Immediately, she stood, dropping the twilight notebook and pencil upon the floor.
Flossie stood as well. There was a soldier in the doorway, hovering worriedly, his eyes searching the beds in the ward systematically.
Within seconds, he spotted Grace’s living form.
He ran through the ward then — straight toward her. A nurse at the other end of the room told him off loudly, but he paid no attention to her, his eyes fixed upon his target.
Flossie watched him as he approached Grace’s bedside. The living Grace’s eyes flickered open just in time to see her father round the corner of her hospital bed. Grace reached her hands up, and the pair fell into each other’s arms.
Flossie went to say something to Grace’s twilight form.
But it was no longer there.
The place she’d sat in was empty, only her twilight notebook and pencil lying on the floor.
Grace had made her decision. She’d returned to her body and awoken herself.
She’d decided to live.
In the hospital bed Grace was sitting up, her arms wrapped tightly around her father’s khaki-uniformed back. Grace’s eyes opened and searched for the spot where she knew Flossie had been. Their eyes connected, despite the fact that Grace now couldn’t see her.
Thank you. Her eyes shone, just as Elke’s had. Thank you.
Grace’s mother and sister were buried together at Tower Hamlets a few days later.
As well as the large party of living who attended, there was also a large, unseen party of the dead. Flossie, Ada, and Violet were in attendance. So were Michael, William, and all the other Chelsea Pensioners, in a sea of tricorn hats, white beards, and muted scarlet coats. Hugo Howsham was there, and the other Turnkeys had also been invited — Alice and Matilda from West Norwood and the Turnkeys of Brompton and Abney Park, too. Even the typesetter from Nunhead managed to tear himself away from his “important business,” though he spent most of his time taking notes as he studied the headstones inside the cemetery.
Grace and her father held each other tightly during the interment. A woman and a young girl were present, who Flossie presumed were Grace’s aunt and cousin. The woman was rather pale and had her arm in a sling, and Flossie guessed this was why she hadn’t been able to make it to see Grace and Ruth in the hospital — she’d been injured herself. Flossie could see that there was much love in the family. Grace had even found her voice, which was more than Flossie could have hoped for. While things would never be the same again, she knew Grace would be all right.
The other Turnkeys left after a while, and the Chelsea Pensioners departed for Brompton Cemetery with their Turnkey at the same time. They were going to return to rest. But only, they said, until such time as their services were required again.
Grace’s extended family moved toward the gates of the cemetery as well, leaving Grace and her father to pay their respects above the freshly dug graves. Only Flossie, Violet, and Ada remained nearby.
“They’ll be well cared for here,” Grace said quietly, her eyes searching the cemetery for something she couldn’t see. “I know they will.”
Her father cast a doubtful eye around the cemetery. “Do you think so?”
“I know so.” Grace’s voice was firm. “It might all be wild and overgrown, but the people here mean well. I know they do.”
“She knows she can trust you,” Flossie told Ada.
That ever-present frown of Ada’s crossed her brow. “Yes, well. I try to do my best,” she said gruffly.
Flossie and Violet laughed at her grumpy tone. Even Ada’s huge stone angel Advisor, standing close behind her, seemed to lose her grim expression for a split second.
“What?” Ada said, crosser still.
“Nothing,” Flossie replied. “Just never stop being yourself, Ada.”
The three girls watched as Grace and her father began the slow walk back to the cemetery gates.
As she watched them go, Flossie thought of her own father. Despite the distance between them, she somehow felt as close to him as Grace was to her father in this moment.
“Now what?” Ada asked when Grace and her father were out of sight.
“We return to our cemeteries, I suppose,” Flossie said. “And carry on.”
“And wait for the bombing to start again this evening, you mean,” Ada added for her.
“As it always seems to.” Violet sighed.
They were suddenly quiet in their little huddle, the noises of the living filling in the silence — cars and trucks, a grave digger and a groundskeeper talking nearby. It was this juxtaposition of the living and the twilight world that got Flossie thinking.
“Will you come with me somewhere this evening?” she asked her friends.
They met outside Highgate and joined hands as darkness was falling in the winter sky, Flossie transporting them to their destination.
“Oh, Flossie,” Ada said when she opened her eyes. “How beautiful. Now I see why you come here all the time.”
Violet murmured in agreement as she took in the view from the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral. All was still in the sky apart from the bobbing of the silver barrage balloons, dusted with the orange of sunset.
The threesome walked the perimeter of the Golden Gallery, taking in the view and working out where all of the Magnificent Seven lay.
When they returned to the point at which they’d started, Ada stood next to Flossie. “So, this is where it all began.”
“This is where you first saw Viktor Brun?” Violet said. “Up here?”
“Yes,” Flossie answered them both.
“It must have crossed your mind that we could do the same,” Ada continued. “Spy, I mean. If that officer found a way to pass information to the living, I bet we could find another one. We could win this war in no time.”
Flossie could barely speak, her secret of combining the keys stuck in her throat. “I’m sure there are other ways. But we can’t. This war isn’t ours to win.” It was as she’d said to Elke at the start of all this. It wasn’t their war. Not their fight. “Even if we won this war for the living, they’d only have more. Remember what they called the last one? The war to end all wars? It didn’t take them long to start another one, did it?”
No one spoke. They all knew this was true.
“Anyway, I don’t have time for spying,” Flossie continued with a forced laugh. “I’m very busy. I have the important task of keeping Mrs. Gough happy for all eternity, remember?”
This, at least, lightened the mood. They changed the topic, discussing the “Mrs. Goughs” of their own cemeteries. And as they did, they kept a watchful eye over their cemeteries and an ear out for the first air-raid siren of the evening and for the bombing to begin yet again.
I’m afraid to say that I’ve been a bit naughty and toyed with history.
The term “Magnificent Seven” wasn’t coined until 1981 by the historian Hugh Meller. However, I’ve borrowed it for the purposes of this book.
Flossie’s father’s ship, the HMS Royal Sovereign, wasn’t actually sent to the Battle of Jutland. It was deemed unready for battle and, because of this, didn’t go. I have imagined that it went, with Flossie’s father aboard, and that it suffered a different fate.
A Luftwaffe bomb destroyed the British Museum Newspaper Repository at Colindale just before our story starts, in 1940. As I wanted Flossie to be able to access the newspapers, I’ve instead imagined her visiting the Old Newspaper Reading Room at the British Museum in Bloomsbury.
Several early readers have asked me if dogs were really used to rescue people during the Blitz, and they most definitely were. They weren’t all fancy breeds, either. One dog, called Rip, was a stray whose Docklands home was bombed out. He was taken in by an air-raid warden and without any special training ended up rescuing more than one hundred people between 1940 and 1941. Many dogs like Rip received Dickin Medals, the animal version of the Victoria Cross. Other animals that received the medal included horses, a cat, and many fearl
ess message-carrying pigeons!
The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery has been a long time in the writing and rewriting (and rewriting), and there is a long list of people I need to thank for their help.
Pats for my literate guinea pigs: Pamela Rushby, Peter Rushby, Lyn Rushby, and Emma Aziz.
Huge thanks to Sue Whiting for digging through the rubble until she found the book buried beneath.
Applause for David Belavy for putting up with 503 drafts (it actually might have been more).
A grin for Allison Tait for listening to my incoherent ramblings.
Writing historical fiction can be rather iceberg-ish. The reader sees only the book on top, but underneath is a gigantic pile of notes propping it up. For help with these, I’d like to thank my researcher, Heather Gammage, as well as the Friends of the Magnificent Seven cemeteries. Particular thanks to Bob Flanagan, chairman and publications officer at the Friends of West Norwood Cemetery; Robert Stephenson, trustee at the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery; and Dr. Ian Dungavell, chief executive at the Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust. Another thank-you to Paul Talling of Derelict London as well.
Also, thanks to Toowong Cemetery (my local Victorian cemetery) for inspirational walks, and to the Friends of Toowong Cemetery for caring for it.
And to Claudia, who kept my lap warm while I wrote.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2017 by Allison Rushby
Cover illustration copyright © 2017 by Laura Peterson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First U.S. electronic edition 2018
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
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The Turnkey of Highgate Cemetery Page 13