Forest Ghost by Graham Masterton Page A

a bright summer dress with red-and-yellow flowers on it, and red Minnie Mouse shoes. Jack always thought that you can take the woman out of the Ukraine, where Nina’s family had originally come from, but you can never take the Ukraine out of the woman. Her parents had brought her up speaking Ukrainian, and with Jack’s father she had always spoken Polish, so even though she had been born and been brought up in Chicago, she spoke English like an immigrant. She was always coming out with sayings like, ‘A woman is not harmonica, for a man to toss aside when he finish play!’
    ‘Jack! Alexis!’ she called out, lifting up both of her arms. She never called her grandson ‘Sparky’. He had been christened Alexis after her father, whose somber mustachioed photograph hung in her hallway, and she never allowed him to forget it.
    ‘Hallo,
mamo
,’ said Jack. ‘How have you been?’
    ‘Oh … no so bad. Nobody come to see me. But no so bad.’
    ‘I came to see you only a couple of weeks ago.’
    ‘Your sister no come.’
    ‘Anya lives in California now,
mamo
. Apart from that she’s very busy.’
    ‘All the same she could call. What is wrong her finger, can’t call?’
    They went inside, to the open-plan living room. Considering how traditional her dress was, his mother’s house was furnished in a very sparse, modern style, with plain white walls and white carpets and glass and chrome furniture. The only concession to tradition was an icon of Our Lady hanging by the fireplace. Jack walked through to the dining area, and looked out at the garden. He could see the lake glittering behind the trees, in the same way that the white thing had flickered behind the trees at Owasippe.
    ‘So, how you?’ his mother asked him.
    ‘I’m OK,’ he told her. ‘On Thursday I met this really interesting Polish lady. Maria Wiktoria Koczerska, that was her name. I thought about phoning you and telling you about her, but then I thought, no, it would be better if I told you in person.’
    Sparky had already sat down on his grandmother’s large white leather couch, and had opened up his iPad. He had told Jack that he was drawing up a new star chart for him.
    ‘You want beer? How about you, Alex? Dr Pepper? I fetch cake.’
    ‘It’s okay,
mamo
, we had breakfast only a half-hour ago. Let me tell you about this Maria Koczerska.’
    ‘You’re sure you don’t want beer? Let me fetch cake anyhow.’
    ‘
Mamo
, she found out what happened to great-grandfather Grzegorz, during the war. She found out how he died.’
    Nina Wallace promptly pulled out one of the chrome and white-leather dining chairs, and sat down. ‘How she know that? Agnieszka’s family never knew. Her mother always say to me, my grandfather Grzegorz was very famous musician, but he stay in Poland when the Germans come, and disappear. Nobody
ever
know what happened to him. So how this Koczerska woman know? I don’t believe her!’
    ‘
Mamo
, why are you always so suspicious? I haven’t even told you what she said yet.’
    ‘Because you good-looking, widower, got plenty of money, run restaurant. She get her hooks into you with some bull-cock story!’
    ‘She’s older than you are,
mamo
, by a mile!’
    ‘So? Old women like money, too, and men! That Mrs Lucas, across the street, she is seventy-five! But every week the fellow who mow her grass, he goes inside for extra payment!’
    ‘Come on, you don’t know that. He probably goes inside just to wash up.’
    ‘Huh! He always come out with such big smile.’
    Jack said, ‘Maria Koczerska was sent a diary that used to belong to her great-uncle during the war. Her great-uncle was good friends with Grzegorz Walach. It turns out that they were hiding in the Kampinos Forest, north-west of Warsaw. In November of 1940, they committed suicide.’
    Jack’s mother stared at him in disbelief. ‘
Fwofff!
’ she said, flapping her hand. ‘This woman is telling you bull-cock story!’
    ‘I’ve seen the diary for myself.