by Simon Clark
TWELVE
‘Get them dirty bones out of that pit!’ The voice pierced Tom’s dreams. One moment he lay fast asleep, dreaming he chased Nicola through a midnight forest – trees growing denser and denser until branches were clutching at his head – the next: ‘Open the door or we’ll break it down!’
Tom stumbled out of bed, half-awake. For a second he imagined that the Bekk family dragon – the wonderfully named Helsvir – had come to smash down the door. He looked out of the window. The figure making all the noise was ten years old, had a wild splash of black hair, and was hammering on the woodwork with his fists.
‘Tom, you lazy chuff!’ shouted the boy.
Tom pushed open the bedroom window. ‘Owen, stop trying to murder the door. I’ll be right down.’
He rubbed his eyes. His mother and father were lifting luggage out of the car. There came one of those mental blanks when he watched them hauling a coffee table from the back seat.
‘They can’t be moving in,’ he grunted. ‘I haven’t got the house ready yet.’ The bright sunlight made him squint. ‘They’re not even supposed to be here until next week.’
‘Tom! You lousy, lazy basket,’ Owen shouted good-naturedly. ‘Open the freaking, wrenching door.’
‘Hey, watch that freaking language,’ Tom called down. ‘Or I’ll chuck you in the pond.’
Owen grinned up at Tom, and Tom found himself grinning down at the ten-year-old. The last time he’d seen his cousin the boy had been so withdrawn and so quiet; understandably, his mother’s death had hit him hard. Now Owen seemed indestructibly cheerful – just as a ten-year-old should be.
‘I’ll put some clothes on,’ Tom said.
‘Gross.’ Owen pantomimed a look of disgust and called back to Tom’s mother, ‘Hey, Auntie, Tom’s strutting round the house naked.’
Tom’s parents laughed. After an awkward start to the new living arrangements, when Owen moved in, they’d obviously grown fond of him. In fact, Tom realized the kid was rapidly becoming their new son. He wasn’t resentful. Tom knew that his mother and father didn’t love him any less because Owen had become part of the family. Owen’s mother was dead. The boy had never known his own father – the Gibsons had divorced when he was a baby – and Owen was still a child: he needed Mr and Mrs Westonby to be his new parents.
An accumulation of T-shirts had formed a mountain on a chair. Somehow the need to put them in the washing machine had repeatedly slipped Tom’s mind. He tipped the clothes on to the floor and kicked them under the bed out of sight. Stuff like that could be taken care of later. Besides, he felt his spirits rising. He wanted to see his parents and Owen. He and the boy could have fun mucking around with the air compressor he’d bought for the dive school. With one of those machines you could blow up a domestic rubber glove to something larger than a fridge. Then the rubber glove would explode with a tremendous bang. Boys loved that kind of thing. Heck, Tom Westonby loved that kind of thing.
Tom dragged on jeans and his last clean shirt then bounded downstairs. As soon as he opened the door Owen playfully punched his stomach.
‘What kept you, lazybones!’ Then Owen dashed upstairs. This was his first trip back to the house since his mother’s sudden death.
‘Let me help you with that.’ Tom took the coffee table from his mother. Meanwhile, his father dragged two wheelie cases.
‘The gravel’s getting stuck in the wheels. Hello, Tom, great to see you.’
‘Kiss for Mother.’ His mother turned her face.
Tom kissed her cheek. ‘You weren’t coming until next week, were you?’
‘So we’re not welcome?’
‘No . . . I mean yes, but the house isn’t ready. Did you know there are seventy-seven straight-backed chairs in that place?’
‘Have you got a girl in the house?’
‘No.’
‘If you have, we can get back in the car, drive round for ten minutes, then pretend we’ve just arrived.’ His mother grinned. She was easy-going about him having girlfriends to stay. She didn’t mind in the least.
‘There’s no girl.’
‘Oh?’
‘No.’
‘When you look out of the corner of your eye like that I know you’re fibbing. You’ve done it since you were five years old and used to hide cake in your socks.’
Tom laughed as he carried the table indoors. ‘There’s no girl. At least, not in the house.’
‘Ah, so who is she?’ Tom’s mother could read her son as easily as text on a page.
What can I say that won’t sound too strange? She’s the girl I chased at midnight. Or: the mother believes they have a guardian dragon. No . . . best leave those unusual facts for later.
Instead, he shrugged like the girl didn’t matter (she really did) and said, ‘Oh, just someone I met locally. We’re . . . you know . . .’
‘Just friends?’
To avoid his mother scrutinizing his face to check where his eyes were headed when he answered her precisely targeted question, he asked, ‘Where do you want the table?’
‘By the wall’s fine for now.’
‘So, how come you’re here today?’
‘We’re not welcome, Tom?’ His father dragged in the wheelies.
‘I’ve already asked that question, Russell. Apparently, there’s some girl.’
‘Ah-ha, the formidable Westonby males strike again.’
‘This formidable Westonby male –’ she playfully tweaked her husband’s ear – ‘can bring that frozen food in from the car before it melts.’
Tom knew his parents were only teasing him about not being welcome, but he repeated his answer: ‘Of course I’m glad to see you, it’s just that you weren’t supposed to be coming until next week.’
‘We’ve decided to bring the moving-in date forwards.’ With that, his father hurried off to save the frozen food from thawing.
Tom’s mother filled in the details. ‘We’re giving up the lease on our house a month early. So we’ve brought the coffee table today. It was the first present your father bought me. I don’t want it getting broken when we do the big move.’
‘There’s still the painting to be done,’ Tom explained. ‘I haven’t even begun to sand the floors.’
‘What’s this? Tom Westonby, king of the messy bedroom, being suddenly house-proud?’
‘I just wanted to get the place ready.’
She smiled. His mother was touched by what he’d meant. ‘You wanted everything right for us, didn’t you? To make it homely?’
He nodded – once more her razor-sharp intuition saw the real meaning behind his words.
‘That’s why you’re a lovely son. You’re just like your dad; he always wants the best for other people.’ She gave a sigh. ‘Just don’t let being a good person take over your life. Remember to live for yourself, too.’
‘The ice cream’s turned to milk.’ His father strode in with bags crammed full of groceries. ‘It’s dripped through the bag into my shoe. I can feel it squelching.’
All of a sudden, Mull-Rigg Hall sprang into life. His dad rinsed vanilla ice cream from his shoes in the kitchen. Owen bounced a tennis ball on the patio. His mother started making BLTs for breakfast. Tom finished collecting luggage from the car.
As he lugged suitcases upstairs, he found himself thinking about the extraordinary visit to Nicola’s house in the forest. He suspected they lived a solitary life there. Yet solitary didn’t seem a strong enough word to describe their isolation in that remote part of the valley. Clearly, Nicola took care of her mother, who suffered from some mental condition. Mrs Bekk was obsessed with her family’s Viking ancestry. She also believed that the Bekks had been at war with the villagers of Danby-Mask for generations. Then there was all this about the dragon guarding their home. Topping it all: Mrs Bekk’s claim that the Viking god Thor had impregnated her with Nicola. Wasn’t Thor the warrior god? Tom remembered seeing pictures in history books of a towering, powerful man with ferocious eyes, red hair, and a flaming
red beard, brandishing a huge hammer that he used to shatter his enemies’ skulls.
If Mrs Bekk wasn’t Nicola’s mother, he’d have been thinking in terms of the woman being a nutty coot. What’s more, he’d stay well clear of her. But there was Nicola . . .
Nicola was the magic ingredient in all this. The lynchpin.
Besides, he reasoned, I like mythology and history. OK, so what if Mrs Bekk gets all wrapped up in ancient history, legends, massacres and the like? It’s obsessions that make people interesting . . .
Last summer he’d worked with archaeologists who were exploring a Roman town that had sunk under the Mediterranean Sea two thousand years ago. An earthquake had created a real-life Atlantis. Tom had provided the muscle. He’d make dives with the archaeologists, and they’d point out which rubble on the seabed had to be moved from the collapsed houses so experts could reach the precious artefacts and colourful mosaics. Tom had been so interested in the work that the archaeologists had invited him into their inner circle. Over glasses of Italian beer they’d talked about their investigations and the history of the submerged town. They’d been enthusiastic. They would piece together facts from what they uncovered on the seabed, then vividly describe to Tom what life was like in Portus Hesculum before the earthquake struck in the year that Christ was born.
Tom Westonby loved to sit beneath the stars with his cold beer and just listen. He pictured the Roman families in their houses. The laughter. The games they’d play. And even the taste Romans had for roast dormouse on a stick – a kind of savoury lollipop. ‘Just imagine the crunch of those little bones between your teeth,’ said an archaeologist with a laugh as Tom had bitten into a breadstick.
As Tom headed downstairs, his father appeared in the kitchen doorway. He carried a damp shoe in one hand. The other shoe was on his foot.
‘The good news is –’ his father spoke with the seriousness of a doctor making a diagnosis – ‘I managed to save the shoe. Sadly, the bad news is there’s no hope for the ice cream.’
Tom needed to talk to his father about the not so little matter of finding ten thousand dollars for the premises in Greece.
‘The other good news is –’ Tom playfully echoed his father’s doctor-with-a-diagnosis tone – ‘Chris has found the perfect place for the dive school.’
‘That’s great.’
‘It’s right next to the beach.’
‘You already gave me the good news. So what’s the bad?’
Tom explained about needing the rent money by the end of next week. Otherwise they’d lose the building.
‘I’d love to be able to lend you the cash, Tom.’ His father’s tone was regretful.
‘No, I wouldn’t ask for a loan, Dad.’
‘It’s just that we’ve already spent such a lot of money on the house.’
Tom had a sinking feeling. ‘I’d planned to ask you for an advance on my wages, if I promised to work through the summer.’
‘The reason we’re bringing the moving-in date forward is so I can do most of the renovation myself to save on cost.’
‘I thought we’d agreed I’d be doing the work.’
‘And so you will be through June, like we planned. It’s just that the barn conversion, and the expense of getting Mull-Rigg Hall in shape, are going to take all the available cash. Sorry, Tom. I really wish I could help.’
‘Don’t worry, Dad, it’s not your problem.’ Tom winced when he saw the anguish on his father’s face. ‘I can shuffle some of the funding we’d put aside.’
‘Don’t humour me, Tom. You need that money, don’t you?’
‘Yes. Or we’ll lose those premises. They’re the best Chris has seen.’
‘How much are you short?’
‘Ten thousand dollars.’
‘Dollars, not euros?’
‘The landlord’s asking for dollars.’
‘No doubt to avoid declaring it to the Greek tax office.’ Tom’s father scratched his head. ‘Ten thousand dollars . . .’
‘It looks as if we’ll have to find another property.’
‘You know . . .’ His father looked thoughtful. ‘I was talking to one of my old colleagues. He was telling me he needs help restoring some industrial units.’
‘I’ve promised to help out here, Dad.’
‘We’ll cope. You need to earn some money fast.’
‘He won’t pay me much for doing basic cleaning out and painting.’
His father shook his head. ‘The units are steel construction. He needs a welder, and you’re a first-rate welder. Jack will pay professional rates, so that should get you what you need.’
‘We must have the money by the end of the week.’
‘Give the landlord a ten per cent deposit. That should be enough to secure the lease.’
Tom felt his spirits rise. Problem solved. He’d phone Chris with the news. ‘Thanks, Dad.’ Tom hugged his father. ‘I’ll do just that.’
‘So you’ll commit to the work? Jack needs someone who’ll finish the job.’
‘Count me in.’
‘Good. And it’s in France. You’ll get to see the sights, too.’
‘France?’ Tom hadn’t expected that.
‘Jack’s starting work on the units after the weekend. He’ll want you on site then.’
Tom Westonby had been expecting to spend the summer in this beautiful corner of Yorkshire.
More importantly: what about Nicola Bekk? He’d be leaving before he’d really got to know her.
THIRTEEN
When Tom Westonby strolled into Chester Kenyon’s workshop, ‘Cheery’ Chester had some surprising news. So surprising, in fact, that Tom didn’t think he’d heard right.
‘Married?’ Tom echoed. ‘You’re getting married?’
Chester grinned as he unscrewed bolts on an old lawnmower. ‘Yes. Married. Joined in holy deadlock.’
‘You’ll find the word’s wedlock.’ Tom was smiling as much as Chester. ‘When? Where? Who!’
‘The last Saturday in August.’ Clack. He dropped the bolts into a steel bowl. ‘At Saint George’s.’ Clack. ‘You’re invited, Mr Westonby.’ Clack. He pointed an oily finger out through the workshop door. ‘And that’s who I’m marrying.’
‘Grace Harrap? Isn’t she the one who shoves ice inside your shirt?’
‘Romantic, isn’t it?’ Chester wiped his fingers on a rag. ‘We’ve had this on-off thing for years.’
Tom held out his hand. ‘Congratulations. I’m pleased for you both.’
Chester whistled to Grace. Grace smiled back, though for some reason she shook her fist rather than waving. Maybe in these little Yorkshire villages the gesture means something different, Tom thought. Fist shakes might be as good as blowing kisses.
‘She looks pleased to see you,’ Tom said optimistically.
‘Nah, she’s mad at me. I’m not asking her brother to be best man.’
‘Any ideas about a best man?’
‘You.’
Tom thought he’d been asked a question. ‘I don’t know who should be your best man, Chester. That’s for you to decide.’
‘No, I mean: YOU.’
Tom blinked in surprise. ‘I’ve only known you for a few weeks. Are you sure—?’
‘I’ll be blowing fanfares if you would. You’re a good bloke, Tom. You see . . .’ Chester was habitually cheerful. Yet revealing his true emotions came tougher. ‘For one of those city wimps you can take your beer with the best of them.’
‘Thank you, Chester. But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Won’t Grace still be angry at you? After all, if she wants her brother as best man.’
‘Nah, Liam’s a twit.’
‘If you want me to be best man, Chester, then yes, sure. I mean, I’m honoured.’
‘Great. I’ll tell Grace.’ He gave a big, beaming grin. ‘Though I’ll probably end up with a whole iceberg down my shirt when she hears.’
‘I won’t be offended if you change your mind. After all, I don�
��t want to be the one to cause rows between you and your fiancée.’
‘She’ll come round. Will you grab the hammer? It’s outside on the bench.’
Tom stepped out into the sunlight. On the other side of the village’s main street was St George’s. The church was in the typical Yorkshire style. Its walls were built of white stone that uncannily resembled the local white cheese. The main part of the church dated back a thousand years or so, while the square tower would be seventeenth century.
A notice board stood by the graveyard gate. At the top of the board, a painting depicted St George in golden armour driving a lance into an evil-looking green dragon. Tom hadn’t realized its significance before, in relation to Danby-Mask. St George, the patron saint of England, was also the famous dragon-slayer. He began to wonder if dedicating the parish church to St George, the knight who killed the dragon, had any connection to Mrs Bekk’s wild stories about her ancestors being guarded by such a creature, which had also rampaged through the village centuries ago.
‘Any luck finding the hammer, Tom?’
‘Sure. Right here.’ As he headed back he heard a commotion along the street. Tom stopped dead, staring hard, his heart pounding. This was a day for surprises alright. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing right now.
Nicola Bekk walked along the street. She had her back to Tom, so she didn’t see him standing there outside the workshop. Three guys in their twenties walked with her. They took it in turns to put their arms round her shoulders. When she pushed one away that’s when Tom realized they were doing this against her will. In fact, they were clearly goading her. Nicola walked faster. Maybe she hoped they’d tire of following.
They didn’t. If anything, the horseplay ramped up towards intimidation. These bullies were enjoying scaring the woman. When she wriggled free of one of those rough hugs the men started pushing her.
Chester hadn’t seen what was happening; he was inside the workshop. ‘Need any help carrying that hammer?’ he joked. ‘My grandad always said that gravity’s stronger here in Danby-Mask. He says that after eight pints of beer he can hardly lift his head off the table . . . Tom? What are you doing?’
