Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  I waved in return, noticing again how spotless Vivienne’s Ford still seemed, despite the drizzle dulling its windows. However, the smile on that typically Slavic face slipped away the moment before I swung left out of the open gates, and for a brief, unsettling moment, I wondered if my decision to involve him so much in my recent affairs, might prove a costly mistake.

  He was also a practising Catholic. But then not everyone’s perfect. And who knew that further down the line, he mightn’t come over to my side? I really must stop this paranoia, I told myself, spotting several of my congregation out and about; giving them my usual enthusiastic greeting.

  “Good luck, Nicholas!” shouted Snodbury’s chief verger, a glaucoma sufferer. “But we’ll miss you.”

  God bless him, and as I drove south past my golf course, I let my window down to sniff the cold, Suffolk air. To feel restored. Already halfway to enthronement and God’s High table. A place in the record books; and no-one from however long ago, would be standing in my way.

  *

  Since its woollen industry had gradually collapsed in the face of increased global competition, Snodbury had struggled to replace it, and that struggle showed most in the empty industrial units on the Parkwell site; the Cottage hospital’s closure and the drift of the town’s youth towards London. However, to the casual observer, the Church of England must have seemed in good shape. St. Mary the Virgin’s church bell tower had just been restored, complete with a fine new bell, and those who administratively greased our wheels had all in the past few years upgraded their already substantial properties.

  Geoffrey Dobbs, chair of the Board of Finance, was no exception. Despite the constant drizzle, the bachelor was already waiting for me outside his spendid mock-tudor home, boasting a fine view over unspoilt countryside. More an insect than a man, I thought, unkindly as he directed me to a space between two enormous saloon cars. Both Jaguars, I noticed, all too aware of my older, more modest vehicle.

  The one I was looking for, was absent. A black Mitsubishi belonging to Emeritus Professor George Chisholm. I suppressed a sigh of relief.

  “Salve,” smiled Geoffrey once I’d parked and got out. “We’re all here save George. He’s evaluating three PhD students before their Viva.”

  “Never mind,” I said, shaking his tiny, hard hand. “We should still have an interesting discussion.”

  “Indeed.” His diminutive figure led the way down a long hallway lined with every kind of crucifix brought back from his foreign travels. Excursions that had shrunk his skin from it frame and browned it to the colour of hide. It did cross my mind how long this sixty-two-year-old might have left on God’s planet, but there was nothing in his springy stride to suggest an imminent demise. Rather, it was my own bones that slowed me down, whether bathing or picking up golf balls. And as for the bedroom department, now that Vivienne was no longer on this earth, there were a few other pleasures.

  “Saw you in the Sunday Times,” he added suddenly before we reached a half-open door. “Most impressive.” He then glanced at me, but this time the smile had gone. “How much did they charge, eh? Only joking.”

  But he wasn’t.

  He pushed the door open.

  “Ah!” exclaimed Clive Jordan-Wood, chair of our Diocesan Trust. “Who’s famous then?”

  I felt myself blush. This wasn’t going well, and no way would I show my copy of the article that I’d brought, to anyone here.

  “Do go in,” said Dobbs, poking me in the back. “Time is of the essence.”

  “Indeed.”

  I walked into the enormous, high-ceilinged room where the rest of the committee, three rural deans recently retired from their parishes, now replaced by younger models.

  had already positioned themselves around an oval mahogany table big enough to seat twenty. All were busy reading the paperwork through their thick-lensed spectacles. My eyesight, on the other hand was still perfect. George Chisholm’s seat was empty.

  Clive Jordan-Wood flapped his copy of the day’s agenda to indicate the empty seat next to him. “Make yourself at home, Nicholas.” He gave me a strange smile. “We meet again.”

  But where was my copy?

  “Is there one for me?” I asked, more than miffed. At this, one of them handed over a spare which apart from being slightly crumpled, bore several dried tea stains. Not a good omen. Neither was what followed. The first entry under URGENT MATTERS FOR DISCUSSION 14/11/88 made my blood cool.

  ROTA RE-ORGANISATION. CUTS TO BE MADE TO RURAL PARISHES.

  Cuts to be made…

  This was a sneaky surprise. I looked around at the quartet all eyeing me, like visitors to a circus.

  “No-one informed me,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.

  “I didn’t know about this detail until last night,” said Dobbs. “Why it’s good we’re here now, to thrash out some agreement before the Church Commissioners wade in.”

  Detail?

  The word sounded obscene.

  “So, who’ll be affected?” I barked. “This agenda doesn’t say.”

  “You. And by the way, old chap, George is keen to push it.”

  I bet he is, the cunning wolf…

  Silence followed, in which the drizzle, now rain, slopped against the windows, and I sensed with an instinctive certainty, my rightful future slipping away.

  13. SARAH.

  Thursday 22nd July 1920. 11 a.m.

  By mid-morning, after much discussion about the quickest route north east Will chose to cross Southampton Water at Totton and avoid the city by heading for Eastleigh.

  “With luck, we could make Guildford by darkness,” he said. “And tomorrow, withdraw enough money from the bank there to see us through. Also, hard feed for the cob.”

  “Would our money be safe?” asked Mollie, clutching her doll. You and mother have often said how many vagrants there are waiting to rob people.”

  His reply came quicker than mine. “We wouldn’t risk a single hair of your heads,” he smiled back at her. Happy, it seemed, to be having things go his way. “Besides, I’ve got Billy.”

  “Billy?” said Buck whose young voice was accompanied by an ominous wheeze. “Who’s he?”

  “It,” I corrected him. “A gun.”

  Both children sucked in their breaths and covered their mouths in shock. Buck wheezed again. “Where from?”

  “The war, with spare amunition and all. Just in case. So, I’m not the dimwit you’ve been thinking I am.”

  Silence save for Silver’s steady hoofbeats on the busy road, where to our right, lay the slumbering hulks of once-proud battleships listing on the tide. Their ragged sides beginning to rust.

  “They’ve never thought that,” I said, guilty for my earlier damning opinion of him. “They trust you. We all do.”

  But even as that last word fell from my dry lips, I didn’t believe it.

  *

  Friday 23rd July1920. 9 a.m.

  From Lloyd’s Bank in Guildford Will had just withdrawn a wallet-full of used notes which he locked away in a leather box beneath his feet. He then passed me its padlock key for safe-keeping. He’d also found a feed supplier near Shalford Mill whose stock had almost gone, and then we were moving on, north towards Woking, with a plan to reach Staines by lunchtime and either Watford or St Albans for the night.

  Here, in London’s outskirts, the tarmac roads were even more noisy and crowded. Yes, people seemed prosperous enough, and the many shops inviting enough, but I couldn’t help but long for those peaceful Forest mornings alive with birdsong, and the evenings when the only sounds were of livestock calling to each other, or a stallion’s sudden neigh whenever the mares came close by.

  “We could get a car just like that one now,” Buck broke my reverie, pointing to a black, box-shaped Austin Twenty Tourer, apparently all the fashion. “Think how much easier and quicker that would be.”

  His voice had improved after a good night’s sleep, but I worried that the city’s fumes enveloping us, would set him
back again. Buck’s suggestion had certainly lit a flame that quickly died. Cars needed fuel…

  “Dad can’t drive,” Mollie chipped in, her thick, fair hair blown across her face.

  “Dad can,” said Will.

  “You never said,” I challenged him. “My, you’re full of surprises today.”

  “That I am. I learnt out in Turkey. Easy as biting an apple.”

  “So?” Buck again.

  “We’ll need our money to get us started in Norfolk. There’ll be no more mention of it. At least till I’ve found work.”

  “Plenty around here, by the look of it,” I observed without thinking. Immediately realising my mistake.

  “Cut that out!” he snapped, and in that instant our brief togetherness like a taut sail in a storm, was almost severed in two.

  *

  The air around North Hillingdon was affecting Buck so badly, he could scarcely breathe, and it broke my heart to see his young body hunched over almost double. His shoulders heaving up and down. A thickening summer smog hung low over everything, and even my scarf wound over his nose and mouth made no difference.

  “I’m scared,” he mumbled from behind it. “Will I get better soon?”

  My arm tightened around him as Will managed to steer a fractious Silver through even more crowded streets where we were all stared at as if we were tinkers.

  “We’ll find a doctor soon,” I said, stroking my son’s head, wondering how on earth we were going to. “You have to be looked at.”

  “Can’t stop,” barked Will slapping our cob on the rump. “Not here. He could take off. Can’t you see how jumpy he is? And then where’d we bloody be?”

  Reluctantly, I had to agree. No-one knew the ways of horses better than he, and talk had been in Swayhurst that in a few weeks’ time, he’d have been admitted to the Verderers’ Court to replace a member who’d died. A compliment indeed, and an increase in pay.

  All thrown away.

  I felt my litle crucifix - hotter than ever - and prayed that soon we’d be clear of the blackened factories pumping out foul-smelling smoke, and those omnibuses leaving even blacker fumes in their wake. And sure enough, this nightmare seemed to be lessening. Here were trees. Houses spaced further apart with neat front gardens. A park on our left had swings and a slide, with children of all ages running around, bare-legged, squealing with joy.

  Ruislip.

  “Look!” shouted Mollie. “Can’t we go and play? Just for a few minutes?” I knew both she and Buck were already missing the freedom of home and their school friends but hadn’t dared mention it. Nevertheless, her round, blue eyes shone with tears.

  “We need to see to Buck,” I whispered. “You can be a clever girl and keep a look out for any sign of a doctor’s surgery.”

  She leant back against me, wiping her eyes with her fists. Like her dress, they were dirty. Buck too, could do with a good wash and comb, but just then, other things were more important.

  Silver was trotting on so keenly, perhaps sensing more grass ahead, that when a well-dressed, late middle-aged couple appeared from a side road, we went on by.

  I turned right round.

  “Excuse me…” I called out to them, but they hadn’t heard me.

  “What’s up?” said Will.

  “Can you make Silver go back. There’s hardly any other folk to ask.”

  Grudgingly he did, but our horse wasn’t happy, todssing his big head about and striking the road with his front hooves.

  “Be quick, woman. We’ve got to clear Watford by darkness.”

  Woman…

  I winced at yet another small legacy of his war.

  The couple stopped and studied us for a moment as if deciding whether or not we were to be trusted. On closer inspection, their clothes could have been for a funeral, especially with the woman’s black, lace veil over her eyes. But to me just then, our need was greater than their sorrow,

  “We urgently need a doctor for our boy here… He’s…”

  “I’m a doctor,” the man interrupted.

  “You were,” corrected the woman whom I assumed was his wife.

  “Only until last May. I’ve still kept the surgery. All the medicaments…” He came close to the trap and peered at Buck whose gasps for air, were even more pitiful to hear.

  “Can you please help?” said Will. “I’ll pay.”

  “I wouldn’t want that,” replied the man who’d announced himself as Dr Samuel Goldman and his sister Esther. “Follow us. It’s not far, and,” he he looked back at Silver. “I’ve been looking for manure for my hellebores all summer.”

  *

  On the way into Kingscote Drive, he enquired where we were from and where we were going. This time, the children stayed silent. Will stepped in with a lie. “I’ve an uncle near Diss who farms there. He’ll be taking me on.”

  The doctor stopped, and his sister almost bumped into him. “Haven’t you seen the newspapers? Has your uncle not told you?”

  “What?” My pulse seemed to have stopped.

  “Let’s get your lad seen to first. What’s his name?”

  “Buck.”

  “That’s unusual.”

  “Because a buck rabbit is bold and fearless,” said Mollie. “And you are, aren’t you?” She nudged him so hard he almost toppled from the bench. But I hardly heard any of this exchange, instead wondered with mounting anxiety what exactly this amiable Doctor Goldman had meant.

  14. JOHN.

  Monday 14th November 1988. 9.15a.m.

  My bleak remark had hung in the air for the rest of Sunday, making Stephen understandably distracted. He’d attended to various tasks such as changing the cooker hood, replacing a light bulb in the pantry then, despite my offer to make lunch, put three pork chops under the grill and boiled some potatoes. I was instructed to set out a place for Catherine at the table, complete with her engraved silver napkin ring. With each item I’d laid on the National Trust tablecloth, had come a growing unease. Of yet another cul-de-sac smacking me in the face.

  Her busy brother hadn’t exactly been forthcoming and as for young Greg Lake, the History Department’s sole Archive Technician, his answerphone hadn’t even given me a chance to leave a message. I’d then been tempted to call in on him for a chat, but Stephen wasn’t sure enough of his address. Greg was, after all, ‘only’ a technician, but had apparently assured him on Friday he’d be back in the Department on Monday morning.

  “Reliable to a fault, and incredibly loyal,” Stephen said, as I’d replaced the receiver. But had both compliments carried another meaning?

  When I’d suggested telephoning Diss police station, which, given the size of the market town would surely possess at least one cop, he’d blanched. “No way. Not yet. There’s probably a perfectly normal explanation for what’s happened. Tomorrow though, will be a different matter.”

  *

  I clearly wasn’t overstaying my welcome, but rather my usefulness. I’d known procedural dead ends practically every day of my working life as well as cock-ups, major and minor. Whole mornings spent preparing for the Chief Super’s latest visit and keeping media hyenas at bay.

  Several times I’d been tempted to take a back-hander to get rid, but I was the high-principalled odd-ball, wasn’t I? A rare non-Mason. And the rest of Sunday here had proved a similar dead end, with a growing sense that Stephen hadn’t given me the full picture. That he was holding something important back. But what could I have done? He wasn’t in ‘The Box.’ He was a friend in some bother. And perhaps only he knew why.

  *

  So, it proved, with us heading north towards Wymondham and its university on the A140 under a cold, dark sky. Stephen had secured the green file in his locking briefcase, while I’d checked the church footpath and its surrounding verge again and found nothing new.

  In Nottingham, those examinations would have happened immediately.

  As we passed Longstanton village, I took note of its small Post Office and single pump garage, both closed.
Then a longer look at Hecklers Green, separated from Longstanton by the straight road bordered by flat, muddy fields, rootled on by huge herds of equally muddy pigs. Here too, stood a single line of what seemed to be mostly empty and derelict cottages dominated even though from a distance, by the occasional farm’s black barns. Again, more pigs and this time, skinny sheep, and further away still, a tractor 1urround along the skyline spewing out brown spray.

  The smell which suddenly eked into Stephen’s Volvo wasn’t to my mind, entirely agricultural. More that organic rottenness I’d experienced earlier on three occasions.

  I sniffed hard, this time needing to share it. “Can you smell something odd?” I ventured, while we passed a faded sign in the hedgerow on the left indicating Vesper House some three miles up a narrow, muddy lane. “It’s not the first time either.” But my driver’s mind was obviously on other matters – maybe that recent threat – as if he’d not even heard me.

  Vesper House…

  “Have we time to take a look?”

  “What at?”

  “I know you said there was nothing left of it, but you never know.”

  “Trust me, Johnny. I do know.” Stephen then glanced at me with a distracted look in his eyes. “What if Catherine’s in danger, and…?”

  “Where’s the nearest station?” I interrupted, as he’d done to me.

  “Tidswell. Just further on.”

  “We could try there. See if anyone spotted her yesterday morning.”

  “I’m expected at a meeting at midday. Just cropped up. It’s important.”

  Damn.

  The wet road ahead seemed to hold no possibilities whatsoever, until a sudden weather-worn sign for it appeared beyond a derelict, roofless barn.

  “So’s this,” I retorted, aware that the diminutive railway station like its cinder-covered car park, seemed deserted. Isolated amongst ploughed up acres as far as the horizon. I noticed too, as we walked along the short 1urround towards its ticket office, the soil of 1urrounding fields was almost black from the continual and pervasive drizzle. Felt the sudden, involuntary choking sensation of being consumed by it.