26 October
A man in a hat came into my room at around 2.40am, ten minutes ago. I was aware but I wasn’t frightened. Does that make sense?
Still not entirely sure what this notebook is for, but pleased to see I wrote a dream down.
Co-op is very stingy with toppings. Only three discs of pepperoni.
28 October
There were too many people at Izzie’s. I don’t know why she invited her work people. She seemed to like the birthday card, and later said she was looking forward to seeing me at Becca’s Halloween party. So, that’s something.
29 October
Aldi is more generous with toppings. But I picked hawaiian instead of meat feast. This was not a fair comparison, perhaps.
30 October
Is the man from Flat 1 me from the future? His body is decomposing. But so is mine. So’s everyone’s.
I was in Cancer Research, looking for a copy of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, when the man in a hat (bowler?) appeared again. The shop was busy. By the time I’d squeezed myself out, he was gone.
It’s Tony Hancock. Why didn’t I realise this earlier?
I looked up the hat: Homburg.
31 October
I saw Hancock in my kitchen this morning trying to eat a bowl of Cornflakes. He was sans Homburg. He didn’t answer but my line of questioning went something like this:
- What are you, exactly?
- Have I done something wrong?
He looked up at me with a supremely dower expression.
Getting ready for the Halloween party, I saw Hancock in the mirror behind me. He seemed to disapprove of my costume, I’m not sure why.
Izzie was in the hall when I arrived. She was trying to figure out who I was. Eventually, I said, ‘Think The Shining,’ and then she went, ‘Ohh.’ But even then I had to say I was Stephen King.
She went on to defend me against anyone who said my costume was not necessarily very Halloween. I was wearing large square glasses and a checked shirt. In truth, I wasn’t sure if this was very Stephen King. But I didn’t mind Izzie sticking up for me.
‘His head is full of fucked up shit,’ Izzie said. ‘He is horror personified.’ I have rarely seen her so animated. It took me back to that night at uni, at the Free Film Club, when she eulogised on Drop Dead Fred and punched Abigail Somner hard on the arm. I remember Abigail showing everyone her big purple welt in our next seminar.
1st November
Well, it has happened again. Twice in ten years. It feels different now, though.
Izzie came into my bedroom at six in the morning. I hadn’t noticed she’d left the bed in the first place.
‘There’s a man in your kitchen,’ she said, shutting the door. I told her it was either the spirit of Tony Hancock, or the spirit of Tony Hancock, the character.
She came to sit on the bed. ‘How long has he been haunting you?’ I hadn’t thought about it as a haunting. I told her: only a few days, that I thought it might stop after Halloween.
Izzie went to the window. She was wearing my approximation of a Stephen King shirt as an overshirt. My heart swelled.
‘We’ll go for a walk,’ she said, ‘and then introduce ourselves properly. Sometimes you don’t get to decide when these sort of things happen.’
We went for a walk around town, talked by the canal, saw the usual people milling about, and then went back to Hancock. He was sitting at the table, underneath the large clock I’d bought during a sale at Dunelm. Izzie went to shake his hand as I turned on Radio 4.
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