Johnny and the Dead Read online

  ‘We’re making carpets!’ shouted Mrs Liberty.

  ‘Cutting a rung,’ corrected one of the dead.

  ‘A rug,’ said the Alderman, slowing down a bit. ‘A rug. Cutting a rug. That’s what Mr Benbow who died in nineteen thirty-one, says it is called. Getting down and bogeying.’

  ‘It’s been like this all evening,’ said Mr Vicenti. He was sitting on the pavement. In fact, he was sitting about half a metre above the pavement. ‘We’ve found some very interesting stations. What exactly is a DJ?’

  ‘A disc jockey,’ said Johnny, giving up and sitting down. ‘He plays the discs and stuff’

  ‘Is it some kind of punishment?’

  ‘Quite a lot of people like to do it.’

  ‘How very strange. They are not mentally ill, or anything?’

  The song finished. The dancers stopped twirling, but slowly and with great reluctance.

  Mrs Liberty pushed her hat back. It had tipped over her eyes.

  ‘That was extremely enjoyable,’ she said. ‘Mr Fletcher! Be so good as to instruct the man on the wireless to play something more!’

  Interested despite himself, Johnny padded over to the phone box. Mr Fletcher was actually kneeling down with his hands inside the telephone. A couple of other dead people were watching him. One of them was William Stickers, who didn’t look very happy. The other was an old man with a mass of white hair in that dandelion-clock style known as Mad Scientist Afro.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said William Stickers. ‘Call this a world, do you?’

  ‘Me?’ said Johnny. ‘I don’t call it anything.’

  ‘Was that man on the radio making fun of me, do you think?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Johnny, crossing his fingers.

  ‘Mr Sticker iz annoyed because he telephoned Moscow,’ said the white-haired man. ‘They said they’ve had enough revolutions to be going on wiz, but vould like some soap.’

  ‘They’re nothing but dirty capitalists!’ said William Stickers.

  ‘But at least they want to be clean capitalists,’ said Mr Fletcher. ‘Where shall we try next?’

  ‘Don’t you have to put money in?’ said Johnny.

  Mr Fletcher laughed.

  ‘I don’t zink we’ve met,’ said the white-haired man, extending a slightly transparent hand. ‘Solomon Einstein (1861–1932).’

  ‘Like Albert Einstein?’ said Johnny.

  ‘He vas my distant cousin,’ said Solomon Einstein. ‘Relatively speaking. Haha.’

  Johnny got the impression Mr Einstein had said that line a million times, and still wasn’t tired of it.

  ‘Who’re you ringing up?’ said Johnny.

  ‘We’re just having a look at the world,’ said Mr Fletcher. ‘What are those things that go round and round in the sky?’

  ‘I don’t know. Frisbees?’

  ‘Mr Vicenti just remembers them. They go round and round the world.’

  ‘Oh. You mean satellites?’

  ‘Whee!’

  ‘But how do you know how to—’

  ‘I can’t explain. Things are a lot simpler, I think. I can see it all laid out.’

  ‘All of what?’

  ‘All the cables, all the . . . the satellites . . . Not having a body makes them a lot easier to use, too.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘For one thing, you don’t have to stay in one place.’

  ‘But I thought you—’

  Mr Fletcher vanished. He reappeared a few seconds later.

  ‘Amazing things,’ he said. ‘My word, but we shall have fun.’

  ‘I don’t underst—’

  ‘Johnny?’

  It was Mr Vicenti.

  Someone living had managed to get through to Mad Jim. The dead, with much laughter, were trying to dance to a Country-and-Western number.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Johnny. ‘You said you couldn’t leave the cemetery!’

  ‘No one has explained this to you? They do not teach you in schools?’

  ‘Well, we don’t get lessons in dealing with ghos— Sorry. Sorry. With dead people, I mean.’

  ‘We’re not ghosts, Johnny. A ghost is a very sad thing. Oh, dear. It’s hard to explain things to the living. I was alive once, and I know what I’m talking about.’

  Dead Mr Vicenti looked at Johnny’s blank face. ‘We’re . . . something else,’ he said. ‘But now you see us and hear us, you’re making us free. You’re giving us what we don’t have.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I can’t explain. But while you’re thinking of us, we’re free.’

  ‘My head doesn’t have to spin round and round, does it?’

  ‘That sounds like a good trick. Can you make it do that?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it won’t.’

  ‘Only I’m a bit worried I’m dabblin’ with the occult.’

  It seemed daft to say it, to Mr Vicenti in his pinstripe trousers and little black tie and fresh ghostly carnation every day. Or Mrs Liberty. Or the big bearded shape of William Stickers, who would have been Karl Marx if Karl Marx hadn’t been Karl Marx first.

  ‘Dear me, I hope you’re not dabbling with the occult,’ said Mr Vicenti. ‘Father Kearny (1891–1949) wouldn’t like that at all.’

  ‘Who’s Father Kearny?’

  ‘A few moments ago he was dancing with Mrs Liberty. Oh dear. We do mix things up, don’t we?’

  ‘Send him away.’

  Johnny turned.

  One of the dead was still in the cemetery. He was standing right up against the railings, clasping them like a prisoner might hold the bars of his cell. He didn’t look a lot different to Mr Vicenti, except that he had a pair of glasses. It was amazing that they weren’t melting; he had the strongest stare Johnny had ever seen. He seemed to be glaring at Johnny’s left ear.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he said.

  ‘Mr Grimm,’ said Mr Vicenti, without looking around.

  ‘Oh, yes. I couldn’t find anything about him in the paper.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Mr Vicenti, in a low and level voice. ‘In those days, there were things they didn’t put in.’

  ‘You go away, boy. You’re meddling with things you don’t understand,’ said Mr Grimm. ‘You’re imperilling your immortal soul. And theirs. You go away, you bad boy.’

  Johnny stared. Then he looked back at the street, at the dancers, and the scientists around the telephone box. A bit further along there was Stanley Roundway, in shorts that came down to his knees, showing a group of somewhat older dead how to play football. He had ‘L’ and ‘R’ stencilled on his football boots.

  Mr Vicenti was staring straight ahead.

  ‘Um—’ said Johnny.

  ‘I can’t help you there,’ said Mr Vicenti. ‘That sort of thing is up to you.’

  He must have walked home. He didn’t really remember. But he woke up in bed.

  Johnny wondered what the dead did on Sundays. Blackbury on Sundays went through some sort of boredom barrier and out the other side.

  Most people did what people traditionally do on Sundays, which was dress up neatly and get in the car and go for family worship at the MegasuperSaver Garden Centre, just outside the town. There was a kind of tide of potted plants that were brought back to get killed off by the central heating in time for next week’s visit.

  And the mall was locked up. There wasn’t even anywhere to hang around.

  ‘The point about being dead in this town,’ said Wobbler, as they mooched along the towpath, ‘is that it’s probably hard to tell the difference.’

  ‘Did anyone hear the radio last night?’ said Johnny.

  No one had. He felt a bit relieved.

  ‘When I grow up,’ said Wobbler, ‘I’m going to be out of here like a shot. Just you watch. That’s what this place is. It’s a place to come from. It’s not a place to stay.’

  ‘Where’re you going to go, then?’ said Johnny. ‘There’s a huge big world out there!’ said Wobbler. ‘Mountains
! America! Australia! Tons of places!’

  ‘You told me the other day you’d probably get a job working at your uncle’s place over on the trading estate,’ said Bigmac.

  ‘Yes . . . well . . . I mean, all those places’ll be there, won’t they, for when I get time to go,’ said Wobbler.

  ‘I thought you were going to be a big man in computers,’ said Yo-less.

  ‘I could be. I could be. If I wanted.’

  ‘If there’s a miracle and you pass Maths and English, you mean,’ said Bigmac.

  ‘I’m just more practically gifted,’ said Wobbler.

  ‘You mean you just press keys until something happens.’

  ‘Well? Often things do happen.’

  ‘I’m going to join the Army,’ said Bigmac. ‘The SAS.’

  ‘Huh. The flat feet and the asthma will be a big help there, then,’ said Wobbler. ‘I can just see they’ll want you to limp out and wheeze on terrorists.’

  ‘I’m pretty certain I want to get a law degree and a medical degree,’ said Yo-less, to keep the peace.

  ‘That’s good. That way they won’t be able to sue you if you chop the wrong bits off,’ said Bigmac.

  No one really lost their temper. This was all part of hanging around.

  ‘What about you?’ said Wobbler. ‘What do you want to be?’

  ‘Dunno,’ said Johnny.

  ‘Didn’t you go to the careers evening last week?’

  Johnny nodded. It had been full of Great Futures.

  There was a Great Future in retail marketing. There was a Great Future in wholesale distribution. There was a Great Future in the armed forces, although probably not for Bigmac, who’d been allowed to hold a machine gun and had dropped it on his foot. But Johnny couldn’t find a Great Future with any future in it.

  ‘What I want to be,’ he said, ‘is something they haven’t got a name for yet.’

  ‘Oh, yeah?’ said Wobbler. ‘Like, in two years time someone’s going to invent the Vurglesplat, and when they start looking around for Vurglesplat operators, you’re going to be first in the queue, right?’

  They went through the cemetery. The others, without saying anything, bunched up slightly. But there were no dead people around.

  ‘You can’t just hang around waiting for Great Futures, that’s the point,’ Johnny murmured.

  ‘Hey,’ said Yo-less, in a dismally jolly voice, ‘my mum says why don’t you guys come to church tonight?’

  ‘It won’t work,’ said Wobbler, after a while. ‘You say that every week.’

  ‘She says it’d be good for you. Especially Simon.’

  ‘Simon?’ said Wobbler.

  ‘Me,’ said Bigmac.

  ‘She says you need looking after,’ said Yo-less.

  ‘I didn’t know you were called Simon,’ said Wobbler.

  Bigmac sighed. He had ‘Blackbury Skins’ on his T-shirt, a suede haircut, great big boots, great big braces and LOVE and HAT in Biro on his knuckles1, but for some reason Yo-less’s mum thought he needed a proper home. Bigmac lived in dread that Bazza and Skazz, the only other Skins in Blackbury, would find out and confiscate his official braces.

  ‘She said you’re all growing up heathens,’ said Yo-less.

  ‘Well, I’m going to a funeral at the crem tomorrow,’ said Johnny. ‘That’s almost church.’

  ‘Anyone important?’ said Wobbler.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Johnny.

  Johnny was amazed that so many people had come to Thomas Atkins’s funeral, but that was because they’d really come to the one before it. All there was for Atkins’s was himself and a stiff-looking old man in a blazer from the British Legion and the nurse from Sunshine Acres. And the vicar, who did his best, but had never met Tommy Atkins so had to put together his sermon out of a sort of kit of Proper Things to Say. And then some recorded organ music. And that was it.

  The chapel smelled of new wood and floor polish.

  The three others kept looking at Johnny in an embarrassed way, as if they felt he shouldn’t be there but didn’t know exactly how to put it.

  He heard a faint sound behind him, just as the recorded music started up.

  He turned around, and there were the dead, seated in rows. The Alderman had taken his hat off and was sitting stiffly at attention. Even William Stickers had tried to look respectable. Solomon Einstein’s hair stood out like a halo.

  The nurse was talking to the man in the blazer. Johnny leaned back so that he could speak to Mr Fletcher.

  ‘Why are you here?’ he whispered.

  ‘It’s allowed,’ said Mr Fletcher. ‘We used to go to all the funerals in the cemetery. Help them settle in. Make them welcome. It’s always a bit of a shock.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘And . . . seeing as you were here . . . we thought we’d see if we could make it. Mr Vicenti said it was worth a try. We’re getting better at it!’

  The nurse handed Tommy Atkins’s box to the British Legion man and walked out, waving at Johnny uncertainly as she went past. And then the vicar ushered the man through another door, giving Johnny another funny look.

  Outside, the October sun was shining weakly, but it was managing to shine. Johnny went outside and waited.

  Eventually the man came out, holding two boxes this time.

  ‘Uh,’ said Johnny, standing up. ‘Um.’

  ‘Yes, lad? The lady from the Home said you’re doing a project for school.’

  Doing a project. It was amazing. If Saddam Hussein had said he was doing a school project on Kuwait, he’d have found life a lot easier . . .

  ‘Um, yes. Uh. Can I ask you some stuff?’

  ‘Of course, yes.’ The man sat down heavily on one of the benches. He walked with a limp, and sat with one leg stretched out straight in front of him. Johnny was surprised to see that he was probably as old as Grandad, but he had that dried-out, sun-tanned look of a man who keeps himself fit and is probably still going to be captain of the bowls club when he’s eighty.

  ‘Well . . . when Mr Atkins said . . .’ Johnny began. ‘I mean, he used to say that he was “the one”. I know about the Blackbury Pals. I know they all got killed except him. But I don’t think that’s what he meant . . .’

  ‘You know about the Pals, do you? How?’

  ‘Read it in an old newspaper.’

  ‘Oh. But you don’t know about Tommy Atkins?’

  ‘Well, yes, he—’

  ‘No, I mean Tommy Atkins. I meant, why he was so proud of the name. What the name meant?’

  ‘I don’t understand that,’ said Johnny.

  ‘What do they teach you in school these days?’

  Johnny didn’t answer. He could tell it wasn’t really a question.

  ‘You see – in the Great War, the First World War . . . when a new recruit joined the Army he had to fill in his pay book, yes? You know? Name and address and that sort of thing? And to help them do it, the Army did a kind of guide to how to fill it in, and on the guide, where it said Name, they put: Thomas Atkins. It was just a name. Just to show them that’s where their name should be. Like: John Smith. But it . . . well, it became a sort of joke. Tommy Atkins came to mean the average soldier—’

  ‘Like The Man In The Street?’

  ‘Yes . . . very much like that. It was a nickname for a soldier, I do know that. Tommy Atkins – the British Tommy.’

  ‘So . . . in a way . . . all soldiers were Tommy Atkins?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose you could put it like that. Of course, that’s a rather fanciful way of—’

  ‘But he was a real person. He smoked a pipe and everything.’

  ‘Well, I suppose the Army used it because they thought it was a common sort of name. So there was bound to be a real Tommy Atkins somewhere. I know he was very proud of his name. I do know that.’

  ‘Was he the last man alive who fought in the war?’

  ‘Oh, no. Good heavens, no. But he was the last one from around here, that’s for certain. The last of the Pals.’


  Johnny felt a change in the air.

  ‘He was a strange old boy. I used to go and see him every year at—’

  There was a noise that might be made if a handful of silence was stretched thin and then plucked, like a guitar string.

  Johnny looked around. Now there were three people sitting on the bench.

  Tommy Atkins had his peaked hat on his knees. The uniform didn’t really fit. He was still an old man, so his skinny neck stuck out of his collar like a tortoise’s. He had an old-fashioned sort of face – one designed to wear a cloth cap and work in the rubber boot factory. He saw Johnny staring at him, and winked, and gave him the thumbs-up sign. Then he went back to gazing intently at the road leading into the car park.

  Behind Johnny, the dead filed quietly out of the building, the older ones coming through the wall, the younger ones still using the door out of habit. They didn’t say anything. They just stood and looked expectantly towards the main road.

  Where, marching through the cars, were the Blackbury Pals.

  1The ‘E’ kept rubbing off.

  Chapter 6

  The Pals swung up the road, keeping perfectly in step.

  None of them were old. They all looked like their photograph.

  But then, Tommy Atkins didn’t look old any more. It was a young man who got to his feet, marched out into the car park, turned, and saluted Johnny and the dead.

  Then, as the Pals strode past, he stepped neatly into the gap they’d left for him. All thirty men wheeled about, and marched away.

  The dead streamed after them. They appeared to walk slowly while at the same time moved very fast, so that, in a few seconds, the car park was empty even of its ghosts.

  ‘He’s going back to France,’ said Johnny.

  Suddenly, he felt quite cheerful, even though he could feel the tears running down his face.

  The British Legion man, who had been talking, stopped.

  ‘What?’ he said.

  ‘Tommy Atkins. He’s going back.’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  Johnny realized he’d been talking aloud.

  ‘Uh—’

  The British Legion man relaxed.

  ‘I expect the lady from the Home told you, did she? He mentioned it in his will. Would you like a handkerchief?’

  ‘Uh. No. I’m all right,’ said Johnny. ‘Yes. She told me.’