Charlie's Tale

Mine is the story of a ghost, more or less.

More because… well, that’s what she is now, but less because she wasn’t when I first saw her. Even though I was convinced she was.

Gawd, this is hard. Especially for an old sod like me.

Charlie’s the name, by the way, although my friends used to call me Chas, and this story of mine is all about the best friend I ever had. Her name was Charlie as well – Charlotte, really – but she hated it when folks tried to call her Chas, and I can’t say I really blame her none. I’m only an old Londoner, after all, but Charlie – Charlotte – well, she was a real lady.

And I ain’t talking about just her gender.

Where to start though?

Tell you what, I’ll begin at the beginning. Not like at the start of the universe or nothing, but back when I first clapped me eyes on me lady. It was during the war – the big one, I mean – when we was all ready for Hitler to come marching over the Channel and turn us into gawd knows what. Sausages, probably.

It’d been going on a few years by then and my lovely old East End was in a right old state. I weren’t actually in the army or nothing but I was doing my bit. I had a gammy leg, see? Weren’t fit for nothing much except keeping an eye out for bombs and stuff – an ARP, they called us. And believe me, it weren’t hard to see a plane dropping her incendiaries most days and nights. They’d even started on the real nasty buggers by then and we all had a new threat from what some of the locals were calling the Bugs – Doodlebugs, properly.

Those buggers were the worst. You’d hear something droning away and then… silence. Total silence unless you was unlucky enough to hear the air start whistling at you meaning you was well in the path of the flaming thing dropping out of the sky. And they dropped all right.

Silence for maybe fifteen seconds and then there’d be a bang. And we ain’t talking about no balloon popping. Those bangs would blow your ear drums out your ears – as long you weren’t close enough for it to blow your brains out your ears.

It was one of those buggers, though, who brought me and me lady together after a fashion so maybe it really is an ill wind and all that gumph.

I’d been patrolling the Old Kent Road that evening, checking everyone had their blackout curtains in place and making sure none of the houses what’d already been bombed were being looted by scallywags and the like. I weren’t none too keen on the looters because to be straight with you, me and some of the other ARPs knew that some of those places weren’t ever going to see their owners return and anything left behind was kind of perks of the job for us brave souls. If you get my drift.

We weren’t nasty buggers and we only ever had stuff away from places where we knew the owners weren’t ever coming back and it weren’t like we’re talking gold bullion or nothing. Not in that part of London, anyway. And I guess I was one of the ones what got posted down that way to make sure nothing too grand was ever ‘liberated’. After a spell in Mayfair, that is.

That evening though… I weren’t in the best of spirits and I’d not long had a row with a guy we all used to call Thick Mick.

Michael Tavistock was his real name, but Thick Mick was way more accurate. He’d served his time by then and been sent home after getting his leg blown off after stepping on a land mine on some beach in France. Fifty years later and he’d have had that Princess bird flapping about all over him, but back then he was just given a new de-mob suit and shipped back to Blighty and what was left of his family. Poor old get never even got a wooden leg for six months.

I reckon that mine took more than his right leg though. Thick as the proverbial brick, he was when he come home, so maybe a few brain cells got caught in the blast too.

Mrs T had kept on running the family pub and Thick Mick did his best to help her out when he could finally hop around a bit, but I ain’t so sure he was not more of an hindrance to her really. And that evening he’d sure been a hindrance to yours truly. I’d only poked me nose in the Dog and Duck for a swift pint while I was going about me business, but old Mick was having none of it, telling me I was on duty and there weren’t no way him or his missus was going to serve me. Charming, right?

Anyways, that was why I was feeling a bit down, and when I was halfway down the Old Kent the droning sound of a few more Bugs didn’t exactly cheer me up none.

I stopped right where I was in the middle of the street. There weren’t no way I’d get to no shelter before the buggers landed and you’d have been in almost as much danger inside one of the houses than you were stood right out in the open. It weren’t like any of the buildings still had glass in the windows to shower down on you or nothing.

I know it sounds a bit cowardly but I had me fingers crossed that the droning would cut out well before it got too close and sure enough there was sudden silence in no time. My guess was that the buggers were still a mile or three along the river somewhere and I started to hope they’d land in the drink.

No bleeding chance, of course. Say what you like about those evil Kraut gets but they sure knew how to aim a bleeding missile.

I hadn’t even got counting to ten when the first of the buggers landed – and it was way closer than I’d reckoned on.

I was close enough – no more than a quarter of a mile – to see bricks starting to fly into the air before I even heard that gawd-awful bang. But at least I was far enough away not to get hit by none of the debris.

But that of course was just the first one.

The second one was maybe fifty yards closer to me and the pulse of that explosion had the tarmac under me feet rocking and rolling, and bricks landing close enough to lick.

Your mind works well fast sometimes – times like when it’s in danger of painting the wall behind you a mucky shade of pink – and I turned on me heels and was off like fast Freddie’s favourite whippet. There weren’t no way of me knowing just how many Bugs were coming down but my guess was at least five – and if they was going to get closer by fifty yards or so every time, then where I had been standing was going to be what they call ground zero these days by the time the last one fell.

I was wrong, as it happens – no surprise there – and there was just four of them. Or at least only four of them made their landing spots mini-volcanoes for a few minutes. But the last one, well, that was way closer than I’d reckoned on and I’m guessing I was one lucky sod.

It fair blew me off my feet but not one, not a single brick, landed on me or hit me as it flew past. Talk about take your breath away, though. And your hearing for a while.

I ain’t got a clue as to how long I was laying there in the street, but all the debris had settled by the time I started to pull myself up onto my pins. The first thing I did was look around me and let me tell you – the Old Kent Road looked a whole heap older.

The last Bug had taken out an old warehouse not fifty yards behind me and I’m guessing it had been used for storing clothes because it looked like an army of invisible men had just been wiped out. There was clothes everywhere, all mixed up with broken bricks and busted timbers, and smoke cloaked the roofs all around me. I know it sounds as far-fetched as a parcel from Mars but It was peaceful all of a sudden, almost calm and yeah, almost beautiful in the weirdest way.

I had another good look at the street and that’s when I saw the house that used to sit next to the warehouse. And I say ‘used to’ with good reason, because it had collapsed in on itself like a house of cards built by a blind leper.

I didn’t really know much about the place other than it had once belonged to some toffee-nosed sod who drove a big old Rover. Last I’d heard of him was that he’d been piloting a Spitfire or maybe a Hurricane and he’d copped a nasty dose of Messerschmitt and flown into an old farmhouse down on the Kent coast. I recall being told that the last thing that went through his head was his arse.

The old house – or brick heap now – was, I therefore reckoned, bound to have been empty. And was, of course, now ARP property.

Look? Can you blame me? I’d just been nearly blown up by the bleeding Hun, Thick Mick had made me thirsty, and the house weren’t going to be needed by no one no more. I reckoned I was due a bit of recompense for all me troubles.

I picked me way through the bricks and knickers strewn all over the place and checked that no one was about – there’s no need to get caught doing nothing other than your job, and if anyone had asked, I was just checking for survivors, right?

Not that there was much chance of finding as much as a complete leg or arm in that place.

I’m guessing even to this day that this was the reason I weren’t none too surprised to see a ghost.

The house had well and truly collapsed. Every outside wall was no more than enough hard core to shore up a hundred yards of new road – and we sure as shit needed them – and the only thing that stood more than head height in what had been a three storey building was the chimney stack in the middle of what had been the ground floor. Next to it, though, was what must have been some sort of broom cupboard or similar. And as I stood there staring at the devastation, the flaming cupboard door swung open and standing there no more than ten feet from me was the ghost.

The female ghost, to be exact. Or almost exact.

She was white from head to foot, as all ghosts are. And how did I know it was a she ghost? Well that was easy. She didn’t have a stitch of clothing covering her.

You might think I could still have been mistaken – about the gender, I mean – because to be fair she weren’t exactly well-endowed in the tittie department and I guess it’s true enough she could have lost her willy in the big Bug bang. But she wasn’t hurt none by the looks of things – and can you blame me for looking?

Now you got to remember, I thought this was a ghost, so naked or not, I weren’t thinking with me own willy when I held me arms out, reckoning on offering whatever comfort a ghost could need. And the ghost didn’t seem to need no second offer, because right away she took a few steps towards me before removing most of my spectral ideas by collapsing in a heap on the floor.

The impact of her fall sent a cloud of dust billowing up and gawd knows how, but I could see at once that most of the dust had billowed up off of her. Despite the Bugs, the old brain kicked into gear and I realised that the ghostly whiteness was no more than brick and paper dust. And it also told me she must have been right there in the house when the Bug bit and if she weren’t well and truly battered it would be a miracle. Given that she was now curled up on what was left of the carpet I started to reckon that she was more than a little bit hurt, no matter that she’d seemed so perfect when the broom cupboard had revealed her to me at first.

And ‘revealed’ also floated into my old noggin.

I didn’t care none if someone came along and found me here with a naked young woman – I was gimpy Chas and into my forties by then, and while this was obviously a young woman she was of age if my eyes weren’t still deceiving me. But she was naked and probably desperately hurt. My guess was that I was maybe old enough to be her father but whether you care to believe it or not, most of all I was a gentleman where it concerned the fairer sex.

I stepped forward, shrugging off my great coat, and I knelt beside the girl trying to remember what they’d taught us when we signed up. It was basic medical gumph, mostly just to give us an idea about how we could sort out the living from the dearly departed. As it happens, this was the first time in the two years I’d been running the streets that I’d ever not been able to tell just from single look. Most times I’d only ever seen bits and pieces of people or the walking wounded. And there ain’t much point in taking the pulse of a severed arm.

This ghost was different though and I took her wrist, feeling a light throbbing there almost at once. I started to gabble nonsense at her, even though her eyes were closed, and gently draped my coat over her naked body. And yeah, I admit it. I did look first.

She was on her side, her knees curled up slightly, her arms in front of her, but even through the dust that still clung to her I could see she was a beautiful thing. She was slender, well-toned, probably very fit. And I think that gave me some comfort because right then and there I knew I didn’t want her to die and she’d have to be proper fit to survive a Bug.

She was breathing softly, I could see then, her small breasts rising and falling, and I could see that her nipples were hard. I ain’t no clue why I noticed that particular detail, and I swear on one of me mother’s graves – long story – that I weren’t kneeling there feeling anything sexual until that moment, but that sure as shit changed then.

Maybe it would have happened whoever the naked woman had been – whether she’d been young and fit like my ghost or an old girl full of wrinkles and warts – I mean this was a naked woman after all and I was a man. But I don’t think just anyone would have had me feeling that way.

Something strange was going on, because my first thought – my primary concern – was that she was going to be able to survive the Bug’s blast. But the physical attraction was there as well, hammering away at parts of me that were as long dead as my gammy pin. I ain’t saying I fell in love with my ghost right then and there. But I ain’t denying it either.

As soon as I realised she was properly alive and that I’d at least made her decent, I – reluctantly for some reason – got to me feet and limped out to find a dog and bone.

Back in those days it weren’t everyone or even every house who had a blower but a little way down the street I could see a police-box – like that Tardis thing the weirdo doctor off TV swans around in – and maybe the gods were smiling down on me that evening because it weren’t only still standing but the phone was still working.

I was probably gabbling on by the time I got through to someone but I must have made my need clear enough because I heard bells ringing and an engine coughing and spluttering before many minutes had passed. Sure enough an ambulance wobbled its way up the remains of the Old Kent Road not thirty minutes after I got back on the deck beside my ghost.

Like the phone call I ain’t got a clue what was said when an old boy and his mate – probably his grandson – came clambering over the bricks to where I was waving at them with a lighter so they could find me in what by then was near dark. I do remember the old boy telling his mate to go and wait in the truck when he realised my ghost’s state of dress, but not before a stretcher had been brought over to us.

I also remember where they said they’d be taking her – St Thomas’s – and that she was unconscious but didn’t seem to have any broken bones or nothing.

Then they were gone.

I’m telling you now, whether you believe it or not – but when the darkness crept back over me as the bone-wagon rounded a bend and was out of sight, I felt as if I were the only person left on the entire planet. And so very, very lonely.