‘We need Mrs Burnley, the school secretary. She will be in the office and the sign outside says ‘Visitors’.’
Annabel nodded nervously.
Mrs Burnley was a tall and elegant lady with a warm smile. After greeting us, she sent for a prefect to take Annabel to her classroom, and then she turned to me.
‘Right, Thomas, you can come with me.’ It was a long time since anyone had called me Thomas. I raised my eyebrows and grinned at the formality.
As she opened the classroom door, registration was taking place. A swarm of new faces all turned towards me. It felt like they were all creatures from outer space. I became aware of my face growing hotter and hoped that my spots were not glowing. A girl smiled coyly as I was shown to a seat next to a small red-haired boy wearing glasses. The girl was sat directly behind him. He also smiled and nodded, but others glared at me.
Mrs Burnley had whispered something to the young, confident-looking male teacher, who then nodded and turned to the class.
‘Everyone, this is Thomas Winchett, a newcomer to the school. I trust that you will all look after him and make sure he knows where he’s going.’ As I looked around at the strange faces studying me again, I had a good notion of who would help me and who wouldn’t. While registration continued, there was a hum of low-level chatter.
‘Where do you come from?’ the boy with red hair asked.
‘Near Sheffield,’ I whispered.
‘So why did you move?’ He didn’t whisper. Such directness.
‘We inherited an Elizabethan manor house.’
‘Wow, Elizabethan? Interesting.’
‘Suppose so.’
He introduced himself as George, but other boys groaned. I soon understood why.
‘They think I’m odd, ’cos I’m small and talk a lot. Born very early—that is, pre-mature, before my due date. My jabbering gets on my dad’s nerves and people here get fed up with me. I’m used to it now, though, them walking away. They’re jealous cos I have a high I.Q. Do you know what that means? It’s a syndrome. I’ve been tested…’
Now I knew why the boys groaned. George never shut up. The teacher was staring at us. I interrupted him and gave my final whisper.
‘You might take a breath once in a while.’
The teacher now raised his voice: ‘Quiet, George. You again.’
‘Sorry sir.’
The smiling girl nearby was watching me closely. I wasn’t used to the attention of girls, even though some of my friends had started taking an interest in them;
I’d rather go trainspotting or hiking. She was quite pretty though. She also didn’t stare at my spots.
George had noticed the brief look and, nudging me, winked.
‘Think you have an ally there, eh? Her name’s Sally. She lives near me.’
There was a slight pause before he excitedly asked, ‘Can I come and see your house on Saturday?’
I was taken aback with his directness. ‘Oh yeah, suppose so.’ I didn’t seem to have any choice. I looked behind me and Sally was still gazing at me, smiling. Aware of my face becoming hot and bright red with embarrassment, I managed a half-smile back.
That night, I wasn’t surprised that Mum and Dad were not ready for a strange boy to come over but a few hours was fine and anyway, they were eager for me to find new friends and settle down here, in this glorious museum of a house.
‘We are quite remote, Tom. Do George’s parents have a car? Make sure you give George the address so that he can be collected.’
*
The following days passed smoothly, and I was relieved that I could manage the schoolwork. I finally understood the timetable, where and how to get to the lessons.
George fussed over me and made sure I had the right textbooks and materials for woodwork, metalwork and P.E. For a small lad, he could be quite bossy. I noticed that, in every class, he often shot his hand up quickly to ask or answer questions. I could see he was irritating to others. Maybe that brag about a high I.Q. was accurate.
During one break, I spotted a group of boys tormenting him.
‘What’s the matter, Georgy Pixie? Looking for your gnomes?’ The four of them laughed. George carried on walking and I strolled over to join him.
‘Hey, you: new boy. Who do you think you are, eh? George’s knight in shining armour? Bet you’re another weirdo, sent from the same planet as Georgy boy.’
‘Not as weird as you, mate. What distant planet of idiots are you from?’
‘Ooh, not very friendly, are we?’ One of the boys threw a stone, then the others followed suit. George increased his pace but I stopped and threw them back. One hit a boy in the face.
‘Argh, he’s blinded me!’
I doubted I had, but the ringleader, a boy called Mike, beckoned the others.
‘C’mon let’s get ’em!’
They jumped on top of me—one was pulling my hair and I felt painful kicks from another. I tried to get up and kick back but I was pinned to the ground.
I heard George shouting at them to stop, but that was quickly followed by a moan. From the corner of my eye, I saw two of them on top of him.
‘Stop!’ It was the headmaster, Mr Sampson.
‘They always tease me.’ George spurted out as the headmaster approached. ‘Mike Thompson and his friends have always called me weird, sir!’
Mr. Sampson was breathless as he attempted to smooth down his billowy hair. ‘Never mind the excuses, lads. In my office now, all of you.’
In the office, it was obvious he didn’t really want explanations. ‘Detention on Friday week, the lot of you. There are alterations to the school this weekend but, in the meantime, during every break, you are all to report to me before clearing litter from the school grounds and I will inspect them.’
*
That evening, Dad noticed grazes on my face, not the sort that I could explain away by scratching my spots.
‘We had rugby dad, a tough game that one.’
Dad laughed. ‘Nothing like good sport, lad.’
He helped Mum in the kitchen; I had got away with it.
*
That Saturday, George was dropped off in a hurry. I heard the car so I opened the front door. George’s dad looked pretty miserable, I recall, as he neither got out of the car—a really old station wagon type—nor smiled or nodded towards me. George said his dad had to go somewhere but he would pick him up about six o’clock if that was okay. I said it should be.
I thought I would get a king-size headache to be honest and wasn’t really looking forward to several hours in the company of a super clever babbling swot. As soon as he entered the hall, we were both silenced by the sound of raised voices coming from the kitchen. The door couldn’t have been closed. It was Mum and Dad, and they didn’t sound happy.
‘Alice, I am about to lose my job and you want God knows how much stuff for this damn house.’
‘I found a job in the library. You can find one as well, can’t you?’
‘It’s not as easy as that. What skills have I got? I’ve been down that lead mine for years, woman. I’ve done nothing else! I don’t want to work in a library or a bloody shop!’
I forced a loud cough and there was a moment’s silence before the kitchen door was fully opened and my embarrassed-looking mother emerged.
‘Oh, hello. You must be George.’ She giggled nervously. ‘Tom, why don’t you show George around while I make some tea, eh?’
So, thinking outside first was the better option, I led George down the back garden path, apologising for the poor welcome.
He laughed. ‘Mine row all the time, Tom. They all do it. Never get married, that’s what I say. My dad is just a bully with me and Mum’s too soft with him. He had an affair once and Mum forgave him…silly bitch. Dad says, ”Live o’er brush” whatever that means. How would you live over a brush?’
‘It means living together without getting married.’
‘Well, why is it done over a brush?’
‘I don’t
know. C’mon.’
George persisted. ‘Another thing: my cousin had a shotgun wedding. Why would you want a shotgun at your wedding?’
It was obvious that George asked questions as well as rambling but didn’t necessarily want them answered. We stopped as we got to the privy.
‘Well…this is our outside loo.’
George looked at the steel bucket under some thick wooden bars, a hole in the middle.
‘Is that bucket for the pee and the ”soft stuff”?’
‘Yeah, but we have a chamber pot in our rooms for night time.’
‘A chamber pot? They’re small aren’t they? My auntie uses them for growing plants in. Said having to sit on them gave her lumbago. Hip pain, I believe.
I chuckled. I was going to receive a lot of information from George; that was pretty obvious. ‘We go outside last thing at night, then it won’t be stinking under your bed all night! Think about me George, I have to collect it in a bucket and take it to the cess pit!’
‘Cess pit?’
‘Yeah, a hole in the ground, over there, a few yards past the lav; always mind that big stick if you walk over there ’cos there’s no lid on it yet and its pretty deep.’
‘You just chuck it in?’
‘Yep. It’s not that bad. They don’t know, but I chuck it in the bushes before I get that far. Good for the garden, any road. Since we’ve been here, those flowers are huge; crap is a great fertiliser.’
George threw his head back and laughed so loud, it was a good sight after Mike and his bullies upset him.
‘C’mon, let’s go inside. They might’ve stopped rowing now.’
As we turned to go back inside, the raven—‘Corvus’, as John Haslam called it—swooped low and landed on the boundary fence to the right of us, proceeding to make strange guttural sounds..
‘God, he’s a big fella.’
‘Just ignore him, George. Mr. Haslam at the newsagents said he can be nasty.’
‘Is he here in your garden all the time?’
‘Not all the time, but he seems pretty inquisitive. I agree with Mr Haslam. I believe he could get vicious.’
George kept his eye on him, only stopping when we reached the French windows.
I showed George to my room and then told him about the hole and how I’d lost my sweet.
‘It must be somewhere, Tom. Those sweets don’t just disintegrate, you know: full of hard sugar and all that.’
‘Hmm. But put your finger in that hole, George, then twist that metal peg to the right.’
The panel creaked open.
‘C’mon, we just need to shove,’
‘Ah…blimey, what a find, Tom, but the stink…Well, the evidence is clear: you have priest holes in this house.’
‘What holes?’
‘Priest holes. Catholic priests—or more accurately, architects—would construct them for the purpose of hiding. It was kind of against the law to be a Catholic in the late sixteenth century. I read a really interesting story, a true story, of an escape by a priest from a window in the Tower of London and he took his gaoler with him. What a great bloke. I’ve read about it somewhere; and…you have to have heard of the Gunpowder Plot: all to do with the Catholics?’ Looking up at the left hand ledge, he forgot the Tudor story. ‘Does it go anywhere? It must do. We ought to investigate.’
Someone, at least, shared my curiosity. ‘You’re not afraid?’
‘No way!’
‘It’s just that there might be a ghost, George. I kept seeing—well, imagining—an old woman in a chair in my room. She was dressed all funny, with a bonnet on like babies wear. Mum moved the chair out, but when we first got here, I heard whispering on the landing.’
‘Whispering? Saying what?’
‘I dunno, not in English, “san” something.’
‘But Tom, ghosts don’t mean any harm. Ghosts are sad for some reason. Maybe they really want someone to talk to them, perhaps about their sad lives on this earth; that’s what I reckon. Anyway, I’ve read it somewhere, why dead people return…can’t quite remember where…’
‘Hmm. Troubled souls.’ I recalled the words of Mr. Haslam in the shop. ‘Just troubled souls.’
‘Oh, Tom, this smell is like two million rotten eggs. I can climb up here; must lead to something.’
‘You can’t climb in there, it’s not safe. All the bricks are loose and start to fall away and, I mean, they fall a hell of a way down. The full length of the house. I nearly died, I can tell you. It was scary.’
‘Hmm…’ He wasn’t perturbed.
‘It’s true, I’m telling you. I explored it and it’s really dangerous. If you don’t believe me, you go: clever one that you are, but you’ll need a footstool.’
With no hesitation and no footstool, George clambered up to the ledge by grabbing small jagged protrusions. ‘I’ll be all right. I’m much smaller than you. Have you got a torch, though?’
‘I’ll get one.’ But my heart started to thump; obviously George disregarded warnings. should stop him.
Luckily Mum wasn’t around, because it took me ages to find a torch.
I hastily ran up the stairs, then worried. There was no sight or sound of him. Had he fallen into the abyss while I was in the kitchen? Oh God, poor George. Oh no! It’s my fault. I’ve all but killed him. Why did I let him go? What would Mum and Dad say? He’d disappeared.
‘George!’ I yelled; then even louder, ‘George!’
I got the footstool which I had placed under the bed. I looked up into the recess in the panelled chamber; not seeing or hearing anything. Panic started to rise. Wouldn’t I have heard him if he had fallen? Unless he was unconscious. Should I go after him?’ I should shout for Mum or Dad. What the hell had happened to George? I was starting to feel like an idiot, dithering yet doing nothing.
Then came the sound of running footsteps. George ran through the bedroom door.
‘How the heck…?’
He was filthy.
‘It took my weight, Tom, but I know what you mean. There are lots of loose bricks. Some little stones fell but I think your weight did all the damage. There’s another way, though. Come and look.’ He beckoned as he ran into the front bedroom. I was close behind.
‘If you could have kept going, the passage drops down to the back of this cupboard in your front bedroom. There’s a rusty trapdoor above the top of the cupboard. Surprised I could lift it. From there you simply drop down into the cupboard. Glad there was nothing in it. There are iron struts on the shaft you were talking about. We can climb down easily. At one time it was used as a ladder to somewhere. I reckon it’s in the middle of the two chimneys and that’s why the outside wall is big. It’s an escape shaft. You live in a great house, Tom.’
Perhaps the house was starting to interest me, but George’s suggestion of climbing down that shaft was not quite what I had in mind. George read my thoughts.
‘Oh go on Tom, don’t be a chicken. I’m up for it.’
I couldn’t respond at that precise moment, as Mum interrupted by calling us down for lunch.
‘Don’t mention any of this to my parents or my sister. Understand? Look at the sight of you. Mum can’t see you like that. There’s a jug of cold water on that stand on the landing. Slosh some of it round your face and hands, quick. And I haven’t agreed to your plan yet.’
‘You will.’ He grinned as he sploshed his face quickly, most of the water going on the floor.
George was introduced to my sister, who immediately started chatting and asking him lots of questions. Both could talk incessantly. Mum smiled as she dished out shepherd’s pie, pleased that there was some pleasantness in the house, but even before plates had any food on them, George was bombarded with questions from both of my parents. Adults ask the daftest things, but always the same. ‘What do you want to do when you leave school? ‘Have you got a subject you’re good at?’
But George was loving the attention. People were actually listening to him. There was so much talking around the ta
ble that Mum almost forgot about the apple pie and custard. Dad had to remind her. As she finally sat down, she looked a bit flustered.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, the custard’s gone a bit thick.’
George, his cheeks bulging, couldn’t care less.
‘Oh, I didn’t notice, Mrs. Winchett.’
What a creep. He polished it off before the rest of us hardly got started. As Mum and Dad started to discuss where to go that afternoon for a walk, George leaned over to me and whispered, ‘We need another torch, Tom.’
‘What do you need a torch for?’ Annabel had darn keen ears.
‘None of your business.’ Then I had second thoughts. Annabel rarely let anything drop until she had an answer. ‘If you must know, we may go slug hunting. A science project for school.’
‘Don’t believe you. You have to do that at night, stupid.’
Mum was watching us. George was quick to distract her. ‘That apple pie and custard was delicious, Mrs Winchett.’
She beamed. A friend for life in my mother’s eyes. He grinned at me.
‘In fact it was a lovely dinner, Mrs Winchett. Thank you for inviting me. I’m really glad you came to live here.’
My mother was smiling at him. ‘You’re very welcome, George. You can come again, anytime.’
God, George could be so bloody nauseating but his sickly sweet chatter gave me the opportunity to take some dishes through and whip another torch from the drawer.
When at last there was a lull in the conversation, Mum rose and beckoned Dad to help her. Of course he immediately got up and responded with his usual, ‘Yes of course, dear.’ Then they both went into the kitchen. I slid out, another torch under my sweater.
Annabel had her eyes fixed on me. ‘I’ll find out what you’re really up to, sneak.’
‘Just try.’
I pulled a face and George and I hurriedly left the table. We had lots of exploring to do, but I recall a very nervous stomach after what had happened to me earlier on the precipice.
Armed with torches, George scrambled up first.
I banged my head on the roof of the passage, probably due to nerves. It was only a couple of yards until we reached the spot where the hole was and where all the stones and bricks had previously fallen. My heart began to thump in my chest. George leaned over precariously, shining his torch downwards, looking and feeling for the first iron struts. He gasped. A deep abyss was illuminated below. I felt a bit sick. ‘I can see more iron struts and bricks jutting out. They look solid enough. It’ll make it easier.’ He only got to the third iron when more debris started to give way.
The Curse of Becton Manor Page 7
