by Prey (lit)
Liz swallowed wine and looked at me with eyes that were older than her years. "You didn't hit her?"
"No. I just ignored her. I think that ignoring somebody is worse than hitting them, sometimes."
"Perhaps you should have hit her."
I sat down. "Don't ask me. Perhaps I didn't really love her at all. When it comes down to it, perhaps I don't even know what love is. You know, proper love. The kind you'd die for."
"I don't think many people do," said Liz. She smiled, and then she said, "When I was about nine, I had a goldfish. I really loved that goldfish. His name was Billiam. I told my mother that if Billiam died, I was going to kill myself, too. So when he really did die, my mother didn't tell me. She said that he had run away. Like an idiot, I believed her. I told all my schoolfriends there was 10p reward for finding him. They were even bigger idiots, they went to look for him."
"What's that supposed to prove?" I wanted to know. "That you shouldn't fall in love with anythingnot even a goldfish?"
She shrugged. "I don't know." Then she laughed.
At that moment, Danny came back into the kitchen. I hadn't even noticed that he had gone. He was carrying his drawing-book under his arm and he was frowning.
"Where's that man gone?" he demanded, quite crossly.
"You mean the garage man?"
"No, the man in the picture."
"What picture?"
"Out there. I'm drawing a picture of Sweet Emmeline and the man in the chimney hat and I went to look at the picture of the man in the chimney hat because I wanted to draw him properly but he's gone."
I sat up. I felt that dreadful tingling in my wrists again, and down my back. The flat bell-metal tingling of apprehension. It's started again . . . the house is stirring . . . shadows are flickering . . . voices are murmuring softly in upstairs rooms. For some reason a forgotten couplet surfaced in my mind, "The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin . . . And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in."
That was supposed to have described King Philip's closet at Lepanto, but when I was a boy I had imagined that it was describing what happened to my own wardrobe after dark, and it had always terrified me. Small people, furtive and evil, were burrowing amongst my clothes. Every night I made doubly certain that my wardrobe door was closed and locked, and that my bedroom chair was propped against it. Even then I could hear the little dwarfs stirring inside, making the wire coat-hangers softly, softly jingle.
I thought that I had long forgotten the feeling of helpless dread with which those words had soaked me from head to toe, but when Danny said, "He's gone," it all came back to me, and for a moment I could hardly speak.
"How can he be gone?" I asked, at last, in a dry, tongue-swollen voice.
"He's not in the picture any more."
I followed him out into the hallway and switched on the light. At the far end of the hallway hung "Fortyfoot House, 1888." I walked up to it, with Liz close behind me, and bent down to stare at it.
Danny was right. Young Mr Billings was no longer there. His shadow was still there, lying like a discarded cloak across the rose-bed, but of the man himself there didn't seem to be any sign at all.
"This is a hoax," I declared. "People don't disappear out of photographs. It's simply not possible."
"Let's have a look at it in a better light," suggested Liz, and lifted it off the wall. She carried it back into the kitchen and switched on the main overhead lamp. We gathered around it and stared hard at the place where young Mr Billings had once been standing. The glass covering the photograph was still dusty and unmarked with fingerprints, except for Liz's and mine, and when I turned the frame over on to its face, there was no indication that the brown-paper tape had been slit open or tampered with in any way. It still bore the framer's engraved label Rickwood & Sons, Picture Framers & Restorers, Ventnor, Isle of Wight.
I turned the picture face-up again. We studied it some more; and then Danny suddenly said, "Lookwhat's that?"
Children's eyes are always sharper. They can read shapes and signs and omens better than any adult. I peered at the place in the photograph where Danny's chubby bitten finger was pointing, and there it was. Just visible over the slope in the lawns, where they angled down toward the back garden gate and the sea, the tilted black rectangle of a stovepipe hat.
Young Mr Billings was still in the photograph, but he had taken a walk somewhere.
Liz shook her tightly-scarfed head. "I don't believe it. It must be a trick. I bet there are more photographs of the same scene, and somebody's been shifting them around."
"Who?" I asked. "I mean, who? And, more to the point, why?"
"Squatters," said Liz. "I told you it was probably squatters, or homeless kids living in the attic. They probably did Harry Martin in, too."
"Ssh," I cautioned her, nodding toward Danny. Luckily, he didn't seem to know what "did him in" meant.
"You mean they're trying to frighten us out of the house?" I asked her. "Just like one of those Bette Davis movies where the children are trying to drive her mad so that they can inherit everything?"
"Well, it's a possibility, isn't it? It's more likely than ghosts. I mean, David, I've thought about it and I've thought about it and how could it be ghosts? Ghosts just don't exist."
"What about the noises and the lights and everything?"
"Tapes? Strobe lights?"
"All right, supposing it is all a hoaxwhere are they, these squatters? The police went through the whole house, didn't they? Even the roofspace."
"They didn't search the bricked-up bit next to your bedroom."
"The simple reason for that is that nobody can get in there. Our out of there, for that matter."
"Perhaps there's a secret passage."
"Oh come on, Liz! There isn't enough space for a secret passageand even if there was, where could it possibly come from, and where could it go to?"
She stood up straight. "So you're really convinced that it's ghosts?"
"I don't know. Perhaps it's not ghosts in the sense of people walking up and down with sheets over their heads. But I'm sure I'm right about this time thing. Somebody once said that ghosts weren't really ghosts, but people you could vaguely see when today and yesterday kind of overlap. That could make some kind of sense, couldn't it?"
Liz picked up the photograph again. "If that's sense, I'd hate to hear you talk nonsense. I still think somebody's trying to scare us off. Somebody human, I mean, not a ghost. It's all too much like The Innocents."
After Danny had gone to bed we finished most of the wine and sprawled on the sofa listening to Stolen Moments by John Hiatt. I found a certain empathy in the song about the seven little Indians living in the brick house on Central Avenue, where in spite of daddy's brave stories about how things were going to turn out for the better "it always felt like something was closing in for the kill."
About eleven o'clock, with a headache and a mouth tasting of sour Soave, I eased myself up and said, "I'm going to bed. Are you coming?"
"Are you asking me to join you?"
I looked down at her. I smiled. I said, "Yes." I even managed to stop myself adding, "If you like."
I went through to the kitchen to tighten the dripping taps and switch off the lights. The photograph of Fortyfoot House, 1888 was still lying face-down on the table. I picked it up just before I switched off the lights, and tucked it under my arm, intending to hang it back up in the hallway on my way up to bedbut then, instantly, I switched the lights back on again, and held the photograph up in front of me, and stared at it with growing alarm.
Young Mr Billing's head had appeared over the top of the rise, as if he were coming closer. And next to him, still mostly hidden by the lawn, was a small dark shape with two projections that could have been pointed ears.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, and then opened them again, just to be sure that I wasn't hallucinating, or suffering from DTs. But the photograph remained unchanged. The rose garden, with young Mr B
illings' detached shadow still draped across it, the sundial, the sloping lawn. And the clearly-distinguishable face of the master of the house, returning from a walk somewhere down by the sea, in the company of what?
Liz called, ''Are you coming, or are you going to spend all night in the kitchen? The light's gone on the landing."
"I'm coming," I said thoughtfully. I switched off the kitchen light, walked through to the hallway, and hung the photograph back on its accustomed hook. I don't know why, but I felt that was probably the safest thing to do. Ormore accurately, I felt that it was what young Mr Billings would have preferredand I had no desire to upset young Mr Billings, especially over something so trivial as leaving him facedown in the kitchen.
Christ almighty, I thought to myself. I'm losing it. I'm going mad. I'm hanging up a photograph because I think the people in it would prefer it that way?
Liz leaned over the stairs, her full breasts squashed against the banister-rail. "Come on, then. We can have a bath in the morning."
I switched off the hallway light and the stairs were totally dark. And little dwarfs creep out and little dwarfs creep in. I felt my way up the stairs by keeping my right hand pressed flat against the wall, and nudging the risers with my shins. I could hear Liz up ahead of me, patting the banister rail to make sure she could feel where she was going.
"I just hope to God we don't hear any more of that groaning and moaning tonight," she said. "Then I really will leave. And I mean you won't see me for dust."
As I reached the turn in the stairs, I saw the pale silvery gleam of the mirror, as pale as a framed memory of somebody's death. I hesitated, and nearly stumbled in the darkness, and as I stumbled I thought I heard
Skrrittchhh behind the skirtingand then a hurrying scuffle that went along the entire length of the house.
"Did you hear that?" I asked Liz.
She stopped at the top of the stairs. I could tell she had reached the landing because she had blotted out the mirror. "No . . . I didn't hear anything."
"It must be my imagination running wild."
"As long as that's all it is."
We groped our way along the corridor. I'd still forgotten to buy myself a bloody torch. There were some candles in the kitchen cabinet downstairs, but like a fool I hadn't had the presence of mind to light one and bring one up with me. I'd been too worried about the gradual approach of young Mr Billings and his hairy companion, and the little dwarfs from my childhood. I wondered whether my mother ever knew how terrified I was of the lumpish little creatures who ferreted amongst my clothes at night. I wished to hell that I hadn't remembered them, and that I'd stop thinking about them now.
Eventually, however, we managed to reach the door of my room, and find our way inside. There was a faint reflected sea-light straining through the curtains, and I could just make out the bed and the dark bulk of the wardrobe.
"I'll just go and check on Danny," I told Liz. She had already crossed her arms, and was lifting her T-shirt over her head, momentarily raising her breasts, then dropping them, with a complicated bounce.
"Don't be long," she said. "And if you hear any more noises, ignore them."
I crossed the corridor and peered into the all-swallowing darkness of Danny's room. I could smell him, and I could hear him breathing, with just a slight stickiness in one nostril. I wondered what he was dreaming about. Crabs, or circuses, or maybe his mother. I felt so much pain for him sometimes but there was nothing more I could do.
I closed his door and groped my way back. I should have gone to the bathroom and brushed my teeth but I didn't fancy stumbling around in the dark. Liz was already in bed, naked, waiting for me, and if she hadn't worried about brushing her teeth then why the hell should I? All the same, I hated the taste of stale Soave.
I undressed and eased myself under the duvet. Liz cuddled up close and I felt nipples and thighs and wet pubic hair. She kissed me on the forehead, and then on the eyes, and then on the nose. "I can't see you," she giggled. "It's so bloody dark in here."
I kissed her back and our teeth clashed. We were both desperately unsettled by what had been happening at Fortyfoot House; we were both tired and we were both a little hysterical. Whether the noises and the lights had been caused by ghosts or by rats or by hidden squatters, they were still frightening; and the worst part about it was that there was nothing we could do about them, except leave. If the police hadn't been able to find anything, there wasn't much chance that we would, either.
So we made love quickly, and fiercely, because we didn't want to think about anything else for a few thunderous minutes but sex. Liz climbed on top of me again, like she had the previous night, but this time I rolled her over onto her back and mounted her.
She twined her legs tightly around my waist as I pushed myself into her. I suppose that both of us knew that this wasn't love; it wasn't even passion. But we liked each other. I saw something of myself in Liz and she saw something of herself in me. I think in our different ways we were both a warning to each other.
She reached down between her legs and stretched herself wide apart for me, so that I could thrust deeper and deeper. She began to pant, and her panting aroused me even more. I shoved harder and harder, and the bed began to squeak, squikkety-squikkety-squikkety until I had to slow down and change the position of my knee because the noise was putting me off so much.
"Here . . ." she whispered. "Ssshh . . ."
She gently pushed me off her, and onto my back again. She kissed me, my lips and my chest and my stomach, and then she took my cock in her mouth and fluently and persistently began to suck it. I could see her head silhouetted against the window, bobbing rhythmically up and down. I could see the curve of her lips over the thick domed shaft of my cock.
For a moment, she hesitated, and I felt her sharp teeth against my skin. The moment grew longer, the biting grew harder, and for one deranged instant I believed that she was thinking of biting the head off.
"Liz " I began, in rising panic; but then I heard her laugh a hollow laugh with her mouth full, and she continued to lick and suck and strum me with the tip of her tongue. Against my will, I felt my muscles tighten, and I climaxed. Liz kept her mouth closed around me all the time, secretly swallowing, allowing me no outward display. When she was finished she sat up and kissed me and her lips were dry.
"Another time, perhaps," she whispered, very close. "And definitely another place."
We lay side by side in the almost-darkness and she quickly fell asleep, breathing against my bare shoulder. I felt empty and sad and dislocated, as if I had been orphaned by the world; as if everybody in the world shared a secret which they wouldn't tell me. I heard the sea whispering crossly to itself, and the birds stirring in the guttering. I thought about the photograph of Fortyfoot House hanging downstairs in the hallway, and I said a small prayer that young Mr Billings hadn't come any closer.
I decided that it might be a good idea to go down to the Beach Café in the morning and talk to Doris Kemble again. Perhaps she could tell me more about young Mr Billings: something which would explain why he appeared and disappeared so restlessly around the gardens. The spiritual unease of Fortyfoot House seemed to have become such an accepted part of local life in Bonchurch that she might well have forgotten to tell me something important.
At about two o'clock in the morning, I opened my eyes and the moon had risen. The room was filled with thin, silvery light. Liz was still sleeping heavily against my shoulder. The duvet had slipped and the moonlight made a curving erotic landscape of her bare back and the fullness of her bare bottom. She was like the dunes of the Nefud desert, at night. I listened to the house but the house was unusually silent. No scratchings, no scufflings. No creaking floorboards. Perhaps it had accepted Harry Martin as a sacrifice; and its hunger was temporarily satisfied. At this moment, in the middle of the night, I was prepared to believe almost anything.
I wished that I could sleep. I was so damned tired. I tried to work out ways in which I could take a t
emporary job to pay off the estate agents so that I could leave Fortyfoot House without owing them anything. I tried to work out ways of buying myself a new car. Perhaps I could borrow the money from my grandmother. The trouble was, she was 88 and almost blind and her solicitor guarded her assets like the angriest dog in the world. I didn't have anything left to sell.
I tried not to think of those little dwarfs, creeping out and creeping in.
Liz's suggestion that there could be squatters hiding in the house was far-fetched, but still worth thinking about. There was nobody in the roof-spaceDetective-sergeant Miller had attested to that. But there was still the blocked-off area immediately below it; right next to this bedroomthe area which must have once had a window, overlooking the western side of the garden, and the strawberry-beds.
That area was quite large enough to accommodate three or four peoplemaybe more. But there was no visible access to itnot from here, inside my bedroom, nor from the roofspace (as far as I could see) and not from outside, either.