Tales of George
A traveller, a homesick wife, and a friendly ghost?
George has never been the cheeriest of ghosts, often spending his days muttering to himself about how much better everything was in the good old days.
But everything changes when he lays eyes on a woman who spends a lot of time in Melbourne Terminus.
She seems lost and confused. It looks as though she always travels alone, and George can see the misery and loneliness in her face and body language.
In an effort to help her, George reveals himself to her and tells her stories of his past.
Before he knows it, an unlikely friendship forms.
Will he be able to help her overcome the trials and tribulations of moving to a new city thousands of kilometers away from her family?
And will this strange and mysterious traveler be able to help George uncover secrets about his past that he never knew?
Get ready for a story packed with romance, comedy, and feel-good vibes.
Tales of George
A traveller, a homesick wife, and a friendly ghost?
George has never been the cheeriest of ghosts, often spending his days muttering to himself about how much better everything was in the good old days.
But everything changes when he lays eyes on a woman who spends a lot of time in Melbourne Terminus.
She seems lost and confused. It looks as though she always travels alone, and George can see the misery and loneliness in her face and body language.
In an effort to help her, George reveals himself to her and tells her stories of his past.
Before he knows it, an unlikely friendship forms.
Will he be able to help her overcome the trials and tribulations of moving to a new city thousands of kilometers away from her family?
And will this strange and mysterious traveler be able to help George uncover secrets about his past that he never knew?
Get ready for a story packed with romance, comedy, and feel-good vibes.
This book details the story of a young woman from the Indian Subcontinent who learns an enormous amount about the storied history and events that have taken place through the centuries in Southern Australia, back when it was conquered by the Dutch and again by the British. The events are told to the woman through the semi-reliable and largely unchecked veracity of a train station-bound ghost named George.
The train station is Flinders Street Station (or Melbourne Terminus, as George knows it, due to the name changing after he left the mortal realm), and it is located in the city. It is a beautiful yellow and green building of Victorian architectural design.
Rumor has it, the station is haunted by a ghost named George. Commuters have reported seeing a man holding fishing gear on Platform 10, gazing vacantly out towards the river. Itâs believed to be the spirit of George Mansfield, who was later identified as Ernest Leahy. He was the victim of a boating accident and was pulled from the Yarra in 1902.
This, being a fictionalized story, will still speculate on aspects of the real Georgeâs life and will explore further his connection to Australiaâs colonial past and how that has come to affect its recent history. Georgeâs memories are slightly blinkered, and he needs to be given alternative perspectives, too, in order to get the fullest narrative to the stories heâs telling, but the fun is in the journey, not the destination.
This story is of finding oneâs place in a new environment with the help of one or two unlikely sources of inspiration. There are many instances in life of people not necessarily knowing their place in a world that often seems rushed, overbearing, and uncalculated. Especially so when the movement of people for opportunity and growth plays such an important role in everybodyâs lives, no matter where you are from.
Here we get an insight into the life of Suraiya Malhotra, a woman from India who, as a result of work and family, is relocated to different cities for various reasons, having to work out how best she can fit in while staying true to herself and her beliefs. When some of those beliefs are called into question, she must adapt and overcome in the ways that work best for her.
A major belief is questioned when the sudden appearance of a ghost from Melbourneâs past appears to Suraiya when she least expects itâbut also perhaps most needs it. Her life gets into slight turmoil as she struggles to balance her working and professional life with her personal life, along with having a family far away who are depending on her as a second source of income.
Suraiya finds ways to juggle the physical with the metaphysical, while also trying to advance in the highly competitive world of internet technologies in one of the most modern and tech-savvy cities in the world!
Chapter 1:
Flinders Street Station
Sitting alone on a train as it glided along into the city was a young woman named Suraiya Malhotra. She was in her mid thirties but her face was pristine, like a woman ten years younger, and her hair was black, lush, and quite shiny. Especially in the Melbourne sun, it shone and glistened when the beams landed on her head through the glass windows of the moving train. Suraiya was originally from a city called Pimpri-Chinchwad, which in itself was a smaller part of a larger city called Pune in Northwest India.
Suraiya sat silently as the train transported her to her destination and place of work, an information technology firm called Intellect IT. The company was located in a very busy part of Melbourne. It was across from a popular galleria, some bars, jewelers, various stores, and pharmacies. It was busy at almost all times of the day before becoming dead quiet at night. She was normally never there to see it in darkness, though, as Suraiya liked to leave the hustle and bustle of downtown as soon as she got her chance.
Even though she was from a large city in India, she felt like she had always strived to get away from large congregations of people. She didnât know the real reason why. Maybe it was because she didnât like people? Maybe they were too unpredictable, or maybe bad things were likely to happen in the large-scale confusion and panic that can ensue when around a huge number of strangers. Nevertheless, she made her way into work without thinking about it too deeply.
She had recently arrived in Australia, not from Pimpri-Chinchwad but actually from Lagos, Nigeria, where she had been living for the past eight years with her husband and children. Her husband Chiekezie and her boys Bukayo and Samesh had grown up enough to live without her presence, and her father was taking them to football practice everyday anyway, trying to turn them into Nigeriaâs next superstars, like Taribo West or Nwankwo Kanu.
She liked thinking of the progress she was making and how it affected them. With her paycheck from Intellect IT, she was able to send money home for them, so it was like she was there to support them in a way. They also had email and phone conversations every other day, so there was no lack of contact or connection. Suraiya had been working for a sister company of Intellect IT in Lagos when she was offered a role in Melbourne, which she was forced to think about on fairly short notice. Between herself and Chiekezie, they decided she should go for it. Even the boys were super supportive. They wanted her to do it.
Also, a lot of the expenses were covered, and when the numbers were crunched, they realized they would have quite a lot of money as a family after only about a year or so of doing the job. Not only did it benefit her to be there but it allowed the boys good money to progress with their education and sport. Suraiya was earning almost three times as much money per year by working in Melbourne than she was earning back in Lagos. It had been a rollercoaster of a year, but here she was, living in a suburb called South Clayton about a half an hour southeast of downtown. It was a comfortable area where a lot of people new to the city lived.
She sat reading a book that she had recently bought in her local book store. It was a romance drama called Nights in Rodanthe. It was by an American novelist named Nicholas Sparks. It wasnât really doing it for her, however. She thought reading would be a nice distraction from her thoughts, but it was her thoughts that were winning out. She kept having to remind herself that she was somewhere brand new. It was strange, but not that exciting. In fact, it was kind of the opposite.
There were things she liked about the city. She liked the parks, she liked the free food festivals that seemed to happen fairly regularly. She was offered free pancakes on her lunch break from work in the park on one of her first days in Australia, and she couldnât believe it. There werenât even any lines for the pancakes and nobody was stepping over one another to get them. Life here was very different to Lagos and many cities in India, that was for sure.
Suraiya sat positioned upright, her posture craning in a way that looked like she had been trained to sit like this, when in actual fact it was the way she felt most comfortable. She was dressed professionally in her gray suit jacket and skirt, with a white blouse and stylish black slip-on shoes. She looked around her and saw various other people in suits, but they didn't seem to care about crinkles or color matching. A lot of these people looked like they didnât really care about how they looked. Some had wild hair and others had ties done up, but the buttons were not done correctly. Many of them were talking loudly on their personal cell phones. Suraiya couldnât imagine acting like this in public so shamelessly. If she had a personal call to make to her husband, she would not forcefully make other people listen and likewise she would not want anybody to be privy to the knowledge of her conversation, either.
Suraiyaâs train pulled into her destination, which was the Flinders Street Station, a large old building erected in the 19th century, and it stood out in comparison to the rest of the buildings around it. There were certainly some wonderful buildings showcasing a wide array of architectural styles, but Flinders Street Station looked like it could be planted right in the middle of Westminster, London and nobody would notice. It was a real relic from the past, and it didnât seem to Suraiya that anybody else appreciated that aspect of it as much as her.
The train fully stopped, Suraiya stepped out of the carriage and made her usual way through the station to the exit. She did tend to slow down while inside the main station and take in a little bit of the atmosphere. The noises of the station were comforting to her. It was loud, but it was supposed to be loud. There was an old-world charm to it that you didnât get from other stations on the line. As she had extra time to kill, she stayed here longer and people-watched while pretending to read her book.
On this particular day, while Suraiya sat on a bench perched over the central platform peeking out over the top of her Nicholas Sparks novel, she spied a man who she immediately liked the look of. He wasnât dressed in the quasi-business casual way that most Melbournites were. He looked like a prim and proper eligible Victorian era bachelor. He was wandering in a circle by himself. He seemed to be speaking to himself in a rather flummoxed way.
The man made her smile momentarily. He had a nice head of hair, which was quaffed and curled. His cravat was a beautiful shiny color purple with some red dots and stripes. He was brilliantly dressed in a way that made her want to sit there and admire him even more if she had the time. She genuinely did need to get to work, though. She wondered where it was heâd be going at this time. Maybe he was just rehearsing for a play or selling a new product like cologne or shaving foam.
Suraiya got up and left the station to start her work day at Intellect IT, where she was a data manager. She was in charge of organizing and governing data-oriented systems and providing data to those that needed it. Even though it sounded very boring, it wasnât boring for Suraiya. She was good at it and enjoyed the process. The day also never went too slow while she was work-focused.
Her place of work stretched through a wide, white lobby until a set of elevators was reached at the back wall. These elevators brought people up to the large open-plan floors of the sales and marketing department, and then up again to the smaller by comparison, cordoned-off cubicles of her data analyst and research department. Suraiya normally took the same route around to her desk, which passed by her supervisor Naomiâs desk. She would smile and nod at her to let her know she was present and ready for work. If Naomi wasnât engaged with a phone call or a conversation with another employee, she would always greet her politely, wishing her a good morning before getting set up at her desk.
The view from Suraiyaâs office took in quite a lot of the Melbourne daily traffic. She could look down from her fourth-story office at the cars whooshing by. She couldnât hear them unless she paid close attention to their honks, but if someone opened a window, they would be loud and clear. There was normally never a need, however, as the office floor had great air conditioning that hummed softly across the whole room. It was a busy, productive yet calm place to work.
Suraiya often daydreamed at work when she was between jobs, but today she wasnât so much daydreaming as thinking back to the man in the station with the interestingly anachronistic attire. She normally got all of her work done fairly smoothly, but today, the work on her computer piled up. She ended up having to return some calls after 5 p.m. because she had let time run away with her.
As the work day ended and the office cleared out, Suraiya felt like she had a little more energy than usual, possibly due to the lack of focus on her actual tasks but also possibly due to the odd feeling she was developing for the Flinders Street Station. She was smiling as she took the elevator down to ground level and again as she turned onto the street heading toward the station.
She had a feeling, even though it was nine hours later, that the man would be there. She didnât know why, but she felt it. The sun started to cool off and light began to fade from the streets of the CBD in Melbourne. Suraiya waited impatiently at the traffic lights and began to feel a real sense of glee and anticipation as she approached the station. As a large crowd of people meandered their way in through the large front doors of Flinders Street Station, Suraiya found herself peeking over peopleâs shoulders to get a glimpse of the area where she saw the man before.
Cramming her way past one or two annoyed commuters, Suraiya found a little space to stand still and look around. He wasnât there, however. Her feeling was incorrect. The nice man with the plumed outfit and the fancy walk had left. She very briefly considered asking one of the ticket people at the station if they remembered the odd-looking gent from this morning, but she realized it was a fool's errand and decided to go to the kiosk in the station and get a bag of chips, as she now realized she had not eaten all day.
After getting her chips and finding the same bench from the morning to sit down on, Suraiya sighed sadly and rustled around in her bag to have another read of the book she didnât like. Once she calmed and got ahold of her senses again, she happened to see something in her peripheral vision. A man in colourful attire and the very same plumage she had been looking out for was in the station. Except⌠he was on the roof. Well, he wasnât really on the roof, he was perched on a little plinth sticking out from the wall, high up in the station. She wondered how on Earth he got up there.
As she stared at the impressive man, now dangling quite high above her and everyone elseâs head, she had to pinch herself to make sure she wasnât dreaming. Could anybody else see him? She got the feeling that they couldnât. He looked to be dangling his legs in and out absentmindedly whilst looking off into space. Suraiya smiled and thought maybe nobody could see him because they were too busy moving in and out of the building and rushing to get to their respective trains.
Suraiya, with glee, approached another woman who was standing near the platform and asked her if she knew what that man up near the ceiling was doing. Did anyone know if he was working in the station or advertising something? The woman stated that she had no idea what Suraiya was talking about. She then made a little comment in her sharp Australian accent and Surayia wasnât totally sure what it was supposed to mean.
Suraiya stared keenly at him and tried to figure out if there were any TV cameras about that maybe were playing a trick on her. Were her eyes deceiving her? She sat back down on the bench and wondered if she was losing her mind. After taking just a little while to rest and recuperate, she looked up at the horizontal plinth where the man had been sitting and saw that he was gone.
âHello, madam,â spoke a sweet, gentle voice into Suraiyaâs left ear. Suraiya let out an enormous screech that filled the whole station. People immediately jumped away from her and looked at her with suspicion and fear. A security guard was alerted and he moved quickly to speak to Suraiya to find out what had happened and also to find out if she was ok.
She felt her heart rate go from being out of control to returning to a nicer, slower pace as the security guard made her feel safe and, more importantly, sane again.
âNo, no. I think I⌠I just feel like I had an encounter with a ghost. I might be going crazy. Iâm new to the city, you see, and maybe Iâm just having trouble adjusting.â Suraiya darted her eyes around to look for the man whose voice had just called her âmadam.â
The security man smiled and told Suraiya that there were in fact rumors of a ghost who lived in Flinders Street Station. Very occasionally there were people who reported his sighting. They were always considered nonsense, however, but the legend continued nonetheless, and the general public were vaguely aware of this being a haunted station. âNot only is this station considered haunted, but I think there are a few other locations, too, around here that people think have ghosts in them.â
Suraiya literally looked like she had seen a ghost and thanked the man for helping her. She said she thought that she would be ok now and let him leave and go back to his post. As she calmed down, she braced herself for another encounter. She was ready this time and wanted it to happen. Suraiyaâs breathing returned to its normal state, so she closed her eyes and slowly sat back down on the bench. The same voice she had heard before whispered to her, âHello.â
This time, there was no scream, there was just serenity. Suraiya turned her head and saw a magnificent glowing figure staring at her.
âHello there, madam. I saw you from above. You seem very contemplative.â Suraiya couldnât contain her giggle. She looked into his eyes and asked him if he was a ghost.
âI am George Mansfield. I am a Melbourne man and I live here at Melbourne Terminus.â Suraiya told him that it was called Flinders Street Station, not Melbourne Terminus, but George had a quizzical look on his face.
She decided not to challenge him on that. Her gaze was fixated on this man and his appearance, which was monumentally attractive to her. He was brilliantly dressed, and his manners were making her feel very comfortable and special.
âWhat is your name, love?â She was lost in his eyes when he asked this and she responded with âSuraiya Malhota.â She told him she was from India, not Australia.
âAh, India, you say? Where the Taj Mahal is located. That I know is where the mausoleum was constructed in Agra for the Persian-Mughal Empress Mumtaz Mahal.â Suraiya was in shock. Nobody from Australia or Nigeria or even large parts of India were aware of that fact.
âYes, sir, that is correct. How did you know?â George responded by saying that the Taj Mahal was often talked about by those of the East India Company.
âOh yes, I know a fair share about Mumtaz and Shah of Agra.â
His knowledge of Agra and the Taj Mahalâs creators seriously impressed Suraiya and she was now bursting with questions. She asked him if he was a ghost several times over, but he never properly answered her. He would get distracted and start talking about something else. The words would go over Suraiyaâs head and she again just found herself flustered and gazing aimlessly, with pupils wide and dark.
Suraiya tried a different tactic. Rather than ask him if he was a ghost, she asked him when he was born.
He said, âAh, I was born in 1860, right here in Melbourne. I was born to Janine and Joseph Mansfield, who were a good man and wife from Belfast, County Antrim in the United Kingdom. They arrived in Melbourne on the same boat as Richard Bourke, the founder of Melbourne. He was from the island of Ireland as well.â
âIreland?â asked Suraiya. âYes, I know that place. The Republic of Ireland. They have Guinness. There was a lot of Guinness in Lagos, too, where I used to live.â It was a little country with lots of green grass and the people there were very cute.
âHa! Republic? No. No. They are a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.â Suraiya didnât know what he meant. She just said that they had sheep and Guinness there.
Even though Suraiya felt wide awake, she noticed that her body started to feel rather tired. It suddenly hit her that the time was approaching 7 oâclock, and she would really need to make her way home now. She said to George that he was a lovely fellow and that she would be back the following morning. Maybe they could sit together for a little while then as well?
George gave a noncommittal answer and then resumed muttering to himself. As she walked away, she looked back to him regularly, and it was as if he had already forgotten that they had just met.
The slim novel Tales of George - The Ghost of Melbourne Terminus by Florence Rivers starts on a promising note about a woman in a new country. One can empathize with the central character, Suraiya Malhotra. There are several layers to the story, as you wonder if the protagonist's loneliness is causing her to see an apparition and head towards a breakdown.
When regulars at the Flinders Street Station confirm the station is indeed haunted, a relieved Suraiya ends up conversing and making an appointment with the Victorian-era ghost of George. We see Suraiya carving out personal and work routines around her meetings with George. It reflects both loneliness and the boredom of her single existence in Australia, far away from family. It is a manifestation of her desire for a sense of belonging, recognition, and to have something to look forward to, a purpose, and someone to call her own.
Suraiya makes a few acquaintances, but her day-to-day life seems to become centered on George, to the point of eccentricity. She goes around town looking for more ghost stories and we get an interesting insight into the history of early settlers in Australia. I particularly enjoyed this part that weaves in the history, anecdotes, and haunted past of today's welcoming and progressive Australia.
At the core of the novel is the story of self-doubts and adjustments, of losing and finding one's bearing, of wondering about one's choices, and of being alone. This is a sensitive story with an emotional hook. The story is compelling but marred with a lack of editorial guidance. The writing is awkward and amateur. At a point, it reads like a middle school adventure and history book. The pieces are there, but they fit awkwardly. Crisp editing, detailing, and a more engaging style would have made this book attractive.
Reminding me of self-help and self-discovery books like Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, I see the potential for this book. As a reader, editor, and reviewer, I would like to read a more polished and deeper version of the book. The concept is unique; the story is tender and deserves a better narration and presentation.