Flesh and Blood

by Nick Gifford

  ~

  They pulled up in the semi-circular drive. In silence, they both looked suspiciously at the house, almost as if they expected it to do something.

  Vince sighed. “I’m glad I’m not a part of this,” he said. “Glad there’s none of your freakish blood in my veins.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Matt defensively.

  Vince turned to stare at him, dark eyes boring intensely out of his pale face. He grinned. “You must have noticed it,” he said. “You’re not as dumb as the rest of them. Why do you think Mike’d rather be down the pub than at home with his lovely family? Why do you think I hate the lot of them so much?”

  After a slight pause, he continued, “It’s in the blood – the family’s blighted.”

  “What do you mean?” Matt asked again.

  “The Waredens: they all crack up in the end. Gramps has been going loopy for years – if you ask me, I reckon Gran jumped: couldn’t bear it any longer. Carol’s been on the edge of a nervous breakdown for years, too. And the ugly sisters! Christ, look at the two of them. One of them a control freak, and the other one hardly speaks a word and then keeps having her turns. What a family!”

  “In the genes, you mean?”

  Vince shrugged. “Put it this way,” he said. “If it is, then at least I’m in the clear. Me and Mike are the only sane ones there.”

  It all sounded a bit extreme to Matt. Sure, he’d noticed how strange Aunt Carol’s family was – you couldn’t miss it. But if it was in the blood, then why had he and his mother missed out? Assuming they had, of course...

  ~

  He didn’t want to leave the car, he realised. He wanted to stay in his seat – let Vince go and check everything and find the things on the list while he just sat here.

  He had felt like this before, after the funeral, when they had returned from the crematorium. He could just stay here, perhaps. He could come up with some excuse that Vince would swallow.

  “You feel it too, do you?” Vince said softly, making Matt jump.

  He did, but he didn’t know what it was.

  “Some places are like that,” Vince continued. “Some people, too: they can sense a lot more about a place than you can just through sight or smell. They can sense its history, its power.”

  Neither of them moved.

  “I know about these things,” said Vince. “I’ve studied them. Some places are special, they have an energy all their own. This place is special, Matt. There are dark powers at work here.”

  Suddenly the tension became too much for Matt and he snorted with laughter. Stopping himself immediately, he looked at Vince. His cousin had gone even paler than before, with sudden dark lines etched across his forehead.

  “It’s real!” he hissed. “You wouldn’t laugh if you knew about these things like I do.”

  “Sorry,” gasped Matt. “I...”

  “I know about these things,” said Vince, through gritted teeth. “I’m genuine, man. I’m real.”

  Vince reached into the glove compartment and removed something. There was a click and suddenly a blade appeared to leap up from his clenched fist: he had a flick knife.

  Matt sank back in his seat.

  “I’m real, man. Don’t ever doubt me.”

  Vince raised the knife, then slowly pressed its blade against his forearm and dragged it back towards himself. A band of scarlet appeared across his pale skin, and all the time his eyes never left Matt’s face.

  He moved his hand and dragged the blade across his arm again, leaving a second bleeding line.

  He raised the knife again and Matt said, “Okay, okay! I believe you – okay?”

  Vince wiped the blade on his jeans, retracted it, and tossed the knife onto the back seat. “Don’t ever doubt me, you hear?” he said. “Don’t ever doubt me.”

  ~

  Matt took the keys and left Vince sitting in the car, hands gripping the steering wheel, eyes locked straight ahead.

  He had never been so scared in all his life.

  For all he had said about the others, Vince was the maddest member of that family, Wareden blood or not.

  He opened the front door, pushing a small pile of mail to one side. He squatted to gather up the letters.

  The stairs were immediately before him and he realised he was crouching in the spot where his grandmother must have taken her final breath. The stairs were steep: an old woman could easily lose her footing and fall, he supposed.

  The place was hot and airless. There was a huge polished ammonite by the door. He used it to prop the front door open.

  He walked along the corridor, trying to stay calm.

  It was only a house.

  A big, empty house.

  He pushed at the kitchen door, heart pounding. South-facing, the room was flooded with bright sunlight. He squinted around. There was nothing out of place.

  He turned, walked along the corridor and opened the next door, remembering that this was the living room where they had all gathered after the funeral. There were two fireplaces: one full of old ashes, the other long disused, housing an arrangement of dried flowers and grasses.

  He remembered the day of the funeral quite clearly now. He remembered the sherry sticking to the lining of his throat, the intense heat of the fire.

  He shook his head vigorously, as a sudden wave of nausea threatened to engulf him.

  The next room was the library, where Gran had been laid out before the funeral. It was cooler here, the atmosphere calmer.

  Atmosphere... He was letting himself get spooked by Vince’s irrational behaviour.

  He went to each room in turn, until he had been through the entire house, opening every door until he was sure everything was okay: no break-ins, no leaking pipes, nothing out of place.

  He checked his list.

  He was upstairs, so he went to the main bedroom first of all. Large chest, third drawer down, the list told him. He found the shirts, each neatly folded. He placed two in the bag he had brought and eased the drawer shut.

  Downstairs in the library, he went straight to the cupboard that held the photo albums. These were for his mother, he knew. As many as you can manage, she had scrawled on the list. The cupboard was full of them: from modern flip-over ones to heavy, old, board-covered albums with faded grey pictures pasted onto pages separated by thin, protective interleaves.

  He took four of the older-looking volumes and stacked them with the clothes bag by the front door. As he did so, he looked out to the car. Vince was still sitting in the driver’s seat, shades pushed down to hide his eyes. He was puffing casually on a cigarette.

  The last items on the list were the two books: first editions, they were in a box in the basement. Apparently Gramps had packed them up, ready to be sent off for sale, just before Gran died.

  He opened the basement door, savouring the cool, damp air that drifted out. He stepped inside, found the light switch and looked around. A flight of concrete stairs dropped away before him. The walls on either side were red brick, worn smooth by generations of use.

  He gripped the hand-rail and headed down.

  The basement opened out on his left, a low-ceilinged chamber strewn with boxes and bags and all kinds of junk. It seemed to go on forever: he couldn’t see the farthest wall – the light just faded to blackness. There was a sense of enormous space here, of great age, too. His heart was racing, he realised. He made himself calm down.

  Straight ahead of you. A brown Post Office parcel box.

  He saw it immediately, relieved that he wouldn’t have to go too far into the basement and trawl through all this debris. He stepped forward, felt suddenly dizzy and lurched towards the wall.

  What was happening?

  The bricks were cool against his cheek and suddenly he remembered his recurring dream: the high brick walls, the concrete floor. A dark presence, following him.

  He pushed himself away from the wall and tried to approach the box. It felt as if his feet were stuck to the ground, as if he was weari
ng lead shoes.

  The box. He had to get the box.

  His heart was drumming in his ears, his breathing ragged, painful.

  The heat! Why had he thought it so cool? The place was like a furnace.

  At any moment his legs would crumple and he would collapse to the ground. But he knew that if he did that he would never get up.

  He forced himself to turn, finding it easier to drag his feet back towards the stairs.

  He reached the first step and slumped forward. In this position, he hauled himself up, one step at a time.

  He had only made it to about halfway when he blacked out.

  ~

  Hands on his arms, turning him, pinching at his cheeks, slapping him. A white face like a skull looming over him, dark eyes.

  “Do you believe me now, then?”

  It was Vince.

  Matt shook the hands free, then rose to a sitting position. He was in the hallway. The box of books was at his side, even though he couldn’t remember fetching them.

  “Found you on the stairs, didn’t I?” said Vince. “Looks like you had a turn, just like Kirsty.” He looked around. “It’s this place: it gets to her, too.” He was grinning now, chuckling to himself. “Looks like you’ve got it too, then: the madness of the Waredens. Looks like you’re just as bad as the rest of them...”

  5 Gramps

  “The books?” asked Gramps, as soon as Matt entered Aunt Carol’s front room. “Did you manage to get the books?”

  Matt nodded. “The box is in the car,” he said. “I’ll bring them in, if you like.”

  Gramps’ eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips. He said nothing and Matt felt the need to fill the silence. “I got the rest of your things, too,” he continued. “The house was fine – a bit airless, that’s all.”

  Gramps was still watching him. “That place has been in the family for years,” he said. “I was born there. I bet you didn’t know that, did you?”

  Matt shook his head, although Gramps had told him the same thing only two days earlier.

  “Lunch?” said Carol brightly, sweeping past Matt into the room.

  ~

  That afternoon, Matt just had to get away, and as he left the house he felt a great weight lifting.

  Throughout lunch, Vince had sat there, watching him. He made no attempt to hide the parallel cuts on his arm and nobody commented on them. And all the time, Matt was aware of his watching eyes, his smug grin.

  Now, he crossed Bay Road by the memorial and headed down one of the zigzag paths to the Promenade.

  It was a Saturday in August and the place was seething with people. It felt good to be among so many ordinary – normal – people. Overweight parents watching their naked, overweight, toddlers paddling on the beach. Gangs of young children chasing each other along the Prom, and up and down the steep, grassy slope locals called ‘the cliff’. Old folks calling helplessly after dogs that, according to the numerous notices, should be on leads at all times, with a £50 penalty. Teenagers down on the beach in bathing costumes and long shorts, smoking cigarettes and drinking from cans of lager.

  Matt thought of his friends in Norwich. They all seemed so far away. Why would nobody tell him why they had to stay down here for so long, why his life was being messed about in this way? Nobody had consulted him about any of it: he had simply been told he was coming to Bathside with his mother.

  She hadn’t told him it would be for so long. She hadn’t told him anything, so that now he could only guess why she avoided questions about when they would go home and why his father never answered his calls.

  He’d confronted her last night and demanded to know how long they would be staying. “I’m sorry, Matt,” she had told him. “It’s not easy. Gramps... I can’t just leave. Anyway, it’s the summer and we’re by the sea: why not treat it like a holiday?”

  He found a space on the grassy ‘cliff’ and lay back. It wasn’t as hot as it had been a few days ago, but the hazy sun felt good as its rays soaked into his weary body. Closing his eyes, with the smell of the sea and the sounds of the people all about, he tried to imagine that he really was on holiday.

  Instead, he remembered Vince’s mad, staring eyes and the look – almost of pleasure, he realised – on his face as he had dragged that blade across his arm. He remembered the tension in his cousin’s voice as he had said, “I’m real, man. Don’t ever doubt me.”

  No wonder he had over-reacted. That’s what it was, he was sure. Sitting in the car on the way back to Bathside, he had thought through his experience at the house – in the basement. It was delayed shock, he was sure. He remembered how scared he had been by Vince’s actions, how he had forced it out of his mind and gone into the house. He had moved from room to room like some kind of robot: checking that everything was okay, finding the items on his list.

  And then in the basement... Had he stumbled, perhaps? Was that what had broken through his barriers and let the panic come rushing out? It was all a perfectly natural response to Vince’s warped display of bravado.

  He smiled grimly. Either that, or he was cracking up, just like the rest of his family...

  ~

  He knew something was wrong as soon as he entered the bed and breakfast on Bagshaw Terrace. There was something about it, although he didn’t know quite what it was.

  Mrs Eldridge was working in the kitchen, singing a hymn in an exaggerated, semi-operatic voice. Little Lauren was in the front room, watching one of her videos as usual. So why was he suddenly so edgy? What was it that his body had detected that his mind couldn’t quite put into words?

  He noticed the smell as he started up the second flight of stairs. A briny, pungent tang. Like old, rotting seaweed.

  Automatically, he looked down at his feet. He had been on the beach earlier, but there was nothing attached to his shoes that could have brought this smell into the house with him.

  The smell had become quite foul by the time he reached the top landing.

  His mother’s door was open and as soon as she heard him she stepped into view. Her face was pale, and he could see from the redness around her eyes that she had been crying.

  “What... what is it?” he asked.

  She pushed a hank of hair out of her eyes. “Matthew,” she said in a steady, controlled tone. “I know it’s been hard for you, but really...”

  “What?”

  “I know you must be bored out of your mind, but this is really too much.”

  “What is?” He stepped into the room, and the smell was so strong now that he nearly retched.

  “This... this macabre collecting of yours: I didn’t say anything the first time, but it’s going to have to stop, do you hear me? It’s disgusting, Matt: these things are full of germs and god knows what else, and it stinks to high heaven! I really don’t know what’s got into that mind of yours. I really don’t understand what’s got into you.”

  He still stared at her blankly, so that she stopped talking and merely pointed into the room at a carrier bag on one of the twin beds. “Just get rid of it,” she said. “Just get rid of that thing and we’ll forget all about it, okay?”

  She was clearly making a tremendous effort to be understanding and reasonable and Matt still had no idea what she was talking about.

  He went over to the bed. The stench was quite unbearable. Tentatively, he reached out for the bag and pulled it open.

  Feathers. White, grey, matted a foul, dark red. A slim red beak, half-open, a fly crawling about in the empty gape.

  It was a seagull, dead for several days, judging by the state of it, and the smell.

  Matt looked at his mother. How could she accuse him of this?

  She was staring at him, still trying to be understanding. “Where did it come from?” he asked.

  “It was there when I came in a few minutes ago,” she said. “You really should know not to do something like that.”

  “But...” There was no point arguing. She was never going to believe him: she’d already made up
her mind that he was guilty. The more he protested his innocence, the more understanding she would try to be.

  He gathered up the bag, overcoming a wave of nausea as he did so, and headed out of the room.

  ~

  He hurried out through the conservatory and into the back alley, continually aware of the thing in the bag. He turned left in the alley, and moments later was standing on the pavement of Bay Road, wondering what he was going to do.

  It had to be Tina, he knew: trying to drive them away from Bathside. Maybe it would work, he mused. Maybe his mother would be so worried about his mental health that she would want to get back to Norwich as soon as possible.

  An old man, passing along the pavement, peered at Matt and wrinkled his nose up in disgust. Matt had grown used to the foul smell, forgetting how strong it was.

  He crossed the road and walked along the top of the grassy cliff.

  After a short distance, he came to a bin and, relieved, he dumped the plastic bag inside.

  His mother was waiting back at the bed and breakfast.

  “Guess what?” she said, more relaxed now, trying to smile.

  He raised his eyebrows, still angry at her false accusation.

  “Dinner with your aunt and uncle for a change.” She studied his expression, then added, “I knew you’d be pleased.”

  ~

  A familiar scene: Gramps slumped silently in what had become his armchair, the girls sitting cross-legged on the floor slaughtering animated foes on the TV, Matt sitting at one end of the sofa staring out of the window.

  For a time, he watched the back of Tina’s head, hating every movement. Eventually, she turned and smiled at him. “Has Aunty Jill had enough yet?” she asked. “Are you going back to Norwich?”

  Matt stood up and walked out of the room. How do you handle someone like Tina? What could he possibly do that would get through to her? He remembered Vince saying that it was like living in an asylum. Matt knew exactly what he meant.

  ~