The Stones of Muncaster Cathedral

by Robert Westall

  But the voices had gone on, after he’d got up. They had gone on right till he reached the last flight of stairs . . . he couldn’t still have been dreaming . . . or was there such a thing as a waking dream, after you’d got up?

  Or – and this was much more exciting – were there really ghosts? He had always wanted there to be ghosts. But he’d never seen one. The nearest he’d got was atmospheres in houses and churches. Every building had its atmosphere. He knew a chapel in Hereford cathedral where he literally seemed to go out of time, it felt so warm and safe and loving. His parents had found him there, after an hour, with what his father had described as a dozy grin on his face. And there was a church in York with an atmosphere so dreadful that you kept thinking the floor sloped down towards the middle, and the walls were leaning inwards, and the cross just looked like two old bits of wood nailed together. Even Methodist church halls had an atmosphere for Harry – an atmosphere of silly plays and dances, and ministers’ fatuous announcements.

  And those voices – they had seemed to suggest that the person who owned the house was called Kath. And he very much wanted Kath to be the girl in the picture – the name Kath would suit her. Kathleen, Catherine, Kathryn, like Kathryn Grayson, the film star . . .

  He listened carefully, hoping the voices would come again. But he only heard the sound of a late sports car outside, accelerating up Brangwyn Gardens with that freedom that came with empty streets after midnight. Of course, it might be a sports car out of another time, a sports car from during the War. In the films, RAF fighter pilots always drove little sports cars. But a sports car was any time; not worth getting out of a warm bed for . . .

  Somewhere in this house, Kath must have lain alone in her warm bed . . . in one of these unchanged bedrooms . . . as Mrs Meggitt must be lying now. But he swerved away from thoughts of Mrs Meggitt, sleeping her pointless sleep as she lived her pointless life. What was the point of people’s lives when they reached that age? What could she possibly be hoping for, looking forward to? She must be his parents’ age. What did his parents have to look forward to? Well, himself and his older brother, Jack, and the way they were getting on in the world. And Jack’s kids, Derek and Shaun. His own parents were busy being grandparents. But there was an aridness about Mrs Meggitt. You couldn’t imagine her having children . . . though there must have been a Mr Meggitt, poor sod . . .

  Anyway, he didn’t want to think about Mrs Meggitt. He wanted to think about Kath, young and beautiful. And so deliciously vulnerable.

  He rolled over and switched on his bedroom light, and picked the diary off the bedside rug, took the photograph out and propped it against the bedside lamp, and turned to what was already his favourite place in the diary.

  ‘Air raids have an odd effect upon women. Quite different from the effect upon men. In the shelter, the men get very tensed up and restless. They are all ears. Was that a gun or a bomb? Here they come again . . . even when you strain your ears and can hear nothing. The men talk wildly about when are we going to bomb Berlin and give Adolf some of his own medicine? They discuss how Hitler should be punished after the War is over and he is in prison. It makes me quite sick, some of the things they say about punishing Hitler.

  ‘The women are quite different. They grow flirty with the men around them, even when they are strangers. They nudge up to the men next to them on the wooden seats. If they are with their boy-friends, they want to cuddle and kiss, and more. Sometimes I don’t know where to look. And I am talking about respectable women, housewives and young typists from the City. It is as if they were desperate for some warmth and love, even in the cannon’s mouth, as Shakespeare would put it.

  ‘I can’t find it in my heart to blame them. I am just the same, especially during a raid when I am in this house and on my own. I have this fantasy of a man knocking at my door to get in to safety during a raid. Perhaps he is slightly injured. I lie him down on the bed in the cellar and then . . . I don’t know what I should do if a real man were ever to knock . . . I’d probably come to my senses and be quite prim. Like I always become when the raid is over, and the all-clear goes. I seem to be two people. Two sisters inside the same skin . . .’

  Harry put the diary down, turned out the light, and fell into his own fantasy. And finally slept. His last thought was of the nature of time. Of the fifteen years that lay between himself and the beautiful lonely Catherine like a massive impenetrable pad of grey insulation material, the consistency of the ex-army blankets on his bed. If only he had been the one to knock on her door! But he’d only been six then, a little boy in short trousers that Mam had made for him; two hundred miles away on the north-east coast.

  Next evening, he had no sooner put his key into the lock of number eleven Brangwyn Gardens than the thought hit him – like an electric shock that made the world go black before his eyes, and his knees tremble.

  He could go and look for the cellar with the bed in it.

  But first he must make sure that Mrs Meggitt was not at home. He was so much wanting her not to be that he got another shock when she called ‘come in’ in response to his knock on her door. He had to open the door, knowing he hadn’t a thought in his head about what he was going to say to her. She did not look up from where she sat by the old gas fire, warming her shabby slacks at the tiny warmth, a typescript on her knee.

  ‘Yes, Mr Shaftoe?’ She did not bother to look up at him even now, or stop reading the script.

  ‘I got a bit of a fright last night,’ he said, lamely. ‘I was lying on my bed when I thought I heard voices down here in the hall. A lot of people, having a sort of party. But when I came down, there was nobody there.’

  ‘What time was this?’ She still went on reading, and her voice was very bored.

  ‘Just before I met you. That was why I opened the front door.’

  ‘I thought you said you were going out for a bite to eat?’

  ‘That as well.’ She was starting to make him feel a proper fool.

  ‘Well, I can explain about the voices. It’s living in a terrace that does it. Voices echo off the housefronts opposite. I often think I hear a taxi pulling up outside; but when I look, it’s thirty yards away down the street.’

  He almost felt she was a fellow human being for a moment; he almost pitied her. Expecting someone coming in a taxi who never came. Then she said,

  ‘Is there anything else?’ in a dismissive voice, and he half-hated her again. So he said, half-jokingly, but meaning to shake her,

  ‘I thought the house was haunted for a minute.’

  She made a squiggle on the typescript with the Biro in her hand; like a severe schoolmistress correcting an essay, and said,

  ‘You don’t believe in that kind of nonsense, do you?’

  ‘Places have atmospheres,’ he said defiantly.

  ‘What places?’

  ‘Old churches.’

  ‘You mean they have pretty, old, stained-glass windows, and smell of incense and woodworm-killer?’

  ‘It’s more than that.’ His voice rose to an indignant squeak.

  ‘You obviously have the artistic temperament, Mr Shaftoe.’

  ‘This house has got an atmosphere.’

  ‘You mean it’s full of old unsellable junk?’ She sounded as if she really hated the house. As if she was forced to live there against her will.

  ‘Good night,’ he said, and walked out stiffly, closing the door with a precise and angry click.

  He left his own door open, and listened for the bang of the front door as she went to work.

  She went about seven.

  Immediately, he was tiptoeing downstairs; only wary, in case she had forgotten something and came back for it.

  He found the door and steps down to the basement easily enough; the porcelain and brass light-switch resisted his hand, then went down with an almighty click.

  He was in a huge dim kitchen, with stone flags, huge tables, and massive black pans on shelves. A big schoolhouse clock on the wall, stopped at ten to four
, probably for ever. Black-beetles scurried away from under his feet. What on earth did black-beetles find to live on, he wondered. This place obviously hadn’t been cooked in for years.

  There was a black warden’s helmet, with a white ‘W’ painted on it, hanging on the back of a further door. It was like a friendly signpost, saying he was on the right track.

  But the room beyond was only a scullery, with two huge Belfast sinks and nothing else.

  Except that through its dusty window, across the area with its dustbins, he could see another door. And after a tussle with the rusty outside lock, it was there he found it. The cellar. It had once been the coal-cellar, but somebody had painted the arch of London brick with thick coats of whitewash, some of which had flaked off, to reveal the coal-ingrained brick beneath. It lay under the roadway; a heavy brick arch with three feet of road-surfacing above it. It would have been a good air raid shelter, against anything but a direct hit; far safer than the basement of the house.

  And in it, one on each side, two narrow beds, made up with the same grey Army blankets as he had himself. One bed was unused, as flat as a board. The other had been lain on; there was the impression of a body lying on its back. There was the dent of a head in the thin-striped pillow, minus any pillowcases.

  From the width of the depression around the hips, it must have been a woman. He could clearly see the twin impressions left by the buttocks. He thrust his nose at the depression in the pillow, like an avid dog. Was there, under the pervading dry mustiness, a hint of some perfume, rather sweet and old-fashioned and innocent? Lily of the Valley, like his mother had used? It seemed impossible, after all those years; it all seemed impossible after all those years. Yet, if she had lain down on top of this bed, during a raid, and nobody else had ever come again, why should it be impossible? How else could it have been?

  He straightened up, and looked around. There was a blue Thermos flask, on the rackety little table beside the bed. He unscrewed it; it was empty and smelt foul, as empty Thermos flasks always do. But he thought it might once have held weak coffee, with something alcoholic in it. Something to keep up her courage. And there was a book too, a little leather-bound black book with golden edges that winked at him dimly as he lifted it, like a goldfish swimming in murky water. A Bible. With a paper bookmark, marking the place of the 23rd Psalm.

  And the name in the front of the Bible was Catherine Winslow. To Catherine from her loving Grandmother, on the occasion of her confirmation, May 1st 1931.

  It was so pathetic. The coffee and alcohol to keep up her courage; the Bible to keep her safe. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.

  And she had been dead for fifteen years.

  He backed away, as if from some holy shrine, feeling ashamed at what visions he had had of her, what fantasies. He had some feelings of piety still left in him, in spite of a student dalliance with atheism and Marxism. Piety learnt saying his prayers long ago at his mother’s knee, as a four-year-old.

  His mother would still say that Catherine Winslow was with the angels now. And yet Catherine Winslow had wanted to take a man down to that shelter and . . .

  In a thorough muddle, he ran back upstairs to his room.

  Once there, he paced about restlessly. He felt so close to her. But he wanted to be closer. Somewhere in this house, in which nothing had changed for fifteen years, must be her bedroom, her personal things. He had to find it. He wanted to run his hands over everything.

  He looked at his watch. It was only half-past seven. Mrs Meggitt had only been gone half an hour. He was safe enough.

  And so he went down through the house, bursting into room after room like an invader. Most of the rooms, though fully furnished, were desolate. A clear top to the dressing-table; empty drawers. Guest bedrooms.

  It was two floors down that he found it. The little bookcase gave it away. Its copies of Wind in the Willows and The House at Pooh Corner still had her name in them.

  CATHERINE WINSLOW

  ELEVEN BRANGWYN GARDENS

  LONDON

  THE WORLD

  THE SOLAR SYSTEM

  THE UNIVERSE

  But it was the things she’d had when she grew older . . . Not just Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth but the grown-up powder compact, still with its powder-puff and powder inside. And the scent-spray with its little green-rubber bulb. And the wardrobe full of long dresses and curiously-pointed shoes. And the chest of drawers with its foaming, lacy mass of underwear, amongst which snuggled little sachets of dried lavender that still gave off a faint, sweet smell.

  He even dared disturb the rigidly-made double bed. And under the bolster, neatly folded, he found her white night-dress.

  It was then he thought he heard the front door close quietly downstairs. He froze in horror. He became a child of five again, caught out in some dreadful sin. If Mrs Meggitt found him here, he would be thrown out forthwith. It was beyond bearing. He broke out in a cold sweat, wave after wave of sweat, staring at the open door and waiting to be discovered.

  But he waited a long time, and nothing happened. No further sound came up the stairs; and by this time he knew what sounds to expect from Mrs Meggitt. The clack of her black lace-up shoes on the cold tiles of the hall; the clang of the kettle in the little place out back, which she now used as a kitchen.

  He felt an overwhelming thankfulness; a craven thankfulness such as he had never felt in his life before. He thought he had been let off his sin. He glanced around the room, to make sure that he’d left nothing disturbed. He saw his palm-print in the light dust that lay on the dressing-table, and took out his handkerchief and polished the shiny surface until every touch of dust was gone. Then he closed the door so softly behind him, flinching at the slight click the lock gave. Then a quick glance round the two landings to make sure that every other door was shut, as he’d found it, and he plunged down to the ground floor, to seek out the worst. He had to know if Mrs Meggitt was in the house; there was no way he could get back to normal till he knew.

  He tapped on her door, and got no answer, though when he tried the handle, the door was locked. Did that mean she didn’t trust him; that she knew what he got up to when she was out? To drive away this doubt, he began to call her name.

  ‘Mrs Meggitt? Mrs Meggitt?’ Soon, as his confidence grew that she was out of the house, his voice soared into a shout.

  It was a long time before he felt thoroughly safe. When he finally did, he went slowly and heavily upstairs; he felt worn out. He flung himself down, reached for the diary from under his bed, and held it, closed, on his chest. But he was too weary even to look at it.

  He must have dozed off. It was the song that wakened him. It was a song he knew well, from the War.

  ‘That certain night, the night we met

  There was magic abroad in the air

  There were angels dining at the Ritz

  And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.’

  He looked dazedly at his watch. Only ten to nine. Time seemed to be playing funny tricks tonight. And it was a funny time to hear that song. You still heard it played sometimes on record-request programmes; but most record-request programmes were in the mornings, he was sure . . .

  He lay still, heard it through till the end. Was just dozing off when it started up all over again. It must be a record. It was a record, because he heard it slow and slur, and then speed up again, as someone rewound the handle. Not a modern electric record-player, then, but an old wind-up gramophone. That didn’t sound like Mrs Meggitt, with her modern tape recorders . . .

  He shot upright, tingling all over. Was it . . .

  He tiptoed to the door in his stockinged feet, and stepped out on to the landing, and heard the record start up a third time. The wild thought came that she, Catherine, knew what he had been doing, searching for her room, handling her night-dress. And that she was not displeased with him. Was actually calling him.

  Softly he crept downstairs, through the scratchy waves of music.

  On the firs
t floor landing, the music simply stopped. In mid-record. No running-down of the gramophone; no click of the needle being lifted off. Just silence, like a blanket. And the solidness of the silence told him, without hope, that it would not start again.

  He felt all the dark excitement go out of him in a wave. Making him feel quite hopeless. He sat down in the middle of the last flight of stairs with his head in his hands, and groaned aloud to himself.

  A door swung open downstairs. Mrs Meggitt’s door. He sensed a beam of light fall on him, glimmering through his closed eyelids.

  Mrs Meggitt’s cross voice floated up to him:

  ‘Mr Shaftoe? Is that you? Mr Shaftoe, are you all right? Was that you groaning? Are you ill?’

  He got up shakily and said, ‘I stubbed my toe on the banister. It hurts.’

  ‘I’m not surprised, if you insist on wandering around without shoes. Was there something you wanted? You surely weren’t going out for a bite to eat without shoes on?’

  ‘No . . . I . . . I thought I heard you playing a record, over and over. It’s a favourite of mine. I haven’t heard it for years. From the War. It’s called “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square”.’

  ‘Certainly not. I’d just got the television on, in time for the news.’

  And now he could hear the TV news theme tune, the familiar, bouncy, official tones of the news-reader’s voice. Something about the Suez Canal . . .

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, and turned to go.

  He heard her sigh with exasperation as he went.

  He was sitting in a daze on his bed, holding the diary, when he remembered he had seen something about ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ in it. Not in a part he’d read properly. He’d just noted it in passing, because she had put it inside double inverted commas, instead of single inverted commas, which was the correct thing to do. While he was skimming through, the first time he’d opened the diary, he’d noticed it. He’d sneered a bit, and passed on.

  Now he searched for it desperately, so that he was a long time in finding it. But he found it in the end.