by Mike Pannett
But Kev wasn’t listening. He had his finger over his mouth again, his head cocked to one side. I heard the slow heavy tread of a youth and the click-clack click-clack of someone with a shorter, faster stride. There was a bit of whispering too, and a giggle.
I held my breath and waited. The footsteps came closer, then slowed down. Kev tapped me on the knee and winked.
It was Steve, his big brother. He was fifteen, a tall lad with lots of wavy hair, flared jeans and a multi-coloured tank top. His girlfriend was shorter. She too had flares on, and high-heeled shoes.
I looked at Kev and he looked at me, raising his eyebrows. We both looked down at the newly arrived couple. They weren’t hanging about. They were in a clinch, arms around each other in a passionate embrace. Kev was trying not to laugh – and barely succeeding. His whole body was shaking. I could feel it through the timbers, and was sure that they were going to start rattling. But if they did, Steve and his girlfriend were oblivious. They got on with the business in hand while we tightened our grip on the beams.
I gesticulated to Kev. His frown framed the question, ‘What?’
The fact was, after all that pop I needed the toilet, and his brother showed no signs of going home any time soon. In fact, he and his girl had now sat down, and he’d taken out his cigarettes. How long was this going to take? My legs were starting to go numb, and my bladder was aching. And what if they saw us? All they had to do was glance upwards. For the moment, mercifully, they only seemed to have eyes for each other.
I squeezed my legs together and pulled a face. Steve stood up. Surely this was the moment. We were going to be discovered and he’d haul us down and beat us to a pulp. I’d heard all kinds of stories about Steve – mostly from Kev, of course. But who cared if he’d exaggerated? The guy was huge. I watched through half-closed eyes as he stretched his arms, outwards and upwards. I could easily have reached down and plucked the cigarette from his hand. The smoke was tickling my nose, making me want to sneeze.
And then, just when I thought there was no hope, came the miracle. From far away we heard a police siren, approaching rapidly. Next thing we could see blue flashes lighting up the sky.
‘What’s going on?’
It was the girl who spoke. She was on her feet and out from under us. Steve got up and followed her onto the path. All I could see now were their legs, a few yards away. Why don’t they go and look, I thought. Go on. See what’s happening, before I burst. Wherever the police car was, it seemed to have come to a standstill. The siren had stopped but lazy blue flashes were still flickering across the dusty timbers around us.
‘Come on, let’s have a look. Might be an accident.’ As the girl spoke I saw her feet disappear and then, the miracle I’d been praying for: Steve followed her down the path.
Kev and I didn’t need to say a word. We dropped, turned and ran the other way, past the gravestones and around the back of the church, where he headed for home and I propped myself against the wall beside Charlotte Elizabeth Richardson and did what I had to do.
We didn’t try spying on people again after that. Kev told me that he and his girlfriend had started hanging out there, and if he ever caught me watching him he’d have me. Did I understand? Yes, Kev. What else could I say?
A Moving Experience
Dad was in a good mood. Not that he was ever very grumpy – just quiet, and not a man to show his feelings; but on this day he seemed to be especially cheerful, almost playful. He folded up his newspaper, got up from the breakfast table and winked at Mum, then said, ‘Come on, you lot. Let’s get this cleared away. We’re going for a drive. It’s a magical mystery tour.’
He had an odd sort of look on his face, as if he was trying not to grin.
It was a sunny April morning, and as I took a pile of dirty dishes to the sink I wondered whether he was planning a trip over to Staintondale, to the farm. Once the Easter holidays came that was always on the agenda.
‘Come on, where we going?’ Christine asked.
‘Aha. That’s for us to know and you to find out,’ Mum said. I could tell from the way she spoke that this was a special treat of some sort. Like Dad, she had a sort of half smile on her face. ‘Come along. Don’t just stand there trying to guess,’ she said. ‘Best way to find out is to get this kitchen tidied up and get in that car.’
When the parents were in this kind of mood there was no problem at all in getting us to do as they said. Something good was in the air, and we couldn’t wait to find out what it was. We hurried through our chores, but made sure we did them properly. No skiving, no cutting corners. Everything done as it should be.
‘Right,’ Dad said. We were all in our places in the back of the Traveller. Everybody was watching Dad. Nobody was arguing. Not even me – despite the fact that Gillian had spread her doll’s clothes all over my seat yet again. ‘Everybody ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘Everybody sitting comfortably?’
‘Yes.’ The tension was unbearable. When would he tell us what was going on? ‘Right then, let this journey into the unknown begin.’
We knew that Dad could keep this up all day if he wanted to. With Mum, if you wheedled and pestered her long enough she’d usually crack, out of sheer exasperation. Anything for a bit of peace and quiet. But not Dad. He would set his face in that half smile and blandly ignore you. You’d find out what was going on when he thought it was time for you to find out. There was absolutely no point trying to winkle it out of him.
We drove on in silence. We were heading away from York and out into the country. Christine nudged me and whispered, ‘Helmsley. I think we’re heading to Helmsley.’
‘What’s there?’
She shrugged. ‘Shops. A lot of old buildings.’ That didn’t sound too exciting to me. ‘And a ruined castle,’ she added. That was more like it.
‘Are we going to see the White Horse again?’ Gillian asked.
We’d been for an outing there the previous summer, picking wild bilberries on the top of the hill, with the gliders taking off over our heads. I watched Mum and Dad to see whether they were going to respond. I might as well have been watching a couple of statues.
Pretty soon we came to Easingwold. Was this our destination? It didn’t look very enticing – apart from a fish and chip shop in the market-place.
‘Nearly there,’ Dad said.
We were through the market place already and heading out into the country once more. We passed fields where lambs were jumping around in the grass, hedgerows splashed with patches of vivid white blossom. There were one or two fields of something bright yellow, vivid in the sunlight. Dad told us it was a new crop called oil-seed rape.
‘They make oil out of it,’ he said, ‘for cooking. Better for you than lard,’ he added.
I tried to imagine how they could turn a plant into oil, but gave up. Looking out of the window I saw that we were starting to climb. We passed a cricket pitch to one side, then we entered a village.
Phil read the sign on the side of the road. ‘Crayke,’ he said. ‘What kind of name’s that?’
I looked around. At the centre of the village there was a corner shop on one side of the road, a pub on the other – the Durham Ox.
‘It’s one of the oldest villages in England,’ Mum said.
‘It is indeed,’ Dad said. ‘Crayke. It’s a venerable name. It comes from an ancient Celtic word meaning crag or outcrop.’
None of us spoke. What was there to say? Dad seemed to have an answer for everything. I was always amazed at how much knowledge he had. But whenever I asked him where he got it all from he said that it was a simple matter of taking the trouble to find things out. If ever a question came up to which he didn’t know the answer, he said, he’d look it up in one of his many books. And if it wasn’t there he’d go to the library and find a book that would supply the answer. He spent a lot of his spare time with his head in a book. He’d studied long and hard, right up until he was thirty, to become a chartered mechanical engineer –
and he continued to study in his own time for years and years. He said it was the best way to get ahead in life.
‘All right, children – here we are.’
Dad had stopped the car on the main street and switched off the engine. I looked out. What kind of outing was this? I was hoping to see a shop selling sticky rock, or beach-balls, or maybe a café, a playground, perhaps a view of the sea. But no, we were on an ordinary village road and we were parked outside a large brick house. Paint was peeling from the front door. The windows looked grimy. One was cracked. There were no curtains.
Dad opened the driver’s door and got out.
Mum unbuckled her safety belt. ‘Come on,’ she said, ‘come and have a look at your new home.’
That got us out of our seats. ‘New home?’ we chorused. ‘What new home?’
‘Ah well,’ Dad said as we all emerged from the car, our eyes darting from the house to him and back again. ‘We thought we’d surprise you.’
Mum laughed. ‘Looks as though you’ve managed that pretty well, Jeff. Look at them. Stunned.’
Dad took a bunch of keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door. That’s when I saw the sign, the name of the place: Beech House.
‘You mean we’re going to come and live here?’ Phil said.
‘Yes.’
‘Wow. When?’
‘Not for a while yet. There are a few repairs to do first. You’ll see,’ he added. ‘But it won’t be long.’
Dad explained that after gaining the last of the qualifications he’d studied for, he’d got a promotion at work and been given a pay-rise. And that meant that we could afford a bigger house. ‘And a chance to live in the countryside,’ Mum added. Then she nudged Christine and said, ‘There’s a couple of fields out the back. Paddocks.’
‘Oh wow! You mean me and Gillian can have a pony? That’d be fantastic.’
Mum smiled and stepped into the house. ‘I don’t see why not,’ she said.
We followed her through the doorway. The place was gloomy and cold. It couldn’t have been decorated in years, and it smelt damp and musty. But it seemed huge, and full of possibilities. It could almost have been a castle.
‘Of course,’ Dad said, ‘it wants a few improvements. A heating system for a start.’
‘And a proper bathroom,’ Mum said. ‘And a kitchen, rather than that old scullery.’
Dad said that until he got the heating sorted out we’d be burning wood, as it was cheap. It meant that Phil and I would have to learn to swing an axe to split logs. It all sounded very exciting. We walked along the hallway, the bare floorboards creaking.
‘Not haunted is it?’ Phil asked.
Behind me I heard Gillian give a little squeak of fear, and Phil stifled a laugh.
‘Now, don’t go upsetting your sister,’ Mum said. She turned to Gillian. ‘Of course it’s not haunted. You brother’s just being silly. There’s no such thing as – ’ She stopped short of saying the actual word. Everybody was excited enough as it was.
As we went round the house it seemed more and more likely to me that it could be home to all manner of other-worldly beings. As well as the general gloominess there were damp patches on the walls, rotten bits on the skirting boards, and cobwebs everywhere. In the scullery was an old iron range, some bare wooden cupboards, and one of those things you hang your washing on to dry and pull up to the ceiling. In the corners were old mousetraps. In the pantry there were vicious-looking metal hooks in the ceiling – for hanging up hams, according to Mum.
We looked around, then climbed the stairs, gripping a wooden handrail that wobbled and shook. There was a tiny, ancient bathroom with an enamelled tub and yellow tiles on the wall. There were four bedrooms. We walked into one at the front of the house that faced the road.
‘We thought this would do for you boys,’ Mum said.
There were a couple of old bedsteads. One had a pile of broken plaster and what looked like an old bird’s nest on it. Above it was a hole in the ceiling. The walls seemed to have several layers of wallpaper, some of it peeling off.
‘Don’t worry,’ Dad said. ‘We’ll soon get rid of all the rubbish and fix the place up. By the time we’re done you won’t recognise it.’
I think Mum and Dad could see that we found the house a little spooky. They took us outside, and that lifted our mood immediately. Outside consisted of a long garden, a collection of outbuildings and a field. The field was divided into two halves by a thorn hedge. Partway down was a pond.
‘Look at it,’ Dad said. ‘There’s seven acres there. That’s a lot of land. Picture York City’s pitch. It’d fit in here … ooh, three or four times. There’s enough garden for us to grow all our fruit and vegetables, and of course I’ll put up a greenhouse.’
‘Can we have chickens?’ I said.
‘Chickens, geese, goats, cats, ducks. You can have what you like so long as you’re prepared to look after them.’
Just to show us what seven acres meant, Dad walked us down to the end of the field and back. Gillian and Christine spent the whole time planning for the ponies they were going to have, what colour they would be and what they’d be called and which outbuilding they’d live in and what they’d eat … and in the end Mum had to tell them to calm down. Needless to say, her words had no effect.
By the time moving day came, several weeks later, Mum and Dad had tidied the place up and made it habitable. By the time we’d moved our furniture in and I’d put my Thunderbirds poster up on the bedroom wall it started to feel a bit like home.
It’s Dark in Here
If moving-in day seemed chaotic, it also seemed like fun. With all the furniture piled up in corners of the various rooms while Mum and Dad made up their minds where it would go, every room was an adventure playground. There were stacks of boxes all over the place. We’d been collecting them for weeks from the shops, and Dad had been bringing them home from work. He’d also got a number of tea-chests with exotic writing stamped on the side – Chinese in some cases. Mum had put a label on each one, but there were so many of them piled up that it was impossible to find everything without pulling half the pile down – which led to further confusion. Mercifully, Mum had got the food organised – so we at least didn’t go hungry.
Bedtime seemed fun at first, with me and Phil arranging our things in the room we were to share, having a wrestling match over who got the bed by the window – the elder of us, naturally – then turning our attention to the girls in the room next door. We started by bombarding them with scrunched-up clothes from the cardboard boxes we’d brought upstairs, and of course it soon turned into a massive pillow-fight.
Mum and Dad were unusually calm about all the running up and down the landing, the shrieking and thumping. I think they were too tired to get angry, just relieved to be inside their dream home at last. Instead of shouting at us they called us all down to the kitchen for a hot drink and a biscuit, and there we sat, gasping from the battle, surrounded by boxes of china, pots and pans, a basket full of laundry, the table all piled high with bread, vegetables and other foodstuffs.
By the time we’d downed a mug of cocoa each, sitting on the wooden chairs, tucking our feet under the rails to avoid contact with the bare stone floor, we were all starting to feel the effects of the day. We trudged up the stairs, picking the bits of fluff and feathers out of our T-shirts, changed into our pyjamas and climbed into our beds. Mum and Dad came up to wish us a good first night in our new home. Before she put the light out, Mum reminded us that our first job next day would be to sweep up all the feathers we’d scattered across the landing. Then she put out the light, and swung the door to. It closed with a resounding clunk. That’s when an awful realisation hit me.
Back in Park Avenue, the bedroom was pretty dark, but never exactly pitch-black. There were one or two street lights along the Avenue, and once your eyes had got accustomed to the night you could always make out the shape of the chest-of-drawers, the tall wardrobe, the outline of the window, even on the blackest
night with the curtains drawn tight. And every so often a car would go by the school at the top of the road, its headlights piercing the gap by the curtain rail and sweeping across the ceiling to illuminate the room for a few moments and cast weird shadows. Out here in Crayke there was nothing – just a tiny chink of light at the bottom of the door. But a few minutes later, as Mum and Dad tiptoed up to bed I heard the creak of their bedroom door opening, then the click as they flipped the brass switch and extinguished the landing light. Suddenly it was like being in a coal cellar at midnight.
‘Phil!’ I whispered.
No answer.
‘Phil!’
‘Yeah, what is it?’ he mumbled from deep under his blankets.
‘It’s dark.’
‘Course it’s dark, you prat. It’s night-time.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘really, really dark. I can’t see anything at all.’
‘Well, what do you want to see?’
‘I don’t know. Something. I don’t like this.’
I could hear Phil throw back his blankets and sigh. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he said. ‘It takes twenty minutes for your night vision to come through.’
‘How do you know?’
‘How do I know what?’
‘About night vision.’
‘’Cos I read things. In books. Now shut up, will you?’
I lay there, sweating with fear, alive to every creak and murmur in the old house, straining to hear any sounds other than Phil’s gentle snoring. What if Mum and Dad had moved us into a house that was haunted? Old houses could be haunted, couldn’t they? So should I stay awake and risk seeing a ghost, or go to sleep and run the even greater danger of being taken off into the spirit world, a place of demons and monsters?
A brief rattling noise from outside was followed by the hoot of an owl, sending me deep down the bed, clutching my pillow. It sounded as though it was in the room with us. I stayed down there as long as I could, every little creak now sounding like the footsteps of an imagined giant who only had one thing on his mind – to find me.