Ghost Song

by Rayne, Sarah

  ‘Perhaps you could be part of some kind of governing board,’ said Hal. ‘Involved in the administration. It would be thought unusual—even a bit eccentric—but it would be acceptable. And it would still allow you a life within the theatre.’

  ‘Respectable eccentricity,’ said Flora. She thought, but I can’t manage a theatre! I wouldn’t know where to begin! And then, with the feeling that she was mentally squaring her shoulders, or could I? Couldn’t I learn?

  ‘There’s another rather old-fashioned custom,’ said Hal. ‘Although it’s a nicer one, I think. That’s the tradition of a new wife being given a dowry by her husband.’

  ‘I don’t think…’

  ‘Dowries can take all forms,’ he said, speaking rather rapidly. ‘Sometimes they can even take the form of a piece of property—such as the Tarleton.’

  Flora felt as if she had experienced the extremes of several wildly differing emotions in the last ten minutes, but she tried to match his tone and the mood of this extraordinary conversation. ‘Wouldn’t that be a—rather an expensive dowry?’ she said.

  ‘Well, it will need quite a lot of money spending on it,’ said Hal. ‘In fact—’ He broke off in what was clearly mid-sentence, and said, ‘Oh hell— Flora come here,’ and pulling her into his arms, began to kiss her so thoroughly and so passionately that Flora had to cling to him to prevent herself from falling down from sheer ecstasy.

  When he finally released her, she managed to say, ‘When you—um—cast off the correct civil servant, you do so with a vengeance.’

  ‘Did you mind?’ His arms were still round her.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Good.’ He traced the outline of her face with the tip of a finger and shivers of delight ran all over Flora’s body. ‘How is that theory looking now, my love?’

  ‘Very enticing.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’

  They walked on, Hal keeping an arm around her waist. Flora thought it was probably as well the street was deserted, although she suspected neither of them would have cared if the entire House of Commons had stood on the kerb.

  ‘Flora, if all this happens,’ said Hal. ‘If I buy the Tarleton and if you become part of it all—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You won’t ever be afraid that—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That there are any ghosts there?’

  The ghost of a young man who tried to rape me and who died in the dark, terrified and mad.

  ‘I might,’ said Flora. ‘But it won’t matter. There are ghosts everywhere. If you look, you find them in the most surprising places.’

  The Present

  Even after so many years, Caley Merrick thought if you looked, you still found ghosts in the most surprising places. They could walk next to you as you went along a street, your mind on the most mundane things—shopping or a bill to pay—and their presence could be so strong you knew if you turned your head you would see them walking alongside you.

  Ghosts. In particular the Tarleton’s ghosts. Every time he wrote envelopes in the Harlequin office and exchanged careful remarks with Hilary Bryant or any of the others, it seemed to him that the ghosts stirred.

  It was barely a week after Mary’s death when the longing to know more about his history—about his ancestors—above all about the links with the Tarleton—came surging back.

  Caley was partly appalled at the strength of this feeling because he ought to be grieving—he was grieving, really, but beneath the grief was a slowly unfolding excitement at the thought of the old dream waking.

  The council gave him compassionate leave. ‘Take as long as you need,’ the head of his department said, kindly.

  As long you need… It meant that for as long as he needed, his days were entirely his own. No one would question what he did or where he went, there were no demands on him. The old dream began to take on a new shape in Caley’s mind. At first he tried to ignore it, thinking it was wild and impractical. But gradually it gained a hold on his mind, and when he finally acknowledged it, he realized it had been there for a long time.

  He must get inside the Tarleton. He must search the place for clues. There might be old posters, framed photographs; names, dates… If there was an office of some kind, there might even be old account books stored away. The possibilities were exciting and limitless, but at first look, the prospects were not promising, particularly since he was resolved not to commit any kind of criminal act which might end in him being caught. But the idea would not go away, and Caley began to consider who might legitimately go inside the theatre. It was kept reasonably sound and clean; the windows that were visible from the street did not have the thick grime of neglect, and a firm had even put up scaffolding and blast-cleaned the stonework last year—he could remember how pedestrians had to sidestep the scaffolding for a couple of days. After thought, he telephoned local cleaning firms, working methodically through the phone book, pretending he was gathering general information about the services they could offer. He was not unappreciative of the fact that this was only possible because for the moment he was not shackled to that tedious council desk.

  He kept his approach simple, asking each of the companies if they handled large buildings in the area, and at the eleventh attempt he got what he wanted. Whistle Clean handled contract cleaning for a number of the larger buildings; several names were mentioned by way of reference and the Tarleton was one of them. From there it was easy to probe a little deeper, and when Caley put down the phone he had the information he wanted. The Tarleton was looked after by a small company called the Harlequin Society who acted as managing agents. They commissioned a full cleaning service two or three times a year. Caley supposed the Harlequin employed other organizations to clean gutters and replace roof tiles, or ensure the roof joists were free of woodworm, and that squatters did not invade the dressing rooms or drug barons use the foyer.

  He began to keep a detailed and methodical watch on the Tarleton, careful never to be seen too many times in the same place or to linger too long anywhere. He developed a little routine: on Mondays he bought provisions at one of the shops in Burbage Street: there were seven or eight of them, so it was simple to take them in turn. On Tuesdays he bought a newspaper or magazine at the newsagents. On Wednesdays he might have a cup of coffee in one of the coffee places or wine bars. On Thursdays he had a modest lunch out, going to the Linkman one week, the Kardomah Café the next, the busy self-service lunch place after that. Again, there were several places with a good view of the Tarleton, so he felt perfectly safe in not becoming too well known at any one of them. If anyone from his office happened to see him, they would think, poor Merrick. Trying to fill his days with futile little outings and shopping trips.

  Caley knew his watch might be a long one, but he did not mind. In the event, it was not as long as it might have been. Three weeks after he began the vigil—just as he was beginning to think that even the most generous compassionate leave could not extend much beyond this—a van drew up outside the Tarleton and four ladies armed with mops and buckets and packs of cleaning fluids got out and went along Platt’s Alley and through the stage door. Caley’s heart jumped. He missed seeing the name on the van because a big lorry drove past, obscuring his view. It was probably Whistle Clean, but it was better not to make any assumptions. He walked unhurriedly along the street to buy a bag of apples at the greengrocer’s, then took a long time choosing a newspaper. After this he sat down to do the crossword in the Kardomah’s window. It was just on twelve; after fifteen minutes he ordered food. If need be, he would do more shopping afterwards, and then go into the self-service place for a cup of tea. No one would notice him, but he would be in sight of Platt’s Alley for the next few hours.

  The cleaners came out at four o’clock, the van drawing up again to collect them. This time Caley was able to see that it was indeed Whistle Clean. He finished his cup of tea in a leisurely fashion, folded his newspaper, and walked home.

  The next day he went along to his
old office, deliberately choosing a time when most of them would be at lunch. If he met any of his colleagues, he would say he was calling to see his boss, to discuss resuming work. But, as he had thought, the big open office was empty. His heart racing, his palms slippery with sweat, Caley went into the inner office which was his boss’s. Leaving the door half open so that he would hear anyone coming back, he dialled the number of the Harlequin Society. The phone was picked up on the third ring.

  ‘Harlequin Society, can I help?’

  A cool, nicely spoken female voice.

  Roughening his voice as much as he could, Caley said, ‘It’s Whistle Clean here. We did the Tarleton job yesterday.’

  He paused, and, as he had hoped, she said, ‘Yes,’ with a slight question in her voice.

  ‘One of the girls left her time-sheet in there,’ said Caley. ‘Can someone nip in to your office and have the key again, just for an hour? We need the time-sheet to raise your invoice, see.’

  This was a bit of a gamble because he had no idea how the Harlequin or Whistle Clean operated when it came to invoicing, but the voice said, ‘Yes, I should think so. Today, d’you mean?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll get someone along to you later. Sorry, what’s your name?’

  ‘Shona Seymour,’ she said.

  ‘OK, thanks, Shona.’ Caley would not, normally, have dreamed of being so familiar with a voice on the phone, but he thought it was in character.

  Replacing the receiver, he was aware of the familiar constriction round his lungs, and although it was not really bad enough to need the nebulizer, as he walked out of the building, he used it in case anyone happened to see him. Merrick’s in a bad way, they would say, if they saw him.

  As he headed for the Harlequin office, he made a mental check of everything he had done, looking for flaws:

  The phone call: if it were to be traced—unlikely, but it had to be considered—it would be traced to the big anonymous council department.

  Whistle Clean themselves: it was possible that when he reached the Harlequin office, this Shona Seymour would have phoned them and been told no one there knew anything about the call or a forgotten time-sheet. But that could be dealt with. Caley could say it sounded as if the message had not been passed on, or there was a temp on phone duty today. He might even say he was the husband of the woman who had left the time-sheet behind, adding that his wife had not wanted to admit losing it to her boss. This last one was good, that was the one he would use if he had to.

  It was the keys themselves that might be the problem. An hour was not very long, but he had not dared make it longer. Would it be long enough to get copies made? And supposing it was one of those special security keys where only named people could get copies cut? His stomach was churning as he mounted the stairs to the first-floor offices, and tapped politely on the door before going in.

  Shona Seymour appeared to be on her own in the office. Again, Caley blessed the providence that had prompted him to make use of the lunch hour. She was quite young—perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two—but there was a gloss and a confidence about her that Caley found slightly intimidating. She collected the keys from a shallow wall cupboard and gave him a receipt to sign. He wrote ‘C. Jones’ in the careful rounded script of a man not overly comfortable with pen and paper, and added the name and address of Whistle Clean.

  ‘I’ll get them back well before you close,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yes, you must do that.’

  Five minutes later Caley was back in the street, with the keys to the Tarleton in his pocket.

  It was disconcerting to be told at the shoe-repair and key-cutting shop, that because of the keys’ age, copies could not be made under the while you wait service; they would have to be sent out to Acton to a specialist locksmith. No, they would not be hand-cut precisely—a dying art, that!—but they would have to be done on a particular machine which the shop did not have on the premises. Caley was furious with himself for not foreseeing this.

  ‘Can’t you copy just one of them?’ he said. ‘We only need a spare just in case—any one of them would do. My boss will pay extra.’

  There was some consultation, and the keys were carried into an unseen room. Caley heard mumbling voices, and the warning constriction caught at his chest. Oh no, not here. Not an attack, not something that will cause them to remember me…

  But it was all right. One of the keys was for a slightly more recent lock—Caley had no idea which door this might be—and it could be done in the next half hour. Would that be all right? Caley said it would.

  At half past three he had his own key, shiny and new, tucked inside his wallet, and by four o’clock he had returned the official bunch to Shona Seymour. He thanked her for her help, and as he went back down the stairs to the street, thought it was odd how a brief encounter with a complete stranger could change your life. Shona Seymour, in the few moments they had spent together, had been instrumental in changing Caley’s life, in opening up something potentially very exciting indeed. She had taken his beloved quest to a new level. Thinking all this, he smiled. She would never know, of course. It was unlikely he would ever see her again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  HE CHOSE THE TIME for his first visit carefully, deciding on late afternoon. At this time of year—late November—daylight was almost gone by four o’clock and some of the street lights had come on. The rush hour was already under way so people walked quickly past the theatre without really seeing it.

  Caley was pinning his hopes on the copied key fitting the stage door, which was not really visible from the main street. As he went down Platt’s Alley a pulse of excitement was beating inside his head and his hands were trembling. Here was the door—there was an inscription carved into the lintel over it; it was weathered but still readable. ‘Please one and please all, be they great, be they small.’ This was clearly a quotation or part of a quotation; he would try to trace it when he got home.

  He kept a sharp look-out for inquisitive passers-by, and was ready with his story about his wife having left her time-sheet here from yesterday’s cleaning session. But no one challenged him, and he was not really surprised when the key turned sweetly in the lock. When you had right on your side, the mundane practicalities fell into place for you; he had noticed that before.

  He pushed open the door and stepped inside and the past immediately folded round him like an embrace.

  To most people it would be quite eerie to walk through the dark vastness of this old theatre, but Caley knew that despite the shadows and echoes there was nothing in the least frightening in here. He had known there would be ghosts, even before he read Prospero Garrick’s book, but he knew they were friendly ghosts of all those people he had read about and longed to know. Bunstable, and Charlie the Clog Dancer. Prospero himself, of course. Was he here now, swirling his silk-lined cape, tipping his top hat as he went, the saucy old boy? And there would be Toby Chance and Frank Douglas, the composer; yes, they would surely be here. Caley had the sudden feeling that if he listened intently enough he would catch the faint strains of Frank Douglas’s music, and the whispering echoes of Toby Chance singing the lyrics.

  The clues he had hoped for were not there: whatever posters and photographs might once have hung on the walls had long since vanished, and although he found what was clearly a small office, there were no records or ledgers or stored correspondence. But curiously, this did not disappoint him as much as he would have thought. As he went cautiously through the dimness, peering into corners, looking into dressing rooms, into the old wardrobe, into a long bare room with battered chairs and collapsed sofas, he was completely unafraid and aware of a deep contentment. He thought: this is where I belong. I’ve never belonged anywhere before, but now I know why: this is my place in the world and I’ve only today found it.

  It was those faint echoes of the music that drew him. The long-ago years seated at the old music teacher’s piano in the room smelling of biscuits came back to him, and on his third or fourth visit he o
pened the dusty upright piano in the green room. At first he only placed his fingertips on the yellowed keys, but the next time he played a soft chord.

  It was as if a light—a dazzling rainbow light—had been switched on inside his mind. The old instrument was badly out of tune and it was years since Caley had touched a piano anyway. But there was a moment—never to be forgotten, magical and wonderful—when the chord seemed to linger in the silence and he felt the music within his grasp once again.

  At the next visit he tried a scale, and at the one after that he played, from memory, one of the simple early exercises he had learned in the biscuit-smelling room all those years ago. It was only then that it occurred to him that although the Tarleton did not seem to hold the clues to his past he had sought, it held something else. The music. He smiled, and had the sudden vivid impression that the people of the theatre had come to stand round the piano, and were nodding and smiling encouragement.

  It was infuriating that now he could get in and out of the Tarleton reasonably easily, his time was so limited. Since Mary’s death there was no one to question where he went or what he did, but he had to be at his desk in the council offices all day, which only left Saturdays and Sundays. How much better it would be if he did not have that dull, going-nowhere job—if his days were free. The notion of simply handing in his notice was out of the question; this quest and his dreams would sustain him on one level but they would not pay bills or buy food.

  The asthma that had begun when he was eighteen still sometimes troubled him. It was not very bad, but it was there. Caley began to exaggerate it, at first just a little, but making sure it was noticeable. Climbing a flight of stairs he would pause halfway up and clutch his chest. If heavy files or boxes had to be carried, he would gasp and reach for the nebulizer. But if asked, he always said he was quite all right, never better, no cause for concern. He was careful to sound over-emphatic when he said this and to use the nebulizer a little more often than before.