by Peter Benson
‘Billy!’ My mother. I watched my father’s shadow climb the wall and angle across the ceiling, before he appeared in the door, the strop hanging off his shoulder, my mother’s face, framed in the crook of his arm. Her face was flushed, she’d been telling him to tell me what was what and leave wide stripes on my body. He looked fierce, walked to where I stood, spun me round with a flick of his hand, and kicked me out of the door with a heavy boot, back into the yard. An owl screeched like ripped steel, he grabbed my hair and shouted, ‘Thieve from town! You’ll pay for this, Billy-boy.’ He shot me past the veg. garden and kicked me into the workshop.
I didn’t say a word. He shouted some more, but I got the idea that what he was doing wasn’t all he could. Suddenly, after he’d pushed me into the corner, against a stack of willow, he said, ‘Just yell!’ I looked at him when he grabbed me, slapped the strop against the wall and said, ‘Yell!’ He slapped the strop again, and again, until I yelled out. ‘Eeeyh!’ ‘Better,’ he whispered, shouting, ‘You disgrace your mother in town, you’ll not,’ (slap) ‘Eeeyh!’ ‘do it again.’
He picked me off the willow and said in the war, a boy from Glasgow, evacuated to Langport, put mothballs in his chocolate ration. Now he hated the Scottish. He said, ‘But tell your mother I let you off and it’ll be for real.’ He winked. He didn’t want to hit me. I nodded. He hit me once in the face, to make me cry, to convince my mother. He grabbed my hair again, stroked the back of my neck, pulled me back to the house, so I wouldn’t let my mother see me naked for weeks, until I thought the stripes that were never there had gone.
4
Drove House stood through the winter our chicken house blew out of the tree, the back fields around Blackwood flooded, and Dick and I saw less of each other after school; when it rained, we lost all the better ideas for things to do. One stormy night, my father came in from the rain with a bird, a Manx shearwater. It was dead. ‘Blown by the storm.’ It had died, exhausted, on a flooded moor, its last, screaming breath, the devil-bird’s cry for the lost sailor’s soul it hosted, bewildered amongst the lashing withy sets. Dying alone, far from the craggy tops of rocks amongst its brethren, where its cries had joined the cries of thousands. My father knew lots of things, and liked to prove a point. He laid the body on the floor by the stove, and found a candle.
My mother said, ‘You crazy man.’
‘You won’t be saying that in five minutes.’
‘I’ll say it till I die.’
‘You’ll see.’
‘Don’t I always?’
‘And don’t you always see that I do what I say I’m going to do?’
‘Only when you tell us what it is.’
He fetched an enamel bowl from the yard and put it on the stove.
‘What you doing?’ I whispered, standing on my toes, leaning over to look at the candle melting in the bowl.
‘I need a wick.’
‘Why?’
‘You’ll see.’
He turned the bird over with his foot, one of its legs opened, the feathers in perfect rows, a pink leg, awkward, stiff and dead.
When all the wax had melted, and the room was full of an awful smell, he took a nail, and lifted the wick out. He took the bowl away, let it cool in the storm, he was gone five minutes but came back with a length of wire, bent, with a twist at one end.
My mother watched him, and I watched him while she cooked in the room full of the smell of cabbage and wax. He took the wick and tied it in a loop to the twist in the wire.
‘Saw this in a book,’ he said.
He took the wire, the wick, and picked the bird off the floor. He pushed the wire down its throat and deep into its body, fiddled until it came loose, and arranged the wick so it stood from the beak.
‘You can burn them,’ he said, ‘like candles. They’re full of oil. Scottish do it.’
Mother went mad, not in her house, ever, was a bird going to sit on the side and burn. No. No. No. No burning birds.
So, after a meal when nothing was said, my father went to the workshop with the wicked thing; I heard the door slam shut, and watched the light go on. A minute passed. Two minutes, three, before the light went out, and another light burned.
I went to the front room while my mother was in the kitchen, looked at the floor and went back to the kitchen. While she went upstairs, I crept out of the back door, through the storm, across the yard to the workshop. My father was sitting by the window with the bird burning on the floor, its head on fire, throwing a ghastly orange light around the walls, filling the shed with clouds of thick, black smoke, and a horrible sickening smell. Spats of hot flesh popped into the air, my father sat in its light with a shallow look in his eyes, then he threw a bucket of water on the thing and we came back out of the workshop, through the storm, into the house.
Drove House stood through the winter our chicken house blew out of the tree, the back fields around Blackwood flooded, but Dick and I met on a February day, after school, in boots, to walk over. Even as we set off the sky darkened, it rained on our faces, we put our heads down and walked. We got soaked to the skin, didn’t see anything, found it difficult to believe that in weeks the moor would be bright and gay, with primroses on the banks and in the sun. What were we doing? We were walking along in the rain, crossing the last rhine by the cattle bridge, coming at Drove House from the north, towards the cold back of the building. The place smelt of decay. A bang. A piece of tin banging under the lean-to in the wind. Against the pound house piled a heap of bricks and wood, and a gate, off its hinges, at an angle to the wall. The trees in the orchard blew one way, and where the chicken house had collapsed lay broken panels and the door, still in its frame, hanging, the only piece still in the tree banging, bang bang bang. The terrible leafless trees, Dick, a yard away, looking at the remains; half a mile away, Higher Burrow, empty of sheep, with the wind whipping the grass into whirlpools; me, looking back at the house in the storm, its front door solid against the weather, the bang bang of the tin under the lean-to, the bang of the chicken house door, the third, awful thud, of a window, loose on its hinges, on the ground floor of the house, banging open suddenly, then shut.
I stared at it. Unless we’d broken a window, and forced the leaded frames with pliers, we would never have found a way into Drove House. Thud. I could see dust in the room, dark square shapes of huge furniture, I called Dick.
‘See that?’ I pointed, and the window flipped open, shut. He looked at me.
‘Great,’ he said, and started walking towards it. I caught up and pulled at his coat.
‘We can’t go in.’
‘Want a bet?’
‘But, if we … ?’
‘I’m getting out of the rain.’
He got up, climbed through the window, and dropped out of sight, the first one of us in Drove House, squatting beneath the window sill, with me standing outside, and then heaving myself up too. I squeezed in, and fell on Dick, who was crouching, looking around.
‘It smells,’ he said.
I could, I did smell it, apricots.
‘It’s marzipan, and vinegar,’ he said.
‘It’s apricots.’
He sniffed, and said it was what he thought it was, as we stood up in the room, looking around. Chairs lined one wall, and opposite, a cupboard, with a broom hanging on its latch. A half open door led into the kitchen, bang, the tin there, outside, banging against the outside of the house. We walked to a door, kicking up little spews of dust, and into the kitchen. We shivered, together, suddenly, like you suddenly do, with no control or warning. A pane of glass, loose in its frame, clinked in the room, the cold burning through our boots from the flags. I flicked my hood off, Dick did the same, we looked at each other.
‘Colder in here than it is out,’ he said, rubbing his hair and poking at a cupboard door.
‘But it’s not raining.’
I rubbed one of the windows, and peered at the rain, the sky, a huge shadow in itself.
‘Dark soon,’ I s
aid.
‘So what are we going to do?’
‘What you want to do?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘We shouldn’t be here.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well …’
Bang, the window in the room behind us banged shut, again.
‘We should go,’ I said.
‘You’re scared.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Then I’m looking around.’
‘Oh.’
‘You go back outside, if you want,’ he said.
I wasn’t used to the planning taken from my control. I had suggested we come here in the first place, now, because he was bigger, I was standing next to him while he decided what we were going to do. He left the kitchen by another door, into the corridor and up the stairs. I heard him walk into the first bedroom, his boots shaking flakes of paint off the ceiling. He wasn’t going to be without me. I ran upstairs, onto the landing. The arrangement was similar to Blackwood’s, three bedrooms, you had to walk through one to get to the next, I dashed into the first, shouting, ‘Dick!’ though in the light, I couldn’t see him anywhere. I heard tiny clicks, in the wall, or the ceiling above me, the sound of fingers snapping. It stopped. It started again. It stopped. I rubbed my eyes, ‘Dick!’ I shouted again, looking behind the door, and walking into the last room, where I could feel the smell, almost staining the floor apricot, but he was sitting on the window sill, looking out at the night and the orchard.
‘We should have got in when the tree house was up,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave that window open, for when we come back.’
‘Come back?’
‘You are scared.’
‘I am not,’ I said, though I was looking at the way night came from evening so quickly, and I was looking at the door between the first two bedrooms close, so gently, not like it was breezed shut at all. It just stopped there and sat on its hinges, like it knew I was watching. Bang, the downstairs window flipped back again, bang, bang, the tin again in the lean-to, and something else, north of the place, a crack or two in the night.
‘We’ve got to get back,’ I said.
‘Chicken.’
‘I’ll get it if tea’s cold.’ Dick got up and paced towards the door, saw the other door had closed, and said, ‘When did that door shut?’
‘Then. I watched it.’ There was rustling, in the loft above us, rats, or mice.
‘You smell that?’ said Dick.
I sniffed. Bang.
‘It is apricots.’
‘Told you.’
‘Can you smell it?’
‘No.’
Then I did, in a wave, coming from the kitchen, like someone was down there stewing.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘let’s get out.’
He was through the second bedroom to the door into the first, but while we’d smelt apricots, the door had shut completely, he turned the knob and nothing happened. He turned and pulled, but it didn’t move.
‘Give us a hand!’ he shouted, and I took the handle. A squall of wind rattled every pane of glass in every window of the house, the clouds blew open a moment to let in a view of higher, racing cloud, screwing across the face of an angry, waning moon, and then the light it gave was gone. I pulled at the door, but it didn’t move.
‘Let me!’ Dick yanked at it. ‘Grab me,’ he said, ‘Pull!’ I did, but stupid, I slipped. In the dark room I lay on the floor, while the wind and rain pounded, pound, pound, and Dick’s breathing grew louder, panting at the jammed door.
‘Apricots,’ he said.
‘What’s that?’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Listen.’
‘I am.’
‘There.’
The window banged downstairs, but we heard scratching, like fingernails being drawn slowly down wood, a door, or a thin wall. There were no thin walls in Drove House. In the darkness, Dick’s eyes looked out at me, glistening, big eyes asking what are we going to do? Was it the wind or did I hear a scream? A door crashed in. I heard a clunk on the stairs, another, clunk, another, another. Something was coming up. I pulled at the door but it didn’t move. The clunks stopped, and there was one clunk back down.
‘What are we going to do?’ Dick pulled at my coat. We stood in the room. There was the sound of fingernails then, down the door we faced. The door we faced. Fingernails.
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘You don’t?’
‘Why should I?’
‘You always used to.’
‘Well I don’t now.’ Clunk. Whatever was coming up the stairs went down again. I tried the door, it still wouldn’t move. Thunder crashed, miles away, a minute later the room was illuminated by shafts of lightning; an empty bedstead, an old chest of drawers, a dressing table and two chairs. Dick stood at the window, his ears cocked, his face up against the glass, claiming he’d heard voices, seen human shapes, moving across the orchard towards the house.
‘You’re kidding.’ I said.
‘I’m not!’
‘Then who were they?’
‘I don’t know; I couldn’t see their faces.’
‘There.’
‘There what?’
‘Say what they look like and I might believe you.’
‘Might?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m telling you,’ he said, but I told him to do something useful, at least help with the door, when I heard the sounds of footsteps, walking across the room beneath us, and the first of more clunks on the stairs.
‘Hear that?’ I said.
‘Yes.’ He backed away from the window, but knocked into a table, put a hand out to steady himself, and grabbed at the curtain; this came away in his hand, he pulled the rod out of the wall, fell over, and lay on the floor. A whine, a whistle, another crash; clunk.
‘Dick?’ I whispered.
‘What?’
‘I’m scared.’
He looked at me, got up, and tried the door again. Scratch, scratch, the elder tree at the window, clunk, crash, a piece of tin blew across the yard. I stood, shaking, following drops of rain streaming down the glass, racing and mingling, stopping, falling and spreading. My palms began to sweat, the hairs on the back of my neck bristled.
‘Help me!’ he shouted, but it wasn’t any use, we pulled and struggled at the door. It was like someone had glued it to the frame. We were stuck. It was dark, then light as another streak of lightning shot across the sky.
We sat on the floor with our backs against the wall, I wondered if we could climb out of the window and drop down to safety. Dick picked his nose. I was about to suggest the idea when there were four bangs from the other bedroom, a light streamed in at us from under the door and the door knob began to move.
‘Dick?’ I said, ‘Dick?’
‘What?’
A crash, the sound of fingernails again, and what could have been knives, tapping. Someone breathing, a boom of thunder and suddenly the door swung back, light filled the room and my mother stood in front of us, opened her mouth, and said, ‘What the bloody hell are you doing here? We’ve been sick with worry. And Dick?’ She pointed at him. ‘Your father’s waiting for you!’
Our bodies went loose, she shone a torch in our faces, her body framed in the door, blocking it.
‘You could have the police on you!’ she screamed, scratching the side of her face. ‘I left my hens out on a night like this to come chasing after you.’ To prove the point, the wind gusted, once, twice against the sides of the house, in blows, sheets of rain whipped at the roof above us, shaking the slates in their clips.
I said, ‘We didn’t …’
‘No we didn’t …’ Dick interrupted. ‘No.’ He could see the picture of his father waiting, so he didn’t say anything else.
‘We came in to close the window.’
‘What window?’
‘Downstairs.’
‘None open down there. We had to break the kitchen door.’
‘We never heard, I don’t
think.’
‘How did you get in?’
‘Through the window. Promise. It was open.’
‘Lies?’
‘Promise. Cross my heart; we did. It was open. We were wet so we climbed in to get dry and close it. We would have told you.’
‘I don’t believe it; you broke in. Where?’
‘We didn’t. Mother, it was open, banging, in the wind.’
‘So who shut it?’
‘I don’t know!’
‘We tried all the windows. And we were shouting, didn’t you hear us?’
‘I might have.’
‘This,’ she cried, ‘is the last time you come here. Your father …’ I could hear him outside. ‘He’s in the orchard, clearing a load of your rubbish.’
I went to the window and saw him, in the dark, like he had almost become his own shadow, carrying a piece of chicken house in the rain, his hat pulled down on his head, while she stood in the door. Dick stared at his feet, and I shivered.
‘So,’ she yelled, ‘Move!’
We bolted out of Drove House, down the stairs, through the kitchen and out to the lean-to where my father was sheltering. I tried to say something, but my mother slammed the back door shut and marched us away from the place like an army of rats.
I could feel the pulses behind my ears racing, and a creeping on my palms, chasing along in the rain. I looked back at the house. It stood in the storm, as the clouds opened again and showed a moon to light the scene; in an eerie, pale light, Drove House, a pool of darkness.
‘Who shut that window?’ I said to Dick.
‘And closed the door?’
‘And got it stuck?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Enough talk!’ my mother shouted; she strode ahead through the mud on the road, between the low hedges towards South Moor, when she left us to take Dick back to his father, and what waited for him.
I held on to my father as we walked back to Blackwood.