Grandad grinned. ‘Chance for you to try out your French, Cabbage,’ he said. ‘See if he understands you. Go on, no one’s listening!’
Rose was so glad to see the dog again that she couldn’t speak. She ran over to him, leaving her suitcase with Grandad. The dog got up, wagging his tail so hard his whole body seemed to wag too. When Rose crouched down to stroke him, he rolled over on to his back, waggling his legs.
‘Someone’s pleased to see you.’ Grandad arrived, dragging both suitcases behind him.
‘I wonder what he’s doing here? Do you think he followed us?’
‘If he followed us,’ said Grandad, ‘he’d hardly have got here first, would he?’
‘He must be a stray.’ Rose scratched the dog’s chest. ‘He wouldn’t have wandered this far if he lived near the station.’
Grandad looked down at the dog and sighed. ‘You may be right,’ he said.
‘We could ask in the hotel.’
‘We could indeed. Let’s do that. And no,’ he added, in answer to the question in Rose’s eyes, ‘you can’t bring him in with us. Come on.’
So they left the dog outside watching them as they went inside.
The Old Town Hotel wasn’t like the bed and breakfast that Rose had stayed in once with her mum and dad during a trip to the Lake District (they were meant to be camping, but it had been raining so much when they arrived that Mum said they’d treat themselves). It was a proper hotel, with fresh flowers and a rack of tourist maps and brochures. There was a polished wood floor and sepia prints of the ruined city on the walls. The whole place smelled deliciously of food and flowers and furniture polish and opposite the front door there was a grandfather clock whose tick broke up the silence.
‘Look at these, Cabbage.’ Grandad was examining three rusty metal objects like giant stretched-out bullets that were displayed on the reception desk. They were arranged on a sort of lacy table mat as if they were fancy cakes in the window of a teashop. Next to them was a laminated sign, written in English. It read: ‘We found these shell cases when we were renovating the cellar. They had been there for nearly one hundred years.’
Shell cases? From the war? Rose reached out a finger and touched one of them, then quickly withdrew it, feeling stupidly scared it might explode. Tiny bits of rust had stuck to her finger, which she wiped off on her parka.
‘You’re not going to set them off, Cabbage,’ said Grandad. ‘Not now.’
But Rose shuddered. She understood what Grandad meant now, about the history of this place being too close. These things belonged in a museum, safe behind glass, not displayed on a lacy mat in a hotel foyer.
‘It feels like it’s everywhere,’ she said. ‘The war. What must it be like to live here?’
‘Oh, you’d get used to it,’ said Grandad. ‘People do. You can’t spend all your time living in the past, can you?’
Can’t you? Rose wanted to say. Sometimes she felt that living in the past was exactly what she wanted to do. Because Dad was there. Since he died she’d felt like she was sleepwalking through her life. Dad’s absence, his not-thereness, was with her all the time – not a second went by that she wasn’t aware of it. Every tick of that grandfather clock, every beat of her own heart reminded her: he’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone . . .
Grandad patted her arm. He could tell when she was thinking about Dad. ‘Life goes on, lovely,’ he said. ‘People get up, clean their teeth, make friends, have fun. They’ve got to if they’re going to survive. We’ve got to.’
‘I’m so sorry. Have you been waiting long?’
A woman had appeared from a door behind the counter. She was about Grandad’s age with soft grey hair pulled back in a bun and a face that lit up when she smiled. Her accent was only very slight when she spoke English, but this didn’t stop Grandad addressing her in the special voice he kept for foreigners.
‘I have two rooms booked!’ he shouted. ‘Singles! One for myself! And one for my granddaughter!’
Rose looked at her feet. A small smile played around the woman’s mouth as she checked the computer.
‘Ah yes,’ she said. ‘It’s Mr Thompson, isn’t it? And Rose.’
Rose relaxed. The woman seemed so normal, so nice. She was silly to be afraid of this place.
‘Just for the one night, yes?’ the woman continued, reaching for their room keys. ‘Have you come to visit the battlefields? Look for the grave of a relative?’
‘My uncle,’ said Grandad, forgetting to use his foreigners’ voice. ‘George. My dad always wanted to come – to say goodbye, you know. But he never made it. So we’ve come instead.’
The woman nodded. ‘It’s important, I think,’ she said. ‘To pay your respects to the past.’ A faraway look came into her eyes. ‘Here in Ieper we live with the past. The present is just a thin covering. Scratch it and the past reappears.’
For a second, no one spoke.
Angel passing over, thought Rose.
It was Grandad who broke the silence. ‘You speak very good English!’ he said. ‘If I may say so. Very good indeed.’
‘Most of our guests are from the English-speaking world,’ the woman replied, with a smile. ‘British, like you. Canadian. Australian. They all come to visit their people.’
‘Their people?’
‘The ones that never went home.’
In her mind’s eye, Rose saw them, all those young men. She saw their sepia-coloured faces, their sad eyes, and felt their cold hands reaching out to touch her.
The woman pushed the keys across the counter. ‘Breakfast is served in the restaurant between seven and nine-thirty. I hope you enjoy your stay.’
Rose nudged Grandad, who seemed to have gone into a bit of a trance. Perhaps he was thinking about George, the uncle that never went home.
He shook himself. ‘Sorry, love. Ghost walked over my grave.’
The Belgian woman looked puzzled. ‘Ghost . . .?’
‘What? Oh, sorry, it’s just an expression.’ He took the keys. ‘Thank you. Mrs, er—?’
‘Muriel,’ she said. ‘Your room is number six at the top of the stairs, Mr Thompson—’
‘Brian,’ Grandad corrected her.
‘Brian.’ She smiled and turned to Rose. ‘And I’ve given you the room at the very top of the building because your legs are younger than those of your grandfather. I think you’ll like it.’
As Grandad turned to go, Rose put a hand on his arm. ‘What about . . .?’ she hissed, jerking her head towards the front door.
‘Oh yes,’ he said and turned back to the hotel owner. ‘Excuse me, Mrs – um – Muriel?’
Muriel looked up from her computer screen. ‘Yes?’
‘We saw a little dog outside. Don’t know if you’ve spotted him around the place? Rose here took a fancy to him and we were wondering if he’s a stray.’
Muriel looked puzzled. ‘Stray?’ She’d obviously not heard the word before.
‘Lost,’ explained Grandad. ‘No owner. Homeless. Sad—’
Rose hoped he’d stop before he started on an impression of a stray dog. It was the sort of thing he’d do. Luckily Muriel interrupted.
‘Ah!’ she said. ‘I understand. But no, I don’t think so. I have not seen any lost dogs around here. What does he look like?’
Grandad shrugged. ‘Smallish,’ he said. ‘Black and white . . .’
‘Really really cute with big eyebrows and a beardy bit on his chin,’ Rose broke in. ‘He’s the kind of dog that looks like he’s grinning at you.’
Muriel smiled. ‘I can see he made quite an impression.’
‘He did, he’s lovely!’ said Rose. ‘I’ll check he’s still there.’
She hurried to the door. Outside in the not-square square the schoolkids were drifting back towards their coach. But there was no sign of the dog. Rose was surprised at how disappointed she felt.
‘Never mind, Cabbage.’ Grandad had joined her at the door. ‘He’s probably gone home for his dinner.’
Rose bit her
lip and nodded. She felt stupidly close to tears.
‘We’ll keep an eye out for him, though,’ he patted her arm. ‘Just in case.’
Muriel was right – Rose did like her room. It was a bit of a struggle getting up all the stairs with her suitcase (there was no lift) but it was worth it. It was the only one on the third floor, and it had sloping ceilings, a picture of some blurry poppies on the wall and a view across the square. Outside, the teacher was counting his students as they scrambled back on to their coach, and some elderly tourists wearing rainproof jackets in various shades of beige were looking doubtfully at a restaurant menu.
She texted Dad:
This city is weird old but not old will send photo x
She held up her phone to the window and took the photo. The teacher followed the last of the schoolkids on to the coach and slammed the door. One of the elderly tourists put up an umbrella.
Rose checked the image on her phone.
And then she checked it again.
Something wasn’t right.
The square was there, looking just as not-square as usual, with its shops and restaurants. But where was the coach? The schoolkids? The elderly tourists?
Rose looked out of the window. Maybe the angle was a bit funny, and the coach had driven away faster than she thought. But no, the coach was just leaving the square now. And she could see the tourists heading off to look at another restaurant.
But they weren’t in the photo.
She looked at it again. You could make out a few people. But they weren’t the ones she could see from the window. They definitely weren’t. There was a man on a bicycle. A woman in a longish skirt, holding a child’s hand. An old lady with a scarf over her head, carrying a basket of vegetables. But hang on, wasn’t that . . .?
It looked like him.
It was.
The dog was there, in the photo, sitting outside the hotel, looking up at her window. Looking at her.
She stared at her phone. And while she was trying to make sense of what had happened, she heard a single bark. It was a quiet bark, polite almost, as if to attract her attention.
Rose looked up from her phone and out of the window. And there he was, sitting on the pavement, looking up at the hotel, just as he was in the photo. But if the dog was in the photo then why weren’t the schoolkids? Or the tourists?
What was going on?
By the time Rose got out into the square, the dog had gone. Grandad was there, though, talking to Muriel and struggling to control an unfolded tourist map from the hotel which was threatening to blow away. Rose watched them, their grey heads close together over the map, until Grandad looked up and saw her. He had a red rose in his buttonhole.
‘What’s with the rose, Grandad?’
‘What? Oh, this.’ He looked down at it. ‘Bought it from the flower shop over there. It’s for Uncle George. Not that appropriate for a soldier boy, I know, but roses was all they had, it being Valentine’s tomorrow. And the price!’
‘Did Uncle George like roses?’
‘I dunno. Can’t turn up empty-handed, though, can we? Not after all these years. Muriel reckons we can walk.’
‘Walk?’
‘To the cemetery.’
‘Your grandfather tells me his uncle is buried at Essex Farm,’ said Muriel. ‘It’s not too far away.’
‘Essex Farm?’ said Rose. ‘That doesn’t sound very Belgian.’
‘They have kept the English names of many of the important sites,’ Muriel explained. ‘The ones given to them by the British soldiers: Tyne Cot, Lone Tree . . .’
‘Hellfire Corner,’ added Grandad, with relish.
‘The cemetery’s not far,’ said Muriel. ‘Just out of the city. You can walk along the canal.’
‘You up for that, Cabbage? It looks like the rain’ll hold off.’
Rose shrugged. The square looked quite ordinary now in the cold February light. ‘I’m up for it if you are, Grandad.’
‘Good girl. Now? This way!’
‘I’ll catch up with you in a sec, Grandad,’ said Rose as he strode off. ‘I just want to check something.’
She took her phone out of her bag and clicked on ‘Photos’.
It had gone.
The photo. Had gone.
For a moment the ground seemed to sag beneath Rose’s feet.
It doesn’t mean anything, she told herself. I must have deleted it by accident. It was easily done, happened all the time. And there was nothing that strange about it anyway, it was just the angle she’d taken it from. She’d imagined it all. She was like that, always had been, Mum said – saw things that weren’t there, heard whispers in the dark, footsteps on night-time pavements . . .
Once, when she was very little, she’d woken in the night to see a fairy standing on the end of her bed. It was quite a large fairy, about three feet tall, and had no wings, but Rose had known at once what it was. She hadn’t been frightened, just thought, Oh, a fairy, and went back to sleep, as if waking up to find a fairy standing on the end of your bed was the most ordinary thing in the world. Mum and Dad had laughed when she told them about it in the morning, and then exchanged a private look which Rose wasn’t meant to see. Grandad was interested, though, and told her about holidays in Ireland when he was a boy and his nan took him out hunting for leprechauns under the fuchsia hedges.
But she’d grown out of all that now. There was nothing strange about Ypres – nothing at all. It was just an ordinary little place where something terrible had happened a long time ago.
It didn’t take long to reach the edge of the city. There was a canal that ended abruptly in a sort of dock area with a couple of barges, a warehouse and a block of flats, bleak against the rain-scratched sky. It was starting to drizzle.
‘Was this a good idea, Grandad?’ said Rose. ‘We haven’t got an umbrella.’
‘Bit of rain won’t hurt us,’ he replied. ‘We’ve got macs!’
‘I know, but—’
‘And if we’re hungry, I’ve got plenty of biscuits. Come on, it’s not far.’
They set off along the path at the side of the canal. It was wider than canals Rose had seen back home and in pictures of Amsterdam and Venice. The water was dark and slimy looking. It seemed thicker than water, like treacle or oil, and slithered along past them, flexing like the muscle of some huge animal. It made Rose feel queasy and frightened, as if she might be seized by an uncontrollable desire to throw herself into its greasy depths.
She didn’t, though. She just walked along beside her grandad, wondering what she was doing there. Back home Grace would be preparing for her party. Grandad had said they’d probably be back in time if Rose wanted to go, but she didn’t want to, not really. She didn’t like parties that much any more.
She used to love them, looked forward to them for days. There’d be long sessions with Grace and Ella round each other’s houses, trying on outfits, doing each other’s make-up (Mum didn’t approve), discussing who’d be there and laughing helplessly for hours and hours about nothing in particular. There was one boy from school she’d liked, Lewis. He was tall and funny and handsome and good at football. Nearly all the girls liked him, but for some unknown reason Rose always got the feeling he liked her best. One time, in year eight, this girl in her class had a party and invited everyone, so Rose had known that Lewis would be there. She’d spent ages planning what to wear, longer than usual, even. Grace had lent her her new top and Ella had spent ages with the hair straighteners, ironing the kinks out of Rose’s hair.
And then, when they got to the party, Lewis had spent all night talking to his friends and hadn’t looked at Rose once. She’d felt so disappointed she thought the world would end.
It seemed silly now, to be so upset about something so little. But she was only just thirteen when it happened. A lot had changed since then. Lewis was going out with Daisy McCallister, the prettiest, most confident girl in the year. And Rose’s dad had died.
She walked on, matching her pace to Granda
d’s. They passed an old man fishing from underneath a green nylon tent. Grandad greeted him with a nod and the old man raised a hand in reply. Rose wondered what sort of creatures might live in the dark, greasy waters of the canal, and imagined great eyeless eel-like things like giant leeches, with grey muscular bodies and circular mouths lined with jaggy teeth. She hoped no one would ever expect her to eat them.
The path was pretty, though, with overhanging trees and a few cheerful yellow flowers like buttercups among the long grass, brave little faces turned up to the pale February sky.
‘Celandines,’ said Grandad. ‘My favourite.’
He knew about flowers. His dad, Arthur, had been a gardener’s boy before he left to join the army. Maybe he and Uncle George had looked at the celandines when they were here and he’d told George what they were called.
‘Terrible weed, of course,’ Grandad was saying. ‘Devil to get rid of once you’ve got them in your garden. But I’ve always liked them. Cheery little blighters, come out before anything else at the end of winter when there’s no other flowers about.’
Rose liked them too, with their dark-green heart-shaped leaves. She picked a little bunch. Like Mum’s Valentine roses, they didn’t smell of anything, but they made her feel better. She hoped they’d made George and Arthur feel better too.
‘The canal was the front line at one time,’ Grandad was saying. ‘We were on this side—’
‘We’? Rose thought. How come it was ‘we’ all of a sudden? She didn’t feel like she was on one side or the other. Wasn’t it equally awful for everybody?
‘—dug into the banks of the canal. And the Germans were over there.’
Beyond the water was a flat industrial area dominated by several giant wind turbines, their huge white arms turning lazily against the sky.
‘So it was just the canal that divided them?’ said Rose.
‘No, there would’ve been some space between the two armies. No-man’s-land, they called it. Because it didn’t belong to either side. It would’ve been that area across the canal, I suppose.’ He shook his head. ‘Wonder what the Tommies’d think if they could see it now,’ he went on. ‘Blooming great what-d’ you-call-’em, windmill things. Great arms waving around.’
Valentine Joe Page 3