If only, though, she could make out what he was saying! A fact, some wonderful new fact, was once more slipping past her, in a few moments it would be gone …! It seemed to happen like this more and more often, these days. Once more she leaned stiffly forward, and with twisted, rheumatic thumbs she fumbled with the knobs, turning them this way and that to get the volume up; but already it was as high as it would go, and yet the words still wouldn’t come clear …
*
“Mrs Bates! For pity’s sake, will you turn that bloody set down! D’you want to deafen the lot of us? If I have to complain just once more, I’ll—I’ll—Ahh-h—ugh …!”
The tirade petered out abruptly, not because the landlady was at a loss for a suitable threat—the word “eviction” had been coming more and more easily to her lips of late—but because the flow of her indignation had been hit amidships, as it were, by sheer physical revulsion. The dirt! The mess! The windows, thick with grime, tight shut against the lovely May morning! Dirty crockery and bits of food everywhere! And in the midst of it all, still in her nightdress among a tumble of dirty sheets and blankets, crouched the obstinate old perpetrator of it all, who wouldn’t move out, wouldn’t let the Welfare come in and cope, and now wouldn’t even get dressed in the morning any more!
Euphemia could not hear what the landlady was saying, but about the woman’s intention there could be no mistake. She reached across Euphemia’s bed, jerked the volume down to an inaudible whisper, and then turned to berate Euphemia yet again.
It didn’t seem to be about the television any more, though. It was something else—something to do with the floor. She was pointing downwards, and gesticulating. The words, “rug” and “filthy!” shrilled faintly in Euphemia’s ears. Euphemia fairly exploded with indignation.
“I’d have you know that rug’s brand new!” she yelled back with spirit. “I bought it only last …”
Last what? When had she bought it? Slowly she focussed her eyes on the gay new colours—and they were gone! The reds, the blues, the golds—all vanished! All you could see now were brownish stains, and trodden-in bits of biscuit. The lovely soft fluffiness was all gone, the pile was matted and dead, flattened out with grease and wear!
What had happened? Where had the years gone? Gripped by a terrible bewilderment, Euphemia allowed her eyes to wander over the rest of the room. Dust … muddle … half-eaten plates of food … how on earth had she ever let it get like this? She, Euphemia Bates, who had always been so particular about things being nice, and had always taken such care of her things? She stared in a sort of dazed incredulity at it all.
“I’ll be giving the place a good do tomorrow!” she informed the landlady with dignity—and realised, even as she spoke, that the words no longer had any meaning. How often must she have repeated them, week after week, month after month, over the years, for all sense to be thus drained out of them?
“… can’t go on!” the landlady was yelling, close to Euphemia’s ear. “… more than flesh and blood can stand … other tenants in this house … warned you before ..!”
After a while, though, she was gone. She always went away in the end, and then Euphemia could relax and turn the volume up again on the television.
Oh, but it was grand, the picture on the set this time! Beautiful! A sort of giant butterfly, with wings like lace stretched right across the screen! So fine and delicate, all those tiny veins, what workmanship! And scarcely had this wonder fully impressed itself on Euphemia’s vision, than another wonder followed—one so extraordinary, this time, that for a moment she could hardly credit it.
“EUPHEMIA,” it said, in great black letters right across the screen! “EUPHEMIA”! There it was, before her very eyes!
“Me!” she cried—actually out loud in her excitement. “A programme about me!”—and then, looking more closely, she saw that the name was not spelled quite right. “E.U.P.H.E.R.E.M.A.”—“E.P.H.E.M.E.R.E.M.A.”—something like that? Before she had had a chance to spell it out properly, it was gone, the goldfish man was back, smiling and mouthing. By turning up the volume to its very highest extent, Euphemia could just hear bits of what he was saying.
“… commonly called the Mayfly … best-known member of this genus … a very beautiful insect … hatches out in May … from a grub … three years as a grub, and then it becomes capable of flight for just a single day, the day before its death …”
How sad! Just fancy—to fly for just one day, and then to die! How sad, how sad! But how wonderful, too … what a wonderful fact to have learned!
“… hence their name,” the bland, kindly voice went on. “‘Ephemeridae’, from a Greek word meaning ‘just for one day’…”
*
“Mrs Bates! Will you turn that set down! Do you realise the whole house is shaking with your bloody din? We’ll have the ceilings down in a minute …!”
This time, the landlady flung herself at the set like a tigress at its prey, and the smooth, informative voice exploded into silence like a bomb. In the spinning quietness that followed, the landlady stood for a moment staring at Euphemia in a sort of swollen stillness. Then the full torrent of her fury burst forth, and bits of it, like spray, found their way to Euphemia’s ears:
“… is the end! … had enough! … my other tenants! … don’t say you weren’t warned! … if I’ve asked you once, I’ve asked you a million times!”
*
For many minutes after the landlady had gone, Euphemia sat quite still, half in bed and half out, trying to assemble her scattered thoughts. Not that the landlady’s anger was anything new—it happened all the time, these days, whenever Euphemia turned up the television loud enough to be heard properly—but this time, there had been something different in the woman’s voice and manner. Something menacing, that had never been there before. What was it she’d threatened she’d do …? With her heart beating strangely, and her mind full of muddled forebodings, Euphemia sat and waited. She did not dare turn the television back on again, as she usually did, because the air seemed full of threats. Better wait, and let them settle. Presently things would be back to normal again, and then she could switch it on once more.
*
Somehow, Euphemia must have dozed off, for the next thing she knew, she was being woken by a sort of vibration in the room … a sense of upheaval … dark figures, moving, swaying against the muted light from the window…. And then, all in a moment, she was properly awake, and saw what they were doing! They were taking the television away! Two of them—yes—the landlady and one of the old men from downstairs—they had the set unplugged, and were hoisting it up between them, its poor wires dangling! As they lumped it awkwardly towards the door, trying to be quiet, they suddenly became aware that Euphemia was watching them from the bed.
“And you pipe down, you old bitch!” the landlady turned and shrieked at her—even though, as yet, Euphemia had not uttered so much as a cry, so great had been the shock, and so great, too, the sheer difficulty of taking in that it was really happening. “You pipe down, we’re going to get some peace at last in this house, before we’re all driven deaf and daft by your bloody noise! Deaf and daft like you are yourself …!”
The abuse petered out in gasps and laboured breathings. The set was a heavy one, and the old fellow whose help the landlady had enlisted was frail, and none too happy at his task. Between them, they lugged and panted, but it seemed impossible to squeeze the thing past the sink, with that great battered wardrobe in the way; nor would it go past the old-fashioned marble washstand. Well, it would have to go this way, then; it would have to be lifted right up, over the top of the chest of drawers …
“Up!” the landlady commanded breathlessly, and the sagging old arms of her assistant braced themselves a little. “No—higher than that! Higher! We’ve got to get it over, see, like this! That’s right! That’s better! Up! Up!”
*
And it was then—for all the world as if in obedience to the landlady’s command—that it all began to ha
ppen.
At first Euphemia was only aware that her knees had stopped hurting. There was a sort of lightness in them that she had never felt before … a lightness that was spreading everywhere, in all her bones … it was like a wind blowing through her, sweeping away the aches and pains like autumn leaves! They were gone, finished! “Up! Up!”—the landlady’s words came to her ears ever so faintly, but somehow her body seized on them, took them for its own, set them echoing from cell to cell, back and forth and to and fro, until her whole frame was vibrating with them. “Up! … Up!”
All her life, ever since she was a tiny child, Euphemia had known that she could do it really; and now it was happening. She could fly. By bracing every muscle of her body, by exerting every ounce of will, she could just raise herself from the bed; first only an inch or two, and then—it was like a remembered skill from long ago—the knack began to come back to her. In a few more seconds she was free of the dreary tangle of sheets and blankets, floating clear above them. Every muscle tensed to weightlessness, her arms beginning to feel their way, like oars, in the empty air, she lunged upwards; and with a wonderful surge of power she swooped clear to the ceiling, and hovered there, treading air, testing her new-found powers.
“MRS BATES!” shrieked the landlady; and “For Chrissake!” muttered the old man, gaping upwards, and dropping his end of the television as he did so.
“Stop her! Stop her!” yelled the landlady helplessly. The poor woman had no built-in behaviour patterns for confronting marvels; no standardised, well-tried attitude towards tenants who flew up to the ceiling, and so she fell back on a sort of generalised, all-purpose disapproval. “Stop her! Stop her!”
But nothing and no one could have stopped Euphemia now. Already she was through the door, and floating across the landing. At the top of the stairs she touched the floor just once, to give herself a start, and then she was floating down the stairs, six inches or so above the treads, and never needed to set foot to the ground again all the way down, not even at the bends of the landings.
How easy it was, and how familiar! How on earth could she have forgotten, for all those long dark years, how it was done? Down, down … across the dark hallway … out through the front door, which swung shut behind her with a mighty slam; and now, at last she was out in the street. For a moment, she had to close her eyes against the forgotten glory. The sun! The sun!
At first, bedazzled by joy and light, and still uncertain of her skill, she flew low, barely a foot above the ground, skimming the hot, shining pavements and the front gardens bright with flowers. How the children at the street corner stared as she swooped among them, breaking up their hopscotch game, and leaving them with their game shattered and all the wonder of the world in their eyes as she darted away, leaping and swerving in the sunshine, her arms and legs flailing and pedalling—still a little clumsily—through the summer air!
But soon, as her confidence grew, and her arms recovered their long-forgotten skill, and rowed in the air like oars—soon she began to venture higher … and higher … swooping among the rooftops, skimming above the trees in blossom. Down below, she saw the streets, bright and bustling in the sunshine; the great golden warmth that she had never thought to feel again beat down upon her, and she breathed, in great gulps, the soft, scented summer air. She was over the park now, the scent of the May trees, and of the lilac, floated up to her.
“Oi! Look!” yelled the small children far below, out with their mothers, and with their baby brothers in prams. And, for once, the mothers did look, stunned, for just one moment, out of their shopping lists and their problems. Only for a moment, though, and then Euphemia was off again, off and away, into the blue and dazzling air. Higher she flew, and higher, soaring above the great chestnuts, spiralling up and up into the empty golden sky, where there are no shadows, but only light, and light, and light.
She knew, of course, that at the end of the day she would die, but what of it? She danced and darted in the noonday sun, and laughed for joy. Death? How small a thing it seemed, compared with one whole summer’s day.
THE INTRUDER
JENNY TIPTOED OUT of the kitchen, and stood at the foot of the stairs, listening. Like most people, she had often read and heard about burglars, and had wondered how she would feel if she ever encountered one; now, at last, she knew: and it was beyond her wildest imaginings.
She dared not turn on the light. For many minutes now—ever since she had heard the faint sounds from upstairs—she had been in total darkness, and by now the blackness had begun to pulse against her eyeballs like a drum, like an actual physical noise, making it impossible to listen any more, or to know with any certainty whether or not the sound up there was still going on.
Yes! There it was again! A footstep … a shuffling pause …!
Or was it? Was it perhaps just the warped, ancient floorboards, restless with age, shrinking and stirring in the chilly small hours, after the long heat of the day? Was that the sort of noise you must expect in a house as old as this one?
Jenny didn’t know. Indeed, brought up as she had been, in a bright, modern little Council house, she couldn’t know; and the old house seemed, in the darkness, to be mocking her ignorance, laughing and creaking to itself, playing on her town-bred nerves deliberately with all the tricks of ancient wood and stone.
She had known, from the moment she set foot on these ancient, flagged floors, that she did not belong here; that such as she had no business within these ancient walls, thick with history. She was an intruder, an interloper; she knew it, and the house knew it, and it would not rest till she had gone….
Right from the start, she had had a premonition about the place. She had even, at one point, begged Kevin to cancel his plans, and take them both back to the narrow, unexciting suburb they’d come from. But Kevin, man-like, had brushed aside her fears. What was she afraid of? Didn’t she trust him? Didn’t she want to share this adventure with him? Didn’t she love him enough to take a few risks …?
To watch the disappointment—even the contempt—spreading over his features, which a few minutes before had been alight with enthusiasm and confidence, was more than Jenny could bear; and so, “Yes!” she’d whispered, her mouth against his hair, and her arms tight around him, “Of course I trust you, Kev! Of course I’ll come!” And when he kissed her, tightening his young arms about her body, and whispering, “That’s my girl!” into her ear, in a voice husky with love and pride—she knew then that the die was cast. Where he went, she would go. Whatever hair-brained scheme he chose to embark on, she’d be right there, beside him.
And, for a while, that’s how it had been. Kevin’s enthusiasm, his buoyant confidence, were infectious, and in almost no time at all she was as excited about the new venture as he was himself. Together they strolled around the ancient house, examining it from this angle and from that, making their plans; and as they moved through the long June grass, hand in hand, scarcely speaking, she became aware of a magical closeness between them, something secret and marvellous, such as she had never known before. This was living! This was what she had been born for!—and in those moments of rare, enchanted happiness she had not envisaged—why should she?—what it would be like here when Kevin had gone.
Gone! The word seemed to drop into Jenny’s mind like a stone out of the listening darkness, and for a second it filled her with such terror that the sinister sounds from the floor above seemed as nothing—a trivial irrelevance.
Gone! Kevin gone! But he couldn’t be—he wouldn’t! Surely he wouldn’t leave her like this, all alone, and without a word! Of course he wouldn’t—he would come back, of course he would come back, something must have delayed him, that’s all! Any moment now she would hear the low whistle, for her ears and hers alone, and she would run to the great front door, and open it, and bury her face in his strong shoulder, murmuring her story of this night’s terrors. Together, they would investigate the sounds, tiptoeing hand in hand through the dark passages, and there would be no more fear, o
nly excitement, and that wonderful sense of shared danger that brings a closeness beyond imagining….
By now, Jenny’s back and legs were aching with her long vigil, and she longed to sit down, be it only on the bottom steps of the stairs; but she dared not make even that small movement, for fear of the creaks and groans of the old wood, which would surely give her away to whoever it was lurking upstairs. Would give her away on purpose—so it seemed to Jenny’s fevered imagination—because it hated her! The whole house hated her! She could feel the hostility of the old walls like something tangible in the air; she could feel the place gathering its forces against her out of the darkness, mustering them from all the creaking, ancient rooms….
Again it came!—the sound of a soft footfall up there in the blackness! And then again silence … a waiting, breathing silence. Soon, she would become conscious of movement on the staircase itself; the old mahogany banister on which she leaned would begin vibrating, ever so faintly, under the touch of a gliding hand; a tread would creak at the impact of a careful, noiseless foot … and then another … and another….
And what then? A final rush of footsteps in the darkness, the flash of a gun?… What did happen when burglar and householder came face to face—if face to face it could be called in this pulsating blackness. Why, a face could already be barely a foot away from her own, and she wouldn’t know!—Except by the breathing….
And now, at this moment of total terror, came relief indescribable! Kevin! She heard his low, special whistle, soft as a night bird in the distant woods, and in one swift, soundless movement she was at the door, pushing at its weight, opening it for him.
By Horror Haunted Page 13