by Babs Horton
Archie stopped outside Cuckoo’s Nest and held his breath.
The Kelly family lived in Cuckoo’s Nest, next to the Pilchard Inn.
He could hear them in there now, squabbling and arguing. He could smell the Kelly smell and it made him gag. Shite from the nappy bucket that festered near the front door and the stink of unwashed bodies: ear wax, sweat and rancid chip fat.
Archie was terrified of the seven Kelly boys.
There were four red-faced tiny ones who bawled and bit and spat and licked their own snot off their faces.
Three big ones.
Donald was the oldest. Then Kevin and Peter.
Peter was nice, not like the rest of them. He’d have liked to be friends with Peter.
Mammy said it was like he wasn’t out of the same litter.
The other Kelly boys were rough as guts.
Donald and Kevin waited for Archie behind hedges when he came home from school and bashed him up nearly every day. They gave him dead legs and Chinese burns.
Wrenched his arm up behind his back and took his Saturday sweet money. They kneed him up the bum and brought tears to his eyes. The worst, though, were the rabbit punches that they gave.
They could kill people like that but they didn’t care.
And Mrs Kelly never even told them off if she caught them at it. All she ever said was, “Boys will be boys, Archie, you should toughen yourself up a bit and not be such a fanny.”
They never laid a finger on him when Benjamin was around, though. They were afeared of Benjamin. Now he was gone the Kellys would be tormenting him all the time.
Mr Kelly spent half his life hiding in the outside lav and the other half far out at sea, fishing. He never spoke, only grunted, but his wife never stopped; she was a sour-faced old bissom and dirty about herself. Mammy said that in the Kelly house you needed to wash the soap before you used it.
Archie ducked down and scuttled as quickly as he could past their greasy window.
From the Pilchard Inn voices drifted out through the porthole windows along with the clink of dominoes and the thud of darts on a well-soaked board.
He peeped warily inside, careful not to be spotted.
It looked cosy in the small bar with the fire roaring up the chimney, candlelight glinting off the blue and green glass pots that Nan served the beer in.
Nan Abelson was behind the tiny bar lifting a glass pot up to the candlelight. She was big and beefy and very beautiful and smiled a lot. She had arms the colour of corned beef and a coiled black plait that swung between her shoulder blades like a hangman’s noose.
Beneath her fringe she had a scar on her forehead but you only got to see it when she got hot and brushed her hair to one side.
Nan Abelson could swear like a man.
She used all the four-letter words when she got mad.
Fart and Damn; Shit and Piss.
Nan was tough as old boots and could throw a punch like a kangaroo when her dander was up. No one messed with her.
Once she pasted Donald Kelly when he stole Cissie’s toy monkey and piddled all over it accidentally on purpose.
There were four people besides Nan squashed into the bar of the Pilchard. Charlie and Freddie Payne were playing dominoes together at a table not far from where Archie stood.
His own father was sitting up at the bar, thankfully with his back to Archie. Billy Nettles was playing darts. Archie moved on. He stopped again when he reached the house where the new man called Fleep lived alone with his parrot. Fleep’s parrot was green and red and could speak three languages. A foreign one, English. And filth.
He’d read somewhere that parrots could live to be a hundred.
Fleep’s house was called the Grockles and it was the only single-storeyed house in Bloater Row. It had been empty as long as Archie could remember. Fleep had turned up a few weeks back but hadn’t bothered to get to know anyone yet He was an odd sort of fellow and mostly he stayed shut up in the house but sometimes Archie had seen him walking alone on the cliff path towards Nanskelly. He kept himself to himself and hardly anyone had heard him speak. As Archie got close to the window Fleep’s parrot shrieked, “Mange la Merde!”
Archie’s heart was already galloping and his breath escaped in wreaths of steam on the cold night air.
He tried to slow his breathing down.
A fierce gust of wind roared along Bloater Row and a tile blew off the roof of the Peapods and exploded onto the cobbles. A tin bucket hurtled past him and clattered away down Bloater Row towards the hole in the rocks that led down to Skilly Beach.
The parrot squawked again.
“The King Lives…Long live the King.”
Inside the house Fleep laughed loudly and made Archie jump. It was the only sound Archie had heard him make and it echoed eerily inside the house.
From inside the Grockles a wireless stuttered out the shipping news and a cork escaped from a bottle with an echoing pop.
Archie moved on, made it safely to the end of Bloater Row, turned to his left and looked nervously at the wobbly chapel.
The night was bitterly cold, the wind getting ever wilder, whistling round the chimneys of Bloater Row and making the old timbers of the chapel roof creak ominously.
Archie was shivering violently and his legs had a life of their own; he was dancing up and down with nerves, like a puppet worked by a madman. Already his gammy leg was weakening and the chilblains on his toes were beginning to throb.
He took the keys from his pocket and looked down at them. There was one large key and two smaller ones.
He took a deep breath and stepped up to the door of die old chapel. He put the largest of the keys into the rusty lock hoping that it wouldn’t fit and then he could say that at least he’d tried to keep his promise.
He groaned inwardly as the key turned slowly and the door opened with a juddering sigh.
He removed the key and stepped breathlessly into the musty, dusty darkness of the chapel and locked the door behind him.
Nan Abelson locked and bolted the door of the Pilchard Inn and raked the fire. She washed and dried up the pint pots and placed them on the shelf behind the bar. Then she made her way through to the kitchen. The wildcats growled and spat as Nan opened the back door. Then they grew quiet their eyes glowed eerily in the moonlit yard. They were better than any guard dogs. Nan threw them a handful of scraps, then bolted the back door and climbed wearily up the steep stairs.
In the large upstairs bedroom Cissie was asleep. She lay curled up in the big bed, her thumb stuck between her damp lips, snoring softly, a ragged monkey clasped tightly to her chest.
Nan stood looking down at the child, safe and cosy beneath the dusky pink eiderdown. She hoped that she could always keep Cissie that way, hoped that she lived long enough to see the child grown and settled. The only thing about having a child like Cissie was the worry that when Nan was dead and gone there would be no one left to love her. As long as she had breath in her body Nan would fight tooth and nail to keep her safe, make sure no one did her harm but after that…
Nan walked across to the tallboy, picked up the elephant bookend and sat down on the window seat She ran her fingers deftly over the smooth wood of the carved elephant remembering her fascination years ago when she had first been shown the elephant’s secret. It was originally one of a pair but the other had gone missing years before. The elephant was joined to a wooden book and looked like a simple bookend. But if you knew how, you slid down the spine of the book revealing a tight-fitting wooden panel that slid open. Inside was a space to hide valuables.
One day she’d show Cissie how it worked, when the time was right.
She slid down the wooden spine of the book and at her touch the panel slid out easily. She pulled out the photograph and a sea shell and stared down at them. The photograph had been taken during the war. The camera had captured two small girls standing at the edge of the sea. Two dark-haired little girls giggling and holding hands. One of them saved and one of them lost.
Nan closed her eyes and put the shell to her ear…She remembered the lapping of the waves and the laughter of children playing. A baby crying and gulls screeching overhead. Together they had hunted for shells and picked up the most beautiful and put them in their pockets…
Then Papa calling to them both to smile for the camera…
She opened her eyes and wiped her tears.
This tiny photograph and shell kept safe inside the elephant were the only mementoes of Nan’s past life, the only thing that she had been able to bring with her from a dark, tormented past.
She replaced the photograph and shell, put the bookend back together and put it back on the tallboy.
Nan looked out into the stormy night. Far in the distance around the coast she could see the lights glittering in the isolated school that stood alone on the headland.
In the Boathouse on Skilly Beach a candle flickered in the arched window. Mad Gwennie, like a hermit all alone in there with the music she played over and over. Nan had rarely seen her, just caught the occasional glimpse of her every now and then down on the beach at dawn or at nightfall when no one else was around. As she watched now the door of the Boathouse opened and a small hunched figure was silhouetted against the light.
Nan stared intently as the figure climbed carefully down the steps on to the beach and then hurried towards the dunes, head bent against the fierce wind. Then she was lost to sight as she headed through the dunes towards the high wall that bordered Killivray House.
Only a lunatic would venture out on a night like this.
Nan looked down into Bloater Row and from where she stood she could see into the living room of the Grockles. She wondered if the house had been empty ever since mad Gwennie had run away? Most of the windows were cracked and the gap under the front door was wide enough for a fat rat to run under.
The large room was sparsely furnished with ancient furniture and dimly lit by a hurricane lamp. It looked cold and uninviting with no fire lit in the hearth. The newcomer Fleep must be freezing his cobs off in there.
He was an interesting fellow, this Fleep. A handsome man, she’d wager, if he had a shave, put a bit more meat on his bones and an occasional smile on his chops. Rumour had it that he was on the run from gangsters in London but rumours always abounded in the Skallies where newcomers were concerned.
Catching sight of Fleep sitting at the back window looking out into the night, she snuffed out the candle so that if he turned and looked up he would not see her spying on him.
She watched him for a long time, watched as he raised a bottle to his lips, drank thirstily and carried on staring out into the night like a man in a trance. He was sitting so still that for a while Nan was not sure if he had fallen asleep.
Then suddenly he turned around as if startled by something.
Nan shrank back away from the window. Fleep put down the bottle and crossed the room on tiptoe. He disappeared from sight and then she saw the front door opening just a crack. He stepped outside into Bloater Row, looked to the right and the left. The wind blew his long hair around his face. He glanced up at the window and Nan thought for a moment that he’d seen her. She wouldn’t forget the terrible look of fear on his face in a long time. Then he hurriedly closed the door and the light was extinguished.
Nan pulled the curtains across and hastily undressed, climbed quickly into the warm bed and put an arm around Cissie. Cissie groaned softly and pushed her small body closer to Nan. The wind whined around the old building and the ancient floorboards creaked as though bare feet were crossing them.
She closed her eyes, hugged Cissie even closer to her and fell asleep listening to the wind buffeting Bloater Row and the angry sea pounding onto the rocks below the Skallies.
It was dark inside the wobbly chapel and it stank. There was the funny holy smell that all churches had but it smelled of other things besides. Mouse droppings, mouldy flock, damp hymn books and woodworm.
And the faint but definite whiff of Benjamin’s pipe tobacco. Old Shag.
Archie took his cheap torch out from his pocket. It was part of his Detective Kit, the only bit that worked properly. He found the switch and turned it on. There were no windows in the chapel that could be seen from Bloater Row, the only window was the one above the altar that faced out to sea. No one would know that he was inside the chapel snooping around.
The beam of light from the torch was weak but he could just make out the outline of the pews on either side of a narrow aisle.
The chapel was tiny and would only have fitted twenty people in it at the most He shuffled down the aisle until he came to the altar.
The altar was made of rough uneven wood and was covered in a thick coat of dust The base was made from the front part of a boat. He got closer and screwed up his eyes. There was a name engraved on the side of the altar cum boat but he couldn’t make out what it said.
A curious-looking crucifix stood on the altar between two ancient candlesticks that were crusted with candle wax.
Archie put his head on one side and studied the crucifix with interest. All the crucifixes he’d ever seen were made from gold or wood but this one looked as though it was made of two large animal bones tied together with twine. Suddenly light flooded into the chapel through the window above the altar. Archie stood stock-still. There must be someone down on the beach with a spotlight someone who’d seen the light of his torch, someone who knew that he was inside the chapel.
Then he relaxed. It was only the beam from the lighthouse out beyond Skilly Head that was lit on very stormy nights. He counted fifteen between each beam of light…
Each time the beam came the round window above the altar glowed for a brief moment and lit up a glorious kaleidoscope of coloured glass.
He swung the torch around the chapel. There were some ancient plaques on the wall with peculiar writing on them.
Beneath his feet the floor was damp and sticky with mould and mountains of mouse droppings. There were a few scattered books and some rotten hassocks strewn around. He stooped to pick up a prayer book and opened it gingerly.
The beam of the torch picked out a name on the fly leaf.
He screwed up his good eye and read;
This book was given to Thomas Gasparini Greswode on the day of his first Holy Communion…
The date written beside the name was so faded that he couldn’t read it…
This couldn’t be what Benjamin had meant him to find, a mouldy old prayer book with the name of someone he’d never heard of in the front.
He walked gingerly around the chapel. Dust and cobwebs lay thick over everything he touched and when he shone his torch up towards the roof, the eyes of a startled bird stared back at him from a nest in the rafters.
There was an ancient-looking font at the back of the chapel and Archie edged slowly around it. It was elaborately engraved all around the sides but it was so old and filthy that it was hard to make out what the writing said. The words weren’t in English either, Latin maybe, or French?
He shrugged his shoulders and looked around him. What had Benjamin been thinking about, sending him here? There was no mystery about this place, it was just old and dirty and tumbling down.
He made his way carefully back towards the door. As he turned for one last glance around the crumbling chapel he noticed a small door to the left of the altar. He walked nervously across to it, lifted the latch and stepped into a large cupboard.
He swung his torch around. There were just a few bare shelves and a mouldy old black cloak hanging on a peg. He swept the cloak to one side and had to hold his nose to keep out the shower of dust that engulfed him.
Just then a blast of wind hit the chapel and the rafters groaned above his head. He looked up, and through the gaps in the broken tiles he could see the stars glittering fiercely. Then he squealed with fright as part of the wooden panelling fell towards him with a clatter.
Awkwardly Archie knelt down. The wooden panel looked just like the rest of the wall except that
there were hinges on the bottom and a clip that slotted into a groove. Archie got to his feet and gazed at the gap in the panelling before him. He moved forward hesitantly and pointed the torch into the darkness.
A blast of icy air hit him in the face, making him gasp. He peered warily into the hole. He could hear the sea somewhere beneath him, crashing mercilessly onto the rocks.
He stared with fascination as the torch picked out a step, and then another, a twisting narrow stone staircase leading downwards into the damp and freezing darkness.
It must lead down to Skilly Beach, somewhere opposite the old Boathouse where mad Gwennie lived…
He’d read about secret passages and stuff in history books; they were usually used by smugglers or priests, hidden away in the olden days.
A gust of wind rattled the chapel again. The floorboards moved beneath his feet.
This was real interesting but he needed to get out of here quick before the whole bloody chapel blew away with him in it.
He stepped out of the cupboard and closed the door.
It was lighter in the chapel now. The moon was directly in line with the glass window above the altar and it was lit as if by a spotlight. The colours of the glass in the window were astonishingly beautiful and Archie was bathed in a rainbow light. He looked like Joseph in his coat of many colours.
He must have stood there five minutes or more when a cloud blotted out the moon and the chapel was thrust into darkness.
That was it. He’d been brave enough. All he wanted to do now was to get out of the spooky place, hurry home and snuggle down in his bed.
He unlocked the chapel door, opened it just a crack and peeped out into Bloater Row.
It was dark, the wind as wild as hell and he saw with dismay that the lights were out in the Pilchard Inn.
Damn and blast.
Nan must have closed up early and that meant that his father would already be at home.
Hell’s bells! He would have pulled across the bolts on the front door. Archie was locked out.
