Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  a ruthless villain whom I knew would never be satisfied.

  38. NICHOLAS.

  Tuesday 15th November 1988. 1.40 p.m.

  After a hurried lunch of tinned Mulligatawney soup and a slightly stale bread roll, I decided to begin work on some more very necessary damage limitation.

  Neither the Bishop of Cavenham nor his secretary was available, so I left what I hoped was an ugent-sounding message with Mrs. Duckett, his housekeeper. A minion in her fifties who’d had a soft spot for me, particularly after Vivienne died. Whose own daughter and her family belonged to my congregation at Melton.

  “Don’t worry, Reverend,” she’d said once I’d finished telling her that Piotr should have talked to me first before bothering her employer. “I’ll see the Bishop phones you immediately he’s back. Oh, and I hope your stomach soon settles down.”

  “Thank you.”

  But how could I not worry? And why the Hell wasn’t anyone useful answering their bloody phone? Was the Almighty pushing me to my limits? Waiting for me to crack? Not even Neville Gray who’d so gleefully shared his news about that young Pole’s recklessness. No answerphone facility either.

  Stay calm.

  St. George’s Church Young Wives’ Club was due to begin at 2 o’clock, but I’d have to disappoint them too, with the same stomach bug excuse. Bless their lonely little Primark hearts. They would just have to chatter amongst themselves. I then dialled Piotr’s number, but the cell phone I’d bought him for his birthday in September, wasn’t taking any more calls. I wondered if John Lyon had already made contact. That might explain it.

  So, God. Where are you?

  No answer.

  I retreated into my study where the rough weather from the east was punishing its one window. I unlocked my desk’s lowest left-hand drawer, where, amongst other items that could also prove obstacles to my advancement, lay the most dangerous of all. Two photocopies - but better than nothing - given how incrementally secretive and yes, hostile, my brother-in-law and his wife had become. She the worst. Actively plotting with Piotr in my downfall. And here lay part of the evidence, unsteady in my hand.

  Myrtle Villa,

  Bakery Lane,

  Hecklers Green.

  Diss.

  Norfolk

  10th December 1920.

  For the Urgent Attention of the Right Reverend Henry Beecham BA (Hons) Cantab.

  Dear Reverend Beecham,

  As you have chosen to ignore my earlier correspondence regarding the current occupants of Wombwell Farm, I have no recourse but to beg you to with my whole being to reconsider your recent decision to close Vesper House, while there is such a cluster of leprosy in your main parish. A most terrible contagion that as you know, is norespecter of age or gender. As I write, the situation here is worsening daily, with nowhere for…

  Suddenly, my desk phone began to ring.

  The Bishop himself?

  I turned Dr. Lovell’’s ever more desperate plea upside down. In fact, I could barely bring myself to think of its contents, let alone see them.

  “Yes?” I said, more sharply than intended.

  “Nicholas? Leslie here, returning your call. Mrs. Duckett thought you sounded, well, how can I put it…?”

  “Harassed?”

  “Indeed, but something else. Perhaps the real reason you cried off lunch. You mentioned Piotr.”

  Damn him.

  “I did.” Then relayed Neville Gray’s news from that morning. How concerned it had made me about my Polish helper’s possible mental problems. “Despite our mutual respect and my gratitude, he’s certainly not the happy young man I took in three months ago.”

  “In what way?” Leslie Horncastle often used his mellow voice to crack tricky nuts. “Is he drinking too much? Taking drugs? Even…”

  “No, no no. Most certainly not.”

  “But judging by his phone call which I have saved, by the way, he seemed terribly upset and guilt-ridden about something. What, he wouldn’t say. Now I appreciate his English isn’t yet perfect, Nicholas, but he did mention Confession. He would like to confess…”

  As he spoke, an icy tremor passed beneath nmy clothes. From my shirt collar to my too-tight socks.

  Silence.

  “I’m sorry he’s troubled you,” I said finally. “I’ve always felt we could speak to each other. Especially about his own rather strange family.”

  My caller coughed discreetly.

  “It wasn’t his family he was referring to, but yours. And specifically, your sister Catherine.”

  Fuck…

  So that creep Gray had been right.

  “Is Piotr with you now?” he asked. “If so, perhaps we can arrange a meeting. Somewhere neutral?”

  “I appreciate your concern,” I managed to say, “but this is something I feel is best dealt with here. Intra mura, so to speak. At least, initially.”

  Another weighted pause followed. The battering rain and wind outside trapping me in the pit of Hell.

  “Very well but do keep me informed. We can’t let any of our flock, whatever their denomination, feel sidelined.”

  “I will.”

  “Oh, and by the way, my friend. The Synod has moved their next meeting forward. Several members are unfortunately indisposed, so discussion on your application to the Cavenham Bishopric won’t be until next month. Possibly the 17th. You will of course be notified nearer the time. Oh, and I’ll check my diary for another possible lunch.”

  My friend…

  Leslie Horncastle was anything but. I also knew that my only chance of securing this prize, lay with keeping Piotr quiet and burying any information on Wombwell Farm during December 1920. If I had to bribe my way forward, so be it. I also had to pay a secretive visit to Wombwell Lodge, even if that unimpressive ex-copper was still there, taking up a bed.

  Then there was Catherine.

  “Thank you, Right Reverend,” I said, ready to replace the receiver. “But I’m sure I can help Piotr return to his usual self.”

  Call ended.

  But not so the bad weather. As I exchanged my warm, dry house for outside where the afternoon had become more like a stormy night, I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the minefield of obstacles and enemies that lay ahead. How my once-youthful innocence and optimism had so brutally been corrupted.

  *

  With my cell phone switched on and a Werther’s Original toffee softening on my tongue, I made steady but uninterrupted progress east, following the Suffolk/Norfolk border. Foregoing the chance of a cup of tea and a scone at one of the infrequent but tempting Little Chef restaurants along the way, I sloughed through standing water and vertical rain which often obscured the road ahead.

  When I spotted the sign for Ringshall Quarry, I resisted the urge to drive faster. Any tyre tracks near that quarry’s edge would surely have been washed away. And as for the meddler herself, I knew her final resting place was also a haven for both kite and kestrel. The hawk too. So, all in all, there soon wouldn’t be much left of her. As for the lock-ups, I was not only convinced she and I had been alone, but also that I’d not been followed.

  However, that was then. This was different. Was some vehicle behind me with dipped headlights keeping a steady distance? Impossible to tell in such conditions. I passed a lay-by lined with various trucks and lorris, all in darkness, cab curtains drawn. Their drivers taking a nap. Lucky them, I thought, realising I’d probably never be able to sleep easily again.

  Longstanton.

  *

  I didn’t slow down here either, not even when its church’s wretched spire rose up like the Devil’s tongue from behind a copse of firs. However, I did glance down Wombwell Lane and at my sister’s driveway. Her Allegro was still there but nothing else. No house lights as far as I could tell. This would be my port of call after the university, some twenty miles distant. I was just accelerating away, when I realised that whatever was behind me was beginning to catch up.

  You’re getting paranoid…

  In
stead, I switched on Radio 3 for the three o’clock news. At the end of yet another piece about the recently elected George HW Bush, came a pause after which my Peugeot slewed over the central white line and back again, bumping against the grass verge.

  No...

  I listened as if in a trance to a report that a small, red saloon car had been struck by an empty service train at Catchwell Crossing near Tidswell Station at approximately eleven a.m. West Norfolk police had found what remained of a young man’s body at the wheel.

  39. STANLEY.

  Wednesday 28th July 1920. 3.30 p.m.

  They’d got me, them bastard coppers. Accused me of attempted murder of Vesper House’s porky senior nurse and forced me downstairs into a dark basement room with no windows and a thick steel door which, once they’d closed it behind me, I realised it had no lock, no keyhole. Nothing. Not even a spyhole.

  Feckit.

  “I repeat, you’ve got leprosy,” Fatty Toft had said, manhandling me down the stone steps. “You’re contagious. Why we’ve been wearing protective gloves and why you’ve to stop in isloation till you’ve been properly assessed. And as for Sister Bevan - poor woman -she’s in a critical condition. May well sue you for every penny you got.”

  “She hit me first. What would ye have done?”

  “Because of your record, Stanley,” Lambert said, sweating as bad as our pigs, “we’re inclined to believe her. You made an unprovoked attack on a defenceless woman. Someone doing her job which, I might add, is more than you’ve ever done.”

  No good wasting me breath defending mesen. Nor were I stopping in this Godfersaken dump. I’d never bin imprisoned and weren’t about to start. Besides, the leprosy thing is a lie. An excuse to keep me out of sight, out of mind. And I weren’t banking on Ma or Pa coming to me aid neither. They could both rot in Hell for all I cared. But I’d have their money, when I were ready.

  All that were wrong with me leg was a few sores leakin’ blood. Me bandage had held up well, considering, and playing at being a dickey with them Parminter kids had made it feel better. ‘Specially feeling that young mawther’s sturdy legs gripping me sides, and her giggling at how they’d all be out digging the water pit that night. How she wanted to push her mother in…

  Just to think of her laughing with her mouth wide open and her nice big shiny teeth on show, made me soldier down below begin to stir.

  O joy…

  “What’s so funny?” Toft had snarled, pressing me down on to the one wooden chair. “Do say.”

  “I’m allowed some secrets,” I’d smiled.

  “Time for home and a nice, cold beer, chum.” He nudged the other copper and licked his lips just to torment me, but I were back in that big dry field with the hot, hot sun and me mawther’s squeals of pleasure.

  When I’d blinked me eyes open, them coppers was gone. Their footsteps, fading up the steps. Running they was. Fecking yellerbellies.

  *

  For the next few moments I forgot the hole I were in. The iron-framed single bed covered in grey rubber sheeting; the bucket, ‘cos that mawther were kissin’ me, hard and salty, while me fingers slipped down over her shoulders…

  Just as me stiff soldier began spurting into me palm, the door began to move.

  Christ…

  Before I could finish off and tuck him away, in came Doctor Lovell and a flabby, middle-aged man complete with dog collar and a Panama hat. The doctor turned aside, but not the Reverend Henry Beecham who stared with his piggy eyes widening like little marbles at me pinky-purply friend. “Someone’s been busy,” he said, setting down his briefcase on the one chair. “And we all know how the Devil makes work for idle hands…”

  The doctor coughed, embarassed as I poked me soldier back into hiding and wiped me hand on me thigh. “I think, Reverend, we should get to the point as quickly as possible. Time is of the essence.” He was flushed, trembling and, I realised later, seemed ill. “Vesper House has, for the past one hundred and fifty years, provided an effective facility for the treatment of this terrible contagion. The consequences of catching it

  are…”

  “Alarming, to be sure, doctor,” Beecham butted in, “but beyond my control.”

  “If the Church refuses to maintain this hospital, then what do I do?”

  “We’re not refusing, Vincent, I assure you. Have you any idea of the running costs? Daily? Monthly? It’s crippling.”

  The doctor shook his head. He already looked worse, and normally I’d have fetched him a drink of water, but there were none.

  “How can a wealthy Church measure the cost of human life? Take Stanley here.” He pointed at me with a wobbling finger. “I’ve had his blood analysed. The pus from his leg ulcers too. He may already have unwittingly infected those with whom he’s come into contact and could soon lose that very leg.”

  The Dog Collar didn’t even look at him. But the thought of me leg coming off made me get up and grab his arm. He pushed me away like I were a piece of dung.

  “We have revived what in Mediaeval times was known as the Office at the Seclusion of a Leper, by using the burial service for the living.” I repeated, word perfect, even imitating the Reverend’s own posh voice. “That’s what he said when he came to our farm on Tuesday. So, what’s happened to that?”

  He backed towards the steel door like the cowardly nonce he were, and it were only when I saw the doctor’s gaze still fixed on my left leg, I realised he’d spoken the truth.

  No more playing at being dickeys, but…

  “Could me Ma and Pa have caught it?” I asked him, trying to sound worried, and then waited, hearing the thud of me own heartbeat in the silence that followed.

  “Quite possibly.” He turned to the vicar. “Why I need to get them over here for urgent tests as well, because Angelid Menelos their employee, was the carrier who almost certainly passed it to Stanley here. His severed head’s been thoroughly examined. It’s all been proved, which is why we need your hospital so badly.” His tone changed. Almost accusing. “Have you approached the Ministry of Health?”

  “Their answer was no.”

  “Then please do try again. And again until…”

  At this, the fat vicar’s face changed. His top lip wrinkled upwards, showing teeth so small they looked as if they belonged to someone else. I’d never noticed them before.

  “That savage over there,” he snarled, pointing at me, “has almost killed our most experienced nurse. He doesn’t deserve any treatment. He’s an outcast, and we’re casting him out.” At this, he crossed himself. Something Ma did once the Susan Deakins business had come to nothing.

  He banged on the door and it began to open as if by itself. “After you, Mr. Bulling,” he said, “and if the Diss Constabulary wish to apprehend you for your crimes, so be it. Miss Bevan has no known family and may need looking after for the rest of her life. But the law will catch up with you, make no mistake. And for the rape and murder of Susan Deakins just three days after her Confirmation.”

  Damn his soul…

  But instead of answering back, I snaked out of the door, under his swollen belly. Me last chance of freedom, but not before hearing Doctor Lovell still pleading. Still begging him to reconsider his decision. To think of them innocent people with whom The Monkey and mesen had bin in contact. The incomers just up from Hampshire. Even himself.

  “Because I have the symptoms of leprosy too,” he suddenly added. “The tuberculoid kind which affects the chest and stomach. Nothing visible yet, but it’s early days.”

  “Well, God grant you a peaceful end, Doctor,” muttered the churchman without looking back once.

  “I’m willing to put most of my savings into Vesper House, if that would help.”

  “Nothing would help. The ship of which I was once captain, has already sunk out of reach.”

  *

  Only while struggling up the stone steps, I realised there were nowhere for me to go. I were a marked man and unless I could change me name, move away and find work, I
were doomed. As I pushed open the heavy front door where that ugly nurse’s blood had already dried black in the sun, the doctor’s words of warning made me pause.

  After work, I’d sometimes played cards with mesen rather than walk all the way to Tidswell and the Leg of Mutton public house and risk being quizzed about the schoolgirl and other stuff. I’d lean two equal halves of the pack together and watch till they collapsed in a heap. So wud me world. And the longer them incomers hung around

  the farm, pretending to know all about pig rearing and pit digging, they stood to gain what were rightly mine.

  Before I cud think of the special place where Mollie’s young legs ended, I knew what I had to do, and quick. I missed the two following men by inches. Opposites in every way, but both in black. One agitated, the other ignoring him till that nagging whine faded.

  And what about me?

  I were too exposed. Whoever had opened that steel door for the Reverend must still be around. Best not hang about. I could hide after dark, but not while dying of thirst and hunger. Wombwell Farm were calling me. It wouldn’t take long. And I didn’t just mean digging that parched, tricky pit.

  *

  I took a chance. It weren’t fair me being diseased. I had to share it. And the first lucky ones was me nearest and dearest. Like I just said, only fair.

  The Parminters was all busy around the water pit. Mollie and the brother pushing two wheelbarrows of yellow soil to further along the river. This time neither were laughing. In fact, they all seemed bloody miserable. Specially the kids. P’raps they’d had a row for being out having fun in the other field with me. The woman and her red-faced husband kept digging till they stopped to drink from me special bottle.

  Me own bottle…

  I had to ignore it and focus on me plan. Within a few minutes I were in the parlour where Ma and Pa were both fast asleep in their armchairs, snorin’ away. I spat into their two cups of water then on to their open mouths. When Pa began to stir, I were off out the back door and round behind the stank so no-one cud see me. Not even Mollie, with her back turned to me. Her dress tucked up into pale, pink knickers.