Читать книгу House of Echoes - Barbara Erskine - Страница 13

It was still dark when Joss slipped from the bed, tiptoeing across the icy floor in bare feet. Behind her Luke gave a quiet murmur and, punching the pillow turned over and went back to sleep. Switching on the light in the bathroom Joss reached for her clothes, left piled on the chair. Thick trousers, shirt, two sweaters, heavy thermal socks. In the ice cold room her breath came in small clouds. On the window pane, as she held back the curtain and peered out into the darkness she was enchanted and horrified to find the beautiful, lacy designs of Jack Frost on the inside of the glass. With a rueful smile she padded across the floor and glanced through Tom’s door. Worn out by the excitement of the day before he was sleeping flat on his back, his arms above his head on the pillow, his cheeks pink with sleep. Tiptoeing to the chest where his night light burned she glanced at the thermometer which Alice had suggested they keep in the room. The temperature was steady. With a fond smile, she tiptoed out of the room and left the door slightly ajar. If he woke, Luke would hear him.

Putting the kettle onto the stove Joss went to the back door and pulled it open. The morning blackness was totally silent. No bird song. No traffic murmur in the distance as there would have been in London; no cheerful clank of milk bottles. Pulling on her heavy coat she stepped out into the courtyard. The bulk of the old Bentley had been pulled into the coach house and the doors closed. There was nothing here now, but their own Citroën, covered in a thick white frost. The gate out into the garden was painfully cold even beneath her gloved hands as she pushed it back and let herself out onto the matted lawn. Above her head the stars were still blazing as though it were full night. Glancing up she could see a faint light shining from behind the curtains in Lyn’s room. Was she too unable to sleep in a strange bed?

The grass was spiky, brittle beneath her boots. Almost she could hear the tinkle of broken glass as she walked across it, skirting the skeletal branches of a blackly silhouetted tree, down towards the gleam of water. In the east now, she realised, the stars were dimming. Soon it would begin to grow light.

She stood for several moments, gloved hands in pockets, staring down at the ice as around her the garden began imperceptibly to brighten. She was numb with cold, but through the chill she could feel something else. Apprehension – fear even – for what they had done. They had had no real choice. Even if Luke had found a job working for someone else she doubted if they could have afforded the rent on a flat of a decent size and certainly they couldn’t have bought somewhere of their own. They could no longer live in London. But this, this was so different. Another world from the one they had planned together when they had first got married. She frowned, stamping her feet, reluctant as yet to go back inside. A new world, new people, new memories – no, memories wasn’t the right word. A history to be learned and assimilated and in some way lived.

Sammy!

The voice, a boy’s voice, called suddenly out of the darkness behind her. Joss spun round.

Sammy!

It came again, more distant now.

Across the lawn, in the house, a light had appeared in her and Luke’s bedroom. The curtains weren’t quite closed and a broad vee of light flooded out across the frosted grass.

‘Hello?’ Joss’s voice was a husky intrusion into the intense silence. ‘Who’s there?’ She glanced round. The stars were disappearing fast now. A dull greyness was drifting in amongst the bushes in the shrubbery near her. She frowned. ‘Is there someone there?’ She called again, more loudly this time, her voice seeming to echo across the water. In the distance a bird called loudly. Then the silence returned.

Turning sharply back to the house she found she was shivering violently as she hurried back in the direction of the kitchen. Pulling off her boots and gloves she ran inside, blowing on her fingers, to find the kettle cheerfully filling the room with steam. When Luke appeared, some ten minutes later, she was sitting at the table, still in her heavy coat, her hands cupped around a mug of tea.

‘So, Joss, how is it?’ He smiled at her as he found himself a mug on the draining board.

She reached up to kiss him on the mouth. ‘Wonderful, strange. Terrifying.’

He laughed, briefly resting his hand over hers. ‘We’ll cope. Joss.’ His face became serious for a moment. ‘Are you happy about Alice and Joe staying? You don’t want to establish your own territory a bit before they muscle in?’ He searched her face seriously. ‘I know how much this house means to you, love. I do understand how you must feel about it all. If there is any conflict –’

‘There isn’t.’ She shook her head adamantly. ‘I need them here, Luke. I can’t explain it, but I need them. It’s as though they represent something solid, something to hang on to – a life belt – from my old life. Besides, I love them. They are my parents. Whatever, whoever Laura was, I never knew her.’ Pushing back the chair she stood up abruptly. ‘I don’t want her taking over my life. I don’t want her to think she can buy my affection – my love – with all this.’ She gestured at the kitchen around them.

‘I don’t think that’s what she intended, Joss.’ Luke was watching her, puzzled. Her dark hair had fallen in a curtain across her eyes and she hadn’t tossed it back, a habitual gesture of hers which he loved. Instead it hung there, hiding her face, concealing her expression.

‘Luke.’ She still hadn’t looked at him. ‘I walked down to the lake while it was still dark. There was someone out there.’

‘Out in the garden?’ He pulled up a chair and sat opposite her. ‘Who?’

‘They were calling. For someone called Sammy.’

He laughed. ‘Probably a cat. You know how sound travels. On a cold, still night, and near water. It was probably someone in the village.’

At last she had pushed back her hair. She gave him a small lop-sided grin, blowing on her tea. ‘Of course. Why didn’t I think of that.’

‘Because you are an idiot and I love you.’ He smiled, still watching her face. She was white with exhaustion. The stress of the last two months had told heavily on her. Preoccupied with the business he had had to leave the organisation of the sale of the house, the packing and the move to her as well as the frequent trips to East Anglia to supervise the opening up of the house and the checks to the plumbing and electricity and although Lyn had from time to time taken Tom off her hands for a few hours to help her, he knew the strain had been enormous. She had lost about a stone and the dark rings under her eyes were gaunt reminders of night after night tossing sleepless beside him as they lay staring up at the ceiling locked in silent thought in the dark before the move.

‘First day of the rest of our lives, Joss.’ He raised his mug to clink against hers. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’ She smiled.

Alice and Joe appeared some half hour later as Joss was strapping Tom into his high chair. ‘Good morning, sweetheart.’ Alice stopped and kissed the little boy on the head. ‘Joss, my love, your father and I have been talking and we’ve decided to go back to town today.’

‘But Mum –’ Joss stared at her aghast. ‘Why? I thought you liked it here –’

‘We do, Jossie.’ Joe sat down and pulled the teapot towards him. ‘And we’ll be back. We’ve things to do at home, and shopping.’ He wiggled his eyebrows at Tom, who giggled and banged his spoon on the table in front of him. ‘Shopping to do with Father Christmas. We’ll be back, love, before you know it. Your mum needs to rest a bit, Joss. She’s not really up to doing much at the moment.’ He shook his head. ‘And I know her. She won’t be able to sit still as long as she knows there’s work to be done and besides, I think, and your mother agrees with me, that you and Luke need a few days to settle in on your own.’

‘But we don’t. We’ve already discussed this, and I want you here.’ She knew she sounded like a spoiled child. With a miserable sniff Joss turned towards the stove and reached for the kettle. ‘You can’t go. Mum needn’t do anything heavy. She can rest here –’

‘I think maybe they’re right, Joss,’ Luke said quietly. He glanced over her head at his father-in-law.

‘Well, at least Lyn can stay.’ Joss took a deep breath. Picking up a jug of milk she reached for Tom’s beaker.

‘No, love. Lyn is coming with us.’ Joe hooked the toast rack towards him. Selecting a piece he buttered it and cut it into strips, putting them down in front of his grandson. ‘We’ve talked it over with her too. She can come back next week if you want her, if she hasn’t got another temporary job by then.’ He sighed. Uninterested in anything academic Lyn had left school at sixteen and drifted from one unsatisfactory temporary job to another. While Joss had stayed on to do her A levels and followed that with a brilliant career at Bristol University and then a teaching post, Lyn, at the age of twenty-eight, with two failed relationships and an aborted attempt at running her own catering business behind her, had moved back in with her parents and resumed her half-hearted trawl through the agencies. Joe shook his head. ‘Then your mum and I will return on the Wednesday after that in plenty of time for Christmas. And we’ll all stay as long as you like to help you get straight.’

‘They had it all planned!’ Standing in the coach house later, with Tom’s gloved hand clutched in her own Joss stared at her husband’s back as he leaned over the huge rusting engine of the Bentley. ‘Why? Was it your idea?’

Luke straightened. ‘No, it wasn’t. But I had the same feeling they did. You need to be here on your own, Joss. It’s important. You need to explore. To get the feel of the place. They know you as well as I do – better, for God’s sake. We all know how special places are to you.’ He walked over to the bench by the wall where already he had laid out a selection of his tools.

She shook her head. ‘Am I so predictable? You can all tell how I feel before I feel it?’

‘Fraid so!’ He chuckled.

‘And what about you? What are you going to feel about this place?’

‘Cold mostly.’ And uneasy, he was going to say, though he wasn’t quite sure why. The same way Joe and Alice had felt. They hadn’t said anything, but he could see it in their eyes. No wonder they had wanted to get away. ‘So, if you could arrange to have the kettle on in say half an hour, I can come in and thaw out. I want to keep to my plan if I can. Work on the old bus for George Maxim in the mornings, and on the house and garden in the afternoon. That way I can divide my time. Joss –’ He looked suddenly concerned. ‘We weren’t all ganging up on you, love. I promise. Listen, if you think you are going to feel a bit lonely, why don’t you ask that Goodyear woman and her husband over for a meal. They are obviously dying to find out about us and we can do some reciprocal pumping about the house.’

‘Right, Tom Tom, let’s start at the top today for a change.’ Two days of unrelenting unpacking and sorting and cleaning later, her phone call made, and her invitation for supper at the end of the week ecstatically accepted by the Goodyears and the Fairchilds at the post office, Joss picked up a duster and broom and made for the stairs, the little boy running purposefully behind her.

In the attics a series of small rooms led out of one another, all empty, all wallpapered in small faded flowers and leaves, all with sloping ceilings and dark, dusty beams. Those facing south were full of bright winter sunshine warm behind the glass of the windows; those which looked out over the front of the house were cold and shadowed. Joss glanced at the little boy. He was staying very close to her, his thumb firmly held in his mouth. ‘Nice house, Tom?’ She smiled at him encouragingly. They were looking at a pile of old books.

‘Tom go down.’ He reached out for her long sweater and wound his fingers into it.

‘We’ll go down in a minute, to make Daddy some coffee –’ She broke off. Somewhere nearby she heard a child’s laugh. There was a scuffle of feet running, then silence.

‘Boy.’ Tom informed her hopefully. He peered round her shyly.

Joss swallowed. ‘There aren’t any boys here, Tom Tom.’ But of course, there must be. Boys from the village. The house had been empty so long it would have been very strange if no one had found their way in to explore the old place.

‘Hello?’ she called. ‘Who’s there?’

There was silence.

‘Sammy?’ She remembered the name out of nowhere; out of the dark. ‘Sammy, are you there?’ The silence was intense. It no longer seemed to be the silence of emptiness; it was a listening, enquiring silence.

‘Mummy, look.’ Tom tugged at her sweater. ‘Flutterby!’ A ragged peacock butterfly, woken by the heat of the sun on the glass was fluttering feebly against the window, its wings shushing faintly, shedding red-blue dust.

‘Poor thing, it’s trapped.’ Joss looked at it sadly. To let it go out into the cold would mean certain death.

The laughter came from the other end of the attic this time; pealing, joyous, followed again by the sound of feet. Tom laughed. ‘See boys,’ he cried. ‘Me wants to see boys.’

‘Mummy wants to see boys too,’ Joss agreed. She stooped and picked him up, abandoning the butterfly as she pulled open the door which separated this room from the next. ‘They shouldn’t be here. We’re going to have to tell them to go home for their lunch –’ She broke off. The next room, larger than the rest, was the last. Beyond it, out of the high windows she could look down on the stableyard, seeing the doors pulled wide where Luke was standing in the coach house entrance talking to a strange man. Joss swung round. ‘Where have those naughty boys gone?’

‘Naughty boys gone.’ Tom echoed sadly. He too was staring round, tears welling in his eyes. This was where the sound of the children had come from without a doubt, but the room was empty even of the clutter which had stood in some of the others. The boards, sloping with age, were dusty. They showed no foot marks.

‘Tom, I think we’ll go downstairs.’ She was uneasy. ‘Let’s go and make Daddy his coffee, then you can go and call him for me.’ She backed towards the door. Suddenly she didn’t want to meet these hidden children after all.

The morning of their first informal supper party three days later Luke pulled open the cellar door and switched on the lights. Tom was asleep upstairs when he had dragged Joss away from her polishing. ‘Let’s have a real look at that wine. We’ll see if we can find something decent to drink tonight.’

Running down the creaking staircase ahead of her he stared round. The cellar was cold and smelled strongly of damp. A preliminary glance a few days earlier had to their excitement told them the cellar contained a great deal of wine; racks of bottles, bins and cases stretched away into the darkness of a second cellar beyond the first. ‘Joss?’ He turned and looked for her.

Joss was standing at the top of the stairs.

‘Joss, come on. Help me choose.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Luke. No.’ She took a step backwards. She couldn’t explain her sudden revulsion. ‘I’ll go and put on the coffee or something.’

He stared up at the doorway. ‘Joss? What’s wrong?’ But she had gone. He shrugged. Turning he stood in front of the first wine rack and stared at it. Joss’s father had obviously had a good eye. He recognised some of the vintages, but this would need an expert to look at it one day. Perhaps David Tregarron would advise him when he came down to see them. David’s passion for wine, even greater than his love of history had been legendary in Joss’s staff room. Luke shivered. It was cold down here – good for the wine of course, but not for people. Reaching out towards the rack he stopped suddenly and turning looked behind him. He thought he had heard something in the corner of the cellar out of sight behind the racks. He listened, his eyes searching the shadows where the light from the single strip light failed to reach. There was no other sound.

Uncomfortably he moved slightly. ‘Joss? Are you still up there?’ His voice sounded very hollow. There was no reply.

He turned back to the wine rack, trying to concentrate on the bottles, but in spite of himself he was listening, glancing towards the darker corners. Grabbing two bottles at last, more or less at random, he looked round with a shiver and then turning for the stairs, raced up them two at a time. Slamming the cellar door behind him he turned the key with relief. Then he laughed out loud. ‘Clot! What did you think was down there!’ By the time he had reached the kitchen and put the bottles on the table he had recovered himself completely.

Roy and Janet Goodyear and the Fairchilds arrived together for their first dinner party at exactly eight o’clock, trooping in through the back door and standing staring round in the kitchen with evident delight.

‘Well, you’ve certainly made a fine job of everything,’ Roy Goodyear commented thoughtfully when they had all returned to the kitchen after a tour of the house. ‘It all looks so nice and lived in, now.’ Joss followed his gaze. It did look good. Their china and glass unpacked, the dresser decorated with pretty plates and flowers, the long table laid and the range warming the room to a satisfactory glow. Luke had strung their Christmas cards from the bell wires and a huge bunch of mistletoe hung over the door out into the pantry.

‘I’m sorry we’re eating in the kitchen.’ Joss filled up Janet’s glass.

‘My dear, we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. You’ve got it really lovely and cosy here.’ Sally Fairchild had seated herself at the table, her elbows spread amongst the knives and forks. Joss could see her gaze going now and then to the corn dolly which Luke had suspended from a length of fishing twine over the table.

‘I expect the Duncans were very formal when they lived here.’ Luke lifted the heavy casserole from the oven and carried it to the table. ‘Sit down, Roy. And you, Alan.’

‘They were when Philip was alive.’ Roy Goodyear levered his heavy frame into a chair next to his wife. In his late fifties he was taller by a head than Janet, his face weather-beaten to the colour of raw steak, his eyes a strangely light amber under the bushy grey brows. ‘Your father was a very formal man, Joss.’ Both couples now knew the full story of Joss’s parentage. ‘But in the sixties people from his background still did observe all the formalities. They wouldn’t have known anything else. They kept a staff here of course. Cook and housemaid and two gardeners. When we came to dinner here we always dressed. Philip had a magnificent cellar.’ He cocked an eye at Luke. ‘I suppose it’s too much to hope that it’s still there.’

‘It is, as a matter of fact.’ He glanced at Joss. He had not mentioned his hasty exit from the cellar to her, nor asked her why she had refused to go down there with him. ‘We’ve got a friend in London – Joss’s ex boss, in fact – who is a bit of a wine buff. I thought we might ask him to come down and have a look at it.’

Roy had already glanced at the bottle and nodded contentedly. ‘Well, if he needs any help or encouragement, don’t forget your neighbours across the fields, I would very much like to see what you’ve got.’

‘Apart from the ghost, of course,’ Janet put in quietly.

There was a moment’s silence. Joss glanced at her sharply. ‘I suppose there had to be a ghost.’

‘And not just any old ghost either. The village say it is the devil himself who lives here.’ Alan Fairchild raised his glass and squinted through it critically. ‘Isn’t that right, Janet? You are the expert on these matters.’ He grinned broadly. Silent until now he was obviously enjoying the sensation his words had caused.

‘Alan!’ Sally Fairchild blushed pink in the candlelight. ‘I told you not to say anything about all that. These poor people! They’ve got to live here.’

‘Well, if he lives in the cellar, I didn’t see him.’ With a glance at Joss Luke lifted the lid off the casserole for her and handed her the serving ladle, his face veiled in fragrant steam.

Joss was frowning. ‘If we’re sharing the house, I’d like to know who with,’ she said. She smiled at Alan. ‘Come on. Spill the beans. Who else lives here? I know we have visits from time to time by village children. I’d quite like that to stop. I don’t know how they get in.’

‘Kids are the end these days.’ Janet reached for a piece of bread. ‘No discipline at all. It shouldn’t surprise me if they do come here because the house has been empty for so long, but with the legend –’ she paused. ‘I’d have thought they’d be too scared.’

‘The devil you mean?’ Joss’s voice was light, but Luke could hear the edge to it.

He reached for a plate. ‘You’re not serious about the devil, I hope.’

‘Of course he’s not serious.’ It was Joss who answered. ‘All old houses have legends, and we should be pleased this one is no exception.’

‘It’s a very old site, of course,’ Janet said thoughtfully. ‘I believe it goes back to Roman times. Houses with a history as long as that always seem very glamorous. They collect legends. It doesn’t mean there is anything to be frightened of. After all Laura lived here for years practically on her own, and I believe her mother did before that, when she was widowed.’

My fear makes him stronger

The words in Joss’s head for a moment blotted out all other conversation. Her mother, alone in the house, had been terrified.

‘Have the family owned the house for a long time then?’ Luke was carrying round the dish of sprouts.

‘I should think a hundred years, certainly. Maybe more than that. If you look in the church you’ll see memorials to people who have lived at the Hall. But I don’t think the same name crops up again and again the way it does in some parishes.’ Roy shrugged. ‘You want to talk to one of the local history buffs. They’ll know all about it. Someone like Gerald Andrews. He lives in Ipswich now, but he had a house in the village here for years, and I think he wrote a booklet about this place. I’ll give you his phone number.’

‘You said my mother lived here practically on her own,’ Joss said thoughtfully. Everyone served at last she sat down and reached for her napkin. ‘Did she not have a companion, then?’

He came again today without warning and without mercy

The words had etched themselves into her brain. They conjured for her a picture of a woman alone, victimised. Terrified, in the large, empty house.

‘She had several, I believe. I don’t think any of them stayed very long and at the end she lived here quite alone, although of course Mary Sutton always stayed in close touch with her. I don’t think Laura minded being alone though, do you Janet? She used to walk down to the village every day with her dog, and she had lots of visitors. She wasn’t in any sense a recluse. People used to come down from London. And of course there was the Frenchman.’

‘The Frenchman?’ Luke’s eyebrows shot up. ‘That sounds definitely intriguing.’

‘It was.’ Janet smiled. ‘My dear, I don’t know if it’s true. It was just village gossip, but everyone thought, in the end, that that was where she had gone. She went to live in France and we guessed she’d gone to be with him. She was a very attractive woman.’

‘As is her daughter!’ Gallantly Roy raised his glass.

Joss smiled at him. ‘And the house stayed empty after she left?’

‘Completely. The village was devastated. It was – is – after all the heart and soul of the place, together with the church. Have you made contact with Mary Sutton, yet?’

Joss shook her head. ‘I’ve tried every time I’ve been into the village, but there is never any answer. I wondered if she’s gone away or something?’

The four guests glanced at each other. Sally Fairchild shrugged. ‘That’s strange. She’s there. She’s not ill or anything. She was in the shop yesterday.’ She shook her head. ‘Perhaps she’s nervous of answering the door to a stranger. I’ll have a word next time she comes in. Tell her who you are. You must speak to her. She worked here for years. She would remember your mother as a child.’

‘And she would presumably remember the devil if she’d met him face to face.’ Joss’s words, spoken with a seriousness which she hadn’t perhaps intended, were followed by a moment of silence.

‘Joss –’ Luke warned.

‘My dear, I’ve upset you.’ Alan was looking contrite. ‘Take no notice of me. It’s a silly tale. Suitable for round the fire, late at night, well-into-your-third-brandy sessions. Not to be taken seriously.’

‘I know.’ Joss forced a smile. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to sound so portentous.’ She reached for her wine glass and twisted it between her fingers. ‘You knew Edgar Gower, presumably, when he was here?’ She turned to Roy.

He nodded. ‘Great fun, Edgar. What a character! Now he knew your mother very well indeed.’

Joss nodded. ‘It was he who put me in touch with the solicitor; it was through him I found out about Belheddon.’ She glanced at Luke and then turned back to the Goodyears. ‘He tried to dissuade me from following it up. He felt the house was an unhappy place.’

‘He was a superstitious old buffer,’ Janet snorted fondly. ‘He used to encourage Laura to think the house was haunted. It upset her a lot. I got very cross with him.’

‘So you didn’t believe in the ghosts?’

‘No.’ The hesitation had been infinitesimal. ‘And don’t let him get to you, either, Joss. I’m sure the bishop thought he was going a bit dotty at the end and that’s why he retired him. Keep away from him, my dear.’

‘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.