Kingsholt (4 page)

‘Of course it’s falling to bits,’ Aunt Dorothy had said with a sigh, ‘but inheritors can’t be choosers.’

‘You could say that again,’ thought Sam as he inspected his bedroom’s brown ceiling and the faded red roses of the old wallpaper. He turned back to the window. In the distance darkness was rubbing out the horizon, merging the edges of the valley with night clouds. Nearby broken down outhouses were full of chickens and dogs and to the left he could just see the muddy enclosure where the wild wounded birds and animals lived. A bit like the mansion, he thought. The words neglected and hopeless came into his head – and noisy. For the night he had arrived, he had heard scuffling noises in the walls, as if the rats had taken over. Or was it someone creeping about?

‘Rats? Of course there’s rats. They’re in the wainscoting,’ Chloe had told him the next morning in a matter of fact voice. She had looked at him in a funny way that made him want to slap her face. Why did she think being twelve gave her the right to despise him?

He left the window, sprawled on the bed and opened a book that he had found in his bedroom:
Devon Myths and Mysteries.

He read on but it wasn’t easy for now the room was full of shadows and the bulb in the table lamp was broken. Typical of this place, he thought and after a while closed the book with a snap. On the cover, Kingsholt library was stamped in gold letters. Sam wondered if Chloe had left it on his bed on purpose, to tell him something about the valley she had moved to, or maybe something about herself. But he wasn’t sure, he wasn’t sure of anything his cousin did any more.

He went back to the window and stared at the old abandoned barn straight ahead.

At that moment, as he was picturing Chloe as she once was, something went right through him like a force he couldn’t resist. It rooted him to the spot, held him down, pulled him, distorted him. It was as if he was being dragged back through time.

He watched helplessly as a round-backed figure in a long robe appeared in front of the barn. It was getting almost dark and the figure was at some distance and yet he could see the man’s expression quite clearly. His face was compelling and kind and urgent, as if he wanted to say something but was silenced.

There are centuries between us, thought Sam, the long white curtains of time muffle all sound.

Hey, wait a minute! Where did those words come from?

The monk, for surely that was what he was, smiled gently, lifted his right hand and threw something down. Then he melted into the barn wall, so quick and light he made no noise at all.

Sam didn’t know how long he waited for the figure to return. It was only when he saw Aidan striding up towards the barn that he gave up and flung himself on the bed. He had probably imagined the monk in the way he saw other things in his head, his photographic memory firing on all cylinders. Eventually he felt driven to go back to the window. A huge bird was flying in and out of the half-darkness, swinging over the trees and circling down to the barn. This place was too creepy for words. He couldn’t stop himself from shouting out and rushing to the door.

‘What’s the matter then?’ called a deep voice from the shadows at the bottom of the stairs. Sam ran down and peered at Aidan. Iron grey hair, tall, with a straight back, he observed, the opposite of the hunched figure he had seen from the window. But he wasn’t sure if he should tell Aidan about his over-active imagination, after all, he barely knew him.

‘Do you know anything about the trains?’ he found himself saying instead, as if he was going to leave any moment.

Aidan laughed. He had a gap between his front teeth that made him look harmless despite his strong appearance. ‘Me? Train times? Good Heavens no! Why should I? I never go away. Now tell me, what’s the matter? I heard you call out, didn’t I?’

They went into the kitchen, a tall room streaked with cobwebs that no one could reach. A silence fell between them and Aidan didn’t press Sam to speak. Instead he opened a drawer in the old, green painted dresser and held out a rusty curved object.

‘I found this just now, up by the barn. Have a look.’

Sam refused to take it. He didn’t want to get caught up! Only yesterday, in an unexpected flash of friendship, Chloe had told him not to get involved with anyone here. No one at all, she had said as she ran out of the room.

Aidan turned the object over and peered at it closely.

‘It’s for scraping skins – preparing them for writing.’

‘I know all about that,’ said Sam, surprised that he had something in common with Aidan. ‘I’ve always liked writing.’

‘So did King Alfred,’ said Aidan. ‘Anyway, it’s in your family. Uncle George wrote a fine copper plate, and I believe his mother had a good hand.’

‘I didn’t know writing was genetic.’ Sam laughed in relief. He felt himself warming to Aidan. He looked up into the clear grey eyes and spoke casually. ‘I don’t make a habit of shouting out loud in case you think I do. Quiet and cunning, that’s what they say about me. But this was a bit much. I was at the window when I saw this man – don’t laugh – looking like a monk in a long robe. Not joking. The thing is,’ he spoke hurriedly, ‘I don’t know if I was daydreaming or not.’

He smiled ruefully. ‘I expect you think I’m mad.’

Night clouds were gathering in the sky and Aidan put on the light. His genial face looked suddenly strained. He left the rusty object on the table and put his firm hands on Sam’s shoulders. His grey eyes were sharp but kind and Sam felt encouraged. ‘I don’t know why my aunt and uncle took on this place. It was
much better when they spent the summer holidays by the sea. It was cool there.’

Aidan sat down and placed his hands together on the wooden table. He wore a funny expression, as if he wanted to be critical and loyal at the same time. ‘When your father walked out, it was the last straw for Uncle George. That’s why Kingsholt went to Dorothy and Jack.’

‘Just as well my Dad did fall through a black hole,’ said Sam emphatically. ‘It’s a spooky place if you ask me. Why do you stay here?’

Aidan’s grey eyes grew intent, as if he was looking at some distant scene.’ Maybe it was meant to be. Uncle George and I were both on a retreat at Lindisfarne, for different reasons. As you know, his wife had died many years ago and he had no children. That was something he deeply regretted, so he came up with the idea for a centre for children in trouble. A sort of haven or retreat, where they could find themselves again. He thought he could get funds and professional help. But then,’ a sadness came into Aidan’s eyes, ‘a shadow fell over the valley. It’s not called Nimbus for nothing. Half shadow, half halo. That’s where Nimbus got his name.’ He looked closely at Sam. ‘You didn’t imagine the monk for nothing.’ His hands moved along the edge of the scraper.

‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ said Sam lightly. He paused. ‘Chloe’s a lost cause, isn’t she?’ To his surprise the grief was still with him and he looked almost pleadingly at Aidan.

‘It’s her hair,’ he said, mocking his own feelings. ‘She used to have good hair, almost down to her knees. Now she looks like something off a scrap heap. Spiky hair and thin as a – I was going to say a ghost!’

Aidan smiled and Sam remembered Chloe’s words, ‘I cut my hair to look my age, so don’t you forget it!’ That was yesterday, standing in front of him, her hair jagged, her face pale and sharp and small. Perhaps being twelve did make all the difference after
all. Perhaps it was a protest because her mother was always lost somewhere in this huge derelict house and her father was always away. Then there was this weirdo. It was best not to think about it.

Aidan stood up and pushed his chair against the table.

‘There’s a lot to work out. With God’s help.’

‘It’s nothing to do with me,’ said Sam. ‘I don’t live here, thank goodness.’

At that moment there was a commotion outside the door and Chloe and her mother rushed into the kitchen, shouting at each other. Dorothy looked tired, as if she had had enough. Sam felt sorry for her. He knew how Mum felt after a hard day at work.

Aidan picked up the scraper and gave it to Sam. ‘It might come in useful,’ he said, ‘don’t lose it.’

Sam grinned and put it into the back pocket of his jeans. ‘If you say so.’

Aidan smiled as he walked past Sam. ‘If you’re still around tomorrow, you might like to come up to Bones Wood. I’ve got some clearing to do. Perhaps you could help!’

He went out and closed the door firmly.

Chloe pointed at Sam. ‘You don’t believe in Aidan, do you? Don’t be a dumbo. He’s spying up in the woods, that’s what he’s doing.’

‘And you say
I
have imagination,’ said Sam dryly.

Dorothy Penfold frowned and visibly gathered up her strength. ‘Enough of that. There’s plenty to do without sorting you two out. What about eggs and bacon for supper? All right?’

‘I can cook,’ said Sam, relieved to talk about something concrete. ‘I like cooking. We’ve got electric at home but I’ve read all about Aga stoves in Mum’s Aga Sagas.’

Dorothy smiled with relief and sprawled in a chair. ‘Your mother told me you’re a dab hand at all sorts of things – acting, writing calligraphic jam labels, cooking. Well done! It’s just as well! Early tomorrow I have to go back to the old house. I’m still
sorting it out for the tenants. Jack’ll be in London for the week and he wants me up there for a company dinner. Aidan can put his hand to anything, bless him, but it would help if you could cook. I’ve done a big shop. Leela will sleep in of course, bless her, but she has to go back every evening to cook for Tyler. He’s hopeless you know.’ She slowly pulled herself up and showed Sam where everything was. ‘You two can eat now. I’ll get mine later, when I’ve had a rest.’

‘You never used to cook,’ said Chloe when her mother had gone. Sam heaved down a large bowl from the shelf. ‘By the way, I’m going home tomorrow.’

‘You can’t!’

‘Yes, I can. It’s not the same here, not like your old place. As for you, you’re a shadow of your old self.’

He hunted round for the eggs and cracked four into the vast bowl that was criss-crossed with little lines.

‘Is this all you have?’

Chloe nodded. ‘Everything’s like that. Big and old. We left all our own things behind for the tenants.’

‘And that stuff about Aidan,’ said Sam as he beat up the eggs, ‘it’s sad, see?’ He pulled a huge frying pan from a rusty hook on the wall and settled it onto the hot plate. He lined the pan with butter and slipped in bacon and eggs. ‘What about fried bread?’

‘I suppose so! Do you often cook?’

‘Every other day. Anyway, I like it. If I can’t be an actor or a scribe, I’m going to run a restaurant.’

‘Big ideas!’

Chloe put out some tarnished silver knives and forks and they sat at the long wooden table opposite each other and ate in silence. Chloe picked at her food but Sam ate quickly for despite everything, he was hungry. He was facing the window, wishing he dared to tell Chloe about his out-of-hand imagination. She would laugh at him, he knew she would, even though she’d changed.

Above the trees the grey sky was blotted with red clouds. Now there was no sound outside, except Aidan clanking pails in the yard and the hens clucking round him. Chloe was leaning on her elbows with her knife and fork in the air. The lamplight played on her hair and made it softer. Even her voice was gentler as she spoke, but what she said worried him. ‘It’s true, everything’s changed. In the beginning it seemed wonderful here, out of this world. That was when we first moved.’

She leaned forward. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but at night it was so quiet, I thought I could hear singing.’

‘What sort of singing?’

‘Promise not to laugh. I heard the singing of psalms, chanting, like they did in monasteries. Of course, years ago, there was a monastery built on this land.’

She was looking into her own thoughts now, more like the old Chloe, her eyes dreamy, the colour of those smooth green pebbles they had once found on the beach. Then suddenly she changed again, her eyes sharp, like broken glass. She dug her fork into the fried bread, lifted it in one piece then put it down again.

‘If you’re not going to stay it doesn’t matter,’ she said in an offhand way. She scraped the rest of her food into the lined bin and took her plate over to the deep butler sink. She ran a trickle of water over it then propped it up on the big wooden drainer. ‘You don’t understand. Come to think of it, you don’t understand anything.’

‘Well tell me then, Miss Know All.’

She sat opposite him and watched him eat another hunk of bread. Her voice was gentle again. ‘The first time we came here, I remember the long drive and seeing nothing but trees and rhododendron bushes. I thought we were never going to find the house. Then we turned a corner and there it was, at the bottom of the valley, the loveliest, wildest place I’d ever seen. I didn’t think it would ever ever frighten me.’

She hid her face in her hands and when she looked up her pale cheeks were streaked with tears. Sam shoved his hand in his pocket and brought out a tissue. Chloe wiped her eyes, screwed up the tissue and aimed aggressively at the large pedal bin. There was an awkward silence between them and then she said, ‘It’s not like it was, Sam.’

‘Don’t be a prat. Got a telly?’

However violent the images, he had always found the world inside that little box was safe. It wasn’t like the pictures in your head, you could always switch off what you didn’t like. That’s what he and Mum did when they’d had a bad day.

‘All right,’ said Chloe, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. She slipped through the door and Sam followed. But first he switched off the light and looked back, just in case.

The high kitchen was full of shadows and the black night clouds almost touched the windows. Everything had become quiet, even the chickens had stopped clucking outside. From here the barn walls looked comfortable and settled where they stood, a little way up the slope. There was nothing now to remind him of the monk. He smiled as he closed the kitchen door behind him. Chloe was calling him into the lounge. Her voice was soft and persistent like it used to be in the old days, a hundred summers ago.