now was a good time to give it some airing. It was inspired by The Red Tenda of Bologna by John Berger (my favourite piece of writing, perhaps, of all time) and the fact that my dad was writing a book about ghosts when he died. It’s not about sex or desire, but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless, and I will return to my usual format soon.
The third and final time I see my father’s ghost, I am visiting his grave some years after he died with a slice of cake for him. It’s from a recipe he wrote in his hospital notebook, filed neatly under a list of things he was looking forward to doing when he got better, and it has taken me years to face baking it. It’s a syrupy sweet clementine cake, and probably the best thing I’ve ever baked. I carry the cake past the rows of gravestones and through the empty churchyard until, at the bottom of the hill, I reach my father’s grave. The wind whips around my face and in the distance, I can hear the faint sound of seagulls drifting over the fields.
I eat my cake and look at his grave, thinking about the body six feet below and what kind of condition it’s in now. I don’t know much about decomposition, but the grass has grown a verdant green over the burial site and there are even some daisies pushing their way up. I tell my father that I miss him and that he would have liked the cake, but the soil between us sits heavy and silent. This is not out of character for him.
I’m looking at his gravestone when I begin to feel something rising up in me, building until it feels like a hot ball of energy that may tear me apart. My hands are shaking by the time I realise that it’s anger, and that I’m angry at him for abandoning me and leaving me to make his recipes and eat them alone. I’m angry at the mess he has left for me to clean up, his endless boxes of junk and papers and books, and his empty armchair that sits like a corpse in our living room. Shamefully, purposefully, I get on my knees and do something unspeakable - I begin to punch the ground at his graveside, feeling the silent wet earth compacting under my fists.
I look up to check that I’m still alone, and that’s when I see him. He’s standing a long way away, in a field across the wet hedgerows, and I recognise him by the way he turns away from me. He walks in the opposite direction, towards the sea, and I shout after him that he is a coward, but the wind sweeps my words away and he keeps walking as though he cannot hear me. I shout and tell him that I hate him for leaving, and I hate him for the mess he left behind. I shout until I want to be sick with the strain of it, until I have to lean against his gravestone to steady myself and wipe my eyes, feeling the shame of what I’ve done wash over me in great waves.
I look towards him again and see him reach the field gate - he climbs easily over it, like a young man, and walks out of view. I do not follow him, and instead walk back up through the graveyard. I leave his slice of cake on his grave.
The second time I see his ghost, I’m in a gay bar in London celebrating my 30th birthday. It’s been a year since he died and I’m standing at the precipice of a new decade without my father in it. The music is almost too loud to hear my friends speak, but they’re shouting in my ear and asking me to dance with them. Three drinks in, I oblige, and push my way towards the dance floor, squeezing myself between their beautiful bodies and, briefly, imagining that I could be one of them.
That’s when I see him, dancing by himself near the bar. He is wearing high-waisted jeans and a billowing, satin shirt that I recognise from my childhood photos, and he’s clapping his hands above his head in time with the music with his eyes closed as though lost in his own world. Nobody else seems to have noticed him, this man dancing alone by the bar, and they ignore him and reach around him for their drinks. I have never seen my father dance like this before, like he is happy to be alive.
I pull away from my friends and begin pushing my way towards him, back through the crowd, but a new song comes on and people are rushing onto the dance floor and I’m swimming against the current. I lose sight of him, then find him, and then lose him again. The music is so loud it feels like my skull is vibrating with the force of it and I wish something terrible would happen to all of these people and their beautiful bodies so they would get out of my way.
I get to the bar, and there I find him - swaying his hips to the song and smiling, letting it all wash over him. I try to grab his arm and tell him that it’s me, I’m here, look at me, but the music is too loud, and the bar is too packed, and I can’t reach him. He carries on dancing but, for a second, he opens his eyes and looks straight at me, and for a second, it’s as though I am the one who is dead and he is more alive than I will ever be.
My friend grabs me by the hand and drags me back towards the dance floor, and I let it happen. I lose sight of him immediately, and I try to dance like he was dancing, but I keep drinking until I can’t feel anything anymore, and end the night being sick on the side of the road.
The first time I see my father’s ghost, it’s a few minutes after he has died. His body lies on the hospice bed, his eyes still open, and his skin is beginning to turn waxy as the blood pools at the bottom of his body. I have not slept in over twenty-four hours, I have not eaten in longer, and my eyes are fixed open as though capturing every part of this moment, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to close them again. The hospice nurse comes in and takes his pulse to confirm that he is dead, despite the fact he has not breathed in fifteen minutes now, and it would be comical had my father not just died.
I open a window, as is tradition where I’m from, to let his spirit out of the room and ensure he is not trapped in the hospice for eternity. Outside, it is perhaps the most beautiful morning I have ever seen. The sky is golden with sun and yet it’s somehow raining, and it seems as though the whole world is full of light. I know that I will remember this morning for the rest of my life.
When I glance down at the hospice garden, there is a man sitting on a bench, looking up towards the sky. I recognise him, and know that he’s my father. Seeming to sense my looking, he turns towards me, a smile playing at his lips as though he knows something only death can teach you.
You’re dead, I say, as though he is unaware.
He laughs and says that’s true, he is. He is incredibly calm.
Will you visit me? I ask.
He pauses, and instead of answering, asks if I will do him a favour.
Of course, I say.
In his wardrobe, on the left hand side, he says, there is a pair of hiking trousers. If I can, make sure he is buried in them, and not some awful suit.
I nod, and ask him why.
Again, that smile. Because he has some walking to do.
Will you visit me? I ask again.
He stands, slowly, and turns to me, and says that he will, but not in the way I expect. He says that the dead are afforded some small luxuries, and chief amongst them is time. He stretches and looks upwards, and asks if I’ve ever seen a sky this beautiful.
Before I can answer, a nurse taps me on the shoulder to tell me the undertaker is on the way to remove the body. When I look back, the bench is empty, and my father is gone.
Looking at Porn is written around my full time job. I hope you enjoy it. You can follow my Instagram here and you can email me at robinccraig@gmail.com if you like. I also recently wrote an essay for Vittles called Disaster Cooking about making a cake during a mental health crisis.
So beautiful. Thank you. My dad has had cancer for 8 years but it is now advanced and he probably has 6 to 12 months to live. 🖤
Beautiful Robin 🤍