It was exactly the same house as ours, just the other way around. Fair play, they’d done a decent job of it mind. But it wasn’t anything special. Attic conversion was quite good, and he’d redone the bathroom, new fittings and all. Nice enough – I didn’t care, but nice enough.
Living room and kitchen were all right. He laughed about having found that the outhouse was still working, so he’d cleaned it up so they had a second toilet.
The last thing he wanted to show me was the basement. All these old town houses have basements; we had one – dark and filthy without a proper floor and a low ceiling. You couldn’t do much with it except dump stuff down there. And the light didn’t work, and it was too dark down there to find out where the light was without a torch, so me and Gregg we never went down there. No one ever did – they were all the same in all the houses we went to. The basement was just a dirty room you stored your crap in.
But his house was different. He’d lowered the floor, tiled it up, made it a proper laundry room with a chest freezer and shelves. It was going to be a proper room you could use. He was very proud of this for some reason – I suppose it makes the difference when you’ve got hundreds of houses that all look the same.
So he opened up the door and took me down the steps in the dark. It was late, so there wasn’t much light from outside and the light cord was down at the bottom of the stairs.
He waited till I was at the bottom so he could have his taa-dah moment. He pulled the cord and the light came on.
And yeah, he’d done it up nice: tiled the floor, painted the walls, put in a separate washer and dryer, and the chest freezer like he said. He’d put up shelving units – but the thing we both noticed, the thing we noticed first, is that they were all covered in cats.
They were everywhere, hundreds of ’em; every colour and breed you can think off. They were lined up like a flock of birds, all perched along the tops of the washing machine, dryer and freezer, lined up on all the shelves, one on top of the other. And they were all looking at us, staring right at us.
“What the fuck?” he said, just before I could say it. They were all across the floor too.
They were hissing, baring their teeth. And then one walked slowly up to him, this big fat ginger one. The cat looked up at him for just a moment – then he went straight for his balls.
He screamed and he fell backwards. He grabbed the light cord as he went down and the lights went out – he tore the cord right out. He fell back in to me, pushing me and I sort of fell onto my side, down against the stairs.
They all went for him, hundreds of them – I could feel them crawling over my legs to get at him. It was too dark, I couldn’t see much but I could see him throwing his arms about trying to push them off. But there were just too many of them – they were like a living blanket; he tried to throw it off but it just fell back over him. He was grabbing them and sweeping them away but they just came back, climbing over each other to scratch and claw at him.
This one cat – scruffy and mangy – it stood on his shoulders, belly over his face and sank its claws into his head. Went at it like a scratching post; tore up his scalp and drew blood. He shook his head, tried to roll over and then tried to pull it off. Its claws were dug in so far it took flesh off when he threw it away. But as soon as his face was clear, four more cats climbed over the cats on his chest and went over his head and face, covering him. He probably couldn’t breathe from under them.
I got my senses back and tried to help him. He was lying across my legs, I couldn’t quite stand up. Cats were falling into my lap, but they weren’t interested in me; it was as if I wasn’t even there.
I put my hands under his shoulders and tried to pull him up. He was screaming like a girl, he was out of his mind with fear, terror. I was able to push myself up the stairs on my heels; I pulled myself from under him and was able to get him part way up.
But the cats didn’t give up easy. I could feel ‘em moving around my legs, scrambling and jumping up, trying to claw him any place they could. I stumbled most of the way up, but before I got to the top I almost dropped him. They were still climbing all over him and he was still screaming, but he got one hand on the hand rail to stop himself from falling. And they went for it; straight away they tried to loosen his grip, bit and scratched his hand and arm. But I got my footing back and got him back onto the landing and pulled him into the living room.
When we were in the light, the cats made a run for it and all piled towards the back door. I dropped him on the carpet – they’d done him up pretty bad; his shirt all torn, with blood soaking through. And his arms were pretty shredded as well. He only had one shoe on – there was just a torn sock with blood stains on it.
It was pretty horrific, but you know, I thought for a moment it wasn’t that bad. I mean bad, but not like being cut with a knife, they were all small shallow cuts.
But that’s before I saw his face. He had both his hands clutched over it, and you could see the blood running between his fingers. I called an ambulance while he rolled around in agony; he couldn’t even speak, he was that traumatised.
They operated as soon as they could, but in the end they couldn’t save his eye. He had to have a glass one put in; and you could tell as well, it didn’t look very good. And the scars on his forehead didn’t heal either, you could see them the last time I saw him. He wasn’t driving his BMW then, I can tell you. He avoided me; he’s not his confident old self anymore.
I suppose he got what he deserved. If he did what we think he did, that is. The cats certainly thought so.
I was always a dog person anyway. We’ve got one at home now. You know, just in case.
IN A BOX
Here goes…
It was five or six years ago. We’d moved into this new house in Letchworth – me and Peter, and Benjamin. He was such a happy boy; so bright and so sweet. He had these big, wide open eyes, bright blue eyes, and this cheeky, enigmatic little smile.
He was only about three or four when we moved. Those were the happiest times of my life. After the difficult first few years of looking after him and struggling with money and work, everything was finally coming together. We were stable, we could afford things – the house, the car – Benjamin didn’t need quite as much looking after. Things were so much easier.
You see, I’d been determined to keep up with my work after I gave birth. I wanted to do it, but also because we thought we’d struggle without the money. It was hard to work while Benjamin was little. But then Peter started to become more known, and his income helped to keep us afloat.
But then he recorded that album. It did so well. It changed his life; it changed all our lives. Suddenly we weren’t always living on the bread line. We could afford to enjoy life more. We could afford to go away. We could afford a mortgage.
Everything was so perfect, for a time. Benjamin had been such a handful growing up; he was always so hyperactive – he got that from Peter; he could never stay still either. It had been such a struggle getting it all balanced before. When Peter had his breakthrough it was when we were getting Benjamin ready to start school. We moved closer to the school we wanted for him, we could afford the fees and I could spend more time working. But more than that, I went back to painting; painting just for me. Just enjoying painting without any deadlines or clients or commissions. We all had our space, things were just… right.
Peter’s career was going so well that anything seemed possible. We had holidays in the south of France, Italy, and Florida for Disney World for Ben. But success meant more work. Peter became very much in demand. Which was good, for a while…
The hours were long. You know what artists can be like; musicians even worse. Drunks, crack-addicts, hooligans, even schizophrenics. He was selective at first, but sometimes he was pressured into working with people he didn’t want to. It’s the freelancer’s curse: no matter how hard you work, you’re always terrified it could dry up at any time.
The late nights and hours were only half the pr
oblem. A lot of these kid bands they liked to imitate; they liked to ‘pay tribute’ to those who came before. Or copy, if you like. So they wanted to record abroad, at the Berlin studios were Bowie and Eno did Low, at Sun Studios where Elvis, Dylan Cash and Carl Perkins played. And he wanted to go too; why wouldn’t he want to work at some of the most iconic studios in the world? Never mind us…
I kept getting stuck alone doing all the work myself. He’d come to me and say “Come on, it’s where Bowie did Heroes.” So I’d have to go along with it and pretend it was ok for him to leave me alone with Benjamin. He’d be gone for months, maybe coming home a couple of times if he could squeeze it in. Of course, I could afford to get some help for Benjamin, but I didn’t want to do that. I felt ashamed to hire a nanny; stupid, really, but I did.
Our parents lived too far away. His mother, Ellen, was very good and would come down from time to time, but my parents were old and my father needed lots of looking after.
And I started to resent his success. I admit that; his career had gone stratospheric and mine hadn’t. I didn’t care about the design work; I did ok with that, had some good clients. But it was my art I loved and I could never get any interest in my work. In some ways it was better when I wasn’t doing it. When I didn’t have time, I didn’t have time. When I had some time, but not enough time, that’s when I became frustrated. It’s like I could never focus, never give it the time I needed. There was always something else to do; it’s no small job looking after a house and looking after a child at the same time. Not that Benjamin was really much trouble; that was the strange thing, he got to a certain age and he was suddenly no trouble at all.
My God, I was so selfish. Sometimes I’d lash out, get angry and lash out. Poor Benjamin; it wasn’t his fault, he was just a child. But it wasn’t just that; even though we’d been in Letchworth for a few years I had no friends there, nowhere to go. We had friends in London, but it’s not just a short commute. There was hardly enough time for me to go during the day and be back to get Benjamin from school and then of course I had to look after him on weekends too. I felt so isolated. Sometimes friends visited, but not often, they had lives of their own. And I never made a fuss, I felt embarrassed to really tell them how I felt.
We started to row a lot, me and Peter. We would have slanging matches over the phone. And I got so stupid, started to get paranoid about the people he was hanging around with. I didn’t really think he’d have an affair or start taking stuff. I was just jealous and afraid that he was leaving me behind.
It all came to a head after he’d been in Jamaica with a band for months. I don’t even remember who they were, their success was so short-lived. But at that time they were such a big deal. But they were always fighting and falling out. He wanted to can it, but the record label put so much pressure on him to bring them back something. He managed in the end – I don’t think it ever got released.
When he got back he was barely through the door before we started to fight. Things had started to change. While he was away things weren’t as they used to be.
Benjamin had gotten into a fight at school. His school was so damn liberal; kids get in fights all the time but they wanted to make a big deal about it. I had to talk to the headmistress. They wanted to talk to both of us. When only I turned up, well, they made such a big deal about that. Benjamin was too introverted; he didn’t mix with the other boys, just played by himself. I got angry with them, told them there was nothing wrong at home. But there was something wrong, even if I couldn’t explain it.
I couldn’t even get Ben to talk about the fight; he said the boys had said bad things, but that’s all he’d say. I couldn’t make the connection; my Benjamin, quiet, introverted – that wasn’t the boy I’d raised. That wasn’t who he was.
But he wasn’t the handful he used to be. He was quiet; he did play by himself and didn’t make a fuss. I had the goodest, best behaved boy in the world – he was no trouble at all any more. Sure, he did normal things like sulk if I made him eat things he didn’t like, or if we were in a shop he’d ask for toys or sweets or something and throw a tantrum if he didn’t get what he wanted. But at home, when we were alone, he was quiet as a mouse. I’d be in the living room, painting all day, and I’d forget he was there. I’d just paint for hours and he’d be… somewhere. It sounds terrible; I hate to say it, but he just didn’t seem to want me or need me.
He wasn’t noisy, he wasn’t loud, he never broke anything. It never occurred to me how strange that was. And then that became a problem – I got stressed because my son was too well behaved. It sounds crazy but I started to feel so distant from him.
We had a showdown, me and Peter; what was more important, his family or his career? He got so angry, as angry as I’d ever seen him. I made him feel guilty and he hated me for it, lashed out. He didn’t understand that I was… I was falling apart. This wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted us to be together, as a family. That’s what it was all for, that’s what we’d got married for.
The money wasn’t that important. He kept telling me he was doing it for us. But he was doing it for him, for his ego. He liked the limelight, I know he did. He was getting the jet-setting lifestyle he’d always wanted and we were holding him back!
I couldn’t make him see how much it was affecting me. He thought it was all rubbish this stuff about Benjamin. He was so damn arrogant; nothing could be wrong with his son – that stung his pride and he was furious. He knew I was jealous, but he didn’t know I was holding something back…
I couldn’t tell him just how much him being away was really starting to affect me. It was more than just the stress of him not being around, it was something else. I had started… I was beginning to think that something was watching me in the house. That something was following me.
It sounded crazy, and I thought it was. Once I started to notice how quiet it was, how quiet Benjamin was, it started to upset me. I couldn’t stand the quiet; I used to put the radio or the television on in any room, just to drown out the silence.
I’d have to work hard to bring Ben out of his own little world, tell him we were going to the park or that we should play a game. Sure, he’d get excited then, start getting involved, but as soon as we stopped, soon as we got home or I’d get distracted from the game, he was gone again. He’d draw, he’d read, play with his building blocks or more often than not just silently wander off.
Sometimes I’d ask him, I’d say “What you thinking about sweetie?” – but he wouldn’t answer, he’d just smile enigmatically, or just say “Nothing”. Sometimes I felt like getting so angry, but I couldn’t, not when he looked at me so sweetly.
One time, do you know what he said? I asked him why he was so quiet, and he said: “Silence is golden.” I should’ve known then that something was wrong, really wrong, but I just couldn’t bring myself to face it. I mean, what kind of five-year-old says that?
I became obsessive about noise; there had to be sound everywhere. But I couldn’t fill the void; God, it was only a three bedroom terraced house, it wasn’t huge, but it started somehow to feel cavernous, huge, empty, vast. And in that atmosphere, in those moments of silence, that’s when I started to get the sensation I was being watched.
It could happen at any time, usually when I went out into the hall or onto the landing. I’d just be moving from one room to another, going from the kitchen to the living room, or up the stairs, and I’d get this feeling someone was watching me. I’d just get this sensation I wasn’t alone. This, I don’t know, shiver – this feeling. I’d turn, and I’d see nothing. And whenever I got this feeling, I felt cold. Dead cold, I’d get shivers all over my body.
I thought at first it must be Benjamin, playing a game with me. But he was never nearby, when it happened. He would always be outside, upstairs or in a different part of the house.
I couldn’t admit it at the time, to Peter, or myself – I wouldn’t even think about it between incidents – but deep down I couldn’t ignore that something was wrong
in that house. I couldn’t put it into words, into ways he could understand. I thought he was so sensitive and open when we first met; what an idiot I was. What an idiot he was! He was oblivious right up until it was too late!
All the hysteria would come out during our arguments. He underestimated just how fragile I was becoming. I made him swear, made him promise that the travel, the long periods away, they had to stop. I just wasn’t going to accept no for an answer. He had to stay around London and stay with us. I tried to convince him that we were better off together, as a family, stronger together. He agreed, but he wasn’t completely on board; I could tell, I knew it. But I got his word and that was enough for now.
Things were more… normal, for a while. We got back to playing happy families. We were fine for money, we spent plenty of time together, family days out and the like.
Of course his resentment would bubble up from time to time. I was prepared to slap him if he ever said he felt ‘cooped up’. This is what he wanted too – it wasn’t just me! He asked me to marry him, start a family. Usually he’d bite his tongue and slip away for a sulk. I gritted my teeth and didn’t rise to it, but things eventually got back to normal.
Benjamin was more his old self for a while. More lively, more in the world with the rest of us. He just seemed to connect better with his father, I don’t know why or how. I wasn’t any different with him, any less affectionate, any less warm, or fun to be around. Maybe he just didn’t like me as much. I mean, I did everything I could with him. Everything. We got along fine; but he was never as affectionate with me. I don’t know what I did wrong, because I was a good mother to him. I gave him everything I could.
He used to garden with me, that was the one thing we used to do together where I could see that he was having as much fun with me as he was with his father. Before we used to pay for this man to come over and do it. But I decided I was going to do it, because by that point I’d basically given up on my art, there was nothing, just a blockage. I’d lost my touch, if I’d ever had it. Couldn’t get inspired, couldn’t make anything I started come to life, so I just quit.
Eleven New Ghost Stories Page 14