Ghostwritten

by Isabel Wolff

  I looked at the photos that Nina had sent. There was the one that the photographer had taken of Rick and me outside the church; it was good, though our smiles didn’t quite reach our eyes. There was the group photo, Honor laughing into the camera as she stood a few feet from Al, who at that stage she hadn’t met. There was a candid shot of us all at our table; Amy and Sean were chatting to Rick; I was talking to Carolyn, while Vincent was looking at me with a thoughtful expression. That had only been two weeks ago.

  There was also a message from Vincent’s daughter, Jill.

  I grew up knowing that Granny Klara had suffered dreadful privation as a child, and I was aware that the biggest issue in her life was food. Whenever we went to Polvarth we’d have to brace ourselves for her huge breakfasts, lavish lunches and sumptuous teas, the table groaning under the weight of her home-made sandwiches, flans, chocolate mousse, and meringues. I’d be in trouble if I took something then didn’t eat it – Granny couldn’t stand waste. I remember her once being furious because I’d told her that I was ‘starving’. ‘You’re no such thing!’ she snapped.

  She made me promise, when I was older, never to diet. ‘Just give thanks to God that you have enough,’ she’d say. Granny’s always been tirelessly hard-working, a good neighbour, a caring friend and a devoted mother and grandmother. She’s taught me so much about growing things and I think of Granny as being a ‘planter’ too. When I was little I adored going into the walled garden – her ‘piece of Paradise’, as she always called it, and I still love being in there, with her …

  I was about to close the inbox when another message arrived. It was from Honor to say that she’d just got back to London. I’m so glad I came down, she wrote, and I hope that everything will be all right with Rick. But, Jenni, whatever happens, you need to tell him what you told me.

  If only it was so easy! Surely Rick would want to break up with me. If I had concealed something so huge, for so long, then how could he ever really know me, or trust me? I turned back to Honor’s message.

  I also wanted to say that I was on my iPad on the train back and found a website that you might want to look at, if you haven’t already. It’s called ‘Tjideng Revisited’ and has survivors’ stories. Just thought it might be useful. In haste, and much love to you, Hx I wrote down the name of the website – I would look at it later. But now I picked up the phone, took a deep breath, and called Rick.

  Afterwards, I went down to the beach – the moon was enormous and so bright that I could see my shadow as I walked down the lane. I sat on the bench by the tea hut, looking at the lights of Trennick, shimmering on the dark water. Rick and I had spoken for over an hour. I’d let him tell me his news – that half-term had started, but that he wasn’t going to go away because he needed to write job applications. He said that he’d seen a head teacher’s job advertised in The Times, for a school in Norwich. I’d said how nice that might be, with the Broads, and the Norfolk coast, and he’d said that he’d give it a shot. He wanted to know how the writing was progressing. It was going well I replied, then I told him about Honor’s visit and he asked me what we’d done. I answered that we’d walked and talked, about all sorts of things. Then, somehow, I found the words to tell Rick what had happened at Polvarth twenty-five years before.

  When I’d finished there was a silence so deep I thought that he’d hung up. Then I heard him say that he now understood why I’d hesitated to go to Polvarth, and why I hadn’t wanted my mother to know where I was. I told him that Klara had been there that day, and that I’d met her. Rick asked me how I could remember, given that it was so long ago, and I explained that I remembered it very clearly because I’d spent years going over and over it in my mind. I asked him if he was angry that I hadn’t told him before. He said that he wasn’t angry, just shocked, and bewildered – he couldn’t imagine keeping something so huge a secret. I told him that I’d been unable to talk about it, out of shame.

  ‘I was worried that you’d think badly of me,’ I’d confessed.

  ‘But you were a child,’ Rick said vehemently. ‘I don’t think badly of children, whatever they do: and you didn’t intend any harm to come to Ted …’ It gave me a jolt to hear Rick say Ted’s name – a name I’d concealed from him for so long.

  ‘My mother said that I did intend to harm him.’

  ‘But … why would she say that, Jenni?’

  ‘She said that whenever Ted annoyed me, I’d tell him that I wished he was dead.’

  ‘Children do say that kind of thing. Siblings struggle against each other; they can be vicious.’

  ‘She told me that I’d often say I wished he’d never been born.’

  ‘You wouldn’t have meant it though.’

  ‘But I did mean it.’

  ‘Why?’ Rick asked after a moment. ‘Were you envious of Ted? Because he was younger?’

  ‘No. That wasn’t the reason …’

  I saw my father, hoisting me onto his shoulders, and charging round the garden with me; I remembered him reading to me in bed, telling me stories that he’d made up, just for me, about a mouse called Milo. Then I remembered my mother, with her big tummy, tearfully pleading with him not to leave.

  I exhaled. ‘My father left us the day Ted arrived. Not long after that, he was killed, and so in my mind, my father died because Ted had been born. Perhaps my mother was right. Perhaps that was the real reason why I walked away from him …’

  ‘Now I understand,’ Rick said quietly. ‘I understand why you don’t see your mother, and why you’ve never wanted me to meet her.’

  ‘Because if we’d gone there, you’d have seen the photos of the brother you didn’t even know I’d had.’

  ‘But where was she when it happened?’ I told Rick where my mother had been at the time. ‘Then she should have blamed herself,’ he said. ‘Or maybe blamed no one. Because from what you say, it was just one of those awful things – a combination of circumstances that led to a tragedy no one could have foreseen. You didn’t want Ted to die, Jenni.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t. But I’ve never been able to forget my mother saying that I did; and now I’m here in Polvarth again, I feel …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Ted’s presence.’

  ‘You must be acutely aware of him.’

  ‘I am, but it’s far more than an awareness – I hear him, Rick. I hear him crying, and calling to me. He’s here. He’s haunting me.’

  ‘Haunting you?’ Rick echoed. ‘No, Jenni, he isn’t. Don’t talk like this, please. Just finish the job and come home …’ Then the signal went and I couldn’t hear him any more.

  I descended the steps and walked across the sand to the water’s edge. I listened, but could hear nothing except the rush and suck of the waves.

  I walked back to the slipway and up the lane, past the hotel, aglow with lights, then unlocked the cottage door. I went upstairs, undressed and got into bed, leaving the curtains open.

  I slept fitfully, and dreamed of Peter, in the truck, waving goodbye.

  Sometime before dawn, I awoke. I sat up, my pulse racing. There was someone with me in the room. I could sense them in the darkness. As I peered into the gloom my heart beat wildly, thumping against my ribs. Then it gradually slowed as I realised that there was no one here but me.

  I pushed back the duvet, went to the window and sat looking at the moonlit garden and the glimmering sea. I stayed there for a time, then went back to bed. As I got in, I looked at the painting on the wall. There was the churning sea beneath the marbled sky, the waves rearing and breaking, smashing the water into foam. But now I saw something that hadn’t been there before. Standing on the rocks, clutching a net, was a small fair-haired boy in red trunks.

  I lay awake, seized by fear. Then I heard Honor’s voice. For a moment I thought that she was back in the cottage, then realised that I’d fallen asleep and that it was just the radio coming on. I pushed myself up then stared at the painting. The figure in the red trunks had gone. Or, rather, it had never b
een there, I told myself sternly. My tortured mind had conjured it. I was going mad.

  ‘Remember the clocks go back today,’ Honor said. ‘So if you were about to drag yourself out of bed – don’t! Stay snuggled under the covers for the second half of the show, in which we’ll be talking about Halloween. What do you think of Trick or Treat? Do you enjoy it, enthusiastically carving pumpkins, spraying fake cobwebs on the windows and dragging your kids round the block dressed as vampires and zombies? Or do you thoroughly disapprove of the whole thing and pine for the good old days of “Penny for the Guy”? We’ll be hearing your views on that a little later, but first here’s Jason with the news …’

  I went into the bathroom and showered. When I came back Honor was chatting to the weather presenter, then, still focused on Halloween, she began talking about ghosts.

  ‘Do ghosts exist?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I murmured.

  ‘That’s what we’ll be discussing this morning as a new survey shows that a whopping forty per cent of us believe that they do. Joining us now is Barri Ghai, founder of the Ghostfinders Paranormal Society. Barri, welcome to the show – you’re obviously a believer.’

  ‘I am,’ Barri responded. ‘Not only do I believe in ghosts, I’m certain that they exist, and walk amongst us.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’ Honor asked as I pulled on my jeans.

  ‘Because I’ve seen them,’ Barri replied. ‘I’ve seen objects move on their own; I’ve seen a figure drift through a wall; I’ve heard a child’s toy play music, with no batteries in it; I’ve seen things that simply can’t be explained by logic or scientific reasoning.’

  ‘We’re going to take your calls now,’ Honor announced. ‘You can tell us about your own ghostly encounters or put questions to Barri. And we have Cathy calling us from Sevenoaks. Good morning, Cathy. Have you ever seen a ghost?’

  ‘I have,’ a woman answered firmly. ‘It happened thirty years ago, when I was ten. I saw my grandfather standing at the top of the stairs, smiling at me. I was surprised because I hadn’t realised that he was in the house. What I didn’t know was that he’d collapsed and died two hours before; my parents broke the news to me later that night. When I told them that I’d seen him, they said that I couldn’t have done, but I did. I believe that my grandfather had come to see me to say goodbye.’

  ‘Ooh, you’ve made me go all goose-bumpy,’ Honor exclaimed. ‘Thanks for that, Cathy, and do stay on the line for a moment while we talk to Patrick, from Bath, on line two. What’s your view, Patrick?’

  ‘I’m sceptical. I think that once people are dead, that’s it – we don’t see them again.’

  ‘So you’re saying that Cathy couldn’t have seen her grandfather?’

  ‘I … guess I am saying that, yes.’

  ‘Look, if I say I saw my own grandfather, then I did,’ Cathy retorted. ‘It’s like if someone says that they’ve had a religious experience – a vision say, or a visit from an angel. No one has the right to say to that person, no, you didn’t. That would be total arrogance.’

  ‘Non-believers can seem arrogant,’ Barri agreed. ‘I’m with Cathy on this. If a person believes they saw a ghost, or experienced an angelic presence, then that is that person’s subjective truth.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Patrick, ‘“subjective” being the operative word. So, as I was saying, I don’t believe in ghosts – but I do believe in hauntings.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’ Honor asked.

  ‘I believe that under acute psychological pressure we can feel ourselves to be “haunted”, but that there’s nothing really there.’

  ‘Which is to reduce it all to hallucination,’ Honor said. ‘Or … neurosis.’

  ‘I don’t buy that,’ Barri insisted. ‘Non-believers say that to see a figure float through a wall could never happen, because it defies the laws of physics – the person’s “seeing things”. But who’s to say that a ghost isn’t a manifestation from some other universe that has different physical laws to our own?’

  ‘That’s certainly food for thought,’ Honor said. ‘Pattie on line three – what do you think?’

  ‘I think that the dead can leave behind an imprint of themselves,’ Pattie answered. ‘Like an echo that we can sometimes detect. I believe this is more likely if the person has died in a violent or traumatic way …’

  I switched off the radio, not wanting to hear more.

  Remembering that Honor had recommended the Tjideng Revisited website, I turned on my laptop and found it. There was a history of the camp, with photos of the derelict houses, their gardens strewn with basins and potties and buckets and broken chairs, their verandahs strung with lines of ragged washing. There were haunting images of children with stick legs and huge eyes, and of lines of women, bowing, their arms clamped to their sides.

  I clicked on the survivors’ stories. A woman named Renata wrote of picking through the rubbish for anything still edible and of trying to catch grasshoppers to eat. A man named Max wrote of the thrill when, occasionally, they’d get an egg; he and his sister would share it, then their mother would grind up the shell, dissolve it in water and make them drink it for the calcium. Katrin described how she once watched her six-year-old brother trying to make a toy out of two rusty nails – a memory, she wrote, that could still make her cry.

  Now I read a posting by someone called Edda.

  I was in interned in Kampong Makassar and then Tjideng. What stands out most in my mind were all the punishments, for nothing at all – bowing a second too late, or looking a soldier in the face. I remember one girl being hung up by her wrists, because the guards had found a Dutch coin in her room. One woman in our house missed tenko – she refused to go because she was ill; so they tied her to a chair, in the sun, for two days and she nearly died. There were interrogations in which torture was used; but in a bizarre act of courtesy, the soldiers would allow the victim to choose. Imagine being asked whether you’d prefer to be burnt with cigarettes or to have your fingernails torn off. These interrogations were carried out in the guardhouse. One day I saw a classmate of mine, Klara, coming out. I didn’t know what they had done to her, but I have never forgotten her shattered expression. She looked as though the world had just come to an end.

  SEVENTEEN

  Klara

  It was now a month since Peter had left, and we’d heard nothing. We could only hope that he was amongst people who treated him decently, or at least didn’t mistreat him. I consoled myself with the thought that wherever Peter was surely couldn’t be worse than Tjideng; but perhaps that was just a lack of imagination on my part.

  One morning, Flora and I were on sweeping duty when we saw the bread truck drive in. As it took its usual route up Laan Trivelli we could smell the bread, and soon the children were rushing out of the houses and racing towards it with as much energy as they could muster. We waited for the truck to stop, but it didn’t stop. Instead, it did a U-turn, went back down the street and drove out of the gate.

  ‘Why’s it done that?’ Flora wailed.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t know.’

  A minute later the truck came back in, drove up Laan Trivelli again, followed by the children, only to turn round and go out once more. By the time it had done this three times, everyone stayed inside. We now understood just how determined Sonei was to make us suffer.

  Later, Mrs Cornelisse told us why Sonei had told the driver to do this. The day before, she explained, Sonei had seen the vegetable truck come in. But not one of the prisoners on the street had bowed to the driver – an employee of the Emperor!

  ‘Lieutenant Sonei feels that this was a grave insult to His Imperial Majesty. And so …’ Mrs Cornelisse paused, and I knew that bad news was coming. ‘I’m afraid he’s going to withhold food from the entire camp for the next three days.’

  There were wails of despair.

  ‘He can’t do that to us!’

  ‘We’ll die!’

  ‘He’s insane!’

  ‘Sp
eak to him, Mrs Cornelisse!’

  ‘Yes – in the name of God beg him not to do this to us!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Mrs Cornelisse said. ‘All the group leaders tried to dissuade him, but Sonei’s mind is made up. We’ll just have to cope as best we can.’

  The cries of anguish continued, but worse was to come. The kitchen workers were ordered to dig trenches and to throw into them all the porridge and bread that they had been about to distribute. Sonei himself was seen shovelling dirt onto it to make sure it was inedible. And so the food that would have fed ten thousand starving women and children was now destroyed!

  That night it was impossible to sleep. The constant weeping rang in my ears. The twins kept crying and Corrie screamed at them to be quiet, just be quiet, be quiet …

  We heard the monkeys shriek.

  ‘They’re being fed,’ Kirsten said bitterly.

  A deep despair descended on the camp. Some of the women, crazed with hunger, said they were going to break into buildings and find food. There must be something to eat, they screamed, somewhere in this utterly hellish, godvergeten place. They even said that they would sneak into Sonei’s villa – there was always a smell of delicious food coming from there!

  ‘My cousin has to cook for him,’ said a woman called Mies. ‘Sonei tells her to bring her children with her so that they can watch him eat – that seems to make it taste extra delicious, God damn that devil!’

  We all slept as much as possible to avoid wasting energy. As I lay there I thought of all the things I regretted not having eaten in my life. I regretted not eating rice pudding at school; I regretted not having eaten cassava cake when I was at Flora’s house once. I regretted turning up my nose at bread crusts, and buffalo milk and the insides of tomatoes. I even wished that I had eaten more snails.