But I hadn’t even time to open the door when he said, ‘Thanks a lot! See you! G’night.’
I didn’t see him leave the car – not physically, I mean – and I didn’t see him open the kissing gate, but I saw it open of its own accord and I heard its creak as I’d known I would. He had just dematerialized tonight. If I hadn’t heard the gate then I wouldn’t have known where he’d gone.
I called, ‘’Night. See you sometime!’ but had no means of knowing if he’d heard me. Shaking now, I went through the motion of starting the car, driving through the gate, then closing it behind me. Only Hector’s frantic barking pulled me back to the here and now. I took a deep breath, then fumbled my key into the lock.
Tonight – all of it – was going to take a bit of working out. I thought about the mental jigsaw puzzle and knew I had begun to fill in the outline, though there was a long way to go before I completed it – if ever I did.
Hector greeted me joyfully. I patted his head and he felt real and solid and of this age. Carefully, because I was trying to get a hold on myself, I bolted the front door, top and bottom, then double-locked it.
Only then did I say, ‘’Strewth, Hector, you’d never believe the half of what’s just happened!’
Next morning, I awoke to gloom and the sound of rain pattering against the window.
How dare it rain at Deer’s Leap! I got out of bed and closed the window. Heavy rain on wheat and barley and oats ripe and ready for harvesting for the war effort, Mr Smith could do well without!
Dammit! I was back to that war again! I was here to write and look after a house, not to dig back half a century because a ghost couldn’t find his girlfriend. We were coming up to the Millennium, and Susan Smith and Jack Hunter were history!
But they weren’t, the voice of reason whispered firmly. Jack Hunter didn’t know he had died more than fifty years ago and as far as I knew, Susan could still be alive. I not only wanted to establish that fact, but deep down I was certain that the niggling inside me would go on until I had found her!
But how do you find an elderly lady – who could perhaps be married and have children – grandchildren – and who maybe didn’t want to be found? And just supposing the impossible happened and one day she opened her front door to me, what would I say?
‘Hullo! You don’t know me, but not so long ago I met a ghost who was once in love with you! Over fifty years ago, mind, but I think you should know he still needs to find you. His name is Jack Hunter.’ And the poor old thing would look at me vacantly and say, ‘Jack who?’
I tied my dressing gown tightly around me, glad of the warmth, and switched on the kettle. Then I fed the animals, after which Lotus walked ahead of me, tail erect, indicating at the conservatory door that she wished to spend the morning in there. She was quite intelligent I had to admit, and lost no time showing me where she was in the habit of sleeping on wet mornings.
The view from the kitchen window was a forlorn one. Plants dripped miserably and a mist covered everything, blocking out the view – even the white-painted gate. I decided to bring in logs and light the kitchen fire, then realized that not even that would inspire me to words, for this was not a morning for creativity. I didn’t have word block. There really is no such thing. As far as I am concerned, when the words won’t come it is because I simply don’t want to write!
Having established that, my conscience refused to let me sit idly over a fire, curled up with a book. I would drive to Clitheroe instead. I needed to visit the library to check on something I wasn’t at all sure about; I would find it there, in Encyclopaedia Britannica, I was certain, but just in case I needed to borrow any books for research while I was staying at Deer’s Leap, Beth had left me her library ticket. Decent of her, really. And I must buy a couple of trout to replace those we had eaten for Sunday lunch. Raiding Beth’s freezer was not on! Maybe, too, I would buy sausages and bacon and have a comforting fry-up tonight – sitting at the kitchen table beside a comforting fire. After all, a writer needs some time to herself, though my professional conscience would insist I get down to work this afternoon when I got back.
I found a car park in Clitheroe with no trouble. Immediately inside the library, I told myself that once I had established that Dorcas in Firedance, as I was beginning to know the book, could have used a phonecard in 1985, I would leave at once. Indeed, I discovered that phonecards were in use as long ago as 1981, and would have cost two pounds for forty units. I was glad I had checked. You have to be so careful. Errors are jumped on at once!
Even though I had already made up my mind not to browse along the shelves, I began to look at the section headed ‘World Wars One and Two’. I walked slowly, willing myself not to pick up a book; not even for one quick glance.
Books with tanks, aircraft and submarines on their jackets tempted me, but I walked on. Not until novel number three, which I was almost sure now would be set in that period, would I start dipping into Jack Hunter’s war. Yet even as I walked away something hit my consciousness and said, ‘Look again!’ So I obeyed the tingling at the back of my nose, and did exactly that.
Bomber Command. The title stood out clearly. RAF Bases in Lancashire 1939–1945. As I picked it off the shelf, I knew that RAF Acton Carey would be listed there, even though hardly a trace of it existed now.
I made for the desk, determined not so much as to glance at it until tonight when I had had my supper and my time was my own. Supper! I bought sausages from a shop near the castle ruins, then crossed the road to buy rainbow trout. As I walked to my car, I realized the rain had stopped and that a sliver of blue sky had appeared somewhere in the direction, I calculated, of Beacon Fell. I might have known, I smiled, that rain so heavy, so early, couldn’t last.
I resisted the urge to buy a coffee, knowing that if I did I would open the book. Thoughts of that war would invade my mind, and I had already spent too much time thinking about the airman. And I had Suzie to worry about now; Susan Smith who might well be there for the finding! Oh, please, she would be?
I existed on a sandwich and far too many cups of coffee until nearly five o’clock. The garden looked green, the scent of wetness wafting in through the open window. The earth was dark again, having guzzled its fill, and all was well with my world.
I gathered up my papers, turned off the machine, then stretched long and lazily. The flow had returned, the lost morning atoned for. I felt almost smug as I let Hector into the yard.
First I would feed the animals and cook my supper. Then I would allow myself the luxury of a log fire and curl up with the book, hoping it would tell me something, however small, about how it had once been, at RAF Acton Carey.
I pricked sausages and rinded bacon. I would make fried bread too, I thought defiantly. I felt so pleased with my progress, one way or another, that I knew I would finish the bag of toffees as well, once I was relaxed in the firelight. I felt so good that I fixed the telephone on the dresser with my eyes, willing it not to dare ringing.
I should have let well alone. Five minutes later it rang.
‘Yes?’ I hoped I didn’t sound too cross.
‘Hi, love! It’s Jeannie. Thought I’d ring you before I left the office. I am expected, tomorrow?’
‘You are, but this last week has flown! Same train, is it? Will I meet you at Preston …?’
‘I’m so looking forward to it. Don’t bother making a meal. I’ll eat on the train. How’s the book coming along?’
‘Fine. It poured down, this morning, so I went to the library.’
‘Rain?’ She sounded put out.
‘Yes, but it’s cleared up now. We’ll have another good weekend. Anyway,’ said the market gardener’s daughter in me, ‘we needed a good shower.’
‘Anything