The Book of the Banshee

by Anne Fine

  ‘April,’ she said.

  She kept talking, all about how she kept at it, day after day, week after week, month after month. Then she showed us pages she’d typed up and printed out, all smart and clean.

  ‘September,’ she said.

  I thought we must be pretty well through by now. But, no. Almost at once she held up a matching sheet, but this one was covered with pencilled corrections and crossings-out and additions. She’d clearly been at it all over again.

  ‘October,’ she told us. ‘But we are getting there.’

  November was pretty neat. It was all printed out beautifully, and it was only because I was in the front row that I could see splodges on the paper where the light hit the back and showed she’d been using correction fluid to blot out a comma or two, rather than go to the trouble of printing the whole page out again.

  Then, suddenly, she swooped in the bag again and pulled out a large green file. On the front was a label that said in big letters: The Rise and Hard Fall of Stewart Moffat.

  ‘December!’ she said triumphantly.

  ‘Alec Whitsun!’ I said, astonished.

  It just came out. I couldn’t help it.

  She stared at me. First she looked pleased, then anxious. She broke off talking to everybody for a second, and dipping in front of me, her skirts brushing the floor, she asked:

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said. I was really embarrassed now. ‘Not at all.’ And just as she rose to her full height, I added stupidly: ‘Sorry.’

  I knew exactly what she meant, though, when she asked ‘Do you mind?’ She was worried in case it would spoil the books for me, knowing they’d been written by an Alicia, not an Alec. I’ve read all ten Whitsun books. I think they’re brilliant. For years I thought that there were only four. Then one day, purely by accident, I found another, and in the front of that there was a list – ‘Other Books by Alec Whitsun’ – with six more titles I had never seen, including The Rise and Hard Fall of Stewart Moffat. It took me ages to get hold of all of them because the Alec Whitsuns were the sort of books people grab straight off the library trolley and don’t put down in case someone else makes off with them. It was so odd to think he was standing there – she was standing there – holding a file of pages that she’d written over and over, and then typed, and I’d read through school and supper and late into the night, with all my pillows pushed up against the bottom of the door, to stop Mum and Dad from noticing I hadn’t put my light out.

  ‘Questions?’ she said suddenly.

  It didn’t seem to occur to her there might not be any. She obviously thought writing books was the most interesting topic in the whole world. She didn’t even seem bothered by the long, embarrassed silence that followed. I expect she thought we were all busy working out the best way of asking our questions.

  Marisa put up her hand first, of course.

  ‘Can anyone be a writer?’ (She meant her.)

  Ms Whitley got her teeth into that one, I can tell you. There were writers and writers, she said, but you couldn’t be a good one unless you were a good reader. That was essential. ‘You’re writing for the reader in yourself,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to know when it works. If you don’t read, if you can’t recognize when something’s right, how can you do it yourself?’

  It was true, what she was saying. I knew that. I’d known it from the moment I opened up The Longest Summer and read a bit of it. You know at once when something’s written right. Something inside you says: ‘Yes! That’s exactly how it must have been. That’s how it would have felt.’ And she knew too. She stood there talking about it with the same mad light in her eyes as that funny Welshman who preaches in the arcade on Saturdays. And she told us the one other thing that we needed.

  ‘You’ve got to have something to tell, too. It could be a good story. Or something funny. Maybe it’s something that’s been on your mind, something you’re working out. You want to write about it anyway. It doesn’t matter what it is, but it does help a bit if it’s something that matters.’

  You work that out. I had a go at it as the last bell rang, and Mr Astley hastily snapped shut his file, leaped to his feet, and thanked Alexandra Whitburn for her most interesting and informative talk. She was right again, I decided. You have to have something to write about. William Scott Saffery had his five months in the trenches. What he has to tell is so amazing I read about it over and over again. I can’t stop. I know his days and nights now a whole lot better than I know my own. Somehow I couldn’t imagine him squatting in all that mud and blood and rain, reading about my life.

  But then again, why not? I would. If I were in his place, I would have given the world to read myself out of it whenever I could. The week Stormer Phillips threatened to get his brother’s gang to rough me up, I think I read all the time. If I were William Saffery, I’d snatch up anything that might take my mind off the infernal pounding of the guns.

  And our house is a battleground too, in its own way. That’s what Mum says, at least. She claims that since Estelle turned into a shrieking banshee overnight, our house has been hell on earth. Sometimes Mum gets so rattled about Estelle, she won’t even come in the door like a normal human being. She parks the car a little way along the street, creeps up to the house, and taps on the window where I sit to do my homework.

  I open it and lean out. Mum’s usually standing in the flower bed, with mud all over her shoes. She doesn’t ask me how my day at school went. Oh, no. No time for niceties under fire. She just gets straight to the point.

  ‘How’s your sister?’

  I know she doesn’t mean Muffy, that’s for sure.

  ‘She’s in a bit of a mood.’

  A hunted look comes over Mum’s face.

  ‘Where is she? Upstairs?’

  ‘No. She’s in the kitchen, waiting for you to come home.’

  ‘Oh, God. Help me in.’

  I can’t imagine what the neighbours think, seeing her hitching up her skirt and clambering in through the window, day after day. Mum says if they’ve ever had a teenage daughter they’ll understand at once, and if they haven’t there’s no point in even trying to explain.

  ‘All I need is five minutes,’ she says. ‘Five minutes’ peace and quiet. Then I can face it.’

  ‘They gave them rum in the trenches.’

  ‘Trenches!’

  The way she says it, you’d think she’d happily sell the whole house (with Estelle in it) to get a nice quiet trench on the front line.

  Battles at home and abroad. All good to read about. The more I thought about it, the surer I was that William Scott Saffery would be just as riveted by my tale as I am by his. I thought at first it was just a fleeting idea, something that drifts across your mind and away, like one of those transparent wavy worm things that float down in front of your eyes in harsh sunlight. It was only when all the rest of them started scuffling around under their chairs for their bags, and barging one another on the way to the swing doors to get back to the classrooms to pack up, that I realized what I had done. I had made a decision.

  When William Saffery found himself in the middle of a war, he sat down and wrote a book about it.

  And so would I.

  Chapter 2

  WILLIAM SAFFERY WROTE on ‘anything that would take writing’. I’ve got a beautiful black book. The cover is canvas with a glossy sheen. On the front, in gold block letters, it says THE BESHOOHOEFTE BANK, and I found it in a rubbish skip outside Mum’s offices a few years ago. Only the first seven pages had anything on them at all, and that was some strange old foreign accounts in spidery brown writing. I tore them out with the back halves that would have fallen out later, then I kept the book at the bottom of my cupboard. Each time Estelle went rooting through my stuff, looking for something to wear, she’d ask me if she could have it. I always said no. I knew it would come in useful. Ideally, of course, the book I write should be called The Beshoohoefte Bank, but I have a different title in mind. I won’t let on ye
t, though. As William Scott Saffery says on his first page:

  On account of military regulations,

  occasional gaps in this story are

  unavoidable.

  I can’t miss everything out though, however dangerous it would be if it were found. And dangerous is the word. Estelle’s a year younger than I am, and half a head shorter, but she still scares me stiff when she loses her temper.

  And she would kill me if she found this and read it. So it’s a good thing I’ve been reading all these ‘Escape from Colditz’ books, and learned how to hide things from serious snoopers. Mum and Dad stroll in here often enough, of course, spooning out laundry and fretting about that patch of furry green mould struggling its way up the side wall. But since Mum went back to work after Muffy, I’ve had to do my own cleaning. One fluff ball too many and my pocket money is slashed to almost nothing; but at least no one else goes hoover-nozzling round my furniture.

  I’ll keep the book under the carpet beneath my bed, hidden well away in the corner. Estelle won’t find it there. At least, I hope she won’t. She’d hit the roof, just reading what I’ve written so far. The trouble is, she’s got no sense of humour any more. She used to be good fun. But since the day I gave her that badge that said ‘Terrible Teens’ and she took it straight off the card backing and stabbed me with the pin, Estelle has changed. Sometimes she’s almost as sweet and easy-going as she used to be. But most of the time it’s like sharing a home with some apprentice witch. We live in constant fear. Everyone in the family has their own way of describing what happens to Estelle. ‘Goes a bit awkward’ is Dad’s phrase. Mum is more direct. She claims Estelle curdles. Gran offers warily: ‘Gets a bit – difficult – at times . . .’ Muffy says nothing, of course. (Muffy hardly ever speaks.) But the way she sometimes sticks her thumb in her mouth and stares at Estelle as if she were something really weird on the telly makes it perfectly clear that, like everyone else in the family, she’s wondering what’s happening to her favourite person.

  Because Estelle was always an angel before, everyone’s agreed on that. She was such a perfect angel that, even though I’m a whole year older, she was the one they always put in charge. ‘Be sure and hold Will’s hand crossing the main road, Estelle’ turned out to mean her looking after me, and not, as I assumed for years, me looking after her. In fact, Mum claims Estelle practically brought me up. She’s been brilliant at looking after others since she was tiny. Part of it comes from the fact that I was a bit of a late bloomer, of course. But a lot of it comes from her soft heart.

  And she was born with that. Why, when she was only eighteen months old, Dad put his back out on holiday, dumping her in a hotel cot. He lay spreadeagled, quite unable to move. Estelle couldn’t reach him to pat him better through the bars, so she pulled herself up and leaned over the top rail. Dad says the last thing he recalls before he passed out was Estelle’s hot little tears of sympathy splashing on his bare back. Whenever anyone even mentions Tossa Del Mar now, Dad’s eyes fill up. He always claims that it’s the memory of the excruciating pain, but we know better. Dad’s soppy about Estelle, and always has been.

  Mum’s full of stories about how wonderful she was back in the old days, as well.

  ‘Such a clever little thing! Do you know, once, when she was sneaking biscuits out of a packet I’d left on the table, I turned round from the sink and asked her: “Estelle, is that your fourth or your fifth?” Guess what she answered. “Oh, dear! I think it’s probably my last!”’ Gran rabbits on about the frilly pink frocks that made Estelle look so enchanting. Now she goes around half the time looking like something that just crawled out of a grave, if you want Gran’s opinion. And even Chopper (who’s been out with practically every girl in the school, so ought to be able to judge) admits that Estelle used to be all right.

  So what do I think?

  I can’t understand what’s happened. I always thought that people grew up bit by bit, staying much the same inside, but learning things one at a time in a steady progression. So whatever it is that’s happening to Estelle worries me. How can someone already know that you have to ask other people before you take their stuff and muck about with it, and then seem suddenly to forget overnight how that person will feel if they walk into a room and find their precious radio, or calculator, or new leather jacket, carelessly strewn on the floor? How can someone go to the same school, term after term, and then just forget all the rules? And how come Estelle can walk into a room and see me – a brother she’s lived with amiably enough for years – and suddenly start snarling? What’s wrong with me all of a sudden? I’m just the same. I’m getting taller every week, but there’s no reason that should bother Estelle. After all, it’s me who keeps banging my head on things, not her. Yesterday I walked into the kitchen and Mum said:

  ‘Will, your hair’s gone bright yellow!’

  It was turmeric. I bash my head on things so often now, I scarcely notice the pain. I’d knocked the underside of the spice shelf as I went past, and all the turmeric had puffed out of its little plastic tub, and landed all over my hair.

  So I have my own problems. She’s not the only one round here who’s doing some changing. I’m growing a lot faster than she is. But I don’t think that I am changing inside. I think I’m still the person I always was. I certainly haven’t turned into a banshee, like she has.

  You take this morning. That was typical. Monday is Mum’s day off. Muffy stays home. So, now that Dad keeps the garage open all weekend, Monday’s the only morning he and Mum ever get to lie in. She’s sitting up in bed, drinking the tea I’d brought her, and Dad was still rolled in the downie, dead to the world.

  Then Estelle starts. I saw the whole thing because I was rooting through Mum’s purse, looking for lunch money she swore must be in there somewhere. Estelle sailed in. She didn’t say ‘Good morning’ or anything. She just started in on them.

  ‘I need six pounds.’

  I looked up. I was in time to see Mum’s face set, and her fingers stiffen round the handle of her teacup.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  No explanation, you notice. Just ‘I need six pounds’. Under the downie I saw the little bulge of Mum’s foot slide across to touch Dad’s leg. I knew exactly what that meant. It meant: ‘You’re her father, George Flowers. Wake up and deal with this. It’s too early for me. I can’t face it.’

  Dad knew what it meant, too. Sighing, he rolled over, bringing the downie with him, like a beached whale. He opened one bleary eye. By then, Estelle had plonked herself down at the dressing table, and started fiddling with Mum’s precious make-up.

  Dad made an effort.

  ‘Six pounds?’

  ‘By this morning!’

  Somehow Estelle managed to make it sound like some impatient kidnapper’s last reasonable offer before he started sending severed ears through the post to the distressed family.

  ‘But what’s it for?’

  All of a sudden Estelle was scowling in the mirror as if Dad had just accused her of being a liar and a thief, not simply asked her why she needed six pounds.

  ‘For a field trip! I told you!’

  ‘Not sure you did, Estelle . . .’

  He wouldn’t be that tactful with me, I can tell you. If I came up to him demanding money with menaces, he wouldn’t bite his tongue and say, ‘Not sure you did, Will.’ He’d say straight out: ‘No, you didn’t. I’m not deaf. And I’m not stupid, either!’ But like everyone else in the family over the last few months, Dad has become quite wary of Estelle. Like William Saffery, he keeps his head down, and hopes the explosions happen somewhere else.

  Estelle was muttering now, and practically climbing in the mirror, doing something with her face. I couldn’t work out what she was saying at all. Neither could Dad. He had to ask her to repeat herself. This time it came out as a giant snarl.

  ‘It’s not my fault if you don’t listen!’

  Dad sighed. I started a sigh count. That was two.

 
‘We do listen to you, Estelle. It’s just that neither your mother nor myself remembers hearing you say anything at all about needing six pounds for a field trip.’

  He spoke for both of them because Mum had pulled the downie up over her head. She was just a long green lump in the bed now, like a body bag in some American war film. Mum can’t stand arguments early in the morning. She’s a lawyer, so she gets them from the moment she steps in the office. Before nine, she hands them straight over to Dad the same way William Saffery used to hand his rifle over to his friend Chalky whenever he saw someone in the enemy trenches exposed to fire too early in the day. He couldn’t bear to start off his morning by killing a man. And I can understand that.

  Estelle was still rubbing Mum’s very expensive black make-up stick round and round her eyes.

  ‘I suppose you think I’m lying!’

  Dad sighed again. (Three.)

  ‘That’s not very nice, Estelle. And it’s not fair. I don’t believe you’re lying. I’d just like you to have the good manners to tell me a little bit about this field trip before I dip in my wallet to pay for it.’

  Estelle’s so clever, the way she twists things round.

  ‘You hate spending money on anything to do with me, don’t you? You’ll buy things for the others. You bought Muffy a whole bed last week—’

  ‘Estelle, Muffy can’t sleep in a cot bed for ever.’

  ‘And you bought Will that calculator!’

  ‘He’s taking maths, Estelle!’

  ‘And all I do is ask you for six miserable pounds to go with the rest of my class to Sanderley Tree Park, and you end up giving me a giant great row!’

  There were some funny noises coming up from Mum’s side of the bedclothes. At first I thought that they were just more sighs. But then I realized she was going apoplectic. Quick as he could, Dad moved his leg across, to pin her down. And by the time she’d managed to tear the covers off, to get at Estelle, he’d slid his arm round the back of her head, and clapped his great big hand over her mouth. Mum put up a really good fight. It must have taken a lot of strength to keep her down. If he’d let go suddenly, I wouldn’t have been the slightest bit surprised to see Mum shoot up and crack her head on the ceiling.