Eustace

  She glanced towards the road, which was lost in shadow. I watched her push her gold bracelet up and down her wrist.

  There was a long silence.

  ‘We’ll need a torch,’ she said at last.

  ‘We’ve got one. It’s in the tent.’

  ‘They’ll never let us.’

  ‘Who? Amy’s dad?’ I peered at him; he was standing at the barbecue, waving smoke out of his eyes. His face glimmered with sweat in the light of a kerosene lantern. ‘He won’t mind. We’ll tell him we’re visiting Samantha.’

  ‘But she’s not there.’

  ‘Yeah, but he doesn’t know that, does he? He probably thinks that Mum’s up at the house having dinner. And it’s only a ten-minute walk.’

  Michelle tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. She giggled.

  ‘D’you think we could?’ she asked.

  ‘Do you want to?’

  By now she was grinning. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Do you?’

  ‘If it’ll get you to bury your bracelet.’ I found myself smiling back at her. ‘Why are you laughing?’

  ‘I’m not laughing.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’ We were both giggling like idiots all of a sudden. ‘Stop it, will you?’

  ‘It’s like an adventure story,’ Michelle spluttered. ‘Creeping through the night to a haunted house . . .’

  ‘I’ll get the torch. You go and tell Amy’s dad.’

  The torch was on the floor of our tent, lost beneath a whole heap of sleeping-bag covers and dirty laundry and damp towels. It took me a while to find the thing – especially since I had to grope around in the dark. When I finally emerged, Michelle was back. And she had brought Peter with her.

  ‘He wants to know if he can come,’ she explained, shooting me an apologetic look. I was very put out. If Peter comes with us, I thought, he’ll spread it around afterwards and it will be like Eglantine all over again. Ghost noises in the school playground. People springing out of cupboards with sheets draped over them. Jesse Gerangelos calling me a loony-tune.

  ‘You haven’t got your sausage,’ I pointed out, fixing my eyes on his empty paper plate.

  ‘I can do without,’ he assured me. ‘Really. It would be a pleasure.’

  ‘We’re just going up to Samantha’s house.’

  ‘The shack. I know. I’d like to see it – if that’s okay. Sounds interesting.’ Peter glanced from me to Michelle, and back again. ‘What’s up? What’s the matter? Is there a problem?’

  I hesitated.

  ‘Do I smell, or something?’ he went on. ‘Hey – I can take it. Boy germs. That’s it. You’re scared of boy germs.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ I said crossly, because I felt bad. I hate all that ‘You’re-not-our-friend-so-you-can’t-play-with-us’ sort of stuff. I’ve had to put up with it too many times myself, in the playground. And Peter was a nice guy. I didn’t want to upset him.

  ‘Look,’ I began, and paused. Michelle and I exchanged glances.

  ‘Are you two up to something?’ Peter inquired. ‘What happens up at that shack – do you smoke marijuana, or run around in the nude?’

  ‘Of course not!’ I snapped, wondering if he could be persuaded to keep his mouth shut. Michelle raised an eyebrow at me. I tugged at my bottom lip. Peter gave a great sigh.

  ‘Are you going to tell me, or not?’ he said. ‘Because if it’s a secret, I can keep a secret, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ I peered at him. ‘Cross your heart?’

  ‘Cross my heart. Um . . . as long as you’re not going to blow something up.’

  He was joking, so I ignored him. Instead I asked, abruptly, if he remembered Eglantine – and he fixed me with a very intent look.

  ‘Yea-ah,’ he replied. ‘Sort of. You never talked about her at school, much.’

  ‘No. Because people always think you’re weird, when you believe in ghosts.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re weird,’ he said promptly. ‘Not very weird.’

  ‘So you believe in them?’

  ‘Well . . .’ He thought for a moment. ‘I don’t not believe in them.’

  ‘Allie,’ Michelle interrupted. She was jiggling about as if she needed to go to the toilet. ‘If we don’t get up there soon, we might be too late.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ I knew that Richard could sit up all night, and not necessarily spot a thing. But it was eight-thirty, and we had to be in bed by ten. ‘Look,’ I said to Peter, ‘you can come if you want to, but don’t tell anybody, okay?’

  ‘Okay. But –’

  ‘Do you have a torch in your tent?’

  ‘Yes, but –’

  ‘Could you get it, please? Quickly.’

  ‘Okay, but –’

  ‘I told Amy’s dad we’d only be an hour,’ Michelle remarked. ‘Still – I don’t suppose he’ll notice if we’re a little longer. I think,’ she added, ‘that he’s a bit pissed off with your mum, Allie. He’s cross that she went off to dinner with her friends.’

  It didn’t take Peter long to fetch his torch. Even so, by the time he’d caught up with Michelle and me, we were already picking our way up the road to Samantha’s. It was easier than I’d thought it would be, because the moon was practically full, and there was hardly a cloud in the sky. Even without our torches, we would have been able to see where we were going. Crickets cheeped. The air was very still. Glossy leaves and tin roofs gleamed in the moonlight.

  Rustles in the long grass were probably lizards, unless they were little marsupials.

  ‘So what’s this big secret?’ Peter inquired, after he had got his breath back.

  ‘Shh!’ I hissed. ‘Not so loud!’

  ‘Why? Are we sneaking in?’ Michelle whispered. ‘Isn’t Richard supposed to know we’ve arrived?’

  ‘We shouldn’t disturb him,’ I answered quietly. ‘It might ruin everything. We’ll just take a peek through a window. Once you’ve seen all his equipment set up, we’ll leave.’

  ‘What equipment?’ Peter sounded bewildered, even though his voice was pitched low. ‘Who’s Richard? Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Richard is a friend of ours,’ I explained. ‘There’s supposed to be a ghost in Samantha’s house, so Richard’s trying to see if he can record any evidence that it’s really there.’ I stumbled on a pothole, and dropped my torch. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘You’re kidding me!’ Peter squeaked, clapping his hand over his mouth as Michelle glared at him. ‘But that’s fantastic!’ he went on, much more softly. ‘You mean he’s a ghost-buster?’

  ‘No,’ I growled. ‘There’s no such thing.’

  ‘Shh!’ Michelle flapped a hand at us. ‘Keep it down! We’re nearly there!’

  I recognised the fence when we reached it because it was overgrown with prickly rose bushes and honeysuckle. The rusty old gate looked as if it would squeal like a pig if touched, and I tried to remember if the hinges squeaked. I asked Michelle about this, in a whisper, but she couldn’t recall.

  Suddenly she clutched my wrist.

  ‘Look!’ she breathed. ‘Over there!’

  She pointed, not at the house, but at a stretch of garden near it. The house itself was dark, its verandahs wrapped in shadow; only its roof and chimney were clearly visible in the moonlight. Here and there, clumps of black trees also seemed to swallow up the moon’s radiance. Between them, however, lay stretches of milky grass – looking almost like ice – and one of these stretches was being crossed by someone wearing trousers.

  A man, I thought, instinctively ducking. Michelle did the same. ‘Is that Richard?’ Peter hissed, and we both flapped our hands frantically to shut him up.

  The silhouette was sneaking towards the house. Peering over the top of a cascade of honeysuckle, I saw a hunched shadow disappear behind the dunny, then re-emerge briefly before it was screened by a may bush that grew near the back verandah. I heard a board creak. I heard a faint jingling sound.

  ‘Was that Richard?’ Michelle muttered. ‘It looked too fat.’

  ‘It
was.’ I gave the gate an experimental push, and winced as the hinges groaned. Michelle put her hands over her ears. Peter leaned towards me.

  ‘Who was that?’ he sighed.

  I shrugged, biting my thumb.

  ‘It wasn’t a burglar, was it?’ Michelle sounded scared. ‘Allie?’

  ‘I don’t know! Shh!’

  ‘Should we call the police?’

  ‘I don’t know, Michelle!’ Then it occurred to me. ‘Richard’s inside. He might have a mobile.’

  At that very instant, we all heard a noise – a faraway crashing noise, like someone dropping a handful of saucepan lids. There followed a muffled shout. Michelle and I stared at each other, but Peter was already shoving his way through the gate, which shrieked mournfully on its hinges.

  ‘Look!’ he rasped. ‘See? There’s a light on, now!’ Bent almost double, he gestured with the beam of his torch, and I spotted a golden glow coming from somewhere beyond the depths of the front verandah.

  ‘Peter!’ I croaked. ‘Wait! Don’t go in there!’

  ‘I’m not,’ he assured me. ‘I just want to see if I can –’

  ‘Peter!’ Michelle squeaked. ‘Get down!’

  ‘Shh!’ I’d heard something. ‘Listen!’

  Voices – I could hear voices. They were male voices, and not very clear, but they weren’t shouting. A low rumble was followed by a pause, and another low rumble.

  They were coming from somewhere behind the house.

  ‘Do you hear that?’ said Peter. ‘They’re talking.’

  ‘Maybe we’d better go back,’ I replied doubtfully. ‘Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.’

  ‘But can’t we just take a look?’ he pleaded. ‘Isn’t that all you were going to do anyway? Just peek through the window?’

  ‘I guess . . .’

  ‘What about Richard?’ Michelle reminded me. ‘Hadn’t we better make sure he’s safe?’

  She was right, I realised. We couldn’t just sneak away. So we crept around the back of the house, dimming our torches with the palms of our hands, until we reached the may bush. From behind its drooping fronds, we could see the kitchen window (which was all lit up) and the kitchen door, which was standing open. We could also hear the voices, quite clearly.

  ‘. . . you want to borrow some coffee, you shouldn’t do it while your neighbours are out,’ Richard was saying, in his rapid-fire way. ‘If that’s what you were doing, which I seriously doubt, by the way.’

  In reply, somebody mumbled something about not being a thief.

  ‘Then what were you doing with Samantha’s coffee?’ Richard demanded.

  ‘I was running low, I told ya –’

  ‘So you decided to stick a little pile of coffee beans in the cutlery drawer?’

  ‘. . . accident . . .’

  ‘Come on, Mr Bourne. Give me some credit.’

  Richard didn’t sound frightened at all. He certainly didn’t sound as if he was talking to a ghost. Craning my neck, I caught a glimpse of the top of his head through the kitchen window, and realised that he was carrying a torch, like me.

  For a moment I wondered why he didn’t just turn on the light – before remembering that Samantha and Hessel didn’t have any lights to turn on.

  ‘You’ve been coming in here, haven’t you, Mr Bourne?’ Richard continued. ‘Coming in and rearranging things. Things like those coffee beans.’ Another pause. ‘Oh, come on. You let yourself in. You’ve got a key. Why do you have a key? How did you get it?’

  A mumble.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I said Evie gave it to me!’

  Michelle sucked in her breath. We exchanged glances.

  ‘Evie?’ said Richard. ‘Who’s Evie?’

  ‘She used ta live here!’ an angry voice retorted. ‘This used ta be her kitchen, until those two fancy-pants tore the bloody guts out of it! She must be turning in her grave, to see what they’ve done! Ripped up all her daffs and her pansies to stick that bloody oven in, down the back! Letting all her roses go to buggery! You’re right, I’ve been messing with stuff in here because I thought I might get rid of the two of ’em, the dozey bloody hippies, but they’re too thick to know what’s good for ’em!’

  ‘Ah,’ said Richard, and I had to see. I just had to see who was talking to him. But when I carefully skirted the may bush, and put my foot on the bottom step, it creaked horribly.

  The conversation stopped. Michelle tugged at my jumper.

  ‘Who’s there?’ said Richard.

  I took my foot off the bottom step – but it creaked again. Peter and Michelle were hissing things that I couldn’t understand. Then the beam of Richard’s torch hit my face.

  He had emerged through the kitchen door.

  ‘Allie?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘Oh – uh – hi.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘We were just – um –’

  ‘We? Who’s we?’

  I glanced at Michelle, who was sort of shrinking back into the darkness, as if she wanted to make a run for it. Unfortunately, that was no longer possible.

  I pulled an apologetic face.

  ‘Just my friends,’ I explained. ‘You’ve met Michelle. And this is Peter.’

  Peter stepped into the light, clicking his torch off. He said: ‘We wanted to see a ghost. Uh . . . Allie said you were looking for one.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Richard replied. He gazed at the three of us for a few seconds, thoughtfully. ‘I was looking for a ghost. And I seem to have found him. Kids . . .’ He swung the beam of his own torch around until it was fixed on his companion. ‘Meet Mr Alf Bourne.’

  CHAPTER # nine

  Alf Bourne was very old. His face drooped, his hair was white, and there were big, brown spots all over his hands. He wore dark blue trousers and a flannelette shirt, and he was sitting on one of Samantha’s rickety bentwood chairs, which looked as if it might collapse any minute.

  He stared at us with watery, red-rimmed eyes, nursing a small plastic torch in his lap.

  ‘Mr Bourne is Samantha’s next-door neighbour,’ Richard went on, as Peter and Michelle and I trooped into the kitchen. ‘He must have thought there was nobody home, because I hadn’t lit the lamps.’

  Mr Bourne muttered something about damn fools sitting around in the dark, and other people never going anywhere without making a noise. Richard closed the kitchen door.

  ‘Apparently Mr Bourne doesn’t like Samantha or Hessel,’ he said, ‘so he’s been sneaking in here and rearranging their things. Pretending to be a ghost.’

  ‘Only a bloody fool doesn’t change the locks when they move into a new house,’ was Mr Bourne’s response.

  ‘So Eustace doesn’t exist?’ Michelle asked, turning to Richard, and he shrugged.

  ‘Eustace the ghost certainly doesn’t,’ he replied. ‘For all I know, Eustace the child didn’t either.’

  ‘Of course he did!’ Mr Bourne flushed, and sat up straight. ‘He was Evie’s boy, poor little beggar. Died of pneumonia, back in ’48, and I thought she’d never get over it. That’s why . . .’ He trailed off, suddenly, his flush fading.

  ‘That’s why what?’ Richard prompted, more gently, and Mr Bourne made a sweeping gesture with his hand, as if to say ‘what the hell’.

  ‘About a week after the poor kid died, Evie found a pile of buttons and things behind a dresser – things that Eustace must have left there before he passed,’ Mr Bourne confessed. ‘She got the idea in her head that his spirit was still around the place, and she was happy about it.’

  A long pause. At last Richard said: ‘So you kept sneaking in and leaving little piles of things around the house. To keep her happy.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Mr Bourne admitted, with a sigh. Michelle and I looked at each other. We couldn’t believe it, especially since everything around us seemed almost dream-like: the pale old man, the torch-light, the creepy kitchen. I tried to imagine sneaking into the house of our next-door neighbour, pretending to be a ghost, but I cou
ldn’t.

  Richard took off his glasses, and polished them on the hem of his shirt. The silence stretched out. I wondered what he was going to do.

  Surely he wouldn’t call the police? Mr Bourne looked so old.

  ‘Well,’ Richard sighed, pushing his glasses back on, ‘I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr Bourne, but – well, you have been trespassing, you know.’

  Mr Bourne gazed at him sullenly, hands trembling.

  ‘I mean, I do sympathise,’ Richard continued, ‘but it’s really not on. You know that, don’t you? It’s not nice.’

  Mr Bourne scratched the back of his neck, avoiding Richard’s reproachful gaze. Richard said, ‘So am I to understand that you actually have a key, Mr Bourne? A key to this house?’

  He did. He fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out a brass key. ‘No point now, anyway,’ he mumbled, dropping the key into Richard’s outstretched hand. ‘You’ve spoiled the fun, now.’

  ‘Samantha and Hessel wouldn’t call it fun, Mr Bourne.’

  ‘No?’ The old man’s watery eyes glinted. ‘Well, they’re a funny pair, aren’t they? Not normal.’

  ‘I don’t think Evie would have approved, do you?’

  But that was the wrong thing to say. Mr Bourne glared at Richard fiercely. ‘What do you know about Evie?’ he snapped, and shuffled to the door, muttering under his breath. He was still muttering as he made his way down the back steps.

  ‘Are you all right, Mr Bourne?’ Richard called after him. ‘Can you manage?’

  No reply. We watched Mr Bourne trudge towards the fence that separated his house from Samantha’s, a beam of light flickering over the ground ahead of him. I said to Richard (very quietly): ‘Do you think he’s a bit . . . you know . . . funny in the head?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ Richard pushed his spectacles up his nose, and sighed. ‘But that doesn’t mean he isn’t grieving. He must have loved Evie Harrow very much, don’t you think? He probably would have hated anyone who moved into Evie’s house. He would have tried to scare them away no matter who they were, or what they did.’

  ‘With little piles of buttons and paperclips?’ asked Michelle sceptically.

  ‘And broken dishes,’ I added. ‘And a possible ghost. You know what a lot of people are like, when they have to deal with ghosts.’