Ghost Girl

by Thomson, Lesley

  Michael broke her reverie. ‘Those spell my name.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘M. T. means Michael Thornton. That’s me.’ He squeezed between the barriers and before Mary could stop him was scrabbling at the ‘M’ with his fingers. The concrete had hardened so he made little impact. He grabbed a twig and managed to dig at the ‘M’.

  ‘Leave it.’

  The little boy jumped when Mary shook him. ‘You’ve ruined it.’

  Michael stared up at her in astonishment. ‘Did… you… write… it?’ He got the words out between shakes.

  ‘It’s for me.’

  ‘Who would do that?’ Michael asked the question without malice.

  ‘They will be very angry when I say what you did.’ Mary stalked back up the path, sure Clifford Hunt was watching. She did not turn at the sound of footsteps or when she felt his hand on her bare arm, but to her horror she felt herself blushing.

  Michael put his hand on his sister’s arm. He felt sad, but did not know why. He knew that the girls in his class had drawn the heart; it was like the one they did on the classroom window. He had not known that Mary’s name were the same letters as his; he had hazily supposed that he had his own name and his own letters. He wished that the heart did belong to Mary.

  Mary stared at her brother with hatred, then as quickly as it had come the feeling went. Clifford had put a heart in concrete for her. The heart would be there forever and ever.

  14

  Tuesday, 24 April 2012

  The house was a rectangular monolith with little to recommend it in terms of elegance. The spindly lamp over the porch wanted a jet of gas to cast light on the sweep of drive, once a turning circle for barouches and phaetons; weeds flourished through the gravel. Jack spotted an alarm box on the wall, although nothing signified it was active. This time he kept out of the range of the camera, although he doubted it functioned either.

  Mallingswood House had a tired air. Jack was familiar with boys’ boarding schools that limped along on a shoestring, dependent on parents who, saddled with unwanted children or living abroad, were perhaps less concerned about educational standards than with snatching at privilege. His father had deposited him in just such an establishment.

  He had walked from the Great West Road and was on the south side of Weltje Road. His rucksack, packed for his stay with his new Host, was light. She wasn’t a proper Host; he would be her guest only for as long as it took to get back his street atlas. He had been tempted to go in from the front: a bold move, certainly, but people seldom saw what was under their noses. His most effective hiding places had been in plain sight. Except that the woman who had picked up his book had seen what was under her nose. He walked slowly back along Weltje Road, looking for a means of entering without breaking.

  The back was even more featureless than the front. The few windows were in darkness; trade gates, warped on their hinges, were secured by a chain. He looked again and found the chain was looped around a bolt: he could just unwrap it. Casual intruders might be fooled, but not him. His Host had issued him an invitation. He hitched his rucksack on to his shoulders and eased open the gate; then he replaced the chain exactly as it had been.

  Jack found himself in a dark concreted yard and, wasting no time, flitted over to the building and immediately found his point of entry. The putty in a rotting box sash came away in strips when he ran his hand along it. Methodically Jack arranged these on the ground in order like a jigsaw. Gently he levered the pane out and rested it against the wall.

  In one movement he vaulted on to the sill and, twisting, insinuated himself through the opening. Inside, he took a moment to gauge whether he had been heard. Nothing, but he would not make himself at home yet. Efficiently, his movements economical, he lifted the snib on the door. Outside he replaced the glass and the putty, regretful that his Host could not appreciate his care. He retrieved his rucksack and slipped inside, closing the door. He could come and go as he pleased.

  His torch revealed a long passage, the ceiling lowered by tracking that supported heating and water pipes; he dipped his head to avoid them. He passed closed doors either side, which he would explore once he had his bearings.

  One door was open. Jack crept inside and, certain now that he was alone on this floor, tried a switch by the door. A warm comforting glow from a yellow fabric shade gave all the feel of a friendly sitting room but what he saw was mundane. A black plastic bin bag, cardboard boxes spilling out brown and white envelopes of different sizes. One step and he kicked a stack of filing trays; one cracked when it hit the stone floor. He turned off the light and went behind the door and counted to ten.

  When no one came he risked the light again and saw a plastic crate filled with cellular blankets like the ones at his school, the initials MHPS stitched along a hem. The room swooped. Jack grabbed a swivel chair and kept his balance. He was a seven-year-old boy devising his escape in the basement of his school.

  The air was still and deathly cold; sunlight never reached this room. Jack was an Underground train driver: he preferred the tunnels, bricks coated with centuries of dust, to the daylight. But here a sense of evil was suddenly palpable. He forced himself into the present and, keeping to the wall, stole along the passage.

  The heating was not on or the pipes above his head would be hot. Basements in institutions generally housed the generator and the boiler and were stifling and stuffy. Mallingswood House was saving on heating bills; this too was familiar.

  At intervals a green ‘Fire Exit’ sign affixed to a cross beam confirmed his direction. The silence was unremitting and Jack almost wished to hear some sound, even if it signalled danger.

  At last his torch picked out a flight of steps. The trick was to enter the bones of the house and build up an affinity that made it more likely he would be invisible to his Hosts. He had noticed that however alert they were on the street, even they tended to relax in their own homes. On the top step he was enveloped by a smell he knew well: stale rice pudding and polished parquet floors. He was surprised to find it reassuring.

  There was the front door of studded wood. The diamond lights that framed it projected shapes across black and white tiles. To his left rose a grand staircase not diminished by worn brown lino. A curving balustrade ended with a volute newel supporting by six balusters thickened by layers of faded cream gloss paint.

  The bottom three stairs had been spared the lino and a sleek sheen of marble lessened the institutional grip on the Victorian mansion. However, the once magnificent hallway was compromised by a boxed enclosure, with ‘Reception’ above a grille on which a wooden notice was slid to ‘Closed’.

  He peered through. A swivel chair was half turned from the hatch, a cushion on its seat moulded by some absent sitter. He tapped the counter. One. Two. Three. ‘Come out, come out wherever you are,’ he whispered.

  No one came.

  A notice was stuck on the glass to his right, he shone the torch on it. Term dates for 2011–2012. Summer term was due to start on Monday, 7th May, boarders returning on the 5th. This was even later than his own school.

  He swept the light up the staircase to the balustrade on the half-landing – where a debutante would have been marvelled at by the crowd below before making her stately descent to the party. He was certain that no one was there now.

  He felt a vibration in his pocket; the accompanying buzz, while inaudible in most places, was insidious in this hollow space where there was no other sound. Stella had left him a voicemail. He listened to her message and decided to call her in the morning. Then he changed his mind: he had once before delayed a call to Stella and had regretted it; he would not make that mistake again.

  ‘You’ve got a cleaning job for me.’ His face was in his sleeve to muffle his voice.

  ‘Why are you whisp— Oh, never mind. Yes. No.’

  ‘Great that you’re clear. I love that.’ He risked teasing Stella.

  ‘I mean it’s not cleaning.’ She went silent and he was just about to ch
eck she was still there when she said: ‘It’s a case.’

  ‘A detective job?’ He forgot to whisper. He had been disappointed that after last year Stella had played it safe and concentrated on cleaning. He wanted to shout with joy.

  ‘Probably nothing.’

  ‘But you think it’s probably something,’ he breathed.

  ‘Yes. I think it is.’

  ‘See you in the morning, then.’ He turned his phone off and put one foot on the marble step. He held his breath and tuned in to the creaks and sighs of the house in which so many inhabitants slept. Far above he heard a door closing, then footsteps, a purposeful tread. As he had hoped, he was not alone. Jack twisted off the torch and began to climb.

  15

  Monday, 2 May 1966

  ‘I hope those two never breathe fresh air again.’ Mrs Thornton snapped shut her purse and wrote a note on a spiral pad. ‘They should suffer as much as that poor little girl.’

  ‘Four pints and six yogs’. She tore off the paper and, rolling it into a spill, poked it into the neck of one of the empty milk bottles on the draining board.

  ‘Shame they weren’t doing it a couple of years ago. We could have hanged them.’ Bob Thornton was tying his shoelaces. He got up and took his briefcase from the boiler and added: ‘The ink’s hardly dry on the law. They should bring back the death penalty just for them, although the rope’s too kind.’

  ‘How can a rope be kind?’ Michael wriggled on his chair.

  Bob Thornton mussed his son’s hair and blew a kiss at his wife.

  ‘Don’t be late back for tea with your brother,’ he instructed his daughter. Mary was assiduously scooping up the last corn flakes floating in too much milk in her bowl. She made a noise with her mouth full.

  ‘Say goodbye properly.’ Mrs Thornton poured water from a plastic jug into a pot of geraniums on the sill.

  ‘Goodbye properly,’ Mary piped.

  Mrs Thornton tutted. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you.’

  The front door slammed, making the windows vibrate.

  ‘Dinner money for you and your brother.’ She slapped a pound note in front of Mary and snatched up the Corn Flakes box. ‘Put that in your satchel safely and hand it straight to Mrs Jones. She’ll give you a receipt which you must hold on to or I’ll be very cross.’ The threat was uttered without conviction; Jean Thornton had moved on to other morning duties.

  She put the bottles out on the front step and then wiped the table in busy circles, pushing Mary’s elbows off the Formica to gather up toast crumbs and driving the dishcloth through a ring of milk. Mary held the crisp pound note up to her nose: it crackled and smelled of her dad.

  ‘Myr— Mary! Stop dreaming and clean your teeth. Michael’s waiting.’ Mrs Thornton sluiced the cloth under the tap, squeezed it out, and draped it over the dish-rack. Mary observed this procedure wistfully; it had happened in their old house. She allowed herself to imagine that everything was the same.

  Mary had conjured up a spell that worked. She kept her eyes on the table while she ate and, blinkered like a horse, was in the old kitchen. Fixing on her cornflakes, she saw the lemon-yellow walls, the speckly lino and the geyser with the friendly flame in the middle of the night. The spell worked until she lifted her head.

  Hampered by her longer journey to work, Mrs Thornton was relying more and more on her daughter to look after her young brother. Mary had been intrigued at the idea of being a grown-up until Michael said she had to mind him because she had been bad. Although she told him this was not true, in her heart of hearts she suspected that it was. She felt bad all the time. The night before last she had left the key in the front door. Anyone could have got in, her mum had said, and stolen everything – or worse. Mary had brought her Everyday Diary home from school and forgotten to take it back. Grown-ups did not make mistakes, she decided. They wrote notes for the milkman, lists for the shops and carried briefcases and handbags with everything safe inside. She would never be a real grown-up.

  During the few days she and Michael had been at their new school Mary had made no enemies, but nor had she made friends. She had shunned the helpful overtures of Jacqueline, the girl with plaits, because she had seen her laughing at something with Clifford Hunt. She would not join in games at playtime. Most children struck Mary as stupid; they were not grown up like she was. At her last school there had been a sort of friend, Linda, whom no one played with. Mary did not much like her, but trailing around the playground with her, through a mix of guile and patronage, she had gained a modicum of authority. With the move to the new house she made up her mind she didn’t need friends.

  Michael Thornton was immediately popular. Every evening after school, since that first day when Mary had found him winning marbles over a drain cover, she had known where to find her brother after school. He was at the centre of a gaggle of boys and girls, making them laugh, weaving around tackles with a football or handling jacks like a juggler or winning marbles crouched over the drain. His marble collection grew along with his popularity. Although Mary could not articulate it, her little brother had become a bargaining asset. If she were to be visible it would be because she was Michael Thornton’s sister.

  She dreaded the walk through Ravenscourt Park on school mornings and would slow their pace, meandering between the beds, pretending interest in newly planted flowers or a name on a bench. Michael said this made him look a ‘cissy’. She told him she was a grown-up and knew best what was good for him. Both children knew it was to stop Michael joining his friends and when they arrived at the tennis courts Michael would pluck up the courage to escape. Mary tried not to hear their shouts – the passing of urgent information and childish jokes – and feeling ever more alone, she plodded on down the shaded path beside the viaduct. Michael never believed that she would tell their dad he had left her. He didn’t believe anything she said any more.

  On this particular morning, they met two small boys before they reached the railway arch and Michael was soon out of sight. Mary scuffed her heels along the ground, refusing to give chase or shout. Ahead were girls from her own class; there was Jacqueline, who had found her a colder bottle of milk at yesterday’s morning playtime. She was with Clifford Hunt again and three boys Mary didn’t know. Clifford looked behind him, but did not seem to see her.

  At the gate Mary brightened. Michael was there; he had obeyed her instructions. She darted forward to tell him they would have their dinner together and she would get him seconds of ice-cream.

  Michael called out: ‘No cars. Now!’

  His gang gathered around him and it seemed to Mary that her brother was carried over the road. Sharp metal caught her shin as prams and pushchairs rattled past, with children shouting and mums scolding; the pain was distant. She went and sat on a low wall outside a house. In the glare of spring sunshine, the warmth of the bricks seeped through her dress and made her drowsy.

  The voices stopped. There was no talking, laughing or yelling, no legs and satchels or shoving. The paving sparkled in the sun and made her eyes water. She would not cry. Mary looked up and down the road; there was nothing coming. She got up and trotted past the park entrance, past the school gate and under the cool shelter of the bridge. She was startled by the clatter of another train. The wheels clunked over the rails above her head. In time to the beat of the carriages Mary quickened her pace and went into the station.

  The concourse was vast, bright with diffused sunlight through a glass roof. It was too wide an expanse for the little girl to manage. She was momentarily paralysed and stood stock still. She steeled herself and made for the ticket windows.

  ‘Caledonian Road, please.’ She unbuckled her satchel and, straining up, poked a crisp pound note though the opening.

  ‘Single or return?’ Without looking at Mary, the woman licked her finger and leafed through the pages of a bulging book.

  ‘Single.’ Mary’s plan took shape.

  The green slip of cardboard between her teeth, Mary scooped the torrent of cha
nge into her palm and tipped it into her satchel. A threepenny bit slipped from her grasp, bounced on the ground and rolled under a ticket machine. Mary pretended she didn’t care.

  She went up the stairs. With each heavy step her skin prickled with the expectation of hearing her name: either name. Miss Crane was telling her off for wasting money or for letting her brother cross a road without her. She couldn’t hold all the reasons for a ticking-off in her mind – there were too many – and as she paused on the platform and looked down the steps, a small corner of her wished for Miss Crane to appear. She divined there was no turning back.

  By the sweet machine was a Tube map. She stretched up and traced her finger along the green line from Ravenscourt Park to Hammersmith to the blue line that would take her home. Mary was surprised by a train sliding into the station behind her. As soon as the doors opened, she leapt on board with a giant step. A man and a woman were sitting by the door and to avoid them Mary went to the other end of the carriage. When the doors rolled shut she settled on her seat, her toes just touching the ground and her ticket in her fist. Knees together, she pretended that, like a grown-up, she did this every day.

  The train gathered speed and the carriage swayed; Mary had trouble reading the names on the strip of map above the windows. Hammersmith was the next station. She struggled up before the train stopped and wrapped her arms around a pole in the centre of the carriage and only let go when the doors opened.

  At some point Mary Thornton changed her mind about travelling north to Holloway. She simply did not cross the platform to the Piccadilly line. If she had boarded a train all she’d have had to do was stay on it until Caledonian Road and walk the few yards to her old house. Instead, she toiled up the exit staircase, handed in her ticket at the barrier and walked out of the station. With no traffic lights, Hammersmith Broadway was a gigantic roundabout, four lanes of weaving vehicles going for pole position. It presented many opportunities for collisions or pedestrians to be run over.