Tomorrow's ghost

'But you've got to watch him like a hawk. He pretends he can't see you properly -

and it's him who's got eyes like a hawk. And he pretends he can't hear either, and he hears perfectly well when he wants to. He tells you he can't hear just to lure you close to him, that's all - he did it with the Mayor's daughter, I think it was, when they came to the Home last year, the old devil!'

'Did what?' whispered Frances.

'He put his hand up her skirt, dear - right up' hissed the lettuce leaf urgently. 'You should have heard her scream! I was down the passage - it frightened me out of my wits.... We're used to it, of course. But you - ' she glanced quickly at Marilyn's hair ' - you better just watch him, that's all.' She straightened up abruptly, and poked her head round the door again. 'Here you are, Mr Sands: it's the young lady from the newspaper.

And you behave yourself, or I won't let you watch The Sweeney - I'll take your set away, and that's a promise!'

Which was The Sweeney? Marilyn had kept up with all the popular TV programmes, from Coronation Street upwards -

My God! The Sweeney was the violent one, where the cops and robbers were always putting in the boot.

She entered the room cautiously.

It was a beautiful room, high and peach-and-white, with bright-flowered curtains framing a window which gave a view of trees on a far hillside.

And a big colour TV set for The Sweeney. And a little old man sitting up in bed, against a mound of pillows -

Like a little old wizened monkey, Paul had said. Sans teeth, almost sans eyes, but not sans memory.

Paul wasn't quite so clever though, again: more like a little bird of prey, with bright eyes fastening on her. (Or perhaps that wasn't quite fair to Paul, and she was being wise after the nurse's warning of his predatory habits once the prey was within reach.) He didn't say anything, he just looked at her. There was a copy of the Sun under his hand, opened to page three's bare breasts. As she looked back at him he closed the page.

Well, she hadn't been so clever either. There was obviously nothing wrong with his eyes or his memory, but she'd forgotten to ask what was wrong with his legs... Though perhaps she should be grateful for their weakness, so it seemed. 'Mr Sands?'

'Yes?' He sank back into the pillows. 'I'm from the Post-Gazette, Mr Sands. A colleague of mine came to see you yesterday... About you war experiences.'

'What?' He cupped his hand to his ear. 'About-your-war-experiences, Mr Sands.'

'Speak up. Missy. I can't hear you.' Frances advanced towards the bed. 'My colleague came to see you yesterday to ask you about your war experiences. When you were in the trenches with General Chesney.'

'I still can't hear you. You'll have to speak up.'

'You can hear me perfectly well,' said Frances clearly.

'Don't shout. There's no call to shout,' said Rifleman Sands. 'I'm not deaf.'

'I want to talk to you about after the war,' said Frances.

'Ar? Well, you'll have to come closer,' said Rifleman Sands, laying down the price by patting the bed. 'You can come and sit on the edge here. Then I can hear you.'

Then you can do more than hear me, thought Frances.

She looked down at the hand which had patted the bed, and which now lay resting itself on the coverlet. It was a working hand, one size bigger than the rest of Rifleman Sands, what she could see of him - a hand expanded by work, old and knotted now, the veins standing up from the parchment-thin skin, but very clean and manicured - a St.

Luke's hand now. When she thought about it dispassionately, it didn't disgust her at all.

It had been up a good many skirts in its time, that hand, without doubt. Now it was about to go up hers, but it wouldn't be the first - or the worst - to make that short journey. It had been cleaned by the earth of the old General's flowerbeds a thousand times over, and by that other earth of France and Flanders too, and it couldn't possibly do her any harm now. If her skirt was the last skirt, that was just the final bit of the unpaid debt.

The bed was high off the floor, her skirt rode up quite naturally as she hitched herself aboard it.

Rifleman Sands smiled at her happily, and she found herself smiling back at him in perfect accord, perfect innocence.

'Now, Missy. After the war? There was a big fireworks display on the top of Corporation Park, along Revidge ... where there's now tennis courts - there was a bit of spare land there - where we used to go capertulling of a Sunday night - '

'Capertulling?'

The hand patted the coverlet. 'A big fireworks display. We used to walk up Revidge -

about this time of year, too - and on our front gate we used to have an arch of laurels, with candles in jam jars ... My elder brother used to say he was watching these people coming back, stopping to light their cigarettes on the candles in the jam jars. I didn't go, of course.'

'Why not?'

'Fireworks reminded me of the trenches.' He spoke as though it was a silly questions, to which she ought to know the answer without asking. 'We had enough fireworks...

Though later on I did go up. You forget, see - in the end you forget.'