Ghost Song

by Rayne, Sarah

  Shona had forgotten about the biscuits. She went quietly back to bed and lay awake for a long time, thinking about what she had heard. A charming monster, her grandfather had said. We were all fooled. And then he made that remark, in that peculiar voice, about a normal life.

  Anna. It must be Anna they had been talking about. Yes, of course it was. Anna was the charming monster who had fooled them all—except that Anna had never fooled Shona, not for one minute. Shona knew exactly what Anna was—she was vain and selfish and evil. A charming monster, that was what her grandfather had called her, and Shona thought that described her Aunt Anna very well indeed.

  It was not long after this that Anna told Shona to drop the ‘aunt’.

  ‘So ageing,’ she said with her laugh people said was musical, but which Shona thought stupid. ‘You make me feel about a hundred when you call me Aunt Anna. Or maybe I should get a lorgnette and an ear trumpet and talk like Edith Evans.’ She put on a deep warbly voice when she said this, and looked about her, clearly waiting for everybody to fall about in admiration.

  The really strange thing—the thing Shona could never understand—was that everybody did fall about in admiration. Even people you would expect to disapprove, liked Anna. They all said it must be wonderful for Shona to have this lively, pretty aunt who did modelling and such like—how exciting—and in a few years Shona would be able to go up to London with Anna. Even her grandfather, who had talked about Jezebels when Mona Cheesewright came to do the spring cleaning wearing a shocking-pink jumper one day, never seemed to mind the vivid clothes Anna wore, or the startling make-up. Mother said she did not know where Anna got the ideas for such things, but even Mother sometimes admired a lipstick or a new hair-style. Neither of them seemed to mind, either, when Anna played loud music on the radio or the radiogram, or when she went to parties and came home in the middle of the night, and made plans to buy her own car—a bright red sports car, she said, was what she wanted, and a man she knew in London was going to look one out for her. (Mona Cheesewright, hearing this, said, ‘And where will she get the money for that, I wonder,’ in a voice that made Shona think of the hard sour little apples that fell in the orchard.)

  That summer there was a music competition in a nearby town; it was an important event and Shona’s class sang ‘Golden Slumbers’ as their school’s entry. Shona had not thought her grandfather would let her go to the competition—he thought if you went more than two miles beyond Moil you were going to places of sin—but he had seemed to think a twelve-mile journey in a coach, in company with twenty other girls and four teachers, was permissible. He even came along to watch, sitting in the front row with Mother and Anna. He wore his best suit and Mother had a neat navy two-piece with a nice silk scarf and Shona was pleased with them both; it was embarrassing if your family did not look right in front of your school friends. The trouble was that Anna did not look in the least right: when Shona saw what she was wearing she was horrified. Anna had on a trouser suit with extremely tight, calf-length trousers over high-heeled boots, a matching waistcoat, and a shirt cut like a man’s. The trousers clung to her bottom which Shona thought very rude, and people stared which was annoying.

  Shona’s class won the competition which they agreed was brilliant, really great, especially since ten schools were competing and some had come all the way from York. Shona was the one chosen to go onto the platform to accept the cup for her school and everybody clapped. This practically made it Shona’s own day. All the teachers would be very pleased and there might even be a piece in the newspaper with a photograph. She would ask her mother to lend her the little handbag mirror to tidy her hair just in case.

  But there were no photographs and no pieces in the paper, and afterwards everyone crowded round Anna and admired her clothes, and hardly anybody talked about the competition or the cup or how nicely Shona had gone up onto the platform and shaken hands with the judges in a proper grown-up way. They were all more interested in that stupid show-off Anna in her rude trousers. Even the teachers said things like, ‘How wonderful you managed to find time to come along, Miss Ross,’ as if they thought the whole thing was really beneath Anna’s notice. One of them said, ‘My word, where on earth did you find such an outfit and those boots ! You didn’t buy any of those in this part of Yorkshire, I’ll be bound.’ Girls in Shona’s class came up to her and instead of saying well done on collecting the cup, said what a smashing aunt she had; they had never seen anything like those fantastic clothes, and was it true she was going to be in Cosmopolitan modelling? Fathers and brothers stared at Anna’s bottom. It was horribly embarrassing and it was the worst disappointment Shona had ever had and it was all because of Anna who was nothing but a monster—her grandfather had said so.

  She lay awake for a long time that night thinking about it all, thinking how Anna had stolen the attention, just as she always did.

  It was astonishing to Shona that Grandfather could be frightened of anything, but he had sounded frightened of Anna that night. He had seemed worried that he and Shona’s mother might not always be able to control Anna—that one day Anna might do something really terrible and wicked. Grandfather was even making plans for after he died, telling Mother to send for someone called Elspeth to help her. Grandfather’s idea of what was wicked covered a great many things—Shona knew that—but it still sounded as if Anna was really bad. A charming monster, Grandfather called her.

  Shona was starting to feel sleepy by this time, but just before she tumbled over into sleep, she suddenly thought how extremely pleased her mother and her grandfather would be and how very good it would be for Shona herself if the charming monster—vain, selfish, hateful Anna—was no longer around.

  If she was to die.

  The trouble was Shona was not sure how hard it was to kill someone. People on television made it look easy, but probably it was not. If you wanted to kill spiders or beetles you just stamped on them, but you could not stamp on a whole person. Nor could you sneak up with a hammer or an axe to bash them over the head, because you would be seen and people like Mother and Grandfather would want to know why you were creeping round with hammers. Shona was not sure if she could actually bash Anna hard enough to kill her, and anyway there would be a lot of blood everywhere which would be horrid, as well as it going over Shona herself and being difficult to get rid of afterwards.

  So how else could a person be killed? There were a lot of things Shona would not be able to do, mostly because Anna was bigger and stronger, but also because Anna was grown up. But there must be something.

  Over the next few days she thought and thought. Whatever she decided on would have to be done without anyone knowing or seeing, which was another thing that was difficult because she was not often left on her own for very long spells. Mother took her to school and fetched her back each day, and she was almost always around, watching to be sure Shona did her homework, calling her to help with some dusting or a bit of gardening, or to help with the washing-up. If it was not Mother, it was Grandfather, wanting to know about her school work and asking if she would fetch a book from his study, or find his slippers or his reading glasses. It was difficult to make a plan to kill somebody when you were always being asked to fetch reading glasses or plant lobelia or help the Cheesewrights wash up.

  Rather surprisingly, it was the Cheesewrights who gave Shona the solution. Edna had asked her cousin—the one who was always going to mend the creaking floor-boards—to let them have something to get rid of the rats in the outhouses at Grith. A positive plague of them there were, said Edna, chopping parsley as fiercely as if it were the rats themselves. Mona said rats were nasty disease carrying vermin, and their cousin was bringing a tin of something called Rat-Banish to deal with the horrid things. What you did, said Mona, you put the stuff down and then went away, and the rats came out and ate up the Rat-Banish which they thought was food. But eating it made them very thirsty so they went off to find water. Once they drank the water, the poison started to work and they died. Ver
y satisfactory, said Mona, and there would be no nasty rat bodies lying around for folks to clear away. Edna said they could not be doing with rat bodies, and told Mona to put on the broad beans, because Mr Ross was very particular about broad beans being correctly cooked.

  The Rat-Banish, when the cousin brought it, was in a big round tin with a huge scarlet skull and crossbones on it, and POISON! in even bigger letters. That was so no one could eat it by mistake, said the cousin, although Shona thought you would have to be pretty stupid to eat something out of a tin with a scarlet skull and crossbones. Anyhow, said the cousin, tapping the tin, this would put paid to the evil little bu— Pardon, to the nasty little creatures. You did not need much: a good dessertspoonful on the floor of the potting shed and you would be rid of the rats for good.

  Shona was not allowed to help put the Rat-Banish in the potting shed on account of it being dangerous, but she helped the Cheesewrights find a pair of old gardening gloves for the cousin to wear. Edna said you could not be too careful and the gloves would be burned afterwards. The cousin said they would have a bit of a bonfire: it was romantic, was a nice bonfire. He dug Mona in the ribs and winked when he said this, and Mona said, ‘Oh get off with you, our Ted.’ Edna said they all knew what a one Ted was with the girls but they did not want vulgarity, thank you very much, and Ted went meekly back to his poison.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  SHONA THOUGHT FOR A long time about the rats who were going to eat poison without knowing. Would they die screeching and squirming? Or would they just fall down and lie stiff and lifeless?

  Would something that killed rats kill a person and would that person screech and squirm? When she thought about Anna screeching and squirming—perhaps still wearing the rude trousers and the boots she had worn to the music competition—Shona was quite pleased.

  She waited until Thursday afternoon. Once she got home from school she was supposed to do her homework. The Cheesewrights did not come to Grith on Thursdays, so this was the day her mother fussed about in the kitchen, cooking the evening meal. She spent hours on it. When Shona had her own house she would not spend hours cooking meals and then washing up the dishes afterwards; she would pay someone to do it for her or she would go out to restaurants all the time.

  Anna was off out somewhere—when Anna was at Grith she was almost always off out somewhere—and Grandfather was in his study, pretending to do a crossword from The Sunday Times.

  All this meant Shona was on her own for at least an hour. She put on a pair of old woollen gloves that could be lost somewhere afterwards—no one would bother about a crummy pair of gloves—and went out to the potting shed, careful not to be seen from any of the windows. The potting shed was small and dark and secret-feeling. It smelt of compost and wood. The tin of Rat-Banish was on a high shelf so it could not be knocked over by mistake. The shelf was too high for Shona to reach, but there were some big old flower pots in the corner: she dragged one across the floor and climbed onto it. Then she reached up and, cupping her hands around the fat tin, lifted it down. Ted Cheesewright had used the edge of a screwdriver to lever up the lid and Shona did the same, being careful not to spill any of the contents. The lid stuck a bit then came up with a horrid sucking noise.

  She had taken a plastic bag from the kitchen drawer and the metal scoop which Mona sometimes used for baking Grandfather’s drop scones. The scoop could be lost along with the gloves and Grandfather would have to do without his drop scones until another was bought.

  She had not known what the Rat-Banish would look like, and she had not known, until this minute, whether it would look like any of the food they ate at Grith—in particular any of the food Anna ate. If it looked grungy or if it was a sticky grey mess the plan would not work, because Anna was not going to eat any kind of grey grungy stuff and Shona would have to think of another way of killing her.

  But as soon as the lid came off she knew it was all right. The poison was straw-coloured—little pellets and wisps and seeds—and it looked almost exactly the same as the muesli Anna ate for breakfast each morning—the muesli which no one else at Grith ever touched. Shona took four scoops of Rat-Banish and tipped them into the bag. Enough? Ted Cheesewright had said one dessert-spoonful was plenty for the rats, so this much should be enough for one person. She sealed the bag with the plastic tie, stuffed the gloves and the scoop into a flower pot so she could come back later to bury them in the garden, then went back to the house.

  Her mother had stopped banging around in the kitchen and Shona could hear her upstairs. She went cautiously into the kitchen, which was empty, unless you counted the smell of stew. Listening for the sound of her mother coming back downstairs, Shona went across to the larder, which had marble shelves and floor. Here was the screw-top canister where the muesli was kept. The Cheesewrights were careful about storing things in jars and canisters on account of the paper and cardboard packets sometimes getting soggy at the corners because of the larder being a bit damp. Anna’s muesli did not get soggy at the corners because of the canister, but it would get a lot worse than soggy after today. Shona tipped the bag so the contents poured out, replaced the lid, and shook the canister.

  As she went back to the potting shed to get rid of the gloves, scoop and bag, she wondered how long it would take before Anna worked her way down to the poisoned bits of muesli.

  Coming out of the potting shed she suddenly felt very odd as if something might have come tumbling down from a roof and smacked her very hard on the top of her head. For a moment there was a really bad pain, as if her skull had been wrenched into two separate pieces. She thought she was going to be sick because there was the same feeling of panic you got when you were going to be sick, but after a few moments this went away. By the time she got back to the kitchen door, the being sick feeling and the head split in two feeling had gone, although she thought one of the Moil fogs must have come rolling in without her noticing, because everything seemed misty and sounds were muffled.

  Her hands were a bit dusty and the front of her jumper had dry earth on it as if she had been gardening. Shona looked at this in puzzlement for a long time, because she could not think how it had got there. She did not remember doing any gardening today: it was not something you did on dark November afternoons. Perhaps she had been out to the potting shed and forgotten about it—yes, that must be it. Mother must have wanted one of the plant pots for her African violets; probably later she would say: Shona, did you fetch the plant pot, or the gardening apron, or the bundle of twine, or whatever it might be, and then Shona would remember.

  She washed her hands and brushed the dry earth from her jumper, and went into the dining room to do her homework. While she was working out the sums which were tonight’s task the misty feeling came back, making it quite difficult to do them properly. Mother did not say anything about sending her out to the potting shed, and Shona still could not remember why she had been outside, or how she had got earth on her jumper.

  The next morning when she woke up the mist was still there, and it seemed to have got inside her head as well, because she felt as if it was stuffed with cotton wool. Perhaps she was going to get measles—two people at school were away with measles. But she ate her breakfast as normal, porridge and toast and a mug of milk. She and her mother always had breakfast together, then if it was a nice day they set out to walk to the school at half past eight; if it was raining or cold they did not need to leave until fifteen minutes to nine because they went in the car.

  Today was Friday, so everyone at school was talking about the weekend. There was a birthday party on Saturday afternoon with a conjurer and everyone was to wear fancy dress. Shona had been invited to the party, but her mother had not thought it a good idea, so she was not going.

  Mother collected her as usual at three thirty, bringing the car because it was raining. She looked a bit strange: her eyes were red as if she had been crying and she drove jerkily, as if she did not much care if they landed in a ditch. But when Shona said, ‘Is anyt
hing the matter?’ she at once said, ‘No, nothing. Well—as a matter of fact, I have a bit of a headache. Nothing much—I’ll take some aspirin when we get home.’

  When they got home, her mother made toast in the kitchen—Shona usually had scrambled eggs or toast and honey when she got home from school. Mother toasted the bread and got out the jar of honey, and then she said, in a peculiar voice, ‘Shona, your Aunt Anna won’t be coming to Grith any longer.’

  Aunt Anna. It took Shona a moment to think who Aunt Anna was. Oh yes, Anna. She said, ‘Why not?’

  ‘She’s going to live in London. Some friends she has there—’ Here, mother broke off, and Shona saw her face working as if trying not to cry. ‘You know Anna,’ said her mother with a dreadful attempt at sounding amused, ‘a real little butterfly.’

  There was something wrong with this—Shona knew there was and it was something to do with the peculiar feeling she had had for two whole days now. The misty feeling was hovering in front of her eyes now, making it difficult to see things clearly. She could not see this Anna person properly at all—there was just a vague outline of somebody who wore clothes people stared at, and who got in the way.

  ‘But it will be better if you don’t mention it to your grandfather,’ Mother said, still intent on spreading honey on the toast. ‘He’s very upset indeed. Anna was the apple of his eye, you know.’

  ‘No, all right. Can I have an extra piece of toast and honey, please, I’m absolutely starving because we had arithmetic today and it’s really hard, arithmetic.’

  While she was eating the toast and honey, her mother said, ‘I think you should have an early night, tonight. You look very tired. And a bit flushed. You’d better have half an aspirin.’