Poor Tom's Ghost

by Jane Louise Curry

  The first step towards that end, briefly interrupted by a take-away Peking dinner from the Jade House in nearby Upper Square, had been a splendid bonfire built in the cracked basin of a long-dry fishpond. Fed well into the long summer evening with rubbish, wallpaper, buckled mouldings, and the splintered ruins of a large garden lath house, it sank at last into a glowing ash heap, a rose of light cupped in the dark, warm ring of trees and house. The family sat around it to drink hot chocolate and sing, half mockingly, half seriously, “There’s A Long, Long Trail A-Winding,” “Memories,” and “We All Go The Same Way Home.”

  A good day. The best ever.

  It was only slowly that the sound drifted into Roger’s dream like thin, chill tendrils of river-fog seeping into a house on an early autumn morning until room after room grows grey. A low, mournful sound, it came and went and came again. A night-bird, Roger thought at first, knowing nothing of night-birds. But now and again it rose and fell more raggedly than birdsong, a ravelled thread of grief wavering, not out in the pale summer night, but in the house behind him. Roger turned, suddenly frightened, and padded softly to the door into the hall to ease it open.

  It had to be Jo crying. Or Pippa. But even as he tiptoed to the far end of the hall he knew it was not Pippa, and when he put his ear to her door he heard nothing. The low, uneven weeping sounded like no child’s, but the exhausted, despairing keening of a man or woman, muffled by thick walls and a heavy door. Jo. Roger leaned against the damp plaster of the wall and trembled uncontrollably.

  How could they have fought again? How could they, after such a day? It was never easy to know when they were at odds. Their habit of quoting from plays at the drop of a hat gave them a language full of allusion and double meaning. What was said was clear enough, but Roger sometimes sensed that what was meant lay hidden behind the words, perhaps in the characters who spoke them in the play. There had been a moment that afternoon downstairs in the front room—but it had passed so quickly…

  Numb with disappointment, Roger felt his way back down the dark hall, to be brought up short before the door to the front bedroom Tony and Jo shared. He meant to hurry past, not wanting to hear—what? low anger, a bitter wrangling?—but he was caught and held.

  By silence.

  And the grieving that had been everywhere and nowhere now seemed to come from across the hall and down, next to his own room, in the master bedroom Tony and Jo had decided not to use because of the risk of falling plaster. Terrified, Roger had almost gained the safety his own door when the grieving died into a dry sobbing and a halting whisper. Against his will his eyes were drawn to the open door. The room was empty, bleached pale by moonlight.

  And in the empty, moonlit room a voice mourned, Ah Kitten, why? Cruel, cruel Puss to use me so.

  A man’s voice.

  tis but our fantasie

  IN HIS DREAM THE SOUND OF LAPPING water came first to Roger through the dusk, and then the voice… Jack? I’ve not seen the lad. But if you find him at home, mind you send him along to us at Brentford for a day or two. You’ll want a chance to woo your pretty wife awhile. We’ll keep him out of mischief until Monday’s gathering at Mortlake.

  The voice was clear and warm, yet distant, as if heard down the length of a long, narrow corridor, and after it died away there was only a dim confusion of sound: shouts, the creaking of wood and muffled stamp of horses, curses and whinnyings, and under it all the steady lap of water.

  Then torches were kindled in the half-dark and set in iron standards atop a wall, and Roger saw that the wall was only the top of a row of heavy pilings, a palisade against the river, and that in the middle of its length a broad stone stair stepped down into the shimmering water. Boats crowded at its foot and Roger saw that one, larger, broad-beamed, almost a barge, was half loaded with a strange cargo—among other things, a bedstead, two painted wooden apple trees, an altar, and a gilt throne. Chained and padlocked chests, heavy boxes, and canvas-wrapped rolls six or eight feet long and thick as a man’s thigh were handed from the wagons down the stairs to the watermen. As each of the smaller boats crowding close around took on its passenger or two, oarsmen unshipped their oars and fended off from the bankside, heading upstream with the rising tide. They went, passing into shadows all the deeper for the yellow pinpricks of light strung in clusters along the far bank.

  And then it seemed to Roger that the torches grew dim. Of the man who had spoken he saw only a blurred shape descending the water stairs, arm raised in farewell. The gesture was returned from a narrow boat in which an oarsman pulled and a cloaked passenger sat in the upholstered seat facing him. A passenger somehow familiar…

  Light, more light! Torches here! Roger heard someone shout. But the shout fell away into the heavy air like a whisper, and as the narrow boat slid through the river shadows into emptiness Roger turned and twisted, struggling towards the light and the fading dream.

  Roger woke with a start and the dream drained away like water through sand. The sleeping bag was twisted around his chest and knees. All of his windows were wide open and through the one opening out over the green garage roof, the sun rising above Syon Park glittered through the trees. From the window overlooking the back garden came the aroma of bacon frying. For a long, blank moment Roger could not think where he was; but then the bare room, the gaping ceiling and patch of rotted floor dawned on him, and he scrambled out of the sleeping bag so eagerly that the low camp bed tipped over on its side and gave him a sharp crack on the elbow. He hardly noticed, but headed, shivering, for the rear window.

  The long shadow of the house lay across the tangled back garden, but below, at the corner of the old kitchen areaway, Bast lay stretched on his back in the one shaft of sunlight. Beyond, down along the garden wall, Roger caught a glimpse of his father’s dark head moving along a shaggy row of box trees. Directly below and to Roger’s right, on the patch of terrace at the foot of the French-door steps, Jo had set up the camp stove and was turning bacon in the frying pan.

  It was too chilly still to stand watching. Roger rooted in his rucksack and brought out his brightest T-shirt, a splintered explosion of colour Alan’s Jemmy had hand-dyed in what she called her “Blast” style. Because it looked a so alarmingly violent on an empty stomach and wasn’t really warm enough, he pulled on over it his old green cotton polo-neck and hurried down the hall to the stairs at the far end.

  Breakfast was already in mid-career in the room looking out on the back garden. A new and larger table had been contrived by setting one end of a dingy yellow door on one shelf of the cupboard next to the kitchen stairway, and the other end on yesterday’s tea chest. Pippa sat in the doorway at the top of the garden stairs, wiping clean her eggy plate with a piece of toast. “Morning,” she mumbled, her mouth full.

  “And a very good morning to you and the whole gorgeous world,” said Roger, striking a flamboyant pose of welcome to the day. “Anybody know what time it is?” Jo, still in her monk’s-robe dressing gown, peered indoors from her post at the stove. “ ‘Who is’t that greets great morning with a splendour like the sun’s?’ Our Roger? Wonder of wonders! And it’s eight. On the dot. Bacon?”

  “Yes, please.” Roger cut himself a generous doorstep bread and clattered down the iron steps past Pippa. “Is there room on there to toast this?”

  Jo moved over. “For you, always, sweetie. But you’d better fetch a fork if you don’t want to get burnt turning it. I take it you slept well on your bit of canvas?”

  “Like the proverbial,” Roger said flippantly, armouring himself against taking the affectionate “sweetie” too seriously. After all, it meant no more than any of the vaguely friendly “darlings” and “loves” that were sprinkled through actors’ conversation like raisins in a fruitcake. He bounded back up the steps as Pippa shrank aside, then returned, fork in hand, to hesitate frowning in the doorway. “At least… Actually, I was having a peculiar dream just before I woke up, but I can’t remember what it was.”

  Pippa carefully set her plate
behind her. “You didn’t hear anything last night?” she asked casually.

  Jo’s head half turned. Even in the shapeless robe her body seemed arrested, listening, like a bird frozen on one foot.

  Roger frowned, then paled, remembering. “Why?” he countered. “Did you?”

  “Maybe. I thought so. Like somebody crying, almost. I wanted to get up and go see, but Sammy was petrified, and old Bast jumped on my stomach and hissed like anything every time I tried to get out from under. Mama heard it too.”

  “Did you, Jo?”

  Jo, turning, nodded. “I take it that you did too.”

  Roger avoided meeting her eyes. “I thought it was—the animals, maybe. I got up and listened at the doors.”

  “ ‘Doors’ plural?” Jo regarded him gravely. The shadows under Roger’s eyes had worried her for weeks, and this morning, if anything, they were darker. “Ours too?”

  “I thought you and Pa might be having a f-fight,” Roger said lightly, as if the possibility held little interest. But he felt one eyelid begin to tic nervously and turned away with a shrug, so that Jo would not notice.

  “I see. We weren’t, though. And even when we do, it’s usually no great matter. You—” She broke off as Tony appeared over by the north-west fence and came, plate in hand, picking his way through the brambles. “Your father slept like the dead through it all. Didn’t hear a thing.”

  “The big bedroom. It came from there.” Roger went down to turn his toast and said hesitantly, “It sounds silly in broad daylight, but it sounded like someone all broken up over a lost cat. A kitten or cat.”

  “I’m disappointed in you, Rog.” Tony came to peer at the bacon. “A little night breeze moans through that colander of a roof, and you begin coining ghosts. Not that we’re ill-placed for it,” he added with a ghoulish waggle of eyebrows and a nod in the direction of the river. “We’re bang up against the churchyard on that side.” Spearing the lone slice of toast with his fork, he held it out to Jo on his plate. “None of your brittle, dried-up rashers, please. The three fatty ones will do nicely.”

  “Hey, that was my toast,” Roger objected.

  His father forked the three pieces of bacon one on top of the other, bent the toast to make a sandwich of sorts, and took a crafty bite before saying, perfectly convincingly, “Yours? Sorry, Rog, I didn’t realize. Here, you have it.”

  Roger’s grimace at the indigestible-looking sandwich became a reluctant grin. “No, thanks. I like bacon Jo’s way, crisp.”

  “All right.” Tony took another bite. “But I will cut you some more bread. Coffee in on the table, Jo?”

  “In the thermos.”

  A moment later Tony tossed two slices of bread out to Roger, who placed them on the grill and this time kept an eye on them. When his own bacon sandwich was built, he went in search of milk. The jug was on the door-table, and after pouring himself a mugful he went to sit on the step beside Pippa. Jo in turn drifted off into the garden, bearing with her on a plate all the rest of the bacon. Behind, in the dining-room, Tony prowled along the fireplace wall, poking, knocking, and prodding.

  “The panelling’s buckled well away from the chimney up there,” he observed, squinting at the cracked cornice and the ugly brown water stain on the ceiling that spread in a ragged semi-circle out from the fireplace wall. “Those floorboards just above must be rotten through. If I thought we could trust the chimney, I’d rip this old gas fire out of here and build a proper fire—start drying things out—but I haven’t seen anything we could use as a grate. Any ideas?”

  Roger shrugged, not bothering to turn. “Not unless we have the electricity turned on and buy some electric fires.”

  “Too late. The Electricity Board won’t be taking work orders on a Saturday morning. I suppose,” Tony muttered, squatting down on his heels to inspect the dust-clogged gas fire. “We could buy a grate. The local hardware shop might have one or two stored away. Hah! This thing seems to have been very thoroughly disconnected. No gas inlet pipe at all.”

  Roger and Pippa turned to see the old cage-fronted gas fire pull free at Tony’s tug and topple on its face with a tinkle of shattering ceramic heating elements. Tony stuck his head into the empty blackened fireplace and gave the soot a jab with the edge of his tin plate. “Iron. Looks like one of those fancy old Victorian items. Pity the face has been covered up with this panelling. Some of them are quite ornate. Made to be framed by the mantel surround and overmantel.”

  Pippa helped herself to bread and jam and came to look. “Why not pull it off, then?” She touched the panelling gingerly. “It’s ugly. The paint’s all crackled.”

  “Probably means the wood’s damp right through.” Still squatting, Tony peered upward speculatively. “I think you’re right, Pips. But it’ll take some tools. A crowbar and claw hammer to begin with. I’m going out for the newspapers anyway, so I’ll look for an ironmonger’s while I’m at it. We can pick up grates for this fireplace and the front room, and for the two upstairs if there are any to be had. What I’ll need first, Pips, is the steel tape measure from the tool box in the back of the car, to get the width of this thing. It’s probably at the very bottom, in with the sockets and what-nots.” He stood and fished the car keys from his pocket.

  Roger recognized the glint in his father’s eye and almost choked on the last of his milk. It was the intense, abstracted gleam that appeared when Tony was first concentrating his way into the depths of a new role. He had wandered around like that for two weeks upon learning that he was to take over as Hamlet for two months of this latest run of last year’s very successful production. Roger rose and walked casually to the makeshift table, setting his mug and plate down with deliberate care. If his father had that look now, it could mean only one thing: he was caught.

  “It won’t do much good, will it?” Roger asked lightly. “Not for just two days.”

  “What?” Tony said vaguely. Drawing back a yard or so, he squinted at the fireplace wall. “We might even cheat a little, make it look a bit older. Regency instead of early Victorian. ‘Early Brighton Pavilion.’ Not the best of periods for claiming a ghost, but it could be equally entertaining.” He frowned. “You’re right about the fires. They won’t be enough. On Monday we’ll have to see about having the electricity laid on. No telling how long a wait we’ll have before it’s connected. For now you’d better come with me in search of the next best thing.”

  Roger almost held his breath. “But we have to go home tomorrow night. You have a rehearsal call Monday morning, and there’s my cello lesson.”

  Tony shrugged. “No reason Jo can’t stay. She’s not working now. Not until the middle of next month. And once I’ve smoothed out a few rough spots in this Hamlet I can begin commuting. I can come down after the Wednesday matinee anyway. We’re not on again until Saturday night. Of course,” he added, “if you object to roughing it…”

  Roger grinned at his father’s back. “Are we staying for good, then?”

  “As if you didn’t know,” Tony drawled, turning to fix on Roger a scowl of friendly malice. “It’s what you counted on, wasn’t it? ‘Once through that front door and the old man’s stuck’?”

  “Hoo-ee!” Roger let out a wild whoop and leapt out and down the iron garden steps to meet Jo, emerging from the brambles, and whirl her in a dizzy circle.

  “We’re staying! Pa said so. We’re staying!”

  Is not this something more then phantasie?

  JO EYED THE SACK OF COAL DOUBTFULLY.

  “Are you sure it’s safe to build a fire in there?” she asked mildly. “If that gas heater is as ancient as it looks, this chimney hasn’t been used for years. For all we know it’s stuffed full of antique birds’ nests, and the first spark will burn the house down around our ears.”

  Tony sat back on his heels to scowl at the half-built fire in the new grate, and then at Jo. “Have you any idea how far we had to go for coals in August? Hounslow!”

  “It’s not all that far,” Jo said placidly. “I�
��m sorry I didn’t think to ask before, though. I’m surprised I thought of it at all, seeing as I’ve never had a real fireplace. It just seemed…”

  “I know. ‘Logical,’ ” Tony drawled. “O.K., Roger, out it comes.”

  Together they lifted out the half-filled grate and set it in the nearest corner. “Pa,” Roger asked suddenly, “what about the steel measuring tape?”

  “What about it?”

  “It’s a long one. Twelve feet. Couldn’t we feed it up the opening and try twisting it around? Like one of those Dyno-Rod or Roto-Rooter cables for blocked drains? If it won’t go up, we’ll know it’s blocked.”

  “Not a bad idea. And if it does clear, we can try the same with the fireplace above. The chimney pots are probably more than another twelve feet above that, but if it’s clear that far, we can burn a sheet or so of newspaper to see whether it draws. Now, where did I put the blasted tape?”

  “You’ll make an awful mess,” Jo warned. “Soot all over the place. I can move the food cartons and the picnic gear, but if you don’t want to ruin your clothes you’ll put on your bathing shorts. Believe it or not there’s an old tin bathtub in that cubbyhole off the back end of the garage. If you get too grubby you can toss coin for who gets the bathroom, and who gets a tin tub down in the kitchen.”

  “And cold water in both of them.” Roger shuddered as he said it, and Tony made a face at the prospect.

  “She may be right. We’ll give it a short test poke to see if it’s worth it, shall we?” Tony reached for the unread Times and Guardian and filched the business sections to spread on the hearth and the floor round it. It took a bit of a struggle to open the damper once he located it; then, pulling out a three-foot length of the tape and locking it, Tony knelt sideways and pushed it up into the dark opening. A short way in, it stopped, and when he tried to force it through the obstruction, it bent with a metallic twang and sent down a small shower of soot.