Long Lankin (13 page)

“Mimi, no —” I began, then stopped.

I must have gone mad for a moment.

It was Auntie Ida. It
was
.

What was the matter with me? What was happening to me in this place?

I shouldn’t have left it so late before going to meet them, but when the darkness came, it came suddenly. The storm is quite far away still, but with every roll of thunder, it gets closer.

They looked so pathetic, the two of them up there on the hilltop.

Probably a waste of time writing to Harry. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t even reply, let alone turn up.

I can’t believe Cora took Mimi down to the church and then left her on her own. I can’t bear to think about it.

But it’s been so long now . . . and with the flood . . . I thought the water would have finished him off. I thought so, or maybe just hoped so, until Mimi mentioned the man in the graveyard. Would she make it up, a little girl like that? Maybe it was Reg Hibbert she saw. I just assumed . . . The old fear . . . it will never go away.

I should have taken Old Peter down when Cora first asked. I don’t know what is the right thing to do anymore.

He’s out of the way now. I’ve forbidden them to go exploring upstairs. I don’t want them snooping around up there. Cora had better not disobey me again.

Harry’s just going to have to sort out something else. I can’t cope with this. They must go home.

That was a huge flash of lightning. The thunder’s right behind. The storm must be overhead. I’d better go and fetch the pails. I can’t keep this old house going. It’s all too much for me.

I’ve been trying to keep myself awake for ages now. I’m waiting until Auntie Ida goes to bed. A while ago, I heard her come up and clatter around, unlocking doors, going into different rooms, clanging buckets down on the hard floors.

I haven’t heard her since. The storm is blowing stronger, the wind whistling so hard it’s rattling the window frames, and the rain beats in furious waves on the old glass.

I might have dozed off and missed Auntie’s footsteps. I haven’t noticed her candlelight under the door, either. She must have gone to bed by now.

The wind sounds like people crying.

Water is dripping onto the floor somewhere near the cupboard, like the tick of a clock. It’s annoying because sometimes it comes when I’m expecting it and at other times it waits on purpose to irritate me.

I’m surprised Mimi’s asleep at all, especially when the room flashes bright with lightning and the thunderclaps crash like the whole world is splitting apart. Mum used to make us sit under the kitchen table when there was a storm. I wonder if she can hear this same storm tonight.

If I don’t find Old Peter this time, I’ll have to try again tomorrow. Auntie might have put him in a locked room. I don’t know where she keeps the keys.

She must have gone to bed by now. Why would she stay up all on her own?

I’m very nervous, but I think I’ll have to do it now. My heart’s beating very fast. I hope it’s not going to be too cold.

I tuck Mimi up really close and creep to the door. I know which one of the floorboards creaks, so I step over it and carefully lift the latch. It’s stiff. I hold my breath, waiting for the loud click. The wind is gusting strong. I’m hoping it will muffle the sound. I pull the door to but daren’t close it right up after me in case the noise wakes Auntie Ida.

A little light comes up the stairs from the hall below. It throws the long shadows of the spindles up onto the wall. Auntie must have left the lamp on for Finn.

There’s no sound from her room. She must be fast asleep.

I creep along the passage. It becomes darker with every step. My shadow goes ahead of me, shifting and changing like a phantom, as if it has a life all its own. I try the latch of a door on my right. It opens quietly, and I make out the odd shapes of furniture covered in sheets. Their black shadows leap up onto the wall behind. On the floorboards, where the door swings open, there is thick undisturbed dust. Nobody has been in for a long time.

I go to the room on the left on the other side of Auntie Ida’s. The door is heavy. When I push it into the room, something moves — a thin curtain, hanging from the roof of a huge bed draped with spiders’ webs. There are no footprints or marks of dragging in the dust on the floor behind the door. It creaks slowly as I shut it, and the bottom scrapes a little on the wooden boards. I think I can hear some other noise in the house, but then the thunder crashes again.

At the end, before the passage turns a corner to the left, there is a small window looking out over the cobbled yard and the back garden. As I wait, I can hear my breathing over the noise of the rain spattering the black panes. Sweat prickles out over my chilled skin. My pyjamas stick to me, yet I am cold.

Just as I turn to look back to the head of the stairs, I see the lamplight from the hall below flickering, then dying out altogether. I blink for a moment in the darkness.

Then I hear the bell, its lonely distant note tolling against the wailing of the wind as it speeds across the trees and the reeds, the mud and the water between the church and Guerdon Hall. In my head, I see the church in the gloom of night, the bell rope rising and falling in the empty tower.

By the next flash of lightning, I make out three wooden steps opposite the window, leading up towards the front of the house.

I could easily go back. My bedroom door is still ajar, just at the top of the staircase. It would take only seconds to run to it and bury myself in the warm blankets.

Or I could find Old Peter.

I turn and place my foot on the first step.

A narrow passage goes off to the right. I feel my way along the wall. Moist plaster crumbles under my fingers. The air is filled with the strong smell of damp. I rattle a door to my left, but it will not open. Just after it, the passage turns again.

Suddenly the floor disappears beneath me. I stumble and fall with a dreadful clatter down some steps, banging my elbow on the wall.

For a few seconds, I remain on the floor, rubbing my sore knees, then get up gingerly and move on. The floorboards give slightly under my feet. Treading carefully, I feel for spongy holes or loose splinters of wood and, with my fingers, fumble for doors. This one is locked; this scrapes open only three inches before sticking; another is nailed shut with a wooden bar. Just before the passage ends, my right hand brushes against the latch of another door. The thumbpiece lowers. It opens.

A cold draught lifts the hairs on my arms. After the thick darkness of the passage, a little light comes through the window from the raging sky outside. The room seems to breathe as cobwebs ripple in the moving air.

Footprints, and beside them a wide line, as if something has been dragged across the dusty floor, lead to an open doorway in the corner, a doorway to another room. From this other, shadowy room comes the sound of water dripping into more water.

I follow the footprints and walk slowly towards the far doorway. When I look into the place beyond, every hair root on my head begins to rise.

A large metal bucket stands on the floor, almost full with the water that falls drop by drop from the beamed ceiling, breaking up the webs into wet strings. At first, in the darkness, I think there is an old chair next to the bucket, a chair covered with a sheet. But then it moves. What I see is not a chair.

It is a woman, bent over, kneeling, with her back to me. It isn’t Auntie Ida.

My legs begin to tremble.

The woman holds each side of her head with thin white hands and rocks backwards and forwards on heels hidden by the folds of a long brown skirt crumpled up around her. A thick single plait of fair hair curves down the line of her back.

My heart hammers.

The woman stops rocking and slowly, very slowly, kneels up straight. She takes her hands down from her head, then lifts her right hand and points up to the roof with her finger.

She sits back on her heels, pointing upwards, still facing away from me, not moving.

Suddenly an explosion of thunder and a mighty crackle of lightning shatter the room. I jump, then realize I can see only the bucket. The woman is no longer there. The roar of the pouring rain almost drowns out the steady drip, drip, drip of the water coming down from the roof.

I can’t tear my eyes away from the empty space where she was. My breath comes in shudders. I force my legs to move back across the floor to the door I left open. I pull it shut quickly and settle the latch with shaking hands. The thunder roars again. I press myself against the wall and wait there, panting, until the rumble dies away.

Closing my eyes, I take a long, shivering breath, then recall something I saw on the edge of my vision, to the side of the kneeling woman. It was the picture, leaning against the wall under the window, covered with a blanket.

I wait — Is it two minutes? Is it five? — trying to push her image away from the eye in my mind. She was nothing more than a movement of the air, a trick of the storm light, a spectre I conjured up out of bad weather.

If she meant to do me harm, she could have done it already — come up behind me in the dark.

I swallow, pull myself away from the wall, stretch out my hand, and lift the latch again. I can hear my heart thudding in my chest and am barely able to place one foot in front of the other as I move towards the doorway in the corner once more. When I reach it, I hold my breath and slowly peer around the frame.

A lightning bolt cracks, and the room flashes with light. There is nobody there.

As the thunder booms in a long dreadful roll, I move into the room, towards the picture, sit back on my heels in front of it, and, with a swift glance over my shoulder, pull down the blanket.

Old Peter glares at me with wide, wild eyes. His tangled hair hangs around his sharp cheekbones. His right hand grabs at the air, and his left clutches a plain wooden cross as it rests on a block of stone. On this stone are the words
CAVE BESTIAM
. I know — I am absolutely sure — that he is the man Mimi and I saw by the gate in the churchyard. His skin is smooth and faintly lined, not blistered, but it is the same man.

The rain-streaked windows are drumming in their frames. I think anything is possible now. I saw this man in the painting standing by the gate in the churchyard. I saw an unknown woman kneeling in this empty room. It is as if the world I have known is somewhere else, and I don’t know how to be in this one. There is no light but the light of the storm, and the house is alive in the night all around me.

I begin to notice other things in the room — a stone fireplace, beside it a chest of drawers with the handles missing. In the dust on the top is a rusty black box, about a foot square, and next to that a pile of little clothes, neatly folded. I stretch out my hand and pick up a small hand-knitted cardigan. I hold it close to my face and make out the letter
E,
embroidered in blue on the front. The buttons are tiny blue rocking horses. Beside the pile is a grimy basket that may once have been white. Inside are knitted socks and mittens with ribbons, speckled with dirt and crumbs of old plaster.

In the next flare of lightning, I see a beautiful wooden cot painted with marching guardsmen. The folded blankets inside are grey with dust. In that same flash, as I hold the little cardigan in my hands, I become aware of the quiver of a candle flame and hear a voice from the doorway, as hard and as cold as glass:

“What in the name of hell are you doing here?”