Jay, Lizzie and the Tale of the Stairs

  Chapter 33

  Rescuing Rosie

  So that night we sat and planned how we’d rescue Rosie from her prison.

  We needed to be quick. Like Ernie, I’d stopped dreaming of Rosie and I was a bit worried that we were too late. I was worried that the man in the hat and coat had already done what he’d said he’d do.

  We had no time to lose.

  “Hang on! Why don’t we just go to the 1946 police?” I asked.

  Lizzie explained that the Raynors had a reputation in the area for being different. Weird. Almost witch-like. She said at school she was regularly called ‘Gypsy’ and that some of the kids would ask where her broom was or her cat. Once, some cruel girls had threatened to put her head down the toilet pan to prove if she was a witch. I was completely sorry for her and I knew how she felt. I told Lizzie my problems, being called a ‘geek’ (I had to explain this) and, lately, trying to fit in by throwing paper aeroplanes around the classroom and trying to be cool. It wasn’t the Jay I knew and Lizzie told me off for it

  “Dad says it’s weak if you do what everybody else is doing. That’s how the Nazis started and then the war.”

  I didn’t know what she meant exactly. When I said I could have helped by doing nothing and ignoring what was going on around me, Lizzie had to make a point.

  “No! That’s not enough. You can’t just sit and do nothing. You have to do something. You have to help’.

  And I remembered the first words I’d heard Lizzie speak. The words ‘help us,’ way back in my dreams. And I realised that I had helped, that I was doing something now.

  To help.

  For the first time in a long while I felt a rush of pride and it flooded my system like the sugar of twenty bars of chocolate.

  Chock-full of fresh confidence it was a good time to plan an escape.

  One of the main problems was how to rescue Rosie and not get anybody else involved. It was tricky and meant a lot of thinking, but we managed a rough plan. It was jotted down on the other half of the old birthday card.

  1-late at night j to knock at door of house and pretend to be a ghost

  2-the germans run away scard

  3-we find rosi and escape

  Was this too simple? Often the best ideas are the simplest and, after two hours, it was all we had. I was tired.

  The daring raid was planned for the night after next. Lizzie left for the stairs and 1946 and I tried to get to sleep.

  I couldn’t.

  I didn’t.

  And I didn’t dream.

  Mum came home at dinnertime the next day. She was brought home in an ambulance and Dad was waiting for her on the doorstep. I watched from the front room window as she got stiffly out of the ambulance and gave Dad a hug. Then Dad and the ambulance man helped Mum in through the front door where she saw me and opened her arms.

  “Hello you.”

  “Hello Mum.”

  She held me weakly for a bit then mumbled something about ‘a sit down’ and wobbled into the front room and collapsed on the sofa.

  “Put the kettle on,” she said as if she’d only popped down the shops.

  Dad told me to go out and get her bags and then the ambulance man waved us all goodbye and that was that. Mum was home.

  We sat and talked. Mum looked pale and frail but her hair had grown some more which was good.

  “It’s sooo good to be home,” she said, stretching her slippered feet out. “And it’s tidy too!” Mum was looking around.

  So we all had a cup of tea and Dad brought in some chocolate biscuits but Mum wasn’t hungry. Mum explained how the staff at the hospital gave her a good send off, buying her flowers and things.

  “I’ll miss the people,” she told us, “but I won’t miss St Mary’s.”

  “Neither will we!” said me and Dad at the same time.

  We all laughed.

  Later I went to my room but then crept out to the top of the stairs and listened to Mum and Dad talking in the front room. Their voices rumbled on. Comforting. Familiar. It was great having Mum home. It would mean that Dad wouldn’t be out most nights and I wouldn’t have to go to that horrible hospital again.

  But I didn’t like what lay ahead for all of us. It felt like thunder in the distance. Still way off but always there. Lurking and threatening, getting ready to get louder.

  And I still didn’t understand what, actually, was going to happen. I knew that Mum was going to die but I hadn’t experienced death before. What happened and how will people react? How would I react when the time comes? What would we do when Mum isn’t around anymore?

  No. I didn’t have a clue and I didn’t want to think about it. Dad had sat me down and talked to me about how we should be around Mum, but all he’d said was ‘just enjoy the time’ and ‘try and act normal’. How could we act normal? What was ‘normal’ anyway? I just didn’t know anymore.

  It felt like I was growing up.

  It was going to be tough.

  I was pacing up and down the faded green carpet of my bedroom when Lizzie arrived. She didn’t bother to climb all the way up the stairs from 1946. Half way up Lizzie just held out her hand for me to take.

  “C’mon. We can’t waste another second.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute.”

  As Lizzie led me down the stairs and into her time I couldn’t help but think about the old woman who had spoken through Pauline during the séance. The woman that had lain at the bottom of the stairs until somebody had found her. I thought I saw her lying there but her figure was so vague that I couldn't be sure. Then Lizzie started to talk and the image vanished. She told me that the area near the old house had been fenced off and signs put up.

  “What do they say?”

  “Don’t know,” Lizzie answered. “Haven’t been close enough to read them.”

  I frowned at her and Lizzie looked at the floor guiltily. “I’m scared of that place. It gives me the willies.”

  “I know how you feel,” I answered. And I did. The place gave me the willies too.

  We were at the bottom of her stairs and nearly into the kitchen when I grabbed Lizzie’s thin arm. “What have you told your Mum and Dad?”

  “Mum’s out visiting Gran, and she’ll be back soon, but Dad…Dad’s…”

  Something was wrong.

  “What’s wrong, Lizzie? What’s wrong with Albert?”

  There were little pools of tears in her eyes now. She wiped them away quickly. “He’s gone to fetch Ernie, Jay. I showed him that bit of paper with the names on from your dream. Like you said it’s in Poland or somewhere and Dad seemed to feel it was a message somehow and that Ernie is alive and being kept a prisoner. He just packed a bag, kissed us all goodbye…and left.”

  Lizzie’s head dropped as she remembered the scene.

  “Just…left?” I repeated, finding it hard to believe that Albert came to this decision so soon.

  Lizzie nodded at the floor.

  I felt embarrassed doing it but I placed one of my grey hands on Lizzie’s back and patted her softly.

  “Lizzie, it’ll be OK.” For a second Albert’s sudden decision made sense. “He might just find him. Now I know that all this was meant to happen.”

  “But it’s dangerous,” Lizzie said sharply. “He’ll get hurt or killed.”

  “The war’s over isn’t it? Yes? He’ll be fine.”

  I was proud of my job at reassuring Lizzie as her head lifted. But I was conscious that my hand was still resting on Lizzie’s back. I took it off.

  “Right,” started Lizzie with a sniff. She was back in the here and now, “I think it’s better that Mum doesn’t know you’re here. You’re going to have to hide in the toilet until it’s time to go I’m afraid.”

  I wrinkled my nose. I knew that all houses like Lizzie’s only had an outside toilet. It was cold and I’d seen that they used old newspaper for toilet roll. Now it was Lizzie’s turn to look embarrassed. It was almost like she k
new what I was thinking.

  Living in Shad Hill I remembered Beth and how she sometimes made me feel. I once overheard her saying that ‘even rats wear tin hats on Shad Hill.’ So I decided to make it clear to Lizzie that it was OK and that it didn’t matter.

  “Righteo!” she said, shrugging in reply. But I knew it did matter. That she’d seen the luxuries of the 21st century and felt like a poor relative. Like someone from the third world.

  I felt really, really guilty.

  Lizzie led me through the familiar kitchen where I put on the hat and coat and then followed her out into the back yard. It was dark already and I felt as well as heard the difference of decades. In the gloom Lizzie used the latch to open the wooden door of the outside toilet. It was cold, with bare plastered walls. Hung up on one of them was a tin bath. And there was the newspaper. It was hanging from and old piece of wire attached to a rusty cistern dripping with moisture.

  “Why can’t we go to the house now?” I asked Lizzie

  I was making things worse but I didn’t want to spend an hour or so in there.

  “We can’t go now, Jay. There’s too many people around.”

  “I suppose so.”

  I had no choice but to make myself comfortable on the toilet in the outside lavatory and listen to the sounds of a 1946 evening through damp walls. Luckily the hat and coat helped keep me warm. The drip of water in the cistern made me think of the ticking of a clock and how precious seconds slip away. Time was everything it seemed. Time was the circus master. The boss. The big man. Time made everybody and everything dance to the old tune he played.

  And you can’t help but listen because the tune is played for you.

  I liked that. I planned to write it down.

  There were other noises while I waited. There was the hoot of a steam train in the distance; an old aeroplane passing overhead; someone shouting; again the odd car, all grinding and gears. Then I thought of Albert and how he just ‘made off’. Because of what? Because of something a teenage boy from the 21st century had seen? I felt bad then. What if I’d got it all wrong? But something inside of me told me it wasn’t wrong. Anyway, if I was right about Rosie then I’d probably be right about Ernie too.

  We’d soon see.

  In the shadows of the outside toilet I crossed my grey fingers.

  Lizzie had mentioned her ‘Gran.’ I began to wonder what her gran was like, how old she was, was she married, that sort of thing. I worked out that she would probably have been alive during The Great War. That was incredible! It was still hard to believe that I was actually in 1946. If I wasn’t sure this wasn’t a dream, I’d be certain it was.

  Lizzie took an age to come back but when she did she was in a hurry. “Quick! Mum’s coming back. It’s now or never.”

  So not for the first time we set off out of the garden gate and up the back lane towards the house where we thought Rosie was being kept prisoner by the Germans.

  We didn’t meet anybody on our journey except for the black cat. I started to think that this was more than just coincidence. I didn’t say anything to Lizzie.

  As we drew nearer the house I started to feel ill. Lizzie felt it too, but it didn’t seem as powerful as the feeling I had. I felt dizzy, sick and the feeling of terror – and of being trapped – crashed in on me like a bomb through a roof.

  “How are you feeling?” asked Lizzie.

  “Not so good,” I answered, “but I’ll be OK.”

  We turned into the back alley and I glanced back to see the black cats’ eyes glisten brightly in the dark distance, carefully watching. Always watching. Soon we had to duck down behind the crumbling wall that surrounded the old house.

  I swallowed hard. I was feeling terrible. “OK,” I whispered to Lizzie, “what, exactly, is the plan?”

  Lizzie thought about this. “Well…um…you pretend to be a ghost and…um…frighten ‘em off.”

  “Well, yeah, but how do I do that? Just flap my arms about like a chicken trying to fly?”

  “S’pose so.”

  I was nervous and agitated. “Yeah, like that’s going to work.”

  I saw Lizzie’s bottom lip come out and her face start to show signs of a mood.

  “Why do you talk to me like that?” she said and folded her arms across her chest.

  I sighed. “Look, we need a slightly better plan than that one. OK?”

  Lizzie was still looking hard at the rubble of the alley floor. “If you’re so smart, you think of a plan!”

  So I thought and an answer came quicker than I’d expected. “Right. Lizzie? Are you listening? OK? Good. You go up to the house and knock on the door. When somebody answers you tell them that you’re being followed and you need help. Tell them you think it’s some sort of ghost. When whoever has answered the door comes out, I’ll appear and I’ll try and draw them off.” Lizzie was looking at me blankly. “You know, lead them away, get them to follow me. That might give you time to get inside and find where Rosie is.”

  “What if they won’t let me in? And what about if there’s a lock on Rosie’s door?” Lizzie looked suddenly terrified. “What if I can’t even find her?”

  She was right. Maybe this was a bad idea. But the dreams, visions and the awful feelings I had wouldn’t let me just walk away. I needed to sleep without waking up feeling I hadn’t. And besides, like Lizzie and her Dad had said, we needed to help and not just ignore stuff, hoping that it would disappear.

  “Well,” I replied after some thought, “if you can’t find anything in there make your excuses and leave.”

  “Oh well,” said Lizzie getting to her feet, “here goes then.” She brushed herself down and straightened up. “Ready Mr Ghost?”

  Suddenly I admired her. Admired her bravery. She was going to give it a go. Lots of boys would have scampered home scared by now. But not Lizzie. Lizzie was a fighter.

  “I’m ready,” I nodded. “As soon as I start so see you pointing in this direction, I’ll put a good act on and hopefully one or two of them will follow and let you get in.”

  “Jay,” said Lizzie, suddenly doubtful, “if this girl Rosie’s in there, what’s to stop them keeping me and locking me up?”

  She was bright too. She had a point.

  “Lizzie, if it comes to that then I’ll call the police.”

  At this Lizzie smiled slightly and her courage flooded back. She stood to mock attention and made a clumsy salute. “Ay,ay, sir!”

  And she was off. Skittering and stumbling across the broken bricks, mounds of earth and patches of grass, to the front door of the big house.