Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  “They’re especially useful at unmanned railway crossings…”

  This remark seemed to pass unnoticed even though he’d known how my parents had died.

  “Our Vice-Chancellor decided against installing any last semester,” he said. “Too costly, apparently.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “George Chisholm. Some call him ‘King George.’ Not one to be crossed.”

  “Could be something and nothing,” I thought aloud.

  “Greg didn’t seem unduly bothered but felt I should know. Suggested too that I open another Glenfiddich and relax.”

  With the sunless sky overhead hanging over us like a thick, dark blanket, I made a mental note to ask this technician if that car park stranger had been carrying anything. If his body language contradicted his story in even the smallest way. No harm done…

  “We could try inside the church,” I then ventured. “Catherine may have slipped inside to think.”

  “It’s always locked. Vandals, metal thieves, you name it…”

  “Out here?”

  “Very much out here.”

  I found that hard to imagine but pressed on. “If she did have a snoop through your file, she may have told someone. Someone who needed to know.”

  “You mean Nicholas, her brother? But she hates him. Always has.”

  That vicar had come top of the list without my intervention. The man with the cunning smile.

  *

  The church door’s iron ring stayed cold and unyielding in my bare hand. Worn smooth by centuries of use, it suddenly represented everything I’d picked up on here so far.

  Keep out. Leave well alone.

  “I’ll give her ten minutes,” said Stephen. “Better be near a phone just in case she rings.”

  With each step, my plan to visit Hecklers Green, Dr Vincent Lovell’s home village, was slipping away. “Does Catherine have any friends nearby?” I asked, with growing impatience as we avoided the worst puddles on our way back to the house.

  “No. And because she works on her translations from home, there are no colleagues either. Except her editor in London, and she’s mostly away at conferences.”

  “Cell phone?”

  “Loathes them.”

  “Any next of kin, apart from Nicholas?”

  A quick shake of his damp head. Perhaps too quick.

  “Then perhaps he should be our first port of call.”

  8. STANLEY.

  Monday 19th July 1920. 2p.m.

  “Your son needs more rest, Mr. Bulling. Can you arrange some help here until he’s fit to work again?”

  Dr Lovell’s skinny silhouette blocked the sunlight burning through even the curtains of me room. He smelt of camphor and disinfectant which made me sneeze three times, jarring me ribs each time.

  Pa grunted the words, “impossible,” and “who’ll pay? We’re strugglin’ as it is…”

  “I’ve a nephew who…”

  “No, and that’s the end to it.”

  The doctor, new to Hecklers Green just before he’d pulled me feet first out of Ma’s furry little hole, had declared that as a ‘footling,’ I’d probably be lame in later life.

  Unlike most predictions, it had come true. I might never walk proper again, while The Monkey, although tethered out of sight in the pig pen, still had full use of his black legs. I wanted him dead. Cut up and fed to the pigs, like I’d done once before.

  “See he takes these three times a day, with water,” said the man whose fecking dog had just started barking “I’ll call in tomorrow at the same time, and if there’s no improvement, I’ll speak to the vicar…”

  “Why’s that?” Pa squinted at the pill box pretending to read what was inside.

  “He oversees the Leper House.”

  “Leper House?” Butted in Ma who’d appeared at the door. “Surely you mean Vesper House?”

  The quack looked uneasy.

  “I’m sorry. One should be more careful about names. ‘Leper’ carries unfortunate associations. I mean, Vesper House, of course.”

  They nodded as if understanding his fancy language. But I knew which place he meant. A big enough pile about a mile from our village, once used for buggered-up soldiers. Those that came back, anyways. I’d seen them in their wheelchairs or hobbling about on crutches. Bits of this and that missing. And for what? As for the ‘leper’ word, I remembered it from Sunday School. The one time I’d gone there, when that vicar kept on and on for so long about someone called Jesus and some man whose hands had fallen off, I’d run out before the end.

  The quack were shaking his greying, slightly greasy head. “Whatever its name, it’s still a hospital. And a good, up-to-date one.” We should be thankful for its existence.”

  He clicked shut his big, black bag and glanced at me. “I hope, Stanley, that you’re telling me the whole truth of what happened to you in the barn, because I confess, I find it hard to believe that you, as the only fully able-bodied worker here, took it upon yourself to climb along such a high beam. Unless you were drunk. And there was no evidence of that.”

  “We don’t drink, doctor.and that’s God’s truth,” protested Ma, swatting away a bluebottle from her lips. “And if our Stanley ever brought any in, he’d be out on his ear.”

  Once the quack had taken his yapping dog away with him, me folks just stared at each other without speaking. Ma’s last comment still hurting, like they always did.

  “Let The Monkey die,” I said, meaning it. “He’ll feed them pigs for at least a week. Save us money, anyways.”

  Immediately I knew that were a bad idea.

  “He’ll start work on the pit tonight.” Pa shook the pill box instead. “If yer needin’ clean water to pop these with, where else will it bloody come from?”

  I tried to rearrange me legs so the pain weren’t so bad, but no. I had to lie like a breathing corpse, staring up at the flies circling me one light bulb. And in that cramping pain, felt hate like a fire tear through me till it reached me head. Me brain a fireball, rolling and rolling, getting bigger till all I cud see were blood. The Monkey’s blood, spilling and spurting while me axe connected with his skull. Bringing him down, then me kicking him into the pit he’d dug, and keeping me boot on his jibbering head…

  “This’ll help,” Ma interrupted me thoughts, passing me an orange pill the size of her thumbnail. “Chew it and swallow quick as ye can.”

  “The doctor said water…”

  “Fetch it, then.”

  Pa just watched, like he always did. Me mouth were full of what tasted like dried bird shit, making me choke then spew up over the sheet. Yellow stuff with bits of porridge sliding to the floor.

  “Kill him,” I spluttered, seeing again in me mind what had happened in the barn. Hearing again that laugh. “Now. Who’ll notice?”

  “Him?”

  “Course.”

  “Then who’d help us at night?” Pa came so close I could smell every bit of him. “What ye thinkin’ of, son? Not us, that’s for sure.” He poked a blackened finger in my chest and not for the first time was the inheritance threat lurking on those mean, cracked lips.

  Ma began pulling me curtains even closer together against the sun. Another enemy. “Stanley’s not told us the whole truth how he got that bad leg. Nor the Doctor neither.” She turned to peer at me. Pa and all, like a pair of dung beetles, as if I were a stranger.

  So, I told them about Bessie, their best sow. The one with the black spot on her arse. How she’d seemed used to a human cock. “And I bet she weren’t the only one. Makes ye wonder what kind of piglets we’ll be having…”

  At this, Ma let out a gasp while Pa pulled his special knife from out of his dungarees pocket and stroked the glinting blade between his thumb and forefinger. The way I’d see to mesen whenever I thought of Susan Deakins. Yellow spit filled the sides of his mouth.

  “We’ve enough dung round here as it is,” he snarled. “I’ll get rid right now. Then we can…”

  “Wait!” s
napped Ma. “Think it through. “Let’s use him till we’ve done with him. Day and night, specially the night, like you said, till he’s dug our pit. Till he begs for mercy.”

  Pa smiled at the thought. “And I’ll offer him more money than he’s ever seen in his life. He’ll jump at it, until…”

  With one smooth action, he slit an imaginary throat from left to right, then made a deep, gargling noise, like our weaners at the slaughter house. His plans for The Monkey rose and fell with the waves of pain shooting up and down me leg. Every word adding doubt until I cudn’t help mesen from asking, “Where do you keep this money? I’ve never seen none.”

  He and Ma glanced at each other, as if caught by surprise.

  “All in good time, son,” said Ma, before staring at the clock on the wall. “And speaking of time, Walter, we should get the beast to work.”

  “Will the vetinary come and check Bessie over? Just in case?”

  Pa laughed. “If we did get a titty-totty baby with a pig’s head, we’d be as rich as Croesus.”

  I stared after their hunched-over bodies as they left my bedroom. Their bent legs, and how the backs of Ma’s stockings had worn into ladders leaving strips of maggoty white skin showing through. All the while, I racked me brain as to where this money Pa had mentioned, might be and how, once I was out of this bed, me main purpose would be to find it.

  So, I must listen hard. Watch for the slightest clue, because getting hold of that would be the start of freedom for me. Stanley Walter Bulling, for too long the piss-poor slave of Heckler’s Green.

  9. SARAH.

  Tuesday July 20th 1920. 9.30 a.m.

  Silver became lame the moment we’d stopped off at Vine Lodge, a small guest house just outside Napehurst, a silent village without, it seemed, any men at all. No vines either, as far as I could see.

  “You’ve come quite a way,” observed Edna Wilding, the owner, a childless widow in her forties who’d soon prised enough information about our origins to satisfy her curiosity.

  But who else’s?

  “Not far enough,” Will added bitterly, steering Buck out of the cluttered little dining room where we’d just eaten breakfast. He then hissed a threat to him to watch his tongue or else. That someone from the Verderer’s Court, even the Forest Eyre might be on our tail.

  My small meal suddenly rose up fom my stomach to my throat. Yes, I’d been hungry, but had only managed a beef sausage and half a slice of bread. I knew he’d meant Matthew Crane. The younger man yet built thick as an old oak. A bully with an iron heart.

  “What’s the matter, Mum?” Mollie tugged at my sleeve, her frown spoiling her pretty, round face.

  “Later.” For the widow’s eyes were on my lips. Still curious, but what I’d taken for kindness, had changed.

  “Come along,” I said. “Let’s try and get Silver ready.”

  “He may need some more rest,” said Will who yesterday evening had decided the stiffness in the cob’s near foreleg was only temporary. Calling out the vet recommended by our host, would cost far too much. “Another hour could make all the difference.”

  Mollie took my hand. Hers felt hot and clammy just like when she’d been born after just eight minutes of waiting to come into the world. This reminded me, as if I needed reminding, how if she or Buck, were in the slightest danger, I’d protect them with my life. Not so, Will. Not then…

  Our handsome grey cob lay half in half out of shade in the paddock adjoining Vine Lodge’s rear wall. His near front leg stuck out from beneath his body and he showed not the slightest interest as we approached. Not even Mollie with her piece of bread. Normally, his neat, white ears would have flicked back and fore; his expression keen, but not this time. In fact, the more I studied our gelding, feared the worst.

  “Damn him.”

  “Who?” Mollie’s wet eyes widened. “Not poor Silver?”

  My husband.

  “Never mind.” Yet without him, where on earth could the four of us could go that was far enough away from the thug with the iron heart?

  “We must do something!” Mollie ran back into the house screaming that Silver was dying and where was her Dad? I followed, fingering the little crucifix hanging

  around my neck, glancing up at the cloudless sky. Praying for a miracle, even though in all my years of churchgoing, they’d been few and far between.

  I followed her to ask Mrs. Wilding where I could find this vet friend she’d mentioned and was met by chaos. Mollie still screaming, Buck shouting at his father who in turn was arguing with the widow over payment for last night.

  “You’re taking advantage of us,” he accused her. “And I wouldn’t trust you further than I could throw you. I saw plenty like you in Gallipoli. Turncoats and betrayers…”

  He then faced me, his blood all boiled up, so even the children fell silent.

  “She’s getting three pounds and not a penny more.”

  I breathed in deep, fighting off the words ‘war damage,’ as I spoke.

  “Mrs Wilding, please forgive him. This isn’t my husband talking. Our cob out there is dying. We need to know where your friend the vet lives.”

  Her mouth had fallen open in surprise. Startled little bird eyes flickered from me to Will then back again. “He’s down at River Cottage.” She pointed along the small road we’d hoped to be travelling along at that very moment. “Count three houses and his is next. Joseph Cotrell. If you see his dark green animal carrier parked outside, you’ll know he’s home.” She was looking at Buck who seemed suddenly miles away. His thick, brown hair uncombed. His Sunday best jacket already stained, and knee caps black.

  “You run along there,” she said to him. “You’re enough of a live wire…”

  “And me?” said Mollie, spitting into the palm of her hand to rub dirt off her arm.

  “Be quick then,” I urged them, ignoring Will’s glare at being outmanouevred. “Each second counts.”

  And each did, because when both children returned to the paddock with a tall, good-looking man carrying a battered case, Silver was already standing, albeit unsteadily, as if knowing that a a kindly bullet to the head had been imminent.

  A miracle indeed.

  Joseph Cottrell had shaken my hand first, then Will’s. His grip warm and firm; his eyes the colour of the sky above us, edged by thick, black lashes. I sensed something almost foreign in his fine bone structure. How his dark hair below his cap, curled above each ear.

  You’re married, I reminded myself, aware of my neck beginning to burn, as he injected a pale, yellow fluid into Silver’s bad leg, then rested an arm across his withers as though they were best friends.

  Lucky Silver…

  “He’s a fine specimen,” he said, running that same well-shaped hand down to the cob’s pastern. “The swelling’s gone down already and, with another day’s rest, he’ll see you right. But give him plenty of stops and don’t overload the trap on your travels. It’s heavy enough for him.”

  Silver nuzzled his leather sleeve and almost playfully tugged at the cuff’s button, before the man gave him a final pat.

  “Mollie here told me you were heading for Norfolk. That right? If so, did you know there’s been no rain for a month? Rivers are low, the land’s parched…”

  Will shot his daughter a glance. Pursed his lips while I waited for another hail of verbal bullets which came soon enough. “Mollie’s wrong. I’ve a cousin near Farnborough. More work there, see?”

  “Lost your job, then?” the vet pressed Will, not unkindly. “If so, you’re not the first and won’t be the last.” He worked out what I presumed was a sum on a clean page in a small notebook, tore it out and handed it to me with a look I’ll never forget. Along the top was his name with three sets of letters after it, and his address.

  “But…”

  “No charge, and if there’s anything else I can do for you, you’ll know where I am.”

  With that, a and a quick lift of his cap, he turned away and headed for the gate. I watched his eve
ry move until he’d disappeared behind an overgrown hedge.

  Silver whinnied after him, but the farewell was lost in the noise of his Ford van’s engine starting up, while the pang of yet another loss hit my churning heart. I stared down at his note, then folded it safe inside my blouse.

  Although Mollie had seen everything, her curiosity didn’t last long because Will picked her up round the waist, swung her round and round then let her go.

  “Stop!” I tried to reach them, but her foot caught me in the stomach.

  “You Devil!” Mollie yelled at him, picking herself up from a heap of thankfully well-dried manure. “I’m stopping here with Buck and Silver and…”

  “We’ll see about that, mischief maker. Where we’re from or going to is no-one else’s business. Understood?”

  Buck had meanwhile leapt on his back, beating the back of his father’s head with bare fists. In the distance, Mrs. Wilding was also watching the disintegration of the Parminter family. And was that a thin smile on her face?

  While I comforted Mollie and pulled the worst of the dried muck off her clothes, all I could think of was how much this once proud, gentle man now on his knees trying to dislodge his son, had changed. How another man had appeared. Someone who’d stirred in me feelings long-lost since Will came home. A man I knew I could happily see again.

  *

  Thursday July 22nd 5 a.m.

  “He said there was a drought,” I reminded Will as we re-packed the trap, taking care not to create an imbalance. Or wake Mrs. Wilding.

  “Norfolk, I said, and Norfolk it is.” He snapped shut the metal clamps so vehemently on our metal trunk, that Silver began to move off. I grabbed Will’s arm, not only to prevent him hitting the animal, but to listen. “You go on your own, then, like Mollie said. I’m not some chattel. Nor are our children. We’ve a chance to settle somewhere that’s…” Here I stopped, searching for the right word. “Normal. Where people will speak to us, get to know us. Where there’ll be work.”

  He simply stared at me as if I was a stranger.

  “Or do you have a death wish?”

  Where did that come from?