He put out the torch, sat on his bed and watched himself in the mirror as he removed first the hands and then the mask. It was almost a relief to be able to see him return to his normal self again. The only thing was, when would he ever have the opportunity to try these things out properly?
His father was calling from downstairs. 'Peter!'
'What?'
'Would you like to do something for me?'
'What?'
'Come down, and I'll tell you.'
Peter was about to replace his toys in the drawer again, thought better of it and stuffed them into his pockets instead, with the torch. If his father wanted him to go out, this might be just the opportunity he had been wondering about. He went downstairs, to find his father waiting for him in the hall.
'I've just remembered a couple of errands I'd like doing. You know the envelopes I've been putting through people's doors, collecting for the children's homes?'
'Yes.' Good, his father did want him to go out, then.
'There are two houses I called to collect them from last night, but the occupants were out. Just those two. Would you mind popping round to see if they're in tonight and collect them for me if they are? Take this with you -' and he handed over a little card of identity which stated that Peter's father was an authorized collector for the children's homes - 'and explain who you are. They'll know you anyway, I expect, but take it just in case.'
'Which houses are they?'
'Number eighteen, along our road, Mr and Mrs Hubbard, then number forty-seven Devonshire Road. He's new, so I don't know his name.'
'No trouble,' said Peter. 'Won't take me ten minutes, if that.'
'OK then. Remember, it's the children's homes envelopes you're asking for,' his father called after him.
'I know,' said Peter, hurrying.
Once he was clear of the house he carefully drew out of his pockets the mask, and put it on, then the hands, then with the little torch held ready he set off down the street.
Number eighteen was not far away, but as he walked towards it Peter realized that there was nobody out on the street but himself. It was nicely dark by now, and the sky was clouded over, but all at once a cloud slid to one side and he saw that somewhere up there was not only the moon but a full one at that. Just the right sort of night for a werewolf to be abroad, he was thinking as the cloud glided back into place again, so he adjusted the mask so that the eyes and the mouth were in the right places, and pulled up the hairy hands as far as they would go. Then he continued briskly towards number eighteen, where he knocked on the door, pocket torch at the ready.
For a while there was no answer, then he heard the chain behind the door rattle, then a pause.
'Who is it?' he heard a woman's voice ask from inside.
'I've come for the envelope for the children's homes,' he said loudly.
'Just a minute.'
There was another pause, and he assumed that Mrs Hubbard was trying to find the envelope so that she could put tenpence inside it before opening the door. He got ready. Then the chain rattled a second time, and the door opened. As the figure of Mrs Hubbard appeared, he switched on the torch, directly under his chin.
Mrs Hubbard started and stepped back. Peter stood motionless with the light unwavering underneath his chin. There was a gasp, Mrs Hubbard clutched at her chest, then the door slammed shut and he heard the chain rattle again and then a bolt clunk into place.
That was very good, Peter was thinking. He did think of knocking on the door again, this time with his mask off, but thought better of it. She might not come to the door twice. So now for whoever it was who lived at number forty-seven Devonshire Road.
This was a large, gloomy house, with some kind of tall fir trees growing in the front garden behind a thick hedge. He did not remember ever having visited this house before. He opened the wooden gate and walked up the path, to find the front door was not at the front of the house but at the side, with more thick hedge growing in front of it on the opposite side of the narrow path. He wondered how anyone ever managed to carry furniture into the house when the path was as narrow as that.
He did not need to flash his torch to find the bell-push, because it was one of those illuminated ones, with a name on a card underneath it. Luke Anthrope, it said. So that was the name of the man who lived there, he thought; what an unusual name. He pressed the bell, and at once could hear an angry buzzing from somewhere inside, not like a bell at all. Feeling secure and safe behind his mask, when there was no answer he pressed the button again, and this time he heard a man's voice from inside the hall of this dark house. That rather surprised him, since there were no lights switched on that he could see.
'Go round the back,' it said hoarsely.
He walked further along the path to find a tall wooden gate, which opened easily, so he passed through it to see the back door of the house, and knocked on it. The door opened just as the moon came out again, but he was ready for it and had the torch under his chin immediately. Mr Anthrope did not frighten easily, however. He was a short man, with a thick beard and moustache, and he just stood there regarding Peter steadily.
'I've come for the envelope for the children's homes,' explained Peter, switching his torch off since it was obviously having no effect.
'Ah yes,' said Mr Anthrope, but made no move to go and fetch it.
'I've got a card here,' said Peter, fumbling in his pocket with some difficulty since the hand masks rather got in the way. 'It's my father's really, but it proves that you can give the envelope to me.'
The short man continued to regard him without moving. 'Switch that torch on again,' he said, so Peter did.
'Do you know why you never see two robins on a Christmas card?' the man asked him suddenly.
Peter did not.
'It's because if you ever find two robins together, they fight each other to the death. Did you know that? You can only ever find one robin in one place at a time. The same with one or two other creatures.'
Peter had no idea of what this Mr Anthrope was getting at. He had made no mention of robins. Robins had nothing to do with it. And what other creatures?
The man's face was beginning to change rather strangely in the moonlight, which was now shining full upon him. If was as if his beard was growing more straggly, somehow, and the face becoming more lined, and his lips seemed somehow to be thinner and more drawn back over his teeth. Peter only just noticed, too, now that the light was brighter, how hairy this man's hands were. Peter turned off the torch, because he did not need it now.
Then Mr Anthrope did a very strange thing. He came right out to the edge of his doorstep and leaned forward towards Peter as if he was going to whisper something to him.
Then Mr Anthrope's mouth was somewhere near his ear, and Peter, always curious, strained to be able to hear what Mr Anthrope was about to whisper to him. He was astonished then to feel the bones in the side of his neck crunching, and blood running down inside his shirt. He didn't even have time to cry out before long nails were tearing at his flesh.
8/ John Gordon - Eels
Rosemary was ten when she was smothered by Aunt Jenny and fed to the eels.
Oh, dear me, how easy it was. Poor lamb, to go so sweetly. But I was very angry at the time. 'And the strange thing is,' said Miss Jenny Jervis aloud, 'I am a single lady without brothers or sisters, so I'm not really her aunt.'
'Everyone knows that,' said Mrs Berry. 'When's that blasted bus coming?' They were waiting at Church Bridge for the bingo bus to take them to Terrington out across the fens.
'But she always called me auntie - I can't think why.'
'And I can't think why you suddenly started to come to bingo. Gambling - that ain't like you, Jenny Jervis.'
Miss Jervis simpered. 'Maybe I'm feeling lucky, Phoebe.'
Heavens, yes. Very lucky. First Rosemary with the eels, and now Rosemary's mother has passed away. By accident. So she'll never come looking for her darling little Rosemary again. How very convenient. No need of eels for her.
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'I feel fresh as a daisy today,' said Miss Jervis. 'Free as a bird.'
'Damned if you don't look it.' Mrs Berry cast an eye over the flowered dress, the gloves and the white hat with a hint of veil across Miss Jervis's brow. 'It's not a wedding, you know - only bloody bingo.'
'It pleases you to be blunt, Phoebe,' said Miss Jervis, 'but other people are not so unkind. Rosemary for one - although,' she added modestly, 'I still can't think why she has always been so nice to me.'
'Don't come that with me,' said Mrs Berry. 'You know well enough.' The bus came drifting along the waterside. 'And for God's sake help me up these blasted steps.'
Mrs Berry, unlike Miss Jervis, was fat and her hips were so bad she could hardly lift her feet. She handed over her stick before she grasped the handrail. 'And wipe that stupid expression off of your face, Jenny Jervis. The girl calls you auntie because she loves you, God knows why.'
Miss Jervis held the stick by the middle and kept it clear of the ground in case germs ran up it and into her gloves. 'I've only been doing my duty by the girl,' she said.
'Duty be blowed.' Mrs Berry's grunt was muffled in her fat bosom as she heaved her way upwards. 'Who cares about duty? - you don't, for one.'
'You are wrong there, Phoebe.' Miss Jervis regarded the broad rear end.
Quite wrong. My duty was to dispatch the child. She should never have been born, so it was her destiny, the darling.
'I have a strong sense of duty,' she said.
'Squit! You have a strong sense of looking after number one - like the rest of us.'
'Here's your stick, dear.' Miss Jervis handed it over, and dusted off the tips of her gloves.
'And don't call me dear!' Mrs Berry had found a seat and was peeling the wrapper from a pack of king size. 'I'm not in a bloody rest home yet.'
The bus began to move, and Miss Jervis looked down into the river as it slid by.
Silly to call it a river, but they all do. It's a drainage cut, as they very well know, because the water's quite still and not like a river at all. Fortunate, really, because I knew just where Rosemary was until the eels had finished with her. It was quite hygienic. All I had to do was wrap up the bones and put them in the dustbin a few at a time until there was nothing left. Nothing.
'What are you smiling at?'
'Just thoughts,' said Miss Jervis.
'Once a schoolteacher, always a bloody schoolteacher. You're just the same as you was when you was a kid, Jenny Jervis. Anyone could've seen you was never really going to put that school behind you.'
'Don't get so cross with me, Phoebe. There's nothing wrong with being a teacher.'
Headmistress, actually, when I retired. And what did you ever do, fat Phoebe?
'I love being with children,' she said.
'You never showed much sign of it.' Mrs Berry plugged a cigarette into her plump face and waved a flame at it. 'You never got married, did you? Never had no children of your own, never hardly got away from this village where you was born.'
'I was away at training college for three years, don't forget.'
'Training college.' Mrs Berry clicked her tongue. 'That must've been a riot.'
Phoebe, Phoebe, I had a baby.
The rhyme sprang to Miss Jervis's mind and made her smile.
I had a baby, and I don't mean maybe.
She looked out of the window.
Mrs Berry, who had been watching her from the corner of her eye, said, 'You can't tell me you girls didn't get up to some fun and games when you was away from home.'
Miss Jervis raised her eyebrows. 'We were training to be teachers, Phoebe, so nothing very terrible happened.'
Except, of course, I had a baby girl and couldn't come home for a while.
'And anyway,' she smiled, 'even if there had been something I was ashamed of I wouldn't have let anyone know, would I?'
'You're grinning like a cat that's had the cream,' said Mrs Berry.
'Am I? I wonder why.'
And you may well turn away with that disgusted expression on your face, fat Phoebe, because now there's no chance at all you'll ever find out anything.
Using both hands, Miss Jervis smoothed her dress firmly across her thighs and spoke to herself very clearly.
And wouldn't you just love to know that the daughter I had was adopted and grew up to have a daughter of her own? And that little girl was Rosemary - so I'm not her auntie; I'm her granny. I'm a granny, Phoebe, just like you.
'Anyway,' she said mischievously, 'I don't suppose my sins will ever come home to roost now.'
'Not that you ever had none.'
'Not that I ever had any,' said Miss Jervis primly, but she could not help a shiver, because her sin very nearly had come home to roost. Not long since.
But you don't know that, Phoebe. I had my baby adopted the day after she was born and I thought she was gone for ever.
Miss Jervis closed her eyes.
And then … after all those years… she found me!
'It was a terrible moment' - the words came out before she could stop them.
'What was?'
'I mean it must be a terrible moment when your sins catch up with you.' She gave a little grimace.
You'll never catch me out, Phoebe fatbum. Not now. Rosemary has gone, and now my dear daughter is also no longer with us.
'Did you read about that awful plane crash?' she asked.
'What about it?' Mrs Berry was annoyed at the sudden change of subject.
'Well, I was just wondering about those poor people. Their sins caught up with them, didn't they?'
My daughter, for one. She dumped that Rosemary on me, and threatened to give away my secret if I didn't take her, just so she could gad about with her boyfriend. Well, now she's gone, her and her boyfriend. Serve 'em both right.
Miss Jervis had read the passenger list. 'It's so sad,' she said.
'Not that you look it.'
'Well, it's such a lovely day.'
And I'm so lucky. Nobody left to ask questions about Rosemary; no more blackmail from Rosemary's mother.
'I can't never fathom you out.' Mrs Berry, because her fat legs pressed into the seat in front, let ash dribble into her lap. 'You was headmistress, with your own little house by the river, everything you ever wanted - and then you had to go and saddle yourself with that kid Rosemary. At your time of life.'
'It was because of a friend from the old days.'
A friend! I mean my dear daughter - happily no longer with us.
'And my little home was just perfect for the two of us.'
'Well, kids are kids - I wonder you could stand having your place messed up.'
'But it was no problem, Phoebe, no problem at all.'
Until the stupid child began to whine for the mother who didn't want her.
'Because she is such a sweet little girl,' said Miss Jervis.
Was a little girl. And sweet at the end. She drifted away so softly under her pillow she could hardly have felt its touch.
'So sweet,' sighed Miss Jervis.
'Sweet as a sugar plum, no doubt, but it was never your way to burden yourself.'
'You have a cruel tongue, Phoebe, but my deeds speak louder than words.'
'Hark at little Miss.„ Prim. Never done a thing wrong in her whole life - I don't think.'
It was said so knowingly that Miss Jervis felt a touch of anxiety. 'I don't understand you,' she said.
'I know something you done, Jenny Jervis… something you was ashamed of.'
Mrs Berry's eyes suddenly had such a hard glint that Miss Jervis looked away.
But it couldn't be Rosemary. Everybody believed me when I said she'd gone home to her mother.
'You was a naughty girl once.' Mrs Berry was sly, and waited to see the effect. 'That's made you go pale, ain't it?'
'There's nothing on my conscience, Phoebe.'
'Well, there should be.'
Miss Jervis sat quite still.
'You gone white just like you did then. First you
went white, then you went red and then you started to cry and said it wasn't your fault. You'd have done anything to stop other people knowing what you done. And I was the one who could've shamed you, Jenny Jervis.'
Miss Jervis made a tiny movement with her gloves.
'I see you remember it now - that day when we was kids and you snitched some sweets from a girl's desk.' Her eyes were on Miss Jervis. 'And I seen you do it.'
'Is that all?' Miss Jervis let out her breath.
'All, you say. All'
'I was only trying to put her books straight.' Miss Jervis was annoyed to find that her mouth had gone dry.
'Then why did you snivel and grovel and promise me anything so long as I wouldn't tell? Books my foot!'
'But…'
'No buts. You're still making excuses. You never did give a thought to that poor girl you was thieving from - all you cared about was that you shouldn't be shamed. That's what you was afraid of- shame.'
Miss Jervis took a handkerchief from her glove. 'I think you're trying to spoil my little outing, Phoebe.'
'And now it's tears. Just as it always was. You haven't changed one little bit.'
Miss Jervis blew her nose. 'I'm relieved that I haven't any worse skeletons in my cupboard,' she said. 'Perhaps I'm lucky.'
And she was. She won at bingo. She could do nothing wrong, and knew it in her bones. So when the old woman sitting next to her was careless with her purse, Miss Jervis dipped her fingers into it and came out with a note.
She was putting it into her handbag before she realized she had been spotted. A finger was pointed, and silence spread outwards from where she sat until the hall was full of waxworks with every head turned her way.
'But I was only helping her to buy her tickets,' she said, and the silence deepened.
Outside, Mrs Berry said, 'Get on the bus and shut up.' She made Miss Jervis sit next to the window and sat beside her to wedge her in and prevent her getting to the aisle. 'I don't want you flinging yourself off of this bus and making more trouble for everybody.'
Miss Jervis's voice had almost gone. 'I was only going to give her some change for her tickets,' she whispered. Her throat hurt.
'Just stay quiet.' Mrs Berry was smoking hard. 'Nobody wants to hear you.'