by Susan Lewis
‘Yes,’ I whisper back.
‘Guess what, everyone’s saying Johnny’s coming tonight.’
I go very still. Johnny the ghost who picks on the youngest.
‘There’s no moon,’ Glenys gabs on, ‘and apparently he always comes then.’
My heart’s starting to beat quite hard now. ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ I say weakly.
‘I hope you’re right,’ she says back, but I don’t think she means it, because she sounded quite excited just now. It’s all right for her, she’s not the one he’ll be coming for.
I’m feeling terrified now, because if there is such a thing as ghosts then my mum might be one, and I don’t want her going around frightening people, especially not me. She did that enough when she was alive, so it would be really mean if she carried on doing it now.
Anyway, if she’s not really dead, she can’t be a ghost. And she’s not mean either, she’s lovely and kind and makes people laugh – when she’s not being cross and ill. She definitely wouldn’t frighten children – unless it was someone like Nina Lowe. Then she would.
It’s so black in the dorm that I can’t even see the opposite beds. I can hear some whispering and moving around along by the door though, then suddenly it crashes open and a great big white thing billows up out of nowhere.
I nearly scream, and dive under the covers. I’m shaking really hard and my heart’s beating so loudly I can’t hear anything else. But then there’s the sound of someone walking, and he’s definitely got a wooden leg, because I can hear the soft squidge of a shoe, followed by the clop of a stick. He’s going ‘woo, woo’ and I’m so frightened I think I’m going to be sick.
Suddenly the piano next to Laura’s bed starts playing. I peek out and nearly scream again when I see that the lid is down and no one’s there, but it’s still playing. And the one-legged man that must be Johnny is still coming down the dorm. He’s really close now, so close that he stumbles into the end of my bed.
‘Are you the youngest one here?’ he asks in a thunderous voice.
I don’t say anything. I just keep myself buried under the sheets.
‘Are you the youngest one here?’ he asks again.
I know I am, but I don’t want to admit it in case of what he might do. I want my mum. She wouldn’t be afraid of ghosts and if she is one she’d know how to make him shrivel up and go back to his grave.
Mummy. Mummy. Mummy.
‘Susan Lewis,’ he booms, ‘are you the youngest one here?’
He knows my name! Who told him? I’m so scared I feel as though my head’s going to burst. I might even wet myself. Please, please God make him go away. I promise I’ll be good and never say anything bad about anyone ever again.
Someone tries to drag back my covers and I start to fight.
‘Ssh, ssh,’ someone whispers, ‘it’s all right. He won’t hurt you. You just have to say yes. That’s all.’
Sadie’s kneeling next to my bed – her face is very close to mine. I’m too afraid to look at the end of my bed so I keep staring at her as I say, ‘Y-ye-es.’
Suddenly the piano starts playing again, all dark, deep notes, and I dive back under the covers. How can the piano play when no one’s there? Why does Johnny have to pick on me just because I’m the youngest? It’s not fair.
I can hear him walking away.
The piano stops.
I stay where I am.
After a long time Glenys says, ‘Are you all right?’
I don’t answer. I want my dad and my mum. I wish we could all be together again the way we used to be. God’s mean and cruel to make me come here. How can I make Him tell Mummy that I’ll go to bed without arguing every night if she’ll come back? I won’t ever cheek her again, or hit Gary or pick the scabs on my legs when I fall down. I’ll be good for the rest of my life. I’ll go to church every Sunday and say my prayers every night. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name … .
Dancing to Top of the Pops is fabsville. Everyone’s grooving to ‘Flowers in the Rain’, which is one of my favourites. It’s Sadie’s too, so I might buy it for her instead of for myself when the sixth-formers go down to the village on Saturday. She was really nice to me the night Johnny and his wooden leg came and frightened the living daylights out of me, so maybe, if I ask to get struck on her, she’ll say yes. I won’t do it yet though, because she might say no.
The Move aren’t actually on the programme tonight, which is a shame, because Sadie’s got a crush on one of them. I can’t remember his name, but I expect I can find it out. We’re all hoping the Bee Gees are going to be on, and the Herd. We reckon Engelbert’s probably still at number one with ‘The Last Waltz’, but we won’t know till the end of the programme.
I love having someone to dance with. It’s the best thing about being here. Mummy used to dance to Top of the Pops before she got ill. Even when she was ill she’d sometimes get up, or click her fingers from a chair and tell me I was doing a good twist. I think she’d like the way I’m dancing now. I wish she could see it.
Peg’s a fab dancer. I wish I could waggle my shoulders back and forth the way she does. I keep my nose in the air, because I don’t want her to know I think she’s good, but I’m watching her out of the corner of my eye, and trying to copy. Laura’s got her own way of dancing which is a bit odd, but that’s her. Sadie and Cheryl are brilliant. I expect Paula Gates is fantastic, but she’s in the sixth-form common room with her friends. They don’t rough it out here in the main hall with us.
Oh, bloody hell, the telly’s gone all fuzzy and flickery, and Procol Harum was about to come on. To be honest I think he’s a bit creepy, so I don’t mind missing him, but lots of the others seem seriously fed up. One of the fourth form is banging the top of the set, and someone else is sitting on the stage with her head in her hands, sobbing out loud. She must be really mad about Procol Harum to get that upset.
Ah ha! The picture’s back again, and as soon as Procol Harum’s finished we carry on doing the hippy hippy shake. Actually that’s an old one, but it’s a good name for a dance and Mum showed me how to do it, so that’s more or less what I’m doing. The Box Tops are on now. This is my very, very favourite, ever. I wish someone would get me a ticket for an aeroplane. I’d love to be the girl who Alex comes running home for. (I think that’s the lead singer’s name. He’s lush.) Everyone would think I was really special then, and no one would make fun of my eyebrows and eyelashes, or my ginger hair or the way I speak. They’d all be really jealous of me, because my boyfriend was the lead singer of a famous pop band.
But what if it was Davy Jones! That would be really really fab.
The Monkees don’t have a new record out, so he’s not on Top of the Pops this week.
I’d probably faint if he was.
We’re all out of breath when we finally go up the stairs to bed. Fussy old Cluttie is on the landing, making sure we haven’t got radios, or food, or anything that might seem like fun. Then we see that she’s chalked a row of RM numbers on the blackboard (big offenders), followed by a notice saying Fluff under bed, and I can’t stop laughing.
Laura wants to know what’s so funny, but I’m splitting my sides so much it’s ages before I can tell her that my brother says fluff instead of blow off, so all the girls who haven’t swept under their beds are now being told to fart under them.
Word soon gets round, and before we know it everyone in all four dormitories is screaming with laughter, and no one can stop. Cluttie doesn’t have a clue what’s going on, so she keeps shouting at us all to shut up and get into bed, or we’ll be sent on the landing.
At first I hope that everyone knows it’s me who made them laugh, because it might make them like me. But then I think of Dad and Gary, and I start to feel guilty about having a nice time when they might be missing me. I know I’m missing them, and I wish I was in my own bed at home now, but if I was no one here would be laughing.
Chapter Four
Eddie
; I’M HAVING A bit of a chuckle to myself, watching our Susan out in the street with her friends, putting on her new, posh voice and making them all wonder what the dickens she’s on about. She’s home on an exeat after two weeks of being locked up in prison, as she likes to put it. I picked her up after church today – lucky the car’s back on the road – and took her to our Nancy’s for a lovely roast dinner. I had to sit her down in the front room first though, to tell her the bad news about Sixpence, and there was a heck of a to-do when she found out the poor little creature had popped its clogs.
‘Why does everyone have to die?’ she shouted as though it was all my fault. ‘It’s not fair. I really loved him and he was mine. I don’t want him to be dead.’
‘I know, I know,’ I said, trying to comfort her. ‘But hamsters don’t live very long and he’s in heaven now, so he’ll be all right. Jesus will take care of him.’ I was in half a mind to add that her mother would too, but we don’t tend to mention Eddress all that often and it’s probably best that way, or we’d only both end up in a sorry state.
I told her how Gary and I had buried Sixpence in a shoebox next to the cabbages and said a prayer for him, and she seemed to cheer up a bit after. By the time our Nance put the dinner on the table she was full of it, making us all say grace in Latin, which befuddled our Nance good and proper and got right on our Gary’s nerves. Stan never says much anyway, so he only grunted when she finished, and got stuck into his roasters, barely even batting an eye when a fight suddenly erupted across the table between his nephew and niece. Fists flying, tempers raging and old Stan helps himself to more greens boiled with bicarb, while Nance gamely helps to try and bring things under control. And all over the way to say grace.
Watching our Susan now, skipping in the middle of a rope being turned by two of her friends, I start my usual wondering whether Eddress can see her too. And if she can, is she feeling as proud of her as I do, and as happy to see her home? Or is she worrying about what it’s going to be like at five o’clock when it’s time to take her back to school?
‘Dad! Dad! Can I go over the bluebell field with Rodney and Stuart?’
I can’t see Gary yet, but I can hear his feet thundering past the kitchen window, and an instant later he charges in through the door, all demerara freckles and bright blue eyes – plus the beginnings of a bruise where our Susan clocked him one earlier. All forgotten now, tears wiped away, cuddles and a kiss to make it better, and a grudging apology from his sister with a warning that he was going to grow up to be stupid and common if he didn’t learn to speak Latin. ‘Here’s some Latin for you,’ he’d said, and treated her to a great big raspberry.
‘We’re going to collect caterpillars and ladybirds and see if we can catch some mice,’ he tells me, in his best budding zookeeper voice.
‘All right,’ I say, ‘but don’t be gone long, and remember to look both ways before you cross the road.’
‘I will,’ he promises, and off he zooms, yelling to his friends that he can come.
I watch them take off up the street, three important little souls on a vital mission, in much the same way as me and our Bob used to go off with our mates when we were seven and eight, down Abertridw. The games we played, and the fights we got into, was nobody’s business – and the way our dear mam used to cluck and tut when we came back with split lips and sleeves torn off. I wonder what she’d make of our Susan and Gary. She’d love them to bits, of course, because she was like that with kids. She’d be just the same with our Julie and Karen. It must be breaking her heart to see her little granddaughters trying to get on without their dad. I can just imagine Eddress giving our Bob a piece of her mind when she saw him up there, about going off so suddenly the way he did. I wonder what it’s like where they are, what kind of form they take, if they really can see what we’re doing back here.
Noticing our Susan waving at me, I start to wave back until I realise she’s telling me to go away and stop watching her. Obediently, I take myself off into the dining room where I put some more coal on the fire and sit down in one of the brown leather chairs with my notebook and pen. It’s not all that cold today, but if I don’t keep the fire going we won’t have any hot water for Gary’s bath tonight. I’ll boil up a drop of water in the kettle for me to have a shave and quick lick and promise before taking Susan back to school. I’ll leave Gary at his gran’s, where we’re going for a spot of tea. She’ll be looking forward to seeing our Susan, because I know she worries about her, especially since Susan wrote her a letter saying how unhappy she is at Red Maids.
‘Please Gran will you tell Daddy to let me come home. You’re older than him so he has to do what you say, and I really hate it here. Everyone thinks I’m ugly and common and the lessons are really hard. The teachers are dead strict and creepy and none of them like me.’
I can still see the concern in Florrie’s eyes when she handed me the letter to read. She’s not at all sure how to deal with this, because, like the rest of us, she’s keen for Susan to have a good education, and to be properly taken care of, but she doesn’t want her to be unhappy along the way. It’s a pity Florrie hadn’t been there to see her after church today, surrounded by other girls and looking very much as though she was finding a place at the centre of things.
‘Yeah, well, some of the girls are all right,’ she grudgingly admitted when we were on the way home, ‘like Laura and Cheryl, and Sadie – and a couple more girls in my year, oh, and a few others too, but mostly everyone is vile and I hate them all.’
Picking up my pen I start to write. Often it doesn’t matter what words I use, or even what I’m trying to say, the simple act of writing is as soothing to me as a hot bath on a wintry day. It’s like a flow of yarn unravelling from all the knots inside me, spilling on to the page in random, occasionally gentle verse, or even in ordered, strident prose. I document thoughts, feelings, actions, observations, spreading them over page after page, until all the tension inside me has melted away.
By the time I look up again the world seems different, or dislodged, or the same but with a new sort of hue. I wonder where I’ve been and what’s been happening while I was away. How long has Gary been gone? Is Susan still outside playing?
Ah, here she is by the sound of it.
‘Dad! Where are you?’
‘In here.’
The door bangs the back of my chair as she comes into the room.
‘What are you doing?’ she asks.
‘Just sitting here quietly,’ I tell her. ‘Has everyone gone in?’
‘Most of them, yes.’ She flumps down on the opposite chair and stares moodily into the fire. ‘I’m not stuck-up, am I?’ she growls. ‘It gets right on my nerves when they keep saying that, just because I talk posher than them.’
‘I think you’re starting to speak very nicely,’ I tell her, in spite of how comical her efforts are. What’s important is that she’s trying, though a new worry starts up inside me, that I could be turning her into someone who won’t fit in at home or at school.
Her eyes flash. ‘You think everything I do is nice,’ she snaps, ‘so it doesn’t count.’
I give one of my sage, fatherly nods, and feel a bit like my own dad who we won’t be going to see today, because there isn’t time. Next exeat, we’ll make a point of going over there. I’ll give Beattie, his wife, a bit of warning, so she can try to sober the old man up before we arrive. On second thoughts, he’s usually much jollier in his cups than when hung-over. ‘We’ve got about an hour before we’re due up Gran’s,’ I say, ‘so what would you like to do?’
She shrugs, impatiently. ‘Nothing. Everything’s boring. Are we going over Auntie Doreen’s today?’ Doreen’s my other sister who we don’t see quite so often as Nance because she and her husband Alf live over Wick, which is about five miles away, and in the opposite direction to Bristol, so we’re never passing. We make special journeys out there from time to time though, and we always see them at Christmas and on birthdays. My two are very fond of Doreen a
nd Alf’s children, young Doreen and Robert, who are eighteen and sixteen and tend to make a bit of a fuss of Susan and Gary.
‘No,’ I answer. ‘Remember, I told you, they’ve gone down the Forest of Dean to see Uncle Alf’s relatives today. Auntie Doreen’s hoping to come to church with me next Sunday though.’
Unfortunately her scowl doesn’t disappear, and I suspect this is because the person she’d really like to see is her cousin Robert. She’s always had a bit of a crush on him, and he’s very good with her, going for walks and playing chess or dominoes with her, and I believe he’s promised her a ride on his motorbike one of these days. We’ll have to see about that.
‘I think we should go to live in the front room,’ she suddenly announces.’ It’s boring in here, and stupid that we don’t ever go in there.’
Catching a sense of her despair, I say, carefully, ‘That’s your mother’s best room.’
Her face looks pinched all of a sudden, and I tense, certain she’s going to explode in a rage, or maybe into tears, but then the moment seems to pass and a new, but awkward, silence falls over the room. It happens like this whenever we mention Eddress, which is probably why it’s best that we don’t.
As I watch her, I’m anxious about what she’s thinking, and wondering if she feels the same sense of incompleteness that I do. Is that why she wants us to move rooms? She knows the front room is her mother’s, but so is this one, and they are each as empty as the other, whether we’re in them or not. Time ticks on as though we’re waiting for someone to join us, and my heart grows heavier knowing that the one person we want to see won’t ever come.
‘I know,’ she says, her eyes surprisingly bright as she looks at me, ‘why don’t you tell me a story?’
Pleased with the suggestion, I reply, ‘Good idea. What shall it be?’
‘I don’t know. Ummm.’ After some time her mind has obviously wandered elsewhere, as she asks, ‘Dad, do you think my eyebrows and eyelashes will always be white? Will they ever turn black, like everyone else’s?’