House of Echoes. Barbara Erskine

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      ‘I wrote to him to say we’d inherited the house. I wanted to thank him, but he never replied.’ She had also phoned twice but there had been no answer.

      ‘That’s hardly surprising. He’s probably too busy having apocalyptic visions!’ Roy put in.

      ‘No, that’s unfair!’ Janet turned on her husband. ‘They go off to South Africa every winter since his retirement to spend several months with their daughter. That’s why he’s not been in touch, Joss.’

      ‘I see.’ Joss was astonished for a moment at her disappointment. She had seen Edgar as a strength, there in the background to advise them if ever they should need it. His words returned to her suddenly – words she tried to push to the back of her mind whenever she remembered them; words she had never repeated to Luke. ‘I prayed you would never come to find me, Jocelyn Grant.’

      The conversation had moved on without her. Vaguely she heard Alan talking about village cricket then Sally laughing at some anecdote about a neighbour. She missed it. Edgar’s voice was still there in her ears: ‘There is too much unhappiness attached to that house. The past is the past. It should be allowed to rest.’ She shook her head abruptly. He had asked her if she had children and when she had told him, he had said nothing; and he had sighed.

      Pushing her chair back with a shiver, she stood up suddenly. ‘Luke, give everyone second helpings. I’m just going to pop upstairs and make sure Tom is all right.’

      The hall was silent, lit by the table lamp in the corner. She paused for a moment, shivering in the draught which swept in under the front door. The kitchen was the only room in the house they had so far managed to heat up to modern standards, thanks to the range.

      She needed to think. Staring at the lamp her mind was whirling. Edgar Gower; the house; her mother’s fear; there had to be some basis for all the stories. And the devil. Why should people think the devil lived at Belheddon?

      Pushing open the heavy door into the great hall she stopped in horror. Tom’s piercing screams filled the room, echoing down the stairs from his bedroom.

      ‘Tom!’ She took the stairs two at a time. The little boy was standing up in his cot, tears streaming down his face, his hands locked onto the bars. The room was ice cold. In the near darkness of the teddy bear night light in the corner she could see his small face beetroot red in the shadows. Swooping on him she scooped him up into her arms. His pyjamas were soaking wet.

      ‘Tom, what is it, darling.’ She nuzzled his hair. He was dripping with sweat.

      ‘Tom go home.’ His sobs were heart rending. ‘Tom go to Tom’s house.’

      Joss bit her lip. ‘This is Tom’s house, darling. Tom’s new house.’ She cradled his head against her shoulder. ‘What happened? Did you have a bad dream?’

      She held him away from her on her knee, studying his face. ‘Tom Tom? What is it?’

      ‘Tom go home.’ He was staring over her shoulder towards the window, snuffling pathetically, taking comfort from her arms.

      ‘I tell you what.’ She reached to turn on the main light, flooding the room with brightness. ‘Let’s change your jym-jams, and make you a nice clean, dry bed, then you can come downstairs for a few minutes to Mummy and Daddy’s party before going back to sleep. How would that be?’

      Holding him on her hip she went through the familiar routine, extracting clean dry clothes and bedding from his chest of drawers, changing him, sponging his face and hands, brushing his hair with the soft baby hairbrush, aware that every few minutes he kept glancing back towards the window. His thumb had been firmly plugged into his mouth as she sat him on the rug and turned to make his bed, stripping off the wet covers, wiping over the rubber sheet.

      ‘Man go away.’ He took his thumb out long enough to speak and then plugged it in again.

      Joss turned. ‘What man?’ Her voice was sharper than she intended, and she saw the little boy’s eyes fill with tears. Desperately he held out his arms to her. Stooping she hauled him off the ground. ‘What man, Tom Tom? Did you dream about a nasty man?’ In spite of herself she followed his gaze to the corner of the room. She had found some pretty ready-made curtains for his window. They showed clowns somersaulting through hoops and balloons and ribbons. Those and the soft colourful rugs had turned the nursery into one of the brightest rooms in the house. But in the shadows of the little night light, had there been anything there to cast a shadow and frighten him? She bit her lip.

      ‘Tell me about the man, Tom,’ she said gently.

      ‘Tin man.’ Tom reached for the locket on a chain round her neck and pulled it experimentally. She smiled, firmly extricating it from his grasp. ‘A tin man? From one of your books?’ That explained it. She sighed with relief. Lyn must have been reading him The Wizard of Oz before she left. With a glance round the room she hugged him close. ‘Come on, Tom Tom, let’s take you down to meet the neighbours.’

      She knew from experience that within ten minutes, sitting on Luke’s knee in a warm kitchen, the little boy would be fast asleep and tomorrow before anything else she would buy a baby alarm so that never again would the little boy scream unheard in his distant bedroom. With a final glance round she carried him out into the darkened main bedroom. It was very cold in there. The undrawn curtains allowed frosty moonlight to spill across the floor, reflecting a soft gleam on the polished oak boards, throwing the shadow from the four-poster bed as thick bars over the rug in front of her feet. She stopped, cradling Tom’s head against her shoulder, staring suddenly into the far corner. It was deep in shadow. Her jacket, hanging from the wardrobe handle, was a wedge of blackness against the black. Her arms tightened around the little boy protectively.

       Katherine

      It was a whisper in the silence. Tom raised his head. ‘Daddy?’ he said. He craned round her shoulder to see.

      Joss shook her head slightly. It was nothing. Her imagination. Luke was in the kitchen. ‘No, darling. There’s no one there.’ She kissed his head. ‘Daddy’s downstairs. Let’s go and find him.’

      ‘Tin man.’ The thumb was drawn out of the mouth long enough for Tom to point over her shoulder into the darkness of the corner. ‘Tin man there.’ His face crumpled and a small sob escaped him before he buried his face in her shoulder again.

      ‘No, darling. No tin man. Just shadows.’ Joss made for the door. She almost ran along the corridor and down the stairs.

      ‘Hey, who is this?’ Roy stood up and held out his arms to Tom. ‘How come you’ve been missing the party, old chap?’

      ‘Joss?’ Luke had spotted Joss’s white face. ‘What is it. What was wrong?’

      She shook her head. ‘Nothing. He was crying and we didn’t hear him. I expect he had had a bad dream.’

      A dream about a tin man who skulked in dark corners.

       8

      The drawers of the desk were full of papers and letters, the general detritus of a life time, dealt with, filed, СКАЧАТЬ