2006 - Wildcat Moon (8 page)

She had been crying and the skin around her eyes was as puffy as pink marshmallows.

She held out her arms and Romilly ran to her eagerly.

Mama hugged her tightly and Romilly breathed in her lovely smell, rose-perfumed soap that she bathed in each morning,
Midnight in Paris
perfume and an overlay of menthol cigarettes mat she smoked when she had a headache.

Mama whispered in Romilly’s ear, “Be good, my darling, while I am away.”

“I will.”

“I promise you that whatever it takes this is the last time we shall ever be separated.”

Romilly whispered back, “Oh, Mama! I hope so. Can we go with the elephant on the road to Mandalay?”

“Perhaps,” She kissed Romilly gently on the forehead.

“Mama, may I play the gramophone records while you are gone to remind me of you?”

“Of course.”

Outside a car parped its horn impatiently and Mama let Romilly go reluctantly.

“Make sure that she gets plenty of fresh air and is not kept cooped up all day in the house.”

Nanny Bea nodded curtly.

Romilly ran behind Mama to the door but Nanny Bea caught hold of her arm and pulled her back.

Instead Romilly watched from the window as an old man got out of a grey car, lifted Mama’s suitcase into the boot then held the back door open for her.

Mama looked out through the window and waved, trying to keep a smile on her face.

Romilly smiled back and blew a kiss.

Nanny Bea turned away from the window with a sly smile. From what Master Jonathan had told her, Margot Greswode would be away for a great deal longer than six weeks and good riddance. Maybe, just maybe, Master Jonathan would come home more often and things could be like they used to be.

“Romilly, come away from the window please.”

But Romilly hadn’t heard a word she was saying. She was staling at the small boy who was standing in the doorway of the summerhouse, a small boy standing quite extraordinarily still, looking steadfastly back at her.

“Romilly, do you hear me?” Nanny Bea’s voice was sharp with impatience.

“Why is there a boy in the summerhouse?”

Nanny Bea rounded on her, “Don’t be so ridiculous.”

Romilly didn’t reply, she was too busy watching the boy.

“I think, Romilly, you are having one of your sillier moments.”

“I think his name is Thomas Greswode.”

Nanny Bea stared hard at the child. “Thomas Greswode died before you were born, before even your papa was born.”

“Who was he?”

“He was your grandfather’s cousin, I believe, and not a nice boy, not a nice boy at all.”

“But he only looks about the same age as me.”

Nanny Bea stepped up to the window and looked fearfully down towards the dilapidated summerhouse.

There was no sign of a boy. How could there possibly be?

She looked at the child with concern. Romilly was transfixed as if she could really see someone.

“He’s smiling at me,” she said in a faraway voice. “I think he’d like to be my friend.”

“Well, I won’t be smiling at you if you don’t come away from that window this instant and put an end to this nonsense.”

Romilly turned away from the window and followed Nanny Bea obediently across the hallway without a murmur.

Nanny Bea needed a drop of medicinal brandy. Hearing Thomas Greswode’s name mentioned after all this time had made her feel quite out of sorts.

Archie Grimble woke with a start. He was stiff and sore and his brain felt as though it was wrapped tightly in muslin, like a boiled pudding.

He sat up and touched the back of his head gingerly; there was a bump there the size of a gooseberry. He scrabbled around for his spectacles, found them and put them on.

One lens was cracked and it took some moments for his eyes to get used to the dim light. He looked around him and gasped.

He’d expected to see the familiar surroundings of his bedroom but he realized with a shudder that he had spent the night on the floor of the wobbly chapel.

He wriggled out from a black cloak that was wrapped tightly around him and tried to stand but his legs were too weak. He slumped back down onto the floor and cradled his head in his hands. His thoughts were all jumbled up as though he were half in the real world and half in a dream.

He could vaguely remember putting the key in the lock and coming inside the chapel but after that his thoughts were all blurred up.

He remembered being afraid because someone had tried to get into the chapel. He’d gone down some steep steps, then stumbled over something in the dark and fell.

That must have been when he’d banged his head.

He winced now as he remembered falling, then hitting the water and going down and down.

His feet touching the sea bed, cheeks puffed out with air, eyes bulging, fighting desperately to get to the top. Then the waters parted and he was gasping and coughing. The starlit sky was quivering above him and somehow he’d managed to heave himself up out of the water and onto the rocks.

He could have drowned. He hadn’t though. He must have swum. Eejit! He couldn’t swim…

He looked down at his skinny legs; they were crisscrossed with scratches, his pale skin streaked with dried blood.

Somehow he had dragged his bad leg up over the rocks, miraculously finding his way back up through the hole he had earlier fallen through. Then, trembling, his body racked with cold, sobbing with fear and relief he had found the first of the steep slippery steps that led him back up to the cupboard into the chapel.

His brain was slowly warming up, his memory returning.

He remembered that he hadn’t been able to go home because Nan had shut the Pilchard early.

He stood up again, leaning against a pew to gather his strength. His clothes were filthy and damp and he stank of mould and salt and mouse shit. He’d never been so dirty or so cold in all his life.

Mammy would have a blue fit if she saw him like this, especially if she knew he’d been out all night like a bloody torn cat and nearly drowned himself to boot. Oh, my God, by now she would have realized that he hadn’t slept in his bed…

She’d be hysterical and the fat porker would be angry and all the men from the Skallies were probably already scouring the countryside.

Then he remembered with relief that today was market day in St Werburgh’s and Mammy would have left early to catch the bus from Rhoskilly. On market days during the school holidays she always left him sleeping.

He watched as a mouse scurried down the aisle and came to rest on top of an old hymn book, whiskers twitching, eyes bright in the gloomy dawn light. It looked up at Archie curiously for a moment and then hurried off.

He could hardly believe that all this had happened to him and all because he’d made a daft promise to old Benjamin. He had been brave enough to come out in the pitch black and get into the chapel!

It was the first time in his life he’d been brave!

He didn’t have much to show for it though. A bump on the head and his clothes ruined. His spectacles were cracked, his detective torch at the bottom of the sea and his legs skinned almost to the bone.

He’d done it, though, just like he’d promised and Benjamin would have been really proud of him. But he hadn’t discovered any mysteries to solve.

In the distance the church clock in Rhoskilly Milage chimed eight.

He’d just have to pray that he would be able to creep back into Bag End without being seen, get himself deaned up and have a sleep, and by to get his strength back.

He made his way towards the door and just as he was about to turn the key, sunlight flooded in through the chapel window and he was bathed in a myriad of dancing colours. It was as though he had been dropped inside a kaleidoscope. He watched as the colours played across the floor and the walls.

He looked down and realized with a shudder that he was standing on a flagstone with someone’s name on it He stepped quickly to the side and peered down at the inscription.

THOMAS GASPARINI GRESWODE

BORN DECEMBER 17
th
1888 IN SANTA CATERINA ITALY

TRAGICALLY DROWNED OFF SKILLY POINT AUGUST 21
st
1900.

Archie reckoned up in his head.

The poor thing had been only about twelve years of age when he had died.

He shivered. Poor bugger to have died of drowning.

And he was only two years older than Archie was now.

December 17
th
. That was today.

Happy birthday, Thomas Greswode, whoever you were.

If he’d lived he’d have been an old man by now.

Archie looked around him and thought that the chapel looked even more ghostly in the daylight than it did at night.

It was as if one day it had suddenly been abandoned; the people had left in a hurry; the door was locked and the place left just as it was.

The hymn numbers were still up on the board.

15

176

33

He knelt down and picked up the prayer book he had seen last night There on the front page was the same boy’s name. Thomas Gasparini Greswode. He flicked through the yellowing pages then slipped the prayer book into his pocket.

Then he remembered the letter addressed to him that he’d found in Benjamin’s jacket.

Damn and double damn. He must have dropped it last night.

He made his way back to the cupboard and let out a delighted squeal when he saw the letter on the floor. It must have fallen out of his pocket when he’d climbed into the hole. He picked it up eagerly, put it into his pocket, hurried back through the chapel and let himself out.

The sun was rising above Bloater Row and the world was filling up with the colours of day. The sky was awash with pink and yellow streaks like a painting done with too much water on the brush. The dark roofs of the houses in Bloater Row were lightening from black to grey and the bright green moss that grew in the guttering glistened with dew. The worn-down cobbles were dappled with a syrupy light and the porthole windows of the Pilchard Inn glowed like eyes.

Outside the Galvinis’house the Virgin in her little case set into the wall peered out through the misted glass, the candle at her feet spluttering with the last of its life.

A bad-tempered crow called out from the roof of Cuckoo’s Nest where the Kellys still slept behind newspaper curtains. A cockerel crowed and silver-winged gulls keened and swooped through the wisps of smoke that drifted up from the chimney of the old Boathouse.

Archie hurried along Bloater Row, the door to Bag End was unlocked and with relief he crept inside. He stood in the hallway and listened out for any sounds. The fat porker was snoring away upstairs in the bedroom. He was safe! Archie climbed quietly up the steep staircase, tiptoed across the landing and made it thankfully into his own room. He slipped out of his filthy clothes, crawled beneath the thick eiderdown and slept.

Fleep hurried back along the coastal path. He was breathing heavily and the muscles in his legs ached from running. He climbed down the path that ran behind the old Boathouse leading down to Skilly Beach. He stopped for a moment and bent double to ease his stitch.

Then he made his way across the beach and up through the hole in the rocks. Hurriedly he opened the front door to the Grockles and let himself in.

“Filthy bastards!”

Fleep spun around in fear. From his perch the parrot eyed him balefully.

“You bloody thing, you’re enough to stop a man’s heart!”

“Tetch the tea!” the parrot squawked.

Fleep threw himself down onto the bed. What a time he’d had. Dear God, he’d almost died of embarrassment. If only he had! Hell, that moment when he’d looked up and seen a whole army of schoolgirls grinning down at him from the cliff top. And then that old woman screaming like a raving lunatic!

Christ! He was mortified.

He lay very still for a while, hands covering his flushed face.

He couldn’t get anything right, could he? If he’d managed to walk out into the sea as he’d planned then a bloody sailing ship would have come to his rescue! But to have your last swim in this world witnessed by an audience of hysterical schoolgirls and two middle-aged school mistresses. How was he to know that there was a bloody girls’ school perched up on the cliffs? God almighty! He began to laugh then, quietly at first and then louder. The parrot echoed him.

Haaaaaa! HAAAA!

Fleep laughed until the sparsely furnished room echoed and somebody next door banged loudly on the wall. Then, exhausted, he closed his eyes and drifted off, for the first time in many months, into an exhausted but welcome sleep.

Walter Grimble woke, sat up and stretched out a hand for his cigarettes. He tipped up the packet and grimaced when he found it empty. He checked his watch, it was just gone eleven and Martha wouldn’t be back from the market until late in the afternoon. He couldn’t wait that long for a smoke. Nan Abelson, God bless the frosty bint, kept a glass jar full of fags behind the bar in the Pilchard and sold them separately. If he could get his hands on Archie’s money tin he’d help himself to a couple of bob, maybe enough even for a couple of pints. A man was entitled to a few pleasures in life after all.

He sat up and listened. It was quiet in Bag End, just the tick of the clock down in the parlour and the drip of the scullery tap.

He pulled on his clothes, crossed the landing and opened the door to Archie’s room. He was put out to see the boy lying asleep in his bed.

Archie woke with a start, looked up and saw his father standing in the doorway. He flinched; he hadn’t heard him get up, if he had he’d have been out of the house like a shot.

Walter stepped into the room and spotted the pile of filthy clothes in the corner where Archie had left them. He lurched over to them, lifted them up with his big toe.

“Look at the bloody state on these!”

Archie sighed.

“And good God, boy, look at your face! You look like you’ve been licking a cow’s arse.”

“I’m sorry for getting dirty and ruining my clothes.”