Burial of Ghosts Read online

  ‘That was quick,’ she said. She was delighted to see me. There’d been no need to fuss that she’d recognize the voice. ‘I only phoned the other day. Come in.’

  That threw me. I’d prepared a story that I was undertaking a survey of elderly people in the area to find gaps in local authority services. If she was expecting a real social worker, I’d have to wing it. She led me into a gleaming living room which smelt of lemon furniture polish and baking.

  ‘Is Mr Mariner in?’

  ‘No.’ She smiled fondly. They must have been married for forty years but the sound of his name still made her happy. ‘It’s his bowls day.’ There were awards on the mantelpiece, a photo of a small moley man in specs and whites holding a cup, his arms round the shoulders of a bigger bloke with a red face.

  ‘You sit there, pet.’ She patted the arm of the sofa. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. You’ll have to give me a hand when it’s made. I’ll not be able to carry it through.’

  So we sat together in her front room in the sun and she told me the story of her life. Without hesitation. It was scary that she trusted me absolutely on the basis of a bit of plastic and a photo.

  ‘It’s the arthritis,’ she said. ‘I’m down for a new hip but it could take a couple of months and now it’s in my hands too. Archie and I manage very well between us. He’s turned into a canny housekeeper. But he’s anxious if I’m here on my own. I can’t use the phone. The buttons are that small. He says what if I had a fall . . . Stupid old fool. Nothing’s going to happen to me. But he doesn’t like to leave me and if he does go out he worries. I don’t want that. He loves his bowls and I don’t want him rushing back. No reason why he shouldn’t have a cup of tea and a bit of a chat with the lads. We thought maybe a panic button, or one of those phones with the big numbers. What do you think?’

  ‘You’d probably be eligible for both.’ I’d trained with a lass from North Tyneside who worked with the community care team. She’d put the Mariners on the list for me. It would save one of their staff making a visit. ‘Do you have family? Anyone who comes in to keep an eye on you?’

  ‘Would that make a difference?’

  ‘Not to your being approved the gadgets. You don’t need someone here twenty-four hours, so you’d still want those. We couldn’t expect your family to provide full-time support.’

  ‘That’s true enough. Kay’s got her own family to look after now. And she works full-time. Pamela lives in Surrey. She married a southerner.’ As if it were a different breed.

  ‘Two daughters, then?’

  ‘Aye. I’d have liked a son, but Archie loved his little girls.’

  ‘Any grandchildren?’

  ‘Five.’ She hoisted herself to her feet and soon we were poring over photos. The Surrey brood were girls too. There were two of them. Not exactly lookers. They’d inherited their grandfather’s prominent teeth and in many of the shots their mouths were full of metal. Mrs Mariner seemed not to notice the beaver features and I heard about their academic success, their brilliance at the piano, the gymnastics classes. Kay had also produced two daughters. Closer in age, they appeared together in school photographs. They were younger too. Even the most recent pictures showed them in primary school sweatshirts, their hair tied up with ribbons.

  ‘Lucy and Claire,’ Mrs Mariner said. ‘Aren’t they bonny?’

  They were. Bonnier at least than Abby and Natasha in Godalming.

  ‘Do you see a lot of them?’ I didn’t want to push for information on Thomas too quickly.

  ‘Not as much as I’d like. They only live in Whitley Bay. I’d have them for Kay after school. Archie wouldn’t mind picking them up. But she won’t have it. She says it would be too much for me. Maybe she thinks I’d not be able to care for them properly. You can understand her being worried. After Thomas. And Ronnie can afford a childminder. It’s not as if they’re short of cash.’

  ‘Thomas?’ I could have played safe and left it. I already had enough information to trace Kay. But I was curious. There had been a few photos of a young boy among the rest but nothing recent.

  ‘Thomas is Kay’s son. The only lad . . .’ She shook her head gently. Something about the face and the white curls reminded me of a doll I once had. It moved its head. It was brought by a charity to the kids’ home one Christmas. New. Still in its box. All wrapped up. But I couldn’t see the point of it, just sitting there, moving its head from side to side. I swapped it for a backboard that made a screeching noise when you chalked on it.

  ‘You don’t have to tell me,’ I said. ‘None of my business.’

  ‘Thomas is Kay’s son. Older than the girls.’ She looked around guiltily, as though there might be someone to overhear. ‘She had him before she got married.’

  ‘Tough.’

  ‘She’d only just left school. We found out she was expecting soon after she finished her A-levels. She had a Saturday job in a big department store in town. That’s where she met the father. He was a student, a bit older than her, working his way through university.’

  ‘Did you ever meet him?’

  ‘No. We knew nothing about him. Not even his name. She didn’t even want to tell us that much. We tried to help her through it. It was something you thought about in those days: what would I do if one of them fell pregnant? And I knew I couldn’t get cross or angry. No point, is there?’

  This was all a bit close to home. I was thinking, I wish you were my gran. If my mum had had someone like you, I wouldn’t have been dumped outside a church for a collie bitch to sniff out.

  ‘Did she ever think of an abortion?’ It was something I’d thought about. The dizzying notion that I might never have been born.

  Mrs Mariner shook her head. ‘By the time we realized what was going on, it was too late for an abortion. And I was glad. I didn’t think she’d be able to live with herself afterwards, no matter what she said at the time.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  Mrs Mariner didn’t answer directly. Not because she was becoming suspicious about my questions. Everyone expects a social worker to be nosy. Just because she wanted to explain in her own time.

  ‘Kay was an easy child in a way. She liked everything just so. She always kept her clothes lovely and I never had to nag her to tidy her bedroom. She was organized, you could say. Not like Pam, who was a walking whirlwind. Kay had her life planned. She was going to train to be a teacher. Little ones. She wouldn’t have been able to control the older children. And she liked to be in control, our Kay. Then I suppose she met this lad at work and they were careless, unlucky, and she fell pregnant. But it wasn’t in her scheme of things. It wasn’t supposed to happen. She wouldn’t admit it even to herself. Do you understand what I mean, pet?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I guessed in the end that she was expecting. You can’t live in a house this size and keep secrets. And like I said, with teenage girls it was always something that was a possibility. You’ll understand when you’ve bairns yourself.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘It made her ill,’ Mrs Mariner continued. ‘Not physically ill. She just couldn’t accept it, not even when she was the size of a barrage balloon. We couldn’t get any sense out of her. She wouldn’t talk about the father. We wouldn’t have made a fuss. You can’t imagine Archie with a shotgun. But we thought the lad had a right to know, to play his part. He’d have parents. Imagine having a grandchild and knowing nothing about it.’

  She paused again and I thought it was a story she hadn’t told for a long time.

  ‘He was born on Christmas Eve. An east wind that would cut your legs off. Too cold for snow. I went with her to the hospital and helped her through labour and she was as good as gold, breathing and panting just like they’d showed her. Braver than I’d been with mine. I thought it was going to be all right. There’s nothing more real than labour, is there? Nothing like holding the babby at the end. She’d have to accept him, then.’

  ‘And did she?’

  ‘She wouldn’t look at h
im. She burst into tears and said she wanted him adopted. Now I think that would have been best. I shouldn’t have interfered. But I thought she was ill. Depressed even. Not fit to make a decision. I thought she’d regret it when she was better . . .’ She was looking out through the window at the snowing pink petals. ‘I’d held him, you see. My first grandchild. A boy, like I’d always wanted for myself. I wasn’t thinking straight either. Selfish. She’d always done what she was told. Perhaps that was how she got pregnant. She’d go along with what he wanted to please him. And when I said she should keep the baby, she went along with that too.

  ‘I looked after Thomas when she was at college, doing her teacher training. I’d been working in the office at Parsons, not much of a job, not something I minded giving up. He was a lively one, always full of fun and mischief. He kept me young. Kay would be here in the evenings to bath him and put him to bed, and she never took advantage, never stayed out late. But deep down I always felt it was a chore for her. She did it out of duty. Not because she enjoyed it. She’d tuck him in and read him a bedtime story, but he could have been one of her pupils. Do you know what I’m saying, pet?’

  I nodded. I knew exactly what she was saying.

  ‘Sometimes I think of the both of them he liked Pam best. She was a laugh. She took him to the park and didn’t mind when he got mucky. When she married and moved south he cried his eyes out.

  ‘Kay was thirty when she married. Thomas was eleven. He’d just started the big school and was finding it hard to settle. Nothing serious, but the big lads were rowdy and he could be quite nervy. Then Kay met Ronnie. He owns that big garage on the coast road and she bought a car from him. That’s how they met. She was teaching then of course, working in the infants’ school in Wallsend, where she’s deputy head now. She was doing very well for herself even then, but she and Thomas had never moved into a place of their own. It must have been a shock for the lad. New school, new home, new stepdad . . .’

  ‘And he’d miss you,’ I said.

  ‘Aye, I think he did. I think he did miss us. For a while he came for his Sunday dinner but it wasn’t the same. And we missed him. Kay didn’t tell us what was going on. We’d been like parents to him for all those years, then suddenly we weren’t to interfere. She and Ronnie knew best. We found out some. He was bunking off school. Friends of Archie’s had seen him in town. He’d been getting into trouble. Kay told us it was none of our business. Not in so many words, like. But that was what she meant.’

  ‘And then she got pregnant again.’

  ‘With the two girls. First Lucy, then Claire. She loves them to bits and I’m pleased at that, but it must have been hard for Thomas to see her with them.’

  ‘How old is he now?’

  ‘Nineteen last Christmas.’

  ‘Still at home?’

  ‘No.’ It came out as sharp as a bullet shot and she clamped her mouth shut after.

  ‘They didn’t throw him out?’ I was fighting mad on her behalf and Thomas’s.

  ‘Not exactly. More like an ultimatum. Behave properly in this house or leave. I can understand in a way. They’ve got the girls to think of. And I can’t blame Ronnie. I don’t think it was his idea. It was Kay being stubborn.’ She paused. ‘We’d have had him here, Archie and me, but Kay didn’t tell us what had happened until it was all over. Maybe now it’s too late and nobody can get through to him.’

  ‘Where’s he living?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She was almost in tears. ‘I think Kay knows, but she’s not telling us. He’s not to be spoilt, she says. He’s to learn a lesson.’

  ‘Is he working?’

  ‘Yes, and you’d think she’d be proud of that. When he first left school he didn’t have anything. Then a friend of Archie’s took him on. As a favour to us, like.’ She nodded to the photo on the mantelpiece, towards the big man standing beside her husband on the bowling green. ‘That’s Harry Pool. He took redundancy from Swan’s years ago, in the 1970s. He saw the way things were going and set up on his own. He’s got a haulage business. He started off with one lorry, now he has a whole fleet and a yard on that little industrial estate where the railway used to go in Shiremoor. A house like a palace in Cullercoats. But they’re still best mates, him and Archie. They were at infants’ school together. He hasn’t changed. Not really.’

  ‘What does Thomas do for him?’

  ‘Not driving. He was too young for that when he started. He works in the office. Sorting out the invoices and such. Arranging the schedules for the drivers. A lot of Harry’s business is in Europe. It’s a nice clean job. I don’t know why Kay took against it. She wanted Thomas to stay on at school and go to university. But you can’t force them, can you?’

  ‘At least you know he’s safe,’ I said. ‘If he’s working for Archie’s friend.’

  ‘Aye, maybe.’

  ‘Can’t you find out from Harry where Thomas is living?’

  ‘We don’t want to make trouble for him at work. Harry probably thinks he’s still living at home. And last time Harry spoke to Archie he wasn’t best pleased at the way the lad was carrying on. “If he doesn’t mend his ways he’ll be on the dole.” That’s what he said. We can’t interfere, can we? We might make things worse.’ She turned to me. ‘I don’t mind if Thomas doesn’t want to visit. He’s grown up. Why would he want to spend time with us? I just want to know that he’s happy and he’s well.’ Which was what Philip had wanted too.

  I couldn’t leave her like that. I made her another cup of tea and we chatted about happier things until she saw Archie making his way from the park and her eyes lit up.

  Chapter Nine

  When I got home from my chat with old Mrs Mariner, Ray was in the kitchen talking to Jess. It was only five o’clock but I had the feeling they’d been there for a while. Everything about him was awkward and clumsy; his hands and feet were enormous and seemed to flap as if he had no control over them. When I looked in from the yard through the window, I saw his legs were poking out from the table. His wide, bony feet were bare. If he’d been sitting there in his boxer shorts I wouldn’t have been more shocked. He always took off his mucky work boots when he went into the house but never his socks. They must have been making love. In the big back bedroom, which was Jess’s only private place. None of us were allowed in there, not even me. I pushed open the kitchen door and they grinned at each other, smug and sheepish at the same time. I wanted to smack them.

  ‘There’s tea in the pot, pet.’ Easy, relaxed, as if she had sex with a plumber every afternoon. Perhaps she did. Perhaps that’s why I hated the new relationship so intensely – Marrakech had made me realize what I was missing and I was jealous.

  She must have sensed my tension. ‘Are you all right, Lizzie?’ Then, ‘You have taken your tablets today?’

  I glared at her. That was none of her business and not something to be discussed in front of lover-boy. All the same, feeling as I did about Ray, still I asked him if he’d give me a lift the next day. I’ve no pride, you see. Don’t see the point in it.

  ‘About time I had my own transport again,’ I said in explanation. I’d sold my old car after the incident in Blyth. That was always how I thought of it: ‘the incident in Blyth’. I couldn’t trust myself with a car after that. Road rage kills.

  ‘Good idea, pet.’ Jess beamed. She thought she’d been forgiven after the slip-up with the pills. ‘It’ll do you good to get out more.’ She turned to Ray. ‘Can you fit her in, love?’

  He nodded obediently. If she’d asked him to take me to the North Pole in his little white van, he’d have said ‘no problem’ and gone out to look for snow chains in Halfords.

  I knew the garage on the coast road. I’d seen the sign, spinning on a pivot in the wind until it was a blur. Ronald Laing, quality motor vehicles. It was close to the 1930s Wills building, which had been converted into expensive flats, and the office behind the forecourt was built in a similar style. Brick. Curvy lines. Probably not original but put up with some care. The
cars were a bit special too. The stock wasn’t the usual junk – the ageing Micras and rusting Fiestas meant for nervous housewives and first-time buyers. This was second-hand but classy: top of the range BMWs, a Jag, a couple of four-wheel-drive monsters, a Golf convertible only two years old. If Kay Mariner had bought her car from here she must have been saving. Or perhaps Ronnie had gone upmarket since they married.

  Why did I go to the garage first and not straight to Thomas or his mother? Nerves perhaps. I wanted a practice run. And I wanted to get this right. How would I feel if some stranger blundered up to me with information about my family? Shocked, sceptical. I’d have to trust the messenger before I accepted the message. So I needed as much information as possible before approaching Philip’s son. Already I had fantasies that we might be friends. I know it’s soppy, but I dreamt he’d come to see me almost as a sister. I didn’t want to cock things up before we’d even met.

  Ronnie Laing came out of his office to meet us as soon as we pulled up. I’m not sure what I’d been expecting. Someone big and bullying, perhaps, because he’d stopped Thomas from visiting his grandparents. A blustering, overweight car salesman. He wasn’t like that at all. He was slight and small, rather diffident. He was wearing a suit. He helped me out of the clapped-out van as if it were a Bentley. I was glad I’d made an effort to look presentable. There was something about him which made me want to impress. It was warm and I’d put on a sleeveless top and a long, straight skirt, slit at the back so I could walk. I hadn’t lost all the Moroccan tan. A real tan in early summer always looks expensive. Ray stayed in the van, as he’d been told.

  Each time I saw Ronnie Laing I would be surprised by how small he was physically. None of that remained in the memory. What you remembered was the smile, boyish and confiding. It was as if he had none of the normal barriers people put up round themselves for protection. He couldn’t pretend. You don’t expect that sort of vulnerability in a used-car salesman. And his energy. That first day when he took my hand to help me out from the van, the touch shocked me. I don’t know why. I looked at him and he smiled; he knew the effect he’d had and he was almost apologetic.