Valentine Joe (4 page)

It was funny, Rose thought, as she watched them scramble over to the public toilets and gather outside the windows of the chocolate shops, you could tell they were British even if you didn't hear them speak. It was something to do with their shouty daft humour and the way they teased their teacher. And their clothes, of course. Rose recognised a mint-green fake-fur bomber jacket from Topshop that Ella had wanted but couldn't afford, and a random pair of trainers from JD Sports.

‘That's the one.' Grandad pointed to a building at the far end of the not-square square. ‘The Old Town Hotel. That's where we're staying.'

The hotel was tall and narrow and perfectly symmetrical. It looked like a huge doll's house, waiting for a giant child to open it up and play with the furniture inside. Was it an exact replica of the building that had stood there before, Rose wondered. The thought made her feel dizzy and a bit sick, as if she was watching a 3D film without wearing the special glasses.

‘Well, well, well,' Grandad was saying. ‘Look who's here to meet us.'

‘It can't be!'

But it was. There was no doubt about it. It was the same
dog, the one they'd met outside the station. He was sitting on the pavement in front of the hotel almost as if he was waiting for them again.

Grandad grinned. ‘Chance for you to try out your French, Cabbage,' he said. ‘See if he understands you. Go on, no one's listening!'

Rose was so glad to see the dog again that she couldn't speak. She ran over to him, leaving her suitcase with Grandad. The dog got up, wagging his tail so hard his whole body seemed to wag too. When Rose crouched down to stroke him, he rolled over on to his back, waggling his legs.

‘Someone's pleased to see you.' Grandad arrived, dragging both suitcases behind him.

‘I wonder what he's doing here? Do you think he followed us?'

‘If he followed us,' said Grandad, ‘he'd hardly have got here first, would he?'

‘He must be a stray.' Rose scratched the dog's chest. ‘He wouldn't have wandered this far if he lived near the station.'

Grandad looked down at the dog and sighed. ‘You may be right,' he said.

‘We could ask in the hotel.'

‘We could indeed. Let's do that. And no,' he added, in answer to the question in Rose's eyes, ‘you can't bring him in with us. Come on.'

So they left the dog outside watching them as they went inside.

The Old Town Hotel wasn't like the bed and breakfast that Rose had stayed in once with her mum and dad during a trip to the Lake District (they were meant to be camping,
but it had been raining so much when they arrived that Mum said they'd treat themselves). It was a proper hotel, with fresh flowers and a rack of tourist maps and brochures. There was a polished wood floor and sepia prints of the ruined city on the walls. The whole place smelled deliciously of food and flowers and furniture polish and opposite the front door there was a grandfather clock whose tick broke up the silence.

‘Look at these, Cabbage.' Grandad was examining three rusty metal objects like giant stretched-out bullets that were displayed on the reception desk. They were arranged on a sort of lacy table mat as if they were fancy cakes in the window of a teashop. Next to them was a laminated sign, written in English. It read: ‘
We found these shell cases when we were renovating the cellar. They had been there for nearly one hundred years.
'

Shell cases? From the war? Rose reached out a finger and touched one of them, then quickly withdrew it, feeling stupidly scared it might explode. Tiny bits of rust had stuck to her finger, which she wiped off on her parka.

‘You're not going to set them off, Cabbage,' said Grandad. ‘Not now.'

But Rose shuddered. She understood what Grandad meant now, about the history of this place being too close. These things belonged in a museum, safe behind glass, not displayed on a lacy mat in a hotel foyer.

‘It feels like it's everywhere,' she said. ‘The war. What must it be like to live here?'

‘Oh, you'd get used to it,' said Grandad. ‘People do. You can't spend all your time living in the past, can you?'

Can't you?
Rose wanted to say. Sometimes she felt that living in the past was exactly what she wanted to do.
Because Dad was there. Since he died she'd felt like she was sleepwalking through her life. Dad's absence, his not-thereness, was with her all the time – not a second went by that she wasn't aware of it. Every tick of that grandfather clock, every beat of her own heart reminded her:
he's gone, he's gone, he's gone . . .

Grandad patted her arm. He could tell when she was thinking about Dad. ‘Life goes on, lovely,' he said. ‘People get up, clean their teeth, make friends, have fun. They've got to if they're going to survive.
We've
got to.'

‘I'm so sorry. Have you been waiting long?'

A woman had appeared from a door behind the counter. She was about Grandad's age with soft grey hair pulled back in a bun and a face that lit up when she smiled. Her accent was only very slight when she spoke English, but this didn't stop Grandad addressing her in the special voice he kept for foreigners.

‘I have two rooms booked!' he shouted. ‘Singles! One for myself! And one for my granddaughter!'

Rose looked at her feet. A small smile played around the woman's mouth as she checked the computer.

‘Ah yes,' she said. ‘It's Mr Thompson, isn't it? And Rose.'

Rose relaxed. The woman seemed so normal, so
nice
. She was silly to be afraid of this place.

‘Just for the one night, yes?' the woman continued, reaching for their room keys. ‘Have you come to visit the battlefields? Look for the grave of a relative?'

‘My uncle,' said Grandad, forgetting to use his foreigners' voice. ‘George. My dad always wanted to come – to say goodbye, you know. But he never made it. So we've come instead.'

The woman nodded. ‘It's important, I think,' she said. ‘To pay your respects to the past.' A faraway look came into her eyes. ‘Here in Ieper we live with the past. The present is just a thin covering. Scratch it and the past reappears.'

For a second, no one spoke.

Angel passing over
, thought Rose.

It was Grandad who broke the silence. ‘You speak very good English!' he said. ‘If I may say so. Very good indeed.'

‘Most of our guests are from the English-speaking world,' the woman replied, with a smile. ‘British, like you. Canadian. Australian. They all come to visit their people.'

‘Their people?'

‘The ones that never went home.'

In her mind's eye, Rose saw them, all those young men. She saw their sepia-coloured faces, their sad eyes, and felt their cold hands reaching out to touch her.

The woman pushed the keys across the counter. ‘Breakfast is served in the restaurant between seven and nine-thirty. I hope you enjoy your stay.'

Rose nudged Grandad, who seemed to have gone into a bit of a trance. Perhaps he was thinking about George, the uncle that never went home.

He shook himself. ‘Sorry, love. Ghost walked over my grave.'

The Belgian woman looked puzzled. ‘Ghost . . .?'

‘What? Oh, sorry, it's just an expression.' He took the keys. ‘Thank you. Mrs, er—?'

‘Muriel,' she said. ‘Your room is number six at the top of the stairs, Mr Thompson—'

‘Brian,' Grandad corrected her.

‘Brian.' She smiled and turned to Rose. ‘And I've given
you the room at the very top of the building because your legs are younger than those of your grandfather. I think you'll like it.'

As Grandad turned to go, Rose put a hand on his arm. ‘What about . . .?' she hissed, jerking her head towards the front door.

‘Oh yes,' he said and turned back to the hotel owner. ‘Excuse me, Mrs – um –
Muriel
?'

Muriel looked up from her computer screen. ‘Yes?'

‘We saw a little dog outside. Don't know if you've spotted him around the place? Rose here took a fancy to him and we were wondering if he's a stray.'

Muriel looked puzzled. ‘Stray?' She'd obviously not heard the word before.

‘Lost,' explained Grandad. ‘No owner. Homeless. Sad—'

Rose hoped he'd stop before he started on an impression of a stray dog. It was the sort of thing he'd do. Luckily Muriel interrupted.

‘Ah!' she said. ‘I understand. But no, I don't think so. I have not seen any lost dogs around here. What does he look like?'

Grandad shrugged. ‘Smallish,' he said. ‘Black and white . . .'

‘Really really cute with big eyebrows and a beardy bit on his chin,' Rose broke in. ‘He's the kind of dog that looks like he's grinning at you.'

Muriel smiled. ‘I can see he made quite an impression.'

‘He did, he's lovely!' said Rose. ‘I'll check he's still there.'

She hurried to the door. Outside in the not-square square the schoolkids were drifting back towards their coach. But there was no sign of the dog. Rose was surprised at how
disappointed she felt.

‘Never mind, Cabbage.' Grandad had joined her at the door. ‘He's probably gone home for his dinner.'

Rose bit her lip and nodded. She felt stupidly close to tears.

‘We'll keep an eye out for him, though,' he patted her arm. ‘Just in case.'

Muriel was right – Rose did like her room. It was a bit of a struggle getting up all the stairs with her suitcase (there was no lift) but it was worth it. It was the only one on the third floor, and it had sloping ceilings, a picture of some blurry poppies on the wall and a view across the square. Outside, the teacher was counting his students as they scrambled back on to their coach, and some elderly tourists wearing rainproof jackets in various shades of beige were looking doubtfully at a restaurant menu.

She texted Dad:

This city is weird old but not old will send photo x

She held up her phone to the window and took the photo. The teacher followed the last of the schoolkids on to the coach and slammed the door. One of the elderly tourists put up an umbrella.

Rose checked the image on her phone.

And then she checked it again.

Something wasn't right.

The square was there, looking just as not-square as usual, with its shops and restaurants. But where was the coach? The schoolkids? The elderly tourists?

Rose looked out of the window. Maybe the angle was a bit funny, and the coach had driven away faster than she thought. But no, the coach was just leaving the square now.
And she could see the tourists heading off to look at another restaurant.

But they weren't in the photo.

She looked at it again. You could make out a few people. But they weren't the ones she could see from the window. They definitely weren't. There was a man on a bicycle. A woman in a longish skirt, holding a child's hand. An old lady with a scarf over her head, carrying a basket of vegetables. But hang on, wasn't that . . .?

It looked like him.

It was.

The dog was there, in the photo, sitting outside the hotel, looking up at her window. Looking
at her.

She stared at her phone. And while she was trying to make sense of what had happened, she heard a single bark. It was a quiet bark, polite almost, as if to attract her attention.

Rose looked up from her phone and out of the window. And there he was, sitting on the pavement, looking up at the hotel, just as he was in the photo. But if the dog was in the photo then why weren't the schoolkids? Or the tourists?

What was going on?

B
y the time Rose got out into the square, the dog had gone. Grandad was there, though, talking to Muriel and struggling to control an unfolded tourist map from the hotel which was threatening to blow away. Rose watched them, their grey heads close together over the map, until Grandad looked up and saw her. He had a red rose in his buttonhole.

‘What's with the rose, Grandad?'

‘What? Oh, this.' He looked down at it. ‘Bought it from the flower shop over there. It's for Uncle George. Not that appropriate for a soldier boy, I know, but roses was all they had, it being Valentine's tomorrow. And the price!'

‘Did Uncle George like roses?'

‘I dunno. Can't turn up empty-handed, though, can we? Not after all these years. Muriel reckons we can walk.'

‘Walk?'

‘To the cemetery.'

‘Your grandfather tells me his uncle is buried at Essex
Farm,' said Muriel. ‘It's not too far away.'

‘Essex Farm?' said Rose. ‘That doesn't sound very Belgian.'

‘They have kept the English names of many of the important sites,' Muriel explained. ‘The ones given to them by the British soldiers: Tyne Cot, Lone Tree . . .'

‘Hellfire Corner,' added Grandad, with relish.

‘The cemetery's not far,' said Muriel. ‘Just out of the city. You can walk along the canal.'