Tomorrow's ghost

by Anthony Price

  God Almighty! thought Frances—Father’s print-out!

  ‘Twenty-eight is quite old,’ said Jane, to no one in particular. ‘Relatively old, anyway.

  Not too young, anyway.’

  Frances looked from one to the other. Jane munched complacently; Sally lifted the pork ball on her chopsticks and popped it into her mouth.

  ‘Your Father’s … print-out?’ Not too young for what?

  ‘Computer print-out. Everything’s on computer, obviously,’ Sally informed her.

  Jane stopped munching. ‘What sort of computer?’

  Sally ignored her sister. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh—I get you,’ said Jane. She nodded to Frances. ‘You know our mother’s dead, that’s what she means. Well … not strictly speaking dead—strictly speaking she’s missing. But after all these years it’s like the war—like Nannie’s husband. He’s still missing, although they know he was killed, because Father was there. But they lost him after that.’ She made it sound almost like carelessness. ‘He wasn’t there when they came back, anyway—there was just a shell-hole.’

  On one level they were both being incredibly cold-blooded, almost to the point of childishness much younger than their actual years, even allowing for the retarding effect of an English private girls’ school education; but they had been just as cool over the break-in—or, at least, Jane had been just as cool, and Sally had been cool once it had been established to her satisfaction that the thief had not put a sacrilegious hand on either of her horses.

  However, that hadn’t surprised Frances, from her own memories of a similar education. The order and discipline of their school lives, with its well-defined rules and regulations, emphasised the disorder and indiscipline of the jungle outside, so that they were able to take the break-in as something like a misfortune of war. Also, she recalled that petty theft was more or less endemic at school (Money must NEVER be left in the cloakrooms or in the desks’), and an endless subject for rumour and speculation. To have been burgled would provide them both with an exciting tale next day which would lose nothing in the telling.

  What was disturbing all the same—or tantalising, anyway—was the suspicion (also out of her own memories) that they were also operating on another level, the nature of which she had not as yet fathomed. But children like this, who were immature in some areas, were apt to be precocious in others.

  They were waiting for her to say something.

  ‘Your Father is very much my senior.’ That was a statement they could both understand. ‘So I don’t get to see his … print-out … any more than you see your reports.’

  Jane swallowed her mouthful. ‘We do see our reports,’ she said. ‘And I bet Father’s seen your print-up—print-out, I mean.’

  ‘I expect he has.’ And now to business. ‘I’m sorry to hear about your mother.’

  ‘What does your husband do?’ Sally’s hitherto impeccable manners suddenly deserted her. ‘Does he work for Father?’

  ‘My husband is dead.’

  ‘How?’ said Jane.

  Nannie was prettily revenged. ‘He was a soldier.’

  ‘A soldier—?’ Jane regarded her with interest. ‘Like Father, was he?’

  ‘Tais-toi!’ snapped Sally. ‘I’m awfully sorry, Frances.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Jane quickly. ‘What rotten luck!’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Sally. ‘Our mother died nine years ago, that’s what the police think.

  After seven years a missing person is presumed to be dead, anyway.’

  Frances was beginning to feel out of her depth. ‘Is that so?’ she said inadequately.

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Jane in a totally matter-of-fact voice. ‘Like in the war. There’s “Missing, believed killed in action”, and there’s “Missing, presumed killed in action”, and there’s just plain “Missing”. Maman was “Missing”, but after seven years it’s the same as “Missing, presumed killed in action’” She nodded at Frances. ‘”Presumed” is really when they don’t actually know, but it’s the most likely thing. When they’ve got some evidence—like with Nannie’s husband, Father was there in the trench with him when the Chinese attacked, and saw him get shot, but then he had to go to another bit of the trench, and then they were shelled, you see—‘ she nodded again ‘—our side shelled them. Father called them up on the wireless and said “There are hundreds and hundreds of Chinese here, and only a few of us, so if you shell us you’re going to kill a lot more of them—“’

  ‘He didn’t say that at all,’ cut in Sally. ‘Father had built this sort of tunnel, and he retreated into it with his men. It was what they’d planned to do if things got really bad. Father had it all planned, exactly what they were going to do, Frances.’

  ‘Well, it was still jolly brave—they gave him a medal for it,’ said Jane.

  ‘I didn’t say it wasn’t. I just said it was planned.’

  ‘All right, all right! Anyway … when they came out of the tunnel, and drove the Chinese off the hill—it was a hill they were on, just above a river—when they got back to the trench there was a shell-hole where Nannie’s husband had been, so they had to make it “Missing, believed”, that’s all I’m saying.’

  Frances groped for a suitable reaction. Jane was clearly determined to inform her, apart from the fine distinctions of the military casualty list, that her father was a gallant officer, while Sally, for her part, favoured intelligence above bravery, and was equally determined to establish that. Unfortunately it was not the information she required from them.

  ‘I see.’ Yet she didn’t really see at all.

  A hill in Korea, a quarter of a century or more ago: how many children—how many adults, for that matter—knew anything about that old war? How much did she herself know?

  She shook herself free of it. She wasn’t concerned with RSM Hooker, of the Mendip Borderers, or even with Captain Butler, Mendip Borderers (attached). She was concerned with Major and Mrs Butler.

  But she still couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘So that was what happened to our mother,’ said Jane.

  ‘I’m sorry’ would hardly do. And in any case, she’d already said it once. If anything, she was now further away from the vital question than before these unnerving children had re-opened the Korean War.

  ‘But then, it was probably all for the best,’ continued Jane philosophically. ‘It probably wouldn’t have lasted, the way it was going.’

  It wouldn’t have lasted. It was all for the best—the way it was going?

  It wouldn’t have lasted?

  ‘Lots off the girls at school are in the same boat,’ Jane nodded at her. ‘Baggers says the one-parent family is going to be the big social problem of the 1980s, with the present rate of divorce.’

  It wouldn’t have lasted.

  ‘But that doesn’t take account of re-marriages.’ Sally rested one elbow on the table and looked intensely at Frances. ‘What do you think of second marriages, Frances?’

  ‘I haven’t really thought about them.’ The question momentarily unbalanced Frances just as she was zeroing in on Jane. ‘I don’t know … What do you mean, “it wouldn’t have lasted”, dear?’

  ‘I think second marriages are a good thing,’ said Jane. ‘I mean, it stands to reason that you know better what to look for the second time round—“Marry in haste and repent at leisure” is what Baggers says, and she could be right for once. I think I shall almost certainly get married twice: the first time will be a terrible mistake—it’ll be a purely physical thing, an animal passion I won’t be able to resist … Or it may be plain lack of experience, like David Copperfield and Dora. I can never imagine David Copperfield in bed with Dora, it must have been an absolute disaster. The mind boggles—at least, my mind boggles. What d’you think, Frances?’

  Frances’s mind wasn’t boggling, but it was hurting her more than she could tolerate.

  Unlike Jane, she could imagine exactly what had happened in David Copperfield’s bed, do
wn to the last humiliating detail.

  Jane didn’t wait for an answer. ‘So the first time will be a ghastly mistake—but the second time I shall get it right. And I’ll be an absolutely super step-mother too. I shalln’t try to be a mother, I’ll be like an elder sister, only better … And my step-children will be the most marvellous aunts to my children, if I decide to have any. It’ll be an extended nuclear family—all for one, and one for all, like the Three Musketeers!’

  It was fair enough for those who could identify themselves with the King’s Musketeers, thought Frances—and the set books at school hadn’t changed much, obviously. But Jane’s sharp little sword was making her feel like one of the Cardinal’s Guards.

  ‘What did you mean, “It wouldn’t have lasted”?’ She hung on grimly to her original question.

  ‘Oh … they didn’t get on. Father and Maman,’ said Jane off-handedly. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘You don’t remember,’ said Sally. ‘You were only a baby.’

  ‘I was six—‘

  ‘And a baby.’

  ‘And you were an old-age pensioner, I suppose. I was there just as much as you—in fact more, because you and Di were at school. I can even remember the day Maman went—she was furious with Father, I can still remember that. Because he wanted to go early, while it was still dark, and she said he didn’t have to. And he said he had to.’

  ‘Had to do what?’ Frances felt the old excitement, the old drug, heighten her perception: suddenly she was a fly on the wall in the past on that other November day nine years ago, because of this child’s total recall; which, in spite of the boastful words, was the total recall of a deep wound still raw inside her, which wouldn’t heal until somebody who understood its nature set about treating it; and Nannie could never do that, and her Father couldn’t either, because he didn’t know about it, because there was no way the child could tell him about it, not in a million years.

  Well, that wasn’t her job. Her job was to re-create that moment and to observe it—the moment which William Ewart Hedges had suspected—‘no matter what he thought of her’ he’d let slip—and which she had also suspected even before he’d let it slip.

  Not Four-out-of-Ten, Frances—Frances Warren, Frances Fitzgibbon—and not Five-out-of-Ten, or Six, or Seven, or Eight, or Nine. This was the real thing, the Ten-out-ofTen monster inside her, which had no rational explanation, which was frightening when she thought about it.

  ‘Had to do what?’

  Jane’s eyes clouded—God! There was another Ten-out-of-Ten, except it should have been obvious to her long before, what they were about with their well-rehearsed dialogue, why they were at such pains to tell her such secrets!

  No. She mustn’t even think of that, it was ridiculous!

  ‘Oh … he had to get somewhere by 11 o’clock—he had an appointment, or something.

  And he wasn’t going to break it for anything, no matter what she said, he said—Maman shouted at him on the stairs, I heard her, I was sick in bed. He didn’t shout, of course—he never shouts. But he was quite loud for him.’ She nodded. ‘He said he had to go, and he jolly well went. It was duty, I expect.’

  * * *

  Having approximately three hours on my hands, and there being no other duties scheduled, I adjusted my route to take in my home town of Blackburn, arriving there at 1020 hours and departing at 1125 hours. While in Blackburn I spoke to no one—

  * * *

  No appointment … which Major Butler wasn’t going to break for anything. Or anyone—angry wife or sick child.

  ‘Well, that was jolly unusual for them, they didn’t row like that very often. It was mostly they were simply cold and uptight—or Maman was, anyway,’ said Sally, conceding a trench she could not defend, but standing fast on her main position. ‘I think the whole trouble was that they didn’t shout at each other enough—Maman went one way, and Father went another, that was the trouble. She didn’t like cricket, for example.’

  ‘Cricket?’ Frances tightened her jaw quickly, before it could fall off.

  ‘Cricket is a very interesting game, you know,’ said Sally. ‘It isn’t as exciting as show-jumping, but in some ways it is quite scientific. You ought to watch it, Frances. Father will explain it to you—he’s terrific at explaining.’

  ‘Cricket is a dull game,’ said Jane.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. Jay.’ Sally’s voice slashed at her sister. ‘Frances would enjoy cricket if Father explained it to her.’

  Frances glanced side-long at Jane: she knew with a terrible certainty that the child was about to stand her opinion of cricket on its head.

  ‘I don’t mean dull—‘ There was a slight flush to the peach cheeks ‘—it only seems … I mean, it only seems difficult if you don’t understand it. Like … like additional maths. But once you’ve got the hang of it … then it has an inner poetry all of its own, cricket does.’

  Another of the obiter dicta of the redoubtable Miss Baggers (or whatever her real name might be, Baggott, Bagnall or Bagley for choice) was being hurriedly conscripted for service outside its original context.

  ‘It does?’ Frances melted in the heat of the desperation the child was striving to hide under false enthusiasm. ‘Yes, I’m sure it does.’

  She could well afford to be merciful now; she had what she wanted out of them, they had given it to her without any effort on her part, freely out of their own need. And she could get more, anything she liked, for the asking simply by giving them the tiniest bit of encouragement.

  ‘Our mother was foreign, of course—she was French. You can’t expect a French person to understand cricket,’ said Sally suddenly, as though prompted by a stirring of older loyalty. Then she frowned. ‘Not that it really is difficult—Jane’s quite wrong there.’

  She was recalling herself to her duty, to the more important business in hand, which had to be done, thought Frances bleakly.

  The business of imparting information about the virtues and interests of Colonel Jack Butler; the business of discovering, at the same time, information about the background and character of Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon; and, on the basis of the latter, and also on Mrs Fitzgibbon’s reactions to the former, the business of deciding whether Mrs Fitzgibbon would be a suitable wife and step-mother for Brookside House.

  ‘Have you ever watched cricket?’ asked Jane. ‘Or do you ride horses?’

  Frances thought: The poor little things must be pretty hard-up for eligible females to grab me so quickly.

  And then: They probably are hard-up. Mostly they’ll only meet their friends’ mothers (was that where the one-parent-family interest came in? Had they already looked over that field and found it wanting? Or didn’t they fancy step-sisters as well as a step-mother?).

  And then: Or their friends’ elder sisters, who would be too young (and she herself was almost too young).

  And then: Yet maybe not so unsuitable, at that: an army widow (one tick there), in the same line of work (so she’d know the score there—two ticks), who liked Chinese take-away meals and obviously didn’t actively dislike cricket.

  Poor little things indeed! Diana going off to University, the first bird to fly the nest, would have brought home to them that they were getting older and the world wouldn’t stand still; and that Father was travelling a lonely road which could only become more lonely as they followed Diana—in their place would she have thought that far ahead, like this?

  And then, brutally: Sod it! She wasn’t in the business to solve teenage girls’ family problems—her business wasn’t to be either merciful or cruel.

  ‘I’ve done both, as a matter of fact, Jane. And I wield a mean hockey stock, too.’ And I play dirty, too, Jane dear. ‘But I didn’t know your mother was French. Tell me about her—how did your father meet her, for a start—?’

  CHAPTER 11

  PAUL MITCHELL came to Brookside House like a thief, very quietly, after dark and by the back entrance, following her instructions to the letter, but arriving inconveniently nevert
heless, just as Frances was demonstrating her pancake-tossing expertise to a devoted audience.

  Because of that it was Jane who answered the knock on the door.

  ‘There’s a man for you, Frances.’

  ‘A man?’ The kitchen was separated from the back-door by a lobby, and the fizzling of the pancake mixture in the frying-pan had drowned the back-door dialogue. ‘What sort of a man?’

  Jane sniffed—not a pancake-sniffing sniff, a disapproving sniff. ‘A young man. Not a policeman.’

  ‘How d’you know he’s not a policeman? Policemen can be young.’

  ‘He smiled at me.’ Jane didn’t elaborate on the significance of that, but doubtless Baggers had warned her against smiling strangers. ‘He wants to talk to you, he said.’

  ‘Have you let him in?’ Frances toyed with the notion of sending Paul—it had to be Paul—away until the girls had gone to bed. But there was always the possibility that Colonel Butler would come back later, and that might be why Paul had come earlier than she had bargained for.

  ‘No fear! I didn’t like the look of him, so I put the door on the chain.’

  ‘We always put the door on the chain,’ supplemented Sally. ‘I think we ought to have dogs, myself. A pair of Rhodesian Ridgebacks—“Lion-dogs”—and we’d be as safe as anything … and we wouldn’t have been burgled today, either. But Nannie doesn’t like dogs, worse luck.’

  ‘I bet you like dogs, Frances,’ said Jane with perfect confidence. ‘Of course, we’d look after them—and take them for walks, and everything, if you didn’t want to.’

  The chickens were already being counted, thought Frances sadly. The poor little things would probably spend half the night now planning how to sell the suitable Mrs Fitzgibbon to Father, that knight sans pew et sans raproche.

  But Paul was in danger of being forgotten.

  ‘Ask him what his name is, dear. If it’s Paul, then let him in—he is a sort of policeman.’

  Jane sniffed again. ‘Okay—if you say so, Frances.’ The desire to appear an obedient potential step-daughter/younger sister outweighed her disapproval.