‘Yes.’
He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. ‘Exhibition next week. Not far from here. It’s on at the Highgate Literary and Scientific Institute. Starts next Friday. I’ve got a few photos in.’
‘Oh, right, thanks,’ I said. ‘Good for you.’
‘You haven’t seen them yet.’
‘No, I haven’t. I meant good for you getting work into an exhibition.’
Ben glanced at the leaflet in my hand. ‘No obligation but you could see what I do. It’s on for a few weeks. If you’re interested.’
Effy appeared down the pavement and when Ben saw her, he began to move on. ‘OK, bye then,’ he said.
‘What was that all about?’ asked Effy when she joined me.
I glanced after Ben. ‘Not sure. He’s weird, sort of intense. He’s invited us to a photo exhibition.’
‘Us or you?’ asked Effy.
‘Anyone I think. I don’t know. He’s hard to read. Says he remembers me from junior school. I felt bad I didn’t remember him.’
Effy looked down the street at Ben walking away. ‘Nice dog though.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Nice dog, shame about the owner.’
Effy thrust the near-death experiences book into my hand. ‘In the meantime, this should keep you busy.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. As we went back into the agency to join Effy’s mum, Ben’s face flashed through my mind. The way he looked at me. Interested, but guarded, like he didn’t want to give anything away. I made myself think back to junior school. A boy called Ben Fraser. Nope. I couldn’t recall him.
Chapter Fourteen
‘So who’s this Howard then?’ asked Mum when I got home later that evening.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked.
Mum pointed to the answering machine in the hall. ‘There’s a message for you on there from Tash. She sounded very excited, said they’ve found Howard. Is he some new boy you’ve got your eye on?’
‘No. Nothing like that.’
‘So who is he?’
Hmm. How to explain? Oh Howard, yeah, he’s a corpse, as in six foot under. Not what you want to hear about your daughter’s latest crush. ‘I’ll tell you later, Mum. Let me phone Tash.’
I took the phone from the hall and went into our front room to call her. I didn’t want Mum listening in and then giving me the third degree.
‘Jo, you got my message?’ said Tash when she picked up.
‘Yes. What have you found?’
‘Dave’s uncle’s been on the case again. It’s amazing. You’re not going to believe it.’
‘Just tell me Tash.’
‘Oh, right. Yeah. So, Dave was looking into the census records and he found Henrietta and where she lived! Hold on, I’ve got it written down. Halville House, Trafalgar Road, London. The record said she was governess in the household of a Dr Edward Watts, that he was head of the house, and also there on the night that the census was taken were his wife Lydia Watts and their two boys, wait for it, Howard and Daniel and Lydia’s mother, Violet Emery.’
‘No way. Oh my God.’ I was shocked. I had never really imagined that they had all actually existed. And here was proof not just of Henrietta, but a whole family. My rational mind soon kicked in. ‘Might not mean anything. As I’ve said all along, they might have been relatives of Betty’s and she was using their names.’
‘Killjoy,’ said Tash. ‘Come on, Jo. You have to admit this is interesting at least. Anyway, that’s not all. Apparently Dave’s been able to dig even further and he’s found out that Dr Watts was married, and Daniel and Howard were christened, at St George’s church in Highgate–’
‘St George’s? I know exactly where that is. It’s just a bit further down from the square.’
‘I know. Amazing, isn’t it? We’re going to look up Trafalgar Road too in a moment. Imagine if we can find Halville House. You might remember it. And we can go to the church too. Henrietta could have gone to Daniel’s christening. Have you ever been inside?’
‘No. Never.’
‘So you’ll come with us?’
Despite all my doubts, I couldn’t help but feel a shiver of the excitement that Tash was clearly feeling. ‘Yeah. Course but it might not prove anything. So these people existed. It might be a dead end.’
Tash cracked up. ‘Dead end. Very funny. So tomorrow after school OK?’
‘OK.’
I hung up the phone, still feeling a bit in shock. It felt like the whole thing was building a momenturn and I was being taken along with it whether I liked it or not. It would be nice to talk everything over with someone besides Tash and Effy Owen, I thought and pulled out my mobile and dialled his number.
‘Hey, what’s up?’ he said a moment later.
‘Tash has found Henrietta, the family she worked for and where they lived.’
‘No way!’
‘That’s what I said. What do you think?’ In the background over the phone, I heard someone talking to Owen. ‘Oh. Bad time? Sorry, Owen, are you busy?’
‘No, it’s fine. Just got a mate over for supper.’
‘Mate?’
‘Susie. She’s on the same course as me.’
‘Oh. Hey, no matter. I’ll call another time, yeah?’
‘Yeah,’ said Owen, then I heard him laugh at something Susie had said then he hung up. I was surprised to find that I felt jealous. Owen was always there for me. Complete attention. I wasn’t sure how I felt about sharing him with another girl.
‘Jo, dinner,’ Mum called from the kitchen.
‘Can I eat later?’ I called back.
‘No. It’s salmon. It will dry out and I want to hear about Howard.’
Reluctantly I went into the kitchen and prepared myself for her questions. There was no point fighting it, when Mum wanted to know about something, she wore away at it until surrender.
Mum sat opposite me. ‘Are you OK, Jo?’
I nodded. ‘Yes. Fine. Why?’
‘Just you seem preoccupied lately. Is anything worrying you?’
‘No. Not really.’
‘You know you can always talk to me.’
‘I know.’
She got up and put our food out on plates. We ate our meals in silence. Suddenly she started to laugh.
‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.
‘Oh ... just hearing Tash mention a Howard earlier.’
‘So what’s funny about that?’
‘It brought back some memories. When you were little, you had an imaginary friend. We were quite worried about you for a while because you talked about him, and to him, non-stop until you were about five. Don’t you remember?’
I shook my head.
‘You used to insist that he ate at the table with us,’ Mum continued, ‘and I had to lay a place for him. It was most unlike you because apart from that, you were such a serious, sensible little girl’
‘So what’s made you remember all that now?’
‘Tash’s call. You see, in a world of Sams, Daves and Mikes, you called your friend Howard. Such an oldfashioned name. We wondered where you came up with it.’
I almost choked on my supper.
Chapter Fifteen
As we stood outside St George’s church on Wednesday evening after school, I stared up at the tall spire and tried to see if it evoked any memory. It didn’t.
‘Does it feel familiar?’ asked Tash.
I pretended that I was going to faint. ‘I . . . oh . . . yes, oo, it’s all coming back to me–’
‘She’s messing about,’ said Effy. Take no notice of her.’
‘Of course it’s familiar,’ I said. ‘I’ve been past here a million times on the way to school but beyond that, no, I can’t say it’s bringing anything up.’
Effy looked disappointed.
Tash pointed at the door where an elderly-looking vicar with white hair was going in. ‘Hey, it’s open,’ she said and tugged on my arm. ‘Let’s go in.’
Effy was off in a flash. T
he decision had been made for me. We were going in.
Once inside the dark interior, we could see that the vicar was up near the altar on the left. I gazed around at the pews, the stained glass windows and the chapel. It felt so quiet and peaceful and the smell of frankincense mixed with the fragrance of lilies from the enormous displays filled the air. I breathed in the scent and silence but had no feeling of deja vu. The only sensation I got was that the altar was on the wrong side. For some reason, when we’d gone in, I’d expected it to be on the right of the door.
The vicar saw us and came towards us. ‘Can I help you?’
‘I was wondering if you kept records of people buried here? If there was a cemetery at the back of the church–’ I started.
‘We . . . I’ve been doing some family research and . . .’ said Effy, ‘and my great-great-uncle was a parishioner here. I believe that he was married in St George’s and might even be buried here. Um ... do you have any records? It would mean a lot to his family’
I went red as she lied away, but when she mentioned the part about her great-great-uncle being a parishioner, the vicar looked interested.
‘Do you have an idea of when he died?’ asked the vicar.
‘Oh! Can you remember, Tash?’ she asked.
‘I think about 1910 or maybe a bit later,’ said Tash.
‘What was his name?’
‘Edward Watts,’Effy replied.
Watts? Hmmm, I can’t be a hundred per cent sure without looking it up, but the adjoining cemetery is small so it’s unlikely that he’s buried here. The population expanded in the late eighteen hundreds to such an extent that it was too much for the local graveyards. So because of the date it’s more likely that he’s buried elsewhere. I’m sorry to disappoint you. However, several large cemeteries were plotted to cope with the numbers so you could try Highgate Cemetery down the road, it’s much bigger and took the overflow. There are regular tours you could join.’
‘Tours around a graveyard?’ I asked.
The vicar nodded. ‘Highgate Cemetery is famous as are many of the people buried there. Elizabeth Siddal–’
‘Dante Rosetti’s wife? That Elizabeth Siddal?’ I asked. I had a poster of her as Ophelia painted by Millais on my wall as well as one of her as Beatrix painted by Rossetti.
‘Indeed,’ replied the vicar. ‘And Michael Faraday is there too. He invented electricity.’
‘But where would we look for Edwards Watts?’ said Effy. ‘I know the cemetery. It’s vast.’
The vicar smiled. ‘It’s nice to meet youngsters who are so interested in the past. If you can hang on, I can look in the church records to see if his death is recorded and it might also tell us what part of the cemetery he’s in.’
‘Really?’ said Tash. ‘Brilliant.’
We followed the vicar to a room at the back of the church, Effy filling him in on the rest of the family and Henrietta as we walked.
In the office were rows and rows of old leatherbound books. The vicar heaved down a few then sat at a table and began to leaf through. We sat quietly not wanting to disturb his concentration. He put the first few books aside and shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It would help if I had a more precise date.’
‘I could ring someone,’ said Tash and pulled out her mobile. ‘I’ll call our friend Dave. He’s got it all written down.’
‘That would narrow the search,’ said the vicar.
Tash went outside to use her phone and the vicar began to tell us about the history of the church, how it had been bombed in the war and parts of it rebuilt and how lucky it was that the records had been unharmed.
‘Has the altar always been on the left?’ I asked.
The vicar regarded me for a few moments and I felt myself blush. ‘An interesting question,’ he said finally, ‘why do you ask that?’
‘For some reason, I thought it was going to be on the right when we walked in. Don’t know why.’
‘I can tell you exactly why,’ said the vicar. ‘The altar has always been where it is. That is unchanged but the main entrance to the church used to be on the other side, opposite to the one that we use today. Do you see? Before the original church was bombed, you entered from the other side, then indeed, the altar would have been on the right. If you look carefully when you go back through, you’ll see that the original entrance was bricked up.’
‘I. . .’ I didn’t know what to say but Effy’s face had lit up.
‘Have you seen the original plans of the church somewhere?’ he asked me.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘But I must have, mustn’t I? Or maybe I noticed the old door had been bricked up without consciously realising.’
‘Yeah right,’ Effy blurted as Tash came back in and handed the vicar a piece of paper on which she had written down dates that Dave’s uncle had given her.
‘That makes my task much easier,’ said the vicar and he pulled out a large tome from his shelves. After a few minutes flicking through, he stopped at a page and pointed. ‘Here we are. Edward Watts, buried in the western part of Highgate Cemetery. I thought so.’
‘And what about Henrietta?’ asked Tash. ‘Henrietta Gleeson.’
‘And who was she?’ asked the vicar.
‘Oh, the governess, I believe,’ said Effy. ‘Governess to the Watts boys.’
‘Do you have her dates?’
I shook my head and made myself remember the image of the woman I’d seen in my regression experience. ‘We think she was quite young when she died, maybe in her twenties.’
‘OK, let me see. It may take me some time to find her,’ said the vicar as he went back to his book and starting flicking through a few pages. A short while later, he looked up. And here she is. How sad. You’re right, she was a young woman when she died. Twentythree in fact. She’ll be in a different part of the cemetery to the rest of the family because she was a dissenter.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Tash.
‘Only Anglicans could be buried on blessed ground in the main part of the cemetery at that time,’ the vicar explained. ‘Anyone who wasn’t Church of England or was an unbeliever or committed suicide, was known as a dissenter and they were buried in unconsecrated ground.’
‘Oh my God. Was she a suicide?’ I hated to think that.
The vicar shook his head. ‘No. That would have been recorded. She would most likely have been an unbeliever or from another religion.’
‘Dissenter sounds like an outcast,’ I said. I didn’t like the idea of anyone being shoved out because of their beliefs.
‘That’s how it was back then, my dear,’ said the vicar and he checked his watch. ‘Now I really must go but good luck with your search. You won’t be able to go into the cemetery now as it closes at five o’clock in the summertime but go along at the weekend. It’s a very interesting place and well worth a look around. Just ask the guide on duty. Most of them know the graves like the back of their hand.’
We trooped back out into the sunlight and Effy was quick to tell Tash all about me knowing the layout of the old church.
Effy turned to me. ‘Now that’s got to mean something,’ she said with a big grin.
‘Not really. I could have read about the church somewhere, or seen a documentary about the bombing, that’s most likely,’ I said, although I wasn’t as certain about any of it as I had been.
I hadn’t told Effy or Tash about my imaginary childhood friend called Howard. They’d have taken it as more proof that Betty’s story was true and it did seem remarkable even though I’d rationalised that there must have been some character on TV that I’d seen as a kid who was called Howard and I’d picked up on it. I kept telling myself that none of it really meant anything, but the coincidences were stacking up. The imaginary friend called Howard, my experience at Fiona’s (despite the fact I’d convinced myself that it was a dream), Lily’s reading that matched so closely with Betty’s though I’d even tried to rationalise that with the idea that maybe she and Betty had met at a clairvoya
nts’ convention and made up stories together. And now the feeling I’d just had in the church. I knew deep inside that I was running out of arguments against the fact that I might have had past lives. For the first time since I’d been to see Betty, a part of me was beginning to think that there might, just might, be some truth in what she’d said and the proof of it was unfolding in front of me, like clues in a treasure hunt. All I had to do was follow them. But the thought of it being real was seriously creeping me out.
Chapter Sixteen
On Saturday morning, I was up and dressed early. Although I had a ton of work to do for my AS levels, I had to see this Henrietta thing through. I could work in the afternoon plus, if nothing else, I would get to see Elizabeth Siddal’s grave.
Effy and Tash were waiting for me at the top of the lane leading to the cemetery. We were all dressed in light clothes jeans and T-shirts, mine all black, Tash in pale pinks and Effy in blue jeans but an orange and turquoise top. The skies were clear and it felt odd to be setting off on a tour of a graveyard on such a lovely day. We passed Waterlow Park on our left and then we could see the cemetery beyond. As we got closer, there was a Tudor-style building, with turrets and high wrought iron gates in the middle, leading to a woodland area.
We went to join a small crowd who were waiting for the ten o’clock tour. Some were carrying cameras, others guidebooks.
I glanced across the road where rows of headstones were visible and wondered what the fuss was all about. It looked unremarkable, the same as any cemetery in England, with neat rows of graves.
‘There are two parts to the cemetery, the eastern and western,’ said Tash. ‘The vicar said the Watts grave is in the western part. I went round with my parents a few years ago. It’s totally Goth. You’ll love it, Jo.’
‘I am not a Goth,’ I said. Nor did I see why I’d love a tour round a cemetery. It struck me as morbid but I didn’t say anything in case they called me a killjoy again.
‘I think you should tell the tourists why you’re here,’ said Effy. ‘To gaze upon the grave of your last earthly body. Wuhuhooooo.’
Love at Second Sight Page 9
