Weird Sister (17 page)

Lolly takes her hobby seriously. She has a large collection of books about witchcraft and she has rented every video, every horror movie, that might feature witches. Lolly prefers satanic witches, she isn’t interested in Wicca, or white witchery. Her mother, an ageing hippie called Doris, has tried to get her involved with crystals and covens and that kind of thing, but it doesn’t work for Lolly. She likes her witches to be in league with the devil, destructive forces, nothing good or New Age, nothing old-fashioned-feminist.

Lolly takes it upon herself to befriend weird people, she likes the weird people of this world. She herself is quite popular, but she is not interested in the smooth girls, in the good-looking boys; she likes the specky nerd who knows too much about computers, the strange girl who goes cross-eyed when you say her name. She likes Jenny.

Lolly is very happy to be studying
Macbeth
.

On their way home from school this cold December day a mist has risen off the fen. Lolly chants loudly,

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

At the moment this is all she can remember. ‘I’ve got to go home and have another look at that play,’ she says. She is calm, no stuttering. They walk along the side of the road, there is no pavement. ‘There’s a story about this village, did you know that Jenny?’

‘In the play?’

‘No, idiot – a real story.’

‘What kind of story?’ Jenny is used to Lolly’s stories.

‘About witches. Real witches. They were burned at the stake!’ Lolly lets loose a hideous scream. She clutches her throat and whirls round in a circle, gravel flying from under her feet.

Jenny laughs. ‘You see witches everywhere.’

‘No, it’s true. Look at that.’ She points at the village clocktower. It stands at the intersection and around it clusters Warboys.

‘Four o’clock,’ says Jenny, ‘the witching hour?’

‘No, look on top, cretin.’

Jenny looks up. The weathervane is a blackened witch riding on her broom.

‘North, south, west, east,’ Lolly chants, ‘everywhere she points, that’s where evil goes.’

‘What’s the story?’ Jenny asks. She has looked up to the weathervane before, so often she has forgotten it, but she has never heard of a story.

‘I don’t know,’ says Lolly, ‘but I’m going to find out.’ And she gallops off down the street toward her house. In her enthusiasm she forgets she is sixteen and behaves like a nine-year-old. This is a trait in Lolly of which everyone is fond.

That night Agnes puts Jenny to bed. They have begun to develop a night-time ritual. While Jenny soaks in a bath full of rose-scented bubbles, Agnes closes the lid of the toilet and sits down. They talk. Agnes shows Jenny her copy of ‘Vogue’ and they discuss the clothes. Agnes knows a lot about fashion, the designers, the houses, as well as fashion history. She tells Jenny fashion is art. This is news to Jenny; she is eager for it.

The bathroom Jenny uses – everyone uses while the renovations are on-going – is in the Georgian part of the house along the corridor where Jenny, Graeme and Karen, and Andrew and Francis have their bedrooms, and it is draughty. The wind rattles the thin glass of the window in its frame, whooshes across the tiles and under the door. Agnes wears a pullover and a cardigan and wool trousers and still looks a little cold. Jenny feels sorry for her, her sister-in-law from the sunny desert.

Agnes shivers and frowns. ‘It’s so fucking cold in this place.’ This is part of their private ritual – Agnes swears in front of Jenny. They’ve established that Jenny doesn’t swear when she’s with Agnes – she swears when she’s with Lolly – but she enjoys Agnes’s bad language and the knowledge that Agnes thinks she is old enough to hear it.

‘How was your day?’ Agnes asks.

‘Okay. English – I like it. I like Mr McKay,’ she says, a little dreamily.

‘Talk to any boys?’

‘No boys.’

‘Which ones do you like?’

‘None of them.’

‘Ask them about sport, it always works. Football. Ask them who they support, ask how their team is doing. Guaranteed.’

Agnes holds up a towel and turns her face away to protect Jenny’s modesty.

‘Who do you support – no, whom do you support – and how are they doing?’ Jenny repeats as she climbs out of the bath.

‘That’s right.’

‘Guaranteed.’

They leave the bathroom and go into Jenny’s bedroom. She puts on her flannel night-gown and gets into bed. ‘They’ll be begging for it,’ she says.

‘That’s right.’

‘Guaranteed.’

They giggle. Agnes kisses Jenny and gets up to go. ‘Tell me a story Agnes.’ Every night Jenny says the same thing. Some nights Agnes does stay, other nights she smiles and leaves. Tonight she stays.

‘Okay. Let me think.’ She arranges herself in a chair. When she’s ready, she begins. ‘A group of friends – five – two boys and two girls and the brother of one of the girls – he’s confined to a wheelchair –’

‘Like Daddy,’ says Jenny.

‘Except this is a young guy,’ says Agnes. ‘He’s fine, apart from being in a wheelchair.’

‘Why is he in a wheelchair?’

‘I don’t know. He was born that way. Okay?’

Jenny nods.

Agnes continues. ‘They are travelling around in their beat-up old van. One of the girls, Jenny, and her brother – the one in the wheelchair – think that the house their father grew up in is somewhere nearby. They drive past the slaughterhouse where their daddy used to work. Later, along an empty road, they pick up a hitchhiker. This young man is a bit scary, nervous and weird. Jenny’s brother tries to humour him. But the hitchhiker pulls out a knife – to their horror, he cuts himself on the hand. It’s as though he doesn’t feel any pain.’

Jenny looks repelled. Agnes continues.

‘Then the hitchhiker turns nasty. He tries to cut Jenny’s brother with the knife. They drive the van to the side of the road and wrestle him out on to the gravel shoulder. Then they pull away, free of him. Before long they are happy again, travelling along without a care. They stop at a gas station, but the old guy who runs it tells them he is out of gas. They push on.

‘Not long after that, they come to the place where Jenny’s father used to live. They pull off the highway and find the house. It’s a lovely afternoon. Birds are singing, the grass is long, the sun is shining. It’s a struggle to push the wheelchair over the rough ground, but they manage.

‘The house is semi-derelict, abandoned. They have a look around; Jenny and her brother can remember coming to visit. There is a swimming hole down the hill. The other boy and girl decide to go for a swim. Jenny stays behind with her boyfriend and her brother. Her brother can’t do much in his wheelchair; he is hot and bored.

‘When the other boy and girl find the swimming hole all that is left of it is a dry gulch – the water is long gone. Through the trees they can see another house and they decide to go explore. As they get closer they hear the sound of a generator. Hoping they might be able to buy some gas, they approach the house. But it looks like no one is home. The girl waits in the front yard on the swinging bench while the boy knocks. The front door is open – he decides to go inside.

‘The house is quiet and dusty. Through the passage ahead the boy can see a collection of skulls and skins on a red wall. He goes toward the door. Suddenly, an enormous man appears; he is wearing a torn leather face-mask and wielding a mallet. He hits the boy over the head and drags him along the passage.

‘Outside, all the girl can hear is the noise from the generator. Impatient to leave, she goes to the front door, sees that it is ajar, and enters the house, calling her boyfriend’s name. All of a sudden, the man with the leather face appears once again. He grabs the girl. She screams and tries to get away, but he catches her and drags her into the kitchen. She screams and screams when she sees her boyfriend lying dead on a butcher’s block. The man with the leather face hangs her on a meathook. He picks up a chainsaw and pulls the cord on the throttle. It roars to life.’

‘Ugh,’ says Jenny.

‘Had enough?’ asks Agnes.

‘Enough?’ Jenny shakes her head.

‘Back at her father’s old house, Jenny and her boyfriend wonder where their friends have got to. It’s time to leave. The boyfriend says he’ll go down to the swimming hole and get them. Once there, he sees the other house through the trees and hears the generator, like the others before him. He makes his way to the house, finds his way into the kitchen. The butcher’s block is awash with blood. Against one wall there is a large freezer. He feels compelled to open it. Inside is the girl. In her death throes, she sits up and flings herself forward. Just then the man with the leather face-mask appears, wielding his chainsaw. He kills Jenny’s boyfriend.

‘Now it is getting very late. Jenny and her brother don’t know what to do. They honk the horn and call out for the others. There isn’t enough gas in the van to go for help. Jenny decides to go and find them. But her brother won’t let her leave him on his own. After arguing, she agrees to push his chair over the rough ground, through the grass and tumbleweed, down to the dry swimming hole.

‘Of course there is no one there. But beyond the trees they can see a light. They go toward it, they can hear the generator. As they near the front porch, the door is flung open by an enormous man wielding a chainsaw and wearing a leather face-mask. He attacks and kills Jenny’s brother in his wheelchair.

‘Jenny tries to run away. The man with the chainsaw comes after her. She tries to run through the trees, but her hair keeps getting caught on the thorns and tangled undergrowth. She runs and runs, the man with the chainsaw right after her. She runs, screaming for help, but there is no one to hear. Finally, she finds herself at the gas station where they stopped earlier. She pounds on the door. The gas station attendant opens the door and lets her in. He calms her down and says he will drive her to safety.’

‘Oh thank God,’ says Jenny.

‘Well,’ says Agnes, ‘just wait. The gas station man is actually the father of the man with the leather face.’

‘What?’ says Jenny.

Agnes nods grimly. ‘He ties her up and takes her back to the house.’

‘Oh no,’ says Jenny.

‘I know,’ says Agnes, ‘awful, isn’t it? When they arrive the hitchhiker is there as well. ‘“So,” he says, “you’ve met my father.”’

‘Oh, he does not say that,’ objects Jenny.

‘Be quiet,’ replies Agnes. ‘Do you want to hear this story?’

Jenny nods obediently.

‘So Jenny is taken prisoner in this terrible house, this house of madness. They tie her to a chair at the dining table. When they remove the gag from her mouth all she does is scream, so they put it back on her.

‘At dinner there is the hitchhiker, the man with the leather face, and their father, the man from the gas station. He whacks his son the hitchhiker across the head with the back of his hand whenever the son tries to say anything. The grandfather sits at the head of the table, the hitchhiker and the man with the leather face carry him there. He can’t speak or move and Jenny thinks he might be dead. He looks as though he is mummified.’

‘Kind of like Daddy,’ says Jenny.

‘Your father?’

Jenny nods.

‘Kind of. Not really. The hitchhiker serves the meal. Jenny can’t bring herself to look at the meat on the plates, she thinks it might be her boyfriend. This is a family of insane cannibals. Country folk. People like you might find in Warboys.’

Agnes smiles. She looks at Jenny. ‘You know the end, don’t you?’

Jenny licks her lips, her throat is dry, she feels a little nauseated. ‘Somehow, after a lot of screaming, she gets away.’

‘You always know the end.’

‘These stories tend to end the same way,’ Jenny says.

‘That one is a particular favourite of mine.’

‘You always say that.’

‘It’s true. The moral of this story is – what do you think it is?’

‘What? I don’t know. Don’t eat meat.’

Agnes laughs. ‘Madness has a tendency to run in families. Don’t pick up hitchhikers. Never trust a man with a chainsaw.’

‘Except Graeme,’ says Jenny.

‘What?’

‘He has a chainsaw. You know. He does the topiary.’

‘Except Graeme.’

‘Okay,’ says Jenny, ‘I’ll take that advice.’

‘Okay,’ says Agnes. ‘Guaranteed.’

She turns out the lamp beside Jenny’s bed. Before she leaves, she holds the door cracked open and looks back in at Jenny. ‘Do you want to know what it’s really about?’

‘Okay,’ says Jenny.

‘The comedy of senseless violence. The pleasure of running amok.’

She closes the door and walks away. Jenny hears her footsteps along the corridor, down the stairs. As Agnes leaves, Jenny thinks about the story. This time Agnes kept it brief, cut herself off mid-flow, as though she had second thoughts – it was too much, too gruesome. Even so, images from the tale stick with Jenny. For a moment she thinks she can hear the chainsaw starting up, the generator rattling. She feels the walls of her bedroom press in toward her. The black night threatens to swallow her whole. It is as though she is being taken over, as though Agnes’s stories are taking possession of her somehow, leaving less room for Jenny, letting in the unknown. When she falls asleep she dreams that when she looks in the mirror she doesn’t know her own face.

The next day at school Jenny faints during a class. She slumps down in her seat and it is Lolly who notices eventually. They have no idea how long she’s been unconscious. When she comes round she says to the school nurse ‘I could hear my own heart beating. My heart was beating so loudly that everything else disappeared.’

Christmas arrives and with it bad moods and temper tantrums. This year Robert hopes that Christmas will be wonderful a dream Christmas with fairy lights and cosy rooms and everyone dressed up and wonderful presents piled under a beautiful tree. They put the tree in the ballroom, because the ceiling is higher and the room less cluttered. The bits of plaster that came down have been salvaged and are piled up in one corner. On Christmas Eve they light a fire and sit around the tree, but the room is cold and uncomfortable, derelict and dusty, they keep glancing nervously at the ceiling. One by one they gravitate toward the sitting room, until Robert and Agnes are left on their own. Robert opens the last of the champagne left over from the wedding and pours two glasses. He asks Agnes if she will dance with him; she slides into his arms. There is no music, the Throckmorton house has no music, but that doesn’t matter. Beneath her shawl she is wearing a long black satin shift dress with spaghetti straps that slip off her shoulders as they move around the room. He touches her skin and finds it very cold but when he begins to speak she puts her finger on his lips and says, ‘Shh. It’s all right.’ They dance slowly and Robert holds her close. He feels a little dizzy; he’s been drinking steadily all afternoon, the champagne has sent his head spinning. He looks around the room and it is as though fine mist is seeping through the cracks in the panelling. The ballroom fills with spectral dancing forms. Again he tries to speak and Agnes puts her finger to his lips, ‘They are joining us,’ she says, ‘don’t worry.’ The moment is lost to him and he thinks she’s referring to Graeme and Karen. As he looks into her eyes he sees the black pupils eclipse the irises, but she blinks and he is swamped by the green greenness of her eyes.