2006 - Wildcat Moon

by Babs Horton

  He barely had a chance to get to his feet before they were upon him. He was trapped: the Kellys in front of him and the sea at his back. There was no escape.

  Donald Kelly spoke first. “What’s up, peg leg, did you think someone had sent you a message?”

  Archie felt the blood rush to his face. What a silly fool he was. The Kellys had always teased him and Cissie for searching the beach for bottles with messages in. He should have known that they’d had something to do with this. He’d been tricked all right. Fell for it hook, line and sinker.

  Laughter cracked around him like shot glass.

  “Who’d send you a message, Archie Grimble? Who’d ask you for help, eh? You couldn’t punch your way out of a paper bag.”

  “Why would I be in a paper bag in the first place?” Archie stammered.

  Donald grew red in the face.

  “Think you’re funny, Archie Grimble?”

  “No.”

  “Shut your gob then.”

  “Okay.”

  “I said shut your gob.”

  “I just did.”

  “Go on, Donald, make him shut his big gob,” Kevin urged.

  Kevin was second in command. Donald was the leader, the eldest and the one with the biggest trap.

  Archie flinched as Donald grabbed hold of the front of his jersey and pulled him up dose. Face to face.

  There was green slime wedged between Donald’s pointy teeth and his breath smelled of fried spam and onions.

  A stye on his eye oozed puss. Archie could see the lice eggs in his hair, tiny orbs dinging to the strands. The frayed collar of his shirt was sticky with grease.

  “Go on, Donald, whop him quick before somebody comes.”

  Just then Peter Kelly came running down the beach and reached them, breathing heavily.

  “Why don’t you just leave him alone?” Peter said. He was the youngest of the three eldest Kelly boys.

  “Why will I leave him alone?”

  “Because he’s littler than you, that’s why.”

  “So? You’re littler than me and I’ll belt you any day of the week.”

  “He hasn’t done anything to you though.”

  Donald ignored him.

  “What did the message in the bottle say, Archie?”

  “You should know, Donald Kelly, you wrote it.”

  “He couldn’t have. He can’t write,” Peter said with a grin.

  “I can so. Just shut your mouth, Peter.”

  “Don’t lie, you can’t even write your own name.”

  “What did it say?” Donald twisted Archie’s jersey into a knot bringing their faces even doser together.

  Archie bit his lips and swallowed hard. There was no way he was going to repeat the words on the paper.

  Not even if they tortured him.

  “Say the words or I’ll stick you in the guts with my penknife.”

  “Say what it said, peg leg.” Kevin spat the words at him.

  Archie willed the tears to wait.

  “Go on, one-eyed Willy, tell us.”

  “Remember, Donald, to make him take his spectacles off before you hit him or else there’ll be trouble,” Kevin said.

  “Take your spectacles off.”

  Archie took them off and put them into his pocket.

  Donald’s face swam before his eyes.

  “SAY IT!”

  “Archie Grimble has a spotty arse.”

  “Show us then.”

  Archie gasped, kicked out suddenly and caught Donald on the shin with his calliper.

  “You bastard cripple you. Look, he’s made me bleed. Grab him, Kevin.”

  Kevin got behind him now, yanked his arms up behind his back.

  “Pull his trousers down,” Kevin yelled.

  Archie bucked, struggled with all his might to get free. His shoulders burned beneath Kevin’s grip.

  Hands grabbed for his shorts, wrestled with the cricket belt, yanked them downwards. The air was cold on his skin and goose bumps erupted like molehills on his belly.

  The wind whistled up the baggy legs of his underpants.

  He began to sob.

  “Get them down.”

  “Don’t, Donald!” Peter Kelly again now.

  “Shut up, gobshite.”

  “Bloody leave him be. Can’t you see he’s upset?”

  “He’s upset,” mimicked Donald in a squeaky voice. “Archie Grimble is upset and dying like the big babby he is.”

  Archie dosed his eyes, felt the tears squeeze out between his lashes. He just couldn’t bear it.

  Donald yanked at the loose elastic, gave a tug.

  “You’ll be sorry if you don’t stop,” Peter’s voice now, wobbly with fear.

  Gunshot rang through the air.

  Echoed for ever.

  Seagulls shrieked and far-off dogs barked.

  Kevin let go of Archie and he fell onto the wet sand, grabbing for his underpants and shorts…He pulled them up over his trembling legs.

  They were sopping wet and cold and the salty water stung his scratched legs. He fumbled in his pocket for his spectacles and put them on.

  The world around him shifted from thick cloud to daylight.

  The Kelly boys were standing before him as still as stone as if they were playing a game of statues. Their faces were as white as chip fat, eyes bulging with shock. Archie turned his head to the left.

  Mad Gwennie was out on the steps of the Boathouse.

  A pall of smoke twisting upwards from the gun she was pointing in their direction.

  There’s a song in the air but the fair señorita doesn’t seem to care…

  The Kellys were suddenly restored to life and were gone like the wind, leaping and skittering for cover.

  Mad Gwennie with a gun.

  Mad when riled his mammy had said.

  Archie Grimble limped behind them up the beach expecting a bullet between his shoulder blades at any moment.

  Oh, sweet Jesus, please make her miss…I’m only ten. Too young to die.

  The sound of mad Gwennie’s voice was echoing inside his head: “Get off home, you little bastards, before I pepper your arses for you!”

  He was crawling up the dunes, too afraid to look behind him, sobbing and spitting out sand. He paid no heed to the barbed wire or the PRIVATE signs, he was over the fence and off into the tangled undergrowth.

  By the time she reached the summerhouse Romilly Greswode was breathing heavily and her usually pale skin was flushed with colour, her eyes shining with exhilaration and fear.

  She leant against a tree to catch her breath and looked anxiously back towards Killivray House. She only had a few minutes because she was supposed to be in the library reading quietly while Nanny Bea was busy making scones in the kitchen.

  The summerhouse was in a sorry state. The wood was rotting and weeds and moss grew between the cracks.

  The door was ajar and Romilly took a hesitant step closer but was too afraid to go inside.

  In the photograph in the scrapbook the summerhouse looked such an inviting place, an exciting place for a child to enter into. The boy, Thomas Greswode, had looked so very happy standing outside there, smiling that lovely smile of his.

  She tried to find the exact place where he had been standing when the photograph was taken. Just about where she was now. She turned her back to the door, took up the boy’s pose, her arm raised as though she too were holding a bat and looking out at an imaginary photographer. She smiled awkwardly; she wasn’t used to smiling.

  Behind her the summerhouse door creaked ominously.

  Romilly turned around quickly.

  The door blew gently inwards with a groaning noise.

  Romilly stepped doser, pushed the door and took a deep breath as she stepped nervously inside.

  It was damp and cold and the smell of decay was strong in the fetid air, cobwebs shivered in the breeze. She looked down at the ground and saw the footprints in the dust.

  So someone had been in the summerhouse re
cently. Yet no one ever came to Killivray except for Papa and the delivery men from St Werburgh’s. It must have been the boy Thomas, so maybe she hadn’t imagined him after all.

  She lifted down a cracked cup from a dusty shelf. As she tipped it towards her a woodlouse fell out of it, landed on the dusty floor and scuttled away.

  She replaced the cup hurriedly and wiped her hands on her pinafore. To her right there was a large disintegrating leather sofa, riddled with holes through which tufts of horsehair poked out Behind the sofa there was a glass-fronted bookcase. She inched towards it, her breath loud in the silence. The glass was thick with grime, the lock rusted. She could see the shadowy outline of old books and ornaments behind the glass, a line of lead soldiers collapsed onto their sides.

  She tiptoed slowly around the summerhouse. In one dark corner there was a tea chest of old toys shrouded in cobwebs. There was an old horse carved from wood with a cart attached to it, a deflated leather ball, cracked with age and nibbled by mice and a cricket bat green with mould.

  She moved back towards the door and noticed the notches cut into the door frame. Someone had made marks there as though measuring a child’s height. On the left side there were marks and initials. CG 3’11’. TG 3’9’.

  TG had grown to a height of five feet two and a half and after that there were no more measurements. TG hadn’t grown very tall at all, not much bigger than Romilly was now.

  CG had been the tallest by far and standing on tiptoe Romilly read six feet and one inch.

  CG. Charles Greswode—that could be her grandfather.

  TG. Maybe that was Thomas Greswode!

  Perhaps Thomas Greswode had never grown up like other people did. Perhaps he had remained a child for ever, a child who was still around Killivray, a ghost child.

  Suddenly gunshot rent the air.

  Rooks exploded out of the trees in the wood with a terrible squawking. The cracked crockery on the shelf jiggled and Romilly stood rooted to the spot with fear.

  A gust of wind blew the door to the summerhouse shut and the glass in the windows rattled.

  She clenched her small fists and giggled nervously; it was only someone out in the woods poaching.

  Rough people from the Skallies looking for their dinner.

  Silence now.

  She walked across to the window and peeped out at Killivray House. She shivered with pleasure; how good it felt to be outside looking in instead of being shut up inside for hours on end.

  She could see the shadowy movements of Nanny Bea in the kitchen. She backed away from the window and perched on the edge of the sofa, sitting on her hands to keep her clothes dean.

  She thought how lovely it must have been in here in the olden days. She imagined the room cleaned up, the dust swept and the cobwebs cleared away. She imagined bright new curtains hung at the windows, wood crackling in the little iron stove and a hurricane lamp lit to chase away the gloom. Maybe you could even make a pot of tea and fill a tin with biscuits.

  If only it could be like it must have been once, she could have a little hidey hole of her own!

  She dosed her eyes and pictured Thomas Greswode curled up on the sofa, eating a windfall apple and reading his favourite adventure book. Maybe he even slept out here in the summer?

  The creak of the summerhouse door opening startled her. She opened her eyes and stared in trepidation as the door opened further.

  Then it stopped. She could hear laboured breathing. A madman on the loose with a gun? A lunatic escaped from the asylum? Why hadn’t she listened to Papa? He had always warned her and Mama about straying too far from the house.

  You didn’t know who was hanging about these days, the world was full of ne’er do wells and felons. She slipped silently off the sofa and ducked down behind it.

  She bit her lip and made the sign of the cross the way she’d seen Mama do. Beneath her Viyella blouse her heart flailed wildly and her throat tightened with terror.

  Whoever had opened the door was now inside the summerhouse and she heard the door dose with a rasping noise. Stealthy footsteps crossed the dusty floor.

  She must hold her breath, stay absolutely still, and keep her head down. The minutes ticked on. She was terrified of being found but even more terrified not to know what it was that she had to be afraid of. She peered warily around the side of the sofa.

  A man stood with his back to her, looking out of the largest window towards Killivray House. He was humming softly to himself, a tune that her mama had in her record collection:

  Ol’Man River, That Ol’Man River

  He must know sumpin’

  But don’t say nuthin’,

  He just keeps rottin’…

  He jus’ keeps rottin’,

  He keeps on rottin’ along…’

  He stopped humming and stiffened as if he had seen something unexpected. Then he turned around very, very slowly. Romilly ducked back down behind the sofa.

  She’d only had the briefest glimpse of him. He wore a beige belted mackintosh and a hat that was tilted down over his eyes so that his face was completely in shadow.

  For a moment she was sure that he had seen her, then she breathed out with relief as he crossed swiftly to the door and let himself out.

  Romilly waited a while and then got awkwardly to her feet and made her way to the door. She peeped outside. All was quiet just a light breeze stirring through the fir trees and the sound of the distant sea.

  She stepped outside and stared into a face as startled as her own.

  Clementine Fernaud checked her appearance in the mirror in the lavatory at St Werburgh’s station, applied a smidgeon of powder to her nose, adjusted her hair and her spectacles and men went outside to look for the car that was to take her to Killivray House. The train had been two hours late arriving and she hoped that there would still be a car waiting for her.

  She was quite exhausted and utterly frozen having spent an hour in the waiting room at Reading Station waiting for the connecting train to St Werburgh’s.

  She smiled with relief when she saw the car on the station forecourt.

  An elderly man got out of the car and shuffled towards’ her.

  “You’ll be the new governess for Killivray, I reckon,” he said, looking her up and down with interest.

  “I am so sorry to be late,” she said politely.

  “Don’t worry about that. Trains never arrive here on time.”

  The old man struggled to lift her valise into the car and Clementine resisted the urge to giggle as he handed her clumsily into the back of the vehicle.

  “You planning on staying at Killivray long?” the man asked, glancing at her in the mirror.

  Clementine kept her head turned away; she didn’t want to look into his eyes.

  “A few years, I dare say.”

  “Suppose it won’t be so bad for someone middle-aged like yourself. I reckon it would drive a youngster mad shut up there away from the world.”

  Clementine smirked. Middle-aged indeed! Well, the wig and glasses had certainly worked their magic!

  “Why do you say shut up away from the world?”

  “Because, Ma’am, the Greswodes don’t come out much. Funny lot of buggers they are. No visitors ever. I only get called out to drive about three times a year. Couple of trips to St Werburgh’s and the rest of the time they stay cooped up in the house.”

  “I see,” said Clementine.

  “Still you’re a foreigner, aren’t you? Mayhap you won’t find them strange at all.”

  Clementine put her hand to her mouth to cover her smile. Soon he grew tired of talking and she stared out of the window as the car bumped along the narrow country lanes.

  The closer they got to Killivray House the more excited she became. This was going to be one of the best acting roles of her life and when this unexpected episode was over she would be free and life would never be as bad again. She got out of the car, thanked the driver and gave him a half-crown.

  “First tip I ever had d
oing this run. Tight as a camel’s arse that lot are, as well as peculiar,” he said, nodding towards the house.

  Clementine Fernaud took a deep breath and walked up to the front door, tugged the bell pull and waited expectantly.

  Archie Grimble gawped at the open-mouthed girl standing before him. This must be the little girl from Killivray House, the one the Skallies folk said wasn’t quite right in the head.

  The girl stared back at Archie, her nostrils quivering with fear, eyebrows arched. She looked Archie up and down curiously, walked around him slowly, put out a trembling hand to touch him and then seemed to think better of it. Then she said, “Are you Thomas Greswode?”

  Archie stared at her in astonishment. He shook his head and tried to find his voice.

  “No,” he squeaked.

  “Are you quite sure?”

  People were right about her, she was nuts all right.

  “I’m sure I’m not.”

  “You’re absolutely positive? You look a little like him.”

  “Do I? Well, I’m not him because Thomas Greswode is dead.”

  The girl cocked her head on one side and narrowed her eyes. “I’m afraid you are mistaken. He, Thomas Greswode, is not dead because I saw him just this morning.”

  Archie felt the hairs on the nape of his neck bristle and a tremor of fear rattled up his backbone. He took a small step backwards away from this peculiar girl; he’d met enough bloody lunatics for one day.

  He knew that you were supposed to humour mad people until you had the chance to run away. You mustn’t startle them or they were apt to do dangerous things.

  “W…where did you see him?” he asked.

  “He was standing inside the summerhouse,” she said defiantly. “He was looking out of the window and he smiled at me.”

  “Oh.” Archie looked uncomfortably down at his feet.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” There was a tremor and the hint of a challenge in her voice.

  “I, the thing is, there’s a kind of gravestone thing in the w…wobbly chapel with his name on and it does say that he’s dead.”

  “When was he supposed to have died?”

  “August the, er, 21st 1900.”

  “But that was ages ago.”