The Haunting Within (15 page)

47

Debbie came out to them carrying a silver tray with a large jug of lemonade that had ice-cubes cracking and floating around in it, and three tall glasses on it. She walked past Lisa and Aiden, past the trees and the flowers and the nesting birds, and right to the very back of the garden over to a part they hadn’t noticed before. They followed her through a gate that was framed by an arch of hedging that bore tiny lilac flowers, which smelled divine, past another pond and into a little well-kept area that had a wrought iron table and chairs upon a flagstone patio. Debbie set the tray down on the table and began pouring three glasses of lemonade for them. The scent of the lilac flowers remained in Lisa’s nostrils after she had passed them. She stood at the table watching her mum pour the lemonade for them into the tall glasses that frosted at the top when the drink hit the bottom because of the coldness of it. Aiden was already sat at the table when Lisa sat down next to him on the wooden chair with wrought iron arm-rests. They were joined by their mum once she had handed them their drinks.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” she asked, more to herself than to them. “It’s all my mother’s work you know. She built this garden from scratch. She hated the house you see, so she made her own little place out here where she could come and enjoy the beauty of nature. I like to think she still visits this garden” said Debbie, her voice tinged with a hint of sadness. “I do hope that whoever buys it keeps the garden as it is and doesn’t neglect it.”

“Talking of someone buying the house, what time is it mum?” asked Aiden, his memory jogged by this comment.

Debbie glanced at her watch. “It’s almost one thirty-five love. Why?”

“Well I thought that someone from the estate agents was coming round this morning to value the house?” Aiden asked, but it wasn’t so much of a question than a fact really.

“Do you know I completely forgot about that!” Debbie exclaimed with a slightly bemused expression and a small faint laugh.

“Mm, me too” added Lisa whilst sipping her drink. She was pressing the chilled glass to her forehead and cheeks and relishing the immediate cool relief it gave.

“I’ll go ring them now and see what’s going on.” Aiden said getting up from his chair.

“Okay love. Will you stay out here with me Lisa?” Debbie asked her daughter.

Lisa looked over to Aiden “Will you be alright on your own?”

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry! I won’t be a minute anyway.”

Off he went into the house to phone estate agent. He wanted them to come and see the house as soon as possible so they could all leave and go home. The garden was nice, more than nice in fact, but they could hardly sleep outside could they? He picked up the receiver and dialed the number on the piece of paper that his mum had jotted down with the estate agents name above it. He waited through a few echoing rings and then a man picked up sounding enthusiastic.             

“Hello? Matlock and Fenton Estate Agents. Malcolm Fenton speaking, how can I help?” Aiden liked him already.

“Hello, I’m phoning about a call you received yesterday from my mother, Mrs. Adams. She phoned you to arrange for someone to come and value our property and you told her that you would have someone here this morning, but nobody has been.”

Aiden waited for Malcolm to apologise and tell him they were running slightly behind schedule and that they would have someone there within the next hour. However, Malcolm did not say that, what he did say chilled Aiden to the bone. “I am very sorry Sir, but there must be some mistake, nobody called Mrs. Adams phoned here yesterday. I was on yesterday answering the phones and I don’t recall speaking with her. I will check, but we only had three calls all day yesterday so I am quite certain I didn’t speak to her. If I can just put you on hold for one moment I will check the diary for you.”

Aiden was left listening to the sound of some classical piece for a minute or two. He was thinking there must be some sort of mistake when Malcolm came back on the phone, slightly breathless. Aiden could picture a middle aged balding man with bright red cheeks and a forehead of glistening sweat at the other end of the phone.

“Hello? Sir?”

When Aiden replied to indicate he was still there, Malcolm said “I have just looked through our diary and we received no call from a Mrs. Adams yesterday, I double checked as well, but found nothing.” There was a pause while Malcolm waited for Aiden to speak.

“Oh, never mind, I must have made a mistake.” Aiden said pushing his anxiety and fear as far down as possible.

Aiden came off the phone with Malcolm after he had given him all the details and arranged for someone to come to the house this evening. It wasn’t possible to get anyone there any earlier because it was so far out of town. The agents last house call before them was at two o’clock that afternoon, but then it would take him a further three to four hours to get there, so they were looking at around six or seven o’clock-ish. Which meant that yet again they had to spend the night. He now had the awful job of telling Lisa and his mum that they had to stay another night and spoil their day.

48

Debbie and Lisa were still sat at the table sipping their lemonades when Aiden came back out. They looked up as he approached and each gave him a warm smile.

“You’ve been ages!” Lisa said.

“I know. Listen, there was a mix up that I had to sort out. Mum, I thought you said you phoned the estate agent.”

“I did love” replied Debbie a little perplexed. A small frown puckered the skin on her forehead, lines that faintly remained even when asleep.

“Which estate agents did you phone?” he asked her, trying not to sound as worried as he was.

“The one that the phone numbers for, I wrote it down yesterday, got it out the Yellow Pages. Oh, erm, what’s it called? Matlock and Fenton! I like the way the name rolls off the tongue.” Debbie sat back, pleased with herself that she remembered the name.

“Well, when I rang them they said you never rang yesterday. They didn’t send anyone out because you never called them mum.”

“Are you sure? Well, that’s strange. I could have sworn I phoned them. Oh well, I guess I didn’t ring them after all. Silly mistake.” Came her nonchalant reply. 

Aiden was worried even more by the fact that she didn’t seem at all bothered that she thought she had rung someone and had a conversation with them and then found out that she hadn’t. He looked at Lisa and saw that she was thinking along the same lines as him. Debbie had gotten up out of her seat and was clearing away the glasses and humming to herself as though nothing had happened.

“Don’t you want to know what time he’s coming mum?” asked Aiden.

“What time who is coming darling?” she didn’t turn from the table as she spoke. She seemed so casual about the whole thing, as though the conversation she had just had with her son had never taken place.             

“The man from the estate agents mum!” Aiden answered getting more and more exasperated.

“Oh
that
man! No need to get annoyed Aiden” she reprimanded him sternly. “What time is he coming?”

It gave them at least some relief when she acknowledged that she knew who he was talking about. “He can’t get here until about six or seven-ish tonight. We’re gonna have to stay here for the night again.”

Lisa’s heart sank and the look on her face matched how she felt inside. Aiden felt like he was to blame for it. Maybe he should have pushed a bit more to get someone round a bit sooner. He looked over to his mother to see what her reaction was to the news but she was already making her way through the garden and back towards the house.

“What’s wrong with her?” he asked Lisa who was also watching her walk away.

“I don’t know. It’s like she goes into her own little world and only hears little bits of our conversations. I don’t like it. I want to leave here as soon as we can!”

“I know me too. We’ll leave first thing in the morning and we won’t have to come back here again, anything that needs to be done after that we can do over the phone, or if it comes to it we’ll drive down to the estate agents. We won’t even have to pass here.”

This cheered Lisa up slightly until she thought about her mum again. “How could she think that she’d phoned them and not only had a conversation with them, but arranged a time with them? I don’t understand how you can think you’ve done something like that when you haven’t.”

“It’s just been hard on her that’s all and she’s having a hard time coming to terms with everything. She only found out yesterday that he was dead. Maybe it’s her way of grieving.”

“What, by pretending he’s beating her up? I don’t think so Aiden. Nobody in their right mind would pull their own hair out in chunks and punch themselves in the face. No-one could honestly think it was someone else doing it to them when they were doing it to themselves.”

“No, maybe not, but she’s had a lot to take in. Maybe it’s her way of coping, pretending he’s still here. Maybe he is?” he offered, hoping it would be a good enough explanation but knowing that it wouldn’t be.

“You were there with her Aiden! So you’re telling me that you believe that there was a ghost was there in the room with you beating her up? If you believe that, then you’re just as crazy as she is!” Lisa started crying. “I didn’t mean that Aiden, it’s just that I don’t understand what’s going on.”

“Me neither” Aiden went to his sister and awkwardly put his arms round her to comfort her. “I know he wasn’t there, I know it was her who did it to herself. I just thought it would be easier to believe if I said it out loud.”             

“I understand” said Lisa drying her tears on her sleeve.

“I just don’t believe a ghost can do that. In fact I know ghosts can’t, or maybe they can, but either way,” he said with a shake of his head “what I’m trying to say is that I know she thought it was him, but I’m a hundred per cent certain she did it herself. The way she’s acting just backs it up.”

Their conversation ended there and they got up from the garden chairs and began walking back to the house, not wanting to go inside but knowing they had no choice. They mentally prepared themselves for the night that lay ahead. At least they would have the company of another person, if only for an hour or so.

49

Lisa prepared dinner for them while Aiden and Debbie were sat at the kitchen table talking about everything that had happened over the last couple of days.

“You do realise he’s dead mum, don’t you?” Aiden asked as gently as he could.

“Yes, of course I do love. Why do you ask?”

“It’s just that you said it was him that hurt you yesterday but it couldn’t have been him because he’s dead.”

“He might be dead Aiden but he’s still here and he
did
hurt me! What are you trying to say? That I did this to myself?” Debbie was pointing fiercely to her bruised face.

“Mum, I
saw you
! There was no-one in that room with you! I stood there and I watched you pull your hair out and punch yourself! You can’t sit there and tell me it wasn’t you when I saw it with my own eyes.” Aiden was getting quite angry now, not so much with his mother, but at the situation in general.

“How dare you say that to me? What do you think? Do you think I’m crazy? Is that what you’re trying to say? Been having little chats with your sister about putting me away somewhere have you? You listen to me you little
shit
, you obviously don’t believe what happened but I saw him! I did! Maybe if it was you he targeted then you wouldn’t be so quick to write it off as craziness.” Debbie was close to tears now.

Aiden couldn’t quite believe that he’d just heard his mum call him a little shit. She never swore! Never! He was just about to open his mouth when Lisa interrupted.             

“Mum that was a bit harsh. We don’t think you’re crazy, we just don’t know what’s going on, that’s all. Now, dinners nearly ready so let’s just enjoy this meal as a family with no more upset, okay?” she was looking at Aiden as she said the latter.
No more upset
was a term often used by her mum to defuse a heated situation between herself and Aiden when they were kids. It always worked and Lisa was hoping it would calm them both down now. It wasn’t the first time that day she felt like the mother, and having to chide Debbie for swearing at Aiden didn’t help that feeling. She was shocked to say the least. She had never heard her mum swear before, let alone at one of her kids.

Debbie glared at her son with vehemence in her eyes until he gave a small smile and her eyes softened. They both relented and they all sat and had a meal of smoked mackerel with lemon and chips and peas. It wasn’t the sort of food they would normally eat but it was all Lisa could find among the frozen packages in the chest freezer. All that was in it was fish and frozen peas. She got the potatoes from the larder, they were the only vegetables in the house apparently, and to spruce it up a bit she added the juice of one lemon from the lemon tree in the garden. Lisa wasn’t a bad cook for her years. She had always enjoyed watching her mum cook when she was little and they used to make pies and cakes together while Aiden sat in the front room watching TV or playing outside on his bike with his friends. Lisa enjoyed cooking so much that she was toying with the idea of doing a cookery course at college after she had finished her A-levels in business-studies and mathematics. She had been thinking of doing this for a while now. It had been her dream to become a sales manager with a team of sales reps working under her when she had qualified, but lately that dream had been replaced with one of becoming a chef and one day, eventually owning her own restaurant chain. She would love to do that, be in the kitchen all day serving all sorts of extravagant meals to the public, having them love her food so much that they tell their friends and family about it and her restaurant would be one of the most famous in the country. She would cater for all. Have a café for people who didn’t have a lot of money but who wanted nice food without all the fuss and frills of going to a restaurant; fish and chips like she had cooked tonight and other simple dishes that didn’t make them feel uncomfortable, and then she would have a restaurant with a menu in that catered for people with a bit of extra cash; dishes such as duck in a white wine and orange sauce or chicken Kiev’s laden with a buttery garlic sauce or spinach and ricotta ravioli, and for dessert, warm profiteroles dripping in fresh cream and oozing warm chocolate or hot chocolate and orange soufflé, baked on the premises from scratch of course, she wouldn’t fob her customers off with the promise of home-made cooking only to give them profiteroles that were frozen but that had been defrosted and warmed in the microwave, that wasn’t her style. Then there would be a menu for those who could afford their food to be a lot pricier - they would get the quality they paid for, so she wouldn’t think twice about charging higher prices. This menu would consist of dishes such as caviar and champagne and oysters or lobster. The dessert would be along the lines of fresh figs in a creamy citrus sauce with edible gold pieces. Luxury.

She was deep into her thoughts on her restaurants when the loud old bell clanged inside the house. Neither Lisa nor Aiden had ever heard this before so it startled them at first until their mum told them it was the doorbell. Even the doorbell fit this rundown house perfectly, it was old and rusted so it made an awful din, rather than a welcoming noise.