Jill woke to the spluttering drone of an aircraft.
The previous afternoon, she and her younger sister Tracy had sat
with their grandmother in her small bedroom overlooking the housing
estate and shops of Wentworth Field. Old Mrs Cole lived in a
residential care home near her old house, where Jill and Tracy now
lived. She had been very ill and as no hospital could do anything
more for her, she had returned to die peacefully in her own room.
Yesterday she had been rambling, living mainly in the past and
talking about Wentworth Field as it had been – not a housing estate
but a World War II airfield whose pilots had taken part in the Battle of
Britain.
‘Steve’s coming in,’ she kept telling them, lying flat on her bed, her
tiny face so wizened and white on the pillow that she seemed to be
literally shrinking before their eyes. ‘Steve’s coming. He’ll be all right.
He’s got that old cricket ball of his in the cockpit – always brings him
luck.’
Her sparse white hair was spread out like a halo but a photograph
by her bedside showed a young bride with auburn hair, arm-in-arm
with a dashing young pilot – her husband, Steve, their grandfather.
He had been killed right in front of her, his shot-up Spitfire making a
crash-landing on Wentworth Field.
Susan Cole had never left the site, at first living in a cottage
nearby and later moving into a house when the estate was built. She
had been twenty-four when her husband died so painfully young and
she never married again. They had been deeply in love and she had
never got over it.
Now, as Jill heard the spluttering drone, she realized that the
plane was in trouble. Its engine seemed to be on the point of cutting
out, making a coughing sound, almost like the coughing which
wracked their grandmother as she lay so helplessly, with such
fragility, on her death-bed.
Jill got up and went to the window, but there was no moon and
she couldn’t see anything except a mass of dark cloud. Then Tracy
came in. She looked terrified.
‘That plane’s going to crash.’
‘I can’t see one,’ Jill replied irritably.
‘Come on!’
‘Come on where?’
‘Outside.’ Tracy looked shaken and apprehensive. ‘Things are
different there now’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come and see if it’s the same for you.’
Mystified, Jill followed her younger sister furtively down the stairs.
Tracy gently opened the front door and they stepped out into such a
blaze of white, glaring light that at first Jill was completely dazed.
‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ said Tracy.
The familiar roads of the estate had disappeared. Instead there
was a vast sweep of concrete, a control tower, hangars, oldfashioned
fire appliances and equally out-of-date cars, trucks and
ambulances, all lit by the blazing white light that came from arc
lamps and spotlights, many of which were focused on the sky. Men
in overalls stood staring up at the dark clouds. Then the spluttering
drone became much louder.
The Spitfire broke from a ragged cloud, part of its wing shot away,
heading for the lights of the runway like a crippled bird.
‘It’s going to crash,’ whispered Tracy.
Her grandmother’s words began to beat in Jill’s mind, again and
again, a constantly repeating rhythm. ‘Steve’s coming in. Steve’s
coming in. Steve’s –’
‘Where are we?’ she gasped, still totally disorientated.
Tracy seemed calmer, had clearly had time to get used to the
phenomena. She struggled for the right words. ‘We’re back in time. I
don’t know how.’
‘Suppose we can’t get home?’ said Jill in sudden horror.
‘Of course we can. We just open the front door.’
‘What front door?’
There was no sign of the house at all and even Tracy began to
panic.
But then the wounded Spitfire limped back up into the sky, and as
it roared over them again someone shouted, ‘He’ll never make it!’
With its wing almost touching a hangar, the plane veered to the right
and limped into the dense cloud. They could still hear the spluttering
drone that threatened to cut out at any moment, and now the airfield
was silent, the men tense and expectant, the atmosphere charged
with anxiety.
Then the Spitfire burst out again, nose down, heading for the
runway, so close now that Jill and Tracy could not only see every
marking but also the pilot’s white face in the cockpit.
‘He’s too low,’ said someone, softly but distinctly. ‘Far too low.’
For a moment it looked as if the pilot was once again going to
abort the landing, but it was too late. A wheel touched the runway in
a stream of sparks, tearing itself apart, and then the nose grazed the
concrete. The aircraft slewed round and burst into flames, the
searing brightness so close they could both feel the fierce heat.
Bells rang and fire appliances and ambulances converged on the
burning plane.
‘Get him out,’ screamed someone. ‘For God’s sake get him out.’
But the blaze drove them back.
Steve’s coming in, said her grandmother’s voice in Jill’s head.
He’s arrived, she thought. But he’s dead.
As the Spitfire blazed, Tracy wept. ‘I want to go home.’
For a moment the heat seemed to increase and then they were
both suddenly cold. Everything was at a distance now, a muddle of
light and sound and cloud and flame which was withdrawing fast.
Suddenly, out of its midst, a dense, round object appeared as if
someone had hurled it from afar.
Jill and Tracy found themselves standing once again on the
pavement outside their house, watching dark, thick clouds hurtle
across the sky above them.
Tracy bent down. ‘It’s a ball,’ she said. ‘A cricket ball.’ She picked
it up. ‘Still warm,’ she muttered.
‘Steve used to play cricket. Don’t you remember Gran telling us?
They had a team up at the airfield.’
Tracy rolled the cricket ball round in her palm. ‘It feels old. Look –
it’s all black and battered.’ She paused. ‘Do you think Gran would
like it – as a souvenir?’
‘She might,’ Jill said doubtfully.
They went back into the house and up to their rooms, sure they
would be awake all night. But in fact Jill and Tracy were so
exhausted they fell into a deep, dreamless sleep until their mother
called them down to breakfast. It was Sunday morning and weak
sunlight was streaming through the kitchen windows.
Jill sensed what had happened when she saw her mother’s
strained face.
‘Gran died early this morning. She was so very old and ill and I
know she wanted to go.’ As Tracy began to cry, her mother added,
‘She whispered something I didn’t – didn’t quite understand before
she went, but of course she’d been rambling for so long.’
‘What did she say?’ asked Jill abruptly.
‘It was odd. I couldn’t quite make it out but it sounded like a
message for you and Tracy.’
‘For us?’ Jill was astounded.
‘Yes. Your Gran said something like – tell Jill and Tracy that Steve
came home with his old cricket ball after all. That would be your
grandfather. Strange, wasn’t it?’
‘Have they still got the ball?’ asked Jamie.
‘Yes,’ replied Kathy. ‘I’ve seen it. Jill and Tracy take turns keeping
it by their beds.’
Just then, Jamie’s father came in, yawning and stretching. ‘I
thought I heard you lot talking. Can’t you get to sleep?’ No one
replied so he added, smiling, ‘Why don’t you tell each other some
ghost stories? That should send you off’
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