Haunted Town Page 2

  “You can’t go on the sick,” his sister wheedled. “They’ll cut your benefit and make you reapply. It’s a right old rigmarole. Just go in and sign like normal.”

  He angled his legs out of bed and planted his feet in the thin rug. “Let me get dressed, then, “ he said.

  She laughed. “Like I haven’t seen it all. Just put your clothes on over your old granddad pyjamas.”

  She giggled while he struggled to step into a pair of Oxford bags, and yanked a fisherman’s jumper over his head, pulling his arms through. When she was done, he felt like he’d gone a five rounds with Giant Haystacks.

  He inched down the stairs and she bullied him into his overcoat. He reached for his trilby and put it on. She rolled her eyes.

  They stepped out onto the street and climbed slowly up the hill — a mountain — to the main road.

  “That’s the worst bit,” she said. “It’s all level from here.”

  “Do you have to wear a sari?” he complained.

  She pinched his arm. “I can leave you on your own if you don’t want to be seen with me. Anyway, you think I like being seen with you like that?”

  “You look so Indian,” he said.

  “We are Indian.”

  “We’re half Indian. Dad was British.”

  “Mum’s English,” she said.

  “You know what I mean.”

  She laughed. “We might be half British but they’ll never accept us as English no matter how you dress.”

  “You’re talking rubbish. We were born here. Both our parents were born here. You wear a sari because Mum’s grandparents were born in some village in Kashmir.”

  “You’re ashamed of our heritage. How do you think Mum feels about that?”

  “She doesn’t wear a sari. She dresses normal.”

  “Normal? You think you dress normal?” She laughed. “Look at you, with your stupid bum fluff moustache, and your granddad clothes like some spy from the war. You think you’re Humphrey Bogarde.”

  “It’s Dirk Bogarde and—”

  “Whatever.”

  Mitch liked the idea of being a spy. Not with gadgets and Roger Moore double-entendres like in Octopussy last year, but back in the days of The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca.

  “I like the 1940s,” he said, “so there.”

  “I bet it’s hanging round vintage shops made you ill. Getting olden times diseases off dead men’s clothes. Anyway, shut up and act like you’re fit for work.”

  They reached the Unemployment Benefit Office just before the Washwood Heath bus garage and she walked him into the signing hall. He giggled inwardly at the idea he was fit for work. Being held up by his sister like an old man. There was no work, anyway. They didn’t even bully him into taking a YTS scheme anymore.

  He stood in the queue, choking on cigarette smoke, and stared at the floor. When he got to the front, his sister stepped back and let him lean on the counter. He signed his form and turned away, walking a few steps across the hall, trying to stay upright, till she took his arm again and led him out to the afternoon sun.

  This was awful. It was like he was ninety years old or something.

  “You’re so lucky you don’t have to do that,” he said as they crawled back home.

  “It’s not lucky I’ve got a job and you’re on the dole. You’re just a scrounger.”

  “You had the choice of three jobs when you left school. Five years later my entire school year signed on at the Job Centre together.”

  He shuddered at the memory. A rowdy gathering of squawking school kids, like the old dinner queues. He’d filled in his fresh claim and ran off, relieved that that was the last of school.

  “You can’t blame it all on Thatcher,” she said.

  She was winding him up. She knew which buttons to press.

  He kept quiet. He couldn’t talk anyway. His legs were leaden. As they got to the front door, he collapsed against the door frame. She guided him back to bed, pulled off everything but his pyjamas and switched his portable TV on.

  An old war film.

  “That’s good. Leave that.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Where did you come from, eh? They swapped you in the maternity ward. Omi came home with the wrong baby.”

  He ignored her, eyes stuck to the TV, and was only vaguely aware of her clumping down the stairs.

  He recognized the actress. Where had he seen her before? A glamorous dark-haired 1940s girl. Such a beauty. A lighthouse, a beam of light, dark shadows of soldiers in a field.

  It was the film from the poster in the Moseley shop.

  — 4 —

  BUT HOW COULD THAT be? You thought of a song, found yourself humming it, turned on the radio and they were playing that same song. That sort of thing happened all the time. But this was different. The pang of déjà vu he’d felt as he looked at the film poster in the shop. The sense that it had happened before. The smell of the place, the tinkling of Mrs Hudson’s spoon in her cup. The lighthouse in the poster.

  And that girl.

  He watched on, frozen, unable to take his eyes off the black-and-white screen. He fought the swooning sense of vertigo, desperate to stay awake. Fight this, fight it, don’t faint.

  When an ad break interrupted, he reached for the Radio Times by his bed and flicked through the glossy pages.

  The Girl Who Saved Britain (1941). British wartime melodrama, starring Eleanor Gale and Denholm Bourne.

  That was her name. Eleanor Gale. It came to him with the familiarity of a homely scent, as if it was a name he knew, though he was certain he had never seen it before, never heard of her.

  Adverts for pensions and stairlifts came to a close and the film came back. Eleanor Gale was playing Jenny, a young Welsh girl (though she didn’t have a Welsh accent), and she was single-handedly saving Britain from a German invasion. She got involved in a romance with a stranger she met on the coast — Denholm Bourne in one of his earliest roles, looking callow and half-formed, nothing like the stately thespian of now.

  He was a charming young chap who was a surveyor with the Ministry of War, checking the coastal defences, and she’d seen strange goings on at night. Locals mocked her for believing in will-o’-the-wisps and being a starry eyed girl. In the end she was the only one who saw the Germans landing at night off the coast of Fishguard.

  And then the film built to a thrilling climax when her handsome stranger turned out to be a German spy, and she had to fight him off when his treachery came out, pushing him over the lighthouse rail so he fell to his death on the rocks below, then she ran up the stairs to the lantern room and turned the lamp inland to light up the fields and show the town the invading Germans.

  In a final act of desperation, she took an axe to the fuel pipe and lit the gun cotton so the lighthouse blew up and created a beacon seen for miles around.

  There was a luminous beauty about her, as if she were lit from inside, as if she’d swallowed that lighthouse. Long before she’d saved the day and stirring music blared over the brief title cards, Mitch had fallen in love with her.

  — 5 —

  HIS MUM CAME IN THE next morning and threw the curtains open.

  “Time you got up,” she said. “I know you’re ill but it’s enough now.”

  He leaned up and blinked, bleary eyed. “I had enough of that off Sameena yesterday.”

  “She very kindly took a day off work to look after you.”

  “She made fun of me all day while wearing a stupid sari.”

  He’d meant it to sound satirical, like a Peter Ustinov put down, but it came out mean and sneering.

  His mum frowned. “Your sister is rediscovering her heritage. It’s just a phase. Like you wanting to be Dirk Bogarde.”

  “I don’t want to be Dirk Bogarde.”

  “Apart from dressing, talking and acting like him.”

  “I don’t talk like him.”

  “And watching all his films and reading all his books.”

  Mitch followed her gaze around the r
oom. There were three Dirk Bogarde pictures on the walls, but only because he looked really stylish in them, and on the alcove bookshelves were three volumes of autobiography, three of his novels and an illustrated filmography.

  His mum sat on the bed and reflexively touched his forehead. “Your sister loves you.”

  “She said I was faking it.”

  “She’s just teasing you.”

  His mum couldn’t hide her frown of disappointment. No, not disappointment. It was that she didn’t understand. She didn’t get it. If she could have waved a wand and made her son different, normal, she might have.

  Mitch caught his reflection in the portable black-and-white TV at the foot of the bed and saw himself how his mother and sister must see him.

  Having his own TV was an unbelievable luxury, but he could never watch a proper film on the TV downstairs. There was no chance of getting his mum and sister to watch a Dirk Bogarde film instead of Steptoe and Son, Dallas or a Carry On movie.

  He was a freak. A changeling. He didn’t belong in this family.

  But what was so weird about having a black-and-white TV in your room? He didn’t need a colour TV because all the films he watched were black-and-white anyway.

  “I’m not malingering,” he said. “I really am ill.”

  “I know you are, darling, but the doctor can’t find out what it is.”

  Psychiatric, he’d said. He’d wanted Mum to sign Mitch over to the loony bin. She’d told him where to go. She would protect him.

  “I’ll get up,” Mitch said. “I’m better. Don’t worry.”

  She looked at the TV, the Radio Times fallen by the bedside table and smiled. “Old films and tomato soup. It’s the cure for everything. That’s what your dad said.” She gazed into the pattern of the quilt cover for a moment, then put on a smile and got up. “Anyway, your giro’s here.”

  He sat up. He’d have to go cash it, give half the money to his Mum, save the other precious half.

  “I thought that might perk you up,” she said.

  He tutted. “I’m trying, Mum.”

  She was grinning, teasing like his sister. “And your uncle Tony’s coming, so get dressed and I’ll make you breakfast.”

  — 6 —

  “HE GETS OVERWROUGHT,” said his mum. “I keep telling him it’s no wonder, listening to all that Mahler and the jazz.”

  “You need to get away from it all,” Uncle Tony said, in the Scottish burr that reminded Mitch of his father. “No television. No music. Perfect seclusion.”

  He sat in Dad’s armchair, with his suntan and easy charm. The uncle who’d made something of himself, the one who had the money. A gold identity bracelet on his wrist, slim white jeans and boating pumps, like he’d just stepped off a yacht. But he was a nice guy. Always visiting, when he could as easily run away and never bother with this side of the family again.

  “Like a sanatorium?” Mitch asked.

  Uncle Tony guffawed. “No, those are for lunatics.”

  “Don’t say that, Tony,” his mum said. But she laughed too.

  “Oh, Mitch is no lunatic, he’s totally normal. His dad was just the same at that age. Drove me mad. You’re a chip off the old block.”

  Mitch wasn’t sure if he should be offended or pleased. His mum reached over and squeezed his hand, so he decided to be pleased about it.

  “What are you talking about then?”

  “I have a proposition,” Uncle Tony said. “The perfect job for you.”

  “Mitch can’t work. Look at him.”

  “It’s not that kind of job. It’s a holiday really.”

  “Sounds too good to be true.”

  “I’ve bought a cottage in Wales. It’s a wreck but I have some builders coming to make it into a holiday let, but that’s a week away. I need someone to house sit.”

  Mitch looked at his mum. “Who? Me?”

  “You’d be doing me a favour. The Welsh have taken to burning holiday cottages. They don’t like the English buying up their property. They don’t know I’m Scottish. You’d kind of be my caretaker.”

  “But he needs to sign on.”

  “No for another two weeks, though,” Uncle Tony said.

  “He supposed to be here, looking for work. What if they call him and ask him to a job interview?”

  “There are no jobs. No one’s going to call.”

  “But they might find out he’s not here.”

  “It’s 1984. Big Brother’s watching you.”

  “You mean Big Thatcher,” Mitch said.

  “Don’t say that witch’s name in this house,” his mum said.

  “Doesn’t he sign on every fortnight?” Uncle Tony said. “He can sneak away for a week. It’s quiet. No TV. Out of the way. Sea air. Free holiday.”

  Mitch looked at the floor.

  “I’ll even pay you. Forty quid for the week.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You drive a hard bargain. Like your dad. I’ll throw in the rail fare. Cash in hand. How does that sound?”

  His mum wheedled, “I’m not sure. I don’t like the thought of him all on his own.”

  “He needs to be on his own. It’s being around youse nagging women that’s driven him mad. Cut those apron strings.” He winked a blue eye at Mitch.

  His mum punched him. “My Mitch is a very mature and independent young man.”

  Would he come back to find Uncle Tony had proposed to his mum? He searched his heart and was surprised to find that he didn’t mind.

  “Och, it’ll be an adventure,” Uncle Tony said, laughing. “He’ll no get any adventure sitting here with youse two.”

  Mitch thought of a cottage 200 miles away. It was about as far as you could go west without swimming the Irish Sea. Away from Birmingham and all the things that were driving him mad. And away from Mum and Sameena.

  “Whereabouts in Wales is it?” Mitch asked.

  He knew what his uncle was going to say before he’d opened his mouth. He knew it like he’d known the old lady in the shop, like he’d known the film before he’d seen it, like he’d known Eleanor Gale’s name.

  “Lovely wee place called Fishguard.”

  “I’ll do it,” Mitch said.

  — 7 —

  THE TRAIN FROM BIRMINGHAM took five and a half hours. It was nearly two hours to Newport, South Wales, where he waited for half an hour to change to a local train. The timetable seemed to be wrong as it said it was another three hours to Fishguard. But that couldn’t be right. He was already in Wales and Fishguard surely couldn’t be much further. But once he got on the next train, he realized why. It was the kind of slow train that stopped at every bush. The afternoon waned as they trundled on. He was briefly excited by Swansea, which seemed bustling and lively by contrast with every other village and town they passed through.

  Finally, at nine in the evening, the train eased into Fishguard & Goodwick station. He stepped off with his dad’s old demob suitcase and walked out to a lungful of sea air. Fresh. Briny. The taste of promise.

  Uncle Tony had warned him there was no other way to get to the place than by taxi, but there was an old bike at the cottage he could use to get to the town once he was settled. Mitch stepped to the front of a line of minicabs and gave the driver the address.

  “Ah, Trefiwen,” the cab driver said. “Just by the Strumble Head lighthouse. Lonely out there, mind.”

  It was a fifteen minute ride through narrow and winding country roads, eerily lit by the headlights. Uncle Tony had been right. You couldn’t walk it. It would take over an hour.

  “What you out here for?” the cab driver asked.

  “Just staying for a week. A little break.”

  The driver snorted. “Not much to do out there. You could walk the coastal path, I suppose. Perhaps see a few seals. No nightlife, though. English, are you?”

  Mitch remembered uncle Tony warning about the Welsh wanting to burn down cottages owned by the English. “Scottish, actually.”

  They pulled up at a
cluster of old stone cottages in the middle of nowhere. The cab driver called two pounds. Mitch gave him two crisp pound notes and a shiny 50p piece. He wondered if it was too much of a tip, but he didn’t know what was right. It was the first time he’d ever been in a taxi by himself.

  It was also his first time living alone, anywhere. Just him at this old cottage. The thrill of independence. He took out Uncle Tony’s keys and let himself in.

  It was like stepping back in time. The cottage looked like no one had been there since the 1940s.

  Uncle Tony had said it was furnished, but he was going to gut the place and throw it all out, make it nice and modern. Mitch imagined hideous black coffee tables and sofas, red bookshelves. He was going to ruin the place.

  Mitch wandered each room. It was beautiful. Such a crime to change it. It could be a museum. A living museum. See how your grandparents lived in the war. He wondered how Uncle Tony had acquired it. Had he known the previous occupants? It looked like they had just popped out to the shops and were coming back any moment. Perhaps they’d both died suddenly, an old couple.

  Mitch unpacked his suitcase. A few clothes, some books. His mum had put some tins of beans in his case, as well as the ham and cheddar sandwiches she’d made for the journey, enough to feed an army on the march. He still had three left, which would serve as dinner and maybe even one for breakfast.

  An old Runwell bicycle stood in the hall. A handy basket on the front. He’d cycle to Fishguard in the morning and get the lay of the land, do a bit of shopping.

  In the back kitchen, there was an electric kettle and a tin caddy with teabags. Uncle Tony’s supply. Mitch made himself a cup of tea and munched two of the ham and cheese sandwiches, sitting on the lumpy old sofa in the lounge. He didn’t light the fire. He would tackle that tomorrow. It wasn’t so cold and he’d had never lit a real fire before and imagined it might be difficult.

  On the coffee table sat an Ordnance Survey map of the region and a book about Welsh myths and legends. He unfolded the map and traced the route back to Fishguard.