Elidor (Essential Modern Classics) Page 8

  “Someone looked through the letterbox and tried to open the door,” said Roland. “Now: about half a minute ago.”

  “But they couldn’t have,” said Helen. “We were freewheeling to see who could get nearest to home without touching the pedals. We were ages coming down the road.”

  “Nobody went anywhere near the house,” said Nicholas.

  “Yes, they did!” cried Roland. “I heard them, and when I pulled the curtain there was this eye – staring!”

  “Who’d want to do that?” said Nicholas. “There’d be nothing to see but curtain.”

  “Was it you frightening Roland, Nick?” said Mr Watson.

  “Me? No!”

  “Because if it was, I’ve told you before I won’t stand for it. You’re old enough to know better than to play stupid tricks like that.”

  “But it wasn’t me, Dad!”

  “Very well,” said Mr Watson. “But I don’t want it to happen again, that’s all.”

  “I did see somebody!” said Roland. “I did!”

  “Now come along inside, Roland,” said Mrs Watson. “You know, you’re your own worst enemy.”

  “But Mum, I did see somebody!”

  “I don’t doubt it,” said Mrs Watson. “But you mustn’t let your imagination run away with you. You’re too highly strung, that’s your trouble. You’ll make yourself ill if you’re not careful.”

  Roland was found to have a temperature of a hundred and one. Mrs Watson gave him aspirin and sent him to bed, cooked him a light tea, and sat with him until he appeared to be calmer.

  When the other children went to bed they were told to go quietly so as not to wake Roland. They tiptoed upstairs without switching the light on.

  “Come in here, you lot,” said Roland.

  CHAPTER 13

  “SILENT NIGHT”

  N ext morning the static electricity had dispersed. The rose bed was normal.

  At this time of the year it was dark when the children came home, and so the only chance Roland had of inspecting the garden was after breakfast. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday passed, and nothing happened. He tried to vary his approach so that no one would see what he was doing. He brought in coal, or carried cinders out, or threw scraps for the birds. He noticed that food landing near the bed was always the last to be taken, and the sparrows and starlings never gathered there to fight over a crust as they did in the rest of the garden. A single bird would dart in and snatch the food, and the quarrelling would not begin until the bird was clear of the rose bed.

  On Thursday morning Roland was having his breakfast when Mrs Watson threw a piece of burned toast out of the window. The toast fell on the path, and lay untouched. Roland saw one bird fly down from a chimney, but when it was over the garden it braked in the air, shot sideways, and flew back to the chimney, where it sat, ruffling its feathers and wagging its head. A few minutes later it tried again, with the same result. No other birds came near.

  As soon as he could Roland went into the garden. There were plenty of birds in the orchard over the fence next door, but they were all silent. Roland crossed the path, and as he came near to the rose bed his hair started to move on his neck, and the palms of his hands tingled.

  By smuggling his mackintosh into the last lesson Roland was able to leave school as soon as the bell rang. He cut through the playing field and ran a mile to the station, and so caught the early train, which went half an hour before his usual one. Roland sprawled in the carriage. His shirt was out of his trousers, rumpled in sticky folds on his back. He felt as if he was bursting in the carriage heat: but he would reach home before dark.

  The street lamps were on when he walked up the road from the station. He plucked leaves off the hedges as he passed. Ivanhoe, Fern Bank, Strathdene, Rowena, Trelawney: respectable houses bounded by privet, each with its square of grass. Two days ago the first Christmas tree had appeared in a front room window, and now every house had one displayed, and they were all bigger than the first tree.

  Whinfield, Eastholme, Glenroy, Orchard Main. What could happen here? thought Roland. Even the toadstools are made of concrete. But it’s our house that has the porch…

  He stopped in front of the porch, smelling the bitter privet leaves rolled between his fingers. The name of the house, carved on a varnished section of log, hung from two chains by the arch. Screwed into the door was a plaque which said, ‘Here live Gwen and Frank Watson’, then came a knot of flowers, and underneath, ‘with Nicholas, David, Helen, and Roland’. But the porch still did not belong. It makes it worse, thought Roland. They’ll know they’ve found us.

  He went into the garden. There was nothing to be felt. Roland put his school books away before going back to the rose bed. He touched the bushes, prodded the soil, walked round the bed. What makes it come? Is it the Treasures? If it is, why isn’t it there all the time?

  There was hardly any light except for the afterglow of the sun in the clear sky. The ground was freezing already. And then, in the middle of Roland’s casting about, he felt the static electricity as suddenly as if a switch had been pressed.

  And when he looked at the rose bed he saw the shadows of two men standing there.

  They were motionless, as they had appeared on the attic wall. Flat shadows. But they were not thrown on anything solid, they were shadows on the air.

  Roland backed away to the path, and the shadows stayed where they were. He edged round to the side. They narrowed with perspective until he was at right angles to them, and then they disappeared until he moved past them. They were visible from in front and behind, and Roland could not see through them. And yet they were two-dimensional: they had no depth: looked at from the side, there was not a hair-line of darkness.

  Roland went closer to the rose bed. He was both frightened and excited by the shadows.

  “Just stay there,” he said. “Just stay there. They’ll have to listen after this. Just stay there till the others come.”

  His throat ached, and the ache moved into his neck muscles, sending a sharp pain through his forehead. The air pricked with light: the shadows gleamed like ink. Roland’s neck was cramped fast. He remembered how it had been in the attic, how he had watched until it was nearly too late. He was doing something by looking at the shadows, and the whining noise was coming now. He forgot about proving himself right. It was too dangerous. He had to move, while he could.

  Roland floundered across the garden towards the house. His knees and the small of his back felt as though they were bubbles of air, and the ground was never where he thought it was.

  “Your tea’s ready,” Mrs Watson called when she heard Roland in the kitchen.

  “Thanks, Mum,” he said.

  It was eight o’clock before all the family was ready to watch the television. Mr Watson had settled down about ten minutes earlier, and so when Mrs Watson and the children joined him they were surprised to find that he had not switched the television on.

  “Is something wrong, Frank?” said Mrs Watson.

  “No. I’m listening to the carol singers. They’re the first this year.”

  In the distance they could hear uncertain treble voices.

  “Silent Night,” said Mr Watson. “My favourite.”

  “I heard them three weeks ago,” said Mrs Watson. “They start earlier every year.”

  “I suppose, before long,” said Mr Watson, “they’ll run it in with Guy Fawkes and get all the collecting done at one

  go”

  “Are we having the telly on, Dad?” said Nicholas.

  “In a minute,” said Mr Watson, “in a minute. Let’s be seasonable. It’s not every night of the year we can hear carols, and we’ll have to pay for them, so let’s have our money’s worth. They sound as though they’re outside Mrs Spilsbury’s. We should get them at the next move.”

  But as he said this, they heard the scuffle of feet in the porch.

  “Oh, really,” said Mr Watson. “Already? It’s a bit much to expect to be paid for something we can’t h
ear. Go away! We want Silent Night outside the window before you have a penny!” He winked at the others. “I’ll complain to your union!”

  There was a further scuffle, and the doorknob rattled.

  “Young scamps,” said Mr Watson. “They might have the decency to knock. Go away! Off with you!”

  A pause. Then they heard footsteps on the pavement, and a whispered muttering, and then, still whispered, “Ready? One, two, three,” and several voices in different keys began to sing Away in a Manger. Before they reached the end of the first line there was a polite knock at the door. “That’s more like it,” said Mr Watson, and opened the door.

  “Merry Christmas,” said the small boy in the porch. He brandished a money box. “And a Happy New Year.”

  “Now why couldn’t you do it properly the first time?” said Mr Watson. “There was no need to rattle the door like that. And I did ask for Silent Night.”

  The boy gaped at him.

  “What d’you mean, mister? We’ve been up the road. No one rattled your door.”

  “Come now, come,” said Mr Watson. “I distinctly heard you larking about in my porch.”

  “We never—”

  “Thank you!” said Mr Watson.

  “We didn’t—”

  “I said thank you. Now listen: all I’m asking is that you sing what I requested—Silent Night—and that you refrain from rattling my door. That’s reasonable, isn’t it?”

  “No one rattled your door, mister,” said the boy. “We weren’t anywhere near your door.”

  CHAPTER 14

  THE HIGH PLACES

  R oland said nothing about the shadows. When the other children had come home he had not had the courage to go outside again. He realised, too, that nothing less than the shadows themselves would convince Nicholas, and next morning and all Saturday there was no static charge in the garden.

  “I wish you’d have a look at that front door, Frank,” said Mrs Watson at tea on Saturday. “It judders every time a car goes past. It’s the kind of noise that sets my teeth on edge: I could hardly sew for it this afternoon. It’s become much worse lately.”

  “Very good, dear,” said Mr Watson. “I’ll see what can be done in the morning. It may need a touch of the screwdriver.”

  “And I wish you had paid those boys the other night, instead of preaching at them. They’ve been in and out of that porch all day. It’s their way of getting their own back, I suppose.”

  “I explained at the time that it was a matter of principle,” said Mr Watson. “But what have they done now?”

  “Oh, they’ve been dragging their feet, turning the doorknob, flapping the letterbox – that sort of thing.”

  “Didn’t you stop them?” said Mr Watson.

  “They’re much too quick. They’re off and out of sight the moment they hear the curtain rings move. I gave it up after the second time. They’ll soon tire of it when they see we’re not to be drawn.”

  “Or they’ll be provoked to worse mischief,” said Mr Watson. “My mother was once nearly frightened to death when some louts dropped a rip-rap through her letterbox. It could have set the house on fire, too. Oh, no: we must put a firm stop to it.”

  “Listen,” said Nicholas. “They’re at it again. Shall David and I nip out and clobber them?”

  “Certainly not,” said Mr Watson. “I mean to deal with this once and for all. I’m going to catch them from behind. You just go on talking normally.”

  “Don’t do anything silly, Frank,” said Mrs Watson.

  Mr Watson let himself out by the back door. The children and their mother listened to the shuffling that was going on in the porch.

  “Sounds as though there’s quite a few of them,” said David. “I wonder if Dad will be all right.”

  “Don’t be daft,” said Nicholas. “That kid who was collecting was only eight or nine. I still think we should clobber them. Dad’ll lay the law down, but he won’t do anything else, except ask their names and addresses. And who’d be mug enough to give him real ones?”

  The back door opened, and Mr Watson stamped in.

  “Too late!” he said. “Not a soul in sight.”

  “We heard them all the time you were out, Frank,” said Mrs Watson. “They’ve never stopped. Are you sure you went?”

  “My dear Gwen,” said Mr Watson, “the street lamp across the road shines right into the porch. They’re hiding in gateways, but I’m not playing their game for them.”

  “They are not hiding, Frank. You didn’t listen to what I said. They were in the porch all the time, and they are there now.”

  “Eh? What? Good heavens!”

  The letterbox snapped shut.

  “But this is preposterous!”

  Mr Watson was pale with indignation.

  “We’ll soon deal with that, though! If I open the door when they’re not expecting it, I’ll trap them against the porch. Then we’ll see who’s being so funny.”

  “No, Dad!” said Roland. “Don’t. Please don’t.”

  Mr Watson frowned Roland to silence, and put his hand on the catch, taking care not to move the brass rings on the curtain. The doorknob turned. Mr Watson threw the door open.

  “Got you!”

  “Dad! No!”

  Roland tried to reach his father to pull him away, but he became entangled in the curtain. Mr Watson was thrusting the door hard against the inside wall of the porch.

  “Now then,” he said. “Now then.”

  But as he eased the pressure, the heavy oak door scooped him off his feet and slammed him back into the room. The door crashed shut, and Mr Watson fell over Roland, tearing the curtain down on top of them both.

  Nicholas pushed forward. “No. Don’t go,” said Mrs Watson. There had been something brutal in the speed with which the door had moved. “Nick.”

  They dragged the curtain from Mr Watson. He was sitting dazed on the floor, and one eye was beginning to close. His nose was bleeding.

  “Hooligans!” he said. “Arrant hooligans!”

  “You go looking for trouble,” said Mrs Watson when she bathed his eye. “For all you know it could be one of those teenage gangs off the overspill.”

  “You said it was the carol singers.”

  “I know I did, but it wasn’t, was it? Eight-year-olds wouldn’t have done this, would they? Roland, come away from that window. You’ll egg them on to something else if they’re still hanging around. Ignore them, and they soon lose interest.”

  Roland watched the poplar branches curling like tentacles round the street lamp. The road glistened. But he knew that when he had stood next to his father at the door, all beyond the porch had been in darkness, except for the glow of a log fire burning nearby.

  It was three in the morning when Roland went downstairs. Coals tinkled in the grate, and the clock raced with the double note that Roland never heard in daylight. The front door vibrated, although the only traffic was the long-distance lorries on the main road a quarter of a mile away.

  He knew that it was up to him to do something. After this there would be more than curiosity.

  He listened at the curtain. He had switched off the pencil torch and clipped it in his pyjama pocket. There was no sound of movement or breathing in the porch, and so Roland eased himself into the space between the curtain and the door. Still no sound, apart from the quiet jarring of the wood. The air smelled of curtain, and a thin draught slipped round him: the coconut matting needled his feet. Roland braced himself on to his toes and looked with one eye through a gap between the letterbox frame and its hinge.

  Now that the room was dark Roland could see quite well in the shadow-light of Elidor.

  It was nowhere that he recognised. In his narrow angle of vision there was nothing but mountains; peaks, crags, ice, and black rock stabbed upwards. The porch seemed to be at the top of a cliff, or a knife-backed ridge. Roland had the sensation of a sheer drop behind him in the room. Down the mountainside in front lay a camp of tents, and there was a hunting par
ty winding from it up a track that passed the door. The men rode stags and carried lances, and some had bows across their backs. Wolfhounds ran before them. Close to the porch there was a bivouac in the shelter of a rock. Here the fire Roland had glimpsed burned pale and colourless, and next to it squatted a man holding a spear.

  A hound sniffed at the porch, but was called off sharply. The riders looked at the door as they went by. One of them spoke to the man at the fire, who was now standing. He shook his head and pointed with the spear down to the camp.

  At this moment the door stopped vibrating, and the scene vanished, and Roland was squinting out at his own night, and all he could hear was the lorries.

  He lowered his heels. The man had been a sentry, guarding the porch. They had found it. They knew it was a way through. They would come when they were ready. It’s my fault, thought Roland. I made it. What can I do?

  The door buzzed again. He lifted himself up.

  Although only a few seconds had passed, it must have been longer in Elidor. The fire was bigger, and there was a different sentry. The new man was walking up and down to keep warm.

  It must be freezing, thought Roland. And why do they need such a huge camp? They can’t live up here all the time: there’s nothing but rock and ice, thousands of feet high. – High. – A high place. – High places. – “Who walks in the High Places.” Findhorn. That’s it: the Song of Findhorn. Malebron was going to look. He said there were mountains. Then they’re looking, too!

  It was impossible that this could be Malebron’s camp. These men had his nobility, his bearing, his dress, but only Malebron had had the golden light about him. Their beauty was the beauty of steel, every line of them cut hard as an engraving.

  Oh, what can I do? thought Roland.

  The sentry halted, and stared at the letterbox, as if he had heard Roland speak. Then he came towards the door.

  Roland slid down as far as he could. He heard the familiar footsteps in the porch, and a hand pushed the letterbox open: the knob was turned; the door moved against the lock: scuffle: and silence. When Roland dared to look the sentry was bending over the fire and stirring food in a pot.