by Will Maclean
LOCAL GIRL’S DEATH RULED
‘MISADVENTURE’
Police have ruled out foul play after a local girl was found to have died of a drugs overdose. An ambulance was called to an address in Laughton Gardens, where the young woman, Janice Tupp, was living with her boyfriend, Kevin Masters.
‘Jesus Christ!’
The sound of my own voice startled me in the empty house. No, this couldn’t be, surely? I had seen her just last week.
Masters called 999 after Tupp, 17, fell unconscious and became unresponsive. Masters told ambulance staff that she was addicted to heroin, and had relapsed after a recent attempt to kick the drug. Miss Tupp’s mother is said to be ‘distraught’, and has asked for privacy at this difficult time.
I re-read the short article twice, then folded the newspaper with excessive care and replaced it on the coffee table. Then I simply sat, staring into the reflection of the living room in the grey-green of the dead television screen.
Once, my sister and I had played a trick on Janice Tupp. And Janice had turned the tables, visiting on us the same disturbed and haunted feeling we had no doubt produced in her. And now, a few years and a lifetime later, out of the three of us who had gathered that day, only I was still definitely alive.
Then I was on the darkened stairway, with no recollection of how I got there, heading upstairs. I had to see the attic. I had to convince myself – the only remaining witness – that this event had happened at all.
Dad had repainted the upper landing a month or so ago, in a jaundiced yellow that made the space seem somehow smaller, but the wooden ladder up to the attic had not been touched. I turned the light on and climbed. I thought for a horrible second that Dad might have redecorated up there too.
As soon as I saw the attic, relief flooded through me. It was, more or less, exactly as Abi and I had left it. There were the bookcases, filled to bursting with Pan Anthologies of Horror and Fontana Books of Ghost Stories and books on English Folklore; there were the two armchairs facing each other, with the small table in between. And there, too, was the doll’s house on top of the chest, with a fracture running down its front, no doubt still harbouring its horrible little tenants. There were the bits of taxidermy, the shells and skulls and horns we’d found on innumerable country walks. I ran my hand over the back of the armchair Abi had always sat in, and I saw the dark brown wall, the wall on which we had chalked our towering entity, bringing him into existence through the medium of chalk dust that billowed and blurred like smoke, to change the course of all of our lives. I shuddered, and felt a chill.
The next afternoon, although Dad cheerily asked me if I wanted to come along to the hospital to see Mum again, I simply couldn’t face it. The idea of being trapped in the boiling ward, between the voluntary and involuntary silences of both parents, made me feel almost ill. Mum had been cut off from me, first by grief, and then much more dramatically by illness, but the more I thought about it, the more Dad had always been cut off from both of his children, long before Abi disappeared. He would never ask me what was bothering me, and if I told him, he would not be interested. My distress at hearing of Janice’s sad, squalid fate was just another of the many important things in my life he would never know anything about.
I stayed at home. It occurred to me to ring Yarlings, but I had nothing new to say, and the chances of Sally answering the phone again were slim. Eventually, the emptiness of the house grew oppressive; I fidgeted and thought. I needed something to occupy me. What would be the best use of my time? It had been a long while since I had asked myself that question.
In the attic, I pulled out several books from mine and Abi’s library. If I couldn’t be at Yarlings, I could at least attempt to discover something useful at home. I settled into my armchair – I wouldn’t have dared sit in Abi’s – and started to read.
The haunting at Yarlings seemed to have some points in common with other famous hauntings. The loud crash we had heard had some precedent in the haunting of Hinton Ampner, as described by Sacheverell Sitwell, Elliott O’Donnell and others; but the case it most closely resembled was still that of Borley Rectory. I read again Harry Price’s transcripts of the séances, where it seemed some discarnate thing was growing in strength, making itself known.
It was early evening when I awoke. The attic was silent, as was the house, which told me that, although I must have drifted into sleep, Dad wasn’t home yet. I stretched and craned my neck. I headed back down the ladder. Halfway down, I froze.
I found myself staring into a room I’d never seen before.
It was where Abi’s room had been, but it was not Abi’s room. I could have sworn the door had been closed when I went up to the attic.
I switched the light on and walked inside, utterly unable to decipher what I was seeing. What was formerly Abi’s room – with all of Abi’s things, exactly as she had left them on the day she disappeared – was now empty of all furnishings. White wallpaper covered the places where the posters and pages of magazines and Abi’s own drawings had been. Her bed and desk had disappeared, replaced by a single bed and a bedside table with a sorry-looking potted plant on it.
I must have descended the stairs at some point. I must have gone into the living room and sat on the sofa for a long time, because that’s where I was when I heard Dad’s key in the front door. He padded down the hallway to where I sat.
‘What are you sitting here in the dark for?’ He flicked the overhead light on. Something about my body language made him pause for a second. I glared up at him.
‘What is it?’ he began to say.
‘Abi’s room,’ I said, over this question.
A strained silence fell.
‘Did you hear me? What do you have to say about it?’
‘I don’t have anything to say about it.’ He sounded weary, a weariness with no discernible limits.
‘You have … nothing to say?’ I spat, hunching forward on the sofa.
‘Tim, it’s been a long day, and I’m tired. Just give it a rest, yeah?’
‘What have you done with all of her things?’
He sighed and turned away, as if the conversation bored him.
‘I said,’ getting to my feet now, ‘what have you done with her things?’
‘What I should have done ages ago,’ he muttered, looking away.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I said, what I should have done ages ago! I binned the bloody lot!’
‘What?’ I bellowed. ‘Why would you do that?’
‘Because she’s not coming back, Tim!’ Dad shouted back. ‘She’s dead! She’s lying dead in a bloody ditch somewhere, or worse, and the sooner we all move on—’
My first blow was a good one, and it caught him unprepared. He fell backwards, hard, against the wall, and I saw his face look shocked and then angry before I landed a second. He bent double, and I was unsure what to do next when he straightened up, and, with a furious, animal roar, grabbed me by the shoulders and hair and threw me out into the hallway. I went sprawling on the rug.
‘She’s dead!’ he screamed, as if scalded. His fists came down on me, flailing, uncoordinated, relentless. I tried to crawl away, but he picked me up and hurled me against the wall, pinning me there with a forearm. His eyes contained nothing I recognised.
‘What did you do with her things?’ I sobbed, through the pain in my stomach and ribs.
‘What?’ he said scornfully, as if this were the last thing anybody could possibly be concerned with at this point. ‘What?’
‘Her things! What—’ My breath left me and I had to pause. His forearm still pinned me to the wall. ‘What – did you do – with her things?’
The pressure of his arm on my neck subsided, and I felt the strength drain from him. ‘I threw it all out.’ He looked away as he said it.
I threw his arm off me in disgust.
‘Tim,’ he started to say, behind me. ‘Tim—’
I shook my head sadly. My rucksack was in the hallway and I scooped it up as I lef
t.
‘Tim, please. I’m sorry. There’s no excuse for what I just did. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately, and your mother—Tim. Please—’
Evening had become night. The first stars were twinkling. The street was very quiet, as if it had been listening.
I walked down the sloping pathway to the gate, when an idea struck me. Returning to the house, I ducked into the side passageway where the bins were.
They were all empty, apart from one, half-filled with kitchen waste, chicken skin, potato peelings and newspapers. I was about to leave when I spied something – a flash of bright blue – stuck in the filth at the bottom of the bin.
Of all the things that could have survived.
It was face down. Open, on one page, as if tucked there deliberately.
This was my one chance, I realised, my one opportunity to know. I rolled my sleeve up, and, with infinite care, reached into the cold slimy scraps, taking care to keep the place in the book it had fallen open on. I dragged it out, and laid it carefully on the concrete, revealing the message that was uppermost, the page that luck and circumstance had chosen to show me from our Book of Fates. And there, in Abi’s handwriting, the words, the only words there could ever be, and what other words did I expect?
THERE IS NOTHING
I picked up the book and something fluttered out. Two dead eyes stared up at me from a formless face that looked like smoke, but only I knew was really chalk. I placed the photo inside the book and closed it with care. Abi and I had both signed our names on the front; I wept a little. Several feet away, through the wall, was Dad, collecting himself and reshaping what had just happened into something less jagged, something he was less to blame for, unaware of how much he had harmed me. I was painfully aware, too, of how much I was now responsible for his wellbeing, and how the right thing to do would be to stay, to apologise, to forgive, to embrace, to see him through this period and hope and pray that Mum would wake up. But the truth was, in that moment, I despised them both.
I began walking.
IV
* * *
37
I called Yarlings from a phone box at the station. The mouthpiece of the receiver smelled of stale cigarette smoke and Wrigley’s chewing gum. The dial tone sounded for what felt like minutes: I imagined that everyone was at the other end of the house, arguing about who got up to answer the telephone. Eventually, I heard Neil’s lugubrious voice.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, Neil?’
‘Tim? How’s your mum?’
‘She’s fine, thanks. Well, I mean, not fine as such. She’s still unconscious.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Neil said indifferently.
‘The truth is,’ I said, preparing to lie, ‘I’m pretty useless here, to be honest with you. Dad’s got things under control and I’m just getting in his way.’
‘Oh?’ Neil sounded surprised.
‘Yeah, Mum’s stable and unlikely to change much at the moment so … look, I know it’s getting late, but is there any possibility someone could pick me up from the station tonight? The last train gets in at your end at about eleven-fifteen. Would that be OK?’
‘Well,’ said Neil, ‘I can’t drive, so it won’t be me meeting you.’
Somewhere in the phone system, the pips sounded. I had already put the last of my change into the slot.
‘But do you think someone will be able to meet me?’
‘Yeah, I’m sure one of the others will be able to pick you up.’
‘Thanks, Neil. Eleven-fifteen, yes?’
‘Yes. Someone’ll be there.’
Relief flooded through me. ‘And how have things been at the house?’
‘Ah. Now you’re asking. There’s been—’
The call ended.
Two hours later, with the moon rising on a warm English summer night, I sat with my cupped hands to the window of the train and stared out at the dark blur of fields and farms and towns. Eventually, I stood waiting by the door of the train, irrationally terrified that I would miss my stop and end up wandering the dark, unfamiliar countryside alone. What could be worse than that?
I was the only person to disembark at the tiny station. In the ticket hall, next to the dead fireplace, was Sally. She smiled a radiant smile; she wore a large patterned coat lined with fake fur, and a pair of knee-length orange boots. She looked far too exotic and vibrant for the drab little station, like a hoopoe in a suburban garden. She hugged me and I buried my face in her hair, which smelled of the sunshine at the Rollright Stones. I could have cried with relief. The past was traumatic, the future uncertain, but right now, there was this.
‘How is everything?’ she asked.
‘Fine, now.’ I felt bold and light-headed, able to say things like this.
‘How is your mother?’
‘The doctors expect her to make a full recovery. We just have to wait.’ I said this less as a conscious lie and more as a way of terminating the conversation as quickly as possible. ‘How has everything been at the house?’
Sally smiled. ‘Interesting. It’s been interesting.’
‘What do you mean? Did something happen at the séances?’ The only other person in the waiting room, an elderly man, looked up briefly from his newspaper, but said nothing.
‘Not as such,’ said Sally, lowering her voice. ‘In fact, the last few sessions have been quite garbled. But it turns out that someone made his presence felt in … other ways.’
‘Really? How?’
‘I’ll tell you all about it on the way. Better still, if you wait ten minutes, the others can tell you.’
Sally eased the car round the U-shaped driveway, and I saw that there were lights on all over the house. Yarlings seemed more solid than I recalled, more purposeful, somehow bolder. I was reminded of Sally’s painting, where she had made the house so concrete a presence it seemed to oppress its surroundings, melting them into vapour. If, once, Yarlings had felt to me half-dreamed, half-imagined, then now it was fully present, fully and undeniably here. The surrounding trees, still as photographs in the windless night, seemed to shrink back from the house, as if they were afraid to touch it.
I knew it was dangerous to view this as a homecoming, but I was unable to stop myself – the sweet cold smell of an English summer night, the distant cry of a barn owl, the beaten gold three-quarter moon – I almost felt these things were my birthright. My fingers touched the jagged wall as Sally fumbled for the keys; I worked my fingers into the space between two stones, felt the rough mortar. I desperately wanted to feel the moment, to experience the house, the evening, Sally – all of it. To be part of the world, not distant from it. At that moment, the need to be present – to exist, and matter, somewhere – felt almost physical.
Everyone except for Graham was in the Great Hall. Seb, Juliet and Polly sat in armchairs in front of the lifeless fireplace, playing cards. Neil sat some small distance away, reading, and was the first to look up when I entered.
‘Welcome back,’ he said, returning to his book. ‘Couldn’t stay away, hmm?’
‘Tim!’ said Juliet, rising to greet me.
‘You don’t hang about, do you?’ said Seb. ‘It’s only been two days.’
‘It’s good to see you!’ said Polly, with a huge smile. ‘How is your mother?’
The lie had become my truth, now, and it was easy repeating to them what I had told Sally.
‘Well, we’re very glad you came back,’ said Sally, and smiled at me.
‘What’s been happening here?’ I said. ‘I understand Tobias has been active?’
‘Very much so,’ said Neil. ‘We heard footsteps.’
‘Really?’ I tried and failed to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
‘Oh yes,’ said Polly. ‘All the way along the upper landing, thud, thud, thud, then they stopped – as if something caught his eye, and he wanted a better look. Then they started again.’
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. ‘Wow.’
‘
It was really far out,’ said Seb. ‘Great stuff!’
Juliet tutted and shook her head. ‘It was horrible, you mean.’
‘What?’ said Seb. ‘Oh, come on. After hours of cryptic messages, it’s quite a relief to hear him be unambiguous for once.’
‘It was that good?’ I said, before I could stop myself.
‘It was great!’ said Seb, grinning. ‘Heavy footsteps, like hobnail boots. Proper haunted house stuff! Personally, I was disappointed the old sod didn’t rattle any chains, but you can’t have everything.’
I was annoyed. Yes, I had seen Mum, but she hadn’t seen me. It had been a matter of total indifference to her whether I had been there or not. And Dad had been around only to be unreasonable. And now I had missed the most impressive manifestation produced so far.
‘What did Graham make of it?’
‘He wasn’t here. He was in his study.’
‘And you’re sure it wasn’t him?’ I said, before I could stop myself.
‘Tim!’ said Sally, somewhat aghast.
‘I have to ask,’ I said. ‘It’s hardly scientific if you’re not all accounted for.’
‘He was definitely in his study,’ said Neil. ‘Came running in through that door when he heard the commotion.’ He paused. ‘Although now you mention it, he could have come down through the back stairway after producing the footsteps.’
‘Graham wouldn’t do that!’ said Sally, hotly. ‘He’s as excited as any of us by all this!’
‘It’s all right,’ said Neil, alarmed. ‘I didn’t say he’d done anything.’
‘You certainly implied it.’ Sally seemed extremely upset. She shot me a hostile look and I felt sick. ‘And Tim, you weren’t even here. Graham wouldn’t do anything of the kind.’
‘What wouldn’t I do?’ said Graham. He had performed his usual trick of coming in without anybody hearing. I had a very strong mental image of him creeping towards us as we argued, enjoying our discord, drinking it in.
‘Neil thinks you may have faked the footsteps we heard,’ Sally said bitterly.
