The Word Ghost

by Christine Paice

  It was January. All the Christmas lights had gone. That was what happened in January. The Vicarage was literally one hundred yards away down the driveway. My feet were cold. I didn’t know why I stood there watching them drive off, the sound of his car echoing through the night. I thought love was all I wanted but not from him. I ran home, the rain still falling and falling.

  Wastrel

  He has not changed

  In two hundred years

  Swapped the carriage for the motor

  Still he has not changed

  His life of self and now I make her see.

  ‘Algie? Algie? Where are you?’

  I turned the key in my wardrobe door. Algernon sat there, jacket crumpled, knees drawn to his chest, looking miserable, like he needed toast and honey. He stretched out one leg then the other. He had my journal open on his lap and my pen, my lovely shiny new pen, in his cold white hands.

  ‘Algie, what are you doing?’

  ‘Speed takes you faster to heaven or hell. He is not good enough. For you. For her.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Come out.’

  He folded his arms.

  ‘Algernon, it’s pouring out there. Let her come in.’

  ‘No. You do not understand. She does not behave with good regard.’

  ‘What does good regard mean?’

  But he wasn’t going to tell me. She sat unperturbed in the pouring rain, on the edge of the balcony, her hair snaking around her like black ribbon.

  ‘Should we not let her in Algernon? She’ll behave won’t she if we let her in?’ Little Buddey girl. I could hear her talking to me.

  ‘No,’ said Algernon. ‘I will leave if she enters this house.’

  ‘Why would you do that? What is up with you?’

  His legs came first then the rest of him. His hair was ruffled, his face set in a grim expression I had never seen before. He stood at the window, staring at the shape in the night. He handed me my journal. The pages were covered in black ink, words scrawled everywhere. ‘March is a wastrel, a cur, a delinquent fool, thief of virtue, he is blight, he is nothing but worm made indolent flesh, creature from Saturn’s dark rings.’

  ‘Algie, he’s not that bad, and you’ve never met him.’

  He sighed and drew up words from his other life, when blood coursed through his body and his hands felt warm. A few dead leaves fell from his hair. He brushed them away as if any reminder of his new state was now unimportant. He was dead, wasn’t he? I knew that, didn’t I? He stared at his sister standing in the rain. He meant what he said; she wasn’t coming in. She looked as if she didn’t have a care in the world sitting out on the balcony.

  ‘Do you get wet when it rains, Algie?’

  He shook his head. ‘We do not suffer in that way,’ he said.

  He stood there with his arms folded, staring at his sister in the rain. ‘Sixteen years of age, and far too well acquainted.’

  ‘Who was he?’

  ‘He amused himself. With her. But he would not marry. The day he ruined her, I found her in the churchyard, lying on Brightley’s cold earth. Augusta, I begged her, come now, enough of this, come Augusta, come. Bleak and grey the sky, as if the sun could not return. She lay there, so quiet I could not detect her breath, but she was breathing. You have never heard such quietness, Miss Budde. Days later she discovered he had gone. I feared the rain would never cease.’

  He pulled at his sleeves, my journal tucked under his arm. ‘She took to walking late at night through the woods, we never knew where she might be. There, where she sits now, she would sit for hours, staring at the sky, doing nothing, barely eating or drinking, thinking of him. Of him.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘That idle, thieving wastrel, Wild George March, as we called him, eldest boy. Inheritor of everything. Stealer of my sister’s life. My parents begged me not to go. Do not leave us, Algernon, they said. So I stayed. I could not leave her. My father said Little Hartley could be mine, a living of my own. It was a small life, Miss Budde. I grew restless, then sick. She scarcely knew that I existed.’

  Little Buddey girl. I could hear her in my mind. Let me come in. I wanted to open the window, invite her inside, give her a towel, a bowl of soup. I wanted to put my arm around her and say, Start at the beginning, tell me all of it, in your own dark way. She watched me talking to Algernon, her eyes open in the wet aching night.

  ‘You must understand, Miss Budde, I could not leave her there. I thought she would be happy being back, but there is nothing for her here.’

  ‘Except me.’

  Augusta Keats stood on the balcony ledge, arms outstretched in the rain, holding her arms up to heaven, imploring the night to gather her up. The ends of her hair came alive, curling in the rain, and the rain obeyed her, thundering down, pelting the roof, fat drops of rain pounding the balcony. A mad wild screech of a bird echoed through the wind and rain as she jumped into the madness of the night.

  ‘Do you see how she is, Miss Budde?’

  ‘Why doesn’t she speak like you?’

  ‘She never was one for words.’

  ‘She hasn’t got over him, has she?’ Augusta. There was a niggling doubt in my stomach about her. She was the kiss by the door, the arm around my shoulder. I didn’t want it, hadn’t asked for it, but it was there.

  ‘When did all this happen?’

  ‘The year of my death,’ he said.

  Tea, Eggs, Cake, Pamphlets

  There was a note on the kitchen table for me from Mum.

  Rebecca, can you please go and get some eggs and veg from Flora this morning? I’ll be home at two, I’m doing an extra shift, your father knows.

  The winter wind whistled past my ears, pulled at my hair, my legs pumping fast on the pedals of my bicycle. I’m back, I said to my bike, did you miss me? Sure, said the wheels, sure, said the brakes, squeaking as I cycled around the green, down the hill, along the narrow lanes, past the mud-filled winter fields. I took a good look at the manor house but there was no car parked in the driveway.

  I had my father’s old canvas knapsack on my back with an empty egg carton and a jar of my mother’s homemade raspberry jam, the last of the Wye on Thames jam. My mother’s jam was deep and red and delicious and Flora loved it. I was unaccompanied by ghosts, although I had suggested to Algernon that he might like to experience a ride on a bicycle. There were so many things he was getting the hang of, but this wasn’t going to be one of them.

  ‘My particles will blow apart,’ he said. ‘And I am busy.’

  I left him scribbling away in my journal, with my pen, sitting at my desk. I had no idea where Augusta was and I really didn’t care. It was great to be back in the saddle again.

  Flora’s place was the quintessential white-walled rose-strewn English cottage. I propped my bike against a neat wooden fence and walked down the garden path. Clumps of daffodils gathered up and down the path, a whole flock, I thought maybe fifty but I was hopeless with numbers and it turned out to be twelve. Chickens wandered about, some sat with their wings stretched out by their sides. I was walking in a picture postcard of England.

  ‘Woo hoo, coming dear,’ said the familiar voice and here she came, dart dart dart smile smile smile. ‘Lovely to see you here, dear. Shall I show you around?’

  We did a quick tour of the cottage and made the floorboards squeak on the landing.

  ‘Oh, they always complain, they do. Wouldn’t know what to do with themselves if they didn’t make that noise.’

  ‘They’re floorboards, Flora.’

  ‘That’s right, dear.’

  There was a rather stately grandfather clock in the living room, and rows of books on shelves set into the walls. A small television stood in the corner covered with a cloth.

  ‘I’ll put the kettle on. Would you like some cake? I’ve got some somewhere.’

  ‘No thanks, I’ll be fine.’

  Most of Flora’s books were Agatha Christies and there were some that I hadn’t read. The rest of
them had titles like Hitler: His Downfall, or An Illustrated History of World War II, or Best Results for Backyard Bantams. I noticed a box in the corner of the room filled with familiar brown stapled pamphlets. Brightley: A Short History.

  ‘Flora, where did you get these?’

  ‘Cake! Found some! What’s that you’re waving at me? Oh that’s me, dear, the Historical Society.’

  ‘Flora, you wrote this?’

  ‘Myself and Arthur, we were the Brightley Historical Society, but he was killed in the landings, dear, 1944, France. He never liked France and that’s probably why. He knew all along.’ She gazed out of the small cottage windows. ‘No good getting morbid, is it, dear? It won’t bring them back.’

  ‘Flora, do you know who George March was? It doesn’t mention him in here.’

  ‘Have some cake, won’t you? It’s amazing what you find squirreled away in tins! Wild George. Nothing but trouble he was—eldest son of the first March family in Brightley. Quite proud to be called that, by all accounts. They built the manor about the same time as the vicarage. Why do you want to know about him?’

  ‘Oh, someone at college said something. He sounded interesting. He’s not mentioned in here, though.’

  ‘Limited space, dear. You have to be choosy about what goes in and what stays out. Drink up, it’s nettle tea, good for the skin—not that you need it, but it doesn’t hurt. Then I’ll show you the shed.’

  My teacup contained a dark green liquid with a few bits of dried leaves floating on top. It smelled a little like dry grass and tasted a lot like it too.

  When I had drained the cup we went outside. Four chickens accompanied us into the aromatic dark of Flora’s potting shed.

  There were bundles of dried herbs hanging everywhere.

  ‘Do you seriously eat these?’ I picked up a large thistle with a very spiky head still attached to the stalk.

  ‘That’s the mighty burdock. Roots are best: boil them up and drink them down. Do you recognise it?’

  ‘They’re growing in our driveway.’

  ‘That’s right, dear. Burdock is very good for the blood. I’ve probably got the purest blood in England, apart from the royals, and that’s debateable.’

  Collecting each egg from the patch of flattened straw where the hen had sat and laid it was an act of loveliness. I held each one in my hands, feeling the lightness of them, their fragility, their goodness. I collected three white eggs and four brown ones.

  ‘Two of them are broody. They just sit there, thinking.’

  ‘What do they think about?’

  ‘The weather probably, and the next meal. Same as us.’

  ‘D’you ever eat them?’

  ‘Good Lord! No, dear, absolutely not. Not one of my own. You be careful getting those eggs home, won’t you?’

  ‘Flora, I will, I promise.’

  ‘Make sure you do then. Come any time. Always glad of the company. Spring’s on its way. Remember, if you need anything, I’m always here. Or there.’

  ‘Thanks, Flora.’

  ‘See you in church then, I expect.’ She waved me off.

  I cycled home, nettle tea coursing through my veins.

  Out Walking with Algernon

  ‘I’m always sad in February.’

  ‘Algie, February makes everyone sad.’

  He straightened his back. ‘My bones are not what they once were. Come, Miss Budde, we will lure her away from the window, let us walk.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Do you have anything better to do?’

  ‘Apart from sleeping?’

  ‘Come. Dress yourself.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Hurry up.’

  He was beginning to sound like my mother. We creaked our way down the stairs, leaving the house as quietly as we could. It was all right for him. He was feather light.

  I prayed that everyone in the village was fast asleep.

  Algernon took my arm. ‘Augusta, come,’ he said, and to my surprise she came. Floating through the night, black dress trailing on the ground. The three of us must have looked odd walking down the road.

  ‘Let us remember my poor dear cousin, Mr John Keats, so young, so far from home.’

  I swear Augusta rolled her eyes. She looked completely uninterested.

  Little Buddey girl.

  ‘Augusta.’

  We’re going to have to work on your conversation skills. She wasn’t used to having a chat, I could see that.

  Algernon Keats held up his bony hand. ‘Augusta, you met him once, remember?’

  When she spoke her voice was low and soft. ‘He was short,’ she said.

  ‘She likes them taller, Algernon,’ I told him, but Algernon was not amused.

  ‘Height is irrelevant, it is character that counts.’

  ‘Character?’ She would not move. She stopped dead in her tracks. Keep that to yourself, Rebecca, both of them being ghosts and—how can I put this?—always dead. Her hair curled wildly around her shoulders. ‘You know nothing of this,’ she said, which I thought was a bit unfair.

  ‘Hang on, Algernon did try and help you, Augusta.’

  ‘What do you know of anything?’ She whirled around, words coming more easily to her now.

  Algernon stood before her. We’d walked a total of three hundred yards and already we were arguing. It was a bit like being with my sisters.

  ‘Augusta, do you remember what I said?’

  A strand of her hair touched my hand, curled round my wrist. ‘Sometimes,’ she said.

  ‘Are you listening to me, Augusta?’

  ‘Yes, she’s listening, we’re a captive audience, Algie.’

  He ignored me but I still held his bony arm.

  ‘This is my situation, not yours, and I brought you here and I was wrong. You must return. Augusta? Do you hear me?’

  Another strand of hair around my wrist.

  ‘All the heartbroken cannot come back. There would be too many cells and atoms in all the wrong places.’

  ‘Why Algie, why do you want her to go now?’

  Augusta’s dress billowed in the night. I couldn’t tell where she began or ended.

  Algernon carried on talking. ‘Was it not I who found you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Was it not I?’

  She looked really confused to me, as if one half of her wanted something she knew she couldn’t have.

  He is right. But I wish to stay.

  ‘Did you hear that, Algie?’

  ‘I heard,’ said Algernon.

  I knew in my heart where she wanted to go. House of the wastrel, to see if he was there.

  We walked past the church and the church gate, the three of us, each thinking secret thoughts. The night was clear and beautiful and cold.

  Algie said, ‘He loved no one but himself.’

  ‘Let her find her own way now, Algie.’

  ‘That is what I am afraid of,’ he said.

  He stopped suddenly under the oak trees at the edge of the green, Augusta somewhere behind us. There was a group of men sitting on the stone base of the village war memorial, half lit by the light of the moon. We could see them from where we stood.

  ‘They’re out late, the pub must have just shut.’ There were about twenty of them, some easier to see than others.

  ‘Quiet!’ Algernon put his finger to his lips. He pushed us back into the shadows. One of the men looked in our direction. He was dressed like a soldier, they all were wearing military uniforms, hats of various shapes and sizes, smoking, looking around. An occasional burst of laughter drifted through the night to where we stood.

  Algernon pulled me further back. ‘This village really belongs to them. But I was here first, we were here first, were we not, Augusta?’

  A dark head inclined. Oh yes. Here first. Augusta tucked her hair behind her ears.

  ‘Will they ever find peace? What must they do to find peace, Algernon?’ She was agitated now, swaying slightly in the night.

  ‘Please be
quiet. Otherwise we will not have peace. We should not be here with them. We have to leave.’

  ‘Who are they?’ I whispered.

  ‘Soldiers. Men from the village. They always return here. They are the ghosts of war.’

  An unmistakable human figure stood among them: Flora Shillingham. She was easy to see from where we stood peering at the moon lighting the village and its ghostly inhabitants.

  Flora sat on the bottom step of the war memorial, radiating happiness, talking and laughing with her earthbound human body. I wondered whether Thomas Lark was there, and her brother Arthur Shillingham.

  She had a basket on her arm and was handing out things to them in much the same way as she did with us in the vicarage kitchen. What could you give a ghost from your garden? I had no idea.

  ‘Her brother Arthur was killed in the war. She told me. Maybe he is there.’

  Maybe none of this is real and I’ve had too much nettle tea.

  ‘Miss Shillingham runs the place,’ said Algernon. ‘She understands. We call her the keeper.’

  ‘Keeper of ghosts?’

  ‘Everyone here has a singular purpose. If there are too many bodies, too many diversions, they must leave. There is only one place where all of us can go.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘Another time, perhaps, for our midnight walk,’ said Algernon. ‘They like the place to themselves.’

  A huge sneeze burst out of me just then, a huge great gulping noise that could easily have woken the whole village. It was all that dust billowing from Augusta’s dress.

  Flora turned and sniffed the air. She swung her quick darting little head around as if she was looking for something, and then stood up and walked steadily in our direction. The lights of ghostly men trailed behind her. Still smoking, less laughter now.

  Algernon shrank back into the night pulling me with him, but Augusta, good old Augusta, walked out to meet them.

  Flora advanced on the shadows and stood about two feet from my face.

  Augusta folded her arms over her chest. The ends of her hair curling and curling. Couldn’t Flora see her?

  Flora peered hard at the place under the trees, Augusta standing in front of her.

  ‘I know someone’s there, so whoever it is, you can jolly well stay there. The boys are here. It’s their turn tonight, so go on, off you go. Don’t spoil things.’