Laying the Ghosts

by Catherine Thornton

  Laying the Ghosts

  By

  Catherine Thornton

  Copyright © Catherine Thornton 2010

  A small group of mourners stood huddled by a graveside. It was a heavy-skied morning in early January, the scene already disfigured by snow. The mourners seemed to cling together as much for protection against the icy wind as for the comfort that could be gleaned from knowing that theirs was a shared sadness. Only one figure stood apart from this group. A girl – dark-haired, white faced and gaunt – shivered in solitude a few paces behind them. Unlike the rest of the gathering, who were dressed formally in black, she wore jeans and a blue raincoat that seemed to provide scant protection against the cold. Her appearance suggested a wish to be present without being recognised as one of the officially bereaved. Only the look in her eyes, which manifested a despair too overwhelming to allow the release of tears, marked her as the chief mourner.

  The depth of her sorrow came from the realisation that the awfulness of death lies not in the stopping of a heart or the ceasing of the lungs’ function. The lifeless body was at peace and the soul probably already resurrected in a kinder world. It was the aching absence that was left behind after death that bit deepest. A sense of loss had swept into her life like an icy void that anaesthetised all emotion leaving her dazed and empty. Her losses had been twofold and this, the latter, had extinguished the last vestiges of purpose and meaning in her life.

  He had a habit of taking his watch on and off during lessons. It had become quite a joke amongst his pupils and they sometimes imitated the characteristic way in which he strode up and down the classroom, passing the watch from one hand to the other as he spoke. That particular day he had left the watch on his desk, walked over to the window and, with his usual detachment, watched the rain outside whilst addressing the class. He was in his middle fifties, stocky, his hair touched with grey; but he had a certain presence and he commanded the attention of everyone in the room although seemingly oblivious of them. When the lesson was over the girls quickly put their books together and hurried out of the classroom, the teacher himself following them down the corridor. Only one girl remained in the room and her eyes were fixed on the watch that was still where the teacher had placed it half an hour before.

  After a few minutes the girl went over and gingerly picked up the watch. It had a black leather strap and a stark black face relieved by two Roman numerals and it lay in the palm of her hand ticking softly but audibly. She thought momentarily of the heartbeat of a small animal and it felt to her as if she was holding a living creature, or at least something that had absorbed the personality of the man who had worn it. Certainly it was integral to his character as she perceived it and to possess the watch was to possess some very intimate part of him. The desire to keep it suddenly overwhelmed the girl and she slipped the watch into her pocket and walked briskly from the classroom, only to meet the rightful owner in the corridor.

  “Oh, Emma,” he began when he saw her, “I forgot to say that I wanted you to finish the play by Tuesday. Will you tell the others?”

  Emma, her rather lank, dark hair concealing the colour that had risen in her cheeks, nodded at him and then hurried away before she had time to consider taking the opportunity to return the watch.

  When Emma reached home that evening, she paused briefly to greet her mother who was with a friend, and then rushed straight up to her room, still clad in damp raincoat and muddy shoes. She sat on the edge of her bed for a few moments as if to catch her breath and compose herself, and then took the watch from her pocket, considering the extraordinary fact that she had stolen it. A couple of months ago it would have been an unthinkable thing to do, but everything had changed perspective since then. In the past her feelings towards her English teacher had only existed as a vague desire for his approval and a certain self-consciousness in his presence. She had never sought to analyse these feelings, perhaps for fear of discovering that they were foolish or improper. Now she accepted them as not only permissible but necessary.

  Emma’s growing infatuation had found two outlets. The first of these was, quite simply, that of writing her idol’s name, sometimes as initials and sometimes disguised in an elaborate pattern that would fill the margin of her notes. Writing his full name would always give her a twinge of guilty pleasure, but the use of his Christian name was a liberty which she rarely allowed herself. When she did so she always wrote on a small slip of paper which she would fold up – she was superstitious about tearing it – and carefully place in a bin. She never once presumed to couple her name with his.

  The second outlet which Emma had permitted herself was more to the purpose. She dearly wanted something of her own character to be revealed to her teacher. She wanted to stimulate his interest. Thus, ever since she had started having English lessons with him, Emma had sought to put as much of her personality as possible into her essays and to use them as a means of explaining all those thoughts and ideas which meant most to her. A bad mark or a criticism were, for her, a rejection. In this way she made herself peculiarly vulnerable to him without his knowledge. The result, in general, was favourable. Her essays usually got high marks and she believed that he thought well of her. However, Alex Dowding was a difficult man to gauge. Although he put forward ideas for discussion, he rarely expressed his personal opinion on anything. Most of his pupils, including Emma, were a little in awe of him. Even now she had moments when she was surprised that she had the audacity to cherish any feelings for him.

  It was Tuesday and Emma sat alternately fiddling with the corners of a sheet of file paper and tapping her long fingers against the desk whilst glancing nervously towards the door of the classroom. Beside her was a rather pretty girl with pale gold hair cut in a bob and curled under the line of her chin.

  “I get the feeling,” she was saying to Emma, “that I’ve been wasting my time trying to encourage your budding romance with Paul.”

  “It was never budding,” replied Emma, a tinge of annoyance in her voice. “All the budding went on in your mind.”

  “You got on with him well enough at my party.”

  “I had a brief conversation with him.”

  “Well, why were you so keen to go to the concert on Saturday night? Surely not for the pleasure of seeing Heather and Mr Dowding prancing about on stage?”

  Emma flushed very slightly. “I like musicals.”

  “I can’t understand you! It’s virtually impossible to get you to go out anywhere most of the time, yet you practically dragged me to that wretched musical. I only went because I thought you wanted an excuse to see Paul again and poor Gary only went because I bullied him into it. And then you proceeded to ignore Paul the whole evening! You do like men, don’t you?”

  Emma laughed. “Men, yes; not boys. Paul’s very nice and all that, but a trifle newly-hatched for my liking.”

  “You like Gary, though?”

  “Yes. At least he’s not full of the joys of literature one minute and angling for a grope the next. Anyway, Claire, he’s your boyfriend.”

  Emma again glanced towards the door to see if Mr Dowding had arrived.

  “He’s late,” was Claire’s comment.

  Emma nodded but made no response. She was remembering how the four of them had gone backstage, supposedly to see their friend, Heather. And there, just as she had hoped, was Mr Dowding, probably looking rather silly with a patch over one eye and a plastic sword at his waist. But he wore his shirt open at the neck and with his sleeves rolled up she found him intensely, disturbingly masculine, especially in comparison with the youthful, willowy figure of Paul, who stood by her side. Mr Dowding had given her and Claire a nod of acknowledgement – that was all – and she had blushed and glanced away. But she had ve
ry much wanted to see him in some context other than school and it had been worth the agony of discomfort she had suffered wondering if he knew, intuitively, why she was there.

  Just then the English teacher entered the room and the two girls pulled their chairs up to the desks and Claire started to flick through the pages of the play they were studying whilst Emma watched the teacher taking his books out of a worn, brown briefcase. She averted her gaze before he turned to face the class.

  “Well, ladies,” he greeted them as he always did. “Before we start today there is one matter I would like to clear up. It seems that I left my watch on the desk at the end of Friday’s lesson. Did anyone see it?”

  There was a moment of silence and one or two of the girls shook their heads. He had mentioned the matter in quite a casual tone and they now waited for him to begin the lesson.

  “Well, Emma?”

  She looked up, flushing deeply as she met his eyes.

  “Sorry; what?” she muttered, overcome with confusion.

  “What were your thoughts on the last two acts? I take it you did read them?”

  She nodded.

  “And the rest of you?” He looked at the other members of the class. They all shook their heads with the exception of Claire.

  “I take it that you did pass on my message, Emma?”

  “Well, I did tell Claire.”

  “Thankyou, Emma. You obviously had better things on your mind on Friday. Well, I suggest that we spend the first part of the lesson actually reading Act Four.” He turned to Emma and Claire. “You two can look through your essays which I will return to you in a minute. When you have read my comments you can swap essays and have a look at what the other had to say.”

  As Emma fixed her eyes on the configuration of words that made up her essay she noticed that her hands were trembling. It wasn’t guilt that made her react so, but the alarming thought that her teacher might have some suspicion that it was she who had taken the watch. What disturbed her was the fear that something that was dear to her, that she hugged to herself in private for strength and comfort, might be taken away. It wasn’t the physical possession of the watch that concerned her, but the possession of her secret. If Mr Dowding found out that she had taken it, what would he think? What would be worse than him thinking her a thief would be his having some insight into her motives and regarding them with half amused contempt.

  Not only had Emma kept the watch but she had carried it with her ever since she had first taken it. She had tried wearing it high up her wrist under her sleeve, but it had kept slipping down, especially at mealtimes, giving her cause both for concern and a few private smiles. After that she had kept it in her pocket. It was there now and she surreptitiously put her hand to the side of her skirt to make sure that it was well concealed. She then attempted to concentrate on the comments that Mr Dowding had written on her essay.

  “Jean! A word with you please.” Alex Dowding had tapped lightly on the headmistress’s door before entering. The two had worked together for nearly ten years and both liked and respected the other although the friendship did not extend outside the school.

  “Come in, Alex.” Jean Jones, a tidily dressed woman in her forties put down her pen and smiled at him, indicating that he should sit down in a comfortable armchair that was placed beside her desk. Alex, however, walked over to the window and looked out. His eyebrows had corrugated into a frown,

  “My watch has disappeared and I’m rather afraid that someone had taken it.”

  “When did that happen?” Jean Jones turned to face him.

  “On Friday afternoon. I left the watch on the desk in my classroom after a lesson. I returned just a few minutes later to retrieve it. Unfortunately it had gone. I’m only mentioning this to you because I’m almost certain that someone must have taken it – and it must have been someone in that class. There can only have been two or three minutes between the time I left the room and the time I returned. I had hoped that whoever had picked it up meant to return it to me, but it seems not.”

  “Which class was it?”

  “My upper sixth girls. I know that it seems improbable but,” he paused, tapping his fingers on the window sill whilst he thought, “but I’m pretty sure that no one else went in there after I left. There wasn’t enough time.”

  It was the headmistresses turn to frown. “What would you like me to do?”

  “Well, I asked the class about it this morning, but to no avail. You see, Jean, I’m worried that one of them is in some kind of trouble. There can be no other reason for them taking it. And I’d like to give who-ever-it-is the chance to return it. Then, perhaps, we can find out why they took it.”

  “Would you like me to mention the matter in Assembly tomorrow?”

  Alex nodded. “That’s rather what I had in mind. If you say that it is missing without suggesting that we think it might have been stolen, perhaps it will encourage the person to give it back. Then we can see if we can do anything to help them, if need be.”

  What Alex Dowding did not say to the headmistress was that he felt pretty sure that he knew who the culprit was. He knew Emma Tomlinson had been the last person to leave the room because he had bumped into her on his was back there. He had thought at the time that she had seemed flustered. What he was at a loss to explain was why someone like Emma should take the watch. All he knew about her life outside the school was that she lived with her mother. In school she kept very much to herself, although she seemed to be well liked by most of the girls. He could only speculate as to what kind of trouble might turn her into a thief.

  As if she had been reading his mind Jean Jones asked, “Is Emma Tomlinson applying to University? I thought she wanted to study English but I’ve not heard anything more about it?”

  Alex shook his head, “Apparently she wants to take a year off, although she didn’t say why. I advised her to apply for a deferred place, but she didn’t seem keen.”

  “Has she been handing her work in regularly?”

  “Yes. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, Monica told me that she’s not been keeping up with her history and I’ve had a similar story from Peter Mortimer.”

  Alex frowned again. “I can’t say that I’ve noticed any change in the standard of her work. I always rather enjoy her essays, although she does tend to stray from the question and that will lose her marks.” He thought for a moment. “Perhaps I’ll have a word with her.”

  The headmistress picked up her pen. “I rather hoped you would.”

  Alex had intended to speak to Emma at lunchtime the following day. He saw her during Assembly but after that she simply disappeared. In answer to his inquiries Monica Lewis informed him that Emma had not been to her history lesson that morning. He had already noticed a change in her behaviour in recent weeks and he was now becoming increasingly concerned. He liked Emma. She was one of his brightest pupils and he didn’t want to see her getting into any kind of trouble. In any case, he had always believed that, as a teacher, he was to some extent responsible for the welfare of all his pupils. He had been a teacher for nearly thirty years now. His father had been a vicar and it was originally thought that he too would enter the church. But despite considerable opposition from his parents he had decided that teaching was a vocation to which he was more suited and now he only went to church so as to sing in the choir.

  At fifty-two Alex Dowding was still dedicated to his job. In fact his life had not changed much in any way over the years, even after the death of his wife several years ago. He had met Alice when he was still at Cambridge and they married shortly after he took up his first teaching post. Theirs had been a tranquil marriage. Or so Alex always told himself. Alice had taught music and this mutual love had been the keystone of their relationship. They had one son, Rupert, who had been studying economics at university when his mother was knocked down and killed. Since that time Alex had seen very little of his son. He visited at Christmas and sometimes Easter, usually bringing a girlfriend with him. Bu
t although father and son never had cause to quarrel, they were not close. Alex considered himself to be quite content with his life as a widower. He had his job and his music, he played cricket and smoked the occasional cigar and he had a comfortable home. Occasionally he regretted that he saw so little of Rupert, but more often he forgot about him altogether. He did not really miss his wife anymore and the two relationships that he had formed after her death had convinced him that he was better off on his own.

  The first woman he had become involved with after Alice died was Moira James, a childhood sweetheart of his. He had lost contact with her when he had gone to Cambridge and, like him, she had married shortly afterwards. By the time they had renewed the acquaintance she was divorced, and they picked up the relationship more or less where they had left off. As the months passed, however, Moira began to air the question of marriage with increasing frequency. This made Alex realise that, despite the benefits of the affair, he was not at all inclined to remarry and he made this abundantly clear to her. Their parting was somewhat acrimonious.