Time After Time.

Written over five days while my internet connection was down and I was short of things to do. There are lots of purportedly real stories similar to this and I thought it was about time I covered the subject with a short fictional piece. It's never likely to be offered for publication, but if anyone does want to use it feel free. A credit would be appreciated, but I would expect no further payment.

Approximate reading time 20-25 minutes.

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The tentative knock on my door at 8.15 on a cold, misty October night was all but unprecedented, and yet something of the tone of the knock suggested intrigue rather than danger. In fact, I’d felt an odd sensation which I’m inclined describe as a presentiment gently haunting me all day. Presentiments are not unusual to my imaginative mind and I had largely ignored this one, but the unaccustomed timing of the knock set my pulse rising almost palpably. I opened the door. Standing before me in the light of the kitchen bulb were two young women of around twenty or so.

First impressions can be remarkably instantaneous and all-encompassing. Hardly did time pass before I grew confused by the look of their winter coats: the length of the garments, the cut and texture of the fabric, the large leather buttons, and the capacious pockets draped by unusually large flaps. Their shoes were unfamiliar; their hats even more so; even their scarves looked unusually unstylish and home made. They seemed to belong more to my mother’s photograph album than a substantial way into the twenty first century. The one I judged to be slightly the elder of the two spoke:

‘Are you my Uncle Gerald?’ she asked.

The brevity of the question swept the archaic clothes from my mind for a second, and a mild sense of confusion led me to hesitate briefly. And there was something uncommonly naïve about their expectant smiles.

‘My name isn’t Gerald, no, and such nieces as I have are a little older than you,’ I replied simply. ‘I think you must have the wrong address.’

‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you are rather older than I expected my uncle to be. But we’ve never seen him, you see, because he lived in South Africa until three years ago. Do excuse me while I check.’

She unclipped the handbag she was carrying, took out a small piece of paper, and half turned to read it by the light streaming out from the kitchen. That was when I noticed something else intriguing. She was wearing nylon stockings with a seam running up the back, a style I hadn’t seen since my young adult days several decades earlier. She read aloud what it said on the paper:

‘Weaver View Cottage, Mill Lane, Rollston. Our mother said to get off the bus at the pub, walk half a mile up the lane, and it’s on the right. She said it was the only house beyond the few at the bottom.’

‘Well, the address is correct, but there’s no one called Gerald living here.’

She and her companion looked at one another in bemusement for a second, and then she continued:

‘Maybe she got the address wrong. My uncle is called Gerald Smithson. He’s in the RAF and is home on leave at the moment because he was wounded recently. I thought my visit might cheer him up a little. Do you know a Mr Smithson?’

I was beginning to have the most outrageous suspicion. No bus has come through this village for several years, apart from the morning and evening ones conveying pupils to and from the high school in the nearby town. And I thought it strange that she should say that her uncle had been ‘wounded.’ Why not the more familiar ‘injured’? The cold blanket of intrigue was beginning to wrap itself around me.’

‘I don’t know anybody called Smithson,’ I said. ‘But do step in for a moment. Let’s get out of this cold air and keep it out of my inadequately heated kitchen.’

‘Oh, we really mustn’t bother you any further,’ said the companion.

‘It’s no bother at all. I’m not doing anything special,’ I replied, holding back my eagerness to know more. ‘I’ll make us a hot drink while we consider the matter further.’

They assented with a hint of reluctance, so I stood back and pointed the way into my study.

‘Would you prefer tea or coffee?’ I asked.

‘Tea will do nicely,’ said the one I now presumed to be the elder of two sisters.

They moved through into the study while I grabbed three mugs and three tea bags, filled the kettle, and switched it on. I could hardly contain my excitement at seeing their reaction to the inside of my house. I’d already noticed their eyes grow wider when they’d gained a more comprehensive view of the kitchen, and the sound of the kettle failed to mask the surprised tone in their voices speaking low in the next room. I took the tea through on a tray.

‘What’s that?’ asked the talkative one. They were both leaning over my desk and regarding the computer monitor with questioning expressions.

‘Have you never seen a computer?’ I said. The reply was what I expected.

‘A what?’

‘Thought not. It’s a clever device which is commonplace now, but it would be difficult to enumerate its many functions. What do you think that is?’ I was pointing at the cordless phone. They shrugged.

‘It’s a telephone.’

‘But there’s no wire coming out of it.’

‘I know. The voice signal comes into the base it’s standing on, which is a radio receiver of sorts, and is then sent to the device you’re holding using radio waves. It enables you to wander around the house and carry on a conversation. You can even go outside and still talk, so you’re not restricted to sitting or standing by the phone.’ I thought of showing them my mobile but decided not to confuse them further. Instead I invited them into the living room where they settled themselves on the sofa and I presented the mugs of tea.

‘Is that another … erm… computer?’ she asked.

‘No, it’s a television.’

‘But where’s the rest of it? It’s so thin.’

‘I know. The latest TVs don’t have heavy valves and cathode ray tubes, you see. They’re much slimmer and more sophisticated. Now look at this.’ I switched it on and they gasped as they saw the clarity and colour of the picture. And then, as redundant and predictable as it seems to say it, I really did take a deep breath.

‘Tell me something: how many houses did you see at the bottom of the lane?’

They regarded one another inquisitively for a few seconds, and the younger sister said:

‘Four, I think. It was a row of terraced houses and I think there were four lighted windows.’

‘There should have been ten, I answered quietly.’ And then I addressed them directly again: ‘I need to ask you a question which will seem a little strange, but bear with me. What year is this?’

‘1942.’

‘And your Uncle Gerald is a flyer in the RAF?’

‘Yes, he’s a navigator in Lancaster bombers.’

That settled the matter.

‘Well, well, well. I could never decide whether I believed in time slips, but that’s obviously what we have here.’

‘Time slips? What on earth do you mean?’

‘Hard to say. Time is a mysterious phenomenon and much discussed – even argued over – by scientists and philosophers. But there are many stories of people finding themselves suddenly transferred into a different time period. It explains why so much of the way you’re dressed is unfamiliar to me, and why so much of what you see in this house is unfamiliar to you. We’ve come a long way since 1942. This is 2026.’

The two women said nothing for a while, but continued to look at me with questioning expressions. The older one began to show some signs of acceptance and said:

‘That would explain the car we saw at the bottom of your garden. We’d never seen anything like that before.’

‘Quite.’

It was evident that the senior of the two was struggling mentally with what must have seemed an unfathomable possibility. The younger seemed merely bemused and a little frightened. Both gripped their mugs of tea in cupped hands; neither seemed capable of drinking it. Silence gripped all of us for a few minutes, and then the older one seemed suddenly shocked and scared.

‘If you’re right,’ she spluttered, ‘how in God’s name do we get back?’

‘That’s my number one question too,’ I replied. ‘I’ve heard several accounts of this sort of thing happening, and at least one, to my recollection, said that if you retrace your steps exactly, you’ll pass back through what is commonly known as “the portal”. I can only suggest that you try it and hope it works. And it strikes me as possible that there’s no time to lose.’

They looked at one another. The younger one shrugged.

‘Very well. I think life would get more than a little bit complicated if we got trapped here. We’d better make tracks.’

They stood up, leaving the tea un-drunk, girded their clothes against the cold night air, and prepared to leave.

‘Let me give you a torch to light your way,’ I said. ‘I’d like to come with you, but then I might get trapped in 1942 if the portal closes at an inopportune moment.’

We passed back through my study and I rummaged through my backpack for my favourite torch. It was a modern chromium one, almost pencil slim, with LED lights. I gave it to the older girl.

‘Where’s the bulb?’ she asked.

‘Modern torches don’t have bulbs. These little circles behind the glass give more light with less battery usage. It’s something else that’s moved on. Press that button.’

She did so and was duly impressed with the brightness of the light.

‘Well, this has been some adventure,’ she said after a pause. ‘I hope it’s temporary.’

‘Me too. Don’t forget: retrace your steps as accurately as you can. Same side of the road, same relative positions, and so on. And the very best of wartime fortune to both of you. This has been quite an adventure for me, too.’

We passed into the kitchen and I opened the door.

‘Goodbye and good luck,’ I said. ‘Goodbye,’ they both answered.

I watched as the light moved down the path and turned onto the lane. The spill from the torch’s beam soon faded and the world returned to darkness, mist, and silence. I returned to my living room and regarded the two untouched mugs of cold tea standing on the carpet. I felt dazed and asked myself the obvious and pointless question: did all that really happen? Of course it did. I declined the equally pointless exercise of checking my backpack for the missing torch, and instead sank into my armchair and replayed the whole extraordinary event for what seemed like a very long time. And then I made and drank a fresh mug of tea before retiring early. Sleep did not fall easily on a beleaguered brain, but at least the two women had not returned and I assumed that the matter was satisfactorily resolved.

*  *  *

I should like to say that the incident faded from my mind over the next few days, but such was not the case. It became a frequent interloper as I went about my daily business, but not an obsessive one. It had more the character of a sharply defined anecdote which appeared when matters of more immediate concern were absent. I did wonder, of course, whether I should tell anybody about it. I thought it inadvisable since any talk of time slip experiences is likely to engender the suspicion of a diseased brain. I settled on treating it as a singular and mysterious encounter which I would keep safely shut up in a private corner of my mind. That decision was to be challenged a mere two weeks later.

I was working in my garden one afternoon in early November when I saw a car slow down and then stop near my gate. I saw that the driver was a woman and she was regarding me and my property with evident interest. After several seconds the car moved forward, passed through my gate, and occupied a spot on my drive. The engine fell silent and a woman I judged to be in her mid fifties stepped out. We regarded one another for several seconds until she walked boldly up the path and approached me.

‘Good afternoon,’ she said. ‘My name is Victoria Parker and I’ve been despatched on an errand which is, to say the least, a little strange. I have been charged with the task of delivering something to you, and I have no idea what it is. May we step inside?’

I sensed a hint of embarrassment in her manner, but for my part – well, who would not be intrigued by such an opening gambit? I certainly was, especially since matters of mysterious singularity were still fresh in my mind.

‘Of course,’ I replied. ‘Come this way.’

We entered my house by the same door on which the young women had knocked, and I observed the same pleasantry:

‘Can I get you something? Tea or coffee?’

‘No, thank you. I just had lunch in Washburn while I dredged up the courage to lay before you the objects of my mission, so to speak.’

We continued to the living room where my visitor settled herself on the sofa while I took the armchair. She took an envelope and a small padded package out of her bag, and after a brief pause and a short exhale of air she began her speech.

‘The contents of these envelopes were originally in the possession of my maternal grandmother. When she was in her late seventies she was diagnosed with some medical condition – something to do with her heart, I think – which, although not amounting to a clear terminal diagnosis, indicated that she wasn’t too long for this world and could go at any time. That was the point at which she gave them to my mother with clear instructions. She died in 2002 at the age of 82, and the instructions she gave were these:

‘My mother was to bring these things to this address and give them to the man who lives here, and she was adamant that she should do so in late October 2026 or very shortly thereafter. It’s now early November and I assume you haven’t moved here in the past week or two?’

I told her I’d lived here for twenty years.

‘Good. At least I know I have the right person. My grandmother was, apparently, most insistent and specific about the timing of the errand. I have no idea why, but perhaps you might enlighten me in due course. (If it’s any of my business, of course.) But to continue:

‘My mother venerated my grandmother and took the undertaking very seriously. When she was diagnosed with early stage dementia in her seventies, one of the first things she did was pass the job onto me before she became too vague. She died last year, and so here I am.’

She handed me the two packages which I saw were sealed with red wax. It seemed sacrilegious to break the seals, but the moment of some revelation had apparently arrived and I realised that I was the only one qualified to do so. I opened the paper envelope first and took out a slip of paper which I recognised immediately. It had my address written on it, as it had before, and below had been added Late October 2026. And then I removed several sheets of writing paper and read the contents. They said:

1^st October 1999

My very dear Sir

I am sorry I do not know your name, but I thought you might wish to be apprised of the circumstances which accrued after my companion and I left your esteemed company. Our encounter must have been as surprising to you as it was to us.

We followed your advice and re-traced our steps down the lane, marvelling at the intense brightness of your torch in the dark mist which enshrouded us. A motor car passed us at one point and we were astonished by its appearance, and also how quiet it was compared with what we were used to in our own time. And then something interesting happened.

At a point about half way down the road the torch went out. For a few seconds the darkness seemed suddenly intense until our eyes grew used to it and the light on the outside of the public house became visible in the distance. We both remarked that the mist seemed much lighter and we took that as being possibly a good sign. And so it proved to be.

I ventured to look into the public bar in the establishment as soon as we reached it and it appeared satisfyingly familiar. I asked a gentleman sitting near the door whether he knew what time the bus to Ashburn was expected. He replied that it should be “along” in about fifteen minutes, and cautioned us not to miss it because it was the last bus of the day into the town. He said there was a later one coming back after the cinema closed, but that was the last bus of the day.

I will not try your patience or my own by expounding upon further detail; suffice it to say that we arrived home safely and with much relief (and not a little excited questioning.) I regret to admit that I constructed a falsehood for my mother. I said that we had failed to find Uncle Gerald’s address and would try again another day. And so we did – in daylight I might add.

You might be interested to know, by the way, that Uncle Gerald, my father’s brother, was invalided out of the RAF and survived the war. Unfortunately, his wound gave rise to several chronic conditions and he died in 1960. He was buried in your village church yard. His grave is close to the gate, should you ever feel inclined to see it.

For my own part, life has been relatively uneventful. I married a gentleman farmer called Drake, had two lovely daughters, and lived a perfectly satisfactory life. I never mentioned to any of them – nor to anyone else for that matter – my adventure on that strange October night. Indeed, as time moved on the whole episode took on the quality of a dream even though I knew it wasn’t.

But now I am moving into advanced dotage and the medical fraternity tells me that I should not expect to have too many more years to live. I am content with that, but a few days ago I was possessed of the desire to write to you and bring some sort of closure to our shared mystery. I intend to seal the envelope and give it to my elder daughter with strict instructions to deliver it to you in late October 2026. I will also return your property with my thanks.

Please accept my gratitude for your assistance, my good sir, and my best wishes for your good health and fortune.

Your servant,

Annabelle Drake (nee Smithson.)

p.s. The torch never worked again after that night.

My visitor said nothing while I was reading the letter, but sat watching me quite intensely while she drank her tea. When I’d finished I looked at her and smiled.

‘Am I allowed to read it?’ she asked eagerly. I’m absolutely dying to know what it’s about.’

‘Why not?’ I said, and handed her the sheets of paper.

And then I broke the seal on the package and took out what I naturally expected to find – my chromium torch, pencil slim, with LED lights. I’d been without it for only two weeks, and when I pressed the button it lit as bright as ever.

‘But I still haven’t a clue what this is all about,’ said the lady on the sofa, frustration writ large on her frowning forehead.

‘No, you wouldn’t,’ I replied, searching her eyes for evidence of an accepting nature. ‘Would you like me to tell you the whole story?’

 

Coming Full Circle.

 An insubstantial little flight of fancy which asked to be written one night during the Covid lockdown. It's based on me and a few other real people, none of whom has reason to feel discomfited if ever they should read it. It's unlikely ever to be offered for publication.

Approximate reading time 10-15 minutes.

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Marcie Thompson was four years old and had an imaginary friend. At least, her parents, Jeremy and Sophie, thought she did. They sometimes watched her walking around their capacious garden in the summer, holding an imaginary hand while looking up to talk to an imaginary face. Her performance was very convincing, too, because sometimes she would appear to react to an imaginary voice talking back to her, giggling and pulling faces and gesticulating as though answering a question.

Her parents weren’t concerned about the imaginary friend. They’d determined that imaginary friends are a perfectly normal process of growing up; and apart from anything else, the little one-act theatrical performances were amusing to watch. They were more concerned, though not unduly so, when the imaginary friend took to appearing in her bedroom at around the time Jeremy and Sophie were in the habit of going to bed. I say ‘appeared’, but this is, I have to admit, a somewhat speculative choice of verb at this stage of the narrative because Jeremy and Sophie saw nothing untoward when they looked in on her one night. They did so because they’d decided – having given the matter of Marcie’s nocturnal conversations careful consideration – that it was not a good thing for a little girl to be awake when she should have been deep in the arms of Morpheus and dreaming of whatever healthy little girls are supposed to dream of.

‘Hello Princess,’ said Jeremy with an eager smile as he edged his face around the door. Sophie edged her slightly smaller face, replete with the kind of motherly smile which fathers generally find impossible to emulate, around the side of Jeremy’s shoulder. Marcie turned her head to look at them and frowned.

‘Who where you talking to, babe?’ asked Sophie. Marcie continued to frown and remained silent. Jeremy came straight to the point.

‘Have you been talking to a friend in here?’

Marcie remained apparently unmoved and certainly unmoving, apart from her eyes – severely narrowed, it might be noted, in consequence of having been interrupted – which she shifted from one parent to the other and back again. And then she clutched Mr Woollyhead – her favourite stuffed toy – closer to her chest for several seconds while the grown ups waited for an answer. It came suddenly as Marcie offered two brief nods of her head.

Jeremy was the first to respond: ‘Oh, right. That’s nice.’ He was holding fast to his eager expression, having decided that, since he knew little more about child psychology than he did about the molecular density of Saturn’s rings, all he could do was rely on his fallible intuition and play it by ear. One thing he did know, however, was that children are there to be patronised. ‘Is he still here?’ he continued. Marcie’s frown deepened slightly and her mouth developed a hint of a pout. She shook her head slowly. ‘Oh dear. That’s a shame. Where is he?’

‘He’s gone,’ said Marcie, clearly displeased.

‘That was quick,’ replied her mother, anxious to reassure the little girl that nocturnal visitors are a perfectly normal part of life. ‘We heard you talking to him only a moment ago. Where’s he gone?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Did he climb out the window?’ The answer came with another brief shake of the head. ‘Did he scamper under the bed?’ Another shake. ‘I know: he hid in the wardrobe when we came in.’ Marcie’s eyes rolled disdainfully. Even at four years old, children are quite capable of recognising the sickly scent of the disingenuous when they smell it. ‘No,’ she said firmly.

‘So where did he go?’ her mother continued. Marcie shrugged and looked to Mr Woollyhead for guidance, and then she offered: ‘He went pouf.’

‘Pouf? You mean he disappeared?’ Another nod.

‘Oh right; that was clever. Does your friend have a name?’

The question seemed to awaken in Marcie the sense that maybe the interrogation was now turning into something more akin to a conversation, and her frown relaxed a little. Her nod even carried a hint of cautious enthusiasm.

‘What is it?’ asked her mother.

‘Mr Jonathon.’

Sophie felt a small sting of alarm when she heard the name, but allowed it to pass as being nothing more than an odd coincidence. Nevertheless, she wanted to know more.

‘What sort of games do you play when you’re with Mr Jonathon?’

Marcie’s frown returned, edged this time with more than a hint of the dismissive. ‘We don’t play games,’ she said.

‘So what do you do?’ Marcie thought for a moment.

‘Mr Jonathon tells me stories about when he was a little boy, and how he used to like fishing with a net on a pole, and how his favourite book was about Rupert Bear, and sometimes he asks questions about you.’

‘About me?’

‘You and daddy.’

‘What sort of questions?’

Marcie rolled her eyes again and released a huff of frustration. This was turning into an interrogation again. Being a normal four-year-old, she made no effort to hide her impatience.

‘You know: what does mummy like for breakfast, and do mummy and daddy ever argue, and does mummy or daddy drive the car when they go out?’

‘I see,’ said Sophie knowingly. This was turning into an object lesson into how children’s minds work, and what sort of things they observe when you’re not looking. ‘And how old is Mr Jonathon?’ she continued cheerily. Marcie shrugged. ‘Is he as old as daddy and me?’ A further shrug. And then the little girl, finding another burst of eagerness to talk about her friend, offered a further piece of information.

‘He brings his dog with him.’

‘A dog? Oh, that is nice. Is it a big dog or a little dog?’

‘She’s fairly little. She isn’t as big as Rusty.’

Rusty was a Fox Terrier and lived next door.

‘What colour is she?’

‘Black and, erm, grey. And she’s got long, floppy ears and wags her tail a lot. She’s ever so nice.’

‘Does she have a name?’

Marcie nodded but said nothing, demonstrating once again that children take questions literally and answer in like manner, a fact that many young parents are often guilty of overlooking. Sophie waited for a few pregnant seconds, and then asked ‘Yes? What is it?’

‘Mr Jonathon says her name is Indie and she used to live here.’

Sophie heard the alarm bell ring again, only louder this time. She and Jeremy looked at one another, and now it was their turn to frown. Jeremy’s voice was quieter, and more hesitant than eager, as he asked the next question: ‘Used to live here?’ Marcie nodded again, seeming quite unconcerned as she turned to smile at Mr Woollyhead and hug him more firmly. ‘Before she had to go,’ she continued. ‘Then she went and found Mr Jonathon. She’s his dog now.’

The two parents were silent for a while, apparently feeling at a loss to know how to proceed. Jeremy was the first to regain his equilibrium and ask Marcie a final question:

‘Are you sure Mr Jonathan has gone now?’ Marcie nodded. ‘Good; then I think it’s about time you were asleep, little lady. Snuggle down, say night-night to Mr Woollyhead, and we’ll see you in the morning.’ A relieved Marcie did as she was asked and the two parents left, closing the door quietly behind them.

They were clearly not ready to go to sleep yet – or do whatever else young parents are in the habit of doing prior to the nocturnal repose – because they both sat on the same side of the double bed and looked thoughtfully in the general direction of the opposite wall. Sophie’s eyes showed a mixture of questioning and alarm; Jeremy’s sat either side of a puzzled frown, but otherwise looked relatively unconcerned.

‘I’m scared,’ said Sophie, ‘aren’t you?’

‘Not scared, no,’ offered Jeremy. He turned to his wife with an air of contrived sagacity and continued: ‘Intrigued.’

Sophie looked back scornfully. ‘Intrigued?’ she said. ‘So you think this might all be coincidence? Bloody big coincidence. Let’s run over it, shall we? The name of the old guy I used to talk to in the lane, from long before I met you, was Jonathon. He died about a year ago. At the time I knew him I had a black and grey Cocker Spaniel – with long floppy ears – called Indie. Indie isn’t a very common name, is it? How many dogs have you known called Indie? She became our dog when we got married, and she died shortly before Marcie was born. I’ve never talked to her about Indie. She just never cropped up, so how could Marcie know what colour she was?

‘She must have seen a picture of her in your photo album.’

‘OK, but what about the name? Is she psychic? Did she guess it?’

‘Perhaps it’s written next to the photo.’

‘Jeremy, she can’t read yet for heaven’s sake.’

‘Oh, no.’

‘The thing is, Jonathon was very fond of Indie, and Indie liked him. Maybe they got together in the afterlife or something. How should I know? And what about Rupert Bear? Have you ever mentioned Rupert Bear to Marcie?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Me neither, but I remember Jonathon once telling me that his favourite Christmas present as a kid was his Rupert Bear annual. Is that all just coincidence?’

‘Must be,’ said Jeremy defensively. ‘What else can it be?’

‘Jeremy, don’t you get it? We’ve got a ghost! There’s a ghost in my freggin house and I don’t like it.’

Being a considerate sort of man, Jeremy was anxious not to evoke the suspicion that he was failing to give his wife’s evident concerns the respect they undoubtedly deserved. Accordingly, he allowed the space of a few seconds and then offered – rather weakly it has to be said – ‘But I don’t believe in ghosts.’

‘Well you’d better start believing in them,’ replied Sophie, ‘because we’ve obviously got one. I’ll tell you something, shall I? Jonathon was always a bit obsessed with the subject of death. He used to make jokes about haunting the lane outside my house singing some silly song or other. I told him once that it freaked me out. “Please don’t haunt me,” I said. He promised not to, but now he is. It’s obvious he is. I’m scared and I’m angry and I want him out of my house.’

Jeremy decided to change tack and proceed, for the time being at least, on the basis that Sophie’s concerns were credible. His reply seemed entirely logical and certain to make Sophie feel better.

‘But he isn’t haunting you. He’s haunting Marcie, and she doesn’t seem to mind a bit.’  It didn’t work.

‘But he’s still in my freggin house, Jeremy. And besides, what’s next? Fridge magnets being moved around to spell words? Chairs being piled on tables overnight? The bedroom turning ice cold even though it’s summer? And suppose he comes into the bedroom and starts pulling the sheets back and things?’

‘And then there’s the black slime running down the stairs,’ replied her husband, desperate to hide the smirk that was already squeezing the corner of his mouth. ‘Blood coming out of the taps. Skulls floating in the bath tub.’

‘Jeremy, shut up! Just shut up! It isn’t funny; it’s scaring the hell out of me. Can’t you see that, you stupid man?’ And then she stuffed the lower joint of her forefinger into her mouth to stifle the rising urge to wail when she heard a faint noise and saw the handle of the bedroom door begin to drop. Marcie walked in and demanded to know why she was shouting at daddy.

The over-inflated balloon of tension collapsed almost to nothing as Marcie climbed onto the bed. Much love and reassurance was bestowed upon her by both parents until she consented to be taken back to her room and go to sleep.

‘Let’s see how it goes,’ said Jeremy when they were alone again. ‘If it continues we’ll have to think of some way to deal with it. God knows how, but we probably won’t have to. I expect it’ll go away eventually. Let’s get some sleep.’

Sophie didn’t sleep well that night. In fact, she hardly slept at all. Every time she dozed she woke up again wracked with tension, straining to listen for Marcie’s little voice chattering to an invisible stranger, anticipating some inexplicable noise, watching the door handle to ensure it was remaining as still as it ought to remain, desperately hoping that the air wouldn’t turn ice cold even though it was summer…

And then she woke up to see the sun unexpectedly high and shining through the east-facing bedroom window. The other half of the bed was empty and she could hear vague noises coming from downstairs. The clock on the bedside table declared the time to be 8.05 and she knew that Jeremy would be about to go to work. She threw on a dressing gown and went downstairs to find her husband rinsing his tea mug, while Marcie was engrossed in force-feeding sugar puffs to a reluctant Mr Woollyhead.

‘I was just about to come and wake you,’ he said. ‘You were dead to the world when I got up earlier. What are you planning to do today?’

‘Dunno,’ said Sophie, stifling a yawn. ‘I think we’ll go over to my mother’s house and spend the day with her. I don’t much fancy being alone in here at the moment.’

‘You won’t be alone. Marcie will be with you.’

‘Yeah, right. And who else?’

‘You’re still convinced we’ve got a lodger, then?’ Sophie declined to answer. ‘I can’t take all that stuff last night very seriously in the cold light of day. Still, if you’re happier being out of the house, so be it. I’m off to work.’

Sophie felt edgy as soon as he’d gone, and a little chill gripped her when Marcie said ‘I don’t want to go to granny’s. I want to stay here and play with Indie in the garden.’

‘But you like going to granny’s, don’t you?’ said her mother, diligently attempting to appear as normal as a mother is supposed to appear. Marcie nodded.

‘Can Indie and Mr Jonathon come too?’ she pleaded.

‘No, they can’t. It wouldn’t be polite to granny to take strangers into her house. You can play with Indie and Mr Jonathon another day.’ The words which followed (being: Oh, God, did I just say that?) were muttered in an undertone too quiet for Marcie to catch. And then she called her mother to let her know they were coming.

 

*  *  *

‘You look a little under the weather,’ said granny when they arrived. ‘Are you ailing for something?’

‘No. I had a bad night, that’s all.’

‘Nothing wrong, I hope?’

Sophie was a world champion at hiding her inner feelings, even from her mother, and had no difficulty replying: ‘Nope. Everything’s fine.’

‘Good. I’ll make the coffee then. I’ve been waiting until you got here.’

Sophie sat at the refectory table and engaged her mother in idle chatter until the coffee was made and they had a mug each. Marcie took her glass of orange juice to the kitchen window which gave a view to the sunlit lawn and paddock behind the house. The two women’s conversation about nothing in particular was suddenly interrupted by a squeal of delight. They turned to see Marcie waving frantically at something outside the window, before rushing out of the door and into the garden.

Granny rose and went over to the window. Sophie followed her reluctantly, her stomach turning mercilessly and her head feeling as though it was full of cotton wool impregnated with rusty razor blades. They stood side by side and watched Marcie talk excitedly to thin air, and then run around with her arms held out as though chasing a playful prey.

‘What on earth is she doing?’ asked granny.

‘She has an imaginary friend,’ murmured Sophie.

‘Oh I see. Nothing to worry about. I had one when I was a little girl. So did you.’

Sophie felt confused and said nothing. She wanted to tell her mother that Mr Jonathon was not an imaginary friend at all, but the ghost of someone she used to talk to in the lane, someone her mother had also known, someone who had been very fond of Indie and had now taken a proprietorial interest in the much-lamented canine. But she knew that her mother was a strong, pragmatic woman who would only pour gentle scorn on such an absurd notion and try to talk her daughter out of it. She also knew that the notion was not absurd; she felt it strongly, and she trusted her feelings. She continued to watch as Marcie giggled and frolicked and ran across the gravel drive in pursuit of something invisible. Tension rose to bursting point and her mind screamed a silent imprecation:

‘Jonathon, go away, please. You said you wouldn’t haunt me, so don’t. I’m scared to hell. Is that what you want? Is it? Please leave me alone, and leave Marcie alone, because I swear I’ll have a freggin breakdown if you don’t.’

She saw Marcie stop, turn around and walk back a few paces. She saw her lift her arms into the air and then drop them to her side again. She saw her lift her hand and wave to something invisible. She saw her burst into tears and walk disconsolately back to the house.

‘Why did you send Mr Jonathon away?’ spluttered the little girl, her distress complimenting the accusatory tone in her voice.

Sophie was shocked and said nothing for some time as an air of tension hung in the space between mother and child. Eventually, she lied.

‘I didn’t send him away, Marcie. I expect he was just busy and had other things to do.’

‘He wasn’t, he wasn’t. He said you sent him away because you were scared of him and he didn’t want to upset you. You’re horrible. I hate you.’

Granny nodded knowingly as you might imagine. It’s a feature in which they’re well practiced, since it vindicates their superior wisdom to themselves and ably demonstrates it to everybody else.

*  *  *

Marcie got over her loss quickly, as children do, and harmony was restored to the household and its company of happy souls. In fact, harmony was so completely restored that, a few months later, Sophie discovered that her second child was beginning its journey to augment their merry band sometime during the late spring of the following year. Meanwhile, Marcie had contrived to furnish herself with the company of a second imaginary friend, this time a girl of her own age who she chose to call Lucy. At no point did either of her parents query the choice of name.

The following May was as merry as the month of May is supposed to be. Indeed, the world was white with it, and all was for the best in the best of all possible worlds. The sun shone drowsily from an azure sky, the sparsely scattered clouds did their very best to imitate the wholesome joy and eager anticipation engendered by newly-scooped ice cream, and the fresh green leaves whispered seductively in their juvenile softness. Sophie’s confinement and delivery matched the tone of the season, being calm and free of drama, and the only interruption to the routines of family life was the billeting of Marcie on granny while Jeremy was busy traipsing back and forth to the maternity ward. The interruption was mercifully brief, since Sophie was back in the fold bearing the new family member almost before you could say ‘imaginary friend.’

In the early afternoon of Sophie’s homecoming, granny brought Marcie back. They entered the house through the kitchen.

‘Has she been any trouble?’ asked Sophie.

‘Not a bit,’ replied granny. ‘It’s been lovely having her. But come on, where’s the new arrival?’

They were conducted into the living room where a carrycot sat neatly on the sofa. Granny and Marcie stood side by side looking into the plush little vessel containing the precious little arrival. Granny smiled and cooed, as grannies do, and fondly brushed the baby’s cheek with her forefinger.

‘He’s beautiful,’ said granny, demonstrating yet again that beauty is in the eye of the beholder even when the object they’re admiring actually resembles an advanced form of simian. ‘I assume he’s hale, hearty and fully equipped?’

‘Absolutely,’ replied her daughter. ‘Strong as an ox according to the nurse.’

‘Has he got a name yet?’

‘No; we haven’t agreed on one yet. Jeremy fancies William and I’m rooting for Harry. We both ruled out Archibald…’

Granny turned to Marcie and asked: ‘So what do you think of your little brother, Marcie? Do you like him?’

There was no reply. Marcie was staring at the new arrival through wide eyes. Sophie repeated the question, but there was still no reply for several long seconds. And then Marcie looked up into her mother’s face and said quietly: ‘Mummy, it’s Mr Jonathon.’

Was mummy taken aback by this oddest of claims? In short, yes. She was, you might remember, the only one who had given credence to the notion that Mr Jonathon had been a ghost. And although the memory of her fear had long been subdued by the passage of time and the expectation of a new family member, Marcie’s words caused more than a minor flutter to rise in her stomach. She handled it well.

‘Don’t be silly, Marcie,’ she said. ‘Mr Jonathon went away, didn’t he?’

‘But he’s back,’ replied Marcie with that brand of childhood innocence which is hard to refute. ‘Only he’s a baby now.’

Sophie turned her head to look at the baby and the baby looked steadfastly back.

‘Mother,’ said Sophie quietly, ‘he’s smiling at me. Babies aren’t supposed to smile until they’re several weeks old.’

‘Yes they are,’ said granny, whose erudition extended to the most unlikely of areas. ‘Their mouths react to something that’s going on with them. It’s not a conscious act; he’s probably broken wind or something. It’s known as a reflex smile.’

Sophie wanted so much to believe her, but the baby continued to smile and it didn’t look very reflexive to her.

‘Tea’s made,’ called Jeremy’s voice from the kitchen. ‘Shall I bring it through or do you want it in here?’

‘Let’s go and sit at the table,’ suggested granny. ‘Give the little nameless one some peace after all the attention he’s been getting lately.’

The two women went into the kitchen and sat at the table. Marcie stayed with the baby. And so the gaggle of grown ups engaged in much prattle about nothing of very much consequence while Marcie stayed very quiet in the living room. Sophie’s chair had its back to the living room door, and so she was unaware of her daughter’s close presence until she felt a tug on her sleeve. She turned to see the little girl’s eyes fixed on hers with quiet determination.

‘Mummy.’

‘Yes, Marcie.’

‘Mr Jonathon says we have to get a dog.’

 

Simon Says

This story would have been difficult to place with a publisher; it’s too long, too ‘decompressed’ to suit the modern taste for snappy fiction. One publisher was interested, but asked me to cut it down. I declined. It is what it wanted to be.

The section dealing with the Dartmouth Training Squadron is mostly drawn from life, the difference being that Simon followed me safely up the rope. He didn’t disappear. For many years afterwards I had an abiding image of finding the old ship in a breakers yard and telling part of its story. Eventually, I did.

Approximate reading time: 30-40 minutes.

----------------------------------------------------

It was mid afternoon towards the end of what had been a splendid July, but the condition of light and atmosphere was intriguingly unseasonal. The heavy mist seemed more in keeping with a damp day in November; it felt unnatural and even unhealthy on a hot, still afternoon in high summer. I was driving along a disarmingly straight road in the fen country somewhere in the vicinity of The Wash, and the straightness of the road allowed the facility to contemplate the scenery with relative ease.

The fenlands of Cambridgeshire are notable for their almost total absence of anything pleasing to the eye. Lonely roads run in straight lines for miles alongside bland, functional drainage ditches, only to be punctuated every so often by tight, ninety degree turns over small bridges. Drab farmhouses look out in grim isolation over endless miles of flat, featureless monotony. I once heard someone suggest that such monotony is interesting in itself. I could see the logic in the opinion, but I had never subscribed to it. To me the landscape was tedious, pure and simple.

Today, however, I was being spared the pallid panorama of dull greens and even duller browns. The view had a surreal quality about it, caused by the mist that washed the distant view into a succession of half tones, and by the luminous quality of the light that came with it. It had none of the greyness associated with those damp days of late autumn. The summer sun - invisible but still high, no doubt, somewhere beyond the thick atmosphere - lit up the mist and the featureless landscape with a rose pink glow. For once I was enjoying the view, and I was quite unconcerned that I had no idea exactly where I was.

I was a salesman working in agricultural seeds, and the intensely farmed arable counties of Eastern England formed the major part of my territory. A week earlier I had received a telephone call from my office asking me to visit a new client near The Wash. The premises were isolated I had been told, and I had been given a detailed set of directions to follow the next time I was in the area.

They began by taking the road north from Wisbech, and then took a complex route that required close concentration as I got nearer to the coast. It was the day for visiting my Wisbech customers and I had set off to find the new client at about three in the afternoon.

I had followed the directions carefully, and found myself an hour later driving the final long, straight stretch of road that promised to bring me to my destination about two miles further on. The landscape was different here and had a rare feature of its own to boast of. The road ran alongside a wide watercourse that was obviously more than a mere drainage ditch. It was the width of a dozen dykes, fringed with tall reeds on the far side and clearly very deep judging by the size of the boats that were tethered to buoys here and there. I assumed it to be a major channel running off the navigable stretch of some large river close to the coast.

There was a feeling of dereliction and decay about the scene. The tethered craft wallowed sadly in the still water, rusting slowly away and having about them an air of lifelessness. Some were listing heavily, looking forlorn and forgotten in the heavy, pink-tinged mist that suffused this nautical graveyard; and the fact that I hadn’t seen another vehicle for the last fifteen or twenty minutes lent the experience an added air of mystery.

I became engrossed in the other-worldly quality of the view before me and briefly forgot the practical reason for being there. It was brought back to me minutes later when I saw that I was approaching a group of buildings that stood at the water’s edge. I assumed I had arrived at my destination and prepared to pull the car off the road at a point where I saw a pair of metal gates. I was disappointed to see that they were shut. I stopped the car anyway and got out.

The premises looked as derelict as the rotting hulks standing out in the channel. The paint on the motley collection of corrugated iron sheds had flaked away so badly that it was all but gone in many places. Odd bits of rusting implements lay around the weed-strewn yard, and an old crane that I could see through a gap in the buildings was denuded of tackle. I had no doubt that it was an old boat breaker’s yard and clearly not the object of my journey. But I had followed the directions meticulously and this was where my new client should be located. I wondered whether someone might be running a business from one of the old buildings and felt that it was worth taking a few minutes to find out. There were plenty of gaps in the broken down fencing, and so I walked through one of them to investigate.

I crossed the open ground and looked in the nearest shed. It was empty. So was the next one, and my footsteps echoed around the bare metal walls as I walked through it to exit by the far door that led onto the water frontage. The sight that greeted me as I clambered through the wicket door brought me to an abrupt halt.

A short way across a patch of open ground, an old wooden jetty ran alongside the channel and there was a vessel tied up to it. This was much bigger than anything I had seen on my approach and its lines were familiar. Despite the fact that certain features had been stripped away, I recognised it at once as an old Whitby Class, Type 12 Royal Navy frigate. I was well qualified to be certain of my identification: I had crossed the Atlantic in such a ship thirty years earlier.

She lay at her mooring like the rest of her abandoned neighbours - still, silent and apparently long-forgotten. The purpose of my visit was forgotten, too, as I stood and surveyed the pitiful remains of the old warship. She made a sorry sight. A few small patches of light grey paint remained dotted here and there on what was left of the superstructure, but the rest was coloured the depressing red-brown of heavy rust.

Most of the upper deck fittings had been removed. The turret was still in place, but the twin 4.5 inch guns had gone. So had the Bofors gun that had once stood proudly on the poop deck. The guard rails had been stripped from the stanchions, the radar dishes had all been taken, and the glass had gone from the bridge windows. I was surprised to see that the gangway was still in place. It seemed that no one had bothered to remove it once the final fittings had been taken, and I felt an irresistible urge to go aboard.

I walked across the cracked tarmac, avoiding the bigger gashes where hardy weeds were re-establishing the rule of nature. If the rest of that strange afternoon’s remarkable discoveries had evoked in me feelings of surprise and nostalgia, what I was about to see would come close to being breathtaking.

As I approached the edge of the jetty I could see the hull below the overhanging profile of the upper deck. The paintwork had fared better there, presumably being more protected from the elements, and the pennant number was still just about decipherable. The sight of it sent a thrill of excitement down my spine. There was not the slightest doubt that it read F63.

“My God,” I said out loud. “HMS Eastbourne!”

The revelation was hard to take in. HMS Eastbourne was a memorable part of my history. It was the very ship that I had served in all those years ago, and vibrant memories of those eventful days came crowding into my mind. Individual events followed quickly upon each other as I remembered the three life-changing months that I had spent on board that ship. It had been a period of intense learning about human nature, the ways of the sea, and my own strengths and weaknesses.

But one event would always be at the forefront, since it had cast a dark shadow over the rest and involved a mystery that had never been solved. A week into the voyage my best friend, Simon Hobart, had been lost overboard and his body never recovered. The memory of it swam into my mind as I looked nostalgically up the gangway of the rusty old frigate.

Three decades earlier, Simon and I had been part of a small intake of officer cadets at the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. We shared a six-berth cabin with four other cadets and, although the six of us did most things together as a group, a particular bond had developed quickly between Simon and me.

Exactly why is hard to say. I suppose it was partly a question of compatible personalities, but I suspect it was also due to the fact that I accepted in Simon something the others didn’t. Unlike most young men of our generation who had spent their teenage years revelling in the irreligious and hedonistic climate of liberation and benign anarchy, Simon had belonged to some very devout Christian group – the something-or-other Brethren is all I remember of its name – and the conditioning he had received from infancy showed impeccably in his attitudes and behaviour. He didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, didn’t swear, and didn’t engage in loose, gratuitous relationships with girls. Neither did he tell lies or speak ill of others. By the standards of the time those qualities made him odd, and the other cadets, friendly though they were in general terms, thought of him as something of a fanatic.

I didn’t see him that way. I found his attitude refreshing and worthy of respect. I particularly liked his honesty and directness of speech, and was prepared to see him as a salutary antidote to my own attitudes and personality that were very much in keeping with the times. I think I might even have envied the one thing that he had and we lacked: a disarmingly clear conscience.

The first three months at Dartmouth were difficult for everybody. The regime was harsh, with early starts, late finishes, tough rules and constant psychological pressure. Friendships tend to grow strong in the face of shared adversity, and Simon and I were no exception. By April the bond was well established, and we went our separate ways on a three week leave the firmest of friends.

The next stage of our intensive, twelve month cadetship involved joining the Dartmouth Training Squadron. Three ageing Type 12 frigates had been seconded to the purpose. HMS Eastbourne was the flagship, with Brighton and Blackpool making up the rest. Our division was posted to Eastbourne and we found ourselves settling uneasily into a crowded mess deck one afternoon in late April.

The first couple of weeks were spent in various forms of preparation. The ships conducted their sea trials and the cadets needed to be acclimatised to a way of life that was far removed even from that of Dartmouth College, let alone civvy street. Getting our “sea legs” took a few days of uncertain tottering until we learned to ride the movements of the ship instinctively. Learning to live, eat and sleep in a space more suited to a quarter of our number took a little longer.

By the middle of May we were ready for the work of seasoned sailors. We sailed out of Plymouth Sound in fading light one cold, damp Thursday evening, and headed for the wide Atlantic. The weather forecast was bad: gales first, then storms for the whole week of our crossing. Our newly acquired sea legs were about to be severely tested, and so were our stomachs.

We awoke on the Friday morning to our first experience of a small ship pitching and rolling in a heavy sea. Simon told me that an uncle of his had served in destroyers during the war and had given him a tip for avoiding sea sickness.

“Fill your stomach,” he’d said, “preferably with porridge. It’s good and heavy and not greasy.”

Simon and I took his advice and had two bowls each. Most of the others avoided breakfast. Many of them were already starting to feel queasy, and there was a general reluctance to eat lest it should encourage the dreaded onset of symptoms. The force of the wind that morning was showing as eight on the Beaufort scale: gale force. By the end of the day it had risen to nine: severe gale. By Sunday it stood at eleven: severe storm force. Neither Simon nor I felt the slightest need to join our colleagues in the now common practice of vomiting into buckets. It seemed that his uncle’s advice had been worth taking.

By then we were well into the training schedule. Our duty time was divided between learning the skills necessary to our prospective status as officers, and performing the menial tasks that would normally have been done by the seamen whose places we had taken in the ship’s compliment. Between duties, we were both discovering a fascination with the sea.

Standing on the deck of a frigate in a force eleven storm is a singular experience. By then we were in the middle of the Atlantic, where the ocean is at its deepest and landfall furthest away.  Knowing that the nearest dry land is over a thousand miles distant is interesting enough, but watching the state of the sea in those conditions can hardly be adequately described. To say that the massive swell gives it the appearance of an ever-shifting mountain range does it scant justice. One minute the ship is in a trough, and the dark, foam flecked walls of water tower intimidatingly above the deck like gigantic rock faces. Then the omnipotent ocean lifts the puny vessel up onto a crest and the view suddenly becomes panoramic in all directions.

The sense of isolation is magnificent. Above, there is the enormity of endless sky; below, and all around, the unfathomable depth of brown, heaving water. The sense of nature’s immense power is awe-inspiring to the point of being hypnotic. Simon and I agreed readily on the fact. Where we differed was in our view of what lay behind it.

I was inclined towards the Gaia hypothesis: the notion that nature is more than an abstract concept, but rather has a life of its own in which every aspect of material is an interconnected part. Maybe it is even sentient and capable of using its will to say who shall survive and who shall not. And maybe there are other sentient powers, existing on different levels of reality and entrusted with the daily stewardship of the many aspects of nature’s realm - the gods of the ancient world, perhaps. I suggested to Simon that Poseidon might be alive and well and watching us at that very moment. It was the only time I ever saw him angry.

“There is only one God,” he declared, “and these are his works. One God, one heaven. One devil, one hell. God has his angels and the devil his demons. Apart from that, there is only one dimension and this is it.”

I was inclined to disagree, but my views on the matter were less entrenched than Simon’s and I knew how strongly he held to his beliefs. I had clearly touched a raw nerve and wasn’t about to fall out with my best friend, so I dropped the matter.

By the following Wednesday the storm had blown itself out and the sea had returned to a state of relative calm. We watched the schools of dolphins that came to ride the bow wave and marvelled at the bigger whales sounding in the distance. Hordes of hungry gulls pounced on the gash that was thrown over the stern to float away on the creamy wake. On Thursday morning we sailed past a number of icebergs drifting south from the Arctic, and it was then that we stopped to paint the ship in preparation for our entry into St John’s, Newfoundland.

Painting the superstructure of a ship is simple enough, but painting the hull was, in those days, a difficult and potentially hazardous operation. The paint stage consisted of a plank of wood big enough for two men to sit on. A cross member was attached at each end and a long rope was tied to each of them. The two ropes were taken around guard rail stanchions and then secured with simple turns around the cross members. Lowering the stage had to be done in situ, and it was a precarious business. One mistake could result in the two men being deposited in the icy sea below. When the job was finished, the only way to get back on deck was to climb up the ropes, and that isn’t easy with fingers that are wet from the blowing spray and rendered numb by a cold, cutting wind.

That was the job that Simon and I were detailed to do on that fateful Thursday morning. The week of heavy weather had taken its toll on the ship’s paintwork and the Royal Navy insisted on presenting a pristine face when putting into port. We were scheduled to do that the next day, and all the cadets had been mustered to paint duty.

The lucky ones had the simple job of painting the superstructure. The rest of us were consigned to dangle over the side in pairs, armed with pots of light grey paint and six inch paint brushes. The petty officer in charge of the operation had taken some delight in warning us of the inherent danger. Survival beyond two or three minutes was unlikely in water at that temperature he had told us, so it was in our best interests to avoid falling in.

Simon and I treated the challenge with scornful bravado. We decided to make a race of it and painted quickly, finishing our section ahead of the others either side of us.  It was time to climb back aboard and we agreed that I should go first.

I stood up carefully, gripping the ropes on my side, while Simon held fast to his in case the paint stage tipped. I grasped the ropes as high as I could and lifted my knees and feet into position. The climb was difficult but I kept going steadily until I reached the top where a welcome hand came over the gunwale to help me aboard. Once I was safely on deck, I turned around to do the same for Simon. I looked over the side, expecting him to be half way up the rope. There was no sign of him.

For a moment I felt confused. I looked hard at the ropes and the wooden stage. Simon definitely wasn’t there. I wondered whether he might have climbed simultaneously with me, but there was no way he could have done so without my seeing him. The only remaining possibility dawned on me quickly and I scoured the sea beneath the paint stage. There was nothing there either. I ran to the petty officer to report that Simon must have fallen from the stage, and that he had disappeared.

The duty boat crew was mustered and the boats lowered within minutes. They searched for more than an hour, but found nothing and were called back. It seemed a harsh and unfeeling decision at the time, but we all knew that there was no point in continuing. The sea swallows its victims quickly, and only returns them again some time later and a long way distant. I was interviewed at length by the captain, as were the others who had been painting the ship on that side. No one had seen Simon fall and no one had heard a cry or a splash. The mystery remained, but the fact was incontrovertibly established: Simon was gone.

The necessary formalities were attended to and the voyage continued, but Simon’s fate hung over me for the rest of the trip. I thought about him every day, and sometimes I found it difficult to muster the enthusiasm and commitment necessary to perform my duties and learn my lessons. Several times over the days that followed I thought I heard him call my name, just as I was going to sleep in the low-lit mess deck, or on being rudely woken up for some early morning duty. I put it down to imagination, just as I did one night when I was working the middle watch.

It was about two o’clock in the morning and a week after Simon’s disappearance. My duty that night was the one generally referred to, appropriately in the circumstances, as “the ghost watch.” It consisted of patrolling the quarterdeck in the stern of the ship, keeping a lookout for anything that might be worth reporting to the Officer of the Watch. Nothing ever happened and the duty was a tedious one. But it was peaceful at least, and allowed the opportunity to muse on the events of the day and the meaning of life.

My musings were mostly about Simon’s loss, and I was beginning to feel that I was also losing my interest in being a naval officer. We were sailing up the St Lawrence Seaway, bound for Quebec. It was a balmy night in early June and the river was as calm as a park boating lake. There was no wind to speak of, and the only sound was the gentle throbbing of the steam turbines deep in the bowels of the ship. I had been on duty for two hours and had two more to go before I could return to the welcome comfort of my hammock.

I was feeling drowsy, but the sound of the voice startled me. It was louder than usual and echoed slightly. It called my name clearly, and I would have sworn on oath that it was Simon’s. I looked over the port side at the inky darkness below. I walked quickly around the mortar well to the starboard side and did the same there. I looked up at the poop deck, and then turned to look at the ship’s wake trailing astern. I saw nothing, and there was no repetition of the eerie call.

Being alone on the dark quarterdeck, I found the sound of my dead friend’s voice unnerving. I stood for a while, listening intensely and half expecting to see his glowing form climb onto the deck and walk towards me. No spectre appeared and my nervousness subsided again. I put the experience down to the effect of sudden and shocking bereavement, and sat out the rest of my watch in sombre mood.

We spent another six or seven weeks conducting a variety of exercises and making courtesy calls around the eastern seaboard of North America. We took part in a major international review off Halifax, spent four days in New York and visited lots of smaller towns where we were regaled with civic functions in our honour. And, of course, the intensive seamanship training continued relentlessly.

I found the experience interesting, even exciting at times, but not compelling. A sense of apathy began to creep into my attitude, and it didn’t bode well for my future prospects. By the time we returned to Portsmouth in mid July I had already decided that I had made a wrong choice of career and applied to resign. I went home for the long summer leave and received a letter from the Admiralty a few weeks later. My application had been accepted and I was a civilian again.

Over the next few years I thought often of Simon. I intended to visit his parents at some time, but never got around to it. The memory of him and his tragic loss inevitably faded into the background as I got on with my life.

Thirty years on and here I was, standing on the rickety old jetty and looking up at the scene of it all. I was touched by the poignant contrast between the vessel that I had just been recalling so vividly, and the one that now stood before me.

I had lived again the world of HMS Eastbourne in her prime, ploughing through the deep ocean swell with the white ensign fluttering proudly from her stern. I had seen her decked out in her livery of light grey paintwork, bright green deck, black trimmings and polished brightwork. And now she languished in this abandoned breaker’s yard, rusting away in some forgotten creek that was too insignificant to be a fitting place of rest.

I had to go aboard one last time, and not just to the upper deck. I wanted to go below and see the old mess deck that I had called home for three months. I wanted to visit the galley, the ops room and the bridge. I realised that it would be pitch dark down there and that I would need a torch. I went back to my car to fetch the one that I kept in the glove compartment and returned with a tingle of expectation in my stomach. I noticed that the light had fallen in the short time that I had been there. The mist had thickened and the glow had turned from rose pink to a surreal shade of cerise.

I put my foot tentatively on the gangway and pressed the rusting metal in various places. It seemed solid enough and I walked up it. When I reached the top, the old instinct to salute the quarterdeck returned, but I knew that the point in doing so was to salute the flag that had flown there when the ship was in commission. There were no flags on Eastbourne now.

I turned right to walk towards the stern, and crossed the poop deck where the remains of the Bofors gun mounting were rusting badly along with everything else. I climbed carefully down the port side ladder that led to the quarterdeck. The memory of Simon’s voice that night on the St Lawrence returned strongly, and I looked around as I had done then. It was sad to see the guard rails and the flagstaff gone, and the mortar well was just a hole in the deck.

I walked to the open hatchway that led below decks and peered into the darkness. I could see nothing beyond the first few feet of the ladder, and switched on the torch to make the descent. It soon became the only form of illumination as I made my way past the heads and approached the top of the ladder that led down to my old mess deck. I made that descent as carefully as the others and was relieved to see that the bulkhead door was open. I went through it and shone the torch around.

I felt a lump come into my throat. Although I had never taken to the navy, the sheer richness and intensity of the experience had made my brief liaison with the Senior Service seem a much bigger part of my life than it had actually been, and I held it in great affection. I felt intensely sad to see my old living area in this state. What had once seemed an impossibly confined space bursting with overcrowded activity was now a large, empty shell. Everything had been removed: the lockers that had filled the centre portion, the bolted-down tables that had occupied the port side, and the bunk beds that had been fixed to the starboard bulkhead. The steel cross members on which the hammocks had been slung were still there, but that was all. I stayed for a few minutes and then pulled myself away. There was more to see yet and it would soon be time to go home.

I climbed back up the ladder and made my way forward along the main passageway. The hatch was closed on the galley servery, so I continued to the ops room. That was as indecently denuded as the messdeck. Radar plotting screens, chart tables and the mass of snaking cable were all gone.

I moved forward again to the wheelhouse in which I had always enjoyed working. It was the same in there. No wheel, no communication mic, no bearing display, no revs counter; everything that had given it life and purpose had been stripped away.

I climbed the ladder that led up to the bridge. That was empty too, and had suffered more corrosion than the other areas due to the elements having gained access through the glassless windows. I walked out onto the port bridge wing and looked forward at the dark water of the channel disappearing into the mist. I remembered standing on the same spot all those years ago, being continuously drenched by the ice cold spray thrown up when the bow dipped into a heavy swell. I was struck again by the sadness of the inglorious end to which the proud old warrior had been brought. I felt that I had seen enough and turned to make my way back.

As I looked astern towards the gangway I was shocked to see that I was not the only person who had crossed it to visit the remains of HMS Eastbourne. Standing close to the top of it was a small boy, looking up at me. He made a strange and ghostly sight, standing still and alone in the red-tinged mist. I descended the ladder and walked towards him. He seemed to be about eight or nine and was standing with his arms held rigidly at his side. He looked unwaveringly at me as I approached.

“Hello,” I said. “Who are you?”

He made no reply.

“What’s your name?” I continued.

Still he said nothing.

“OK, let’s try this one: where do you live?”

I assumed him to be a local child who probably used the breaker’s yard as a playground. I felt a duty to warn him of the dangers inherent in playing on old ships. But still he remained silent, just stood there stiffly and stared at me. Suddenly, he roused himself to speak. His words, delivered as though he were reading from a script, left me speechless.

“Simon says he’s not dead.”

His brief statement had been made clearly enough, but those five simple words left me feeling stunned. Why had he said that? Was it just a remarkable coincidence that he had used the name of a long-deceased friend whose memory had been filling my thoughts for the past half an hour? And what was he doing there anyway? I was at a loss to know how to reply and began to doubt that I had heard him correctly. There was a note of incredulity in my tone as I asked him the obvious question.

“What did you say?”

He rolled his eyes and repeated the statement.

“Simon says he’s not dead.”

There was another pause while I took it in.

“Simon who?”

“Don’t know,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders. “Just Simon.”

“Just Simon,” I repeated blankly. “OK, when did he say that?”

The boy shrugged again.

“Was it today, yesterday, last week?”

He nodded. Perceptions of time are vague to children of that age and I realised that it was a pointless line of questioning. I tried another one.

“OK then, where do you see Simon?”

“Everywhere,” he replied confidently.

“What do you mean ‘everywhere’? Everywhere on the ship?”

He nodded again.

“Sometimes he’s over there.” He pointed back towards the quarterdeck. “Sometimes he’s up there.” He pointed up towards the bridge. “Sometimes he’s down there.” He pointed over the side towards the water line.

I felt my skin begin to creep. A real person who just happened to be called Simon might be seen on the quarterdeck or the bridge, but hardly in the space between the hull and the jetty.

“Is he here now?” I asked.

“’Course not,” he replied, regarding me again with that disarming directness that children have when they think you’re stupid. I felt relieved. It was time for another change of tack.

“What does Simon look like?”

“He’s big,” said the boy. “With a big nose.”

“What colour hair does he have?”

“The same as me.”

He was blond.

“Is it straight like yours?”

The boy thought again, then shook his head.

“Is it wavy?”

He nodded. So far the description matched.

“How old is he? Is he as old as me?”

“No,” said the boy disdainfully. “You’re old.”

“Is he as old as your dad?”

The boy shook his head again and concentrated. Eventually he said with considered certainty

“He’s as old as my big brother.”

“And how old’s your big brother?”

“Eighteen.”

Simon was nineteen when I knew him.

The description fitted my old friend in every respect, but I was still finding it hard to take the matter seriously.

“But you only see him on the ship; you don’t see him anywhere else?”

He nodded again. I realised that I had committed the common error of asking two conflicting questions in the same sentence. I clarified it.

“Just on the ship?”

Another nod.

“What about when you see him down there?” I asked, pointing over the side. “Is he in the water?”

The boy shook his head.

“He sits on a piece of wood.”

The apparent reference to a paint stage was unmistakable, and I was beginning to believe that Simon’s disembodied spirit was still haunting the ship. I asked the boy if he was ever frightened when he saw Simon.

“’Course not,” he answered. “Simon’s nice. He’s not a ghost or anything”.

“How do you know he’s not a ghost?”

“I’ve told you, Simon says he’s not dead.”

So he had. What on earth was I to make of it all?

“Did Simon say anything else?” I asked.

He nodded again and frowned, clearly trying to remember the words correctly.

“He said ‘Tell the man who comes to look at the ship that he was right.’”

“Right about what?”

“Don’t know.”

Of course he didn’t. I realised that it was a stupid question.

“I’ve got to go now,” he said suddenly, and turned to walk away.

“Hang on a minute,” I said. “When you talk to Simon, does he ever say anything about God?”

The boy shook his head and ran down the gangway. I watched as he crossed the open ground and disappeared into the nearest shed.

I knew there would be no point in following him. For the time being I could think of no more questions worth asking. It was certain that the boy would be unable to answer the big one anyway. Was this “Simon” really my old friend, somehow continuing to exist in and around the rotting ship, or was there some other explanation?

I stood on the prow and pondered the enigma. I was alone again and conscious of the intense stillness all about me. There was no wind, and nothing stirred in the overgrown breaker’s yard or on the road that I could see beyond the fence. No wading bird called plaintively from the reeds on the far bank; and the water in the channel languished dark and silent, as though it had lost the will to lap the piles of the old jetty. The red mist was as thick as ever, obscuring the view beyond a hundred yards or so and turning the other sad vessels into ghostly grey shapes that hovered uncertainly between heaven and earth.

In those surreal circumstances it was easy to believe that my old companion had, indeed, found a way to send a message to me from whatever place he now found himself in. What had he meant by “not dead?” Was he trapped in some curious halfway house between life and death? Was I meant to help him in some way? Nothing in the brief messages suggested as much. And, assuming that I was the “man who had come to visit the ship,” what was it that I was right about? The stewardship of nature’s realm? Had Poseidon, or one of his minions, really been watching and listening on that cold May morning off the coast of Newfoundland?

I looked at my watch and decided that it was time to go home. I walked down the gangway and turned to say farewell to the old frigate before making my way back through the shed.

When I reached my car I decided that it might be useful to find the house where the young boy lived, just in case I should feel the need to talk to him again. It couldn’t be far away, I thought. I knew I hadn’t passed one on the way there, so I assumed that it must be a short distance further on. As I was about to climb into the driver’s seat I heard the faint strains of a melody that took me back again to my brief days before the mast. Lillibolero was the signature tune of the BBC World Service, and we had all become fond of its familiar rendition late every afternoon. It was quintessentially British and took us closer to dear old Blighty.

I stood and listened to it for a few moments, and took it as evidence that the boy’s house must be nearby. I got into the car and drove slowly along the road, looking in all directions over the flat landscape. I found no dwelling of any sort and stopped the car. It seemed that the boy and the music were as big a mystery as the enigmatic Simon. I didn’t know it at the time, but I have since discovered that the BBC had stopped using Lillibolero as its World Service theme tune some years earlier. I turned the car around and followed the directions in reverse until I got back to familiar territory. Then I went home.

As the mystifying effects of the afternoon’s strange events receded, I realised that I had failed to keep my appointment with the new client. Since I had followed the directions carefully, it seemed that they must have been copied wrongly. An apology was due and a new arrangement would have to be made. I knew, however, that I had only scant details: the man’s name, Mr Robin Thomas, and the directions. No address or phone number had been given and so there was no way of contacting him. I would have to ring the office the next morning, explain the situation and wait for him to call again.

I rang at eight thirty. I wanted to get the call out of the way early so that I could begin my day’s visits. I spoke to the woman who had given me the message in the first place, and was about to give a brief account of the missed appointment when she launched into an explanation of her own.

“I’m glad you’ve rung,” she began. “I had a call from Mr Thomas last night, the chap I gave you directions for.”

“Oh yes,” I said, expecting a complaint.

“Yes, he rang to apologise for not being there when you called.”

That was a stroke of luck. New customers are valuable, and it was fortunate that he thought the responsibility for the missed appointment was his. I could tell him the truth when we met, but for the time being it was better that he wasn’t offended.

But then I realised that I hadn’t made an appointment; I hadn’t had his phone number. In my concern at missing the call I had forgotten the fact. There had been no reason to apologise to him after all. So why had he assumed that I would call that day? Perhaps someone in the office had told him it was my day for visiting Wisbech. All this was running through my mind as the woman continued.

“Apparently, he couldn’t see you yesterday and had no way of getting in touch with you. Hopes you’ll excuse him for having to leave a message with the boy. I take it you saw a boy, did you?”

I felt my flesh creep again when I heard that. It seemed that the directions had been spot on after all. I had been exactly where I was meant to be.

“I did, yes,”

“And he asked me to give you a message. Bit of a strange one actually. I’ve got it written down somewhere. Yes, here it is. He said to tell you that what you said about the stewards was right, whatever that means. That’s who he’s working with at the moment. Does that make sense?”

“Yes it does,” I said quietly.

“Oh good,” she continued. “I thought I might have misheard him and he’d said ‘Stewarts’ or something. Anyway, then he said that he was going to be busy for a while, ‘working offshore’ he said, and that he’d get in touch with you direct when the conditions were right. I offered to give him your number but he said he’d already got it. That’s about it. Leave it with you then, can I?”

“Yes,” I said. “Thanks.”

For a while I felt numb. The whole episode of the directions, the breaker’s yard and the boy had apparently been deliberately engineered. As I started to come to terms with the fact, a number of questions began to present themselves.

Why had Simon chosen to communicate with me through the medium of third parties? It was evident that he had appeared and spoken to the boy regularly. Why not me? Perhaps children are more readily approachable to people in Simon’s state, whatever that might be. Perhaps they are more open minded and sensitive to such things. But he had also, apparently, spoken at some length to the woman in the office. Why had he not contacted me in the first place to make the appointment? He could still have used a false name and could still have relied on the child to give me his messages, if that was the way it had to be.

It seemed that some barrier existed, something that prevented direct communication for the time being. So why was he doing all this now? Was there some reason for him wanting to give me the final answer to what had happened that day? What did he mean by “when the conditions are right?” But then another thought occurred to me. Using a false name amounted to a lie, and Simon didn’t tell lies. It threw a sudden doubt on my certainty that that he had been the caller. But, of course, Simon hadn’t lied. A few seconds with a pencil and paper revealed that Robin Thomas is an anagram of Simon Hobart.

I didn’t feel like going to work that day. The heady cocktail of feelings engendered by the events of the previous eighteen hours was distracting. Could I really bring myself to spend a day talking yield rates and wholesale prices after what had happened? I decided to go anyway. I needed my commission payments and there was nothing to be gained by staying at home. I did consider going back to the breaker’s yard, but decided there would be no point. Simon would choose the time for our next communication. I would have to be patient.

The day was difficult. My lack of interest was evident at every call I made, and my sluggish efforts produced little in the way of business. I finished early and went home feeling listless. By nightfall, a sense of exhaustion weighed heavily on me and I took myself to bed early.

I switched off the light, expecting sleep to engulf me quickly. It didn’t. I dozed fitfully and kept hearing the throb of ship’s engines and smelling the salty sweetness of sea air. It was a warm night and I drifted in and out of consciousness, pushing the suffocating duvet away from my neck and chest. I turned back and forth many times and shifted my position in an attempt to find a cooler part of the bed. I became increasingly irritated and decided to get up.

I was lying on my back as I opened my eyes. What I saw was unfamiliar and confusing. Above me, the ceiling was made of riveted metal, light coloured in parts with rusty brown patches here and there, and it was illuminated by a dull, red glow. I looked to the side and then all around. I was no longer in my bedroom, but in the empty mess deck of the ship. It was different in only two respects. Firstly, I was lying in a solitary hammock slung from the cross members exactly where mine had been slung during my time in the ship; and secondly, the dull glow came from the red security lamp that I remembered had always been left on at night to allow safe passage to those on late duties. 

My reaction was not what I would have expected. I was surprised and confused, but not particularly disturbed. There was something inevitable about it, and I knew that I had to get out of the hammock and go up top.

I grasped the cross member close to my head, swung my legs over the side and lowered myself to the deck with familiar ease. I tottered slightly and realised that the ship was moving, but there was nothing difficult about the walk to the bulkhead hatch. My sea legs came back instantly. It was as though I had never been away.

I took the familiar route up to the quarterdeck. It was night, but there was a brilliant full moon rising over the stern and I could see that the ship was ploughing through a moderate sea. I could feel the pitching and rolling movements of the rusty deck, and hear the sound of the spray being thrown up by the bow forcing its way into the swell.

I walked beyond the mortar well to the open part of the deck and looked around. There was no one else in sight. I assumed I was alone on the ship and could see no land in any direction.

I climbed the ladder onto the poop deck and made my way forward until I reached the bridge. It was unlit and as empty as it had been when I saw it in the breaker’s yard. Whatever was controlling the ship, it was not human. I knew that there would be no point in going down to the wheelhouse, since the man who steers the ship does so on orders from the bridge, and there was no one there to give any. I stood on the port bridge wing for a few moments, revelling in the cool showers of salt spray thrown back from the dipping bow.

I returned to the quarterdeck and waited. I stood looking astern, watching the wake trail back into the distance and wondering where I was - on this earth, or some other. The air was balmy and reminded me of that night in the St Lawrence Seaway, but this time there was no sound of throbbing engines.

And then I heard my name called. It was loud and clear and echoed slightly. I turned around to see Simon standing at the bottom of the port ladder. He looked exactly as I remembered him and was smiling his usual, open smile. I was thrilled but not surprised to see him. He walked towards me until he was only a few feet away.

“Hello me old ’oppo,” he said, feigning the slang of the sailor.

“Hello Simon.”

“You’re getting the picture, aren’t you?”

Considering the circumstances, I felt surprisingly calm. There was an easy inevitability about the situation. But there was nothing dreamlike about it. I was fully awake and full of curiosity. I did, however, feel slightly guarded. As excited as I was to see Simon, I couldn’t know for sure whether he was flesh and blood, a ghost, or some sort of projection. It isn’t easy to relate to somebody in those circumstances.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “Am I?”

“I think so,” he said. “You’re not surprised to see me. That’s good. You’re beginning to realise that all that stuff about the appointment and the boy was necessary for preparation. You had to be attuned to this meeting through a series of steps, so that you’d be open to it.”

I suppose I had begun to realise something of the sort when I woke up on the mess deck. He continued.

“I tried to contact you before, just after it happened. Remember that night when you were on ghost watch? I was standing right here, calling you. You couldn’t see me of course. Couldn’t even hear me once you were fully awake. I didn’t realise how these things worked then; I was still coming to terms with what had happened. I needed to learn a lot before I could make contact - and so did you.”

“Learn what?” I asked. “I don’t suppose you fancy starting at the beginning and telling me what happened that day. Why you disappeared, where you disappeared to, what you’ve been doing all these years, why you’ve made contact with me again - that sort of thing?”

My voice had a note of impatience in it. For some reason I wasn’t intimidated by the strangeness of the situation and Simon’s sudden appearance. I continued:

“You do realise that going to bed in a common-or-garden semi in Northampton, and then waking up somewhere in the middle of an ocean on a rusty, fifty-year-old ship that should have been broken up long ago is a bit weird. It must be time for an explanation.”

Simon chuckled in his old, relaxed way.

“It was broken up, actually, years ago.”

“What?”

“At a breaker’s yard in Blyth, about ten years after we sailed in her.”

“So what’s this, then?” I asked, waving my hand in the general direction of the superstructure.

“This is what she looked like after she’d been lying around for several years, just before the final dismantling.”

“So if it’s not real, what is it? A copy? An illusion?”

“Everything’s an illusion, you should know that. You’ve learned a lot, too, over the last thirty years.”

I suppose I had, theoretically at least. But I’d never come across an illusion quite as convincing as this one.

“And what about the ship in the old place up near The Wash? Was that really there or not?”

“Yes and no,” he said.

“And the boy?”

“Oh yes, he was there. He lives in a farm down a track that you missed when you went looking for him. Getting you to hear Lillibolero was a nice touch, don’t you think? It took me years to learn how to do that.”

I must have looked confused. Simon took the pause in my questioning as his opportunity to begin the story.

“Look,” he said, “there’s a limit to how much I can tell you. I’m still a bit of a novice myself. Time isn’t the same in my world. Thirty years is a long time to you, but it doesn’t work like that here.”

“Where’s ‘here’?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about that for now. My job is to give you a brief explanation of the facts. Others will teach you much more in due course, if you want them to.”

“What others?”

“Patience,” he replied. “Let me get on with the story. The first thing you should know is that you and I have a strong bond. We’re sort of soul mates, if you want to put it that way; that’s why we became such good friends. Still are, for that matter. But we’ve taken different roads and become sort of opposites in one important respect.

“When we met up at Dartmouth, I was more spiritually advanced than you were. I don’t like the word ‘advanced’ but it’ll do for now. Mentally, however, I was closed off. I’d never broken free of the old Brethren teaching and couldn’t see beyond one God, one life and so on. You were the other side of the coin; spiritually a bit backward, if you’ll forgive me saying so, but mentally much more open to the bigger, truer picture. You might say that I had the better nature, you had the greater wisdom. You were more prepared to learn than I was. That meant that you were at least moving forward, albeit a bit slowly, whereas I’d got stuck.

“Things must have come to a head that day I sounded off about God and the Devil and so on. I was angry that anyone should challenge my cherished beliefs, and couldn’t accept that there might be anything beyond them.

“It was a few days later that we found ourselves hanging over the side on that paint stage. When we finished, I watched you climb the rope and disappear over the gunwale. Then I climbed up after you. I expected you to give me a hand aboard and was a bit miffed when I got to the top and you’d disappeared. But then I realised that everybody else had disappeared too. I looked over the side. No paint stages. I came back here to the quarterdeck. Empty. I went below decks and searched the ship, even went down to the engine room. Not a soul in sight.

“Needless to say I was pretty confused, and finally went up to the bridge. There was a man there I’d never seen before, sitting in the captain’s chair and wearing a full four-ringer's uniform. He turned to look at me and beckoned me over. He somehow looked as old as the hills, and yet he didn’t have any of the usual physical signs of ageing. And I was struck by an immense feeling of wisdom that seemed to emanate from him. I stood in front of him and he began to talk to me in a calm, fatherly sort of way. I thought he might be God at first, but he must have read my thoughts because he smiled and shook his head in a way that seemed to say ‘oh my goodness, you have got a lot to learn.’

“Then he explained to me about the rut that I’d got into and gave me two choices. I could either die and move on in the conventional way, in which case my body would be found floating in the sea and that would be the end of my current incarnation, or I could join him and learn my lessons quicker that way. I found the former a bit daunting – I still thought of death as something final and intimidating, you understand – so I chose the latter. I’ve been working here ever since.”

“Doing what?” I asked.

“Oh, generally stewarding the affairs of the sea, and those who live their lives on it. Using the subtle forces that lie behind the physical ones. Anyway, because of our link you’re going to be given the same choice.”

“What?!” I wasn’t sure that I relished such a choice.

“Don’t worry,” said Simon. “Your choice won’t be quite as stark as mine. I said earlier that you’re moving forward, whereas I was stuck. I had to be forced on. But you’ll be able to choose between living out your life as you are now, or coming over here and working with me. You’ve also been given the privilege of having advance knowledge, so you’ve got time to think about it.”

“And when will I get this choice?” I asked, feeling only slightly relieved.

“Can’t tell you that. It’ll be up to powers way above me to decide when the time’s right.”

The prospect of having to make such a decision was daunting. I had been a keen student of metaphysic all my life, but had recently become conscious of the fact that my knowledge had all come from books and the accounts of others. It lacked first hand experience or practical application, and I knew that my life was drifting along rather aimlessly. But was that enough to justify such a giant leap into the unknown? And one thing, in particular, was bothering me.

“There’s something I need to know,” I said. “Are you trapped where you are now? I can’t help noticing that you haven’t aged.”

“Of course not,” he said. “When my time comes to move on – die, if you like – I’ll do it just the same as you will. This world is just one of many in which we can spend an incarnation and learn a set of lessons. Who knows which of them either of us will take the next time round? What’s so unusual here – and why it’s such a privilege – is being able to switch from one form of reality to another in the same incarnation. As for the ageing - as I said, time works differently here.”

I thought for a moment and wondered what else worked differently there.

“So what’s it like over there?” I asked. “Do you do the same things that we do: eat, drink, sleep, have holidays, go shopping for clothes?”

I regretted the facetious undertone, but Simon was unruffled.

“Some things are the same, some different. But I’m not here to talk about pay and conditions. If you do decide to come over, it has to be for the right reason: the opportunity to learn about the greater nature of reality faster than you would in the physical world. There, you have to set yourself apart from the mainstream to learn what it’s all about, and that’s not easy in a world that’s dominated by forces determined to keep you on the bottom rung. Here, spiritual awareness is the mainstream. You’d soon get used to the new conditions. I did; I’m happy enough. If you choose to stay there you’ll learn what you need to know eventually, it’ll just take longer. And I’m talking lifetimes, not years. This is a sort of ‘fast tracking’ if you like. Think about it.”

“But you can’t tell me how long I’ve got?”

“’Fraid not, sorry.”

“And I don’t suppose you can tell me anything about the circumstances under which this offer will be made?”

“No.”

“No, thought not. This is a bit of a tall order you know. And how do I know that all this isn’t just a dream?”

“It doesn’t make any difference,” he said. “The offer will come anyway, whether you think it’s a dream or not. But, so that you can be as sure as possible, I’ve sent you a small gift.”

“Really?” I said. “What’s that?”

“You’ll know it when you see it,” he replied. “And now it’s time for me to go. I’m glad we got to meet again. We had some good times, didn’t we? Perhaps we’ll become shipmates again before too long.”

“Yes, you too,” I said, referring to his first sentiment but feeling distinctly unsure about the second.

I was interested to know how he would take his leave of me. I hadn’t seen him come but I was going to watch him go. Predictably, I suppose, he read my thoughts and laughed.

“I have to keep the illusion going,” he said. “It’s one of the rules.”

He turned and climbed the ladder that led onto the poop deck. He walked forward a few yards, waved briefly and then climbed over the gunwale. I saw his hands release their grip and he dropped out of sight. I ran to the port side to see whether he was in the water. It didn’t surprise me that there was no sign of him. There had been no sound of a splash the first time he had disappeared, and there was none this time. I was alone again.

I felt uneasy, now that the very existence of the deck that separated me from the deep ocean had been brought into question. But I reasoned that the ship was probably just as real as the sea through which it moved its illusory course.

So what should I do now? Get back into my hammock and go to sleep in the expectation of waking in my own bed at home? It seemed too much like the stuff of film scripts, but I could think of no other course of action.

I took a final look around at the expanse of sea and the deserted ship; I smelt the air and revelled in the recollection one last time. And then I made my way back below decks.

I walked into the mess deck to find that the security light was out and it was pitch dark. I felt my way around the door and put my hand on the bulkhead, meaning to feel my way around the perimeter until I reached my hammock. My fingers rested on what felt like a modern light switch. I pressed it and found myself standing in my own brightly lit bedroom. The movement stopped as the light came on and I knew that I was home. The transition from one world to the other was as quick and simple as that. And still I wasn’t surprised.

I went downstairs, made a drink and opened the curtains, just to be sure that I was back in the familiar landscape of English suburbia. The dawn was beginning to break, but the full moon was clearly visible high in the cloudless sky. I wondered whether it was shining on a rusty old ship, still ploughing its way across some nameless ocean in another dimension somewhere. Or had that illusion now been consigned to its own breaker’s yard? I suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired and left my mug of tea half drunk. Within minutes I was settled into a deep and dreamless sleep.

It was Saturday and I slept late. I awoke to a faint smell of salt and realised that my pyjamas felt slightly damp. Was that an illusion too? I got dressed and went downstairs, picking up the mail as I made my way to the kitchen.

Among it was the final, small mystery that was to convince me that I must start examining my life deeply and honestly. I needed to decide between the comfort of a life in the safe and steady world that was my lot this time around, and an opportunity to fast track myself to higher things.

Tucked in between the junk mail was a postcard. The picture was of the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, taken from across the river at Kingswear. I turned it over. It was properly addressed to me by name, and the message box simply said:

“Simon says to send you this.”

There was no signature.