Beneath the Tor (15 page)

Lettice grinned at me as if all this was a great hoot. “Hi, Sabbie!”

“Good afternoon,” said my aunt, unable to raise even an artificial smile in return.

I had not seen my aunt or my cousin Laetitia for six months. They had last stood on my doorstep in the deep midwinter. It was now the high midsummer, but I was no more pleased to find them here.

“Would you like to come in,” I said, finally, “for a moment?” I stood aside for them and a thought flashed through my mind:
Oh heck! Freaky!
I swept that away and replaced it with,
Freaky—yippee!

My aunt spotted Freaky almost the instant she entered the kitchen. It would have been hard to miss him, a mass of white dreadlocks, a
tobacco-brown
grin, and sooty feet sticking up between the tea mugs.

“Freaky,” I said, “I don't believe you've met my aunt, Peers Mitchell, and this is Lettice, my cousin.”

Freaky, ever the gentleman, swung his limbs into a standing position and advanced on the pair, his hand extended, his nails pointing like a series of little black lances. “Pleased to meet you, my friends.”

Mrs. Mitchell turned solid. Her ivory court shoes came to a neat halt and she swayed backwards as if some form of floor glue was the only thing preventing a retreat. Her daughter was made of sterner stuff. She stuck out her hand and pumped Freaky's up and down. “Pleased to meet you, how do you do?”

“I am at peace, my young friend. How do
you
do?”

“Well.” Peers Mitchell shook herself. Actually, it might have been a shudder. “We won't hold you up. We will deliver our message and leave you to …” She waved a hand. A single massive diamond glittered.

“Grandma Dare wants to meet you,” said Lettice. There was triumph in her voice.

I had not expected this. “I didn't think she knew anything about me.”

“No. I …” Lettice pinked up around the cheeks. “I sort of let the cat out of the bag. As Grandma might say.”

I eyed my cousin. The cunning little minx had engineered this. She'd longed to get me and our shared grandmother together. Since the winter, she'd steadfastly remained a Facebook friend, occasionally directing chatty messages at me. I liked Lettice—genuinely liked her—but I could hardly have a relationship with my
thirteen-year
-old cousin without also having one with my aunt and my grandmother. Seven months ago, I had no idea of their existence. They hadn't known about me, either. Peers Mitchell had been horrified to discover I was her niece and made it clear enough she'd prefer it if her mother never met me. I couldn't help but agree with this assessment. I guessed Grandma Dare would have to be in her eighties. The news might've floored her.

“What did Lady Dare say?”

“Lady
Savile-Dare
,” Mrs. Mitchell corrected. “She was intrigued.”

“She said, ‘I cannot now live without casting my eyes upon this grandchild,'” said Lettice.

“Heck.”

Mrs. Mitchell inclined her head. “Precisely.”

“You'll have to come, Sabbie. When Grandma issues a summons, you simply must obey,” Lettice said cheerfully.

“Which is why we are here,” her mother said uncheerfully.

I glanced over my shoulder. Freaky had disappeared to the other end of the kitchen and was making himself useful, swilling the empty mugs in the sink, trying not to overhear. I gave a brief nod, desperate to get them out of my house.

“Eleven in the morning is a good time for my mother. She is breakfasted by then, but not yet tired by the day.”

“Okay, eleven. Which day?”

Mrs. Mitchell dipped into her crocodile handbag and brought out a
leather-bound
diary, opening it where the red silk bookmark was placed.

I got out my phone.

“Friday next week would be convenient.”

“Sorry,” I said, trying to keep the delight out of my tone. “I have ongoing appointments for the whole day.”

“Saturday then,” said Mrs. Mitchell.

I checked. There was nothing until the afternoon, when Juke had one of his regular sessions. “Okay. Eleven on Saturday next week is fine.”

“You can recall where Lady
Savile-Dare
lives?”

“Oh yes,” I said. I was never going to forget where Lady Dare lived, or the fact that I'd been a
fast-food
deliverer when I'd arrived at the Hatchings for the first and only time.

“I'll be there, Sabbie,” said Lettice. She gave me an apologetic smile and I returned it.

“Thanks. Appreciated.”

Mrs. Mitchell wasted no time in leaving, her arm tucked into her daughter's as if she was concerned Lettice would be beguiled by me or Freaky and ask to stay forever. I didn't do the polite thing and follow them to the door. Peers already thought I was the scum of the earth, nothing I did would change that.

I flopped onto the sofa and cried out in anguish, “Bugger! Bugger, bugger!”

Freaky gave up pretending to rewipe the mugs and came over. “I've never heard you talk about your family.”

“Last year I didn't know I had a family. It was a double whammy; they didn't know about me, either. My mother had been sent packing from the family home—the family pile, really. You wouldn't believe the size of my
so-called
grandmother's house. Mum and me lived in squalor until she died of an overdose when I was six. Izzie had done a good job of disappearing; none of them knew she'd died. Peers Mitchell almost fainted when Lettice told her I was her niece.”

“How did you find each other?”

“Synchronicity.”

“Ah! That old surprise package.”

“Yeah. I turned up on a scooter with their
take-away
order.”

“Ye gods.”

I closed my eyes. “I don't want these people as my relations.”

“You don't like them?”

My lids popped open and I fairly gaped at Freaky. “Did
you
like them?”

“I thought Lettice was sweet.”

“Yes.” I sighed. “Lettice is extremely sweet.” That was the problem. Lettice wanted to be a cousin to me; it oozed from every pore of her lovely teenage being. “Sadly, Freaky, her mother is a demon, a Grendel who eats people like me for supper. And I've never met
her
mother, but it looks like I'm going to.”

“Grendel's mother was a hag from a deep swamp,” said Freaky, raising his eyebrow.

I groaned. “Granny, the hag from the swamp. I'll need a magic sword and an invisible cloak.”

“That would be cheating,” said Freaky. “Beowulf fought the demon
bare-handed
.”

Although he was teasing me, Freaky had a point. Lady
Savile-Dare
was my very own nightmare beast. I'd have to face her with only
my wits.

fifteen

dennon

When my foster brother
Dennon rang on Friday morning, Freaky was still lodging in my house. In fact he was mowing my patch of grass at the time, so I climbed the stairs with my phone to get away from the roar of the lawnmower. It was surprising how many of my calls were enquiries about therapy work, and I couldn't afford to miss a single one.

Dennon was calling from the landline in his new flat. “Sis,” he began, “it's my housewarming tonight. You coming?”

“Not really. I got someone staying.”

“Bring them too—we're low on girls. We're low on people. And we're low on beer; bring some of that.”

I felt myself weakening. Hadn't I bemoaned to Marianne that I never went to parties? I was curious to see Dennon's accommodation. Plus, Freaky was always good at a party. He'd start a debate with anyone and danced like a dervish.

I texted an invite to Rey. He hadn't been around since I'd told him about Freaky, although I didn't think it was Freaky keeping Rey away. An image kept nagging at me—a hand, rough and browned by the sun, caressing a soft mass of wavy auburn hair. How could Rey resist such hair when my coiffure still resembled a labradoodle after a bad shampoo experience?

For the party, I tackled it with hair straighteners and zipped myself into the scarlet dress Marianne had given me because it was a size too big for her. I reckoned I looked the biz and even Freaky had scrubbed up well; he'd shampooed his dreadlocks (or, at least his scalp) and changed into colourful trousers straight from the Summer of Love.

It was a cloudless evening and the run up the motorway was a cruise, which meant we arrived early, so we dropped in on Ricky, seeing as he'd left an open invitation.

Ricky's flatmate Eijaz came to the door, sliding on his famous shades as he opened it.

“Is Ricky in,” I asked.

“You wanna go up?” Eijaz waving a hand at the stairs. “Ricky's bedroom is last on the right.”

By way of introduction, Freaky swept the surprised Eijaz into a shaman hug. I left them to get acquainted and went up the stairs. I tapped on the closed door. There was a rustling and thumping. I'd caught him having an evening siesta. “It's Sabbie,” I called out. “We were just passing …”

Ricky opened the door a crack. I could only see his face which was covered in his usual gothic makeup, but it had run, the black into the white, and he looked vaguely clownlike, with his lacquered hair in spikes. “Hi, Sabbie,” he said and closed the door. I heard a muffled conversation. I took a step back. His girlfriend was in there. I had just made the decision to call out that I'd be downstairs with Freaky when the door opened again, fully this time.

“You'd best come in,” said Shell.

She'd pulled on what looked like Ricky's bathrobe, belting it tight around her curves. She sat down on the tousled bed and gave me a rueful grin, which had
I couldn't resist
plastered all over it.

“Shell's been helping me collate my course work,” said Ricky, in a monotone that suggested he didn't think I'd fall for that line, except he was booting down his laptop and his notebook and text books lay open so he might have been telling the partial truth. “I'm a bit behind.”

“You know about philosophy?” I asked Shell.

“No, but I know how to get through
end-of
-year exams. All the same, really.”

“Er … yeah.”

I was flabbergasted at the speed Shell worked. While I was thinking of a way I could imply that their secret was safe with me, Freaky bumbled into the room.

“Greetings, my friends.” He didn't bat an eye at Shell's presence, hugging them both to him before starting his usual regime of exploring his environment. He reminded me of all the dogs I'd ever lived with at Gloria and Philip's house. They would scamper around any new place we were visiting until they'd got a map in their head. It was disconcerting for
non-dog
lovers, and I could see that Freaky had disconcerted Ricky.

“Sorry.” Ricky rubbed his face with his sleeve. “Sabbie didn't say you were here.”

“I love this,” Freaky announced. “It's a quest for truth. Your spirit is guiding you.” He had opened the wardrobe doors and was standing there, peering in. “My friend, you have found peace.”

I went over to see what he was talking about. Ricky had created an altar inside his wardrobe. Now I understood the jumble of clothes I'd spotted on my first visit, pushed under the bed; he'd taken them out so that he could hang ritual objects from the clothes rail—some wind chimes, a dreamcatcher, a yew branch tied with red ribbon. He'd spread a silk scarf over the wardrobe floor and a bodhran, two candlesticks, and a bowl of various crystals were arranged around a framed pen and ink representation of a goddess.

“That's my sister's work.” Ricky's closed glance warned me to say no more.

It was Babe's style, and beautifully realized. She'd defined the goddess without tipping over into clichéd beauty.

“A sacred altar,” said Freaky. “May the goddess bless your awakening.”

“That's it—awakening! As from shadows. All my studies are about awakening. Paganism, shamanism—they're so akin to philosophy. See, when you philosophize, you reach amazing new conclusions about old arguments.”

“It's the same when you walk between worlds, my friend. Conjunctions. Associations. Parallelisms. They show you how to navigate the living truth.”

“I'm developing my shamanic work.” Ricky nodded at the glossy posters pinned on his wall. The pictures of philosophers were becoming invisible behind images of sacred sites and sea eagles. I could feel them whisper to me, hushed murmurs that told me Ricky had been working in a sacred way, regularly and with deep intent.

“I want to get a good connection with Sea Eagle,” he was saying. “It's amazing what I've found out about them. They were worshipped as totems thousands of years ago.”

“You should travel to Orkney,” Freaky said. “The wonderful tombs. You'd love it.”

“I mean to,” said Ricky, and glanced at Shell as if asking her if she'd like to go too.

Freaky wandered out and Ricky went with him. Shell and I followed them down the stairs. I'd gone up to Ricky's room with the intention of having a private conversation about Babette and her sketchpad, but that wasn't going to happen now.

In the kitchen, Eijaz was in the process of pulling cans of lager from the fridge.

“We're heading off to a party,” said Freaky. “So I won't imbibe, thank you.”

“You can all come, if you like.” I knew Dennon wanted bodies, and I fancied the idea of arriving with my own little posse.

We waited while Shell disappeared to get dressed and Ricky refreshed his makeup and otherwise transformed himself into a Goth.

Eijaz got started on the cans, snapping one open and taking a long pull. “You two are the shamans, innit?”

“If you like, my friend,” said Freaky. “We are all shamans, deep inside ourselves.”

“Not me, man. I don't want nothin' to do with all that.”

“Everyone fears the unknown,” I said. “If you talked to Ricky about it—”

“I only get crazy answers. This stuff gives me the jitters.”

Eijaz had a North London accent that rose to a pitch as he tried to make his point. He was standing by the fridge while we'd taken seats at the kitchen table and his posture was a bit “gangland.” I glanced at Freaky, to see if he was in the least fazed, but he was cleaning his pointed fingernails with a paring knife that had happened to be on the table and seemed to have bailed out of the conversation.

“What d'you have against the idea of learning about shamanism?” I asked, keeping my voice calm.

“I guess I'm not in a position to judge. Ricky would say if you don't know nothing about something you should shut up till you do.”

“Are you doing philosophy like him?”

“No! I wanna make money in my life, thank you. I'm doing the MSc in Business Management. Ricky's definitely a philosopher, I admit—that stuff goes over my head.”

I laughed. I had a feeling it would go over mine, as well. “How did you get to know Ricky, then?”

“We were both there day one on the business degree, but he flagged badly. Had to go home.”

I was wondering if this had been after the shock of his sister's disappearance. That would have thrown him well off course. And perhaps he'd set to thinking about life … the meaning of it, which might have spurred his interest in philosophy. Another thought came to me. “D'you remember Juke Webber then? From the business degree?”

“There was a big student intake in our year. Juke never was my mate. Ricky's linked up with him again and, suddenly, they're seeing a lot of each other.”

I flashed an uncertain smile. “That's what old mates do, though, isn't it?”

“Not sure about this Shell, though. She looks like she's been round a few times.”

I said nothing. It was clear Ricky hadn't told his flatmate that his new woman was also the partner of his erstwhile workshop coordinator. Ricky lived in a
philosophy-filled
bubble; these small issues probably floated above his head.

Finally, Shell and Ricky reappeared. Shell had transformed herself into a vampiress, and I had to admit, she looked stunning. We squashed into the Vauxhall and drove to the address Dennon had given me—a block of
purpose-built
flats on a small housing development.

Dennon relieved Eijaz of his bag of lager and me of my wine. “I was hoping more of the neighbours would be here. I don't dare put the music up until I've cleared this floor of possible complainers. Anyway.” He waved his arms towards the interior. “What d'y think?”

Dennon had one biggish living room. A miniature kitchen area was incorporated at the windowless end of the room, but the units were lit well and the rows of bottles and beer cans glittered. On the island surface that separated the kitchen from the rest of the living space, big paper plates were piled with Iceland freezer party food, which Dennon could get at a staff discount. In daylight, I suspected the room would be faceless with its magnolia walls and the white ceiling with a central bulb hanging on a short cable, but Dennon had festooned the place with balloons and streamers and glittery wreaths.

“It's great!”

“Yeah; finally, somewhere I can bring tasty chicks!”

“So … where are they?”

“What?”

“The chicks.”

His face dropped. “I was hoping people would bring chicks with them. I need to polish those old
chat-up
lines.”

“Bit of information, Den: people who bring chicks are usually hoping to hang onto to them.”

He was right, though, even with the addition of five extra guests, the place was not buzzing. His mates from the Iceland store were there, but the younger ones were chickless and the older ones had brought their wives. The usual suspects—Dennon's
mad-bad
mates, including Bark and Kyle—were chatting in one corner, cheap lagers in their hands. Eijaz had taken some cans over to them and I could hear him regaling them with tales of Newham, which was where he'd been born, he was explaining, of Pakistani parents. Den's gang, all nearing the big
three-oh
, carried their rough reputations with pride, but clearly thought Eijaz, in his sharp suit and
tight-fitting
t-shirt
, was awesome. He'd dismayed me, with his sudden attack on Ricky's interest in shamanism. I'd wanted to tell him he wasn't his flatmate's keeper, but I'd kept that opinion to myself.

I spotted Dennon's sister, sitting in what must have been Dennon's only easy chair, her husband, Chris, leaning against the back like they were posing for a sepia photograph. I scooted over and perched on a chair arm. “Hi, nice to see you both.”

“Couldn't let Dennon down after the big move, could we?” Charlene leaned towards my ear. “We've had to buy in a babysitter for this. We'd rather be in the Taste of Delhi down the road, tucking into a curry.”

“Don't you dare desert us.”

“I thought Dennon knew more people than this.”

“Don't knock it, Charlene. The ones that aren't here are probably in the nick.”

Charlene burst into giggles. She'd put on a comfortable layer of weight since having Rory and Kerri and it suited her; she wore no makeup except
cherry-coloured
lippy and her dark skin glowed tonight like slightly padded satin.

Eventually, some of the neighbours on Dennon's floor arrived, and he notched up the sound to danger levels. Charlene covered her ears. Dennon was stuck in a bit of a musical time warp—he only liked the music of his reprobate youth—but that happened to be my reprobate youth, and I found my fingers snapping.

“Want to dance? I asked Charlene and Chris, but they shook their heads, like the old married couple they were. I got up and began to sway, all alone, in the middle of the room. “C'mon,” I yelled at Ricky and Shell. “Time to groove!”

They sauntered out onto the floor, by which time Freaky was bouncing around, arms at all angles, legs kicking and stamping, whipping up a frenzy with the stationary drinkers. Freaky's dance display was irresistible. People put down their drinks and joined in. Dennon and his mates ground their hips, Latino style. Charlene and Chris got up and smooched, and even the elderly neighbour, who'd arrive with a good bottle of wine he'd been steadily working through, swayed from
side-to
-side. Eijaz flashed past him, narrowly avoiding knocking the glass out of his hand. I fancied Eijaz was trying to outdo Freaky, who continued to windmill around the entire room, wailing a
high-pitched
version of the song coming from the speakers.