Ghost Song (44 page)

No one would hear if Shona tiptoed down to the kitchen, although she would have to step round the floor-boards in the hall that creaked so loudly. The Cheesewrights were always going to get their cousin who was a joiner to come along and do a little job on the floorboards, but Grandfather said there was no money for little jobs and in any case the Cheesewrights' cousin drank and chased women and he was not having him in the house.

Shona avoided the creaking floorboards and went along the hall. It did not sound as if the television was on after all, which was quite unusual at this time of the evening. When she stopped outside the door to listen, she heard Grandfather and Mother talking.

‘She does behave so well,' mother was saying. ‘Don't you think so? There's really no sign at all of—'

‘I see signs,' Grandfather said. ‘Margaret, I'm sorry, but I see them very clearly.'

‘You watch her, I know.' Mother sounded as if she was going to cry.

‘I'll always watch her. I'll always stay close. She doesn't realize it and I don't let her know, but I do. So do you. And I see that look occasionally.'

I see that look
. A log must have fallen apart in the hearth just then, because the firelight in the room suddenly became red and Shona felt frightened.

‘Ah, Margaret, don't cry,' her grandfather was saying, and there was the creak of his chair as if he had leaned forward to pat Mother's arm or take her hand. ‘You know what I mean. We've both seen that look.'

Mother's voice came in a whisper. ‘Yes,' she said. ‘Oh yes. But she's all right, isn't she? We're making her all right.'

‘We are now, but what's to do when I'm gone?' he said. ‘I worry you won't manage to control her, and that's what I wanted to say to you tonight. We have to face facts, my dear: I'm well beyond the three score years and ten already, we both know that. So what I've thought is this. You'll remember Elspeth, your cousin John's eldest?'

‘I think so. Yes, of course I remember her.'

‘I've a mind to write to her, outlining the situation. Not making any definite arrangements, just saying there could be a time in the future when you'd be glad of her help here. You can offer her a good home—she's no place of her own—and there'd be a little money by way of a wage, I'd make sure of that.' There was a pause and Shona had the impression of her mother frowning as if thinking this over.

‘She's a strong sense of family,' said Grandfather. ‘We can trust her with the truth.'

‘Yes,' said Mother. ‘Yes, that would be an answer for—for later, wouldn't it? Yes, write the letter, would you?' She was crying properly now, and Shona heard her grandfather cross the room and then the chink of glasses.

‘Thank you,' said her mother after a moment and Shona guessed he had given her some brandy or whisky. ‘You're so good to me, Father. I'm sorry to be so emotional.'

‘Natural you should get upset,' said Grandfather a bit gruffly. ‘It's a bad business and it always has been, but it's not your fault—if it's anyone's fault, it's mine. I should have seen— I should have done something all those years ago. But the truth is that we were all fooled by a charming monster.'

A charming monster… Shona felt the hairs on her arms prickle all the way down to her hands.

‘It seems so cruel,' her mother was saying. ‘Not letting her lead a normal life. That's what upsets me most.'

‘Her life's normal enough it seems to me,' said Grandfather and there was a sudden stern note in his voice that Shona did not quite understand. ‘It's as normal as we dare let it be.' Then, sounding as if he was making an effort to throw off a heavy weight, he said, ‘And now, shall we take a look at the television news?' and there was the sound of the TV being switched on, and the announcer's voice talking about some boring old war somewhere, and something called Watergate, which Grandfather listened to, and then said they might attach all the fanciful names they liked to this: to his mind this Watergate business was nothing but downright greed and deceit.

Shona had forgotten about the biscuits. She went quietly back to bed and lay awake for a long time, thinking about what she had heard. A charming monster, her grandfather had said. We were all fooled. And then he made that remark, in that peculiar voice, about a normal life.

Anna. It must be Anna they had been talking about. Yes, of course it was. Anna was the charming monster who had fooled them all—except that Anna had never fooled Shona, not for one minute. Shona knew exactly what Anna was—she was vain and selfish and evil. A charming monster, that was what her grandfather had called her, and Shona thought that described her Aunt Anna very well indeed.

It was not long after this that Anna told Shona to drop the ‘aunt'.

‘So
ageing
,' she said with her laugh people said was musical, but which Shona thought stupid. ‘You make me feel about a hundred when you call me Aunt Anna. Or maybe I should get a lorgnette and an ear trumpet and talk like Edith Evans.' She put on a deep warbly voice when she said this, and looked about her, clearly waiting for everybody to fall about in admiration.

The really strange thing—the thing Shona could never understand—was that everybody did fall about in admiration. Even people you would expect to disapprove, liked Anna. They all said it must be wonderful for Shona to have this lively, pretty aunt who did modelling and such like—how exciting—and in a few years Shona would be able to go up to London with Anna. Even her grandfather, who had talked about Jezebels when Mona Cheesewright came to do the spring cleaning wearing a shocking-pink jumper one day, never seemed to mind the vivid clothes Anna wore, or the startling make-up. Mother said she did not know where Anna got the ideas for such things, but even Mother sometimes admired a lipstick or a new hair-style. Neither of them seemed to mind, either, when Anna played loud music on the radio or the radiogram, or when she went to parties and came home in the middle of the night, and made plans to buy her own car—a bright red sports car, she said, was what she wanted, and a man she knew in London was going to look one out for her. (Mona Cheesewright, hearing this, said, ‘And where will she get the money for
that
, I wonder,' in a voice that made Shona think of the hard sour little apples that fell in the orchard.)

That summer there was a music competition in a nearby town; it was an important event and Shona's class sang ‘Golden Slumbers' as their school's entry. Shona had not thought her grandfather would let her go to the competition—he thought if you went more than two miles beyond Moil you were going to places of sin—but he had seemed to think a twelve-mile journey in a coach, in company with twenty other girls and four teachers, was permissible. He even came along to watch, sitting in the front row with Mother and Anna. He wore his best suit and Mother had a neat navy two-piece with a nice silk scarf and Shona was pleased with them both; it was embarrassing if your family did not look right in front of your school friends. The trouble was that Anna did not look in the least right: when Shona saw what she was wearing she was horrified. Anna had on a trouser suit with extremely tight, calf-length trousers over high-heeled boots, a matching waistcoat, and a shirt cut like a man's. The trousers clung to her bottom which Shona thought very rude, and people stared which was annoying.

Shona's class won the competition which they agreed was brilliant, really great, especially since ten schools were competing and some had come all the way from York. Shona was the one chosen to go onto the platform to accept the cup for her school and everybody clapped. This practically made it Shona's own day. All the teachers would be very pleased and there might even be a piece in the newspaper with a photograph. She would ask her mother to lend her the little handbag mirror to tidy her hair just in case.

But there were no photographs and no pieces in the paper, and afterwards everyone crowded round Anna and admired her clothes, and hardly anybody talked about the competition or the cup or how nicely Shona had gone up onto the platform and shaken hands with the judges in a proper grown-up way. They were all more interested in that stupid show-off Anna in her rude trousers. Even the teachers said things like, ‘How
wonderful
you managed to find time to come along, Miss Ross,' as if they thought the whole thing was really beneath Anna's notice. One of them said, ‘My word, where on earth did you find such an outfit and those
boots
! You didn't buy any of those in this part of Yorkshire, I'll be bound.' Girls in Shona's class came up to her and instead of saying well done on collecting the cup, said what a smashing aunt she had; they had never seen anything like those fantastic clothes, and was it true she was going to be in
Cosmopolitan
modelling? Fathers and brothers stared at Anna's bottom. It was horribly embarrassing and it was the worst disappointment Shona had ever had and it was all because of Anna who was nothing but a monster—her grandfather had said so.

She lay awake for a long time that night thinking about it all, thinking how Anna had stolen the attention, just as she always did.

It was astonishing to Shona that Grandfather could be frightened of anything, but he had sounded frightened of Anna that night. He had seemed worried that he and Shona's mother might not always be able to control Anna—that one day Anna might do something really terrible and wicked. Grandfather was even making plans for after he died, telling Mother to send for someone called Elspeth to help her. Grandfather's idea of what was wicked covered a great many things—Shona knew that—but it still sounded as if Anna was really bad. A charming monster, Grandfather called her.

Shona was starting to feel sleepy by this time, but just before she tumbled over into sleep, she suddenly thought how extremely pleased her mother and her grandfather would be and how very good it would be for Shona herself if the charming monster—vain, selfish, hateful Anna—was no longer around.

If she was to die.

The trouble was Shona was not sure how hard it was to kill someone. People on television made it look easy, but probably it was not. If you wanted to kill spiders or beetles you just stamped on them, but you could not stamp on a whole person. Nor could you sneak up with a hammer or an axe to bash them over the head, because you would be seen and people like Mother and Grandfather would want to know why you were creeping round with hammers. Shona was not sure if she could actually bash Anna hard enough to kill her, and anyway there would be a lot of blood everywhere which would be horrid, as well as it going over Shona herself and being difficult to get rid of afterwards.

So how else could a person be killed? There were a lot of things Shona would not be able to do, mostly because Anna was bigger and stronger, but also because Anna was grown up. But there must be something.

Over the next few days she thought and thought. Whatever she decided on would have to be done without anyone knowing or seeing, which was another thing that was difficult because she was not often left on her own for very long spells. Mother took her to school and fetched her back each day, and she was almost always around, watching to be sure Shona did her homework, calling her to help with some dusting or a bit of gardening, or to help with the washing-up. If it was not Mother, it was Grandfather, wanting to know about her school work and asking if she would fetch a book from his study, or find his slippers or his reading glasses. It was difficult to make a plan to kill somebody when you were always being asked to fetch reading glasses or plant lobelia or help the Cheesewrights wash up.

Rather surprisingly, it was the Cheesewrights who gave Shona the solution. Edna had asked her cousin—the one who was always going to mend the creaking floor-boards—to let them have something to get rid of the rats in the outhouses at Grith. A positive plague of them there were, said Edna, chopping parsley as fiercely as if it were the rats themselves. Mona said rats were nasty disease carrying vermin, and their cousin was bringing a tin of something called Rat-Banish to deal with the horrid things. What you did, said Mona, you put the stuff down and then went away, and the rats came out and ate up the Rat-Banish which they thought was food. But eating it made them very thirsty so they went off to find water. Once they drank the water, the poison started to work and they died. Very satisfactory, said Mona, and there would be no nasty rat bodies lying around for folks to clear away. Edna said they could not be doing with rat bodies, and told Mona to put on the broad beans, because Mr Ross was very particular about broad beans being correctly cooked.