by Pauline Fisk
Aunty was so busy up at the hotel that she didn’t even have time to attend the school carol service in the big town church. And, on the last day of term, it was Uncle who collected Mad Dog outside the school gate, ready to drive him up to Devil’s Bridge.
Elvis was in the car already. Its boot was packed with presents, but they made no difference to how Mad Dog felt. As they nosed into the traffic, he saw his friends watching. When they saw that he’d noticed them, they waved. But he didn’t wave back.
Mad Dog was in a mood all the way up to the hotel. Santa and a sky full of reindeer couldn’t have cheered him up. Neither could the smattering of snow they encountered on the way, dusting hilltops with white flakes.
They drove down through Devil’s Bridge, passed the big hotel by the waterfall, looped the hairpin loops and pulled into a second hotel, which Mad Dog couldn’t remember ever having seen before, which was surprising because it looked twice as friendly as the one down the road. It took him a moment to realise that they had arrived. Not until Uncle switched off the engine and opened the door, did he get it.
‘What do you think?’ Uncle said.
Mad Dog eyed the hotel cautiously, unwilling to admit even to himself that it was better than he’d expected. The hotel was bigger and brighter. It seemed solid and alive. Lights blazed at every window and a floodlight illumination announced its new name, THE FALLS HOTEL. A Christmas tree stood outside the front door, hung with coloured lights and Mad Dog could see another one in the entrance hall, along with holly and ivy, glittering glass decorations, pine cones, swathes of ribbon and tall golden candles.
To say that Aunty had transformed the place was an understatement. It wasn’t just that she’d turned the crumbling B & B into a proper hotel. She’d brought it to life, and its life was her own. Even sitting in the car, Mad Dog could feel her personality reaching out to greet him.
As if on cue, Aunty came out in person, a smile on her face. She led them indoors to the tree in the reception hall, where their presents were piled up. Mad Dog smelt Christmas cooking coming from the kitchen. He looked around and everywhere were rooms that he didn’t remember being there before, but they must have been – it was just that they looked different now. A lounge with books and magazines. A brand new dining room. A bar that shone with glasses and rows of bottles. A little ‘snug’ where a fire was burning.
‘What do you think?’ said Aunty.
Mad Dog didn’t answer – not because he didn’t want to but because he couldn’t find the words. Uncle, on the other hand, hugged Aunty hard and said, ‘It’s a miracle, that’s what I think,’ and Elvis ran around, wanting Christmas now, and to open all his presents.
Aunty showed him the chimney that had been swept, she said, for Santa to come down. Even Santa had been thought of! After that, Mad Dog couldn’t help but soften slightly. Elvis grabbed him and he swirled him round. Then Uncle grabbed them all in his big arms, and he allowed himself to be hugged.
Next day the guests arrived, never knowing that the brightly lit hotel that greeted them had ever been some terrible old B & B. Entirely in her element, Aunty booked them in, took orders for dinner through to the kitchen ladies, Ruth and Kathleen, who were already becoming her replacement sisters, and showed her guests to their rooms. The bar buzzed with voices. The restaurant stood in readiness like a Christmas cake awaiting the first cut. The kitchen clanged with sizzling, steaming pots and pans. The whole house felt alive.
Aunty claimed that she was nervous, but it didn’t show. She came across as the life and soul of the party, and so did Uncle, doing twenty things at the same time and making every one of them seem easy. It was as if they had been born to run a hotel. Somehow – by accident maybe – it was as if they’d stumbled upon their secret selves. From the moment the first guest arrived, they simply lit up.
It was a better Christmas than any of them had expected, especially Mad Dog, even in his wildest dreams. On Boxing Day, he awoke to find that the smattering of flakes he’d seen on the hills the day they’d arrived had turned into a full-blown Christmas card scenario. After lunch, Uncle organised a trek up the valley as far as the church at Parson’s Bridge, whose outer wall was constructed around a series of ancient standing stones. On the way, he and Mad Dog had a little chat about the future. Uncle wanted Mad Dog to know that whatever happened next he and Aunty would never give up No. 3.
‘This is business,’ he said. ‘But No. 3’s our home. I know you’ve had some worries but I hope you realise that.’
Mad Dog relaxed and allowed himself to enjoy the walk. But perhaps that was a mistake. Perhaps, if he’d been a bit more careful, he’d have noticed that the snow on the road was freezing over, and have trod more carefully, and then his leg wouldn’t have shot out from under him and he wouldn’t have broken it.
Mad Dog tried to right himself, but that only made things worse. He fell badly and pain shot through him. Everybody crowded round offering hands to help, but he couldn’t get up.
‘Anyone with a mobile?’ the cry went up. ‘Who’s got reception?’ ‘Should we phone for an ambulance?’
In the end, Aunty’s Range Rover came up from the hotel and Mad Dog was taken down to Aberystwyth where he spent the rest of the day in A & E. It was midnight before he got back, x-rayed and plastered, with instructions to try – for the next few days at least – to keep his foot higher than his head.
From then onwards, Mad Dog was spoiled rotten by family and guests alike. Lying on a sofa in the lounge like a young prince, he only had to ask if he wanted anything. Books, games, chocolates – they were all his. Uncle even drove down to No. 3 and came back with his ffon, thinking he might find it easier to manoeuvre himself with than the unwieldy crutches the hospital had supplied.
It proved to be utterly useless in the circumstances, but Mad Dog was strangely pleased to see the old thing again. There was something comforting about the ffon that he’d almost forgotten about. Finding it again was like coming across an old teddy bear. It didn’t help much in the manoeuvring stakes, but he took to sleeping with it in his arms. He’d long since grown out of hoping for secret messages, but he still ran his fingers over the letters on the silver topknot, spelling them out without even knowing that he was doing it.
One night, awakening from dreams of strange words that made no sense, he turned on the light to look at the word beneath his fingers. WAOOC was what the topknot said. W – A – O – O – C, just one little word, five letters long, but engraved in silver swirls with stars and flowers all round it, and suns and moons and planets.
What did it mean? Mad Dog twisted the cane to see the word more clearly and something rose up in him, like a song. He mightn’t have come across this word before, but something about it made his heart want to burst.
Mad Dog closed his eyes. His leg ached beneath the plaster. The night ahead of him had a long way to go and he knew he’d toss and turn throughout it and wake up in the morning feeling tired and grumpy. But, just for now, the world felt sweet because a secret lay within his grasp, waiting to be found out.
13
Aunty’s Promise
Returning to the Gap after all the dramas of Christmas at the Falls Hotel was an unexpectedly flat experience. To begin with Mad Dog was the centre of attention, but it wasn’t long after his friends had written on his plaster that they started forgetting him. They’d go down to the barge den without wondering if there was any way they could get him there too. Or go out to play football and never even ask if he wanted to come and watch. Just because he couldn’t walk properly, they assumed he wouldn’t be interested.
It was the same at school. Mad Dog was sure that people didn’t mean to leave him out of things, but that was what happened. He was an invisible person, forgotten by everybody in their rush to get on with their busy lives. He took to spending his breaks and lunchtimes in the library, researching the word ‘WAOOC’ on the internet. Nothing came up, and it still made no sense. It just felt like a jumble of letters.
The weeks seemed endless, dragging on and on. ‘When can I have my plaster off?’ Mad Dog would ask on an almost daily basis.
‘In six weeks’ time,’ Aunty said to begin with. Then, ‘In five weeks’ time,’ then, ‘In three,’ then, ‘You know when you can have it off. For God’s sake stop complaining. You’re nearly there. You know you are!’
By now Aunty’d done her sums, knew that Christmas had been a success and was planning to test the water again over the Easter holidays, with a couple of winter weekend-breaks in between. Because of this, the chill was definitely back in the air as far as the sisters were concerned.
‘So you’re off again, are you?’ they said, as half her kitchen disappeared up to the one at Devil’s Bridge. ‘You want to be careful – soon you’ll have nothing left down here.’
Mad Dog worried that they were right. As Easter approached, No. 3 looked less and less like home. Not that Aunty seemed to notice. And Uncle seemed perfectly happy with the way things were, and Elvis plainly couldn’t wait to get back to the Falls Hotel where he’d been spoiled rotten by all the guests.
Mad Dog’s plaster was off by now, which gave him less spare time for brooding. But even so he must have been worrying because, the night before they moved up to the hotel for the Easter fortnight break, he had one of those nightmares that he used to have when he was a little boy, first living at No. 3.
The only difference this time was that it was set in Devil’s Bridge, and the Manager was in it, and so were his dogs. They came streaming through the woods, driving everything before them into the rushing waters beneath the waterfall. Mad Dog tried to get away, but they caught his scent and started after him. They chased him up the steep sides of the gorge, tearing through the trees until the Falls Hotel appeared ahead.
For a wonderful moment, Mad Dog thought that he was safe. He tore towards the hotel, only to realise at the last moment that it had turned back into the Aged Relative’s B & B. But he headed for it anyway, dashing through the porch and catching a whiff of boiled cabbage again, strong enough to gag him.
But it wasn’t the Manager he found waiting for him this time. It was his parents.
Mad Dog’s parents. They stood before him, holding out their hands, just the way they’d done in the old dreams he used to have. Mad Dog woke up in a panic, shouting in the darkness and punching the air. Aunty came running. She was at his bedside within seconds.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said.
But Mad Dog couldn’t tell her. He couldn’t put the bits of dream together. Couldn’t work out what they meant. All he could manage was, ‘I don’t want to go.’
‘Go where?’ Aunty said.
‘Up to Devil’s Bridge,’ Mad Dog said. ‘I had a dream … dogs in it … a chase … the Manager …’
‘The Manager’s gone,’ Aunty said. ‘There’s no way, ever, that I’d let him back. You’re safe from him, I promise you.’
But Mad Dog didn’t feel safe. At a stroke, his memories of a happy Christmas up at Devil’s Bridge were completely wiped away.
‘I won’t go,’ he said. ‘You can’t make me. I won’t. I won’t.’
Aunty didn’t argue. He’d be fine once he got there, she told herself. Just like at Christmas, he’d come round. All the way through Easter, she made sure to keep an eye on him, treating him with care as if he was a special guest. And in every other way things went well. Uncle and Elvis were in their element. The guests loved the place. The weather was great. Even Ruth and Kathleen in the kitchen were great, pulling together in a real team effort that had feasts on the table every night and smiles on every face.
The day the last guest left, Aunty made another of her snap decisions. They were packing up for home and the start of the new school term, and she suddenly announced that, in her opinion, they should bring up everything they needed from No. 3, and spend the rest of the summer at the Falls Hotel. Uncle could carry on with his job in the harbour office, and help in the hotel on evenings and at weekends. And Mad Dog and Elvis – who had just started the reception class – could commute up and down with him on a daily basis, staying with her sisters after school until he could collect them from work.
‘But what about No. 3?’ Mad Dog said.
‘What about No. 3?’ Aunty said. ‘No. 3’s our home, and it always will be. When we’ve got ourselves on our feet and can afford to employ more staff, we’ll move back down. But first we’ve got to get ourselves established.’
Mad Dog looked at Uncle in the hope that he’d object. But Uncle said that it was the obvious way forward. Mad Dog looked at Elvis. But Elvis – the traitor – was smiling as if Devil’s Bridge meant more to him than the Gap had ever done.
Mad Dog swallowed hard. Why did he feel as if everything that had ever been a home to him was slipping away? ‘Do you promise, on your word of honour, that if we stay for the summer, we’ll go back down to No. 3 in the autumn?’ he said.
‘As soon as the summer season’s over. On our word of honour,’ Aunty said.
14
One River
Three days later Uncle hired a van and filled it with their belongings, leaving very little behind. By the time he’d finished, No. 3 looked utterly abandoned, no matter what anybody said about it still being home. On the evening before they moved out, Mad Dog went and sat at the end of the Gap, watching the Rheidol flowing through the harbour. Swans went gliding past him and a heron flew overhead. He watched the river glinting in the fading light and wondered if it would ever be the river of his home again.
Next day they left. Uncle drove the van, and Aunty followed in her Range Rover, which was packed right up to the window of the back door. Everybody lined the Gap and waved them off as if they were royalty. They might only be going for the next few months – and might be making the world’s worst mistake, as far as some people were concerned – but leaving the Gap still required a good send-off.
‘Really!’ Aunty said, as she edged the Range Rover out on to the road. ‘It’s not as if we’re never coming back. You’d think we were emigrating to Australia.’
Maybe they weren’t, but it felt like that to Mad Dog. All the way up the Gap, he kept turning back, wanting to be a little boy again, playing on the barge den and kicking balls about on the grass. No. 3 disappeared and he felt a lump in his throat. Then the family disappeared. Then he couldn’t see the Rheidol any more, twisting like a piece of spangled silk beyond the walls of the Gap. Then finally the sea disappeared – the great, vast, shifting, shimmering ocean itself, that had brought him those sailors with their stories of adventure.
Mad Dog closed his eyes. Those magic days were gone, just like the sailors had gone and that mermaid long before them. When he opened his eyes again, the whole of Aberystwyth had gone too, with its network of streets, shops and houses that he knew like the back of his hand. He told himself it didn’t matter, because he’d be back at school on Monday. But he knew it wouldn’t be the same. On Monday morning, the town would be just any town, not the one he lived in. And the Gap would be just any street with houses on it, overlooking some harbour that wasn’t special any more because it wasn’t home.
The drive up to Devil’s Bridge was conducted in silence. Even Elvis sat quietly, as if he knew that something of significance was taking place. He tried holding Mad Dog’s hand, as if looking for reassurance. But Mad Dog hadn’t forgiven him yet for his betrayal, and wouldn’t let him.
They drove over hills, across open moorland, through woodlands and finally into Devil’s Bridge, twisting and turning up its hairpin bends until they pulled up outside the Falls Hotel. Here Uncle was waiting for them, having got there first and parked the van. He didn’t look very happy.
‘I’ve got one question for you,’ he said, as soon as Aunty had parked the Range Rover and jumped out. ‘What’s that?’
He pointed behind the hotel to where, between the kitchen and the dripping cliff, an old battered-looking caravan had been installed.
Aunty braced herself for troubl
e. ‘It’s a period piece,’ she said.
‘Who’s period piece?’ Uncle said.
‘It’s our period piece,’ Aunty said. ‘I got it cheap on eBay. It’s a real bargain. An old 1950s showman’s vardo. That’s what they used to call them. I bought it as an investment. I thought that we could do it up. Besides, I reckoned that it would solve the accommodation problem.’
‘What accommodation problem?’ Uncle said, a hint of danger in his voice.
Aunty flushed. ‘It’s like this,’ she said. ‘We’re the victims of our own success. Every available room in the hotel has suddenly been filled, and I’ve had to book our own rooms too. So what else could I do?’
‘You could have told me.’
‘I didn’t want to bother you.’
Uncle shot Aunty a look that said lame excuse. He was no happier with the vardo when he got inside. Elvis wasn’t very happy either, complaining that it smelt of old people, whatever that meant.
But Mad Dog felt at home from the word go. Outside the vardo might look run down, but inside it reminded him of the old home he’d lived in before No. 3. It made him feel safe. It was like a nest. It was tiny but everything was there – a fitted kitchen with a bottled-gas stove, a sitting room with an open fireplace, bedrooms with narrow bunk-beds, and a tiny bathroom with a peppermint-coloured sit-up bath.
That evening, with Elvis gone to bed and Aunty and Uncle busy in the hotel moving furniture about, Mad Dog sneaked off on his own. He needed time to think and take in what was happening. The vardo had changed everything. It wasn’t just that he’d found a place where he felt safe, but he’d found a place that stirred old memories.
Mad Dog walked down through the wood, careful to keep to the tourist paths so that he wouldn’t get lost. No one else was down there, only him. Trees rose around him, growing precariously out of the steep slopes of a deep gorge.
Mad Dog reached the valley floor, and found a river running through it. Without stopping to think, he peeled out of his trainers and waded straight in. The river was as cold as ice – far colder than the sea – but he didn’t flinch, just stood there with it slapping over his ankles, looking up at the sunlit tops of the trees, the light fading fast and the moon rising in a pale, clear sky.