Anna-Marie led Tommie and me into the lane, the morning sun turning the dusty pebbles white. Kitty came out to say goodbye and allowed Anna-Marie to tickle her chin and stroke her long black back.
‘Now,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘if we walk down the lane, where will we come to first?’
Tommie, delighted to have been asked, frowned and considered the question. ‘First off,’ he said, ‘there’s the field with the ponies on the right; second, there’s the pylons; then there’s,’ he screwed up his face, ‘oh, the Pigeon House. And then the wood-yard.’
‘What are the pylons?’
‘Electric pylons,’ said Tommie wide-eyed. ‘They’re dead spooky at night, aren’t they, Anna-Marie? My dad says they glow!’
Anna-Marie punched Tommie on the shoulder. He blinked but didn’t say a word.
‘As I was going to say,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘we could walk up to the wood-yard. We go by the pylons, then we can see if they glow or—’
‘No!’ said Tommie. ‘They glow at ni—’ Anna-Marie raised her hand again and Tommie took a deep breath. ‘Good idea,’ he said, and so, together, we headed off down Everlasting Lane.
‘What’s the Pigeon House?’ I asked.
Tommie glanced at Anna-Marie. When she didn’t say anything he blurted out: ‘It’s this big farmhouse, isn’t it, Anna-Marie? And the farmer’s got a really big … erm …’
‘Loft.’
‘That’s right,’ said Tommie, ‘loft. Anyway, it’s massive and there are literally millions of pigeons.’ Tommie sniggered. ‘It smells like a poo factory,’ he said. ‘My dad says—’
Anna-Marie cuffed him across the back of the head. ‘Don’t say “literally”.’
Anna-Marie, Tommie and I walked side by side between the high banks and the tall trees of Everlasting Lane. My skin began to tingle and I began to feel as if we were standing still and that it was the lane, not us, which was moving.
We came to a small paddock with horses. Tommie talked about football whilst Anna-Marie fed grass to a white pony and stroked its round nose. We went onto the pylons. Of course it was too bright to tell whether or not they glowed in the dark, but they shone, all cold and metally, in the midday sun.
We walked on. This was not a single lane but many, disappearing around many bends. A rambling, tangling tale, a rustle in the hedgerow, just out of view: a journey without a destination.
At the Pigeon House we watched the birds flapping around, their wings making a foul-smelly breeze that made our eyes water. Later we passed a cottage tucked deep into the greenery that bordered the lane. It leaned to one side as if a strong wind had been at it or, perhaps, as if it’d simply given up the bother of standing straight.
‘Who lives there?’ I asked.
‘That’s Mr Merridew’s house,’ said Tommie with a shudder.
It reminded me of that poem; you know the one about ‘the crooked man who walked a crooked mile’. I wondered if this was his crooked cottage.
‘Who’s Mr Merridew?’
‘No one,’ said Anna-Marie.
Everlasting Lane opened up before us like a storybook, pages coloured with green and gold. And like any story that your heart knows, that has thrilled you or lulled you drowsy-eyed and heavy with sleep, it’s hard to believe there was ever a time when it was new and strange, when you had to pay attention or risk losing your way among the twists and turns.
‘Peter.’ Whilst, unlike most stories I knew, Everlasting Lane didn’t always follow a predictable path, ‘Peter?’ it always seemed to know which way I wanted to go even if I didn’t know my—
‘Ouch!’ I yelped as Anna-Marie flicked my ear with her long finger.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ hissed Anna-Marie. ‘I’m talking. Don’t you ever listen? I’m trying to warn you.’
‘Warn me? What about?’
We’d walked all morning long and now we had come to a wood-yard. Through the trees I could see all the buildings but as it was Sunday there was no buzz of saws or conversation. Anna-Marie and Tommie had slowed down and were peering nervously ahead.
‘We’ve got to watch out for the Beast.’
‘The what?’
‘The Beast of Everlasting Lane,’ said Tommie. ‘There’s this dog. A watch-dog.’
‘What does it watch?’
‘What does it watch?’ sneered Anna-Marie. ‘It watches you, of course. And, whilst it’s watching you, it’s wondering what a chunk of your backside’s going to—’
But it was too late. Ahead of us I saw a shape parting from the shadows. And as it shed its dark coat I could see that it was a dog: black and short and very, very ugly. It was snarling and sneering, its jaws dripping with spit. As soon as I saw it my whole body started trembling. At first I thought I was even too scared to run away but as the animal began to bark, great chokey grunts, my limbs stiffened and I found myself edging back from the two rows of shiny, jagged teeth clashing together like knives and forks in search of supper.
‘Do we run?’ I whispered but there was no answer. I looked back to find that Tommie and Anna-Marie had already retreated as far as the trees that lined the Lane, where they stood flapping their hands to say that I should get a move on if I didn’t want to end up a dog’s dinner. And then, together, they turned and plunged into the woods.
‘Hey …’ but they’d already gone. I took a quick breath, the barks of outrage beginning to nip at my ankles, before following them, hardly wanting to be left behind.
There was something frightful about those woods: but it wasn’t the trees, threatening though they were. It was the shadows squeezed between them. The sunlight filtered its way through the thick canopy, but couldn’t spare us the crushing gloom. At first it seemed the only sounds were our stumbling footsteps, Tommie’s huffing and puffing, and Anna-Marie’s curses whenever a branch scratched her arm or a root, nestling in one of those little pools of darkness, stubbed her toe.
‘Are you scared?’ puffed Tommie.
‘No,’ I lied.
‘Don’t be fooled,’ warned Anna-Marie. ‘Some of the trees can be a bit … vicious.’
‘What?’
‘Just some of them,’ she said. ‘Some of the older ones.’
But she was only joking. Surely.
‘Do you have any idea, Peter, how old these trees are? Hundreds of years. Thousands, for all I know. Anything’ll develop a personality if it lives long enough,’ said Anna-Marie. She paused a moment to adjust her sock. ‘Even you.’
In the deepest part I couldn’t take two easy steps together. Here the dark was liquid, like wading through ink. I began to hear the sounds of the wood and my imagination gave claws and teeth to every rustle and every creak. The darkness grew deeper still.
‘Are you scared?’
‘Oh, shut up!’
The sounds of the woods continued to follow us as we pushed on deeper and deeper towards the river and, once or twice, I thought I caught sight of evil eyes watching us pass, gleaming from behind the thick undergrowth.
Anna-Marie and Tommie ploughed on as the path dwindled and nettles grew ever thicker. But I managed to find every foothold and every branch that had ever expressed an interest in crippling a child or blinding him. Slipping and stumbling, I must’ve looked like Frank Spencer.
Up ahead a crack of light appeared like a gap in a door. We slid between the trees and prised the door open. Pushing aside the last branches and reaching the riverbank was like reaching the top of Everest. And then we were safe on a sunlit path beside a sunlit river. It was like the first drop of rain after a long hot summer.
But the sound of rapid movement in the woods, somewhere between the trees the way we had just come, hadn’t stopped and grew suddenly closer. We heard the sound of panting and pearls of saliva falling in the dry undergrowth.
‘The Beast!’ cried Tommie.
A scream was welling up inside me about to explode, as I pictured muscles wriggling like rodents beneath a glossy hide and ivory teeth snatching sunlight from the a
ir.
The breathless old man who finally staggered from the bushes onto the path with his gnarly walking stick in one hand and a cigarette burning between the bony fingers of the other was, I thought, a lot less terrifying than the creature my imagination had created. His black suit was interwoven with green thread, the seams loose and frayed; whilst the jacket was fastened the middle button was missing. The hair on his head was thin whilst his moustache, thick and grey, was stained yellow and on his chin a sprinkling of bristles. The glasses he wore across his nose were shiny and round, his eyes twice their real size.
He wheezed with laughter at our startled faces, revealing two rows of teeth like garlic, and wiped sweat from his brow, and his hands on his trousers. ‘Ah,’ he finally managed to say, ‘ ’tis the lovely Anna-Marie. I thought I saw you from afar. And how,’ he enquired, still gasping for breath, ‘are you today?’
‘Very well, thank you,’ said Anna-Marie taking the hand he offered and curtsying. ‘This is Peter,’ she said. ‘Peter, this is Mr Merridew.’ I offered the old man my hand and he eyed it suspiciously.
‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind.’
‘How are you, Mr Merridew?’ asked Anna-Marie.
‘Neither better nor worse, my dear, than any other day.’ His eyes bulged with curiosity in my direction. ‘And where are you bound?’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘nowhere in particular.’
‘Then,’ he said licking his dry lips, his mouth the murky entrance to some underworld cavern, ‘come to my parlour for some milk or, perhaps, some tea.’
I almost wished it had been the Beast and his glistening jaws which had burst forth from between the trees. This strange old man and his invitation filled me with dread. How could we, as children, say no? Adults were in charge. It was a rule so powerful that it might as well have been magic. Thankfully, Anna-Marie had powers of her own.
‘I can’t speak for Piggy Malone and Charley Farley,’ she said, ‘but I’ve got literally a million … Well, not literally, but a lot of things to get done. Perhaps we could come next weekend.’
‘Ah,’ said Mr Merridew his thin smile flickering. ‘What a shame.’
He wished us good day but then stood watching as we shuffled off along the path, leering through his goggly glasses. The river was straight and so we could feel his gaze warming the backs of our necks as we walked nervously along. Until, at last, the path turned with the flow of the water and the old man’s grim shape finally disappeared behind the river bend.
Tommie collapsed on the riverbank, laughing. Anna-Marie sighed, releasing the green band from her ponytail and slipping it onto her slender wrist. She tipped her head upwards to face the sky. Her fingers ran through her golden hair, pushing it to the top of her head and letting it fall, rolling down upon her shoulders. She repeated the motion, her feet turning step by step, allowing the sun to—
‘What’s up with you, bog-breath?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Frankly, you get more peculiar by the minute,’ muttered Anna-Marie. ‘So,’ she said, smoothing her dress under her bottom and sitting among the daisies on the riverbank, ‘what do you think of our friend, Mr Merridew?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘He’s all right, I suppose.’ I wasn’t going to admit to anything else.
‘Tommie-Titmus here is afraid of him.’
‘No, I’m not,’ protested Tommie.
‘What does he do?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean?’ snapped Anna-Marie. ‘What do you mean: what does he do?’
‘Well, what does he do for a job?’
‘Oh, that,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Well, he used to be some kind of scientist I think but he doesn’t really do anything now. He says he’s lapsed.’
‘Lapsed?’
‘Yes. He says it’s all bunk. Science I mean. He says it’s religion for atheists.’
‘Atheists?’
‘Yes, you twit. It means people who don’t believe in God.’
‘Well, I know but—’
‘Well, that’s what he says.’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘But I don’t think he means it. Not literally. It’s,’ and she cleared her throat, ‘poetic licence.’
That seemed a strange thing to say. I knew you needed a licence for a TV and a dog and stuff but—
Anna-Marie sighed. ‘It means,’ she said, ‘that you can say things that aren’t true.’
‘You should always tell the truth,’ I said, but I was confused. My mum had said I should always tell the truth but then Kat had said it was best not to say anything at all. Or was it the other way round?
‘But that’s real life, isn’t it?’ Anna-Marie went on. ‘That’s quite different. It’s like in a story. In a story you can say any kind of stuff you like.’
I frowned. Kat had said something similar but I wasn’t sure.
‘Let me explain something to you, little boy,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘In a story I could say my dad was Evel Knievel and you could say you lived with the Loch Ness Monster and no one would bat an eyelid.
‘You could even say you knew a girl called Anna-Marie who was very pretty and very smart and for all the man-in-the-street knows you’ve completely made me up. Mind you,’ she said, picking her nose, ‘considering you’ve made me sound so dull he might wonder why you’d bothered.’ She examined her bogey before flicking it into a nearby bush. She began plucking daisies from the riverbank and arranging them in rows upon the grass. ‘The point is, in a story you can make everything better.’
‘But why would Peter just make stuff up?’ said Tommie. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘Who knows?’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Who can explain the workings of an unstable mind? Anyway, don’t tell anyone what I said about Mr Merridew. Promise. It’s supposed to be some kind of secret.’
‘I know a secret,’ I said.
‘What is it?’ asked Tommie.
‘How marvellous for you,’ yawned Anna-Marie and, ‘It’s not going to be a very well kept one by the sounds of it.’ She returned to her daisies, splitting stalks with the blade of her fingernail and weaving them with quick fingers. ‘Perhaps you should look up “secret” in a—’
‘It’s real,’ I insisted. She wasn’t taking me seriously.
‘All right. All right,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Keep your pants on.’
‘There’s this room,’ I said, ‘in the cottage. A secret room—’
‘A secret room?’
The daisy chain hung suspended between Anna-Marie’s open hands. For a moment I thought it was the flowers rather than my news which had caused her to stop.
Tommie’s eyes had lit up. ‘Why’s it a secret?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘but it’s hidden behind this curtain and it’s always locked.’
‘Wow,’ said Tommie. ‘I wonder what’s inside.’
‘Oh, give me strength,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Don’t you start. Did it even occur to lemon-head here to ask Kat about it?’
‘No, I—’
‘But, if you don’t even have the nerve to ask your—’
‘But it is a secret room,’ I insisted. ‘At Kat’s cottage. It’s behind this big, green curtain.’ Anna-Marie’s eyelids flickered with boredom and she put a hand over her mouth as if smothering a yawn. Why wouldn’t she take me seriously? She was always treating me like I was some kind of idiot. Actually, when you thought about it, she always treated most people like they were some kind of idiot.
‘But, if you haven’t even asked about it … What do you expect? I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical—’
‘But,’ said Tommie, a curious light gleaming in his lenses, ‘what if it is a secret room? What if there’s a—?’
‘What if there’s a what?’ snapped Anna-Marie. ‘This isn’t Enid Blyton, you know, and it’s not a production of the Children’s Film Foundation. You’re not about to have an adventure. If it wasn’t for me looking out for the pair of you, you’d be a danger to yourselves and others.’ She resu
med her threading and I waited nervously as her fingers turned and spun like needles, and the chain between them grew and grew. The afternoon was awash with summer swirling all the way up from the river to the tops of the trees and beyond.
‘Why don’t you get a hair-grip?’ said Tommie. ‘I saw them do this on Columbo.’ He mimed a twisting motion as he spoke. ‘You kind of loop it like this—’
‘Thank you, Miss Marple,’ interrupted Anna-Marie. She turned to me. ‘Why don’t you just get the key?’
‘I don’t know where it is.’
Anna-Marie clicked her tongue and nibbled her lip. ‘Well,’ she said finally, laying her daisies on the ground in a zig-zaggy pattern and giving an exasperated sigh, ‘I suppose we’ll just have to see what we can do about that, won’t we?’
12
‘Greetings, Earthlings!’ said Kat one afternoon from the upstairs window. That upstairs window. ‘It’s the three musketeers! All for one, one for all, etcetera!’ She was always saying that kind of thing but Anna-Marie and Tommie didn’t seem to mind. As we sat on the lawn, soaking in sunshine, she would ask after their mothers, were they enjoying the warm weather, were they going away this summer. Tommie and Anna-Marie liked Kat and chatted happily.
‘I’m just popping up to the church, Peter,’ she said. ‘Will you be all right for an hour?’
‘Don’t worry, Kat,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘We’ll keep an eye on him.’
‘ ’Bye, Mrs Lambert,’ said Tommie.
Kat tut-tutted, pretending to be cross. ‘You can call me Kat,’ and we all chimed in, ‘with a “K”.’ She laughed. ‘I’ll see you in an hour then. No more than two.’ She shut the upstairs window: the upstairs window on the left, the window to the left of my bedroom, the window with pink curtains and the strip of cardboard filling the broken pane.
The front door slammed and then a hiccup as Kat’s rusty little car came to life and struggled its way out of the drive.
Anna-Marie had been lazing backwards propped up on her elbows but as the sound of Kat’s motor faded she snapped straight up. ‘Right,’ she said, ‘now how are we going to get into this room?’
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