How It All Ended: Me, My Family and the Poltergeist, #3

CHAPTER 1

Every year since opening Silverlands, we had taken a short holiday as soon as the summer season was over, but this year was different. This year was nineteen ninety, and we had a massive building programme ahead of us.

On the first day of October, the family gathered in the tearooms. Claire and Michael were at school, but Lucy sat beside me in a high chair, sucking a rusk and watching everyone with serious eyes.

The tearooms felt empty without Abbie clearing tables, Martha bustling behind the counter or a display of cakes waiting for customers.

As Mum poured tea, my brother, David, produced a large paper bag from behind his back.

If we’re not allowed a holiday, I thought we could at least mark the occasion with an Eccles cake, he said.

What occasion? asked his wife, Phil.

The first day of the new build, of course, David said tearing the bag open with a dramatic flourish. At last, we get to do all the things we’ve been planning.

Not everything, Dad reminded him. We’re not touching the old swimming pool.

David lay the open bag on the table.

Who cares about the pool? It can wait. This is a huge moment. We should celebrate.

You’re right. I nodded and took an Eccles cake.

I know, I am, David went on happily. When we first saw this place, no one with any sense would have believed we could make a success of it, but look at us now. Five years on and everything’s going brilliantly.

Yes. It’s good to remember how far we’ve come, Mum agreed as she handed mugs around. It’s easy to concentrate on the problems and forget about the good things.

Bob, my husband, grinned as he took a mug.

This time next year we’ll be drinking tea in a proper restaurant and function suite, he said.

Sooner than that, Mum corrected him. It has to be ready by Easter.

And it will be ready, Bob assured her. It’s going to be amazing. By next spring, our regulars won’t recognise the place.

Don’t say that, Mum tutted. It’s not as if we’re going to knock everything down and start again. It’s still going to be Silverlands.

David sipped his tea.

That’s true, but don’t underestimate what we’re doing. These changes are massive. By the time everything’s finished, we’ll have opened up a whole new building for the model circus and live entertainment. The main house will have a superb restaurant for functions, like Bob said, and a huge indoor picnic area for bad weather. We’ll even have the last two craft units up and running. I think that’s pretty impressive.

And don’t forget the shop, Phil said. It’s going to be so much better with all the new display units.

And there’s the crazy golf and the outdoor games equipment, Bob threw in.

And no one’s mentioned the new terraces for the car park and widening the road leading up to them. I added.

Remind me, how long do we have to finish all this? Dad asked.

Months and months, I laughed. We’ve got the whole winter. There’s going to be no rush at all.

Dino had been laying quietly beside Bob, but now he leapt to his feet and barked at a distant noise.

David frowned.

Was that the doorbell?

It’s probably the postman, Phil said. Where’s Ossie?

I thought he was with you?

They looked at each other in dismay.

Oh, no. Not again! I groaned.

David hurried out of the tearooms and I raced after him along the corridor.

You’re supposed to be keeping Ossie inside, I scolded him.

I thought he was with Phil. We can’t keep him locked up all the time.

But I warned you about the postman. He said if Ossie does it again, he’s going to stop delivering.

David threw open the front door, and we were confronted by an indignant young man in a dark uniform and peaked cap.

I’m so sorry... David began, but the postman cut across him.

He was waiting for me! Hiding in the bushes! There was no sign of him when I drove up, but the moment I got out... well, look at him.

The post office van was parked a few feet away, its engine still running. Through the windscreen I could see Ossie’s black head and shoulders. He was sitting in the driver’s seat, panting, and his huge white fangs gleamed in the morning light.

I think he likes you. He just wants to be friends, I said, but the young man glowered at me.

He won’t get out. And he’s got very big teeth. I can’t waste time like this every morning.

David clapped his hands and pointed firmly to the ground beside him.

Ossie! Come here!

I waited hopefully, but the dog merely cocked his head to one side.

Come here! Now! David shouted.

Ossie pricked his ears and stared intently at us.

With a sigh of exasperation, David crossed to the van, grabbed Ossie by the collar, and hauled him out of the driver’s seat.

I’m sorry about this, I said. Ossie looks fierce, but he’s a big softie, really. You can see that, can’t you?

The postman was not convinced.

No. All I can see is that he’s very big and very intimidating.

He stepped back as David dragged Ossie past, then climbed into the van, slammed it into reverse and shot off down the drive.

David let go of Ossie’s collar and the dog watched the van disappear out of the gate before flicking his silky tail and trotting back inside the house.

Do you think Ossie was really waiting for him? I asked.

Probably, David sighed. He’s a sneaky little bastard when he wants to be.

*****

Before work could start on the new restaurant, we needed to clear everything from the area and that meant moving the circus.

I knew it had to be done, but I was dreading it.

Normally, I considered myself to be a fairly laid-back person, but whenever we had to move the circus, I grew anxious. The model was the highlight of our exhibition and it would be a disaster if anything went wrong with it.

Although the circus contained over a hundred animated figures, they were all operated by one gigantic mechanism that was powered by a single motor. If any individual part was damaged, the entire system was affected. This meant that even a small mishap could result in months of work and the circus would not be usable until everything was finished. Just thinking about it made me feel sick.

Dad had spent years travelling around Australia with his own full-size circus and the idea of packing everything into boxes and moving it seemed normal to him, but to me, it was a nightmare.

The model had been designed to come to pieces, and each section had its own travelling case, but nothing was uniform. Each box had been individually built to fit a particular section, and trying to put a section into the wrong case could easily result in it becoming stuck or being damaged.

I knew how easy it was to break the figures. When I was a child, Dad had carved the first acrobat that was to perform in the big top. I had begged to be allowed to hold it, and finally Dad had given in.

The tiny girl had her foot through a loop attached to a rope and her arms spread out gracefully on either side of her. As I twisted the rope, she spun around and I was entranced. 

I still don’t know how she slipped from my fingers. One moment she was in my hands, the next she was lying on the kitchen floor in pieces.

Dad didn’t tell me off. I’m sure he knew how upset I was, but it took weeks of work before the acrobat could fly again.

On another occasion, when the circus was on exhibition in Torquay, a local television crew arrived to interview us. They wanted to show the circus in the background, but the reflections from the glass panels distorted the view and we agreed to remove them.

The interviewer promised she would stay well away from the model, but as soon as she started asking questions, she stepped backwards and her elbow caught the golden carriage as it came around the parade track.

The interviewer was mortified, but the damage was done. The horses pulling the carriage were wrecked, and each one had to be rebuilt from scratch.

I couldn’t bear the thought of anything going wrong now.

It was easy to explain to people that the carved figures and the tents were delicate and needed to be handled carefully, but it was more difficult to explain that the platform supporting the circus needed just as much care.

The platform consisted of six sections that bolted together to form one massive table. In total, it was three meters wide and seven meters long. The big top, menagerie tent and all the wagons and caravans were set into the table and a miniature road ran around the edge.

A parade of tiny vehicles moved constantly around the road, including a stagecoach and a golden carriage which were both pulled by teams of animated wooden horses. The mechanisms that drove the horses passed through tunnels below the table, and they would only work properly if all the sections were exactly aligned. A variation of even a few millimetres would be enough to cause problems.

To stop the table distorting, it had been reinforced with steel frames and this made it ridiculously heavy. Each section needed four people to carry it, and I knew that if a section was dropped, or even bumped enough to spring it out of shape, we would not be able to reassemble the platform without stripping out the frames and re-aligning them.

Fortunately, we had a group of friends who had watched the model grow from its first beginning on our dining room table. They had helped us transport it to its first display in Torquay and had later moved it to Silverlands.

Now they turned out again.

I was grateful that our friends had volunteered to come and help us once again, but I couldn’t help wishing we could manage on our own.

Mum understood. As the team of volunteers arrived, she whispered to me.

Remember, dear, everyone’s here because they care about the circus and want to help us. That’s wonderful, isn’t it?

Yes, of course it is, I mumbled guiltily.

A few minutes later, I spotted an unfamiliar face in the crowd.

Who’s that?

David looked across the room.

That’s Mark. He lives in Chudleigh. He heard about the circus and asked if he could help.

But you were only supposed to ask friends, I objected.

David stared at me.

He’s a really nice guy, and he offered to help. What was I supposed to say?

No, would have been good, I sulked.

You’re impossible! Do you know that? David’s voice rose accusingly.

I did know I was being impossible, but I didn’t want to admit it, so I looked offended instead.

I just don’t want any accidents, I sniffed.

David must have recognised my apprehension, because he took a deep breath and changed his tone.

Calm down and stop worrying. Why don’t you help Dad with the belts?

I nodded. Taking out the belts meant being under the table and away from everyone. It sounded like a good idea.

To my surprise, David gave me a quick hug.

Honestly, everything’s going to be fine.

Dad joined me under the table and we worked steadily, stripping out the leather belts that connected the various mechanisms to the main drive. It was familiar work, and the aroma of dust and engine oil was oddly comforting. Slowly, I started to relax.

In the distance, I could hear the voices of the others as they unloaded travelling boxes from a storeroom.

That’s the last one, Dad said as he drew a belt from a pulley. You go outside and I’ll pass the shafting out to you.

I nodded, crawled to the end of the platform, and slid out through the small door. Dad followed behind me and handed out the lengths of shafting one by one while I fitted them into the first travelling box. By the time we had finished, David was busy removing windows from around the platform and Bob was packing dressing items such as tiny buckets, brooms, wheelbarrows and even miniscule children’s toys into another box.

I paused and kissed Bob on the cheek as I passed.

Are you OK? he asked.

Yes, of course. I’m fine.

As he reached out to pick up a pile of miniature sacks, a screwdriver that was lying near him rolled across the table and fell to the floor.

Stop it! I snapped.

Bob looked at me in surprise.

What’s the matter? It didn’t do any harm. I must have caught it with my arm.

I wasn’t talking to you.

There was no one near us, and Bob’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

I hadn’t meant to speak out loud, but I knew that if I tried to explain, it would only make matters worse, so I just smiled and walked away.

*****

Before we moved to Silverlands, I didn’t believe in the paranormal, but over the years I had experienced enough strange things to be convinced the old property was haunted by a ghost called Fred.

I had tried to share my experiences with Bob, but he resolutely refused to believe the footsteps, bumps and missing items were caused by anything more than my over-active imagination.

I didn’t want to argue with him, so I chose the path of least resistance and simply avoided the subject.

It wasn’t usually too difficult. Creaking stairs and distant noises were harmless enough, and it didn’t really matter if an occasional saucer fell out of a cupboard and cracked.

However, a few months ago, I had been shocked to discover that all the gas taps in the kitchen had been turned on full.

It was so unexpected and such an escalation from what had happened before that I found myself shouting at an empty, gas-filled room.

At the time, I had been afraid, but later, when I calmed down, I felt differently. There was no logical explanation for what had happened. It did not make any sense. And yet I couldn’t bring myself to believe Fred meant us any harm.

Silverlands was an enormous building with endless, winding corridors. The electrical wiring was ancient and illogical and many of the passages only had switches at one end, so in the evenings, switching the lights on and off as you moved from one wing to another was complicated. As a result, I found it easier simply to walk in the gloom.

At night, I sometimes carried a small torch, but more often than not, I didn’t bother. I knew every twist and turn of the corridors. I loved the old house and felt safe there.

I didn’t discuss the subject because I would have felt stupid talking about things that were not based on any form of logic, but I simply didn’t believe there was anything evil lurking in the shadows. 

I knew Fred was real, but I had no idea who or what he was or why he did the things he did. I wondered if he was trying to attract attention and thought of him as a child who liked to show off. As if he was saying, ‘Look at me! I’ve worked out how to do this!’

In my head, my ideas made sense, but I didn’t want to have to justify them to anyone else.

David, on the other hand, could barely conceal his excitement about what had happened.

We can’t just ignore it, he had protested when I told him about the gas taps. Who knows what’s going to happen next?

Nothing, I replied. I told Fred not to do it again.

Don’t be ridiculous! You can’t tell a ghost what to do. It’s not a pet. You can’t treat it like a stray dog!

Why not? If we’re going to share this place, we have to learn to live together.

Live together? That’s hardly the right word, is it?

You know what I mean.

No, I don’t. We’ve no idea what’s happening here. There’s obviously some sort of force causing these things. We should try to find out what it is. Investigate it.

You’re right, I agreed grudgingly, but we can’t think about it now. There’s too much else to concentrate on.

I suppose so, but I can’t help thinking we’re missing an opportunity.

In the days that followed, David’s words echoed in my head.

Perhaps living with a ghost was an opportunity. But an opportunity for what?

It was something few people ever experience, and I felt I should record it in some way, and yet there was so little that was definite.

I wrote down a list of the things I had experienced and the approximate dates they had happened. Then I read them back and laughed. I imagined the look Bob would give me if I told him my jottings proved Fred was real. I knew the incidents were genuine because I had lived through them. I had experienced the sounds, the sights, even the smells that were associated with Fred, but none of these things could be tagged and brought out in court as evidence.

The rest of the family had been as baffled as me by what happened in the kitchen. Bob asked whether a sudden change in gas pressure could have caused the taps to turn on by themselves, but when the rest of us dismissed the idea, he simply shrugged and went back to work.

Dad insisted we got an engineer in to check the gas supply, but he found nothing wrong.

For days, my mind searched for an explanation. Had Fred really been trying to attract our attention? If so, he had certainly succeeded. But why? What did he want?

I thought back over the random things that had happened since we bought Silverlands, but I couldn’t make sense of any of them.

In horror films, ghosts always have a reason for contacting the living. They have unfinished business of some sort. They want to pass on a message or give a warning. Did Fred want to tell us something? Or was he a bored teenager who enjoyed playing tricks?

Did you do it because you thought it was funny? I asked one night when I was alone in the kitchen, but there was no reply.

Now, as we lifted out the precious pieces of the circus and packed them away, I realised why I was feeling so apprehensive.

Leaving Dad disconnecting the harness on the stagecoach horses, I walked through to the kitchen. It was quiet and as I leaned against a worktop, I felt like an elastic band that had been stretched to breaking point.

Closing my eyes, I whispered so no one in the next room would hear me.

Fred, you may be a ghost already, but if you ever touch the circus, I will kill you. Do you understand? Some things are not allowed.

I stood with my eyes closed for several minutes until, gradually, I felt calmer.

*****

By the time Phil collected Claire and Michael from school, the circus had been stripped down into sections and was ready to be moved into its temporary home in the Enchanted Forest.

Lucy, my younger daughter, watched from her playpen as the two older children arrived like bouncing puppies eager to be included in the excitement. They helped carry metal struts, fetched tools, and packed light bulbs into cartons until they were both exhausted.

Finally, everything was safely stored away, and we thanked our friends for their efforts with one of Bob’s home-made curries. While the others chatted and laughed, Phil and I took the children up to bed.

Claire’s eyes drooped as I read her a story and she soon drifted to sleep, but Lucy remained wide awake. She was now fourteen months old and could already walk unaided and form a few recognisable words. While Claire had always been a peaceful, contented baby, Lucy was the opposite. She was fiercely independent and had yet to sleep more than a few hours at a time.

Bob and I loved her dearly, but the continuing broken nights were a struggle.

Claire was lucky she was born first, Bob muttered one night as he was woken, yet again, by Lucy’s cries.

Why? I asked without opening my eyes.

Because if Lucy had been first, she would have been an only child.

*****

Now the circus and the dividing partitions had been removed, it was possible to see the whole area that was going to become our restaurant. It was enormous.

When Stokelake House was first built, it consisted of the main building and an impressive coach house and stable block that was laid out around an open courtyard.

Later, when the property was converted to a school, the front of the courtyard had been filled in with a two-storied classroom block that left only a small area at the back open to the sky.

Now, we intended to combine the ground floor of the classroom block with one wing of the stables to form the restaurant.

I had known it would be big, but now, as I stood in the middle and looked around, I felt excited and apprehensive in equal measures.

Mum was beside me, and I guessed she felt the same.

Remind me, how many people is this for? she asked as she looked at the dusty floor and sagging ceiling tiles.

We’re going to have tables and chairs for one hundred and sixty people, but the license will cover up to three hundred for functions.

Mum didn’t answer. At that moment, if I had said we could fit a thousand people into the space, I think she would have believed me.

And what has to be done first?

The windows. I nodded to the front of the building. The metal frames have warped so much they won’t open. They have to be replaced. The electricians will be rewiring everything at the same time and once that’s done, the new suspended ceiling will go up.

Good. That’s going to make a big difference, Mum said approvingly.

Yes, it’s going to be amazing, I agreed, then broke off as a van drove past outside.

That’s Steve. Great. Now we can get started.

It was wonderful having the team of builders back. Within minutes of them arriving, the house was full of noise and bustle. We had arranged a detailed schedule with Steve, the foreman, and I knew every item in the budget by heart. We had allowed a ten percent contingency fund in case there was anything we had overlooked, but I was convinced we wouldn’t need to use it.

During our first winter we had been bombarded by unexpected expenses but now,