Tomorrow's ghost dda-9

by Anthony Price

  That was better. And without the raincoat Marilyn was better too: she was only Marilyn from the neck up. From the neck down she was still Frances, in Mrs Fitzgibbon's best Jaeger suit.

  'Thank you, nurse.' Marilyn-Frances took in her surroundings. Everything that wasn't a cool, freshly-laundered, green-uniformed lettuce leaf was painted and polished in St. Luke's Home for Elderly Gentlefolk. And on the landing window-sill halfway up the staircase was a great spray of out-of-season flowers, too: one thing St. Luke's Home didn't need was a grant from the Ryle Foundation, it was doing very nicely thank-you on the fees from the Elderly Gentlefolk. Colonel Butler was certainly doing right by General Chesney's ex-gardener, ex-batman, in return for the old man's 50 per cent share in pulling the General off the barbed wire at wherever-it-was in France sixty years before.

  'And you've got an appointment with Mr Sands.' The lettuce leaf smiled at her this time, it was the influence of the Jaeger suit, no doubt. 'He is having an exciting time!'

  'Yes?'

  'Oh yes - this way, if you please - ' The lettuce leaf pointed up the stairs ' - the Colonel this morning ... with a big box of chocolates for us, and flowers for Matron ...

  and the young man yesterday - ' she glanced over her shoulder at Frances ' - and he was from your paper too, wasn't he? What has Mr Sands been up to?'

  She was moving at nurses' quick-step. 'We're planning a series on veterans of the First World War,' said Frances breathlessly.

  'That's right,' agreed the lettuce leaf. 'The young man told me. There aren't many of them left, I suppose - didn't he get everything, the young man? Old Mr Sands talked to him for ages.'

  'I'm the woman's angle,' said Frances.

  'Ah ... of course.' Nod. 'Well, when you do a series on the Second World War, you come to me - I wasn't born then, but my mum remembers it all. Dad was at El Alamein, and had his toe shot off in Italy, in a monastery there - would you believe it? Here we are.'

  She knocked at a gleaming door. 'Mr Sands? Another visitor for you! You're really in luck today...' She filled the door for a moment. 'All right, then? You don't want the bottle, or anything like that? You're ready to see your visitor?'

  There came a sound from beyond her, a sort of croak.

  God! Don't let him be senile, prayed Frances: he wasn't yesterday for Paul. Don't let him be below par for me. I have the right question for him, Paul didn't.

  'That's good,' said the lettuce leaf briskly. But she caught Frances's arm then. 'Now, dear. ..' she murmured into Frances's ear confidentially '... he's a lovely old man, really -

  not like most of our old gentlemen, not exactly - but a dear old chap, all the same.'

  Most of their old gentlemen would be rich old gentlemen in their own right, that must be the difference.

  'But you've got to watch him like a hawk. He pretends he can't see you properly -

  and it's him who's got eyes like a hawk. And he pretends he can't hear either, and he hears perfectly well when he wants to. He tells you he can't hear just to lure you close to him, that's all - he did it with the Mayor's daughter, I think it was, when they came to the Home last year, the old devil!'

  'Did what?' whispered Frances.

  'He put his hand up her skirt, dear - right up' hissed the lettuce leaf urgently. 'You should have heard her scream! I was down the passage - it frightened me out of my wits.... We're used to it, of course. But you - ' she glanced quickly at Marilyn's hair ' - you better just watch him, that's all.' She straightened up abruptly, and poked her head round the door again. 'Here you are, Mr Sands: it's the young lady from the newspaper.

  And you behave yourself, or I won't let you watch The Sweeney - I'll take your set away, and that's a promise!'

  Which was The Sweeney? Marilyn had kept up with all the popular TV programmes, from Coronation Street upwards -

  My God! The Sweeney was the violent one, where the cops and robbers were always putting in the boot.

  She entered the room cautiously.

  It was a beautiful room, high and peach-and-white, with bright-flowered curtains framing a window which gave a view of trees on a far hillside.

  And a big colour TV set for The Sweeney. And a little old man sitting up in bed, against a mound of pillows -

  Like a little old wizened monkey, Paul had said. Sans teeth, almost sans eyes, but not sans memory.

  Paul wasn't quite so clever though, again: more like a little bird of prey, with bright eyes fastening on her. (Or perhaps that wasn't quite fair to Paul, and she was being wise after the nurse's warning of his predatory habits once the prey was within reach.) He didn't say anything, he just looked at her. There was a copy of the Sun under his hand, opened to page three's bare breasts. As she looked back at him he closed the page.

  Well, she hadn't been so clever either. There was obviously nothing wrong with his eyes or his memory, but she'd forgotten to ask what was wrong with his legs... Though perhaps she should be grateful for their weakness, so it seemed. 'Mr Sands?'

  'Yes?' He sank back into the pillows. 'I'm from the Post-Gazette, Mr Sands. A colleague of mine came to see you yesterday... About you war experiences.'

  'What?' He cupped his hand to his ear. 'About-your-war-experiences, Mr Sands.'

  'Speak up. Missy. I can't hear you.' Frances advanced towards the bed. 'My colleague came to see you yesterday to ask you about your war experiences. When you were in the trenches with General Chesney.'

  'I still can't hear you. You'll have to speak up.'

  'You can hear me perfectly well,' said Frances clearly.

  'Don't shout. There's no call to shout,' said Rifleman Sands. 'I'm not deaf.'

  'I want to talk to you about after the war,' said Frances.

  'Ar? Well, you'll have to come closer,' said Rifleman Sands, laying down the price by patting the bed. 'You can come and sit on the edge here. Then I can hear you.'

  Then you can do more than hear me, thought Frances.

  She looked down at the hand which had patted the bed, and which now lay resting itself on the coverlet. It was a working hand, one size bigger than the rest of Rifleman Sands, what she could see of him - a hand expanded by work, old and knotted now, the veins standing up from the parchment-thin skin, but very clean and manicured - a St.

  Luke's hand now. When she thought about it dispassionately, it didn't disgust her at all.

  It had been up a good many skirts in its time, that hand, without doubt. Now it was about to go up hers, but it wouldn't be the first - or the worst - to make that short journey. It had been cleaned by the earth of the old General's flowerbeds a thousand times over, and by that other earth of France and Flanders too, and it couldn't possibly do her any harm now. If her skirt was the last skirt, that was just the final bit of the unpaid debt.

  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 checking 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.'