by Nick Gifford
The vicar smiled. “It is an interesting parish and there’s something of the amateur historian in me. When I came to Crooked Elms six years ago your grandfather was very hostile and I became determined to find out why. It emerged that he had had a dispute with one of my predecessors a long, long time ago.”
“What kind of dispute?”
“The Reverend Harold Allbright was a charismatic figure – very persuasive, very forceful. And, it emerged, he was a very corrupt individual: driven by the Devil, although your grandfather would never use such language. For a time he and your grandfather were friends, but their relationship soured.”
The words from Gramps’ letter came back to Matt just then: “such tragedy nearly happened a century ago, and again when I was a young man.” This Devil-driven vicar... had he been drawn in and corrupted by the power of Alternity? Was this the incident that took place when Gramps had been a young man?
“What happened?”
“Your grandfather accused Allbright of certain dark practices and turned the villagers against him,” said the vicar. “Those possessed by darkness are readily discarded when they are no longer useful. My predecessor died a young man and his body lies in a simple grave in the churchyard at Crooked Elms.”
The vicar was standing close to Matt now. Too close. He put a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “I don’t pretend to understand what has happened in my parish,” he said. “But I know that it is a special place and that your grandfather is a special man. I’m praying for his recovery, Matt. Praying with all my strength.”
~
Back at the house, Vince was working on his car. He was lying on his side on the pavement, folding sheets of newspaper around the front near-side wheel, preparing to spray a filled dent on the wing.
“Not working?” asked Carol, as they passed him.
He glared at her. “Told you,” he said. “It was only short-term. We cleared the site this morning.”
“Have you been to the Job Centre? If I’d known I’d have asked Jill to have a look – she was going there this afternoon.”
“Jobs don’t grow on trees,” Vince said, sitting up. “The sort of thing I do – you get it through word of mouth, not cards put up in the Job Centre.”
“You mean casual, cash-in-hand jobs that last a few days?” said Carol sarcastically. “I’m sorry, I got it wrong. I was talking about real jobs. Ones with a bit of security, ones with prospects.”
Vince yawned loudly into the back of his hand. Then he nodded across at a cardboard box balanced on the wall. “Here, Matt,” he said. “Chuck us the paint, will you?”
Carol marched into the house, and Matt took an aerosol can out of the box and passed it to his cousin.
Vince shook the can and it rattled loudly, startling Matt. “Old cow,” muttered Vince.
Matt leaned back against the wall. The vicar’s words had disturbed him more deeply than he liked to admit. He tried to put them out of his mind. Instead, he studied his cousin. Fussing over his car like this, he didn’t look like the sort of person Gramps would warn against, but then Matt had seen the other side of him, too. “Sounded like you’ve had that discussion before,” he said.
Vince turned to his car and, holding the nozzle a short distance from the surface, started to spray. “Been to see the old goat, have you?”
Matt nodded. “He was awake for a few minutes,” he said. Gramps had been unconscious for most of the previous day, his mother had told him. “He didn’t seem too pleased to see us.”
Vince’s hand moved methodically from side to side, and soon the patch was completely covered. “He’ll be loving it,” he said. “All those nurses, doing everything he wants. That’s probably why he did it. He’d have done it properly if he’d really wanted to top himself, wouldn’t he?”
“You think so?”
“Course I do,” said Vince. “He’s a doctor, isn’t he? He’s just like a spoilt kid, chucking the toys out of his cot to get attention. He’s had it all his own way for far too long.”
Vince tossed the aerosol across the pavement into the box, then started to remove a strip of masking tape that was holding a piece of paper over the nearest headlight.
“You heard from your Dad, yet, have you?” he asked.
Matt shook his head. “No,” he said. “He’s hardly going to call here, is he?”
“Why don’t you call him then?”
He had, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Certainly not to Vince. He’d tried this morning, but had only reached the answering machine, yet again.
“I don’t see why I should be the one to do everything,” he said. “Neither of them let me know what was going on until they had to.”
Vince nodded. “I know how you feel,” he said. “You want to hear a story, do you? When Carol got pregnant with Tina everything changed round here. I didn’t understand it: they were suddenly happy, they stopped arguing, they started talking behind shut doors so I couldn’t hear.
“But they never told me. Sounds stupid, but I really thought she was just getting fat – I was only six. They didn’t know how to tell me, because suddenly they wished they’d never taken me, they wished they’d just waited a bit longer. Eventually I worked it out for myself, and I hated them for it. All they had to do was tell me.”
Vince’s intensity reminded Matt of the morning at Crooked Elms when he had slashed his own arm, just to prove how serious he was.
“Parents are like that,” said Vince. “They don’t trust you. You’ve got to learn not to trust them in return – when you’ve done that, it’s all okay.” Then he smiled. “You and me, we’re just the same,” he concluded. “Outsiders. Outsiders in our own family.”
~
Later, Matt headed upstairs. He wanted to be alone. He needed to think things through – as if that would make any difference. He already knew what his options were: stay here with his warped family and make a new start with his mother, or return to Norwich where none of this madness had ever intruded. His friends were in Norwich, and his father, but did he really want that, he wondered? It would be running away, he knew. Perhaps running away from something he would have to deal with later: if there really was any truth in his grandfather’s claims, then he knew that now was the time to deal with them, to learn control.
He went into his room and shut the door. Leaning with his back against it, he closed his eyes and tried to relax. He wouldn’t gain anything by letting it all get to him like this, he had to stay cool.
There was a strange smell. Briny, decaying, like mouldering seaweed, only somehow more foul than that. For a moment he couldn’t place it, then he realised where he had encountered it before: in his mother’s room at Bagshaw Terrace.
The dead seagull!
He looked around the room, but there was no sign of it. The last one had been in a plastic bag – but this room was full of carrier bags and boxes! He made himself calm down.
He closed his eyes again, and tried to picture the room as it had been this morning. There would be a new bag somewhere, or signs of disturbance.
He opened his eyes, looked around. Nothing seemed to have been moved, nothing added. He went across and opened the window. The two of them were playing down in the garden: two sisters, chasing each other round, such an innocent scene.
He turned back to the room and thought. He had to be methodical.
He stripped his bedding back, then peered underneath the camp bed. Nothing.
He sat on the bed and tried again to look for anything that had been moved. Again, he had no luck. He tried to work out if there was a part of the room where the smell was strongest, but there was not. He started poking about in the bags and boxes, cautiously at first, then gaining steadily in confidence.
Quarter of an hour later, he gave up the search.
His first inclination was to go downstairs and confront the little demon, demand to know what she had done to his room. But he knew that would achieve little, other than to give her the satisfaction of knowing she ha
d upset him.
He went across to the window and looked down into the garden. Tina and Kirsty had stopped playing now. They were sitting side by side on the stone bench at the far end of the garden. Kirsty was hunched forward, with her head bent low over a glossy magazine. Tina sat back with her feet on the bench, her knees tucked up under her chin. She was fiddling with something – a ball of wool, a small doll, a dead mouse for all Matt knew – and every so often she would pause and look up at his open window.
He turned away and found his current book on the floor by the camp bed. He picked it up, then straightened. Either the open window had cleared the smell or he was getting used to it. Or perhaps he had been imagining things.
He went downstairs.
~
“Guess what?”
Matt looked up. His mother stood in the doorway in her grey interview suit. She looked happy, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright and dancing. He couldn’t remember the last time she had looked like this.
“You and Dad are getting back together again?”
Instantly, her expression changed: the familiar hard lines appearing across her forehead, her mouth twitching as she stopped herself from responding. She reached up, patted the hair she had tied back neatly this morning.
Matt returned his gaze to the pages of his book.
“I’ve got a job,” she said, in a tightly controlled voice. “I thought you might be interested.”
He looked up again, nodded. “Well done,” he said. Then he relented and added, “I mean it: well done. You didn’t hang about.”
She smiled, and came into the room. “Accounts Assistant at Sperry and Neeskens, shipping agents. Temporary cover for staff sickness. Starting tomorrow. I know, I should be looking for something better, but at least it’s something. A temporary job’s often a good way in, for when something more permanent comes along.”
“That’s what they told you, is it?”
She laughed. “That’s exactly what they told me,” she said. “And I really believed them at the time, too. Who knows? Something might come of it. At least I’ll be in a better position for when something better comes up – I’ve been out of the job market for so long, I need to prove I can still hack it. And it means some money in the bank, it means we can look for somewhere to live.”
Her expression was becoming more serious, more determined. “I’m going to make this work, Matt. At last it seems as if things are starting to fall into place. This is our chance to make a new start. You wait and see, Matt. Just you wait and see.”
It was finally, really, beginning to sink in. Despite all the talk, despite all he had thought, none of it had been real. But now... she really was going to stay in Bathside. She really was making a fresh start.
He lowered his head and stared blankly at the pages of his book.
Eventually, he heard a sound from the doorway and when he looked up he saw that she had gone. To pass on her good news to the others, no doubt.
He couldn’t help smiling at that: Tina, for one, was going to be delighted.
11 Tina
He’d thought Tina was strange. He’d thought she was over-protective. He’d even thought she was mad.
But he had never thought she would try to kill him.
~
Late the next morning, he was heading downstairs. She was on the first floor landing, watching him approach.
She was smiling. And he knew why. He had been forced to sleep with his window wide open in an attempt to conquer the fetid smell of decay, grateful for the warmth that lingered late into the summer night, woken early by the cool breeze that had come in from the sea just before dawn.
“Did you sleep well?” she asked, in an innocent tone.
He nodded. “Fine,” he said. “Never better. In fact, I’m getting to like that room.” He smiled broadly at her, and added, “You know, I’m really beginning to think of it as my room. Home sweet home. Could stay here forever – there’s plenty of space, after all: it’s a big house. What do you think?”
Her smile was fixed rigidly on her face now, making Matt think of the smile her mother determinedly wore whenever things became difficult for her.
“Really?” she said, hesitantly. “I thought...”
“I was joking,” said Matt. “J-O-K-E. Look it up in the dictionary, if you know how. You can relax. We’ll be going, sooner or later.” But then he couldn’t resist pushing her, and he added, “About six weeks, I reckon. Time for us to save up for a deposit on a place to rent.”
The look on her face was a reward in itself: the sheer rage, as if she was about to burst, like an over-filled balloon.
He smiled, and continued, “Still, it’ll be nice, won’t it? It’ll give us time to get to know each other. You, me, Kirsty. Plenty of time to become friends. Kirsty showed me how to play her racing game – the one you don’t like. Maybe I’ll race her some time.” He continued, enjoying himself: “And even then, when we find a place, we’ll always be nearby. We’ll be able to pop in whenever we feel like it. Won’t that be nice? We might even be neighbours...”
He turned away from her, thrilling at the mad, frustrated look on her face. He would go downstairs, maybe go out for a run or something.
He took the first step down, then heard a soft sound. It was a footstep on the landing, close behind him.
Then he felt a sudden push in his back, enough to knock him forwards, off-balance.
He put a foot out, trying to place it on one of the steps to catch himself, but he was tipping forward too fast.
He raised his hands and grabbed at the banister, but he couldn’t grip it, he was twisting, falling out of control.
He tucked his arms in to his body, hands before his face as he crashed into the stairs. A sudden bolt of pain stabbed through his body, then a numb blackness started to spread through his head, as the world went round and round, out of control.
~
He lay on his back, finally come to rest. It felt like hours must have passed. Days, weeks.
His head was pounding and the left side of his face felt numb, smothered with a strangely unfocused pain. His ribs ached, and his left ankle felt peculiar. He shifted the leg, relieved that he could move it, that it was not broken as he had initially feared.
He opened his eyes and gradually the world came into focus.
Tina was halfway down the stairs, her face pale, tears streaming down her cheeks. Suddenly, Matt wondered if this was the last thing his grandmother had seen.
He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his blurred vision.
Tina looked shocked, as if horrified at what had just happened... what she had just done. “Are you... are you...” Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to say more than that.
He pulled himself into a sitting position, ignoring the protests from his body, sensing the anger building.
As she came down the stairs, he scrambled to his feet, driven by an inhuman fury. He took a big step towards her, grabbed a fistful of her hair and jerked her head back sharply.
The two of them fell over onto the stairs, Matt on top of his cousin, pinning her down, twisting her hair in his fist.
He had never been so angry in all his life.
He was going to get some sense out of her. Going to get the truth. And he was going to hurt her.
“Hey!”
Hands grabbed him, pinning his arms tightly against his sides, forcing him to loosen his grip on Tina.
“Hey.” The voice was softer now, calming.
He looked back over his shoulder, into Vince’s puzzled face. He slumped. The rage was gone, and for a moment he regretted its passing.
He looked down. Tina was sobbing, struggling to squirm free.
He shook himself free of Vince’s grip and then stood, backed away. He felt ashamed – guilty, even – and he was angry at feeling like that.
“She tried to kill me,” he muttered.
Vince looked from Matt to Tina, and started to smile. Then he started to laugh.
He
clapped Matt on the arm. “Excellent!” he said, when he had managed to control himself. “You guys really crack me up. Come on, Matt. Let’s get out of here, before war breaks out.”
And he led Matt towards the front door, still laughing and shaking his head. “You guys,” he said again. Then: “What a family...”
12 Confrontation
“Are you going to tell me what that was all about now?”
They were down on the Promenade, Vince throwing stones into the surf, Matt watching a ferry slide across the horizon. All around them, the holidaymakers carried on, going about their business as normal. It was another world.
Only a matter of minutes had passed, yet it all seemed so long ago. Already, the pain in his ribs and face had eased and his ankle only hurt when he put his full weight on it. He made himself remember how he had felt: the anger... the anger had been an alien feeling, as if he had been temporarily possessed by some ancient spirit.
She had tried to kill him.
“She’s mad,” he said. It was difficult to put into words what had just happened. Difficult to express his rage. “She pushed me down the stairs. Came up behind me, caught me unawares. I could have broken my neck.”
Vince nodded. “I never really thought she’d have it in her,” he said, in an admiring tone. “I never thought she’d have the bottle.”
Matt stared at Vince’s pale features. “You don’t seem all that surprised,” he said.
Vince shrugged. “Like you say: the kid’s mad, isn’t she? One hundred per cent certifiable. What do you expect? You shouldn’t have given her the chance. And another thing: you’re going to have to be a bit more subtle, okay? If you beat her brains out, like you just tried to do, then everyone knows it’s you. Nobody ever gets anything by dumb revenge.”
He laughed, then hurled another rock out into the waves. “What a family,” he said again. He pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his leather jacket and lit one, then turned to Matt again. “Why’d she push you then?”
“She hates me,” said Matt. “She always has. Ever since we came here she’s been trying to get us to leave. She’s just over-protective, I suppose. She blames me for Kirsty’s funny turns.” He stopped, abruptly, but it was too late to retract what he had just said. He remembered Gramps’ warning about Vince: You should be careful of that one. He doesn’t know how dangerous he is...
