Ghost

by Helen Grant

  Dr. Robertson fell silent for a moment, thinking about this, before he went on. “Well,” he said at last, “I suppose it would have been around seventeen or eighteen years ago when I got a knock on the door one night. It was around this time of year but it was already pitch dark, so it must have been late in the evening. Shelagh had gone to her sister’s for a few days so I was on my own, which was just as well, all things considered. I was used to being called out at all hours of the day or night, being a GP, though normally it was a telephone call, not someone on your doorstep.

  “Anyway, I opened the door and there was Rose. I knew her the moment I laid eyes on her. Sixty if she was a day, and still beautiful.

  “‘George,’ she said, ‘Thank God, thank God. It’s me, Rose McAndrew. You remember me, don’t you?’

  “I started telling her of course I did, but she cut me off. She said, ‘Is it true you’re a doctor?’ and she clung onto my arm when she was asking it, as though she was begging me to say yes.

  “‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m a GP,’ and the next thing I knew she was just about pulling me off my own doorstep.

  “‘You must come with me,’ she said, ‘It’s an emergency.’

  “‘I’m in my dressing-gown, Rose,’ I said, as she didn’t seem to have noticed. ‘I’ll need a couple of minutes. And what kind of emergency is it? You might be better calling for an ambulance.’ I was having visions, you see, of a car accident along the road or some such thing. For a second she said nothing, as though I’d put her on the spot, and then she said, ‘It’s a young woman. She’s pregnant.’

  “Now of course, I did see expectant mothers in the practice, but mostly just for taking their blood pressure and telling them to take vitamins. This looked like something more serious, the way Rose was carrying on, so I started trying to ask her more questions, and all the while I was going over in my head which things I’d have to take with me.

  “Rose wasn’t having any of it. She started talking really wildly, saying I was the only person who could come and if I didn’t then the consequences would be on my conscience.

  “I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else in the world. The sensible thing would have been to carry on talking to her, to try to get more information about what had happened, and then make a decision based on that. If she’d told me all the facts I might have gone with her anyway, but I’d certainly have called an ambulance. But...”

  The old man looked up, spreading out his gnarled old hands as though to say, what could I do?

  “It was Rose,” he said. “I couldn’t say no to her. I told her to come and wait inside where it was warm, while I went to dress myself properly and get my things together. She stepped into the house and stood there shivering. She hadn’t even put a coat on. I pushed her towards this room and told her to warm herself in front of the fire until I was ready.

  “I couldn’t have been gone five minutes but when I came back she nearly dragged me out of the door – she was that desperate to be gone. She had a wee car parked outside the house – not that big black vintage thing she took to driving later, just some ordinary thing, a Fiesta or something. She said she’d drive and I could follow. She had a way with her, Rose did. If she told you to do something, you did it.”

  I smiled a little at that, in spite of myself. It was perfectly true.

  “So I followed her,” continued Dr. Robertson, “and she drove like a lunatic all the way up to Langlands House. I did my best to keep up, but it wasn’t easy, with the car bouncing all over the ruts in the track. You could tell the road was hardly ever used. If it’d been later in the year and the plants had grown up higher we might not have got through. There was a tree trunk halfway up that had come down across the track and someone had pushed it out of the way, but not managed the job properly, so there was only just room to get past it. I had to slow right down as it was, and then I thought the car would never get up the slope. And by that time the lights from Rose’s car were vanishing in the distance.

  “And I was puzzled all the while, because so far as I knew, Langlands House had been shut up for years. Rose’s relatives who owned it had died, I believe, and I suppose whoever inherited it, if anyone did, thought it was too much trouble and expense to modernise.

  “When we got to the house, it was completely dark from the outside. Rose had a torch though, and once we were inside I could see a faint light coming from upstairs. If I was feeling puzzled before, now I started to feel anxious. The place smelled of dust and decay and you could see there were no electric lights; I guessed there wasn’t any proper running water either, and that turned out to be right. It had to be pumped in the kitchen. If Rose’s story about a pregnant woman was true, it was going to be hard to do much for her in all this mess. But I was starting to think that maybe there wasn’t any pregnant woman at all. Maybe Rose was having some kind of delusion. I wasn’t that kind of doctor–” The old man tapped his forehead, “– but I thought that was possible.

  “And then I heard something, a sound from upstairs that I recognised at once. There’s no mistaking it, the cry of a newborn.

  Rose heard it too, and she just ran up the stairs. I couldn’t keep up with her. I followed her into one of the bedrooms, and, well...”

  He looked at me, raising his bushy eyebrows. “So we’ve met before, lassie, though you won’t remember it.” He sighed. “Your mother, poor soul, had done it all by herself while Rose was out fetching me. It was lucky for both of you that it was all straightforward. I checked you over, and her too, and then I begged the two women to go with you to the hospital. I couldn’t begin to imagine why they thought Langlands was a suitable place to give birth, and if either mother or baby had taken sick afterwards – well, they’d have needed more than a country GP.”

  The old man shook his head. “They wouldn’t hear a word of it. I tried to reason with them for a while but I could see your mother was getting distressed so I did what I could to make her comfortable, and then I took Rose away downstairs and had it out with her.

  “I told her there could be a question of child protection – Langlands was practically derelict, it wasn’t the place for a newborn baby. I could be in hot water myself if I didn’t report my concerns to the proper authorities. I hadn’t made my mind up to do that, not yet, but I wanted to shake her up a bit, get her to tell me exactly what was going on. Otherwise I could see her packing me off again without a word of explanation. She could be high-handed, Rose.”

  “What did she say?” I burst out, leaning forward. That was what I really wanted to know, after all: how Grandmother could possibly have explained herself.

  Dr. Robertson shook his head resignedly. “The baby’s mother was Rose’s daughter. You’ll have guessed that already. All three of them were hiding, and now you’re going to ask me who from, and I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. It was your father they were hiding from.

  “Rose told me a sorry tale, and you don’t need to hear every single detail of it. Your mother was a lot younger than he was, and I don’t think she knew what she was getting into when she married him, or perhaps she was already under the thumb, I can’t say. He knocked her about and I don’t know what else, and for a long time she was too beaten down to think of leaving. Rose was frantic, and desperate enough to stand up to him, but he wouldn’t let her anywhere near your mother. He cut her off from all her family and friends.

  “Then your mother became pregnant, with you. She knew that if she stayed with your father, either he’d beat her again and maybe she’d lose the baby, or else the baby would be born and maybe he’d abuse it too. She found the strength to do for you what she couldn’t do for herself, and ran away.

  “She left with nothing but the clothes she stood up in. It was no use packing or anything, he’d have smelled a rat. She went straight to Rose. Your grandfather, Angus, had passed away by then, so it was just her and Rose. Rose knew your father would follow. He’d never
let your mother go like that. In his eyes, she was his property. He’d probably have preferred to kill her than let her walk away.”

  The old doctor’s face twisted in disgust. “I’ve seen it before. Patched it up a few times, too, even in a ‘nice’ town like ours. But your father was more dangerous than most, because he had resources – money, contacts. He’s a very rich man.”

  He shook his head. “What was Rose to do? If she’d stayed where she was, down in England, it wouldn’t have been long before your father caught up with them. She was determined that wouldn’t happen. Oh, she knew there was a risk your mother would cave in and go back to him. I’ve seen that before, too: women so beaten down they don’t have the will to escape any more. But Rose was tough, you know, tough enough for both of them. She packed up what she could, including all the valuables she could lay hands on, and drove all through the night to Langlands.”

  I listened to Dr. Robertson speaking and pressed my hands over my stomach, afraid that the nausea roiling up inside me would tip over into actually throwing up. Every time I thought I was on solid ground, it seemed that things turned upside down and became worse than before. I was wrong about everything, I thought, sickly. Grandmother really was trying to protect me and my mother. And the great love story I imagined between my mother and my father was a lie. I thought perhaps they went away together, that perhaps they loved each other so very much that there wasn’t room for me, but now–

  It had been melancholy to grow up without my mother; it had been bittersweet to imagine her abandoning me for love. It was appalling to think of her leaving me to step back into the embrace of a monster.

  “Don’t cry, lassie,” said the old doctor brusquely. There was nothing warm in his tone, but somehow the lack of sympathy braced me up. “Do you want to hear the rest of it?” he asked. “Because if you come knocking again, I’ll not let you in, and if anyone else comes asking, I’ll say I know nothing about it, you know.”

  And I nodded, looking him straight in the eyes, and said, “Yes, I want to know all of it. Everything you know. Tell me why she came to Langlands. Why did it have to be there? And why then – the Wartime, I mean?”

  “Well, I didn’t know she’d told you that about the War until just now, so I can’t tell you exactly what was on her mind, but I can guess. Rose did spend the War years at Langlands, you know. The house had been inhabited up to that point; it wasn’t derelict like it was later. She had relatives living there, and when the bombing started in the cities, her family took her to Langlands for safety. When I first knew her, when we were both young, she used to talk about it as a wonderful time. Her parents were very strict; their own parents were Victorians, after all. They had a lot of ideas about manners and upbringing and so on. Rose had more freedom there than she’d ever had before, running around in the grounds all day long. I remember her telling me once that even though it was Wartime, she’d never felt so happy or safe as she did then.” The old man raised his eyebrows, looking at me down his nose. “So there’s your answer. She wanted the same for you as she’d had for herself. Safety and happiness. Maybe she wished it really was still 1945, before everything went wrong.”

  “But what about my mother?” I said, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. I knew I was on borrowed time with the old man; I had to know everything he could tell me. “Why didn’t she stay at Langlands too? Did she go back to my father in the end? And why didn’t she take me with her?”

  “I can’t tell you that, because I don’t know. I saw Rose now and again in the town – not often, mind you, but I knew that she must still be staying at Langlands. She never came to me for doctoring. I suppose she thought least said, soonest mended. I never saw hide nor hair of you or your mother after that night she called me out.

  “I spoke to her a few months after that night, one day in the street. I asked after the new mother and baby, and she said you’d both gone somewhere safe. I said that was just as well, because Langlands was no place for a baby, considering the state it was in then, and she looked me in the eye and said I could come up there and see for myself whether there was anyone staying up there but her, if I liked. After that, I couldn’t go without calling her a liar, so of course I didn’t.

  “All the same, I wondered about the pair of you. The last time I spoke to Rose was a few years back, maybe five years now. I asked after you and your mother again. She said your mother lived abroad now, and you were away at boarding school. I tried to say something about that night at Langlands, but she cut me off. She said the past was better left buried, and that was that.”

  You’ve come home from school to take over your inheritance, he’d said, when he first heard who I really was. I supposed the old man had believed what Grandmother had said.

  I wondered what else I could ask him. Already he was stirring in his chair, gripping the arms with his gnarled hands as he prepared to stand up. If you come knocking again, I’ll not let you in, he’d told me. This was my last chance.

  I had to stand up myself, seeing that he was about to show me the door, but as I did so I thought of something.

  “What was my father’s surname?” I blurted out. “Can you tell me that?”

  Dr. Robertson was on his feet now, and in spite of his age, everything about his posture showed an urgency to get me out of the house. “No,” he said curtly, but even as my heart sank with disappointment, he added, “But I can write it down for you.”

  Without further explanation he stumped out of the room. I followed him into the hallway. There was a small table and on it an instrument that I recognised from photographs as a telephone. Beside it was a small notepad and a pen. After a moment’s thought, Dr. Robertson wrote something, tore off the sheet and handed it to me.

  I read what he had written and saw why he had said he couldn’t tell me what the name was; I had no idea how to pronounce it. I opened my mouth to ask how he knew to spell it but he already had his back to me, making for the front door. The interview was over.

  He waited for me, his hand on the door latch, and when I was near him, he leaned towards me, so close that I could smell the sweetish rot of his breath.

  “I’ve told you all this for Rose’s sake,” he said. “But don’t come back here, ever. And if you tell anyone else what I said, and they come knocking, I’ll deny all of it. Understand?”

  “Yes,” I said. I realised that he was trying to be intimidating, and also that I was not afraid of him. I had lost the self-consciousness I had felt being confronted with a new face. When I looked back at him, I did not feel fear or anxiety or even surprise. I felt dislike. He could have helped Grandmother more than he did, knowing what he had. He could have asked more questions. Perhaps – just perhaps – things might have ended differently.

  The old man opened the door, and as it swung back, I saw Tom silhouetted on the other side of it, his hand raised as if to knock.

  He looked past Dr. Robertson, to me, and said, “Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I said, stepping past the old man. I stood beside Tom, and both of us looked at him, framed in the doorway. He stared back at us, scowling, and I could see that he recognised Tom. For a moment I thought he was going to say something; his lips worked soundlessly, as though trying to frame words. But then he stepped back and closed the door so smartly that he almost slammed it. I heard the rattle as he attached the chain on the other side, and then the sound of a bolt being shot across.

  Tom looked down at me. “I was starting to wonder if he’d done something to you.” His tone was light, but his expression was sombre.

  I turned my back on the house. “I’m not too sure he didn’t,” I said slowly, as I moved towards the gate. “If he’d really cared as much about Grandmother as he said he did, he might have changed everything.”

  When we got to the gateway, I glanced back at the house, but there was no sign of life. After that I didn’t look back again.

&
nbsp; The journey back to Langlands was a blur. I stared out of the car window without really seeing anything; to this day I could not tell you whether it was raining or there was dazzling sunshine. I told Tom all the details of what the old man had said, and the things he hadn’t been able to tell me, too. But pressing in on me all the time were thoughts of Grandmother and how I’d wronged her.

  I should have seen that she would not have done what she did simply to be cruel. After all, she had had to live the same life as I did, cut off from the world, without all the machines that made modern life so much more convenient. Perhaps it was harder for her, since she must have been used to those things beforehand.

  I remembered the things she had said to me, the hints she had dropped in the last few months.

  I want you to remember, whatever happens in the future, however things may seem, that I have always, always, had your best interests at heart.

  She had said that to me, and later she had said: There are certain truths that will be easier for you to cope with once you have become an adult.

  She had asked me to kiss her after she had said that, as though she foresaw my anger and bitterness when I knew the truth. It seemed a strangely vulnerable thing to have done. Grandmother had always been so strong; sometimes actually fierce, always dependable. Now I saw her as anxious and doubting, afraid of how I would react to what she would inevitably have to tell me, and going back over the past with feverish intensity, asking herself whether there had ever been a time she could have dared to let the pretence drop. If she had told me the truth when I was seven years old, or ten, or thirteen, would I have been content to stay at Langlands all the time, studying Greek and feeding the chickens? Or would I have given her the slip at every opportunity, and run down to the edge of the estate, where the gateway at the edge of the forest marked the beginning of the outside world? I knew the answer to those questions all too well, and she had too. So she had carried on with the pretence, and in her heart, she had said, Forgive me.