The Beggar's Curse Read online

  “Go home to bed then,” she flung tartly over her shoulder, and pedalled away.

  Colin walked up the gloomy lane to Stang church. There was a feeble sun shining, but it didn’t feel much warmer. He might join the others in Molly’s studio when he got back; she was showing them how to throw pots. It was always warm in there, even when the kiln wasn’t on; the thick old walls obviously retained the heat. The poodles had discovered that too, and Dotty kept disappearing. Yesterday Molly had found her nesting in a box of jumble she’d left in there for the next church féte, and she was always climbing into drawers and hiding. Dotty was a good name for her; she had a screw loose.

  All the way to the church Colin kept stopping and looking round. He felt he was being followed. It was nothing he could see or hear, the only sound was his feet squelching through last year’s leaves; there was nothing but the damp, dripping lane, and the trees that clasped leafless hands over his head, stealing the light.

  He let Jessie off the lead and she went romping ahead and out of sight. The churchyard was very quiet. He looked round for the builders, but there was no sign of them. No sign either of whoever had followed him up the lane. No one there but the dead. He walked over to the bottom of the tower and peered up through the scaffolding. If he was going to be an archaeologist he’d have to get used to clambering about on old buildings. Anyway, he wasn’t chicken. Not like Oliver, who didn’t even like using lifts.

  He left Jessie snuffling about in the long grass and cautiously made his way up the first ladder to the top of the square tower. But he knew he couldn’t climb an inch higher. Over his head the thin steeple was bending horribly. Colin simply couldn’t look at it. Nausea and dizziness swept over him like a cold sea, and he made his way down again, blindly this time, hardly daring to open his eyes.

  Back on the level he sat down on a flat gravestone and wiped the sweat from his face. He felt so sick he couldn’t raise his face again to look at that awful tower. Then he heard something, a sliding, grinding noise from up above, and a loud rattling, as if someone was working ropes and pulleys. Everything started to move at once. The noises grew louder and louder, all merging together in one massive wave of sound, powerful enough to split an eardrum. The steeple was falling.

  “No, no,” he moaned, shaking his head wildly from side to side. But through closed eyes he could see everything, the crooked finger beckoning, lurching sideways, then crashing down and disappearing into huge clouds of rubble and dust, turning the enormous churchyard trees to matchwood. As it fell, the Edges, Wrights and Bovers leaped from their graves and ran shrieking down the sodden lane towards Blake’s Pit.

  Colin screamed and forced his eyelids open. A black shower of rooks flew up into the sky, but the tower, with its leaning steeple, was perfectly still. The builders’ tarpaulins flapped gently in the wind and in the grass at his feet lay Jessie. She was trying to bark but only made a pathetic little sound, like the mewing of a kitten, and one of her shaggy front paws had disappeared under a large piece of newly cut stone.

  He took her back to Elphins in the builder’s barrow. She was a heavy dog to lift, but he rolled her in somehow and set off. She didn’t struggle, or try to bite him, she just lay there in a heap, uttering dry little yelping sounds. Colin loved this dog. Rage and hatred welled up inside him towards whoever had done such a thing, but as he manoeuvred the barrow over the potholes his hot passions ebbed away, leaving him cold and numb. That stone hadn’t been aimed at Jessie at all; it had been meant for him.

  He tried to keep his eyes away from the sticky pink-and-white pulp that was the dog’s left paw. Her whole leg might be broken, and she might limp for ever. What use would that be to a creature like this? Colin couldn’t bear it. As he thought of her tearing across the fields on their long country walks at home, his eyes filled with tears. She’d be better dead.

  Who was responsible? His first thought was Sid Edge, but that was impossible. He’d climbed up the church tower as far as the base of the steeple, and seen the tiny platform constructed for the two stonemasons. There was no way Sid could have got up there without Colin seeing him, unless he’d climbed up from the other side, and he wasn’t Spiderman. The lump of sandstone was enormous anyway. How could anyone have heaved that at him with such force?

  As he pushed the barrow past the village shop he saw Sid lolling against the window. He looked as though he’d been there all day, and his nose was running like a tap. He said nothing as Colin trudged by, but glanced in the barrow with cold curiosity, and sniffed. No coming forward to see what the matter was, no offer of help. Resisting the temptation to spit in his eye, Colin left Jessie by Molly’s car and ran into the house.

  When she saw the dog Molly dropped everything. Shouting instructions to Rose about food and walking the poodles, she bundled Prill and Oliver into the car, helped Colin to lift Jessie into the back, then drove to Ranswick at sixty miles an hour.

  No one said very much as they hurtled along the twisty lanes. The car was going so fast that they all felt slightly sick. The best thing to do was to look out of the window and let Molly concentrate on the driving, otherwise she might crash. But whenever she had to slow down or stop, she always asked Colin the same question, in a voice that was kind enough but quite firm. “What on earth happened, lovie?”

  In the end he told a straight lie. He said he’d been clambering about on the pile of stones, and that the whole thing had collapsed and trapped Jessie’s paw. “It was my own fault,” he added in a small voice, feeling the red flush creeping up over his cheeks. “I – I put them straight again, more or less.” He didn’t want Molly to start quizzing the builder; the fat would really be in the fire if she did that. But how could he tell her that a great block of sandstone had come hurtling out of the sky, just missing him but crushing Jessie’s foot? It sounded ridiculous. He wanted to talk to Prill about it, and Oliver, if he was in the right mood. First the fire, and then the steeple. It was like a line from one of Molly’s old poems.

  In less than ten minutes they were outside the vet’s surgery. It belonged to an old friend of Molly’s, Jimmy Bostock. Oliver got out of the car feeling most peculiar, his heaving stomach almost turned inside out. Pets, he thought grimly. He really could manage without them. All this fuss about a dog. Honestly, it was only her paw; he just couldn’t understand why everyone was so upset. It was Colin’s fault anyway, building sites were always dangerous. He should never have taken the dog near the church.

  The vet asked Colin to bring the dog into his consulting room, but Prill pulled him back. “Let Molly do it,” she said in a wobbly voice, and she slumped down on a chair, clutching his arm. The smell of antiseptic wafting through the open door, and the thought of all those bright, sharp instruments had made her feel horribly queasy. She was sensible in every other way, but she just couldn’t stand the sight of blood, and it was always quite a performance getting her to go to the dentist’s. Needles and drills did funny things to Prill; she only had to look at them and she keeled over.

  “Look, I’ll stay out here,” Colin whispered to Molly. “She just might pass out if she goes in there.” So the three of them sat in a row, the brother and sister staring at the closed inner door, trying not to think of what might be happening to Jessie, Oliver bored and slightly irritated, flicking through old copies of Cheshire Life.

  The vet was very reassuring. He came out of his surgery after about twenty minutes and told them the foot looked very much worse than it was. “The leg may well be fractured,” he explained, “but let’s hope it’s a clean break. And the paw’s OK. We’ve cleaned up the mess, and it’s all fairly superficial. She’s a lucky dog.”

  “Can we see her?” Prill said.

  “No. I’ve given her an injection. Ring tomorrow at nine o’clock. Jackie’ll be here if I’m not, and she’ll put you in the picture.” Jackie Bostock was Jimmy’s daughter; she helped in the surgery when she was home from boarding school. She was a plump, fresh-faced girl with a big smile, and horses wer
e the passion of her life.

  As Prill climbed back miserably into the car, Molly handed her a bit of paper. “An address dear, from Jackie. The riding school near Saltersly Cross. We can give them a ring when we get home. Cheer up, just think – if Jessie hadn’t had this little accident we’d never have got that. My memory’s like a sieve these days. All things work together for good, Prill.”

  “To those that love God,” Oliver piped up priggishly from behind. “That’s the important bit.” Aunt Phyllis sometimes made him learn pieces of the Bible off by heart.

  If she’d not been driving, Molly would have turned round and clobbered him, and Prill cried nearly all the way home. She didn’t believe the vet. They sometimes put animals to sleep and told you when it was all over. How could Oliver be so thick-skinned? Colin felt like hitting him, too. And as for everything “working together for good”, what did that mean? There was something very wrong in Stang. It was something to do with the Edge family. And he felt that what had happened in the last twenty-four hours was only the beginning.

  That night the Mummers met in the old schoolroom for their first play rehearsal, and the three children went over to watch. There were a few dirty looks when Molly brought them to the door and Winnie found a bench for them to sit on, but the two women took no notice. “They need a bit of cheering up,” Prill heard. “Missing home, I suspect, and the dog’s at the vet’s. . .”

  They weren’t the only spectators anyway. Quite a few small children were sliding around the floor, and some old villagers stood chatting at the back, waiting for Winnie to start. Rose Salt was there too, hovering by the exit.

  Oliver decided that all this fuss about keeping the words a secret was pure nonsense. Why go on about secrecy, if people were allowed to come to rehearsals? The Edges couldn’t think for themselves. All they knew was that people had done things privately way back, and behind locked doors. It wasn’t like that nowadays, and without Winnie Webster there wouldn’t be a play at all. He had no qualms about picking something up off the floor and sliding it into his back pocket. It was a spare copy of the words which someone had dropped on the way in. It just might come in useful.

  The rehearsal was a shambles. Half the actors hadn’t learned their lines, the others hadn’t brought their parts, and to start the proceedings Sid’s young cousin Samantha, from the caravan, wet her pants and began to wail. With lightning speed Winnie produced a spare pair from her large brown handbag. “Church jumble,” she whispered to Prill. “Invaluable. Now come on, Samantha, just pop outside with Vi and slip them on, then we can get going. . .”

  Porky Bover started the play off, sweeping an imaginary circle on the floor with an old brush. “Room, Room, Gallons of Room,” he said clearly, then:

  “My masters sent me here some room for to provide.

  So therefore, gentle dears, stand back on every side.”

  “Good, Porky. Now then, where are the devils? Come on Jack, Sid, your turn next. Make a really bold entry, you’ve got to scare everybody.”

  Oliver had already read Winnie’s book on the Stang play, and he kept lecturing the others about what was going on. “That circle on the floor is very important,” he whispered. “It’s magic, you see. It’s like a fairy ring. Nobody can cross it.”

  “Oh, belt up!” Colin snapped. “We’re trying to listen.”

  But there wasn’t much to listen to. Sid and his father played the devils, and Jack Edge certainly looked the part. He was just a hairier version of his sons, thirty years on, with a huge, dark beard. But he couldn’t remember his lines. “The man’s an idiot,” Oliver said to himself. “They’re so simple, like jingles.”

  “Oh, come on Jack,” Winnie said impatiently. “Here, read them.”

  “In come I, Old Beelzebub,

  Over my shoulder I carries my club,

  In my hand a dripping pan.

  Don’t you think I’m a jolly old man?”

  He delivered his four lines in a loud, flat voice, and he looked anything but jolly; the great beard made him look rather sinister, with the hard Edge face brooding over it. Sid’s acting skills didn’t come from his father. He skipped through his lines quite easily:

  “In come I, little Devil Doubt,

  If you don’t give me money

  I’ll sweep you all out.”

  When he said the last bit he grabbed Porky’s broom and thrust it at the audience, across the fairy ring.

  “Excellent,” Winnie said, rather surprised. Sid was very good. It was a pity he couldn’t have a slightly bigger part.

  The children could see why George Massey wasn’t very popular. He was rather too professional. He had quite a lot to say, and he delivered his lines with gusto, in an enormous voice.

  “In comes I, King George,

  King George that valiant man with courage bold.

  ’Twas I that won five crowns of gold,

  ’Twas I that fought the fiery dragon and brought him to a slaughter

  And by that fight I hope to win

  The Queen of Egypt’s daughter.”

  “Marvellous, George,” Winnie beamed enthusiastically when he’d been through his part. But there were jealous scowls all round, and when he started interfering the Edges looked murderous. “Can’t we liven it up a bit?” he suggested. “It’s all a bit flat, I think. When Harold enters, for example, couldn’t he say something like, ‘You can’t get this on the National Health’, say, when he takes his magic potion out? That’d raise a few laughs.”

  There was a sudden silence in the schoolroom. Harold Edge went up to him, and actually grabbed him by the shirt collar. “Look, Massey,” he hissed, “I’ve always played the Doctor and I don’t need you to tell me what to do, see? I play my part, and you play yours. Get it?”

  George Massey began to bluster. “Of course, Harold, of course. I understand. I only thought—”

  “Only nothing,” the man snarled. “You’re not at the BBC now, you know.”

  “What Harold means, George, is that, well, all this is very old, you see. It wouldn’t be right to add things at this stage. It’s not Shakespeare, of course. All the same. . .” Winnie twittered on nervously, but she was on Harold’s side in this. It would be quite wrong to put cheap modern jokes into the play.

  “Can’t we get on, Winnie?” a voice bawled. “Are we going to be here all night?”

  Slowly the rehearsal lapsed into chaos. The children tore round, bashing each other with the flat wooden swords provided for the fights, and the Edge brothers got into an argument with Winnie about the horse’s head. Old Hob had been found in the ashes of the bonfire, but the skull was badly charred. Frank said they’d have to borrow a head from the Saltersly Mummers, who performed their play on Christmas Eve.

  But Harold looked black when this was suggested. “It’s not the same,” he grumbled. “It’s not the same at all. And if it hadn’t been for that fool Massey. . .”

  “Oh, be realistic Harold,” Winnie interrupted sharply. “Of course you’ll have to borrow one, and the Saltersly head’s splendid. I’m sure they’ll lend it.”

  Before the practice broke up she gave out parcels of material, all neatly labelled. “Take them home,” she ordered. “Rope in your mothers, sisters, grannies. Everyone knows the basic pattern, and the sooner they all start cutting and stitching the happier I will be.” As they squabbled over the packages, Rose Salt glided forward. “I’ll do Slasher’s, miss,” she whispered. Slasher, the purple knight who fought with King George at the end, was being played by Tony Edge.

  “Yes, of course, Rose,” beamed Winnie, remembering how well she could sew. Elphins was full of her patchwork cushions and embroidered tablecloths.

  Tony Edge didn’t like it. “Don’t want her messing my costume up,” he grunted, as Rose slipped away.

  “Don’t be silly, Tony,” Winnie snapped. “And don’t be so ungrateful. Rose is marvellous with a needle. Count yourself lucky my boy.”

  Molly was in bed when they got back. “Early
night,” her note said. “Cocoa on the stove. Sweet dreams, everybody.” They sat round the kitchen table talking about the play, then noticed Oliver’s photographs in a bag marked “Kwik Flicks, Ranswick”.

  “It was quick,” he said, undoing the packet. “Wonder how they’ve turned out?”

  Prill and Colin noticed, with some relief, that Oliver was a rotten photographer. At least there was something he couldn’t do. There were a few snaps of their Irish holiday last year: Colin buried in sand, Mum, Dad and Jessie with no heads, one of Prill’s knees. Most of the others were of Christmas day at 9, Thames Terrace, with Aunt Phyllis grimly carving a turkey and all the old people in funny hats. Only the last photo on the roll was of Stang. It was the picture Oliver had taken through the car window.

  “That was a bit of a waste, Oll,” Colin said, yawning. “Why take a picture of a hedge, for heaven’s sake? I’m off to bed anyway. Coming up, Prill?” He knew she didn’t like climbing those stairs in the dark.

  When they’d gone, Oliver had another look at his Stang photograph. He’d got the nest in, but it would have to be enlarged before an expert could make anything of it. He felt rather disappointed. Then, above the hedge, he saw something else, something he’d not noticed when he clicked the shutter, something that hadn’t been there. It was a face.

  He dropped the picture with a little cry. His fingers felt hot and sore, as if he’d singed them on an iron, and he sat down shaking, with a tingling sensation racing up and down his back. It was as though he’d just touched a bare electric wire.

  Then he looked again. It wasn’t just the pattern of treeless branches, or strange cloud shapes up in the sky; it was a face that stared out at him, looking him straight in the eyes. Oliver was a bit of a coward, but he grasped the snapshot firmly and stared at the innocent hedge. The face that looked back made him go cold. It was a face stripped of all human feeling, all tenderness, all love. Something in that great hard mouth and those enormous, burning eyes filled the terrified Oliver with a great darkness, and he slumped down on a stool, his knees almost giving way under him.