Chapter 5
The next day Martin is at work, but after tea Tom and Vicky go round to see Dorothy. Vicky has picked up some things from the village shop for her, and they take a courgette from the garden.
“Can I show you something I found?” asks Tom, and he takes the old lighter out of his pocket. It is wrapped in a handkerchief of Martin’s and he proudly reveals it.
Dorothy takes if from him and looks at it carefully, running her old fingers over it as if it were familiar. She doesn’t say anything for a minute or so, and then she sits down and places it on the table in front of her. Tom is about to speak when she takes out a tissue from her sleeve to blow her nose, and he realises that her eyes are damp.
“Do you know anything about it,” he asks?
She keeps turning it over in her fingers, and then looks up. “I have seen it before, or one just like it. Where did you find it?”
Tom looks at his mum, she smiles and nods at him.
“I found it in the pill box by the footpath. The one that’s all overgrown. It was stuck in a crack in the floor; it was in the mud but I think it was washed loose by all the rain that came down. We cleared out the drain and a lot of the mud got washed away. I think it has been there a long time. Daddy says it may have been from the time of the War. It’s got initials on it, two sets, you can see.”
Dorothy doesn’t say anything, and Tom carries on.
“I think it was given to a pilot by his girlfriend, one of the ones who was stationed here. I think they were going to get married, and he dropped it in the shelter. He must have been really cross. He should have come back to look for it.”
While Tom speaks Dorothy puts on her glasses, and looks carefully at the initials engraved into the metal. She says, “I don’t think he could go back to look for it.” And then she stands up. “I’ll make a cup of tea. You wait here.”
She heads into the kitchen and Tom can hear her put on the kettle. While it is boiling he can hear her moving about the cottage, opening and closing drawers. Eventually she reappears. “Vicky, could you give me a hand with the tea things.”
Vicky brings in the tray and sets it down on the table between them, and Dorothy pours out the tea. And on the tray Tom realises is another lighter, just like the one that he found, but cleaner and without any dents on it. He reaches out his hand, and then looks up at her.
“Go on, take a look.”
It is just the same, with the same initials engraved, but this one has been looked after. It is brighter, paler in colour, with a deep matt finish. The top clicks open on its hinges showing the wick and the little wheel that you rotate with your thumb to make if light.
“There are two,” Tom says. “Cool. Why did they make two? Did they have one each? How did you get it? Did you know them? Who did it belong to? Did they get married?”
“Too many questions,” she smiles. “I told you about a pilot who crashed in the War. I never knew him, I was just a girl, and he died after the crash. But I know who he was. He was Joe, Joe Patterson. JRP. I don’t know what the R stands for, but these are his initials,” she indicates the first set of initials on Tom’s lighter. “I think this must have been his. I think it must have fallen from his pocket when he was carried into the bunker after he crashed.”
“Do you know whose the other initials are? says Vicky.
“Yes, was it his girlfriend? says Tom.
“No. It wasn’t given to him by his girlfriend; the other set of initials belong to his brother, Will. He also fought in the war, but he survived. Joe was buried here after his crash but Will was unable to come to the funeral. He was away fighting somewhere in Africa. I met Will later, after the War he came back to find Joe’s grave, to find out more about how he died and I met him then. I was working in the pub behind the bar. Will stayed for a few days and chatted to me a bit, he was trying to find out what he could about Joe’s crash. I couldn’t tell him very much, and the airfield was closed by then, but I told him what I remembered and there were records of the burial at the church.”
She picks up the lighter she has brought in. “This was Will’s lighter. I saw him using it and I asked him about the two sets of initials.” She smiled. “I thought the same as you did and wondered whether he had a girl somewhere. He told me the story. He and Joe were twins. When the war started they joined up together; Will in the army, Joe in the RAF. They would have had to fight eventually but they both volunteered as soon as they could. Their mother was very upset, Will told me that she had given him the lighter with both sets of initials on and told him to look after Joe. She must have given the other one to Joe; I didn’t know there were two but I suppose Will did and I should have guessed.”
She stops, picks up Will’s lighter again, and dabs her nose with her tissue.
“Did you know him well?” asks Vicky.
“Oh yes, I got to know him very well. You see Will and I were going to get married. After the first visit he came back a few times. He had a job in Tunbridge Wells and he came when he could. And after a while he asked me to marry him. I met his parents, I still have the ring.” She pauses, and perhaps without thinking looks down at her left hand.
“What happened?” says Vicky.
“Will wanted to come back to see where Joe had died. I said that they were twins, but they were not identical, they were very different. Their mother joked once that I would have been better off with Joe. Of course I never met him, but she said that he was quiet, clever, stable she called him. Will was fun, outgoing. They didn’t get on as boys. I don’t know what happened between them, but I think they had a fight about a girl that Joe was seeing before the War started, and they had parted on bad terms. During the War they didn’t see each other at all; they didn’t manage to get leave at the same time, and Will was devastated when he heard about Joe’s crash. I think they thought they were indestructible, it never occurred to Will that he wouldn’t see his brother again; and he was angry and bitter.
“After the War ended Will came back to find Joe. And Joe was still here, waiting for him.”
“So the ghost really is Joe,” says Tom, eyes wide with excitement. “He came back to haunt the place where he was killed.”
“Don’t be silly,” says Vicky. “I’m sorry Dorothy, but ghosts aren’t real. People make up what they want to see.”
Dorothy looks at her, and then turns away, and carries on as if she hasn’t spoken.
“It was 1950. We were planning to get married that summer in the village. Will had taken me to a dance and was driving me back home. It was a late spring evening. Dark and damp but not cold. Before we got home Will had stopped the car and lit cigarettes for us. He had left his lighter on the dashboard. He drove on after a few minutes and we were passing the airfield. It had closed by then, but the old buildings were still there, looming in the dark. I wasn’t looking at the road, but as we rounded a corner Will yelled out ‘Joe’ and I looked up. A figure in uniform was standing in the middle of the road, his back to the car. Will had to swerve to avoid him, and as we approached the figure he turned towards us. It was the man from the churchyard, but now I could see his face in the headlights; I can still see it when I close my eyes at night. It was lit up for a moment, and it was horrible, a face from another world. The skin was stretched, twisted and blackened with dark red scars slanting across it; new scars that had not healed. One side was all out of shape, the ear missing. Most of his hair had gone. There were no eyes, just black sockets. But they were looking at me, and I felt the same anger, the same hatred. I grabbed onto Will’s arm, and the car skidded on the wet road. We crashed through the hedge, stopping just in front of a Nissan hut.
“I was lucky, I was thrown sideways against the door. I sprained my neck and had some cuts and bruises but I was OK. I managed to open the door and fell out onto the ground. I don’t remember what happened, I was shocked, it was a blur, I must have passed out. I remember someone helping me to sit up, talking to me. I remember later sitting with a coat around my shoulders; someone had given me tea. I was shivering. Will’s cigarette lighter was on the ground next to me.”
She looks down at the lighter she is still holding, and closes her small fist hard around it.
“And then I realised that Will was still in the car. There were people trying to open then driver’s door with a crowbar. He was dead of course. He had crashed over the steering wheel and hit the windscreen. They wouldn’t let me see him. I was crying, cold, there was blood on me. That’s all I remember.
“Then I was at home, I guess it was the next day. I walked back up to where it had happened. They had already taken away the car and you could see the tyre tracks and the gap in the hedge. Will’s body had also gone.
“I asked in the pub and the village about the pilot we saw. No one else saw him, they thought I was mistaken. But there was someone there; I remember his face, and Will shouting out “Joe”. It was the last thing he said.
“That was the last time I saw Joe. But I go to his grave sometimes. Will was buried back at home, but Joe is still here, and sometimes I still feel his anger. And others say they have seen him over the years.”
She looks slowly, fiercely at Vicky. “I know I’m old, and maybe my mind plays games with me. You must believe what you like. But hatred between brothers is a frightening thing; and Joe killed Will, as if he had pulled the trigger on him.”