Valentine Joe

by Rebecca Stevens

  ‘World War One’s not history!’ Grandad went on. ‘It’s life!’

  Rose wasn’t sure. It didn’t feel much like life to her. It felt like it had happened a very long time ago to people with funny haircuts and old-fashioned names like Albert and Walter and Sidney.

  ‘If you ask me,’ Grandad was saying, ‘you should be doing more long-ago history. The Wars of the Roses’ – he made them sound all silly and pompous – ‘that sort of stuff. Proper history.’

  Rose wasn’t listening. They’d just passed another of those perfectly round ponds. She shivered. It was as if this neat, pretty landscape was hiding something horrible, like a bright new carpet covering a filthy old floor.

  ‘Heads up!’ Grandad was checking his watch. ‘It’s getting on for lunchtime. We’ll be coming into Brussels soon.’

  Rose pulled her eyes away from the window. ‘What happens at Brussels, Grandad?’

  ‘We have a sandwich!’ he replied, triumphantly.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘We get on another train. To Wipers.’

  ‘Wipers?’

  ‘That’s what the soldiers called it, the Tommies,’ he said. ‘Easier to say than Ypres, y’see. Unless you’re French, obviously.’

  Ypres. Eepra. That name again. It sounded like a little scream.

  Fields were giving way to streets and houses now. As the train entered the city and began to slow down, the people in the carriage fell silent. The woman closed her laptop and stared into space, her fingers twiddling her wedding ring. The over-inflated businessman put his phone away and sighed. For a moment he looked so sad Rose thought he was going to cry. The backpackers had stopped whispering to each other and were looking out of the windows on opposite sides of the carriage, each lost in thoughts of their own. The only sounds were the rhythm of the wheels and the hum of the air conditioning.

  ‘Angel passing over.’

  It was what Grandad always said at these strange moments when everyone fell silent at the same time. Rose looked around at the faces of their fellow passengers, frozen in that one brief moment in time, and she thought, Is it an angel? Or is it something else?

  As the train pulled into the station, the silence hung in the air like dust.

  Ieper.

  That’s what it said on the station platform sign. Not Ypres. Ieper.

  ‘Grandad?’ Rose pointed to the sign as they got off the train. ‘Are you sure this is the right stop?’

  ‘Yup,’ said Grandad. He landed his suitcase with a bump and slammed the train door. ‘This is it all right.’

  Rose followed him as he set off down the platform, dragging her case behind her. A few people had got off at the same time: a couple with a little boy who looked at Rose solemnly from under his fringe; a young woman with a briefcase; an elderly lady with an invisible cat yowling in a basket. They all hurried off to wherever they were going, leaving Rose and Grandad behind.

  ‘Why doesn’t it say Ypres?’ said Rose. ‘I can’t even read that word.’

  ‘It’s the Flemish name,’ said Grandad. ‘Ieper. That’s what they call it now. Ypres is the old name, the French name.’

  So this city’s got three names, thought Rose. She repeated them to herself in her head – Ieper, Ypres, Wipers – and wondered which one it liked best. Then she felt a bit silly. Cities didn’t have feelings, did they?

  ‘This way!’ Grandad had spotted the exit. ‘Follow me!’

  Outside the station was a car park where Rose saw the lady with the cat basket climbing on to a bus. It was grey and cold and flat, and the wind seemed to blow right through Rose’s new parka, the one Mum had bought her for Christmas. It was very dark green with fur round the hood and she knew it had cost more than Mum could afford. Rose huddled down inside it, wishing she’d brought some gloves.

  And then she saw the dog.

  He was sitting outside the station as they came out, and was right in the middle of the path, blocking their way. It was almost as if he’d been waiting for them.

  ‘Hello, you,’ said Rose. She always spoke to dogs, whether she knew them or not.

  The dog looked up at her and wagged his tail. He was quite a small dog, black and white and scruffy-looking, with serious-looking eyebrows and a hint of a beard. He looked friendly and tough at the same time.

  ‘He can’t understand you, Cabbage,’ said Grandad. ‘Belgian dog, see. Doesn’t speak English.’

  Rose held out her hand to the dog, with the fingers curled up into a fist like Dad had shown her. He gave it a polite sniff and then looked back at her face. There seemed to be a question in his bright brown eyes.

  ‘How do you say hello in Flemish then, Grandad?’

  ‘Don’t ask me,’ he said. ‘It’s a difficult language.’

  Rose crouched down beside the dog and ruffled his head. The fur felt coarse under her fingers. She’d always wanted a dog. She and Dad used to talk about them a lot – which were their favourite breeds, stuff like that. They’d agreed that mongrels were the most interesting because they were all different. If you had a pedigree dog, a Labrador, say, it would look just the same as all the other Labradors. But you never knew what you’d get with a mongrel. They could be big, small, hairy, soft, black, white, brown, anything. This one was perfect.

  ‘Don’t you think we should try and speak a bit of Flemish while we’re here, Grandad?’ she said, scratching the dog’s ears. ‘Just to be polite?’

  ‘Nah,’ said Grandad. ‘I reckon we can get by with speaking English in a funny voice.’ Rose looked at him, not sure if he was joking. And then he said ‘Hallooooo!’ in a ridiculous accent, so she knew he was.

  ‘That is never Flemish for hello,’ she said.

  ‘It is, actually,’ said Grandad, pretending to be hurt. ‘I’ve got a phrase book.’ Rose continued to scratch the dog’s ears, while Grandad rummaged in his bag. ‘I bought it especially. In Waterstones,’ he added in a prim voice. He produced the book, turned a couple of pages and then shouted, ‘Alstublieft!’

  The word sounded exactly like a sneeze. The dog looked startled and gave Rose a look that seemed to say, Is he with you? She smiled and stroked his back. She could feel his ribs under the fur.

  ‘Bless you,’ she said to Grandad.

  ‘It means “please”,’ he explained. ‘Very important word. Useful when you want to ask for stuff. Biscuits, for example.’

  ‘Biscuits?’

  ‘Oh yes. Belgium’s famous for ’em. Everybody knows that.’

  ‘How d’you say that word again?’

  Grandad checked his book and then repeated it, making it sound even more like a sneeze: ‘Alstublieft!’

  ‘I’m never going to remember that.’

  Grandad looked pleased, as if he’d won an argument. ‘Told you it was a difficult language,’ he said.

  Rose sighed. Her knees were starting to hurt from crouching down by the dog. ‘They speak French here too, don’t they?’ she said as she stood up. ‘Maybe he’s a bilingual dog. I could say bonjour.’

  ‘You could,’ said Grandad, putting on his most serious face. ‘But you might look a bit daft. Talking French to a dog.’ He grabbed the handle of his suitcase. ‘Come on. Let’s find our hotel.’

  ‘Hang on, Grandad—’ Rose looked down at the dog. ‘Do you think he’s a stray?’

  Grandad paused. ‘No collar,’ he said. ‘But he looks healthy enough.’

  ‘He’s a bit skinny. I could feel his bones when I was stroking him.’

  ‘Tough-looking little chap, though, Cabbage. I reckon he can look after himself.’

  ‘Maybe, but—’

  ‘And we can hardly take him to the hotel with us, can we? I bet he belongs to someone. Probably lives round here.’

  Rose wasn’t sure. There was something about the dog that made her feel responsible for him. It wasn’t just that she was afraid he was a stray. It was the way he looked at her, as if he was trying to tell her something. But before she could say anything, he got up and trotted
off with his tail in the air, casting a quick look back over his shoulder as he went. So that was that.

  Rose just stood there, watching him go, but Grandad struck a dramatic pose and called after him, waving.

  ‘Vaarwel! Vaarwel, mijn vriend!’

  Rose stared at him, open-mouthed.

  ‘Flemish for goodbye, Cabbage.’

  ‘I guessed that much – farewell. What did the second bit mean?’

  ‘What, the bit that sounded like “my friend”?’ He made a big show of looking in the book. ‘Ah yes, here it is. It means “my friend”.’

  Rose gritted her teeth. Sometimes Grandad could be quite annoying.

  He snapped the book shut and twinkled at her, thoroughly delighted with himself. ‘I’m not just a pretty face, you know.’

  Rose shook her head. He really was unbelievable.

  ‘Right. What we need now is the map. Map map map . . .’

  He rummaged in his bag again and pulled out a single crumpled sheet of A4 that he’d printed out before they left. After studying it for a bit, then turning it the right way up and studying it some more, he announced, ‘This way!’ and they set off across the car park and into the city.

  Rose was nearly as tall as Grandad now, and he had a slight limp from having polio as a boy, but she still found it hard to keep up. He walked faster than anyone she knew.

  ‘They rebuilt it after the war, you know, the city.’ Grandad had done his research before they left, and was determined to share it. ‘Every brick, every stone, was put back, exactly as it had been. There was nothing left in 1918, not a thing. It had all been blasted to smithereens.’

  Rose looked along the street. It was neat and pretty, lined with houses built of light-coloured brick, quite unlike the warm red of the houses in Rose’s street back home. But there was something strange about it. It was almost too neat, too pretty, like the pond they’d seen from the train. Even the people seemed too perfect: the woman riding past on an old-fashioned bicycle with a bunch of flowers in the basket; the rosy-faced children skipping hand in hand along the pavement . . . they looked too good to be true, like they were extras in a film or something, not real people at all.

  It’s like the city’s a copy of itself, thought Rose. A clone.

  She shivered. There was a sort of shimmer in the air and she imagined she could feel the pulse of something under her feet, like a heartbeat or the bass-line of a song heard from a long way off. It was as if the old city was lying asleep beneath the pavements, and, like Sleeping Beauty, was waiting for someone to come and wake her up.

  ‘Look, Cabbage!’

  ‘Wow!’

  Mum had told Rose that Belgium was famous for its chocolate shops but she hadn’t expected anything like this. The window they’d stopped outside was full of hearts: heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, chocolate hearts wrapped in red foil, shiny gold hearts hanging from pink ribbons . . .

  Dad used to give Mum roses every Valentine’s Day, one for each of the years they’d been together. She’d shake her head at him and say they couldn’t afford it, but then she’d hug them to her chest and bury her nose in them even though they didn’t smell (shop-bought roses never did, Dad said). Rose always got something too, something small, like a chocolate heart or a tiny cake in a box. It had started when she was little, so she wouldn’t feel left out, but then it had become a tradition. This year would be the first Valentine’s Day it didn’t happen.

  As Rose stepped away from the window and its display of memories, three things happened at once.

  There was a shout from Grandad: ‘Rose!’

  Someone else shouted as well, words she didn’t understand.

  And she felt a thud in her back and a searing pain in her knee as she fell on to the road, breaking her fall with her hands.

  Grandad rushed over, leaving his suitcase on the pavement.

  ‘It’s all right, Grandad, I’m fine . . .’

  As Grandad took one arm and started to help her to her feet, Rose felt someone take her other arm and heard a voice, worried and apologetic:

  ‘Het spijt me zo. Ik heb je niet gezien. Ik—’

  Rose looked up to see a fair-haired boy of about her own age. He’d abandoned his bike on the pavement, where it lay next to their suitcases with one wheel spinning, forcing pedestrians to walk around it. He had a nice face with dark eyebrows, darker than his hair, and quiet grey eyes that met hers with a look of concern. As she struggled to her feet she felt uncomfortably aware of his hand under her elbow.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘I’m fine. Thanks.’

  Now go away, she thought. But he didn’t. His face broke into a slow, sweet smile.

  ‘You are English,’ he said.

  Rose still didn’t want to look at him. It was her fault really, what had happened – she’d backed into his bike because she was thinking about Dad – but she wasn’t about to admit that. She always felt a bit awkward with boys, even when she wasn’t out in a weird little city in Belgium with her grandad. This was super-embarrassing.

  ‘Are you sure, Cabbage?’ Grandad looked worried too. ‘You came a nasty cropper. Let me have a look at that knee.’

  ‘No, really, it’s fine. I’m OK, Grandad. Let’s go.’

  ‘I am very sorry,’ the boy said. He spoke careful English with some sort of accent. ‘I did not see you there.’

  ‘It’s OK.’ Rose looked at the pavement. ‘It was my fault.’

  Go. Now. Just go!

  ‘Your leg . . .? Is there something—?’

  ‘NO!’

  The word came out much louder than she’d intended.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean – you know. Thanks for helping and everything, but—’

  Grandad must have realised how much she was suffering, and decided to intervene. ‘It’s all right, young man. I think she’ll live. You a local?’

  Grandad was like Dad, any excuse to talk to a stranger. Mum used to say that when Dad went to the corner shop he’d come back with a pint of milk, a newspaper and seven new friends.

  ‘Excuse me?’ said the boy.

  ‘Local!’ Grandad raised his voice a notch. ‘From around here? Belgian?’

  The boy had gone to pick up his bike, but paused to reply. ‘Belgian? Me? Oh! No, no, I am here as a visitor. Like you.’ He indicated their suitcases, then added, ‘I am from Germany.’

  ‘Germany?’ Grandad sounded surprised. ‘Well! I hope . . . you enjoy your stay.’

  This was the boy’s cue to leave, and he took it. ‘Thank you,’ he said, with a polite nod. ‘I hope you do too.’ And then, to Rose: ‘And I hope your leg—’

  ‘It’s FINE!’

  The boy nodded seriously. ‘I am happy to hear that. Goodbye.’

  ‘Bye!’ The word burst out of Rose like an accusation. She felt bad. The boy must think she was really weird. ‘I hope your bike’s all right!’ she called after him as he moved away, pushing his bike along the pavement. He looked back over his shoulder and gave a little wave before riding off down a side street. Rose and Grandad watched him go.

  ‘German!’ said Grandad. ‘Well, well.’

  ‘Well, well, what?’ Rose asked. ‘What do you mean, Grandad?’

  Grandad shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Cabbage. I don’t suppose they get too many German visitors, that’s all. Come on.’

  As Rose followed him down the street, the lights ahead shimmered and the ground seemed to shift under her feet. It was as if, beneath the modern pavements, the old city was stirring in her sleep.

  The little shopping street opened out on to a huge cobbled space. Rose would’ve called it a square, except it wasn’t square; it was a kind of misshapen rectangle, dominated by one massive building that bristled with so many towers and pointy bits that it looked like some kind of huge spiky creature.

  ‘Cloth Hall.’ Grandad was pleased to have another opportunity to show off his research.

  ‘Cloth Hall?’ repeated Rose.

  ‘That’s what it�
�s called. Something to do with what it was originally used for. It’s a museum now.’

  ‘About the war?’

  ‘About the war.’

  They walked on past a low wall where a family of five sat in descending order of height licking ice creams. A stream of British schoolkids was tumbling off a coach. They were about Rose’s age, she guessed, and were laughing and shouting and pushing each other, obviously excited their journey was over.

  ‘Ow! Get off me!’

  ‘Sir! Can we get ice creams, sir?’

  ‘Where’s the toilets, sir? Sir!’

  A stressed-out teacher got off after them. ‘Back here in twenty minutes, please!’ he shouted. Nobody was listening. ‘Twenty minutes, everybody! And that includes you, Josie!’ A dark-haired girl wearing loads of make-up pulled a face before sauntering off after her friends.

  It was funny, Rose thought, as she watched them scramble over to the public toilets and gather outside the windows of the chocolate shops, you could tell they were British even if you didn’t hear them speak. It was something to do with their shouty daft humour and the way they teased their teacher. And their clothes, of course. Rose recognised a mint-green fake-fur bomber jacket from Topshop that Ella had wanted but couldn’t afford, and a random pair of trainers from JD Sports.

  ‘That’s the one.’ Grandad pointed to a building at the far end of the not-square square. ‘The Old Town Hotel. That’s where we’re staying.’

  The hotel was tall and narrow and perfectly symmetrical. It looked like a huge doll’s house, waiting for a giant child to open it up and play with the furniture inside. Was it an exact replica of the building that had stood there before, Rose wondered. The thought made her feel dizzy and a bit sick, as if she was watching a 3D film without wearing the special glasses.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ Grandad was saying. ‘Look who’s here to meet us.’

  ‘It can’t be!’

  But it was. There was no doubt about it. It was the same dog, the one they’d met outside the station. He was sitting on the pavement in front of the hotel almost as if he was waiting for them again.