Ghost Swifts, Blue Poppies and the Red Star

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

‘Come on, then. Best foot forward!’ Harriet chimed, summoning the last of her strength and positivity for both of them, as they headed up the sodden street to goodness only knew where.

  They reached Love Lane: an assortment of housing types, ranging from poor tenements to more substantial detached homes.

  ‘You take this side of the street,’ Harriet instructed, ‘and I’ll take the other.’

  Fraser looked abjectly miserable. ‘What if there’s no sign up? Or what if they’ve since stopped renting rooms? What if—’

  ‘Then we find the first place we can to spend the night and return to the library in the morning to write out a fresh list further afield,’ Harriet answered.

  ‘This is just…’ his sentence trailed off, as he turned and began to trudge the length of the street, which fortunately was not a long one. Harriet crossed over and started to check each and every house for a sign that it was now, or had ever been, a guesthouse.

  As she walked, she contemplated again the question, which had so troubled her since speaking with the Duchess of Westminster: why had Malcolm come here and said nothing to her? Goodness, even if his work at the gas laboratories had been so demanding to the extent that he couldn’t have left Woolwich, then she would have travelled here to see him without a second thought. Now that he was gone, she couldn’t bear to think of him in an ill light, and this internal conflict left her with a horrid, sick, tugging feeling in her stomach.

  She continued to walk, but her pace had fallen to that of some doddery woman twenty years her senior and she could feel the last dregs of her resolve draining away.

  ‘Ma!’ Fraser called to her from across the street. He had stopped in front of a decent-looking house, set back slightly from the street behind a low stone wall and black metal gates. ‘Forge House?’

  Forge House, Love Lane. That was it! ‘Yes, that’s the one! Do they have rooms to rent?’ she shouted.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied.

  In that moment, her priorities shifted. The search for the guesthouse, in which Malcolm had stayed, could wait until tomorrow. For now, they would call it a day and get some rest. If good fortune were on their side, there would be hot food, a warm bath and a comfortable bed for the night, and they would be restored for another attempt tomorrow.

  Harriet trotted across the street to the opposite pavement to meet him. Fraser had opened the gates, and together they rushed towards the front door, as though they were competing for the finish line of a marathon. The house was fairly modern in design and, despite the historic-sounding name, looked as though it had only been built ten or so years ago.

  Fraser hammered hard on the door, making Harriet flinch and wince with embarrassment.

  A middle-aged lady with brittle grey hair appeared at the door, wiping her hands on her floral apron. ‘Goodness gracious me—get inside!’ she said.

  ‘Do you have two rooms, please?’ Harriet said, unable to find the energy with which to explain their convoluted story and current predicament.

  The lady shook her head and grimaced. ‘No. Terribly sorry, but I don’t.’

  ‘Oh, my goodness!’ Harriet cried, quite melodramatically.

  ‘But the sign outside...?’ Fraser pressed.

  ‘I’ve got one room. Two single beds, four and six a night with breakfast.’ The lady held her hands open and palms-up, implying that the decision was over to them.

  Harriet and Fraser looked at each other, saying nothing. Sharing a room with her snorer son was so very far from ideal, but right now she would happily have shared a room with the Kaiser himself.

  They nodded with a simultaneous reluctance.

  The lady clasped her hands together. ‘Marvellous. Let me take your coats.’

  Harriet and Fraser handed her their overcoats with great relief.

  ‘Follow me,’ she said, leading them to a room on the first floor, then stepping back to allow them inside. ‘Will you be wanting a dinner? I’m making beef and kidney pie, greens and crumbed potatoes.’

  ‘That would be so perfect,’ Harriet said. ‘Heaven, actually.’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Fraser agreed. ‘And is there any chance of a hot bath?’

  The woman laughed. ‘What, now?’

  Fraser nodded tentatively, sensing that there was something amiss.

  ‘A strapping lad like you. Yes, you’re most welcome to a bath… But I should probably warn you, though, that the bath is in the kitchen, where I’ll be doing the cooking.’ She laughed again, and Fraser flushed bright red, mumbling something about waiting until later after all.

  The lady disappeared off down the stairs, leaving them both standing in the room, dripping wet.

  Harriet looked around the pokey space. There were two beds with emerald bedspreads, with one bedside table and a narrow walk-way between them. Beside one of the beds was a thin wardrobe and a sash window, from which she could see nothing but great torrents of rain and grey skies. At that moment in time, it felt to her as though the window were mirroring her very soul.

  ‘I’m going to go outside and use the WC,’ Fraser informed her. ‘So, why don’t you get changed first, then me?’

  Harriet nodded and, when he had left the room, slid the brass bolt across to the doorframe and began to peel off her soaked clothing. She stripped entirely naked, her clothes creating a big, wet pile at her feet. She popped the dual clasps on her suitcase and opened it up. From the selection of drab, black clothing, she chose a light dress and a thick cardigan.

  Moments later came a knock at the door, startling her.

  ‘Ma, are you decent?’ Fraser called from the other side.

  ‘No, not yet,’ she answered, flustered.

  When she was finished, she slid the bolt back and opened the door. ‘Is it far?’ she asked.

  Fraser nodded. ‘Bottom of the garden, I’m afraid. A bit gloomy in there, too. There’s an umbrella leaning by the back door.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Harriet muttered. ‘I’ll wait and go and speak to Mrs Whatever-her-name-is instead.’

  She walked sluggishly downstairs, following the scent of cooking into the kitchen at the rear of the house.

  Mrs Whatever-her-name-is smiled, as she entered. She was standing at the sink, scrubbing carrots. ‘Everything in order?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mrs…?’ Harriet prompted.

  ‘Mrs Lawrence,’ she said, offering her her wrist to shake.

  ‘Mrs McDougall,’ Harriet said. ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘By all means—make yourself comfortable. I’ll put you in the guest register after dinner, if that’s ok? I’ve got a fresh pot of tea brewing, just now. You look like you’re in dire need, Mrs McDougall.’

  ‘Oh, I really am.’ Harriet sat at the kitchen table and emitted a small sigh.

  ‘So, tell me, Mrs McDougall, what brings you and your fellow to my door in these wretched conditions?’

  Harriet baulked at the use of the word, ‘fellow’. Did she think that she and Fraser were here as a couple? Good heavens! And she hadn’t even asked if they were married! Harriet quickly explained their relationship and the reason for their stay in Woolwich. ‘I don’t suppose you would have kept your guest records from back in June 1917?’

  ‘No need for the register,’ Mrs Lawrence replied. ‘I remember Malcolm, alright. A lovely lad, he was. I’m so, so sorry to hear that he didn’t make it through the war.’

  ‘Do you really remember him?’ Harriet stammered, quite taken aback.

  ‘Yes. He was here a good few days—possibly even a week,’ Mrs Lawrence said. ‘Funny thing, you know, he stayed in the room you and your other boy are in now. How about that, then, eh?’

  Harriet saw Malcolm, as clear as day, lying in one of the beds—the one by the window, which Fraser had chosen, she thought—after a long day or night mixing gasses or whatever it was, which he did at the laboratories.

  ‘I suppose you didn’t see much of him, though?’ Harriet said.

  Mrs Lawrence laughed. ‘No, not much. But
you know what these youngsters are like when they’re in love.’

  ‘Pardon me?’ Harriet broke in. ‘In…love? In love with whom?’

  ‘Oh. I presumed you knew…’ Mrs Lawrence said. She stopped scrubbing the carrots, hands poised in mid-air over the sink, and turned to look at Harriet. ‘A girl called Lina.’

  ‘Lina?’ Harriet parroted. She searched her mind for any mention of the name, but nothing was forthcoming. ‘Lina what?’

  ‘Lina Peeters.’

  ‘She sounds foreign,’ Harriet replied uncertainly.

  ‘Belgian,’ Mrs Lawrence confirmed.

  Harriet sighed. Nothing was making any sense to her. ‘Please, would you mind awfully just starting at the beginning?’

  ‘Let me make this tea, and I’ll come over and tell you everything.’

  Harriet grudgingly agreed and had to wait several interminable minutes for Mrs Lawrence to dither around the kitchen, preparing the two cups of tea. Finally, she sat down opposite Harriet and passed her a cup.

  ‘There you go. That’ll warm you through,’ Mrs Lawrence said. ‘Right, now… Lina. One day she knocked on my door, asking if I had any rooms for her manfriend, who would be coming over from the trenches on leave. I told her I did and, sure enough, a week or two later, he showed up on my doorstep with her, as arranged.’ Mrs Lawrence sipped her tea, then continued. ‘They spent most of the time together and—’

  ‘But surely he was busy working at the gas laboratories?’ Harriet interrupted, entirely confused.

  Mrs Lawrence curled her lower lip, as though the idea were preposterous. ‘No. I just said: he was here on leave. They went to the music hall, the theatre, the park, the swimming baths, but no mention of any laboratories, no.’

  ‘It sounds like he was jolly well on holiday!’ Harriet cut in.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose he sort of was.’

  ‘Good heavens. And what was she doing here, for goodness’ sake?’ Harriet asked.

  ‘Like the rest of the Belgian refugees… Making ends meet.’

  Harriet had a vague recollection from the start of the war of thousands of Belgian refugees settling in England, mainly in London, but she herself had never encountered any. At least, not that she knew. There certainly weren’t any refugees in Sedlescombe. She drank some tea, giving her brain a moment to catch up with this latest revelation. It was even worse to know that he’d come here on leave and had not bothered to communicate with her, much less see her. There really was no excuse at all.

  ‘And where is this Lina Peeters, now?’ Harriet asked.

  From her facial expressions, Mrs Lawrence didn’t seem to know the answer. ‘I presume she did what the rest of them did and went back home when the war was over. Our government welcomed them here with open arms, even grateful for the extra help they gave with most of the men being away and that, but when the end of the war came, and the men returned, they weren’t so keen to have them staying and really did all they could to get shot of them.’

  ‘Could she still be living here, in Woolwich, Mrs Lawrence?’ Harriet asked. ‘It’s really most important that I speak with her.’

  ‘I couldn’t say. I’m fairly certain she lived among a little community of refugees all around the Woolwich New Road area. If you went there, I’m sure someone would be able to tell you one way or another.’

  ‘Right,’ Harriet said, instantly determining and then, just as quickly, dismissing the vague notion of going there and making enquiries right at that very moment.

  ‘That feels much better,’ Fraser announced, entering the room in clean, dry trousers and a shirt. He sat down beside Harriet. ‘Have you asked about Malcolm?’

  Harriet raised her eyebrows. ‘Oh, yes. He came to Woolwich for a lovely holiday, by all accounts.’

  Fraser frowned. Harriet repeated what she had learned, and across the room Mrs Lawrence quietly made another cup of tea for her guests.

  That night, Harriet was sitting up in bed in her silk camisole, rubbing Vaseline into her cheeks. Fraser was in the next bed, already sound asleep and thankfully not snoring. As seemed normal with him since his return, he could fall asleep within moments of getting his head down.

  She slowly pulled all the pins from her hair, then carefully fed it into a hairnet. She looked around her, still unable to believe that Malcolm had stayed in this very room just a month before he had died. Such a curious and upsetting state of affairs, she thought.

  Now that she was here in the quiet darkness, she hoped that Malcolm had slept in the bed, which Fraser now occupied; there was something very different between falling asleep on his bed at home and willingly climbing into one in a strange place, and in which he had slept just weeks before he had died.

  Harriet took a long breath in and laid her head down on the pillow, then reached over to the lamp and fumbled to switch off the light.

  The following day could well have been the following month for the complete change of weather. The heavy, grey clouds had absconded overnight, leaving a perfectly clear, blue sky in their wake. The sun, too, was making a good effort to dry the rain-soaked streets. Harriet, with Fraser in her shadow, walked down the stairs to the kitchen, with a positive spring in her step.

  ‘Good morning,’ Mrs Lawrence said, taking a glance at the wall-clock. ‘Well, I say morning, but you’re not far off afternoon.’

  Harriet half-smiled, embarrassed at the late hour at which they had woken. Although, when Harriet herself checked the clock and found that it was just gone half-past-ten, she thought Mrs Lawrence to be exaggerating somewhat. Still, it was far, far later than her usual wake-up time at home.

  ‘You obviously needed the sleep,’ Mrs Lawrence added warmly. ‘I’ve got hot cocoa, boiled eggs and bacon for breakfast. Take a seat and I’ll bring it right over.’

  Harriet and Fraser sat either side of the table.

  ‘I wonder what our resident vagrant is getting up to at home…’ Fraser mused provocatively, one eyebrow arched.

  ‘Mowing the grass, weeding the garden, fixing the fences and undertaking general repairs I shouldn’t wonder,’ Harriet replied pointedly.

  ‘Give the man a medal,’ Fraser responded.

  ‘Give the man a chance.’

  ‘Here we go, two mugs of cocoa,’ Mrs Lawrence said, presenting them with their drinks. ‘The food will be ready any moment.’ Mrs Lawrence returned to the stove, from where the enticing smell of fried bacon began to waft around the room.

  ‘What are your plans today, then?’ Mrs Lawrence asked.

  ‘Going door-to-door along the Woolwich New Road until we find Lina Peeters, or at least someone who knows where she is,’ Harriet replied.

  Despite all that Harriet had explained about their quest, Mrs Lawrence seemed surprised to hear this. ‘And what will you do, exactly, if you find her?’

  ‘Torture her with questions,’ Fraser answered.

  Mrs Lawrence sniggered, which Harriet didn’t find particularly helpful.

  ‘Talk to her,’ Harriet corrected. ‘I just want to understand what happened in those last weeks of his life and to know if he was happy…’

  ‘Oh, he was certainly happy when he was around Lina,’ Mrs Lawrence said. ‘Walked around with a permanent smile on his face, he did. To look at him, you wouldn’t think that a few days before he’d been in the trenches on the Western Front.’

  ‘And a few days later he was dead,’ Harriet added sorrowfully, instantly regretting it. As she feared it might, this last utterance made things awkward and brought their conversation to silence.

  Mrs Lawrence brought two plates to the table: each contained two slices of well-cooked bacon, a piece of toast and a boiled egg. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she said, beating a hasty retreat from the kitchen.

  ‘Well that was subtle of you,’ Fraser whispered, leaning in across the table.

  ‘Oh, just be quiet and eat your breakfast. We’ve got another long day ahead of us.’

  ‘Joy.’

  The Woolwich New Road looked
like any other in London. From the description, which Mrs Lawrence had given, that the Belgians had created their own sub-community, Harriet had been expecting something different. What that was, precisely, she now couldn’t say. Perhaps people wearing noticeably different clothing, or the houses dressed in a different manner. But it was in every way ordinary. It was a busy road with several horses and carts vying with impatient automobiles, as was slowly becoming the norm in the cities and larger towns nowadays. A motorbus, heaving with passengers rattled noisily past. People were going about their business, just as they were on every other street in the area. A long run of shops, with their canopies extending out over the pavements, saw a steady flow of customers coming and going.

  ‘Ma, we’re not really going to knock on every door in the street, are we?’ Fraser groused.

  Harriet didn’t know what they were going to do, actually. She watched the passing traffic and thought for a moment. If someone arrived in Sedlescombe looking for her, where would they start? The answer was suddenly obvious. ‘Follow me!’ Harriet directed, setting off with great strides.

  They walked a short distance along the road, then waited for a suitable gap in the motor traffic, before hurrying across to the other side.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ Fraser said, looking up and seeing the building in front of them.

  It was a grand stone edifice with the acronym, ‘G.P.O.’ carved in large letters on a long plinth, which divided the ground floor from the two upper floors. If anyone knew where Lina lived, it would be someone working at the General Post Office.

  Harriet bound up the steps and into the building, entering a large room with a high, ornate ceiling. A long wooden counter-top ran almost the entire length of the rooms and was divided into small kiosks, at which stood half-a-dozen men wearing suits and ties.

  ‘You wait here,’ she instructed Fraser.

  ‘Gladly,’ he replied.

  Three of the assistants were available. Harriet made a quick assessment and chose a man young enough to have served in the war. She approached him with a wide smile. ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Morning. What can I do for you, madam?’ he asked.