Mad Dog Moonlight (7 page)

A few miles down the road, however, Aunty took a sharp turn inland, leaving the sea behind and heading up into the hills. The road she'd chosen went up and down like a fairground switchback and Mad Dog started feeling carsick. He tried to focus his eyes on the way ahead, but dizzying glimpses of sheer drops and the valley floor beneath him didn't help.

‘How much further?' he kept on asking.

‘Not far now,' Aunty would reply.

It felt far to Mad Dog – especially after Aunty took a wrong turning and had to retrace their journey for several miles. Finally, however, the car plunged down into woodland, and the outskirts of a village came into view. They passed an empty railway station with a sign announcing that it was closed until Easter; a general store; a campsite set in a sunless wood; a tourist shop that had been boarded up; a series of old bridges, each built over the other and set back amongst woodland; and a tumbling waterfall that appeared to be the village's main tourist attraction but couldn't be got down to without going through a turnstile and paying money.

The waterfall was at the lowest part of the village, set next to a rather grand-looking hotel. Once past it, the car crawled its way up a series of hairpin bends
until Aunty pulled sharply left on to a gravel drive. Here a grey stone house loomed into view, its paintwork peeling, its gate hanging off its hinges, weeds growing up its path.

‘Well, here we are,' Aunty said with a sigh.

She switched off the engine and got straight out of the car as if afraid of changing her mind if she hesitated. Mad Dog got out too, and immediately the sound of running water rushed to greet him from a cliff that stood behind the house. Everything was cast in its shadow. The house. The garden. Even the sign by the hanging gate.

THE DEVIL'S BRIDGE B & B it said, and, handwritten underneath it, in capital letters, underlined heavily, were the words:

NO VACANCIES

It didn't take a man with red tattoos all over his chest to convince Mad Dog that the Devil's Bridge B & B was not a place where he wanted to spend his half-term holiday. But the man didn't help. Before they'd even got up the path, he'd materialised in the porch as if by magic and stood, hands on hips, shirt open, silver charms around his neck, glaring down at them, his hair as red as danger, his eyes as black as wrinkled prunes.

It was as if they'd no right to be there. Aunty waved for him to come and help them with the luggage, but he took no notice and they had to manage on their own.

‘We have a room booked,' Aunty said when she reached the porch.

The man refused to get out of her way. She stood right in front of him, but he wouldn't budge. ‘You must have got that wrong,' he said. ‘We've been closed since before Christmas.' He pointed down to the NO VACANCIES sign as if to say
can't you read?

‘But I booked a room only a couple of hours ago,' Aunty insisted. ‘And the person I spoke to didn't say anything about being closed.'

She pushed the man aside and entered the B & B, dragging Mad Dog and Elvis behind her. Mad Dog never forgot the smell of boiled cabbage as he passed the man. The hall in which he found himself was dark,
with yellowing wallpaper. He shivered, wishing that Aunty had booked them into the hotel down the road. He couldn't understand what they were doing here in this horrid B & B, and, for the first time in ages, he thought about his
ffon
and wished he had it with him to keep him safe.

By now Aunty had located the reception ‘desk' – a small square hatch in the wall that looked as if it hadn't been opened for years. Positioning herself in front of it, she pressed a bell that set off a piercing scream all over the house. With a sigh of annoyance, the tattoed man disappeared through a door behind them, then reappeared behind the hatch.

‘Look, you're not down in the register,' he said, opening out a dusty-looking ledger with nothing written in it.

‘I don't care what I may or may not be down in,' Aunty said. ‘If you don't take me to my room, I'll call the Manager.'

‘I
am
the Manager,' the man said.

Aunty looked him up and down. ‘Oh yes?' she said. ‘Then show me to my room or else I'll call the owner instead.'

It was obvious she wasn't going to back down. The Manager stared at her with all the friendliness of a cornered dog. He pushed the book at her and she signed her name, then he led them upstairs to a sunless room which was cold even by February's standards, and dominated by the sound of running water.

At first Mad Dog thought there must be a leak somewhere, but then he realised that the sound came from the rock face immediately outside their window. He turned towards Aunty, who was busy examining
cobwebs that hung in strings across the ceiling and dots of black mould on the wallpaper.

‘You can't seriously expect us to stay in here?' she said.

‘This is the only room that isn't closed for redecoration,' the Manager said, and turned and left them to it.

Mad Dog wished that he could leave as well. He wished that Aunty would tell the Manager where to stick his room. But all she did was take a few quick photos on her mobile phone – although what for Mad Dog couldn't imagine – then start the process of making things more comfortable.

First she found an electric fire and switched it on, then she went down to the reception area and came back with hot-water bottles to air the beds, dusters, spray-can polish and even a vacuum cleaner. Then she got stuck in.

Mad Dog couldn't understand why she was bothering. None of it made sense. Even he – with his limited knowledge of the world – understood that if you booked into a B & B you weren't meant to do your own cleaning. But Aunty did it all, and afterwards she dug a kettle out of the back of the wardrobe and brewed them all a cup of tea.

Mad Dog didn't like tea, but given how cold he was he drank it anyway. The three of them sat facing each other on the edges of their beds. Their coats hung on the back of the door. Their shoes lined up along the wall. Their clothes were unpacked into the wardrobe, and the room still mightn't look remotely homely but Aunty had done her best.

‘So, when are we going to see the Aged Relative?'

Mad Dog said.

Aunty shrugged. ‘When I'm ready,' she said – whatever that meant.

‘And when will that be?' Mad Dog said.

This time Aunty didn't even answer. Other things plainly were on her mind. After they'd finished their tea, she led them off on a tour round the rest of the house, opening doors and looking round them, poking into corners, tutting over what she found, taking more photographs and writing things down in a little notebook that she kept digging out of her handbag.

Mad Dog was worried about the Manager catching them out, but Aunty said she couldn't care less. When they'd finished with the bedrooms – which might be closed for redecoration, but there was precious little to be seen of it – she took them downstairs to see the dining room.

This turned out to be a grubby pink-and-blue box of a room with chairs on tables, which looked as if it hadn't been used for years. Aunty poked her way round it, looking in drawers and counting plates and silver cutlery, then led them through the kitchen, where she did the same.

Finally they even found their way into the office, which lay behind the reception hatch. Mad Dog expected the Manager to come leaping out and chase them away, but he wasn't anywhere to be seen. Having failed to keep them out, it seemed, he'd simply given up.

It was only on their way back to their room that they came across him. Aunty heard a piano being played somewhere and insisted on going to investigate. And there, in a dusty old conservatory at the
back of the house, amid stacked-up chairs and trestle tables, an empty counter with a tea urn, and an old box-freezer for Lyons Maid ice cream, they found the Manager playing tunes from a stack of yellowing sheet music held together with Sellotape.

‘Some Enchanted Evening' he played, smiling to himself as if at some private joke, singing along as if he didn't know that anyone was watching.

Mad Dog shivered. He really didn't like this Manager. There was something about him that went deeper than mere grumpiness. Something he couldn't put his finger on but, if he'd been Aunty, he'd have turned tail and gone.

Aunty, however, had no intention of going anywhere. ‘I'm hungry,' she announced. ‘We all are. We've been looking for you everywhere. Could you find us something to eat?'

The Manager closed the piano. When he turned his face towards them, the smile had gone, replaced by an expression of perfect blankness. He said that the Devil's Bridge B & B didn't ‘do' food any more and the dining room was closed until further notice.

But Aunty wouldn't have it. Mad Dog had never seen her so determined. She was a pretty strong-minded woman normally but, ever since coming here to Devil's Bridge, her strong-mindedness had moved into a whole new league.

Now she said she wanted food, and had no doubt that, if he applied himself, the Manager could ‘do something about it'. The Manager didn't like it, but Aunty wouldn't back down and, in the end – with her threatening to take over his kitchen – he agreed to ‘rustle something up'.

When their meal arrived, however, Mad Dog rather wished the Manager hadn't bothered. He forced down tinned tomato soup heated to lukewarm, boiled haddock that was cold in the middle, sliced white bread, a mound of soggy cabbage, and mashed bananas served with lumpy custard and tinned cream.

It wasn't the worst meal Mad Dog had ever eaten – that honour went to Hippie's mum with her lentils and mung beans – but it wasn't far off. All the way through it, Mad Dog poked his food around his plate and waited for Aunty to complain. But she didn't say a word and he wondered what was wrong with her.

Back in their room afterwards, Aunty brushed her teeth as if trying to get rid of the taste of fish, washed her face, combed her hair and even applied a little make-up. Then she made Mad Dog and Elvis change into clean clothes, including their best shoes.

‘What's going on?' Mad Dog said.

‘It's time to meet the Aged Relative,' Aunty said.

The Aged Relative!
At last!
Wondering what they were in for, Mad Dog followed Aunty downstairs again. Here she rang the terrible bell at the reception hatch. She didn't take her finger off until a plainly rattled Manager appeared, dressed in pyjamas as if he'd already retired for the night. As it wasn't even eight o'clock, Aunty looked surprised. Her voice laced with sarcasm, she announced that she was sorry to disturb him but needed to speak to the owner.

The Manager looked as if he'd had enough. ‘I'm the owner,' he said.

‘No, you said you were the Manager,' Aunty said.

‘You heard wrong. I said I was the owner,' the Manager said.

Aunty smiled. Mad Dog didn't like her smile, and he'd have liked it even less if he'd been in the Manager's shoes.

‘Oh, I heard wrong, did I?' she said. ‘You're the owner, are you? Well, I think not. I'd know her if I saw her, as I'm sure you will agree. After all, I ought to know my own
mother
, don't you think?'

If there'd been a competition for who was more astounded, the winner would have been hard to pick. The Manager's mouth fell open with obvious surprise, while Mad Dog's mind raced through a thousand questions, all to do with how Aunty could have a mother without him realising it – especially one as sour and unfriendly as the Aged Relative.

‘I'm sorry, but could you repeat that?' he heard the Manager say somewhere in what felt like the distance.

‘If you don't mind, I'd like to see my mother,' Aunty said.

The Manager got it remarkably quickly. Mad Dog was still struggling to put the whole thing together, as if it were a sum whose parts he stood a chance of understanding. Owner of hotel plus Aged Relative equals what – Aunty's mother? Surely not!

But throwing Aunty a glance that acknowledged the extent to which he'd underestimated her, the Manager said, ‘I see. Well, if you'd explained when you arrived, I'd have understood. But I do now, and I'll take you to her. She'll be pleased to see you, I'm sure. Come this way.'

In an exhibition of control that was impressive to observe, he led them back upstairs, then upstairs again to a long attic landing with doors off it. Here they passed through a fire door and came to what had to be the remotest room in the house. The Manager
rapped on the door.

‘What do you want?' a thin voice barked from inside the room.

The Manager didn't answer, just turned the handle and stepped aside, an expression on his face that could have crushed cars. The door swung open and Aunty walked in, followed by Elvis and then by Mad Dog – only to find themselves confronted by an enormous four-poster bed.

The three of them stood before it, looking up. At first Mad Dog didn't realise what it was, only that some sort of massive frame with curtains pulled round it filled the room and blocked his going any further. Only when he caught a glimpse of pillows behind the curtains did it occur to him that it might be a bed. And then he couldn't imagine how anybody could get in or out of it, not without a ladder.

‘Mother, it's me,' Aunty called. ‘You must be up there somewhere. Show yourself.'

Something rustled behind the curtains, then a great grey dog stuck out a face that was dappled with pale red spots as if it was getting over chicken pox. Acting the role of guardian of the bed, it issued a low, throaty growl which brought another dog to join it and then a third.

Mad Dog took a step back, getting behind Aunty and wishing yet again that he'd got his
ffon
with him. Elvis stepped back too, but Aunty stood her ground.

‘Mother,' she said. ‘This is ridiculous. I know you're up there.'