The Unquiet House

by Alison Littlewood

  ‘Are.’

  ‘Wanna make summat of it?’ Sam leaned towards him, his chest puffed out. Frank suddenly knew it was hopeless. Sam would do anything, say anything, rather than go and knock on the old man’s door.

  Anyway, no one was going to knock. The man still stood there, his head twitching now and then towards the lane. He kept banging the stick so hard into the ground Frank knew it would retain its print for days to come. His backside would too, he thought, if he got caught.

  He sighed. It was two against one. ‘You won’t mind going past him then,’ he said, ‘if you’re so brave.’ He pointed down the lane, towards the path that led to the river. One side of it flanked the old man’s wall. His mother would tan his hide if she knew he’d even thought of it – she got tight-lipped if anyone even mentioned the place – and he shifted uncomfortably. It wasn’t as if the river was much fun for playing out. They couldn’t even reach the water, not really. There was a little bridge over the worst of the miry ground, a concrete slab with a thin metal pipe for a handrail, but it didn’t lead anywhere very much. It looked as if it would be fun to play on but it wasn’t. They could sit on the edge and dangle their feet, but what lay below looked like nothing but grass, long and lush. It wasn’t grass, though. It was mire.

  ‘All right.’ Sam’s voice was low. Frank looked at him and saw the older boy was only pausing, making him wait. Then he straightened and smiled. ‘We’ll all go. If, you know, you’re so brave.’

  Frank thought of the way Mossy had come into his room, his quiet knock, his downcast eyes: the way he’d gone to his big brother when he was afraid. And he had been afraid, he and Mossy both, but he hadn’t allowed it to show. He couldn’t. He was the eldest. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You first.’

  Sam led the way down the lane. Frank was behind him and he couldn’t see his expression but the back of his neck looked pink and he didn’t think it was caused by the coolness of the morning. Maybe he was wondering if the others were still behind him, following at his heels. He tried to walk more quietly just to spite him. Then he looked into the garden and saw the old man’s head turning slowly to watch their progress. He could hear the sound of his stick punching the earth. He was still wearing his scruffy black suit. It bagged at the knees. Even from here, he could see it had an unpleasant shine.

  Sam started to whistle. It wasn’t a good whistle. Frank knew it was supposed to sound as if he didn’t care, like he wasn’t scared, and for a moment it almost worked.

  The old man made a dirty noise – a deep, rasping hawking sound – and he spat. Spittle flew from his lips, a wet gobbet that landed on the ground in front of his feet. Frank saw this quite clearly because he had reached the gateway; there was no longer any wall between them. He felt exposed, as if he’d stepped out of the bath and someone had seen him; the cold was close against his skin, his belly contracting. He became aware of his own breathing, too light and shallow.

  Ahead of him, Sam started swinging his arms, high and fast, trying too hard to look casual. They had reached the path. It was narrow and overgrown with rosebay willow herb and nettles that brushed against their legs. They started to sting even through his brown corduroys, but he didn’t really feel it. Then Sam stopped and Frank had to stop too, to avoid bumping into him. Behind him, Jeff’s footsteps ceased.

  ‘Nice day!’ Sam yelled the words, shattering the quiet. Frank stared at him, horrified. The older boy had half-turned to look back at the old man. He raised an arm and gave a cheery wave, then pursed up his lips and blew a long, loud raspberry. In the next moment he started to run.

  Frank was frozen. He heard the plants whipping at Sam’s legs but he was really listening to the silence underneath that, until Jeff forced his way past him and he realised he would be left alone. He had expected the old man to chase after them but he was still standing there, an isolated figure in the middle of a wide lawn, and then he caught movement from the corner of his eye and he realised he wasn’t alone after all; there was someone standing behind him, wearing dark clothes. It was a thin woman with wide skirts and something covering her face. He shifted his focus to where she stood only to find he was mistaken after all; there was nothing but the shadow of clouds, moving across the grass.

  He shook his head. He had been so sure. He could still almost see her, reaching out to grasp the old man’s shoulder. Now he didn’t look angry any longer. His lips were pressed into a bloodless line, his forehead furrowed with creases, but his eyes were sad. Frank felt an overwhelming urge to shout at him to run with them, to run away; then the shrieks of laughter from up ahead roused him and he forced himself to move.

  He didn’t stop running until he reached the bridge and found them, Sam almost doubled across the handrail, laughing fit to bust. He slapped his thigh; he’d copied that from his old man. ‘Your face,’ he said. ‘Your face!’

  Jeff was standing in the middle of the bridge, laughing too; now he laughed even louder. When he slapped his thigh in just the same way Sam had, Frank had to fight back the urge to scream.

  ‘See?’ Sam gasped. ‘He’s just a silly old sod. Dunno what you was scared of.’

  ‘Silly old sod,’ Jeff repeated. ‘Silly old sod.’

  Frank stood there, not knowing what to say or what to do, until the two of them subsided and the sun climbed higher and Sam turned and led the way across the mire and towards the river.

  *

  There was no bridge over the actual river. It was not inviting or even approachable; it didn’t make a noise, chattering over pebbles like the rivers in stories did. It was something they could sense, but they rarely saw it because of the reeds that spread around it. Frank had tried to paddle in it once and he knew that what looked like long grass was always mire. He’d sunk into it and the water had overrun his boots and run down to his toes, and later he’d found it had a bad smell, that water. It was odd that he couldn’t detect it from here on the bank. He’d had to use the reed-grass to pull himself out again, clutching sharp handfuls to help him gain purchase. The river had no clear definition. It seeped into the land on either side; there was no distinct point at which land was land and river, river.

  Now the only sound was the slapping as they batted midges away from their faces and arms. No one spoke but he knew they must be thinking of going back. Mossy would be waiting for his big brother by now and he felt a stab of mean triumph that he’d got rid of him at last.

  Sam was standing with his back to Frank, staring out over the river, and he pulled back his arm as if to throw something into the water. Frank knew without looking for a splash that there was nothing in his hand; there were no stones to throw. There was nothing to do here, nothing with which to make a den, nothing to shoot at even if they’d thought to bring the catapults they’d made from sticks and elastic bands, no trees to climb. They were bored already and too hot and being eaten alive, and the only reason they hadn’t gone home was the old man that Sam had insulted.

  He looked back the way they’d come. Beyond the bridge he could see the top of the house, and further off was the tip of the church spire. All of it was still there, waiting. Maybe the old man was there and maybe he wasn’t: And the woman. Maybe she’s waiting too.

  He shook his head. The woman had never been real in the first place. But a part of him still wondered if that was why the old man had been so horrible? Bloody little buggers, he’d called them when Frank peeked in at his window. Maybe he couldn’t help it. Maybe he’d been touched by the ghost after all, been claimed by it in some way, and now he was stuck there all alone with no one but ghosts for company. He shivered. Still, it was no use staying here, waiting for nothing. They could be stuck here for ever. ‘I’m off,’ he said.

  Sam looked up and shrugged as if he wasn’t bothered.

  ‘See you later.’ He started to pick his way across the wet earth, his boots making an unpleasant squelching noise. Then he heard other noises behind him, the sound of the others following. Sam, who was older than him by a year, was taking
his lead. He smothered a grin and kept going, his back a little straighter than before.

  The old man’s garden was empty. There was only a bare expanse of uneven lawn, darkened with damp and pocked with holes punched by a thick black walking stick.

  ‘You should go inside,’ said a voice at his ear. ‘It’s your turn to do summat.’

  Frank twisted away as if Sam had struck him. The boy was like the midges, he wouldn’t let go. It didn’t matter how much you batted at them. He wasn’t going inside, he was going home to eat his dinner and get pestered by Mossy.

  Mossy. He thought for a moment of the way he’d been last night, subdued and small. Yes, that was it; he’d seemed smaller than he usually did, and quiet and somehow warm, but not in a nice way. It was like he’d been last summer when the scarlet fever was about to take hold.

  I wasn’t scared of the old man.

  No, his brother hadn’t been scared of the old man, and nor had Sam when he’d blown that raspberry as they’d walked up this same path. And what had he done to them, after all? Nothing, just shouted at them. What was he going to do about it if they went inside? Frank could say he thought he’d seen his brother going in there and he’d gone to find him. He’d get told off, that was all. He might get marched around to his parents’ by the scruff of his neck.

  He remembered the woman he thought he’d seen, standing behind him. There were worse things than sticks. But ghosts didn’t exist.

  ‘Well?’ asked Sam.

  His tone made up Frank’s mind for him. If he went into the house he could tell Mossy all about it and his little brother would know that he didn’t have to be afraid any longer.

  ‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘We’ll go in together.’ He turned to face Sam. He saw that the older boy was trying to hide the fear in his eyes and that was good; it made him feel a little taller. And Sam would have to go in after all. It served him right for starting this whole thing. ‘You’re the eldest,’ he said. ‘It’s about time you acted like it.’

  *

  Of course the door would be locked. The old man hated them and he had seen them playing around his house and there was no way he’d leave the door open. That was what Frank told himself as he crept alongside the garden wall. Sam was behind him and Jeff in the middle. They hadn’t talked about what order they’d be in and he wasn’t sure how, once again, he’d ended up in front.

  The man would come out and get him, or the woman would. He thought of her materialising out of nowhere, right behind him where he couldn’t see, and he swallowed.

  He turned and Sam glared at him. Frank sighed. There was no point in putting this off; he might as well just go. He glanced up the lane towards home. He was hungry. He wasn’t sure how far into dinnertime it was but judging by the sun, which was riding high, he was going to be late.

  He felt a hard nudge in his back. ‘Gerron wi’ it then.’

  He crept out from behind the gatepost. When he’d gone a short way up the drive he stepped onto the grass and into the shadow of the house. The ground felt unpleasantly unstable under his feet, damp and soft and liable to shift at any moment. From here he couldn’t see into the upper windows – they reflected back only the sky – but lower down, he thought he could see the top of the chair the old man had been sitting in. He couldn’t tell if he was sitting in it now. He could imagine his expression, though, if he could see Frank. He might be readying his stick at this very moment. But he thought of Mossy, clinging, whining Mossy, and he went on.

  It was only when he was part-way across the lawn that he thought to look down and saw the trail of perfect footprints they were leaving in the grass. Even if the man wasn’t watching him, he’d know. He might come after them.

  He tiptoed across the remaining stretch of grass and across the top of the drive towards the porch. The noise of the gravel couldn’t be helped; it was just something else he had to do. The door looked taller than ever as he walked up to it, and unwelcoming. He turned and Sam was there, but he didn’t look so bold any longer. He gave Frank a thumbs-up that made him think of school and children, little children, and he wrinkled his nose and turned and reached for the handle. When he turned it there was a loud metallic noise and he felt the catch release.

  The hallway was bare and unlit. He heard the sound at once, but for a moment he didn’t recognise it as music. It didn’t have the tinny quality of his radio; this sounded worse. It had a scratchy, fizzy tone that made him think of the old films his mother liked. It didn’t just sound as if it was coming from a long way away; it sounded as if it was coming from out of the past. It drifted down the stairs, through the spindles and along the balustrade and across the black and white tiled floor. He could hear footsteps but they weren’t dashing towards him; they were coming from inside the house, light little steps that made him think of dancing.

  Warm breath huffed against his ear and he jumped. It was Sam, laughing silently. ‘Old git,’ he said. ‘Gerron wi’ it then.’

  Frank didn’t bother to glare. He wasn’t sure he cared what Sam thought of him any longer. He turned his attention to the hall. There was a coat rack in one corner with an overcoat hanging from it, a pile of boots and shoes beneath that. They all looked like men’s shoes and Frank remembered something he thought he’d heard once: that the old man’s wife had died.

  Sam pushed past him and let out another smothered giggle. ‘God, look,’ he said. ‘We’re goin’ ter be in trouble.’ He pointed down at the smeared footprints they’d left behind. Frank looked around at the floor. It hadn’t been particularly clean to begin with, but now it was worse. Jeff hop-skipped across it, shaking the mud from his boots.

  ‘Stop it,’ Frank hissed.

  ‘What for?’ Sam pointed upwards. ‘You deaf or summat?’ He turned to the nearest door and disappeared into the room.

  For a moment Sam vanished; then his face appeared in the doorway. ‘What’s up? Come on then.’

  Frank’s bowels clenched, as if he suddenly needed to go.

  Jeff walked ahead of him and through the doorway. Now it felt more than ever as if they’d crossed some threshold Frank couldn’t see and didn’t want to. He glanced up the stairs, hearing the soft footsteps and the music, then he went after his friends.

  It was the same room he’d looked into the day before. Now he could see it better, but the first thing that struck him was the smell; it was stale and cloying and he could almost hear his mum tut-tutting over it. She’d never let a room get in this state. The carpet was thin and gritty and the air didn’t feel clean in his lungs. It felt as if his skin was being coated with something greasy. He rubbed his fingers as if he could feel it, but of course they were clean, he hadn’t touched anything. He looked at Sam as the older boy reached out and touched the side of the chair the old man had been sitting in. Frank caught his breath in an audible gasp.

  Sam’s gaze shot towards him. ‘Godsake. Nearly give me an ’eart attack.’ He whipped his hand back to his side and Frank could breathe again. Then Jeff pointed at the side table, two sharp jabs, and Sam went to it and picked up the pipe, just like that, and pretended to smoke it. He poked his nose in the air. ‘Call me sir,’ he said, ‘and summon the servants.’

  Jeff laughed, a loud, high-pitched noise.

  Frank looked around the room. He saw another chair just like the first but pushed back against the wall, and a big old dresser that must have taken four men to move. There was a table that might once have been grand but was old now, the top scratched and the legs chipped, and dining chairs and a fireplace and a set of fire irons on a stand. Everything was set back against the walls as if someone was about to play some sort of party game. The air was wrong and they were wrong, and he realised those things didn’t matter, not really, because something else was very wrong indeed.

  ‘We’ve got to go,’ he hissed and they froze. He could tell from their faces they’d noticed it too: the music had stopped. He couldn’t hear the old man’s footsteps. He wasn’t sure when he’d last heard them, or ev
en if those same footsteps had become a little louder before they’d ceased, as if each one was on the tread of a stair.

  ‘Run for it,’ he said, and he pelted for the door.

  The old man was standing at the bottom of the stairs, motionless, as if he were listening. Sam and Jeff burst from the room behind him and into Frank’s back, sending him staggering. He stumbled towards the entrance and his foot slipped on the mud in the hall and he landed, hard, on his knees. He stretched out his arms to catch himself and saw only the flash of Sam and Jeff’s legs as they passed, the sound of their feet deadening as they cleared the threshold.

  Frank ignored the pain in his knees and pushed himself up, and the old man grabbed his elbow and dragged him the rest of the way to his feet. He shook him and Frank’s head rocked on his shoulders. The man wasn’t gentle, wasn’t playing. Then he pulled him closer and Frank stumbled again but towards him this time; it was the old man’s body that kept him from falling. He could smell him, the same musty smell as the house but stronger and sharper, tinged with sweat and anger. He turned to stare up at him and caught the man’s sour breath full in his face.

  ‘Whe’er’s t’ other one?’ the man said, gripping Frank’s arm tighter. ‘Whe’er is he?’

  Frank stared. He could see the old man’s stubble jutting from his chin, and some of it was dark and some of it was white. His nose was pocked with open pores and short black hairs were growing out of it. His waistcoat – such a smart thing to wear, so odd to have on in the house – was as dirty as everything else. ‘Whe’er’s ’e gone?’

  Frank shook his head. ‘Sorry,’ he said. His voice came out all breathy and jerky as if he was still being shaken. ‘’E’s nor ’ere. ’E’s at ’ome.’

  The old man’s eyes were full of anger and hatred. The back of Frank’s neck prickled. The old man wouldn’t stop staring and he had the distinct impression he was looking straight through him.

  ‘The other one,’ he said again. ‘I saw ’im. Where’d he go?’ Frank knew that his eyes were wide open and fixed and he knew he shouldn’t stare like that, but somehow he couldn’t help it because he had realised something about the old man and it made his belly feel hot and loose and his legs turn to rubber. He was afraid. The old man was afraid.