12-08

by Bethany Chester

  She squints at it. “I haven’t got my glasses on, I can barely see it. Stop waving it around.”

  She puts on her reading glasses and gives it a cursory glance.

  “No, it’s not mine. Where did you find it?”

  “Never mind,” I say hurriedly, grabbing it back. “It’s not important.”

  Jamal raises his eyebrows, and I put a finger to my lips. Luckily, Annemarie doesn’t care enough to push the matter.

  As darkness is falling, the scent of cigarette smoke wafts in through the French windows. I don’t really want to look, but I can’t help myself.

  Jamal is leaning on the rail, just as he was a few nights ago. Smoke curls up into the night sky above him.

  “Busted,” I say. He jumps, and then sinks into himself, deflated.

  “I’m sorry,” he says tiredly, stubbing out his cigarette on the rail. “I tried really hard, but I’m so stressed, and nothing else was working. I really am sorry.”

  He looks so forlorn that I can’t help but feel sorry for him.

  “There’s no need to apologise,” I say. “I never asked you to quit.”

  “Yeah, but you said you wished I would. That meant a lot to me, and I blew it.”

  Gently, I touch his arm. “Maybe you shouldn’t have gone cold turkey. There’s other stuff you can get now – you know, nicotine patches and stuff.”

  “I don’t need any of that shit,” he grumbles. “It’s pathetic. I’m a grown man, and I’m reliant on little bits of paper and chemicals.”

  “Those bits of paper and chemicals are specifically designed to make you reliant on them,” I point out. “It just means the cigarette manufacturers are doing their jobs effectively.”

  “Well, I’m not going to be their slave any longer,” he says, hurling his cigarette butt over the railing. “It stops here.”

  I smile at him. I’m flattered that he’s doing this for me, but I can’t think of any words of encouragement that don’t sound patronising or clichéd, so I opt to say nothing at all. For a while, we stand in companionable silence, watching people’s lives play out on the street below.

  “Apparently there’s someone trying to contact me,” I eventually say. “At least, that’s what Clemency thinks.”

  Jamal smiles wryly. “Ah, Clemency. I like her, but her name is developing some negative associations in my mind.”

  I laugh. “She’d probably find that amusing.”

  “No doubt she would. So does the omniscient Clemency know who this person is?”

  “No,” I say. “At least, she says she doesn’t. But it doesn’t matter, because I think we found him.”

  “We did?” Jamal says, wrinkling his forehead. Then realisation dawns. “Oh. Not Private Sidney Smith?”

  “The very same,” I say. “Think about it. Why else would that article have appeared on our kitchen table?”

  “It might not be a him at all,” Jamal says. “It might be his vengeful widow. You never know.”

  That makes me smile, in spite myself. “Perhaps it is. Although I’d rather not be pursued by a vengeful widow, to be honest. It sounds scary.”

  “Ah, yes,” he says solemnly. “Women in general are quite terrifying.”

  I shove him playfully. “Watch it.”

  Nothing has happened between us since the night when we kissed. Now that I finally know how I feel, it almost seems as if he’s not so sure anymore.

  I don’t like to let myself fall for anyone until I’m fairly certain that they like me. It’s a kind of defence mechanism, I suppose, and till now it’s stood me in good stead. This time, though, it seems to have backfired.

  I wish he’d at least say something to let me know whether he still felt the same way. But he doesn’t, and eventually I get cold and retreat to my room. I need to get to bed - not that I’m really expecting to get any sleep. Between Jamal and Private Sidney Smith, I’ll probably be spending the next week looking like a zombie.

  To be honest, Jamal is preying on my mind the most.

  I’ve thought at length about the identity of my mysterious acquaintance, and come to the conclusion that I’m not really scared of him – assuming he is a man, of course. I’m not going to give a dead man any kind of power over me.

  Too bad I can’t say the same for a certain living man.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It’s funny, but lectures are almost becoming the highlight of my day.

  It sounds ridiculously nerdy, but it’s true. The halls are warm, the seats are relatively comfortable, and above all, everything is so peaceful. There’s no inexplicable music to disturb my thoughts, no mysterious light to blind me, no disappearing ornaments or flying benches or dancing ribbons. All is blissful silence, except for the droning of the lecturer’s voice.

  Unfortunately, my newfound appreciation of lectures is not enough to encourage me to pay attention to the actual subject matter. I write notes mechanically, hoping I’ll be able to make some kind of sense out of them when I look back at them later. I can’t seem to keep my mind from wandering, despite the absence of distractions. Today, my mind keeps drifting back to the soldier in the article. How could he have a connection to me, of all people? There must be more to it than my being closer than average to the “other side”, as Clemency calls it.

  At lunchtime, I take a walk around campus to clear my head. I bump into Jamal, who instantly notices my preoccupation.

  “What’s on your mind?” he asks.

  “Our friend Sidney,” I answer. “I want to know who he was.”

  “So do I,” Jamal says. He pauses. “I had an idea earlier.”

  “What is it?”

  “Hang on, let me get my laptop out.”

  He sits down on a low wall, unzipping his laptop case. I join him, watching him navigate to a site called traceyourgenes.com.

  “What’s does this do?” I ask curiously.

  “We use it in History,” he answers. “You can use it to trace pretty much anyone who lived within the last century or so, as long as you know their name and a couple of other details. You get to use it for free if you’re a History student. It’s got to be worth a try.”

  I watch him fill out the “Find a Person” form, putting in Sidney’s first name, surname and profession. He hesitates at the “Estimated Date of Birth” field.

  “It says you can put in a range,” I say. “And I guess he must’ve fought in one of the world wars. Which one would you say it was?”

  “The second, definitely,” Jamal says. “His uniform looked too modern for the First World War. Besides, I don’t think the newspapers of 1914 had many photographs.”

  “So enter the range as 1900 to 1925.”

  “He definitely looked younger than thirty in the photo.”

  “1910, then.”

  We put in Manchester as the approximate location. We don’t know for certain, but it seems likely that he had some kind of connection to this area.

  A few results come up, but it doesn’t take us long to narrow it down to two. We open them in separate windows, comparing them side by side. Neither entry has an associated photograph.

  “The age difference is only a couple of years,” Jamal says. “So that doesn’t really help. The one on the right has the middle name James, but we don’t know whether he had a middle name, or what it was...oh my God!”

  “What?”

  “Look at his address. The one on the left.”

  I go weak at the knees. How is this even possible?

  Hamilton House, Kingston Road, Manchester.

  It can’t be real. Either that, or it’s some strange coincidence.

  Hamilton House, Kingston Road, Manchester, the screen insists.

  I feel like I’m going to swoon like a character from an Austen novel. Thankfully, I just about manage to hold it together.

  “Wow,” I whisper. I can’t think of another way to express what I’m feeling right now.

  “That just about sums it up,” Jamal agrees. “Hey, just think. He m
ight have slept in one of our rooms.”

  “Don’t,” I say, shivering. “I’ll have nightmares.”

  “I had no idea Hamilton House was so old,” Jamal says. “It doesn’t look it.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” I say faintly. “I suppose he lived there before they split it up into flats.”

  I remember the overpowering feeling of positivity that overcame me when we first visited Hamilton House. No wonder I felt such a strong surge of emotion – Sidney was already manipulating me. Nice to know that even my emotions aren’t all my own.

  “I need to talk to Clemency,” I say.

  “Yeah, you do. If anyone can make sense out of this, she can.”

  I dig around in my bag, pulling out my phone.

  “Back in a minute,” I say, hurrying away. I’m not sure I want Jamal listening in to every word of our conversation. I’d rather give him information selectively.

  Clemency picks up on the first ring. It always freaks me out when she does that.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “We just discovered something,” I say breathlessly. “Me and Jamal. A light appeared in the kitchen. It got bigger and bigger, and then disappeared. After it was gone, we found a newspaper cutting about a soldier called Private Sidney Smith. We did some research and found that he used to live in Hamilton House. It can’t be a coincidence. We have to work out what’s going on.”

  “I’m impressed,” Clemency says. I can almost hear the smug smile on her face. “I thought it would take you longer than that.”

  “Wait,” I say, not liking her tone. “You knew all this already? Why the hell didn’t you tell me? You said you didn’t know who was trying to contact me!”

  “Did I?” Clemency asks innocently. “I don’t remember. Besides, you’re giving me more credit than is due. I’d figured out that he was a soldier, and that he lived in your house, but I had no idea what his name was in that incarnation. So really, you knew more than I did.”

  “For all of ten minutes,” I say bitterly. “Why don’t you ever tell me anything? Don’t you trust me?”

  Clemency laughs, a short, sharp sound. “Trust doesn’t even come into it, not when you’re dealing with the other side. There are reasons behind all of my actions. I’m in a better position to decide who should know what than you ever will be. If I told you everything I knew about your situation, I don’t know what the consequences would be. I mean it this time. Perhaps no harm would be done, and perhaps it would be fatal. Better safe than sorry.”

  Her words make a confused kind of sense, but I still feel a little resentful.

  “So that’s it, then,” I say. “You’re not going to tell me anything else.”

  “Not right now,” she says.

  A fat lot of use she is.

  “Eddie?” Clemency says, just as I’m about to hang up.

  “Yeah?”

  “Have you visited your grandmother lately?”

  I’m confused by the question; I can’t see how it’s relevant to anything.

  “Um, no,” I say. With a sudden pang of guilt, I remember Grandma Edna’s letter. “Why do you ask?”

  She ignores the question. “I have to go,” she says. “We’ll talk soon – face to face this time.”

  I’m sure we will, I think. Clemency doesn’t break promises. Her reliability isn’t always a good thing.

  “Well?” Jamal says, when I slump down next to him.

  Frustrated, I toss my phone into my bag.

  “She knew everything already, except for his name. She spouted some cryptic bullshit about why she couldn’t tell me everything she knew.”

  Jamal laughs. “Well, there’s no point in getting angry about it. Just keep treating her like a higher being and maybe eventually she’ll deign to tell you something useful.”

  I roll my eyes. “Whatever. I’m sick of this. Do you need to be here this afternoon?”

  “Nope,” he says, shoving his hands into his pockets.

  “Good. Then let’s go home.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” he says, packing away his laptop. Together, we follow the path towards the nearest exit. I do my best not to get angry at the world and everything in it.

  *

  I still don’t know why Clemency asked me about Grandma Edna, but thanks to her, I now feel horribly guilty. As soon as we get back to the flat, I phone her to tell her I’m coming over tomorrow morning. She sounds delighted, which makes me feel even worse. When I think about it, I realise I haven’t seen her in almost two months. I am a terrible granddaughter.

  To my great relief, Sidney doesn’t bother us all evening. If he did disturb us, it would probably send me over the edge.

  We still have to pretend that nothing is wrong when we’re around Annemarie. Jamal and I both adore her, but she’s not as reasonable as we are, and she wouldn’t believe us even if we did tell her the truth. It’s almost as if Sidney knows that, because he seems to lie low whenever she’s around. It makes sense, I guess – if he can sense my open-mindedness, what’s to stop him from sensing the opposite in Annemarie?

  Oh God, I’m already talking about him as if he’s a living person. Then again, I suppose he is, in one sense anyway. What was it Clemency said? Death is a relative concept, that was it.

  I really need a distraction – I’m sure this kind of thinking isn’t healthy. I don’t know how Clemency does it.

  They aren’t abnormal, just ignored.

  Now I’m quoting her. This has got to stop.

  I think I’ll go to bed and hope it’s all gone away by the time I wake up.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Sadly, my problems don’t evaporate overnight, but I wake up to such a nice day that I don’t really mind, at least not for the moment. I’m feeling quite cheerful as I get into the car and start the engine. I’m determined that this will be a good day.

  Grandma Edna lives just outside the city, about fifteen minutes away by car. A couple of years ago, she got to the point where she could no longer cope with the stairs in her house, so my parents found her a ground-floor flat nearby. It was all they could do, really. They’re too busy to care for her full-time.

  I ring the bell. It always takes her a while to get to the door, but today the wait feels even longer than usual. Maybe it’s just me, though.

  When Grandma Edna opens the door, she’s beaming, as per usual. Her optimism is inspiring. It often changes my outlook on life, especially when I feel like grumbling.

  To tell the truth, I don’t think she looks very well today – she’s so pale, and she looks frailer than usual. We go into the sitting room, and I help her sit down. She gives me a grateful smile.

  “Thank you, Eddie,” she says. “So, tell me. What have you been doing with yourself lately?”

  I start to fill her in on recent events. I don’t mention the weird stuff, obviously – I don’t want her to think I’ve lost it – but I tell her about everything else, like my uni work and the camping trip and Jamal giving up smoking.

  “Jamal is your flatmate?” Grandma Edna asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Is that all he is?” she inquires archly. I can’t help but giggle at her knowing expression.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  A warm smile floods her face. “Ah, I remember it well. Before I met your grandfather, I was seeing another young man. In many ways, he and I were a better pair than John and I. Of course, his parents would never have approved, and neither would mine, most likely. But they never knew a thing about it. My sister was the only person who was in on the secret.”

  As she tells the story, she has a faraway look in her eyes. I must admit, I’m intrigued – she’s never mentioned any of this before. I always assumed my Granddad John was her first love.

  “What happened between you?” I ask. “If you don’t mind telling me.”

  “You know I don’t keep secrets from you, Eddie,” she says, smiling sadly. “Of course I don’t mind. The truth is, he enlisted instantly when the war brok
e out. He thought it would be exciting, a bit of fun, and since all his friends were going, he was hardly going to stay here. Leaving me behind was his only regret.”

  She sighs, her eyes a little misty. “I couldn’t even go to see him off at the station, or his family might have suspected; not that it mattered, in the long run. We went for a walk the evening before, and said our goodbyes then. I don’t think I ever loved him more than I did that night. He almost seemed to be having second thoughts about leaving, but by then it was too late.”

  I brace myself. I can tell where this is going.

  “Just after he left,” she continues, “his family moved to Manchester. His younger sister was ill, and she needed to be closer to a doctor. That’s all I heard – I didn’t ask for the address, naturally. There were so many Smith families that I don’t think I could have found them even if I’d wanted to. And what use would it have been, when he wasn’t there?

  “We did write to each other a few times, but he was always moving from one place to another, and we soon lost touch. It was almost a cliché, really, the way it happened – we said goodbye, and the next I heard, he was dead.”

  I’d already guessed what was coming, but I still jolt with horror and sadness.

  “That’s terrible,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago,” she says tiredly. “Sixty years now. It still hurts at times, but all those decades have mostly alleviated it. We may not have lasted anyway – the world was set against us right from the beginning. The most painful thing was that I never got to know how he died. I heard it from a friend of a friend, who said the circumstances were unknown. Maybe it was morbid that I wanted to know how he spent his last moments – I don’t know. I think all I really wanted to know was whether he thought of me before he left this world.”

  She brushes a creased hand across her eyes. It’s strange to see someone who’s been around for so long and lived through so many things totally overcome by emotion. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my grandmother cry before.

  I take her by the hand. “Thank you for telling me that story. It was beautiful. Sad, but beautiful.”