‘She must have been dog mad,’ I say, because most of the photos feature the blurry features of long-dead pets.
I love dogs. I’m hoping to persuade Mum and Dad to let me have a puppy once we get settled in.
‘Oh yes,’ says Dad. ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet!’
He’s enjoying this.
Dad loves old houses the way that other people love chocolate or clothes or train sets or whatever other things they might be obsessed by.
With Dad, it’s ‘The Past’. He’s always going on about it. Sometimes, if I screw up my face and narrow my eyes, I can see Dad in an old-fashioned suit with a handlebar moustache instead of his goatee and with a pair of spectacles held to his piercing blue eyes.
‘Come on, Tabs,’ says Dad. We pass out of the morning room and back into the entrance hall but not before a tiny mirror in the doorway catches my eye.
‘Why would there be a mirror there?’ I say. ‘Why isn’t it inside the room?’
Dad comes back to take a look.
‘Not sure,’ he says. ‘But I’m guessing that the servants would check their appearance before going in to see to Lady Eleanor. She was very fussy about how they looked, from what I’ve heard.’
I nod. Kind of makes sense.
We pass in front of the grand staircase and I glance up as we go by. It’s very brown. Brown banisters, brown patterned carpet and brown panelled walls that are covered in dark paintings of brown horses and dogs.
‘Do you want to go up?’ says Dad. ‘There are loads of bedrooms up there and another floor in the attic.’
The weird thing is that I love grand staircases and always pretend that I’m some elegant lady coming down them in a ball gown.
But I don’t want to go up this one.
I look up it a bit more and then my appetite kicks in like I haven’t eaten for a year and it’s all I can think of.
‘Could we just do downstairs?’ I say to Dad. ‘I’m hungry.’
Just as I say this, the waft of eggs and bacon comes through from somewhere and my stomach growls with happy anticipation of Mum’s dinner.
I move away back through the entrance hall and Dad shows me the grand dining room near the entrance to our flat with its odd bookcases full of white, Chinese porcelain lions and then the elegant drawing room – the largest room downstairs – with two grand fireplaces, a crystal chandelier hanging down in the middle and floor-to-ceiling green shutters. Dad flings these open to reveal the back grounds of the manor and a view of the tiny medieval parish church that sits just to the left of the house.
By the time we’ve gone down into the basement of the main house and looked at the old kitchens and the scullery and the butler’s pantry and the housemaid’s parlour and the line of old bells, which still hang in the corridor waiting in vain for the lady of the manor to ring them and get the servants rushing upstairs, I’m tired out and starving.
It’s been a long day of moving and packing and getting used to new things.
‘You look like I feel,’ says Dad as we head back down the long corridor on the ground floor that leads to the brown wooden door of our flat with ‘Grey’ on the gold plate just next to the bell.
I glance at my reflection in the glass of the long conservatory windows as we pass them and it seems Dad is right.
My fair hair’s all lank and limp and my face is pale with dark rings under the eyes.
I look about ninety-three instead of fourteen.
Great.
And I’m supposed to be seeing Jake tomorrow night. I’ve been going out with him for nearly six months and he’s only like the hottest boy on the entire planet. He’d been pestering me to go out with him for ages before that and he’s still really keen. Gemma says he’s obsessed with me!
Mum doesn’t like me going out on school nights but tough.
I’ll tell Ben to keep Mum company while I’m out and while Dad’s patrolling the manor and making sure everything has been prepared for the next day of visitors.
Not that Ben’s much company. He’s only five. And he doesn’t have much confidence, unlike me. Dad says I’ve got too much.
Ben would burst into tears if he even saw his own shadow.
I burst through the door with my tongue practically hanging out from starvation.
‘We’re back! Let’s have dinner!’ I yell, but there’s silence.
Dad pokes his head into the darkened bedroom he’s going to share with Mum and I hear him murmuring in a low voice before he comes back out into the lounge again looking a bit worried.
‘Mum’s got one of her heads,’ he says. ‘So I’m going to pop to the parade over the road and see if I can get us a takeway, OK?’
I start to speak and then stop again. Maybe Mum started dinner and then her head got worse again and she had to lie down.
I go into the modern kitchen, which has been fitted by the council for our tenancy. The room is cold and the fridge is full of stuff but I can’t see any bacon.
I peer in the bin but there’s nothing in there, not even a bin liner.
Oh well.
Ben creeps out of his bedroom and puts his arms around my leg. He looks frightened, like he doesn’t want to be here. We’ve had a lot of changes in our life over the last few years.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say. ‘It will be OK. This is a nice house. Everything will be fine. And Mum will get happier. You’ll see.’
Ben looks up at me with his dark eyes and gives me the tiniest smile, so I let him explore my new bedroom. He sits on the bed and watches me try out new eyeshadows and we both try not to hear Mum moaning in pain through the wall. When Dad finally comes back I jump a mile at the sound of his key in the lock and then my heart leaps with relief at the smell of prawn crackers and black-bean noodles, and Mum comes out of her room and manages to eat with us and, although it’s not quite like I imagined it being on the first night, it’s kind of OK and we’re together.
‘So do you like Weston?’ Dad says as we finish with a tub of vanilla ice cream from a late-night shop that Dad found next to the takeaway. His eyes are all lit up and eager as he waits for my reply.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Yeah. I think I’m going to enjoy it.’
There’s a sharp laugh. Right in my ear.
I jump and shake my head like I’m trying to get a wasp off it.
It must have been Dad. He’s good at projecting his voice, after all. He used to give talks at the museum and it still shows.
I’m tired, right? It’s been a long day.
‘I’m going to bed,’ I say. ‘Night.’
Ben’s eyes follow me as I leave the room. I wonder if he’ll come and get in my bed in the middle of the night?
He usually does.
Chapter Two
On Monday morning I wake up and forget where I am.
I’d got so used to my last bedroom in our flat with its thick red curtains and cream walls that for a moment I gaze around this bare white room and can’t think what has just happened.
Then Mum bangs on my bedroom door and shouts, ‘Tabitha, get up or I’m going to come in and drag you out of that bed!’ and my mind kind of kicks into gear. With a butterfly thrill in my stomach I remember that I’ve got my date with Jake later and that we’re living in a beautiful manor house now.
Right.
The date calls for extra attention to my appearance.
Can’t get out of wearing school uniform for the day but at least I can make my hair look good.
I go into the little bathroom that adjoins my room and lean over the deep white bath to wash my hair in some special blonde stuff that Mum got me.
It’s cold in here. White tiled walls, green tiled floor and a draught blowing under the little sash window overlooking the back lawn.
Can’t have been much fun for the servant who lived in this part of the house. At least in my room there’s a warm radiator so that I can huddle by it while I’m drying my hair. I tip my head upside down and blow heat on to my roots. My hair’s real
ly fine, which is annoying, but there’s plenty of it.
I draw a layer of eyeliner inside my eyelids and stand back to survey the results in the mirror. The black of the eyeliner makes my eyes seem more blue than usual.
I put in a pair of blue stud earrings (we’re not allowed to wear dangly ones) and spray a load of gloss stuff all over my head.
‘It will have to do,’ I say to my reflection.
Ben comes in and gazes up at me, so I ruffle his hair.
‘Mum will kill me if I don’t hurry,’ I say. ‘See you later.’
Ben doesn’t have to go to school. He’s too unwell for proper school. Besides, I don’t think he’d get on too well with all the other crazy noisy kids.
I eat cereal in the kitchen with Mum and Dad, and Sid pops in again, jangling an enormous bunch of keys which he puts on the breakfast table. Dad picks up that huge bunch of keys with a glint in his eye while Mum is clearing up the breakfast things. I kiss my parents goodbye and come out of our flat. For the first time, I go on my own down the long corridor past the manor’s dining room and drawing room and into the grand entrance hall.
It looks different today.
All the shutters are drawn back to let the sunlight stream in and the heaters are pumping out hot air so that the oil paintings on the wall sway and bump on their long wires.
I glance at the glamorous portrait of Lucinda MacDonald. In the daylight her white dress glows less. Other portraits I haven’t noticed seem to swim into view as I look around the room. There’s one of a kind-looking old man with a grey beard and another of a man who resembles him but looks younger and less friendly. This man is wearing some sort of soldier’s uniform and has black eyes and a dark moustache. He glares out of the picture at me.
‘That’s Captain Jack,’ announces a woman’s voice.
There’s a lady in a dark uniform and white shirt stacking postcards on the reception desk. She looks old – about thirty or so. She smiles at me as I walk towards her.
‘He was a funny piece of work,’ she says. ‘Lady Eleanor’s only son. Always up to mischief. He never inherited this place, thank God.’
I smile because I don’t know what she’s talking about.
‘You must be Tabitha,’ she says. Her dark eyes dance. ‘We were told that the new family were moving in this weekend. I’m Dawn.’
I reach over the desk piled up with brochures and cards and shake her hand.
‘I do the tickets here,’ she says. ‘And sometimes I’m on security. We all just muck in and do whatever needs doing. You’ll get used to us being around.’
I smile at her and hover for a bit. Then I glance at my watch.
‘I’m late for school,’ I say. ‘See you later.’
I push open the heavy front door of Weston Manor, run past the Edwardian shoe-scraper and the old-fashioned bell pull and down the tall flight of white stone steps. There are cars pulling up in the horseshoe-shaped drive and other members of staff are getting out of them but I haven’t got time to speak to anyone else so I leg it out of the grounds and down Weston Drove towards the bus stop.
It’s only as I get on the bus, finding my seat next to Gemma as it drives back up past the entrance to the manor, that I look at the house and get a little thrill in my bones as I see it sitting there all white and quiet.
‘Did you know that I live there now?’ I say to Olivia White, one of my so-called other friends from school.
She shoots me a scornful look. ‘So?’ she says. ‘It’s just a house. And my mum says it’s really weird and she wouldn’t want to live there anyway.’
I sink into my seat feeling a bit deflated even though Gemma whispers to me to ignore Olivia because she’s the biggest bitch out there.
I miss my last home. I miss my old bedroom and the private garden that we had there, and even though life wasn’t perfect I kind of see what Gran is saying when she says things like, ‘Better the Devil you know.’
I’ve left so many good things behind me.
School seems to drag on for years.
Then again, it always does when you’re impatient for something to happen later on.
I sit through maths, chemistry, English and religious studies and me and Gemma text like mad underneath the desk all day, and then finally the bell rings and I go to the loo with Gemma to get ready for my date with Jake.
‘Shame about the gross dress,’ she comments as we peer at my reflection in the grimy mirrors in the school loo.
It’s May so I’m wearing my blue school dress with the short sleeves, which is kind of vile, but we both know that if I flout the school rules and get seen outside in my own clothes then my life won’t be worth living.
‘You can borrow these if you like,’ says Gemma. She pours a slinky armful of blue jangly bracelets on to my thin wrist and I clink my arm up and down, enjoying the feeling of cold metal.
‘Ah, thanks,’ I say. ‘They match my earrings! You’re a mate.’
I smile at Gem in the mirror. She’s kind of kept me going over the past few years when things have been tough at home. She has a friendly round face, long wavy hair and big sky-coloured eyes. We look about as different to one another as two people could possibly look.
‘And your hair,’ says Gemma. She pushes my head upside down into the sink and sprays a load of volume stuff all over it. When I tip my head back up my long blonde hair has got new layers in it and falls in a dishevelled mess all over my shoulders.
‘Nice,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’
Then she runs off home and leaves me pretending to be cool and disinterested just outside the school gates.
Jake’s already there, with his hands in his pockets. He’s whistling all casual, like he’s forgotten I’m due, but when I go up to him he flushes and pecks me on my cheek and gives me one of his cute soppy looks.
‘All right,’ he says. ‘D’you want a pizza or a curry or something?’
My heart kind of sinks a bit. It’s hardly the most romantic declaration of undying love ever. And I am kind of a romantic. Mum says I watch too many slushy American films and I know deep down that they’re rubbish, but after the last few years it feels like good escapism from everything that’s going on in my life. I like all those films where a boy meets a girl and they almost get it together but they don’t and there turns out to be some reason, like one of them is a vampire or suffering from a terminal illness.
‘Intelligent girl like you should watch decent films,’ Dad is always saying to me. I sigh and stuff my fingers in my ears.
Thing is, I know he’s right. I get high marks at school.
But being clever only ever seems to land me in trouble.
So I watch trashy films and read romantic books and they kind of dull things down and make me feel safe.
Or that’s the plan.
Jake takes me to a pizza place in town. It’s really noisy and full of babies crying and toddlers having parties so it’s quite difficult to hear what he’s saying, but I enjoy looking at his gelled-up hair and his blue eyes and tanned skin, and as usual he gives me masses of attention and doesn’t even look when a gang of really pretty blonde girls come in for a party, pushing past our table in their summer tops and leggings. I keep reminding myself that he IS one of the hottest boys in school and I’m so busy staring at him that I don’t hear what he’s asking me for a moment before I realise he’s asking me about the manor.
‘I said, did you know that my gran won’t go in there?’ he says. ‘She reckons it’s kind of spooky inside.’
I laugh in what I hope is a cool and casual way, pulling all my long hair to one side and arranging it over one shoulder.
‘Yeah, it’s maybe a bit weird,’ I say. The voice sounds as if it’s coming from somebody else, somebody all grown-up and sophisticated. ‘But actually it’s really cool living in a manor.’
I hear myself say all this and Jake’s smiling away so I must be doing a convincing job. But inside there’s a tiny sinking feeling of doubt.
Somehow
I get Jake off the subject and I ask him loads of stuff about himself and he goes a bit red when he gives me the answers. It’s nice seeing how much he likes me, so for a few more hours I forget about my new home and Mum’s migraines and sadness and Ben’s scared look, and I just enjoy having Jake give me lots of attention.
When it gets to seven I stand up and brush crumbs from my school uniform.
‘I’d better get back,’ I say. ‘Mum worries if I’m late.’
The light is fading as I get on the bus. Jake watches and waves from the pavement and I half-wave but inside I feel a bit embarrassed, even though we have been together for months. As the bus pulls into Weston Drove and I get off to walk the last little bit, I get the sinking feeling again, like I’m about to do an exam or something. It gets worse as I walk up the horseshoe drive to the manor. All the visitors have long since gone and the shutters are closed in every window. The house stares down at me with those dark, unblinking eyes. I climb the white stone steps and push twice on the bell like I’ve agreed with Dad so that he’ll come and walk me back to our flat.
While I’m waiting for him to let me in, I glance over to the ruined stable buildings on the right and for just a second I imagine them as they once were, rushing with life and noise. Horses pulling carriages, grooms brushing them down and stabling them. I swear I can almost smell the stench of horse dung and blocked drains and a whiff of something sweeter – peaches, perhaps, or grapes? – and then Dad’s pulling open the heavy front door and giving me a hug and all of that sort of melts away when I smell his warm jumper and the deodorant he always uses.
I hold on to him tight until he moves away to pull down a blind in the entrance hall.
Then something makes me jump.
I don’t know what, at first.
Then it’s there. A feeling at the back of my head. Like a pack of ice has been pressed against it. ‘Ow,’ I say, clapping my hand under the nape of my neck.
I twist round to look behind, out over the semi-circular drive with the weird flight of steps that go nowhere.
The Haunting of Tabitha Grey Page 2