shewhomust | Phantoms of the departed

We spent Tuesday afternoon exploring Warkworth Castle, and in the evening took ourselves to the Lit & Phil for the first post-Chaz Phantoms at the Phil: classic venue, two out of three founder members, star guest, the familiarly off-kilter charm of ghost stories told in an old-fashioned library on a long bright summer evening, what could possibly go wrong?

Nothing, of course! It was an excellent evening - but

desperance made his absence felt throughout.

Sean O'Brien opened the proceedings with an acknowledgement that the whole project, now a healthy seven-or-eight-year-old, had been Chaz'z baby in rhe first place (which is perhaps a little modest). He admitted that his story, called Story Time, was once again not a ghost story but an exercise in horror, and claimed that tonight's contribution was "particularly unpleasant" (

desperance would say that this is because at one point a Bad Thing happens to a cat, and I note that it also contains the most frightening words in the English language - from memory: "there is nothing to read.").

Gail-Nina Anderson's Collected was explicitly dedicated to Chaz Brenchley, but I don't think I was the only member of the audience to feel a chill of sympathy at the fate of the heroine who, while certainly not a hoarder, owned an extensive collection of books, postcards and other ephemera which seemed to resist her attempts to keep them in boxes when their attic had to be damp-proofed. We laughed, but we were afraid: which is Gail's speciality in ghost stories, and a clever trick to pull off.

Finally, David Almond read The Missing Link, apparently his first ghost story: set among adolescents but told - in a virtuoso delivery - by a man looking back at the events which brought haunting upon him, the classic narrative of ghost as moral force, closing the evening on a satisfying but sombre note. Here, too, there were echoes of the 'missing' Phantom, in the escape of one of the boyhood friends to California, the realm of sun, surf and oranges - and also, though I don't know whether this was intended, in the very Brenchleyesque ghost, all heavy footsteps and dripping with river water.

After which, what could we do but take ourselves to Mario's, to eat (the traditional antipasto for me) and drink, and talk about the brilliance of the three stories, the success of the new format, possible future guests and yes, about our absent friend. The restaurant was very quiet (football may have been occurring somewhere in Europe) so we all looked up when the door opened, and therefore we all saw that the new arrivals were H. and L. who on other occasions have been part of our group - it felt almost inevitable.