by James Barrie
THIS MONUMENT
MARKS THE GRAVE
OF
EDWARD TENNYSON
(1813-1890)
EDWARD WAS THE YOUNGER BROTHER OF THE POET ALFRED LORD TENNYSON AND SPENT THE LAST 58 YEARS OF HIS LIFE IN AN ACOMB ASYLUM
Theodore looked at Edward Tennyson’s tomb. A crucifix adorned the grey stone. Over the years the heavy tomb had sunk into the soil. If its significance hadn’t been known, the stone box would have been overgrown years ago.
Theodore creased his brow and wondered at the fragile line that separated creative genius and insanity. It was better not to think too much; nothing good could come of it. He blinked his eyes.
He looked across at the church. He got to his paws and made his way towards the church. He paused beneath the giant beech tree. There was a path that led down to Acomb Green. He watched as Jonathan appeared at the church gate. He opened it and entered the church yard. A crutch below each shoulder, he made his way up the path, swinging his broken foot in its plastic boot in front of him.
As he neared, Theodore shot out from his hiding spot and crossed to the church door, making sure that Jonathan saw him.
Jonathan followed after the cat. He hesitated in the doorway; then walked inside.
The church was empty. He called quietly for Theodore but the cat was nowhere to be seen. He recalled from his Pevsner’s guide that the church didn’t have an aisle but only transepts and the tower was on the western side.
If Penny had come inside the church, she must be hiding, he thought. He made his way along the western transept, glancing from left to right, down each pew, to make sure she wasn’t hiding in a pew.
He reached the altar, where two big brass candlesticks stood. He walked around it and then looked back along the transept. He was about to give up when he heard a faint miaow nearby. He looked to his right and noticed a small door. He walked over and pushed the door open.
There were spiral stone steps leading up the western tower. He heard a miaow from overhead.
He took a deep breath and began to climb the tower steps.
As he went up, he began to feel dizzy and sweat beaded on his forehead. He focussed on placing his crutches and his left foot squarely on each step. Sweat stung his eyes and he blinked to clear them.
Ahead he heard Theodore miaow loudly, like he was being held against his will and trying to get away.
He took another step and his head was at the same level as the belfry floor. Then he made the mistake of looking down. He placed a hand to his forehead and dropped his crutch. The crutch found its way back down the stairs, clattering to a stop on the stone floor.
He looked up and saw Penny, or who he thought was Penny. She towered over him. She was holding Theodore, one hand around his throat, the other gripping his body.
‘He brought you to me,’ she said and laughed. ‘What a clever little boy!’
She dropped Theodore onto the floor where he scrambled away.
‘You’re not Penny are you?’ Jonathan said.
She removed her red hair, revealing her own blonde hair that she’d tied back. It was Ellen, Jonathan realised.
‘You killed Penny, didn’t you?’
Ellen smiled. ‘You know I did,’ she said. ‘Like you know that I killed my mum and the dog. Two dogs actually. Oh, and my dad… but that one was an accident, so it doesn’t really count, does it?’
Jonathan took a step upwards to try to get on the same level as Ellen. But Ellen took the opportunity to kick the other crutch away from under his arm. It clattered down the stairwell to join its partner.
Jonathan took another step upwards placing his weight momentarily on his bad foot. He winced with pain and Ellen kicked him in the shoulder.
‘I think this is the end for you,’ Ellen said.
‘No!’ Jonathan shouted.
She raised her foot in the air, ready to kick him again.
Theodore chose his moment. He rushed at her other leg, throwing his whole weight against it.
Ellen lost her balance. She screamed as she fell onto Jonathan. She grabbed him and they both fell down the stairwell together.
Theodore approached the edge and peered down. He had a good head for heights: he was a cat after all.
Jonathan groaned in pain where he lay. He tried to move but was pinned to the ground by Ellen. She was lying on top of him, her chest over his stomach, her head on his chest. He squirmed below her but couldn’t get out from under her.
Then Ellen raised her head from his chest and looked him in the face. ‘That bloody cat,’ she said smiling madly. ‘He’s going to get it once I’ve finished with you…’ She got to her feet and staggered towards the altar.
Jonathan got into a crouch but couldn’t get to his feet: he had broken his other foot.
Ellen soon returned. She was holding a big brass candlestick in her right hand. She did a few practice strokes as she approached Jonathan, who was now on all fours, trying to crawl away.
She held the candlestick in the air, ready to bash Jonathan over the back of the head.
Then Theodore dropped from the belfry, his claws out. He landed on Ellen’s head and dug his claws in.
Ellen screamed and dropped the candlestick. She raised her hands and pulled the cat off her head and threw him to the floor.
Ellen picked up the candlestick again and went after the cat. She cornered him behind the altar.
Theodore cowered.
‘You are going to regret ever setting eyes on me,’ Ellen said.
She held up the candlestick, ready to strike.
Theodore closed his eyes and tensed his body.
He felt a warm liquid splash over him; it was not what he had expected death to be like.
He opened his eyes. Emily was standing in front of him, the other candlestick in her hands. She dropped it to the floor.
Ellen lay on the floor beside him. She was dead. He realised that the warm splash was blood. Her blood.
Theodore inspected his fur. It was coated with red. For Bastet’s sake, he swore.
He turned his attention back to Ellen. He noticed that tranquillity had descended across her face. In death she had found peace.
Welcome Back to God’s Own County
Ellen takes a last drag on the cigarette and drops it from her bedroom window, down the gap between the house and the shed, like she has done a thousand times or more, but this time, rather than smouldering out with the rest of the butts, the shed explodes with a bang.
Her dad Colin staggers out. He’s on fire. He stands in the middle of the lawn. He flaps his hands against his clothes, trying to put out the flames. He turns and faces the back of his house. He looks up at her bedroom window. ‘Hell,’ he shouts. ‘Hell fire!’
Ellen is 14 years old. She has unicorns and princesses on her curtains, pink and blue. She has grown out of them but her dad has promised her new curtains, yellow ones. She wonders if she’ll get the yellow curtains now.
From the bedroom next to hers, she hears Penny scream. She is three years older, about to go off to university.
Then she sees her mum run outside, wet tea towels in her hands. ‘Get down on the lawn,’ Tessa shouts at her dad.
Her dad lies down on the lawn and her mum pushes the wet tea towels against the flames and smouldering clothing. Her dad has stopped screaming and she knows he is dead. His mouth is open; his gums peeled back to show off his yellow teeth.
There is a corpse, with blackened, blistered skin, clothes burnt onto flesh, lying in the middle of a neatly trimmed lawn.
Her mum shakes out one of the tea towels. It is streaked with soot. She lays it over her dad’s face.
The tea towel has rolling green hills and winding blue streams on it, and bares the slogan: ‘Welcome to God’s Own County’.
Ellen stares down at her dad. She is too shocked to speak. Her mum is kneeling by the corpse.
Then Tessa gets slowly to her feet and turns to face the house. Her eyes are red rimmed from smoke and te
ars. Her eyebrows are singed off. She has black smudges across her face and clothes.
She points a finger up at Ellen, still standing in the window. ‘You!’ she screams. ‘You’ve killed him… It’s your fault… It’s all your fault!’
Emily bent down and closed Ellen’s eyelids.
‘What have I done?’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to kill her.’
‘Can you call an ambulance?’ Jonathan said, crawling across the floor towards them. ‘I think I’ve gone and broken my other foot.’
‘I told you not to get messed up in other people’s business,’ Emily said.
‘Please,’ Jonathan whimpered, ‘call an ambulance.’
‘You stay there,’ Emily said, her mobile phone in her hand. ‘I can’t get a signal in here.’
Theodore approached Emily and miaowed.
Emily looked down at him. ‘And you’re having a bath when we get home.’
Home, thought Theodore.
‘Yes, home,’ Emily said and began to make for the doors.
And Theodore followed her out of the church.
Stuart Turns a Corner
Wally was prodding at a fire with a stick. There was not even a whisper of smoke; the fire had gone out long ago.
Marjorie came over. ‘What’s got into you? Moping about…’
‘I’m going to miss him.’
‘Well, it was your big mouth that got him into trouble, you great big turnip.’
‘I know that,’ Walter said. ‘I should have held my tongue.’
‘You were always arguing, winding each other up.’
‘I know that,’ Walter said. ‘But we got on all right, all said and done. Now I won’t have anyone to talk to.’
‘Well you should have thought about that before you put your great big foot in it,’ Marjorie said.
Walter didn’t reply.
‘How about I get you a nice slice of quiche.’ Marjorie said. ‘That’ll cheer you up.’
‘What type of quiche have we got?’
‘How about tunkey? I think I’ve got some in the cupboard…’
‘Tuna and turkey? One of my favourites…’ he said with the beginnings of a smile on his lips.
‘I’ll go and fetch you a slice, Marjorie said. ‘And I’m sure that Stuart will be back.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Call it woman’s intuition. He’ll be back with his tail between his legs. Mark my words.’
Stuart made it as far as Scotch Corner services before he began to have misgivings.
As he dunked his shortbread in his cup of service station coffee, he thought of Dougie and Daisy. A tear came to his eye. He lifted his shortbread from the waxed paper cup. Half of it was left in his coffee. ‘Sod it,’ he said. He sat bleary-eyed for a few minutes more.
Then he took his mobile phone from his shirt pocket and began to write a message, an ode to his wife. He would win Leslie back with his words:
Oh my love is like a big thistle
From you I’ll never part
Oh my love is like a great missile
That’s aimed straight for your heart
I could never leave you, darling
I hope you understand
And I will love you always dear
I’ll always be your man
I’ll always be your man, my dear
No matter where you are
I am returning to your heart
I’m turning round this car
He pressed send and then drained his coffee.
Hamish was still in his cat carrier, strapped into the passenger seat beside him. Stuart opened up the front of the carrier and took his cat out. ‘I’ve got a treat for you, Hamish,’ he said.
He took a little plastic container of milk he had swiped from Burger King and peeled the top off.
As Hamish lapped up the milk, Stuart said, ‘We’re going home!’
Why Patrick Only Has Three Fingers
‘Who knows how long that thing had been living in him?’ Trish said.
‘Well, it’s gone now,’ Emily said. ‘That’s the main thing.’
‘A tapeworm? I mean how disgusting is that? I’m doing all the cooking from now. No more Steak Tartare for him. Everything’s going to be well done from now on.’
‘How did they get rid of it?’
‘They gave him two tablets,’ Trish said. ‘He was two hours on the toilet… It’s a wonder it didn’t break in two.’
‘That’s a lot of number twos,’ Emily said.
Trish was thoughtful for a moment; then said, ‘It’s always good to have a good clear out from time to time.’
Patrick was kneeling in front of the backdoor. He had drilled four holes, one in each corner where the cat flap was going to go. He took out the jigsaw and cut lines through the door between the holes. Once he had removed the rectangle of wood, he tried to fit the cat flap in the gap but it wouldn’t fit.
‘What’s up?’ Jonathan asked. He was sitting at the outside table in a wheelchair, both his feet clad in grey plastic boots.
‘I think we just need to straighten up this side,’ Patrick said. ‘It’s not straight.’
He picked up the jigsaw again and cut into the side.
There was a bang inside as the vestibule door was blown shut. Patrick lurched forward and the blade of the jigsaw chopped through the forefinger of his left hand. The finger flew up into the air in a spray of blood.
Theodore was also supervising the fitting of the cat flap from the edge of the lawn. He watched as the finger landed in front of him.
He wasn’t the only animal to see it.
Charlie the Chihuahua had his head poking through the bottom of the hedge. Charlie darted forwards, past Theodore and was on the finger. Theodore got to his feet as Charlie dashed back past him, Patrick’s finger gripped in his little jaws. Theodore turned and gave chase.
‘I’ve lost my finger,’ Patrick said, his hand in the air, blood running down his arm.
‘Well, where is it?’ Trish said.
‘That little dog ran off with it. The one I shut in the cool box.’
‘Well, that’ll teach you a lesson,’ Trish said. ‘Payback… You shouldn’t have shut it in the cool box.’
‘That was an accident.’
‘I could say the same about your finger.’
Just then Theodore appeared back on the lawn. In his mouth he held Patrick’s finger, now with little rows of teeth marks in it. Theodore dropped the bloody morsel at Patrick’s feet with a short miaow.
‘Look, Theo’s brought it back,’ Emily said. ‘Well done Theo! What a clever cat!’
‘Quick!’ Patrick said. ‘Get some frozen peas!’
‘I don’t think we have frozen peas,’ Emily said, opening the freezer door. ‘Will sweetcorn do?’
‘Whatever,’ Patrick said. ‘Just be quick about it. I want my finger back…’
‘Oh, stop flapping,’ Trish said. ‘They’ll soon sew it back on…’
Emily looked doubtfully at the badly mauled finger, before popping it into the bag of sweetcorn.
‘You’ll have to drive,’ Patrick said to Trish, taking the bag of sweetcorn from his daughter.
‘Well, don’t go bleeding over the seat,’ Trish said. ‘We don’t want blood on the upholstery.
After Trish and Patrick had made a hasty departure to York Hospital, Emily inspected her father’s handiwork.
‘He’s left the job half done and his tools lying around. Can you finish it?’
Jonathan wheeled himself over. ‘I can try,’ he said.
And Theodore sloped off into the garden.
He jumped up onto the roof of Wally’s shed. Wally was bent over a fire in the corner, prodding at the embers with a stick.
‘You’re never going to get that going,’ Stuart said from the other side of the hedge. ‘Not with all that there prodding you’re doing…’
‘What do you know about fires?’ Wally said.
‘I’ll tell you what I know about st
arting fires,’ Stuart said. ‘Us Scots have been starting fires since you English knew how to suck on your mother’s teat.’
‘Get away with you!’ said Wally.
Marjorie then appeared behind the two men. ‘I’ve made you a special quiche,’ she said.
In her hands she carried a plate, the quiche already cut into triangles. ‘I made it for you both to share.’
‘What kind of quiche is it?’ Wally said.
‘It’s haggis and turnip,’ Marjorie said. ‘To celebrate Stuart’s return and to make amends for your big mouth…’
‘Haggis and neeps,’ Stuart said, clapping his hands together. ‘You’d better pass me a slice over.’
‘Don’t you be taking the big bit,’ Wally said.
As the English and the Scots made friends again over quiche, Theodore heard a scratting coming from Geoffrey’s bungalow. He looked across and saw a young Golden Retriever at the doors of the conservatory.
A few moments later, the doors slid open and the young dog bounced out onto the lawn.
‘There you go, Sasha,’ Geoffrey said. ‘You have a run about.’
Theodore turned to the house behind.
It was boarded up; its former occupants, a whole family, all dead.
The police had recovered Penny Black’s scalped corpse from the bath. Then they had dug up Tessa Black’s body from her husband’s grave. The autopsy confirmed that she had died from a massive brain haemorrhage.
Theodore remembered her screaming, ‘Going to the dogs,’ and then the silence from the house that followed as Ellen pulled the curtains across.
He closed his eyes. Better not to think too much, he thought, and settled down for a nap.
April 2013 – February 2018
A Note on the Author
The author lives in a house surrounded by very high hedges.
Also published by Severus House
THE FIRST OF NINE