For a moment he thought of knocking at the door of the house whose wall he was leaning on, and if no-one was there the next house, or the house after that, but he knew that he could knock at every door on the street, and no-one would answer. The world was not the world that he had lived in all of his life, and when the old man was extending his influence upon it nothing could be taken for granted. Besides, John thought. If I did knock on a door and somebody was there to answer, what could I say to them? They'd think I was playing a practical joke, or that I was disturbed and out of my mind.
It's down to me, John knew. It's all down to me. The idea did not strike him as strange; he had never been able to tell anyone about the bullying at school, not his mum and dad, not his teachers, and in many ways it was like what he was now experiencing: another world which ran in parallel alongside the real world that everybody else knew, another world of fear, constant nagging fear, when there was nobody to turn to, nobody to trust or tell. The revelation struck him like a physical blow. This isn't different, he thought, this isn't different at all, it's just more of the same, and here I am, running again. Only difference is that this time there's no Alex to deflect the bully's attention, it's all me, there's going to be nobody else who takes the heat, nobody else who will occupy the enemy while I get away.
Which might leave me another Alex, he thought, but then he pushed it away, refusing to think like that. I will not, he said to himself, in his mind at first but then out loud. I will not, I will not, I will not. I'm sick of running, I'm sick of giving in, of hiding instead of fighting. No more, John thought. No more. This is where I can find something in myself that will let me live with what happened. This is where I can turn and fight. I can find out who Elias is, how he does what he does, what kind of thing he is. If I do that, I can find a weakness in him. I can find knowledge, John thought to himself. I can find knowledge, I don't know how but I will, and that knowledge will give me power, and when I have power enough I will find him, and I will beat him.
He looked back around the corner, but there was nothing there.
John walked back down into the village, still catching his breath, looking behind him every few steps. Then there was a noise in front of him and he spun round, startled.
An elderly man, muffled up in a thick jumper and a reefer jacket despite the warm day, was shutting the door of his cottage, fumbling with a key in the lock. He took the handle of a small tartan shopping trolley and weaved his way down the street. The air around John had lost its glassy thickness and he knew that for now, it was over. There were limits to the old man’s power, John realised. There must be places that he could not reach, or perhaps there was only so long he could sustain his influence on the world.
See, John thought, if I can only find out why, then there's knowledge, there's a weapon, there is something that I can use. He walked down into the village, gulping in the sounds and sights and smells of the real world. A green skip in the alley behind the fish and chip shop stank of grease. He passed a house that had its windows open and heard a couple arguing about money.
"Every hour," the man said. "Every bloody hour at a job that I hate, and where does all the money go?"
"And you think I spend the day sitting watching the telly? You think the children's clothes wash themselves and your meals cook themselves?"
John walked on, and heard the gulls following a fishing boat into the calm blue of the harbour. He walked down to the harbour wall and looked back. The village clung to the hill, beautiful and ordinary, its beauty for John more in the ordinariness of the place than in its picture postcard good looks. Everything that had just happened seemed like a dream, absurd.
But John was sure that he was not mad, and he knew that what had happened was as real as the whitewashed walls and the sloping red roofs. I've only got two choices, he thought. I can run. I can go home early, leave here tomorrow, tell Laura I need to get back to see mum and dad. Or cower in the shop with Laura, and never wander the village on my own.
Or there’s a third choice, he thought. There is a third. I can stay, and I can fight.
John looked down into the water that kissed and slapped at the harbour wall, listened to the screech and caw of the seagulls that bickered and fought on the roofs of the buildings behind him, but he saw none of it, heard none of it, was aware of no place other than an ordinary corridor, chipped and scuffed beige walls, a row of battered lockers, the smell of sweat and old trainers.
Run or fight, John, he thought to himself. What's it going to be this time? The old man was something beyond Parker, beyond anything he had imagined, beyond anything that he could explain to anyone who might help him. He couldn't talk to anyone. He didn't have the first idea how to defy him, and the thought of what might have been rolling and reaching within that chill grey mist made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. But I got away, John thought. I beat him. This time. And I'm not alone. I don't know what the dog is or what it wants from me, but it helped me.
He heard Parker's voice saying "Run away, little boy, this doesn't concern you," and then Elias’s papery whisper telling him that he had just one choice: to do as he was told, or to be nothing. And leaning on the iron railings of the harbour wall, looking down into the water, he thought of what it must have been like standing on the edge of the great iron bridge across the river at home, waiting to take that long jump down into the cold, dark water of the river.
"Enough," John said to the seagulls. "I've had enough of this." And he walked up into the village, heading for the bookshop. If he was going to stand his ground this time, he needed to arm himself. And the only ammunition he could think of was information. He felt tired, and scared, but said to himself over and over under his breath: I am not running, I will not run. Not again. Not again.
Chapter Ten
Alan was bent over a box, sifting through its contents.
"Ah, John. You know, this bookshop's my living, my inheritance, and I grew up loving books, still do, never without a book in my hand, but much as it pains me to say it, there isn't half some total dross out there." He let the book in his hand drop back into the box, and shook his head. "Still, even the rubbish pays the bills. Glad you came round, been talking to dad about you, he said he was keen to meet Laura's brother, and you've come round on a good day, for him."
The banter dropped from Alan's voice, and he straightened up and looked straight at John. "But even the good days aren't that good any more. So be prepared, John. But whatever you do, don't let anything show, because if he thinks you're pitying him, he'll tear you to pieces." Then he smiled. "You're a bright lad, I'm sure you can handle him. Got a half hour to spare?"
"Sure," John said. "I'd love to."
No, no, no, he thought. I don't have time for this. I've got to find out what the hell is going on, who this man is who can do things no man should be able to do, not make small talk with a grumpy man on his sickbed. But he couldn't be rude to Alan, for Laura’s sake, so he smiled and followed him up the twisting narrow stairs from the back room of the bookshop, and onto the landing on the floor above. The walls were all painted white. Alan opened the door at the far end of the landing, and ushered John in.
The room smelt of age and illness. On the mantelpiece, above the dark iron fire surround, a vase of lilies drooped towards their final moments, elegant white curves turning into a sad helpless sag. On the far side, opposite the window, an old man lay in a bed, paper-white skin against paper-white cotton sheets. Although John had never seen him before, he knew that the man was shrunken from the man that he had been when he was younger, that like the lilies, he was fading. A black cylinder like the one used to blow up helium balloons stood beside the bed, and for a moment John had the irrational thought that the old man was going to start speaking in a Mickey Mouse voice, and despite everything, or maybe because of everything, John felt that he was going to laugh. But he bit down upon it, and in a moment or two it was gone.
"Dad," Alan said in a low voice, all his usual humour g
one. "Dad?"
The old man opened his eyes. "I heard you the first time." His voice sounded tired and very far away.
"Dad, this is John—I was telling you about him, you remember?"
"I may be old, I may be on my last legs but I'm not bloody senile. Of course I remember. Laura's lad." Now there was more life in the voice, more fire, and John saw that Alan heard it too because he smiled and walked forward to the bed.
"Let me help you sit up," he said, and began pulling at pillows.
"Bugger off," his father said, and Alan stepped back and watched the old man perform a long series of manoeuvres and wriggles that moved him to a sitting position. When he was finally comfortable, Alan pulled the blankets up around him. His father's breathing had become hoarse and irregular, and Alan stooped to the side of the bed and picked up a clear tube that led to the cylinder. He fastened it to his father's head so that the tube ran under his nose, and then turned a knob on the cylinder. John could hear a distant rushing, as if someone was hoovering a couple of rooms away.
The old man closed his eyes and just breathed for a moment. Then he opened his eyes again, looked straight at John, who saw that Alan had inherited his piercing blue eyes from his father. The old man gestured to a chair that stood on the other side of the bed from the oxygen cylinder.
John walked over and sat down, feeling awkward and self-conscious. This wasn't helped by the old man, who simply stared at him as if he were passing judgement. Then he waved at Alan. "If I didn't ask for a pot of tea for the two of us, would you leave us here to die of thirst?"
"One pot of tea coming up," Alan said, and again he smiled, and John knew that the two men had held this conversation many times before, and that Alan would remember it every time that he made tea in the future, even when he was making it only for one.
"You do drink tea, don't you, not just that gut-rot sugary pop rubbish?" Again the old man glared at John, who felt like a mouse felt when a hawk spotted it amongst the tall grass. He nodded and said, “Please, Mr Denby”, and from the old man's tone of voice John could tell that not drinking tea was equivalent to spitting on the floor or swearing in church.
"Hmm. Don't call me Mr. Denby, it's always buggers trying to sell me things who call me Mr. Denby. Call me Charles. Never Charlie, or I'll jump from my bed and throw you out of the house myself. Just Charles, thank you, and we'll get along nicely."
"Okay Mr.—Charles."
"And ignore this thing." Charles waved a hand that was so pale, so thin that it could almost be transparent, up towards the tube under his nose. "Bloody inconvenience, pain in the backside to be blunt, but not, as much of an inconvenience as dying, so one has to put up with such things. Alan tells me that you're a bright boy. Not surprised, if you take after your sister, she's a smart girl. I can see it in you. You're alive to the world. So many children today, can't say the same for them."
The sudden change in direction caught John unawares, but he never knew how to respond to praise, so he just shrugged.
"Don't do that, you're not French. Nice people, lived there for nearly a decade, lovely people, but all that shrugging. Alan tells me you've got a bit of an interest in the local history. Bought a book on folklore last time you were in? Read up on it much, that kind of thing?"
John knew right away that lying was not an option and would lead to him leaving the house before Alan came back with the tea.
"No, not a lot. I mean, I know a little, Greek and Roman stuff I used to read when I was younger, but I don't know much. My sister's quite into that sort of thing."
Charles snorted. "You mean her shop? Load of tat to sell to credulous tourists. Not that there's anything wrong with that, how this village stays alive but there's no poetry in this new-age nonsense, no tradition behind it, just a mish-mash of badly worded books by preposterous fraudsters." Charles paused, closed his eyes again, concentrating on bringing his breathing under control and taking more oxygen from the tube under his nose.
John wondered whether he could do anything, should offer to help, maybe call Alan, as the old man seemed to have his eyes closed for a long time. Then they flicked open. "Damn thing. Ah, I thought you'd died or been waylaid by bandits."
The door behind John had opened, and Alan came in carrying a tray with a pot of tea, two cups and a plate of biscuits.
"Boring you yet, is he?" Alan asked John. "You could always dive out of the window you know, it's just flowerbeds underneath, if it all gets too unbearable you shouldn't break too many limbs."
"No Garibaldi," Charles said, peering down at the plate.
"No—I thought you hated Garibaldi. Always told me that you couldn't stand the things."
"Did I? Well, when you've lived as long as I have and had as much pain and trouble as I have had—" here Charles glared at Alan to indicate precisely where such pain and trouble had come from—"you're entitled to change your mind. Get some Garibaldi next time you go shopping, please, if it's not too much bother or disruption."
Alan turned to leave, raising an eyebrow at John who could tell from the gesture that what passed between the two men was an extended game, a battle of wits and a way to show each other than they loved each other without ever having to suffer the excruciating pain of having to say just that.
They sat in silence for a while, sipping tea and eating the biscuits that to John's great relief weren't garibaldi, which always made him think of dead flies pressed into cardboard boxes. There were a dozen questions that John wanted to ask, but he was conscious of Charles's poor state of health and was worried that the old man might tire and the time together end without any of the things that were important to John having been discussed.
“So, which book is it on the local legends that you bought? Dunstone? Parnaby?"
"Um," John said, "I can't quite—it's got a red cover..."
"Ah, Parnaby. Hmm." Charles's voice made it quite clear what he thought of Parnaby. "Take it all with a pinch of salt, I'm afraid. Too fond of the sound of his own voice. Couldn't just tell a tale without feeling he could improve it in some way. In a book that claims to be an accurate account, there's no place for it. Dilutes the real thing, you see, next generation along another writer produces a new book based on what's he's read in Parnaby, embellishes it a bit himself and before you know it, the real story, the one that's been handed down for a thousand years, well, it's gone. Always meant to write a book myself. Set all the local legends down as they should be." He laughed, but this turned into a cough too, and it was a moment or two before he could carry on. "Spent a lifetime doing the research for it, and now it's too late. Maybe Alan will put some of my notes together, turn something out. He could do it. If he bothered. And if he could read my handwriting."
"I was reading," John said, his mouth dry, "in Parnaby. About Saltcliff, about the dog."
Again Charles laughed, and again John had to wait until the inevitable rattle and wheeze had subsided.
"Ah yes," Charles said, when he could talk again. "The infamous Saltcliff Shuck."
"That's the one."
"Saltcliff Shuck my backside," Charles said. "No such thing."
John felt his hope betrayed. There would be no help here.
"Just Parnaby feeling left out because other parts of the county have one," Charles went on, "and we don't. So he took a perfectly good local legend that you don't get anywhere else, and turned it into something that’s just the same wherever you go in the country."
"So there's no black dog then?" John asked dully.
"Oh, there certainly is. But it's no Shuck, it’s no fiery-eyed harbinger of death like you see in every bloody book of folklore right across the country. The Saltcliff hound is more than that, much more." Another cough, another pause. "You heard of the Hob?"
"Yeah," John said, and then quickly, seeing Charles's expression, "I mean, yes. I've been hearing about how the lads of the village used to have to spend a night in the Hole."
"You've been reading more than Parnaby then lad. Or talking to someb
ody who knows the old stories."
"Davey," John said. "I don't know his name, but he's really old, about..." He tailed off into silence.
"About twenty years younger than me," Charles said, his eyes twinkling. "Assuming you're talking about Davey Allthrop. Fisherman. Smokes a stinking pipe, spins a good tale."
"That's him," John said. "I'm friends with his nephew and niece. So what does the dog have to do with the Hob?"
"Hob is the spirit of this place, he's Saltcliff itself and no-one knows how he came here, but he's been here as long as the village, longer. No-one knows why a hob does what it does, and it can be a trickster, but it does more good than harm, or so the stories say.
“Trouble is though, according to the tales the Hob and its like came from an older time, maybe from before time, and the Church didn't like the people thinking about the old times any more. When Whitby heard that Saltcliff had its Hob a monk there, a man called Oswald, vowed to banish it forever. But Oswald, he fell ill, so another young monk volunteered to go in his place. This monk was a chap called Cedric, and he had grown up in Saltcliff. He knew what the Hob meant to the place, that it was the place, and he knew that not all the old things were bad. Cedric thought to himself, well if the Hob does good deeds, surely it must being doing God's work, and who are we monks to banish something that does God’s work. It came into it too, that Cedric thought the luck of the Hob had saved him too, as a lad, when he was out in a coracle and thought himself sure to drown.
“Oswald was suspicious though, he knew that Cedric was from the village, and he put whispers around that Cedric would not do his duty, that he would turn away from the Church and let the old ways win. Which back in those days, was a dangerous thing to have said about you."
Sea Change Page 8
