Chapter 29
Grim Reality
We tumbled in through the back door, breathless and panting, all legs and pushing arms. Albert and Maureen were stood in front of us in no time.
“What’s goin’ on?” demanded Maureen. She looked cross and stern with hands on hips. “What ‘ave you been up too?”
As we stood there struggling to get our breath back I noticed that Albert was angry too. He stood staring and scowling, his bottom lip quivering as he tried to control his temper.
But he said nothing.
As our breathing became easier we both knew that we were in Lizzie’s parents’ bad books. We gave each other a ‘now we’re in for it’ sort of look.
“Well?” said Maureen again, “what have you got to say for yourselves?”
Albert turned to his wife. “It’s fine, Maureen,” he said, clearly, calmly, “I’ll deal with this.” He turned to his Daughter. “Lizzie, go with your Mother please.”
In my time this request would have been followed by moans, groans and ‘do I have too’s?’ and ‘It’s not fairs!’ But the tone in Albert’s voice left nothing to discuss and no room for debate.
Lizzie did as she was told.
When Mother and Daughter had gone into the front room Albert turned to me.
“Jay,” he said in a low voice that made me fidget with shame, “I’m disappointed. I don’t know what young people behave like in your time, but when you’re here you do as you are told.” Albert looked at me. His stare was as hard as flint. “Now, I think it’s time you went home, young lad, don’t you?”
I did.
“I’ll let Lizzie know that you’ll see her soon.”
I took off the borrowed cap and shrugged off the coat, placing them on the kitchen table. I’d had never felt so ashamed in my whole short life. Never. Albert was such a kind, nice, gentle man.
I felt really, really guilty.
I made my sheepish way towards the hall and the stairs that led to the 21st century.
“Jay!”
I stopped and turned my head back towards Albert.
“Thank you for tonight.”
“You’re welcome, Mr Raynor,” I replied, my heart lightening a little.
You’re welcome?
Now that’s something I wouldn’t have been caught dead saying in my time.
The next day I couldn’t get the séance out of my head.
I hung around the house dead-tired because of lack of sleep. Dad had woken me up with his usual noise in the kitchen as he got ready for work. It was then that I begin to think and, although I had the opportunity to go back to sleep, somehow I couldn’t quite manage it.
There was a lot to keep me awake.
To begin with the voices that I had seen come from Pauline during the séance played on my mind. The desperate dead, if that’s what they were, hunting for some sort of comfort and understanding. Picking through the crumbs of what they had once been. I didn‘t – couldn’t – work out exactly what these people were or where they were coming from. Just where they existed, and how, I couldn’t even begin to imagine.
Then there was that new sensation of floating in rooms and talking to people over long distances. When I remembered how Ernie looked when he first realised that there was something watching him I suddenly felt a rush of terror myself. I even sought out the far corners of my room just to make sure I didn’t have an unwelcome visitor. It must have been weird for Ernie. Unlike Ernie, there was nothing in my room and I thought about how quickly he had recovered from the shock and how we had talked. I was still disappointed that I hadn’t got a place name and I felt bad for the Raynors. I had become a real part of their family, had become fond of them and had almost come to see Lizzie and Pauline as the sisters I never had. That made Albert and Maureen some sort of parents and Ernie almost a Brother. So I felt their disappointment when I couldn’t tell them where he was. When I closed my eyes I still saw that disappointment on the long face of Albert, sat at the séance table, pencil held in his hand, ready to write down any clues as I returned from my visit to Ernie’s room.
It didn’t happen and I felt bad.
Then there was Rosie.
How Rosie and the house in the alley had become important I simply didn’t have a clue. I lay in my bed looking at the weak morning sun trying to find its way around my bedroom curtains and I thought of Rosie still trapped in the cupboard in 1946. Just for a moment I thought I already knew Rosie. She seemed familiar and I felt that I recognised her voice and sad eyes. But I knew that was impossible. The house, and probably Rosie too, were long gone. It was hard to imagine that the story of Rosie and the cupboard had come to an end way before I was born. The problem was I didn’t know how it had ended. In my mind Rosie was still trapped and it was up to all of us to get her away from what was keeping her locked up in that dirty cupboard in that horrible place.
And the feeling – that I knew her from somewhere else – wouldn’t go away.
Finally, there was the faceless stranger in the long coat and the hat. He had never strayed far away from any thoughts I might have had that morning. He lurked in the shadows of my mind in much the same way as he had done in 1946. Watching. Silently watching. Waiting. Thinking. Even though I couldn’t see his face it did feel that he was looking at me now.
And somehow I thought I recognised him too.
Was this another burden of having these ‘special powers’? Was this what a psychic or medium or fortune-teller or whatever had to put up with, the constant company of the whispering dead? If it was I didn’t like the idea. I didn’t want to be close to anything that felt so bad.
Because that’s what I believed the man in the coat and hat to be.
Bad.
I got up at about nine ‘o’ clock. I realised that however hard I tried to forget about everything that had happened it only made it worse.
Somehow it all felt like a gathering storm.
I opened my curtains and watched the little specks of dust swim in the October sunlight through tired eyes. Like thinking about the man in the hat, rubbing my eyes only made them sore so I went downstairs into the kitchen and picked up the note that Dad had left for me on the kitchen work top. I read his scribbly handwriting, blinking away sleep.
Morning sunshine.
When U get up can you take some money
from the drawer in the front room and
get 2 pints of milk and a loaf of bread.
I want you 2 come and C Mum tonight.
She’s missing you.
She’ll probably be home soon.
We’ll get fish n chips after
OK
See U bout 5
Dad