I bought my house at a knock-down price. It was divided up into student apartments, like a lot of houses in the area, so I had to put a lot of money into renovation. The ground floor had to be completely over-hauled. The first floor bedrooms were tiny, and needed some walls removed to create a new master bedroom. The second floor was the only one that needed no work, containing a box room at the front – perfect for my home office – and a large bathroom to the rear.

This bathroom stood out to me. Bar a few cobwebs and a layer of dust, it was perfect. The sanitaryware showed few signs of use. Given the house had been home to students for at least 20 years this seemed odd. The tight-suited, personality-free, arrogant-yet-stupid, young estate agent I had to deal with had explained, between phone calls on one of his three mobile phones, that it was in an awkward position, being up another flight of stairs from most bedrooms, and they all had en-suites anyway.

The builders moved in before me, gutting and renovating the ground and first floors, but leaving the second floor untouched. This was to be my haven. Being single, having an aversion to cooking, and having no friends to host meant my expensive ground floor would always be chronically under-used. I would at least spend a third of my time on the reconfigured first floor, even if I was unconscious for most of it. The majority of my time would be spent in my new home office on the second floor.

It was here I repaired the morning after my first night in the house, eating takeaway on the floor of the as-yet bare living room and sleeping on an inflatable mattress. After a couple of hours failing to put together a flat-pack desk, I decided cleaning the bathroom across the hall would be a less frustrating use of my time.

Banging a mop and bucket down on the tiles just inside the door, I stepped into the bathroom to assess the job ahead of me. I scanned the room from left to right and back again and bent down to lift the bucket. I paused as I did so, something nagging at my mind. There was something not quite right. I straightened up and scanned the room again. Nothing. Yet . . . One more scan. There it was. There was a man sitting in my bath. He was completely naked, with pale freckled skin and had a shock of unkempt ginger hair. He seemed to blend in with both the white PVC of the tub and the light green of the wall tiles. This somehow made perfect sense and no sense at all to me, simultaneously. He had a crooked, gap-toothed smile and bright green eyes. His nose had clearly been broken more than once, and he was about two days past needing a shave.

“Hey,” he said, in a soft local accent.

“I thought I heard you moving about. How are you getting on? Nice place, isn’t it?”

I stood there, open-mouthed, aware that my continued silence was becoming embarrassing but unable to do anything about it. I eventually managed to ask who he was, via a stammering, swear-laden half-exclamation, half-question.

 “I thought you knew to expect me? Did the estate agent not say? Slippery bastard isn’t he? Probably afraid he’d lose the sale. Not to worry. I’d formally introduce myself but I haven’t really got a name. Pretty sure I did at some stage, but I’ve forgotten it. What did you say your own name was?”

I told him, and asked what he was doing in my bathroom.

“Ah well, my memory’s patchy, as I’ve said, but I vaguely recall taking a razor to my wrists in this tub, years ago. Not the happiest time, unfortunately. Ever since then, I’ve been sort of stuck in here. I can switch ends, or stand up and walk the length of the bath, but that’s about it really. I seem to be here, but not here, if that makes sense. Tell me, did it take you a couple of tries to notice me?”

I answered in the affirmative.

“That seems to be the way alright. Most of the students here never noticed me at all, believe it or not.”

I asked if he was a ghost.

“That seems to be the prevailing theory alright. Nobody has told me otherwise anyway.”

I informed him the bathroom, and house, belonged to me and therefore he would have to leave.

“Did I not just tell you I can’t leave? Well, that’s not strictly true. If I close my eyes and really concentrate I can take a kind of holiday, but it’s not a very pleasant experience. I end up in a sort of limbo, nothing to do, nothing to see, nobody to talk to.”

Here he named a local seaside town where I had spent some disappointing summer months in my youth, watching my father struggle to erect a windbreaker on a grim shingle beach. 

“It’s like that, in the winter, with the tide constantly out. And the amusements are closed.”

I suggested that it was still a better existence than lying in my bath.

“Maybe. It’s borderline to be honest. Regardless, I have no control over how long I’m there for. That estate agent suggested I make myself scarce to help sell the place, and I agreed. Anything to get rid of those noisy students. And then when I get back the place is full of builders drilling and banging hammers and all sorts. So I tried to take off again, but I was only gone a few minutes this time. Seems to be like annual leave, I have to build up the days if you see what I mean. So no, you’re stuck with me I’m afraid.”

Here I decided a break was required, and closed the door, retreated to my office and tried to gather my thoughts. I could call the police, tell them there was an intruder. But what could they do, really? I could lock the door, never use the bathroom. But why should I? I owned it. And my en-suite only had a shower, what if I wanted a bath? I know, I could get the media out here. A ghost living in your bathroom is big news. I could turn it into a tourist attraction. But did I really want the hassle? I wasn’t money-mad, and disliked people. Did I really want them trudging up and down my stairs all day?

I wandered back into the bathroom, to find him pacing up and down the bath, as much as that is possible in a small tub.

“Just getting my exercise. I take it you’ve been thinking about our arrangement. Let me guess; you don’t want the police because they’ll think you’re mad. You could brick up the door and leave me here, but you don’t want to lose the space. Or you could call the newspapers, but you don’t want a media circus on your doorstep. Am I right?”

I informed him that yes, that was about the height of it.

“We’ll just have to learn to co-exist so. You have a toilet and shower downstairs yeah? All I ask is that you pop in occasionally for a chat. Helps eternity pass a little quicker. And for my part, if you ever fancy using the bath, I could use my vacation time to give you a bit of privacy.”

Thus began my life living with an uninvited and undead housemate. Having no living family was an accident of faith, but having no friends was a conscious choice. I had always found friends to be selfish types, who only listen to your problems so that you feel obliged to listen to theirs afterwards. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t occasionally suffer from loneliness. So I found myself drifting towards the bathroom more and more when my day’s work was done.

What I liked about my incorporeal guest was that he listened to my problems, which were many, and offered advice that wasn’t straight out of Psychiatry for Beginners. I suppose I’ve always been a bit contrary, so I liked that it was the polar opposite of the “Exercise, Get Fresh Air, Eat Healthy” stuff that the medical community peddled. Often I would stay up most of the night, eating pizza, drinking rum and complaining about work, money and people to the being in my bathtub.

The following mornings could be a problem, and I would often miss early meetings, turning up late and extremely hungover. When I mentioned this one evening, I was reassured that there was an easy fix; a bottle of wine for breakfast would see me through the day, and give me something to get up for in the morning. This became my morning habit, and seemed to work at first. You can’t be hungover if you’re still drunk. There were a couple of meetings with HR where it was suggested I may be drinking too much, but my unearthly pal assured me that they’d soon notice the confidence alcohol gave me and appreciate that it helped me in my working life. He’d been through all this in his own life and knew how it went.

It came a bit of a shock then, to log in one morning to discover I had been fired. I immediately started worrying about money. I was already in debt due to the house renovations, and was unlikely to get another job without the reference my boss had denied me. My spectral buddy was unbothered.

“More time to spend here with me, having a drink and enjoying yourself. And it’s a long time before people get around to actually calling in debts. Something will come up before then.”

The idea of getting drunk and forgetting about it all was certainly appealing, so I did as he suggested. And he was right, in a way. It was a long time before the debts were called in. Eventually though, they were. My car was the first thing to go. Electronics and furniture next. All the time, I consoled myself by staying in the bathroom, drinking. What did I need all that stuff for anyway?

I suppose the penny finally dropped when I received the news that the house would be repossessed. Without any money, or any friends or family to stay with, I was days away from being homeless. My ethereal comrade was sanguine.

“You’ll think of something. I know I did, in a very similar situation. Can’t quite remember what it was now, but you’re a clever chap, you’ll figure it out.”

I lay awake long into the night, assessing my options. When, finally, I decided on the perfect course of action, I fell immediately into a deep, dreamless sleep, the likes of which I hadn’t had for many months. I awoke late the next morning and ran straight upstairs to the bathroom.

“Well, you’re looking cheery this morning. Feeling a bit better?”

I confirmed I was and explained I’d like to celebrate my change in mood by having a long soak in the bath.

“No problem at all, I’ll make myself scarce. Should be gone for a few hours, minimum.”

With that, he closed his eyes, scrunched up his crooked nose and slowly dissipated into the air around him. I ran the bath as hot as I could stand and ran downstairs for the necessary accoutrements while it filled.

Note written and left on top of the cistern, I contemplated the safety razor in my right hand. The amount of mental pain I had been through recently far outweighed the sharp, physical pain that went through my body as the razor’s edge moved down one wrist, then the other. The heat of the water ensured the blood flowed freely, quickly and copiously from my arms. The feeling of losing consciousness reminded me of falling asleep after a long day. And then, blackness.

When the blackness cleared, it was replaced by a dull grey. I was aware I was no longer lying on the smooth surface of my bath, but on a rough, uneven surface that immediately reminded me of childhood. The sound of footsteps to my right was accompanied by a familiar voice.

“Ah, there you are. I thought I might see you here.”

I asked my supernatural housemate where I was.

“It’s the place I was telling you about. Can you not tell? Shingle beach below you, grey skies above.”

I remained silent, but my confusion must have been apparent.

“Not often I have company here. The odd time though, I’ll meet somebody who knows the ropes. Last time was when that sleazy estate agent turfed me out. There was a chap here, all smiles. Told me if I ever wanted to get away from here, and more importantly, away from that bathroom, I’d have to find somebody to take my place. Something about the design and slippery nature of bath tubs. A lot of our type get stuck in them apparently. Need someone else to take up occupancy, give us that final push to the next place along, wherever that may be. He was very circumspect about that last bit, mind you.”

Here I raised myself from my supine position on the shingles, as I find when one loses their temper it’s always better to do so standing up. He appeared to predict my intentions.

“Now there’s no point roaring and shouting. What’s done is done. I’ve lost count of how many years I’ve been stuck between this hellhole and that bath. All I did was guide you in the general direction of suicide. I know from experience that alcohol, loneliness and debt generally lead that way. You made the choice to end it all yourself. You’d do the same yourself in my position. And no doubt you will, some day.”

He was right of course. I knew it, and that knowledge seemed to take all the fight out of me. I sat down on the beach, head in my hands.

“Don’t get too comfortable. If I remember my own demise correctly, I wasn’t here much longer than a few minutes myself before I ended up back in the bath.”

With that, I felt an immense wave of tiredness pass through my body and yawned involuntarily.

“Feeling sleepy? That’ll be your ticket home. It’s been nice knowing you.”

I managed a weak wave before the greyness faded to black momentarily and then, there I was, back in the bath, looking at my colourless body lying up to its shoulders in blood-red bathwater.

It was weeks before my body was found. How many weeks I can’t remember. Time loses meaning when you have nothing to do but stare at a corpse all day. All I know is that I had built up enough “annual leave” to take a little trip to the beach when I eventually heard the front door being forced open. I’ve never been much of a people person and wasn’t in the mood for questions. By the time I got back, all traces of my suicide had been cleaned up. That made a nice change, and I spent a few weeks enjoying the solitude of spending time in a body-free environment. However, even that novelty wore thin after a while and so when I heard the door opening and footsteps on the stairs below, I decided not to even try for a trip to the seaside. Maybe a bit of company was what I needed to break up the monotony.

The bathroom door swung open and in walked the shady estate agent, shit-eating grin spread across his eminently-punchable face, mobile phone to his ear. A look of surprise, then recognition.

“Ehh, can I call you back? Something’s come up.”

He pocketed the phone.

“Hey. How are you? Where’s the other guy?”

I explained as best I could.

“Oh, I see. Well, if there’s anything I can do . . .”

I suggested preference be given to any melancholic house-hunters.

“I’ll see what I can . . . hang on, I need to get this . . .”

He backed out of the doorway, patting down his pockets to determine which mobile phone was ringing. I smiled to myself. If dealing with this personality-vacuum doesn’t depress the next owner, then nothing will.