She had just stepped out onto the main landing again when a voice floated up the stairs to her.
‘Mum! Are you up there?’
She realised that it must be the girls home from the swimming baths and shouted back, ‘I’ll be with you in a minute!’ She felt guilty, as she’d completely forgotten the time. She had offered to drive them to the swimming baths and pick them up too, but as there was a bus stop less than half a mile away Mel had insisted that they go by bus. Jess had agreed and now she raced off downstairs to get them something to eat, aware that swimming made them ravenous, the person she had thought she saw in the window forgotten for now.
Chapter Four
That evening, as Simon and Jess sat in the kitchen, she told him about the room she had discovered in the attic. ‘Everything that the girl owned is still there as if she had just popped out for a while and never come back. Don’t you find that strange?’
Simon sighed. ‘I suppose you’ll be telling me next the house has a resident ghost. Most places this age are supposed to have one, aren’t they?’
‘Don’t be so mean,’ she pouted. ‘It’s the age of the house that drew me to it. Don’t you find it fascinating to think of all the people that must have lived here before us?’
‘Not really,’ Simon answered truthfully as he sipped at his cocoa. ‘I just tend to look at the amount of work that still needs to be done.’
‘Well, I’m very sorry but I think it’s all going to be worth it!’ Jess snapped. ‘Laura was quite envious when she called in for a cuppa earlier on. She only has a small kitchen in Blue Brick Cottage.’
Simon privately thought Laura and Den’s cottage had more than ample space for a family to live in but wisely refrained from saying so. Since moving into Stonebridge House, Jess seemed to have become obsessed with the place and wouldn’t hear a wrong word said against it. They had got to know the couple and their daughter quite well during the time they had lived there, and both of them agreed that Laura and Den were lovely people, although Jess secretly wished that Simon wouldn’t be quite so attentive to Laura. Until recently, Simon had always been a little nervous around people with disabilities but Jess was pleased to note that he seemed to have taken a real shine to young Beth. Once a week now he would deliver her to the door of the youth club she attended as he had to pass it on his way to his weekly game of darts at the Town Talk, a pub on Abbey Green, and then he would pick her up and deliver her back to her parents’ door on his way home. Den was more than grateful as sometimes he had to rush home from his work on the railways to take her himself. Beth now spent almost as much time at their house with Jo as she did at home, and Jess found it touching to see them play together. To hear them, no one would have believed that there was an age gap between them and it made her sad sometimes, for Beth was a stunning young woman with the brain of a child.
‘I was thinking,’ Simon said. ‘Once we get around to clearing out the big attic room, it might make a great office. I could work up there without being disturbed when I’ve got my accounts to do.’
Jess was delighted by this sign of enthusiam, but then becoming serious, she changed the subject, saying, ‘I’m a bit worried about our Mel. She doesn’t seem to be settling in at all, does she? And she’s started to have awful nightmares. Funnily enough, I’ve noticed that they usually occur after I’ve been to see Karen on a Wednesday evening. Do you think she’s afraid of being here on her own?’
Jess and Karen had been friends for years, and Jess still visited her each Wednesday evening, which was another thing that had shocked Simon. Although Jess had learned to drive some years ago, she had rarely done so until her gran died, but now she had bought herself a little Ford KA and was off all over the place. Karen had been given a royal tour of the house shortly after they had moved in and had declared bluntly that Jess must be off her trolley to buy such a mausoleum. But it seemed that even her closest friend’s opinion could not swerve Jess from wanting to live there.
‘No, I don’t think it’s anything to do with you going out,’ Simon told her. ‘When you go off to Karen’s she’s not on her own, is she? I’m always here, and Jo is too if she doesn’t come with you.’
‘Hm, I suppose you’re right, but I wonder what it is then?’
‘It’s her age.’ Simon seemed to put everything down to age. ‘Now, how about we lock up and go and get some shut-eye. I’m dead on my feet and I’ve got to be up early in the morning. This extension me and the lads are building has turned out to be a lot bigger job than we’d thought.’
Jess secretly thought that Simon was working too hard, but at least he barely went out of an evening now apart from to his weekly darts match, so that was something to be thankful for at least.
After locking all the doors and turning off the lights they climbed the stairs together and Simon went off to the bathroom and Jess to their bedroom. She undressed quickly and was in the process of pulling her nightshirt over her head when she heard Simon enter the room and felt him come to stand behind her.
‘Crikey, that was quick,’ she laughed and turned. There was no one there. Frowning now, she stepped out onto the landing, thinking perhaps that Jo was playing a trick on her, but there was no one in sight. She moved back into the bedroom wondering where the smell of roses was coming from, but then realised that it must be wafting in through the open bedroom window. The gardeners had planted some rose bushes the week before.
It was then that Simon did enter, and seeing the look on her face he asked, ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Oh yes, I just thought . . .’ Jess’s voice trailed away as she knew what he would say if she told him that she had heard imaginary footsteps. ‘Oh, it was nothing really,’ she said lamely. ‘Now shall we hit the sack?’
Within minutes they were tucked in and Simon’s gentle snores were echoing around the room as Jess lay thinking of the room in the attic and the clothes that were hanging in the wardrobe there, and wondering who they might have belonged to . . . but it had been a long day and soon she was fast asleep too.
A bloodcurdling scream had them both springing awake in the middle of the night and they almost collided as they fell out of bed and headed for the door.
‘It sounded as if it came from Mel’s room,’ Jess gasped as they raced along the landing. When they reached her door they flung it open to find the girl sitting up in bed with the duvet clutched to her chin and her eyes starting from her head.
‘There was someone in my room, standing at the end of the bed!’ she sobbed.
Jess hurried across to her daughter and took her in her arms. ‘Shush,’ she soothed, rocking her to and fro. ‘There wasn’t anybody in here. You were just having a bad dream.’
‘No, I wasn’t. They were standing at the end of the bed,’ Mel hiccuped as Jo arrived in the doorway, knuckling the sleep from her eyes. Alfie was with her and suddenly his hackles rose and he began to bark furiously.
‘Oh, that’s all I need. A paranoid teenager and a mad dog,’ Simon groaned as he grabbed Alfie’s collar and began to haul him back towards Jo’s room. ‘Can’t you keep this bloody mongrel under control?’
‘He’s not a mongrel and Alfie never barks for no reason,’ Jo protested indignantly as she sped along after him.
‘Well, just the same keep him in here and keep him quiet, will you? Some of us need to get our sleep.’
Jo glared at him as he shoved Alfie into her room before firmly closing the door on them. Alfie was shaking like a leaf and Jo hugged him protectively. She had never known him to do anything like this before, although thankfully he did seem to be calming down a little now. She wondered what it could have been that had upset him.
Simon meanwhile hurried back to Mel’s room where Jess was still cuddling her and asked, ‘Do you need me?’
‘No, we don’t – go away!’ Mel hissed before Jess had a chance to answer him.
‘Melanie! That’s no way to talk to your father.’ Jess was shocked, although now she came to think of i
t, Mel had been keeping well out of his way lately whenever she could. It was probably due to the fact that Simon tended to be a little heavy-handed with her and still tried to keep her as his baby. Whenever she asked if she could go out with her friends to the pictures or to a disco he would always insist on taking her and bringing her home.
‘I’m old enough to go on my own now,’ Mel would insist but Simon was having none of it and the rows between the two of them were becoming more frequent.
Simon seemed about to say something but then thinking better of it he turned and left the room as Mel clung to her mother.
‘I don’t like this room, Mum. Can I move to another one?’
‘But we’ve only just had it all decorated for you,’ Jess pointed out as she stroked her daughter’s damp hair from her brow. ‘Why don’t we give it a little longer, eh? Everything is strange for you at the minute but I guarantee you’ll love living here once we’ve got it how we want it.’
Mel didn’t look too sure about that but remained silent until Jess rose to leave, tucking the duvet around her warmly and bending to kiss her cheek. ‘Now you try and get some sleep and I’ll leave the door open and the bedside lamp on for you, shall I?’
She headed back to her own room where she found that Simon had already dropped off again. She slid in beside him with a frown on her face. This was the second time that Mel had insisted that someone had been in her room. And then there had been the other two strange experiences that she herself had had when she had thought someone was standing behind her. Deciding that there wasn’t much point in worrying about it for now she snuggled up to Simon’s broad back and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
When Laura and Beth called in the following morning, Jess took them into the newly decorated lounge out of the way of the kitchen fitters, who were still busily working.
‘Well, I have to say you’ve certainly made a difference in here,’ Laura said admiringly as she took in the fancy drapes and the thick Axminster carpet.
Beth wandered out onto the sunlit lawn with Alfie close behind her, and now that they were alone, Jess began to tell her neighbour about Mel’s nightmare and the strange experiences she herself had had since moving into the house.
‘Simon reckons we might have a ghost,’ Jess chuckled. ‘You don’t think we could have, do you? I mean . . . there are no such things as ghosts, are there?’ She had never been one to believe in ghosts and ghouls and things that went bump in the night, but the recent experiences had unnerved her.
‘Actually . . .’ Laura suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable, ‘I believe there are spirits. You see, I have this gift – or at least, that is how my mother refers to it, although I sometimes think it’s more of a curse. She has it too, and I became aware of it when I was very young.’
‘What sort of a gift?’ Jess asked curiously.
‘I see things, sense things – that’s the only way I can explain it – and I have no wish to frighten you but I’ve sensed a presence in this house from the moment you invited me in.’
‘Oh, what nonsense!’ Jess retorted brashly. ‘You’re just letting your imagination run away with you because of what I’ve just told you. This is a very old property. There are bound to be noises at night – pipes clanking and floorboards settling and so on. And as for what Mel thought she saw . . . well, she had her curtains open and the moon was out, so she probably just saw a shadow in her room when the moon hid behind the clouds.’
‘Yes, yes, I’m sure you’re right,’ Laura agreed a little too quickly for Jess’s liking. Then she put the mug of tea that Jess had made her down on the tray and stood up.
‘Thanks for the tea and the chat,’ she said, fidgeting with the buttons on her blouse, ‘but I really ought to be off now. Things to do, you know – and I bet you have a lot to do too. I’ll just call Beth, shall I?’
‘No, leave her here – she can play with Jo and Alfie,’ Jess told her.
Laura had gone quite pale. Without another word, she strode towards the door where she stopped abruptly as if there was something she wanted to say. Her mouth worked soundlessly for a second but then she seemed to think better of it and clamped it shut.
‘Be seeing you,’ she said. ‘Send Beth home if she starts to get on your nerves, won’t you?’
And with that she was gone, and as she crossed the courtyard Jess heard one of the workmen in the kitchen wolf-whistle at her appreciatively through the open window. She watched Laura’s hasty retreat with bemusement. It was almost as if she couldn’t get away quickly enough, but Jess couldn’t for the life of her think what she had said to upset her. Sighing, she placed the empty mugs on the tray and headed back to the kitchen to see what progress the men were making.
Chapter Five
‘You’re late tonight,’ Jess commented as Simon walked in and threw his car keys onto the coffee-table. He had been to the Town Talk on Abbey Green for his weekly game of darts and she was curled up on the settee reading a magazine.
‘Blame Beth,’ he said as he sank wearily into a chair opposite. ‘They had some disco or something on at the youth club when I went to collect her, so I had to wait for it to finish.’
‘That was kind of you,’ she said, noticing how tired he looked. Neither of them had had a proper day off work since moving into the house and she wondered if perhaps they shouldn’t plan a short holiday. It would do them all good, the way she saw it. She suggested it now but Simon shook his head.
‘No chance,’ he said regretfully. ‘Me and the lads have got work booked right through until the end of November and I can’t turn it down.’
‘No, of course you can’t.’ Jess tried not to sound disappointed. Simon had a lot of faults but he had always worked hard.
‘Then perhaps you should slow down a bit on your days off?’ she suggested. ‘You look totally whacked.’
‘Oh yes, there’s fat chance of that happening, isn’t there? If I paid workmen to do every single thing around here that needs doing, it would cost us a fortune. But then as you so quite rightly keep pointing out, it can’t go on for ever, can it? I mean, hopefully we will get this place straight one day and then we can both take a breather.’
‘Mm.’ Feeling more than a little guilty, Jess headed for the kitchen to make him a last drink before they went to bed.
The girls were back at school now, and noticing one of Mel’s exercise books left discarded on the central workstation, Jess flipped through the pages. She was becoming more and more concerned about Mel, who seemed to be sinking into a deep depression. She had lost weight too and only this morning at breakfast Jess had noticed dark circles under her eyes, although Mel hadn’t complained of having any more nightmares lately. Once or twice Jess had tried to ask her what was wrong, but after having her head almost snapped off, she had given up.
Just today she had received a phone call from Mel’s teacher who had told her that Mel was slipping behind with her schoolwork. Jess hadn’t known what to say. Mel had always been so bright in her lessons until recently. She made two mugs of cocoa and after carrying them back to the lounge she told Simon about the call from school.
‘I suppose you’re going to start worrying about that too now,’ he grumbled. ‘When is it going to sink in that Mel is a teenager? Christ, at her age everyone had a job to even get me to school.’
Jess eyed him coldly. Every time she tried to talk to him seriously about Mel he simply blamed it on her age or changed the subject.
But then he surprised her when he suggested, ‘How about we plan a party for her birthday? You know – let her have some of her friends from her new school come here for a sleepover or something?’
Mel chewed on her lip as she considered. Mel would be fourteen soon and it sounded like a good idea, although she wasn’t at all sure that Mel had even made any friends at her new school as yet. She had certainly never mentioned them if she had.
‘It sounds like a plan,’ she admitted. ‘But I haven’t heard her speak about anyone special, not e
ven a boy.’
‘We don’t want boys here. She’s too young for that sort of thing,’ Simon said protectively. ‘I think we should limit the invites to girls only.’
‘Oh Simon, you’re the one who’s always telling me she’s a teenager. It’s normal for a girl her age to start taking an interest in lads. You can’t wrap her in cotton wool and lock her away for ever, you know?’
He glared. ‘Well, I can, for as long as she’ll let me,’ he muttered. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for that sort of thing when she’s older.’
Feeling a row brewing, Jess stood up and said shortly, ‘I’m going to bed. Goodnight.’ And with that she left him to it.
Once upstairs in their room she crossed to the open window and stared out musingly over the lake which was sparkling in the moonlight. Rabbits were gambolling across the lawn and they could have been miles from anywhere rather than on the outskirts of a busy town. Jess supposed that was one of the things she loved about this place. It was like a little retreat from the world. The painters were now busily working on the outside of the house and it was beginning to look smart. She estimated that in approximately another year they should have it all as she wanted it and then she would see about starting her B and B business. In a happier frame of mind again she rolled into bed and within minutes she was sound asleep.
Whispers Page 4