The Anatomy Of Ghosts

23

On the first night at Whitebeach Mill, Holdsworth slept badly, his limbs crammed into a little box-bed built into the wall. He had given Frank Oldershaw the larger of the two upstairs rooms, the one with a decent bedstead. Frank was only a few feet away, on the other side of the lathe-and-plaster partition. The bed creaked as he moved about.

When the dawn came and the little room filled with light, Holdsworth was unexpectedly reminded of the house on Bankside near Goat Stairs. His window at the cottage overlooked the garden, beyond which was the millpond and the muddy green river, hardly more than a stream compared with the Thames at London. Some trick of reflection cast a faint and flickering image of moving waters on the ceiling of the bedroom. It was a poor and insubstantial phenomenon compared to the shimmering light, Georgie’s ghost water, that the Thames threw through the windows. But it was a connection between here and there, now and then.

Georgie and Maria had become less substantial like the light. For minutes at a stretch, they seemed removed from him, at once real and unreal like favourite characters in a play rather than the beloved dead.

Holdsworth rose early, dressed and crossed the little landing on stockinged feet. He looked in on Frank. The boy was lying on his back, one arm outstretched above his head, and appeared to be sleeping soundly. He looked very young, completely vulnerable. Holdsworth had not appreciated before how perfectly formed his features were. In the house at Barnwell, Frank had been considered a madman and he had looked like one too. Asleep in Whitebeach, he looked like an overgrown child.

Would Georgie have lain like this, with such careless and innocent abandon, if he had lived? Holdsworth had failed to save his son and so he would never know. But could he save this living boy in front of him? Would it be something to set against Georgie’s death?

He went down the stairs, which were so steep they were almost a ladder. The interior of the cottage was gloomy because of the small windows and overhanging thatched eaves. There was a rattle of fire-irons in the kitchen. Holdsworth went into the garden. Early though it was, the grey dome of the sky was full of light. The unkempt grass was silvered with cobwebs and dew. He followed the flagged path down to the water. He stood on the bank for a while, watching a pair of moorhens who flew off at his appearance, oddly erect, with their legs dangling down. Both the water and the air were noticeably cleaner than in Cambridge. Apart from Mulgrave at work in the kitchen, there were no man-made noises. Holdsworth closed his eyes and heard drumming water, the call of a bird he could not identify, and a faint, shifting rustling of vegetation.

Thank God, he thought, thank God the boy is still here.

This had been his greatest fear – that Frank Oldershaw would take advantage of the sudden freedom and either flee or find some way of killing himself. Either of those things might happen in the future but at least that first night was past and the boy was still asleep.

Holdsworth walked round the house to the cobbled yard and washed his hands and face at the pump. The mill itself stood at right angles to the little cottage, its wheel raised out of the water. Beside it was a line of outbuildings thatched with reeds. Beyond the pump was the lane to the village. A ginger cat slipped under the gate and snaked around Holdsworth’s legs with his tail erect. Holdsworth tried to nudge it away with his foot but the animal easily evaded him and purred as though it had been paid a compliment.

He was drying himself on his shirt-tails when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned and saw Frank.

‘Mr Oldershaw – you are up early.’

The young man looked surprised to see him there. Frank’s hair was tousled. He wore a shirt and breeches but his feet were bare.

‘Would you like to wash?’ Holdsworth asked. ‘I will send Mulgrave out with a bowl and a towel.’

Frank Oldershaw raised his arms and threw them back as if he were preparing to dive. His face, which had been very serious in expression, suddenly broke into a smile.

‘Quack,’ he said. ‘Quack. I am a duck.’

He bolted out of the yard, taking the path that led round the gable end of the cottage and into the garden. Holdsworth pounded after him. As he passed the kitchen window, he saw Mulgrave’s white face staring open-mouthed.

In the garden, Frank left the path and plunged into the tangle of long grass and weeds. As he ran, he flailed his arms and kicked out his legs with mad and joyous abandon. His feet kicked up silver sprays of dew. He was like a boy let out of school.

‘Quack,’ he cried. ‘Quack, quack!’

In front of him lay the placid expanse of the millpond. Frank did not break stride. At the water’s edge, he plunged into the air in a clumsy dive. His body hit the water with a crash that sent waves rolling over the pool. The waterfowl fluttered into the air in a panic of flapping wings.

‘Mr Oldershaw!’ Holdsworth cried. ‘Mr Oldershaw!’

Seconds later, the boy broke the surface about ten yards from the bank. He turned on his back, half submerged and splashing his arms and legs. ‘Quack, quack!’

‘Pray come out,’ Holdsworth called. ‘There may be weeds or other hazards. I cannot save you – I cannot swim.’

Frank stopped splashing and quacking. He stared across the water at Holdsworth.

Maria had not been able to swim either, nor for that matter had Georgie. And so the water had swallowed them whole and spat them up to the surface once it had siphoned the life from them.

Had Sylvia Whichcote been able to swim? Had she drowned just as Frank was about to drown?

Holdsworth opened his mouth but no words came out. Instead he sucked in breath. He could not get enough. Pin-like pains stabbed his chest. The great grey sky pressed down on him. Dear God, he was drowning in air.

Frank turned over on to his front and swam with leisurely strokes to the bank. All of a sudden the world had become sane again. Breathing heavily, Holdsworth stepped forward and held out his hand. Frank took it, and hauled himself out of the water.

‘Dear God,’ Frank said, his teeth chattering, ‘it’s so damned cold.’

For the rest of their first day at the mill, Holdsworth and Frank Oldershaw circled around each other like animals who did not know each other but had been forced to share the same confined space. Until now, Holdsworth had followed where common sense or instinct had led him. He had had no doubt that removing Frank from the care of Dr Jermyn would be in Frank’s best interests and therefore in his own best interests too. Now he was not so sure. Indeed, he was not sure of anything.

Frank’s behaviour was unpredictable. He gambolled about like a large and energetic puppy, reminding Holdsworth inevitably of Georgie when a fit of excitement was on him. Frank sang discordantly, mingling drinking songs with nursery rhymes, and sometimes applying the words of one to the melody of another. He ate whatever was put before him, shovelling food into his mouth as though he had been half-starved at Barnwell. He resisted, or rather ignored, all attempts to guide him in any direction. Every now and then he fell asleep in the middle of what he was doing – again like Georgie – at table with his head cradled on his arms, on the grass in the garden or the cobbles in the yard, on the kitchen floor in the corner by the stone sink.

Mulgrave said and did nothing that did not relate to his own duties. He waited for Holdsworth’s orders, and when he received them he obeyed them swiftly and fairly efficiently. He avoided being left alone with Frank, though Frank ignored him as he ignored Holdsworth. Mulgrave was a good servant and a worthless ally.

The only other living thing in the house was the ginger cat. Unlike the three humans, he appeared entirely unconcerned by the strangeness of the occasion. He approached each of the men with the same impersonal enthusiasm. He demanded to be petted and fed. To Holdsworth’s embarrassment, he found himself stroking the animal when it leaped on to his lap, and he even fed it with a scrap of meat from his plate. When Holdsworth pushed it away, the cat leaped on to Frank’s lap, and Frank absent-mindedly stroked it just as Holdsworth had done.

On one occasion, when the cat had again been on Frank’s lap, it grew weary of him and jumped down. It sauntered into the kitchen where it plagued Mulgrave. Mulgrave did not want its attentions and kicked it. The cat squawked with pain and surprise. It was this that unexpectedly affected Frank, who had been watching events through the open door.

He stood up suddenly, and his chair fell over behind him. The cat ran round the kitchen in momentary panic.

‘Let him be,’ Frank said, his voice sounding thick and rusty from disuse. ‘Let him go freely wherever he wishes, do you hear me?’

Mulgrave bowed. He came forward and righted the chair. Frank frowned. He looked puzzled, as if wondering what had happened. He sat down on the chair without looking behind him to see if it was there. The cat jumped on to his lap again and purred loudly.