‘Good,’ Lisa said, and smiled at him.
Fortunately he didn’t turn into anything resembling the monster in her nightmare.
3
The dark green minibus that stood in the car park at Weymouth station had The Senice Foundation painted in gold on its side. A man was leaning against the radiator grille, smoking a cigarette, discarded butts littering the ground around his feet. He had been there a long time, but didn’t seem unduly bothered. He wore a baseball cap over his long sandy hair, and the peak was pulled down over his eyes so that anyone passing wouldn’t be able to tell whether they were open or closed. He leaned, immobile, except for the hand that raised the cigarette to his lips with monotonous regularity.
‘Two hours late,’ Steve grumbled as he lugged his holdall along the platform. Lisa travelled light, despite what her mother thought, and kept all her belongings in a neat fluorescent pink backpack, and moved along the platform effortlessly. She was soon several yards in front of Steve and already at the ticket barrier. ‘Hey, wait up,’ Steve called after her.
‘Come on, slowcoach. We’re late enough as it is.’
They emerged together from the station and looked across at the minibus. As they stood in the doorway a girl pushed past them. She was in her teens with long black hair parted in the centre. Her clothes were black and gothic; a long skirt, and a leather waistcoat over a plain black tee shirt. She was carrying a battered suitcase covered with heavy metal stickers. It was no surprise at all to Lisa when she walked straight up to the waiting minibus and engaged the driver in conversation. Steve was also watching her. ‘One of us,’ he said to Lisa quietly, picked up his holdall.
By the time they reached the minibus the girl with black hair was already inside. Steve introduced himself to the driver.
‘I’m Spike,’ the driver said affably. He was probably in his thirties, Lisa thought, but the gauntness of his face, and the fact that he looked as if he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning, aged him prematurely. ‘Leave your bags here and hop on. I’ll stow them in a minute.’ He looked past Steve at two boys and a girl leaving the station. ‘Looks like the rest of them,’ he said.
Lisa followed his gaze.
The girl was very young, probably no more than fifteen, and looked as though her mother had dressed her. The multicoloured dress she was wearing was a nightmare and the red anorak she wore over it did nothing to improve her appearance. Her hair was wild and woolly and a nondescript mousy colour. She wore rimless glasses that perched on the end of her nose, causing her to squint over them like a myopic hedgehog. But despite the clothes, hair and glasses she was very pretty, Lisa thought.
The two boys couldn’t have been more different from each other – one tall, one short. The tall one smartly dressed in sports-jacket and fawn slacks, the shorter of the two covered in leather and denim, looking as though he had just climbed from a Harley Davidson. The boy in the sports-jacket had fair wavy hair and was reasonably good looking. The leather fiend had cropped brown hair and three earrings in one ear, two in the other, and had startlingly blue eyes, but these were the only outstanding features in an otherwise bland, slightly ugly face.
As Steve and Lisa climbed into the minibus the other three reached it and were given the same instructions by Spike.
Once everyone was aboard Spike stowed the luggage in the boot and climbed in behind the steering wheel. He switched on the engine then swivelled around in his seat to look at them all. ‘It’s forty minute’s drive to the house, so get comfortable.’ There was a collective groan. ‘Yeah, I know. You’ve been travelling for hours and all you want is a cup of tea and a wash and brush up. But I can’t move the house closer, so you might as well use the time to get to know one another. After all, you’re going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next few days.’ He turned back to face the road and eased the minibus out of the car park and into the stream of traffic travelling through the harbour town.
In the back of the bus there was an uneasy silence, with nobody wanting to the first to break the ice. Eventually it was the tall, fair-haired boy who spoke. ‘Hi. My name’s Tim Wilson,’ he said confidently
‘I know you,’ Steve said. ‘I’ve published one of your stories in Spook Stories.’
Tim nodded in recognition. ‘Then you’re Steve Vincent. I’ve read your stuff. Very good.’ He stuck out a hand,
‘This is Lisa Benson, a friend of mine.’
Tim switched his attention. ‘And do you write, Lisa?’
‘She wouldn’t be on the seminar if she didn’t, would she?’ This from the boy in the leather and denim. He had a thick Midlands accent. ‘Sean Collins. I run the Darkworld website. Know it?’ He addressed the question to Steve.
Steve shook his head.
‘I do. I visit quite regularly,’ said the girl with woolly hair. ‘Susan Cross, by the way. Nothing published yet, no websites, just here to learn.’
‘Well, anything we can do to help…’ Tim Wilson said.
The girl with jet-black hair was ignoring all of them and staring moodily out of the window. She stared clapping, slowly and deliberately. ‘Mutual appreciation society. Pathetic.’
Lisa felt her hackles rise. ‘And you would be Morticia Addams, right?’ she said acidly. ‘Or is it Lily Munster?’
The girl spun around in her seat, eyes blazing. ‘Bitch!’ she spat.
‘Hey,’ Spike said from the driver’s seat. ‘None of that. We’re all friends here. Now, tell them your name.’ He was watching the girl in the rear-view mirror and spoke with such quiet authority that she slumped back in her seat and lowered her eyes. ‘Cat,’ she said. ‘Cat O’Malley.’
‘And have you published anything, Cat?’ Steve said. There was something about the girl he found very attractive, but he couldn’t pin down what it was.
Cat looked at him and smiled. The smile transformed her. It was as if she was lit from within. ‘No, Steve, I haven’t. Perhaps I could submit something to your magazine. Spook Stories isn’t it?’
You know damned well it is, Lisa thought.
‘Please do.’ He leaned forward in his seat, closing the gap between then. ‘I’d be only too happy to read it.’
‘Trust him, Cat,’ Tim said. ‘He’s a good editor. He must be – he accepted me.’ He laughed self-deprecatingly.
As the journey progressed conversation became easier and by the time they left the main road and started trundling along a rutted and pot-holed track through woodland, even Cat had loosened up and was sharing a part of her life-story with Steve.
‘Of course, drink became her religion in the end,’ she said, talking about her mother. ‘A huge Catholic guilt trip. She just couldn’t handle the fact that her marriage had turned sour.’
‘I was about seven when my dad left home,’ Steve said. ‘I don’t think I really understood what was going on. It seemed like a great adventure. I was always getting letters from these really wild countries. And then Billy – that’s my kid brother – and I would jump on a plane and go and see him.’
‘Sounds exciting,’ Cat said. ‘Best I ever got from my old man was a black eye…’ She stopped talking when she noticed the others taking an interest in what she was saying. ‘Anyway, that was years ago.’ She turned away and stared out through the window.
A house was coming into view. They let the woodland behind and crunched onto a wide gravel drive.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Spike said. ‘We have arrived.’ And he switched off the engine.
Steve jumped from the bus and stared up at the house. It was a huge red-bricked structure with high gothic towers and a steeply sloping grey slate roof. Ivy covered most of the front of the house. It was a large manor house of the seventeenth century, although it had been decorated to bring it in line with the Grecian taste of the late eighteenth. The pristine portico remained, with tri-cornered pediment and ornamental entablature, but the original stucco had been covered with a modern paint substance. The door was polished oak with a gleaming lion'
s head knocker in brass. Mullioned windows sparkled as the sun shyly danced attendance.
‘Looks impressive,’ he said as the others climbed out to stand beside him.
‘Imposing is a better word,’ Lisa said.
‘I think it looks kind of creepy,’ Susan Cross said.
Sean Collins lit a cigarette, but kept it cupped in his hand. He hadn’t been smoking long; his parents didn’t know, and he was slightly self-conscious about it. ‘It’s probably haunted,’ he said.
‘Couldn’t be better,’ said Steve who stood, hands on hips, staring up at the large sash windows and at the seven gargoyles that perched underneath the gutter at the very top of the house. A small thrill of excitement passed through him. This was the stuff of his stories, and he couldn’t wait to get inside and look around.
‘Right.’ Spike had unloaded the bags and cases and was walking towards the front door. ‘Let’s get you inside and settled in.’
‘Are you one of the tutors?’ Susan said.
Spike looked at her and his thin face split into a wide grin. He had a front tooth missing, which added to his general air of dishevelment. ‘Me? You must be joking.’ He gave a short sharp laugh. ‘I don’t know a semi-colon from a quaver, me. No, I drive the bus, cook the meals, and repair the computers when they go down. I leave the teaching to Nick, Allen and Nancy. They’re your tutors. Actually, as we’re so late I’d better go and tell them we’ve arrived. They had a small reception planned. Just wine and posh snacks. They’ve probably scoffed the lot by now, sitting there sozzled. Typical British Rail!’ he said.
Steve looked at him askance and wondered whether to tell him that the railways had been privatised years ago. Sean caught the look. ‘Probably doesn’t get out much,’ he said under his breath.
Lisa was standing there with a look of undisguised horror on her face as Spike disappeared inside. ‘Did you see his hands, his nails. They’re black. Thick with grease…and he’s going to cook our meals!’
‘Don’t worry about it, luvvy,’ Cat said to her. ‘A little bit of dirt never hurt anybody.’
Lisa’s lips tightened as she tried to think of a suitable put-down, but her mind refused to provide one, and to make matters worse Steve was chuckling at Cat’s remark. She had a feeling it was going to be a terrible week.
‘Should we wait here?’ Tim asked of no one in particular.
‘You can, mate,’ Sean said. ‘But I’m going inside to track down some food. My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut.’
He took two steps towards the front door and stopped dead as a man emerged from inside. Tall and slim, with black wavy hair swept back from an aristocratic forehead, he stepped out into the sunlight, squinting slightly at the glare. ‘Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Senice House. My name is Roger DeMarney. I am your host for the duration of your stay. Any queries you have about the seminar that cannot be answered by your tutors, you may bring them to me and I will try to do better than them. Equally, any problems you have with your accommodation please come to see me. On your application forms, you should have all answered the question about special dietary requirements. If there are any problems with the food, again I should be your first port of call. Any questions?’
Cat stepped forward. ‘Yes. Can you show us to our rooms now? I don’t know about the others, but it’s been a long journey and I need to take a leak.’
A slight smile played on DeMarney’s lips. ‘But of course,’ he said smoothly. ‘Follow me.’
4
Once they were inside, DeMarney whisked them through the house so quickly that Steve barely had time to take in any details, There were impressions though; high ceilings, dark polished woodwork, cases containing stuffed animals and birds, a suit of armour, Chinese vases. He was lagging behind the others, standing before a huge portrait of a man in full Regency finery. In the background of the picture was a house – this one by the look of it, to the figure’s right, a black Labrador dog. The brass nameplate on the frame announced Sir Percy George. Steve had never heard of him.
‘If you could keep up, Mr Vincent,’ DeMarney called from the end of the corridor. The others had already turned the corner and Steve could hear the sound of their feet climbing a wooden staircase.
His room, when he finally reached it, was disappointingly small. His visions of sleeping in a sumptuous four poster, surrounded by walls clad in antique oak panelling, quickly evaporated when he walked through the doorway and found himself in a plainly furnished room, smaller than his bedroom at home. He glanced back at DeMarney to see if there was some kind of mistake, but the man had already moved on.
Steve shut the door and dropped his holdall on the bed. The springs groaned under the weight of it – not a very reassuring sign. He went across to the window. The view, at least, was some small compensation. His room looked out over a verdant lawn. The flowerbeds that bordered the lawn were a riot of summer colour – wide swathes of purple geraniums, lavender and red geums, interspersed with the tall flower spikes of foxglove and lupin. And in the middle of the grass was a large summerhouse, which looked to be made out of iron, painted white. The lawn swept down a smooth incline to a huge lake, half covered with water lilies, and complete with an island in the centre. The lake itself was bordered by a stand of silver birches and dense undergrowth.
There was a tap on the door, and Lisa came into the room. ‘Well it’s a pretty amazing garden if nothing else,’ she said grudgingly. Her room was next door to Steve’s and they shared the same view.
‘That lake!’ Steve said. ‘I wonder if there’s a rowing boat. I wouldn’t mind exploring the island.’
‘If there’s time,’ Lisa said. ‘We don’t know what routine they’ve got lined up for us yet.’
‘Don’t fear, Miss Benson. We allow time for student recreation.’ DeMarney was standing in the doorway, a half-smile playing on his smooth, unlined face.
For reasons Lisa couldn’t really pin down, she had taken an immediate dislike to DeMarney. She wondered how long the man had been standing at the doorway. DeMarney was still talking. ‘...And yes, there is a boat but we don’t encourage our students to use it. We are not insured against boating accidents.’ Suddenly he clapped his hands together. ‘Right, there will be a small reception party in the drawing room in about an hour. The staff will introduce themselves to you and give you a rough outline of what to expect this week. The dining room is down the stairs, the second door on the right. I’ll see you down there.’
When he had gone Lisa said, ‘Creep!’
‘Lisa!’ Steve said. ‘Give him a chance. You’ve only just met him.’
Lisa’s opinion of the seminar had changed little since arriving at the house. The nightmare had receded into memory, and any residual traces of it could be explained away quickly as a manifestation of her anxiety about going away with Steve, but to her the house and its rolling grounds could have been lifted straight from a gothic novel, and DeMarney would make the perfect villain.
Sean Collins walked into Susan’s room without knocking. ‘So what’s your room like then?’ he said looking around. ‘Mine’s like something out of Dickens. Ah, you’ve got flowers. How sweet.’ He pulled the bunch of sweet peas from the vase on the windowsill and took a bite out of them, chewing them noisily. ‘Mmm. Taste good.’
Susan Cross watched him, something close to panic in her eyes. He was very much like the boys at school. Charmless adolescents who teased her mercilessly, called her “Mouse”, and made her life a misery. She had hoped this week would be different; mixing with people with similar tastes; civilised, educated people – not morons like this one.
‘Look,’ she said, gathering her courage. ‘Do you mind?’
Sean shook his head. ‘Not at all.’ He put the flowers back in the vase. ‘Past their sell by date anyway.’ He walked across to the bed, to where Susan had unpacked some of her things. He picked up a paperback book. ‘I’ve read this. It’s rubbish.’
‘Do you practice being obn
oxious, or does it come naturally?’ she said.
He grinned at her. ‘Sorry. Just winding you up. I’m not so bad, once you get to know me.’
‘Why on earth should I want to get to know you?’
‘Because life is long and can be lonely. Friends are what make it worthwhile.’ He dropped the book on the bed. ‘Actually that one’s not that bad. It’s the sequel that’s really awful. Are you coming down to the reception?’
‘When I’m ready,’ she said coolly, amazed at herself for handling the situation so well. She had faced him down and he had responded by being…well…pleasant. Actually, he was quite nice…in a moronic sort of way.
‘Okay. Catch you down there. By the way,’ he said as he walked from the room. ‘I like the ankh.’ He pointed to the small gold Egyptian cross that hung from a chain around her neck. It was elaborately engraved with ivy leaves and small flowers and it was the only piece of jewellery she wore. Fashioned from eighteen carat gold by her father a short time before his death, she treasured it.
Sean continued. ‘But that dress…’ He held his nose and disappeared into the corridor.
Susan looked down at the multi-coloured dress her mother had bought for her for this week away. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. From the bottom of her bag she produced a pair of Levis and a red sweatshirt and changed into them, then stared at herself in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe. ‘Not bad,’ she thought. ‘Mum would have a fit if she could see me.’ “Trendy clothes are for people with no identities of their own.” That was one of her mother’s favourite sayings.
Her mother bought most of their clothes at charity shops, and just because her mother was happy wearing other peoples’ cast-offs, Susan didn’t see why she had to wear them. She had a part time job after school waitressing in a local café. With the money she was earning from that she was able to buy herself the odd treat, like the jeans, like the sweatshirt. It was all in an effort to fit in with her peers. The hair would be the next thing to go. She couldn’t walk around with hair like Little Orphan Annie for much longer.
A Weaving of Ancient Evil Page 2
