The Whistling Ghost

When I was little I used to believe in Father Christmas. And the Tooth Fairy. And that icing sugar might be poisonous (mum caught me with my fingers in the box and got angry and said you can't go round licking things when you don't know what they are, they might be poison...  She also told my brother that peanut butter was made from grass and he believed her for years...). And I knew ghosts and that were maybe not real but at times I did believe in them because people I trusted told me about their ghosty experiences, even Dad. My brothers girlfriend told us she'd felt someone sit heavily on her bed (in our family home) when she was asleep, and it definitely wasn't my brother, she said. And Granny's dogs occasionally used to bark at the stairs, apparently, at things she definitely couldn't see. And when we stayed once in Chesapeake Bay (USA) in an old house that was the epicentre of a tobacco plantation in the peak of slavery horrendousness, I had never in my life felt such psychological disturbance, I slept not one wink all night, terrified of unknown shades of intense sadness and fear.

There have been sightings – by reliable sources – of things in the pub next door (an old building with some sad stories to go with it) and lordy lorks when we were little we did not go into the graveyard at 6pm or 12am – no siree.

As I grew older and more sceptical these childish and teenish tendencies diluted and whilst fun to watch a horror movie, there was a ‘yeah, but it’s not real’ defiance. Occasionally a visit to the loo in the middle of the night down the long corridor of my mother in laws house in Suffolk would lead me to keep my eyes shut and my hands out in front of me for guidance rather than risk ‘seeing’ something. I only ever stumped my toe on the bed as a result.

So the other day I was staying in London and running a bath. The day had been long and beautiful, I’d had many treats and was feeling happy and relaxed, a little giddy from sharing a bottle of wine with my daughter and the world was a good place in that moment.

As I sat in the bath, stirring the water with my hands shaped like paddles, I heard this loud whistling coming from the bedroom on the other side of the bathroom door. I thought my daughter must be next door whistling a little tune (we’d just been to a concert). “Lovely!” I shouted above the sound of the running water. More whistling. I’d asked her to bring my toothbrush as I’d left it in the wrong place, “Just leave my toothbrush by the door I’ll get it in a moment, I’m actually in the bath now!” Nothing from my daughter. More whistling. That was odd I thought.

More whistling, so I shouted out “Ha ha! Love the whistling!”

Nothing, again. Weird, I thought to myself. I switched off the tap, and got out of the bath and went to the bathroom door and nakedly peered into the bedroom which was completely empty.

HUH? But someone was literally just whistling in there! I shouted up to Pol – “Er, were you just whistling in the bedroom?” No reply.

?

“POL! Were you just whistling?!” She heard a squeaky urgency in my voice and I could hear her dash down the stairs to where I was peeking out from behind the bathroom door. 

“Mum, what? Whistling? No!” She looked at me like I was a bit mad.

But someone was just in this room Pol, whistling! I could hear them! Clear as a whistle! "Not me" she clarified.

Our neck-hairs prickled.

Our eyeballs got big.

“That’s creepy. Really creepy.”

We didn’t like that at all. Who was whistling? Where was the whistler? Why couldn’t we see them? Ugh. And then the light in the bedroom flickered as though warning us of something. Goosebumps galore. 

With great difficulty we agreed to reconvene after my bath.

I got back into the bath, skin bristling and turned the tap back on, at which point the whistling started, loud and clear, and I realised the sound was coming out of the hot tap! Pol heard it from the bedroom and we burst out laughing.