I carried on working in the scullery, but every word carried through to me from the living room. By now Martha had forgotten that I was there and Maggie couldn’t see me. The two of them ploughed on with their conversation, unaware that they had an eavesdropper.
Apparently, Tommy and Maggie had been planning a late afternoon drive to the seaside on the day of Tommy’s death. Maggie had packed a hamper of sandwiches, cake, ale and a flask of tea. By five’o’clock with no sign of Tommy, she drove round to his cottage. She saw his ramshackle old jeep parked alongside the building and assumed he must have drifted off to sleep inside. She banged on his door so loud and long that, although there was no response from Tommy, his sister Dorothy heard from further along the terrace.
“What’s a matter, Maggie?”
Once Maggie had explained their plans, Dorothy nipped home to get the spare key she held for Tommy’s house.
“He can be very forgetful, you know, so he leaves a key with me in case he locks himself out,” Dorothy told her.
“Oh, I know what he’s like,” Maggie said.
But an increasingly frantic search of Tommy’s house only served to deepen the mystery. The anticipated sight of Tommy fast asleep on his bed never materialised.
“Yours paths probably crossed,” Dorothy declared, “I bet he’s waiting for you at your house at this very minute.”
“Hmmm, I don’t think so,” Maggie Richmond had said, “but I’d better go home and check.”
Of course, he was not there.
“Why I did what I did next I’ll never know,” Maggie told Martha, “But I drove up to Pike Hill Farm (as they call it now).
“It’s owned by Ray Mellors; him who had the garage in the village. All he wanted was Tommy’s house. He’d coveted that house for years. Secretive men like him love to live out in the wilds where no one can question their activities. He bought the house off Tommy but he wasn’t interested in tending the farm so he leased off that part of the estate to the Duchy of Lancaster.”
Maggie told how she had pulled up outside the old farmhouse that day and a pair of unfriendly-looking Alsatians began circling her car. The bigger of the two dogs looked ready to attack and, despite being a dog lover, she was reluctant to clamber out of the car and knock on the house’s front door. She stayed put and sounded her horn. Mellors emerged from the house and lumbered down the path like it was a task he would do anything to avoid. Maggie had never liked him anyway, but he might know something about Tommy and that was her only hope.
“Has Tommy been up here today?” she asked, winding down her window.
“Tommy?” Mellor scowled, like the very name was anathema to him.
“Oh, come on, man. Tommy Trent. The man who sold you the farm.”
“What would he be doing up here?” Mellors asked.
“You know he loved it up here, don’t you? It’s full of memories for him. I just thought he might have come up here to revive them.”
She looked at Mellors and saw no repository in that brow for sweet memories or even an understanding of their importance to others.
“We can’t find him anywhere,” Maggie went on, “I’m worried about him.”
She took in a deep breath and asked the question she would have willingly avoided.
“Do you mind if I have a look round the outbuildings?”
“Well, I’m not keen,” Mellors had said.
“And I tell you there was not one glimpse of humanity in that man’s face,” I heard her telling Martha.
“So I told him to suit himself” Maggie went on. “I revved up me car and sped back down the drive.”
“So what happened then?” Martha asked her.
“I can be a stubborn cuss,” Maggie went on, “and when somebody forbids me from doing something, I’ll always do the opposite.”
She went on to explain how she had driven off the country lane and taken the field drive that looped behind the woods and back towards the house.
“Then a strange thing happened when I got out of my car,” she said. “In the mud, right where I put my feet was a tiny baby’s hand and arm. At first I thought I was about to make a horrid find, but then I realised it was just plastic and belonged to a baby doll. But it gave me a jolt, I can tell you. It seemed like a kind of omen.”
“I bet” Martha said, “I would have jumped out of my skin.”
“What it did was put me on my guard,” Maggie continued, “I knew then that something bad was about to happen. I made my way to the back of the house…to where that pond is.”
“Ginny Spring,” Martha said crisply.
“Ginny Spring? Is
that what they call it?”
“That’s what Tommy called it,” Martha said.
By this point in Maggie and Martha’s conversation I had finished my work clearing the filter on Martha’s washing machine, but it hardly seemed like a good time to declare my presence. Maggie would be embarrassed and Martha certainly wouldn’t thank me. I leaned back against the scullery wall. I could hear Maggie struggling for breath and then the sound of sobbing as she recalled that day.
“He was floating in the water, Martha. Folk have said to me ‘What did he look like?’ but that’s a question I couldn’t answer. See, he was floating face down. My Tommy, my dear dead Tommy.
She pulled herself together.
“I didn’t bother with Mellors. I dialled a 999 on my mobile phone and they all came - the police, the ambulance and the fire to get his body out of the water.”
I was cramping up and the floor was becoming unbearably cold. It was a merciful release when Maggie got up to go, choking back her tears. I made sure the door left no part of me uncovered.
“Oh hello, I forgot you were still here,” Martha said as she returned to the kitchen and found a very sheepish me among her pots and pans.
“I suppose you heard most of that?”
“Most of it, yes.”
“Ah well, it’ll do no harm because I know you won’t go shouting your mouth off. Still, I’m glad Maggie didn’t realise you were here.”
“Yes, me too. Sorry if I did wrong, Martha. I didn’t mean to listen in to your conversation. I was just sort of –
“Trapped?” Martha said. “Don’t worry. Worse things happen at sea.”
It was several days later that I was at Martha’s house. I had been suffering with terrible pains in my stomach and lower back. I often sought a cup of herbal tea in Martha’s company at such times; Yvonne being out at work. Nothing further had been said about Maggie’s visit, but Martha had clearly been dwelling on it.
“You know, I’ve been a bit less than honest with you about Tommy,” Martha said. “There are things I know that I’ve never let on to you.”
“Oh?” was all I could say. It was none of my business really, just my good fortune that in knowing Martha I had happened upon someone who could feed my fascination with Tommy Trent.
“I think you would like to know the full story about Ginny Spring. Am I right?”
I nodded. Pointless denying it.
“No one in the village seems to know what you are talking about when you refer to Ginny Spring. That’s because it was a name Tommy gave it – a private name for him and his friends.”
Martha suddenly turned her gaze on me .“Do you know what Ginny is short for?”
“A girl’s name, I think. Virginia.”
“That’s right,” Martha said. “You remember I told you that Tommy was fascinated with all people, especially girls, when he was a young man?”
“Yes,” I answered, “you said he changed then and went to live alone.”
“I did, but there was a reason. He loved a girl named Virginia James and they both of them loved walking out. Well, that pond where Tommy was found was a special place for them. Virginia was a strong swimmer and she loved the water in that spring. She would tease Tommy because he was not a good swimmer.”
“So what happened?”
“One beautiful summer morning, one of her feet got twisted in some weed at the bottom of the pond. ‘Help me, Tommy, help me,’ she shouted, but every time Tommy tried to get closer to her to pull her out, he lost his own footing. He ran to the house to get help, but when he returned with the farmer it was too late.”
“Virginia had drowned.”
“That beautiful girl drowned like a dead rat…and they were Tommy’s words. He named the spring after her, Ginny Spring, and went to live up there to be with her spirit. All this I learned from Dorothy, his sister.”
“So why did he come back down to the village?” I asked. “Was he no longer happy up there?”
“I’ll tell you what Dorothy told me,” Martha went on. “He became afraid because he could hear Ginny’s voice and do you know what it was saying?”
I shrugged my shoulders.
“It was saying ‘Come in here, Tommy, and join me.’ He told Dorothy it was getting harder and harder to resist.”
I must have looked very pale. “Are you all right?” Martha said, “You don’t look at all well.”
That was the point at which I blacked out and an ambulance was called for me. I will never know whether it was the truth about Tommy or my ulcerated bowel that tipped me over the edge.
One of the good things that occurred while I was in hospital was that the friends of Tommy Trent chipped in to buy him a graveyard plot adjacent to his beloved Virginia.
Going to the Match
He felt excited at the prospect of returning to one of his boyhood haunts. The drive through Nottingham in the early April evening had been exhilarating. The entire city centre had been re-fashioned over the 20 years he had been away, but the important parts – railway station, old churches, place-names – maintained their familiarity and tugged at the memory.
The quality of evening light – a pale golden apricot colour – imparted a tranquil air to a busy town during rush hour. When the towering floodlights of the football stadium came into view, Steve felt an almost childish sense of expectation.
‘Going to the match’ had been such a pleasure through his growing up. In those days he went with his dad and a man named Stan Willett, who smoked a pipe incessantly. Pipe-smoking in public was unquestioned then and indeed the powerful aroma of pipe, ‘ciggy’ and even cigar tobacco was an integral part of the match atmosphere. The three of them, two middle-aged men whose sporting days were well behind them and a pre-pubescent boy, always sat together on the double-decker bus that carried them to Nottingham. In the rattling sanctuary of the bus, they talked football and chewed over the world’s problems. Stan would puff away on his pipe, occasionally pausing to suck in an extra boost, while his dad lit up a John Player. You could do that kind of thing in those days.
When they got to the match, his dad would smuggle young Steve to the front of the crowd. The sheer strength of his dad’s grip at that time was something he could still remember. He had never been as secure since.
Once at the front, he would grab his place by gripping the tubular steel rail that ran round the ground. His dad told him:
“Stay where you are and we’ll pick you up at the end of the match.” Then he would lift Steve up, turn him round and point out Stan in the crowd.
“That’s where we’ll be if you need us.”
As comforting as that knowledge was, he always made friends with other lads who had been smuggled to the front by their dads. As it approached kick-off time, the excitement among the young supporters sparked like electricity and it was like being part of a special, once-only gang.
All of that was in the distant past. Dad had passed away many years ago and Steve did not know what had become of Stan Willett. Maybe he had returned to London, where his larger family lived. His actual team had been Tottenham Hotspur; going to Notts was a habit he had picked up while working in the area. Sometimes Stan had annoyed his dad by making unfavourable comparisons between Spurs’ and Notts’ players. ‘There were two whole divisions between the clubs; what on earth did the man expect?’ his dad had later said to him.
Steve parked his car in the cattle market adjacent to the ground. In Victorian times, Nottinghamshire farmers had made their fortunes and losses on just this spot. Now it served as a base for a small fry Saturday morning market and a football ground overspill.
It was six’o’clock, still two hours to kick-off and there was not yet one other vehicle. He felt vulnerable and lonely, suddenly aware that the social aspect of going to the match was completely absent from this experience.
He locked his car and found a derelict building in which to take a leak. He decided he would go for a drink in the Navigation Inn, like he used to with his dad.
Walking down the road, his sweeping gaze took in where the bus dropped off the three of them in the old days. He doubted even whether such buses ran anymore in these times of universal car ownership. Steve paused, giving his memory a chance to restore forgotten detail. Normally, he was not good at visualising the past, but this evening was different. He stood on the spot picturing his dad’s good looks, (they used to say he was a dead ringer for Dirk Bogarde), and Stan’s endlessly fuming pipe. He was startled by the sheer clarity of his memory and felt that the trickle of passing supporters must have thought him weird, standing there like that.
Even though the streets around the ground were sparsely populated, the pub was overflowing once he got there. The Navigation Inn had been a pre-match gathering point for years and the young Steve had marvelled at how people managed to hear one another despite the swelling noise levels. His dad had always parked him with Stan at a table and gone off to buy the drinks.
Tonight he stood behind a raucous group of youths who broke into regular paroxysms of laughter. After 10 minutes he was still no nearer being served and began to lose interest in beer. He glanced over his shoulder at one point and was shocked to see his dad sitting at a corner table. At least it looked like his dad. Steve became fixated on the man until he laughed aloud. That was when he knew for sure that this was not his dad. His dad’s laugh was restrained and polite, not braying and attention-seeking like this man’s.
Meanwhile the barmaid had tersely requested his order and he had been too preoccupied to answer.
“Sorry, duck. A pint, please.”
There was no trace of movement in the girl’s face as she pulled the pump, took his money and was told by him to keep the change. She worked behind a stony-face that guaranteed her anonymity, which was a shame because she was an attractive woman. Right then Steve would have given anything for a pleasant exchange that gave him a sense of belonging.
He was uncomfortable in the heat and noise of the overcrowded bar. Downing the beer in a couple of greedy gulps, he battled his way to the door and, once outside, sucked in the humid Nottingham air.
HHe could hear the club’s PA system amplifying What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted as he neared the main gate. Soon he was absorbed into a maze of people, each striding purposefully in a chosen direction. Unsure of whereabouts to sit in the stadium, he drifted into the shop. Close to season’s end, the stock was being run down. He had considered buying a shirt, but then had second thoughts. He had always thought middle-aged men looked ridiculous wearing club colours, advertising the mismatch between sporting fitness and their overweight, ill-maintained bodies. This kind of promotional clothing hadn’t been around when he came to the ground with his dad, all those years ago. In any case, he could not imagine that his dad’s idea of dignity would have extended to wearing club colours.
Once inside the ground, he felt even lonelier. The thousands of football fans who had been milling around the ground were now concentrated within a much smaller area. What struck Steve was how many of them were in groups, enjoying the company of friends. For them, going to the match was at once a social and a sporting occasion.
It was not that he was unused to being alone, or unable to survive and prosper in his own company; it just seemed almost wrong that he was not sharing the experience. But between visiting the toilets and finding a seat in the main stadium, something unaccountable happened. He was joined by another.
As he moved towards the steps, Steve sensed someone by his right shoulder. He became aware of the presence only in his peripheral vision. When he turned face on, the feeling disappeared. Steve felt both excited and anxious as he realised that the presence had been familiar… and ghostly. Every sensibility told him that this could not be. Whenever a conversation involved the supernatural, he had always belittled the notion of ghosts.
“I’ll believe in ghosts when I see one,” had been his stock phrase.
Even if ghosts did exist, then surely their context was night, scary houses, fearful atmospheres; not rowdy football matches in crowded stadia? Yet Steve saw now that this was clearly not the case. If ghosts came back from the dead and haunted the familiar scenes of their lives, (whatever ‘haunting’ meant) there was no reason why they should not appear beside traffic lights at a busy junction, next to a cash till in a department store,… or amongst the crowds at a football match.
There was a sizeable crowd for County had embarked upon a sensational unbeaten run. They had come from nowhere to top the league table and were only two victories away from becoming champions. Despite the demand for tickets, Steve found two adjacent vacant seats. Without question, he knew that two seats were required. Glancing furtively about him, he checked on his neighbours. They looked a peaceable enough collection and he settled back, feeling a delicious anticipation of the action that was about to start. Cheers and laughter filled the night as kick-off time drew close.
His seat was adjacent to the players’ tunnel and a throaty roar announced the entry of the gladiators. He watched them trot on to the turf, hair smoothed back, legs shiny and a physical confidence in every stride. At the back came the four officials, representatives of another generation, intent on their own genial chatter.
He turned to the unoccupied chair and asked his old man what he thought of Hughes.
“Do you think we were right to sign him, dad?”
Hughes had been involved in a serious car crash years ago. He had been on the wrong side of the road and caused a head-on crash. The father in the oncoming car had been killed outright and Hughes had fled over the fields, only handing himself in two days later. At his trial, it was said that he ran away from the scene to avoid police testing. After serving three years in prison, he had returned to football, much to the anger of many. He was County’s main striker and had scored goals generously throughout the season to become a crowd pleaser.
Steve knew what his dad’s answer would be to the signing of Hughes, but of course there was only silence from the empty seat. No one amongst the close crowd noticed the strange exchange between father and son, for excitement was flooding the stadium like an intoxicating gas. All attention was fixed on the centre circle. The whistle blew and Hughes set the ball rolling.
County went straight on the offensive and people occupying the seats in front of Steve stood up to enhance their view. With less than a minute on the clock, the ball had landed at Hughes’ feet and the bald striker unleashed a shot that unsighted the Lincoln keeper. 1-0 already and a deluge of goals threatened. Happiness infected the crowd and delirium set in. Steve drank it in like a heady brew.
Then his eye was caught by the anger in the Lincoln ranks: lots of pointing and shouting and blame allotting. Steve had always found himself empathising with the loser in life, even when he had been on the winning side.
He turned his head to check on the seat beside him. Steve may not have been able to see his dad, but he could sense he was there.
“A good start, dad,” he said in muted tones.
Just four minutes later, the Lincoln player, Lennon, side-footed into the County net and the crowd buzz turned into a deflated hiss. Suddenly there was a feeling that the entire evening could turn into a disaster. How often had his dad had to lift his spirits on the bus home in the past? He remembered stock phrases like “Football’s not everything, son,” and “Watch them go and win next week against top-of-the-league.”
Notts County fans are used to things not going for them. They voiced their displeasure, but mostly it was one-line sarcasm lined with a fatalistic humour. Although the remainder of the first half consisted largely of one-way traffic towards the Lincoln goal, the visiting keeper kept the enemy at bay. After each close call, Steve would turn in his dad’s direction, but often there was nothing to see other than an unoccupied seat.
At half-time he went for a pee and bought himself a soft drink. He looked for his dad, and picked out his silhouette at the top of the staircase. He knew now that their relationship probably existed only in his own head.
Propping himself up on a stanchion, he listened for the local voice. Steve didn’t have one of those anymore; been away too long. He did call people ‘duck’ (much to his wife’s annoyance), but this he hung on to in a desperate attempt to preserve some element of his roots. All around him now, he could pick up on the rounded vowels and the preferred grammatical construct, (“We was late for the kick-off” and “D’ya think we’ll win them, Ron?”) That dialect, which had annoyed him as a youth, now came across as warm and welcoming. It was just as his mum and dad used to speak when every day was summer and Notts losing was the most seriously bad thing that ever happened.
There was an incident not long after the restart which resulted in a Lincoln player being sent off. His foul tackle hurt him more than the Notts player he had gone for. There was a moment of sheer comedy when the referee vehemently flashed a red card in the face of the stretchered player. Lincoln now down to 10 men, a new frenzy of excitement took hold of the home fans, Steve among them. Surely victory was on the cards now? From the restart Notts were really calling the shots and Steve looked over to witness the satisfaction on his dad’s face. Oh yes, he was loving this.