by S J Bolton
He led the way along the landing to his parents’ room, where the computer was kept, and they both sat down. Tom connected the camera to the hard drive and uploaded the photographs he’d taken that evening. He hadn’t had chance to look at any of them himself yet.
‘These are ones I took of the bone men when they were still in the abbey,’ he said. Downstairs, Harry laughed. Evi’s head twisted to face the door, then turned back to Tom again.
‘They’re good,’ she said. ‘I like the way you can see the moon just starting to come up in that one. And the colours in those three are great. You’ve really captured the sunset well.’
Tom knew she was buttering him up, but it was still nice to hear. The pictures were good, his mum often said he’d got her eye for composition, but it wasn’t the shots of the abbey he needed Evi to see. He’d brought her upstairs to show her…
‘Who’s this?’ said Evi.
Feeling his heart start to beat faster, Tom clicked on the picture Evi was looking at and enlarged it. There it was. Evidence. The little girl that nobody believed in, captured on camera. The trouble was…
‘Is it Joe?’ asked Evi. ‘No, it’s bigger than Joe. Another friend?’
… the figure in the photograph, skulking behind one of the taller headstones, just wasn’t clear enough. Knowing who it was, Tom could just about make out the strange old-fashioned dress she’d been wearing and her long hair, but to someone seeing this picture for the first time, it could be anyone. Tom closed the shot down and pulled up the next one.
He’d stayed in his position in the yew tree for nearly twenty minutes, getting cold and stiff, and had been about to give up when she’d appeared. He’d watched her enter the churchyard down at the bottom end and make her way up. She moved fast and she came silently. She’d stopped when she was three feet away from the wall and had crouched there, watching their house. Hardly daring to breathe, Tom had taken one photograph after another.
‘There she is again,’ said Evi. ‘Is it a she? Not sure. That could be hair, could be grass, hard to tell. Oh look, there again. These are good, Tom,’ she said, giving him a sideways glance. ‘Shadowy figure in the graveyard, very atmospheric. Oh look, there’s another one.’
Downstairs, someone opened the front door. ‘Someone’s come in,’ he said. ‘I need to get Dad.’
‘Tom, what’s the matter?’ said Evi in alarm. ‘Where are you…?’
Tom jumped to his feet and crossed the room.
‘Tom,’ called Evi, ‘it probably was your dad. Or Harry, getting something from the car. Why are you…?’
Tom wasn’t hanging around to listen to whatever Evi had to say to him. Knowing it was rude, but that some things are just more important, he ran across the landing to the top of the stairs. He was right, the front door was about three inches open. He hadn’t checked it, why hadn’t he checked it? He ran down, hearing a faint tap on the landing behind him. At the bottom he pushed the door shut and locked it.
Was she inside even now? Tom shot into the dining room. No one under the table. The curtains. Holding his breath and standing at arm’s length, he tugged them apart. The window ledge was empty. She couldn’t have gone into the kitchen, his dad and Harry were there. There hadn’t been time for her to go upstairs. If she was in the house, she’d be in the living room.
‘Tom!’ Evi had reached the top of the stairs. He pretended he hadn’t heard her and pushed open the living-room door.
‘Buddy, what’s going on?’ Tom’s dad and Harry had left the kitchen.
‘I heard the front door,’ Tom said. ‘Someone’s come in.’ He saw Harry look at his dad, his dad’s lips tighten.
‘Double-check the kitchen for me, Harry, would you?’ said Gareth, without taking his eyes off Tom. ‘Make sure the back door is locked.’
‘OK,’ said Harry, and Tom heard him walk back along the hallway to the kitchen. His dad came into the room and walked to the nearest window. He pulled the curtains back, then did the same thing with the far window. ‘It’s OK,’ he said. He was standing directly behind the one sofa Tom couldn’t see around. ‘Do you want me to do the dining room?’
‘I did in there,’ said Tom in a small voice.
‘Probably just the wind,’ said his dad.
Tom nodded. His dad was right. This time, at least, it was probably just the wind.
He went back upstairs and he and Evi looked at his pictures until his mum called Evi down for supper and told Tom to go to bed. Five of the shots he’d taken showed the girl, but none of them were clear enough to prove she was anything other than a normal child. All the same, Evi had seemed unusually interested in her. She’d kept asking Tom who she was. He’d told her he didn’t know, that he hadn’t known anyone else was in the churchyard. She’d pretended to believe him, but Tom suspected they both knew what it was really all about. Sometimes it seemed that he and Evi were playing a game, dancing around each other, waiting to see which one of them would give in first.
It was a pity that he hadn’t got a clear shot, but not a disaster. The important thing was that the girl appeared on film. That meant she was real and he wasn’t mad. Tom couldn’t describe the relief of knowing that. And he was going to try again.
48
‘THANK YOU, I HAD A LOVELY TIME,’ SAID EVI.
Alice kissed Evi on her cheek and then reached up to do the same to Harry. Gareth was standing with his hand on the front door.
‘Al, have you seen my keys?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I’ve probably hidden them from you again in your jeans pocket,’ replied Alice, giving Harry a small hug.
‘They were hanging up,’ said Gareth. ‘Just next to yours. I have to leave at six.’
‘Better get looking, then,’ said Alice. She smiled at Evi. ‘My husband loses his keys on a daily basis,’ she said. ‘Often we find them on the roof of the car. Frequently, the garden wall. Even, on one occasion, in the butter dish.’
‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Gareth,’ said Harry, taking Evi’s arm as Gareth turned from the front door and disappeared inside the house.
‘Thanks again, Alice,’ he said. One last smile from Alice and then she closed the front door. Evi heard the sound of a key being turned as she and Harry walked down the drive.
Harry started the engine and reversed out of the drive into the lane. For a minute or two they drove in silence. It would take them twenty minutes to get home, twenty-five if the roads were busy, and at this rate they probably wouldn’t speak all the way there. Evi had been watching Harry’s reflection in the passenger window. She turned to face him. She had to find something to say, even something really lame.
‘They’re nice people,’ she said. Yep, that was pretty lame, even by her standards.
Harry stepped on the brake and the car slowed down. At the side of the road a lone sheep looked up lazily from the grass she was chewing.
‘Who are?’ said Harry, steering round the corner and picking up speed again.
‘The Fletchers.’
‘Oh yeah, sorry,’ he said, glancing at her. ‘I was thinking about something else. How did you find Tom tonight?’
Evi thought about it for a second. How had she found Tom? Still puzzling, was the honest truth.
‘ Alice said she’d mentioned schizophrenia to you,’ said Harry, when she didn’t reply straight away. ‘Is it possible?’
‘Tom isn’t psychotic,’ Evi said. Harry had shaved that evening. She could see the small scars of a rash just above the collar of his coat.
‘What about these hallucinations?’ he said, glancing at her again. ‘ Alice said he hears voices in his head.’
‘Actually, he doesn’t,’ she replied. ‘He doesn’t hear them in his head.’
Ahead of them they could see the headlights of another vehicle. Harry pulled over on to the grass verge, inches from the wall. They sat, waiting for the car to reach them. Now that he was looking directly at her, Evi was finding it hard to maintain eye-contact.
‘Tom’s voices
, according to everything Alice has told me, come from outside of himself,’ she continued, dropping her eyes to the wooden trim of the dashboard. ‘They come from round corners, behind doors. And always from the same source. A young girl who he thinks is watching the family, whispering to them – to him, in particular – muttering scary, threatening things.’
The approaching car drew level, flickered its headlights at them and passed by. Harry released the handbrake and set off again.
‘He’s trying to prove to us that this weird little girl of his is real,’ said Evi.
‘How is he doing that?’ Harry asked. ‘Wait, don’t tell me. Has he been trying to take her photograph?’
Evi nodded. ‘He showed me over twenty shots he’d taken tonight. Five of them show a small, indistinct figure, huddling against stones.’
‘Who did he say it was?’
They turned another bend and caught sight of Heptonclough, already some way below them, twinkling in the dark like a city from a fairy tale.
‘He said he didn’t know,’ replied Evi. ‘That he hadn’t known anyone was there. He was lying, of course, the figure was the focal point of the shots. Tom would have had to know he or she was there. I suspect he’s got some friend of his to skulk around in the churchyard, pretending to be this girl. But the point is, it’s clever and it’s rational. It suggests to me he knows the little girl isn’t real but still needs us to believe in her. He deliberately takes pictures he knows will be ambiguous.’
‘So he didn’t actually claim it was the girl?’
Another bend, another glimpse of the dark landscape below.
‘No. He still hasn’t admitted her existence to me. So I couldn’t mention her either. I have to wait from him to do that. Why are we heading up the moor?’
‘Short cut,’ said Harry. ‘What if she is real?’
Evi thought for a second and then smiled at his profile. ‘According to his parents, Tom talks about this girl in terms that suggests she’s not human,’ she replied. ‘And, by the way, there are no short cuts across the moor. Are you kidnapping me?’
‘Yep,’ he said. ‘What about someone who looks unusual? Tom only sees her at night, from what I understand. He could be getting confused. What if there is someone who likes to hide, play tricks on people, maybe somebody a bit disturbed?’
They climbed higher and the darkness spread itself around them like a pool of black ink, flowing across the moors. From somewhere below a firework exploded. As the sparks died away, Evi could see the dark outline of trees against the sky.
She thought for a second and then shook her head. ‘Only Tom sees and hears her. Where are we going exactly?’
‘What if Gillian hears her?’
‘Gillian?’
‘Gillian hears her dead daughter calling to her. She swears it’s Hayley’s voice. Did she tell you that?’
Gillian had never told her that. No, she’d said, I never see her. Never see her?
Harry was slowing the car. He switched the headlights on to full beam and turned off the road. They were driving across the open moor now, along the faintest hint of a farm track. Ahead of them seemed to be… nothing.
‘She says someone comes into the flat,’ he continued, slowing to a crawl as the car began to bump and jolt over the uneven ground. ‘Someone moves things around, especially Hayley’s old toys.’
They’d reached a small open area of land. Harry switched off the engine and headlights. The sudden absence of noise was startling, the disappearance of light even more so. At her side, Harry became little more than silhouette and shadow, and yet, for some reason, it was even harder to look at him.
‘Gillian and Tom are my patients for a reason,’ said Evi. ‘They both have problems.’
He was moving – impossible not to catch her breath – but he only reached up to the car roof and unlocked it. The soft leather folded back and the night, shimmering with wood smoke and gunpowder, wrapped itself around her like a cool blanket. Above Evi’s head, the sky was the colour of damsons and the stars seemed to have moved a light year or two closer to earth.
‘Tell me when you get cold,’ he said, settling back into his seat. A second of silence and then: ‘What if I’ve heard her?’
She risked a proper look. ‘What?’ He was leaning back in his seat, hands behind his head, staring at the sky. Whatever he was about to tell her, it was something he wasn’t comfortable talking about.
The night air felt damp in Evi’s nostrils; rain wasn’t far away. A volley of violet stars hurled themselves into the sky, distracting them both for a second.
‘Your eyes are that colour,’ said Harry. ‘And, yes, I’ve heard voices too. Eerie disembodied voices, coming from nowhere.’
And he hadn’t thought to mention it. ‘When?’ she asked, pushing herself a little more upright in the seat. ‘Where?’
‘When I’ve been alone,’ he said. ‘Only in Heptonclough, though. Only in and around the church. I’ll bet Tom doesn’t hear his voices at school, does he?’
Evi leaned back again. ‘I need to think about that one,’ she said. ‘What are we doing up here, exactly?’
‘I found this spot a couple of weeks ago,’ said Harry, as he leaned forward to switch on the cassette player. It started to hiss as he pressed the Play button. ‘We’re about twenty yards from the edge of Morrell Tor, the highest spot on the moor. I promised myself I’d drive up here and watch the fireworks.’
He was nuts. And she had to stop smiling, she was just encouraging him. ‘You’re three days too early,’ she pointed out.
He turned to her, his arm sliding along the back of her seat. He was inches away. She could smell the beer he’d drunk at the Fletcher’s. ‘In three days I couldn’t have been sure of having you with me,’ he said. ‘Do you dance?’
‘Do I what?’
‘Dance. You know, move your body in time to music. I chose this track specially.’
Evi listened for a second. ‘Dancing In The Dark,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘My mum used to play this. Where are you…?’
Harry had climbed out of the car and was walking round the front of the bonnet. He held open her door and offered his hand.
Evi shook her head. Definitely nuts. ‘I can’t dance, Harry. You’ve seen me. I can barely walk by myself.’
As though he hadn’t heard, he reached across her to turn up the volume. Then he’d taken her by both arms and was lifting her out of the car. Evi opened her mouth to tell him it wouldn’t work, she hadn’t danced in years, they’d both end up sprawled on the ground, but with his arm wrapped tightly around her waist, she found she could walk quite easily across the few remaining feet of farm track and on to the rock of the Tor. He took her right hand in his, his other arm stayed round her waist to hold her up. His jacket wasn’t fastened. His hand felt like ice. Holding her tightly against him, he began to move.
The old-fashioned cassette player seemed to distort the music somehow, making the drumbeat louder, more insistent than she remembered. And it was ridiculously loud, they’d be able to hear it in the town… but impossible to worry about that, to think about anything but Harry, who danced like he was born to it, holding her up without effort, singing softly in her ear.
The wind blew her hair across his face, he tossed his head and pulled her into the curve of his shoulder and still they kept moving, swinging backwards and forwards in a four-time movement, on the hard rock of the Tor. And she’d thought she’d never dance again.
‘The singing, dancing priest,’ she whispered, when she sensed the track coming to an end.
‘Played in a band at university,’ said Harry, as the vocals faded and the notes of the saxophone curled out across the moor. ‘We used to do some Springsteen covers.’
The sax drifted away. Harry dropped her hand and wrapped both arms around her. She could feel the heat from his neck against her face. This was insane. She could not get involved with him, both of them knew that, and yet here they were, on what felt like the tip of the wo
rld, clutching each other like teenagers.
‘I’ve had a very weird day,’ he whispered, as a new track started.
‘Want to talk about it?’ she managed.
‘No.’ She felt a soft brushing on her neck, just below her ear, and couldn’t stop herself shivering.
‘You’re cold,’ he said, straightening up.
No, I’m not. Don’t let go of me.
He stepped back, one arm dropped away, he was taking her back to the car. She stopped him with a hand on his chest. ‘I’m not cold,’ she said. ‘Why are you a priest?’
For a second he looked surprised. ‘To serve the Lord,’ he replied, looking down at her, then up at the sky. ‘Was that rain?’
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I need more than that. I need to understand what makes a man like you become a priest.’
He was still smiling but his eyes looked wary. ‘That’s a lot to ask on a first date. And that was definitely rain. come on, back in the car.’
She allowed him to lead her back to the passenger seat and hold the door open until she was sitting down again.
‘You said this wasn’t a date,’ she pointed out, as he joined her in the car and twisted round in the seat to refasten the roof in place.
‘I lied,’ he muttered, locking the hood and switching on the engine. Then he seemed to change his mind and switched it off again.
‘I never intended to become a minister,’ he said. ‘I come from a working-class family in Newcastle who weren’t churchgoers and it simply never occurred to me. But I was bright, I got a scholarship to a good school and I met some very impressive teachers. History was my thing, religious history in particular. I became fascinated by organized religion: its rituals, history, art and literature, symbolism – everything really. I did religious studies at university, not theology.’