Jessica's Ghost

by Andrew Norriss

  Andi thought days spent doing things out of doors were sheer heaven, and Roland was usually the one who kept her company. Why someone so bulky should be prepared to climb rocks or cycle for miles when he was clearly designed to spend most of his day sitting in front of a computer was a mystery, but that was what he did. When Andi suggested another swim, Roland would stand up and get his towel. If she suggested a bike ride or a bit of rock climbing, he was out there, strapping on his safety gear. If she wanted to climb a tree, play a few sets of tennis, or do a circuit of the assault course, Roland was right behind her. He might look as if the effort was killing him, but he was always there.

  It puzzled Francis. ‘Why does he do it?’ he asked Jessica one day as they watched Roland and Andi battling it out on the badminton court. ‘I mean, he can’t enjoy it, can he?’

  ‘It’s because he likes her.’ Jessica was standing behind him, massaging his shoulders.

  ‘I know he likes her,’ said Francis, relaxing in the warmth that spread through the muscles of his back, ‘we all do, but—’

  ‘No,’ Jessica interrupted. ‘I don’t mean that way. I mean … he likes her.’

  Francis was quite taken aback. Andi? Roland liked Andi? He stared at the two of them out on the court.

  Roland, despite his size, was able to give his opponent a good run for her money in a badminton game. He was big, but he was surprisingly nimble and had a knack of flicking the shuttle to just the point where it would drop out of Andi’s reach. As Francis watched, he won the game and Andi threw down her racket in disgust, ran over to Roland, pushed him to the ground and started pummelling his chest. She was hitting him quite hard but Roland didn’t seem to mind. For all his protests, it looked as if he was having a thoroughly good time.

  ‘Does she know? That he likes her?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’ Jessica smiled.

  ‘And she doesn’t mind?’

  ‘I think …’ Jessica put her head on one side ‘… that someone liking her like that is something she’s never had before, and she’s rather enjoying it.’

  It explained a lot, thought Francis. It explained why Roland always did whatever Andi suggested. Why he followed her around like some huge devoted spaniel. Why he was always asking what she wanted to do. Thinking about it, it also explained why he turned down so many biscuits and snacks these days, like he was on some sort of diet.

  Once it was pointed out, Francis wondered why he hadn’t seen it before. Roland did indeed like Andi. He would have walked through fire for her and, in a way that was what she asked him to do.

  Because it was Andi who told Roland he should go back to school.

  ‘Why would I want to go back to school?’ Roland was plainly puzzled when it was first suggested. ‘I hated it there.’

  ‘I’m not saying you should go back to St Saviour’s,’ said Andi. ‘I’m saying you should come to school with us. At John Felton. Then we can all be together during the day, not just in the evenings.’ She threaded an arm through his. ‘You could join the badminton club. We could help each other in lessons. I think we’d have a really good time.’

  The words ‘good time’ and ‘school’ did not fit in the same space in Roland’s head, but this was Andi asking him. The thought of being with her all day through the summer term was the strongest possible temptation. Even so, he wasn’t sure.

  He was still uncertain on the last Saturday of the holidays, when the four of them were out shopping. They were in Dummer’s department store, and Andi was in the changing room with Jessica, trying on clothes, while the two boys waited outside.

  ‘The thing is,’ Roland was saying, ‘I can’t see it would be any different at your school than it was at mine. I’m still the same shape. People would still be laughing at me and saying things behind my back …’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Francis.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Two reasons.’ Francis ticked them off on his fingers. ‘One is that we’ve got this new Head who makes a real fuss if people do things like that. And the second is that everyone’ll know if they said anything rude to you, Andi would beat them to a pulp. She can be quite scary, you know.’

  ‘I’m not sure I want Andi to beat up anyone for me.’ Roland sat gloomily on a bench, his chin in his hands. ‘It’s nice to know she would if I asked, but …’

  ‘You wouldn’t have to ask,’ said Francis. ‘I’ve never asked her to lay a finger on anyone. But I promise you, as soon as people know you’re a friend of hers, no one will dare say anything. That’s all it takes.’

  Roland looked doubtful, but at that moment the curtain of the changing room swept back and Andi appeared. She was wearing a tiny micro skirt and an even tinier sparkly boob tube. Jessica was wearing the same.

  ‘Ta-dah!’ The two of them flung out their arms, took up a pose, and grinned at the two boys.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Andi.

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be trying on the trousers,’ said Francis.

  Roland said nothing. He simply stared, but inside, that was the moment he made his decision. He would go back to school. Whatever happened, if it meant he could spend more time with Andi, it would be worth it.

  Francis was given the job of explaining things to Roland’s mother. He was a little concerned that, after all the time and money she had invested in home schooling, Mrs Boyle might not be overjoyed at the news that her son had decided, after all, to go back to school.

  He could not have been more wrong. Her instant reaction to the news was a great cry of delight and a long, rather embarrassing hug. Her Roland was going back to school! She could scarcely believe it! He would go off in the morning with his friends like a normal boy and come home, happy, at the end of it. It was how she had always dreamed it should be.

  How Francis had done it, she had no idea, but she suspected he had planned the whole thing this way from the start. He had deliberately let Roland relax for a couple of months, let him regain his confidence by some time at home, and now he was bringing him back into school. The skill with which he had managed it all left her awestruck.

  ‘You’re sure he’s ready for it, are you?’ she asked, as they sat at the kitchen table. ‘You don’t think anything will … happen?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Francis. ‘But if it does, he’s got Andi and me to help sort it out.’

  ‘Of course he has.’ Mrs Boyle reached across the table and patted his hand. ‘And Ronnie and I are so grateful to you. I’ll ring your Mrs Parsons tomorrow and arrange an interview.’

  ‘Great.’ Francis stood up. ‘I’ll go and tell Roland.’

  ‘I was going to ask your advice about one other thing,’ said Mrs Boyle, ‘if you had the time?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Francis sat down again.

  ‘Doing all this with Rollo …’ Mrs Boyle gestured to the text books that littered the table, ‘I found the work wasn’t quite as difficult as I’d expected, and it occurred to me I might carry on, and maybe even take one or two exams.’ Absent-mindedly, she took a strip of paper and began twisting it round her fingers. ‘Do you think that sounds silly?’

  Francis wasn’t sure what to say.

  ‘You want to take some exams?’

  ‘I know I’m probably too old, and I’m not as clever as all of you …’

  ‘She’s brighter than most of the people at John Felton,’ said Jessica, ‘and she works really hard. Tell her to go for it.’

  ‘I think you’re cleverer than most of the people I know at school,’ said Francis, ‘and you work really hard. I think you should go for it.’

  Mrs Boyle blushed, then a great smile spread across her face. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

  24

  Roland’s mother went to see Mrs Parsons the next Monday and she agreed that Roland could join the school. There was a slight delay while they waited for his uniform to arrive but, by the third week of the summer term, he was ready to go and, once he started, it
was all easier than he could have imagined.

  Francis was right. Nobody commented on his size. When he came into a classroom, nobody said anything. Most people didn’t even look at him. They glanced up when he arrived and then got on with their work or whatever they were doing. The teachers seemed to know who he was and to be expecting him, so there were no long embarrassing introductions to make. They told him where to go, let him sit down, and got on with the class.

  Roland even enjoyed the lessons. Being with his friends was a lot more fun than sitting at home in the kitchen with his mother. It was good to sit beside Andi and Francis, watching Jessica float up and down through the floor, and it was very good to stroll out with them at break and sit on the bench on the far side of the playing field in the sun.

  Mrs Parsons had arranged for Roland to be in the same class as Andi and Francis for most of his lessons, but in one subject this had not been possible. Roland did Spanish as his foreign language – his parents had a house in Andorra – while Francis and Andi did French, and it was this that led to an unfortunate incident on his first day.

  The lesson itself was no problem. Jessica had gone with Roland to make sure he knew where to go and to keep him company, and the work was, if anything, a little easier than he remembered from St Saviour’s. But at lunchtime, as Jessica was showing him the way back to the bench where they had all arranged to meet for lunch, someone shouted at Roland to wait.

  Roland stopped and turned round, as a boy came over and stared at him.

  ‘You are enormous,’ he said. ‘I mean we’ve got some fat people here but you are … huge!’

  ‘Walk away,’ said Jessica. ‘Come on, walk away!’

  But Roland did not walk away. He stood there, staring at the ground as the boy reached out and lifted his jacket.

  ‘Look at that!’ said the boy. ‘You’ve got rolls of you pouring over the top of your trousers!’

  Jessica opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind and disappeared. An instant later, she was standing by Francis on the bench by the playing field.

  ‘Where’s Andi?’ she asked.

  ‘Gone to the loo, I think.’ Francis looked up. ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s Roland. Dermot’s poking fun at him. Over there.’

  She pointed across the field to where Dermot was quite literally poking Roland quizzically in the stomach.

  ‘It feels a bit like a water balloon, doesn’t it?’ he was saying. ‘I mean you can actually lift it right up and then …’

  ‘Stop that!’ Francis was racing across the field towards him, shouting at the top of his voice. ‘Leave him alone!’

  Dermot looked round in surprise.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Francis was panting as he ran up to stand by Roland. ‘Leave him alone!’

  ‘I’m not doing anything!’ Dermot let go of Roland’s blazer. ‘I’m just looking.’

  ‘You’re making fun of him,’ said Francis, ‘and you’ve no right!’

  ‘Why don’t you mind your own business!’ said Dermot. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘It is to do with me,’ said Francis angrily. ‘He’s my friend and even if he wasn’t my friend it’d still be my business.’

  At that moment Mr Anderson, one of the PE teachers, appeared.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  ‘Dermot was laughing at Roland for being fat,’ said Francis.

  ‘No, I wasn’t!’ said Dermot. ‘I wasn’t laughing. I never laughed.’

  ‘He told Roland he was enormous,’ said Jessica, ‘and he said we’ve got some fat people here, but you’re huge.’

  ‘He told Roland he was enormous,’ said Francis. ‘And he said we’ve got some fat people here, but you’re huge.’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Mr Anderson gave Dermot a look of exasperation. ‘Don’t you ever listen? Didn’t you hear what Mrs Parsons said in assembly?’

  ‘What assembly?’ said Dermot. ‘I’ve been away.’

  ‘Right …’ Mr Anderson took a deep breath. ‘Go and stand over there and wait.’ He turned back to Roland. ‘I’m sorry you had to put up with that on your first day. Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Roland. ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘I shall go and explain some of the rules of good manners to Master Dermot,’ said Mr Anderson, ‘and I promise he will not trouble you again. Now, if you want to make a formal complaint …’

  ‘No, no,’ said Roland. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘OK …’ Mr Anderson nodded. ‘Well, if you change your mind let me know.’ And he walked across to Dermot.

  Andi was waiting for them by the bench on the playing field.

  ‘Jessica’s told me what happened,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be having a word with that little worm and …’

  ‘No,’ said Roland. ‘Please, don’t. You’ll only get into trouble and …’

  ‘I don’t care about that,’ said Andi. ‘He’s not getting away with it …’

  ‘No, please! Really!’ Roland insisted. ‘I’d rather you didn’t do anything. It didn’t matter. It really … didn’t matter.’

  And it was only when he said the words, that he realised they were true. It didn’t matter! Someone had come up and told him he was fat and … it just wasn’t important. A few months before, an incident like that would have left him crying in the toilets until it was time to go home, but now … now all he could think about was why on earth he hadn’t told Dermot to push off, or simply walked away.

  The thing he had most feared would happen, had happened but, for some reason, it had been OK. Perhaps it was because there were people around him who said it was not OK, perhaps that was what made the difference. Or maybe it was simply the realisation that someone telling him he was fat wasn’t that important. It didn’t mean anything. And if the same thing happened tomorrow, it wouldn’t mean anything then, either.

  ‘You’re sure you’re OK?’ asked Francis.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Roland.

  He took a deep breath and grinned.

  ‘Really, I’m fine!’

  25

  After a day with her friends, Jessica would return, as she did every evening, to the room at the hospital where she had first discovered she was dead. The time she returned might vary a little from day to day, but it was usually somewhere between eight and nine o’clock. She still had no idea why she went back there, but the need to do so had the same sort of compulsion that makes some people keep washing their hands or avoid treading on cracks in the pavement.

  Francis was the first to notice that the time at which she went back seemed to be getting earlier. As the summer term progressed, he noted that she was usually gone before eight, and that sometimes it was closer to seven.

  Jessica tried, when this was pointed out to her, to make herself stay a bit longer, but whatever the force was that drove her to return to the room on the third floor, it was quite impossible to resist. When she had to go, she had to go.

  She asked Roland if he knew of any reason why all this might be happening, but he said he didn’t. Nor, when he enquired, did his friend in Australia.

  ‘She said you’ll just have to hope it doesn’t get any worse,’ he reported, ‘and that you don’t find you’re stuck at the hospital all day as well as all night!’

  It was an alarming thought.

  ‘I’m quite sure that’s never going to happen,’ said Francis firmly. ‘We’re only talking about an hour or so, aren’t we? I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about.’

  It might only be an hour or so, but Jessica did worry. Quite apart from the prospect of it getting worse, there were already occasions when it could be inconvenient. At the weekend, if they were watching a movie or Andi’s mother was taking them out for a meal, she could suddenly find that everyone around her had disappeared and she was back at the hospital. It would happen without warning and was oddly disconcerting.

  And of course it meant she missed out completely on thing
s like Mrs Boyle’s trip to the theatre.

  Roland’s mother had organised the theatre trip to celebrate her son’s successful return to school. She had bought tickets for a revival of the Rocky Horror Show down in Southampton. She had heard it had some wonderfully off-beat costumes that she thought Francis would enjoy, and he was indeed looking forward to it, but he was disappointed when, shortly before leaving, Jessica announced that she would not be coming.

  ‘No?’ Francis looked up from the seam of the shift dress he was tacking. ‘Why? Is something wrong?’

  ‘Not really, no, it’s just … I have to get back to the hospital,’ said Jessica. ‘Now.’

  ‘Oh.’ Francis had known that Jessica would not be able to see all the show, but she had been planning to see at least the first half. Glancing at the clock, he saw it was barely six o’clock. She had never had to leave this early before.

  ‘OK.’ He did his best to look unconcerned. ‘Well, I’ll see you tomorrow. Tell you all about it then.’

  ‘Yes …’ Jessica opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could speak, Francis’s mother called up the stairs to say that the car had arrived and Mrs Boyle and the others were waiting.

  Francis went to the top of the stairs to tell her he was on his way, but by the time he turned back to hear whatever it was Jessica wanted to say …

  … she had gone.

  Several hours later at the hospital, Jessica wondered for the umpteenth time what could possibly be making her return there with such regularity and such insistence. It wasn’t as if she did anything when she got there. Except stand and look out the window at the multi-storey car park on the other side of the road. She didn’t mind being there exactly – it was a little tedious perhaps, but you got used to it – she just wondered what could possibly be the point?