JOE AND NELLY A World War Two ghost story
CHAPTER 7

Joe was right. Granddad did put his strict ex-sergeant-major foot down.

‘That’s two near misses since you got home, Joe. No more playing on bomb sites for you. And I’ll be having a chat with your mum about sending you back to Wales,’ he said over breakfast.

‘But I’ve only just got home, Granddad. Please don’t send me back.’

‘Then you’ll have to do as you’re told. If you want to get out of the house, replace some young lads to play football with and go to the park.’

Joe pressed his lips together to stop words from tumbling out. Arguing was not a good idea. Mum had told him how Granddad made her stand in a corner for over an hour for answering back when she was a child. Another time, she had to polish all the boots and shoes until they gleamed. He made her sit at the table until she had eaten everything on her plate, even gristle. Joe had never seen that side of him but it was always lurking there. Granddad’s eyes were steely grey and bored into your head, as if he knew what you were thinking. The best thing to do was to get on his good side and ask for help politely. Granddad was a problem-solver, a kind man and a pushover for a sad story. So Joe did as he was told for a few days and hung around the house, waiting for the right moment to get Granddad alone.

By offering to go to the corner shop for Nan every time he spotted her taking out her purse and shopping bag, and by taking a crafty detour, he did get to see Nelly nearly every day. He knew she would be waiting for him, always in the same place, so delighted to see him it gave him a numb pain in his chest. Each time he dropped by the bomb site, she had found something for him: a marble, a toy soldier, a torn page from one of his books.

And then, just as Joe was about to burst, Granddad surprised him.

‘What is it you want to ask me, Joe?’

‘What do you mean, ask you, Granddad?’

‘Well, you’ve been like my shadow, hanging around my elbow or sitting up close when nobody else is around. And I know you’ve been back to the bomb site. I’m not daft, Joe.’ His pale grey eyes reached into Joe’s brown ones.

‘Granddad,’ Joe said, with a tremor in his voice. His knuckles were white and aching from crossing his fingers. ‘What would you do if you found out you were best friends with a ghost?’

Granddad didn’t laugh. That was a good sign. Joe’s shoulders relaxed with relief and he uncrossed his fingers. He knew that his secret would be safe with Granddad and that he would come up with a plan. He told him everything. When he was finished, he stared at Granddad in anticipation.

‘I can’t help you, Joe,’ he said and pulled a tin of pipe tobacco out of his pocket. Joe felt his shoulders tense again. ‘Not until we have all the details,’ Granddad continued. ‘You need to ask Nelly all sorts of questions. Was she with her parents? Was she in the house? Was she trying to get to an air raid shelter? Which one? I know your houses didn’t have their own. Was she outside in the road or garden – and what was she doing there?’

Joe took a step back.

‘I’ll go and ask her right away - if that’s alright with you, Granddad. What are you going to do while I’m gone?’

Granddad promised to have a think about it. Like Nan, he knew everyone in the area and he was planning to talk to as many friends and neighbours as possible, starting with an old school friend, a fire warden who could have been on duty that day.

‘Go on down the road and replace young Nelly,’ he said, poking a pipe cleaner into his favourite pipe. ‘Then when I know a bit more about it all, I can talk to my pal.’

Joe found Nelly on the steps. He told her about the excellent detective he’d hired, their very own Sherlock Holmes.

She grinned and said, ‘It always helps to have a grown-up on your side.’

‘Think back to that Sunday, Nelly,’ Joe coaxed her. ‘Try to remember what you were doing before the bomb fell.’

Nelly bit her lip and shut her eyes. After a while she began to speak in a tiny voice Joe could barely hear. He shuffled along the step to get closer to her – to hear every word.

‘I remember sitting at the kitchen table, playing Snap with Dad. Mum was in a bad mood. She was at the sink, doing the washing up, slamming plates and saucers onto the draining board. Dad wasn’t happy when she called me over to dry up because we had to stop in the middle of a game. I couldn’t replace the tea towel so I went into the back yard to see if it was on the washing line – Mum always pegs the damp ones out to dry. But when I twisted the handle on the back door to get back in, I couldn’t open it. I think it was locked. I heard Mum and Dad through the open window. They were arguing. I don’t know what about. I couldn’t hear over the screaming that was coming from somewhere and then the loud rumble of an aeroplane flying low and very fast over the street. It was so low and loud it made the windows rattle.’

Nelly stopped and gnawed on the skin around her ragged thumbnail. She hugged herself to keep her body from trembling.

‘I stood on tiptoe and looked through the kitchen window but I couldn’t see Mum and Dad. They must have gone to the front door. I remembered Dad saying if I was ever caught outside when the sirens went off, I should make a run for the street shelter – we didn’t have room for one in our back yard. I’d only got as far as the back gate when the plane’s engine stopped. It was above the house. I remember looking round and seeing Dad’s face at the window in the back door – he must have come back for me.’

She stopped, put her thumb in her mouth and stroked the slightly raised shape of her birthmark. Joe nodded at her to continue.

‘There was a whacking explosion; I saw colours, blue and yellow, and an orange ball in the sky. The ground shook under my feet and then I was flying through the air. I could feel bricks and pieces of glass whizzing past me and I breathed in the smell of fireworks – it made me cough so much I felt sick. But when the smoke cleared, I wasn’t hurt. I looked around for the house and all I could replace was the front steps.’

They sat together in silence. Joe’s words sounded hollow when he finally said, ‘So you weren’t actually with your mum and dad.’

‘No,’ replied Nelly. ‘Where do you think they are now?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Joe, ‘but I’m going to replace out.’

He legged it back to Granddad who, in the meantime, had filled the small back parlour with a sweet storm cloud of cherry tobacco. It tickled the back of Joe’s throat. He gasped and tried not to choke, but he exploded in a fit of coughing. Granddad thumped him on the back with his huge hand and Nan fetched a glass of water from the steamy kitchen. She didn’t stay to listen to what he had to say – she left that to Granddad. She had the dinner to prepare and some wet washing to mangle.

Before Joe had a chance to tell Nelly’s story, Granddad asked, ‘What is it with you and Nelly?’

Joe thought back to the accidental kiss on the ear. Heat rose from his toes to the top of his head. He didn’t want to tell Granddad they played kiss chase in the school playground and he couldn’t even do it properly.

‘We’re best friends,’ he replied, ‘and we help each other.’

At that moment, a siren started to wail and Nan dashed in, wiping her hands on a tea towel, surrounded by the delicious aroma of rabbit pie. Joe’s tummy rumbled.

‘Forget dinner,’ Nan said. ‘We’ve got to get to the shelter!’

On the way out, Nan grabbed Monty’s cage and the gas masks. The Anderson shelter wasn’t far. There was plenty of room for all three of them and Monty, as everyone else was at work. Joe thought of Mum and prayed that her bus had stopped safely near a tube station or a public air-raid shelter. He was tormented by an image of Nelly that day, out in the garden with the door locked.

Joe spat on the inside of the mica window of his gas mask and wiped it with his fingers, just like Granddad showed him, to prevent it from misting up, and pulled it over his face. Nan checked that it was on properly, while Granddad broke the tension by making farting noises with his mask. Monty copied the sound exactly and Joe burst into a giggle. He could just hear Nan’s muffled tutting as she draped the tea towel over the budgie’s cage. They sat on two bunks, a small wooden table between them, with a canister of water and a thermos flask Nan had filled with sweet tea. In the corner of the shelter there was a pile of blankets, some battery torches and a small box of provisions. Outside, sirens screeched like seagulls for what seemed like ages. Then there was silence.

After about fifteen minutes, Granddad signalled to Joe and Nan to take off their masks. ‘We’ll have to stay here a while longer, until we get the all clear,’ he said. ‘While we’re waiting, you can tell us more about young Nelly.’

Nan opened the provisions box and took out a precious bar of Fry’s Five Boys chocolate and shared it between them. Joe sucked each of his squares slowly, the smooth, milky cocoa flavour spreading across his tongue and around his mouth. He hadn’t eaten chocolate since before he went to Wales. He was ready to tell Nan and Granddad what he knew of Nelly’s story.

They didn’t say anything. They both listened intently. When he had finished talking, they looked at each other for a long time. Nan asked the only question: ‘Why did Nelly’s parents lock her out?’