by Emma Fraser
‘I doubt it will get approval. Can you imagine the stink if it ever came out? In any case I can’t imagine they could bring themselves to do it even if it were an order from high up.’
‘Doubt isn’t good enough. If you can’t promise me that won’t happen, I’ll go to the press myself and tell them. I’ll make sure everyone in Singapore and beyond knows. I’ll —’
‘Oh, get off your high horse, Georgina. We’ll see those bandy-legged blighters off by sundown. There’s not a hope in hell of them making it beyond their landing site. It’s all just a ruse to get us to send more troops up north.’
‘But what if… What if the Japs do make it through the jungle?’
‘I promise you, Georgina. It will never happen.’
She still wasn’t convinced. ‘If people were so sure of that then why even discuss what they’d do if the Japs did make it through the jungle?’
‘Because some of our officers panic more easily than others.’
‘I don’t find that reassuring, Lawrence. Can’t you persuade someone to order the nurses back to Singapore?’
He rubbed his forehead as if to dispel an encroaching headache. ‘The nurses are part of the army. They knew the risks.’
‘They are women. And not all of them are army nurses. You know there are hundreds of civilians amongst them, as well as volunteers. Do you think they truly knew what they were letting themselves in for? Their officer status was supposed to protect them – much damn use it did.’
He sat down behind his desk and opened the drawer, lifting out a sheaf of papers. ‘You are going to have to excuse me. I have work to be getting on with.’ The sun had risen while she’d been waiting for him. ‘But I will promise you, if it looks like the nurses are in danger, I will personally insist that they are evacuated.’ He picked up his fountain pen. ‘That is the best I can do.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Charlotte
1984
Georgina took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘How could one human do that to another? How could they murder doctors and nurses? It wasn’t as if they could do them any harm. It was impossible to believe. At first. We came to know differently later. And the fear that my sister could be caught up in that…’ she squeezed her eyes shut ‘… didn’t bear thinking about.’
I shook my head. I’d known none of this. When we learned about the war, it was always about what had happened during the holocaust. Millions of innocent men, women and children had been murdered then too – on a scale that was difficult to imagine. My generation couldn’t really conceive it – the Germans were our friends now – but those that had carried out those crimes or at least were aware of them, still lived. And those who had been their victims lived too. How does a person ever come to terms with man’s inhumanity when they have been forced to face it? I didn’t know. This had to be why Georgina had asked me whether I believed in evil.
‘I think that’s enough for one night, don’t you?’ Georgina said. She glanced at her wristwatch. ‘There is an hour or so before the generator cuts out. Why don’t you tell me a little more about you?’
Before I could say anything I heard a smothered cry coming from behind us. Edith stood in the doorway, her hand over her mouth, her eyes glassy.
Georgina jumped up, strode towards her sister and took her hands in hers. ‘Darling, how much did you hear?’
Edith shook her head from side to side. Tears flowed, unchecked, down her cheeks.
‘I need you,’ she whispered.
A look passed between the two women. Then Edith spun away, her quick, light steps fading into the distance.
Georgina turned back to me. ‘Please excuse me. I must go with her.’
‘Of course. I’m ready for bed myself. I’ll just take Tiger outside first.’
But I was already talking to an empty room.
My dreams that night were of blood-streaked women holding out their hands to me, their eyes begging me to do something.
I jerked awake, my heart hammering against my ribs. It was dark – that dense, almost tangible darkness through which I could see nothing. My bedclothes were tangled, as if I’d been fighting them in my sleep, my pyjamas damp with perspiration, around me only silence.
Something had woken me. I was certain someone was in the room with me. I lay rigid, straining my ears for the sound of someone moving about. But if someone had been in my room, or still was, Tiger would have alerted me. Surely. Although by now she was used to Edith and Georgina.
‘Who’s there?’ I said, my voice a strangled croak. ‘Is that you, Georgina? Edith?’
Although why either of the women would be in my room in the middle of the night I couldn’t imagine.
There was no reply. Fumbling in the darkness, I located the paraffin lamp next to my bed and the box of vesta matches alongside it and with shaking fingers managed to strike a match and hold it to the wick of the lamp, breathing easier when it eventually lit. It only gave off a small pool of light, the rest of the room remained in shadow. But it was enough for me to see Tiger fully alert, her ears pricked up. Knowing I wouldn’t get back to sleep until I checked that I was alone – even though common sense told me I had to be – I pushed the blankets aside, shivering as the cold, damp air wrapped around me.
Holding my lamp in front of me, my heart still pounding, I peered into the darker recesses of the room where the light didn’t reach. I investigated all the corners, even going as far as searching under the bed and opening the wardrobe door to look inside, berating myself as I did so. There was, of course, no one anywhere in my room but I couldn’t shake the feeling that there had been. It must have been the remnants of my nightmare that had frightened me.
I was about to return to bed when I noticed a sliver of light coming from the other side of my door. It was only there for the briefest of moments as if someone had passed by with a candle or a lamp, and paused outside my room before moving on.
I hurried over to the door and flung it open, but there was no one there. I glanced down either side of the corridor and considered investigating further but I was cold and what would I do anyway if I came across Edith or Georgina? It wasn’t as if they didn’t have the right to wander the corridors of Greyfriars any time they chose. But they slept on the other side of the house. Why come to this wing? To check up on me?
Just then a movement from the far end of the corridor caught my attention and my breath caught in my throat as I saw a figure glide away from me. It had to be Edith, sleepwalking. Had she wandered into my room while asleep? The thought of Edith standing over me while I slept chilled me. Nevertheless, I should check she was okay.
Whispering to Tiger to stay where she was, I gently closed my bedroom door behind me and hurried down the corridor. If it were Edith I couldn’t risk calling out to her; Georgina had said Edith wasn’t to be woken when sleepwalking. She was moving quickly despite having no lamp to guide her and had disappeared from view. The light from my own was too feeble to allow me to see more than a few feet ahead.
I paused at the top of the back stairs that led to the kitchen. There was no sign of movement from there. Neither was she in the corridor leading to Edith and Georgina’s wing although the door to it was open. I had only ever seen it closed. Perhaps Edith had returned to her room and was, even now, sliding under her bedcovers? The house was freezing and despite the thick pullover I wore over my pyjamas, I was shivering and wanted nothing more than to creep back to my room and bury myself under my blankets. What harm could possibly come to Edith? Just then, I thought I heard the faintest click of a door closing from the servants’ staircase halfway down the corridor that led to the west wing. Georgina had said that the west wing was almost an exact replica of the one I slept in, so in all probability there was a similar servants’ staircase bisecting the corridor although I couldn’t visualise where it might lead. I had a vague recollection of my mother telling me about the nursery and the secret staircase that led from it and to the ramparts. What if Edith had taken it in
to her head to go up there? In which case I’d have to go after her. She’d been upset earlier and was clearly vulnerable.
I swore under my breath and followed the west wing corridor until I came to a stair. I’d been right then. Unlike the one in my wing this one only led upwards. I hurried up the stone steps to another corridor, narrower than the one below and uncarpeted. Halfway along, on my left, a door was slightly open. I pushed it gently, hardly daring to breathe, and stepped inside. It was even darker, almost pitch-black, no doubt because the shutters were closed. I held my lamp high and, as my eyes adjusted, I made out a single bed, a rocking horse and a bookcase – and right in the corner, the shape of someone watching me.
‘Edith?’ I whispered, my heart in my mouth.
When there was no reply, and fighting an increasing desire to turn tail and run back to my room, I forced myself to go forward. The light of my lamp cast flickering, magnified shadows on the wall.
The figure was wearing some sort of dress but, I clasped my hand over my mouth, it was headless. Was I still in the throes of my nightmare? Had I not woken up at all?
I stepped closer. And then, when I saw what it was, I almost laughed out loud.
The figure was nothing more than an old-fashioned wooden tailor’s dummy such that I’d only ever seen in old photographs. Georgina had said that they made their own clothes and I’d seen a number of Simplicity patterns lying around. When I was younger Mum had made her own clothes too, laying cloth on the table before pinning on the tissue patterns and cutting around the silhouette.
But I was almost sure I hadn’t imagined the figure in the corridor and if I hadn’t, then she had to be still here or have taken the secret staircase. If this had once been the nursery and it seemed it was, then the door to the secret staircase was at the back of the cupboard.
I found the cupboard easily enough at the side of the room. Placing my lamp on the floor, I pushed the clothes to the side and, lifting my lamp again, peered at the back of the cupboard. There was no handle, no keyhole, nothing to indicate that there was a door. Was the story about the secret staircase a fabrication, a story made up by Georgina to intrigue a little girl?
I hadn’t realised I was holding my breath until it came out in a rush.
I’d definitely seen Edith in the corridor earlier, somehow she must have slipped by me and gone back to bed. Everything else was my imagination, the result of the terror of the nightmare I’d been having when I’d woken. Shaking my head at my idiocy, I retreated back to my bedroom.
Tiger was waiting by the door for me and I patted her and for once invited her onto the bed to sleep. She bounded up as if she couldn’t believe her luck. I told myself it was her warmth I craved, but I knew it was a friendly presence.
Still shivering I ran over the events in my head. I’d been having a nightmare. That had made my heart race – no wonder I had imagined someone in my room.
But I hadn’t imagined Tiger, the hairs on her neck standing on end, and I hadn’t imagined the figure fleeing in front of me. And if I hadn’t imagined it where had she gone? There was only one door at the end of that corridor and it was too narrow for two people to pass without brushing against each other. So she couldn’t have slipped past me without my noticing. Neither could she have disappeared like a puff of smoke. Unless – and the thought chilled me to the marrow – unless it hadn’t been Edith I’d seen. Perhaps it had been something far less corporeal? I couldn’t help but remember what my mother had told me – that Greyfriars was haunted by the Jacobite woman who had been torn from her child. I almost laughed. I’d been here less than forty-eight hours and already I was thinking of ghostly reasons for something that was bound to have a perfectly reasonable explanation.
I was beginning to feel as if I’d stepped into a different world, as if the person I was, had been, was being swallowed up by Greyfriars and might disappear without a trace. Of course, I didn’t believe in ghosts. They did not exist. There had to be another explanation although I was damned if I could think of what it was.
I contemplated wedging a chair under the handle of the door in case my visitor chose to return but decided against it. I absolutely refused to give in to these ridiculous notions.
By morning, last night’s fears and flights of fancy seemed even more absurd. Nevertheless, I felt tired and on edge. The atmosphere at Greyfriars and Georgina’s recounting of events in Singapore, coupled with my grief over Mum and my anxiety about work, was clearly affecting me.
It wasn’t just that; the great-aunts unsettled me too, Edith in particular. I was certain I wasn’t imagining it when I felt she was watching me, or how easily she started at the slightest noise. She reminded me of the starlings that roosted on the rowan tree outside my room at Greyfriars – the way they’d take flight as I approached and fly away in a thick black cloud only to re-alight moments later. At that moment if it hadn’t been for the promise I’d made to Mum I might well have packed my leather suitcase and left. As it was, I was glad to be leaving the island behind me for the day. Some time away from the claustrophobic atmosphere of Greyfriars could only do me good.
It was fully light by the time I had used the plastic shower hose to have a lukewarm shower, and dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a silk blouse that picked out the colour of my eyes. Outside it was drizzling again, the sky drained of all colour although it wasn’t windy and there was clear sky in the distance and even a hint of sun. I’d already made up my mind, whatever the weather I was going on that walk with Jamie.
I left after breakfast, having said nothing about last night to my aunts – Edith was clearly none the worse for her night-time wanderings and it seemed insensitive to mention it, particularly after her previous reaction. Stopping only to don my new pair of walking boots and shrug into the jacket Georgina had given me the day I’d arrived, I hurried off down to the pier feeling a sense of nervous anticipation. It wasn’t a date, I reminded myself, but deep down I didn’t really believe it wasn’t. Then again, my experience of men was limited. Very limited.
I’d never really got the whole dating thing – especially when to advance and when to retreat – what people called flirting. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t good at reading body language, I was, I had a reasonable idea when someone fancied me, they simply rarely asked me out. The two men I’d had relationships with I’d met through work. Cyril the Weasel (as Rachel referred to him) was a barrister in another set. He’d asked me out, I’d agreed, dated him for a few weeks – and broken up with him as soon as I’d realised he talked about nothing but himself. I’d also met Christopher through work. I’d needed a medical opinion and Rachel had put me in touch with him. He had lasted longer although, or perhaps because, we’d rarely seen each other and while I’d liked him a great deal, I realised eventually I wasn’t in love with him.
The Guthrie women were not great at picking men, that much was evident. Perhaps, like my great-aunts and my mother, I was destined to live on my own. The thought had never and, I told myself firmly, still didn’t worry me.
Jamie was waiting for me on the opposite side. He was wearing jeans and a thin sweater and looked good. More importantly he looked safe, solid and normal. He grinned when I stepped ashore and my heart fluttered behind my ribs.
‘Ready to go?’
‘Whenever you are.’
He pointed to the hills behind him. ‘It’ll take a couple of hours to reach the top. You okay with that?’
‘Of course.’ I hoped my thighs were up to it. The weather was clearing, the sun out, the earlier rain on the grass evaporating in ankle-high mist.
As we walked along the road and towards the hills, Tiger trotting happily beside us, we chatted. He liked country music, I hated it, I loved Dylan, he didn’t, but we agreed on a dislike of punk, a fondness for Sade and a loyalty to the Rolling Stones. He liked going to the opera, I’d never been. I enjoyed ballet, but he didn’t get it. He liked having a pint in the pub, hiking, sailing and mountain climbing. I did none of these. We spoke abou
t the recent gang murders in Moss Side in Manchester and the IRA, both agreeing that there seemed to be no simple solution to either problem. Every now and again he would pause to point out a bird or a deer almost completely disguised by its surroundings.
He was so easy to be with, I found it hard to believe this was only the second time I’d met him. Being with him I forgot for long stretches of time my own misery and anxiety.
Soon we were climbing the steep path and it became almost impossible for me to breathe and talk at the same time and we completed the rest of the way in companionable silence. When we reached the summit, I sank to the ground, Tiger flopping beside me, and rested my back against a rock, glad of a chance to get my breath. The views were amazing. I could see as far as Oban, and Jamie pointed out Mull and Colonsay, as well as many of the other, smaller islands. I could even see the top of Greyfriars’ turret.
Out here under the massive blue sky, last night’s fears seemed even more ridiculous; the person stumbling around last night not me, but some other deranged woman.
