Mountwood School for Ghosts Read online

  She didn’t feel like giving up quite yet. A small modern flat somewhere in the suburbs had not been part of her plans at all. She had planned on dying in her own bed, or preferably at her desk, in Markham Street, with Karin to arrange the flowers and Peter Richards playing some Schubert with a few friends from the orchestra. And that sweet girl Charlotte, who really had a lovely speaking voice, could do the reading. They were all so kind and thoughtful in that peaceful way that never made you feel as though they were doing you a favour. She had found a home in Markham Street, and although they would never know it, for she would never tell them, they had mended her heart, the heart that was broken so very many years ago when she climbed on to that train, with a number on a label round her neck, and waved goodbye to her parents.

  She had been Lottie Weissman then, a nine-year-old girl from Austria, and all she had when she came to England was a small cardboard suitcase and the address of one of her father’s friends, stitched on to the inside of her coat. She hadn’t known then how bad it would be. Being sent away from her parents was painful enough, but the worst of it, the whole truth, came out later. Her mother and father had been swept away by the horrible war that followed, and were gone forever.

  She had worked hard at making a good life and becoming a writer; she was grateful for her escape, and grateful to her new country for making it possible. But it wasn’t until she settled in Markham Street that she found again the feeling of having a real home. Mrs Wilder knew, more than anyone else on the street, what they were fighting for. Not just for some nice old houses, but for the place where they belonged. Home.

  ‘You know, Fjodor,’ she said aloud, ‘we really shouldn’t let that Bluffit man get away with this. The whole of City Hall seems to do what he says. I have been talking to Sam Norton, who wrote that article. He’s been digging around and he says that there was some kind of a deal between Bluffit and that buffoon Ridget – a housing scheme on Ridget’s estate that he wanted stopped. But he can’t prove it. Or not yet, anyway. We should give him all the help we can. If he can show that the whole inquiry was a farce, then they will at least have to reopen it.’

  Mr Jaros was in a deep Central European gloom. ‘Help him? How can we help him? We are crushed by the forces of capital. We are downtrodden.’ In his younger days Mr Jaros had been a bit of a firebrand, but things had happened to him in Prague that had dampened his fervour.

  ‘Time, Fjodor, time. Sam Norton needs time. We must frighten the politicians. They are the ones who decide in the end, and they are always terrified of people not voting for them. That’s all they care about. Most of the time they do what Bluffit wants, but if they think that people might not vote for them, they will do anything.’

  And so the plans were laid for the Markham Street March.

  Mrs Wilder invited everybody over the next day, and Karin Hughes brought huge amounts of cinnamon buns. She had, she said, made far too many. It was something that happened to her sometimes when she was sad and homesick.

  While they chewed, Mrs Wilder told them about Sam Norton and read out a declaration that she had written, saying that there was corruption in high places, and that the council members of all parties were abusing the rights of the citizens by not doing something about it. Everybody signed it, and then Daniel and Charlotte spent the whole afternoon trudging round the neighbourhood knocking on doors and getting as many signatures as possible. They got very wet and cold, because although it was early summer they were in England, and the grey skies that hung above them like a damp woollen blanket had still not wrung themselves dry.

  At last the rain got bored and moved on to soak the Lake District instead. The day of the march dawned chilly but clear.

  There were not very many of them; some of the residents of Markham Street had already decided to take their compensation money and move. But there were one or two people from other streets close by the park. The Patels from the corner shop opposite the park joined them. Their business was finished if the plans went through. Daniel’s parents greeted them and they walked along together.

  Charlotte’s mother had stayed at home with Alexander and the baby, but Jonathan and George had come along on their bicycles. Daniel and his friend Mike had made some placards in Daniel’s father’s allotment shed, and Charlotte had painted slogans on them, saying ‘Save Markham Street’ and ‘Big Business is Bad Business’ and ‘Bluffit is Bent’.

  She had done one saying ‘Ridget is a Nitwit’, but Jim Dawson had said that they shouldn’t use it, because it wasn’t Ridget’s fault he was an idiot.

  ‘I mean, you don’t go around mocking slugs because they don’t know their seven times table, do you?’ he said, and Charlotte had to admit that there was some justice in this. The writing was a bit wonky in places, because Charlotte had had quite a lot of help from Jonathan and George, but the placards made it seem like a proper protest march, and not just a crowd of people on their way to a match (Mike was wearing his football scarf).

  They headed off towards City Hall. It wasn’t really freezing, more brisk, but Mrs Wilder was taking no risks with her circulation, and she was properly muffled up. She had her astrakhan hat on, and her long winter coat, and looked quite fierce and determined Inside each of her woollen gloves she carried a small round stone that Karin Hughes had heated up in the oven before they set off.

  ‘That was how we kept our hands warm when we walked to school in winter,’ Karin had told her.

  They didn’t walk very fast, and to everyone’s surprise they were soon caught up by the Bosse-Lynches.

  Mr Bosse-Lynch was wearing his business suit and a club tie, and Mrs Bosse-Lynch had a hat on and a string of pearls and looked a bit like the queen. Peter Richards walked beside them for a while.

  ‘Good of you to come,’ he said.

  ‘Well, we don’t want them thinking that Markham Street is only inhabited by eccentrics and . . .’ Mrs Bosse-Lynch hesitated, looking down her nose at Peter, ‘Odd people.’

  ‘No indeed.’

  There was quite a long way to go – too far for Mrs Wilder really, who struggled a bit towards the end and did the last bit with her hand on Daniel’s shoulder – but at last they reached the imposing entrance of City Hall.

  Jack Bluffit looked down from the window of his office at the crowd gathering on the steps below.

  ‘What a bunch. Not many of them, are there?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Snyder replied.

  ‘Have you called the commissioner?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He is sending a police officer.’

  ‘A police officer? One? What good is that? I want the riot squad. Knock some heads together and send them home.’

  ‘He seemed to think that was unnecessary, sir. He mentioned the right of peaceful protest.’

  ‘Stuff the right of peaceful protest. Get him on the phone.’

  But just then the phone began to ring.

  ‘That’ll be him,’ said Bluffit. ‘Out of the way. I’ll take it.’

  He snatched up the receiver. As he listened, his face changed to a furious scowl and his mouth set in a grim line.

  ‘Yes, I got that,’ he muttered at last, and slammed the receiver down again. ‘That, Snyder, was the council chairman,’ he snarled. ‘Now I have to go down. I told you to fend him off, tell him I wasn’t in.’

  ‘Well, sir,’ replied Frederik smoothly, ‘you picked up . . .’

  ‘Oh, be quiet, clever clogs. An assistant is supposed to assist.’

  Bluffit stormed out, slamming the door behind him. He didn’t see Frederik Snyder sticking his tongue out at him behind his back.

  He emerged on the steps of City Hall looking less furious. He knew that there would be reporters there. That rat-faced creep Norton wouldn’t miss a chance like this.

  He had taken some deep breaths in the lift and forced his face into what he thought was a smile, although in fact he looked as though he had just come from a rather painful session at the dentist.

  As he appeared the proteste
rs struck up a chant that Jim Dawson had composed.

  ‘Hey, hey, Mister J, how many homes have you wrecked today?’

  Bluffit held up a meaty hand, and the chant faded away. ‘Citizens, what can I do for you?’

  He glanced to one side and twisted the corners of his mouth up even more as a photographer from the local paper raised his camera.

  Mr Jaros stepped forward and walked up the steps towards Jack Bluffit. He looked very distinguished, with his mane of silver hair and his dark intelligent eyes. He had borrowed his jacket back from Jessie, brushed off the hairs and ironed it, so he was wearing a whole suit.

  ‘We are here to protest against the destruction of our homes and demand an investigation into the conduct of the inquiry. We wish to present this petition to the chairman of the county council.’

  Mr Jaros looked every inch the English gentleman, and could easily have been mistaken for the Honourable Somebody or even Sir So-and-So. But he was very nervous, and his normally perfect English let him down. He said ‘vee’ instead of ‘we’ and ‘vish’ instead of ‘wish’.

  Jack Bluffit looked at him, and stopped pretending to smile.

  ‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ he said. ‘It’s all legal, and in this country we obey the law. Any true Englishman would know that.’

  From the grown-ups in the crowd there was a sharp intake of breath. Peter and Jim exchanged looks.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Peter.

  Mrs Wilder was fairly deaf, but Bluffit had a loud voice and she hadn’t missed a word. ‘Is there no morsel of decency in that man?’ Daniel heard her say, and he turned to look at her. He saw her take off her right glove, and in her hand was a small stone. With all her strength she hurled the stone at Jack Bluffit.

  All her strength was not very much. The stone flew in a gentle curve and bounced harmlessly off Bluffit’s well-filled waistcoat.

  This time the smile that spread over Bluffit’s features was not the strained mask he had put on for the reporters’ cameras. It was a real beaming smile of satisfaction. He pointed at Mrs Wilder and shouted at the policeman who was standing quietly on the other side of the street:

  ‘Arrest that woman. She is violent and dangerous!’

  The policeman had to do something now, so he stuffed the remains of his lunch sandwich in a waste bin and advanced towards the crowd.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mrs Wilder. We will cover you with our bodies,’ cried Jim, who had enjoyed a game of rugby at university and sometimes missed it badly.

  ‘Oh please, I’d rather not,’ said Mrs Wilder.

  She was feeling rather frail and didn’t want to be covered in bodies. She had been completely enraged by Bluffit’s foulness to Mr Jaros, but now she just felt old and tired. ‘What can they do to me?’ she said. And she walked through the crowd to meet the policeman.

  Nineteen

  Bonding

  When the Great Hagges finally arrived back at Mountwood, a faint glow in the east was dousing the stars one by one and the moon was setting. They strode into the hall, and Fredegonda immediately rang the bell for assembly.

  The Hagges took up their places, with their arms crossed, looking very grim. Slowly the hall filled up with wobbly spectres.

  ‘I won’t waste time here,’ announced Fredegonda. ‘We want the details, and we want them now.’

  Her voice rang like cold iron. She was calm – a stern self-discipline was one of her strong points – but if the assembled ghosts had known how powerfully her thumb was throbbing and how close she was to losing her temper, then they would have been even wobblier.

  Then Kylie, very quietly, said, ‘It was my fault.’

  The Phantom Welder found his voice. ‘No, it wasn’t. It was me and my big mouth again.’

  Ron Peabody moved forward and stood to attention. His eyeballs jittered about quite alarmingly, but his voice was firm. ‘Not at all, ma’am,’ he barked. ‘I claim full responsibility. I have been derelict in my duties as a husband . . . er . . .’ His voice trailed off. He had put his foot in it again.

  ‘As a husband?’ Fredegonda’s voice was bleak as the Arctic tundra. ‘Mrs Peabody? This is unexpected.’

  Iphigenia glided forward. ‘I was led by my artistic nature into a creative moment that I now realize I may have cause to regret. Mea culpa. No blame attaches to any other.’

  Eventually the whole story came out. It usually does in the end, especially in the hands of such experienced questioners as the Great Hagges.

  At last, after a short conference with her colleagues, Fredegonda declared, ‘Mrs Peabody’s offence is serious enough to justify expulsion from Mountwood. However, she was clearly provoked, and others must bear their part of the blame. We will announce our decision tomorrow night.’ And the Great Hagges turned and marched off to bed.

  Later, as they lay in their four-poster bed finishing off the last of their hot drink, Goneril chuckled. ‘I do believe we’re almost there.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ agreed Drusilla. ‘We might have done it, my dears; we might just have done it.’

  ‘The bonding – did you observe the bonding, Fred . . . Fredegonda?’

  Goneril was feeling so pleased that she almost said ‘Freddie’, but she had called Fredegonda ‘Freddie’ once before, and had decided then and there that she would never, ever do so again.

  ‘Of course I observed it,’ said Fredegonda. ‘Team loyalty, carrying the can, unmistakable. And Mrs Peabody . . . well, we knew she had it in her, but to see one’s work pay off so handsomely, what a jolly fine thing.’

  ‘And the others not far behind, in my view.’

  ‘No indeed, my dear.’

  When a class finally comes together as a unit, when the whole becomes more than the sum of its parts, that is one of the finest moments in a teacher’s life.

  Wearing something very close to beatific smiles, the Great Hagges fell asleep. Their rumbling snores pounded rhythmically through the old stones of Mountwood Castle.

  PART THREE

  Twenty

  In the Nick

  The day after the march Daniel and Charlotte sat on General Markham’s pedestal and looked out over the city. The school holidays had started, and just so that every child in the city would be extra pleased, the weather had turned glorious. The sun shone from a cloudless sky, the stone plinth they sat on was warm, and for once the air was swept so clean that they could make out tiny flashes of white from the backs of the gulls as they circled and screamed down at the quayside.

  ‘It just makes things worse,’ said Daniel.

  Charlotte understood what he meant. Somehow it would have been easier if it had been one of those dank, dark, dripping November days that smelled of rotting leaves and dog poo, with empty hamburger cartons and old newspapers flapping around your feet. But instead, this lovely day.

  On a day like this Markham Park looked almost beautiful, with its bright beds of pansies and snapdragons. A line of fluffy ducklings teetered across the path behind their mother, who proudly waddled towards the pond saying waap waap, to concentrate their minds.

  Already men in hard hats had turned up in a van and were walking about studying plans and pointing things out to each other. Any day now the heavy machinery would move in, and by the autumn Daniel and Charlotte would be living on opposite sides of a city of a million people.

  And Mrs Wilder was still in the police station.

  They were going with Mrs Hughes to visit her in the afternoon. Daniel’s father said he didn’t think she’d be there for long. The whole thing was ridiculous; she should just have been told off. But they might have to charge her with something because of all the fuss.

  ‘All the fuss’ was Jack Bluffit’s work.

  Bluffit had recognized the old lady who had thrown the stone at him. She was the one who had tried to make him look a fool at the inquiry, and now he saw his chance to get his revenge. He rang the newspapers, especially the ones that didn’t mind printing rubbish as long as they sold a lot of copies, and th
e next day one of them ran a big headline saying ‘Pensioner Assaults Head of Planning’, and the rival newspaper went for ‘Hooligans Besiege City Hall’.

  Bluffit had made sure that he was quoted in both as saying, ‘Democracy in this country is being undermined by violent urban terrorism.’

  The whole point of the demonstration was forgotten.

  Daniel and Charlotte walked back through the park.

  ‘This might be the last time,’ Charlotte said quietly.

  Daniel was angry with her for saying it. That was the trouble with Charlotte; she always said what she was thinking, she always told the truth, and she always looked the world straight in the face. Sometimes it was better to tell yourself stories, wasn’t it? Even if deep down you knew that’s what they were – just stories.

  ‘We can go on fighting. You said we should; now you’re the one who’s giving up.’

  ‘That’s not fair. All roads end somewhere.’

  ‘If we were real fighters we would just be starting. We would lie down in front of the bulldozers, and if that didn’t work we would make bombs and blow them up.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Daniel. That’s how innocent people die. That’s how mothers lose their children and husbands lose their wives.’

  No more was said until they turned in at Mrs Hughes’s gate. She was sitting waiting for them in her front garden.

  The gardens of Markham Street were small patches of ground, cramped as only urban gardens can be, but Karin Hughes’s garden was a tiny little paradise. Roses and azaleas against the wall of the house, greedy for warmth from the brickwork, and in front of them the shy cyclamens and anemones, the phlox and pansies and mallow and cranesbill. And of course the herbs. There was even a small tree. Not just any tree. It was a silver birch, the first thing she had planted when she came to Markham Street, when waves of homesickness for the country of her birth still engulfed her from time to time. Now she sat in its dappled shade, as she had sat many times since the letter came, saying goodbye to its delicate foliage and gracious, slender lines.