The Ghost of Nan Clarks Lane (a short story)

by Shalini Boland

The Ghost of Nan Clarks Lane

  Shalini Boland

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  Copyright © Shalini Boland 2013

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  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly stated or in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, business establishments or events is entirely coincidental.

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  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the author.

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  The Ghost of Nan Clarks Lane

  A short story based on the WW2 novel A SHIRTFUL OF FROGS

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  London, 1940

  The suitcases sat on top of the wardrobe covered in a thick blanket of dust. They had been there for as long as Jimmy could remember. Never used for anything - that is until now.

  ‘You sure we should be doing this, Pat?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘It’ll be all right. We don’t never go on holiday, so mum won’t never notice will she.’

  Yesterday, the demand for their frogs had been so great, they’d sold out in less than twenty minutes. The local kids had queued all the way down the street and Jimmy and his twin promised they’d be back the next day with more. Lots more. They’d made a tidy profit from the tuppence a frog they charged.

  Shoving the frogs down their shirts had been a good enough solution at the time, when they’d nowhere else to put them, but Patrick said he’d thought of a much better way to transport their cargo.

  Their mum had just gone down the market, so Pat reckoned they had about half an hour to get the suitcase and scarper before she came back. They clambered onto their parents’ double bed. Patrick stood on his tiptoes, reached up to the top of the wardrobe and grabbed hold of the suitcase handle. He wiggled it out from its resting place and it slid towards them with a shower of dust, grit and cobwebs. The battered case bounced down onto the bed and both twins sneezed, wiping dust from their faces.

  ‘Mum’s gonna notice it’s gone,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘We’ll move the other case forward,’ Patrick replied. ‘It’ll be all right. We’ll put it back later. I’ll give you a bunk up.’

  Jimmy climbed onto his brother’s back, while Patrick held onto the bedpost to steady himself. Jimmy stretched up, yanking the other suitcase forward. ‘Perfect.’ Jimmy grinned. ‘She won’t notice a thing.’

  ‘Good work, Jim. Let’s go.’

  Jimmy lugged the case out of the bedroom and plunked it down on the hall floor. ‘How they gonna breathe, Pat? The little blighters will all be dead by the time we get ‘em home.’

  Patrick pulled a couple of pieces of pointy shrapnel from his pocket. He’d picked them up off a bomb site a few days earlier. The Jerries had been out almost every night this week, trying to flatten London.

  ‘That’s what these are for,’ Pat said, holding the shards of shrapnel out.

  Jimmy screwed up his face into a question.

  ‘Air holes,’ Patrick said. ‘Here, I’ll show ya.’

  He grabbed a shoe from under the coat hooks, passing it to Jimmy along with one of the shrapnel pieces.

  ‘Knock one of them pieces into the top of the case.’

  The twins knelt down on the floor and used the heels of the shoes to bash the shrapnel through the thin brown leather, wiggling them out again and checking the holes were big enough.

  ‘That’s enough, Pat. We better go before mum catches us.’

  ‘Yeah, come on then. Give us a hand. I ain’t lugging it downstairs by myself.’

  They grabbed their nets and headed out the door into the grime and bustle of the East End of London.

  An hour and a half later, they jumped off the bus which had delivered them all the way to Mill Hill in the north of the city. Out here, it felt more like the proper countryside, with open space and sweet clean air. The twins soon found themselves trudging down Nan Clarks Lane towards the pond.

  It was Jimmy’s turn to carry the suitcase and as he dragged it behind him, it bumped and jumped along the ruts and grooves of the path. The sun warmed his face and a breeze ruffled his shirt. ‘We shoulda just shoved the frogs down our tops like yesterday. This case is a bugger.’

  ‘Give it here, Jim. You take the nets.’

  ‘Why’s it called Nan Clarks Lane? Who’s Nan Clark anyway?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘She’s a ghost ain’t she,’ Patrick replied.

  ‘A ghost?’ Jimmy felt a moment of fear, followed by disbelief. ‘No she ain’t. You’re having me on.’

  ‘She is. It’s gospel. Harry told me.’

  Harry was one of their older brothers. He had accidentally discovered the pond a few years earlier while playing with friends. After telling them about the frogs, they’d made the long journey there the very first chance they’d got.

  ‘Nan Clark is a ghost,’ Patrick said. ‘Harry said she’s haunted the pond for two hundred years.’

  Jimmy exhaled. ‘Is she still here?’

  ‘Think so. Harry said she used to own the pub, The Rising Sun. She was murdered there.’

  ‘Blimey!’ Jimmy said. ‘Who murdered her?’

  ‘She was drowned in the pond by a man wot loved her and every year her ghost comes back to scare everyone.’

  ‘Why did he drown her if he loved her?’

  ‘Dunno; grown-ups are a bit barmy ain’t they.’

  ‘I hope she ain’t here today. I don’t wanna see no ghost.’ Jimmy slowed his step.

  ‘And if you do see her,’ Patrick said, ‘it means you’re gonna die.’

  ‘What!’ Jimmy didn’t like the sound of that one bit. He stopped dead. ‘I ain’t going.’

  ‘You chicken?’

  ‘I ain’t no chicken. But I don’t want to see no ghost and I don’t want to die.’

  Patrick dropped the case, bent his elbows and made clucking noises, taunting his brother.

  ‘Shut your cakehole, Pat. I ain’t a chicken.’

  Patrick carried on with his chicken impression, so Jimmy picked up the case and strode on ahead. He was definitely spooked by the story, but he wouldn’t give Pat the satisfaction of seeing him scared anymore. Anyway, it was a bright sunny day. Not a day for ghosts.

  Patrick soon caught him up and flung his arm around his brother. As they walked, Jimmy perked up and put all thoughts of Nan Clark out of his head. He looked around and thought this place was probably what heaven would be like. It was so beautiful - all thick with lush grass, trees and hills, the swoosh and crunch of their shoes on the grassy gravel and the rustling of creatures in the hedgerows.

  They could see no trace of the pond from the lane. It was completely hidden from view in a field of long grass. Then, suddenly, there it was. They almost walked straight into it.

  It was only a small stretch of water, maybe twelve feet across, bordered with tall yellow water irises. Even on that tiny patch of water, there were quacking ducks and flat green lily pads. It was a boys’ paradise, surrounded by trees to climb and space to run. Jimmy blissfully inhaled the nutty, earthy scent.

  Patrick dumped the suitcase onto the grassy bank and Jimmy handed him his net. The boys kicked off their shoes, peeled off their socks and crouched down by the water’s edge. Crickets chirped and flies buzzed. Birds chattered and sang while the wind brushed through the trees and long grass.

  Jimmy lay flat on his stomach and extended his net slowly into the water, studying the dark green ripples.

  ‘I’m gonna see if there’s any round the other side,’ Pat called out.

  ‘Shh,’ Jimmy hissed. ‘You’re gonna scare �
��em off. Look! There’s one.’ He raised his net and brought it down onto a lily pad, but the frog plopped into the water, evading capture.

  ‘You gotta be quicker than that, Jim!’

  ‘Shh! You’re scaring ‘em. You made me lose another one.’ Jimmy wriggled closer to the water. Then he saw a sight that made him smile. It was a female frog and she was covered in little males. It was frog spawning season and the males desperately wanted to mate. So they hung on tightly to the female, all frantically trying to have a go. Jimmy put his net back in the water and dragged it quickly towards the female . . . Bingo! He’d caught eight frogs with one scoop.

  Yesterday morning the boys had got lucky and fished out a female with six males hanging on – an all time record they reckoned. But today, today they smashed that record several times over. By lunchtime the suitcase was full.

  Jimmy realised he was starving. They pulled some squashed sandwiches out of their pockets and sat side-by-side, next to the pond, wolfing them down and sharing a bottle of pop.

  ‘We’re gonna make a fortune, Jim.’ Patrick elbowed his brother with a grin. ‘Can’t wait to get home and start pocketing the cash.’

  ‘I know, but I’m knackered. Can’t we have a kip first?’

  ‘All right. Just a quick one though.’

  Jimmy lay back on the cool, silky grass and closed his eyes. He knew his brother was itching to get back home and start selling the frogs, but there was plenty of time for that. No sense rushing back just yet.

  The sun warmed his face, shining dark red through his eyelids. Within minutes he felt himself drifting off into a delicious slumber. He was almost asleep when the red glow behind his eyes faded to black and he gave a shiver. The sun must have gone behind a cloud. Jimmy snapped one eye open.

  The sky had turned black, thick with gathering thunder clouds, and there was no trace of the sun which had been with them all morning. It was freezing. He opened his other eye and sat up. Too bad, they’d better get going before the rain came.

  ‘Pat,’ he said, his voice croaky with sleep. He turned to his brother, but Patrick wasn’t there. ‘Pat?’

  Jimmy crawled to his feet and looked around. He couldn’t see Patrick anywhere. ‘Pat!’ he yelled. And then he saw a sight which turned his legs to jelly and his stomach to water.

  Across the meadow, next to a weeping willow, a whitish-grey shape hung in the stormy air. Jimmy blinked and stared. It was a woman and she was staring at him, beckoning with a long bony finger.

  Jimmy shook his head and took a step backwards, his heartbeats battering his ribs. It was the ghost Nan Clark - it had to be - and she was summoning him to his death. He tried and tried to turn his head away from the horrifying apparition, but he just couldn’t do it. It was as though she’d hypnotised him. His eyes were fixed on her face, on her flowing white dress streaked with pondweed. He had to be dreaming, surely. He blinked a few more times and pinched himself on the arm till it hurt, but the apparition still hovered above the ground, her sad gaze unwavering.

  Jimmy wanted to run away, but to his horror, he found his legs moving of their own accord closer towards the ghost of Nan Clark. One foot in front of the other, stepping through the grass. He tried to fight against it, but it was as though his legs had been taken over. He was heading towards her and there was nothing he could do about it. Soon he would reach her and then what? Would she try to kill him? How would she do it?

  Jimmy opened his mouth. ‘Help!’ he tried to yell, but no sound came out. He tried again, but it was useless. He should’ve paid attention to his earlier fears. He should never have let Patrick goad him into coming here. And now it was too late.

  The woman beckoned and Jimmy walked.

  One foot followed the other through the grass. He wanted to cry out for his mum and dad and his brothers and sisters. He couldn’t believe what was happening.

  As he drew closer to the unnatural figure, he saw that her gaunt grey face was tearstained, her cheeks hollow and sunken, her dark hair dripping with water. Jimmy screwed his eyes shut against the terrifying image. And then a sudden feeling of weightlessness overtook him and he opened his eyes again.

  The sky was blue, the sun was warm, the birds still sang. He was still lying by the pond. He was alive. It had all been nothing more than a horrible dream. Jimmy’s pulse was racing. It had felt so real - the dark sky and that terrible walk across the meadow towards the ghost of Nan Clark.

  Jimmy sat up, wanting to tell Patrick all about his awful nightmare. But his brother wasn’t there. Maybe he’d decided to catch some more frogs. Daft bugger, their case was already too full. Jimmy stood and shielded his eyes from the sun, squinting across the pond to see if he could spot his twin. But there was no sign of him.

  ‘Pat!’ he yelled. ‘Patrick! Watchoo doing?’ His voice sounded odd, disappearing across the vast meadow. ‘Pat! You hiding? Stop mucking about! Where are you?’

  He felt how he’d felt in his dream – like he wanted to run away from this spooky place, but something was keeping him here. So instead, he spun around and stared across the field to a distant spot by a willow tree. He thought he saw a shape, but then it disappeared. It must’ve been his imagination. There was something familiar about that spot. Then he realised - that was the exact place he’d seen the ghost in his dream. Nan Clark. She wasn’t there now, thank goodness.

  He took a step in that direction. He didn’t know why. Was it curiosity about the ghost? He took another step, his breath short, even though he hadn’t been running. ‘Patrick! Pat!’ he called out. Where on earth had his brother got to? He didn’t like being alone here. Not after that terrible dream. Something willed him on towards the tree. He began to run.

  As Jimmy drew closer to the weeping willow, he saw something odd sticking out of a patch of mud. He skidded to a stop when he realised what it was – a hand. A small white hand, just like his own.

  ‘Patrick!’ Jimmy yelled, his pulse racing. He flung himself flat onto the grass and grabbed onto the hand with both of his, pulling with every ounce of strength he had.

  ‘Don’t worry, Pat,’ he gasped. ‘I’ll get you out.’

  With a sucking plop, Pat’s head appeared out of the muck. Please God let him be . . .

  Patrick’s eyes flew open, then his mouth as he gasped for air. Little-by-little, Jimmy heaved and hauled his brother out of the slimy thick mud pool until, with a final slither, Patrick was back on the solid grassy earth.

  They both panted like fish out of water. Patrick’s eyes were bright with shock. But he was safe.

  ‘What were you doing, Pat? How did you end up over here?’

  ‘I was looking for more frogs weren’t I,’ he gasped. ‘Couldn’t see any more in the pond. Thought there might be another pond over here, but then I stepped in this bleedin’ muddy puddle. It sucked me down. Pulled me right under. I thought I was a goner. You saved me. You saved me, Jim.’ He threw his mud-slimed arms around Jimmy and Jimmy squeezed his brother tightly.

  ‘You’re safe now, Pat.’

  Patrick pulled away and looked at his brother. ‘How did you know where I was? How d’you find me? You was asleep and I sunk so quick.’

  Jimmy stared at his brother. He suddenly realised something: In his dream Nan Clark hadn’t been trying to kill him at all. She’d been trying to warn him. ‘I had a funny feeling, Pat. That’s all.’

  Authors Note:

  The characters of Jimmy and Patrick are based on my father-in-law and his twin brother who really did used to visit Nan Clarks Lane to catch frogs and sell them to the local kids.

  Nan Clarks Lane is a real place in Mill Hill, North London. It was named after an eighteenth century woman who is said to haunt the area. There have been several sightings.

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  Chapter one from the full length novel, A Shirtful of Frogs:

  Spring 1940