‘Oh, no, I don’t think so. There was a man, but he looked more like a schoolteacher to me: old-fashioned, with a short-back-and sides and a duffle coat. Came on his rickety bike, and parked it against a tree. Then there was an old girl walking her dog. She stopped and had a bit of a think. And a younger woman, about your age, in a woolly hat. Looked to me like she had a bad cold. But I didn’t see any army types, no. But they do say the Army’s coming back again soon. She’ll like that, won’t she? It’ll be a lot easier to get to her grave. But until they do, I’ll keep Michael on the look-out. I know he’s a drinker, but he’s as good as gold.’
‘He’s probably a Leo as well,’ I said. ‘This patch, round here, is becoming a bit of a Leo stomping ground.’
‘Oh, I don’t know about his star sign. I hadn’t thought of that. I’ll ask him. But, now, don’t you worry. He’ll keep an eye on things and so will I. We’ll let you know if she gets any more visitors.’
‘Well, Dorothy, it seems that you’re acquiring quite a fan club,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how popular you were in life, but you’re certainly popular now. In fact, I’d say you were becoming something of a socialite. Anyway, my friend Peter has sent you a post card - with a Tigger on the front. And here it is. Now, what do you make of that?
What do you mean, I know some strange men? I can assure you that Peter is perfectly normal. In fact, he’s a lawyer. Ah, now, could there be a message in that? Yes. Could he have been the lawyer you consulted when you were contemplating divorce? Wilfrid was a totally selfish chauvinist who kept you chained to the kitchen sink and kept picking holes in your character. You didn’t cook enough potatoes. You didn’t look after his needs. Your kitchen was a right tip. And everything was always your fault even when you got ill. So you were saving up your housekeeping on the quiet and planning your get-away?
Oh, but I’m just going round and round in circles now, aren’t I. I’ve got so many different versions of Peter, I honestly think I’m losing the plot. So, it’s over to you again, Dot: - lover, lawyer, stalker, friend – who was he?’
Pondering this question well into the small hours that night, I felt a prompt and drew up a Horary Chart. And the answer? Saturn in Gemini: the writing on the stone. Damn, Foiled again. No short cuts for me then. Nevertheless, I decided to present the chart at the next meeting of Mercury Phosphorus, a Divinatory Astrology group which met in those days in the farmhouse residence of its founding member, Evelyn Harrington, an astute Gemini with old soul eyes, short white hair, and old soul Capricorn rising.
‘It’s interesting that your Ascending Degree is rising,’ she said, projecting the chart onto her screen, as cake and biscuits did the rounds.
I reached for a chocolate digestive. ‘I hope that doesn’t mean I’m him.’
‘No, no. You are the Querent. Leo rises so you are signified by the Sun. And here you are in Virgo, writing and doing lots of research. And you have been rather bothered by your health, unfortunately.’
‘Ah, but what about Mars?’ Her companion, Moira, who was knitting a scarf in exactly the same shade of orangey- red as her hair, leaned forward and jabbed her needle in the direction of the screen. ‘That’s a very potent Mars you’ve got there, Gwendolen, in the First House.’
‘I haven’t got any Mars in my house at the moment,’ I replied.
‘Neither have I - more’s the pity.’ Scorpio, Cassie, put in.
‘Nope, me neither.’ Annie dunked a shortbread in her tea and gave a plaintive mew as it dissolved.
Oblivious to these comments, Moira resumed her thread. ‘I still think that Mars has got to be telling us something. It’ll have something to do with the War, I should think. Or the Stonemason. I can’t help thinking it’s highly significant, Gwendolen, that strange dream you had about the operation. I wouldn’t be surprised if you heard from him again, and quite soon.’
‘Hmm, he could still do it, I suppose,’ I replied. ‘But what about the Neptune factor?’
She shrugged. ‘It just won’t be what you expect.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ Annie wiped biscuit crumbs from her cheesecloth smock. ‘With Uranus in the Seventh, you’re in for another shock.’
‘Thanks very much.’
At this point, Daphne, who’d been dozing in the fireside armchair chair (an elderly tabby in her ample lap) woke up. ‘Where’s the Moon?’ She called out. ‘Twelfth house? Asylum, Hospitals, Retreat from the World. Does that sound like you?’
‘We’re not looking for Gwendolen this evening, Daphne,’ said Evelyn. ‘We’re looking for Peter who is symbolised by Saturn, Lord of the Seventh, in Gemini, in the turned Fourth House.’
‘Dead,’ we all agreed.
‘He is also in the Tenth House of the Radix,’ she continued. ‘I’m inclined to favour the turned chart in third party questions, but we might consider the Radix since we’ve ruled her father out.’
‘Her mother?’ said Annie, bemused.
‘An authority figure, ‘said Evelyn. ‘Her employer, or someone she met during the course of her career.’
‘I’m not sure she had a career after marriage,’ I said. ‘Apart from being the Wife of Wilfrid.’
‘Ah, but Saturn rules the Seventh,’ said Cassie. ‘Perhaps it’s Bill.’
‘Very funny,’ I said.
‘And weren’t you engaged to a Capricorn once?’
Since this wasn’t strictly astrologically accurate, I decided not to reply.
‘I still think we should be looking at the Moon,’ said Daphne. ‘The conjunction with Neptune in the turned Twelfth suggests the anaesthetist, who may have slipped up. He may even have had a drug problem. A lot of them do, you know.’
‘Yes, I’m not sure we should take the Twelfth as unfortunate,’ said Evelyn. ‘Retreat from the World can mean many things. Dorothy may have met Peter on an actual retreat. Was she religious, Gwendolen, do you know?’
‘I’ve taken it for granted she was spiritual,’ I replied. ‘But would the Moon signify Peter really? I’m not convinced. Saturn seems the most likely candidate to me; and in Gemini, a writer, or teacher - something to do with communication.’
‘You will hear something I’m sure,’ said Evelyn.
‘But will I find Peter? Am I, the Sun, in aspect to Saturn? Doesn’t look like it.’
‘You didn’t ask that question.’
‘Maybe I should.’
But there weren’t any takers.
Looking at the chart again now, I find the Moon’s location in the House of Retreat rather apt because I spent the second week of my convalescence contacting matrons of old folk’s homes throughout the region. I was trying to find an elderly parishioner who might remember her, but, alas, the Moon’s conjunction with Neptune only presaged more confusion. Most of the old folk had become somewhat senile, and those who remained alert had no recollection of either Dorothy or Peter although they loved the inscription (as did a number of their care attendants).
My mother, however, was not impressed.
‘You’re wasting your time with these old biddies,’ she boomed down her telephone. ‘You can take it from me, you’ll get nowhere with them, I know what they’re like. No, what you need is a plan of action. Have you made a plan? I don’t suppose you have. Well, go and get a pen and I’ll tell you what to put in it. You don’t have to follow it to the letter, but it will give you some idea. You need to find a living relative.’
So, thanks to my mother, I bumped into Bill - while sticking a postcard requesting information in the local newsagent’s window.
‘I wouldn’t be too eager to trace a living relative, if I were you,’ he said. ‘They might not be too keen on the idea of a strange woman rooting around in their family tree. Some might consider it perverse or ghoulish. I wouldn’t be too keen on it myself.’
‘But you don’t bother with your ancestors,’ I protested. ‘Your grandfather whose memorial I found on my last trip to the Battlefields, whose body was never found …’
‘Yes
, yes, you told me. Many times.’
‘Well, you’ve never visited him.’
‘No, because he’s dead!’
‘Well, so is my father but I wouldn’t mind if someone visited his grave, or took an interest in him. I’d be pleased, actually, especially if I couldn’t manage to get down there myself.’
‘Yes, not everyone on this planet’s like you. In fact, no one is. I’d tread more carefully, if I were you, in the Land of the Living.’
And with that, he marched off. Still angry, I realised. He did have a point, ‘though; and suddenly I felt awful. I felt a dead weight drop straight through me and into the floor. It had never occurred to me that anyone would mind my adopting Dorothy’s grave, and that made me feel even worse; the fact that it hadn’t occurred to me. You are the centre of your own little universe, my mother used to say, and there’s only room in it for one other person and that’s your father, which used to upset me no end. And now I had done it again. So, after this reminder from Bill, I went off the whole idea and dropped it just like that. I stopped badgering elderly parishioners. I stopped writing letters to librarians. I stopped pestering probate officers. I gave up. As a result, my ‘phone bill decreased.
Oh, but, hang on, you are saying, looking ahead. You can’t have dropped it because we’ve got at least another three planets to go and possibly an asteroid.
Ah, but how do you know it’s me who wrote the rest? How do you know it wasn’t my friend Joanna (a novelist) or Eleanor, or my sister-in-law (now trying her hand at radio scripts) or even Dorothy herself, channelling via a medium in the Spiritualist Church. You don’t. You’ll just have to take my word for it!
Uranus
Of all the bizarre events to have occurred so far during my search, not one of them has shocked me so much as this: a young lad, hurtling through the churchyard as if being chased, stopped abruptly in his tracks a few feet from Dorothy’s grave, looked back at me and said, ‘Is that your grave?’
And the part I found shocking? I didn’t know what to say.
‘Er, no, I just look after it,’ I managed, just before he sped off, whereupon I waited for the boys I’d assumed to have been chasing him to appear. They didn’t. The churchyard was deserted. No sign, even, of Lily, or the churchyard cats. And then I felt the cold. It moved in from the place where he’d stopped in his tracks and politely enquired, ‘Is that your grave?’
I began to shiver as it slowly dawned on me that I hadn’t thought there was anything unusual about his appearance, yet he had been dressed according to the fashion of my own childhood: hand-knitted grey jumper, short trousers, and tumble-down socks. He could have been my brother, my cousin Gerard, the boy next door.
‘If you don’t mind, Dorothy, I think I’ll go home now.’
‘It’s probably the onset of your Menopause,’ said my mother on the telephone. Ever one to look on the bright side, she added: ‘Because you’ve only got one ovary, you can expect the Change of Life early. You can expect hot flushes from now on.’
But I still felt cold. ‘The thing is, he wasn’t wearing trainers.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘And people don’t knit jumpers for boys nowadays.’
‘Some do, I suppose,’ she replied. ‘Oh, but I knitted you some lovely woollies when you were a child. Do you remember, Gwendolen? You always looked a treat in lemon. Of course, your hair was always clean and shiny then.’
‘I think I’ll forget about it now.’
‘I would, if I were you.’
So, I did. I pushed the strange boy to the back of my mind, and got on with whatever I was doing at the time. This morning, I woke seeing an image of his face. Not that this surprised me. Yes, something very odd has been happening, I’ve noticed, since I’ve been typing up my hand-written drafts on my new computer. Events corresponding with the nature of the planets have been occurring in this establishment in weird and unpredictable ways. When I was typing up Neptune, for example, a Buddhist called round for a chart reading and left his meditation mat behind. Except I didn’t see him arrive with it, I didn’t see him leave with it, nor did I see it anywhere in my house. Before it rematerialized - in his temple – he had threatened my Astrology students (whom he suspected of foul play) with ‘occult action.’ By then, I was typing up Pluto. Ah, well, back to the plot.
After deciding, the day I met Bill outside the Newsagent’s, to drop the whole thing, I soon changed my mind. I’ll do what I like, I thought, as I raked another pile of rubbish from Dorothy’s grave into a bin-liner. It’s me who looks after it, and if it weren’t for me, Dorothy would have disappeared under layers of mouldy fruit, hypodermic needles, broken bottles and pornographic magazines long before now.
This latest one really took the biscuit. I had never seen anything like it in my life, and I sincerely hope I never will again. Fortunately, the worst bits were obscured under layers of congealed curry sauce, but even so, it was an outrage.
‘God help him, if I catch him,’ I told Dorothy. ‘There won’t be a lot left of him, by the time I’ve finished with him. He’ll be fertilising your next-door neighbour. Except it wouldn’t be fair on her. So, don’t worry, I’ll restrain myself.’
And with that, I picked up the magazine, and chucked it into a skip full of builders’ rubble on my journey home, cackling to myself as I skipped along.
‘The little men in white coats will be coming for you before much longer,’ said Eleanor as I recounted my exploits with glee.
‘I struck a blow,’ I said, ‘I struck a blow for Feminism.’
‘You’re beginning to sound like Nana. You’ll be telling me next you’re not senile yet, and you never get a decent cup of tea. Oh, she rang, by the way, while you were out. She wanted to know whether you’d sent off for the electoral records.’
‘I hope you told her I have. ‘
‘Well, I didn’t know that, did I? I told her you were in the library.’
‘But I’m not in the library.’
‘No, but you will be soon, won’t you. I’ve got friends coming round.’
‘Oh, that’s a shame. I thought you might like to come with me.’
‘No, thanks, it’s boring.’
‘Boring? But, Eleanor, you enjoy research.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Yes you do. You got a very good report for History. Top of the class.’
‘I might be good at History, Mum, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy it. In fact, I hate it. And I’m not going to choose it as an option for G.C.S.E.’
This came as a real blow. ‘Oh, but, Eleanor, you’re the next generation. You have to keep the flame alive – for the sake of the ancestors.’
‘No, I’ve had enough of dead people now. That’s your thing, not mine.’
‘Oh, you’ll change your mind.’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘Yes, you’ve got plenty of time before you have to choose your options.’
‘I’m not going to change my mind, Mum, no matter how much pressure you apply. I’m going to do Technology – and Textiles.’
‘Technology? Textiles? You can’t do those, they’re not proper subjects.’
‘Er, yes they are.’
‘No, no, no: you’ll be bored out of your brain. You can’t even knit. No, Eleanor, you’re not the crafty-type. You’re very intelligent but you don’t like studying, so you should do History because it’s all skills nowadays and no knowledge. You’d sail through the exam.’
‘I know that, Mum, but I’m still not doing it for G.C.S.E. And I’m not coming to the library with you either. I told you, I’ve got friends coming round.’
‘Hmm, I could always go another day, I suppose. I don’t have to go today.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Mum, stop dithering, you’re getting on my nerves. You don’t need me to come with you at your age. I know why you want me there: it’s because I found Dorothy. You think I’ve got to be there whenever you make a find like I’m your lucky charm
, but you can easily find the next one on your own.’
I reached for my coat. ‘You’re still my lucky charm even if you don’t come anywhere with me ever again. You’re my little egg.’
‘I’m not,’ she replied, ‘I’m not an egg. I’ll be fourteen in three weeks. Go away.’
So off I went, somewhat upset, it has to be said. Calling in at Tesco, I bought a chocolate éclair, which I ate while selecting a new pen in Honest Stationery. It might bring me good fortune, I thought, since my Lucky Charm had chosen to sit this one out. But when I arrived at the library, I received another blow. Martin, the Friendly Librarian, had been replaced by a young woman who sat, unmoving, in front of a computer screen, which meant I would have to do my research myself.
I was now left with two remaining leads. Dorothy’s probable brother, George (mentioned in her mother’s will) and Edith Priscilla Pook, the widow to whom Wilfrid had bequeathed his estate. Finding either of these in the records wasn’t going to be easy, but since I knew where Edith had lived, I decided to start with her. Without any dates, of course, this was going to be a nightmare. I would have to plough through all the Pooks who had lived and died in the twentieth century and even then I might not find her: she could have emigrated, remarried or changed her name.
‘Oh, this is hopeless,’ I groaned as I plonked myself down in front of the Microfiche Reader and switched on the screen: ‘Oh, where do I begin?’
Which was when I heard it: 1972.
Turning, I looked over my shoulder. No, no one behind me, and no one sitting next to me either. At a neighbouring table, a couple of students were silently taking notes; and in the comfy chair on my right, an elderly gent had fallen asleep with a copy of the Telegraph folded across his lap.
I took a deep breath. Okay, I thought, it’s possible I really am starting to hear voices. I’ve had a lot to deal with. I’ve always been highly-strung. I could well be developing a certifiable mental illness. Only one way to find out. What you have to do with voices - put them to the test. So, picking up my notebook, I headed for the Index for 1972, and found Edith Pook straightaway. Not that I reacted with any enthusiasm. Rather, I felt strangely detached.
To You The Stars Page 11