Twenty Five Million Ghosts

by Steve Aitchsmith

  “Twenty five million, remember. They’re still there and everywhere. Call me at any time. When you’re ready, come back to see me if you need to. You are my friend and I’m pleased to have met you. We have differing views of God and man, and you of course are wrong. Be a friend and call on me anytime for any reason, you’re safe with me. I’ll be at the funeral.” We hugged, a rare thing for me and he seemed a little uncomfortable with it as well. That might just have been the height difference, though. I left and took the long journey home. I really don’t remember a thing about it which is slightly worrying considering that I was driving.

  I didn’t read the letter immediately. I wanted to but at the same time I didn’t want to accept it. This letter was my mum’s voice from the other side and I didn’t want to accept the finality of her death by hearing that voice. I knew I would, of course, but for now it was as if I could keep her alive just a bit longer by not reading it. This is nonsense, I know that, but we all are guilty of stupid thoughts when we’re emotional. The switch was still on and I was a little worried about when the dam would burst. Now would be a good time since I was all alone and isolated. It stayed on.

  By way of distraction I examined the ants. The little blighters were everywhere. I captured a few to examine them. They were black and not particularly big. Certainly not wood ants, they tend to be fairly large and build huge mounds of wood pulp that stink of formic acid. There was no noticeable smell with this species and they were more like the small ants I remember in London.

  I hunted around and found several entrance holes in the lawn. A couple I blocked but a few others I dug into a little bit. I then poured boiling water into the depression. The water was quickly absorbed and I poured more. A cruel assault intended to cook them and their larvae, I saved some water to make myself a cup of tea. I imagined that they would reduce their activities as a result of my wet weapon of mass destruction. I called it the aqua bomb.

  Combat against the insects done for the moment, there were no other excuses. I sat to read the letter.

  ***

  Letter from my mother

  Steve,

  I’m sorry to leave you this way. I doubt if we’ll talk about much before the end so I’ve decided to write down some things you should hear. Our time together was not that bad, really. We had some fun and we had love. Nothing’s ever perfect but I succeeded in bringing you up and giving you a half decent start. I have the need to tell you about the war and what happened.

  My father saved my life when I was eleven years old. He saved me but it ultimately cost him his own life. It was 1940, September I think but I’m not sure. London was being demolished by wave after wave of bombers and I was right in the middle of it in Old Ford. I’ve told you a lot about that time but there are some things I didn’t tell you and one thing I still can’t.

  The Germans had become very good at hitting us quickly. Normally the bombs would start falling within a few seconds of the siren warning. This night we ran for the Anderson shelter as soon as the wail began to wind up. My paternal grandmother carried Joe, my small brother, and my dad ushered me quickly in front of him.

  Bombs that fall close by whistle as they descend. Just a long single note that increases in pitch as it draws closer. I heard the thump of successive strikes stomping towards our house. Then the rising whistling sound rushing down. We’d come to call it the death whistle. I felt my dad grab me and throw me hard towards the entrance of the soil covered corrugated tin shelter. It wasn’t strong enough to survive a direct hit but was, so the Government claimed, able to withstand most shrapnel and a blast that was not too close.

  It was a hard determined throw. My dad was a strong man from years of building site labouring. He was a powerful individual who’d survived the trenches of the first war and he wasn’t about to give in. As I flew through the air I saw the house about three doors down just implode. It was unreal and fascinating at the same time. The blast turned me in the air just a bit so that I now flew backwards about four feet off the ground and parallel to it. I saw the same blast lift my dad and throw him forwards. I thought the blast did not throw him as hard as he’d thrown me.

  During the Blitz I heard tales of how one person might be torn to pieces by a blast while the person next to them was just knocked off their feet. The blast is a strange and unpredictable thing. That’s how it was now. The air itself seemed to cradle me it its arms and place me gently on the dirt floor just inside the shelter. I couldn’t see my dad now but later learned he had crashed into the small apple tree we had in our garden. It never did provide much fruit and managed to survive the whole long onslaught untouched. It was small but sturdy and didn’t give an inch as my dad slammed into it.

  I couldn’t hear anything for a few seconds and the world seemed quiet and peaceful. As the regular thump of the brutal battering of our city wormed its way back into my consciousness I heard, or rather sensed, my grandmother shouting at me to look after Joe. She stepped over me and out into the deadly shower. I slowly climbed my way back onto my feet and then picked up my brother from the small wooden cot like bed left for him in the shelter. I moved back to the door opening, oblivious to the danger.

  My grandmother was kneeling by my dad. He was groaning and writhing. From the garden next door, I heard a man shouting, ‘Speedy, get to Jack, we’ll do what we can at the house.’

  Our neighbour was called Speedy. That of course was a nickname but that’s how I knew him and what I called him, I don’t know his real name. He was a docker and every bit as powerful as my dad. A huge man with a scarred face and one eye smaller than the other. I always thought he was sad inside.

  In the summer they used to fish and drink and sometimes wrestle each other for fun. My gran said they’d been in the same battles and used each other to keep their demons at bay, I didn’t really understand that at the time.

  ‘Not this time, Jack. No stinking Hunpig gets to end you, my son. Up you come.’ I saw the massive Speedy pick up my dad and place him across the back of both his shoulders. He told my gran to get back in the shelter and then he just smashed through the wooden garden fence that led to the back alley. Then he was off at a run and I knew that no power on earth was going to stand in his way on this night. My gran told me that he’d become a soldier again, just for tonight in order to save my dad. She said they’d fought the Germans in France when they were young and probably owed each other their lives several times over.

  My dad came back the following morning, the raid was over and we likely had a few hours before the next one. The streets were full of people, old men and women and children, clearing the rubble and searching for the dead. The wounded were pretty much on their own if they could walk or waited for the overworked ambulances if they couldn’t. Dad’s ribs had been broken and he was strapped up with bandages wrapped around his torso, that’s what they did in those days whereas now they just leave them to heal on their own.

  The sharp broken ribs had caused internal lacerations and he developed an infection that killed him a few weeks later. Probably just some stupid bacterial infection that would now be cleared by anti-biotics and a bit of rest, that’s how it was then. You know I survived TB in 1947, one of the earliest trials of anti-biotics, I think.

  I’ve already told you about the rest of my life, how my mum died of stress and distress and poor nutrition just after Joe was born. That was just before the war but for people where we were, peacetime was scarcely less painful than wartime; get born, work hard, die young and be hungry and insecure in between.

  You know how Joe and I were taken in by the Bernardo network after dad died and how I met your father just before the war and how I grew into adulthood. Eventually Joe and I lived with my maternal gran. She was old then and it was hard for her. You met my gran, she lived to a ripe old age in a cottage at Ware and she was over 100 when you met her, you were only about three or four so might not remember her.

 
There is one thing I can’t tell you but it is something you have the right to know.

  I promised my dad I’d never reveal the secret. I suppose it’s really the family secret although it’s probably not as big a deal now as it was then. My mum never mentioned it although it’s about her, really. I can’t and I won’t break the promise I made to my dad but I wish I’d thought to get him to agree to me telling my children when they grew up. Still, I didn’t and so I can’t tell you.

  I can tell you that my dad wrote a journal and in it he tells the secret. I could never bring myself to read it but he told me the secret’s in there.

  I hid the journal at number thirteen many years ago. It should still be there if the house is still standing. It’s in a hidden space in the front chimney stack up in the loft. It’s a good quality notebook that my dad used throughout the first war to write about his experiences. The secret’s in there. Go and get it.

  Thank you for being my son. Goodbye.

  ***

  An interesting letter, I thought. My mum could never speak like that but she could write well. I found it interesting that at times she seemed to fall into story telling, complete with dialogue and quoted speech. I considered phoning Dave but decided against it. I would take his advice and revisit my childhood haunts. The funeral was in just a few days and that would place me in the area. If I felt up to it afterwards I’d do the grand tour.

  The family gathered at my dad’s flat. A small block behind the Saxon church of All Saints near Stratford Portway. Hardly really Saxon any more. A millennium and a half of additions and rebuilds had left it in that common mix of styles and periods that characterises most old churches. It was pretty much falling into disrepair now.

  Although I was very close to my parents that never really extended to my sole sibling. A hundred issues caused my sister and me to become distant and almost estranged. She left home young and took to a lifestyle with which my mother profoundly disagreed. I see no reason to expand on that other than to say it broke my mum’s heart and although I now act civilly towards her, I do not consider her my sister, just my parent’s daughter. Neither she nor I have any real interest in reigniting our sibling bond and it causes me no distress.

  Her four children grew up very well. They were now all adults with good careers and although some were estranged from my parents’ daughter they all attended the funeral. Families, eh?

  My own daughter did not attend. Now that looming exams demanded her full attention, we agreed she would simply send flowers. I knew she’d cope well, no guilt at her absence. Funerals are not really for the dead; they are for the living to find closure. If one is of the mindset that provides natural closure, then funerals are less important than memories and pressing on in order to take the deceased’s influence forward. It shows respect to attend but does not in any way imply disrespect or lack of love among those unable to attend.

  Dawn was with me. In total there were about twelve of us attending the funeral. I knew some of them well and some of them casually. Everybody remained polite. A mixture of siblings, cousins and offspring, not close but not entirely alienated either. There was nobody from my mum’s side of the family. Her brother, Joe, had died decades ago and although he had children nobody knew them. I don’t know why that happened, I barely met any of my relatives when I was young and there was never any explanation for that.

  A hearse carrying my mother’s coffin followed by a passenger limo arrived. Just me, dad and my sister got in the limo. The others would follow in their own cars. Chief burying bod, Jay, introduced himself. He exuded the professional serious caring friendliness of his occupation. He explained that he would also conduct the service at the cemetery chapel.

  The lawn in front of the flats was strewn with flowers from us and other people. Floral tributes and people loaded, the cortege set off on its slow respectful four-mile ride to the cemetery. Traffic invariably gave way to it and waited politely for it to pass; then promptly returned to typical aggressive and unforgiving London driving.

  Dave was at the chapel. I was surprised to see him in a well pressed suit and tie instead of his usual crumpled priest uniform.

  “Mufti today then?” I said to him.

  “I don’t want to distract from the service,” he explained. I thanked him for coming and he said he’d stay at the back and not interfere.

  As we entered the chapel the wartime song ‘We’ll Meet Again’ was playing from speakers. I thought it excruciatingly sad.

  Jay conducted a half secular half Christian service. I thought this was appropriate for mum’s half Christian half agnostic life and views.

  Then Jay introduced hymns. “Margaret asked for two hymns,” he said. We all knocked out a terrible rendition of ‘Abide With Me’. While we outrageously tortured this wonderful piece of music my mum’s coffin was carried down the aisle to the front. It was probably the sight of it that made it real for me, at that point the switch turned off and the dam broke.

  Even here I was embarrassed at my own bawling. It took me a few seconds to get myself under control by which time I was blind from my tears and choking on mucus. I felt Dawn’s hand on my arm but gently shook it off.

  Jay introduced the second hymn. “Just a bit of fun, at Margaret’s request,” he said in a voice revealing that even he found it inappropriate. “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” My mum always said she loved singing it as a child but I’m fairly sure she didn’t really understand it.

  “…. All creatures great and small…..” we all mumbled tunelessly. Then the bit that really annoys me, “… the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate. God made them high or lowly and ordered their estate…”

  Fuck this, I thought. I glanced back at Dave and he was grinning at me, he knew that this was provocation for me. He shook his head at me. I held Dawn’s hand and think I may have hurt her a little by squeezing too hard. She knew my feelings about this hymn, nothing more than propaganda for children to sing and learn their place early in life. Education always includes propaganda, even now.

  When I was seven I had to run around a playground with a wooden rifle before doing drill. This was because we were being groomed to die courageously for the Empire when we grew up, even though the Empire was already gone by then.

  They say that when the Roman Empire ended it was fifty years before anybody noticed. Similarly, the British Empire. The institutions of successful Empires continue to function after the demise of the imperial body. It’s not until later that everybody realises that the crown has fallen because there is no dramatically obvious total conquest by outside forces.

  Today the propaganda in education is about other things but I won’t try to identify what, I’m not that brave. I bet any two people, choosing independently, would spot the same propaganda in modern education. It’s always there. In my childhood the School Board supervised to ensure the correct political message was delivered.

  Today, Ofsted have a political policing component to them when they grade schools. Just take a look at exactly which criteria Ofsted use to grade a school or college. Now consider just how essential any criterion is to the pedagogy and which merely propagates behavioural traits or thought required by the existing political flavour. It’s not surprising that the criteria change from time to time, the political objective changes with the politicians. You may note that any constant criterion is probably a proper review of the unpoliticised real teaching. Bollocks to it is what I say. Education should just be about learning and we’ll all form our own views.

  When we left the chapel we made our way to an open grave about half a mile further into the cemetery. Here my mum was lowered into the earth to rest forever, or for at least seventy years because that was the time limit on the land lease. What happens then? I wondered. Will they evict her if she won’t leave? Much of my family is in this cemetery and none of them have ever been asked to leave so I suppose
it’ll be OK.

  My dad was a little out of his mind. His distress was enormous and drove him beyond reason. He stood at the graveside leaning forwards. At his age he’s a bit unsteady anyway, today he was just likely to tumble in. I stood with him, one arm across him to prevent this. I imagined my mum chastising him: “You silly old fool, take a step back,” she said in my head. I struggled with an urge to laugh; that would not have enhanced my reputation. I suddenly realised that Dave was the other side of him and led him away, I hadn’t seen the priest approach but as usual he intervened at just the right moment.

  The journey back to the flat was without the convoy that attended. The big limo had just the three of us in it, the driver an invisible presence beyond a screen separating us from the front. My sister sat with my dad on the front most rear cabin seats. I sat on the comfortable rear bench seat. I was watching the world from the rear window. We rolled though the part of Forest Gate that is now primarily Muslim. The road leads down toward a disused pub that was allegedly frequented by Dick Turpin. Most of the current locals don’t use pubs and probably don’t know or care who Dick Turpin was, either.

  A few hundred yards before this pub are two mosques. The first and smaller mosque is housed in what used to be a Methodist church. The congregation seems to largely consist of older suited and booted people of Asian origin. The second, about 50 yards away from the first, is a purpose built red bricked modern building with a small minaret at each corner. I’ve never given them much thought.

  As the original white working classes seeped away in the seventies and later, Islamic cultures were among the incoming groups and they slowly imposed the society with which they were comfortable. That there was more than one version of Islam did not surprise me even when I was young. Just look at the various and sometimes bizarre interpretations of Christianity. Humanity seeks to make God in its own perceived parochial image.