by Rob Campbell
“Thanks, Victoria.”
“Do you enjoy the industrial revolution?”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. Was it a trick question? “Err… I guess so.”
“Well, nevertheless, you’ve shown real flair. Your arguments came across as convincing. It just seemed like it was a subject that you are passionate about.”
“Can I be honest?” I said, not so much feigning embarrassment, but genuinely feeling it.
“Always.”
“It’s not my favourite subject, but I like history. And I enjoy the research. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the industrial revolution or geography homework, or even if I’m writing at home.”
“Writing at home?” Victoria asked, her interest piqued.
“Well, yes, I want to be a journalist.”
“Ahhh. Well, based on your work so far, admittedly a small sample, I’d say that you might just have a flair for it.”
I smiled again, not quite sure what to say. Two weeks in and I couldn’t find a reason to dislike my new teacher who was just about perfect. Maybe some of the slackers, as she called them, didn’t think so, but I was prepared to work at the subject, and I had high hopes for an interesting year in Victoria’s class. Based on the evidence so far, she certainly seemed to like me.
I wondered whether she’d still feel the same way next week if I had to admit that I hadn’t been able to decide on a subject for my project.
* * *
The warm glow that Victoria’s encouraging words had kindled inside me translated into confidence that I put to good use when climbing the wall of the old railway bridge that evening. Having spent the last year coaching me in the rudiments of scaling single-storey buildings using drainpipes, gates, and other pieces of hardware that were commonplace on the dwellings and businesses around town, Monkey had decided that I should try out my blossoming skill on something a bit more challenging.
With the edges of my soles resting on a layer of bricks that ran around the old stonework of the bridge, I reached out for a leaf-covered vine that was just above my left hand. The fading light made it hard to see where one piece of foliage ended and another started.
“Don’t put all your weight on it yet!” yelled Monkey from his position a few metres below me on the ground.
“What do I do then?” I shouted back, not daring to turn around to look at him.
“Focus on your balance first, and when you’re comfortable, reach out and give it a tug.”
“What’s the point of that?”
“You need to know that it’s going to take your weight.”
“Are you saying I’m fat?”
“No… I just… I don’t want to…”
I smiled to myself, taking pleasure in my friend’s discomfort. “Relax, I’m only kidding.”
“I don’t want you to fall. You should be concentrating on the climb, not poking fun at me,” he called indignantly.
Finally, I managed to grasp the end of the vine, giving it a couple of pulls as Monkey had instructed. The scent of leaves filled my nostrils. Despite the cold air, I was glad that it wasn’t hay fever season. The vine seemed solid enough, and wrapping it several times around my wrist, I hoisted myself up into the knotted roots that clung to the brickwork.
I heard Monkey start his ascent. “Good, now just hang on there a minute until I catch up with you.”
I waited for a few seconds, still not daring to turn around in case the movement should unbalance me. Soon, I could hear Monkey’s breathing just below me. “Right, you’re doing well, but from this point on, you can’t rely on the brickwork. It’s all vines from here.”
Taking a few deep breaths, and with my left hand firmly meshed in with the roots and vines that clung to the side of the bridge, I grabbed another handful with my right hand and pulled myself higher. By repeating this left-right movement and ensuring that my feet were similarly wedged into the tightly packed roots, I was able to reach the top of the bridge in a couple of minutes. Pulling myself over the stone lip, I sat on the brick edging that ran along the south side of the bridge. Monkey wasn’t long in joining me.
When he sat on the edge next to me, he pulled a leaf from a vine and dropped it down to the stone path that ran below the bridge. We watched it drift in the windless air until it disappeared into the gathering gloom. “Well done, you’re getting good at this,” he said.
“I’ve got a good teacher, but thanks anyway. I must be doing something right; that’s two lots of praise today.”
“How’s that?”
I told him how Victoria had praised my history homework.
“She sounds nice,” he commented. “I wish I had a teacher like that.”
“She is,” I agreed.
“So, you’re enjoying college?”
“Oh yeah, it’s far better than school.”
Monkey’s face took on a sober appearance, the lines around the edge of his mouth pulling taut as if he was preparing to deliver some important words. “Look, now the climb is out of the way, I’ve got some news for you. I didn't want to mention it before because I wanted you to concentrate on getting up here safely.”
“Okay, go on,” I said suspiciously. “It’s not about your Uncle Archie, is it?” I asked, remembering Monkey’s recent comments about his estranged uncle wanting to contact him out of the blue after all these years.
“Nah. Hopefully I’ve put him off. I’m certainly not going to worry about it.”
“That’s good.”
“No, the thing is, they’ve released Goofy from the hospital. I heard one of the lads talking about it in school today.”
I still had nightmares about our encounter with Charles Gooch in the service tunnel under the reservoir. How Goofy Muldoon had been screaming from the bowels of the earth, and how he had been in a near-catatonic state when we’d first visited him on the psychiatric ward. “So, they’ve cured him of…?” Of what, I didn’t know.
“He’s talking, which is good, but he’s certainly not right. So I hear anyway.”
All things considered, it would be a long, hard road to recovery for the youth who’d tormented Monkey and me. But I struggled to retain any bitterness towards Goofy after what he’d been through. I wondered if Monkey felt the same way after the thug had burned him with cigarettes.
We sat in silence for a few minutes, drinking in the tranquillity of our surroundings. The old railway bridge was a relic from another age; no track ran across it anymore, and yet in its redundancy, it had found new life as a woodland folly that towered above the walking trail.
“It’s good to get out of the town, don’t you think?” I asked Monkey.
He shrugged noncommittally. “I suppose.”
“That business with the plane crash. That poor guy who died. What do you make of it?”
“Don’t know, I guess he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Things like that happen. Why did my dad die? Why did yours?”
I looked up sharply, the mention of Dad’s death causing an icy stab in my heart. Monkey must have seen my reaction. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“It’s okay.” He’d done more than most to take my mind off my dad when I’d needed the distraction last year, but he was right – these things happened to people, whether it was in this town or somewhere else.
Suddenly, Monkey seemed animated. “You don’t think…”
“It did cross my mind,” I said, responding to the incomplete question that I was sure Monkey was asking. “Nothing ever happens in this town, and then we find Lester’s coin, Charles Gooch turns up and suddenly things start happening.”
“But what could the crash have to do with Charles Gooch or Lester?”
“It’s probably nothing,” I admitted. But there was something troubling me. Maybe after all that had happened to us, I was starting to look for conspiracies and hidden connections that simply weren’t there, but I thought back to the terrified look on the vicar’s face at the crash site. Then there was all this
business with his congregation and their apocalyptic visions.
We walked back into town, avoiding the route past the petrol station.
“So, do you fancy the theatre on Saturday night?” I asked Monkey. I wasn’t sure it was his thing, but given that Anja had managed to get two extra tickets, I had to at least try.
“What, with Greg whatshisface?”
“Greg?” I asked, confused.
“Yeah, that bloke off the telly. The one who loves antiques.”
“That’s him, but he’s not called Greg.”
Now it was Monkey’s turn to act confused. “You told me just before we got to the bridge. Greg Ayre or something.”
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.
“What’s so funny?”
I had to force myself to wait until my giggles subsided before explaining. “Never change, Monkey. Never change. You asked me what he was like and I said that I didn’t know too much about him, but my mum said that he was a gregarious chap!”
“Gregarious?” he repeated, my explanation doing little to clarify the situation for him.
“It means that he’s full of life, likes to be around people. How could you forget a name like Henry Bannister-Reeves?”
Chapter 8
By the time Saturday night rolled around, most of the TV crews had left town, their work in bringing the tragic story to a nation complete, and no doubt looking for the next big story. Whilst the overnight evacuation might have been bad news for the local catering establishments, I was hoping that things could start getting back to normal now. So, the sight of a large group of people gathered on the main street as I turned the corner was a shock.
Fortunately, I quickly realised that the reason for this gathering was that the Beck Theatre had yet to open its doors to the public. As I neared the main entrance, I could see that Monkey was waiting for me.
“Not a bad turn out, eh?” he asked as he casually leaned against a sign that had been placed on the pavement. “I wasn’t convinced about coming tonight, but seeing this lot has got me excited,” he added, sweeping out his arm to take in the crowd.
“A bit of culture will do you good. You can’t spend the rest of your life climbing, you know!” I tried to look above the heads of the crowd to spot Anja. She had the tickets, and excited or not, we wouldn’t be getting into the event without her. Seeing her shiny, black hair on the edge of the crowd, I relaxed a little and called her name. She turned towards us, flashing her dazzling smile.
“Lorna, Monkey, glad you could make it.”
“Couldn’t miss a real live TV star when he’s in town, could we?”
“I think star would be pushing it, but I’m told that Mr Bannister-Reeves is good value with his stories.”
As if on cue, a youth dressed in a black suit appeared behind the grand glass doors. To my eyes, he looked a bit overdressed given that his main duties tonight would probably amount to unlocking the door and pointing people to their seats, but it appeared that the theatre manager was intent on making a decent show of things. I could see him standing in front of the concession stand with a pasted-on smile, wringing his hands as if the small entrance fee shelled out by a few hundred guests would suddenly reverse the fortunes of his backwater showhouse. By the look on his deputy’s youthful face, he was a bit taken aback at the size of the crowd – his eyes darted left and right as if calculating which of the doors to open first, and it took a couple of rapid hand gestures from his boss to spur him into action. Sliding the vertical bolt from the ground, he swept back the doors, and the expectant crowd surged forward.
Anja stifled a laugh. “Look at them. I bet half of these folk haven’t been to the theatre in years, but wave a B-list celebrity under their noses and they act like they’re at the Oscars!”
We followed the crowd as it filed through the double doors, and Anja handed her ticket to the manager.
“Good evening! How are we tonight?” he asked.
“Fine, thanks,” Anja responded.
“I hope you’ll be giving us a good write-up in the Recorder,” he added without missing a beat.
“That depends. I don’t know what the entertainment is going to be like yet.”
The manager’s mask slipped for a second, and he scowled at Monkey and me as we followed Anja into his theatre. Monkey couldn’t help but giggle.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he whispered to the manager as he strode past.
To his credit, the manager recovered quickly enough to apply his sickly smile for the next party. “Good evening! How are we tonight?” I heard him say to the group of ladies behind us.
The theatre had seen better days. Despite the best efforts of the cleaning staff, the carpet was still tatty – what once may have been bright scarlet was now crimson at best, as if a good deal of blood had been spilt over the years. Unlike the modern multiplex cinema in the retail park on the edge of town, there were no luxury seats: just rows of old wooden seats that would have us jammed shoulder-to-shoulder for the next hour and a half or so. Taking stock of the scene, I was transported back to my grandad’s tales of the old music hall days. If it wasn’t for the relatively modern lighting rig that hung above our heads, illuminating the stage, the setting wouldn’t have been out of place anytime in the last fifty years. Or so I imagined.
As we took our seats in row F, I was surprised to see a familiar face in the seat nearest the central aisle.
“Frank! What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Hi, Lorna. Fancy seeing you here,” he replied, rising to shake our hands.
“We could say the same about you,” Anja commented.
Frank beamed. “Anja, lovely to see you again. You know what Lester’s like. He likes me to keep an eye on things around town.”
Notionally, Frank was employed as Lester’s chauffeur, but in the year or so that I’d known him, I’d never seen Lester in the back of his car. In fact, with all the comings and goings to Rockside, Lester’s mansion, I’d begun to think that Frank was more like our driver.
“Is Lester not here tonight?” Anja asked Frank, who simply shook his head. Although Frank had not explicitly stated the fact, I’d come to believe that Lester was an agoraphobic who much preferred to spend his time in his opulent mansion rather than waste it around town.
We settled into our seats, Anja between Frank and Monkey, me on the right of our little group. The theatre was beginning to fill up now, although there were a few unoccupied seats at the end of our row. About twenty seats away, a fat middle-aged man with greasy blonde hair flopped onto his seat. He looked around apprehensively, as if unsure whether he was in the right place. Momentarily glancing to my left to assess how full the seats were on that side of the theatre, I was shocked when I caught the fat man staring at me when I once again looked down the row. His piggy eyes had a calculating look. Was he really looking at me? Or at Monkey or Anja? It was hard to tell, but when he saw me staring back, he turned away sharply as if finding a sudden interest in the lighting fixture on the wall. I’d felt uncomfortable under his glare and shifted in my seat, hoping that the movement would help dissipate my anxiety.
At that moment, the lights began to dim, and a murmur of anticipation rose from the crowd. I took that moment to glance down the row again, relieved to see that my would-be stalker had obviously lost interest and stared intently at the stage. In the last moment of fading light, a man slipped into the seat next to him. The latecomer had the look of a student, although somewhat older. He was dressed in a knee-length leather coat that flapped open to reveal a rock music T-shirt, and he sported a pair of trendy steel-frame glasses that gripped the side of his close-cropped black hair. He smiled at the fat man, who reciprocated.
There was a smattering of applause as the portly figure of Henry Bannister-Reeves took to the stage.
Monkey leaned in towards me. “I don’t recognise him.”
“It’s definitely him,” I clarified, probably unnecessarily. “You sound disappointed.”
&nbs
p; Monkey shrugged, turning back to the stage, where Henry was already milking the crowd as he took a sip from the glass of water that stood on a small table, centre stage.
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your warm welcome to this splendid old town!” By now, the applause had ceased, and a hushed reverence descended on the auditorium. “But before we start, I’d like to take a little time to remember those who died and those who were injured in the tragic events of a few days ago.” The historian bowed his head and let a few moments pass.
“Thank you,” he proclaimed simply, to a gentle ripple of applause.
“You may be wondering why I’ve chosen to come to this lovely theatre tonight as part of my Living History tour.” A few disembodied voices from various parts of the audience indicated that yes, there were at least a few patrons who were wondering exactly that.
“For the last three weeks or so, I’ve been giving similar lectures in various, shall we say, lesser-known venues up and down the country. But I come here tonight to talk about this man.” Henry paused his speech to press a button on a remote control, and a portrait appeared on the pull-down screen at the back of the stage. I didn’t recognise the subject; it could have been any eighteenth or nineteenth-century noble staring back from the pages of a history book for all I knew.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Josiah Abram.”
That was the introduction to an enthralling half-hour, delivered with all the boundless enthusiasm of a professional know-it-all, as Frank would later comment. But despite the potential dry nature of the subject, Henry managed to make every detail seem important, often engaging the audience on their thoughts on this or that painting that he displayed on the screen. When a painting of a horse and cart on a canal towpath popped up, I felt sure that it looked familiar but couldn’t place the memory. I was particularly interested in the fact that this Josiah Abram, who until tonight I’d never heard of, was famous in Culverton Beck in the late eighteen hundreds. He was even buried in the cemetery next to St Stephen’s church. I wondered whether the vicar, troubled as he was with recent events, was somewhere in the audience being entertained by all this fascinating disclosure and whether he knew that he had a famous artist buried in his graveyard.
