A feeling of intense discomfort.
Wilbur looked down and saw his clothes and tanned youthful limbs begin to flicker. He could see the green velvet seat where his denim-clad legs should have been. Blinking on and off. He was like a lightbulb that had been left on too long. But that wasn’t the issue. The issue was the feeling.
An intense claustrophobia.
Astuckness.
When he tried to stand up he felt like he was in a straitjacket he couldn’t get out of. His mind writhed and wriggled but he stayed steadfast within his seat, within his now itching, restless, burning body. He was – undeniably, indisputably, improbably – stuck.
Agnes walked down the aisle and shook her head. ‘Oh dear, Old Bean. You are in quite the pickle there, aren’t you?’
‘What’s … going on?’
‘InThe Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler writes about how the deadliest traps are laid by no one but ourselves. His masterpiece, in my opinion. Even Miss Graham would agree with that … Now, I am the truth of the universe, yet I also contain the essence ofMrs Agnes Deborah Amaryllis Bagdale. I do sincerelycare.And you are quite a frustrating creature to care for, I have to say.’
‘Please, Mrs Bag— Agnes … try and help me.’
She sighed disapprovingly. ‘The only way you can escape this feeling, the only way you can break this curse, is to stand up and face what happened.’
‘I can’t face this.’
‘That is right. You never could, Old Bean. But now you have to. You must leave the train or you will feel like this for ever.’
‘Please. Just stop this feeling.’
‘Only you can do that.’
‘How do I stand up and leave the train?’
Agnes sighed. ‘By knowing it is way past time.’
27 July 1964
The Ghost knew he had to do it, to face it, and yet it felt almost impossible. It was, he realised, one thing to live through pain as it comes to you, but another thing to knowingly step off a train and revisit it. But he closed his eyes and did it. He stepped off the train and, opening his eyes again, stepped into City Hall and found himself surrounded by screams and music and chaos.
His spectral form seemed to be overlapping with four or five living, bouncing bodies at any one time.
The crowd was wild.
The Rolling Stones were doing a Chuck Berry song on stage, Mick Jagger in a white shirt with checkered trousers leaning into a long-fringed Brian Jones, who was jabbing away at his guitar. There was sweat and cigarette smoke and hysteria in the air. And then the Ghost felt it, even though he knew this was where he had been heading. He was swamped by the dread of what this was. Of whatnightthis was: 27 July 1964. The summer before he was due to start Oxford.
Maybe, he muttered to himself,it won’t be the whole thing. Maybe it will just be the concert and end there.
This was the first night that City Hall had decided to have a concert without seating on the main floor. The crowd was jostling and pushing and there were Wilbur and Dougie right in the middle.
Mods, rockers, and everything in between.
Dougie was already drunk and tilting like a tree in a storm. He was wearing rather elegant pleated trousers and a dubiously expensive-looking grey turtleneck. Wilbur was dressed in a shirtdone up to its top button. Unlike his brother, he looked a little tight and nervous. The Ghost remembered why. It was because he was already regretting talking Dougie into this. Wilbur had wanted to see the band and so had talked him into going with him. He thought it would be good, to buy him a ticket. He wanted to make more of an effort with his brother, after a short stretch in prison. But also he thought it would be a way to tell him that he had got into Oxford. He knew that wasn’t going to go down well. And, in truth, it didn’t.
When Wilbur had told him in the pub across the square he’d downed his pint and ordered another without saying anything. A stronger one. A Worthington’s. Then one more of the same.
‘Dougie? Dougie? Why aren’t you talking?’ Wilbur had asked.
Then, when he had drunk enough, Dougie’s mood changed.
He turned and stared at his little brother with manic exuberance. ‘Right, lad. Let’s have it. Forget all that Oxford stuff,’ he said. ‘Let’s just celebrate freedom. Let’s get to this concert.’
Wilbur nodded. ‘Yeah. That sounds good.’
