Long Lankin (15 page)

Roger took me up to the tall iron gates to Glebe House. We went through a separate, single gate to one side.

The garden was almost as big as Poplar Park near Limehouse Town Hall. The drive curved round towards the house, which was surrounded by dark trees with thick twisted trunks. I didn’t know it was possible to live in a house so big, with so many rooms, and not be the Queen. An enormous arched window ran the length of the house from top to bottom. Behind its glass panes, a staircase zigzagged up and down.

“Do they have servants?” I whispered.

“They’ve got a man who does the garden — Mr. Crawford, remember? Then there’s Mrs. Campbell I told you about, who lives near us, who goes in every day to do the housework. Mum says a lady like Mrs. Treasure shouldn’t be doing her own ironing and that people who are that clever can’t keep their houses clean themselves because they’ve never learned. She says they do so much reading of books that they never have any time left over to do the washing-up. We’ll just creep past their windows and go round the back.”

But then we heard an irritating yap-yapping. Around the corner of the house, a girl appeared with a little brown-and-white dog snapping around her fancy black patent-leather shoes. The girl was older than me. She wore a white dress with puffed sleeves and a sash. Her shiny dark hair was caught up on one side with a slide and a wide checked bow.

“Crikey,” said Roger through his teeth as she drew nearer. “It’s blinkin’ Maisie Treasure and that nasty little dog of hers — Pippin or Drippin’ or something.”

Maisie Treasure was smiling, but it was a pretence. The corners of her mouth turned upwards well enough, but her eyes glittered coldly like two black beetles.

“Hello, Roger!” she said in a voice straight off the Home Service.

She didn’t say hello to me even though I was standing right next to Roger, but I could see she was taking me in, all the same.

Roger muttered that we couldn’t stop as we were going round the back to see Father Mansell.

“Out of luck — he’s in with us, I’m afraid. He and my father get together most Saturdays to discuss the text for Sunday. Father’s a lay reader, you know, at North Fairing.”

Whatever that is,
I thought.

“Annoying about the electricity, isn’t it?” she went on.

“What about it?”

“Oh, are you all right in the village? Some power lines blew down in the storm, and we won’t be able to put the lights on until Monday, when the men come out to do the repairs. Mrs. Eastfield will be the same.”

Unluckily for us, Maisie didn’t go in right away but stood there swinging her hands behind her back. I noticed her eyes on my trousers, then she looked up at my scruffy hair and my face. I shrank and looked down at the gravel drive with my one good eye.

“What happened to her?” she asked Roger at last, nodding in my direction.

“This is my friend Cora,” said Roger. “She fell down the stairs.”

“She’s wearing my old clothes,” said Maisie.

I felt myself blush scarlet.

A little bell tinkled in the house.

“Must go. Bye!” she said, turning on her smart heels. I listened to their
scrinch scrunch
on the gravel, and just knew they were the sort of shoes that would go
click click click
on the pavement. The dog jumped up and down on its short little legs, looking back at us, growling and barking. I wanted to kick its backside.

Roger stared after her.

“Well, if we can’t ask Father Mansell,” he said, “it looks as if I’m going to have to go and see one of our priests at Saint Cedd’s in Daneflete instead. Mum’ll think I’ve gone mad when I tell her I’m going to church of my own free will tomorrow. She’ll think I’ve had a vision like Saint Paul on the road to Damascus.”

Mum said it looked as if it was going to be sunny, so she made me wear my thin blue shirt with the stripes. I shoved the tie in my pocket as soon as I got to the lane.

By the time I reached the main road, the wind had changed and chilly drizzle was blowing up the hill from the marshes. I hung around the bus stop for a while, getting cold, then decided to walk it. Between stops, a bus came along, but the driver wouldn’t pull up even though I stuck my hand out.

The rain hit me side on, so I had to hold my hand against my right cheek to stop it going numb; then the feeling in my hand went as well.

As I walked along, I wondered which priest would be saying Mass. I’d be all right if it was old Silverwood, with his round glasses and his fluffy white hair always sticking up like he’d had a fright. But if Geraghty was doing it, he was bound to ask me why I wasn’t altar serving anymore; then I’d have to confess it was me who was responsible for the trailing cassock, the hot candle wax, and Brian Buntree having to go to the clinic.

With every step, my heart sank further into my chest.

Nan used to call this sort of rain Scotch mist. I’d rather be Roger going to Daneflete, even in this weather, than sitting here staring out of the window, remembering the last two nights.

It’s dark in the house, but we can’t switch on the lights or the wireless. The electricity isn’t working. Auntie Ida put a big oil lamp on the kitchen table, with two wicks, telling us to be careful not to jog it or we could burn the place down. I wouldn’t mind. At least we could go home. Auntie made Mimi some dolls out of clothes pegs and bits of cloth and wool. I played with them with her for a while, but I’m so tired that I’ve come upstairs.

I look over at the bed. I should lie down for a nap, get rid of this thick headache, but I hear things when I’m half-asleep and they give me goose pimples. You’re supposed to be able to die of fright from a nightmare, but I don’t think these things are nightmares. I think they’re real.

Last night I heard whispering, very close to me. I peered at Mimi’s face, half in shadow on the pillow. She was moving her lips in her sleep, as if she were speaking. I leaned in towards her, and with her breath on my cheek I heard her say,
“Help us . . . help us . . . save us . . .
” but it wasn’t her voice, or even one voice alone — it was many voices.

I lay there, my heart thudding, and thought that from somewhere downstairs I could hear a sound like sharp nails scratching slowly on a door. I pulled the eiderdown up around my hunched shoulders.

Then, from another room, far off, somewhere in the house, someone was screaming, crying out, “It’s all my fault! It’s all my fault!”

I had the same nightmare in London. Horrible noises, sobbing and wailing, came up the fireplace into our bedroom from downstairs. Grown-ups were talking quickly. I wanted to go and crawl into Mum and Dad’s big bed and snuggle down in between them, but I knew it would be empty and cold. In the morning, Mum wasn’t there. Dad looked washed out. He hadn’t shaved. His chin was raspy.

I know it wasn’t a nightmare really, but I’ve always tried to pretend it was.

Last night I heard the same words: “It’s all my fault! It’s all my fault!”

I lay there through all the hours of the rest of the night, too frightened to shut my eyes again, waiting for the light.

I can’t tell Roger. He’d think I was going mad.

I imagined knocking on the presbytery door after church and Mrs. O’Hara, the priests’ housekeeper, answering.

“What do you want?” she was going to say. “Go away! They’re having dinner!”

Mrs. O’Hara was like the nuns. She made you feel like a sinner.

I couldn’t face it and turned back to Bryers Guerdon.

I carried on past the end of Ottery Lane and on in the direction of Hilsea, with my wet shirtsleeves clinging to my skin. I glanced at my watch, thinking I’d have to kill time by walking around in the freezing rain for an hour and a half so Mum wouldn’t know I’d chickened out of going to church.

Then I caught a whiff of Saint Bruno tobacco. I knew it was Saint Bruno because that’s what Grandpa Bardock had smoked.

I looked up and saw a tall figure hunched up against the wall of the Thin Man, coat collar turned up, hat pulled well down, trying to relight his pipe.

As I drew near, the man looked up and I saw myself reflected in Father Mansell’s rain-spattered glasses.

“Hello, Father Mansell,” I said.

“Oh, hello, er . . .” he said, sucking on the pipe stem. “Frightful weather.”

“Roger,” I helped him out. “Roger Jotman.”

“Ah, yes.”

“You going up to Saint Mary’s?”

“Yes. Car wouldn’t start. Damp plugs, most likely. Couldn’t get a lift from Treasure. They’d already left. Anyway, must get on. Cheerio.”

He moved towards the path and began heading for Ottery Lane.

For a moment I hesitated, then ran after him.

“Father Mansell!” I shouted. “What does
Cave bestiam
mean?”

I could see his irritation as he turned.

“What? Look, Roger, I can’t be late for Holy Communion.”

“
Cave bestiam
. I think it’s Latin.”

“What? How do you spell it?”

“C-a-v-e b-e —”

“Yes, yes, it’s not
cave,
it’s pronounced ‘
cahvay
.’ It means ‘
beware
.’ Is that it? I have to go.”

“And the other bit —
bestiam
.”

“With
cave
it would be ‘of the beast.’ Must go, Roger.”

I walked all the way to Hilsea, spent ages looking at the twitchy guinea pigs in the murky little pet-shop window, then went back home, thinking of nothing else but what Father Mansell had said.

Cave bestiam
— beware of the beast!

It was pouring again.

The power was still off. The big glass lamp, with the wicks barely showing, shed its feeble light onto the tabletop, while the corners of the kitchen remained colourless, save for the hot glow of the fire under the copper.

Mimi had Sid and the peg dolls lined up under the lamp and was pouring water into cups and saucers for them from an old enamel jug.

Auntie pulled the mangle in from the outhouse and wiped the dust off with the dishcloth.

“When the kettle boils, can you make us some tea, Cora? Oh, and there are some digestives in the pantry.”

When the kettle started to get noisy on the big black stove, I emptied the slops out of the teapot, then went to get the biscuits.