2003 - A Jarful of Angels Page 23

  “I thought she was an orphan,” said Will.

  “She was.”

  “So where did you see her mam?”

  Elizabeth Prosser laughed. There was a nastiness behind the laughter that made Will cringe.

  “I saw her in a film at the Limp! It was the same woman in the photograph. I must have been daft! The picture was of Elizabeth Taylor. It was that film with Richard Burton.”

  Will sighed.

  “So you’ve never heard from her?”

  “No. It was sad about her grancha, though. Her grandparents brought her up. He died in the fire.”

  “The fire?”

  “In the Big House. The night it went up. About a year after we’d all moved. She was ancient by then, old Mrs Medlicott. She’d gone funny in the head by all accounts. The old man was passing and he went in to try and get her out, but it was too late. It cost him his life trying to save her. And Iffy’s nan died not long after. Anyway, I’m afraid I must away to my practice in the chapel.”

  Will walked with Elizabeth Tranter down past the Big House.

  “It’s strange, isn’t it?” said Elizabeth. “When we were kids we used to step right out in the road to avoid the gates. I was terrified of the place and soon I’ll be living there.”

  “Why were you so afraid?”

  “Oh, ghosts and stuff, and Iffy’s nan reckoned the old woman wasn’t safe around children.”

  “Why was that?”

  “I don’t really know. Mrs Medlicott’s husband, the old doctor, drowned himself in the pond and everyone said he haunted the place.”

  Will thought of Agnes Medlicott’s strong hands and wondered. He paused outside the gates and looked into the gardens. The statue Mervyn had been carrying lay in the grass.

  “Those statues are really very beautiful.”

  “Ugh! I think they’re awful.”

  Will pointed. “That one lying there in the grass looks as if someone has tried to cement the head back on.”

  Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, that was Fatty! I remember now. There was an old woman, a mad old thing, who walked around with a cart. I forget her name, she was a nasty, foul-mouthed old thing. She lived in Dancing Duck Lane. The statue’s head was in the cart. There was some story about the old doctor being in love with some girl and chopping her head off. Honestly, it’s a wonder we weren’t half terrified to death with all the daft stories. Headless ghosts and dancing statues. It was all nonsense.”

  “And Fatty stuck the head back on?”

  “Yes. He snuck in there in the dark.”

  “Why?”

  “Goodness only knows, he had this mad idea of giving her her head back. He was always doing daft things. Iffy was as bad as him. She told me once that she’d seen a human skull stuck in the ice the year the river froze over. A skull with two front teeth missing! I remember too, she told me that Fatty had said he’d found a jarful of angels, but she said that after Fatty had disappeared, she swore that she and Billy had seen them. They were both a pair of liars, her and Fatty. Thinking about it p’raps neither of them was right in the head!”

  “You didn’t believe her?” Will asked.

  “That she’d seen a load of angels? No! Fatty just had this way of convincing people to believe him. Iffy always fell for his yarns. Not me, though! I might not have been clever like they were, but I had plenty of common sense! A jarful of angels, my foot!”

  “‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in our philosophy.’”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Hamlet.”

  “Oh.”

  There was a pause.

  “As to Fatty’s disappearance, he was always saying he was going to run off. He was going to make his fortune and come back for his mam and Iffy! He was sweet on Iffy Meredith. He was always up to some nonsense or other.”

  “Does Billy Edwards still live around here?” Will asked.

  “No. I’m the only one left of the four of us. Last I heard of Billy, he’d emigrated, gone to Australia, or it might have been Canada. He married a girl from over the next valley. They had twins, two sets, I think. Excuse me a moment.”

  They had reached the gates to Carmel Chapel and Elizabeth opened them with a clang.

  “I know you’re in there, Lally Tudge! Come on, out of it!”

  Will saw a shadowy figure duck behind a grave, then hurry away towards the trees.

  “Don’t want the likes of her hanging about the place,” Elizabeth said to Will.

  “Who is she?”

  “Lally Tudge. She’s not all there. Wants locking up if you ask me. Wandering about with an old doll wrapped in a blanket like it was a real baby.”

  “Why does she do that?”

  Elizabeth lowered her voice, “She’s not a very nice type of person, Mr Sloane. She had an illegitimate baby years ago down in the home for bad girls.”

  “Poor, poor girl,” said Will sadly.

  Elizabeth Prosser stared at him as though he were mad.

  Iffy, Fatty, Billy and Bessie were crouched down in the gwli that separated Sebastopol Row from Balaclava Row. Dai was late. The moon rose higher over Blagdon’s Tump and the liquorice-black river magicked itself to a twist of silver.

  A dog barked far off in one of the tumbledown hill farms. Darkness crept stealthily up the gwli towards them and covered them up one by one, turning them into sinister crouching dwarves.

  Behind them in Balaclava Row the gas lamps began to light up the windows of the crooked old houses and black monsters writhed and lurked behind ghostly curtains. The first cold breeze was blowing as summer tipped towards autumn, and Iffy knew with a horrible ache that the lovely days of freedom were coming to an end. She thought of the itchy winter uniform they wore to school, the cold swish of Miss Riley’s skirts, the pad of her feet on icy linoleum, and she shivered.

  An owl called somewhere up on the Black Band and an army of ghosts tramped up and down Iffy’s spine.

  “Where the hell has he got to?” Fatty hissed and his voice was strange and savage in the dark.

  Dai was always in the lav by nine. They knew his routine by heart.

  Iffy began to pray that Dai wouldn’t come out to the lav at all. Then they’d have to abandon their plan and slope off home. It wasn’t such a good idea. It had sounded great when Fatty had first said it. Most things Fatty said sounded great, like the time he’d had the brilliant idea of cooking tinned tomatoes with a blow torch, only he hadn’t take the lid off first.

  They would get into terrible trouble for what they were going to do. The coppers would catch them and put handcuffs on them. They’d go to prison. Iffy pictured herself in a suit with arrows on it, a ball and chain dragging behind her like the villains she’d seen in comics.

  She prayed to God. Gritted her teeth and prayed really hard. Dear God, please don’t let Dai come out to the lav tonight. Let him die in his chair before he needs to go.

  She prayed to the Virgin. Dear Mary, please make Dai constipated.

  She didn’t ask God for constipation, he probably got the women saints to answer those sorts of prayers.

  Blessed Virgin, please just bung him up a bit.

  She prayed to all the saints she could remember. Saint Francis the Cissy, Joan of Fark.

  They waited, ears pricked for any sound. No sign of Dai.

  Thank you, God. Thank you, Blessed Virgin. Joan of Fark and Francis the Cissy.

  “Come on, let’s go,” Bessie whispered, but Fatty made no attempt to move.

  A mouse squeaked somewhere close by and Bessie pulled her skirts tight around her bum in case it took a flying leap at her privates.

  Then there was a noise. The sound of a door creaking open, wood scraping harshly across a stone floor.

  Oh God!

  Fatty grinned like a demon. Dai was on his way! He was going to step right into the trap!

  Bessie poked Iffy hard in the ribs and she jumped and sniggered with nerves.

  “Hush up, you
two! Don’t give the game away!” Fatty hissed.

  They shut it. He was the boss.

  Iffy screwed up her face and tried to squeeze away the tears of fear that were coming.

  Fatty swept his eyes over them like a general over his men.

  “Everyone know what they’re doing?”

  Iffy and Bessie nodded weakly. They knew their jobs. They’d rehearsed them often enough.

  Fatty had the scariest job of all. He was in charge of the newspaper, an Argus he’d pinched from the letterbox of a posh house up in Georgetown where teachers and shopkeepers and crooks and people who’d won the pools lived.

  Bessie was in charge of the bolts. Fatty had greased them with lard earlier so that they wouldn’t squeak and give them away.

  Iffy was in charge of the box of matches which she’d borrowed from the pantry cupboard.

  Fatty was also doing the countdown. Like Americans did for space rockets.

  Billy hadn’t got a job, he was just there for the ride.

  “Keep them matches still, Iffy!” Fatty said.

  The matches rattled in her hand and she closed her fist tight to stop them. Billy smiled at Iffy kindly. She smiled back. He had pretty dimples when he smiled.

  Fatty didn’t have a nervous bone in his body, he was crouched down like the rest of them, but there was no sign of fear about him. He was enjoying every minute of it. Iffy was terrified. So was Bessie.

  Fatty breathed slowly, calmly. Just a few more minutes and then that fat bastard would get what was coming to him. He owed him. Oh yes, he owed him.

  He bit his lips and tried to put the memory of his mam out of his mind. He’d been coming over the bridge when he’d seen Iffy’s grancha. The old man’s face was contorted with pain and exertion. He was carrying Fatty’s mam as though she was a small child and Fatty’d known by the droop of her head and her wide staring eyes that she was gone from him for ever.

  Over at the end of the gwli, the wonky lamp post outside the Old Bake House threw a pool of light onto the road. A lone bat danced through the ballroom of its light. Somewhere a sash window rattled like old bones and then crashed shut.

  Iffy sneaked a look at Bessie who was crouched next to her, and then wished she hadn’t. Bessie’s eyes were on leave from their sockets. At any minute they might pop out, roll down her cheeks and get lost in the darkness of the gwli; sticky eyeballs covered in dirt. Iffy imagined Bessie scrabbling about in the muck to find them, having to rinse them under the tap and pop them back into her empty sockets. She had to look away in the end because Bessie’s face made Iffy want to laugh and Fatty would kill her if she did.

  Bessie pulled at Iffy’s cardie.

  “Let’s go home,” she whimpered. She was shaking like blancmange, her lips two wriggling grubs, beads of sweat bubbling between her lip and her nose.

  On the other side of Iffy, Billy grinned like a fool. Iffy just hoped he could run fast enough when the time came. He was going to need to, they all were.

  Dai was out on his step, Fatty could hear his wheezy breath and the bubbling green phlegm in his pipes. The breeze carried his smells of tobacco, stale beer and sweat.

  Iffy hoped Dai couldn’t smell them. Bessie stank of talcum powder. Billy smelled fragrantly of bread: Swansea batch, cobs and bloomers. Fatty smelled of nettles, bubblegum and horse shit. Iffy wasn’t sure what she smelled of.

  Dai crossed the bailey and they heard the latch lift on the lav door.

  Then he was inside the lav and only the whitewashed wall separated the four of them from him. He was close enough to touch!

  They stayed crouching.

  Pins and needles burned Iffy’s feet and she bounced with terror. She thought that at any moment she might start to bounce faster and faster and not be able to stop. She might bounce away along the gwli, down the hill and into the river.

  Iffy imagined Dai’s face in the darkness of the lav: the huge great pumpkin head, tumbleweed hair, his sucked gobstopper eyes and wonky nose, nostrils wide as arches with sticky-out hairs, and his awful mouth – the great black dirty hole where one yellow fang hung by a sticky thread. She felt sick with fear.

  It was pitch dark now in the gwli and Bessie’s hand came out of the blackness and found Iffy’s for comfort. Iffy was glad even though she pretended to pull her hand away.

  “Got the matches ready?” Fatty whispered, his eyes gleamed with delight.

  Iffy nodded dumbly, afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop her hands from shaking long enough to get one out of the box, never mind light it.

  “Bessie, pull the bolts back when I tell you,” said their general.

  Bessie’s eyes had gone back into her head. She had her lips bitten back inside her mouth and looked like an old granny with no teeth.

  Then came the noise of Dai’s braces pinging and the sound of his trousers dropping on the stone floor. The wooden boxseat of the lav creaked under his weight. Any minute now he would light the candle and set it on the little ledge on the wall and he would settle down to read his paper.

  They heard him strike the match, and candle light crept through the cracks in the wall.

  Dai coughed and settled himself down. He grunted, whinnied like a stallion, grunted again.

  Fat pig.

  Then he farted. A wet-sounding ‘fwarp’ that echoed off the walls, loud as a bullet in the silence of the gwli.

  They bit back laughter, holding onto their bellies, except for Bessie who looked disgusted and covered her nose with her hanky.

  Fatty wiped the silent laughter from his face with the back of his hand and gave them a look to shut it. There was silence again except for the sound of their breathing which seemed deafening.

  Billy grinned at Iffy, his teeth very white and beautiful in the dark. Iffy was terrified, but no way could she back out.

  Fatty remembered the faces of the drowned puppies. Five dead puppies lying in the grass among the daisies and the buttercups.

  Please God, Iffy prayed, let me light the match.

  Dai was reading in the lav. Stumbling over his words like a little kid, leaving big gaps between the words. Then it was all quiet again while he looked at the pictures.

  The silence wasn’t going to last for ever. Any minute now all hell would be let loose.

  A lump was growing in Iffy’s throat. She tried not to think of the consequences, just to remember to run.

  Fatty looked round at everyone and put his fingers up in a victory sign, not the dirty way round which meant shag off.

  The lump in Iffy’s throat was like a golf ball. She swallowed. It was like swallowing a goose egg.

  Fatty began the whispered countdown.

  “Ten!”

  Somewhere behind them there was an eerie wail. It was all Bessie could do to stay put. She looked fearfully over her shoulder. Two green eyes watched them from a wall in Balaclava.

  “It’s only a stuffing cat, Bessie!”

  Bessie hung on to Iffy. They were clinging together, Siamese twins joined tight at the shoulder. Fatty gave them a warning look.

  “Nine!”

  Fatty was twisting up the newspaper. Iffy’d never noticed before how slender and soft his hands were.

  “Eight!”

  Iffy wanted to wee something chronic.

  “Seven!”

  Her bladder was an out of control balloon.

  “Six!”

  The first drops of wetness were warm in her knickers.

  Bessie crossed herself even though she wasn’t a Catholic. Ace on the forehead. Jack on the belly button. Left nipple, king. Right nipple, queen.

  “Five!”

  Iffy prayed to God, the Blessed Virgin and all the saints. She prayed for Nan to start calling her in. Bessie hoped that someone would come along the gwli so they’d have to abandon the plan and run away home but the gwli stayed silent and empty. Not a soul was in sight.

  “Four! Bessie! The bolts!”

  Bessie’s hand hovered, shaking. Then the bolts on the trap door at t
he back of the lav drew back without a sound.

  “Three!”

  The trap door was open a tiny crack.

  “Two!”

  Fatty’s voice was a hiss of steam and his eyes glowed like coals.

  “Iffy! The matches!”

  Billy had to help her. He held her hand and steadied the matchbox. The wavering match lit, the sulphur smell was strong in the night air. The flame caught at Fatty’s rolled-up newspaper. A small yellow flame, growing fast into a bright flaming beacon. It reminded Iffy of the flames of hell. Their faces exploded into orange and red. Flickers of fear bounced off Iffy and Bessie. Fatty looked like the devil himself in the middle of the fires of hell.

  “One!”

  Hot pee ran down the top of Iffy’s leg.

  Fatty pushed the burning newspaper through the trap door.

  “Blast off!”

  The fire disappeared inside the lav on the end of Fatty’s arm. Iffy’s heart bounced up into her throat like a hot chestnut, roaring filled her ears and a million wings prepared for flight inside her head.

  She was transfixed. Her feet seemed bolted to the ground. Her bones wouldn’t move, her muscles were on strike, wobbling jelly muscles.

  Fatty came back for her. She made it to the end of the gwli, Fatty dragging her roughly by the arm.

  Billy and Bessie were there waiting, panting loudly in the shadows.

  “Why didn’t you run, mun?” said Bessie.

  Iffy didn’t answer. Her legs were wet and itchy with hot wee. She hoped no one would notice, especially Bessie.

  “Right,” Fatty said. “Quick check to see no one’s looking and then we slip down one at a time past the steps. It’s too dangerous to hang around.”

  There was only one chance of a quick glance as they fled, because doors were opening all along Sebastopol. Light flooded into the bailey.

  Just one quick look. A photograph in Iffy’s mind that would last for ever of Dai Full Pelt out on the bailey, hopping up and down like a tribal dancer, his shirt-tail flickering with sparks. His bum a giant glow worm!

  Ruby Gittins running out of the back door wearing shocking-pink baby-doll pyjamas. Then standing stock still and staring, with her mouth wide open.