Review: The Ghost Downstairs

The Ghost Downstairs by Leon Garfield
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Short story about Mr. Fast who is a money hungry, power obsessed lawyer's clerk - who makes a Faustian pact with a strange stinking old man who dwells in the basement and boils endless beetroots to make soup. He surrenders 7 years off his life in return for becoming a millionaire - but at a cost.

Thinking himself wonderfully clever, Mr. Fast writes the small print of the document which is drawn up between them - not specifying which part of his life the 7 years are to be taken from. As a result Mr. Fishbane (the beetroot soup boiling basement dweller) takes the first 7 years of his life, and Mr. Fast loses that part of him, along with his hopes and childhood dreams and memories. His childhood is literally embodied in the form of the phantom 'Dennis' - the junior Mr. Fast, who lurks and haunts him (in a guise similar to the youth in Mann's 'Death in Venice') until he is driven to an untimely demise.

Short and intense, this is a stark and whimsical cautionary tale of greed vs. character. Quite adult in many ways, and I enjoyed this a great deal more than 'Smith' which I read a few months ago. Has a moral to it in a similar vein to Dicken's 'A Christmas Carol' - ultimately Mr. Fast realises there is more to life than money and wealth and that instead of people loathing and despising him, it is actually far more rewarding to be liked and admired - to help and assist people - in short, to be a caring and companionable citizen.

Wonderful illustrations by Antony Maitland really bring the text to life. A spooky and unsettling historical ghost story with a difference.

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