The Silence of Ghosts Page 3

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  My mother and father met me at King’s Cross, where I arrived on board a much-delayed troop train. They brought my little sister Octavia with them. The smile on her face when she saw me made up for a lot. She’d been in floods of tears when I last saw her, on the dock as my ship pulled away on the first stage of my journey. They were all in good spirits to see me alive. But I could see Mother glancing again and again at the hump where a cage sat over what was left of my leg, and I sensed that her bonhomie was forced. She would never accept an imperfect man as her son. They had to take me off on a stretcher carried by two porters. There were a lot of wounded on the train, but I was scarcely considered serious. Mother has always been a proud woman, sometimes excessively so, and I knew as well that she’d wanted grandchildren from me, the last of the male line. That was, I knew, unlikely to happen now. Who would marry a one-legged man, half a man?

  Octavia held my hand as soon as she could and looked into my eyes, but said nothing of my amputation. She made a slicing motion once at the start, and I nodded. That was all she needed to know. The concern she felt was evident on her face, as her emotions always are. She is an extremely sensitive child, feeling things more acutely than others, especially other people’s suffering. I have often found her instinct for pain uncanny. To balance this, she’s vivacious, animated and cheerful most of the time, even though she can’t communicate most of her emotions through words. Not even my parents have been able to repress her natural instincts for trouble and passion, for her condition inhibits the discipline they would like to impose on her. They do not love her, of course. As I have just written, my mother cannot abide anything with a defect, so Octavia’s deafness and my amputated leg are both curses to her. As for my father, he remains as remote from her as custom and duty allow.

  We drove back to Bloomsbury in the Hispano. I joked that my father must have obtained enough petrol for the trip on the black market, Army petrol as likely as not. Of course, Bloomsbury is next door to King’s Cross, so he would only have needed a teaspoonful or two if he’d been in any other car. He sneered at my impertinent sense of humour, as he had done so many times in the past. I said nothing in reply; I was glad enough to do the journey in private transport.

  We made good time: there was very little traffic on the road. The bombs were scaring people away, but Father was confident that Bloomsbury wouldn’t be hit as hard as the East End, or perhaps not at all. ‘There’s nothing of strategic importance here,’ he said. Octavia could do nothing to cheer me up: in the front passenger seat, I couldn’t see her hands move or her lips make words, but she did what she could in speech. I think I’m the only person who understands some of what she says. My parents couldn’t care less and leave her in the keeping of a succession of tutors who try to remedy her ‘defect’ with little science and no art at all.

  We got back to Bloomsbury in time for the blackout. This was only brought in about a month ago, and I’d been put asleep early in the hospital, so it was completely new to me and very disconcerting. With the winter coming in, the heavy curtains hemmed us about and gave a sense of darkness to everything. Father had installed a shelter in the living room, pinning corrugated sheets to the ceiling and reinforcing it all with stout wooden posts. He said these indoor shelters were a better option than the Andersons that let in water and were cold and damp. The square management committee had debated whether they should put an Anderson in the garden at the centre of the square, but someone had suggested that we’d be invaded by the occupants of all the flats around us, so the residents had opted for the indoor style instead.

  That evening my parents spoke to the consultant whom they paid to take over my case. He was a grey-faced man from the south of England, Mr Longmate. He wore little pince-nez spectacles, from which he looked down at me as a diner might look on a dish of braised kidneys. I suspected he was telling them things he would not impart to me. He was a cold fish, not given to encouraging comments. His premises are in Harley Street, of course. I was glad to see the back of him when he left. He had hardly spoken to me, only to my parents, and mostly to my mother.

  My father spent most of the evening in his office. He is a wine shipper specializing in vinho do porto from Portugal. Our family has owned a quinta at São João da Pesqueira since 1730. I have been there twice, but I fear I will never return, for the steep slopes would defeat me. We grow some grapes ourselves, mainly the Tinta Barroca and Tinta Cão varieties. Father runs one of the country’s most successful import firms and has close ties to Portugal’s fascist prime minister, Mr Salazar. We have a large office in Porto, where our label is respected along with those of Taylor, Croft, and Warre’s. As a result, he is in much demand to speak at Rotary Club branches or the Chamber of Commerce. He’s not given to displays of emotion, and I believe he does not feel any, but I can see he is under pressure. German U-boats are threatening shipping in the Atlantic, and getting shipments from Oporto must be hard and dangerous.

  18 November

  Today Dr Longman visited again, and again spoke chiefly to my mother. I have slept for the most part, and Octavia has sat by my side. Our housekeeper, Mrs Mayberry, brings food to tempt me, and I eat a little only for Octavia’s sake. Being half a man, there seems not much point in anything now.

  Sunday, 8 December

  Hallinhag House

  Ullswater

  I stayed at home throughout the rest of November, but I quickly sensed that, apart from my father’s business worries and the anxiety that focused on my leg and my uncertain future, something else was troubling both my parents. The retreat from Dunkirk in May had proved destabilizing for both of them, and they often talked about what it might foreshadow. If we couldn’t stop the Germans in France, what chance would we have of beating them with our backs to the wall here? Would Hitler invade Spain and Portugal or use Franco and Salazar as his go-betweens? In a way, I was glad my father spoke of such possibilities, because I considered it defeatist talk and told him so. My war was over, but I couldn’t bear to hear someone give encouragement to the enemy. He cooled down after that and retreated back inside his shell.

  Octavia was barely affected by any of this. I didn’t tell her much. She knew about the war, for she could hardly fail to have noticed the air-raid shelters, the barrage balloons, the men and women in uniform on the streets. But her deafness meant that she never heard the air-raid sirens howl or the all-clear sound. She’s an affectionate child, though she received little of affection from her mother and father. She doesn’t have friends, apart from children she knows from the deaf school she occasionally visits. Other little girls – there are or were several in the square – avoid her, since they have no way of communicating with her, thinking her stupid, something she most certainly is not. At least Mrs Mayberry is kind to her, and Octavia spends so much of her time in the kitchen. And it has taken my mind off my own sufferings to devote time to improving Octavia’s reading and writing. She has skills well beyond her age, since most of her focus has been on the written language and, as I said, she is far from stupid.

  There is one thing for which she is never appreciated: her laugh. It is an unrestrained laugh – more a cackle, really – that creases her face and sometimes bends her double. It grates on most people, for it bears little resemblance to what they consider a proper laugh. I have always liked it, because I have always understood Octavia. When she laughs, her whole being is in it, her eyes shine, tears run down her cheeks. It is the most natural and unaffected laugh you can hope to hear. When she was younger, I used to tickle her, and that would send her into paroxysms of mirth. She stands out in a house so full of meaningful silences. Here, when anyone pretends to laugh, all that comes out is a stilted, well-controlled snigger. They have always tried to stop her laughing, but from my late teens I’ve made an effort to keep her doing so. I know how to make the sort of jokes she likes. I make funny faces, I jump around like a mad thing. Well, perhaps not now, but I did.

  I asked my mother not to admit any n
eighbours, for some people we know have heard of my misfortune and several have expressed a desire to visit. No doubt they mean well, but I’m not in the mood for tea and cakes with a dollop of pity on the side. My mother says that, if they do call, all they will talk about is the war. But I tell her that the war is precisely the topic that will encourage people to talk about my leg and its absence.

  Father came in last week. He was heading for his office, but said there was something he wanted to talk to me about. I was sitting up in bed now. The district nurse, a middle-aged woman called Mrs Bainbridge, had come in to dress my leg and, being a rather bossy sort of woman, had insisted I learn how to sit up, which I now did, bracing myself on my complete leg.

  ‘Dominic,’ Father said, ‘I have a concern I’d like to share with you.’

  It wasn’t like him to share things with anyone, most of all his own family. We Lancasters were too long in the tooth, too bound by tradition, too little cosseted by sympathy, and what Lancasters had done two hundred years ago, Lancasters were expected to do today. According to my mother, my father has for some years been in eager anticipation of a knighthood – I really cannot say for what – and was growing uneasy about it, for he thought it likely that the new king would confer honours only on those who had contributed to the war work. I suspect he has been working behind the scenes to contrive some sort of deal with Salazar for the export of wolfram, which is an essential metal to harden machine edges for the manufacture of armaments. Portugal has almost as much wolfram as China, and Salazar sells unlimited quantities to the Third Reich. I think Father uses his good offices through contacts in Lisbon, which seems to be the spy capital of the world. He knows the ins and outs of the Portuguese bureaucracy.

  Yet, Father sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to smile. I waited for whatever was to come.

  ‘Son, I don’t have to tell you about the air raids. They’re going up and down the country now. Liverpool’s been hit, Manchester, Birmingham, London, and it’s spreading every night. They say it will get a lot worse before it stops, when Goering runs out of planes, if he ever does. London’s been hit much more heavily than most. You know Octavia wasn’t able to join the big evacuation last September because her condition means she needs extra help. But evacuation is a lot more urgent than it was two Septembers ago. Octavia can’t go just anywhere. Your mother and I have to stay in London – I have to take care of the office, and she insists on lending a hand with the WVS here in Bloomsbury. We’ll stick it out, but Octavia’s another matter. She can’t hear the alerts or the all-clears, she can’t hear much of the bombs, and she’s headstrong. We’ve caught her more than once heading outside after blackout, set to wander off Heaven knows where.

  ‘You’re not happy here, we can see that. So I want you to take Octavia up to the Lakes, to Ullswater, and open up Hallinhag House. What do you say?’

  I looked at him askance. There had been so many changes for me since Dakar, my head was spinning with places and people.

  ‘Father, wouldn’t I be more use to you by staying in London and starting work in the office? I’ve worked there before, and I’m sure I can pick up the rest once . . .’

  He put up his hand and shook his head.

  ‘Dominic, you’re in no fit state to start working in the office again at a time like this. You’ve never shown any serious interest before. Perhaps when the war is over you can be trusted to do some simple tasks. But I don’t care to have you in the business right now.’

  ‘You’ve been planning this ever since you knew I was coming home,’ I said. ‘How do you expect me to cope over at the lake when I can’t handle things here?’

  He nodded. I wondered why he hadn’t asked my mother to take part in the charade.

  ‘Octavia will look after you,’ he said. ‘She’s had to be a capable child, and you’re the only one who can communicate with her. There’s a district nurse from Pooley Bridge who’ll visit you most days and look after your medical needs.’

  I didn’t have much choice. How could I rebel? I couldn’t leave without help, and however much my leg troubled me, I knew I’d get little sympathy in a world where people were dying violently in large numbers every day. Don’t get me wrong, I do love my little sister dearly, but out here she’s my only company.

  We were driven up by Morris, a taciturn man, chosen because my father did not want to chat to his driver to and from work.

  Hallinhag House has belonged to the family for over two hundred years, with bouts of refurbishment on the ground floor and the roof thrown in every few decades, and we all know it well. Except Octavia, who has never been here owing to her asthma. Of course, that has improved a lot over the past few years, and my parents consulted with Dr Hammell, who declared her fit to stay in a lakeside house. And if she does have an attack, it won’t be hard to get her home again. Actually, it will, won’t it? If there’s no one else here, I can’t take her to Howtown, I can’t drive, and there’s no telephone out here.

  She has just stepped into the living room, where I have my bed and bits and pieces. She’s wearing her summer clothes: the pink cardie I gave her last year for her birthday, the blue skirt Mother bought to go with it, and those bright red shoes she simply won’t take off. She will need to put on something more, because it’s already very cold.

  She looks at me and grins. She has tied her black hair back in a chignon, something my mother taught her to do. It makes her look very grown up.

  ‘Your nurse will be here tomorrow,’ she says.

  I moan. I don’t want a nurse.

  ‘She’ll be fat and bossy,’ I tell her, using lips and hands to make words.

  She grins again, then gestures, ‘It’s chilly in here, don’t you think?’

  ‘A little,’ I reply, though I know perfectly well it’s cold enough to freeze the sheep to death on their lonely hills. But I’m wrapped up warmly in bed, and my senses are still dimmed by morphia. I fear a life like this, immobile, dependent on the warm hearts of friends and my sister and the cold hands of nurses and doctors when they choose to come. I dream of Alice MacDonald, my gentle nurse, and summon her in my sleep. She has tended thousands like me.

  ‘I left Boris behind,’ Octavia gestured.

  ‘How awful,’ I said. Boris was the teddy bear she had had since the age of one or so. A furry beast with a red button for one eye. She had sewn the button there herself, about a year ago. Just the one eye, disabling him, bringing him closer to her.

  The house seems more than quiet. Downcast. Full of memories. No, that’s wrong. It’s full of forgettings. All the years that have gone, and I know so little of the men and women who spent time here, even though they were my ancestors. When I have been here before, the house has seemed filled with light; but that was always the summer, and it is winter now. Perhaps the house has picked up my mood, sensed my new vulnerability, and knows how useless I am. Can houses sense what we feel? Do they feed off all the emotions that have been experienced between their walls? Octavia says there are ghosts here. I admonish her, and I watch her when she comes to this room. She might be serious, but I doubt it. She has no names for these ghosts. Maybe they are silent, like her.

  Monday, 9 December

  My new nurse called this morning. She tells me she will be my permanent carer, subject to war conditions, which means she’ll attend me one day at a time. Her name is Rose Sansom, and she’s both a Queen’s Nurse and a district nurse. She’s based in Pooley Bridge on the northern tip of Ullswater, but she reports each month to Barrow-in-Furness, where the Cumbrian HQ of the Queen’s Nurses is based.

  I was wrong. Rose isn’t fat and she’s no bossier than any nurse I’ve dealt with till now. In fact, she’s very slim and as pretty as her name, and I feel quite smitten. I’ll have to watch myself. Of course, she has the upper hand. She cleaned and dressed my wound with the greatest gentleness, just as Alice MacDonald used to do. It hurt, as it always does, but I put on a brave face throughout, and I fancy it hurt less than before. She’s the
first nurse since Alice I’ve had confidence in.

  ‘You’re healing well,’ she said as she finished putting on a new bandage and fastening it with adhesive tape.

  ‘You nurses all say that,’ I objected. ‘You don’t have to keep the truth from me.’

  She gave me a look I shall never forget. She’s quite short, with short auburn hair and soft red lips. I’ve already learned that she can look at me in a hundred different ways, all of them capable of making me uncomfortable.

  ‘I never mollycoddle my patients,’ she retorted. ‘Whatever I tell you will be the truth, however unpalatable it may be. We’ll get on well if you learn to trust me.’

  I nodded timidly, well admonished. Of course, I didn’t tell her I trusted her already. It’s not the done thing. Or is that just my family’s attitude, where nobody ever trusts anybody, except Octavia and myself? She made me feel something of a child, though from the look of her I guess she’s a year or two younger than myself.

  As she was helping me back into my pyjamas, the door opened and I saw Octavia come in. They had met earlier, when Nurse Sansom arrived, but now I introduced them properly. Nurse Sansom wasn’t in the least flustered by Octavia’s disability as so many are. She made sure she was looking straight at her when she spoke, and she was able to do some primitive gesturing, which delighted Octavia no end.

  When Octavia left again, Rose – for that is what she already insisted I call her – sat beside me again.

  ‘Tell me about Octavia,’ she said.

  I told her what there was to know. That she’d been born with good hearing but that at the age of five she’d contracted mumps and gone completely deaf. Rose listened gravely, and I had a feeling that she took a special interest in the matter.