Rachel has heard variations on 'it's the government' since arriving in England. Almost anything bizarre or inconvenient can be attributed to orders from ’the government’.
“Oh, right, thanks,” she says, and they resume their walk.
“You knew about internment, didn't you?” asks Tony.
“Yeah, I mean I know Churchill rounded up all the German civilians in case some were spies or saboteurs. But, why jail law-abiding Italian ice-cream sellers? In case they poisoned the public with arsenic in their sundaes?”
Tony looks down at the stone pavement.
“According to chaps at the ministry, Churchill said, quote, 'Collar the lot'. Most Italians were sent to the Isle of Man, but others were shipped off to Australia.”
“Wow, like old-style convicts?” asks Rachel.
“Well,” he replies, “according to my contacts, the Aussies treated them really well, which is good. I'm sure a lot will stay over there.”
Tony looks as if he's about to go on, but then looks out to sea instead.
“Is there something else, Tony?” she asks.
“So many things have happened that shouldn't have,” he says. “Can we not talk about it anymore? Isn't this our holiday from the war, especially after all we've been through this year?”
“Of course, honey, it's just my reporter's nose for a story kicking in.” she says, reassuring him with a squeeze on the arm.
When she looks ahead along the prom again she sees a figure in a dark dress standing by a lamppost. It might be the mystery woman, she thinks. But is she a ghost? If so, Tony couldn't have seen her.
Confused, she gives a little wave to the woman, who doesn't respond. Rachel resolves not take her eyes off the figure until she gets close enough to identify her for sure. But just then, a little girl rushes in front of them trailing a red balloon, followed by a young mother in pursuit.
“Whoops, sorry love! Come back here, Lucy, you nearly bumped into the nice lady and gentleman!”
And when Rachel looks back, the black-clad figure is gone.
When they reach the place where she saw it, she notices they're outside the boarded up ice-cream parlor. She looks up at the sign. Notarianni.
“Notrianny's, as most of us Brits tend to pronounce it,” says Tony. “Used to enjoy Knickerbocker Glories in there with mum.”
“What were they like? The family, I mean?” asks Rachel.
“Old Notarianni was a typical Italian, I suppose. Always happy to see you, loud welcome, waving his arms about.”
Tony smiles, and Rachel feels a slight pang of jealousy. I can never share those days with him. All that happiness, all the love.
“And his family?” she asks.
“There was a wife, I never knew her name, and there was a daughter. A bit older than me, really pretty. Clara, she was called. She was a bit of a flirt, used to help out behind the counter, and I was so shy …”
He trails off, and again he looks away.
Is he blushing? Whoa, now I know one of his little secrets!
“You had a crush on Clara!” she exclaims in delight. “She was your first girlfriend! Ooh, you had a holiday romance with a sexy signorina! Did you get to kiss her, or was it all strictly platonic?”
“No! It wasn't like that!”
His intensity surprises her. He responds to her shocked expression with a hug and a kiss on the forehead. She knows this is about as expressive as he can get in public.
“Hey, was it that serious?” she asks. “She break your heart?”
Tony shakes his head, and starts walking away from the boarded-up store. She follows.
“No, it wasn't unrequited love or anything like that. Clara's family were interned and of course, I went to university and then I got drafted so I couldn't come back here anyhow. Then mum died, and I thought I'd never want to see this place again. But then I met you, and I wanted to share all the happiness I'd known here with you. I didn't think it through, did I? I'm such a fool.”
“You're one of the good guys, honey. I am happy, in so far as a waddling behemoth can be!”
He smiles, and she thinks, That's a crisis averted, but I need to know more about this. Maybe he'll tell me in his own good time.
“How are your poor little feet holding up?” he asks.
“Hey! I'm only six months pregnant, I'm not a lumbering hippo yet!”
“Ah, but when you are, you'll be my own precious lumbering hippo!” he replies, with another peck on the top of her head.
And they say romance is dead, she thinks.
***
That evening, they have fish and chips, eating them on the pier. Afterwards, Rachel goes back to the guest house to have a lie down while Tony goes to the pub for a pint. She takes vitamin pills and iron supplements, although she wonders if they are just another example of doctors prescribing something rather than nothing. Rachel draws the curtains then stretches out across the double bed and tries to get comfortable. They can't know the gender of the baby inside her but they've decided she's a girl, and tentatively settled on Emily Rose as a name.
“Okay,” she says, lying on her side and patting her growing belly, “let's both get some rest. No kicking for the next hour or so.”
Rachel starts to doze off, the low light in the curtained room helps her feel calm and centered. She is soon in a dream, which offers a typical jumble of images.
She finds herself in Duncaster among the Sentinels as she holds up the cursed crown of Redwald. Then she is in the ghostly vortex of Furniss Manor being pursued by the demon Baalphegor. After that, she is one among lots of people huddled inside a confined space, perhaps a prison. Yet that there are men, women, and children mixed together. There's a terrible shock, Rachel senses an explosion, and suddenly the room she's in, tilts wildly, sending its panicking occupants sliding into a wall in a heap.
“Please? Lady?”
Rachel opens her eyes and sees a pair of pale, clasped hands in the dim light of the bedroom. They are young hands, almost unmarked by time. Rachel turns her head to look up at the woman from the promenade.
“Help them, please!”
The woman's accent is definitely Italian, and Rachel takes a guess as to her identity.
“Clara?”
The woman nods, bends down to bring her dark eyes closer to Rachel's. Clara's hair swings over Rachel's face and she feels a slight chill, but no touch from the black strands.
She's a ghost, but Tony could see her, too . . . because he meant something to her? Perhaps, more than he says?
“Please help them!”
Rachel feels no breath from the delicate mouth. “Help who?” she whispers urgently.
There's a sound outside on the landing, a footstep that Rachel knows well. She knows the gentle knock that follows it, too. Clara looks up for a moment, bends again and hisses, “Empire Star!”, then fades away like the shadow of a cloud on a summer's day. Rachel hears the door open.
“Darling? Are you awake?”
She looks up to see Tony looking around the door and beckons him to her. As she hugs him, she catches a hint of beer and tobacco; familiar smells.
But do I know him as well as I thought? Can I ask him about Clara straight out? Who are they, and what can I do to help them?
“Did you have a good sleep?” Tony asks.
“Yes, kind of,” she replies. “But I had some weird dreams. Again.”
“I'd be surprised if you didn't! After all you've been through.”
She doesn't seize the moment. Instead, they go down to the lounge and listen to the BBC news with some other guests.
As a reporter, Rachel is interested in the latest changes being made by Britain's new Labor government. She remarks to Tony that she's still struggling with how voters threw out Churchill and his Conservatives as soon as the Nazis were defeated. Another guest, a retired salesman from Yorkshire, says “They never forgave him for the way he treated workers during the General Strike back in 1926. Wanted to shoot them down like dogs!
And he had no plans for winning the peace, of course.”
“No politics, now, and no religious arguments neither!” warns Mrs. Dale, the formidable landlady of the Sea View.
“That's our final warning, I suspect,” says Tony in a low voice, leaning close to Rachel to be heard. “But he's right. It was the armed forces’ vote that swung it for Labor. Men who fight for their country want to go back to a society worth living in. Labor plans a National Health Service, proper schooling for all, and a whole lot more.”
“Some people are saying the Empire will fall now,” she says, keeping her voice down. “What do you reckon?”
“We can't keep India when Gandhi is obviously in the right,” Tony replies. “And with that gone, the linchpin of the whole system disappears. I give it ten, maybe fifteen years before we have to leave most of Asia, Africa, and the West Indies.”
They keep chatting about the news and related matters, but Rachel still feels the trifling need to find out about Clara and whatever the ‘Empire Star’ might be. A ship, maybe? she ponders the question as she goes to bed. She wakes in the summer dawn with vague memories of confined spaces, darkness, and terror.
***
After breakfast the next morning, she asks Tony if they can go to the fun park called The Spanish City. He's talked about it often on the way to Whitley Bay, and seems keen to revive some more youthful memories. She wants to get him talking so she asks him about the place's odd name.
“It's called that because the centerpiece is this piece of faux-Spanish architecture. Well, Moorish, actually. See?” he says as he points across the road. “There it is.”
Rachel looks and sees a large, white-domed building that looks out of place in England. But somehow it works, she thinks. It looks welcoming, playful, as if it's saying 'Come on in, this is a break from the all the dull stuff, the everyday grind'.
It's still early and so the attractions are just opening. Rachel says, sounding as casual as she can, “Hey, I gotta call the office. Wait a sec, okay?”
Tony lingers outside the red telephone box while she speaks a few sentences to one of her colleagues in London.
“Everything okay?” he asks.
“Sure!” she replies brightly.
They make their way around the park, with Tony taking some shots at a rifle range and failing to win Rachel a teddy bear.
“I reckon the sights on those flipping guns are a bit off,” he mutters as they move on.
“Course they are, honey!” she replies. “You're a regular Buffalo Bill.”
They try the Tunnel of Love, next, and take the opportunity to make out, then discuss whether Rachel should go on the bumper cars or the Ferris wheel. Despite her protestations, Tony is reluctant to risk it, and instead, points out an old favorite of his, the Hall of Mirrors.
Oh great, she thinks, what pregnant doesn't want to see her body distorted a little bit more?
But he's clearly keen, so she agrees. They pay their sixpences at the gate and wander in. At first, Rachel is a little bored, but then starts to get the odd sensation she is being watched. Not surprising, she thinks, after all, there are so many reflections. So, I don't recognize myself from a few angles, it's not surprising. And wow, I am heading for hippo country!
A couple of children run through the hall, giggling, then vanish around a corner. The harassed parents appear, and the two couples exchange rueful smiles.
“You've got all this to look forward to, love,” says the wife to Rachel.
When they're alone again, Tony asks, “Are you looking forward to it? I mean, we never actually discussed a family, not really.”
“Of course, I am,” she says. “It was a wonderful surprise, not a mistake.”
“But your career, you always wanted to put that first?”
“I can put it on hold, try my hand at other kinds of writing. Hey, and we'll have help. Wait until Aunt Charlotte gets going, she'll be such a terrible influence!”
They laugh together for the first time today and carry on walking the mirrored halls. They're about to turn a corner when Rachel stops suddenly and Tony collides with her.
“What is it, darling?”
“I think I saw someone.”
Someone in the mirror, waiting just around the corner. Dark dress, pale face, dark eyes. She's not going to leave me alone until I sort this out.
***
On the pretext of retrieving her notebook, Rachel goes back to the hotel just before lunch. As she expects, a telegram is waiting for her. The landlady looks suitably impressed as she hands over the envelope 'from London'.
“I hope it’s not bad news, dear,” the woman adds.
“No, I'm sure it's okay,” replies Rachel. She opens the message and translates it from the usual condensed form.
E.S. Sunk UB 31/12/40. no survs.
Rachel puts the telegram back in its envelope and looks out the door of the Sea View at the sunlit street.
No survivors. They set course for Australia but never made it. The liner was sunk by a U-Boat and they all died. Including Clara and her family.
Thanking the landlady, she returns towards the promenade, putting the telegram in her pocket.
Does he know? Does he even blame himself, somehow?
She walks on, not bothering to turn her head as she glimpses a dark-clothed figure out of the corner of her eye. When she finds Tony, he's sitting on a bench with fish and chips wrapped in newspaper.
“Find it all right?”
For a second, she's confused, then remembers her white lie, feels shame.
“No, I wasn't really looking for it.”
She takes out the telegram and hands it to him. He reads it, then stares out to sea for a while.
“You knew?”
He nods.
“And you've seen her, too?”
Another nod.
“Maybe we see them if they're really close to us,” he says. “Sometimes, at least. Isn't that the traditional view of ghosts?”
“Yes,” she says. “Anyway, let's eat, we need to do that. And I'm sorry I lied but I didn't want to start up a fight about nothing. Turns out it was something.”
After a few minutes of picking at his food, Tony asks, “What do we do now?”
“I don't know,” she admits. “Other than try to help Clara herself, of course. But that's not what she wants, or not entirely, at least. She wants me to help 'them', and that must be the other Italians. But how? Am I supposed to go to the site of the wreck?”
“Not easy,” he says. “Somewhere in the bay of Biscay, north of Spain. But perhaps Clara herself knows how you can help, if you somehow make yourself open to her?”
Rachel looks around, hoping to see the petite black-clad figure. But all the people on the promenade are in holiday clothes. Despite the sunlight, the laughter of children, and the smiles of indulgent parents, she can't take pleasure from the scene any more.
“You're right,” she says. “I've not done enough to help her.”
Did you really love her, Tony? I don't care, just tell me, she thinks. But he says nothing and she doesn't ask.
***
“Okay, if you need me, I'll be right outside,” Tony says.
As the door closes, Rachel looks up at the ceiling. Flat on her back, the baby bump is awkward, but not too distracting. The closed curtains cut off much of the light, but she can hear traffic and holidaymakers in the street. She closes her eyes, trying to banish distractions.
Do I need to go to sleep? Stay awake? Hold a one-woman séance, maybe?
Minutes pass, the small travelling alarm clock on the bedside table gradually filling the room with its ticking. Rachel becomes tenser, less relaxed, and aware that she might simply fail the unquiet dead.
“Whoa!”
The sudden movement is shocking; even though it was expected, yet at this moment, it was an utter surprise. Again she puts her hand over her belly and there's another kick.
The miracle of life, she thinks. Easy to say, but this is th
e real deal.
“Emily?” she whispers.
A third kick comes, still wonderfully shocking. Rachel laughs then puts both her hands on her belly feeling around for more kicks.
“You get plenty of exercise in there, you're going to need it. Busy world out here.”
A third hand rests on her belly. Clara stands by the bed, leaning forward, her gentle smile not reaching her eyes.
“What do you want from me?” asks Rachel.
Without looking at her, the ghost says, “Now we can go.”
After an hour has passed, Tony gets up from his seat on the top stair and knocks gently.
“Darling?”
When she doesn't answer, he half-opens the door. Rachel looks fast asleep. He goes downstairs for a cup of tea, resolving to check again in a few minutes.
***
The flight of Rachel's spirit is like the one she experienced at Furniss when she escaped mere physical bonds. The difference is that this time she is not alone. Clara is with her, and so is Emily. She feels – rather than sees – the souls of her two companions, the young woman who is now dead, and the unborn child.
Perhaps giving life to someone else enriches my spirit, somehow . . . makes a weird kind of sense.
Sensible theory or not, the facts are clear. The three of them are heading upward, leaving Whitley Bay far behind, and also heading south. They move faster and soon the landscape below is almost a blur as Rachel and her companions pass over England. Within moments, they leave the white cliffs of Dover behind and sweep out to sea, still heading south.
At least I know where we're going, she thinks.
Already they're slowing down, descending towards the gray Atlantic waters. Rachel can't help bracing herself for impact but the three continue their voyage beneath the waves without so much as a splash. Around them, gray waters turn green, grow darker. Now she sees the wreck of the Empire Star, a great dark hulk lying on its side. The sea floor around the liner is littered with fragments of metal and other wreckage that is too heavy to float. The murk is pierced by tiny glowing fish that dart among the debris. Bodies are visible inside as she moves past the portholes.
The Haunter (The Sentinels Series Book 2) Page 16
