2003 - A Jarful of Angels (7 page)

At night Iffy, Fatty, Billy and Bessie hung around on the stone, waiting for the off-chance of a look: pianos and diamond chandeliers; decanters with silver labels; aspidistra and waxy lilies. There was talk of a greenhouse with grapes. And inside lawies where a hand came out to wipe your bum when you’d finished, like the Queen of England.

Iffy grabbed Fatty’s arm and pointed. “There she is!”

A shadow crossed the arched window.

“Spooky,” said Bessie, pulling her bunny-wool cardie closer round her body.

The light was extinguished as quickly as it had come on.

“Now you see it. Now you don’t,” said Fatty.

It reminded Iffy of a curtain closing on a stage set, like the plays she’d seen once or twice in the Welfare Hall.

“Hey, look!” Fatty said pointing down towards the bridge.

Reluctantly they took their eyes from the window. Carry Annie came over the hump-backed bridge dragging her wooden cart behind her.

Iffy waved. Carty Annie was nearly as fascinating as Mrs Medlicott. She was a lunatic, quite mad but not dangerous.

Carty Annie stopped when she reached them and stared at the four of them as if she had never seen them before. Then she smiled a warm, wrinkly, smile.

Bessie looked away quickly.

Iffy smiled back and peeped slyly into the cart. Just empty jam jars and the usual pile of old junk.

“Couldn’t ketch any of them little feckers today! Too bloody quick by half so they were…but I’ll have the little bastards. I’ll get the devious little wasters.”

Bessie sniffed with disgust and pressed her hands tight over her ears.

“What you trying to catch, Old Missus?” said Fatty innocently.

“Aha, wouldn’t you like to know!” said Carty Annie tapping her nose with her finger, her eyes twinkling wickedly in the moonlight. “This time o’ night’s a good time…when the moon is rising. Moonlight’s a good time. They get drowsy see. Aha! Early or late I’ll nab the feckin’ little eejits!”

Iffy snorted.

Bessie nudged Iffy hard in the ribs and then pulled her cardie up over her head to keep the filth out.

Iffy loved the way Carty Annie swore. It made her shiver with pleasure.

A dog barked over in the Big House. It was a pedigree, Fatty had told Iffy. Pedigrees knew more about their families than most people did.

Carty Annie sidled up closer to them and whispered, “You keep away from there, mind,” and she pointed towards the shadowy house.

“Why’s that then?” asked Fatty.

“Bad things happened in there. Very bad things.”

She looked at Iffy. Iffy stared back into the old woman’s shining eyes, she could see herself reflected in them, her own eyes huge with interest and fear.

“Things that should never have happened.”

“What sort of things?”

“Lies and secrets. They sent her away,” said Carty Annie, shaking her head from side to side. “Sent her away and she never knew the truth. And worse things besides happened in there. Babies buried, then not buried. Disgraceful what they done to that cat!”

“What sort of things?”

“You just keep away. I seen him, see.”

“Who?”

“That old fellow, the old doctor what killed himself. Didn’t kill himself because he was sorry, not at all. Killed himself so’s he wouldn’t swing on the rope.”

“What rope?” said Fatty.

“If they’d found a body they would have had him.”

“When did you see him?” asked Fatty, his eyes bright with excitement.

“One night last November, the Feast of all Saints. I followed one of them little bastards in there through the secret way, then I lost it…and then I seen him.”

“Where was he?”

“I heard this glugging sound.” She made choking noises in her throat. “Then bubbling and a slappy slopping sound and there he was…”

Iffy shivered.

“He come up out of the pond…dripping with weeds.”

Iffy’s eyes were stretching so much they ached.

Bessie turned her back on Carty Annie. She didn’t believe her. It wasn’t true.

“He was soaked to the skin, covered all over in slime…”

Bessie wanted her to stop.

“He opened his mouth and a goldfish popped out…”

Bessie began to wheeze.

The Old Bugger hooted again.

“And the statues started to dance, round and round, and the one, the one with no head, was searching all over for something.”

Fatty wondered how it could search with no head.

“Then he started to walk round the garden – slip slop slip – like he was looking for something.”

Then Carty Annie stopped. She looked Bessie up and down. Got up close and stared right into Bessie’s face.

“Jesus!” she said. “You’re as ugly as a feckin’ gargoyle with your jaw hanging open like that. Well, see you then.” And Carty Annie trundled away up the road, muttering to herself. When she came to the gates of the Big House she stepped out into the road and took the same half circle that the chidren always did. On she went, away past the Big House and on towards Dancing Duck Lane.

“She’s horrible,” said Bessie. “What’s a gargoyle?”

None of them knew.

“I don’t believe her anyway, about ghosts and things. She’s mad. And she smells,” said Bessie.

“That’s just because you don’t want to believe her,” said Fatty.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,”

They knew she did though. Bessie was afeared of her own shadow.

They all believed in ghosts. They wanted to see one and they didn’t at the same time.

“Have you ever seen where she lives?” said Bessie.

Fatty shook his head. He didn’t want anyone to know he’d been poking about in Dancing Duck Lane, didn’t want them to know what he’d found there, especially Bessie, she could never keep her trap shut about anything.

“No,” said Iffy, “but it’s supposed to be haunted,”

Bessie shivered.

“Where is it?” she said.

“Up past the Big House, over the stile and on down a lonely spooky lane where once a man hanged himself from a tree by his bootlaces,”

“I wonder what it is she catches,” said Bessie.

“Probably butterflies,” Iffy guessed.

“Moths,” said Fatty. “Big hairy ones with teeth!”

“Ugh! I hate moths!” Bessie said.

“Spiders and poisonous snakes!” Fatty said.

Bessie screwed up her face with horror.

“Look! There she is again.” Iffy pointed.

The light had come on again in the Big House. The dark shadow of old Mrs Medlicott moved again across the archway of light. They caught a fleeting glimpse of the silhouette of a stout woman, with a big hook nose and tight-coiled plaits arranged on the side of her head like earmuffs.

Iffy shuddered and pulled down the cuffs of her jersey over her hands.

“She looks horrible,” said Bessie.

“Like a witch!”

“No such thing as witches,” Bessie stammered, but she didn’t sound too sure.

Somewhere nearby a bat squeaked. So did Bessie. She held on tight to her ringlets, she was terrified in case a bat got caught in her hair and she had to have it all cut off into a crew cut. There were foreign bats that sucked your blood…Iffy imagined Bessie sucked dry until she was just a pile of loose skin and ringlets.

The shadow crossed the lighted window again. The old woman paced back and forth like a soldier on guard.

“Looks like she’s reading a book,” Bessie said.

“The Bible,” said Fatty. “They say she reads it all the time. To make up for all the bad things she’s done.”

They counted: one, two, three, four, five. The old woman crossed the archway of light. One, two, three, four, five. And again. Like clockwork.

“Did you hear what Carty Annie said, that she got in there through a secret way…One day I’m gonna find it and have a look at all them dirty statues in there.”

“Fatty, don’t be so rude!”

“They say they’re all naked girls.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“I wouldn’t go in there if you paid me. Anyway my nan said I’m not allowed near there because she’s not safe with children.”

“My mam said she’s all right,” said Fatty.

“Does she know her?”

“Not now, but she used to work for old Dr Medlicott.”

“What do you mean she’s not safe with children?” Bessie asked. Her eyes were shifting puddles of muddy blue.

“I dunno. My nan doesn’t like her. She won’t talk about it.”

“P’raps she’s a murderer just let out of jail!”

“Stop it, Fatty!”

“I bet she cuts off babies’ arms with a bread knife and sucks up the blood for her breakfast.”

“Fatty!”

It was nearly calling in time.

“Hey,” Fatty said. “You hear about that ghost?”

“What ghost?” Bessie and Iffy spoke together in a nervous chorus.

“The one up in Inkerman.”

Iffy stared at him. Bessie gawped.

“Get lost, Fatty, you’re making it up.”

“Honest to God! Cross my heart. Bridgie Thomas seen it, didn’t she, Billy?”

Billy nodded seriously.

Iffy looked across at Bessie. Bessie’s lips were trembling, her eyes wide and glossy in the moonlight. Iffy looked down towards the graveyard, to the crooked old gravestones. Her own legs were trembling, a soft, sure hum of fear behind her knees.

Bridgie Thomas wouldn’t lie about seeing a ghost. She was holy. She went to church every day, twice on Sundays. She had visions and saw saints. She’d seen Mary Magdalene over in the rec, crying her eyes out on the roundabout, and John the Baptist sitting on top of her wardrobe, eating bananas and stark staring naked.

Bessie checked Fatty’s face for signs of a smile. Nothing.

“What did she say it was like, this ghost?” Iffy asked, trying to sound unafraid.

“It was wrapped up in white sheets, it was carrying its head under its arm and its eyes were red as blood.”

“Don’t mess about!”

Iffy remembered the skull she’d seen that night under the bridge. Fatty hadn’t believed her but it had been true.

A chalky-white skull with two teeth missing.

“Honest, didn’t she say so, Billy?”

Billy nodded solemnly.

“And it was carrying a chopper.”

“Where was it by?”

Bessie was trembling, her ringlets bouncing up and down on her shoulders, her chin wobbling.

“Halfway along Inkerman, in between Bessie’s house and yours. It stopped there and twisted its head back on.”

Bessie made a whimpering noise and her chest set up its rattling.

“Bridgie said it stood there for ages moaning and sobbing as though it was looking for someone and then…and then it vanished into thin air…”

Bessie twisted up her dress into a knot just below her fanny. She bit her lips tight together to stop the wobble. She wanted to cry.

A bat swooped down low out of the trees. It squeaked. So did Bessie. She let go of her skirt, crossed her legs and held on to her ringlets.

“Ghosts can’t hurt you anyway,” said Fatty.

Billy nodded in agreement.

“Why’s it carrying a chopper then?”

“I dunno.”

The shadow crossed the window of the Big House again.

“Unless it’s old Medlicott out looking for girls’ heads to chop off.”

A cool wind came up the valley, rustling the leaves into a bubbling black broth above their heads. Up on the Black Band a fox barked. The Black Band was reached by climbing up a steep slope from the road. No one knew why it was called the Black Band, it was just a part of the mountain. There were chicken coops up there, a few pigeon lofts, it led away up towards the shale tips and the top ponds.

An owl flew down low across the Black Band. It flew just above their heads and its bright eyes took them all in. Iffy heard the sound of its wings batting the air. She shivered again.

“Iffy!”

Calling in time.

“Bessie!”

Cats chorused on the doorsteps of Inkerman. The town clock rattled, clattered, bonged, once, twice.

“Billy!” Mrs Edwards on the steps of the bakery. “Billy-O!”

The callers always added an ‘O’ on the second time of calling.

Billy’s mam called again, her voice more insistent now.

“See you, girls!”

“Fatty, don’t go!”

But he was already lolloping off, his arm around Billy’s small shoulders, walking him home through the dark to his waiting mam.

No one ever called Fatty in.

Billy turned and waved.

“Mind how you go, girls!” Fatty called over his shoulder. “Don’t go losing your heads now!”

Bessie put her hands to her neck.

Iffy watched the boys as they walked away down past the bridge and were swallowed up by the dark night. She and Bessie had been left, two small figures standing close together, shivering with fear and Cold in the weak circle of wavering light from the street lamp.

Iffy looked up at the lighted window of the Big House. The old woman was standing quite still staring down at them.

Iffy pulled Bessie’s arm. “Look, Bessie!”

The old woman waved to them from the window, a soft sad wave.

Iffy lifted her hand to wave back. Then she remembered her nan’s words. “Not safe to be around little children.”

“Bessie-O!”

“Iffy-O!”

Second time of calling. There’d be trouble if they didn’t shift themselves. Five minutes grace and then they’d be out looking for them, and then watch out.

But home was in Inkerman Terrace where Bridgie Thomas had seen a red-eyed ghost with a chopper. They were too afraid to move.

Suddenly the light went off in the Big House. Iffy grabbed Bessie’s arm.

“Ouch! Iffy, you’re hurting me.”

“Bessie, look, over there by the gates!”

“What is it?”

“There’s somebody there.”

A cigarette butt glowed in the blackness.

“Who is it?”

“I dunno. I can’t see in the dark.”

“Hello, girls. How about a nice sweet from my pocket?”

It wasn’t much of a choice. Georgie Fingers or the ghost. They flew. All the way up the hill without stopping. Iffy in front, Bessie behind, puffing and squeaking like a squeeze-box. Iffy stopped at the steps leading down to Inkerman and waited for Bessie. She didn’t want to go down into the darkness of the bailey alone. They stood side by side. They didn’t want to stay where they were, didn’t want to step down into the bailey. Iffy wanted more than anything to be in the house, safe in the light, cosy in the warm kitchen.