Tomorrow's ghost

by Anthony Price

  The bed was high off the floor, her skirt rode up quite naturally as she hitched herself aboard it.

  Rifleman Sands smiled at her happily, and she found herself smiling back at him in perfect accord, perfect innocence.

  ‘Now, Missy. After the war? There was a big fireworks display on the top of Corporation Park, along Revidge … where there’s now tennis courts—there was a bit of spare land there—where we used to go capertulling of a Sunday night—‘

  ‘Capertulling?’

  The hand patted the coverlet. ‘A big fireworks display. We used to walk up Revidge—about this time of year, too—and on our front gate we used to have an arch of laurels, with candles in jam jars … My elder brother used to say he was watching these people coming back, stopping to light their cigarettes on the candles in the jam jars. I didn’t go, of course.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Fireworks reminded me of the trenches.’ He spoke as though it was a silly questions, to which she ought to know the answer without asking. ‘We had enough fireworks…

  Though later on I did go up. You forget, see—in the end you forget.’

  It was after the first war, he was talking about—sixty years ago, nearly! She was going to have to watch her time-scale, thought Frances. He was dredging back into his memory, already prepared by Paul’s questions of the day before, telling her what he thought she wanted to know.

  ‘Top of the Corporation Park, luv—you know it. Where the tennis courts are now.’

  The hand fastened on her ankle, which dangled just over the edge of the bed beside him.

  ‘Top of the Corporation Park.’

  * * *

  The Corporation Park.

  Dripping, dripping, dripping wet. Under the umbrella, but everything dripping—the wet mist in her face.

  She had walked alongside Brian. She had pushed the child’s push-chair which he had provided, the mist fogging her glasses until she’d been forced to stop in a shop doorway and substitute her contact lenses for the glasses; and he’d made her take her green raincoat off and put on the beige-coloured one he’d produced from inside the push-chair; and also a head-scarf instead of the umbrella (not Mrs Bates’ umbrella, but a smaller, useless feminine one, which he’d collapsed into an eight-inch cylinder and stuffed back into his pocket; Brian knew a thing or two about tailing a target, and was prepared to change their profile on the assumption that Colonel Butler knew a thing or two about being tailed).

  * * *

  ‘Yes, I know Corporation Park.’

  ‘Well, I remember that, then.’ He squeezed the ankle encouragingly. ‘And Blackburn Rovers won the Cup—in 1927 or 1928 … 1928, it was. And then, before the war—the other war. Hitler’s War—Lancashire won the county championship three years in succession.

  That was under the* captaincy of Leonard Green—Colonel Leonard Green, he was a friend of the General’s, of course…. He lived at Worley, where we used to play an annual match. The Lancashire players in those days … there was Ted MacDonald, the most marvellous bowler of all time—and George Duckworth kept wicket—‘

  Frances closed her eyes. They were on to cricket now—cricket was Colonel Butler’s game, so it wasn’t surprising that it had also been Sands’ game and the General’s. But Rifleman Sands was also on to her calf and a different game now.

  * * *

  She had seen better with her contact lenses, blinking the rain out of her eyes, although she still couldn’t see one hell of a lot of the Corporation Park.

  But she could hear the ducks away to her left in the murk, enjoying the weather. The very sound of them frightened her.

  Where was Colonel Butler going? He’d been to the shops, and bought flowers and a large parcel from the confectioner’s. But now he was walking in the rain, very straight and purposeful, as though he knew where he was going. Flowers and parcel had already been delivered to St. Luke’s—Frances and Brian had huddled under the inadequate umbrella at the end of the road for twenty minutes; then Brian had taken the lead, but at the gate to the Park she had moved past him to keep the broad back, the deer-stalker (of all utterly ridiculous headgear, a deer-stalker!) and the multi-coloured golfing umbrella in view—if he’s set out to be obvious he couldn’t have done better, so it wasn’t difficult; but it was exceptionally wet and uncomfortable.

  (All the same, she’d been glad about St. Luke’s. That had been exactly, almost uncannily, what she’d been expecting, against hope.)

  * * *

  Perhaps he’d moved up from her ankle to her calf because her feet were still wet.

  No way! He’d moved up because that was the way to her knee: This is Number Three (they’d sung at Robbie’s battalion seven-a-side rugby contest, within earshot of the battalion ladies) and my hand is on her knee!

  And Rifleman Sands had reached Number Three. But at least, if he was genuinely bed-ridden, he couldn’t manage Number Four, Frances felt entitled to hope.

  But just in case … and in any case, she had to keep his mind on her job.

  She moved her leg warningly. He held on grimly.

  ‘I saw Colonel Butler in the Park today, Mr Sands.’

  The hand relaxed—it didn’t move away, but it relaxed.

  ‘Oh ah? Been to see me today, has the Colonel—‘ He stared at her suddenly, as though she was not an ankle and a knee, but potentially something more, a human being. ‘There was a man came to see me not long ago.’

  ‘He’s been to see you?’ Frances pounced on what she wanted.

  ‘From the newspaper, aye,’ Rifleman Sands nodded. ‘He was a good-looking lad, but a bit too pleased with hisself.’ He nodded again. ‘Mind you, he knew about the war, I’ll give ‘im that. Ypres, he knew Ypres—‘ he winked at Frances ‘—“Wipers” what we called, he knew that. And Bapaume and Albert, with the old Virgin…’

  The old Virgin? That sounded like a contradiction in terms with young Rifleman Sands about.

  ‘And Beaumont Hamel—he’s been there. And he saw the Lone Tree!’ Rifleman Sands shook his head in wonder. ‘He actually saw the Lone Tree! It’s still there—I wouldn’t have believed it, but he’s seen it with his own eyes! After all this time! And it was dead when I knew it. But he’s seen it!’

  Frances winced at the sudden pressure on her leg, just above the knee.

  ‘I’ve never been back. No point…. It’s not pretty, like the Ribble Valley. Over the top, across the golf course over to Mellor—all that’s open country… I mean over the top—not like we used to say “over the top”, that was different, that was… But over the top from the golf course, and you drop down to the Ribble—as youngsters we used to go that way, and wade the Ribble, and on to Ribchester. You don’t want to go to Bapaume if you can do that, an’ nobody shoot at you. Waste of time—waste of money! It used to cost Thruppence to get into Alexandra Meadows for the cricket—and you could see it for nothing from the Conservatory in the Park, “the Scotsman’s Pavilion” was our name for it. And when there wasn’t any cricket—there was no telly then, but there was fifteen cinemas in the town, and a music hall … and the repertory—the Denville Repertory, I used to watch that. The beer was better too, not so gassy—Dutton’s and Thwaites’—the next biggest brewing town to Burton we were, because of the good spring water, see.

  And of an evening we’d take a tram to Billinge End … eight-wheelers, they were. Four at the front and four at the back—Blackburn trams and Blackpool trams are best in country.’

  The past was getting mixed up with the present, but it would be a mistake to stop him too abruptly, decided Frances. She’d just have to judge her moment.

  ‘—and then walk up Revidge for a bit of capertulling with the girls.’

  The present was also beginning to slip above her knee, and it would be a mistake to stop that too: he seemed to have judged his moment as right now, for a final bit of capertulling.

  ‘—and back through the Park, past the lake …’ He looked at her, and she wasn’t sure whether he was ch
ecking that she was still listening or to see if she intended to scream like the Mayor’s daughter. ‘That lake’s an old quarry, you know. That’s why there’s no boating on it, or skating in winter, it’s that deep they don’t rightly know how deep it is.

  And there’s a stream runs down, right under the War Memorial—underground—and goes through the town, under a street that used to be called Snigg Brook—“snigg” being an eel—but the silly buggers have re-named it ‘Denville Street’, would you believe it! I suppose it was because the people from the Denville Rep. used to lodge thereabouts, and it didn’t sound posh enough. They did the same with Sour Milk Hall Lane and Banana Street, silly buggers. It’s not the same—‘ He stopped abruptly, pulling back his hand as though he’d been stung.

  Frances couldn’t bring herself to ask him what the matter was. He certainly hadn’t encountered any resistance, quite the opposite. Could that be what had frightened him?

  Or was it her lack of encouragement? But that had never discouraged previous hands.

  ‘Tights,’ said Rifleman Sands with disappointed scorn. ‘Tights.’

  Tights were death on capertulling, of course. It was just Rifleman Sands’ bad luck that she was Frances below the waist, not Marilyn.

  ‘But you’re a good lass, all the same,’ Rifleman Sands patted her Jaeger-skirted thigh forgivingly, as though to reassure her that she wasn’t a failure. ‘Not a catawauller, like some I could mention.’

  She smiled at him, and he smiled back. Nurse Lettuce Leaf was quite right: he was a lovely old man as well as a randy old devil.

  And he was ready now.

  ‘So Colonel Butler came to see you today, then, Mr Sands?’

  ‘Aye, the Colonel.’ He nodded happily. ‘A good lad too, he is, young Jack. Happen you’d make a good pair, him and you.’

  ‘Does he come to see you often?’

  ‘Oh, aye.’

  ‘This time of year?’

  ‘One of the best,’ he nodded again. ‘The General—he’d be right proud of him…. Of course, he was proud of him already. When he won his medal, fighting those Chinamen, he was pleased as though it was his own boy—him that was killed by the Paythens. “The M.C., Sands,” he says to me. “That’s a fighting man’s medal, that is.” And-he should know, seeing how he’d won it too—that was at Loos, up under Fosse Number Eight, where he was wounded the first time. And that was a terrible bad place. Fosse Number Eight, believe you me, lass. I was up there with the Rifles later on—a terrible bad place, that was.’

  He was rambling hopelessly now. Damn tights, thought Frances. He’d have been sharp enough with a suspender to twang.

  ‘At this time of year?’ she tried again.

  He looked out of the window, up towards the high green ridge where he had once walked, on which he would never walk again.

  ‘It’s raining,’ he said. ‘It’s not the same rain as it used to be, though.’

  Now he was into nostalgia, thought Frances despairingly.

  ‘It used to be right dirty rain—mucky rain,’ said Rifleman Sands unnostalgically.

  ‘Woman couldn’t put her whites out—couldn’t put anything out—when it was raining.

  Bloody mill chimneys’d cover everything with bloody soot. It’s a sight better now, thank God!’

  Frances looked at her watch. She was losing him, and she was also running out of time. It had all been a dream, anyway—a four-out-of-ten guess which was going to end up in the losing six.

  ‘Got to go, then?’ He looked at her wistfully, memories of capertulling before the invention of tights in his eyes. ‘He had to go, of course. The Colonel.’

  He looked out of the window again.

  ‘I remember in the old days, though… There’ll be nobody out there now, not today.

  But in the old days there’d be the Regiment, with the red poppies in their caps. And the Territorials. And the nurses, and the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides—and us, of course.

  The Old Contemptibles. And the Blackburn Prize Band…. We’d form up in the centre of town, and we’d march up Preston New Road—with all our medals—the General, and young Jackie’s father just behind him, that was his RSM—cor! you should have seen us then! The whole town was out. Didn’t matter if it rained or shined—left, right, left, right—swing those arms! And the band playing the old tunes!

  ‘And young Jack was there too, with the Scouts. And he used to stay behind with his dad afterwards… But now they do a bit of something on a Sunday, not worth going to—waste of time. But then it was right on the day—November the eleventh. Two minutes’ silence at 11 o’clock: the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—‘

  * * *

  Frances had come past him, hiding her face behind the little umbrella heading towards the gates beyond the fountain.

  Colonel Butler was standing in front of the ugly memorial obelisk which was topped by an even uglier representation of Peace—a female Peace presiding in bronze over the countless dead of the two World Wars (no room for the Korean dead, or the bad luck casualties of all the other little wars since, from Malaya to Ulster. No room for Blackburn’s Robbie Fitzgibbons).

  She hadn’t watched him from the front, that would have been too risky. But from behind, from the cover—no shelter—of the gates she had observed that he was standing easily, his multi-coloured golfing umbrella over his head, as though reading the names.

  And then a clock sounded, away somewhere behind her in the dripping town. As it did so, as though at a time-signal, a sheet of heavier rain—genuine rain—slashed down across the Park, blotting out the further landmarks she had passed a few moments before.

  As the first strokes of the clock rang out, rain-muffled. Colonel Butler collapsed his umbrella and removed his ridiculous hat, and came to attention. Even after the sound of the last stroke had cut off—with the loud spattering of the rain and the noise of the traffic behind her it didn’t die away, it ended abruptly—he still stood there, for what seemed like an age, bare-headed in the downpour.

  Then, unhurriedly, for by then he was wet enough not to need to hurry, he replaced his hat and opened the umbrella again, just as Brian came trotting by him.

  * * *

  Not an age, but two minutes exactly, counted off in heartbeats.

  * * *

  That’s why he had to go, of course. He keeps the proper day, naturally. Never fails—leastways, not when he’s in England, and not fighting somewhere. But always comes to see me first, even if only for five minutes—and I’ve been here ten years now, since me legs went, and he’s not missed once.’

  He twisted awkwardly in the bed to feel under his pillows.

  ‘He has to, see…’ He turned back towards her. ‘He has to bring me my red poppy.’

  He displayed the evidence triumphantly.

  CHAPTER 14

  ONCE UPON A TIME, concluded Frances, there had been a great mansion somewhere hereabouts; one of those huge northern granite palaces built out of coal or cotton, in a rolling parkland, with lodges at the gates—and a duck pond—and a dower house into which the first widow could retreat when her eldest son brought his young bride home from the honeymoon in Piranesi’s Italy.

  But now, amid the concrete high-rise towers and temples of North Yorkshire University, the Dower House (which was all that had survived of that splendid Once Upon a Time … except, of course, the duck pond) … the Dower House seemed more like a cottage out of the Grimms’ fairy tales which had been magicked from its clearing in the forest into the open.

  Not that it frightened her any more, as it might have done before—as the duck pond still did. She was no longer Gretel (was it Gretel?), if she ever had been; and she was no longer Miss Fitzgibbon, the fairy story blue-stocking; and, for all her bedraggled blondeness, she was no longer Marilyn—she no longer needed to be.

  She was Mrs Frances Fitzgibbon returning to Paul Mitchell in triumph and victory.

  Even the day wasn’t so grey now, even the rain wasn’t
so wet. There was more fighting to be done—the Enemy had lost a battle, but not yet the war itself after the Pelennor Fields. But it was not a battle they had expected to lose, and she had won it.

  So it was only reasonable to feel drained and a little light-headed.

  * * *

  It didn’t matter, waiting in the rain outside the Dower House, as it had mattered outside St. Luke’s Home.

  The door opened, and there was dear old Professor Crowe—brave old Colonel Crowe. It didn’t even matter that he was looking at her with stranger’s eyes, unrecognising her.

  ‘Professor Crowe—you remember me?’

  ‘Miss Fitzgibbon—I beg your pardon—Mrs Fitzgibbon! Well met, my dear, very well met!’ He beamed at her more warmingly than the St. Luke’s central heating. ‘But you’re soaking—quite soaking—come in, my dear, come in! Come in, come in, come in!’

  He bustled around her, half wizard, half Hobbit, all elderly bachelor. He fetched a towel. He thought about giving her coffee, but it was too late; he thought about making tea, but it was too early. He didn’t mind that she covered his snowy towel with lipstick and mascara—‘It’ll look wicked, dear—it’ll make my students think, and anything which makes them think cannot be bad.’ And finally he presented her with a whisky even more outrageous than that which Isobel had given her once upon another time, which she wanted even less and needed not at all, a true Robbie-measure.

  ‘Now—move up close to the fire—‘ It was a fire like Isobel’s too, generous with well-selected pieces of coal ‘—take off that wet jacket, I’ll put it in the airing cupboard—on a hanger, don’t worry, so it won’t lose its shape—it doesn’t matter you’ve only a slip underneath: you won’t lose your shape—hah!—and I’m practically old enough to be your grandfather, so if the incipient scandal doesn’t worry you it won’t worry me—there now, that’s better! Drink your whisky, child … there’s plenty more where that came from—see!’