Jay, Lizzie and the Tale of the Stairs

by G J Lee

  Chapter 31

  Autumn

  Later we sat in the hospital café. Dad slurped from a mug of tea as I sipped from a can of coke and I remembered the pretty daughter and the old man that I’d seen comforting each other in this very spot. It felt so long ago now. So long ago and so weird. Now here we were, my Dad and I, going through the same ritual in more or less the same circumstances. I glanced around just to make sure nobody was near. That nobody was listening because of morbid curiosity. But there was no-one.

  Strangely, Dad was in a good mood. He was talking about doing this and that with Mum when she got home and I remember thinking that Mum was very ill and dying and that lots of the things he suggested just wouldn’t happen. Although Dad seemed better now - relieved that the news was out - I knew he was kidding himself. Mum wouldn’t be able to go very far at all. In fact, the back garden would be about it.

  Still, I nodded and drank my Coca-Cola but all the time the pennies were dropping further into the belly of the machine and I thought on and on about what had been said in the little office on Waltham Ward.

  Although we chatted about Mum and how Dad still planned to take his ‘holiday’ from work, we drove back through weather that suited our real mood – drizzly grey and windy. When I got home I went straight to my room and lay on my back on my bed. I stared blankly up at the faded white paint of my bedroom ceiling. I tried to imagine a life without Mum and how some things would never, ever be the same again. Good times jostled to show themselves like a queue to get in somewhere. There were so many that I couldn’t settle on any one in particular.

  Then this thought. The thought that, after Mum had gone, never again would I call a person ‘Mum.’

  This thought cut through the good times. Put a match to them. Closed the doors on the queue.

  That’s when I buried my head in my pillow and cried.

  Much later I tip-toed downstairs where I found Dad asleep in front of the television. There were several empty cans of lager on the carpet and an empty bottle of wine. I turned the telly off but left a lamp on for when he woke up. I looked at Dad for a bit from the doorway and tried to imagine how he looked when he was younger. Not with the help of old photographs, but how he really looked when he first met Mum that day in the pub. I tried to imagine if they looked at each other in the way that two people do when they first meet and like each other. I tried to imagine if Dad ever thought things would end up the way they have.

  Probably not.

  So I made a peanut butter sandwich, poured myself a glass of milk and went back to bed.

  But I couldn’t sleep.

  I kept hearing the wind at the window and, thinking it was Lizzie, I sat up in my piranhas like an expectant dog wanting its dinner. Only it wasn’t Lizzie. It was just the wind.

  Every time I thought of Mum I felt the tears start. So, needing to keep thoughts of Mum away, I turned out my bedroom lights and went to the window and pulled back the curtains. There were streaks of rain across the window so I got down on my knees and peered out onto the dark street below.

  Unlike in 1946 there was street lighting on either side of our road. I could see that it was raining only by looking directly at the yellow lamps, rocking slightly in the strong wind. Only then could I see the long lines of rain coming down. All was quiet and dark. Houses opposite had their curtains drawn against autumn and I could see the dim glow of lights in front rooms and bedrooms. I wondered what people were doing behind them. Eating late night snacks and watching telly probably. I kept comparing our street to how it was in 1946, with its rough pavements and bomb damage. Things had changed.

  Change.

  I thought about that word. Six letters that mean so much.

  Change.

  I thought about the word some more then I came to the conclusion that the word itself didn’t really get to the bottom of what it’s trying to describe. I mean, change is - what’s the word I used at the hospital? - inevitable. That's right? Isn’t it? Like summer. Autumn. Winter. Spring. You can’t stop change. Not one bit. I remembered how flummoxed I was when I saw all those smiles earlier in the day. I realised now that there are some people who know that after bad times come good times. There is pain and pleasure. Happy and sad. Life and death.

  Life and death.

  That was it. Some people just had it all sussed out and they know that you can’t stop the inevitable. People like Mr Butler, the Raynors, the old man in the hospital. My Mum. They just kept smiling and carrying on.

  I saw my own reflection in the rain soaked window and found that I was smiling. Why, when I should have been crying, I can’t tell you. But for the moment it felt good.

  It was just for a moment.

  Because that’s when I saw the man in the long coat and the hat.

  He was stood with his hands in his coat pockets a little way along and in the shadows on the opposite side of the street.

  He was looking straight up at me.

  I leapt to my feet and away from the window in terror and closed the curtains against him.

  For a long time I paced my room with my heart racing, not knowing what to do. With all my lights on I thought about going down to Dad. But what would I say? He wouldn’t understand and he had too much to worry about anyway. So I carried on worrying and fretting.

  At last I plucked up enough courage to turn out the lights and to take a peek through a crack in my bedroom curtains made with shaking hands.

  When I did I found that he had gone.

  Still I couldn’t sleep. I tried to contact Lizzie by closing my eyes, concentrating hard and sending some sort of silent message to her. It didn’t work. No-one came so I was left alone and frightened. I spent a lot of time at the window, peering out into the night, to see if the man in the coat and hat had reappeared. The rest of the time I spent tossing and turning in bed and jumping at the tinniest of sounds.

  Although I didn’t see the man in the hat, when I eventually managed to struggle into some sort of restless doze, he was there waiting, in my dreams. I saw him silently walking towards me with hands tucked deep into his coat pockets. He walked like he was in no hurry. It seemed like whatever I did he knew I couldn’t get away. As he drew nearer I realised that his hat, always slightly tipped to one side, created a deep shadow that hid his features. All I could see was blackness. Black like tar or tyres. On he came, nearer and nearer. And of course I couldn’t run. If I tried there was that sensation of running in slow motion through mud and when I knew it was no use he drew closer and towered above me. Still his face was covered in that deep and dark midnight shadow that showed me nothing and gave no clues.

  He stopped and I smelt something decaying. Left to rot. Like chicken left in a bin during summer. I gagged. And as I gagged he spoke. Spoke with low, thick long words that took time to come out like gloopy oil.

  “You haven’t visited lately."

  I couldn’t answer but he spoke as if I had.

  “He’s dead of course.”

  Through my horror I wondered who was dead. Then, strangely, I thought I recognised his voice.

  “Who?" said the man in shadow, beginning to answer his own question. "Ernie, that’s who. He’s dead, killed …with a single, sharp stab through the eye. It was…" and he coughed to clear his throat, "…the only way.”

  I still couldn’t answer but I still felt the terror. He bent down and still I saw no nose, no eyes, lips, teeth. But the smell of cheap aftershave replaced the waft of rotting dead things.

  I was sure I recognised his voice but it was disguised like the sound on a film in slow motion.

  “Rosie?”

  I hadn’t asked about Rosie.

  “What about the little wretch? She was snooping so…we locked her away where nobody can find her. Those beneath… will take her young life too. When it’s time!”

  The dark blob of a face moved ever closer and I fell in. Falling. Tumbling ever downwards. And as I fell he spoke. Closer than ever.

  “You’ll be next
. You. And that girl. We’ll keep you so the secret won’t get out.”

  And at last this horribly familiar voice grew weaker. Fainter. Until it was heard as if over fields at night.

  “Their secret…must not…be discovered. Not long…now…”

  When I woke it was morning. My bedclothes were in a heap beside me and I was drenched in sweat.

  And over me, wiping her nose nervously with her handkerchief, stood the grey shape of Elizabeth Raynor.