Mountwood School for Ghosts Page 11

‘She says I’m no good. She’s jealous,’ screeched the sprite, pointing a long pale finger at Iphigenia.

  ‘Not at all. If she’s too brainless to understand—’

  The Phantom Welder just had to put his oar in, and that was really the cause of what happened next.

  ‘Oh, leave her alone, Mrs Peabody. She’s only a slip of a thing. She does her best, and that should be good enough for anybody, I reckon.’

  Iphigenia’s ghostly eyes widened, her eyebrows arched, her nostrils quivered. She tossed her glorious head of burnished hair and in a voice that she had last used when playing the title role in Antony and Cleopatra, she turned to the Phantom Welder and said, ‘And as for you, you think you’re just wonderful, don’t you? No need to question anything. You have your boiler suit, your silly welding torch, your pathetic excuses for jokes, your “I am a simple working man” attitude. You have your “I can tell right from wrong”, your ‘I don’t get that arty stuff”. So pleased with yourself. So complacent. Well, let me tell you something, Mr I-like-a-simple-fry-up-no-fancy-food-for-me. Haunting isn’t a parlour game, a bit of a giggle. True haunting is high art. One must dig deep. One must tear down one’s own narrow boundaries and stand alone. One must risk everything.’

  ‘Crikey,’ said the Phantom Welder.

  ‘I am sick of this sham haunting,’ Iphigenia went on, her voice rising in a crescendo. ‘This pretending to be scared. Where’s the real thing?’

  Nobody spoke. Then a nervous stink wafted towards them, and the Druid said, ‘Excuse me, but we can’t do real haunting, can we? It is against the school rules, you know, the Law of Mountwood. The Law that goes . . .’

  ‘From our fiery forefathers forthgiven

  Rightly written of runewise relatives

  Disturb not decisions, deeds and dictates,

  Helpless and hope-broken be he hailed who high-handed

  Lets loud-sung Law limply languish

  Beating bold breasts . . .’

  ‘Stop him, somebody!’ cried a lady ghost from one of Britain’s noblest families who had been starved to death by accident and had haunted the larder of her stately home ever since. It was Iphigenia who brought the Druid up short before he got into full flow; he could have gone on all night without stopping for breath. Why should a ghost breathe if he doesn’t want to?

  ‘Fiddlesticks, you soppy old man. “More is better”? Ha! I’m going out. Are you coming, Kylie darling? Or do you prefer to stay here and play “Boo” with Mr Simple Working Man here?’

  With a violent swoosh, Iphigenia threw herself through the oaken door of Mountwood and vanished into the night.

  Kylie’s blood was up, in a manner of speaking. Iphigenia’s words had stung. They had made her feel like a mincing teacher’s pet, and she wasn’t having any of that. If something was going to happen, she was going to be there. She swept out after Iphigenia.

  At that moment Ron, who was getting tired of sulking on the roof, stuck his head through the ceiling and looked down.

  ‘What’s going on? Where’s Iffy?’

  The ghosts fluttered chattering around him, telling him what had happened.

  ‘Whoa, hold on. Are you telling me Iffy’s gone out? In a temper? Breaking the rules? She can be a bit flighty sometimes. I blame myself. I could have stopped her. Perhaps,’ he added.

  The ghosts looked at him.

  ‘We’ll have to go out and find them,’ said Ron. ‘Nothing else for it.’

  There was nothing else for it. The ghosts dematerialized and streamed invisibly out of Mountwood, following the tingly atmosphere that Iphigenia and Kylie had left like footprints in the ether. The last to leave was the fat housemaster, who was worried that he might be caned for breaking school rules. But even he, his chins wobbling, followed in the end.

  Down in the village that nestled in the valley below Mountwood was a nice little pub called the Fox and Hen. A few local farm labourers and estate workers had gathered there as usual for a quiet pint and a game of darts. It was just before closing time, and the talk turned, as it quite often did, to Mountwood. Most of them avoided the place if they could. Rumours of Angus Crawe had been around for years and years, and recently funny noises had been heard that definitely weren’t owls or foxes. Nobody would dream of going there at night. And since the arrival of the three retired ladies, they avoided it in daytime as well.

  ‘Ugly as sin, they are,’ said the postman, who was sitting in a corner by the fire. He had to go there to deliver letters, whether he wanted to or not. ‘Back of a bus ain’t in it. And scary too. Like you’d be turned into a frog or something if you rubbed them up the wrong way.’

  The other occupants of the snuggery laughed.

  Standing at the bar was a man called Vince Grafton. He wasn’t a local. He lived in the nearby market town and worked, when he worked at all, in a garage. He always wore a donkey jacket, slicked-back hair and a sly look, and he fancied his chances with the ladies, although he was married. He treated his wife terribly. When he was at home, which wasn’t very often, he was nasty to her, taking every chance he could to make her feel useless and ugly, although she wasn’t, and shouting at her if he didn’t like her cooking.

  Now Vince finished his beer, thumped his glass down on the bar and said in a loud voice, ‘Three old wrinklies and a funny noise? It doesn’t take much to scare you lot.’

  He took a greasy comb out of his back pocket and ran it through his hair. He wouldn’t have minded an argument, or even a bit of a fight. He was that sort. But nobody in the room could be bothered. They just looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. People in country villages very rarely fight with people they don’t know.

  Vince laughed, went out to the car park and drove off into the night.

  He took the narrow road that wound upward through the woods. Rounding a sharp bend, his headlights picked out a pale figure standing at the side of the road. As he got closer, he saw that it was a woman with a mass of auburn hair; she was wearing a long, old-fashioned dress. She must have been stranded on her way to a party, thought Vince. Maybe her car had broken down.

  Normally he would not have stopped to help. He had never helped anyone in his life. But as he slowed down for a better look, he burst out, ‘You’re in luck, Vince, my boy.’

  She was a real stunner. Ten out of ten.

  Vince stopped the car and looked at himself in the rear-view mirror. Irresistible, that’s what he was. Looked like a film star. He leaned over and opened the near-side window. ‘Need a lift, pet?’

  Iphigenia (for it was she) gave him the most endearing smile imaginable.

  ‘Oh, thank you so much. I am quite lost and alone.’

  ‘Are you now?’ Better and better, thought Vince. ‘Hop in then.’

  The beautiful woman said something under her breath, and then seemed almost to float towards the car. She got into the passenger seat. The words that Vince hadn’t caught had been directed to Kylie, who had melted into a tree close by.

  ‘Come along, darling, watch and learn.’

  Vince put the car into gear and drove on, out of the dark woods and on to open moorland. A thin fingernail of crescent moon rode the night sky, not bright enough to dull the stars whose soft light bathed the heather in an eerie glow.

  ‘Oh my,’ simpered Iphigenia. ‘It is wild up here.’

  ‘It’s wild all right,’ said Vince.

  High up on the moors, where you could see right across to the dark ridge that scarred the horizon on the other side of the valley, Vince pulled off the road and stopped the car.

  ‘Why are you stopping?’

  Vince grinned his wolfish grin. ‘To enjoy the view, you know.’ He reached into the pocket of his jacket and took out a bottle of vodka. He unscrewed the top and took a swig. ‘That’s better. Here you go. Should warm you up a bit.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  Vince’s next trick was to tell a spooky story, so that she would squeak a bit and cuddle up to him. ‘See that big rock up ther
e? That’s Gibbet Rock, where they used to hang the border reivers, when they could catch them.’

  ‘Ooh,’ said Iphigenia, trying to sound frightened. Vince was talking rubbish. Gibbet Rock was a mile farther down the road, as she knew very well. She had met some of the hanged criminals only the other night. They were mates of Angus Crawe and had popped in to have a little natter at the bottom of the well.

  ‘And then there was Mad Meg,’ Vince went on, ‘She was going to be burned at the stake for a witch, but she pulled a knife out of her sleeve and slit her own throat before they could light the pyre.’

  This was complete nonsense. Vince was making the whole thing up.

  ‘How interesting.’ Suddenly Iphigenia’s voice had changed. It was a chilling, toneless whisper.

  Vince looked at her in surprise. She sat there smiling as before, her beautiful face framed by her marvellous hair, but her eyes . . . there were two blank staring white holes where those soulful eyes had been. The hair rose on the back of Vince’s neck.

  ‘Was it a knife like this?’ Iphigenia asked in the same frozen whisper, and from her sleeve she drew a dagger. Dark red liquid dripped from the blade. Still smiling the same empty-eyed smile, she stuck the point into her neck just below the ear and drew the blade across her own throat. A thin line of blood oozed from the wound and ran down her neck. She spoke again. ‘It’s cold on the moors of a night. Won’t you join me?’

  In a spasm of horror Vince lashed out. His fist passed right through Iphigenia, who was rapidly fading.

  ‘We’ll meet again.’

  Her voice was barely audible now. It seemed no more than a wind soughing across the heather. ‘Remember me, Poor Meg o’ the Moor, remember me . . .’

  Vince forced the car into gear and drove off like a madman. His hands were shaking so badly he could hardly hold the wheel. He drove at breakneck speed, skidding around bends with his foot on the floor. He didn’t slow down until he was back in the valley among the trees.

  ‘Somebody must have drugged me,’ he mumbled. ‘What a total nightmare.’

  Then he happened to glance in his rear-view mirror. Sitting on the back seat was Iphigenia, blood still running down her neck and covering her dress in an ever-widening stain. The same eyeless smile was on her face.

  ‘I’ll never leave you, my dear one,’ she whispered. ‘I’m yours forever.’

  It was too much. Vince screamed and collapsed over the steering wheel. Out of control, the car careered off the road and crashed into a tree. He was thrown clear and lay in a lifeless heap in the bracken a few yards from the wreck, his face set in a grimace of terror. His hair had gone completely white.

  Kylie appeared on the back seat of the car beside Iphigenia, where she had been sitting all the time.

  ‘Oh, Mrs Peabody, that was unbelievable. It was fabulous. I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  Iphigenia smiled at her. ‘It’s technique, darling. It can be learned.’

  ‘No, no, it’s more than that. Inspired it was. And you hadn’t even prepared.’

  ‘Well, my love, one must be open to the moment. Improvisation is a skill too.’

  Happily they glided out of the car together, all their past enmity forgotten. At that moment Ron Peabody’s manly tones echoed through the night.

  ‘Iffy! Iffy!’

  All the ghosts swarmed out of the forest with Ron at their head. Everyone gathered around Vince’s lifeless form.

  ‘Will you look at that!’ said the Legless Anglo-Saxon Warrior from the Isle of Thanet. He was not only without legs, he had no nose and a detached ear, so it was not always easy to judge his mood. But now it was clear he was impressed. ‘That man’s been scared to death. Haven’t seen that for a while.’

  There was huge excitement among the ghosts. Kylie told them all about the marvellous performance she had witnessed, and of course Iphigenia was heaped with praise. Everyone agreed that this was one in the eye for plastic Halloween masks and jolly jokey ghost cartoons.

  They were chattering cheerfully, pointing out Vince’s rigid terrified face (‘That’s what I call a Halloween mask,’ said the Shortener, and everyone laughed and said how witty and clever he was), when they heard a car coming. The Phantom Welder instantly recognized the throaty hum of a perfectly engineered six-cylinder engine.

  ‘That’s the Rolls,’ he said. ‘We’re toast.’

  ‘Perhaps we should make ourselves scarce,’ said the Shortener, putting on his bowler hat. The ghosts thinned out and scattered into the unseen as fast as they could.

  Too fast. The starving duchess left her right foot behind, and the ear of the Legless Anglo-Saxon Warrior hung about just a bit too long. It got caught in the beams of the headlamps as the Rolls swung round the last bend.

  Inside the car Fredegonda said, ‘Stop! I know that ear.’

  Goneril braked, and the Great Hagges could see Vince’s car with its front end crumpled against a tree trunk and its rear wheels in the air. They could also make out the figure of Vince, lying like a discarded rag doll a little way off.

  ‘An accident, oh dear,’ said Drusilla, sitting up in the back seat where she had been resting. She had worked hard sorting out the mess that was the Grim Ghoul’s digestive system and was rather tired.

  ‘Accident? I have my doubts,’ said Fredegonda grimly. Her thumb was pricking and tickling as it sometimes did when things were afoot. The Hagges got out of the car and walked towards Vince’s body. They stood looking down at the chalky horror-struck face.

  ‘Well, well. Scared to death,’ said Fredegonda.

  ‘Unfortunately not. Only comatose, I’m afraid,’ said Drusilla in a disappointed voice. She had already been having a number of little culinary ideas – roadkill is roadkill after all.

  Fredegonda frowned. ‘You would think,’ she said, ‘that one night off was not too much to ask. There has been a serious breach of discipline. There have been pranks; there have been high jinks. And they didn’t even complete the job. What shall we do?’

  ‘Shall we just finish him off and leave him?’ suggested Goneril, looking around for a large stone.

  ‘Quite impossible, I’m afraid. The police are terribly good at this kind of thing nowadays. They will work out that he didn’t die in the crash and start poking around. Drusilla, can you come up with something?’

  ‘I can bring him round, I think,’ said Drusilla, and went back to the car.

  She came back with a small phial, uncorked it and asked, ‘Could you help me, Goneril dear?’

  Goneril took hold of Vince’s ankles and lifted him up so that he was hanging upside down from her outstretched arms, limp as a bin bag. Drusilla knelt down and poured a few drops from her phial into Vince’s left nostril, counting carefully as she did so, ‘One, two, three, and one for luck.’

  Goneril put him down. Suddenly he spluttered, arched his back and then leaped to his feet, staring wildly around him and waving his arms.

  ‘No . . . get off me . . . I won’t . . . Aargh!’ he howled.

  They threw Vince on to the back seat of the Rolls and drove off. While he babbled and screeched and wept, Drusilla went through his pockets.

  ‘Vincent Grafton,’ she said, after finding his driving licence and a couple of unpaid bills. ‘Twenty-one Lavender Terrace, Matherley. He was obviously on his way home.’

  After coasting quietly around the housing estates on the outskirts of Matherley, the Hagges found the right house.

  Goneril got out of the car, fetched Vince from the back seat and tucked him under her arm. She walked up to the door of number twenty-one, dropped him on the front step, rang the bell and went back to the car.

  The Great Hagges sat in silence for a while, watching. A light went on in an upstairs room, and a few seconds later the front door opened slowly. In the glow of the porch light they saw a woman, still young but with marks of weariness and despair on her face, bend over the huddled shape on her doorstep.

  ‘Vince?’ they heard her say.

 
; Vince Grafton crept past her on all fours into the house. He never left it again. After a long time he recovered slightly. He learned to sew, and to cook healthy food, and he even found out where the vacuum cleaner was kept. His wife found a nice job in the library, and every day she locked him in carefully before leaving the house. He insisted on it. Sometimes on a Sunday she suggested a little stroll by the river. But Vincent always refused, trembling in every limb.

  ‘Not going out there,’ he said. ‘Meg’s out there.’

  Eighteen

  The Markham Street March

  Daniel and Charlotte were in Daniel’s attic room, sitting on the low windowsill.

  They had lost. The results of the inquiry had been announced, with articles in the newspaper and reports on the local news station. Work would start soon in the park, and in a month or two the demolition of Markham Street would begin.

  Rain was falling in a steady determined way, as though to say that it had got into its stride and wasn’t planning on letting up any time soon. It drummed on the roof slates and gurgled in the guttering. Now and then, when a gust of wind shook the leaves of the chestnut tree on the other side of the street, it smattered against the windowpane.

  ‘The Bennetts are moving tomorrow; I met Gillian on the way home from school,’ said Charlotte.

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘How about you?’

  ‘I think we’ll go to that place on Wellington Road. My dad says that the compensation money should be enough. At least he’ll have a bit of garden out the back.’

  I can’t believe it’s over, Daniel. I just can’t.’ Charlotte leaned her forehead against the windowpane.

  ‘It isn’t over, Charlie. Not until they swing a wrecking ball through our front door.’

  ‘I get the Hector thing, Daniel, I really do. But this is real. It’s not an old story about Helen of Troy.’

  ‘Come on, Charlotte. You’re Boudicca, remember. What are we going to do now?’

  Mrs Wilder was wondering the same thing.

  Jessie and Mr Jaros had come over for a cup of tea. Jessie had struggled up the stairs to the big room on the first floor and flopped gratefully down in front of the gas fire, where she instantly fell asleep. Mrs Wilder and Mr Jaros sat opposite each other in comfortable chairs, and while Mr Jaros nibbled silently on his biscuit, and the rain pattered on the windows, Mrs Wilder considered the situation.