Ghost Swifts, Blue Poppies and the Red Star

by Nathan Dylan Goodwin

  Time forgot her for a while, as she moved the telescope to the woods behind Linton House and contentedly searched the trees for signs of life: she watched an acrobatic squirrel gambolling along perilously thin branches, before leaping to a large trunk and running down its length, as though such a thing were no effort at all for it; she studied a solitary male blackbird, singing his heart out without a single care in the world; she spotted rabbits, nibbling tufts of tussocky grass, close to the garden gate; she observed a pair of blackcaps, flitting in the elder trees; and she saw Lina, Fraser and Timothy, standing in a clearing, talking away animatedly. She shifted the telescope to where their eyelines converged on Poppy, who was squatting down to study closely a tangle of tree roots from a fallen oak. She felt a contentment at this reminder of having watched the boys at their games, playing together in those same woods, as time finally caught up with her.

  Leaving the telescope in position, she knelt down and slid out the two crates from underneath Malcolm’s bed. The first was filled with his prized chemistry sets, boxes chock-full with all manner of odd-looking equipment and glass tubes of vulgar putrefied liquids. Something else, which could be thrown out, she reasoned. She set the box to one side and began with the second, which was topped with small boxes of Cretonne Chocolates. Harriet tentatively prodded off the lid of the first box, not knowing what kinds of decaying creatures might be contained inside. One thing that she did know; they certainly were not full of the chocolates promised on the outside. Four delicate, white, bird eggs with brown speckles, and all nestled in cotton wool, was what she discovered in the first box. Now that she saw them, she could recall the very day when Malcolm had discovered a female robin at the foot of a tree, dead. Then he had found the nest with four long-cold eggs inside. His father had shown him how to make a pin-prick in the top and bottom of each egg and blow out the contents so that the egg shell could be preserved and studied. The enduring hobby, which this single event had created, was evidenced in the five other boxes of Cretonne Chocolates, which Harriet carefully lifted out and set down beside her. Turning back to the crate, she smiled, as her eyes came to rest upon a black leather book, which she recognised but had well-forgotten. Opening it to the first page, she read the handwritten title: ‘Malcolm’s Nature Book!’ She and John had bought the book for him for his fourteenth birthday. Soon, the blank pages were filled with bird feathers, rudimentary sketches, pressed flowers and comments on the natural world that he discovered around him. Harriet flicked through the familiar pages, pausing when she spotted a version of the blue poppies, which he had drawn onto the walls of the Essex Farm Advanced Dressing Station. She ran her forefinger lightly across the watercolour painting, as she read his handwritten caption: ‘My beautiful poppy.’ The poignant bitter-sweet significance of this discovery wrapped itself around her heart, and she smiled.

  Harriet stared at the image for some time and then closed the journal. That was it; she had reached the bottom of the final crate. The task had been far less painful and far more cathartic than she had envisaged its being.

  She placed the crates under her bed, then returned to the boys’ bedroom. Except, it was no longer theirs; the final physical reminders of them were gone, and the room now belonged to Lina and Poppy.

  She made her way downstairs, realising how drained she felt. A strong cup of tea was definitely in order. As she reached the kitchen, she spotted Poppy’s grubby little teddy bear lying on the floor. She picked the ghastly thing up, thinking that it really needed throwing away. ‘Drat it!’ she said, having not found a single toy for her to play with among the boys’ things. Then she remembered the small toy shop on Battle High Street. She looked at the wall clock: if she left now, and forwent a cup of tea, she could catch the afternoon charabanc into Battle and get back in time to make supper. If she remembered rightly, the shop had quite a range of wooden toys and dolls for young children.

  Her lethargy seemed to dissipate with the resolution to go and purchase some new toys for Poppy. She dropped the teddy bear onto the kitchen table and strode into the hallway to get ready. She put on her black coat, black ostrich-feather hat and black suede Oxford shoes and hurried out of the door, down the path onto the street. She walked quickly with her head down, not wishing to get caught by one of her neighbours and end up missing the charabanc.

  As she paced along the village green, she mulled over poor Timothy’s situation. What could she do for him? Pay for him to have his own legal advice, perhaps? She resolved to call into Raper and Fovargue solicitors’ office in Battle and see what they suggested. But it was part of a wider problem, the one shared by Fraser and all the other aimless men, who had returned to find that the war had changed them irrevocably and that their former place in the world simply no longer existed. And then there were people like her, left with nothing but memories and useless belongings.

  A grumbling sound from behind brought her back from her introspection. She turned to see the Battle charabanc lumbering slowly through the village towards her. She was about to continue the last few yards to the stop, when she paused, glancing to her right. The sight of the village hall brought her to a standstill. She stared at the locked door of the old wooden building, as an idea suddenly took hold of her.

  The charabanc drove past, pulling over at the stop just in front of her. Harriet briefly looked in its direction, then turned on her heels back the way that she had just come, but walking past Linton House, crossing the street and banging on the door to River Cottage. ‘Come on,’ Harriet said.

  Mrs Selmes opened the door with a look of great surprise. ‘Mrs McDougall… How unusual.’

  ‘Mrs Selmes,’ Harriet said with a wintry smile. ‘I’ve come about the village hall.’

  Mrs Selmes shot a worried look in its general direction. ‘Whatever’s the matter with it?’

  ‘Oh, nothing at all. It’s locked, and I wondered if I might hire it out.’

  ‘What…now?’ Mrs Selmes begged, folding her arms.

  ‘Well, no. Not now,’ Harriet replied, thinking quickly. ‘I was thinking perhaps from the week after next: a sort of weekly feature.’

  ‘And what, may I ask, would be going on inside on a weekly basis?’

  ‘Some kind of war benevolence thing,’ Harriet said, not yet fully understanding her own explanation and trying to clarify: ‘A place for former soldiers to go and have a cup of tea and talk and—’ A terse mocking laugh from Mrs Selmes interrupted this clarification, but Harriet continued regardless, ‘—speak to people…people who might help them or offer them work opportunities or legal advice. And a place where they can go to buy cheap or free clothing or things they might have use for that others—others such as myself—no longer have uses for. Clothes and the like, for instance.’

  Mrs Selmes had visibly softened by the time that Harriet had finished speaking. ‘I see. Well, I shall have to put it to the Parish Council, of course. Although I am the entrusted key-holder, it isn’t actually my decision alone.’

  ‘But you think it a good idea?’ Harriet pushed.

  ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  ‘Marvellous!’ Harriet sang, moving down the garden path.

  ‘And how was your trip to the continent?’ Mrs Selmes called after her. ‘I thought I saw you arrive with a woman and child in tow this morning!’

  Harriet continued walking, turned her head and said, ‘Oh, yes—that’s my daughter-in-law and granddaughter. Good day to you.’

  ‘Pardon?’ Mrs Selmes yapped after her.

  Harriet waltzed back to Linton House with a spring in her step. Suddenly, the clouds of darkness had cleared. Everything made sense, now. She swung her gate wide and marched up the path to the house.

  ‘Harriet! Harriet!’ came a familiar but unwelcome voice, which sliced away the lightness of her mood and the spring of her step. She spun around to see her sister-in-law, Hannah.

  ‘Hannah, how lovely. How have you been?’

  Hannah was red-faced and slightly out-of-breath. Taking quick
furtive glances around her, she whispered, ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Is what true?’ Harriet asked, feigning ignorance.

  ‘That…that you have a woman and a girl living here now? Foreigners?’ she gasped.

  ‘Oh, that. Goodness, news does travel fast. Yes, perfectly true.’

  ‘But… What on earth, Harriet?’

  ‘Well, it’s quite a story, which I don’t have the time to tell the full version of right now, so you will have to make do with a short summary: Malcolm…tied the knot…with a Belgian girl secretly in 1916, and in 1917 she had his baby,’ Harriet said, surprised at the ease with which the lie had rolled from her tongue. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Oh, my godfathers! So—this little girl—she’s foreign?’

  ‘That’s right, yes.’

  ‘But how are you to communicate with her?’

  ‘I shall speak to her in English; children are terribly intuitive, you know, Hannah. She’ll be speaking English in no time at all, mark my words.’

  ‘So, they’re going to be staying here?’ she asked. ‘As in…permanently?’

  ‘That’s right, yes,’ Harriet confirmed. ‘Now, Hannah, you really must excuse me. I need to prepare the supper. Goodbye.’

  Harriet smiled dryly to herself, as she stepped inside the house and closed the door, aware that her sister-in-law was still standing, flabbergasted, at the gate. The news—believed or otherwise about Malcolm and Lina’s knot-tying—would soon be circulating the village with greater vigour than that which she could have paid an advertiser to achieve. She kicked off her shoes, hung up her hat and coat, put Vivaldi’s L’autunno on the gramophone and, once in the kitchen, she made herself a very strong cup of English tea, which she carried into the parlour.

  Placing the tea down on the table, she took stock of the room, realising that there was something unsettling about the place, but quite what that was, she could not put her finger on. Yes, being north-facing it was much cooler and certainly dimmer than the rest of the house; but that wasn’t it. Her eyes settled on the three austere portraits of the boys, before shifting slowly around the room. Still she couldn’t place the problem. Did it need redecorating? Yes, it could do with freshening up, and that could give Timothy something to do, but that still wasn’t the issue. Perhaps, she wondered, it was the parlour’s seldom-used, archaic, formal air, being reserved for high days and holidays alone. Such a Victorian custom no longer seemed aligned with the house’s current occupants. Yes, that might well be it; it needed a new function and purpose, but what that was, she didn’t rightly know. The first step, though, would be to strip away the trappings and shackles of the past. She gathered up the assortment of Malcolm’s letters and postcards, arranging them in a neat pile on the edge of the table. Then, she picked up his washbag, snuff box, brush kit, trench mirror and his returned uniform. Opening out the blood-stained tunic, she had a flash of her visit to see Mrs Leonard. All that she had been told replayed in her mind, and Harriet suddenly knew what she had to do.

  From the hallway came the sound of the front door opening and the clatter and babble of conversation and laughter. ‘Welcome home!’ she greeted, passing them at the front door.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ Fraser asked.

  ‘Post Office to send an urgent telegram,’ she replied.

  As she strode down the path, she heard Fraser murmur, ‘Oh, goodness me, whatever now…’

  Chapter Fifteen

  19th September 1919, Bermondsey, London

  She felt a good deal calmer, this time, as she followed Mrs Leonard’s heavy shuffle through the brown hallway from the front door.

  ‘Didn’t for a moment think you’d be coming back, Mrs Catt,’ Mrs Leonard commented.

  ‘It was all just a little…overwhelming last time,’ Harriet answered, having continued under her grandmother’s name for this appointment, for no good reason. They entered the back room, and just as before, it was dark and lit only by the fragments of light puncturing the holes in the curtains and a single candle placed in the centre of the table.

  ‘Same chap, is it?’ Mrs Leonard asked, in a strangely quiet voice, as though she didn’t want anybody else in the spiritual world to overhear.

  ‘That’s right,’ Harriet confirmed, passing her Malcolm’s khaki tunic.

  ‘Well, sit down, and I’ll see if Kaifa can unearth him, again.’

  Mrs Leonard’s choice of verb unsettled Harriet, chiming in as it did with her considerable qualms concerning spiritualism and communicating with the deceased, widening the chasm of doubt between her recent behaviours and her faith. She had yet to return to church since being back from Belgium, having made what she now realised were a series of excuses to cover her absence; she just needed time to try and reconcile the many conflicts in her mind.

  Mrs Leonard, with her hands clutching at the edges of the tunic, closed her eyes, leant backwards and breathed deeply, her exhalation pushing the candle flicker almost to extinction. Suddenly she jolted and, in the same high-pitched voice as previously, blurted out, ‘He’s here.’

  Harriet fought the urge to speak to him, remembering from the earlier visit that direct communication was not possible, or was prohibited, she wasn’t sure which.

  ‘He said you found the poppy and that you will be very happy because of it.’

  Harriet smiled, as she thought of her little granddaughter, waiting for her back home at Linton House.

  ‘Now he’s happy. But his friends here aren’t happy! Oh, no.’

  ‘Oh,’ Harriet muttered, shifting in her chair at this odd revelation. Quite what Malcolm’s spirit-friends’ happiness had to do with her, she couldn’t for the life of her fathom.

  ‘They’re ravaged with jealousy and he says you can stop it. They’re plaguing him!’

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘And he says to let go of the past… He’s not there anymore. He’s all around you.’ Mrs Leonard slumped forward momentarily, then back upright and said in her normal voice, ‘He’s gone.’

  Harriet had thought that she had been more prepared in her mind for this visit than the last, but actually she was just as confused and just as eager to run from the house as before. Only this time, she didn’t. She knitted her trembling fingers together under the table, trying to compose herself.

  ‘Did any of that make sense, Mrs Catt?’ Mrs Leonard asked.

  ‘Some of it, perhaps; there was certainly little ambiguity in telling me to let go of the past,’ she said. ‘The bit about his friends’ being jealous—what could that possibly have meant?’

  Mrs Leonard shrugged. ‘I’m just a conduit, Mrs Catt; a channel, that means. My place ain’t to question, my place is but to deliver the messages from the other side, you see.’

  ‘Are they always so brief and so cryptic, I wonder?’ Harriet commented.

  ‘Sometimes they talk for hours,’ Mrs Leonard complained. ‘And sometimes they don’t come at all. Ten shillings, please.’

  Setting aside her misgivings about the whole nature of communicating with the dead, Harriet spent most of the train journey back to Battle dissecting the brief information, which she had just been told. The purpose of her visit had ostensibly been to seek Malcolm’s permission to make better use of his clothing and belongings, a consent which, she felt, had loosely been received. But what of his friends’ being unhappy? Mrs Leonard had clearly said his friends here were unhappy, implying that they too were deceased.

  The train jolted to a halt at Battle Station, startling Harriet somewhat. ‘Oh, good Lord!’ she muttered, jumping up from her seat, grabbing the paper packet containing Malcolm’s tunic and stepping down onto the platform.

  She looked up at the station clock: twenty-one minutes after two. If she didn’t dawdle, then there would be just enough time to purchase some new clothes and toys for Poppy, before catching the last charabanc back to Sedlescombe. Perfect.

  Harriet walked along the High Street with a contented stride towards the magnificent Abbey, which dated back to W
illiam the Conqueror’s times. She loved coming into the little market town at any time but today, with the opportunity of buying some things for her granddaughter, she was delighted.

  First, she called in at Robert’s Brothers. ‘Ah, good morning, Mrs McDougall,’ one of the middle-aged brothers greeted her after the tinkling bell above the door fetched him from the back.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Roberts,’ she replied, not having the first clue as to with which of the brothers she was now speaking. They were twins—identical—and, despite several visits over many years, Harriet could still not distinguish the one from the other. It didn’t help matters that they insisted on trying to look identical. Same salt-and-pepper hair, greased from a side-parting. Same moustache, twisted and twiddled to sharp, curled points. Same shirt, tie and trousers.

  ‘What are we looking for today?’ he asked. ‘We’ve a new selection for winter: ladies’ raincoats, twenty-one shillings; fur collar coats, eighty shillings. We’ve some lovely new winter boots—’

  ‘Children’s clothes, actually,’ she interrupted. ‘A small, under-sized fifteen-month-old girl, to be precise.’

  ‘Oh!’ Mr Robert’s said, a raft of questions arising from that single exclamation.

  ‘Yes,’ Harriet said, wandering over to a rack of small outfits. ‘My granddaughter, Poppy.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘These are rather lovely,’ Harriet said, holding up a pretty frock.

  ‘Sale price: four and six,’ Mr Roberts called over.

  Harriet took two of the garments in different colours, then chose two petticoats, two woolly vests, some socks, a poplin dress, a winter coat, some napkins and a pair of dainty boots. ‘This will make a good start,’ she said to Mr Roberts, as she paid for the items.

  ‘I don’t believe you’ve ever mentioned a granddaughter before, Mrs McDougall,’ he said, placing the clothes onto brown paper wrapping and deftly tying the parcel with string.