Mr Godley's Phantom

by Mal Peet

  ‘Thank you. That would be nice.’

  ‘I thought as much. Get on, then.’

  Martin got to his feet.

  Annie, with her back to him, said, ‘He says he’s minded to give you the job.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘He asked me if I thought you’d be suitable.’

  ‘Did he? And what did you say?’

  ‘I told him I didn have the faintest bloody idea.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘You’d have to get ahold of your nerves.’

  ‘I … yes.’ He went to the door.

  She said, ‘I usually make a hot drink after I’ve got him to bed. About quarter past nine.’

  ‘OK. Thanks.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, mimicking him in an approximately American accent.

  It was entirely dark in the hall. Martin felt his way along the oak panelling towards a sliver of light.

  5

  ON THE SECOND DAY of May he moved into the groom’s quarters on the upper floor of the stable block. They comprised four small rooms: a living room with a fireplace, a rudimentary kitchen, a bathroom with a claw-footed tub and, at the end of the passageway, a bedroom with a brass-railed bed. The ceilings sloped into the eaves.

  The foolish word ‘snug’ came to him.

  The living room and the bedroom each had a south-west-facing dormer window. They offered a view over the tall stone wall that separated Harold Godley’s domain from a stretch of rough moorland pasture bisected by a bank of flinching hawthorn. Beyond that, layers of immeasurable distance.

  It occurred to Martin, pleasurably, that he would be sleeping above the Phantom.

  He unpacked his few things then noticed, hanging from a peg on the back of the door opening onto the narrow staircase, a black jacket and a black cap with a shiny peak. He tried them on. It was as if they’d been tailored for him. The only mirror in the flat was small and hung above the washstand in the bathroom. The man who stared out of it looked very unlike Martin Heath, and that too pleased him. He returned the chauffeur’s kit to its peg and went down to the courtyard and through the back door of the house and into the kitchen. It was two thirty in the afternoon and he was hungry.

  Mrs Maunder turned away from some greyish substance she was manhandling on a floured portion of the table.

  ‘Ah, there you be, Mister Heath. Settled, then? I kep some soup back. Bowls over there, see? Spoons in that drawer. No, next one along. Thas it.’ She used her head to gesture to the pan on top of the black cast-iron range. ‘Help yourself. My hands is busy, as you see.’

  He sat and ate. Root vegetable soup with a memory of chicken in it.

  ‘This is delicious, Mrs Maunder. Thank you.’

  It made her laugh. ‘Delicious,’ she said. ‘Oh, you’ll fit right in. That’s what he allers says, no matter what I scrapes together. I don’t think he know one thing from’n other, but he allers says Delicious, thank you, Mrs Maunder.’

  Since his arrival, Martin had not set eyes upon his new employer, nor Annie. Mrs Maunder had answered the door. She was a woman of indeterminate age and shape. Her eyes and smile belonged to a younger, less disappointed face. She had a gap in her front teeth. She wore a pinafore over a black dress and under a grey cardigan and, on her head, something Martin knew was called a mob cap because servants wore them in illustrated storybooks from his childhood.

  Savouring the soup, it occurred to him that Mrs Maunder’s existence was odd. Why would a very elderly man who ate, indiscriminately, tiny portions of food employ a full-time cook? He could not think of a way to broach the subject.

  Mrs Maunder had produced a rolling pin from somewhere – somewhere about her person, perhaps – and was vigorously squashing the pastry with it.

  Martin said, ‘Have you worked for Mr Godley a long time, Mrs Maunder?’

  The cook turned away from her work and aimed her rolling pin at him. Little swags hung from it like flayed skin.

  ‘See yere,’ she said. ‘We can’t be doin with this Mister Heath and this Missus Maunder. Not if you’re meanin to stay. I wus christened Margaret, but prefer Peg for quickness. You?’

  ‘Martin.’

  Mrs Maunder nodded, grimacing humorously. Her expression suggested that being called Martin was a sore handicap to be endured with cheerful stoicism. She returned to her work.

  ‘Well, Martin, lessee. I’ll have been here twenty-one year come October.’

  Which was, conversationally, something of a dead end. He tried again.

  ‘It’s none of my business, I suppose, but I was wondering how old Mr Godley is. He seems terribly … ancient.’

  ‘He’d be eighty-somethun. Eighty-two or there’bouts.’

  ‘He seems, well, very frail. And sad.’

  She turned the flattened pastry over and slapped it down. She wiped her hands on her pinafore.

  ‘He is,’ she said. ‘Specially this time of year. More soup?’

  ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’

  ‘We didn’ meet, first time you come here, cos you was late and I wus goin off. Did Annie say anythin to you?’

  ‘Well, we … No, not really.’

  ‘Her didn give you the lie of the land?’

  The vaguely military phrase unnerved him.

  ‘You mean as far as Mr Godley’s concerned? No.’

  ‘No. I don’t suppose her would’ve.’

  The cook sighed like a cushion heavily sat upon. Then she ferreted about in her pinafore pocket, eventually producing a heavy-looking fob watch. She squinted at it and stuffed it away again. It seemed to Martin that she might not say anything further. So he said, ‘Was he married? Does he have any children?’

  These questions seemed to trouble her.

  He said, ‘I’m sorry. As I said, it’s none of my business. It’s just that …’

  Peg Maunder’s eyes darted to the kitchen door. He turned to see Annie standing there.

  ‘Mr Godley sends his compliments,’ she said by way of greeting. ‘He’s feelin tired an’s gonter have a nap on the day bed. I’m to show you about the house, so’s you know where’s where and what’s what.’

  Her tone was flat, almost resentful. Martin stood up, perhaps too quickly, because it brought on the familiar moment of dizziness, of bright worms adrift inside his eyes. He held onto the back of his chair for a moment.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  Annie switched her gaze to the cook. ‘Awright, Auntie?’

  ‘As rain, maid. I’ll put the kettle on for when you gets back.’

  Like the study, the other downstairs rooms contained a superfluity of valuable and melancholic furniture. Most of it, Martin guessed, dated from the previous two centuries. The dining table would seat twelve, at least. He pictured the cadaverous old man sitting alone, picking at his skimpy meals.

  ‘So Mrs Maunder’s your aunt, is she?’

  ‘Sort of. My mum’s cousin.’

  She led him towards the back door of the house. Just before she reached it she stopped and pulled open a door he had not noticed on his previous visit; understandably, because, apart from a small handle, it was indistinguishable from the panelling that lined the hall. It opened onto a narrow flight of stairs.

  ‘The back stairs,’ Annie said. ‘He like us to use’m to save the carpet.’

  He followed her up, watching the muscles bunch in her calves.

  At the top there was a small landing lit by a skylight. To the right, an even more narrow flight ascended into gloom. Ahead, another door which Annie pushed open. They emerged onto a green-carpeted corridor that ran the length of the building. Its dimness was punctuated by spills of light from two tall sash windows. Its walls were hung with black-framed etchings of classical ruins. Halfway along it, a pair of newel posts, their crowns carved into writhes of ivy, announced the arrival of the main staircase from the front hall. Annie walked briskly past them and opened a door.

  ‘Mr Godley’s bedroom,’ she announced.

  Martin followed her in. It was a
very large room that contained, in addition to Godley’s shadowy bed, a sofa and a matching pair of armchairs upholstered in vaguely medieval fabric, a mahogany commode, a dressing table upon which toiletries were reflected in a triptych mirror and a small leather-topped writing desk and chair in front of the bay window. Several small brown bottles and a glass on the bedside cabinet. The room’s marble-tiled fireplace was empty and freshly cleaned.

  Annie said, ‘Mr Godley won’t have fires lit upstairs after May Day. So there’s a carryin job you’ve dodged.’

  The window’s heavy maroon curtains were half-parted; Martin caught a view of the drive and front lawns and, in the middle distance, the small cluster of Leeworthy’s roofs and their protective trees.

  Annie passed behind him and opened another disguised door, papered in the same brown-and-white pattern of rambling roses as the walls. ‘Through here’s his dressin room.’

  Martin peered in and caught sight of himself in a cheval mirror.

  ‘And through there’s his bathroom. I made him promise never to lock it, just in case. But you can’t allers trust him. Just so’s you know.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘I sit out here when he’s havin a bath. He talks to me through the door so’s I know he’s all right. He’s got a horror of havin one of his turns in the bath an drownin.’

  Back out in the corridor Annie parked her bum on one of the two window ledges and said, ‘There’s five other bedrooms. No one’s used them in years. Go an’ have a look, if you like. I give’m a goin-over now an’ again.’

  The fourth door Martin opened revealed a room that slightly, and uneasily, reminded him of his own bedroom at his parents’ house. A full bookcase on top of which a revolving globe stood. Age had given it a yellow patina, turning the world’s oceans greenish. A single bed under an embroidered coverlet. In one corner, a cricket bat leaned against the wall, a dusty tasselled cap perched atop its handle. Pictures on the walls: a Nelson-era ship of the line under full sail, prints of elaborately uniformed hussars and dragoons. A framed photograph. Martin peered at it. Tiers of unsmiling boys stacked behind a seated row of black-gowned and bewhiskered schoolmasters. The lancet windows of a chapel in the background. Some of the older boys wore tasselled caps. Beneath the picture, in faded copperplate handwriting, Charterhouse, 1911.

  He turned away and bleated a cry of alarm. There was a man standing behind the door. A soldier. Martin’s breathing beat its wings in his chest. His brain flustered.

  No, not a man. Not a real man. A tailor’s dummy in army uniform. Khaki cap and long-skirted tunic, Sam Brown belt. Martin approached it, cautiously. An officer’s parade uniform from the 1914–18 war; a captain’s, possibly. Medal ribbons, some of which he recognised. The faceless head was unbearable. Martin backed away and left the room, closing the door very carefully.

  Annie was still sitting on the window ledge. She turned and looked at him with a smile on her face. Or smirk. He knew she’d heard the noise he’d made. He looked at her. Damned if he’d ask.

  ‘His son’s bedroom,’ she said. ‘Julian. Got himself killed in October 1918, three weeks afore the Armistice.’

  ‘Cruel,’ Martin said.

  ‘Am I?’

  He frowned, not knowing that he’d heard her correctly.

  ‘Fate,’ he said. ‘I meant fate.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. You’d think we’d learn, though, wouldn you?’ She stood and went to the door to the servants’ stairs and held it open.

  He went through, then turned to her. ‘And where do you … live?’

  ‘Sleep, you mean?’

  They were very close together in this small space. Annie sighed. ‘Well, I s’pose you need to know where I am, less anythin happen. Up above.’ She tipped her head towards the narrower flight of stairs. ‘You go first.’

  He climbed, holding onto the thin metal handrail.

  The servants’ accommodation was a humbler and dimmer version of the floor beneath it.

  ‘This here’s my room,’ Annie said, indicating the door closest to the stairs. ‘I keep the door open at night, and the door onter the landin, so’s I can hear if he calls out for me. He’ve also got a little bell next to the bed.’

  ‘I see,’ Martin said.

  Annie leaned against the wall and folded her arms, looking down the passageway. ‘Auntie Peg says all these rooms was used in the old days. Housekeeper an’ her husband, three maids. Must’ve been a crush, I’d think.’

  Martin nodded. He would have liked to look into her room, and wanting to do that made him angry with himself. He wanted to ask her if she ever felt lonely or afraid.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘are we done? I could murder a cuppa tea.’

  Following her down the back stairs, Martin said, ‘What about the rooms behind the kitchen? What are they?’

  ‘Oh, scullery, cold room, coal hole, place where the pump was afore we got the water. You can have a poke about whenever you like.’

  Late in the afternoon, Martin was sitting in his living room studying the Phantom’s handbook. It was a daunting volume both in terms of its instructions, which were complex, and its tone, which was that of a stern and rather pompous schoolmaster. He was glad to be distracted by footfalls on the stairs. He went to the door. Annie was holding a shallow wooden box.

  ‘We had a delivry. Man comes from the village, Fridays. There’s bread an’ eggs an’ so forth for your breakfast.’

  He took the box. ‘Thanks.’

  She went down the steps.

  He said, ‘Annie?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry you don’t like me.’

  ‘Don’ I?’

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I haven’t made my mind up on that score.’ She looked up at him over her shoulder. ‘There’ll be food on the kitchen table at seven, if you want it.’

  6

  FOR SEVERAL WEEKS his nights were torture.

  He’d driven the Morris van to Okehampton and had been directed to a doctor’s surgery. It was a private house on George Street. The name on the brass plate beside the door was Bloom. He’d sat in the hallway, sharing a row of wooden chairs with doomed-looking older people and mothers with fractious children. He was the last person summonsed into the consulting room, a converted Georgian parlour into which an examination table and a skeleton had been inserted. Bloom was a man in his sixties with half-moon spectacles halfway down a disdainful nose. Martin told his tale.

  ‘Well, Mister Heath. I sympathise, of course. However, certain, ah, difficulties present themselves. For a start, under the new regulations, you need to register with my practice before I can do anything at all. Have you done so?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No. So what you must do is fill in this form. Then I can request your medical records from your previous doctor, and we can proceed from there.’ He took a pen from the breast pocket of his waistcoat. ‘The name of your previous doctor, Mister Heath?’

  ‘I … I can’t remember. It was a new doctor. A woman.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Before that it was Doctor McInnis. But he retired.’

  ‘And this was in, ah, Blandford Forum, in Dorset?’

  ‘Yes. You could look it up, I imagine.’

  ‘Look it up, Mister Heath? I can’t imagine what you mean.’

  Martin looked down at the threadbare carpet between his feet. Sweat was beginning to prickle the skin on his back.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘I get nightmares. Really bad ones. In the daytime as well as at night. It’s what they used to call shell shock. Look at my hands. I can’t sleep. The pills helped. I know that you know what they were. Just give me some. Please.’

  The doctor took his spectacles off and laid them on his desk. He leaned back in his chair. ‘How much do you drink, Mister Heath?’

  ‘What? Pardon?’

  ‘How much do you drink? And what do you drink?’

  Martin had twice persuaded the landlord of the Stag in Leeworthy to sell him
a bottle of whisky at closing time. Knowing it was a bad idea. Word would reach Godley eventually, via Annie or Peg or the bloody postman or whatever or whoever. Your chauffeur is an alcoholic, sir. Just thought you’d like to know. So, apart from the glass of wine or two in the kitchen with Annie of an evening, he’d more or less stopped.

  He told Bloom this and was disbelieved.

  ‘Your, ah, lady doctor almost certainly prescribed you a form of barbiturate. Barbiturates in combination with alcohol can be lethal. I would be most reluctant to write you a further prescription for them, given your highly nervous condition. Instead, I recommend vigorous exercise. Long walks, for example. Or sessions of PT before bedtime followed by a glass of warm milk.’

  He opened a drawer of his desk and pushed a slim booklet across his desk.

  ‘In my previous practice I treated several chaps who came back from the last war displaying symptoms similar to your own. There is, I’m sorry to tell you, no pharmaceutical antidote to horror. This little publication – I confess that I am its author – suggests a number of, ah, strategies that have proven helpful. It may surprise you to learn that playing cricket, for instance, is particularly effective. Do you play cricket, Mister Heath?’

  The noise in Martin’s head, the blood surf, had become intolerable. He stood and steadied himself.

  ‘I was the first British NCO through the gates of Belsen. Belsen. Heard of it?’

  ‘Yes. I happen to be Jewish, Mister Heath.’

  Martin looked away from him, nodding. ‘And I don’t play fucking cricket,’ he said.

  He sat in the Morris’s little cab for ten minutes before he could trust himself to drive.

  Without pills and enough booze he became fragile after dark.

  Harold Godley infiltrated his dreams and took possession of them.

  The bald and breastless sleepwalking bone-woman had his head.

  The wasted magnocephalic children listlessly awaiting death on the steps of the huts.