by Steve Haynes
Sometimes, in the quiet and in the dark, the stones moved. Sometimes, they danced.
She wondered if, one day, she would learn the trick of it.
MARK MORRIS
The Scariest Place in the World
Holly resented daytime callers. Most of them weren’t to know that she worked at home, but even so, her first response when someone rang the bell or banged on the door was to grit her teeth and ball her hands into fists, as if in imitation of the tight knot of resentment she felt clenching in her belly. It had been several weeks after moving in before the old lady who lived next door had got the message. The first time she turned up she’d been clutching a dented biscuit tin containing one of those old-fashioned sponge cakes, the ones with jam and cream in the middle and a light dusting of icing sugar on top.
‘Hello, dear,’ she’d said, her thin shoulders hunched like vestigial wings within her pale green cardigan and her grey hair drifting like a wind-stirred mass of cobwebs. ‘I’m Mrs. Bartholomew. I’m your new neighbour – or rather, I suppose you’re mine, as I’ve been here for donkey’s years. I just thought I’d pop round to see how you’re settling in.’
Holly had kept the door half-closed, and positioned herself firmly behind it, as if wary the old lady might try to force her way inside. When Mrs. Bartholomew smiled, her face crumpled like a brown paper bag and her beige-yellow teeth sprang forward, reminding Holly of a row of clothes pegs on a washing line.
‘We’re fine, thanks,’ Holly had replied, responding to her neighbour’s grin with a half-hearted grimace. ‘We’re a bit busy just now. Lots to do.’
She’d begun to push the door shut. Quickly the old woman said, ‘Just the two of you are there?’
Holly had hesitated, then nodded. ‘Yes, me and my husband, Mike.’
‘No children?’
‘No.’
‘Ah.’ The old woman looked thoughtful. ‘Well, it’ll be a lovely house to bring up little ones. When the time comes.’
‘Yes.’ Holly inched the door further closed. ‘Well, thanks for coming round, but we really are busy.’
‘Oh, I brought you this.’ Mrs. Bartholomew raised the biscuit tin as though making an offering to an arcane god. ‘A little house warming present. Home-made.’
Holly had thought of the old woman’s bird’s-claw, liver-spotted hands buried in cake mix, perhaps even scraping it from under her yellowing fingernails, and her stomach turned over. Mustering a smile she’d said, ‘That’s very kind of you, but Mike and I don’t really eat cake.’
‘Oh.’ Mrs. Bartholomew looked crest-fallen.
‘Sorry,’ said Holly. ‘Well, goodbye.’
She’d pushed the door shut, and then tensed as, from the other side, she heard the old woman call, ‘Goodbye for now, dear. Perhaps I’ll pop round again when you’re less busy.’
She had popped round again. In fact, she had ‘popped round’ on at least half a dozen occasions over the next few weeks, though Holly had never allowed her over the threshold. In the end Holly had had to tell her that she worked from home, that her time was precious, that she had deadlines to meet, that she couldn’t afford to just break off whenever she felt like it. Her voice, when she’d said this, had been a little snappier than she’d intended, and she’d felt bad about it afterwards, thinking that the old woman was probably just lonely and wanted a bit of company. But still . . . her neighbour had to respect the fact that Holly needed to make a living. She had to understand that just because Holly was at home all day it didn’t mean that her time was her own to squander on coffee and local gossip. And when Holly did get time to herself, in the evenings, she wanted to spend it with Mike – which was natural, wasn’t it? They had things to do on the house, after all, plans to discuss.
She soothed her conscience by promising herself that at some point, when things had settled down and they were more on top of the situation, she would call on Mrs. Bartholomew and say hello properly. She would. But just now she was too busy, too preoccupied. And besides, if the old lady had lived on the street for donkey’s years, then surely she had other friends to call on? It wasn’t as if Holly and Mike ought to feel responsible for her in any way.
Which was why, when the knock came on the front door one Tuesday morning, just as Holly was dropping a camomile teabag into the flip top bin in the kitchen and trying to structure the next sentence of her latest article in her head, she felt that familiar knot in her belly tightening once more. Who was this now? Surely not Mrs. Bartholomew again? Perhaps it was one of those ex-prisoners selling shoddy and over-priced household wares from a leather holdall – the ones who always made her feel nervous. Or just someone delivering a parcel. Mike was always ordering himself the latest gadgets online. She’d told him to have them delivered to his work address so that she wouldn’t be disturbed during the day, but sometimes he forgot.
Pushing open the kitchen door, steaming mug held before her like a weapon, she looked to her right, moving her head slowly, a little fearful of making a sudden move and drawing attention to herself. She didn’t think whoever was standing outside would be able to see her, but you never knew. After all, she could see the caller through the stippled glass panel of the front door – or at least, she could see a vague dark shape with a pinkish blob on top.
She hovered a moment, willing the caller to go away. If it was someone with a parcel he’d put an attempted delivery slip through the letterbox, whereupon she could rush up to the door and open it before he’d reached the end of the drive, claim she’d been preoccupied with some household chore and hadn’t been able to get to the door in time.
But the caller didn’t put a note through the door. Instead he knocked again. Three quick taps, timid but insistent. If she’d been upstairs, sitting at her desk, she might have ignored it, but she was damned if she was going to stand in her hallway all day, feeling trapped.
With a grunt of exasperation she marched up to the front door and opened it. Standing outside was a thin young man in a dark jacket, jeans and a white T-shirt with some sort of fuzzy, black-lettered slogan on it that Holly could neither read nor identify. He looked like a student – bony wrists, thick mop of fashionably tousled hair, insipid expression.
‘Yes?’ she said sharply.
‘Hi,’ he said with a vague smile.
Holly didn’t smile back. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Er . . .’ The young man looked ill at ease. He wafted a hand vaguely. ‘This is a bit weird, but . . . I used to live here. A long time ago. I was in the area, so I thought. . . well, it was just a whim really. I just got an urge to see the old place. The house where I grew up.’ He grimaced. ‘I haven’t been back in . . . I dunno . . . nearly twenty years? My name’s Rob, by the way. Rob Norton.’ He nodded at the side wall of the house next door. ‘Is Mrs. Bartholomew still there?’
‘Yes,’ Holly said.
Rob Norton smiled. ‘That’s good. It’s nice to know that some things never change.’
Holly narrowed her eyes. ‘When did you say you lived here?’
‘I didn’t. The 70s. I was born in ’78. We lived here till I was eighteen.’ Nodding at the expression on Holly’s face, he said, ‘I know what you’re thinking. I get it a lot. But I’m older than I look.’ He gestured vaguely at the house. ‘Any chance I could have a quick look round?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Holly quickly. ‘I’m very busy. I’ve got a deadline to meet. I’m a journalist.’
He pressed the palms of his hands together, as if in prayer. ‘Please. Just five minutes. Two even. It’s been such a long time since I’ve been back, and I don’t know when I’ll be in the area again.’
‘How do I know you’re who you say you are?’ Holly asked.
Rob Norton flourished a hand almost triumphantly at the house next door, like a stage compere introducing a popular act. ‘You can ask Mrs. B. She’ll vouch for me. She knew me from when I
was a baby.’
Holly pictured it all in an instant, saw immediately how protracted and awkward the situation would become. They would knock on Mrs. Bartholomew’s door, and the old lady would answer it. And when she clapped eyes on her old neighbour her face would light up with incredulity and delight. No doubt there’d be a joyous reunion, a babble of questions. Mrs. Bartholomew would invite them in for a cup of tea, and Holly would have to play the killjoy, the party pooper, would – as usual – have to plead the pressure of work and deadlines. So she’d come home, and Rob would probably stay at Mrs. Bartholomew’s for a bit. And even though Holly wasn’t with them, she’d be unable to settle to her work, because she’d be on edge, waiting for Rob to come back, knowing not only that at some point she’d be disturbed by him again, but also that next door they’d probably be talking about her – Mrs. B telling Rob how unfriendly she was, how un-neighbourly, how she wished things were back to how they used to be, when he and his family lived next door.
Holly didn’t think she could stand all that – the time wasted, the disruption to her schedule, the uncomfortable knowledge that she’d be painted as the villain of the piece. And so she heard herself saying, ‘Oh, it’s okay, there’s no need for that. You can have a look round. But it will have to be quick. I do have a deadline.’
‘Of course,’ Rob said, nodding. ‘Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.’
Holly stepped back, tugging the door open reluctantly so that he could enter. He came in, looking around eagerly, peering up the hallway, towards the kitchen, his dark eyes gleaming, the light slithering across them.
Holly took another step back as he closed the door behind him, trapping the shadows and the silence in with them. Outside he’d seemed harmless, skinny, almost frail, but here, inside, right next to her, he seemed taller, rangier, lithe rather than skinny, possessed perhaps of a deceptive strength, a tensile vigour.
What am I doing? she thought. If Mike knew he’d be furious. She wondered if she’d tell him. She knew what he’d say, could almost hear him saying it:
‘How could you have been so gullible? Anything might have happened.’
You read about these things, don’t you? she thought. Strangers wheedling their way into people’s homes. And you think: serves them right for being so stupid. But it’s different when it’s you. After all, you’re not a newspaper headline; other people are. You’re too smart, too careful.
‘Where do you want to start?’ she asked.
Her voice was a little abrasive. Too abrasive? She didn’t want to antagonise him. Better to be business-like, though, rather than demure, defensive. The worst thing would be to appear vulnerable, to show any nervousness, any fear.
‘This was all wood-panelled when I was a kid,’ he said, his eyes sparkling. ‘Well, not wood-panelled . . . you know that cheap stuff? Thin. It came in sheets and you just stuck it on the wall.’ He gave a sudden laugh, little more than a hitch of breath. ‘Pretty tacky, I suppose. But people thought it was sophisticated back then.’
He sidled past her, away from her, towards the door on the left that led into the front room. ‘Is it okay if I . . .?’
She nodded, and he opened the door, pausing before he did so and taking a deep breath as he turned the handle – relishing the moment, or perhaps bracing himself for what he might see.
She guessed that the room must have changed a lot since he had lived here, been redecorated and refurnished several times over. Perhaps even rewired, the light fittings repositioned, the windows replaced. Yet he stood there looking around with a kind of wonder. She saw that he was trembling slightly.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked to break the silence.
His eyelids fluttered, as if he was about to pass out. He turned his head so slowly towards her she almost expected to hear the bones creak in his neck.
He licked his lips. ‘I can’t tell you how strange this is,’ he said. ‘It’s like . . . somewhere I’ve seen in a recurring dream. Or like I’ve been asleep for a long time and I’ve just woken up.’ He shook his head suddenly. ‘Sorry. You must think I’m a total weirdo. It’s just . . . it’s hard to explain. Everything is so familiar . . . intensely familiar. And yet at the same time it’s different. Like a new reality has been laid over the top . . . Does any of this make sense?’
Holly was a forward-looking person. She was not nostalgic. She had never had any desire to revisit the past, to explore old haunts. Last year she had been invited to a school reunion, but she had declined; the very idea of it made her shudder. Yet she found herself nodding now, to humour him. ‘It must be very odd coming back,’ she said.
‘It is.’ He swayed a little on his feet. ‘Sorry, could I have some water?’
‘Sure.’ He wasn’t the only one who found the atmosphere stifling; she was glad of the opportunity to step away from it for a moment. ‘Sit down. I’ll get you some.’
She exited the room, hurried to the kitchen, opened the cupboard above the sink and reached instinctively for a glass. Then she thought better of it and took down a plastic beaker instead.
It was becoming heavier in her hand as she filled it with water when a shadow crept across the wall and the cupboard door in front of her. She turned with a gasp, water splashing over her hand.
He was standing right behind her.
‘What are you doing?’ she cried, immediately appalled at how shrill she sounded.
He backed off, raising a hand. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you jump.’ His attention seemed suddenly caught by the room, his eyes flickering from wall to wall, floor to ceiling.
‘Strange how small this room seems now,’ he said. ‘How narrow.’
She felt oddly insulted. ‘It’s plenty big enough for us,’ she said.
He smiled crookedly. ‘I just meant . . . when I was a kid this seemed . . . not vast, but . . . bigger, you know? Everything seems bigger when you’re a kid, doesn’t it? More formidable.’ He looked out of the narrow window beside the cooker. ‘I used to think that field out there was massive. But it’s not, is it?’
‘You sound disappointed.’ Holly was still holding the beaker. Water was dripping from her hand, forming dark coins on the slate-coloured tiles at her feet.
‘Not disappointed,’ said Rob. ‘Just . . .’ he looked thoughtful, even sad. ‘The older you get, the more the world closes in on you. Stifles you.’
Holly didn’t agree. She thought the opposite was true. But she didn’t argue. She held out the beaker. ‘Do you want your water?’
‘Thanks.’ He took the beaker, but he didn’t drink. ‘Is it okay to look upstairs? My old bedroom.’
‘Sure,’ she said, and raised a hand. ‘After you.’ She hoped her reason for inviting him to go first – because she didn’t want to feel trapped with him; because she knew that if he stayed ahead of her she would always have an escape route – wasn’t as evident to him as it seemed to herself.
He turned obediently enough, and as he did so he put the beaker down on the breakfast bar that ran along the left-hand wall of the kitchen. She looked at it, thought about saying something. But why make it an issue? Was it really such a big deal that he hadn’t drunk the water he’d asked for? Maybe he’d changed his mind. People were entitled to do that. Maybe his feeling of faintness had passed.
She followed him up the stairs, though remained a good few steps behind him. She didn’t want to get close enough that he could thrust out an arm and give her a shove. He moved slowly, deliberately, as if wary of disturbing a sleeping incumbent on the floor above. Two steps from the top he halted and turned. When he spoke his voice was sombre, hushed.
‘That first door was my bedroom. Is it okay if I . . .?’
‘Be my guest.’
He ascended the last two steps, crossed the landing, pushed the door open. It was her study, so the door was already ajar. Pearly light spilled out of it as he stepped forward,
softening his outline. When she entered the room behind him he had already crossed to the window beside her desk and was looking at the paved yard below.
‘I thought you might have turned it into a garden again,’ he said. He sounded wistful, disappointed.
‘Again?’
He turned to her. His eyes were wide and soft. He looked . . . haunted? Was that too strong a word to describe the expression on his face?
‘When we came here it was a garden. Lawn. Flowerbeds. Then my parents . . . my dad really . . . began to breed dogs. Alsatians. And he had the lawn ripped out, paved over. I thought . . . I hoped . . . it might be green again by now.’
‘It was like that when we moved in,’ Holly said defensively. ‘We haven’t been here long.’
Rob seemed not to hear her. His gaze swept the poky, square room, little more than a cell really. ‘This was my room.’
‘Yes, you said.’
His eyes fixed on her. They were dark, almost black. And seemed suddenly flat. ‘You know what a little boy’s bedroom is, don’t you?’
She shrugged, discomfited. ‘What?’
‘It’s the scariest place in the world.’
A beat. A silence in which meaning thrummed and throbbed, like the air beneath an electricity pylon.
‘Is it?’ she said at last, and to her own ears her voice sounded hollow, on the verge of cracking.
He nodded. ‘He dominated us . . . my dad, I mean. He never touched us, my mum and me, but we were scared of him all the same. He had a way about him . . . a way of grinding us down . . .’
His eyes drifted away from hers, becoming unfocused. She knew he was looking into his past. ‘Some people do. There’s a force about them . . . a sense that . . . that something terrible could happen at any moment . . . do you know what I mean?’