Tomorrow's ghost

She clicked the torch button.

In the beam of light she saw clearly for the first time the stick of wood with which she had been poking the incinerator. Only, it wasn't a stick of wood, it was a cricket stump.

It had been the first thing that had come to her hand in the garden shed, she hadn't bothered to look at it, it was just a stick to push down the bundle into the incinerator. It hadn't been a cricket stump then, because there was no way a cricket stump could have got into the garden shed.

And yet now it was unquestionably a cricket stump.

There had been a bag, an ancient scuffed leather bag, full of cricketing gear which she had inherited with the rest of his worldly goods -

With all my worldly goods I thee endow -

In fact, there had been a weird and wonderful collection of sporting equipment scattered through the tin trunks of clothes dating back to his prep school days. In his short life Robbie seemed to have tried his hand at everything from fives to fencing by way of boxing and badminton.

All of which she had given outright to the Village Sports Club.

Not, repeat not ... not with the intention of eliminating him from the reckoning, as she now purposed to obliterate Marilyn. She had known from the start that there was no way of doing that - had known it instinctively, and because of that instinct had set out to embrace the inevitable by accepting it and making use of it.

Making use of it -

That was why his dressing gown, which was good and warm and only needed its sleeves turned back, enfolded her now.

That was why, although she had given away all his adult clothes to Oxfam, she had kept the orange-and-black striped rugger shirts and white sweaters he had worn as a fifteen-year-old, which fitted her perfectly; all of which, with the Cash's name tapes identifying them as the property of R. G. FITZGIBBON, could hardly be more explicitly memorable every time she touched them -

Robbie, not in the morning and at the going down of the sun shall I remember you, but beside the washing machine, and on the clothes-line, and at the ironing board, and in the airing cupboard, where I shall he expecting you and you cannot take me by surprise.

She stared down at the cricket stump in her hand.

Marilyn and Robbie.

But Robbie wouldn't have fancied Marilyn at all, she wouldn't have been his type -

Or would she?

Or would he?

* * *

The snap of a twig underfoot and the polite warning cough and the powerful beam of another torch caught Frances almost simultaneously, crouched over the incinerator like a murderess disposing of her victim's belongings, clad in nothing but her underwear and a dressing gown which obviously did not belong to her.

She turned quickly, swinging the feebler beam of her own torch to challenge the intruder, but his light blinded her.

'Mrs Fitzgibbon?' There was only half a question mark after the name; it was as though he was as much concerned to reassure her that he was not a night prowler as to confirm her identity to his own satisfaction.

'Yes - ' She realised that she knew the voice, but there was something which prevented her from bridging the gap between that knowledge and full recognition; also, in the same instant, a breath of cooler air on her body warned her that the treacherous dressing gown was gaping open in the light. She dropped the stump hurriedly and pulled the folds together at her throat.

'Who - ' She managed at last to direct her own beam on his face. 'Oh!'

She knew why she had not been able to put a name to the voice.

Messenger: The king comes here tonight.

Lady Macbeth .... Frances Warren (Upper Sixth) Lady Macbeth: Thou'rt mad to say it!

Except there had been no messenger to warn her of his coming, so that he had caught her in total disarray, with no words - without even any coherent thoughts - to conceal her surprise.

'My dear -' He snapped off his torch, leaving only hers to illuminate him' - I do apologise for appearing like this, without warning ... and at this time of night too.'

Without warning, and at this time of night: the politeness rang hollow inside Frances's mind. With or without warning, more like, and at any time of the day or night

- here - for God's sake, here - that required more than an apology.

'And I'm afraid I startled you ... But I was walking up the path to your front door, and I saw your torch, you see...'

He was talking like a casual caller, or as a friendly neighbour might have done if she had had any friendly neighbours, or even as dear Constable Ellis would have done on one of his fatherly don't-worry-I'm-keeping-an- eye-on-the-place visits, which invariably occurred within twenty-four hours of her return from whatever she'd been doing if she was away more than a week - it had even been in the back of her mind before he had spoken that it might be Constable Ellis behind the light.

All of which somehow made it worse, because of all people he was furthest away from being a casual caller or a friendly neighbour or a fatherly policeman, and the comparisons only emphasised