Poor Jacky, page 2
“How do you know?” Paul was amazed to hear all this.
“I checked,” Steven grinned. “You’re not the only one who can do a bit of research.”
Paul realised: all that skiving off was not just about having a cheeky cigarette. Steven had been planning this little visit for days.
“There he is again!” Darren gasped. “Did you see him, Rayb? Pong?”
Pong grunted; it was the sound of heavy furniture being shifted.
“What did he look like?” Paul asked, failing to keep the urgency from his voice.
“I dunno,” said Darren, frowning again. He hated being questioned almost as much as he hated being taught things. “He was a little fucker. A kid or a midget or something.”
Paul paled. A shiver ran through his body. He recalled the strange experience of earlier. “I think we should leave,” he said. He headed for the exit but Steven seized his arm and pulled him back.
“You’m going nowhere.” Flecks of spittle showered Paul’s face. He flinched. Steven turned to the others. “Right, Pong, Dazza, get up them stairs and flush the fucker out. Me and Paulus here will do the downstairs.”
Pong, as though responding to new programming, headed for the foot of the staircase. Darren hurried to catch up. He didn’t want to be too far from the big fella in this dark and creepy house. He called across to Steven, trying to sound casual. “Don’t let him bum you, Rayb. Backs to the wall!” He laughed. Steven joined in. Paul tried to wriggle free of his clutches.
“This way, darling!” Steven pulled him towards a set of double doors.
“Get off!” Paul protested. He was shocked to find part of him was excited by an idea he could no more shake off than free himself from Steven’s grasp: This was all an elaborate ploy to get him alone. Steven wanted to have his way with him! Perhaps they’d find a four-poster bed somewhere. Well, any old desk in an office would do, come to that...
Steven pushed the doors open and pulled Paul into a large room with dozens of tall windows. Slanted rectangles of light slashed across the polished floor. Gilded chairs were stacked in their dozens in the corners. A chandelier like Liberace’s flying saucer hung from a chain, a glittering spider or a stopped pendulum.
“Ballroom,” Steven explained. “I’d turn this into a skate park.”
“Tasteful,” Paul muttered. Steven’s fingers tightened around his arm.
“Come on.” Steven pulled Paul across the dance floor and through a service door at the back. They passed through a sparse kitchen, with stainless steel work surfaces and very little else. Paul supposed that caterers would be hired in to provide for weddings and various functions. Balls.
The kitchen led onto another room, smaller than the ballroom, and with a more businesslike air.
“Conf’rence room,” Steven explained. “Boring. Like being at school. Or,” he added archly, “university.”
Paul didn’t bother responding. He held onto the door handle and stood his ground. At last he pulled his arm free. “What are we doing here, Steven?”
“Looking for your little friend,” Steven shrugged.
“No; I mean really.”
“Just a laugh, isn’t it? Pong’s got some beers in the car. Should’ve brought them in. Let’s go and get them. Get the party started.”
His enthusiasm for this sudden inspiration was cut short by a muffled but still distinctive sound from above. Somewhere on the first floor, someone was screaming.
***
Darren didn’t see what happened to Pong. They had somehow got separated after a silly game of Tag in and out of the empty bedrooms. At the end of the corridor, a door hung open. Beyond it a narrow wooden spiral of stairs led upwards. Thinking Pong had squeezed himself up there and was waiting to ambush Darren from above with huge gobbets of phlegm or piss or something, Darren risked sticking his head through the doorway and called up the stairs.
“Come on, Pong. Don’t be a prick.”
There was no answer. Darren could imagine the big lad holding his breath trying not to laugh or give away his position.
“You’m a prick, Pong,” Darren said, quieter. He began to climb the stairs, with an arm raised to protect him from any downpour.
The staircase led to a corridor with a very low ceiling. Darren guessed he was under the roof or something. Plain doors on either side opened onto small, empty rooms with bare floorboards and open fireplaces, frozen in yawns like bored gargoyles. Paul could have told him these rooms must have been the servants’ quarters but Darren was to die in ignorance of that fact.
Footsteps pattered along the corridor. They sounded too quick and dainty to be Pong’s enormous hooves. Darren squinted into the darkness.
“Little fucker.” Darren was cheered to know he had been right: there was indeed some little fucker in the place. He strode along, ducking even though his head was a couple of feet short of the ceiling. “I’ll get you.”
Behind him, the door to the spiral steps slammed. Darren yelped in fright. He turned. The footsteps seemed to be running down the stairs. He dashed to the door. It wouldn’t open. He grasped the door knob with both hands and twisted it and pulled it, but the door would not give. He swore and braced his foot against the wall, grunting and panting.
And then he stopped. He realised the grunting and panting was not all of his doing. He straightened up and turned, expecting a thump or a tickle or something from Pong.
It wasn’t Pong.
Darren screamed.
***
Steven was first up the stairs. Paul, unwilling to be left on his own, sped after him. Their footfall was cushioned by the durable, municipal carpet. They reached the first floor and were at a loss. The corridor stretched in both directions.
“You go this way, I’ll go that,” Steven suggested.
“Fuck that!” said Paul.
“Language, Timothy!” Steven laughed. “Look, there’s a door open.”
They headed for the open door. It slammed shut as they reached it. Steven tried to pull it open. “Come on, help me, you pillock.”
Paul closed his hands over Steven’s and together they strained to pull the door open.
Steven glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t try and bum me; I’m warning you.”
Before Paul could form a reply, the door flew open, flinging them to the floor. Steven landed on Paul and Darren’s dead body landed on Steven. The eyes were wide and staring in characteristic gormless fashion. The mouth was open in shock. The head was the wrong way around.
Steven screamed and shoved the corpse aside. He scrambled to his feet and Paul saw Darren. He screamed and scuttled across the carpet like a startled crab.
“Fuck me!” Steven gasped.
The darkness thickened over them as a shadow loomed.
“Pong?”
The hulking shape lumbered towards the top of the staircase, moving like a marionette in the hands of an amateur puppeteer. Pong’s arms were straight in front of him and his legs, stiff at the knees, moved slowly and stiltedly. His face looked back at the terrified Paul and Steven, his neck -what there was of it - having been twisted in the same manner as Darren’s.
At the top step, it was as though invisible strings were cut. Pong’s dead body toppled down the stairs like a sack of cement, rolling and bouncing heavily all the way to the parquet floor in reception.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Steven reached for Paul’s arm again but Paul pushed him away.
“We’re getting out of here now!” Paul darted for the stairs.
“Wait for me, you fucking prick!” Steven sounded panicked. He tore after Paul. “Wait!”
Paul was halfway down the stairs by this point. He turned to give Steven some verbal encouragement and almost tripped over his own feet in shock.
Steven was frozen on the top step. He was screaming as his head began to rotate. The scream cut off as his neck broke with a sickening crack but the head kept turning, around and around, faster and faster, until it was twisted completely off. The body fell. Paul dodged out of its way. The head was still in mid-air, turning and turning.
Paul pelted down the stairs, leaning on the banister. He skirted around the bodies of Steven and Pong on the floor and along the corridor, heading for the door they’d entered by.
Suddenly, the place was flooded with light. The harsh fluorescent tubes buzzed into life. Paul darted out into the car-park just as the front doors opened and Miss Beamish and a couple of security men stepped in.
Miss Beamish glanced around. Her gaze took in the staircase, the balcony of the first floor landing, the chandeliers and the floor.
“Sorry, love, appear to have called you out for nothing,” said one of the security men. The other sniffed apologetically.
“So it would appear,” muttered Miss Beamish. “But better safe than sorry, gentlemen. Thank you for your diligence.”
***
The following morning Paul couldn’t remember how he got home from Dedley Hall. He supposed he must have run, darted across the common as a short cut to the streets, his feet pounding the paving stones as he pelted through the estate.
It occurred to him that the whole thing might have been a dream but he could see his canvas boots over by the bedroom door where he had pulled them off. They were stained from dirty puddles - had it rained last night? Paul got out of bed and checked last night’s clothes, the topmost items on the floor. The shirt was damp and stank of sweat.
Knocking on the bedroom door made him jump. He threw himself back onto the bed and covered himself with a blanket.
“Paul?” His mother’s voice. “Time to get up for work, chick.”
Work! That was going to be...interesting.
“Paul!”
“All right!”
“You’ll be late!”
“All right!”
Mum went away. Paul gazed at the ceiling and rubbed his eyes. Perhaps he should call, say he was sick. The idea of returning to - to - that place - made him shudder.
But part of him wanted to know, had to be sure. Had something terrible happened to Steven, Darren and Pong? Had it been some kind of elaborate hoax? Paul couldn’t see how it could have been; how could they have faked all of that? No; either it had happened or he had imagined it. He hoped it was the latter, was almost certain it was. If it was the former, he didn’t know what he would do.
A quick shower - no singing this time - and clean clothes. He gulped the tea his mother thrust towards him and snatched a triangle of toast as he headed for the front door.
“Have a good day!” Mum called after him.
“I won’t!” he called back, through a mouthful. He pulled the door shut behind him and suddenly he was out in the world, a world he was no longer sure about, if last night was indication of what could happen.
He walked briskly to the bus stop. The air was damp, still making its mind up about whether to rain or dry up. Paul stuffed his fists into his jacket pockets and hunched his shoulders. A couple of schoolgirls eyed him with amusement. They tittered behind their hands, making him paranoid.
“Hoi!” one squawked. She looked like she was wearing the contents of her mother’s entire make-up collection. “Got a light?” She waved a cigarette as a visual prompt.
“Um, no.” Paul’s lips twitched an apologetic smile.
“Poof,” screeched the other, a whole Boots counter on her chubby chops. They both erupted into cackles as though Halloween had come early.
The bus rumbled up. Paul let the painted harpies get on first. They went to the upper deck. He stayed downstairs even though it meant he had to stand all the way into town.
He clung to the shiny pole. The windows were opaque with dirt. The narrow posters above them didn’t take much reading. He avoided eye contact with the other passengers at all costs. A baby was screaming outrage at some injustice. Hatred was aimed at its mother from all directions. Paul tried to shut it out, envying Steven his walkman.
His fingers found an unfamiliar bulk in his jacket. He reached inside and from the inner pocket withdrew an oblong of red plastic, the black cable of earphones coiled around it... Steven’s walkman. How had that got there? Paul couldn’t recall; had Steven entrusted it to him at some point? That seemed unlikely. Had Paul picked it up?
Leaning awkwardly against the pole, he untangled the earphones and hooked them over his head. He pressed the chunky play button. The wheels of the cassette began to turn.
There was nothing. Or rather there was less than nothing. No music but somehow the ambient sounds of the bus and all the passengers was blocked out. Paul lifted one of the black pads from his ear. The noises returned - the baby was grizzling now, having given itself hiccups.
Why would Steven listen to a blank tape?
Paul pressed the fast-forward. The tape squeaked through the machine but that was the only sound.
A woman drove a pushchair into the back of Paul’s foot. He apologised and got out of her way as she squeezed her way off the bus, lurching as it came to a halt. The good news was she had taken the noisy baby with her.
Paul continued to scroll through the cassette.
There! He stopped. He rewound a little bit. He pressed play.
Silence.
And then - and then the sound of a child! Laughter! Running feet! More laughter...
And then silence.
Paul rewound and replayed. He had not imagined it. He listened again. And a third time. With each hearing, his skin got colder. He shivered and sweated at the same time.
He was about to play the recording for the fourth time when the bus shuddered and came to a halt.
“Bus station, mate!” the driver grunted from his seat. “Everybody off!”
Paul stammered an apology and his thanks and got off the bus. He would have to walk from the station to the library. Perhaps there would be time to try the tape in one of the machines there; the library also loaned out records and cassettes. He could ask Janice in the Record Library...
He was about to remove the earphones and wrap them around the player when he saw it was already coiled around with thin brown tape - the cassette was spooling out, chewed up and stretched. Ruined.
Shit.
Steven would kill him.
If he was still alive, that is...
Paul hurried through the marketplace, dodging the transit vans that were offloading their wares. He cut through the Dolphin Arcade as the shops on either side sprang into light and life, ready for another day of business.
There were already a couple of pensioners waiting at the main entrance, ready to exchange their romance paperbacks for more of the same. Paul dodged around to the staff entrance at the rear. He was about to enter the code on the keypad when the broad door swung inwards and he was confronted with the grisly apparition of Miss Beamish.
She scowled at him through her jam jar spectacles.
“Ah, um, Paul. Good morning. Change of plans. Back to normal. You’re back in Lending from today.”
“Oh.” Paul was both relieved and puzzled. “I see. But what about the Hall? The papers?”
“All done. Finished. Thank you. I’ll be sure to tell your supervisor how helpful you were. How industrious.” She stepped aside. “Come in; those books won’t issue themselves.”
Paul stepped into the loading bay. He went through into the Lending Library. His colleagues were gathered around the counter, enjoying a gossip in the final moments before the clock struck nine.
“The state of you, Paul!” Amanda gasped. Paul nodded, refraining from saying the same. Amanda wore too many bangles on her arms. She was like a walking hoopla stall.
“Alright, Paul,” said Izzy, the friendly one from the Children’s department. “How did you get on with Squeamish Beamish then?”
Paul shrugged. “Alright. She left us to it most of the time.” He glanced around. “Steven not in yet then?” He tried to sound casual but his voice caught in his throat.
“Who?”
Sharon the supervisor clapped her hands. “Come on, people! Get those doors open!”
The library assistants responded to her enthusiasm with a roll of their eyes, but they went to their posts, at the desk, at the counter, among the shelves. Paul checked the rota on a pillar behind the counter. Being temporary assistants recruited for the summer, he and Steven would be listed at the bottom. There was his own name - his heart sank when he saw how many hours of shelving lay ahead of him - but beneath that a thick blot of bright correction fluid was drying. Steven’s name had been obliterated. Paul turned.
“Sharon?”
“Yes, love?”
“What’s this?”
“Three hours of shelving and one of repairs before lunch it looks like.” Sharon was always defensive when people questioned the rota she had toiled over for most of the previous Friday afternoon.
“No, I mean this.” He prodded the TippEx. It yielded slightly under his fingertip like cake icing.
“Oh,” Sharon shrugged. “He’s gone.”
“Gone?”
“His mum phoned up.”
“What did she say?”
“I dunno; Miss - whoozit - Beamish took the call. Left me a message. Now, come on; chop chop!” She clapped her hands again and went away.
Paul looked at the white smudge, drying on his finger.
Gone?
***
The morning dragged. Paul kept away from the other assistants as much as he could. He roamed the stacks with books piled up along the length of his arm, shoving them into almost exactly the right places on the shelves. His mind was racing. Perhaps he should ask Miss Beamish about the alleged telephone call from Steven’s mum. Perhaps he should go straight to the source and ask Steven’s mum herself.
He dismissed the second option at once; he didn’t have the number.
So, Squeamish Beamish it was.
He finished his armful and then loaded up with non-fiction - his passport to the first floor where the Local History department was situated.
He was about to climb the staircase when Amanda called him back.
