Everlasting Lane (10 page)

He finished his pork pie and drained the last of his tea. His hand struggled to rescrew the cap to his flask. There was sweat on his forehead.

‘I … It’s my teatime,’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Teatime, yes, you’re quite right. I too must … Listen, Peter,’ he said, polishing the thighs of his trousers with the palms of his hand, ‘before you go, I would be most grateful if you wouldn’t tell anyone about,’ he indicated the cramped insides of the pillbox, ‘my little hideaway.’

‘Like a secret?’

‘Well, no. Not a secret exactly. That would make me sound far too glamorous. James Bond does secrets; I do … privacy. I do—’

‘But how do you find secrets out?’

‘Ouch!’ he cried, and covered his ears but he was laughing. ‘So, you do have some passion lurking behind that docile exterior. Glad to hear it. Well, my first recommendation, Peter, would be that you put that branch down before someone gets hurt.’

I lowered the branch, pointing its jagged end to the floor.

‘Good. And my second piece of advice is subterfuge; subterfuge in nearly all circumstances.’

‘Subter …?’

‘Be sneaky, my friend.’ With the cup of his hand the man, Norman, began scooping up the crumbs of his meal into a neat pyramid before folding them into the red napkin. ‘But also,’ he continued, ‘upon reflection, be careful. Secrets are
usually secrets for a reason. For instance, what is it you wish to find out?’

When I didn’t answer he glanced up at me. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘A secret shared is a secret diluted, of course, and why would you share such a thing with the oddball in the pillbox when he has merely bared his soul? Well, Peter, if I were you, which, of course, I am not, I would proceed with caution. If you’re lucky this secret of yours, once revealed, will simply crumble and drift away into nothingness. If you are unlucky, however …’

One Sunday, I was at the kitchen table gobbling cornflakes, listening to Stewpot on
Junior Choice,
when, ‘You’ll give yourself indigestion.’ It was Anna-Marie stepping in at the back door. She wore a dark green dress to just above her knees with white lace trimmings and a pattern of little white flowers, drawn tight to her waist. Her hair was tied with a green elastic band into a long ponytail. On her feet she wore white socks and shiny, white sandals.

Oh. And Tommie was there too, hovering in the doorway. He was wearing a T-shirt.

Kat, at the sink arranging pink roses in a red painted jar, turned round and smiled. Anna-Marie tilted her head and watched as Kat stepped towards her, extending her hand and saying, ‘Hello. It’s the famous Anna-Marie. Nice to see you again.’ Anna-Marie’s clear blue eyes stared at Kat’s hand. ‘We’ve met before, of course, but …’ Stewpot began to play
Morning-town Ride.
‘I’m Peter’s Aunt.’

Anna-Marie turned off the radio with a pop. ‘I know who you are,’ she said, and Kat flashed me this funny look. ‘This is Tommie,’ went on Anna-Marie. ‘Say “hello”, Tommie.’

‘Hello.’

‘I just wanted to say I’m sorry about your window, Mrs …?’

‘Kat. You must call me Kat.’

‘With a “K”,’ I said.

‘… Kat, but I didn’t know anybody
lived
here.’

‘Oh well, not to worry. We keep ourselves to ourselves.’

‘So Peter tells me,’ said Anna-Marie. She picked up a piece of toast from the breakfast table, tore off a corner with her thin fingers and popped it in to her mouth. ‘After all, everybody needs secrets, don’t they?’

Kat’s eyes met Anna-Marie’s. ‘Pretty much everybody,’ she said.

Anna-Marie laughed. ‘Oh, you don’t need to worry, Kat,’ she said. ‘When I know a secret, I take it to the grave, don’t I, Tommie?’

Tommie, pulling at the frayed edge of his T-shirt sleeve, shrugged.

‘Okay,’ said Kat. ‘Thank you, Anna-Marie. But—’

‘You can relax, Kat. Grown-ups pretty much believe what they want,’ she chewed, ‘and that’s pretty much what you tell them.’ She swallowed. ‘Anything else is just too much hard work.’

‘Well, thank you then,’ said Kat.

‘You know, Kat,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘I think Peter’s very lucky to have an aunt like you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.’

‘I believe you. Thank you.’

‘What lovely flowers,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘I prefer yellow myself.’

Kat sighed and smiled. ‘Me too,’ she said.

I finished my cornflakes with a slurp.

‘Speak of the Devil,’ said Anna-Marie. ‘Honestly, Kat, how
do you put up with this chatterbox all day long?’ And then everybody laughed at me. So then I knew that everything was all right.

Anna-Marie led Tommie and me into the lane, the morning sun turning the dusty pebbles white. Kitty came out to say goodbye and allowed Anna-Marie to tickle her chin and stroke her long black back.

‘Now,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘if we walk down the lane, where will we come to first?’

Tommie, delighted to have been asked, frowned and considered the question. ‘First off,’ he said, ‘there’s the field with the ponies on the right; second, there’s the pylons; then there’s,’ he screwed up his face, ‘oh, the Pigeon House. And then the wood-yard.’

‘What are the pylons?’

‘Electric pylons,’ said Tommie wide-eyed. ‘They’re dead spooky at night, aren’t they, Anna-Marie? My dad says they glow!’

Anna-Marie punched Tommie on the shoulder. He blinked but didn’t say a word.

‘As
I
was going to say,’ said Anna-Marie, ‘we could walk up to the wood-yard. We go by the pylons, then we can see if they glow or—’

‘No!’ said Tommie. ‘They glow at ni—’ Anna-Marie raised her hand again and Tommie took a deep breath. ‘Good idea,’ he said, and so, together, we headed off down Everlasting Lane.

‘What’s the Pigeon House?’ I asked.

Tommie glanced at Anna-Marie. When she didn’t say anything he blurted out: ‘It’s this big farmhouse, isn’t it, Anna-Marie? And the farmer’s got a really big … erm …’

‘Loft.’

‘That’s right,’ said Tommie, ‘loft. Anyway, it’s massive and there are literally millions of pigeons.’ Tommie sniggered. ‘It smells like a poo factory,’ he said. ‘My dad says—’

Anna-Marie cuffed him across the back of the head. ‘Don’t say “literally”.’

Anna-Marie, Tommie and I walked side by side between the high banks and the tall trees of Everlasting Lane. My skin began to tingle and I began to feel as if we were standing still and that it was the lane, not us, which was moving.

We came to a small paddock with horses. Tommie talked about football whilst Anna-Marie fed grass to a white pony and stroked its round nose. We went onto the pylons. Of course it was too bright to tell whether or not they glowed in the dark, but they shone, all cold and metally, in the midday sun.

We walked on. This was not a single lane but many, disappearing around many bends. A rambling, tangling tale, a rustle in the hedgerow, just out of view: a journey without a destination.

At the Pigeon House we watched the birds flapping around, their wings making a foul-smelly breeze that made our eyes water. Later we passed a cottage tucked deep into the greenery that bordered the lane. It leaned to one side as if a strong wind had been at it or, perhaps, as if it’d simply given up the bother of standing straight.

‘Who lives there?’ I asked.

‘That’s Mr Merridew’s house,’ said Tommie with a shudder.

It reminded me of that poem; you know the one about ‘the crooked man who walked a crooked mile’. I wondered if this was his crooked cottage.

‘Who’s Mr Merridew?’

‘No one,’ said Anna-Marie.

Everlasting Lane opened up before us like a storybook,
pages coloured with green and gold. And like any story that your heart knows, that has thrilled you or lulled you drowsy-eyed and heavy with sleep, it’s hard to believe there was ever a time when it was new and strange, when you had to pay attention or risk losing your way among the twists and turns.

‘Peter.’ Whilst, unlike most stories I knew, Everlasting Lane didn’t always follow a predictable path, ‘Peter?’ it always seemed to know which way I wanted to go even if I didn’t know my—

‘Ouch!’ I yelped as Anna-Marie flicked my ear with her long finger.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ hissed Anna-Marie. ‘I’m talking. Don’t you ever listen? I’m trying to warn you.’

‘Warn me? What about?’

We’d walked all morning long and now we had come to a wood-yard. Through the trees I could see all the buildings but as it was Sunday there was no buzz of saws or conversation. Anna-Marie and Tommie had slowed down and were peering nervously ahead.

‘We’ve got to watch out for the Beast.’

‘The what?’

‘The Beast of Everlasting Lane,’ said Tommie. ‘There’s this dog. A watch-dog.’

‘What does it watch?’

‘What does it watch?’ sneered Anna-Marie. ‘It watches you, of course. And, whilst it’s watching you, it’s wondering what a chunk of your backside’s going to—’

But it was too late. Ahead of us I saw a shape parting from the shadows. And as it shed its dark coat I could see that it was a dog: black and short and very, very ugly. It was snarling and sneering, its jaws dripping with spit. As soon as I saw it my whole body started trembling. At first I thought I was even too scared to run away but as the animal began to bark,
great chokey grunts, my limbs stiffened and I found myself edging back from the two rows of shiny, jagged teeth clashing together like knives and forks in search of supper.

‘Do we run?’ I whispered but there was no answer. I looked back to find that Tommie and Anna-Marie had already retreated as far as the trees that lined the Lane, where they stood flapping their hands to say that I should get a move on if I didn’t want to end up a dog’s dinner. And then, together, they turned and plunged into the woods.

‘Hey …’ but they’d already gone. I took a quick breath, the barks of outrage beginning to nip at my ankles, before following them, hardly wanting to be left behind.

There was something frightful about those woods: but it wasn’t the trees, threatening though they were. It was the shadows squeezed between them. The sunlight filtered its way through the thick canopy, but couldn’t spare us the crushing gloom. At first it seemed the only sounds were our stumbling footsteps, Tommie’s huffing and puffing, and Anna-Marie’s curses whenever a branch scratched her arm or a root, nestling in one of those little pools of darkness, stubbed her toe.

‘Are you scared?’ puffed Tommie.

‘No,’ I lied.

‘Don’t be fooled,’ warned Anna-Marie. ‘Some of the trees can be a bit … vicious.’

‘What?’

‘Just some of them,’ she said. ‘Some of the older ones.’

But she was only joking. Surely.

‘Do you have
a
ny idea, Peter, how old these trees are?
Hun
dreds of years. Thousands, for all I know. Anything’ll develop a personality if it lives long enough,’ said Anna-Marie. She paused a moment to adjust her sock. ‘Even you.’

In the deepest part I couldn’t take two easy steps together. Here the dark was liquid, like wading through ink. I began to hear the sounds of the wood and my imagination gave claws and teeth to every rustle and every creak. The darkness grew deeper still.

‘Are
you
scared?’

‘Oh, shut up!’

The sounds of the woods continued to follow us as we pushed on deeper and deeper towards the river and, once or twice, I thought I caught sight of evil eyes watching us pass, gleaming from behind the thick undergrowth.

Anna-Marie and Tommie ploughed on as the path dwindled and nettles grew ever thicker. But I managed to find every foothold and every branch that had ever expressed an interest in crippling a child or blinding him. Slipping and stumbling, I must’ve looked like Frank Spencer.

Up ahead a crack of light appeared like a gap in a door. We slid between the trees and prised the door open. Pushing aside the last branches and reaching the riverbank was like reaching the top of Everest. And then we were safe on a sunlit path beside a sunlit river. It was like the first drop of rain after a long hot summer.

But the sound of rapid movement in the woods, somewhere between the trees the way we had just come, hadn’t stopped and grew suddenly closer. We heard the sound of panting and pearls of saliva falling in the dry undergrowth.

‘The Beast!’ cried Tommie.

A scream was welling up inside me about to explode, as I pictured muscles wriggling like rodents beneath a glossy hide and ivory teeth snatching sunlight from the air.

The breathless old man who finally staggered from the bushes onto the path with his gnarly walking stick in one hand and a cigarette burning between the bony fingers of the
other was, I thought, a lot less terrifying than the creature my imagination had created. His black suit was interwoven with green thread, the seams loose and frayed; whilst the jacket was fastened the middle button was missing. The hair on his head was thin whilst his moustache, thick and grey, was stained yellow and on his chin a sprinkling of bristles. The glasses he wore across his nose were shiny and round, his eyes twice their real size.

He wheezed with laughter at our startled faces, revealing two rows of teeth like garlic, and wiped sweat from his brow, and his hands on his trousers. ‘Ah,’ he finally managed to say, ‘ ’tis the lovely Anna-Marie. I thought I saw you from afar. And how,’ he enquired, still gasping for breath, ‘are you today?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ said Anna-Marie taking the hand he offered and curtsying. ‘This is Peter,’ she said. ‘Peter, this is Mr Merridew.’ I offered the old man my hand and he eyed it suspiciously.

‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind.’

‘How are you, Mr Merridew?’ asked Anna-Marie.

‘Neither better nor worse, my dear, than any other day.’ His eyes bulged with curiosity in my direction. ‘And where are you bound?’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘nowhere in particular.’

‘Then,’ he said licking his dry lips, his mouth the murky entrance to some underworld cavern, ‘come to my parlour for some milk or, perhaps, some tea.’

I almost wished it had been the Beast and his glistening jaws which had burst forth from between the trees. This strange old man and his invitation filled me with dread. How could we, as children, say no? Adults were in charge. It was a rule so powerful that it might as well have been magic. Thankfully, Anna-Marie had powers of her own.