by Guy N Smith
‘Lovely. Lovely place.’ Amanda fought her way out of her mother's embrace, pointed excitedly all around her. ‘Big house. Big garden.’
‘Yes.’ Marie's disappointment showed on her face; she had hoped for a different reaction from the child, a lever to get them away from here. ‘It's nice, isn't it, but go on inside, darling, because the tea's ready.’
Amanda ran indoors, her feet clattering up the wide oak staircase as she hastened on her initial trip of exploration. Marie turned, her eyes meeting Ron's as he walked from the car, a small suitcase in one hand, a smile on his face. ‘I told you she'd like it,’ he said almost smugly.
‘Let's see what she thinks at the end of the week, shall we?’ Marie retorted coldly. ‘And I just hope that awful old man doesn't prowl the grounds tonight.’
‘If he does she'll be none the wiser,’ he pushed past her, mounted the steps. ‘because she'd never hear him.’
Which was true enough and Marie felt her hopes sinking. At the moment it was two to one against leaving Gabor.
Tea was much the same as the previous evening meal, Ron concentrating on the newspaper which he had picked up in town, Marie conversing with Amanda as though he didn't exist. It was always the same but he didn't resent it any longer because even if he tried to join in he was still the odd one out.
‘Hey, listen to this!’ Suddenly the marital feud was forgotten as Ron Halestrom spotted a small square of print in the ‘local news’ column under the heading of ‘Gabor’. ‘Something else we didn't know. That pair of scruffy cottages on the roadside beyond the wood are under fire from the locals. Seems they belong to some kind of charitable organisation that gives holidays in the country to deprived kids. Been a lot of bother apparently, vandalism and the like, and the villagers have got up a petition to get the place closed down.’
‘This is a regular backwater for trouble,’ Marie snapped. ‘We move here to “get away from it all” as you claim, and what happens? We find we've got city hooligans for neighbours and a despicable old tramp who trespasses over everybody's property and scares the inhabitants to death. Charming!’
‘Minor problems that can easily be overcome.’ Halestrom turned to the sports page, sighed. It was not life outside Gabor House that was the problem, rather it was everything that was going on inside. Petty. Just ignore it, give Marie time. Her way of life couldn't suddenly be changed in a matter of weeks. It would probably take months.
Amanda had gone upstairs to play. Marie was washing the dishes in the kitchen and Ron had gone back into his study to work on a synopsis of his next book which he had every confidence that his publisher would buy. After a bestseller you always got another crack at the market, but your follow-up book determined your future success. He was determined to stay at the top now that he'd got there.
The grandfather clock in the hall struck eight, resonant chimes that somehow seemed in keeping with Gabor House, sounds that would surely have echoed through it two centuries ago. When Bemorra terrorised the locality! Damn Bemorra, he was dead and gone. He had served his purpose as far as Ron Halestrom was concerned, and the author could only be grateful for the killer's existence in the eighteenth century, a kind of investment when you totted it up in advances and royalties. Whatever the ethics, it was yet another ill-wind and Ron was reaping his harvest from those 200-year-old atrocities.
‘Bedtime.’ It was Marie's voice, high-pitched so that it carried to the upper storey. ‘Bedtime, Amanda. It's eight o'clock.’
Ron always marvelled how Amanda seemed to hear her mother; telepathy, he supposed. He could shout until he was hoarse without result, but perhaps the child didn't want to hear him when he called. Damn it, Amanda was getting headstrong lately; he'd noticed it particularly on the drive home earlier, the way she'd dropped sweet wrappers on the floor of the car and ignored him when he'd told her to pick them up. Short of slapping her across the face there wasn't much he could do about it. She was taking after her mother. But to hell with them both right now, he had work to do.
‘Amanda. A-mand-da!’ Marie was getting angry. Ron heard her footsteps coming out of the kitchen, going up the stairs. ‘Will you do as you're told!’
He resisted the temptation to yell ‘She's bloody well deaf, what else d'you expect?’ but there was nothing to be gained by interfering. His role in the immediate future had to be one of a NATO peacekeeping force where diplomacy was paramount if a war wasn't to be sparked off.
He heard Marie directly above him, calling, but her voice was muffled now. Even so he could tell she was angry. Amanda was disobedient; boarding school was to blame, no discipline these days. Kids were allowed to do as they liked which was one of the reasons why the locals were having so much trouble with those kids in the holiday cottages. The younger generation took everything for granted, thought the world owed them a living … Christ, Ron thought, I'm getting bloody old!
Marie's footsteps running now, back and forth, shouts that were almost frantic. Oh fuck it, Ron cursed, the bloody girl was deliberately playing up, a conspiracy to interrupt his work. They didn't bloody well realise, neither Amanda nor Marie, where the money came from to give them a standard of living like this and, furthermore, they didn't fucking well care. Angrily he threw open the study door and even as he stepped out into the hall Marie was coming back downstairs, an expression of horror on her face.
‘Ron!’ She stopped, clung to the stair rail. ‘Amanda's not upstairs. I can't find her anywhere!’
‘She's hiding, playing us up!’ His anger was getting the better of him as he rushed for the stairs, pushed roughly past Marie. ‘I'll find her and when I do I'll teach her a lesson she won't forget for the rest of the week!’
Marie Halestrom didn't follow her husband, as though she knew his hunt would be futile. He stamped across the landing, throwing open doors, looking in the obvious places under beds and in fitted cupboards. There was no sign of Amanda. He angrily kicked empty cartons in the box room - just his upstairs study left; Christ, she'd really be in trouble if - she was in there! But she wasn't.
Defeated, he descended the stairs to where Marie stood nervously wringing her hands.
‘What did I tell you?’ she snapped. ‘She's not upstairs. Nor is she downstairs. So she must have gone … outside!’
‘Doubtless that's where we'll find her.’ He made for the front door, leaving Marie either to follow or remain behind, he didn't care which. But as he crossed the weed-covered forecourt onto the grassy area he was aware of her at his heels, her constricted breathing, the beginning of a panic which could escalate into hysteria.
Only when Ron Halestrom reached the shrubberies did he fully appreciate the enormity of his task. All around was a children's hide-and-seek paradise, two acres of dense undergrowth that led down to Gabor Wood. He pulled up, drew breath for an angry shout when suddenly Marie clutched his arm.
‘Listen!’ she breathed.
It took him some seconds to adjust to the normal noises of the countryside; blackbirds and thrushes warbling their evening songs, woodpigeons in the trees beyond, rooks cawing noisily in the wood, a buzzard mewing somewhere. Then he picked an unfamiliar sound out of the rural background symphony, a murmur that could have been voices except that the words were unintelligible.
‘It's Amanda!’ Marie whispered. ‘She's … talking to somebody … over behind those rhododendron bushes.’
They had already started forward when a noise erupted from the leafy jungle, a harsh baying that had them recoiling. That roar, so familiar, so terrifying, confirmed Marie's worst fears.
‘It's Beguildy!’ a half-whisper, half-scream. ‘Amanda's with him!’
Ron Halestrom acted instinctively. He broke into a run, charging through the bushes, forcing his way along an overgrown track heedless of briars and whipping branches. Emerging into a large clearing, the sight which he beheld halted him as though he had run into an invisible barrier.
It was Amanda all right. And Beguildy! The child and the ragged, grimed vagrant s
tood facing each other. Amanda was laughing, pouring out a stream of words which were stretching Beguildy's slit of a mouth with its broken blackened teeth into a wide grin. Another roar which could only be interpreted as laughter, followed by strange animal-like sounds, arms gesticulating wildly. A meeting of the deaf, and they appeared to be sharing a joke, the meaning of which was lost to the watchers.
‘Amanda!’ Marie Halestrom screamed. ‘Come away from … from that man. How dare you!’
Ron Halestrom's anger erupted to full spate, a primitive fury that was directed at that filthy bearded figure, a trespasser in the Gabor grounds who had to be dealt with in a manner which would serve as a lasting reminder, a punishment for luring Amanda to this secluded place. Beguildy would not return again, ever! Halestrom's fists were bunched into solid balls of bone, his one aim to drive them into that hideous bearded countenance, to smash the grotesque features to a bloody morass, to splinter those stumps of teeth, to kick the fallen body mercilessly, those mind-shattering roars turning to groans of agony; whimpering, pleading, apologising in the only way Beguildy knew how for his transgressions.
Beguildy sensed rather than heard the other's approach, whirled like an animal at bay, dropping into a crouch that belied his age. Then with one bound he sprang back, turning at the same time so that the bushes behind seemed to swallow him up. A rustling of branches, no more than a scurrying badger would have made, and he was gone, leaving Amanda still laughing over the joke they had shared.
Halestrom barely hesitated, plunged into the rhododendrons, cursed as he met with obstructing entwined boughs, striking out angrily, the very blows that he had intended for the hermit of Gabor. Slowly the futility of it all dawned on him. He stooped, saw a number of low passages and tracks through the dense growth barely wide enough to admit a crawling man yet that was where Beguildy had gone, as swiftly as a fox eluding the pursuing huntsmen, disappearing back into its earth.
Slowly Ron returned to the clearing, trying to fight off the overwhelming sense of defeat, the feeling that he had been beaten in a man-to-man encounter. Damn the fellow, he had to be taught a lesson. Soon! Well, he knew where he lived, he'd go there right away, have it out with Beguildy, threaten him.
‘You're a naughty girl!’ Marie Halestrom was white and shaking, holding Amanda by the wrist as though she feared her daughter might dart off after the old man. ‘How many times have I told you not to talk to strangers?’
But Amanda was undeterred, that same smile still on her features, her eyes dancing with some inexplicable pleasure. ‘Nice man, lovely man.’
‘No, he's not a nice man. He's a nasty man, a very nasty man and I don't ever want you talking to him again. Do you understand, Amanda?’
‘Damn, he gave me the slip.’ Ron Halestrom joined them, breathless and dishevelled. ‘Must've crawled away on his hands and knees under the bushes. But one thing's certain, first thing tomorrow I'm going down to that hovel and I'm going to lay down the law about …’
‘Ron,’ Marie broke in. ‘just look at Amanda. I don't know what's been going on but … but it's like she's in a world of her own!’
They both stared at the girl. Amanda seemed totally oblivious of her parents' presence, looking at them but not seeing them. A vacant smile on her features, she chattered away to herself. ‘Nice man, very nice man. Deaf like me. Likes me but not other children because they smash his house. Fire. Make fire.’
‘Amanda.’ Ron Halestrom shook her roughly, a fleeting concern at the back of his mind that in some way Beguildy had hypnotised her. But Amanda Halestrom's eyes cleared, only the smile remaining. ‘You heard what your mother said,’ she always took more notice of Marie than himself,
‘You mustn't ever get talking to that old man again because he's very wicked.’
‘Not old,’ her lips tightened in defiance. ‘not wicked either. Very good man but very angry because big boys smash his windows with stones. Make fire.’
‘You're talking complete nonsense.’ Halestrom's fingers tightened on her shoulders until they brought a gasp of pain from her lips. ‘Beguildy is a wicked man and you must never talk to him again. D'you hear?’
‘Fire, fire,’ Amanda muttered. ‘Make fire because boys wicked, not Beguildy.’
‘She's talking nonsense.’ Ron dragged the child along with them as they retraced their steps. ‘The only fire Beguildy is likely to make is one in his hearth.’
‘Fire … fire …’ Amanda kept repeating the word as though it fascinated her. ‘Beguildy make fire because big boys are wicked.’
Marie felt her stomach tighten into knots, a pain like colic that she had to fight against otherwise she would have bent over double. A premonition, about Beguildy and fire but she couldn't relate the two. That was what troubled her. And once again she was dreading the night hours.
CHAPTER FOUR - THE GABOR CURSE
Sean O'Brien glanced around the parked caravans and vehicles in the shadowy light of the dying camp fire. A big raw-boned man in his early forties, there was not an ounce of surplus flesh on his whole body. He had tried his hand at most things, fairgrounds where he had wrestled and boxed, a circus, motorway building, and finally the nomad life for which he had always yearned, collecting scrap metal and junk, and generally making more money for less work. He had joined this bunch of wanderers and quickly established himself as the leader, or, as he liked to think, the company director. No taxes or rent to pay, and what you made was your own. He asked nothing else of life.
But they were always on the run, chivvied from place to place, welcomed by none and hated by many. Mostly that was because of the kids; they made noise, dropped litter and created a nuisance that drew attention to the camp. Maybe here in Gabor, though, they could lie low for a bit, undisturbed, pass the summer leisurely and make a steady living without too much hassle. It was moments of relaxation and contemplation that made life worthwhile, half-an-hour by the fire after everybody else had turned in, a chance to take a hard long look at life and indulge in self-satisfaction.
Sean O'Brien failed to notice the shadowy forms that moved stealthily just beyond the circle of firelight, eyes that burned hatefully and focused on himself. Usually wary, his vigilance was relaxed tonight, not sensing the pending danger. Even when a twig cracked he did not look up, idly presuming that a fox lurked nearby in the darkness waiting until all was quiet before it began scavenging the strewn litter.
There was no warning. One moment he was gloating over his own enviable position in life, the next they came at him, attackers who yelled their hate and brandished fearsome makeshift weapons like redskins intent on massacring a sleeping wagon train. O'Brien leaped to his feet but he was too late to dodge the wooden club which caught him on the shoulder. The single prong of a broken pitchfork took him in the side as he fell, skewering his flesh, cracking a rib and piercing a lung so that as he screamed he had a frightening sensation of drowning. A forest of boots drove into his writhing body, then the youths were streaming towards the caravans, their presence announced by a half-brick which smashed the nearest window.
Caught unawares the tinkers fought blindly to repel the raiders. Caravans rocked as hand-to-hand battles were fought at close quarters, women and children screaming their terror.
‘Get into 'em!’ Buff, the leader of the Longlea invaders, yelled at the top of his voice, a battle cry that his followers heard and understood as they smashed anything that was breakable. ‘Teach the fuckin' bastards who tried to burn us in our beds a lesson!’
Two of the youths grabbed smouldering branches from the fire, rushed with them towards the vehicles, the sudden movement causing the faggots to burst into flames. The canvas top of a pickup truck ignited almost instantly. Gallon cans containing either petrol or paraffin were unscrewed, their contents thrown indiscriminately; a blinding explosion, the flames leaping from one vehicle to another, a fiery chain of detonations as fuel tanks went up in vivid sheets of fire.
Sean O'Brien, blinded, the heat shrivelling his skin, was
trying to crawl to safety, vomiting blood, weakening with every movement. Who were these crazy fuckers and what had they done to him? Oh, Holy Mother of God, his clothes were on fire! Writhing, trying to scream but his mouth was full of blood and all he could manage was a gurgling sound, beating frenziedly at himself with his waning strength, his movements slower and slower. This was hell for sure, blinded but still being able to see fire and more fire, everlasting consuming flames, agonising burning pain that would go on forever.
And suddenly Buff, who had fought bloody battles on the terraces of almost every London football ground, was afraid. Terrified. God, they hadn't meant to go this far. That big red-headed bastard was bleeding to death and being cremated at the same time. Somebody had hit a kid, clubbed him with a piece of wood that had nails protruding from it. The nails had embedded themselves in the skull, the boy trying to wrench them out, blood streaming down his face.
‘That'll do,’ Buff yelled. ‘For fuck's sake, that'll do! Let's get outa here.’
A disorderly retreat, youths fleeing, suddenly scared. They had achieved their objective but this wasn't the city; you couldn't lose yourself in a crowd or dodge down side streets and alleys. There were only wide open spaces, plenty of places to hide but nowhere to survive. In the end you had a choice - give yourself up or starve.
Breathless, sobbing with fear, they made their way back to the only place they knew, a dilapidated dwelling with a burned-out front door. Maybe Phil Barron could think of something; after all he was in charge.
And from the copse in the field opposite a pair of eyes watched, saw their return silhouetted in the light from the windows, and bearded lips parted in a mirthless smile. For Beguildy it was a most satisfying night, the events of the past hour having escalated way beyond his wildest hopes. He had had a fascination for fire since his childhood.