The Word Ghost

by Christine Paice

  The long thin hand was still there but it was attached to an arm, a body, a man. The mist cleared as he stepped forward and I almost wanted to laugh. Someone was playing a trick on me. Maggie had arranged it. It was fancy-dress day in Brightley. I didn’t have time for this, the bus would be here soon and getting on that bus was a vital part of my plan.

  ‘Excuse me, but do you want something?’

  It appeared that I was speaking to Mr Rochester’s younger cousin, the fair-haired one, the nice one, because here was someone to be found in Thornfield Hall, warming his legs in front of the fire while Mr Rochester scowled and paced the hallways. Whoever he was, he was dressed in a long green jacket which had the widest lapels I had ever seen. Everything about him was long and thin. He had a long straight nose, long thin hands and long thin legs in a pair of black trousers. Wavy fair hair trying to reach his shoulders, a sad look about his face too; the hollows in his cheeks were thinning out and he looked like he needed my marmite sandwich at the very least.

  I didn’t know where he’d found his costume but it was very unexpected for a September morning in 1973. ‘Aren’t you cold dressed like that?’ I asked him.

  ‘Absolutely not.’ He smiled and held his long thin hand out for me to shake and it’s weird but I don’t remember shaking it.

  ‘Miss Budde, I am so very pleased to meet you.’ His voice was unexpectedly low and gentle. ‘Please do not be afraid. There is no reason to be afraid.’

  ‘How can I help you?’ Was I actually speaking? My words felt odd in my mouth as if nothing was really coming out. I could hear the rumble of the bus coming up the road. ‘Sorry, I have to go now.’

  He waved at me as if to say something else but I held my arm out for the bus to make sure it stopped. I half expected him to climb on with me but no, as usual, I was the only passenger. The driver grunted at me and I said an unusually cheery hello. As the bus pulled away from the corner I tried to see him standing there in front of the holly hedge, but whoever he was, he’d disappeared.

  I sat three seats back behind the driver, right-hand side. I didn’t know why I sat there but I always did. I had seen these people before on buses and now, in less than one month, I had turned into one of the Un-Brights, always sitting in the same seat and glaring at other people in case they sat too near to me. I stared out of the window, thinking Maggie must have put him up to it, that it must have been someone she knew from the pub.

  The bus always travelled in low gears along these winding roads. You had no idea what was coming at you around these country corners. I peered through the window at the church and graves and mad half-leafless oaks. Now I was on my way I was full of daylight and certainty and destination.

  And then I saw her, standing in the churchyard. A girl, half hidden behind a tree. I shrank back in my seat. Not another strange person, please, not another one. I was still jumpy from the man in the mist. No coat, a long black dress, long dark hair and she was staring at me. Just standing there like she had nothing better to do. Oddness shimmered in the air around her, and I had a curious sinking feeling as the bus chugged past. She had something to do with the man from the mist.

  The bus driver glanced at me in his rear-view mirror as he changed up a gear. ‘Did someone want the bus?’

  ‘Don’t think so. They were in the churchyard.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if they want the bus they have to stand where I can see them.’

  I tried to spot her again from the back of the bus but the light was playing tricks on me and the bus drove on.

  By the time we reached Hartley I’d dismissed the girl as another disturbed country person with nothing better to do than hang around in churchyards and gardens. I caught the next London train, and felt better among normal people. There were so many of them. Coats and briefcases crammed into the train with me. Some people read books or newspapers and I tried to read whatever they were reading but soon gave up; I didn’t find the Financial Times compelling. Instead I stared out the window until the bricks and tunnels of Marylebone Station came into view.

  I took the tube to Paddington and jumped on the first smelly diesel train stopping at Bowater. Each carriage on the train had its own compartment. Two bench seats faced each other with a luggage rack overhead. I was the only one in the carriage so far and prayed it would stay that way. I didn’t want to have to engage in mindless conversation. I wanted to think of my future with no interruptions. The train gathered speed. Sunlight slanted through the carriage. I looked at my watch. I was heading into Dave time. My stomach lurched. The train was slowing down and I watched the familiar sights of Bowater unfold once more through the window.

  Minutes later I was walking past the grey outline of Bowater Castle, keeping an eye out for the number 37 bus to Wye. A swarm of butterflies flew around my stomach and my head was all light and floaty as I walked. I could hardly wait. Dave was going to love this. Now I was at the bus stop at the top of our road and there was my grandmother, standing there all quiet and peaceful, hands clasped in front of her, long grey plait behind her, watching me walk by.

  There was our house, our good old house, and those good old green gates that a month ago were mine to open and close. I half expected to see Emily skipping about in the garden with her skipping rope and my father tending to the raspberry canes at the bottom of the garden. I was tempted to go back inside the green gates, back to the house I had never wanted to leave. Maybe no one was living there now. I carried on walking.

  Five minutes later I was knocking at the familiar front door of 23 Milton Close. Surprise! Here I am. His darling girl, his one and only true best love, come back to him. I felt massively nervous, like the first time I had sauntered down this road in my hideous black shoes and stood, all those months ago, knocking against this exact same door.

  Not Quite As I Remembered

  After a few minutes, Mrs Dave answered the door. Was she surprised to see me standing there? I couldn’t tell from the expression on her face whether she was bewildered or dismayed.

  ‘Well, well, well, look who it is. Whatever brings you all the way back here then, Miss Budde?’

  As if she didn’t know. Instead of welcoming me with open arms and calling excitedly to the rest of the villagers for the lamb to be killed and a fire to be lit, her fingers gripped the door as she spoke. Miss Budde. No way are you coming in here again, girlie. Her blouse was pale pink, no flowers.

  ‘Dave’s not here, it’s Monday, he goes to school on Mondays. Why aren’t you at school then?’

  ‘I thought Mondays was home studies.’

  ‘Not anymore now he’s in the upper sixth. Home studies day is Friday if his timetable allows. You should know that.’

  ‘I don’t go to school anymore, I go to college. We have a flexible timetable.’

  ‘Very flexible indeed, if you’re standing here.’

  Which I was.

  ‘Do your parents know you’re here, young lady?’

  Within five seconds I knew that coming back had been a big mistake. What was I doing here? These streets weren’t mine anymore. I lived in a small cold village. Towns and people and boyfriends had nothing to do with me. My bag was hanging off my shoulder. I didn’t know what to do. I really wanted to see Dave. I swallowed hard. ‘When will Dave be home?’

  ‘When school finishes. About half past four. If the bus stops for him, which sometimes it doesn’t. You’re going to have a long wait.’ She pursed her lips as if to say, And you’re not doing it here.

  Mrs Dave folded her arms. ‘I think I should phone your parents.’

  ‘No thank you, it’s fine really, I’ll be back before they . . .’

  ‘Before they even know you’ve gone?’ She raised her eyebrows at me.

  I could feel myself blushing furiously.

  A voice yelled out behind her. Like him but not him. Deeper, stronger. ‘Ma, who are you talking to?’

  ‘No one you know,’ she shouted back.

  The person who stuck his head around t
he door was an older, more solid version of Dave. He stood next to his mother. She took a step back and slightly relaxed her hand on the door to accommodate her eldest son. His name’s Simon, stupid. Simon looked me up and down, and down and up, as if he couldn’t quite name the species I belonged to.

  ‘You must be Simon, my sister’s met you.’

  ‘And you are?’ he said, chewing gum and smelling of aftershave. For a few seconds the smell threatened to overpower my brain. Mrs Dave knew exactly who I was.

  ‘This here is Rebecca Budde, she’s the vicar’s daughter; Dave was helping her with her maths but not anymore,’ said Mrs Dave, stepping forward to close the door, and kindly holding her pale pink blouse close to my face so I could examine the uniformity of colour in close detail.

  ‘Ask her in then, Ma,’ said the older version of Dave, chewing his gum closer to my face. He winked at me.

  ‘No thank you. Look, I’m really sorry to have bothered you. Could you please tell Dave I came to see him?’

  ‘You’re not bothering us. She’s not bothering us, is she, Ma?’

  I could see I was bothering Mrs Dave a great deal. Mrs Dave stood there wishing I would get lost.

  ‘I’ll phone her parents. She should be at school.’

  ‘College.’

  ‘College then. You must be really bad at maths if you’re back here again.’ He winked at me once more.

  Mrs Dave stared at the grey road stretching in front of the door and sniffed.

  ‘Maggie Budde, that’s right, I remember her now, down at the pub last time I was back. She was doing her exams. How did she do? All right. She’s a brainiac, that one. Lovely girl. So you’re Maggie’s sister?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘Well come on in. We can’t leave Maggie’s sister standing on the step.’

  ‘No, no, really, it’s all right. I’d better be getting back.’

  ‘Have a chat and a biscuit before you go. We’re busy doing nothing, aren’t we, Ma?’

  Mrs Dave rolled her eyes to heaven. She didn’t want me in her house. She was getting flashbacks to her coral cardigan. And I didn’t want to go into that house if Dave wasn’t there. Simon was holding the door open and nodding at me to come on in. I thought he’d grab me and pull me in if I didn’t obey.

  Mrs Dave headed into the kitchen with an air of barely suppressed resentment which I recognised from the slope of her shoulders.

  ‘Ma. Kettle. On. Please.’

  ‘All right, but you can make the tea. That girl should be in school.’ She knew I could hear every word.

  Simon towered over his mother. ‘There’s no law against a drink and a biscuit, is there?’ To me he said, ‘Come in then, sit down, take your coat off.’

  Six months ago the only thing I wanted was to be invited into this house. To hand over my coat and my foolish beating heart. Now I couldn’t wait for an opportunity to leave, to fling the door open and race into the street, to run away from Mrs Dave and the lack of Dave. I cursed myself for being so stupid.

  ‘Thanks.’

  I should never have gone back.

  Under the Hedge

  I don’t know why I just sat there.

  ‘Tea?’ asked Simon.

  I nodded. But I didn’t want a cup of tea. I wanted a seventeen-year-old boy with his guitar strapped to his chest.

  ‘I’ve left my smokes upstairs, won’t be a minute.’

  He ran up the stairs two at a time and I couldn’t sit there a moment longer. I grabbed my bag and ran for the front door. I banged the door shut and tore off down the street, down the familiar road, around the corner, into the green gates and my old front garden. I hid behind the hedge. I was like a rabbit, running and panicky and staring at oncoming traffic. Was anyone living here? What if they saw me, standing in their garden, pressed against the hedge?

  My heart was thumping loudly in my chest. I saw the top of a bus zoom past and then I saw a gingery-blond head bobbing along the top of the hedge looking for me. The hedge wasn’t much of a hedge and there were lots of small gaps along the bottom of it between hedge and grass. I lay on my stomach and wiggled as far as I could under the hedge and lay there, trying not to make a noise as the privet’s short sharp twigs stuck into me. With one side of my face on the ground I could see a pair of feet a yard in front of me. In my heart I thanked my dear father for the hedge he had insisted on planting for privacy and to separate our front garden from the Bowater main road. There I lay, foolish as all hell, under the prickling hedge. So long as I could stay hidden, the hedge would save me from Simon, from shame, from embarrassment I lay there hardly daring to breathe. The ground was stuffing itself into my mouth and nose. Months ago I had played in this garden with my sisters, carefree and happy. Now I was hiding in it like a fugitive, hiding from someone who was calling my name.

  ‘Rebecca?’

  Now it was going to be far too embarrassing to come out. I had to stay here no matter what.

  ‘Rebecca? I know you’re here somewhere, unless you made it to the bus. Nah. Would’ve seen you.’ A pair of running shoes appeared directly in front of my face as I lay there with half the privet hedge pressing into me. His shoelaces were undone and for some reason I couldn’t take my eyes off them as they snaked over the ground. I could feel a huge gulping sob trying to burst out from me as he called my name.

  ‘Rebecca? There you are, you daft girl!’

  Two large arms covered in gingery hair and freckles gently pulled me out from under the hedge and helped me to my feet. I stood there crying great gulps of sorrow with my school bag twisted over me.

  ‘You’re a daft little cow,’ he said. ‘Look at the state of you. What made you run off like that?’

  I shrugged. I had no idea why I did anything anymore.

  ‘You’re completely mad, you know that?’

  I nodded. It was the one unassailable fact of the day. He took a deep drag on his cigarette and then offered it to me. I’d never smoked before but I took it anyway. I thought it was the grown-up thing to do, to accept a smoke when you’re offered one, particularly under trying circumstances. I bent double on the pavement choking and gulping and coughing my lungs out, while he tried to straighten me up and comfort me in his brusque masculine way.

  ‘What a state to be in,’ he said. ‘There’s only one thing for it, I suppose. I’d better drive you home. Get yourself cleaned up before you get in my car. Come on, Miss Budde.’

  I trudged back with him to the house I didn’t want to enter. Sometimes it was nice being told what to do.

  ‘What do you do then?’ I asked him on the drive home.

  ‘Didn’t Maggie tell you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I’m a soldier.’

  ‘Northern Ireland?’

  One eye on the road, one eye on me.

  ‘Don’t you get scared?’

  ‘’Course, but we’re trained. We know what to do.’

  His biceps bulged through his shirt as he gripped the steering wheel. I’d never seen muscles like those before.

  ‘Night patrols. They’re the worst. People die two yards in front of you and there’s nothing you can do. That’s the job. One second you’re there, the next you’re gone. All you can do is try to stop it happening again.’

  Both eyes on the road.

  I pressed him for details but he wouldn’t tell me and after a while I decided I didn’t want to know. He’d rescued me from the hedge, from Dave not being there, and he’d bundled me up and brought me back to Brightley. He was so old, beyond my knowing. He stopped the car on the corner opposite the house.

  ‘Go on then, bugger off.’

  ‘Thanks for driving me home.’

  ‘That’s all right. Try not to run under any more hedges, and say hello to that lovely sister of yours, won’t you? And next time, phone first, all right?’

  ‘Don’t die, will you, Simon?’

  ‘I’ll try hard not to. Go on then. Off you go.’

  ‘It was
meant to be a surprise.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll tell him. Don’t forget to say hello to Maggie.’

  He ran his hands over the steering wheel. There was no arguing with hands like his. They were like Dave’s, but older, harder, stronger.

  ‘Your parents will be sending out a search party. Go home, Rebecca.’

  He watched me in the headlights as I walked the last yards home. I knew what was waiting for me. My parents standing at the door, tall and thin, concerned and angry, and Maggie behind them, the three of them like exclamation marks, waiting to finish my sentences.

  ‘Thought you were at college . . . Good job Mrs Fletcher is a responsible adult . . . Yes she did phone us . . . otherwise . . . the police . . . And it was very good of Simon to drive you home . . . Now go to bed . . . bed . . . It’s late and we’re all up early tomorrow . . . bed. Now.’

  Maggie said, ‘I can’t believe you didn’t ask him in. Why didn’t you ask him in, you idiot? The least we could have offered him is a cup of bloody tea.’

  Case of the Rising Mist

  I lay in bed, exhausted, contemplating the green candlewick bedspread. Each thread knotted into more knots. Everything merged into lines of green. I closed my eyes and tried to forget every detail of my Dave-less day. Sleepily I let my hand wander around my pile of books to see which one I claimed. Oh, it would have to be the small grey book. There was nothing I felt like less in my life right now than a poem. The first yellowing page contained my father’s long sloping handwriting.

  My Darling Ruth, ‘Not in lone splendour’ anymore! ‘Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, to feel for ever its soft fall and swell . . .’ Sweetheart, You Are My Brightest Star. Yours, Always, Bob. June 3rd, 1953.

  From my father to my mother. My head hurt. It had been a long day and I’d smoked a cigarette and cried and now I had a headache. There it was, page forty-one, ‘Bright Star’, marked with a corner of the page turned down. Tut-tut, Dad, you always tell me off for doing that. I snuggled down deep in my bed, sheets and blankets warm against my skin. Oh I could not stop my eyes from closing.