by Dave Shelton
Now, at this point Roland’s meant to be taking things very easy for at least the next couple of days. But he’s not been back five minutes and he’s already out in the garden burying Oswald. It’s a big hole he digs, too, because he buries him all wrapped up in the rug, which is beyond help. Mrs. Curtain drops by to see him and finds Roland standing on top of the new grave, pressing down the earth, shining with sweat. And there’s no disguising his smile. He looks as if a weight has been lifted from him. He looks relieved and happy, and there’s not a person in the village who would begrudge him that.
He’s even seen in the pub later, getting tiddly on cider, and he’s quite the happy chatterbox. It really looks like he’s turned a corner.
But then a day or so later, back working on the house, there’s some kind of problem with the upstairs lights: they go off sudden-like one night. So Roland calls in an electrician the next day, and he takes a look and finds a break in one of the wires.
“Looks like it’s been gnawed through,” this fella says. “Probably mice,” he says. “You should think about getting a cat, you know,” he says.
Roland says he’ll buy a mousetrap. And he does. He nips over to Freckingham and picks one up at the village store. Lovely little shop, that. Beautiful pork pies. Anyway, Roland goes home, sets the trap with a lump of cheddar for bait, then goes to The Crown for his supper. Well, the cider gets the best of him again, so he’s a little bit wobbly walking back up the road afterward, but he manages to remember to check the trap when he gets in, and the funny thing is: it’s been sprung, but there’s no mouse. And the bit of cheese is just by it, which is odd. But he thinks maybe he just didn’t set it right, so he sets it again, really carefully this time, and puts it back. Then he flops down in the good armchair and, what with the cider and the walk home and everything, he soon dozes off.
He’s there a good while, slumped over to one side and one arm hanging down, but perfectly content and sleeping like a baby, despite hanging off the chair all awkward-like.
It’s an hour or so later when he starts to wake up. His eyes are closed, and he’s still not thinking anything, but he’s just faintly aware of something touching his hand. It’s the lightest touch, a lovely feeling, brushing slowly across the back of his hand, just gently stroking him. Soft as silk it is. And his eyelids begin to creak open, and his mind starts to focus, and he thinks: not silk. No, not silk. Something else.
Fur.
Oh, he’s awake now! Wide-awake all of a sudden, and he pulls his hand up ever so fast, like it’s been scalded, and he shrieks the same way, and his eyes have snapped wide-open. He stares down at the floor and there’s nothing there, of course, so he looks around the room, everywhere, all frantic-like. And, bless me, but there’s nothing there at all. So he’s sitting there, the one hand holding the other, telling himself he dreamed it, but his skin is tingling, and his heart is racing. And the mousetrap has sprung again.
He sits there trembling, staring at it for a while. Then he goes to his bed and he pulls the covers up and he leaves the lamp on. All night he doesn’t sleep for more than ten minutes at a time, and the slightest creak or squeak around the old house wakes him up and sets him trembling.
When dawn breaks, as usual there’s no bird singing to let him know. Helena used to say that Oswald had scared all the birds away years ago, but I reckon it’s just as likely they were avoiding her.
Roland’s been dozing, but he feels like he’s not slept for days. His head is a right old muddle, all fuzzy and jumbled. He turns off the lamp, gets up, and goes over to the window and looks out. And, oh, it’s a beautiful morning. Just lovely. The bedroom window looks out over farmland and the sunlight is lighting up the frost on the plowed fields, and the sky is clear.
He opens the window and breathes in some of that fresh morning air, and it’s as delicious as a drink of cold water on a hot day. Just for a moment he stands there and, oh, he feels so calm. His whole world is still and silent, and he likes it that way.
But then it isn’t silent anymore. It’s only a little noise, but it’s just enough that he can’t ignore it. It’s coming from downstairs, a little high plink. Just a single note played on the piano, but it seems to ring on and on. Then, when it seems to be fading away to nothing, it sounds again.
Now, that piano hasn’t been played in years. It was Helena’s late husband’s, but he passed away very many years ago, terribly young. (“Gone to a better place,” said the vicar at the time, and you could tell he meant it more than usual.) But now there’s this high, soft note coming from it, again and again. Roland can barely make it out, it’s so quiet to begin with, and coming from down the stairs and around a corner, but he winces every time he hears it.
Anyway, eventually he decides he can’t ignore it any longer and he sets off downstairs to investigate, but he’s a bit nervous about it, so he decides to take some kind of a weapon with him. There’s still books on the floor from when the bookcase went over so he picks up a really hefty one—a big old dictionary is my guess—and takes that. It’s the best he can do from what’s at hand. He creeps down the stairs and the piano note keeps playing over and over, annoying as a dripping tap.
Roland makes his way, quiet as anything, along the hallway to the living room door. It’s open just a crack, but not enough to get a look at the piano. So he pushes the door ever so gently open. He’s trying so hard to be quiet, but oiling door hinges is still on his list of things to do, so it creaks, and then, all of a sudden, there’s this quick flurry of notes from the piano—plink plonk plonk—high to low, and a thump as the stool falls over, but by the time Roland gets in, there’s nothing to see. So he stands there for a bit, and he’s sort of angry and relieved and scared all at the same time.
Once he’s calmed down a bit, he closes the lid over the keyboard. He wants to lock it shut but the key isn’t there, so he goes off to the bedroom to look in Aunt Helena’s music box. It’s a little carved wooden jewelry box that plays a clockwork tune when you open the lid. Helena kept all kinds of junk in it, so he thinks maybe that’s where the key will be. He finds the box and opens it up, and it’s still wound up, so it plays its little tune as he rummages around inside. And in among the earrings and buttons and foreign coins and an extra-strong mint and all kinds of other things he finds the piano key. And he also finds a small black leather collar with a bell on it: the one that Helena couldn’t get Oswald to wear. And now he remembers his aunt telling him about it, back when he was a little boy.
“It was the only time Oswald ever scratched me,” she said. “I tried to put that collar on him because he’d been killing birds and bringing them into the house. Feathers and guts everywhere. Terrible mess. So I tried to put the collar on him so the birds would hear the bell and keep away from him, but he wouldn’t have it. He hated it! He kicked and he squirmed and he fussed! So I held him down tight and got the collar around his neck, and I was just trying to do up the buckle when he lashed out at me with his claws. Look, here, he cut the back of my hand, here, see. Do you see the scars? Gushing with blood, it was. And Oswald just jumped free and ran off. He didn’t come back for three days. I was so worried. And when he did finally come back, well, I never tried to put a collar on him again. And then eventually the birds just started to stay away anyway, as if they knew.”
It’s the most he can remember Aunt Helena saying to him in one go, and he smiles at the memory of it, but that isn’t why.
“He hated it …” he says.
And then he buckles the collar onto his wrist. And the next day passes without incident. And the next day, and the next.
He’s in The Crown a bit more regular for a while after that, and much more chatty, too. He tells us about what’s been going on and how scared he got, how he’d started to imagine all sorts of silly things and, oh, isn’t it funny how ridiculous he’s been? But he’s fine now, he says. Just fine.
But he keeps wearing the cat collar on his wrist. He says, if you point it out, that it’s just to remi
nd him of how silly he was, starting to believe in ghosts, for goodness’ sake! And we chuckle along with him. He’s a nice lad and we’re glad to see him out a bit more.
And before long he’s only ever telling us all about how the work on the house is going and not mentioning the cat at all. The collar’s still on his wrist, mind, but we don’t mention it. And he’s starting to feel quite at home in the village now, and he’s thinking maybe he won’t sell the house after all. Maybe he’ll stay. With all the work he’s done he’s got quite a reputation as a handyman now, and he does the odd bit of work for folk around the village, and round about. He thinks he can make a living at it if he works it right. It’s not as if he needs to earn much, and he can always rent out a room or two in the house for a bit extra if need be.
A week or two later I’m passing by the house on my bicycle, and bless me if Roland doesn’t nearly knock me down in his car as he comes racing home. He gets out, all flustered and fussing, and he won’t stop apologizing. I tell him not to worry; I’m fine. But why was he in such a hurry? Well, he tells me that Helena’s old lawyer is coming over with papers to finalize the transfer of the house. Once Roland signs, it’ll be all his. But he’d been out doing a little repair job for someone out in Freckingham, lost track of the time, and now the lawyer, Mr. Buckley, is due any minute. And then he starts apologizing all over again and I have to get quite blunt with him to make him stop. Then I tell him congratulations—about the house, I mean—and I shake him by the hand and say how I hope he will stay because he’s such a fine young man and he’s a proper credit to the village.
Well, he’s a bit embarrassed by this—he’s rotten at accepting compliments—and he really needs to get in and clean himself up before the lawyer arrives. So he thanks me, and dashes indoors, and I cycle off on my way. But as I do, I wonder why it is that I don’t feel right. My guts are churning, like I’m worried about something, but I can’t think for the life of me what it could be. I’m still thinking about it when I arrive at Thornely, the next village over, where I’m picking up a dress I was having altered.
Well, it’s when I open the door to the shop that I realize what’s been bothering me. You see, there’s a bell that rings when the door opens and that makes me realize: when I shook Roland’s hand, there was no bell. He wasn’t wearing the collar on his wrist. And, well, that’s a relief because that’s a good thing, not anything to worry about after all. I think it’s just grand that he’s finally seen sense and stopped wearing it, and it only makes me think of him all the more fondly.
*
I see the ambulance parked outside when I’m coming back the other way and, oh, it does give me a turn. My heart’s in my mouth as I stop, and I see poor Roland led out the front door and helped into the back of the ambulance. He’s not making any fuss, mind, but his eyes are wider than I’ve ever seen anyone’s before, and he’s muttering quietly to himself, and he looks quite, quite mad. And those wide eyes are staring out from a bloody face. And that’s not swearing, because he is just covered in blood. I almost scream. His clothes are torn and his skin is torn and he is covered in blood.
Mr. Buckley says that’s how he found him. He thinks Roland did it to himself somehow, just went mad and slashed at himself with something sharp, and the police and the doctors are happy enough with that explanation, too. They certainly can’t get any sense out of Roland to suggest otherwise. Mind you, they can’t find anything in the house that could have made those cuts, either. I try to make a bit of a fuss about it all, but it’s not as if I’ve got any better explanation. Not one I’m happy to say out loud anyway.
The next day I bump into Mrs. Curtain’s niece. It turns out it was her that Roland had been doing the work for the day before. She’d been heading over to return Roland’s bracelet, she says, the one with the funny little bell on it. She saw him take it off before he set to unblocking her drain, and then he must have forgotten to put it back on again. She’d tried to take it back to him at the house but it didn’t seem like anyone was home so she’d just pushed it through his letter box.
“He’s not still got one of them cats of Helena’s, has he?” she says.
“No,” I say.
“I didn’t think so,” she says. “Only when I pushed the bracelet through, and the bell jingled as it hit the floor, well, I could have sworn I heard a cat. Mind you, if it had been, then, coo, it wasn’t a happy one!” And then she’s off on her way, running to catch the bus.
*
I visit Roland for a while after that, at the special hospital, but he never speaks to me. Not to me, and not to any of the doctors and nurses, neither. I keep going anyway, but he won’t touch the fruit I take him; it just rots in the bowl. And I talk to him. I try to tell him what’s been going on in the village, but he takes no notice.
After a while they ask me not to go anymore. They say poor Roland has become quite distressed, and more and more difficult. You know, violent. He keeps scratching people. It’s very upsetting. He was always such a kind and gentle boy before, and now he’s just a devil.
Though apparently he does sometimes bring gifts for his nurses.
Mostly birds.
Josephine, having come to a halt, sits in a curious frozen pose, her neck craning, her head tilted. Her eyes are bulging and seemingly staring, fascinated, at an empty corner of the ceiling. Her hands are clasped together over her chest, tightly entangled in a messy knot of bony fingers. Her mouth is puckered tightly closed, as if it’s trying to disappear altogether. She is humming very softly, and her head is nodding, just the tiniest amount, in time.
“Thank you, Josephine,” says Mr. Osterley, and Josephine’s head dips forward as a grateful smile stretches out across her face. She looks like a child delighted by the praise of a parent.
“Yes, thank you, Josephine,” says friendly Frances. “I enjoyed that very much.”
Josephine grins all the wider. Jack even thinks that she might be blushing, though it’s a little hard to tell by candlelight. Some of the others offer up compliments, and Josephine shrugs and smirks in embarrassed delight. Jack mumbles something, too, but he’s a little distracted. He’s thinking about the rumors he’s heard about this place, and just for a moment he’s wondering how much of what he’s heard can possibly be true.
“Is shame the kitty cats is so horrible,” says Piotr, and everyone else turns their attention to him. “I have kitty cat before, and she very good. She best mouse catcher in my village. Even better than my sister. I still sometimes miss. Is sad.” The exuberant forest of his beard closes up around his mouth, leaving no trace of where it was, his head settles heavily, sinking down between the sad shrug of his enormous shoulders, his eyes glisten.
“Oh, Piotr, lovey,” says Josephine. “You poor lamb.” There is a subtle hint of distaste in Mr. Osterley’s expression now, but he keeps it out of his voice. “Thank you, Josephine,” he says again, and raises the fingers of one hand in a tiny gesture directed at Josephine’s candle.
“Oh yes, dear. Of course,” she says. “Mustn’t go prattling on now.” And she leans forward and, with a sharp stab of breath, blows out her candle, then shifts her chair back, away from the table and into the gloom.
“Very good,” says Mr. Osterley. “And now perhaps, Piotr, you might take your turn?”
Jack relaxes a little at this, happy not to have been chosen, and Piotr cheers up considerably, too. His gleeful grin is exhumed from his beard.
“Ha! Oh, yes, please, mister. It is pleasure. I have very good tale for you. Is story from big time ago in my country that my grandmother tell me when I was boy. You will like very much, I think. Oh yes. Is like fairy tale, only is true. My grandmother swear by her moustache that is true. So must be so.”
Piotr settles himself, pulls his mighty torso upright, and sits up very straight. He scans a stern look around the table, ensuring everyone’s attention. And then he begins.
Once, in land near mine, there is woodcutter in little village. One day he go out to chop
down big, mighty oak tree. He is not long from being started when skinny fellow appear, all sweaty and running fast, and he say: “Sell me horse.” But woodcutter, he need horse, of course, so he say: “No, thank you very much.” But sweaty fellow, he go to horse anyway, like he is to steal it. So woodcutter hit him on head with ax. Not with sharp end of blade, only with back to make him stop, but still he kill sweaty fellow. Is big ax for cutting of big tree, is very heavy. Oh no! he think. Dead sweaty fellow is dressed all fine. Maybe he is important man and now woodcutter has killed and is make the big trouble.
Then king’s knights appear, and woodcutter think, Oh no, is very bad!
But no! Dead man is bad prince from country over river. Bad prince, he was running away from king’s knights. King’s knights very happy bad prince dead. They take woodcutter to see king, they say he big hero. King, he give woodcutter many gifts as reward, songs are written saying how brave he is, his fame grow, and pretty girls of kingdom dream of him. Now woodcutter, he forget all about his village, hang up his ax on wall of house near palace, and he start spending his money on pleasures of city.
But near village, in far part of kingdom, there is dark forest where many young men disappear. Nobody know why. They go into forest—maybe hunting, maybe looking for mushrooms, maybe picking flowers for pretty girl, who know?—and they never come out. People there, they very unhappy, and frightened, you know? They tell all kind of tales. They say murderous beasts in forest, or they say evil spirits, but story that they tell most say there is red tree that lures men to doom. Is very bad. They scared and they don’t know what to do. So when, you know, story-singing man … er, what is word? Minstrel! Yes, minstrel. When minstrel come to village and sing song about woodcutter’s brave deeds, they think: here is man to help us, and they send message to king. And so woodcutter, he is summoned to palace.