The Turnkey Read online

  She hated lying to Ada. Hated it. But she knew that Hugo Howsham was also right – the power of combining keys was dangerous and could easily be abused. The fewer people who knew about it, the better.

  Flossie’s visit to Ada was brief as her mind was focused on another place she needed to go.

  Flossie opened her eyes in a familiar corridor of Lambeth Hospital. She had to speak to Grace. Elke hadn’t been able to help Hana, but Flossie was now more determined than ever to see Grace through her troubles and to convince her to live.

  “Grace?” Flossie called out among the hustle and bustle of the busy hospital. She stepped to one side as a patient was wheeled hurriedly past her towards surgery.

  When she couldn’t find Grace anywhere, Flossie began to lose heart. Then Michael appeared at the far end of the corridor, his tricorn hat tucked under his arm. The Turnkey of Brompton was with him.

  “Everything all right?” the Turnkey of Brompton asked.

  “Yes, in a way,” Flossie replied, her voice tired and drained. “The skull is gone forever. I’ll explain it all to you. Sometime.”

  The Turnkey of Brompton seemed to understand.

  “Come on then,” Michael gestured. “This way. Her ward’s over here.”

  “Has Grace …?”

  “No, love,” he answered. “Part of her is still here with us, as before. I see that as a good thing. There were times I thought she was close to letting herself slip away from life and stay with us forever. To her credit, she didn’t. She’s strong, that one.”

  Flossie hoped that Grace had taken on board some of what she’d said at their last meeting.

  Michael moved towards the stairs and Flossie followed, the Turnkey of Brompton close behind them. “She’s up this way. She’s been sitting by her own bed. I can’t be sure, but I think she’s close to making a decision and I’m hoping it’ll be the right one.”

  “I hope so too,” Flossie replied, following him. “I really hope so.”

  Upstairs, it was just as Michael had said. In among the many beds, full of people affected by bombing in one way or another, there was Grace. She sat upon a small stool that had been left by her bedside, watching over her sleeping self.

  As Flossie approached Grace’s bed, she drew another stool into the twilight with a whoosh and carried it over with her.

  “How about we leave you ladies alone for a bit?” Michael said. And with a dip of his head, he and the Turnkey of Brompton left the way the three of them had come.

  When Flossie reached Grace, she placed the stool next to her.

  “Mind if I sit down?” she asked.

  Grace’s twilight form seemed surprised to see Flossie. She pushed her gas mask box to one side and brought out the small notebook and pencil Flossie had given her. She began writing.

  I’m sorry. About before.

  “That’s all right,” Flossie said. She knew that Grace had simply been angry and she’d had every right to feel that way – her mother and sister had been stripped from her life horribly and needlessly. Flossie was glad to see that Grace seemed calm. Michael had surely had much to do with this and Flossie was grateful he’d been able to spend time with Grace, keeping her company through her ordeal.

  “I don’t need to run off any more,” Flossie told Grace. “A lot’s happened since I’ve been gone. Can I tell you what I’ve been up to?”

  Grace’s eyes came up from her notebook, which was resting on her lap.

  Flossie proceeded to tell Grace all that had happened since she’d last left Lambeth Hospital. About seeing her father. About Viktor Brun. About Elke. About Hana. The telling took some time. As she was finishing up and contemplating how she might try to convince Grace one last time that she should choose to live, a movement behind them in the ward made Grace swivel in her seat.

  Immediately, she stood, dropping the twilight notebook and pencil upon the floor.

  Flossie stood as well. There was a soldier standing in the doorway, hovering worriedly, his eyes searching the beds in the ward systematically.

  Within seconds, he spotted Grace’s living form.

  He ran through the ward then – straight towards her. A nurse at the other end of the room told him off loudly as he did so, but he paid no attention to her, his eyes fixed upon his daughter.

  Flossie watched him as he approached Grace’s bedside. The living Grace’s eyes flickered open just in time to see her father round the corner of her hospital bed. Grace reached her hands up and the pair fell into each other’s arms.

  Flossie went to say something to Grace’s twilight form.

  But it was no longer there.

  The place she’d sat in was empty, only her twilight notebook and pencil lying on the floor.

  Grace had made her decision. She’d returned to her body and awoken herself.

  She’d decided to live.

  In the hospital bed Grace was sitting up, her arms wrapped tightly around her father’s khaki uniformed back. Grace’s eyes opened and searched for the spot that she knew Flossie had been standing in. Their eyes connected, despite the fact that Grace now couldn’t see her.

  Thank you. Her eyes shone, just as Elke’s had. Thank you.

  Chapter 32

  In which Flossie and her friends visit St Paul’s

  Grace’s mother and sister were buried together at Tower Hamlets a few days later.

  As well as the large party of living who attended, there was also a large, unseen party of the dead. Flossie, Ada and Violet were in attendance. So were Michael, William and all the other Chelsea Pensioners, in a sea of tricorn hats, white whiskers and muted scarlet coats. Hugo Howsham was there and the other Turnkeys had also been invited – Alice and Matilda from West Norwood and the Turnkeys of Brompton and Abney Park too. Even the typesetter from Nunhead managed to tear himself away from his “important business”, though he spent most of his time taking notes as he studied the headstones inside the cemetery.

  Grace and her father held each other tightly during the interment. A woman and a young girl were present, who Flossie presumed were Grace’s aunt and cousin. The woman was rather pale and had her arm in a sling and Flossie guessed this was why she hadn’t been able to make it to see Grace and Ruth in hospital – she’d been injured herself. Flossie could see that there was much love in the family. Grace had even found her voice, which was more than Flossie could have hoped for. While things would never be the same again, she knew Grace would be all right.

  The other Turnkeys left after a while and the Chelsea Pensioners departed for Brompton Cemetery with their Turnkey at the same time. They were going to return to rest. But only, they said, until such time as their services were required again.

  Grace’s extended family moved towards the gates of the cemetery as well, leaving Grace and her father to pay their respects above the freshly dug graves. Only Flossie, Violet and Ada remained nearby.

  “They’ll be well cared for here,” Grace said quietly, her eyes searching the cemetery for something she couldn’t see. “I know they will.”

  Her father cast a doubtful eye around the cemetery. “Do you think so?”

  “I know so.” Grace’s voice was firm. “It might all be wild and overgrown, but the people here mean well. I know they do.”

  “She knows she can trust you,” Flossie told Ada.

  That ever-present frown of Ada’s crossed her brow. “Yes, well. I try to do my best,” she said gruffly.

  Flossie and Violet laughed at her grumpy tone. Even Ada’s huge stone angel Advisor, standing close behind her, seemed to lose her grim expression for a split second.

  “What?” Ada said, crosser still.

  “Nothing,” Flossie replied. “Just never stop being yourself, Ada.”

  The three girls watched as Grace and her father began the slow walk back to the cemetery gates.

  As she watched them go, Flossie thought of her own father. Despite the distance between them, she somehow felt as close to him as Grace was to her father in th
is moment.

  “Now what?” Ada spoke when Grace and her father were out of sight.

  “We return to our cemeteries, I suppose,” Flossie said. “And carry on.”

  “And wait for the bombing to start again this evening, you mean,” Ada added for her.

  “As it always seems to.” Violet sighed.

  They were suddenly quiet in their little huddle, the noises of the living filling in the silence – cars and lorries, a gravedigger and a groundsman talking nearby. It was this juxtaposition of the living and the twilight world that got Flossie thinking.

  “Will you come with me somewhere this evening?” she asked her friends.

  * * *

  They met outside Highgate as darkness was falling in the spring sky and joined hands, Flossie transporting them to their destination.

  “Oh, Flossie,” Ada said, on opening her eyes. “How beautiful. Now I see why you come here all the time.”

  Violet murmured in agreement as she took in the view from the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. All was still in the sky apart from the bobbing of the silver barrage balloons, dusted with the orange of sunset.

  The threesome walked the perimeter of the Golden Gallery, taking in the view and working out where all of the Magnificent Seven lay.

  When they returned to the point at which they’d started, Ada stood next to Flossie. “So, this is where it all began.”

  “This is where you first saw Viktor Brun?” Violet said. “Up here?”

  “Yes,” Flossie answered them both.

  “It must have crossed your mind that we could do the same,” Ada continued. “Spy, I mean. If that officer found a way to pass information to the living, I bet we could find another one. We could win this war in no time.”

  Flossie could barely speak, her secret of combining the keys stuck in her throat. “I’m sure there are other ways. But we can’t. This war isn’t ours to win.” It was as she’d said to Elke at the start of all this. It wasn’t their war. Not their fight. “Even if we won this war for the living, they’d only have more. Remember what they called the last one? The war to end all wars? It didn’t take them long to start another one, did it?”

  No one spoke. They all knew this was true.

  “Anyway, I don’t have time for spying,” Flossie continued, with a forced laugh. “I’m very busy. I have the important task of keeping Mrs Gough happy for all eternity, remember?”

  This, at least, lightened the mood. They changed the topic, discussing the “Mrs Goughs” of their own cemeteries. And as they did so, they kept a watchful eye over their cemeteries, an ear out for the first air-raid siren of the evening and for the bombing to begin yet again.

  Author’s Note

  I’m afraid to say that I’ve been a bit naughty and toyed with history.

  The term “Magnificent Seven” wasn’t coined until 1981 by the historian Hugh Meller. However, I’ve borrowed it for the purposes of this book.

  Flossie’s father’s ship, the HMS Royal Sovereign, wasn’t actually sent to the Battle of Jutland. It was deemed unready for battle and, because of this, didn’t go. I have imagined that it went, with Flossie’s father aboard, and that it suffered a different fate.

  A Luftwaffe bomb destroyed the British Museum Newspaper Repository at Colindale just before our story starts in 1940. As I wanted Flossie to be able to access the newspapers, I’ve instead imagined her visiting the Old Newspaper Reading Room at the British Museum in Bloomsbury.

  Several early readers have asked me if dogs were really used to rescue people during the Blitz and they most definitely were. They weren’t all fancy breeds, either. One dog called Rip was a stray whose Docklands home was bombed out. He was taken in by an air-raid warden and without any special training ended up rescuing more than one hundred people between 1940 and 1941. Many dogs like Rip received Dickin Medals, the animal version of the Victoria Cross. Other animals that received the medal included horses, a cat and many fearless message-carrying pigeons!

  About the Author

  Allison Rushby, the daughter of an author, was raised on a wholesome diet of classic English literature. Some of her favourite books, re-read countless dog-eared times, include Rumer Godden’s The Dolls’ House, Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, Joyce Lankester Brisley’s Milly-Molly-Mandy series and Noel Streatfeild’s Shoes series. She adores cities with long, winding histories, wild, overgrown cemeteries, red-brick Victorian museums, foxes and ivy. She likes to write with a cup of Darjeeling tea by her side and a Devon Rex cat called Claudia curled up in her lap.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Arnold, Catharine. Necropolis: London and Its Dead. Simon & Schuster, UK, 2007.

  Meller, Hugh and Parsons, Brian. London Cemeteries: An Illustrated Guide and Gazetteer. The History Press, 5th edition, London, 2011.

  Turpin, John and Knight, Derrick. The Magnificent Seven: London’s First Landscaped Cemeteries. Amberley Publishing, UK, 2012.

  Acknowledgements

  The Turnkey has been a long time in the writing and rewriting (and rewriting) and there is a long list of people I need to thank for their help.

  Pats for my literate guinea pigs: Pamela Rushby, Peter Rushby, Lyn Rushby and Emma Aziz.

  Huge thanks to Sue Whiting for digging through the rubble until she found the book buried beneath.

  Applause for David Belavy for putting up with five hundred and three drafts (it actually might have been more).

  A grin for Allison Tait for listening to my incoherent ramblings.

  Writing historical fiction can be rather iceberg-ish. The reader sees only the book on top, but underneath is a gigantic pile of notes propping it up. For help with these, I’d like to thank my researcher Heather Gammage as well as the Friends of the “Magnificent Seven” cemeteries. Particular thanks to Bob Flanagan, Chairman & Publications Officer at The Friends of West Norwood Cemetery, Robert Stephenson, Trustee at The Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery and Dr Ian Dungavell, Chief Executive at The Friends of Highgate Cemetery Trust. Another thank you to Paul Talling of Derelict London as well.

  Also, thanks to Toowong Cemetery (my local Victorian cemetery) for inspirational walks and to the Friends of Toowong Cemetery for caring for it.

  And to Claudia who kept my lap warm while I wrote.

  Published in 2017

  by Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd

  Locked Bag 22, Newtown

  NSW 2042 Australia

  www.walkerbooks.com.au

  This ebook edition published in 2017

  The moral rights of the author and illustrator have been asserted.

  Text © 2017 Allison Rushby

  Cover illustration © 2017 Laura Peterson

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Rushby, Allison, author.

  The turnkey / Allison Rushby.

  For children.

  Subjects: Ghost stories.

  A823.4

  ISBN: 978-1-925381-43-6 (ePub/mobi)

  ISBN: 978-1-925381-42-9 (ePDF)

  For Isabelle Rushby

  17/10/1918 – 20/11/2014

  who, like Grace,

  lost her voice

  for a while.