Charles Dickens

‘Have you ever seen a ghost?’ Geoffrey Thurslow asked me one rainy Saturday afternoon in late October, while we sat on opposite sides of the staff-room fire enjoying a brief respite from boys and ink and noise and ‘O’ levels.

‘No, I can’t say that I have.’ I put down my notebook and looked up at him, sitting back in his leaky leather armchair, pipe in hand. He was wearing an ancient brown tweed jacket and cavalry twill trousers and was looking even more the middle-aged bachelor schoolmaster than usual.

Geoffrey pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose.

‘I suppose most people would say the same. And yet, if you were to ask them if they believed in ghosts, you’d probably get a different answer.’

‘People take many things on trust. Or because they’re attractive or comforting to them. I mean, if you say that you believe in ghosts, that’s another way of saying that you believe in an afterlife, which is something many of us would like to believe in, even if there’s no solid evidence for it.’

‘Yes, Jack, you’re right. And so very sensible and rational too. I wonder if you’d admit to the existence of ghosts if the shade of Jacob Marley came clanking through that door right now?’

We both glanced at the staff-room door.

‘It’s much more likely that Jenkins minor will come clanking through that door with a summons from the Head.’

‘Or carrying a message from Matron about missing socks. But; did you ever think about writing ghost stories, rather than those penny-bloods you turn out?’

‘No, not really. There are quite enough explainable mysteries in the world already for me to have fun with, without having to invoke the Beyond or the Powers Of The Occult. And besides, how could anyone possibly write a ghost story that was better or more frightening than, say, The Mezzotint? Or anything else by M.R. James for that matter? I certainly couldn’t.’

‘Very true, very true.’ Geoffrey was not the kind of person to wink. Wry remarks like that were the closest he got to it.

‘I suppose that one of the things about ghosts – if you admit their existence at all, that is – is that they act as a form of memento mori; a reminder that you are going to die. All the ghosts that I ever read about or heard of were of people who died with some aspect of their life not finished or settled─’

‘Like Jacob Marley in A Christmas Carol, you mean.’

‘Well, yes. He died having accumulated a huge pile of money that was no good to him and which he could have used to help the poor starving people around him. He then had to suffer the torment of not being able to help them after his death.’

‘He couldn’t take it with him.’

‘Quite. Except for several fathoms of iron chain.’

‘Anyway, they died and there was something wrong with their lives and they couldn’t be allowed to go on to the proper afterlife until that wrong was put right. But they had to die first.’

‘That is the usual pattern, yes.’ I reached for my notebook again.

Geoffrey fell silent. He eased himself out of the armchair which had somehow become his unofficial property and shambled over to the window, though which the sounds of healthy young middle-class English manhood playing rugby football could be heard. His stooped figure was silhouetted against the grimy panes of the window as he gazed over towards Rugger Bigside where the first fifteen were engaged in a school match against nearby Wayland College.

‘Forbury is doing well. He’ll be playing for the Varsity in a couple of years’ time.’

A cheer echoed across the playing fields. They’d be throwing buns in Hall later. Thank heavens I wasn’t on duty that week.

Geoffrey sighed and meandered his way back to his chair. He sank into it, bent forward to look at the fire and sighed again, then straightened up suddenly as if he had come to a decision. He looked directly towards me.

‘Jack, I’m going to tell you about something that happened to me a while ago – last year, actually. It’s not raw material for one of your blasted books either, although it was one of them that started the whole thing off.

‘It was a Saturday afternoon rather like today, windy and rainy and altogether pretty beastly. I’d gone into Town, even though the first fifteen were playing at home, to get a few bits and pieces. Matron had said that the laundry had rejected three of my shirts as being too far gone for them to wash without them falling apart so I popped into Marks and bought some more.

‘It was quite foul when I came out so I made a dive for the teashop opposite─’

‘The Kozey Kettle?’

‘That’s the one. The place was packed – it was half-past three and the weather being so bad had brought lots of people in off the streets, I suppose. Anyway, I couldn’t get a table to myself, so I had to sit at one which was already occupied. I didn’t take in the other person except to notice that she was a middle-aged woman with a few shopping bags piled around her and that she had her nose buried in a book.

‘I ordered tea and a rock cake and arranged my own things between my chair and the wall. I couldn’t see much as my glasses had misted up so I took them off and wiped them. Then for the first time I took a proper look at the person I was sharing the table with.’

‘Or whose privacy you had invaded.’

‘If you want to put it that way, yes. The first thing I saw was the book she was reading. I’d expected it to be one of those popular romances – Bills and Spoon, or whatever it is. But actually, it was one of yours.’

‘Oh yes? Which one?’ Professional interest, you know.

‘Let’s think. Does Blood Bath in Battersea ring a bell?’

‘No! You know damn well it doesn’t!’ It’s only jealousy on Geoffrey’s part. I keep telling him there’s much more money in school textbooks than crime novels.

‘I know. It was one of those country house murder stories. Death and Tennis – that’s it.’

‘I got a Silver Dagger Award for that!’

‘You certainly deserved some kind of dagger for it. Anyway, I was looking at the book’s cover when I became aware that the reader herself was looking back at me. A pair of shrewd eyes were regarding me in an amused way over the top of the book.

‘"You can borrow it after me, if you like," she said.

‘"No, no, that’s quite all right," I replied, embarrassed. "It’s just that I know the author. He’s a colleague of mine."

‘"Is he, now? Tell me, is he a very wicked cruel man, this Fabian Greene, to think up all these nasty ways of killing people?" she said.

‘I hope you said "yes",’ I interjected.

‘No I didn’t. And it’s a funny thing, because I really can’t remember what I said. Or what she said after that. All I can remember of our first meeting is that we chatted and that somehow everything she said seemed witty, or funny, or true or all of those things, and that she made me feel as if I was witty and funny also. Which you’ve got to admit is unusual for me.’

I should perhaps say at this point that Geoffrey was perhaps the most bachelor-like bachelor I had ever met. His life seemed to have consisted of babyhood, school, then university and then straight back to school again, as a schoolmaster. I wondered if he had ever experienced what you might call real life – life outside the cloisters of school and university, I mean – at all. His tragedy was that he was sufficiently intelligent and aware of other people to have at least some small idea of what he was missing.

‘When I looked at my watch it was half-past five and I had ten minutes to get to Hall in time for Tea Duty. I made a hasty, clumsy, farewell to my companion and dashed out of the teashop door, only just remembering my shopping. I haven’t run so fast since I was an undergraduate.

‘The weather had improved considerably, which was fortunate as I very nearly bowled over a boy who was standing just outside the door. He wasn’t one of ours – a good thing too, else he’d have been in trouble for staying out after five o’clock. I apologised to him and suggested that standing in doorways wasn’t the most sensible thing to do. He stared back at me vacantly. I decided he must have been slightly concussed by my having crashed into him, so I gave him a shilling and ran on up the hill to School.

‘I can’t say I gave the matter of the boy, or my teatime friend, much thought over the week that followed. I had quite enough to do with trying to get Holloway major to draw a proper distinction between Plutarch and Pluto. Have you got him this year?’

‘Yes, I have.’

‘Hmmm. Well, anyway, it was a busy week and there was no School Match that Saturday so, without knowing quite how I got there, I found myself standing outside the Kozey Kettle again. And there she was, sitting in the window, reading a book. No, not one of yours this time. No Fond Return of Love, by Barbara Pym, I think it was. I tapped on the window and she saw me and beckoned me in.

‘I made some fatuous joke about trashy romances not being quite her style. She became quite cross with me and said that it was most certainly not a trashy romance of the Wills and June variety but a subtle satire of the kind that was probably well beyond my ability to appreciate. I was suitably contrite and bought her a slice of carrot-cake in recompense.

‘Again, we seemed to be able to talk extraordinarily easily. We volleyed bons mots and epigrams between ourselves like – like two table-tennis players who are each trying to make sure the other doesn’t miss the ball. Yes, that’s it.

‘I wasn’t on duty that week, so we were able to go on talking until the staff very pointedly started stacking the chairs and tables around us. We agreed to meet the following week at the same time and place.

‘As I strolled up the hill towards School in the semi-darkness, I slowly became aware that I could hear the footsteps of someone following me. I had heard about muggers, of course, but I decided I would rather turn and confront the criminal, if such it was, than suffer the doubt of not knowing who was behind me. The streetlights were coming on, so I stopped under one and turned round.

‘There in front of me, strangely lit by the orange light above us, was the boy. The same boy that I had bumped into outside the teashop the week before. I thought he must be after another tip, so I said "Sorry. I only give shillings to war veterans," meaning to make a joke of it. But he just stared up at me with the same vacant expression that had been on his face the week before. I remember that his nose was running and I wanted to tell him to blow it.

‘"Are you all right?" I asked him. He continued staring at me. It was beginning to disturb me, that stare. There seemed to be nothing behind it. Nothing behind his eyes, I mean. I made one more try.

‘"Do you live nearby?"

‘He made a kind of inarticulate sound in the back of his throat. "Ah-ah," or something like that. Then he suddenly turned and ran off.

‘"Oh well, that’s that," I thought, and carried on back to School.

‘I can’t tell you with what eager anticipation I looked forward to the next Saturday. Even the unsettling encounter with the mysterious boy didn’t bother me as much as it might have done if I had not been so looking forward to my next meeting with Marjorie, for that was the lady’s name. There was something, though. Something about the boy’s face. Not its blank idiocy, although that was disturbing enough, but the fact that, somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought I’d seen it before.’

‘We see lots of boys.’

‘Yes of course, but even the stupidest one has managed to pass his Common Entrance. Or else he’s exceptionally good at sport, like young Forbury out there. No, I wondered if there hadn’t been a boy who was disabled or mentally handicapped, or whatever we call it now, in the village when I was growing up, and this boy was reminding me of him.

‘The week passed slowly enough, but the next Saturday I presented myself at the Kozey Kettle at half-past two. To my annoyance, the boy was standing outside the clothes shop next door, leaning against the doorway and playing with one of those blasted yo-yo things. He looked up at me with a slack-jawed grin and made that "ah-ah" sound in his throat again. I gave him a sharp look in return and entered the teashop.

‘Marjorie was there, waiting for me. "It’s a lovely day," she said. "Why don’t we go for a spin?" She had a blue car parked outside in the High Street. A Ford Anglia, I think it was, with a radiator grille like a great big grin. I hopped into the passenger seat and we drove slowly up the Vale, enjoying the brilliant autumn sunshine and the colours of the trees. And chatting. I learned that her full name was Marjorie Wallis; that she was a widow, that her husband had been a solicitor and had died two years previously, leaving her well provided for.

‘I told her about myself, as her little car weaved its way through the villages of the Vale. It was a novelty for me to meet a woman who was prepared to listen to me talking for longer than five minutes without finding some reason to escape my company. I supposed that she was a captive audience, so to speak, and anyway she had her driving to keep her occupied.

‘We stopped outside one of those combined Post Office cum General Stores cum tearooms that you find in small country towns. I rushed round to the driver’s door, opened it and handed her out of the car; which courtesy she received very graciously indeed. But there was a shock waiting for me. Inside the tearoom, loitering by the counter, was… the boy.’

‘The same boy?’ I said.

‘Yes, the very same boy. Staring at me with the same idiot grin, his head tilted oddly to one side, making the same obscene noises in his throat. "Ah-ah, pa-da, ga-ga." I felt disgusted, and ashamed.’

‘You mean you felt ashamed of your disgust.’

‘Yes, I do. But I was un-nerved too. How on earth could the wretched child have reached the Post Office before us? How could he have known where we were going? I hadn’t known myself.

‘"Geoffrey, are you feeling unwell?" Marjorie asked. I made up some excuse about feeling a little carsick, which wasn’t very tactful of me. Actually, she was a very good, steady, safe driver.

‘We found a table, and when I looked up again at the counter the boy had gone. Marjorie was the same marvellous company as ever, and after a while I pushed him to the back of my mind. We drove back as it was growing dark and she dropped me outside the Lodge, arranging to meet in the lobby of the Regal cinema the following Saturday.

‘Only one thing spoiled the following week, apart from 5B’s total lack of interest in Ovid, that is. It was late Wednesday evening: I was getting ready for bed, when I heard an odd scratching sound coming from outside. I supposed it was cats.

‘I flung up the window to take a look. Outside, leaning against the Lodge gates, was that hideous boy, looking up at my window and making those awful ugly sounds – "Pa-da, ah-ah, ga-ga, da-da, ah-ah." He was sucking his thumb and I saw to my horror that he had taken his member out of his trousers and was fiddling with it.

‘"Clear off!" I shouted. "Clear off now, you horrible creature, or I’ll call the police!"

‘He took his thumb out of his mouth, gave me a mocking wave, and sauntered off into the darkness. Yet again, I was struck by the conviction that I had seen him somewhere before. I didn’t sleep at all well that night, and I expect the Fourth Remove caught the sharp edge of my tongue the next day.

‘I’m not going to tell you about every single time I encountered the boy. Marjorie and I saw A Hard Day’s Night at the Regal the next Saturday. It was the most infernally noisy film I’ve ever seen, but Marjorie said that we should try to keep up with what the young people were interested in. I couldn’t understand what it was all about, myself – there were no tunes to speak of and you couldn’t make out a word of what they were saying. We had a bit of a disagreement over it.

‘All the same, our relationship flourished. Did anyone here notice, by the way?’ Geoffrey asked me.

‘You can’t keep many secrets in a boarding school. There may have been one or two remarks made.’

‘By Roberts?’

‘Yes. And Twemlow, too. I soon shut them up.’ I poked the fire and added some coal from the blackened old scuttle. The sounds of cheering and the referee’s whistle coming in from outside reminded us that the rugby match was nearing its end.

‘Well, I don’t care. And it’s all over now.’

‘How did it finish? I mean, if you don’t mind telling me.’ The shouting and cheering were reaching an even higher pitch outside the staff-room window. It appeared that School had won, and that Forbury was being given his Colours.

‘No, not any more, although I was rather cut up about it at the time.

‘As I said, Marjorie and I continued to get on terrifically well and it was becoming clear to me that, if things carried on the way they were, marriage could well be on the cards. Yes, me, Geoffrey Thurslow, a married man! We spent many afternoons in the front room of her house, a nice bungalow on the Wantage road, reading to each other, talking, even watching her television set. She was a football fan, did I say?

‘I’ll never forget our first kiss; in the back row of the Regal, while we were pretending to watch The Dam Busters. I felt like an adolescent all over again…’

Geoffrey fell silent for a minute of two. The fire settled in the grate with a soft rustling sound.

‘But still there was the boy; ever-present, always appearing at the worst times, blighting my happiness. Sometimes he had a crutch; occasionally he was in a wheelchair, usually he was on his own two feet. And always with that terrible empty expression and horrible sub-human cry – "pa-da, ga-ga, ah-ma, ah-ah, da-da."

‘Marjorie had to go away for a week or two. To see a sick aunt, she said, although I think that what she really wanted to do was to give herself an opportunity to think things over. I thought that when she returned I might, if I could gather up my courage, propose to her. I helped her to pack her things and waved her off, the red tail lights of her little Ford Anglia disappearing into the night.

‘I had, of course, wondered about the apparent connection between her and the boy. Her marriage had been childless, I knew, and she had no relatives living nearby. Besides, the boy seemed to be able to appear in one place or another without actually needing to travel between them. But, all the same, it was true that I had never seen the boy before I met her. It could have been coincidence, of course, but it was all so uncanny – his suddenly turning up just like that and the nagging familiarity of his face.

‘Marjorie had been gone a few days, and I was in my study one afternoon doing some marking when I heard a familiar noise outside. I went to the door of the Lodge, both knowing and dreading what I would find outside. Sure enough, there he was; chewing on a stalk of grass and scratching his head.

‘"This has got to stop," I said to myself. I told the boy to come inside and led him to my study and sat him down. I took out some lemonade and a packet of ginger nuts from the cupboard and gave them to him. He ate and drank like an animal, scattering crumbs and sloshing lemonade on the carpet.

‘"Who are you?" I asked him. "What’s your name, where do you live?" And still he said nothing, nothing coherent at any rate. Just that hateful "ah-ah, pa-pa, ga-ga, da-da," over and over again.

‘This went on for several minutes. I was at my wits’ end – I couldn’t see how I was going to communicate with this boy and get to the bottom of the mystery.

‘"Look here," I said. "This can’t go on. Why are you here? Please, please, tell me. What do you want from me?" And I held out my hands to him in a gesture of supplication.

‘The boy looked up at me from where he was sitting with his plate of biscuits and glass of lemonade on the floor beside him and gave me a broad smile – oh, the most beautiful winning smile you ever saw. He leapt up from the chair and flung himself at me, throwing his arms around me and hugging me as hard as he could, and saying the same word over and over again. I folded him in my arms and kissed him on the forehead.

‘We held each other tightly for what seemed an age and then he got up and walked – unsteadily, for now he had a withered leg – out of the room. I sat and thought for an hour or two about what he had said to me, and then I wrote a letter. The hardest letter I have ever written in my life.

‘Jack – we were saying that a ghost is the shade of someone who has died, but whose life was somehow incomplete, unfinished.’

‘Yes.’

‘First the life, then the death, then the haunting.’

‘Well, yes.’

‘Bur what if the life was a terrible, a most abominable life, but the person who lived it was not yet born?’

‘That would be different. It’s hard to see how you could be haunted by the ghost of someone who had never been alive.’

‘Quite so. And yet… In that letter I told Marjorie that it would be absolutely impossible for us to meet in the future. I wrote it brutally; I wanted her to hate me for it. I told her I had only been after her husband’s money, that I found her physically repugnant and that now that I had unexpectedly come into some money of my own I didn’t need to see her any more. It worked, too; I believe she moved away in the spring and I never saw the boy again.’

‘But why? You and she were getting on so very well, you said.’

‘Yes, we were. We had sometimes joked about what our children might be like; for she wasn’t so old that she couldn’t have had children. But as I sat in my study that long afternoon, something that had been only a suspicion in the back of my mind up to that point froze into a cold certainty. I knew what our child would be like. I had seen him, outside the Kozey Kettle and the Masters’ Lodge, the Regal cinema and Marjorie’s house. I knew his face. It resembled my own face, when I was a boy.

‘I suppose I’d had an inkling of it already, in the distorted sounds he was making – "ah-ah, ga-ga, pa-pa, da-da." He would be crippled, handicapped, disabled. He would be the most terrible burden, mocked and derided, pointed at in the street. I couldn’t face that. I’m a coward, I know, and who is to say that such a life as he would have had would not have been a worthwhile one?’

‘But what was it that he said, in your study, that finally convinced you?’

‘Daddy. He called me Daddy. Over and over again, with more love in his voice than you can possibly comprehend. I can’t forget it. I can’t forgive myself. I could have been that boy’s father, but I turned him away. I denied him his life.’

Geoffrey stared into the fire. Outside, the match was over and the boys were rushing in, out of the cold and wet. Soon it would be time for tea.